Guild Wars 2

I’ve made the same remark on many posts now so I won’t go into it all again. But in case devs are looking, I’ll add my weight again. YES PLEASE

What are you even talking about?

Last I checked in League of Legends, you unlocked one skin per champion. Buying one skin doesn’t unlock ALL of those character’s skins for your account, nor does buying one “Beach Skin” unlock ALL skins of that type across all characters.

I mean, there are bundle packs you can buy that have multiple skins… but shockingly, they cost more than a single skin.

This isn’t even apples and oranges. This is like apples and lamb chops.

chemiclord.3978:

Last I checked in League of Legends, you unlocked one skin per champion. Buying one skin doesn’t unlock them all for your account, nor does buying one “Beach Skin” unlock ALL skins of that type across all characters.

It unlocks the skin permanently is the point. There are also skin packs and regular skin discounts up for grabs all the time. This model makes skins easily collectible and people more inclined to want to catch them all.

The deeply flawed Guild Wars 2 model on the other hand has the opposite effect. Since skins are gone once they are used up and you have to grind out an entirely new set if you want another skin which takes more of your finite bag space you can’t really catch them all. This is all very counterproductive when it comes to actually selling the skins since very few players are going to be willing to go through all that hassle. They will buy one skin they enjoy and leave it at that.

Clearly you should be able to discern why one system is superior to the other from a buyer’s perspective. You did after all fail to provide a counterexample.

Fungalfoot.7213:

Clearly you should be able to discern why one system is superior to the other from a buyer’s perspective. You did after all fail to provide a counterexample.

So… if you buy a skin in GW2, it’s not permanent? It disappears off your character after a while?

That’s news to me.

Personally, I don’t mind either way. Then again, I haven’t dropped a lot of money into armor skins, mostly because I find most of them not worth my money. That’s the bigger problem as far as I’m concerned. I’m not interested in buying the lot of them whether they are single use or account bound.

And you still haven’t addressed the pushback they’d inevitably get from the players who HAVE already invested a lot of money in this system outside of “kitten them” as far as I can tell.

Should they NOT get refunds? Because you’re asking Arena.net to hand back money in the HOPES that enough people like you will buy in.

I think you’d be very hard pressed to find a company willing to trade money already in their pocket for the indeterminate chance of more.

firstly why are you comparing League of Legends to Guild Wars 2 it’s 2 very very different games and you can’t use the same business model, and the day I can spend my 900k IP on skins happen that’d be great. (no relation to gold to gems, just sayin)

you still need proof and by proof I mean computations, expectations, annual income and stuff you don’t create a business plan and just say put this and that. didn’t they teach this?? god.

They disappear when you decide to overwrite them. They don’t disappear in League of Legends when you decide to try out a new skin. You’re free to switch as you desire and that is exactly why skins sell so incredibly well in that game. The system is user friendly and buyers feel like they’re getting their moneys worth out of it. The model works and Riot has successfully built an empire around it. The key is keeping your customers coming back for more and I believe that is missing here.

In order to retain your skins here your only alternative is to grind out multiple sets or shell out even more dosh for transmutation splitters while unused skins continue consuming bank space. I’m sure I’m not the only one with several tabs filled with event skins that I’ll never actually get to use due to how bad the system currently is and it really cannot be overstated just how bad it is.

Yes, I’m sure there would be some initial outrage over it but that happens with every change. Besides, you have to realize that the people who bought multiple copies of the same skin are in the vast minority here. You can’t let that hold back the game from improving and evolving as necessary in order to stay competitive.

But again… I’m not trying to completely dump on the idea.

I’m trying to get you to see the flaws in just, “Hey, we’re gonna change this!” You need something in place to placate those you’re going to kitten off with a change. Arena.net was already burned by this lack of forethought just last week, after all. It didn’t matter what they did, the forum was loaded with people outright furious.

Asking Arena.net to offer refunds to people with multiple skins is a really tough sell from a company standpoint… you’re not going to find many companies willing to chase money they MIGHT get with money they ALREADY HAVE.

On the other hand, completely kitten ing off your customers, no matter how small you think they are, simply isn’t a good business move. They learned that lesson last week.

This isn’t the first time this suggestion has come up, and the impression I’ve gotten from Arena.net’s lukewarm reception of the idea is that they either think there’s NOT more money waiting for them with such a change, or that the monetary gain isn’t large enough to be worth the headache of dealing with the small group that would be incensed by the change.

Another problem is you KNOW that if you make this just a matter of gem sales, you’ll have another group whining that it’s not fair you can get skins you can swap out at whim if you spend “RWM” but not skins that you were to craft or purchase with in-game currency. How do you placate THAT group who will start comparing that gem-store advantage to “Pay to Win?”

(Yes, I know that argument would be stupid, but it IS an argument that would be aired, and they are just as much a customer as you are.)

If you’re going to completely overhaul a system in place for a year, you need to have ALL your bases covered, or it WILL blow up in your face.

lordkrall.7241:

Aye, while the idea itself is good in order to do a change like this it must guarantee that they still net the same income, which is quite unlikely.

Clearly the 1 use skins do sell quite well atm so they don’t really, from a business point of view, have any reason to change it.

I do not buy skins. ever.. If it worked like the achievement gear i would have got them all.

I was happy to make another exotic item to put a new skin on so my character could change looks, but with ascended gear being orders of magnitude more expensive, this option will be gone with the addition of ascended armor. Once I have an expensive skin on a piece of ascended, that is it for me.

Case in point, the flame kissed light armor skin. My mesmer has both cultural and profane armor but I am saving my mats for ascended armor and since I am not putting a gem store skin over another gem store skin or my cultural set, I didn’t buy it. Very cool skin (regardless of the controversy around it), but I didn’t spend the money on it since it would require me wasting either money or time in game.

Once expensive skins are on expensive armor, their gem store skin sales will gradually decrease. I’m not throwing away money or effort, and without a way to preserve my previous investments, I won’t be buying more. I wouldn’t even care if it was like dyes where you have to get it for each character, but until I can change up my looks like dyes without wasting previous resources, I won’t be buying many more pieces from the gem store.

I really don’t think that there would be all that many enraged by the proposed changes. Most people, as this thread shows, seem extremely welcoming to it. Yes, it would screw over the precious few individuals who did buy several copies of the same skins but in the end they too would win out under the new system. Maybe ANet could even introduce a vendor to which these players could exchange their redundant skins for gems as a token of goodwill.

That said, the bottom line here is that this system is bad and it’s not going to help the game last or grow. If ArenaNet wants people to go wild over skins they have to make them collectible and they have to make the collecting itself a rewarding process which makes the player feel good about it. Having to overwrite your precious skin to wear a new one is an awful experience and it really shouldn’t be this way.

chemiclord.3978:

But again… I’m not trying to completely dump on the idea.

Asking Arena.net to offer refunds to people with multiple skins is a really tough sell from a company standpoint… you’re not going to find many companies willing to chase money they MIGHT get with money they ALREADY HAVE.

Do you even think about what you are writing here?
Because i don´t think you are
Any company that doesn´t invest money back, one way or the other, will close shop, pure and simple.

One thing that gets on my nerves pretty heavily is the fact that all of those supporting the current system are only talking about money profits.
What about a customer friendly system, you know, to have happy customers???
Never crossed your mind huh?
Shouldn´t that be somewhat important aswell?

Personally i will never buy any Gemstore Skins until a wardrobe system is in place.
Not because i don´t like the skins, but i don´t want to lose the skins i already accumulated over the time. They are also massively overpriced in my opinion, especially for single use.

Lets have this discussion in one or two years again, and i am pretty sure a lot more people would agree that there is no way around a better system.

Fungalfoot.7213:

I really don’t think that there would be all that many enraged by the proposed changes. Most people, as this thread shows, seem extremely welcoming to it. Yes, it would screw over the precious few individuals who did buy several copies of the same skins but in the end they too would win out under the new system. Maybe ANet could even introduce a vendor to which these players could exchange their redundant skins for gems as a token of goodwill.

That said, the bottom line here is that this system is bad and it’s not going to help the game last or grow. If ArenaNet wants people to go wild over skins they have to make them collectible and they have to make the collecting itself a rewarding process which makes the player feel good about it. Having to overwrite your precious skin to wear a new one is an awful experience and it really shouldn’t be this way.

I’d have to agree with chemiclord on this one. You appear to be making a lot of unfounded assumptions about how many people this would tick off. I wouldn’t say that it’s safe for us to presume anything about the magnitude of damage the proposed changes would cause. Your language trumps up the finite number of people who have commented on this thread and undermined a group of players who have not commented in this thread at all. Not to mention, the gem refund is most likely a customer support only function as they have no history of doing otherwise with regard to refunds. I don’t really think that anyone disagrees that the implementing a unified wardrobe system is bad for “the players” (prior arguments notwishtanding). But arguments for implementing a mechanic of the store that benefits customers only and creates short to long term losses for the company usually don’t fly. I’m not arguing against making this awesome feature that I myself might be interested in but I do feel that people need to have more measured expectations.

There are risk assessments made in making changes like this. The company has to identify what they expect to gain and lose from potential sales/refunds/etc. and if the data supports making the change then they will. Making this sort of change is almost never about making a “customer first” policy more than it is taking calculated risks. Sometimes taking a loss is necessary to avoid taking a greater loss. In other words, if they are losing potential customers who do not support the transmute stone system because they are making more from existing customers, then that’s what they’ll do. In fact, the key and chest system of the gem store is based largely on that principle. Still, this is not to say that this will never happen. I’m just curious if their data supports making this change, they did mention it themselves that something like this might be coming.

ITT: pseudo economists, business professionals and philosophers who care more about Arenanet’s profit than their own well being.

You people…are disappointing.

There is a way to implement something that could be good for everyone.

Introduce a new crystal in the Store, let’s call it ‘transmutation essence’ that is above the other two transmutation items and slightly more expensive.

This crystal ‘copies’ the skin of an item and makes it reusable in a PVE locker.

Win win situation:
- You don’t want to reuse an item? normal crystals are good enough for you.
- Want to make a skin everlasting? use the more expensive crystal

I for sure would use a lot of those crystals for in-game skins that I want to keep and I am sure that with the bunch of collectors running this game, the new crystals would sell quite well.

Sure, Anet would not sell crystals each time you wanted a reskin, but they would surely sell more crystals in the long run with those new improved crystals because I am sure a lot of people would use them on lots of skins in the game that are currently not worth thinking about.

My 2 cents.

I think they can sell more skins when they apply this change. Now I can’t change skins back, so I am not using more than one look on any character. If they give them endless use on your account I expect ArenaNet to sell more of them instead of less, as people will be changing looks more freely.

Valion.4638:

I do not buy skins. ever.. If it worked like the achievement gear i would have got them all.

Yes, and I am sure there are some people like that.
But are there enough people to make up for the loss of sales of one-use skins and transmutation stones?
Quite clearly ArenaNet doesn’t think so. And I would agree with that.
One way they could mitigate their losses would be to increase the price of skins quite a bit, but then people wouldn’t buy them anyway.

It is a nuisance that they are one time only items, but in a way it’s balanced. I bought the toxic dagger skin using in game gold and it costed me 50g. Now given the price of the more rare weapons in the game, it’s not really that bad.

BeoErgon.9107:

There is a way to implement something that could be good for everyone.

Introduce a new crystal in the Store, let’s call it ‘transmutation essence’ that is above the other two transmutation items and slightly more expensive.

This crystal ‘copies’ the skin of an item and makes it reusable in a PVE locker.

Win win situation:
- You don’t want to reuse an item? normal crystals are good enough for you.
- Want to make a skin everlasting? use the more expensive crystal

I for sure would use a lot of those crystals for in-game skins that I want to keep and I am sure that with the bunch of collectors running this game, the new crystals would sell quite well.

Sure, Anet would not sell crystals each time you wanted a reskin, but they would surely sell more crystals in the long run with those new improved crystals because I am sure a lot of people would use them on lots of skins in the game that are currently not worth thinking about.

My 2 cents.

They don’t need another teir of transmutation gems, just make the skins “items” that require the current gem to transmute. We get permanent skins, and they get a boost in consumable sales and/or gold sink

lordkrall.7241:

Flubble.8093:

they did it in gw1, just something else we loved about guild wars 1 that isn’t in gw2.

They also required you to pay real money in GW1. While in GW2 you can technically pay for it with gold.

Have you seen the current Gold > Gem prices? GW1 skins were relatively cheaper, with unlimited use. And you could just buy it for it’s actual price, and not be forced to only a few options of purchasing gems, the cheapest being £8.50..

I think it’s a fantastic idea, but it’s far too profitable for Anet to abandon the current system, and risk disappointing their NCsoft overlords. Gaming companies simply do not care about customer satisfaction anymore, unless it brings in the dough.

Grim Jr.8946:

Look at all the accountants and businessmen here you guys must make millions if your’re that smart, oh my god I wonder why Anet didn’t think about this!

Grim Jr.8946:

you still need proof and by proof I mean computations, expectations, annual income and stuff you don’t create a business plan and just say put this and that. didn’t they teach this?? god.

You might be surprised what some of us do for a living.

Any business without any capacity in external sensing is doomed to fail in 5 years. Didn’t they teach this?? Seriously, this is business 101 – the 5 forces model and PESTLE are taught on the first day.

Also, accountants have nothing to do with business analysis.

Sure Anet would need a strat plan and some decent analysis, however from simply looking at the number of people asking for this it would appear to have a decent business case.

And that’s all anyone here is asking for. A lot of people are saying ‘hey Anet, if skins were reusable I would buy some’. This is a clear business opportunity.

Sure they could rework the whole system and refund gems to customers who have bought duplicate skins (losing no money but has an opportunity cost until these customers use all their gems).

Or they could simply keep the “one time” skins and add new “reusable” skins that cost double.

May not be a fair comparison but the unlimited harvesting tools was kinda’ similar, first they were soulbound on use, then Anet listened and changed them to accountbound, anyone want to venture a guess if the change was a profitable one for Anet?

Personally I’m more likely to buy a item that can be moved within the same account from toon to toon than a soulbound on use item.

This is the reason i don’t buy skins at all. They are way too expensive for only being single use, they should be added to the achievement skins claim thing or a special gem store skin claim thing and have it backwards compatible with previously bought skins like the day 1 hat.

They can even add a limit to how many you can use at a single time and each extra copy of the skin you buy you get an extra use. For example if you buy a skin once you can use it on one character but if you delete the skin or transmute it to something else you can then use it on another character, if you buy 2 sets of it you can use on 2 characters at a time and so on.

Saying they are making too much profit too care is probably not true at all. I have not bought any items BECAUSE it works like this. I have a feeling there are many others like me.

Once the cat was out of the bag with Zenith skins, why would I pay money for a single use item.

The day they implement this is the day I finally purchase some armor.

Tsyras.5274:

Saying they are making too much profit too care is probably not true at all. I have not bought any items BECAUSE it works like this. I have a feeling there are many others like me.

Once the cat was out of the bag with Zenith skins, why would I pay money for a single use item.

The day they implement this is the day I finally purchase some armor.

It is also the day when they have to find other ways (higher prices, more “needed” items in the gem store and so on) to make profits in order to make up for the loss of profit from said change.

lordkrall.7241:

Tsyras.5274:

Saying they are making too much profit too care is probably not true at all. I have not bought any items BECAUSE it works like this. I have a feeling there are many others like me.

Once the cat was out of the bag with Zenith skins, why would I pay money for a single use item.

The day they implement this is the day I finally purchase some armor.

It is also the day when they have to find other ways (higher prices, more “needed” items in the gem store and so on) to make profits in order to make up for the loss of profit from said change.

I have a feeling the percentage of repeat purchases on armor skin has been REALLY small (obviously I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt most people would buy $10 armor skins twice).

I was in the gem store about to buy armor, assuming it worked like Zenith items, but I did a quick Google search to be safe. So they lost my $10 already. They also lost any other $10 I would have spent on other characters to have a skin.

With no monthly fee I have had no issue putting some rl money into the gem store, but I refuse to put it into this current armor skin system until it is “fixed”.

But in order to maintain the same income (unless they increase the price quite a bit), they will need to get at least x new buyers for all those who bought x amount of sets for their characters.

They will also lose out quite a bit on Transmutation Crystals.

It would be nice if they where unlimited use on the first character you used it on.

All skins should be unlimited use. They shouldn’t even be items, they should be something you collect, like achievements. A transmutation stone is what should be the limited uses, not the skin. For a cosmetic end game, the implementation they have is terrible.

Hopefully, the wardrobe they’re wanting to add is not just a copy of the PvP skin locker.

All skins should be memorized like a dye, to be used whenever you want at no charge.

If they want to make it per character, that’s fine.

When you use a transmutation crystal or stone, not only should it do what it does now, but the source used for the look should be memorized like a dye so if all you a
Want to do is apply that look later, you can. Just like those Zephyr skins.

As it stands now, I’ll have to make a full set of ascended, and then 6 more pieces (2 chests, legs, boots) to cover the 3 looks I like to have.

What I’d really want is to be able to have 20 looks, without carrying around and building all that armor, simply by stopping and applying the skins to each piece from my wardrobe.

I’d still have to pay one time to learn each piece (and this is where I can see them wanting to do this by character, and I wouldn’t blame them), but then I would just know it, like a dye.

Some of you are straying off from the main topic of this thread.

“GEM SKINS should be unlimited use.”

Some of you are talking about all skins overall, which is a terrible idea. Armor and weapon skins that can be traded amongst players through the trading post like the quaggan and charr backpacks, the Bazaar of Four Winds aspect back skins, the Flame and Frost Jetpack, the Monocle from Aetherblade Retreat, etc. Those skins have value, there’s markets involved. Making them unlimited use after the first use, even character-wise, would plummet their value on the trading post. Just imagine people using the first Halloween armor and weapon skins with unlimited charges, or the Desert Rose/Zephyr Rutsack skins as well, surely the prices for these items would plummet downwards.

How about the skins that require Black Lion Claim Tickets? Those were never available straight out of the Gemstore since acquisition was randomly generated from chests, with the exception of the Wintersday weapons. These are also sold in the trading post, so what I said above applies to these skins too.

Now, living story/Holiday meta rewards such as:

• Fused Gauntlets (Light/Medium/Heavy without exotic Sentinel stats)
• Sclerite Karka Shell back skin (Without exotic Settler’s stats)
• Fervid Censer back skin (Without rare Settler’s stats)
• Gas Mask skin
• King Toad’s Backpack cover
• Storm Wizard’s Backpack cover
• Mad Memoires back skin (Green Edition without masterwork stats)
• Mad Memoires: Complete Edition back skin (Without rare stats)
• Antitoxic Injector back skin
• Toy Maker’s Bag back skin (Without the rare stats)
• Holographic Shattered Dragon Wing cover
• Wings of the Sunless back skin
• Slickpack back skin
• Horns of the Dragon skin (Light, Medium, and Heavy)
• Mask of the Night skin

Should be unlimited use, since they cannot be sold to other players and are discontinued.

Back in the first Guild Wars game, this was the case. There was two little NPC’s that would charge you 10 gold (what could be described as a couple of copper coins in GW2) per festival hat to duplicate them on any character, for as many copies as you liked. The costumes ArenaNet and NCSoft sold in GW1 were also available for duplication through the Costume Maker NPC’s that often stood alongside Festival Hat Makers.

Festival hats and costumes were also worn in combat if the player desired, something else GW1 did right.

I haven’t read the enire thread but i read several posts to get the idea.

Yes Anet is making money of skin sales as they are now, and they could make so much more if there was some kind of unlock system in place. My guess is that they are afraid that they will loose money because someone who would potentially buy the skin they like more than once would not have to. I buy gems with real money (I work and don’t have as much time to farm, so I separate gem purchases with game money. I buy stuff like transmute stones, makeover kits, character slots, server changes etc) I’ve never bough a skin only because there are none that I like enough to spend gems on.

I would propose a solution to meet each-other in the middle:

Buying a skin unlocks it for your account forever for unlimited use.

To negate some potential losses, the solution could be the following: To apply the unlimited skin you would need a transmute stone (same rules apply as for other gear, blues for 80 gear and yellows for lower)

As proof to the fact that people would be Ok paying money for unlimited use, I would like to point out how many went and bough GW1 + EOTN just to have the HOM unlimited skins rewards

Pros:
1- Anet still continuously makes money of Gem purchases because people still need the transmute stones. Transmute stones cost much less than the skins, and most of us have hordes of the yellow ones anyway, but they would still generate income that Anet needs. To make it fair maybe the 1st time you buy the skin it would come with 5 transmute crystals, or just usable as a traditional skin only once. But once you click it it’s unlocked.

2- We have unlimited use of the skin, when levelling alts, when wanting to mix and match a set (only using some pieces of the skin, all while wanting to keep the skins on another toon as well)

3- The more efficient farmers or money makers will have more incentive to buy gems with gold (to buy more transmute stones) which will decrease the inflation after some period of time

4- Anet could more effectively measure the popularity on the skins they release, and use that feedback to design future skins or amours. Maybe they will stop with the medium trench coats….

5- People will feel “safer” to buy the skins, because they would know they will forever be at their disposal, even if their account gets wiped by a hacker and items don’t get re-established.

Cons:

I really don’t see any, since the addition in the price would appear only after the “free after purchase” initial use

Not just that some people refuse to buy skins because they are one time use only, but there are people, myself included, that refuse to spend any real money in gemstore, because the bussines model is bad and prices are just…
700 gems for town clothes? Why?
+1 Character slot – 800 gems? Why? You would think they would be happy that their players want to create more characters, that means they enjoy the game, but with 800 gems for one char slot…. well, no thanks.
I don’t want to even talk about the “RNG boxes” like the dyes ones….

In general, i have absolutely no problem with gemstore, but i have the problem with how the gemstore operates now, with those prices and rng crap..

I agree, skins should be permanent. One of my end game goals are collecting expensive skins i like. But i can’t really collect some of them, since i can’t “store” them anywhere. It’s buy and use on one char. Lame.

They could make them permanent upon unlock and start adding more skins to the game and gemstore. Right now you have few skins that are way too expensive for one time use only. If there were a lot more skins in gemstore and they were permanent upon unlock, i’m sure anet would earn a lot of money.
And they could also put some new animations and emotes. That always sell very well in game afaik.