Just going to spill my mind about the upcoming wardrobe changes. First of all, I agree that there had to be a change towards changing the appearance of lvl 80 gear. That you’ll be able to use your transmutation stones for it in a 3/1 ratio is the part that I agree on. Transmutation crystals weren’t accessible enough (mostly only available through gem store) and the demand of changing the appearance of lvl 80 gear is, let’s say, overwhelming. The difference between the stones and crystals was fine but no-one really used the stones anymore once they reached lvl 80 since, ofcourse, you’d only use lvl 80 gear. This could be easily solved however, by creating a vendor with whom you could exchange stones for crystals in a certain ratio (like for example 3 stones for 1 crystal). So well, I agree in the part to make crystals more accessible, that’s the good call, that they are just going to convert the stones and crystals to cosmetic charges is fine as well, though just a simple vendor would have solved the problem as well.
But now the part where I start to disagree. The idea of unlocking skins is an interesting idea but unlocking all of them permanently without exceptions (apart from the gem store ones ofcourse) is just a little too much. In fact I even disagree with the fact that you won’t have to convert two sets into one anymore but you’ll just be able to paste a skin over the one you like. Part of the fun is the CHOSING what you want. You decide which build you’re going to play, what stats you need for it and then you might look into your cosmetics. You make up your mind, assemble the two sets with stats and cosmetics that you like and you transmute them into your own epic set, yay! You finally achieved your goal after putting the effort into it! Want them on another character as well? Again you have to think if it’s worth it or not, and if it is, you’ll get it again. If you want to play another build in the future, you’ll buy a set with a new stat combination and again, you’ll make the decision if it’s worth to transmute it onto your cosmetic set or make a second nice looking set on that character to keep your options open in the future so you can get back to your old build (since you know how much effort you put into assembling it). Now you’ll just use up some cosmetic charges, paste the skin and done. What did you achieve? Nothing, or well yeah, I got it once so now I can paste it on anything as much as I want. Yay!
Let’s raise the stakes for a second, what about the legendaries and “special” exotic weapons like Infinite light, volcanus, eye of rodgort and all the others? Ever seen a Mesmer with dual infinite light? I did once and I thought kitten , that one had the guts to make two exotics that are almost worth a legendary instead of going for a legendary itself. And how nice and shiny she looked… Nowadays, when you make one of those weapons or a legendary, you have to chose on which character you’re going to put it. Again, the choosing is part of the fun. I made an infinite light and put it on my warrior because it looks really nice with our guild shield. Why didn’t I make two for my mesmer? Because I knew I would be satisfied with having it once. When the update comes around, I’ll just put dual infinite light on my mesmer because well, it’ll only cost me a few cosmetic charges instead of hundreds of charged lodestones. Will I play dual swords a lot? Probably not, but I’ll look great doing so. I’ll probably play dual swords for a week and get back to my usual build after. Why? Because it didn’t take me any effort to make the infinite lights anyway.