Guild Wars 2

This game is build on the foundation of max level gear being easy to obtain, Thus making us work for the cosmetic look of skins.
So what I want to talk about here is, my opinion on the lack of cosmetic armor skins added to the game.

Now…
We have gotten new weapons in many numbers since the HoT release, such as: Chak weapons, auric weapons, machined weapons, rare quality skins, exotic quality skins, and a few legendaries (with now more coming).
Some or most of these skins require a good amount of work, luck, or money to get. This feels like a good thing to have, so that we have had something to work towards, cosmetic wise.
I do however not feel this is the same for armor…
We have gotten new armor skins since HoT, such as: Bladed armor, Leyline armor, Ornate Guild armor, precursor armor(?), Class specific armor pieces, and Triumphant armor(?)

Do not get me wrong, I understand it takes time to change armors to fit all races, it takes a lot of work from you, and there’s more important content to be focused on. There’s some good armors we have had, most of them taking time and effort to obtain. but I can’t help to think that we get weapons added left and right with the black lion Tickets, while we also get outfits added fairly regularly. Outfits are nice, but there is no customization lying behind them, which makes you either love or hate it. Not to mention, that you might not like certain parts of them.
What I am saying is, that I would love to see some armor sets that would either drop as exotic quality such as weapons, be crafted (perhaps in a similar way to how legendary crafting works) and/or be a set, or pieces to be bought in the gemstore.
I’m not saying these have to be fancy or flashy armors. It could simply be a crusader armor set, Egyptian pharaoh set, Mongolian archer set, or a Roman Legionnaire set.
But for the love of Balthazar stop making it all into Outfits.. I want to mix and match.

This is some thoughts i have had in concerns of armors. I do play nearly daily, but I really want something to work towards. The game is highly founded on cosmetic acquisition rather than gear progression, but I have nothing to really work towards except for weapons, where I personally have those skins that I love already.

Kind Regards
Folsted

Whilst I agree it would be nice to see more new armour sets I think it’s unlikely to happen for exactly the reason you gave.

Designing weapons is relatively simple because the models are universal – a sword held by a human thief is identical to a sword held by an asuran mesmer etc. So they come up with a theme, adapt it to the shape of each weapon and maybe add some individual details if it’s appropriate and they’re done – 16 new weapons for everyone.

Armour is not universal and therefore requires a lot more work. At absolute minimum they have to create 4 versions of each set – one for male humans/sylvari/norn, one for females, one for asura and one for charr. And that’s assuming they can stretch the human/sylvari version to fit the norn (which players complain about) and use the male version on female asura and charr (which players complain about). Ideally they need to create 10 versions – one for each race/gender combination.

And then they have to do that again for the other 2 armour weights. That’s a minimum of 12 models and a maximum of 30 for what players will see as only 3 new armour sets.

It seems they are experimenting with ways to offer new armour skins without it being so much effort – every Living Story episode this season has included at least 1 piece (head, gloves or shoulders) with the same skin used for all 3 armour weights. Even if they just stick with that it’s an improvement, but they might be able to expand on the concept in future.

Also I assume the next expansion will include new armour like HoT did.

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

Blame charr and asura. If it weren’t for them, Anet could just make a single suit per class weight (since sylvari, humans and norn share a similar model).

Lahmia.2193:

Blame charr and asura. If it weren’t for them, Anet could just make a single suit two suits per class weight (since sylvari, humans and norn share a similar model).

Blame genders. Having two genders means fitting gear to both of them. In fact, blame humans et al for their insistence on specificity. If everything were Charr/Asura, we’d only have one suit per class weight, cutting the production time down to a quarter of what it would be normally. We could even afford to add Tengu as a playable race (since they use the same rig as Charr) after we save all that money on voice acting.

Does that sound silly? It sounds a little silly.

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

I don’t understand why people think “but it’s more work” isn’t an explanation of why it isn’t financially viable.

It’s never a question of “capability” — it’s a question of whether the effort (design, test, implement, maintain) is enough for the benefit (gems sold for RL monies, player satisfaction that translates into more sales & more players) as mitigated by the risk (bugs, clipping, players having tons of different aesthetic preferences, so that as a group, we’re rarely satisfied).

There are a gazillion ideas, millions of good ones, but only a limited number that are ‘viable’ in this sense. And even then, ANet still has to choose, since they will never have the resources to implement every good idea where value is greater than cost.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

I don’t understand why people thing “but it’s more work” isn’t an explanation of why it isn’t financially viable.

It’s never a question of “capability” — it’s a question of whether the effort (design, test, implement, maintain) is enough for the benefit (gems sold for RL monies, player satisfaction that translates into more sales & more players) as mitigated by the risk (bugs, clipping, players having tons of different aesthetic preferences, so that as a group, we’re rarely satisfied).

There are a gazillion ideas, millions of good ones, but only a limited number that are ‘viable’ in this sense. And even then, ANet still has to choose, since they will never have the resources to implement every good idea where value is greater than cost.

theres a big difference between a bunch of players saying “hey anet make more of this thing you’ve done before” meaning armor sets and “hey anet impement this cool new thing we thought of that has never been in this game”

they have made armor sets before. theres no testing, maintenence, or even implementation unless you want to get technical on that last one. theres obviously a demand since the subject comes up a lot both on forums and in game. so no, ‘it takes more time’ is not an excuse to make only outfits.

i understand outifts for making looks that cant be done with armor, but anything else is just an excuse to put less effort into skins despite skins being the bulk of the game.

How about the fact that the same people who would be making those armour sets are needed to make all kinds of other art assets? Any time they’re making armour sets they’re not doing other things so the parts of the game that work would go towards get held up.

It’s the same in any job. For example I recently had to make a display to advertise a new magazine. What I wanted to do, and what would have made the best display, was to take articles from that magazine and edit them into posters – make the headlines and pictures bigger and edit the text down to just the key points so it could be read quickly as people were passing. I’m perfectly capable of doing that, but it would have taken a lot of time and it was only one of (literally) about 50 things I needed to do that week, and not remotely the most important.

So instead I just printed a copy of the magazine single-sided and pinned the pages up exactly as they are. It’s not as good as it could have been but it’s good enough and it meant I was able to get a lot of other things done as well.

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

I don’t understand why people thing “but it’s more work” isn’t an explanation of why it isn’t financially viable.

It’s never a question of “capability” — it’s a question of whether the effort (design, test, implement, maintain) is enough for the benefit (gems sold for RL monies, player satisfaction that translates into more sales & more players) as mitigated by the risk (bugs, clipping, players having tons of different aesthetic preferences, so that as a group, we’re rarely satisfied).

There are a gazillion ideas, millions of good ones, but only a limited number that are ‘viable’ in this sense. And even then, ANet still has to choose, since they will never have the resources to implement every good idea where value is greater than cost.

theres a big difference between a bunch of players saying “hey anet make more of this thing you’ve done before” meaning armor sets and “hey anet impement this cool new thing we thought of that has never been in this game”

they have made armor sets before. theres no testing, maintenence, or even implementation unless you want to get technical on that last one. theres obviously a demand since the subject comes up a lot both on forums and in game. so no, ‘it takes more time’ is not an excuse to make only outfits.

i understand outifts for making looks that cant be done with armor, but anything else is just an excuse to put less effort into skins despite skins being the bulk of the game.

There’s nothing to discuss then: you’re sure that there’s no designing, no testing, no implementation, and no maintenance costs associated with new skins, so of course ANet’s decision makes no sense to you.

You also think that “skins is the bulk of the game;” those interested in challenging content, stories, progression, large group combat, etc would probably disagree. (And all of those people want in-game rewards more than they want new gem shop stuff.)

Danikat.8537:

Whilst I agree it would be nice to see more new armour sets I think it’s unlikely to happen for exactly the reason you gave.

Designing weapons is relatively simple because the models are universal – a sword held by a human thief is identical to a sword held by an asuran mesmer etc. So they come up with a theme, adapt it to the shape of each weapon and maybe add some individual details if it’s appropriate and they’re done – 16 new weapons for everyone.

Armour is not universal and therefore requires a lot more work. At absolute minimum they have to create 4 versions of each set – one for male humans/sylvari/norn, one for females, one for asura and one for charr. And that’s assuming they can stretch the human/sylvari version to fit the norn (which players complain about) and use the male version on female asura and charr (which players complain about). Ideally they need to create 10 versions – one for each race/gender combination.

And then they have to do that again for the other 2 armour weights. That’s a minimum of 12 models and a maximum of 30 for what players will see as only 3 new armour sets.

It seems they are experimenting with ways to offer new armour skins without it being so much effort – every Living Story episode this season has included at least 1 piece (head, gloves or shoulders) with the same skin used for all 3 armour weights. Even if they just stick with that it’s an improvement, but they might be able to expand on the concept in future.

Also I assume the next expansion will include new armour like HoT did.

The problem with their current approach is that the main reason people ask for armor sets instead of just armor pieces is because chest and leg armor only comes with sets. There are plenty of gloves/feet/head/shoulder armors being added, but there is a severe lack of chest and legs, which are the most important pieces when crafting your appearance.

I don’t think that they need to make sure that every armor weight gets a reward in every season of LW3. For example, they could just add different chest weights in different episodes. I wouldn’t mind that at all.

Not that I care that much about foot armor, but I don’t think there have been many single foot armors added. The only one I can think of that’s been recently added is the Invisible Shoes foot armor. Maybe I’m just unaware, though. /shrug

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There’s nothing to discuss then: you’re sure that there’s no designing, no testing, no implementation, and no maintenance costs associated with new skins, so of course ANet’s decision makes no sense to you.

You also think that “skins is the bulk of the game;” those interested in challenging content, stories, progression, large group combat, etc would probably disagree. (And all of those people want in-game rewards more than they want new gem shop stuff.)

i didnt say no designing. but testing and implementation and maintenance for skins is not the same as all of those things for other aspects of the game. testing: fine try it on, does it clip? do we care? done. implementation: release the skin, done. maintenance: keep the skin out.

and maybe you should take a poll or two before deciding you can speak for ALL of the people who do everything you named. fashionwars happens at the same time as those and rewards from almost all of those just helps to contribute to fashionwars. Most of the rare rewards players work toward tend to be skins. and yes in game reward skins are more desirable than gem store ones, but that doesnt mean we dont want them too.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Not that I care that much about foot armor, but I don’t think there have been many single foot armors added. The only one I can think of that’s been recently added is the Invisible Shoes foot armor. Maybe I’m just unaware, though. /shrug

Pirate peg-leg comes to mind.

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

Same, especially when you think about Guild Wars 1 which had a lot of new armor sets and weapons added in each expansion. And these could be mixed and matches with old armor pieces and I never saw any graphic issue with them as far as I can remember. This felt satisfying because you could customize your character with so many options.

What did we get with HoT ? 1 new set, extremely few pieces that you can count on one hand, and very few new weapons here and there to say they did work on something for HoT (some items added months after the “expac” released…)

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

…

i didnt say no designing. but testing and implementation and maintenance for skins is not the same as all of those things for other aspects of the game. testing: fine try it on, does it clip? do we care? done. implementation: release the skin, done. maintenance: keep the skin out.
…[/quote]

Implementation can be difficult too if they want to implement it through achievements or other means than “just” map currency.
Adding skins to the game is not a short task to shrug off, especially with the races we have available. It does take time even though it sounds easy enough on the outside.

Nemo.5609:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Not that I care that much about foot armor, but I don’t think there have been many single foot armors added. The only one I can think of that’s been recently added is the Invisible Shoes foot armor. Maybe I’m just unaware, though. /shrug

Pirate peg-leg comes to mind.

I thought the poster was referring to in-game armor, rather than Gem Store armor. Still, 2 pieces of stand-alone (pun not intended) Foot Armor is not much.

I don’t remember very many players mix-and-matching Guild Wars armor. I did, on only one of my 5 Elementalists; but that was it, out of 38 characters.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I don’t remember very many players mix-and-matching Guild Wars armor. I did, on only one of my 5 Elementalists; but that was it, out of 38 characters.

Obby, chaos gloves, blindfold was the meta.

Ahh. Then everyone looked the same? Lol. Kind of like with Outfits, just less Dye colors to choose from.

Scar.1793:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

Same, especially when you think about Guild Wars 1 which had a lot of new armor sets and weapons added in each expansion. And these could be mixed and matches with old armor pieces and I never saw any graphic issue with them as far as I can remember. This felt satisfying because you could customize your character with so many options.

What did we get with HoT ? 1 new set, extremely few pieces that you can count on one hand, and very few new weapons here and there to say they did work on something for HoT (some items added months after the “expac” released…)

Gw1 only had one race, human, to make armor for not 5. It is having to make armor for 5 races and 2 sexes that takes more time and money than armor that only has to fit 1 race and male/female.

In addition, the combat animations were less complex in that game as you couldn’t move and attack at the same time so armor didn’t need to be made with that in mind.

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

If you were reasonable, you would have an empathetic view of the situation. It’s not really making excuses to not make armors when you’re satisfied with the content provided. If you’re asking the devs for an addition, that’s reasonable but whether it’s feasible is another matter.

Ganathar.4956:

I don’t think that they need to make sure that every armor weight gets a reward in every season of LW3. For example, they could just add different chest weights in different episodes. I wouldn’t mind that at all.

I’m asking from a damage control stand point but, would you and others consider it alright if we ditch the whole armor weight part of armor creation? Any game mechanics tied to armor (namely the armor stat) could simply be tied to class instead. So rather than creating an armor style then inventing 2 other weight versions of it, you simply make a set of gear specially stylized to look unique from any other armor in the game.

Leo G.4501:

I’m asking from a damage control stand point but, would you and others consider it alright if we ditch the whole armor weight part of armor creation? Any game mechanics tied to armor (namely the armor stat) could simply be tied to class instead. So rather than creating an armor style then inventing 2 other weight versions of it, you simply make a set of gear specially stylized to look unique from any other armor in the game.

i would prefer that honestly, i hate having skins tied to my class. I get that some developers want everyone to ‘look like their class’ but so far i haven’t been seeing that narrow view going over well with a lot of mmo players who want to look however they want instead of look however they play (plus theres already some armor in each weight that doesn’t fit that anyways). some don’t even force you to keep your greatsword looking like a greatsword and let it be a hammer or staff instead.

As much as I’d love to get new armour pieces to play Fashion Wars with, ANet should first focus on fixing existing pieces. By that I mean all the clipping, oversized shoulders (especially on Charr and Norn), and other various problems related to armour. Honestly, for those who play Charr or Asura, fixing clipping issues would greatly expand FW capabilities.

As for my idea for Fashion Wars, it would be great to use all armour weights on all classes. I don’t know much about coding, but this doesn’t sound like a lot of work. However, the cost of Transmutation Charges should be higher, like 2 charges for changing items appearance to a different weight. That perhaps would boost the selling rate of charges and give ANet more resources to create new pieces.

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

Leo G.4501:

I’m asking from a damage control stand point but, would you and others consider it alright if we ditch the whole armor weight part of armor creation? Any game mechanics tied to armor (namely the armor stat) could simply be tied to class instead. So rather than creating an armor style then inventing 2 other weight versions of it, you simply make a set of gear specially stylized to look unique from any other armor in the game.

i would prefer that honestly, i hate having skins tied to my class. I get that some developers want everyone to ‘look like their class’ but so far i haven’t been seeing that narrow view going over well with a lot of mmo players who want to look however they want instead of look however they play (plus theres already some armor in each weight that doesn’t fit that anyways). some don’t even force you to keep your greatsword looking like a greatsword and let it be a hammer or staff instead.

Regardless of my opinion on the rate of new armor sets (or whatever skins), I think the game has evolved since launch. Outfits are common now (even if many people never use them), so I don’t think we can say that the game needs the division between the weights.

However, the heavy pieces were designed to work with other heavy skins; it would take a lot of work to get them to work with the other two weights. So I don’t think withdrawing the weight restriction would help much.

tl;dr I agree that the distinction of weights is less meaningful now, but I doubt very much it would be easy to allow us to mix & match across weights.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

tl;dr I agree that the distinction of weights is less meaningful now, but I doubt very much it would be easy to allow us to mix & match across weights.

Your basing that assumption on non-data, though. I wouldn’t assume that allowing cross weight mixing would be simple or no work at all but I know it’s a restriction built to mitigate clipping. In that respect, 2 possibilities could occur:

1. Don’t allow cross weight armor blending. Anet only has to worry about new sets blending with the past sets, not the past sets blending with themselves.

2. Don’t concern themselves with clipping of past armor at all. As is, armor clips and you mitigate it yourself by just not wearing stuff that clips too bad. So if removing the restriction on armors causes issues with clipping, let it but just make sure it’s not an issue with new gear.

Remember, this is about damage control, not really how meaningful the division of armor currently is or had been in the past.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

I don’t understand why people thing “but it’s more work” isn’t an explanation of why it isn’t financially viable.

It’s never a question of “capability” — it’s a question of whether the effort (design, test, implement, maintain) is enough for the benefit (gems sold for RL monies, player satisfaction that translates into more sales & more players) as mitigated by the risk (bugs, clipping, players having tons of different aesthetic preferences, so that as a group, we’re rarely satisfied).

There are a gazillion ideas, millions of good ones, but only a limited number that are ‘viable’ in this sense. And even then, ANet still has to choose, since they will never have the resources to implement every good idea where value is greater than cost.

The problem is that ANet sold the collection of skins as a large part of the end game.

I’m not saying it’s not a lot of work for what may turn out to be bad, I know it is. But they set themselves up for it, it’s reasonable for people to expect them to follow through.

ANet needs to figure out what it will take to get more armor out, then do it. Change the way they make armor? Add more people? Get new software/tools to speed things along? And if it turns out that this is the best they can do, then it’s long past time for them to admit that they’ve run into problems in this area and that from this point forward people need to change their expectations. (And learn from this for future games.)

As a side thought, what would people think of armor skins where setting the chest sets the legs as well? You’d never be able to separate the chest and legs (like wearing an outfit), but you would be able to mix in whatever boots, shoulders, gloves, and hat you want. It might be easier for the armor team to make, and would let them break a few of the rules of each weight class, but not be as inflexible as an outfit.

It’s a lost cause …. if they add anything it’s going to be a buttcape/trenchcoat anyway.

I’d be much happier if half of armor skins didn’t make my small thin male toons look like they’re padded up for a hockey match or pumped with seroids. Seriously, it’s hideous…
Also, body types might be another problem for new armor sets development.

Leo G.4501:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

tl;dr I agree that the distinction of weights is less meaningful now, but I doubt very much it would be easy to allow us to mix & match across weights.

Your basing that assumption on non-data, though. I wouldn’t assume that allowing cross weight mixing would be simple or no work at all but I know it’s a restriction built to mitigate clipping. In that respect, 2 possibilities could occur:

1. Don’t allow cross weight armor blending. Anet only has to worry about new sets blending with the past sets, not the past sets blending with themselves.

2. Don’t concern themselves with clipping of past armor at all. As is, armor clips and you mitigate it yourself by just not wearing stuff that clips too bad. So if removing the restriction on armors causes issues with clipping, let it but just make sure it’s not an issue with new gear.

Remember, this is about damage control, not really how meaningful the division of armor currently is or had been in the past.

No, I’m not basing my assumptions on lack of data. ANet has explained that medium armor uses a different wiremesh model than the other two weights; it cannot be mixed without serious issues. ANet has also explained that they aren’t going to spend time working on stuff that ends up with serious clipping issues, which is one of the reasons that armor takes so long to produce.

So, I can’t agree with you that this is “about damage control” or that ANet is likely to be interested in ignoring clipping.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Leo G.4501:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

tl;dr I agree that the distinction of weights is less meaningful now, but I doubt very much it would be easy to allow us to mix & match across weights.

Your basing that assumption on non-data, though. I wouldn’t assume that allowing cross weight mixing would be simple or no work at all but I know it’s a restriction built to mitigate clipping. In that respect, 2 possibilities could occur:

1. Don’t allow cross weight armor blending. Anet only has to worry about new sets blending with the past sets, not the past sets blending with themselves.

2. Don’t concern themselves with clipping of past armor at all. As is, armor clips and you mitigate it yourself by just not wearing stuff that clips too bad. So if removing the restriction on armors causes issues with clipping, let it but just make sure it’s not an issue with new gear.

Remember, this is about damage control, not really how meaningful the division of armor currently is or had been in the past.

No, I’m not basing my assumptions on lack of data. ANet has explained that medium armor uses a different wiremesh model than the other two weights; it cannot be mixed without serious issues. ANet has also explained that they aren’t going to spend time working on stuff that ends up with serious clipping issues, which is one of the reasons that armor takes so long to produce.

So, I can’t agree with you that this is “about damage control” or that ANet is likely to be interested in ignoring clipping.

It sounds like anet chose an armor method that was as difficult as possible for them to produce efficiently. But even with the medium armor being a completely different wiremesh (and really whose bright idea was that, i suspect thats why theres so many dumb trenchcoats too but maybe not) would it be impossible to separate skins and just not allow weight blending? Such as having a gear slot and a skin slot and forcing you to choose only heavy/medium/light. Potentially could even work in the presets some people want if you have a heavy armor skin set toggle and a medium armor skin set toggle and so on, similar to how we currently swap from outfit to armor in the wardrobe with skins/dyes being saved for each but not enabled together.

I would really like to know if its just mixing weights that cant work of if reskinning to all the same weight is also an issue fundamentally.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Scar.1793:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

Same, especially when you think about Guild Wars 1 which had a lot of new armor sets and weapons added in each expansion. And these could be mixed and matches with old armor pieces and I never saw any graphic issue with them as far as I can remember. This felt satisfying because you could customize your character with so many options.

What did we get with HoT ? 1 new set, extremely few pieces that you can count on one hand, and very few new weapons here and there to say they did work on something for HoT (some items added months after the “expac” released…)

Gw1 only had one race, human, to make armor for not 5. It is having to make armor for 5 races and 2 sexes that takes more time and money than armor that only has to fit 1 race and male/female.

In addition, the combat animations were less complex in that game as you couldn’t move and attack at the same time so armor didn’t need to be made with that in mind.

So? Every MMO that comes to mind have various races and animations, yet in every (real) expac players get brand new armors and weapons.
I just can’t see the excuse behind the “oh but it’s hard to do” besides greed and laziness. But I’m not really surprised to be honest.

Scar.1793:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Scar.1793:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

Same, especially when you think about Guild Wars 1 which had a lot of new armor sets and weapons added in each expansion. And these could be mixed and matches with old armor pieces and I never saw any graphic issue with them as far as I can remember. This felt satisfying because you could customize your character with so many options.

What did we get with HoT ? 1 new set, extremely few pieces that you can count on one hand, and very few new weapons here and there to say they did work on something for HoT (some items added months after the “expac” released…)

Gw1 only had one race, human, to make armor for not 5. It is having to make armor for 5 races and 2 sexes that takes more time and money than armor that only has to fit 1 race and male/female.

In addition, the combat animations were less complex in that game as you couldn’t move and attack at the same time so armor didn’t need to be made with that in mind.

So? Every MMO that comes to mind have various races and animations, yet in every (real) expac players get brand new armors and weapons.
I just can’t see the excuse behind the “oh but it’s hard to do” besides greed and laziness. But I’m not really surprised to be honest.

We don’t know what they are working against. With WoW armor, as I understand it, most parts are “painted” onto the body. They aren’t 3D. It’s possible that many games also use simpler methods like this and ANet chose a more complex system (such as having different wire meshes for the different weights) and now this decision made years ago is having consequences they didn’t consider, such as the wardrobe expanding the desire for more armors.

As to "I just can’t see the excuse behind the “oh but it’s hard to do” besides greed and laziness." Well, that’s just knee jerk criticism. It’s the standard thing some people say when they accuse the devs of laziness and greed instead of considering that maybe there’s more going on than they know about. As Josh Foreman said

Josh Foreman:

(Snip) 2. Don’t assume the reason that things are the way they are due to developer incompetence, laziness, apathy, stubbornness, greed, selfishness, lust or any of the other deadly sins. There are other possibilities beside developer personal defects. (Snip)

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Scar.1793:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Scar.1793:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

Same, especially when you think about Guild Wars 1 which had a lot of new armor sets and weapons added in each expansion. And these could be mixed and matches with old armor pieces and I never saw any graphic issue with them as far as I can remember. This felt satisfying because you could customize your character with so many options.

What did we get with HoT ? 1 new set, extremely few pieces that you can count on one hand, and very few new weapons here and there to say they did work on something for HoT (some items added months after the “expac” released…)

Gw1 only had one race, human, to make armor for not 5. It is having to make armor for 5 races and 2 sexes that takes more time and money than armor that only has to fit 1 race and male/female.

In addition, the combat animations were less complex in that game as you couldn’t move and attack at the same time so armor didn’t need to be made with that in mind.

So? Every MMO that comes to mind have various races and animations, yet in every (real) expac players get brand new armors and weapons.
I just can’t see the excuse behind the “oh but it’s hard to do” besides greed and laziness. But I’m not really surprised to be honest.

We don’t know what they are working against. With WoW armor, as I understand it, most parts are “painted” onto the body. They aren’t 3D. It’s possible that many games also use simpler methods like this and ANet chose a more complex system (such as having different wire meshes for the different weights) and now this decision made years ago is having consequences they didn’t consider, such as the wardrobe expanding the desire for more armors.

As to "I just can’t see the excuse behind the “oh but it’s hard to do” besides greed and laziness." Well, that’s just knee jerk, unthinking criticism. It’s the standard thing some people say when they accuse the devs of laziness and greed instead of considering that maybe there’s more going on than they know about. As Josh Foreman said

Josh Foreman:

(Snip) 2. Don’t assume the reason that things are the way they are due to developer incompetence, laziness, apathy, stubbornness, greed, selfishness, lust or any of the other deadly sins. There are other possibilities beside developer personal defects. (Snip)

I wasn’t even thinking of WoW since they have a much bigger team. So I’ll just give the example of Age of Conan, which had a smaller team and of course way less income than Guild Wars 2. Yet with their unique expac, added many weapons and armors, and those weren’t just skin textures. And for the record, Legion expac added quite some new meshes in the game instead of simple meshes retextures. From gloves, boots to belts which were mostly retextured meshes.

It’s not just mindless critism or trying to be a jerk as you name it, it’s just what I’ve noticed over the years and yea, it’s not always pretty.
Do you even remember all the promises about HoT and all the new raids and legendary weapons that were supposed to come out ? Yup, nothing at release, and then legends were cancelled because it took too much time and they had to fix the mess that was HoT at release. It’s better now, but the core issues are still there.

They’re just starting again with the legends sure, but at an extremely slow pace, and long long after release. I don’t blame anyone in particular, but I’m still having a hard time seeing that so few sets and weapons were made with HoT.

Say whatever you want but if smaller teams could do it with lower incomes, I don’t understand why Anet couldn’t, even if it was only available in the cashshop.
Guild Wars 2 is still one of the top MMO in the Western market.

Scar.1793:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Scar.1793:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Scar.1793:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

I dont understand why people think “but it’s more work” is an excuse for anet to not do something they are definitely capable of.

Same, especially when you think about Guild Wars 1 which had a lot of new armor sets and weapons added in each expansion. And these could be mixed and matches with old armor pieces and I never saw any graphic issue with them as far as I can remember. This felt satisfying because you could customize your character with so many options.

What did we get with HoT ? 1 new set, extremely few pieces that you can count on one hand, and very few new weapons here and there to say they did work on something for HoT (some items added months after the “expac” released…)

Gw1 only had one race, human, to make armor for not 5. It is having to make armor for 5 races and 2 sexes that takes more time and money than armor that only has to fit 1 race and male/female.

In addition, the combat animations were less complex in that game as you couldn’t move and attack at the same time so armor didn’t need to be made with that in mind.

So? Every MMO that comes to mind have various races and animations, yet in every (real) expac players get brand new armors and weapons.
I just can’t see the excuse behind the “oh but it’s hard to do” besides greed and laziness. But I’m not really surprised to be honest.

We don’t know what they are working against. With WoW armor, as I understand it, most parts are “painted” onto the body. They aren’t 3D. It’s possible that many games also use simpler methods like this and ANet chose a more complex system (such as having different wire meshes for the different weights) and now this decision made years ago is having consequences they didn’t consider, such as the wardrobe expanding the desire for more armors.

As to "I just can’t see the excuse behind the “oh but it’s hard to do” besides greed and laziness." Well, that’s just knee jerk, unthinking criticism. It’s the standard thing some people say when they accuse the devs of laziness and greed instead of considering that maybe there’s more going on than they know about. As Josh Foreman said

Josh Foreman:

(Snip) 2. Don’t assume the reason that things are the way they are due to developer incompetence, laziness, apathy, stubbornness, greed, selfishness, lust or any of the other deadly sins. There are other possibilities beside developer personal defects. (Snip)

I wasn’t even thinking of WoW since they have a much bigger team. So I’ll just give the example of Age of Conan, which had a smaller team and of course way less income than Guild Wars 2. Yet with their unique expac, added many weapons and armors, and those weren’t just skin textures. And for the record, Legion expac added quite some new meshes in the game instead of simple meshes retextures. From gloves, boots to belts which were mostly retextured meshes.

It’s not just mindless critism or trying to be a jerk as you name it, it’s just what I’ve noticed over the years and yea, it’s not always pretty.
Do you even remember all the promises about HoT and all the new raids and legendary weapons that were supposed to come out ? Yup, nothing at release, and then legends were cancelled because it took too much time and they had to fix the mess that was HoT at release. It’s better now, but the core issues are still there.

They’re just starting again with the legends sure, but at an extremely slow pace, and long long after release. I don’t blame anyone in particular, but I’m still having a hard time seeing that so few sets and weapons were made with HoT.

Say whatever you want but if smaller teams could do it with lower incomes, I don’t understand why Anet couldn’t, even if it was only available in the cashshop.
Guild Wars 2 is still one of the top MMO in the Western market.

Knee jerk: meaning reflexive, without thought. A different meaning than saying someone is a jerk.

/shrug. Neither of us knows what’s going on and neither of us can truly compare 2 games except in very superficial ways as to why one game can make something faster than another. Which is why saying lazy and greedy is a knee jerk criticism. (And greedy? How does that even fit? They are losing money from dissatisfied customers by not making more armor).

They have said that armor is one the most expensive things they can make and that one set of 3 weights is like making 30 different individual armors (3 weights X 5 races X 2 sexes) so unless in other games armor is that expensive and that difficult to design then maybe they made design decisions years ago that is coming back now to cause problems that other games don’t have.