Guild Wars 2

Just make the costumes armor pieces skinnable on any armor weight… We can work around the clipping, or give you guys feedback on which piece combinations cause clipping.

If you cut the costumes up and make them skinable over armor, then they’re armor skins and not costumes.

Considering they’ve already said that armor takes 10 times as much work to design then I don’t see them doing this.

Clipping isn’t really the issue.

Outfits v. Armor Skins is such a dead-horse topic that I’m just going to leave it at that. See previous threads on the topic for more information.

I just don’t buy the costumes – simple. Yeah it would be nice if they would release separate armor sets but they just won’t so I ignore costumes in the store.

Yeah, I will NEVER pay money for an outfit, no matter how nice it looks, but I would have bought numerous outfits if I could just mix and match the pieces I wanted from it. They really need to take the time to re-rig their armor systems so that they all use the same skeleton.

Ohoni.6057:

Yeah, I will NEVER pay money for an outfit, no matter how nice it looks, but I would have bought numerous outfits if I could just mix and match the pieces I wanted from it. They really need to take the time to re-rig their armor systems so that they all use the same skeleton.

this is impossible. its impossible to design 1 coded mannequin that will factor in every species, body type, height, and possible combination of crazy things like leafy sylvari racial gear, or flaming balthazar backpiece, etc etc. the work required to make 6 new pieces, and then check them against every combination of armor in the game, across all body types, is outrageous. thats probably billions of combinations that have to be individually checked from all angles, on every species and body type and height, in a 360 plus up and down, to eliminate irregularities for it to be suitable for release.

and youre gonna whine about outfits?

Ohoni.6057:

Yeah, I will NEVER pay money for an outfit, no matter how nice it looks, but I would have bought numerous outfits if I could just mix and match the pieces I wanted from it. They really need to take the time to re-rig their armor systems so that they all use the same skeleton.

The 3 different armor weights have seams in different places. They would have to redo all the pieces that are seamed differently and make them one seam position for all. There is also the problem of dye channels that don’t match across armor weights. Essentially, they would need to make a 4th armor weight and redo all the armor in game to match this weight. That’s a lot of work and not likely to happen.

Ten times the work; would you pay ten times the price?

Likely would not be big sellers at that kind of cost.

mrauls.6519:

Just make the costumes armor pieces skinnable on any armor weight… We can work around the clipping, or give you guys feedback on which piece combinations cause clipping.

(emphasis added)

Don’t you think if it was “just” that easy, they would have already done it? Think of all the complaints that would end. Think of all the gem sales. Think of all the good will that would generate.

this is impossible. its impossible to design 1 coded mannequin that will factor in every species,

Yeah, that wasn’t my point. I was talking about what Flesh Wound was, that light/heavy/medium armor uses a different rigging skeleton, which is the reason they’ve given in the past that they can’t just make one coat that will fit any clothing style. Basically, every “outfit” in the game is actually Light Armor (I think might be medium), but if they pulled the coat off the outfit then it would leave gaps if they tried to put it on a Medium or Heavy character.

My point is they need to go in and re-rig all the existing armor to use a single rigging system, so that it can all use a unified base, not so that they could put the same piece on a Charr or an Asura without alteration, but so that an Elementalist could throw on a Heavy coat without breaking. If they could manage that, then they should be able to allow outfits to be broken up into pieces.

Also, they don’t need to check all possible combinations, because in case you haven’t noticed, plenty of existing armor pieces have minor clipping issues, it happens, but we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. They can fix clipping issues when they arise, but don’t need to overly stress about it.

And I’m not “whining about outfits,” I’m just saying flat out that they are a non-entity to me in their current state, but that if they were being released as armor sets I likely would have spent at least $50+ on them by this point.

The 3 different armor weights have seams in different places. They would have to redo all the pieces that are seamed differently and make them one seam position for all. There is also the problem of dye channels that don’t match across armor weights. Essentially, they would need to make a 4th armor weight and redo all the armor in game to match this weight. That’s a lot of work and not likely to happen.

I’m not saying it’d be trivial, I understand there is work involved, but I think it’s necessary work to move forward, they need to dig themselves out of this particular ditch, not keep digging. If they do this project once, then it would greatly simplify the addition of all future armor to the game, much easier than just sacrificing all potential armor additions because the core system was poorly designed.

As for dye channels, that’s a non-issue. Yeah, it’d be nice to not have to change dye patterns when missing armor pieces, but it’s not the end of the world either way, people can correct for that manually.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Ten times the work; would you pay ten times the price?

Likely would not be big sellers at that kind of cost.

Armor-sets costed 800 gems .. before people started to complain that they don’t
want them in the gem-shop .. and now we have those stupid outfits .. yay .. thanks
for complaining.

How is it 10 times the work?

People are saying they don’t care about clipping issues. They don’t care that it might not match perfectly with some random obscure piece of gear. Just add a warning that it might not look good when mixed with other sets, split the outfit into different pieces to make a skin set, then copy paste for the 3 weights—they don’t need to be different between light/med/heavy—and there you go. Demands have been met.

reikken.4961:

How is it 10 times the work?

People are saying they don’t care about clipping issues. They don’t care that it might not match perfectly with some random obscure piece of gear.

Sadly some people will always complain about clipping bugs that i don’t even notice
after watching their posted picture for 2 minutes.

reikken.4961:

How is it 10 times the work?

People are saying they don’t care about clipping issues. They don’t care that it might not match perfectly with some random obscure piece of gear. Just add a warning that it might not look good when mixed with other sets, split the outfit into different pieces to make a skin set, then copy paste for the 3 weights—they don’t need to be different between light/med/heavy—and there you go. Demands have been met.

They said in previous posts (in the reddit thread AMA) that armor was among the most difficult items to design and that they were 10 times the work of making an outfit.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reikken.4961:

How is it 10 times the work?

People are saying they don’t care about clipping issues. They don’t care that it might not match perfectly with some random obscure piece of gear. Just add a warning that it might not look good when mixed with other sets, split the outfit into different pieces to make a skin set, then copy paste for the 3 weights—they don’t need to be different between light/med/heavy—and there you go. Demands have been met.

They said in previous posts (in the reddit thread AMA) that armor was among the most difficult items to design and that they were 10 times the work of making an outfit.

However .. before people complained we got 1 new armor set for each weight
more or less ever month in the gemstore for 800 gems. And GW2 was never
a gear grinding game .. more grinding for optical stuff.

But what have we now .. nearly no new armor sets since 2 years ..instead we get
now ascended stuff with different stats to grind for .. in that case i really prefer
to grind for gear with better stats in other games.

Beldin.5498:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reikken.4961:

How is it 10 times the work?

People are saying they don’t care about clipping issues. They don’t care that it might not match perfectly with some random obscure piece of gear. Just add a warning that it might not look good when mixed with other sets, split the outfit into different pieces to make a skin set, then copy paste for the 3 weights—they don’t need to be different between light/med/heavy—and there you go. Demands have been met.

They said in previous posts (in the reddit thread AMA) that armor was among the most difficult items to design and that they were 10 times the work of making an outfit.

However .. before people complained we got 1 new armor set for each weight
more or less ever month in the gemstore for 800 gems. And GW2 was never
a gear grinding game .. more grinding for optical stuff.

But what have we now .. nearly no new armor sets since 2 years ..instead we get
now ascended stuff with different stats to grind for .. in that case i really prefer
to grind for gear with better stats in other games.

Yes. They’re releasing the new “reward” armor at a rate slower than molasses in winter. I’d just as soon they put armor back in the gem store if they’re going to release free armor at this rate. Paying for it might stir them to release it sooner.

I would just be happy if we could simply show headwear armor while in outfits

Deleena.3406:

I would just be happy if we could simply show headwear armor while in outfits

So you’re 1/6th of the way to wishing it was armor. Now all you need is to wish you could turn off the shoulders or use costumes with the aura’s that take up shoulder slots and you’d by 1/3 of the way to wishing it was armor.

Then maybe it’s wishing you were able to wear the gloves you want with an outfit and you’re half way there…

…Or you could just skip to the punch line and join the growing chorus saying “Anet, the costumes are BLATANTLY built on armor rigs. Please make those pieces also available as armor of the same weight as it’s already designed around.”

Then people who like cookie cutters/leveling skins can have their cookie cutter/leveling skins and people who like to mix-and-match can do so using the same assets twice. (all without trying to hide behind a “but it’s the clipping” defense that doesn’t even pass the laugh test…)

It literally makes my head hurt watching them throw money on the ground like this. Fortunately after seeing that their “lets hide 9 suits of armor behind zone-wide event omega-grinds” scheme pretty much blew up in their faces, they might finally dump the “armor ONLY comes from in-game activities” as the steaming skritt droppings decision that it is.

Transmutation Charges.

What about them?

penelopehannibal.8947:

Transmutation Charges.

The thing you can get 6 at a time for making a new character and walking around the 6 safe cities for a little while before deleting the character? The things the fall like rain if you SPvP? The stuff you get 3 of a month just for logging in?

No, really, I want to hear where you think you’re going with this argument. I mean, I know I get antsy when I have less than EIGHTY of them laying around.

“Tired of costumes”
You and everyone else…

Costumes – (far?) less work and less sales
Armor – more work and (far?) more sales

Up to them to decide which one they prefer. The actual number of people claiming they will never spend money on outfits (again) seems to be pretty high.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Don’t you think if it was “just” that easy, they would have already done it?

lol no
I’m thinking
“we can’t make new dungeons or fix the old ones, it’s too hard”
“no new worlds, sab work is too hard”
“new wintersday stuff would be too hard”
“new legendaries are too hard”
“new fractals very much too hard”

Everything always seems too hard for Anet recently

Well, they’re focusing on something. We have to hope that something will be big and cool.

I still think that while I get this would be hard, it would be hard work worth doing.

Nike.2631:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Transmutation Charges.

The thing you can get 6 at a time for making a new character and walking around the 6 safe cities for a little while before deleting the character? The things the fall like rain if you SPvP? The stuff you get 3 of a month just for logging in?

No, really, I want to hear where you think you’re going with this argument. I mean, I know I get antsy when I have less than EIGHTY of them laying around.

Not arguing with anyone, just throwing it out there for people to talk about. But if you’d like me to expand I will.

For me, outfits are a nice little saver of transmutation charges. Means that I don’t have to spend time doing PvP reward tracks, or map six cities, or wait for when I get that bag of 3 charges. I can spend that time RPing or doing map completion, or doing HoT content.

I currently have 138 transmutation charges which I get for doing map completion, and I save them for levelling new characters. /shrug.

At the end of the day they thought they’d get more money by putting them behind ridiculous grinds in the new zones with people making incidental gem store purchases while chasing after the shiny. I’d like to think they’ve learned otherwise at this point. Possibly to the tune of people got bored/frustrated trying to get the armor and stopped buying anything.

Henry.5713:

“Tired of costumes”
You and everyone else…

Costumes – (far?) less work and less sales
Armor – more work and (far?) more sales

Up to them to decide which one they prefer. The actual number of people claiming they will never spend money on outfits (again) seems to be pretty high.

While some vocal forumites say they’ll never buy them, the reality is that if a company is making lots of an item it’s an indication that it’s a moneymaker for them. If ANet wasn’t pulling in the sales for outfits, they wouldn’t be spending the time and money it costs to design them and you wouldn’t see a new outfits showing up as frequently as they now do.

Nike.2631:

Deleena.3406:

I would just be happy if we could simply show headwear armor while in outfits

So you’re 1/6th of the way to wishing it was armor. Now all you need is to wish you could turn off the shoulders or use costumes with the aura’s that take up shoulder slots and you’d by 1/3 of the way to wishing it was armor.

Then maybe it’s wishing you were able to wear the gloves you want with an outfit and you’re half way there…

…Or you could just skip to the punch line and join the growing chorus saying “Anet, the costumes are BLATANTLY built on armor rigs. Please make those pieces also available as armor of the same weight as it’s already designed around.”

Then people who like cookie cutters/leveling skins can have their cookie cutter/leveling skins and people who like to mix-and-match can do so using the same assets twice. (all without trying to hide behind a “but it’s the clipping” defense that doesn’t even pass the laugh test…)

It literally makes my head hurt watching them throw money on the ground like this. Fortunately after seeing that their “lets hide 9 suits of armor behind zone-wide event omega-grinds” scheme pretty much blew up in their faces, they might finally dump the “armor ONLY comes from in-game activities” as the steaming skritt droppings decision that it is.

not really i dont like carrying around 353453453543 sets of armor xD (its one of the reasons why i actually like outfits)

Nike.2631:

It literally makes my head hurt watching them throw money on the ground like this. Fortunately after seeing that their “lets hide 9 suits of armor behind zone-wide event omega-grinds” scheme pretty much blew up in their faces, they might finally dump the “armor ONLY comes from in-game activities” as the steaming skritt droppings decision that it is.

But hey … thats what the “community” wanted .. the same like they wanted raids
better a “real” expansion full of “challenging content” where they have to pay for
instead of biweekly LS updates for free.

In the end the biggest problem of GW2 is that ANet started to listen to some
folks in the forums instead of following their own initial vision of the game.

Oh and i will never understand why some people thought it would be better
to grind 10 times longer to get an armor set instead of farming the gold you
need to buy it from the shop in so much shorter time.

Woo boy this argument is getting old. Not to mention stale. Pretty soon, its going to end up like mounts with just one giant merged thread.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Woo boy this argument is getting old. Not to mention stale. Pretty soon, its going to end up like mounts with just one giant merged thread.

Mounts were never ingame .. armor-sets and optical stuff was more or less the so
called endgame of GW2 .. and now its simply gear grind but without even getting
better stats .. just other stat distribution .. and that is just soooo boring.

Beldin.5498:

Nike.2631:

It literally makes my head hurt watching them throw money on the ground like this. Fortunately after seeing that their “lets hide 9 suits of armor behind zone-wide event omega-grinds” scheme pretty much blew up in their faces, they might finally dump the “armor ONLY comes from in-game activities” as the steaming skritt droppings decision that it is.

But hey … thats what the “community” wanted .. the same like they wanted raids
better a “real” expansion full of “challenging content” where they have to pay for
instead of biweekly LS updates for free.

In the end the biggest problem of GW2 is that ANet started to listen to some
folks in the forums instead of following their own initial vision of the game.

Oh and i will never understand why some people thought it would be better
to grind 10 times longer to get an armor set instead of farming the gold you
need to buy it from the shop in so much shorter time.

Probably the people asking for ingame armor didn’t realize that it would be put behind such high barriers, including RNG barriers. They knew that the armor already ingame could be reliably gotten by doing dungeons to get tokens, crafting, buying from karma vendors or from the Trading post. I doubt anyone who was asking for ingame armor was expecting it to be behind Living story achieves or RNG drops only from doing events.

Beldin.5498:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Woo boy this argument is getting old. Not to mention stale. Pretty soon, its going to end up like mounts with just one giant merged thread.

Mounts were never ingame .. armor-sets and optical stuff was more or less the so
called endgame of GW2 .. and now its simply gear grind but without even getting
better stats .. just other stat distribution .. and that is just soooo boring.

Mounts never being in the game was entirely beside the point being made. The point was that this argument (like many) has nothing new to offer (from either side) and gets brought up all the time. Its just stale repetition that could all get shoved into one mega thread at this point.

“Gear grind without better stats” is better known as cosmetic grind. You’re going after the piece because you desire how it looks or because you want to complete a collection/achievement, which makes it completely optional. You can stop at any point you so choose to.

Many of us much prefer this as opposed to the never ending gear treadmills where you have 0 choice. You have to keep chasing the armor.

Stat distribution and the ability (or lack of) to easily swap them is a different issue. I can completely understand that complaint. I miss the ease of use in GW1.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Beldin.5498:

Nike.2631:

It literally makes my head hurt watching them throw money on the ground like this. Fortunately after seeing that their “lets hide 9 suits of armor behind zone-wide event omega-grinds” scheme pretty much blew up in their faces, they might finally dump the “armor ONLY comes from in-game activities” as the steaming skritt droppings decision that it is.

But hey … thats what the “community” wanted .. the same like they wanted raids
better a “real” expansion full of “challenging content” where they have to pay for
instead of biweekly LS updates for free.

In the end the biggest problem of GW2 is that ANet started to listen to some
folks in the forums instead of following their own initial vision of the game.

Oh and i will never understand why some people thought it would be better
to grind 10 times longer to get an armor set instead of farming the gold you
need to buy it from the shop in so much shorter time.

Probably the people asking for ingame armor didn’t realize that it would be put behind such high barriers, including RNG barriers. They knew that the armor already ingame could be reliably gotten by doing dungeons to get tokens, crafting, buying from karma vendors or from the Trading post. I doubt anyone who was asking for ingame armor was expecting it to be behind Living story achieves or RNG drops only from doing events.

Its the old problem that people don’t use their brain … for me it was crystal clear
that the grind would take more time than farming the gold … the same with the
precurser hunting stuff.
At least i’m happy that i could never brought my self to do all those unfunny
Tyria Mastery Points to unlock the Legendary Journey stuff.

Also its the same that whenever people want “moar challenge” they also want
“exclusive” stuff that the majority doesn’t get .. and moar challenge in the end
is mobs with more hitpoints, more damage … and maybe more CC so that you
are disabled half of the fight, constantly one-shotted and fights just take
loooonger.

Really .. everybody who played some more MMOs should know how the answer
to most complains look .. and that in the end its mostly far worse thanwhat you
expected .. and even worse than it was before.

And thats simply the reason why i always was against “moar challenge”, raids,
“real” expansions .. and whatever else.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

“Gear grind without better stats” is better known as cosmetic grind. You’re going after the piece because you desire how it looks or because you want to complete a collection/achievement, which makes it completely optional. You can stop at any point you so choose to.

Many of us much prefer this as opposed to the never ending gear treadmills where you have 0 choice. You have to keep chasing the armor.

I talk about ascended grind .. new ascended stat sets have no cosmetic value, they
are just the same skins you already have only with different stats.

THATs what i mean with “gear grind without better stats” ..

I’m fine with gear grind for cosmetics .. sadly that has been abandoned 2 years ago.
Ironical at the same time when we got the wardrobe .. that was exactly the point
when they stopped giving us new armor sets.

Personally, I’d love for each quarterly update to bring a new armor set skin for each weight. I think that noone would protest against quarterly cosmetic releases with the huge patches.

I don’t care if they were obtainable through rng drops, map currency etc. That would be awesome anyway.

They could give each map a specific rare drop armor set skin, it could bring people back to those maps…

So many possibilities. I know that Anet needs to make money, but please, at least consider it.

Beldin.5498:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

“Gear grind without better stats” is better known as cosmetic grind. You’re going after the piece because you desire how it looks or because you want to complete a collection/achievement, which makes it completely optional. You can stop at any point you so choose to.

Many of us much prefer this as opposed to the never ending gear treadmills where you have 0 choice. You have to keep chasing the armor.

I talk about ascended grind .. new ascended stat sets have no cosmetic value, they
are just the same skins you already have only with different stats.

THATs what i mean with “gear grind without better stats” ..

Ah, well…. I’ve already voiced my displeasure regarding ascended. Many times.

I wouldn’t say the new 4-stat combos aren’t better though. There is power creep there. It may not be extravagant power creep, but baby steps are all it takes to set you on the path to hell.

Felahr.9830:

Ohoni.6057:

Yeah, I will NEVER pay money for an outfit, no matter how nice it looks, but I would have bought numerous outfits if I could just mix and match the pieces I wanted from it. They really need to take the time to re-rig their armor systems so that they all use the same skeleton.

this is impossible. its impossible to design 1 coded mannequin that will factor in every species, body type, height, and possible combination of crazy things like leafy sylvari racial gear, or flaming balthazar backpiece, etc etc. the work required to make 6 new pieces, and then check them against every combination of armor in the game, across all body types, is outrageous. thats probably billions of combinations that have to be individually checked from all angles, on every species and body type and height, in a 360 plus up and down, to eliminate irregularities for it to be suitable for release.

and youre gonna whine about outfits?

Humans, Norn, and Sylvari all use the same skeleton. Only Asura and Charr have unique skeletons.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Ten times the work; would you pay ten times the price?

Likely would not be big sellers at that kind of cost.

From what i’ve read in these forums Anet seems to say that about nearly everything lately, are they not interested in their jobs anymore?

Dante.1508:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Ten times the work; would you pay ten times the price?

Likely would not be big sellers at that kind of cost.

From what i’ve read in these forums Anet seems to say that about nearly everything lately, are they not interested in their jobs anymore?

My thoughts exactly, its like they’re pretending to be larger than they really are. Is anet actually like a 4 man developer team pretending to be a larger company? If you can’t maintain your game and provide content then maybe you should shut down and move on. We’ve had what 5 armor sets added to the game outside of the gem store since launch? Disgusting.

Dinks.2478:

We’ve had what 5 armor sets added to the game outside of the gem store since launch? Disgusting.

Radiant/Hellfire reuse some elements between armor weights, but have unique chests and pants, so count them how you will. Glorious Armor and Glorious Hero’s Armor are also very similar, so you can choose to count those as how you will. Same with Carapace and Luminescent. Living Story has provided a large number of individual pieces, like back items and helms, but if we’re just looking at sets:

-Radiant Light
-Radiant Medium
-Radiant Heavy
-Hellfire Light
-Hellfire Medium
-Hellfire Heavy
-Carapace Light – Luminescent Light
-Carapace Medium – Luminescent Medium
-Carapace Heavy – Luminescent Heavy
-Illustrious Light
-Illustrious Medium
-Illustrious Heavy
-Glorious Light -Glorious Hero’s Light
-Glorious Medium -Glorious Hero’s Medium
-Glorious Heavy -Glorious Hero’s Heavy
-Bladed Light
-Bladed Medium
-Bladed Heavy
- Leystone Light
- Leystone Medium
- Leystone Heavy

I’m not saying 21~27 new armor sets since launch is a good number or a bad number, but I think five is a pretty severe underestimation. The weight class variations might not feel like they deserve to be called totally different sets, but they are, especially if they’re going to be compared to outfits.

Redenaz.8631:

Dinks.2478:

We’ve had what 5 armor sets added to the game outside of the gem store since launch? Disgusting.

Radiant/Hellfire reuse some elements between armor weights, but have unique chests and pants, so count them how you will. Glorious Armor and Glorious Hero’s Armor are also very similar, so you can choose to count those as how you will. Same with Carapace and Luminescent. Living Story has provided a large number of individual pieces, like back items and helms, but if we’re just looking at sets:

-Radiant Light
-Radiant Medium
-Radiant Heavy
-Hellfire Light
-Hellfire Medium
-Hellfire Heavy
-Carapace Light – Luminescent Light
-Carapace Medium – Luminescent Medium
-Carapace Heavy – Luminescent Heavy
-Illustrious Light
-Illustrious Medium
-Illustrious Heavy
-Glorious Light -Glorious Hero’s Light
-Glorious Medium -Glorious Hero’s Medium
-Glorious Heavy -Glorious Hero’s Heavy
-Bladed Light
-Bladed Medium
-Bladed Heavy
- Leystone Light
- Leystone Medium
- Leystone Heavy

I’m not saying 21~27 new armor sets since launch is a good number or a bad number, but I think five is a pretty severe underestimation. The weight class variations might not feel like they deserve to be called totally different sets, but they are, especially if they’re going to be compared to outfits.

I personally don’t differentiate between weight classes, especially since I consider locking armors to weight classes was a joke to begin with.

To me, that’s like saying you don’t differentiate between Aetherblade Armor having three styles and the Mad Scientist Outfit only having one. One of those is obviously a lot more work than the other.

A person might be able to argue that all armor in the game should have been interchangeable from the start, regardless of weight class, so that we’d only have one “Aetherblade Armor,” instead of weight variants, but that’s just not reflective of how the game actually is.

For me, outfits are a nice little saver of transmutation charges. Means that I don’t have to spend time doing PvP reward tracks, or map six cities, or wait for when I get that bag of 3 charges. I can spend that time RPing or doing map completion, or doing HoT content.

I think there are better ways to do this though.

The simplest one, the one that they could implement instantly if they got around to making outfits into armor sets, is to include BOTH the armor sets and the outfit in the purchase. That is to say, you buy the Gwen outfit, you get an outfit, usable just as they are today, and it also unlocks each costume piece to be used as armor skins, so if you want to spend stones swapping out existing costume pieces, you can, if you want to save them, you can always just pop on the outfit version.

The larger scale plan, and one that would take more time but I think would be cool, would be “custom outfits.” This would be something where you pay X amount of gems to get maybe a potion/scroll/etc. that acts as an “outfit save feature.” Then you can throw on any armor combo you like, activate this potion, and suddenly that combination of armor is saved as an outfit. Then you could turn it on and off like any other outfit. This would largely be no different than using stones, or saving a spare set of armor with alternate skins, it would just be a convenience issue, allowing you to have several different looks that you can swap at will without spending individual stones each time, or having to worry about the stats.

Humans, Norn, and Sylvari all use the same skeleton. Only Asura and Charr have unique skeletons.

I don’t think that’s technically true, I think the only player models in the game that share skeletons are male and female Charr and Asura, but between the other three races there are actually six skeletons, one of reach, and for each gender. Norn males, for example, are much more broad in physique than humans, and Sylvari seem a bit more slender in frame. That said, I believe that the models are similar between the humanoid races, and that they have simple methods of distorting the same clothing into each with minimal hand manipulation.

Basically, they build the armor on the human male, then run it through some process to generate close approximations for the other races, and then have to hand tweak them into fitting just right. But of course that is the same for outfits as it is for armor pieces so it’s moot to that discussion.

A person might be able to argue that all armor in the game should have been interchangeable from the start, regardless of weight class, so that we’d only have one “Aetherblade Armor,” instead of weight variants, but that’s just not reflective of how the game actually is.

But it is something that could be changed. It would take a lot of work to change, no question, but it could be done, and doing so would give them a LOT more freedom moving forward. It was a dumb decision in the first place.

The outfits they release are such great quality, and I think the designs on a big majority of them are fantastic. All outfits at least have one or two parts of them that I’d love to mix in with actual armour skins.

While they’re released as outfits, I’ll never buy them, not even with game-earned gold. My group of friends are predominantly of the same mindset; even those who -have- bought one or two outfits over the course of the years since release, they would all still much rather have gotten the outfits as armour skins.

If there really is an issue with the work load, then perhaps they ought to consider a system that lessens this work flow? It’s not like this is a niche part of the game. It’s a fundamental part of the game as far as any MMO/RPG player is concerned.

I can appreciate that many of these things they want to and have attempted to do have been declared as too hard to be able to justify squandering their resources on, and instead directing those resources to more fundamental parts of the game. This is one of those fundamental parts of the game, so what is the hesitation all about?

I want to point out to anyone who is sick of the preponderance of costumes coming out that the “Chaos Gloves” skin is about to be released in the Gem Store. This is the first new store-bought armor piece we’ve seen in ages. If ArenaNet were to see a huge outburst of sales they might be inclined to make more armor we can purchase.

If you really don’t like them, don’t buy of course, but if you’re kind of on the fence, maybe get them anyway just to shape those sale figures into something ANet can’t ignore. The Chaos Gloves are likely a test case for going back to releasing for-sale armor skins and you might want that test to come back positive .

I have to say I lost hope yesterday.

My guild organized a few days of celebration for our 3 year annyversary as a group, and we did some fun activities like maze competitions, quaggan races, etc.

One of the activities was a fashion contest. It was really, really fun. The decorators had build a red tent corridor for the crowd to pour into a hall full of chairs and cushions, and two dressing rooms to the sides of a big catwalk made of SAB clouds.

More than 20 of us decided to “compete” (It was mosttly for laughs, so there wasn’t any serious judging procedures). As I said, it was a really good time…

But of the 20 toons that walked the runway, and the 40-ish clothing sets that were shown, there weren’t more than ten mix-n-match armors. Half the rest were simply full armor sets colored with expensive dyes, and the other half, 15 or so, were outfits.

So.

Now I think Anet is making bussiness the most sensible way. Most people don’t give a kitten about creativity, flexibility or customization. More than half the people in a fashion contest would choose to wear a cloned commercial set.

I get a few votes, by the way. The winner was mix-n-match, but the deciding factor for victory was his hairdo. The second place was a full mistward set, and the third a sentinel outfit.

It was really, really fun. And extremely sad, too.