Guild Wars 2

Lamont.5973:

cakesphere.5910:

PurebladeProductions.4875:

cakesphere.5910:

I’d like all my kittening money back for all the wardrobe pieces I’ve bought.

To clarify this for everyone, you will only be able to get a refund for town clothes that become endless tonics.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/45944258-Town-Clothes

So I won’t even be able to get gems back for the individual pieces? UGH.
Just what I wanted, a bunch of utterly useless clothes that I can’t even get a refund for.

Oh, I intend to file continual daily support tickets and updates until I get my gems back, reminding them each time that while I am doing so, they are not getting any more money from me.

If they don’t change their stance to allow refunds on outfits as well, I’ll be doing the same thing.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

We do understand and sincerely apologize that there are creative combinations of town clothes that will not exist anymore. Many have asked why remove town clothes as a concept. It boils down to we believe better armor skinning and the outfit system is something we can add more options to more often and will produce a better supported RP game for everyone with more variety in the future. In short, a healthier game.

Incorrect. There are no combinations of town clothes that will exist anymore, not just ‘creative combinations’. By definition, if you cannot separate parts of an outfit to combine with others and if you cannot combine a tonic with anything, there are no combinations. There are a set of what, 3-5 canned outfits that you can dye but will look no different from any other set except for if they have a hat or not.

To expand more on what I mean by better support, It helps if you think of town clothes as a 4th weight class of armor. Clothing was meant to offer visual options that break the class roles, however we were never completely happy with the way it was isolated from the rest of the game and still felt largely the same. Many pieces could have easily been mistaken for light or medium armor. In many ways it was more akin to building an alt character because town-clothes and armor were so separated. Additionally, every time we added something to town-clothes, it didn’t really help someone building their light, medium, or heavy look. And there was no way to add combat gear fairly without creating 3 versions on the back end (light, medium, and heavy). As a customization platform and sustainable expansion design it left a lot to be desired.

I can’t speak for everyone, but at least for me this is entirely missing the point of town clothes. My primary character is a Guardian. He runs around 90% of the time in full armor. When I was RPing with friends… I did not want him in armor. I wanted him in actual clothing (in this case shirt or hoodie and riding pants). The absolute last thing I was interested in right then was him wearing MORE ARMOR.

When we started looking at bringing more of the clothing back into armor with mix and match styles there are some fundamental incompatible things between weight classes. (part of how we set up every armor to allow many dye channels and styles per piece).. There really is no way at this point over six years since we started development to make absolutely everything work together. So we needed something new to continue to grow in the future.

Outfits give us a way to create highly stylized looks that aren’t constrained to armor slots or weight class. In addition to armor skins that are easier and cheaper to collect across characters and the account dye system we do believe the options across a players whole account are much more attractive now. You’ll see more outfits coming out this summer and additions to the game more often usable by your characters. We try not to allow too much ‘hoarder’ design where we just keep stacking more and more options on leaving lots of unsupported things hanging around. Yes, we do have to give up some of our current closet space and clothing to fit the new wardrobe in. Again, apologies for that.

As many people have said, unless the new outfits that are coming are able to be broken into pieces, you are reducing the options for customization, not increasing them. To have a canned outfit that cannot be altered is very restrictive, especially as there are many pieces that look better or worse depending on the species of your character. I have things on a norn I wouldn’t put on a sylvari, etc, for those aesthetic reasons.

As always we ask you to try out the new system of customization and see what’s available to you. I think many people will be surprised by how many pieces have become armor compatible. We hope the benefits to the outfit system and wardrobe in terms of future support and additions will be clear, and you can look forward to more new outfits coming very soon.

To be honest, I’m having a hard time believing that I’ll be interested in anything new that would come out ‘outfit’-wise, if nothing else because I’m not confident at all that anything I would purchase would be usable in the future. I do understand that game content changes, and part of the user agreements is that a company can do so.

However, town clothes are items that were purchased with real funds, and they will now be radically altered from their original design and function. They will exist in a form that I would have never purchased were they laid out that way at that time. So while I think everything else in this upcoming path sounds fantastic, it’s very disappointing that this had to be included.

I love the change, and the way town clothes will be implemented. If you don’t want the tonic for the full transformation pieces…just put a ticket in. The “4th weight type of armor” bit makes perfect sense to me, and will allow some great additions in the future that could work for all three armor classes! Good work.

Gene Archer.8560:

chemiclord.3978:

You might as well lock and trash this thread, A.net.

Because all you’re going to hear from this point on is blind, seething rage.

Oh look. Only took four or so posts right after yours to prove you completely wrong.

You know, ANet are big boys and girls. They don’t need you to defend them from the “big bad wolves” that are people with negative criticisms. They have moderators and such.

If you’re so opposed to negative criticism, maybe you should stop coming to the forums.

My point was that they have spoken. They have decided not to give you what you want. There is no more reasonable discussion that can be had because they have put their foot down and said “No.”

Any further complaints will fall on deaf ears. They are no longer listening, and there is no point to keep this thread open. It’s only going to turn into an echo chamber of increasingly enraged demands that will not be heeded.

Mochi.7083:

ASaturnus.4980:

Twyll, your dismissal of Curtis’ whole reasoning was really funny to read and spot on.

Curtis, thanks for answering in this thread. It is good to know that the devs read our concerns. But honestly your explanation seems to demostrate that you – and I mean ArenaNet with that – are confused about why you had town clothes in the first place and what you wanted to achieve with them.
You say town clothes don’t help people to form the light, medium or heavy look. Yeah, of course, because that’s the purpose of town clothes. They ought to help form people’s town clothes look.
The main reason I bought town clothes was so that my warrior could wear something else than heavy armor while visiting a city or so that my necro could wear trousers.

Look, other games which have much, much, much better costume systems than GW2, allow players to wear alternative armor or costumes for visual effect only, therefore increasing the incentive to get a variety of skins. The only thing GW2, a game that supposedly centers on skins, had as a comparable feature was town clothes. And now you’re scrapping that feature for confused reasons, while other games expand and improve such features to the enjoyment of their players.
This is just… not reasonable.

Bolding that point for emphasis. I think that’s pretty much what a lot of people are trying to say, here.

Yeah, that’s really the biggest issue here. Beyond all the consequences of this change, the rationale for it just doesn’t make sense right out of the gate. It feels a lot like a retroactively formed an excuse to justify what they already decided they were going to do. (Which, by the way, is never a good idea. People see right through it as fast as they did here almost every single time).

Town clothes always existed as a way to step outside of the armor weight system, and now it’s going away because it…. steps outside the armor weight system? What?

Chak Sabersting.8359:

I love the change, and the way town clothes will be implemented. If you don’t want the tonic for the full transformation pieces…just put a ticket in. The “4th weight type of armor” bit makes perfect sense to me, and will allow some great additions in the future that could work for all three armor classes! Good work.

What about the pieces of townclothes we bought to go with pieces that are now effectively being taken away from us. They already said ONLY items that convert to tonics will be refunded. I have a townclothes headpiece, shirt, boots, pants, and gloves, that were all bought separately. The boots and gloves are from the same “set” (riding gloves and boots but the rest were all independent items. Based on the vague and limited info they’ve given, I could easily (and probably will) wind up with at least a shirt becoming a tonic, and possibly the pants too. IF the gloves and boots become item skins, they are now 100% useless to me, and anet has already stated that they will not be giving refunds for those. I know I’m not even close to the only one with this issue, so how exactly does “just put a ticket in” even begin to address the issue for us?

chemiclord.3978:

My point was that they have spoken. They have decided not to give you what you want. There is no more reasonable discussion that can be had because they have put their foot down and said “No.”

Any further complaints will fall on deaf ears. They are no longer listening, and there is no point to keep this thread open. It’s only going to turn into an echo chamber of increasingly enraged demands that will not be heeded.

Or, if they actually claim to value community feedback like they claim (I genuinely doubt that they really do based on their pattern of brush-off responses), at the very least the continued commentary in this thread goes to provide them insight into future changes (i.e. not repeating the same mistakes again, as it were) .

It is also entirely possible that additional legitimate points will be raised, or the magnitude of dissatisfaction will prove to be even larger than anet had guessed up to this point, either of which would be useful if they revisit these changes in the future. They’ve clearly doubled-down because they already did the work and they can’t be bothered to undo it in a patch that they’ve probably already packaged, but it doesn’t mean that they won’t continually make changes to it as time goes on, as they have done in the past.

It really seems to me like you’re just allergic to any criticism of anet and are looking for an excuse to stimey it.

Alfador.7649:

Town clothes always existed as a way to step outside of the armor weight system, and now it’s going away because it…. steps outside the armor weight system? What?

Exactly. This is what I’m struggling so hard to understand. From what I can tell, town clothes do their job. I’d even go so far as to say that they add an element of realism to the game.

Well, this is a right mess. I bought the pirate outfit because I love the pants and top. That’s pretty much it. So, yes, count me among the seemingly large number of players who are feeling shafted by this decision.

Personally, I would say keep the town clothes system in place for now as an additional layer over top of the wardrobe (in other words, basically keep it as it functions now). However, work in the background to integrate the individual clothing pieces into the new system. Even if this only means two or three items make the crossover each month, I’m sure most players would be fine with waiting as long as they could continue to use their items in the current way while they are waiting.

Of course, a better option would simply be to have a more complete and robust cosmetic clothing system a la Lord of the Rings Online but apparently that ship has sailed.

chemiclord.3978:

Gene Archer.8560:

chemiclord.3978:

You might as well lock and trash this thread, A.net.

Because all you’re going to hear from this point on is blind, seething rage.

Oh look. Only took four or so posts right after yours to prove you completely wrong.

You know, ANet are big boys and girls. They don’t need you to defend them from the “big bad wolves” that are people with negative criticisms. They have moderators and such.

If you’re so opposed to negative criticism, maybe you should stop coming to the forums.

My point was that they have spoken. They have decided not to give you what you want. There is no more reasonable discussion that can be had because they have put their foot down and said “No.”

Any further complaints will fall on deaf ears. They are no longer listening, and there is no point to keep this thread open. It’s only going to turn into an echo chamber of increasingly enraged demands that will not be heeded.

Then they might as well close most every part of the forum but the esportz spvp forum since they ignore practically every thread already.

Mixing and matching town clothes was very much encouraged via the gem store selling so many items by the piece. (particularly by offering a variety of fancy shirts without any fancy pants or skirts to go with them) It was only natural for many players to then mix and match those singly sold items with pieces from costume sets.

The reasoning by Anet of wanting to maintain visual armor weight/profession integrity is negated by things like costume sets being usable in combat. Many of the costumes look like light or medium armor weights. The solution of potions for certain town clothing items doesn’t feel like a solution so much as a half attempted band aid effort to try and staunch the flow of complaints by having something to point at. ‘But we did this, so you still have them.’ Even though that doesn’t allow them to be used as intended when created and marketed to the players.

I really don’t see what aesthetic is compromised by allowing continued mixing and matching of these items. Especially when costumes in combat means a warrior can PvE as a chef or a guardian can gad about WvW dressed as a winter pimp santa. If you’re going to have that, why not allow for any number of creative customized appearance possibilities? The more variety in look customization options, the better.

(such as having a halo and horns, witch boots and gloves with a pirate captain’s outfit- which would be impossible after April 15)

Town clothes make you so you cant see any diference between heavy, medium and light clothes? o sorry, i though that Achivement skin armor made that already… silly as to see a norm thief with radiand shoulders looking like a heavy tank…the same way you cann see a norm elementalist that way…. and and engineer and…..guess what, do that witha GS mesmer, Gs Guardian, GS ranger and GS warrior and try to tell what class is who all being norms so you can see enormous shoulders…

Curtis Johnson.8456:

snip

Honestly, I’m not even effected much by the change since I rarely wear my town clothes, but this explanation just doesn’t cut it. I just don’t get it at all. The worst part, by far, are the changes to costumes being a single set.

If any of the town clothes I bought become tonics, you can bet I will be contact support for the refund.

I try to be really supportive of the game. I know it’s really hard to make your vision come together, but even with your explanation, I’m still shocked by the decision to remove features.

If you truly believe there is an issue with weight classes and town clothes, then you shouldn’t be allowing costumes in combat, unless you plan on adding a light, medium, and heavy version of each costume.

BeardRex.6739:

If you truly believe there is an issue with weight classes and town clothes, then you shouldn’t be allowing costumes in combat, unless you plan on adding a light, medium, and heavy version of each costume.

Thank you for pointing out another thing that doesn’t make any sense at all.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

As always we ask you to try out the new system of customization and see what’s available to you. I think many people will be surprised by how many pieces have become armor compatible. We hope the benefits to the outfit system and wardrobe in terms of future support and additions will be clear, and you can look forward to more new outfits coming very soon.

One does not need to try out the new customization to know that

1. Outfits as ALL OR NOTHING is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.
2. Individual clothing pieces that were purchased to mix with other individual clothing pieces that are turned into tonics that can only be used one at a time and produce an Anet decided choice of complete outfits that are not even dyable is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.

Do what you will with promo items, etc., but,

Changing the system and downgrading (no this is not a feature enhancement) these items that for the most part are bought with Real Money is your choice; however, you must be prepared to refund that money (even in gem form) to all users who ask for it.

I can guarantee you that I will not want any of the items that become all or nothing or turned into useless tonics.

Respectfully,

chemiclord.3978
My point was that they have spoken. They have decided not to give you what you want. There is no more reasonable discussion that can be had because they have put their foot down and said “No.”

Any further complaints will fall on deaf ears. They are no longer listening, and there is no point to keep this thread open. It’s only going to turn into an echo chamber of increasingly enraged demands that will not be heeded.
——

Understood – however, knowing that (there was at least the possibility that) mix-and-match town clothes functionality would be disabled for a unified model, I’d like to hear the explanation as to why they continued to market and sell such mix-and-match town clothes through Halloween and Wintersday.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

We try not to allow too much ‘hoarder’ design where we just keep stacking more and more options on leaving lots of unsupported things hanging around.

Before I launch into my rant, Curtis, I want to thank you for taking the time to respond as well as any team members you may have had to consult in order to formulate this response.

However, what I am hearing from this is essentially never touch the parts of the game that are not massively popular and central to gameplay. I will keep this in mind next time ArenaNet tries something new, because if it ends up being unpopular, there will be no continued support even if I paid money for it.

I will continue to acknowledge that ArenaNet is one of the better video game developers I have encountered in how much their developers seem to care, how responsive they are to feedback, and how much they learn from their past mistakes. That is my firm opinion, based on their past work in GW1 and how much GW2 has evolved.

However, I will admit that I also feel deeply misled in believing that I could play how I wanted and that ArenaNet would take care of niche customer bases. This is the second time I have been burned by supporting unpopular features in the gem store. The first time was with minis—each time a major upset occurred with gem store minis, the (limited, because minis are not popular) outcry was met with silence. The second time is with town clothing. Both times, I found enjoyment in a niche part of the game and paid real money to ANet to support a feature that I believed they would iterate on and improve. Both times, I have seen no improvement, no resolution to complaints, and in the case of town clothing, a massive step back in functionality.

Frankly, I am tired of spending real money on features in the game only to see things implemented that negatively impact me and then be told that I should take a backseat because I am not in the majority. I am sure no disrespect is intended, but I certainly do not feel respected either. While I understand the developers are under resource constraints, I also expect the leadership of ArenaNet to recognize when they are spending resources to make experiences significantly worse for a subset of their community for no apparent reason.

Why can you not implement outfits and other town clothing armor skins while leaving a vestigial and unsupported town clothing system there? Sure, it would have been weird and ugly to have this extra tab that never sees another update again, but at least it wouldn’t have removed the very things people paid money to use, and I doubt it will interfere with your future plans for outfits.

At the end of the day, GW2 does not feel like a customer friendly game. Items are removed from the gem store rather than the gem store interface being revamped to enable customers to browse an ever-growing inventory. Everything is possibly limited time, BUY IT NOW OR MAYBE NEVER SEE IT AGAIN. The Living Story is temporary, so you have to play now or miss it forever. Permanent content is removed, like Twilight Arbor F/U, rather than fixed to make it more appealing. Systems that do not work are removed for the sake of clean design without regard for customers who paid specifically for that functionality. New features always start as grindfests (soulbound dyes, soulbound WXP, soulbound fractal levels, new currencies for each update even though people have been talking about currency overload for over half a year now) and then made more friendly down the line after players are done sinking time and money into them despite the fact that feedback indicated players wanted the more friendly system from the start. Forgive me, but after spending thousands of dollars on your game (I could have straight out bought 4 legendaries off the Trading Post by now, but since I preferred minis and town clothing and trying to help out smaller guilds by purchasing guild mission unlocks, I guess I have only myself to blame for getting no attention) and buying copies for all my friends to try it, I think I have earned the right, as a customer, to display some cynicism when I am essentially told that all the money I have spent does not matter, the things I bought will be removed at whim and without notice, but hey, if I have enough faith in the developers, it’ll get better.

I will continue playing the game because people I care about still enjoy it. I will probably even spend more money in the store, not least because I do really love the other changes you have made in the feature patch, but I will be exercising a lot more caution in what I buy, and I most certainly will not be buying the new outfits. I have no intention of giving this new experiment a try because I no longer trust that ANet will continue to support the things they start.

Rabbi Rick.3194:

Do what you will with promo items, etc., but,

Uh, no, I like my Dragon Emblem Shirt the way it is currently, thanks. Just because you most likely do not have one doesn’t mean changing our shirt to an entirely worthless tonic is cool, at all.

Just keep Town Clothing as a separate outfit. It’s fine the way it is now. It really doesn’t seem like Anet is listening. It’s like we’re just bashing our heads against a giant, obstinate wall. They’re obviously set on doing this, and they obviously don’t really care about our predicament.

Hey, by the way guys and gals, they’re adding a lot of new outfits into the gem store after the new patch! =^.^=

/vomit

Alfador.7649:

(snip)

Town clothes always existed as a way to step outside of the armor weight system, and now it’s going away because it…. steps outside the armor weight system? What?

(snip)

Even more confusingly, in Curtis’ post it seemed like the Voice of ANet Speaking Through Curtis (sorry dude, I’m trying to tear your post apart without tearing you apart, hope you understand) was trying to say that town clothes were intended to be a way to step outside of the armor system.

I’m going to make a stab in the dark as to the thought processes involved here:
- Town clothes should be a way to step outside the armor system.
- Town clothes are functioning as intended.
(later)
- We can’t figure out how to make town clothes that don’t look like Light/Medium armor, or Light/Medium armor that doesn’t look like town clothes.
- We don’t really know how people use town clothes anyways. Do they even use them?
- Therefore, we should get rid of town clothes.
(later)
- Hm, we need a way to step outside the armor system.
- We should make a thing called Outfits that you can wear instead of your armor!
- This will be a fun thing that will allow for greater flexibility and customization!
- We don’t want it to take up too much space or be too difficult… Let’s make it just one slot.
- Look at our pretty UI and how the Outfit slot doesn’t get in the way of the awesome new Wardrobe! This is a great idea!
(later)
- What are we going to do with all the town clothes people bought, now that we’re getting rid of town clothes? They might be mad…
- We don’t really know how people use town clothes anyways. Let’s try to figure it out…
- People use town clothes outside combat.
- People use tonics outside combat.
- We should turn town clothes into tonics!
(later)
- Hey, look, some of these town clothes are complete outfits, just like Outfits are!
- We should make those ones into Outfits!
(later)
- Outfits are a way to step outside the armor system.
- Outfits are functioning as intended.
(later)
- Wonderful customers, look what we made!
- Outfits will increase your options for customization and creativity!
- What do you mean they won’t?
- Of course they will! Stop making things up!
- We apologize lol!
(later)
- The players are mad. They want us to explain why we’re getting rid of town clothes.
- We should explain things to them so they are no longer mad.
- Why did we get rid of town clothes again?
- Okay everyone stop talking at once.
- Alright I think we’ve got a list of reasons now.
- Curtis, go tell the players our list of reasons.
(later)
- What do you mean, some of our reasons conflict with each other?
- No they don’t! Stop making things up!
- We apologize lol!

I can only assume that this entire debacle is due to long stretches of time elapsing between various steps of decision-making, and the fact that ANet is an organization made of people, and people are forgetful and get themselves confused, but they get even MORE confused when they have more people to be confused with.

DarkOcean.8746:

Rabbi Rick.3194:

Do what you will with promo items, etc., but,

Uh, no, I like my Dragon Emblem Shirt the way it is currently, thanks. Just because you most likely do not have one doesn’t mean changing our shirt to an entirely worthless tonic is cool, at all.

Just keep Town Clothing as a separate outfit. It’s fine the way it is now. It really doesn’t seem like Anet is listening. It’s like we’re just bashing our heads against a giant, obstinate wall. They’re obviously set on doing this, and they obviously don’t really care about our predicament.

Hey, by the way guys and gals, they’re adding a lot of new outfits into the gem store after the new patch! =^.^=

/vomit

Actually, I do have a dragon shirt which I received when my wife and I attended the launch party at Pink in Seattle. I very much like the shirt the way it is; however, as it did not cost real money, I don’t feel that I can complain. Those items that did, on the other hand, I do feel I have some room to complain about.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

We do understand and sincerely apologize that there are creative combinations of town clothes that will not exist anymore. Many have asked why remove town clothes as a concept. It boils down to we believe better armor skinning and the outfit system is something we can add more options to more often and will produce a better supported RP game for everyone with more variety in the future. In short, a healthier game.

To expand more on what I mean by better support, It helps if you think of town clothes as a 4th weight class of armor. Clothing was meant to offer visual options that break the class roles, however we were never completely happy with the way it was isolated from the rest of the game and still felt largely the same. Many pieces could have easily been mistaken for light or medium armor. In many ways it was more akin to building an alt character because town-clothes and armor were so separated. Additionally, every time we added something to town-clothes, it didn’t really help someone building their light, medium, or heavy look. And there was no way to add combat gear fairly without creating 3 versions on the back end (light, medium, and heavy). As a customization platform and sustainable expansion design it left a lot to be desired.

When we started looking at bringing more of the clothing back into armor with mix and match styles there are some fundamental incompatible things between weight classes. (part of how we set up every armor to allow many dye channels and styles per piece).. There really is no way at this point over six years since we started development to make absolutely everything work together. So we needed something new to continue to grow in the future.

Outfits give us a way to create highly stylized looks that aren’t constrained to armor slots or weight class. In addition to armor skins that are easier and cheaper to collect across characters and the account dye system we do believe the options across a players whole account are much more attractive now. You’ll see more outfits coming out this summer and additions to the game more often usable by your characters. We try not to allow too much ‘hoarder’ design where we just keep stacking more and more options on leaving lots of unsupported things hanging around. Yes, we do have to give up some of our current closet space and clothing to fit the new wardrobe in. Again, apologies for that.

As always we ask you to try out the new system of customization and see what’s available to you. I think many people will be surprised by how many pieces have become armor compatible. We hope the benefits to the outfit system and wardrobe in terms of future support and additions will be clear, and you can look forward to more new outfits coming very soon.

Then give us refunds for ALL our townclothes gemstone purchases. Not just the ones you’ve arbitrarily decided to turn into skins. ALL of them. Because they were purchased with real money, under false pretenses.

If I buy a copy of LOTR on my Nook, I do not expect Barnes & Noble to remove it and give me a copy of Jane Eyre. It’s a good book, but not what I purchased.

In my experience, I have generally found when a developer digs in their heels like this in spite of a very vocal protest, it’s not because they want to.

My completely non-snarky guess at what happened;

- Town clothes were not the seller Arena.net hoped it would be. I honestly suspect the number of people who bought into that is very, very small and the vast majority were content using their armor as a general all around look. Looking around in-game seems to support that opinion to me.

- NCSoft noted Arena.net wasn’t getting a good return on the investment in town clothes, and told them it needed to go.

- Arena.net is now stuck over a barrel. They can’t merge the two the way they want for technical reasons (again, remember the problem is that the publisher has deemed town clothes aren’t worth the effort). Then someone remembered how GW1 had all those one size fits all costumes, and so the quick attempt to create a similar concept in GW2.

- The new model is quicker to produce and costs less in terms of resources, hopefully giving Arena.net a better return on investment and trying to appeal to those who ignored town clothes because they were deemed pointless. They know they’re kittening off the group that liked the old way… but they really can’t do anything for it.

Rabbi Rick.3194:

Actually, I do have a dragon shirt which I received when my wife and I attended the launch party at Pink in Seattle. I very much like the shirt the way it is; however, as it did not cost real money, I don’t feel that I can complain. Those items that did, on the other hand, I do feel I have some room to complain about.

I feel like this is pretty much my stance. I get it with the dragon shirt, it was a promo item that didn’t cost me anything out of pocket, but it impacts the items that are not a part of this as well. I individual pieces for all of my townclothes slots. None of my gloves, pants, shirt, headgear, boots, were bought as a set. If say, the gloves and shoes become skins, but the pants and shirt both become tonics, it’s already been stated that I can’t wear the pants and shirt at the same time (tonics won’t stack) and, in effect, since the only items I bought to match them are now incompatible with each other, the skin for the boots and gloves are now OBSOLETE, and according to anet, not refundable.

It just really seems like they didn’t actually think this through. I know I’ve mentioned it before but it really feels like they said “we’re getting rid of townclothes, now let’s sit down and come up with an excuse why.”

chemiclord.3978:

In my experience, I have generally found when a developer digs in their heels like this in spite of a very vocal protest, it’s not because they want to.

My completely non-snarky guess at what happened;

- Town clothes were not the seller Arena.net hoped it would be. I honestly suspect the number of people who bought into that is very, very small and the vast majority were content using their armor as a general all around look. Looking around in-game seems to support that opinion to me.

- NCSoft noted Arena.net wasn’t getting a good return on the investment in town clothes, and told them it needed to go.

- Arena.net is now stuck over a barrel. They can’t merge the two the way they want for technical reasons (again, remember the problem is that the publisher has deemed town clothes aren’t worth the effort). Then someone remembered how GW1 had all those one size fits all costumes, and so the quick attempt to create a similar concept in GW2.

- The new model is quicker to produce and costs less in terms of resources, hopefully giving Arena.net a better return on investment and trying to appeal to those who ignored town clothes because they were deemed pointless. They know they’re kittening off the group that liked the old way… but they really can’t do anything for it.

For the record, they basically “dug their heels in” like this with the original announcement of the sPvP rank changes. They clearly wanted to push it more towards an MLG/eSports structure. However, they kittened off a huge portion of that playerbase, and after some protracted feedback, Anet adjusted their change to be more palatable to all parties involve (including themselves).

It’s a rarity, sure, but given TIME, these things can and sometimes do get addressed. For that possibility alone, I’d argue it’s worth leaving this open

I’m also not sure townclothes really weren’t the seller they were looking for. I do genuinely believe the change is because they feel it “clashes” with the wardrobe system, but I just think they’re underestimating players on that regard.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Additionally, every time we added something to town-clothes, it didn’t really help someone building their light, medium, or heavy look.

Hey can you change dungeons next because they’re not increasing my armorsmithing level

You should change the story too because it’s not increasing my sPvP rank

Chemiclord -

All valid reasons. But, when they were making those decisions, they were also pushing new town clothes “out the door” at us for purchase. Had they removed all the town clothes (like they did) and gave us vague reasons why we weren’t getting new town clothes during the last two updates that supported them (Halloween and Wintersday), then announced these changes as they had, it might have been cleaner. Instead, it looks like they’ve taken it to the wall with providing us with new items, then announced that those items will provide far less functionality than originally planned (that is, how they work right now).

Sir Lysander.9842:

Chemiclord -

All valid reasons. But, when they were making those decisions, they were also pushing new town clothes “out the door” at us for purchase. Had they removed all the town clothes (like they did) and gave us vague reasons why we weren’t getting new town clothes during the last two updates that supported them (Halloween and Wintersday), then announced these changes as they had, it might have been cleaner. Instead, it looks like they’ve taken it to the wall with providing us with new items, then announced that those items will provide far less functionality than originally planned (that is, how they work right now).

It really depends on WHEN they learned of the decision themselves. Just because you release features at the same time doesn’t mean you start working on them at the same time. I know someone said something about one of the designers working on them for 8 months, which depending on the development cycle at Arena.net, would have likely put that call from NCSoft around September or so… which would have been right after a lot of that seasonal stuff for Halloween was already committed to code.

(That’s just a wild guess as I don’t know what Arena.net’s development cycle usually runs, I’m just kinda averaging out my own experience of how development goes.)

As for Wintersday… that’s harder for me to explain other than maybe they did all that development in one lump package, but that is admittedly a stretch.

One potential reason for changing them to outfits for future compatibility and development reasons is if the devs want to create sets of clothing that don’t have to take other pieces into account at all. If all town clothes that couldn’t be converted to skins for one armor class or another became either a tonic or an outfit, there becomes zero conflict issues to resolve between outfit items. This means faster development and massively greater flexibility (on the dev side). An extreme, and terrible, example of this would be a giant chicken suit or… like… maybe a Taimi’s mech outfit?

IF that is the intention, then allowing for town clothes customization as it was before would create a whole additional tab for “customizable outfits”, which would both be excessive and take more time than it is worth.

This is just speculation about the reasons for their decision, of course, but I think that it’s possible we will all be happier with getting a much higher volume of much more unique outfits.

But hopefully no giant chicken suits!

chemiclord.3978:

As for Wintersday… that’s harder for me to explain other than maybe they did all that development in one lump package, but that is admittedly a stretch.

The town clothing items mentioned as no longer being in the gem store were removed from the gem store in mid December. The official reason given was “streamlining” the gem store and players then rushed to buy them on the assumption that this was their last chance to get limited time items.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-10-2013

As you have said, it’s a bit of a stretch to believe they did not have the outlines of the feature patch known by December. If they did have this change planned by then, the best that can be said of the way they removed those items is that it was deceptive. If they knew they were being removed because their functionality was being radically altered, they should have said so rather than going with the excuse of “streamlining,” putting up countdown timers in the gem store next to each of the items, and specifically stating in the patch notes that “Players who previously purchased these items will still retain the ability to use them” which any reasonable person at the time would have read as a reassurance that no significant changes would be made to the items.

Deathdance.2045:

Town clothes make you so you cant see any diference between heavy, medium and light clothes? o sorry, i though that Achivement skin armor made that already… silly as to see a norm thief with radiand shoulders looking like a heavy tank…the same way you cann see a norm elementalist that way…. and and engineer and…..guess what, do that witha GS mesmer, Gs Guardian, GS ranger and GS warrior and try to tell what class is who all being norms so you can see enormous shoulders…

This- I don’t even use the radiant crap because it’s so hug and bulky. It detracts away from the look so much.

What I don’t understand is… why not simply treat town clothes like armor… just like you said. JUST like armor, it’s got head/shirt/pant/shoes/etc pieces.

The real problem is that you didn’t provide town clothes… you provided Halloween costumes. Each race gets one outfit they ALL wear, and then there’s some ridiculous outfits, and a couple of hoodies and other things. Nothing like the variety that NPCs get.

Farzo.8410:

I think I understand what Curtis is talking about.

There’s a huge hole in my chest.

There’s a huge seam in the belly of my norn thief, my human necromancer and my friend’s charr elementalist because the waist of her clothing has a weird clipping issue that literally lets you see through her body. It’s been there for a year. So clearly this isn’t a real issue.

I’m not even going to go into all the clipping issues and holes and whatnot in EVERYTHING about charr.

Lysander Night.3150:

Will the original set of town clothes you are wearing upon character creation be an unlocked costume that we can wear? or is that just gone?

If we lose the base clothes, I will no longer play this game. The sylvari starter townclothes are some of my favorites in the game.

Sonia.7910:

But of course I will feel disappointed since I paid real money for a feature you’re going to take away from me (practically all the gems I’ve spent in the gem store are for armor skins and town clothes – and some of them even as gifts because of last Xmas promotion!)

So still, I really want to
a) be able to combine my town clothes (and that includes using the parts of the outfits separatedly), and
b) be able to dye them.

This. We paid actual money for the purchase of townclothes that worked in the way described above. If you are going to take that functionality away, then you owe us BLANKET refunds for townclothes purchases. Not just the ones you decide to arbitrarily choose to make into tonics instead of skins. I want them ALL refunded. I’ve bought multiple sets of some townclothes in order to use one or two pieces as part of an outfit. If I can no longer build the outfit I want, NOR change the color, I want you to take it back. If I have to change my actual armor in order to use it, I want you to take it back. We made our purchases under false pretenses.

I have 12 characters. Each and every one has townclothes made of combinations of gemstore items, and each one uses their townclothes frequently. I’m also one of those people who puts together a “look” for my characters and transmutes every time I level. I do not want my cosmetic functionality taken away.

If you do this, offer refunds for ALL gemstore townclothes. Not just the ones you arbitrarily decided to take back. And what about repeats? I’ve bought several sets of some outfits, as I’ve said, solely for the mix-and-match. I want refunds for my duplicate sets as well.

I can promise you that I will not ever buy something from the gem store again – and yes, I’ve spent WELL over $100 there. I’m not buying things that will be stolen at a whim.

Rabbi Rick.3194:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

As always we ask you to try out the new system of customization (snip)

One does not need to try out the new customization to know that

1. Outfits as ALL OR NOTHING is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.
2. Individual clothing pieces that were purchased to mix with other individual clothing pieces that are turned into tonics that can only be used one at a time and produce an Anet decided choice of complete outfits that are not even dyable is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.

(snip)

Dear ANet:

Using Rabbi Rick’s highly logical statement as a starting point, I have decided to dramatize this conversation, to illustrate and inform, and perhaps to get it through your collective skull that has been so thickened by the pressures of trying to organize things while being multiple people.

Picture ordering a burger at McDonald’s, or some other establishment that exchanges burgers for money if you prefer. You order a hamburger. It comes with lettuce and onions, but you forgot to say you didn’t want lettuce and onions— oh well! No need to mention it, since it’s easy to fix. You take off the lettuce and onions, and sit down to enjoy your burger.

You are halfway through your burger when an employee comes up, takes your burger, and hands you another one. It doesn’t just have lettuce and onions on it— all the toppings, including lettuce and onions, are taped on with duct tape covered in a pattern of little Ronald McDonalds. “But I didn’t want—” you start, but the employee cuts you off.

“Sorry, but we’ve got a new policy now. You have to eat the whole thing now, or none of it. It’s too inefficient to keep customizing burgers. Now we can make more burgers, faster! Also, you can take the burger wherever you want, and the toppings won’t fall off!”

“Why couldn’t I just keep eating the burger that I already had?” you wonder aloud.

A guy waiting at the counter sneers, “Well if you liked being able to customize your burger so much, why didn’t you tell them that before they changed it?”

“I didn’t know they would change it!” you retort indignantly, then turn back to the employee. “So, now I’m telling you: I liked the burger I already had. Why can’t I keep it?”

“Well,” the employee responds, “if you found a problem with it, due to our new policy, we wouldn’t have been able to do anything about your old burger, because we don’t want to keep fixing old burgers.”

“But I didn’t have a problem with my old burger…”

A guy sitting at the next table over pipes up. “My friends and I wanted to be able to take our burgers anywhere without the toppings falling off. Now we can! We don’t care if we can’t choose the toppings!”

“Isn’t that a pretty bad way to make a burger portable though?” you wonder. “Surely there’s got to be a better way. Maybe put it in a removable wrapper or something…”

Ignoring you, the employee continues, “We don’t support old burgers. But now, if you find a problem with your new burger, we can fix that!” He doesn’t seem to get that your problem is with the entirety of the new-burger situation.

“But I don’t like lettuce and onions!” you retort. “I want my old burger back, or to be able to take the lettuce and onions off this one! Or at least the duct tape…”

“Sorry, it can’t be helped. We apologize,” says the employee.

A guy just coming out of the bathroom says, “Well I don’t even eat burgers. Just ask for your money back if you don’t like it.”

You decide this is less ideal than having the burger you liked back, but at least it’s something. “I don’t want an apology; I want you to fix this, or I want my money back!”

“You’re eligible for a refund if your cheeseburger was replaced!” the employee says cheerfully. “Oh, it’s a hamburger? You don’t get a refund for that. Only cheeseburgers.”

“But… but that’s ridiculous!” you retort.

A guy in a booth across the room yells, “Well, why don’t you just ask for a refund then?”

“He just said I can’t get one!” you answer, wondering how this could have gone so wrong so quickly.

Another guy a couple tables down adds, “I think it’s a good thing, if it lets them make more burgers more quickly! I just hope I don’t have to have pickles on mine.”

“But you do have to have pickles!” you cry, exasperated. “He just said that! All I want is the burger I had, the one that I paid for! Why did you even sell it to me if you knew your burger-making policy was about to change!?”

“What are you so upset about?” the employee asks, scoffing at you as he starts duct-taping your old burger together. “You should try it before you say you don’t like it!”

Since we’re playing on that “highly logical” extreme.

McDonalds would probably kick you out of the store long before two years to eat the burger you paid for. Just sayin’…

Guys if you think his points on the technical reasons are contradictory its because you have no idea how modeling and animation works. Quit being know-it-alls and learn about the issues, just because you do not understand a point does not mean its an invalid excuse, it just means you don’t understand it and you have an opportunity to learn.

The LS toxic set, the achievement Radiant and Hellfire set, and other sets people have mentioned are only able to cross the three armor types because they are ONLY a pair of gloves, boots, helmets, and shoulders. They couldn’t add a chest or leg piece to these armors sets without quite a bit of work, basically making three different armor sets which look the same but have different meshes. This would require going all the way back to the base mesh, not quite making a full armor set but nonetheless a lot of work.

Gloves, boots, helmets, and shoulder pieces only need to overlap the existing mesh, in the exact same place, across all armor types. Chest and leg armor on the other hand have an area where the two meshes have to seam together, which is not the same across all three armor types. Meaning you would end up with severely overlapping planes or a torso floating above a pair of legs with empty space between. This would happen even for single armor pieces such as the hoodies and shorts.

That said, I do not agree with Arenanets decision, and there is a better way they are not considering, two of them in fact.

1. Obviously, just put in the work. Players paid for this, it is not their fault ANets artists and designers worked themselves into a corner and it’s wrong to bail themselves out by punishing players and taking away functionality they paid real money for.

2. A compromise. It would not be that difficult or time consuming to just make armor which hides legs. Make all the costumes in to chest armor which overrides your legs regardless of what is slotted there. The seam is no longer an issue as it is all one piece taking up two slots, but you will not be able to mix and match the chest and leg pieces. From what I understand of animation there is no technical reason whatsoever why they can’t take this route. I honestly can’t think of any logical reason either, other than this solution just didn’t come to mind during development.

chemiclord.3978:

Since we’re playing on that “highly logical” extreme.

McDonalds would probably kick you out of the store long before two years to eat the burger you paid for. Just sayin’…

This feature film has been modified in proportion and duration to fit on your TV.

videoboy.4162:

I’m not sure how many of you have read the countless threads asking for a Wardrobe, but this feature update is giving almost everything that has been asked for since launch. The Town Clothes change is a small price to pay for all of that. I’m super excited to finally be able to have my Elementalist fight in her Bloody Prince Costume.

It might be a small price to you (that are not as affected as others, seeing as you went for the Bloody Prince costume that is already a one-piece), but consider the people that have more than ten characters, all outfitted in their own mixed and matched armour. Just think about how much that most have cost; is that really such a small price? Especially considering that this change makes it a price paid without knowledge, consent or options.

Man. I barely even wear town clothes and I can see this is the dumbest thing anet’s ever done.

Rydralain.8126:

One potential reason for changing them to outfits for future compatibility and development reasons is if the devs want to create sets of clothing that don’t have to take other pieces into account at all. If all town clothes that couldn’t be converted to skins for one armor class or another became either a tonic or an outfit, there becomes zero conflict issues to resolve between outfit items. This means faster development and massively greater flexibility (on the dev side). An extreme, and terrible, example of this would be a giant chicken suit or… like… maybe a Taimi’s mech outfit?

IF that is the intention, then allowing for town clothes customization as it was before would create a whole additional tab for “customizable outfits”, which would both be excessive and take more time than it is worth.

This is just speculation about the reasons for their decision, of course, but I think that it’s possible we will all be happier with getting a much higher volume of much more unique outfits.

But hopefully no giant chicken suits!

There is already a solution to this IN GAME RIGHT NOW. Equip bloody prince outfit or witch’s outfit and you will see that your leg slot is ignored even if you have something equipped there. That is literally all that needs to be done: ignore other pieces if you are equipping a “full outfit” piece in the chest slot.

The sad thing? That scenario Twyll just put together is basically exactly what’s happening here. It might seem ridiculous, but if you switch a few words around, you get the same tripe they’ve been feeding us for the last two days.

i don’t know why but i’m just going to hate all over the updates.

Well I will be requesting a refund once this goes live. Anet, you are changing items I paid real money for, I did not pay for tonics, I paid for town clothes that I was able to mix and match. If I do not receive a refund this will be the last patch I download as the game will be instantly uninstalled.

Twyll Blackleaf.9641:

Rabbi Rick.3194:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

As always we ask you to try out the new system of customization (snip)

One does not need to try out the new customization to know that

1. Outfits as ALL OR NOTHING is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.
2. Individual clothing pieces that were purchased to mix with other individual clothing pieces that are turned into tonics that can only be used one at a time and produce an Anet decided choice of complete outfits that are not even dyable is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.

(snip)

Dear ANet:

Using Rabbi Rick’s highly logical statement as a starting point, I have decided to dramatize this conversation, to illustrate and inform, and perhaps to get it through your collective skull that has been so thickened by the pressures of trying to organize things while being multiple people.

Picture ordering a burger at McDonald’s, or some other establishment that exchanges burgers for money if you prefer. You order a hamburger. It comes with lettuce and onions, but you forgot to say you didn’t want lettuce and onions— oh well! No need to mention it, since it’s easy to fix. You take off the lettuce and onions, and sit down to enjoy your burger.

You are halfway through your burger when an employee comes up, takes your burger, and hands you another one. It doesn’t just have lettuce and onions on it— all the toppings, including lettuce and onions, are taped on with duct tape covered in a pattern of little Ronald McDonalds. “But I didn’t want—” you start, but the employee cuts you off.

“Sorry, but we’ve got a new policy now. You have to eat the whole thing now, or none of it. It’s too inefficient to keep customizing burgers. Now we can make more burgers, faster! Also, you can take the burger wherever you want, and the toppings won’t fall off!”

“Why couldn’t I just keep eating the burger that I already had?” you wonder aloud.

A guy waiting at the counter sneers, “Well if you liked being able to customize your burger so much, why didn’t you tell them that before they changed it?”

“I didn’t know they would change it!” you retort indignantly, then turn back to the employee. “So, now I’m telling you: I liked the burger I already had. Why can’t I keep it?”

“Well,” the employee responds, “if you found a problem with it, due to our new policy, we wouldn’t have been able to do anything about your old burger, because we don’t want to keep fixing old burgers.”

“But I didn’t have a problem with my old burger…”

A guy sitting at the next table over pipes up. “My friends and I wanted to be able to take our burgers anywhere without the toppings falling off. Now we can! We don’t care if we can’t choose the toppings!”

“Isn’t that a pretty bad way to make a burger portable though?” you wonder. “Surely there’s got to be a better way. Maybe put it in a removable wrapper or something…”

Ignoring you, the employee continues, “We don’t support old burgers. But now, if you find a problem with your new burger, we can fix that!” He doesn’t seem to get that your problem is with the entirety of the new-burger situation.

“But I don’t like lettuce and onions!” you retort. “I want my old burger back, or to be able to take the lettuce and onions off this one! Or at least the duct tape…”

“Sorry, it can’t be helped. We apologize,” says the employee.

A guy just coming out of the bathroom says, “Well I don’t even eat burgers. Just ask for your money back if you don’t like it.”

You decide this is less ideal than having the burger you liked back, but at least it’s something. “I don’t want an apology; I want you to fix this, or I want my money back!”

“You’re eligible for a refund if your cheeseburger was replaced!” the employee says cheerfully. “Oh, it’s a hamburger? You don’t get a refund for that. Only cheeseburgers.”

“But… but that’s ridiculous!” you retort.

A guy in a booth across the room yells, “Well, why don’t you just ask for a refund then?”

“He just said I can’t get one!” you answer, wondering how this could have gone so wrong so quickly.

Another guy a couple tables down adds, “I think it’s a good thing, if it lets them make more burgers more quickly! I just hope I don’t have to have pickles on mine.”

“But you do have to have pickles!” you cry, exasperated. “He just said that! All I want is the burger I had, the one that I paid for! Why did you even sell it to me if you knew your burger-making policy was about to change!?”

“What are you so upset about?” the employee asks, scoffing at you as he starts duct-taping your old burger together. “You should try it before you say you don’t like it!”

^ I’m not entirely sure of my own opinion on this whole mess but regardless, this was epic. Fantastically written.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

-much quoted already, snipped-

Okay, so..

When a developer says that something “isn’t possible”, what that translates to in ordinary english is “It’s possible, but we choose not to spend the amount of time that it would require.”

And that’s what I get out of your post, Curtis.

Mix and match armor and other creative character customization is probably the biggest draw of RPGs, and especially MMORPGs. ‘Complete outfit or nothing’ to my perspective is a pretty shoot-yourself-in-the-foot decision.

We like individual pieces of clothing on the gem store; we like the prospect of mixing armors together and achieving a ‘look’ that is uniquely our own. We don’t want to be Mad King Thorn #813. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that ‘town clothes’ contain pretty much the only ‘ordinary, every day’ clothing looks that are available in the game, and that’s really attractive to a subset of your players.

The fact that there’s going to be this weird half system with some really cool clothing looks where mixing isn’t possible is very regrettable. I’m sitting beside somebody right now who’s playing the game, running around in town bare chested wearing khaki shorts and firing his flamethrower off, and it looks fine. If he wants to wear that look into combat, sans the polo shirt and flipflops you guys are undoubtedly going to add to the ‘tonic’, why not?

I’d rather we retain separate town clothes slots, and you guys just toggle that switch that tells the game to flip us to our combat gear when something attacks us, and turn it off, and let that be how it works until you can make ‘Any look, any time’ a reality.

In the meantime, yeah.. at the very least I’ll be getting a refund for the pilot hat I purchased; I only bought it to mix with my pirate outfit.

The other stuff in the upcoming patch is really neat, including the account wardrobe. Account-bound ascended gear is a thankfully nice step but still not enough to make me eager to attain it; I have characters that use radically different gear so it doesn’t really save any work for me. I’m looking forward to hunting traits and giving all my characters mad king’s memories.

You guys, though.. look. You gotta stop giving character customization in the form of hats, backpacks, and outfits with the occasional shoulder piece mixed in.

I realize armor sets are more work.. but guess what? That ’isn’t possible’ is there again, developer speak for ‘we have different priorities right now.’

For all I care you could repurpose one of your living story teams and give us new appearances to work for.

Mochi.7083:

The sad thing? That scenario Twyll just put together is basically exactly what’s happening here. It might seem ridiculous, but if you switch a few words around, you get the same tripe they’ve been feeding us for the last two days.

They’re feeding it to you with tape

no tape with my hamburger please. some fries and a drink will do.

Ezekiel.1985:

Mochi.7083:

The sad thing? That scenario Twyll just put together is basically exactly what’s happening here. It might seem ridiculous, but if you switch a few words around, you get the same tripe they’ve been feeding us for the last two days.

They’re feeding it to you with tape

Tripe taped to more tripe wrapped in more tape and some shiny paper that hopes to detract from the fact that what they’re really giving us is, in fact, just a cow stomach. That is to say… tripe.

Wow… where to start?

Okay, first of all, let’s start with what ANet should have done to meet their goals and ours.

Each character has their base armor, as according to their class. This, and the wardrobe, would function as expected so far.

Next, they would have three different sets of slots. One for town clothes, and one for each of the other two armor weights. So, if you’re an Elementalist, you have your base armor of light, and then you have just the “paper doll” stuff for medium armor, heavy armor, and town clothes.

You can put the appropriate kinds of armor into each, and everything runs off of the stats of your base armor. You can change to any of the four slots for appearance, however.

What does this do for the player?

• Town clothes are usable in combat.
• Extra costume choices, allowing even greater customization.
• A reason to collect armor parts not of your character’s base armor weight.

What does this do for ANet?

• More Transmutation sales, as people now have 4 outfits per character to play with.
• Gold sink from people using the market to get more cosmetic parts, as well as base parts to transmute them onto.
• Increased desire to chase down extra armor for appearance’s sake means players get extra play from the already existing content.
• Any armor part of any armor weight (including town clothes) is an option for every character.
• Increased outfit options means that dyes also become more useful, raising the value of them as well.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

As always we ask you to try out the new system of customization and see what’s available to you. I think many people will be surprised by how many pieces have become armor compatible. We hope the benefits to the outfit system and wardrobe in terms of future support and additions will be clear, and you can look forward to more new outfits coming very soon.

As others have said, if you go forward with your plans, I won’t be trying your new system. I’ll demand refunds on all of the items I have that become tonics, and use those gems to coast until my friends find a new game to jump to. You’ve driven most of them away already, and my loyalty to them is far greater than anything you can offer. I’d hoped this update would bring them back, not drive the last of them away.

Conncept.7638:

Guys if you think his points on the technical reasons are contradictory its because you have no idea how modeling and animation works. Quit being know-it-alls and learn about the issues before just assuming they’er giving excuses.

(snip)

The thing is, at this point we’re not even asking to be able to mix different armor weights. A few people mentioned it early in the thread back when we were being all hopeful, but it’s more of a pipe dream than anything; an addition to the argument, not the foundation of it. Simply retaining the ability to mix town clothes with other town clothes is what we want; and since we already can mix town clothes with town clothes, doesn’t that make it far more feasible to be able to continue to do so? Isn’t it more work to do something like turning a T-shirt into a tonic that also has to include pants and shoes and such, when that T-shirt could just be used the way it’s already used instead?

The problem is that the “answer” provided talked about how difficult it is to mix armor weights, but as it is town clothes and armor won’t mix anyways, so that’s entirely moot.

The only possible argument for single-slot Outfits is that if ANet wants to make things that are only compatible with themselves in future, such as a chicken suit or something as previously mentioned, it would have to take up every slot. Well, some town clothes already eclipse more than one slot; what’s to keep them from making any future single-slot Outfits just eclipse every other slot the same way the Witch’s Outfit eclipses pants?

chemiclord.3978:

In my experience, I have generally found when a developer digs in their heels like this in spite of a very vocal protest, it’s not because they want to.

My completely non-snarky guess at what happened;
(snip)
- The new model is quicker to produce and costs less in terms of resources, hopefully giving Arena.net a better return on investment and trying to appeal to those who ignored town clothes because they were deemed pointless. They know they’re kittening off the group that liked the old way… but they really can’t do anything for it.

The problem, though, if it’s a monetary issue… why on Earth would they go to the trouble of adding pants and shoes and whatnot to vests that have become tonics, or making any of the other extensive changes they’ll have to make to get this single-slot Outfit thing to work? Or, they could even keep the paper doll and turn it into Outfits rather than Town Clothes, keep up the pretense that they’ll release multi-slot Outfits in the future, and then just make sets of things that go in one slot and eclipse the other slots (like the Witch outfit eclipsing pants, mentioned above) so they don’t have to worry about seams and can make things faster and cheaper.

Sure, that would be a kitten move, but if their motivation is monetary, it would also be a much smarter one; and it would also not tick people off nearly so much because it would be just a reduction in the customization of future items, not a reduction in the customization of future items and past items. Honestly, I’d rather they be a little less honest if that’s the case: keep the old town clothes mix-and-matchable, then just start pumping out non-mixable sets that override them, but at least we get to keep what we had!

Instead, they’re wasting time and money AND making people unhappy. I just don’t see how that could be possible except as a result of incompetence and/or miscommunication. (Which is totally understandable when you consider that this is a long-term project being worked on by many people— yeah, miscommunication and screw-ups are probably going to happen.) If I had to hazard a guess regarding the cause of their obstinacy? Human nature: it’s hard to admit you’ve made a mistake, it’s easy to get defensive and dig in your heels instead, and it’s just plain difficult to work together with other people to fix something that’s gone horribly wrong when they’re all getting embarrassed and defensive too— even if the fix seems easy to people who aren’t stuck inside the emotional boiler with you, trying to get people to calm down enough to implement it without losing their heads.

No matter what the motivation and what the explanation, there’s a better way to go about it than this. I just hope they decide to listen and do the thing that’s both easier AND less likely to make people angry. I continue to hold out hope that they will come around before I have to decide whether or not to hold on to my tonicified and outfitized town clothes in the hopes that they’ll fix them eventually, once the psychological defense mechanisms wear off.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

We do understand and sincerely apologize that there are creative combinations of town clothes that will not exist anymore. Many have asked why remove town clothes as a concept. It boils down to we believe better armor skinning and the outfit system is something we can add more options to more often and will produce a better supported RP game for everyone with more variety in the future. In short, a healthier game.

If your apology is truly that sincere you ought to offer us refunds not just for the items that will be turned into tonics, but all items that will no longer be what they were, because to many of us they have lost their purpose and would not have purchased if we had we known. You are destroying options that we have been happy with for a very long time. You are removing variety, not adding to it.

I believe a healthier game would be one where the developers actually listens to their playerbase and ask for their input before removing content. Especially when it is content that many have spent a lot of flesh world money on.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

To expand more on what I mean by better support, It helps if you think of town clothes as a 4th weight class of armor. Clothing was meant to offer visual options that break the class roles, however we were never completely happy with the way it was isolated from the rest of the game and still felt largely the same. Many pieces could have easily been mistaken for light or medium armor. In many ways it was more akin to building an alt character because town-clothes and armor were so separated. Additionally, every time we added something to town-clothes, it didn’t really help someone building their light, medium, or heavy look. And there was no way to add combat gear fairly without creating 3 versions on the back end (light, medium, and heavy). As a customization platform and sustainable expansion design it left a lot to be desired.

Town clothes did fine as a fourth class of armour since it gave us the option to use clothes that were not class specific; they were casual (or fancy) clothes for the characters to use while not saving Tyria. It was a nice break, and the reason I liked them. They are incredibly important to us roleplayers because they did nothing to create a light, medium or heavy look.

It might have left some to be desired, but this solution of yours has even more left to be desired. Town clothes has been a great customisation platform because it adds style options that goes beyond class limitations, and I would have been happy to keep the town clothes panel as it is now for those items that you cannot or will not code to be usable in combat. Even if they cannot be used in combat, they add a lot to my gameplay experience.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Outfits give us a way to create highly stylized looks that aren’t constrained to armor slots or weight class. In addition to armor skins that are easier and cheaper to collect across characters and the account dye system we do believe the options across a players whole account are much more attractive now. You’ll see more outfits coming out this summer and additions to the game more often usable by your characters.

No, outfits are giving you the way to add outfits that will look the same on everyone since you are removing our ability to customise it ourselves. They might be stylised, but they will be in your style, not the players’. And put frankly, your design team’s taste levels are frequently questionable at best. While I do appreciate it being easier to access dyes and some skins, there is nothing attractive about removing customisation options. More outfits being released later means nothing to me; do you actually think I will feel secure buying cosmetic content from you ever again?

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Yes, we do have to give up some of our current closet space and clothing to fit the new wardrobe in. Again, apologies for that.

It is quite rude to barge into someone else’s closet unasked to destroy their clothes.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

We hope the benefits to the outfit system and wardrobe in terms of future support and additions will be clear, and you can look forward to more new outfits coming very soon.

Some of the anger and frustration we feel would easily be let go of if only you would actually answer our questions about what we will lose. For example, some single items were also available in the Rider’s and Aviator’s sets; do these count as the sets that will become one pieces? If so, what will happen to those that bought them as single pieces?

You have had the resources to, if you cared, ask the playerbase how we would feel about a change like this. Since you decided not to, it is easy to get the impression that you did not.

You opened by saying that you understand, but it really does not seem like you do.

I understand the difficulties with mixing and matching town clothes with armor, but I don’t understand why we can’t have the ability to mix and match town clothes with other town clothes.

There were some great possibilities for mixing and matching town clothes, even with the limited amount of town clothes in the game. I personally really enjoyed mixing and matching outfits with different hats (like horns with the prince’s outfit, earmuffs with the winter’s day outfit, reading glasses with the default asura town clothes…). I, personally, would much rather be able to keep the ability to mix and match town clothes than make them usable in combat.

Also, question: Will the default town clothes still be accessible?

So I can’t use my hoodie with mad king shoes and devil horns with default leggings?!!
kittenSU!
What the hell does this need to happen?!?!?!? Okay, give us a way for “better” customisation while it isn’t, then from the other side, steal one???!

What the kitten goes on there in those cubicles?!?!

Twyll Blackleaf.9641:

The thing is, at this point we’re not even asking to be able to mix different armor weights. A few people mentioned it early in the thread back when we were being all hopeful, but it’s more of a pipe dream than anything; an addition to the argument, not the foundation of it. Simply retaining the ability to mix town clothes with other town clothes is what we want; and since we already can mix town clothes with town clothes, doesn’t that make it far more feasible to be able to continue to do so? Isn’t it more work to do something like turning a T-shirt into a tonic that also has to include pants and shoes and such, when that T-shirt could just be used the way it’s already used instead?

Muselord.1078:

I understand the difficulties with mixing and matching town clothes with armor, but I don’t understand why we can’t have the ability to mix and match town clothes with other town clothes.

This is really all that I am asking for when it comes to the town clothes change; the ability to mix town clothes with other town clothes. I do not care if I cannot wear my town clothes in combat or mix them with armour sets. That is not what I bought them for. I just want to be able to keep what I bought, in the form I bought it.