Guild Wars 2

Hello there.

I don’t know if this has been discussed or not because I’ve been away from the forums for a while, so I apologize in advance.

I was looking through my historical achievements and I realized I should have some skins that I don’t, like the Fervid Censer
The thing is that I used it as a skin over my Sclerite Karka Shell because I didn’t like the sclerite’s skin and I used another skin over it afterwards.

I know the rule is that we were getting the original item skin and the skin currently in use, it is hard to track all skins that an item used. But what about the skins that were a reward from an achievement that we have registered? Is there any plan to unlock those for us. I mean, the achievement is there, we clearly got the skin.

Thanks for reading.

So, hace you heard anything about this. Is ANet going to give this to us?

It’s gone, just like my blue SAB backpack. You used it as the skin, then you skinned over it, effectively removing it from existence.

I’ll admit the description wasn’t overly clear on the details there, but it was mentioned. It was also rather well after the fact, so there is technically nothing they can do.

I say technically, because if they really cared they’d go to the trouble of making sure anyone with an achievement that awards a skin would get that skin in their wardrobe whether they still have the skin or not. I’m just pretty sure that they don’t actually care. If they did they would have implemented that in the first place, and probably wouldn’t have removed the ability to transfer upgrades through transmutation.

This is so sad
I hope they implement this eventually, or at least, a way to win these skins again.

I wish they would do this also.
My problem is that I bought Rox’s Quiver skin of the TP and later transmuted over it. I’ve wanted it back for so long now – what a mistake. I realise that they couldn’t give back normal skins but I feel like its fair to give exceptions for skins that were bought off the TP? I mean surely thats a different kettle of fish no?

One could argue that if you overwrote the appearance of Item A with another skin from Item B, then you didn’t much care about keeping Item A around. Since it was a unique item that can no longer be obtained, destroying it involves acknowledging that you no longer want the item, so why would they go out of their way to restore items you have intentionally destroyed?

Kal Spiro.9745:

It’s gone, just like my blue SAB backpack. You used it as the skin, then you skinned over it, effectively removing it from existence.

Actually that shouldn’t matter.
From the ‘Introducing the Wardrobe’ page:
If you have an item that has gone through skin progression, like a legendary weapon or one of the Spinal Blade backpacks from the “Escape from Lion’s Arch” and “Battle for Lion’s Arch” releases, you will unlock all of the skins in that direct line of progression. That means that if you made Twilight, you will have access to both the Twilight and Dusk skins across your entire account. If you’ve created the Dynamic Tempered Spinal Blades, you’ll unlock that skin and all previous Spinal Blade skins.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but transmutation seems like skin progression too.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but transmutation seems like skin progression too.

It seems to me like you are replacing one skin with another, not “progressing” anything. If you sell a Ford to buy a Chevy then it’s a pretty good indication that you didn’t want the Ford, it’s not a progression, but a replacement.

tolunart.2095:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but transmutation seems like skin progression too.

It seems to me like you are replacing one skin with another, not “progressing” anything. If you sell a Ford to buy a Chevy then it’s a pretty good indication that you didn’t want the Ford, it’s not a progression, but a replacement.

You replace the skin, not the item. So, your analogy would be better if you keep the ford, but modify it so it looks like a chevy.

I really think all items that you earn from achievements should show up in the achievement main panel like the radiant and zenith stuff does. Like the flame of Kryta and the shatterer wings and that weird zephyr sanctum model. All of that. then you can grab it whenever you want and not have to waste bank space just because you’d like to keep what you’ve earned.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Kal Spiro.9745:

It’s gone, just like my blue SAB backpack. You used it as the skin, then you skinned over it, effectively removing it from existence.

Actually that shouldn’t matter.
From the ‘Introducing the Wardrobe’ page:
If you have an item that has gone through skin progression, like a legendary weapon or one of the Spinal Blade backpacks from the “Escape from Lion’s Arch” and “Battle for Lion’s Arch” releases, you will unlock all of the skins in that direct line of progression. That means that if you made Twilight, you will have access to both the Twilight and Dusk skins across your entire account. If you’ve created the Dynamic Tempered Spinal Blades, you’ll unlock that skin and all previous Spinal Blade skins.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but transmutation seems like skin progression too.

Skinning over an item is not skin progression. Without Dusk (just listen for a sec), you cannot have Twilight. Without a Spinal Blade back item, you cannot have a Tempered Spinal Blade back item. That is skin progression, where the previous item is a requirement to have the second.

Also, even if you have the achievement, if you lost, destroyed, or over-skinned the item, you lost the skin in the wardrobe.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

tolunart.2095:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but transmutation seems like skin progression too.

It seems to me like you are replacing one skin with another, not “progressing” anything. If you sell a Ford to buy a Chevy then it’s a pretty good indication that you didn’t want the Ford, it’s not a progression, but a replacement.

You replace the skin, not the item. So, your analogy would be better if you keep the ford, but modify it so it looks like a chevy.

Accurate analogy actually. Though it could be improved by adding in the detail that you’re selling a Ford SUV for a Chevy SUV. Yes, you still have an SUV, but they’re do entirely different things to begin with. That’s transmutation. Progression would be if you sold a 2010 Ford SUV for a 2015 Ford SUV. Same SUV/brand, yet improved.

Bolthar.7192:

I really think all items that you earn from achievements should show up in the achievement main panel like the radiant and zenith stuff does. Like the flame of Kryta and the shatterer wings and that weird zephyr sanctum model. All of that. then you can grab it whenever you want and not have to waste bank space just because you’d like to keep what you’ve earned.

In a perfect world, sure… but the devs can’t just snap their fingers and it happens. Every reward item from the last year and a half has to be modified to do that and the system has to be developed and tested and bugfixed… that’s an awful lot of work just so a few people who change their minds months after destroying an item are not disappointed.

Convenience/quality of life improvements are nice, but with limited resources available the devs have to evaluate every change based on how much it will cost and how many people will be affected by the change. In this case it’s a lot of money and time spent for very little benefit. Going forward, of course, new and returning items should unlock in the wardrobe system like anything else, but it’s not practical to restore items that were destroyed.

mmmm
I skinned the Zephyr back pack ( the one with the Toucan) over my Sclerite back and I got both back in the wardrobe

I crafted Eye of Rodgort from scratch and didn’t get Lidless Eye.

one is a straight transmute- one is a skin progression – go figure

Very well then, I stand corrected.

I had similar problems about this. The difference is, between the above comment about the SAB back piece, there is a record of the achievement skins. All that would need to be done is for a check in the achievement history tab for the skin unlocks, and they would be unlocked. I am very disappointed they didn’t do anything like that

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Kal Spiro.9745:

It’s gone, just like my blue SAB backpack. You used it as the skin, then you skinned over it, effectively removing it from existence.

Actually that shouldn’t matter.
From the ‘Introducing the Wardrobe’ page:
If you have an item that has gone through skin progression, like a legendary weapon or one of the Spinal Blade backpacks from the “Escape from Lion’s Arch” and “Battle for Lion’s Arch” releases, you will unlock all of the skins in that direct line of progression. That means that if you made Twilight, you will have access to both the Twilight and Dusk skins across your entire account. If you’ve created the Dynamic Tempered Spinal Blades, you’ll unlock that skin and all previous Spinal Blade skins.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but transmutation seems like skin progression too.

No, skin progression is relevant to only two things. Tempered Spinal Blade and Eternity (all legendaries, really). Both of those things were created by using specific items with specific skins. In the case of the Tempered Spinal Blade that includes all incarnations from the backpack with no blades to the Ascended ones with colored auras. You automatically get the skins for every version below the one you have.

It has nothing to do with transmutation, which was the whole point of why you would lose your skin if you transmuted over a skin that was transmuted onto a different item.

Morrigan.2809:

mmmm
I skinned the Zephyr back pack ( the one with the Toucan) over my Sclerite back and I got both back in the wardrobe

I crafted Eye of Rodgort from scratch and didn’t get Lidless Eye.

one is a straight transmute- one is a skin progression – go figure

The first one you were putting a skin on an item, not a skin on a different skin on a third completely separate item.

The second you should put in a ticket, you should have both skins.

Festival of the Winds will give a chance for the achievement skins for all players. So you should be able to get the Sclerite Karka Shell and Fervid Censor backpacks.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Festival of the Winds will give a chance for the achievement skins for all players. So you should be able to get the Sclerite Karka Shell and Fervid Censor backpacks.

If only the blue SAB backpack hadn’t been a one time buy it skin… I will never get it back. Then again I only lament it for its quality as an “I was there” item, I don’t have any characters I would want to wear it.

I will ask everyone to note that only those that “skinned over” or “transmutted over” the items they are lamenting over did not unlock those “special” skins. Basically, you didn’t think they were special enough to keep them, yet now that you feel you should get something BACK that you discarded, you are complaining.

Typical of the “entitled” portion of the player base.

I have skins I tossed myself, and I fully realize I MADE A MISTAKE and lost those items thru a conscious decision. The funny thing is those skins were much more valuable when they were destroyed than they are now as anyone that KEPT them can now destroy the item with impunity and still get back the “look”…..so it’s far less “unique” now.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I will ask everyone to note that only those that “skinned over” or “transmutted over” the items they are lamenting over did not unlock those “special” skins. Basically, you didn’t think they were special enough to keep them, yet now that you feel you should get something BACK that you discarded, you are complaining.

Typical of the “entitled” portion of the player base.

I have skins I tossed myself, and I fully realize I MADE A MISTAKE and lost those items thru a conscious decision. The funny thing is those skins were much more valuable when they were destroyed than they are now as anyone that KEPT them can now destroy the item with impunity and still get back the “look”…..so it’s far less “unique” now.

I have kept every single skin I’ve unlocked in pristine condition, taking up bank space until such time as I made a character who would work with it. The only skin I “lament” is the blue SAB backpack, which was not an unlock, unlike the Green and Yellow after it, but something I had to just buy. I loved it for what it was, but it never fit the character it was on because he was green and it was blue, they didn’t go together.

I skinned over it with the green reluctantly, because I knew I would probably never get it back and I was sad to lose it. I couldn’t just keep the blue and make a new one for the green because at the time there was no reliable way to get easy backpacks, and there still isn’t a simple way to get account bound backpacks. So with heavy heart I skinned over the super rare blue backpack with the more common green backpack.

Then when wardrobes came out, I forgot that the blue SAB backpack wasn’t a backpack, but just a skin for a backpack, and was happy that I’d get it back, even though I still have no particular use for it. I did not, because it wasn’t any of the things that do get unlocked or even should get unlocked. I lament its lose, but I also demand nothing. I do, however, think that if you unlocked a skin through an achievement, of which my lost skin does not apply, you should have that skin unlocked on your wardrobe, because DUH. I also hope that the blue SAB backpack will become available again so I can add it to my wardrobe, whether I have a use for it or not.

Talking about skins , I had the green quaggan back skin , and a bunch of other back skins in my bank. After the patch I distroyed most of them ( unlocking the skins in the wardrope), except that the green quaggan didn’t unlock anything, because it has no place in the wardrope, so I lost that skin.

thing is, they very probably did not track used skins/account in their data before the feature patch. And I doubt they kept track of player activities for that long. So they would only depend on your word – and thousands of other peoples´ words. I can´t see any way how to fix this reasonably.

Liope.2948:

Talking about skins , I had the green quaggan back skin , and a bunch of other back skins in my bank. After the patch I distroyed most of them ( unlocking the skins in the wardrope), except that the green quaggan didn’t unlock anything, because it has no place in the wardrope, so I lost that skin.

You did something wrong then because it does have a place, and I have it unlocked myself, having gotten it as a freebie.

Algreg.3629:

thing is, they very probably did not track used skins/account in their data before the feature patch. And I doubt they kept track of player activities for that long. So they would only depend on your word – and thousands of other peoples´ words. I can´t see any way how to fix this reasonably.

By looking at your account, going “You have this achievement. The one that specifically grants you this backpack or whatever, with this unique skin. Therefore, here is the skin in your wardrobe.”

Based on the OP, specifically talking about the Fervid Censor, problem solved.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Kal Spiro.9745:

It’s gone, just like my blue SAB backpack. You used it as the skin, then you skinned over it, effectively removing it from existence.

Actually that shouldn’t matter.
From the ‘Introducing the Wardrobe’ page:
If you have an item that has gone through skin progression, like a legendary weapon or one of the Spinal Blade backpacks from the “Escape from Lion’s Arch” and “Battle for Lion’s Arch” releases, you will unlock all of the skins in that direct line of progression. That means that if you made Twilight, you will have access to both the Twilight and Dusk skins across your entire account. If you’ve created the Dynamic Tempered Spinal Blades, you’ll unlock that skin and all previous Spinal Blade skins.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but transmutation seems like skin progression too.

-snip-

I already admitted I was wrong, no use to keep going on about it.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I already admitted I was wrong, no use to keep going on about it.

I wasn’t, I was responding to a post before continuing through the thread.

The reason they don’t give you items you used as a skin then skinned over is because the game can’t possibly keep a record of every single transmutation that’s ever taken place so there’s no way of knowing you had that item.

For example if you used the holographic dragon wing skin on the scelarite karka shell backpack, then replaced them with the tequatl wings the holo wings are completely destroyed – no part of it is left on your account so there is no way for the game to know you had that item.

Same reason you don’t automatically unlock every skin you’ve used before the wardrobe update. Until that update the game didn’t keep a record of every item you’d equipped, salvaged etc. so there was no way to know who had what.

I don’t know but I assume they didn’t re-issue achievement skins/items for a similar reason. Obviously there is a record that you got it – the achievement – but there may not be any way to get a computer to automatically check who got the achievement, who still has the item and re-issue it to those who lost/deleted it. Which means someone would have to check manually. With over a million accounts that would be a huge amount of effort to go to for something that affects a minority of players. (Since most players who earned those skins and wanted to keep them haven’t deleted them.)

They could make it a bit easier by just re-issuing them to everyone who did the achievement, but then they’d have people complaining that it’s unfair some people have 2 Scelerite Karka Shells, or whatever.

Plus then there’s a good chance a lot of people wouldn’t realise (or wouldn’t care) that it was limited to achievement skins and would start demanding other skins be re-issued.

Basically it’s a lot less trouble all around to keep it to you unlock items you have, or items you get in future.

(And there’s a good chance this means they will give us a way to get these items again at some point. Which benefits not only people who deleted them but people who weren’t able to get them originally, people who want 2 and so on.)

Kal Spiro.9745:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I already admitted I was wrong, no use to keep going on about it.

I wasn’t, I was responding to a post before continuing through the thread.

ehm.. yes you were by responding to a post that was already resolved

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I already admitted I was wrong, no use to keep going on about it.

I wasn’t, I was responding to a post before continuing through the thread.

ehm.. yes you were by responding to a post that was already resolved

No, see, now we’re going on about it. Because we’re continuing something and having an unnecessary conversation. Responding to a post when you first get to it, and haven’t read the rest of the thread to see everything was adequately wrapped up, is not going on about it. It’s not intentionally pushing the point or rubbing it in, it’s just answering the initial post. Just as responding to the OP, even if the entire situation has been answered and resolved is not going on about it. It is the way of forum threads, nothing more.

Danikat.8537:

The reason they don’t give you items you used as a skin then skinned over is because the game can’t possibly keep a record of every single transmutation that’s ever taken place so there’s no way of knowing you had that item.

For example if you used the holographic dragon wing skin on the scelarite karka shell backpack, then replaced them with the tequatl wings the holo wings are completely destroyed – no part of it is left on your account so there is no way for the game to know you had that item.

Same reason you don’t automatically unlock every skin you’ve used before the wardrobe update. Until that update the game didn’t keep a record of every item you’d equipped, salvaged etc. so there was no way to know who had what.

I don’t know but I assume they didn’t re-issue achievement skins/items for a similar reason. Obviously there is a record that you got it – the achievement – but there may not be any way to get a computer to automatically check who got the achievement, who still has the item and re-issue it to those who lost/deleted it. Which means someone would have to check manually. With over a million accounts that would be a huge amount of effort to go to for something that affects a minority of players. (Since most players who earned those skins and wanted to keep them haven’t deleted them.)

They could make it a bit easier by just re-issuing them to everyone who did the achievement, but then they’d have people complaining that it’s unfair some people have 2 Scelerite Karka Shells, or whatever.

Plus then there’s a good chance a lot of people wouldn’t realise (or wouldn’t care) that it was limited to achievement skins and would start demanding other skins be re-issued.

Basically it’s a lot less trouble all around to keep it to you unlock items you have, or items you get in future.

(And there’s a good chance this means they will give us a way to get these items again at some point. Which benefits not only people who deleted them but people who weren’t able to get them originally, people who want 2 and so on.)

That’s absurd. Of course they know exactly who has every achievement. That is a metric. It is the simplest thing in the world for them to bring up how many people have what achievement and who they are, because if they couldn’t we wouldn’t have those achievements. Since only a handful of achievements are linked to skins it should also be simple for them to link their unlocking mechanism with that system, so unlocking an achievement with a skin unlocks the skin in your wardrobe. Those skins are always account bound, so again it should be second nature to the system. Finally they don’t need to know, nor care if you have it, broken it are wearing it or have it in your bank, you can only unlock the skin once. Once it is unlocked it is over and done with, so it should just work. Regardless of where the skin is, because it should exist in some ethereal form where your account is concerned, unlocked.