Guild Wars 2

It would be a great idea to remove Heavy/Medium/Light armor restriction for transmutation(looks) purposes only.

Reasons to remove this restriction:
1. It brings incentive for players to buy more Armors from the gemstore. For example, I dont play any Medium Armor classes, but I really like Magitech Armor in the gemstore. That’s one sale(among many) that you are not getting.

2. Arenanet selling a lot more Transmutation Charges would be a direct result of that.

3. Ancestral Outfit can already make characters look Light, Shadow Assassin Outfit can already make characters look Medium, and Ceremonial Plated Outfit can already make characters look Heavy. Removing the restriction would add a lot more variety to character looks. Not everyone will buy Outfits, but many will buy the full armor set for just 1 piece(out of 6) that they like.

4. The claim that you should recognize an enemy’s class immediately is not valid for PvP anymore, because Standard Character Models has been introduced in the last Feature Pack anyway.

5. Clipping issues wont matter, because we currently already have armors that clip with even themselves. People will always look for what looks good and what does not by themselves(and everyone has different tastes).

6. It would make many players would be happy. Those who dont like the idea of mixing Light and Heavy armors can just stay the way they are. Players tend to like Freedom of Choice.

I think it would be a good idea by now to learn this from your player-base:
Restrictions that serve no purpose is what kills a game.
Wardrobe and Account Wallet removed restriction, and made players happy.
Trait-locking and Skill-locking added restriction, and made players leave.

Please consider the following:
A Guardian player will never craft the Legendary Shortbow because Guardians cannot equip Shortbows. If that Guardian was planning to convert Gems>Gold to make that Shortbow, that’s quite a lot of money that you did not make there.
Players have been asking for more weapon-types for each class(Guardians with Longbow, Eles with Pistols). Therefore, this is another restriction that I encourage you to consider removing in the future though the implications are higher(new skills for each new weapon for each profession).

At this stage there really is only ONE reason to leave armor weights in the game: crafting.

Outside of that there is enough outfits that heavies wear that look like light and enough heavy outfits that light can wear. Outfits and gemstore skins.

So your suggest is quite workable, even though I doubt Anet would do it.

I heard it was something to do with meshing but I can’t recall the details.

Personally id like the armor weight to be removed too. When I’m playing with my engi who is heavy turret build I want him to look more armored up and some medium armor looks like it is full leather. Now I have to admit their are some armors that with different dyes I can make look like heavy armor but it doesn’t look the same. Stats and the base armor should still be how it is now but skins at least only armor skins would be nice to customize. Again only the skin of armors the stats would be the same. Weapons should stay the same imho because I think that might have issues with weapon animations.

Zoso.8279:

Personally id like the armor weight to be removed too. When I’m playing with my engi who is heavy turret build I want him to look more armored up and some medium armor looks like it is full leather. Now I have to admit their are some armors that with different dyes I can make look like heavy armor but it doesn’t look the same. Stats and the base armor should still be how it is now but skins at least only armor skins would be nice to customize. Again only the skin of armors the stats would be the same. Weapons should stay the same imho because I think that might have issues with weapon animations.

Sorrow’s Embrace medium armor tends to be heavy looking, at least on human males (and probably Norn Males). Also Magitech boots.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

I heard it was something to do with meshing but I can’t recall the details.

Yeah, I have heard they can’t really do this because of some such conflict. It’s kinda sad because this game has one of the most robust systems for “appearance” that I’ve seen – all they would need to do is get rid of the armor class restriction for wardrobe and remove the transmutation cost, and this game’s wardrobe would pretty much be king of the MMO world, as far as I know.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Questions-Town-clothes-Costumes-Combat/page/14#post3817507

Here’s a pretty decent explanation as to why armor weight will definitely be sticking around, for technical reasons at the very least. There are more problems than just clipping, evidently.