Guild Wars 2

…or looking good?

Personally, I couldn’t care less about the prestige represented by the cosmetics of hard-to-get items and armor sets. I want my character to look good—to look right to me--and that’s pretty much where my interest ends. For the sake of aesthetics, I would happily re-skin an exotic piece of gear with the appearance of a common item. And, as far as the wider-world goes, it’s more important to me that characters look distinct from one another rather than accomplished.

So, am I a rarity here? How important is showing off to you? Will you wear the hard-to-get items, even if you don’t particularly like the look of them? And what if there are a half-dozen other people right next to you wearing that same stuff? Would that diminish the experience for you?

Part of the reason I ask is, I’m starting to run into a problem. I’m beginning to find it difficult to put together looks I’m happy with. When starting with this game, I assumed that, due to the cash shop and crafting, cosmetic options would be quickly expanded upon. But, so far, that hasn’t really happened.

So I wonder… is the lack of options deliberate in order to keep the prestige stuff more attractive as a pursuit? Moving forward, is this the way things are going to continue to be?

Also, I have a coat on one character that I really like, but it’s graphically glitched, and I can’t seem to get another one. It’s not on the TP, and apparently can’t be obtained from any vendor. It can’t be crafted either. It seems to be rare strictly for the sake of being rare.

Why? It’s a leather coat, it’s not exotic or anything, and I have a leatherworker… so why can’t I make it? Because it was a story reward? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to make the recipes for such items the reward?

I have one character at 80 that I’m happy with. Another just reached 80… and she’s a mess. I have no idea what to do with her. And it looks like I’m going to have similar issues with 2 others (all 3 are medium armor types, by the way). It’s not a big detraction now… but it’s becoming one. In a few more months, if I don’t see some more options rolled out, it could even become a deal breaker.

But that’s me. Does anyone else feel this way at all?

I just wear whatever looks cool to me.
On my Elementalist I wear a combination of all sorts things. Ranging from cultural tier 3 to cheaply crafted stuff, to mid level karma skins.
On my Guardian it’s the same thing. Having a cultural tier 3 piece, 2 pieces from the gem store skin, some from the Hall of Monuments and a crafted piece.

edit: I don’t find there to be a lack of variety of things to choose from. It’s pretty good in my opinion.

mmo’s, being social in nature, will have a populace that is obsessed with looking good. either for themselves or for others, people will dress up their reasoning to not sound like a tryhard or a nolifer.

the point, as in real life, is to look awesome yet to portray a feeling of how ‘easy’ it was. that in itself is part of the image of ‘prestige.’

now, that is quite the umbrella statement, as there is a minority that doesn’t care what anyone thinks of them, but that is a rare person indeed.

as for the armor, i believe all the skins from personal story quests can be found from karma vendors if not crafted.

kiba.2768:

as for the armor, i believe all the skins from personal story quests can be found from karma vendors if not crafted.

I’d be happy to know where the ‘Stalwart’ medium armor set is available (without glitches) in game. Particularly the coat. I’ve looked into it, and it doesn’t appear to be out there.

Milennin.4825:

I don’t find there to be a lack of variety of things to choose from. It’s pretty good in my opinion.

Given how often I see various looks repeated in the world, I’d have to disagree with this.

But then, I’ve come from City of Heroes, so perhaps I’m hopelessly spoiled in this regard. There was very little cosmetic repetition in that game.

some digging said there’s a stalwart option for wvw tokens(badges of honor). i’m not in game right now so i can’t check for you…

Look at this site…it shows quite a lot of armor looks etc and where to get them.
http://www.gw2armor.com/

actually, can you put up a screenshot so i have a better idea? i’ve looked up stalwart, but i’m not trusting of the images on google.

Looks over prestige, in GW1 I used to wear the Norn ranger armour simply because it looked amazing

However, in GW2 there’s an overlap between the Asura T3 gear, and the best looking gear for Asura so I’m wearing that (mostly, prefer the acolyte pants), but I have no plans to get any weapons manufactured by Mattel

I only use what I think looks good (at least at the time) as well.
There are sets I do want to get (some dungeon ones), but I haven’t tried yet to get them.

If anything, seeing certain “prestige” items on other people kinda irritates me (except legendaries, since I haven’t seen one in person yet, and because those are the only thing I would call prestige). This is more towards the Halloween items, because the really cool items were either near legendary requirements to craft (the crossing), or you had to be extremely lucky in the kitten gambling chests (scythe/greatsword skins).

Looks over prestige here as well. I actually prefer the look of the T1 light cultural armor for my elementalist over the look of the T3 light, so I’m going with that.

I go with what looks right and reflects on who my hero is. For example, my thief’s armor is a mix of medium crafted exotics (Rampager, Knight, Cleric). I transmuted these with Whispers armor because he’s a member of Order of Whispers. The best part is whenever someone else is around wearing Whispers armor you can say to them I’m here to buy some apples ;-)

Vortex.5146:

Looks over prestige here as well. I actually prefer the look of the T1 light cultural armor for my elementalist over the look of the T3 light, so I’m going with that.

I’m happy with the ‘finished’ look of my Sylvari Elementalist. She’s in a mix of cultural T1 and T2, and I don’t see it too often on anyone else. I was also mostly satisfied with the various changes she went through while leveling. She tended to look fairly distinct.

My Human Engineer, on the other hand, has not been so great of an experience. Very difficult to find something that works, and I’ve seen her ‘repeated’ multiple times. Starting to have the same issue with my Norn Thief. I’m mostly okay with the look she has, but I see it repeated all over the place. Given that she’s a leatherworker, I’d like to have some variety available to her. I suspect my Charr Ranger is going to be difficult as well.

Basically, I think there needs to be more variety across the board, and I think some different silhouettes need to be introduced to medium armor specifically. It’d also be nice if at least certain sets weren’t locked to an armor type.

My concern is that this greater variety isn’t part of the plan for the immediate future.

kiba.2768:

actually, can you put up a screenshot so i have a better idea? i’ve looked up stalwart, but i’m not trusting of the images on google.

http://www.gw2armorgallery.com/armour/human/human-medium-stand-stalwart-female.jpg

I’ve seen WvW mentioned as well, but I haven’t found it there either.

Honestly, the way my mind works, I typically think that items look good in proportion to their difficulty to acquire. It’s probably the stereotype for this sort of game, and I believe I fall right into it. I prefer to wear gear that is a token of accomplishment rather than uniqueness, although I perfectly understand why someone would want to separate their character from others rather than elevate it. I just don’t think that way.

Sion.1653:

Honestly, the way my mind works, I typically think that items look good in proportion to their difficulty to acquire. It’s probably the stereotype for this sort of game, and I believe I fall right into it. I prefer to wear gear that is a token of accomplishment rather than uniqueness, although I perfectly understand why someone would want to separate their character from others rather than elevate it. I just don’t think that way.

That’s fair. I just wonder if, behind the scenes, your preference is pushing my own aside. For example, I’m really surprised that we haven’t seen a bunch of skins rolled out onto the cash shop.

Idk… probably just to look cool more than prestigious. I did plenty of grind stuff in WoW for cool looking mounts back in the old BC days… but I would say the real prestige comes from a sense of achievement that’s hard for folks to obtain because it isn’t something grindy/farmable. I only got the fancy flying hippogryph and gazelle-looking mounts because they looked cool on my female draenei priest decked out in T6 and the staff off Archimonde. Yeah a little chest pumping and ego-inflating I suppose… but it never made me so elitist that I wouldn’t give priests advice if they msg’ed me or help out groups who couldn’t find a healer for a dungeon they really wanted to do.

My character felt prestigious to me because of cool gear earned through skill (and some farming on the mounts I suppose), and I was helpful in whatever reasonable capacity… I made a presence on the server that I was this decked out priest willing to help as long as I wasn’t raiding (which folks knew my raid schedule). In this game, there might be cooler looking stuff than mine, yet some of those folks can’t play this game for diddly. I don’t feel like I, or some players I play with who I know are stellar at this game, standout in anyway…. which is really odd when there are so many mechanics and opportunities within GW2 to really create that experience.

Looking good. Though being able to change style would be nice.

I wish our fashion clothes could be used for combat….

Every armor/weapon looks like crap in this game, i played TL2 for a couple of hours and looked awesome with crap gear. It’s because they want you to gold sink into gem store or legendary weapons so they can make $$$ – which is ofc why the made this game.

Lionaeron.5724:

Every armor/weapon looks like crap in this game, i played TL2 for a couple of hours and looked awesome with crap gear. It’s because they want you to gold sink into gem store or legendary weapons so they can make $$$ – which is ofc why the made this game.

Idk man.

I’m already pretty happy with the way my ele looks and I’ve only been 80 for like 2 days. I feel no need to spend money in the gem store.

http://i.imgur.com/R2etI.jpg

Off topic are screenshots a lower resolution or something? That looks horrible compared to how my game actually looks. JW.

If something looks horrible to me, you can bet I won’t wear the look. Some of the cooler looking stuff isn’t even that expensive. I used to wear full T3 for the looks, but I’ve been seeing so much of the same all over…so I changed it up. I’m happy with how I look now, and the overall price isn’t even that much for the skins:

http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/3170/lwcava9.jpg

I’m with the OP. Personal preference will trump prestige every single time. If a particular item does not appeal to my sense of aesthetics, I will never get it, no matter how prestigious it is viewed by others. It is for this reason that I’m not getting a Legendary as they currently exist; all of them are either too outlandish, or they simply don’t suit the image I have in mind of my character. (My necromancer wields a shiny staff that shoots rainbows? SERIOUSLY?)

I go for a look that I like over everything, my 80 necro has a mix of culture pieces.. and some tailored pieces that I could of made at level 20 :P I like how it looks and thats all that matters.

OP’s comments about needing more choice.. I understand where you are coming from especially with medium armour, but really this game has only just started.. 3 months is nothing really, i’m sure we’ll see more stuff soon enough :P

I have played so many MMOs I have lost count. I always dress my characters in what looks cool to me. For instance when they bought in transmog in WoW The first thing I did was dig out my old T6 Absolution for my preist and skin it onto my gear. I loved that set. At the time of aquisition I was gutted when the next teir came out. Before Trasmogging, I kept about three sets in my bag to change into when I was in town. One of my favourite sets was theShadow council set I used this set not because it was hard to get but simply because in certain situations It looked great. Of all the garbage they added to WoW that forced me to quit the game after 4years Transmog was the most awesome.

As for GW2 I want to the T3 (human) set for my Warrior when I can afford it and will transmute it to whatever I am wearing. I am now leveling a mesmer (sylvari) and when I get to 60 I will buy the T2 set and transmute that onto my gear all the way to 80 It looks so awesome.

For me I do not like to show off how good at the game I am (or not), I prefer to show off how good my character looks. That is the reason why I wont be going for any legendarys because I simply do not like the models. Apart from maybe the sheild and the one handed sword.
I do understand though that many do not play like I do. There is room for both types of player, less so in GW2 because of a lack of choices so far.

I too wish they would add more skins of all types in the shop and across the board (crafting, dungeons etc…)

I just don’t want my asura to look terrible, which is what ac armors are. =/ hence, im farming for cm tokens :P

My level 80 Sylvari ranger is head to toe exotics that have all be reskinned to newbie stuff and colored to look like undyed leather patched together. Her bow, also exotic, was reskinned to the basic longbow (then again, I don’t know anyone that likes the Pearl set for any weapon).

My rogue kept his hood. My necro is keeping her ‘eyes’. My mesmer is going to go full butterfly winged set because ridiculous is just how I want her to look.

I’m a big fan of asthetics over accomplishment. Heck, my Bartle type is KESA so accomplishment/achievement…not really major motivators for me.

I would go with looks as well- I wore a combo of different armors on my Mesmer leveling and I have yet to see anyone like her- currently she is wearing transmuted Whispers armor with transmuted Winged boots and I love it.
When I was in the betas I fell in love with the Winged set artwork and as soon as I could I crafted it only to transmute it five minutes later since every second person seems to wear it.
My Ele just turned 45 and she is shaping up nicely as well- and since she is Vigil, I will probably get her some Vigil armor later
- She is still wearing her starter gem and using a very early story reward staff, that she will probably still be using at 80.

Try reading any of the “Tier 3 Cultural gear is too expensive” Threads, yeah that brings out the elitists in droves, ask for "rare gear that costs 119 gold " to be lowered or made cheaper and you’ll see the prestige side of Guildwars 2 raise its ugly head..

Ask for Legendaries to be made easier to get and watch those same elitists jump in and e-thug their way through the thread…

Yes for so many its all about the kitten..

Dante.1508:

Try reading any of the “Tier 3 Cultural gear is too expensive” Threads, yeah that brings out the elitists in droves, ask for "rare gear that costs 119 gold " to be lowered or made cheaper and you’ll see the prestige side of Guildwars 2 raise its ugly head..

Ask for Legendaries to be made easier to get and watch those same elitists jump in and e-thug their way through the thread…

Yes for so many its all about the kitten..

It’s funny because they’re the vocal minority that exist in many other games that have the potential to be great but usually flop through developers/designers not listening to the majority… *cough