Guild Wars 2

THINK ABOUT IT:

Why did they kill Town Clothes and change the system over to Outfits? Because a faction of players in the forums were begging to be able to wear their Town Clothes in combat. But did they get what they wanted? NO! There are precious few Outfits that resemble the old Town Clothes. Most of the stuff they are churning out are competing with the light, medium, and heavy armor looks.

Town Clothes were designed to be worn around town – hence the name (duh!). There is a large community of players who want a relaxed, casual look. But almost everything coming out in the way of Outfits are armor looks. If ANet wants their Outfits to please a lot of people, then they need to release more of them with the Town Clothes feel that people originally asked to be able to wear in combat. They can start by turning all of those wretched “Town Clothes Tonics” into Outfits.

Summary: I think a lot of people are complaining about Outfits because ANet is designing them to look like armor, and then they get upset when they can’t use pieces of Outfits with pieces of armor.

Outfits were supposed to look like Town Clothes. That is what was originally asked for. If they weren’t directly competing with the armor market, I think there would be fewer complaints today. Outfits need to pull back from the “armor” trend, and concentrate more on “Town Clothes” styles, and other “Special Occasion” fashions that don’t make us crave individual pieces so badly.

(Stuck for ideas, ANet? Ask your community! We can give you hundreds of looks we’d like to see!)
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As a die-hard Mix ‘n’ Matcher, I have said many times that I will never purchase an Outfit. But that was because I have no place for armor that isn’t customizable. But I could very easily buy loads of Outfits that were of the “Town Clothes” or “Special Occasion” variety, even though they aren’t Mix ‘n’ Matchable.

We need to fix a few game mechanics, though:

• First, all of the “optional” pieces – headgear, shoulders, and gloves – should be toggleable on/off for all Outfits, just like armor.

• Second, All 3 toggleable pieces should be able to be toggled directly from the Outfit screen. It is a royal pain to flip back and forth from the armor screen.

• Third, the game should remember our preferences. If I want my hat on with my armor, but off with my Outfit, I shouldn’t have to manually change every time I switch.

• Fourth, they need to reinstate the “Town Clothes toggle” key for Outfits, so that we can bind a key to instantly swap.

ONE FINAL THING:

Perhaps the thing I miss the most about the old Town Clothes, is that many of them came with Costume Brawl toys! With Costume Brawl no longer part of the Daily Achievements, another fun aspect of the game is slowly fading. If more costumes included a TOY, then it would not only help revitalize the Costume Brawl, but it might also get people to buy a costume just for the toy!

Those are my thoughts, ANet. If you can make some of this stuff happen, I will consider buying your Outfits, limited as they are. I am tempted by the upcoming Countess Anise Outfit, since it borders on a less combative look (although hardly “casual”). But I’ll wait and see if you take notice of the growing dissatisfaction, and voice your resolve to look into some changes to the current system.

+1 on most points

• I do agree and usually only buy outfits that look more like clothes. I’m not a fan of armor/outfits most of the time.

• The tonics should be made into outfits, yes.

• Costume brawl dailies, I don’t miss. It really wasn’t balanced, which normally I wouldn’t care about but it sucks when people aren’t responding to your last minute plea for a brawl partner and some jerk from outta nowhere trolls you with his boxing gloves or executioner scythe the minute you do find a partner.

• Costume toggle key? Yes please.

• Toggle shoulders. VERY MUCH YES. I rarely wear shoulders on my normal armor sets, if I do it’s usually more scarflike. Not really that big on pauldrons.

I have been missing my toggle button since it disappeared. RIP, toggling outfits/clothes. :(

Has it only been a year since the April 2014 Feature Pack? Feels like it’s been longer since the town clothes change.

As much as I’d like to see town clothes tonics turned into outfits, at this point, I’m not optimistic. I think the other requests (toggle-hide head/shoulders/gloves, hot key for outfits) seem pretty reasonable. Particularly the hotkey. I used to swap town clothes on and off all the time, but now I tend to spend longer periods in one of the other, usually my armor, because it’s a hassle to go through the hero window.

I also miss outfits coming with costume brawl toys. Maybe I’m spoiled by the old outfits, but I don’t feel like I’m getting the same value for a costume without a toy as I did with one. Even if I don’t use it for costume brawl, I get a lot of fun out of the effects.

Really nice QoL ideas here and yes I am also surprised old Town Clothes haven’t been updated to Outfits yet – though I wouldn’t be shocked if they were intending to do and are working on this.