Inflexible Skin System
It’s a huge gold sink and they make money out of it (transmutation stones).
Want a new look? Buy 6 stones, buy a new set of armor.
They will never going to change it imo.
I don’t know, they’ve gotten pretty far with this transmutation system but as the game progresses it just feels more and more conveluted and, yes, inflexible.
they ripoff everyone with fine stones which you HAVE to buy no matter what, there’s no other option
And they are gemstore only. Imagine when the gem prices go so high it costs WAY too much to even get those things anymore.
GW1 AND GW2 end game is cosmetics, to put the cosmetics over such an obvious moneygate is just.. wrong.
The price of transmutation stones alone isn’t bad, only costing 40 gems per or even less if you buy them in larger bundles. Additionally you should get a fair amount of them just opening up chests with the keys you get from leveling up characters.
The problem is when you throw in everything else associated with a transmutation, such as new equipment and storage, in addition to the crystal.
I honestly wouldn’t mind having to use a transmutation stone to get unlimited access to the skin that we could select to use in the dye menu, or something of that nature. That would keep revenue coming in for them through crystals and cut the cost and inconvenience of dressing up.
It is indeed very rigid, and it doesn’t help that the cost is dependent on gem prices.
WoW’s transmogging is great because items don’t disappear and you can revert to original appearances, but can cost a lot of gold. Rift’s wardrobe function doesn’t cost a thing but doesn’t apply as easily (like, at ALL) to weapons. Haven’t played LotRO too much, but I’ve heard it also has a pretty good skin system. Dunno much about ToR either, just that it costs money to hide my helmet of all things.
Any streamlining to GW2’s transmutations would be awesome.
(edited by Smith.1826)
on the other hand how a pve locker would work? it transform the equipment you put there into skin, or should it retain the stats?
because in the first scenario, you still need to override at least the last skin you have or create a new piece of gear in order to use the skin, in the second case you cannot store more than one piece of the same armor in case it has different stats. or if the stat of a named are transmuted with the stat of a crafted gear, if you have a locker where the piece of equipment go? to the crafted slot or the named slot despite it being transmuted?
well i know i’m a little confusing, but i would like to have a solution, because it feels bad override skins you spent time to get, transmutation is not really an option any more according to me.
edit: on a side note, i remember LOTRO was amazing outfitting wise, in your hero panel you had panel with outfit option that would appear as skins while retaining the stat of the armor you were wearing. and it had a good wardrobe system.
check it out anet^^
Join the Rainbow Pride
(edited by Amadan.9451)
It’s a huge gold sink and they make money out of it (transmutation stones).
Want a new look? Buy 6 stones, buy a new set of armor.
They will never going to change it imo.
The other option is to just settle with a particular look, like I have.
But that comes with the drawback of not caring for new skins. If I’m not logging in to do some quick PvP matches, I’m participating in the events a few times just to see them. After that, I tend to just play a different game. No idea how long that will last though and I doubt many players are as lenient as I am. Most would just stop playing.
Here’s hoping the new skill and crafting progression is a good diversion until the next new system update.
As is, they could easily make a PvE locker system that requires specific achievements to open the skin brand + special item for a recipe + 10 transmutation stones + 1 fine transmutation stone + a random item gained for dismantling a special brand of equipment into the mystic forge. Use the gained item via crafting (but non-sellable/tradeable) and bam, you unlock 1(one!!!1!!11) skin. Repeat process for every skin.
Would it be grindy? Yes, but seems entirely worth it if only to pick a handful of skins that I favor the most to be able to keep. You can keep some event skins unique but the point is to give players something to work for that isn’t power-gaming stats.
For players that don’t give a flip for the next newest shiny skin because they know there is going to be a set of new skins next month, we need a more streamlined system. And I’m not even bothering with towns clothes until there’s some sort of locker for that. Why flush money down the toilet on a skin you’ll replace a few weeks later? At least give an option to pay more to be able to swap back to that paid skin later!
And they are gemstore only. Imagine when the gem prices go so high it costs WAY too much to even get those things anymore.
I don’t consider that much of a problem considering you still get the same amount of gems for real cash. If anything, it means those that have gems can flip it for more gold or people that want to spend real cash can get a huge influx of gold if they decide to trade. If gold is basically worth more, introducing more gold brings that worth down just like if gold starts having less value, you can trade it for gems to remove gold.
IMO, it’s not that you need gems for the stones, it’s that no mater how many stones you have, you need inventory slots to keep your look and that is finite.
A wardrobe system would have been better, where you equip one set for stats and another for looks. You’d then be able to equip whatever gear you wanted without affecting the other. They wouldn’t make any money off of that however, unless they sold the actual ability to create an alternate appearance, or sold the ability to equip a piece into that alternate slot (a transmutation stone that allows the skin to be equipped).
Going with their current system, an alternative method could be the ability to salvage and unlock skins. Imagine a special salvage kit that could salvage the skin off an item. This skin could then be used to unlock it for your account (skin locker) and be used in the same way the achievement skins are. It may even increase sales, especially if there was achievements for collecting these skins.
Going with their current system, an alternative method could be the ability to salvage and unlock skins. Imagine a special salvage kit that could salvage the skin off an item. This skin could then be used to unlock it for your account (skin locker) and be used in the same way the achievement skins are. It may even increase sales, especially if there was achievements for collecting these skins.
I would love a system like that – or, even better, a system that completely splits skins and stats so we could place stats in equipment slots, and then pick a skin for it based on a selection of skins we had unlocked.
Unfortunatelly, I think that’s never going to happen. I think, based on how they are (now) not available as rewards in-game, that the high level Transmutation Stones are one of the best selling items in the store. Selling a consumable that is required for each time a skin is changed is just too much more profitable than selling ways for players to unlock skins.
IMO, this is one of the highest tolls we have to pay due to the Gem Store. The skin system could have been amazing, massively better than what we currently have… But due to the Transmutation Stones, I doubt it will ever improve.
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
I envision a streamlining where you have a PVE locker that includes every skin ofeach type that you have ever equipped automatically. However you still need to use the transmutation crystals/stones to put them on your stated gear. This would allow them to continue to profit off transmutations (probably increased even) while not forcing the player to decide between having excess gear for appearance sake or choosing to lose potentially never to return skins they acquired from past living story events.
I envision a streamlining where you have a PVE locker that includes every skin ofeach type that you have ever equipped automatically. However you still need to use the transmutation crystals/stones to put them on your stated gear. This would allow them to continue to profit off transmutations (probably increased even) while not forcing the player to decide between having excess gear for appearance sake or choosing to lose potentially never to return skins they acquired from past living story events.
That would be a decent compromise.
Would rather an aspect of the game be centered around it so it takes time and effort to obtain though, half-sortof like the PvP locker, even if it still required transmutation stones.
What they need is a skin locker. All skins that you have acquired go into “inventory”..when ever you want to use that skin, you can use it at the cost of a transmute stone and maybe some karma or something. Similar to the achievement window with the achievement skins.
I wish they had the attributes separate from the skins. I don’t mind the skins being expensive, but I would like the option of looking “bad kitten” one day and “pretty in pink” another. To assist with the storage issue, you could have a personal vendor/butler that held all of your “skins” so that your could put them on at a moment’s notice. Anet could also charge a few silver each time you take the skins out.
they ripoff everyone with fine stones which you HAVE to buy no matter what, there’s no other option
Yea, nonsense. I have never bought these and had up to 9 in my bank. I must have received them either from story or daily missions. They are very rare for sure, but you do get them.
they ripoff everyone with fine stones which you HAVE to buy no matter what, there’s no other option
Yea, nonsense. I have never bought these and had up to 9 in my bank. I must have received them either from story or daily missions. They are very rare for sure, but you do get them.
Map completion. You get either a stone, a crystal or a bl key. The crystals also used to be relatively common in the bl chests. Haven’t gotten one since they made the change that added the bags of coins to the chests.
they removed it from dailies and map completion since the changed the name from fine transmutation stones to transmutation crystal
Join the Rainbow Pride
Map completion. You get either a stone, a crystal or a bl key. The crystals also used to be relatively common in the bl chests. Haven’t gotten one since they made the change that added the bags of coins to the chests.
I got 5 about a week ago from a BL chest. They still drop.
they ripoff everyone with fine stones which you HAVE to buy no matter what, there’s no other option
Yea, nonsense. I have never bought these and had up to 9 in my bank. I must have received them either from story or daily missions. They are very rare for sure, but you do get them.
Map completion. You get either a stone, a crystal or a bl key. The crystals also used to be relatively common in the bl chests. Haven’t gotten one since they made the change that added the bags of coins to the chests.
Haven’t gotten a fine transmutation stone from map completion in forever. I might get a key but it’s also likely I’ll get a normal transmutation stone or just random junk like masterwork gear.
they removed it from dailies and map completion since the changed the name from fine transmutation stones to transmutation crystal
It is still a rare drop for daily completion.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fine_Transmutation_Stone
Acquisition
- Gem Store
- Black Lion Chest (Unlocked)
- Daily Achievement (Rare)
I’ve never had to purchase any Fine Stones. I’ve played since the game came out and have gone through dozens of them for transmuting 80 gear and I still have a few left in my bank.
| [Free Ports For All “Not So Secret” JP Needs (and 1st Try Dive Tips)] |
| [Classic Thread: “all is vain”] |
(edited by StinVec.3621)
they ripoff everyone with fine stones which you HAVE to buy no matter what, there’s no other option
Yea, nonsense. I have never bought these and had up to 9 in my bank. I must have received them either from story or daily missions. They are very rare for sure, but you do get them.
then you must one of those people who don’t care about ‘style’ and wear same armor since game was launched. There’s no way in 11 months you couldn’t be in need of fine stones if you mix match armors for your characters
if there was an easy-swap method, I’d be much more inclined to collect armor skins. For the most part, it has been “Does that skin look better than what I’m wearing now? Eh.. maybe? I guess I won’t buy it”
I can’t see them ever introducing an easy to use wardrobe system like the one in Rift, simply because of the revenue this system likely makes (at least, compared to the $0 a rift like system would).
That said, I’d be willing to drop $20 on a one time pay to get that kind of system. Its unlikely I’ll spend more than that in gems for stones, and it would save me a lot of effort…
I’ve suggested improvements many times and hope they do pick up on it.
I would use introduce the PvP equipment creation panel from GW1. From their you can make soulbound items using any combination of skins, stats or runes you have added to your locker.
To add a skin, stat or upgrade into the locker, you use some store item bought with gems.
then you must one of those people who don’t care about ‘style’ and wear same armor since game was launched. There’s no way in 11 months you couldn’t be in need of fine stones if you mix match armors for your characters
Just to clarify, there’s a difference between style and “OOOHH SHINY SKINZZ!11”
That said, I don’t bother much with the extra skins since the SAB and yet I’ve still had to buy 3 dozen fine transmutation stones and only have a couple left.
they ripoff everyone with fine stones which you HAVE to buy no matter what, there’s no other option
Yea, nonsense. I have never bought these and had up to 9 in my bank. I must have received them either from story or daily missions. They are very rare for sure, but you do get them.
Map completion. You get either a stone, a crystal or a bl key. The crystals also used to be relatively common in the bl chests. Haven’t gotten one since they made the change that added the bags of coins to the chests.
Haven’t gotten a fine transmutation stone from map completion in forever. I might get a key but it’s also likely I’ll get a normal transmutation stone or just random junk like masterwork gear.
Transmutation Crystals only drop as map completion rewards from zones that reach up to level 80, I believe. I got some from Frostgorge Sound on my Mesmer just last Thursday.
they ripoff everyone with fine stones which you HAVE to buy no matter what, there’s no other option
Yea, nonsense. I have never bought these and had up to 9 in my bank. I must have received them either from story or daily missions. They are very rare for sure, but you do get them.
then you must one of those people who don’t care about ‘style’ and wear same armor since game was launched. There’s no way in 11 months you couldn’t be in need of fine stones if you mix match armors for your characters
Mattargul’s response was to your false statement.
… you HAVE to buy no matter what, there’s no other option
I made a similar post about this a few weeks ago but it never seemed to gain any steam so I’m glad to see someone shares my views. I like the skins and don’t even mind the idea of a cosmetic endgame or transmute stones. The issue lies with how hard it currently is to keep a skin that many times you had to do a lot of work or have been VERY lucky to get. I would really like to see a dev acknowledge this because I feel it is mutually beneficial to the community and anet to revamp the current system. Right now your only options are to lose the skin, buy a new exotic to put a skin on, or use transmute stones to shift the skin onto a new item to store it. In the long run I think it demotivates people from trying for specialty skins and negates further play once you get a look you like because you are punished for trying to use new skins. I would love to see more holiday/rare skins converted to be like zenith weapons are currently handled or even sell wardrobe space. I know personally I would gladly buy that and transmute stones to change looks as long as I wasn’t losing my current skins forever.
We can just assume they actually intended us to spend 100g on Rare tier armor, rather than making it a skin we can apply like HoM armor.
We can just assume they actually intended us to spend 100g on Rare tier armor, rather than making it a skin we can apply like HoM armor.
Problem is that the way it is now a lot of people won’t spend any gold or buy any gems once they get there character a certain look. At best if you really like a skin you might buy another exotic piece to put the skin on and have to store the other in your bank causing you to need to eventually buy more bank space. If they sold wardrobe tabs and still made use of transmute stones/crystals I think people would be far more willing to change looks more often which would generate more sales for them.
Been mentioned in other threads, but the costume maker from GW1 would be awesome. You buy the skin, you unlock, and you use it as many times as you want, just like the HoM skins. Probably my biggest reticence in buying skins off the Gemstore — don’t want to need to buy more than 1 if I would like to use the same skin for multiple chars. So if not the costumer maker, then either a PvE locker or purchased skins being added to the HoM list.
- Some random quote -
The Walkers and the Whispers, ANVIL ROCK
The only issue with that idea, as well as how zenith weapons currently work, is that anet gets no money from it. It would be great but they do need to make something from this to keep the game going. I guess it would be ok if there were more tp skins to sell to keep them going but right now there aren’t enough to subsidize them off what limited selection there is in the gem store. Still, even if they did this and just required transmute stones I bet they would make more off the sales of those alone.
This has been mentioned elsewhere, but it bears repeating:
There should be a “skin locker” that we keep unlocked skins in, and that we can withdraw skins indefinitely from.
To use a skin still requires a transmutation stone or crystal.
This way, players get to keep their hard-won skins indefinitely, and ANet still sells stones and crystals.
With a system like this, I’d be willing to bet ANet will sell more skins and crystals.
Make transmutation stones transform items into skins that can be used as the achievements ones and store them in the new wallet feature. That would be nice.
PVE locker needs to be implemented !
just like sPVP !
this game is all about skins as end game, so having achieved those skins shows you were there and fought for it. transmuting a new skin over it is kind of shame !
Anet we need a PVE locker asap for skin collection.
PvE skin locker is really needed… The transmutation stones aren’t what get me, I got plenty of those from dailies and the old bl chests that spit those out like nothing else, my problem is that i have like a dozen back pieces i wanna use for aesthetic purposes and several different weapon skins i would like to use for the same reason but cant because of either lack of room to hold everything (already have 3 18 slot invisible bags FULL of skins and crap on my warrior) or the fact that it just doesn’t seem logical to go spend an additional 5-10g to get a weapon or set of weapons to transmute onto so I don’t override an expensive skin that I would have to drop hundreds of gold on on to get back.
I envision a streamlining where you have a PVE locker that includes every skin ofeach type that you have ever equipped automatically. However you still need to use the transmutation crystals/stones to put them on your stated gear. This would allow them to continue to profit off transmutations (probably increased even) while not forcing the player to decide between having excess gear for appearance sake or choosing to lose potentially never to return skins they acquired from past living story events.
^ This and what others have said too. This is really needed. Some skins you get from the personal story cannot be found elsewhere. If you transmute over them, the only way to get them back currently is to level up an alt. GW2 really needs a skin locker or PVE wardrobe where you can get back anything you’ve equipped in the past. If a transmutation stone/crystal is needed to get something out of the wardrobe, so be it.
This problem could be resolved with a wardrobe system similar to the one in Star Trek Online.
Its not inflexible…its designed to sell you transmutation stones from the gem store…which are probably one of the best selling items…working as intended.
Its not inflexible…its designed to sell you transmutation stones from the gem store…which are probably one of the best selling items…working as intended.
How is it not inflexible when you lose the skin any time you use a new one? What many of us are saying it’s if you get to store the skin and still require transmute stones they would probably sell even more stones because of more access to and less punishment for changing styles more often.
Its not inflexible…its designed to sell you transmutation stones from the gem store…which are probably one of the best selling items…working as intended.
It’s inflexible because, if you want to keep that shiny new staff skin, you have to sacrifice a bank slot for it, which isn’t so bad until you have 5+ characters who each have a respective shiny skin they want to save that is released every month but all share the same bank inventory so that after a few rounds of this dance, half your inventory and bank is gear you desperately hold onto because if you let go, it will be gone forever in the abyss of seasonal content.
I would love to have an “Armor Wardrobe” too. It could work in a similar fashion to the PvP armor wardrobe, except that to unlock skins in the PvE wardrobe, you need to “show” it a complete set of the armor. After a skin is unlocked, you can apply any combination of appearances to your existing armor by using Transmutation Stones (1 stone per piece, same way it works now). This would have minimal impact on the Transmutation Stone economy, but give players a lot more freedom and save them have to create an additional armor set for every style they like.
You still can’t wear armor types that you couldn’t normally wear, and you can’t wear armors specific to certain races/orders. While I’d love for it to be account wide, for balance purposes, the Armor Locker would probably be character-specific.
Its not inflexible…its designed to sell you transmutation stones from the gem store…which are probably one of the best selling items…working as intended.
It’s incredibly inflexible. It’s also clunky to use and doesn’t do anything to make the game more fun for people who care about cosmetics. And it’s been done better by games that were out YEARS before GW2 launched. (LotRO and RIFT, at least.)
Right now, the system doesn’t encourage people to change their armor anymore than they need to. Want to monetize people changing character appearance? Make it easy and fun for the to do so, then find a point to charge a fee for it. A lot of the suggestions in this thread still involve Transmuatation stones ans crystals, either for converting items into skins or for applying skins to armor. So that aspect of the economy can remain intact. In fact, by making the process easier, and preserving appearances and stat gear for people while you do it, you will most likely create more ‘transactions’—i.e., people changing appearance—on which A-net can levy a charge. It would still be a PITA to pay for the stones, but it would be better than what we have now.
It is indeed very rigid, and it doesn’t help that the cost is dependent on gem prices.
WoW’s transmogging is great because items don’t disappear and you can revert to original appearances, but can cost a lot of gold. Rift’s wardrobe function doesn’t cost a thing but doesn’t apply as easily (like, at ALL) to weapons. Haven’t played LotRO too much, but I’ve heard it also has a pretty good skin system. Dunno much about ToR either, just that it costs money to hide my helmet of all things.
Any streamlining to GW2’s transmutations would be awesome.
Actually Lotro, which i still play on and off, does a have a nice cosmetic system. You unlock a wardrobe where u get a staring amount of slots and you can then purchase additional ones all with in game currency (turbine points) which is equivalent to gems. You can’t trade in game gold for this currency, but you can earn it through doing deeds and completing content in the game, slow though it may be.
So you get a wardrobe as a separate slot panel to your bank and you can basically place any skin within it. The items placed in there are actual copies of the original item and any of your characters can use those skins and i do mean any. For eg: a light armor wearer can use a heavy armor skins placed in there or vice versa although there’s a bit of a trick in making this possible. The only restriction on the copied skins occurs if it was acquired for completing specific quests or it’s a rep item, then a character who hasn’t achieved those goals cannot use those skins till they also reach that goal.
You can even dispose of the originals saving you bank space, however the danger here is if you remove it’s copy form the wardrobe accidentally or for w/ever reason, the skin is gone for ever. So those skins you really don’t want to lose, you still end up keeping the originals in your storage as a just in case and they can end up taking a lot of space in you bank.
You can have save up to 6 or 7 looks in Lotro and wear those looks anywhere, while not affecting your armor stats. They give you couple of free ones to start with then you can unlock additional cosmetic slots with the in game currency. So once you’ve selected the look you want you simply click on Cosmetic tab 1, 2 3 etc and and say use this look and voila! As simple as that. Oh and the cosmetic dress ups also allow you to hide/show basically everything except leggings and chest pces, offering even more flexibility.
And btw, Ltoro cosmetics do not include weapon skins, you can only use the armor pces, but it sure would be nice to have 2 separate ones, one for armor and one for weapons.
The system in Lotro isn’t exactly perfect imo but perhaps Anet should check it out and get some good ideas from it if they decide to add some kinda of wardrobe to the game.
For a game that’s all about cosmetics this should have been day 1 stuff. I’m really surprised this hasn’t gotten more recognition from the devs. It would be a major quility of life feature, the basics for it already exist in the game, and it would be profitable.
(edited by kailin.4905)
A potential fix that would be easy to implement:
A new type of transmutation crystal will allow players to add any skin they own to the achievement menu skin section. These skins would be account bound and could be withdrew an unlimited number of times. (basically function just like the zenith weapon skins)
This would also allow legendary weapon skins to be used account wide which is a common request, and allow players to use great looking equipment no matter their level.
Thoughts?
(edited by Bri.8354)
Or sell wardrobe set slots. Any of these things would be better than the current system. Especially given that it seems every 2 weeks a few new skins are being introduced.
It’s a way of making money off of aesthetic items. I have no problem with that.
I would like “superior transmutation stones” that stored a skin within an account-wide PvE locker for 2x the price of fine transmutation stones.
However, honestly, they need to make money and I’ll bite the bullet on this one.
“A release is 7 days or less away or has just happened within the last 7 days…
These are the only two states you’ll find the world of Tyria.”