Guild Wars 2

The cultural armor is just not that good. It’s super expensive but only rare quality at best. I like the skin but I don’t want to pay that much just to immediately mystic force the actual items. Can we at least get some exotic option or just a skin buy?

you can sell it back and regain a bit of the lost cash… the vendor value is higher then the salvage or forge value. And it ’s a skin unlock but the skin will need to be transmuted whcih is a leftover form the old system where you neeeded a second item to fuse them for stats from 1 and visual/skin from the other.

I actually lost most of the originals by transmuting them onto armors

I agree with the principle: cultural armor was designed to fit into a game in which exotic was top-gear. In the current GW2, it would be more appropriate to turn these into a skin that you can unlock and apply once without transmutation charges — as opposed to the current situation, in which nearly everyone who can afford it will unlock the skin and not even get the free transmutation.

However, that takes time & effort on ANet’s part and the change would have little benefit. It only affects those who buy cultural armor and it only affects them once per piece.

In other words, I’d prefer that ANet leave this alone and work on other things (even as much as I dislike the status quo).

I think Illconceived was Na is right. Back when the game first came out exotic was the top tier and was expected to be difficult to get – not something you could just buy for a few gold.

As it turned out exotic wasn’t quite as difficult to get as expected and they ended up adding ascended, plus changing the transmutation system which made it seem strange that the skins were attached to items instead of being separate.

It could probably be updated, but I think it should be low priority because it’s not a big deal.

You can buy the cultural armours from a wvw vendor, which uses badges to reduce the gold cost.

Well, cultural armors are not very appealing. They were meant to be progressively more exotic at game release but they ended up looking more eclectic, instead.

I wish we’d get more of them. It really gives different races a unique flavor that other armor sets do not.

The existing choice is a skin buy. The price is likely what they would charge for it were it “only” a skin.

Why is cultural armor rare? Probably because ANet realized that if they’d made it Exotic — which was BiS at launch — there would have been a mass of complaints that it didn’t come in someone’s preferred prefix — and they didn’t want to have 15-20 options for each piece, which would have been the only option to forestall those complaints.

T3 cultural has always been a cosmetic skin-buying item. Exotics were never rare and expensive; A month after release, a full set of exotic armor was about 30g, at that time easily a week of farming (today it’s like 2 hours, or even just 1 AB run). A T3 chest alone is 30g. So there has never been any value in buying cultural for the stats.

If you want the skin, you pays the money. Maybe the OP doesn’t like it, fair enough, but that’s how it always was and how it still is.

Rhyse.8179:

T3 cultural has always been a cosmetic skin-buying item. Exotics were never rare and expensive; A month after release, a full set of exotic armor was about 30g, at that time easily a week of farming (today it’s like 2 hours, or even just 1 AB run). A T3 chest alone is 30g. So there has never been any value in buying cultural for the stats.

If you want the skin, you pays the money. Maybe the OP doesn’t like it, fair enough, but that’s how it always was and how it still is.

Quick note: No one said exotics were rare or hard to get at launch, only that they were intended to be.

Not the equivalent of getting BiS gear in many other games admittedly, since it was supposed to be accessible for everyone. But the way they talked about end-game progression there was definitely an expectation that most players would get to level 80 and use rares (or even greens) while working on exotics. Whereas the reality was that most players got to level 80 and immediately bought a set of exotics with whatever currency they had most of. Then complained there was no more progression.

I think they made cultural armour rare both because the main selling point is the skins (like dungeon armour it was supposed to be something you worked on if you wanted that specific set), but also because having a full set of exotics for sale in every city for a few gold would completely invalidate any impression players may have had that it was a goal to work towards.

They are meant to be a prestigious items, and something not everyone is supposed to have.

Danikat.8537:

I think Illconceived was Na is right. Back when the game first came out exotic was the top tier and was expected to be difficult to get – not something you could just buy for a few gold.

It was expected that you would be to gear up in full BiS armor as soon as you hit level 80. They changed their mind about it later on, but it’s safe to assume that cultural armor was still based on that design goal.
So, it being rare, not exotic (unlike, say, temple armor sets) seems completely uncomprehensible. It’s almost as if different anet developers didn’t talk to each other during the design process.

By now, it really should be either at least exotic, or just plain skins.

Astralporing.1957:

By now, it really should be either at least exotic, or just plain skins.

Regardless of the reasons (or the history), many of us posting in the thread agree that it should be skins. Many of us also think it’s not worth the trouble for something that people only purchase once per account. The skin unlocks when you buy the armor, you get a small fraction refunded if you sell back the gear, and there are plenty of other QoL changes that would bring greater or comparable benefit to more people.

So sure, it should be different; it’s just not a good use of ANet’s time at this point (not in my opinion anyhow).

Disclaimer: since 2013, I’ve started several threads requesting cultural armor to be changed into skins. I’ve since changed my mind.