Guild Wars 2

Why its so difficult to make more armors instead of Outfits?

If we could Combine all those beautiful elements in the Outfits i would have the freakin best armor ALL TIME !

So please stop making all those Outfits..

we’ve been screaming this for a long while now, its landing on deaf ears.
Anet apparently don’t want our money.

i’d have bought every single outfit released if they were armours.

Liewec.2896:

i’d have bought every single outfit released if they were armours.

Kind of the same for me. I hate the outfit idea! Now, if they were armor skins, that would be a completely different story.

Stop making outfit threads. ANet has already explained the how and why of their armor and outfit development. Constantly making new threads about dead, beaten horses isn’t going to change that.

Well armour would be less profitable since u buy outfifs with gems but not armour. so less money for them. and you know its all about the cash.

I spend money. I buy outfit. I’m happy.

Too much clipping on individual armor pieces. It’s a ton of work with so many different pieces to make sure they all work together without looking bad. Outfits are easier since they only have to worry about the outfit clipping with itself.

We all want armorskins rather than outfits....

ANet please make more Outfits, preferably some heavy looking skins, I love how they don’t clip and how I can change them when ever at no cost.

Rauderi.8706:

Stop making outfit threads. ANet has already explained the how and why of their armor and outfit development. Constantly making new threads about dead, beaten horses isn’t going to change that.

Well, that’s dumb. If we are willing to pay a lot of money for armor that can be sold through the gem store, then why would they not take the opportunity to make a lot more money? Having armor in the gem store is obviously a very desired thing if the topic continues to be brought up again and again.

Plus, I bought my first outfit this week, and I never plan on buying another… simply because you can’t mix-and-match at all. Overall, it’s just an illogical concept to sell outfits in a game that is based around making your character look how you want.

Outfits are easier. Outfits are cheaper. Outfits are dull.
Sorry, but easy, cheap and dull don’t describe what I like to invest in. I don’t value measly things.

For the Eternal Alchemy! I’ll be happy if they at least convert the boots into proper armor…

Galtrix.7369:

Rauderi.8706:

Stop making outfit threads. ANet has already explained the how and why of their armor and outfit development. Constantly making new threads about dead, beaten horses isn’t going to change that.

Well, that’s dumb. If we are willing to pay a lot of money for armor that can be sold through the gem store, then why would they not take the opportunity to make a lot more money? Having armor in the gem store is obviously a very desired thing if the topic continues to be brought up again and again.

Plus, I bought my first outfit this week, and I never plan on buying another… simply because you can’t mix-and-match at all. Overall, it’s just an illogical concept to sell outfits in a game that is based around making your character look how you want.

I get the reasoning. I support the reasoning. As a player with mostly Charr characters, trust me, I know how terrible the mix-and-match options are, and I want more.

But these “new” threads about outfits are always the same thing. Whine to the rallycry of “Stop making Outfits” without any understanding of why outfits are released so quickly. It’s exhausting to see this come up every (semi)monthly period without any consideration. It’s the Mount thread in a different form.

Armor sets are a huge undertaking, with older and less efficient coding, requiring 3 weights, 2 genders, and 5 races (or 3 rigs, to be more modest in estimates). That’s 30 (or 18) iterations to release a comparable set. Outfits pare out the weight restriction, and their concept design doesn’t have to match anything related to other releases. Armor sets may very well have to match in design and be released simultaneously (or, y’know, the players will whinge about that too…), which means more development time in between releases.

But right now, nothing new is being said in these threads.

A set of gem shop armor, all three weights, takes 10x longer to create than an outfit, about 9 dev months according to Micheal O’Brien, it’s in one of the reddit AMAs this year.

Armor takes 10x longer than outfits – https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0o34v3/?context=10000

Armor takes 9 months – https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4uqx15/out_of_the_shadows_devs_here_ask_us_anything/d5s52tj/

We’ve known that armor set are no longer being developed for the gem shop for 1 1/2 years. We will still get pieces like hats, boots, gloves and shoulders but full sets? That’s an expansion only feature now due to their development cost.

Armor is priced at 800 gems while Outfits are priced at 700 gems. Armor needs to sell nearly 9x as many units as Outfits simply to pay off the development cost. Now since gem shop sales is what’s paying the bills, items sold in the gem shop need to payoff their development cost quickly otherwise they aren’t helping to pay for everything that’s not sold in the gem shop.

Blame ANet’s terrible terrible development cycle for making full sets of armor. They messed up BAD when started to build on GW1’s code. The end result is us players paying the price with a lack of new armor (full sets) variety.

Behellagh.1468:

A set of gem shop armor, all three weights, takes 10x longer to create than an outfit, about 9 dev months according to Micheal O’Brien, it’s in one of the reddit AMAs this year.

10x the effort, which doesn’t necessarily mean 10x longer. It takes a lot more effort because they’re restricted to the various weight patterns, unlike outfits. If it takes them 9 months though, then it likely takes around 3 months for an outfit. If that’s not the case, they must deal with a lot a problems considering that from a modeling perspective, it might take a day to slice an outfit, maybe a week for finer details.

Armor and outfits are not comparable in cost, time to make and profit per unit sold. They are not equivalent gemstore items for ANet to produce and sell for the same price.

Profits from outfits helps fund more content. Now, some will say armor would sell better but armor is one of the most expensive things they make. They would have to charge far more than 700-800 gems for each armor to even match the profit that cheap and easy to make outfits earn.

Avster.1935:

Blame ANet’s terrible terrible development cycle for making full sets of armor. They messed up BAD when started to build on GW1’s code. The end result is us players paying the price with a lack of new armor (full sets) variety.

^

This.

5 races which each require armor to be fitted to them. Non standardized dye channel placement across all 3 weights and having different meshes instead of one mesh for all weights.

Their intent seems to have been for each weight to be unique in looks and never to be mixed and matched. These early design desicions have led to a host of problems with getting armor out fast and cheaply and allowing mix and match across weights.

Go look at the light armor “Flame legion vestments” in the wardrobe. Its a chest piece that replaces both the chest and legs but allows you to equip different boots, shoulders, gloves and helms – a half-outfit if you will.

Anet keeps claiming clipping as the reason that armors take so long to make but judging by the flame legion vestments, it should be possible to create chest-leg single pieces – bypassing the issue of clipping completely.

That Anet hasn’t been doing this seems a deliberate ploy of mis-information to promote outfits as a necessity :/

Gerrand.3085:

Go look at the light armor “Flame legion vestments” in the wardrobe. Its a chest piece that replaces both the chest and legs but allows you to equip different boots, shoulders, gloves and helms – a half-outfit if you will.

Anet keeps claiming clipping as the reason that armors take so long to make but judging by the flame legion vestments, it should be possible to create chest-leg single pieces – bypassing the issue of clipping completely.

That Anet hasn’t been doing this seems a deliberate ploy of mis-information to promote outfits as a necessity :/

Clipping is a minor side issue. The main issues seem to be dye channels that are not compatible (non matching dye channels were specifically mentioned in a post that discussed why armor can’t be made to mix and match) and different weights having different meshes.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Gerrand.3085:

Go look at the light armor “Flame legion vestments” in the wardrobe. Its a chest piece that replaces both the chest and legs but allows you to equip different boots, shoulders, gloves and helms – a half-outfit if you will.

Anet keeps claiming clipping as the reason that armors take so long to make but judging by the flame legion vestments, it should be possible to create chest-leg single pieces – bypassing the issue of clipping completely.

That Anet hasn’t been doing this seems a deliberate ploy of mis-information to promote outfits as a necessity :/

Clipping is a minor side issue. The main issues seem to be dye channels that are not compatible (non matching dye channels were specifically mentioned in a post that discussed why armor can’t be made to mix and match) and different weights having different meshes.

I either don’t understand your point or we are talking about different subjects. I’m talking about making weight specific half-outfits. I believe you either talking about multi-weight half-outfits or swapping skins across weight divisions.

Gerrand.3085:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Gerrand.3085:

Go look at the light armor “Flame legion vestments” in the wardrobe. Its a chest piece that replaces both the chest and legs but allows you to equip different boots, shoulders, gloves and helms – a half-outfit if you will.

Anet keeps claiming clipping as the reason that armors take so long to make but judging by the flame legion vestments, it should be possible to create chest-leg single pieces – bypassing the issue of clipping completely.

That Anet hasn’t been doing this seems a deliberate ploy of mis-information to promote outfits as a necessity :/

Clipping is a minor side issue. The main issues seem to be dye channels that are not compatible (non matching dye channels were specifically mentioned in a post that discussed why armor can’t be made to mix and match) and different weights having different meshes.

I either don’t understand your point or we are talking about different subjects. I’m talking about making weight specific half-outfits. I believe you either talking about multi-weight half-outfits or swapping skins across weight divisions.

Ah. Ok. misread your post.

Truthfully I haven’t seen all these quotes by ANet saying clipping is the main reason why it takes so long to make armor. The ones I’ve seen have always been players saying clipping is the issue. Perhaps you could post a link or two. I collect stuff like that for future threads. ^^

Avster.1935:

Blame ANet’s terrible terrible development cycle for making full sets of armor. They messed up BAD when started to build on GW1’s code. The end result is us players paying the price with a lack of new armor (full sets) variety.

errr.. development is all about reusing old code……

Gerrand.3085:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Gerrand.3085:

Go look at the light armor “Flame legion vestments” in the wardrobe. Its a chest piece that replaces both the chest and legs but allows you to equip different boots, shoulders, gloves and helms – a half-outfit if you will.

Anet keeps claiming clipping as the reason that armors take so long to make but judging by the flame legion vestments, it should be possible to create chest-leg single pieces – bypassing the issue of clipping completely.

That Anet hasn’t been doing this seems a deliberate ploy of mis-information to promote outfits as a necessity :/

Clipping is a minor side issue. The main issues seem to be dye channels that are not compatible (non matching dye channels were specifically mentioned in a post that discussed why armor can’t be made to mix and match) and different weights having different meshes.

I either don’t understand your point or we are talking about different subjects. I’m talking about making weight specific half-outfits. I believe you either talking about multi-weight half-outfits or swapping skins across weight divisions.

He’s talking about having Shadow Abyss looking really dark on one piece of armor vs, dark gray on another.

Stop making outfits when you have legendary armour pushing a year and a half late.

Gwaihir.1745:

Stop making outfits when you have legendary armour pushing a year and a half late.

How can it be late, you can’t even craft it yet. Raiders are still farming mats to even make the fugly pre-cursor armors.

All that they advertised was the reward from raids, didn’t say how many raids, was the ability to earn Legendary Armor.

While I can understand that making full armor sets takes a lot more effort, I’d still prefer that over Outfits. I’d rather wait longer and spend more gems if I got a full armor set rather than another Outfit.
I didn’t mind Outfits so much between the time they changed the transmutation system to what it is now, and the time I stopped actually leveling new characters in the world rather than with the 187931231 tomes I have from various sources, as it saved on transmutation charges while constantly swapping out armor pieces.. But now, I’d much rather have armor sets that I can combine as I please..
I like outfits as much as the average person I guess, but there’s not much point in me having those shiny Peg-Leg Boots, the awesome Bloodstone Visage, or the cool Toxic Mantle since it doesn’t show under an Outfit.
I don’t even have huge issues with different armor sets responding differently to dyes; it’s more annoying when different pieces in the SAME armor set respond differently or seem to use reversed dye channels on some pieces. <.<

While I’d love to see more armor in GW2, the devs have gone on record saying that armor sets are incredibly time and resource intensive.

Here’s an estimate perceived breakdown on what Anet might have to account for:

• Four to six unique races (norn and sylvari are humanoid but there are some noticeable differences so I don’t know how much reuse can happen with them)
• Two genders, assuming even slightly different body shape, would effectively double the amount of work. Even if male and female charr and asura use the same armor appearance while norn, human, and sylvari don’t, that’s still eight unique appearances (2 human + 2 sylvari + 2 norn + 1 charr + 1 asura)
• At six armor pieces for a set, and using the number in the previous bullet point, that’s at least 48 different armor pieces. (6 pieces * 8 possible gender and race combos assuming male and female asura/charr are the same).
• That also means all 48 armor pieces basically have to have some sort of testing with all other armor pieces to ensure there aren’t any major bugs or issues (minor clipping and texture stretching is ignored in favor of fixing the glaringly obvious issues)
• Dye channels on each armor pieces have to be tested (don’t know how much of this can be automated)

That’s all for one single set of armor. Imagine having to release 10, or even 20 sets of armor. That’d be a huge amount of art inhouse work/outsourcing, QA, and project management. (Note: I have no clue if Anet has the capability to do this sort of stuff over one or two years while creating new NPCs, creatures, environment art, special effects, and maintaining some sort of memory budget)

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The ones I’ve seen have always been players saying clipping is the issue.

yup i keep seeing that from outfit fans without an argument, it is easily debunked by reminding them that plenty of the armour in the game already has clipping issues if you mix it badly.
it is up for the player to mix and match a set that looks good.
obviously using Grenth’s Hood (which has a cape) and shoulders like Mantle of the Lich will clip,
players should be able to use their brains and mix parts that don’t clip.

almost the same argument common amongst fans of outfits is the “different cut off points” argument which is pretty much debunked the same way.
they say “oh different weight classes have armour cut off points at different heights on the character so using one part would look horrible/end abruptly!”.
1. firstly i don’t believe them, we can look at heavy armour and some armours cut off so much higher/lower than others.
2. even if it is true, we can still use our brains and imaginations to make it work,
there are plenty of ingame armours right now that if you don’t use the chest and legs they can seem to end abruptly, but you CAN make them work with other armours.
example:

um, I like outfits,
not everyone hates them, or wants to get rid of them.

I actually like them more then the skins because you can wear them at any level without wasting transmutation shards. I just wish the dyes were separate for each one.

The reasons armor takes so long are moot as far as this thread is concerned. ANet has heard all our unsolicited advice, they’ve tried whatever they can to speed it up, and they’ve looked at the metrics in terms of how people spend their cash and their gems. The end result is that they can make more money selling 5-10 outfits per year than they can selling a single armor set.

People can keep claiming that clipping isn’t an issue (by pretending that the existence of some clipping means that ANet hasn’t worked hard to eliminate the vast majority) or that it shouldn’t take so long (by assuming things about the design process or their tools). It won’t change anything.

They know a lot of people want more armor pieces. Surely they’d make it happen if it were cost effective. Unless we think that they aren’t in business to make money or that they are bad at it.

Transmutations are a non issue for the community. They’re handed out like candy I’m over 1k and I reskin entire sets at will.

Gwaihir.1745:

Transmutations are a non issue for the community. They’re handed out like candy I’m over 1k and I reskin entire sets at will.

No, that’s a non-issue for you,
but not everyone has 1k charges to waste,
and not everyone hates outfits.

It might be nice to have more armors, but I love the outfits, too, and I don’t want them to stop making them.

Some people like outfits. Some like armor. ANet used to make new armor sets to sell in the store. There was a lot of push-back by fans demanding that armor should be a reward for play, not a store item. So, Anet made it so.

Armor is for in game rewards. Rewards accompany new content. Very rarely, rewards get added to old content. New content comes along once in a while. Thus, armor comes along once in a while. This is a direct result of the ANet decision to acquiesce to player demands.

Outfits are for store sales. Store sales are independent of content. With that, and with outfits, being much easier to produce, outfits come along more frequently.

What I’m curious about with demands like the OP’s is this. Is s/he asking for ANet to renege on the promise that armor would be a reward for play and put new armor sets in the store? Is s/he instead asking that ANet stop making outfits in favor of armor sets and still wanting this armor as play rewards? If the former, then there were a lot of people who asked for it to be the way it is now. If the latter, well, Anet has to sell something.

Rauderi.8706:

Stop making outfit threads. ANet has already explained the how and why of their armor and outfit development. Constantly making new threads about dead, beaten horses isn’t going to change that.

The “why” is because they so horribly mismanaged their profits and staff for so long that they can’t put out a product of reasonable quality at a reasonable enough rate to make any money or keep any players around.

And it is entirely their fault, so no, we won’t stop complaining about it.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

ANet please make more Outfits, preferably some heavy looking skins, I love how they don’t clip and how I can change them when ever at no cost.

Charrbeque.8729:

I spend money. I buy outfit. I’m happy.

Too much clipping on individual armor pieces. It’s a ton of work with so many different pieces to make sure they all work together without looking bad. Outfits are easier since they only have to worry about the outfit clipping with itself.

Sometimes an outfit is just perfect right off the bat.

I do wish we could hide shoulders and gloves though.

I fail to see an issue with the rate at which armor skins and outfits are released. To recent memory, three helmets, one shoulder, and one glove have been released in game. Aside from that, there are already hundreds of obtainable armor skins available, making for almost infinite possible skin combinations in any armor weight class.
Whether some believe ANet’s reasons behind the slower development of armor skins is immaterial. The reasons have been stated, belief is not necessary nor required. Equally, faith in ANet’s management regarding the development of said armor skins is immaterial. More will come when they come. People’s personal outrage will not speed the process.

Since no one at anet likes doing their job cough coughlazy armor designs for charr, asura, and norn*cough cough* they could at least make outfits obtainable in pve/p settings behind a hard achievement or task.

It would add more for us players to do. Almost all the new armor skins and outfits are locked behind money. Im not saying stop selling armor skins completely but at least add some to the game so we have something to work towards instead of only legendaries.

P.S. It would also be nice for us to use armor helmets with outfits

Conncept.7638:

Rauderi.8706:

Stop making outfit threads. ANet has already explained the how and why of their armor and outfit development. Constantly making new threads about dead, beaten horses isn’t going to change that.

The “why” is because they so horribly mismanaged their profits and staff for so long that they can’t put out a product of reasonable quality at a reasonable enough rate to make any money or keep any players around.

And it is entirely their fault, so no, we won’t stop complaining about it.

Mismanaged or not, it doesn’t change the reality that armor development is more time-intensive and probably less profitable than outfit development. And as a management decision, ANet already caved to “we want armors in game”, which makes armor set pieces even less profitable. Complaining about it only hurt the cause even more.

Baseless complaining without understanding game development is useless. Especially when it’s with “new” threads that are ill-informed and pop up with clockwork predictability.

I don’t get why they say armor is so hard because they have to do it for each race and gender, isn’t it basically automatically adjusted to each different body type for each race and gender? there have been many times where the devs have said that a certain armor looks a bit funny on a certain race because of the race’s bodyshape. like all the issues with char and huge shoulders on male norns, so they clearly are not doing it once for every race and gender…
We’re still waiting for town clothes to be made into outfits.
and if you’re giving us only outfits, then give us MUCH more, and more varied. most lof them are utterly busy and filled with details, many of us want simpler things, skimpier options for males too, we have lots of too similar outfits already… give us more variation!

coso.9173:

I don’t get why they say armor is so hard because they have to do it for each race and gender, isn’t it basically automatically adjusted to each different body type for each race and gender? there have been many times where the devs have said that a certain armor looks a bit funny on a certain race because of the race’s bodyshape. like all the issues with char and huge shoulders on male norns, so they clearly are not doing it once for every race and gender…
We’re still waiting for town clothes to be made into outfits.
and if you’re giving us only outfits, then give us MUCH more, and more varied. most lof them are utterly busy and filled with details, many of us want simpler things, skimpier options for males too, we have lots of too similar outfits already… give us more variation!

No, there’s no “automatic” adjustment. You can move sliders to resize elements of the armor, but it still has to fit the wire mesh of the differently-shaped races/genders. Even with all the work they do, they still end up with edge cases or run out of time, requiring them to choose between the lesser of evils: some clipping here or reusing part of a design there.

People in this thread (not singling out anyone) keep offering up ideas or criticisms as if ANet hasn’t considered any other options, as if ANet hasn’t read all the other threads discussing (or arguing) the same concepts.

That leaves us with two choices:

Accept that ANet is good at what they do and it’s their (collective) expert opinion that armor sets can’t be released any quicker than they are now (without changing the cost structure of the game).

Or

Believe that ANet isn’t good at what they do and/or their expert opinion isn’t worth much. In which case, we still aren’t getting armor sets any quicker, because (in this scenario), ANet wouldn’t be able to deliver them because they aren’t good at what they do.

it’s more of a “be aware your playerbase really wants this, so it might be worth your time and effort”.

coso.9173:

it’s more of a “be aware your playerbase really wants this, so it might be worth your time and effort”.

“Time and effort” costs “resources” from another part of the game or “money” to hire more “resources”. For it To be a “good” decision to move those resources or hire additional, what’s created by those resources have to contribute to the game’s cash flow to warrant the cost.

ANet decided a while ago that 800 gem armor sets don’t generate the income they would need to see from an item that “costs” so much to create while 700 gem outfits do. ANet has released 21 sets of armor, 7 for each weight, in the gem shop since launch and they know how well armor sell and the profits they can expect. It’s not like it’s a gut decision.

All I ask if outfits continue is to make outfits have at least a dozen or so more dye channels and the ability to swap out the outfit’kitten

And a reverse version of the noble counts/wedding sets.

I would have spent hundreds of dollars with ANet by now buying whole individual sets of armor skin packs just for 1 piece I wanted, but I have boycotted Outfits for a long time now and plan to never, ever, ever, EVER buy one again, in protest.

Stop giving them money for Outfits and they will wake up. BOYCOTT OUTFITS.

And while you’re at it, make a new slot for “effects” type things like Winter’s Presence so you can still wear a scarf while it snows on you. I’ll give you more money…

I’ve been talking to 1 of those anet staff in game and they said it cost more time and efforts to make armor rather than outfit and seems like theres more problem with clipping on armors

Returning player here.. whats the diff between outfits and armor?

iNaddict.8021:

Returning player here.. whats the diff between outfits and armor?

Armor pieces, like helmet, gloves, trousers etc. can be mixed at will

An Outfit is a set that is just there.
You can dye it but that’s it. There is no other way to personalize it.

Honestly i see no problem with this and we got some armor sets with HoT, we’ll probably get new ones with the next expansion and we had single armor pieces with each new LS Area.

LouWolfskin.3492:

iNaddict.8021:

Returning player here.. whats the diff between outfits and armor?

Armor pieces, like helmet, gloves, trousers etc. can be mixed at will

An Outfit is a set that is just there.
You can dye it but that’s it. There is no other way to personalize it.

Honestly i see no problem with this and we got some armor sets with HoT, we’ll probably get new ones with the next expansion and we had single armor pieces with each new LS Area.

Wow .. ok then im all for new armor

Some Outfits are very, very popular. One can tell by the jump in the Gold-to-Gems exchange rate.

They just added a full set of PvP armor. Give it time. It will happened.

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