Outfits: How ANet is missing out on sales
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If they make an armor set, it’ll only work on 1/3 of the classes, depending on whether they make it a heavy, medium, or light set. Mixing/matching weight class pieces is a topic that’s been done to death, so I’ll try not to get into it here.
Selling an armor as both an armor and an outfit sounds very confusing, and it’s not great business to confuse your customer. I’m pretty sure they’ve considered the argument you’re suggesting before, when they quit selling new armor skins in favor of outfits. I don’t have access to their sales data, but I don’t think they made that decision on a whim.
They need to do away with armor weights on the cosmetic side of things. There are several outfits that are undoubtedly heavy armor (Balthazar Regalia, Ceremonial Plated, Slayer, Ironclad to name a few) but can be worn by any class. My necro can walk around in Ceremonial Plated which looks the same on my guardian. Why limit us with individual armor pieces?
I think there’s more to it than just cosmetic. Would it be nice if all armor skins were available regardless of weight? Sure. Is there a chance that it’s not technically feasible? Probably which could explain why we still have the existing system despite the pushback from some players.
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
~snip~
They need to do away with armor weights on the cosmetic side of things. There are several outfits that are undoubtedly heavy armor (Balthazar Regalia, Ceremonial Plated, Slayer, Ironclad to name a few) but can be worn by any class. My necro can walk around in Ceremonial Plated which looks the same on my guardian. Why limit us with individual armor pieces?
It’s a technical thing more than a cosmetic thing. As I understand it, some of it has to do with the rigging/animation of armors, and some of it has to do with the dye system. It might be possible to recreate the problem systems to make it work, but it seems Anet has deemed it unfeasible. People can argue about the value trade-off, but at the end of the day only Anet has the full technical scoop on it.
If anyone has an official statement they could refer to, that would be great. I know it’s been said before, but I don’t have a link, and can’t find one, despite how often the subject comes up.
Edit: Having said that, let’s try not to make this thread a discussion about mixing armor weights. That would be going way off topic, and there’s plenty of other threads for that.
~The Storyteller – Elementalist – Jade Quarry~
(edited by Redenaz.8631)
In Guild Wars 2, weight classes determine the profession distribution and the seam rules for our armor coordination. We realized there were times when we desperately wanted to break those rules, so we developed a solution to do so. For example, town clothes work similar to the light armor system. There is a waist seam that allows mixing and matching to work relatively smoothly between pieces, which gives the player as much creative freedom as possible. But for clothing, it would be a travesty to never have a long trench coat, which has a seam overlap that would follow medium armor seam rules.
To solve this dilemma, we have created sets. Sets are two or more sections of armor fused into one to prevent mixing troubles that allow us to design with far less seam constraints. For example, we could have an outfit with a large trench coat, an inside vest and shirt, and pants. You’ve seen this before in my previous clothing blog post. That outfit is one piece. However, because we know there’s so much fabric real estate, three dye channels aren’t enough. In cases like these, we have allowed four dye channels. This will allow a remarkable amount of control over the parts of the outfit without having to require the pants to dye the same as some part of the coat..
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
Of all the many, many outfits they have made, I like exactly 0. Because they are outfits.
I did buy the wedding one, because It is basically a collection of 10 cultural clothes.
Pieces of armor and armor sets, on the contrary, I like and have bought.
So, yes, no matter if obtained by coins or ingame, I rather have 1 set of armor than 10 outfits.
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
Just a flesh wound.3589:Adding this link, for the “what it’s worth” department.
This link may work better. I referenced one of the red posts too.
Just a flesh wound.3589:Adding this link, for the “what it’s worth” department.
This link may work better. I referenced one of the red posts too.
Thanks. I posted then checked the link and found out it was broken. >.>
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
ANet may give it to you.
It’s because their philosophy is, “minimum effort for maximum dolla’.” Apply that to every aspect of the game, and here we are today.
“Fix PvP balance!”
- “Ok, we’ll just remove some amulets.”
“Fix WvW!”
- “Ok, we’ll make EoTM.”
“Fix dungeons!”
- “Ok, we’ll make fractals.”Seriously, everything they’ve done in the past couple years has been all about minimizing effort and maximizing their dollars. The state of HoT at launch being so unfinished is just another prime example. They’ve lost a lot of players because of this business paradigm.
The irony is, a cheaply made product will be treated as such. The more love you put into your product, the more others will love it as well. Art that takes a long time to produce and is polished well will sell for thousands more than something that is just slapped together and tossed into the community.
The only outfit I bought is the ninja, and even that I regretted. Haven’t purchased an outfit since. They’re just a cheap novelty. Nothing special.
This game has so much potential, but Anet keeps missing the mark.
Don’t forget dungeons with that! But yeah I agree, ANET does a lot of patchwork balancing to try and hold their game together, but seems like it’s starting to come apart. But now that the game is free to play maybe that’s all their care about is a quick turnover on the gemstore. I’ve put down GW2 for now but honestly I don’t know if I really wanna pick it up again what with the further nerfing of HoT content coming and the class balance in the shape it is, followed by bugged skills on classes themselves like the revenant.
Truthfully if it wasn’t for one friend who begs me to play with her sometimes I don’t think I’d look back at this game.
A knight in shining armor is a man who never had his metal truly tested.
All that might be true. It has little to do with the problem that I and others see with outfits. People complaining that they can buy stuff in the gemstore is a rather stupid reason to stop offering things in the gemstore to be quite frank. The complaint wasn’t that they offered it in the gemstore, it was that it was in the gemstore ONLY. Exploring the space of more customizable skins in the gemstore could actually HELP deal with that.
Also, If someone is buying something transmutable, it’s also ridiculous to complain about the fact it’s transmutable. It’s also much less of a problem now that we get those transmutations as game rewards.
Regardless, those two points have little to do with asking Anet to explore the space of more customization on skins they offer in the Gemstore and I attest they should do so to optimize revenue.
I’m sorry but if I buy something of the gem store, I don’t expect to have to buy another item from it to keep.using it.
Awesome, because I’m not suggesting that at all ><
Also ANet has said outfits are easier to make, they don’t have to worry about parts matching up with other parts.
I know all this, you know all this, everyone knows all this. I’m not disagreeing with any of that; this thread isn’t a debate about why Anet makes outfits. If you can’t get past trying to start an argument that no one is willing to have with you, you clearly can’t understand what I’m talking about in this thread. Thanks.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Ultimately, this issue appears to be an outcome of the early design choices made in GW2. The side effect of how armor models were implemented in the game for various races, body types and so forth now leads to major complications when trying to introduce new armor models.
Frustration with the system has grown, but hindsight is 20/20. It may be obvious today to the developers and players alike that GW2’s armor model implementation is less than optimal, making it much more difficult to add more armors. However, back when the developers were designing this portion of the game, the decisions they made probably seemed like good choices at the time.
Whenever ANet gets around to designing the next game, I hope that this issue will be thoroughly examined as part of their lessons learned, and that they’ll greatly improve GW3’s implementation for handling armor models.
In the meantime, we’re stuck with GW2’s limitations. I’m ok with them adding more outfits, and I don’t have to buy them if I don’t like them, but I would prefer there be more armor options available (especially a more diverse set of armor options, but that’s a different and much more subjective topic).
HoD – [CV] Charter Vanguard
Why Arena net doesn’t anymore make armor skins for gemstore only outfits
Outfits are great looking but armors were better.
As i get armor i can customize my character different than other players are and make myself more unique. Outfits we all look the same and i don’t feel my self a unique wich is a shame i think cause some of the outfits r great looking but i cant make myself unique players and i just stick with the flow
I might be an outlier, but I really like the outfits. They’re so convenient and I like how I can change my armor and level my characters without having to use transmutation crystals for every piece to make them look good, lol. It would be kind of cool if they could separate the outfits into armor pieces and make it an option to use those pieces as armor skins or use the whole set as an outfit too, though.
Dear ANet
Do you realize that everytime we get an outfit, you are missing out on making sales in the Gemstore? How you ask? Because outfits are all or nothing: I have to either decide to purchase and wear the whole outfit or simply not buy it at all if there is a certain part of it I don’t like.
Do you realize I would pay MORE for an Armor set that I could mix and match with other parts because I believe it has more value to me that an outfit? Do you understand that I’m not alone when I say “Oh man, that’s a great helmet on that outfit, but the rest is ugly” and that prevents me from buying?
Just to make sure this doesn’t get dismissed as just a rant, I propose a solution: Do an experiment but offering the SAME skin in both an outfit and an armor, adjusting the price of each for what is necessary for projected revenues. See what happens. Make me eat words if I’m wrong. I will do so willingly.
Awhile back alot of people complained that ANet was adding armor to the gem store and not the game. So ANet said that they would no longer add armor to the gem store and armor would only be attainable in game, bar the sets that where already in the gem store.
I’d much rather see armor sets in game. Outfits are just that, all or nothing. You like it or you don’t.
This.
The decision to split outfits and armors into:
- outfits via the gemstore
- armors ingamewas one of their better decisions. This way the gemstore stays unmandatory and the outfits are a hit or miss. Armors on the otherhand are now mostly ingame only and can be attained without spending money on them for mix and matching.
Now we could argue that the ratio of outfits to armors added is skewed as there are way more outfits added into the game than armors, but that would be a different topic now right?
I don’t know about that?
I think it sounds OK, in theory, to do that…
However, in practice, we have just ended up with lots of nice, but completely lacking in versatility, gemstore outfits and only a very few, pretty ugly, armour sets being added ingame.
At this point, I would really welcome some new (good looking and versatile) gemstore armour skins being made available.
By “good looking” I, specifically, mean pant options without bulky skirts/flaps/straps etc. attached.
I might be an outlier, but I really like the outfits. They’re so convenient and I like how I can change my armor and level my characters without having to use transmutation crystals for every piece to make them look good, lol. It would be kind of cool if they could separate the outfits into armor pieces and make it an option to use those pieces as armor skins or use the whole set as an outfit too, though.
No, you’re not an outlier, at all.
Outfits are especially good for levelling.
It’s just that established players rarely need to level anymore, as they can just use the tomes they have collected to boost themselves to 80.
So, it is less of a concern for them.
“Turns out when people play the game, they don’t admire your feet at all.” sephiroth
(edited by Tigaseye.2047)
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