Guild Wars 2

I think it would be nice to be able to, like a combination of the outfit/wardrobe system, cosmetically slot an unlocked harvesting tool’s visual effects to appear while still getting the effects of another tool. Sure, it would require buying a whole new tool just for the sake of cosmetics, but most people could at least get some use out of it on an alt (at least unless/until we get better shared tool capabilities).

So the idea would be, you can use a Watchwork Pick in effect, but visually, for example, use the Cosmic Pick.

Note sure how it would work with regards to animations that take longer to execute than others (for example, some Harvest tools take ~50% animation time), and how that would mesh with a replaced cosmetic animation, and if the duration of the cast would be inherited from the cosmetic version or the effect version. I would really hope the effect/equipped version. While it would be nice to make all of them have the same stats (drops and animation times) for the sake of letting people just use whatever they want, I also like having the benefits of using certain ones and reaping more out of it than normal, so I don’t really want them all normalized (and in some cases, fixed), so I think adding cosmetic options to harvest tools is the best option.

I don’t think it would hurt to add non-Gem Store cosmetic versions, cause someone may want it. It could also cost a Transmutation charge or something to apply, but I want it to work like outfits, not wardrobe, so it doesn’t need to transmute every item, as that wouldn’t work well with the consumable tools.

Thinking about this again, as it’s still relevant, and I would update this to include the following:

Make all currently sold Infinite-use Tools gain a “skin” for their animations. This should be able to be done retroactively, which will automatically grant people the skins on log-in, unless they have destroyed their tools (would be nice if you could give the skin to any account that has bought the tool for their own account, using the Gem Store history).

Account Upgrade purchases that unlock access to infinite Account-bound Black Lion Tools. Each tool must be unlocked individually, and it costs 1600-2000 Gems to do so. Once unlocked, you can claim as many as you like from the Unlocked Rewards window in the Achievement tab. The Black Lion Tools use the same animation/skin as all of the other skins do for non-infinite-use tools.
I think sales would ultimately go up for all tools if this came out, because I’m stingy about spending any money buying the tools because I can’t use them on more than one character. If it was moreso about unlocking the skin/mechanic of the tool, I would buy them more (just like I do with outfits/gliders), if I knew that I already had the mechanic of never restocking covered on all characters forever. I know you can use shared inventory slots, but it’s extremely tedious to do so, and I would pay a lot to unlock the mechanic just as a part of the game.

The base Black Lion Tools can be transmuted, giving the cosmetic look of any other tool skin. If you want to keep it simple, make the transmuted tool take on the animation time and bonus rewards associated with the cosmetic tool. But if you wanted to make it better, you could have a “select stat” type option that lets you pick a mechanical perk for the tool. If possible, you could use achievements or store sales or whatever to unlock these perks. They could include:

• -50% animation/harvest time (as some harvest tools already have; probably just automatically unlocked when you buy any Gem Store tool, including Black Lion Tools; usable either only on harvesting tool, or on all tools),
• chance at Watchwork Sprocket when gathering resources (as Watchwork Pick has; unlocked on Watchwork Pick skin unlock; usable on either only Pick or on any/all tools when unlocked)
• chance at Snowflake when gathering resources (as Frostbitten tools have; could be unlocked from Wintersday achievement or sold in Store; usable on any tool when unlocked)
• potentially more if they want to add them, for variety, but they may really not want to anymore

Also, I would add a trade for all current harvesting tools to Black Lion Specialists where you can exchange any harvest tool in for 1 Black Lion Tool Claim Ticket. You can use these tickets to unlock additional account-bound tool skin consumables (available skins of any tool take 2 tickets, unavailable skins either take 3 tickets or are unavailable). This is a way for people to get retroactive use out of the no-longer needed tools for people who buy the upgrade. (You could also potentially have trades for 1 ticket to any Glider skin, but that’s just to give people value if they only have 1 ticket.)

You may or may not want to also sell the pure skin for the tools for less than the full tool, but I think you could get away with selling the tools if you wanted. The issue with this would if you only sold the tools, and you have the ticket trades, players could get 3 skins for every 2 tools they buy, which may not be a big problem, but if you sold the skins at about 1/2 price, you wouldn’t have to worry about them getting the tickets and unlocking additional skins.

Well, if data-mining is any kind of clue, we may be getting something like a character-wide (shared) set of Gathering Tools.

I suggested before that they should make unlimited farming tools craftable and sell the cosmetic animation skins on the gem store that we can change out or randomly use.