Guild Wars 2

MakubeC.3026:

Gotta agree with this fine gentleman. I’m happy for the system, it makes a HUGE difference, but having to spend Transmutation Stones EVERYTIME you want to change appareance? Wow, not cool.

How is this any different from the current system?

Malediktus.9250:

But since this needs transmutation charges its just another money grab.

You need transmute crystals currently, nothing changes in this regard. Except it doesn’t destroy your armor any more, so it’s vastly improved.

Starfall.6813:

The thing this does not do is address the problem of gear churn for leveling characters. By putting the cost on the back end, when you transmute, rather than when you unlock, there is still a disincentive to maintain you look when your level 47 Guardian (or whatever) gets a new drop—because they may get a better drop in 15 minutes, and do you want to pay another transmute charge then too? My guard has been hauling around a set she picked up with karma for 20 levels now, because my gear set is never stable enough to justify using t-stones when I know she’ll be getting a new something any time now. It would be nice if there was a price break of some kind for lowbie characters, to get them into using the system early on.

Yes, a “transmute discount” for leveling characters would be amazing. It’s nice looking the way you want to while leveling.

Starfall.6813:

What are they going to introduce next, player housing?

YES, PLEASE!!!

Ideally we should only have to pay the charge per item once. Using a charge should unlock it for unlimited use (like achievement skins).

Unless these charges are coming out of the wood work though drops and other methods I don’t see this as any different from the old system other than we can now see all the skins in the game.

I’m overall very happy with the change. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes trying to get all the details right though. It sounds easy but there are so many loopholes and special situations that people have pointed out across multiple threads. One I haven’t seen talked about that I’m curious about is Order Armor/Weapons. My Guardian wears several pieces of Whispers even though he isn’t in the Order. If Order restrictions are enforced like Armor Type and Cultural restrictions are going to be and there is no longer the white item transmutation route to get around it then will it no longer be possible to wear Order items from another Order? What will happen to my characters that already have armor/weapons like this equipped?

Arsalan.5240:

Does anyone know if this means that if I have 2 chars with the same dye unlocked and if I log on to my other chars, every single one of them will get an unid dye? It’s not very clear on that.

Thanks.

from the way i understand, the first character you login to will get 1 unidentified dye (probably through mail or something) for each duplicate dye the system found on your account. which isn’t many in my case, since i always hoarded all of my alts’ dyes to my main, keeping alts on a need-to-have basis.

The misconception people have is that GW2 is free once you buy the box.

The reality is this game requires profit to continue to function.

For those that screamed and cried and defended the B2P model – this is what you should expect with new features. It will cost you something to use them – which is understandable for the pricing model this game uses.

I said it before. Sub games are superior to F2P or B2P games. You pay per use for something that would be included in other games with a sub.

In the end – Micro transaction games for the average player end up costing more.

New players will not have the dyes we longer-playing people do. It will cost them exponentially more to build a dye collection and crafting dyes is not really very easy due to the large amounts of mats involved.

It’s not a rental system.

But it’s not an unlocking system either. It’s a catalog collection system, in which they sell you one-time use items. Like a paper tuxedo that melts and disappears when you take it off to wash it.

You don’t pay for the skins, you pay to keep the skins when the source is gone, then continuously pay to use the skins you have in your collected catalogs.

If you don’t get the skin in your catalog when it’s available, you won’t have it when they remove access to it.

If you get access to it, you can never really buy it, you have to pay each time to apply it.

You might be forgetting one important thing : right now, even if you had 9 000 T-stones, you couldn’t transmute level 80 items.
Soon you’ll be able to transmute 3 000 items.

And the unlocks are account-wide, so if you have 2 human light armor, you don’t need to fork up the cash for 2 T3 + crystals.

So it’s a nice change. When I saw the transmutation charges, I got scared. But then I saw the mention of 3 to 1 conversion of T-stones, and was glad I had hundred of them in my bank. And more waiting for me by doing map completion.

Good point about the Hall of Monuments skins, I had forgotten that those are freely available as well currently. Any others that work like that?

This system basically equates to the current transmutation system, so I see no huge change to spending money other than all of your skins are now account wide – no need to buy another skin.

They haven’t increased the cost at all from the current system. I’m not sure why you are complaining now about a cost system that has always been in place. In actuality this is actually saving you money since when you transmute you haven’t lost the old skin like you do now.

This is only a beneficial feature. It hasn’t increased cost by even 1c for you. You still paid these prices before in the form of transmutation crystals and stones.

And can I give a big shout out to anet for making those transmutation stones actually useful for those of us that are at 80 now Glad I didn’t destroy my 100+ like I was so tempted to do!

I’d like to know where you rent your clothes where they actually give you items at a steep discount.

As a fashion lover, I’d want in on that.

BrunoBRS.5178:

2- at the end of the day, you don’t have the freedom to swap looks like you do on PvP. you’re still better off picking a single look for a set and sticking with it, rather than a “what do i feel like wearing today?”. this was what disappointed me the most in the system, as i was hoping it would give me more freedom to look how i want at any given time, but it’s largely the same system we already have.

True, but that’s the price you pay (literally!) for a game with no subscription fee. I’m fine with this, arena.net needs to make money somehow, since I want GW2 to keep on going and growing. And in terms of making money, this seems like a great, user-friendly, non-pay-to-win way to do it.

BrunoBRS.5178:

5- and what of gem store skins? i would assume the first time you apply it for free, or you get 6 charges with it (one per piece). some clarification in that regard would be nice.

I would assume (and hope) that they’d come with 6 charges.

Celtic Lady.3729:

New players will not have the dyes we longer-playing people do. It will cost them exponentially more to build a dye collection and crafting dyes is not really very easy due to the large amounts of mats involved.

Yeah, that is indeed a fair concern. There should probably be a new, easier way to aquire account bound dyes, maybe from kharma.

Shifu.4321:

It’s only a rental system if you need to return it. It’s more like a clothing store, where you own what you buy, but need to pay for every purchase you make. BUT they give you discounts on repeat purchases, instead of having to pay the full price.

Its like a store, where you can only wear one set of clothes at a time, and every time you want a new outfit you have to pay the store. How often do you think people would wear new looks if that was the system in real life?

Yes, it’s a rental system, but it’s better than what we have now. Not every F2P game is going to be as generous and advanced as LOTRO’s wardrobe system.

RedStar.4218:

You might be forgetting one important thing : right now, even if you had 9 000 T-stones, you couldn’t transmute level 80 items.
Soon you’ll be able to transmute 3 000 items.

And the unlocks are account-wide, so if you have 2 human light armor, you don’t need to fork up the cash for 2 T3 + crystals.

So it’s a nice change. When I saw the transmutation charges, I got scared. But then I saw the mention of 3 to 1 conversion of T-stones, and was glad I had hundred of them in my bank. And more waiting for me by doing map completion.

Yeah I agree. Basically anyone with super expensive skins this is a god send even if you pay the charge each time. I just wish it function more like achievement skins (unlimited use) once unlocked (with a charge of course).

As long as they add Stalwart/Masquerade sets as well I’m fine with the pricing :/

Celtic Lady.3729:

lordkrall.7241:

And what source of revenue would you add to the game in order to make up for the revenue lost without transmutation?

They’ll be making it up in spades from dye sales obviously.

They’ll be buying those dyes from my character with max level cooking – which just got alot more interesting and potentially profitable

eleshazar.6902:

They haven’t increased the cost at all from the current system. I’m not sure why you are complaining now about a cost system that has always been in place. In actuality this is actually saving you money since when you transmute you haven’t lost the old skin like you do now.

This is only a beneficial feature. It hasn’t increased cost by even 1c for you. You still paid these prices before in the form of transmutation crystals and stones.

And can I give a big shout out to anet for making those transmutation stones actually useful for those of us that are at 80 now Glad I didn’t destroy my 100+ like I was so tempted to do!

the old system was bad, especially in a cosmetic game. Many items i never pursued because i would have to pay if i transmute it, then pay again if i want to use the old look. I guess its better in that it doesnt destroy the old look, but it still doesnt encourage using multiple looks, or changing your look very often, or collecting a lot of different gear looks

Arisal.9740:

Adding skins to the wardrobe as they mention is very easy. However the “unlocking” part is where I am concerned. If I have say 2 skins I want to swap between they make it sound like I have to pay a transmutation charge every time.

How it should really be is that you pay a transmutation charge to “unlock” the skin for unlimited use just like how achievement skins work. Why should we have to pay a charge every time we want to change our looks? There are over 2000+ skins in the game it is not like Anet would be out the money. This would actually put an incentive for me to actually spend real money buying transmutation stones because they have a value. If it does not work this way I don’t see it changing anything.

Old system I had to use transmutation stones/crystals every time per 1 item. New system same thing… (1 charge = 1 transmutation crystal)

Anet please respond. I am dying to know because this one simple thing changes everything. Pvp locker works like this in theory as well. I have the skin I can put it on anytime free of cost (check in/out system).

The new system is better

The old system had the following:
-destroyed items
-can only have 1 skin active at one time
-Depending on the item, could have involved 2 transmutation crystals and a splitter on each application

The new system:
-no destroyed items
-can have an unlimited number of skins active at one time
-one transmutation charge/crystal per application

How no one can see the new system is beyond me

Celtic Lady.3729:

Yes, it’s a rental system, but it’s better than what we have now. Not every F2P game is going to be as generous and advanced as LOTRO’s wardrobe system.

I do remember paying to unlock the wardrobe though. And paying to expand it.

phys.7689:

Shifu.4321:

It’s only a rental system if you need to return it. It’s more like a clothing store, where you own what you buy, but need to pay for every purchase you make. BUT they give you discounts on repeat purchases, instead of having to pay the full price.

Its like a store, where you can only wear one set of clothes at a time, and every time you want a new outfit you have to pay the store. How often do you think people would wear new looks if that was the system in real life?

What? Isn’t that how real life works? I was of the assumption that you have to pay for a new outfit. When I buy a new shirt and pants, I pay money.

I have multiple sets of armor of the same stat, because I want different looks. It costs me bag space, but eh, I rarely hoard stuff.

Discussion question >
The point of this post is to discuss and question if allowing 1 handed skins to be applied to both main and offhand if you have only acquired one skin of that weapon.

My opinion >
It is my personal opinion that in order to retain the value of 1 handed weapon skins that can be dual wielded they will have to require that two skins be obtained for each one.

Implementation >
In practice this means that on the wardrobe UI if you had one skin you would be able to apply it to one weapon and then it would be greyed out. If you had more than one skin then you would be allowed to apply it x number of times before it is greyed out. (x being the number of skins you had).

Say I have two skins the UI might have an icon then with a two overlay: [ 2 ]
I use one skin and it changes to: [ 1 ]
I use the final one and it is greyed out: [\\\]

If I had one then it would be greyed out after the first use.

Arguments >
The cost of making many skins can be exorbitant. (Example: Legendary or Infinite Light). In order for the hard work that went into obtaining these skins to retain value they must be limited so that they can not easily be swapped over to an offhand when you have only acquired one.

I have heard another argument that for a Legendary weapon it is okay because they still retain stat swapping.

Counter Argument >
Legendary equipment has always been BiS(Best in Slot), but before stat swapping they were just skins without any bonus over Exotics.

Also weapons like Infinite Light don’t have any such bonus.

If you can honestly say that you would rather craft two of the same legendary for the stat swapping when instead you could make many ascended weapons for a fraction of the cost with the option of different sigil in each one then you may have an argument.

I suspect, however, that if a system like this isn’t put in place people will never have a good reason to make more than one legendary of the same type. This is why the developer team must ensure that one handed weapons be limited to one of that skin per character unless a second weapon skin of the same type has been obtained and unlocked.

TLDR
One handed weapons need to require two of each skin in order to equip more than one per character in order to retain the value of one handed weapon skins.

Please present your opinions in a friendly manner, thanks!

Would you guys be okay if they added the skins, but not the effects of the legendaries? So people would be running around with twilights that don’t have the aura and the footsteps for example.

Personally I don’t mind if they added the skins though, because the stats + change ooc makes legendaries still superior.

Awbee.8405:

BrunoBRS.5178:

2- at the end of the day, you don’t have the freedom to swap looks like you do on PvP. you’re still better off picking a single look for a set and sticking with it, rather than a “what do i feel like wearing today?”. this was what disappointed me the most in the system, as i was hoping it would give me more freedom to look how i want at any given time, but it’s largely the same system we already have.

True, but that’s the price you pay (literally!) for a game with no subscription fee. I’m fine with this, arena.net needs to make money somehow, since I want GW2 to keep on going and growing. And in terms of making money, this seems like a great, user-friendly, non-pay-to-win way to do it.

yeah, i’m not particularly mad at the new system, just somewhat disappointed that it is a new feature that does a lot less than i wished it did. i’ve been hoping i could change my looks without having to change my stats (or having a second set with the same stats, which is stupid) for a while. the current system discourages experimentation by putting a money barrier, and i was looking forward to see them get rid of it so i can finally do like on PvP and play around with looks, rather than bind myself to a single look per set.

Shifu.4321:

phys.7689:

Shifu.4321:

It’s only a rental system if you need to return it. It’s more like a clothing store, where you own what you buy, but need to pay for every purchase you make. BUT they give you discounts on repeat purchases, instead of having to pay the full price.

Its like a store, where you can only wear one set of clothes at a time, and every time you want a new outfit you have to pay the store. How often do you think people would wear new looks if that was the system in real life?

What? Isn’t that how real life works? I was of the assumption that you have to pay for a new outfit. When I buy a new shirt and pants, I pay money.

I have multiple sets of armor of the same stat, because I want different looks. It costs me bag space, but eh, I rarely hoard stuff.

yeah but i dont have to pay for the outfit i already bought everytime i decide i want to have a different look.

for example, i wore jeans yesterday, i wore pants today, i didnt have to pay a new fee to change to the jeans i bought last week

and yeah the bag space issue they said this resolves, it really doesnt. because if i want that functionality, i still need to keep and carry around all that extra gear.

I would say that it’s more akin to a library of schematics.

You can add as many schematics to your library as you want for free, but in order to alter a piece of gear using a schematic, it costs a Charge.

Nage.1520:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Yes, it’s a rental system, but it’s better than what we have now. Not every F2P game is going to be as generous and advanced as LOTRO’s wardrobe system.

I do remember paying to unlock the wardrobe though. And paying to expand it.

Yeah, you pay to unlock it and buy more slots for outfits, but then you can use what you have indefinitely and freely change outfits, every day or a dozen times a day if you like. In that case, the cost is worth it if you plan to play the game for a while. Although, I never paid to unlock mine; I just paid for additional outfit slots.

My biggest question is what will happen to the skins in pvp. On my main I have t3 culturals in PvE and gems store armor in sPvP and I will be very mad is I lose either one of those.

I don’t mind if they start to require charges in pvp too but I hope it will not be the case

phys.7689:

Shifu.4321:

phys.7689:

Shifu.4321:

It’s only a rental system if you need to return it. It’s more like a clothing store, where you own what you buy, but need to pay for every purchase you make. BUT they give you discounts on repeat purchases, instead of having to pay the full price.

Its like a store, where you can only wear one set of clothes at a time, and every time you want a new outfit you have to pay the store. How often do you think people would wear new looks if that was the system in real life?

What? Isn’t that how real life works? I was of the assumption that you have to pay for a new outfit. When I buy a new shirt and pants, I pay money.

I have multiple sets of armor of the same stat, because I want different looks. It costs me bag space, but eh, I rarely hoard stuff.

yeah but i dont have to pay for the outfit i already bought everytime i decide i want to have a different look.

Then make another armor set of the same stats. Exotic armor can be had for a minimal cost, and all you’d be giving up is bagspace.

In real life, you don’t throw away clothes when you decide you want a different look. You have multiple shirts, pants, socks in your closet (or bag).

Vol.7601:

Arisal.9740:

Adding skins to the wardrobe as they mention is very easy. However the “unlocking” part is where I am concerned. If I have say 2 skins I want to swap between they make it sound like I have to pay a transmutation charge every time.

How it should really be is that you pay a transmutation charge to “unlock” the skin for unlimited use just like how achievement skins work. Why should we have to pay a charge every time we want to change our looks? There are over 2000+ skins in the game it is not like Anet would be out the money. This would actually put an incentive for me to actually spend real money buying transmutation stones because they have a value. If it does not work this way I don’t see it changing anything.

Old system I had to use transmutation stones/crystals every time per 1 item. New system same thing… (1 charge = 1 transmutation crystal)

Anet please respond. I am dying to know because this one simple thing changes everything. Pvp locker works like this in theory as well. I have the skin I can put it on anytime free of cost (check in/out system).

The new system is better

The old system had the following:
-destroyed items
-can only have 1 skin active at one time
-Depending on the item, could have involved 2 transmutation crystals and a splitter on each application

The new system:
-no destroyed items
-can have an unlimited number of skins active at one time
-one transmutation charge/crystal per application

How no one can see the new system is beyond me

You are right it is a lot better. I am just sad it is very alt unfriendly. Why would I spend a charge which is 3 times as expensive as the old system for level 1-79 characters? Also alts change gear every 5-10 levels so thats even more wasted charges. Answer is I wouldn’t bother.

The new system is still leagues better than what we have. I just think it could be OMG amazing if we had a way to spend charges to make them unlimited unlock.

no, a skin is a skin. The wardrobe should allow the skin to work as many times on as many different weapons since it has a cost associated with using it. What if I don’t want to dual wield but just have two different stat swords that I switch between that I want the same skin on. The value of the skins will always be there since most of them are limited time only. So if you are that worried about making money off them then just hold on to them.

Edit: Also in the case of legendaries the stats and the ability to change the stats will help them hold their values. The cost associated with ascended weapons make it not so feasible to make multiples to gear out for multiple builds on a character. So I don’t see them dropping that much in price.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Nage.1520:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Yes, it’s a rental system, but it’s better than what we have now. Not every F2P game is going to be as generous and advanced as LOTRO’s wardrobe system.

I do remember paying to unlock the wardrobe though. And paying to expand it.

Yeah, you pay to unlock it and buy more slots for outfits, but then you can use what you have indefinitely and freely change outfits, every day or a dozen times a day if you like. In that case, the cost is worth it if you plan to play the game for a while.

I don’t know. I paid far more in the short time I played Lotro than I did in the same time I played Guild Wars 2. I really felt pushed to buy stuff on that game, much more than here.

A friend of mine goes to run a quest and I don’t have that area and I have to pay to unlock it.

The problem is you can’t compare one aspect of a game to one aspect of a game to talk about how generous a company is. I found Turbine to be pretty high on the greed scale. They didn’t charge for you to use skins multiple times, but you couldn’t take a weapon skin, say and use it that way…only outfits (many of which they sold in the cash shop).

My biggest concerns is how this’ll work with low level characters. The 3:1 conversion rate on stones is rather problematic if changing low level looks costs the same as level 80 characters.

@Damas not sure what the problem is, after all the player of that lvl2 character with a legendary skin still put in the effort of obtaining a legendary in the first place. They don’t become easier to obtain, you just get to enjoy the skin you worked hard for with more than one character.

Now I wish I’d bought the toxic shoulders & gloves! They were too expensive for me as a one time use, but a skin unlock? I would have bought them!!

So u can share all of your armor, legandary and exotic weapons between all of your characters?

All I can say is… Finally!

Scottd.5764:

So u can share all of your armor, legandary and exotic weapons between all of your characters?

yep. at the cost of one transmutation crystal per piece of equipment recreation.

In my opinion this is the kind of feature that deserves a massive thank you from the community.

I’d like to remember folks that in other MMOs, you do have a subscription fee, yet if you want to get a skin on two different characters from the cash shop, you’ll have to pay the price twice.

Here, not only we don’t feed Anet with 13$ a month, but they’re also making account wide all sort of stuff from the cash shop, so that you only have to pay once (e.g dyes and armor skins)

I don’t know if people are cynical about this change being some way for them to steal money from us, but I’m really feeling sad about those people. Because in years of playing, this is one of the most user-friendly game (and company in extenso) I’ve ever played.

So thank you all at Arena Net for such a wonderful and bold move.

Blaeys.3102:

Celtic Lady.3729:

lordkrall.7241:

And what source of revenue would you add to the game in order to make up for the revenue lost without transmutation?

They’ll be making it up in spades from dye sales obviously.

They’ll be buying those dyes from my character with max level cooking – which just got alot more interesting and potentially profitable

Not if everyone levels a cook and does the same thing. lol

Scottd.5764:

So u can share all of your armor, legandary and exotic weapons between all of your characters?

Skins? yes

Everything is free in pvp, you ‘earn’ your stuff with time and unlocks. Do you even have a currency that can be traded somehow into gold/gems ?

Some things are separate, this is one of those things. PVE currently has to buy transmute gems to swap skins, PVP does not. This will not change.

Vol.7601:

I’d like to know where you rent your clothes where they actually give you items at a steep discount.

As a fashion lover, I’d want in on that.

It’s not quite renting, but consignment can be a cheap alternative.

A compensation is needed in my eyes.
Seriously. I made the second one for the looks, not for the swapping stats possibility…

I would really like to see an official statement about this.
I can see that just making them sellable after the patch is going to mess up the market.

I like Reiko0s idea thoug.

This is why real life analogies within games can’t be tossed about so simply… it’s not as relevant as one thinks. It’s not a rental system and they’re generous enough to let us mix and match all within the safety of a preview. If you don’t trust yourself to not hit “apply” every time you change one item… that may not be ANet’s fault =P.

I’m happy that the new wardrobe is going live but then I remembered I had bought 2 magitech skins.

Since they will all be shared among all chars, I basically have one more magitech set which is useless. Now, the whole set costs 800 gems and it gives you the equivalent of 6 trasmutation charges. However, with 800 gems you can buy 25 trasmutation crystals (25 charges), going under of 19 trasmutation charges.

How is this going to be dealt with, if it’s ever going to be dealt with?

Also, what about items like whisperblade? I crafted two of them on my mesmer but with the incoming patch, one will be the useless replica of the other. I saw a similar thread about legendaries and they were arguing that when it comes to legendaries, you still get to keep the best-in-slot weapon with changeable stats. However, when it gets to whisperblade and similar items, it’s just an exotic sword with nothing particular. You can get the equivalent with like 3g instead of spending 200g. Are those just wasted money?

Hi. First time posting in a forum so I’ll make this short. I have a question regarding the wardrobe feature to be released in April and its regarding the old skins we get to unlock as living story achievement rewards. Will we be able to unlock those things like the dragon bash helms again with the new system even if they are not anymore in our bank/inventory, but in our accounts it shows that we indeed unlocked them?

Thanks

I would say it would be fair to allow you to sell your second one (make it no longer soul-bound)…since you don’t want the stat-switching abilities of it anyways!

Plus, added benefit, bring down the cost of legendaries so that I can finally get one!

For various reasons (whether it be sure to lack of storage space, sheer accident, or anything else), many players have deleted living story achievement skins from their storage in the past. Might skins be unlocked to the wardrobe based on the fact that they are unlocked in the achievement history panel?