Guild Wars 2

I’ve been reluctant to use transmutation charges at all, opting to save them for something especially nice looking on a decent item after reaching max level.

I feel as though fairly common items (aquired from white, blue, green) shouldn’t cost charges at all, while the far more epic looking skins do cost charges.

Think about it, why would I want to waste a transmutation charge for a swindler mask on some mid level piece of trash? It makes no sense at all.

Any thoughts on this? I mean, at the best price, a charge is worth about 5 gold…

Create a level one, do city map completion, get a free charge.

Tada

Well my first thought is that IMO a lot of the mid-level skins look better than stuff available later on. I’m actually more likely to use transmutation charges to put the skin from a lower level or more common item onto a higher level one than the other way around. So for me and anyone else like me this would basically make transmutation free most of them time.

But also you get at least 3 free charges a month from login rewards (assuming you log in every day of course), more if you get them from the Black Lion Goods login reward. If you do PvP you get them from reward tracks and if you do PvE you get them from map completion (guaranteed for cities, very likely for all other maps).

In other words if you’re regularly running out or having to buy them from the gem store you’re either not making good use of the wardrobe and preview features to put outfits together, swapping between skins a lot (in which case having multiple sets of armor with different skins may be a better way of doing it) or you’re still levelling up and wasting charges transmuting something you’ll only be wearing for a few levels anyway.

Some people think those low level skins are epic. If you don’t find them worth it then don’t use them until you find the gear you want to transmute as you even mentioned yourself. I would suggest never using charges until L80 anyway because the leveling process is so fast and gear changes so often. If you want something to use while leveling that doesn’t cost charges buy outfit.

Charges are not hard to obtain for free either, map completion, some daily login rewards, and from what I hear they are very easy to obtain via PvP.

Not so important while leveling, but once you have things the way you want after cap they start to build up (think I have 20 atm and seldom use them). I’m more concerned about BL salvage kit charges. But early in the game, I’d say don’t worry about appearance so much, you’ll out level gear just too quickly to care. If it really matter so much, get an outfit, they overlay whatever armor you have on, at least the ones you can fight in like the pirate captain outfit (imo looks good on asura and female humans etc).

Danikat.8537:

Well my first thought is that IMO a lot of the mid-level skins look better than stuff available later on.

I think it’s intentional. Like, why is the exotic crafted weapons the pearl-style that looks butt ugly? I’d sooner use the level 1 skins for the weapons over the exotic 80 crafted skin!

I have used 5 charges since they introduced the new system.

I just wish we has an actual wardrobe instead of what we got.

Oh well…

I can’t seen to get below 40 charges, and I use a few reach week it seems. So I have trouble getting to worried about the cost for using low rarity skins (although for pvp, I would probably just buy the lower rarity skin than use a charge.)

Then again, for leveling alts I basically use outfits, zenith weapons, radiant armor, and/or Hall of monument skins so I don’t even have to worry about charges…

Leo G.4501:

Danikat.8537:

Well my first thought is that IMO a lot of the mid-level skins look better than stuff available later on.

I think it’s intentional. Like, why is the exotic crafted weapons the pearl-style that looks butt ugly? I’d sooner use the level 1 skins for the weapons over the exotic 80 crafted skin!

Yeah, all those, bleh. But you can craft other things, like primodus etc.

Weylin.6478:

I’ve been reluctant to use transmutation charges at all, opting to save them for something especially nice looking on a decent item after reaching max level.

I feel as though fairly common items (aquired from white, blue, green) shouldn’t cost charges at all, while the far more epic looking skins do cost charges.

Think about it, why would I want to waste a transmutation charge for a swindler mask on some mid level piece of trash? It makes no sense at all.

Any thoughts on this? I mean, at the best price, a charge is worth about 5 gold…

Do what I do, don’t change the look often and try to wait until 80 before using them.

I’ve wasted a few sets lately on a couple of 80s, but then I’ve still got around 210+

Once you have your characters looking the way you want them, you don’t really need them after that.

Play pvp and do map completions, I have over 50 charges and use afew a week with no problem. You dont need to buy them just play the game and you will have plenty.

Just doing the PvP dailies will give you a T charge about once every 2 days. If you use the ones that say Daily in the name then you don’t even have to fight as those are filled with PvE people getting their daily done.

This game doesn’t support a very good wardrobe system, unfortunately. There have been a number of threads going on at length about it. You can’t play your way and still change your look often unless you PvP, grind map completions, or pay real money for gems. Just how it is.

Prototypemind.4026:

This game doesn’t support a very good wardrobe system, unfortunately.

Seems really awesome to me…
Maybe I’m just untainted by modern games as I mostly prefer the more oldschool mmo’s. Walking 5 miles through the pixelated snow, let me tell ya…
Then not getting back to your corpses in time and your “wardrobe” decays and is lost forever! O.O
And you lost… SKILLPOINTS!!!
hehe
Then you enter a town and guards whack you dead, and everyone loots your new wardrobe, the one you just spent 3HRS killing and looting sewer rats for.
5 miles!!!

Weylin.6478:

I’ve been reluctant to use transmutation charges at all, opting to save them for something especially nice looking on a decent item after reaching max level.

I feel as though fairly common items (aquired from white, blue, green) shouldn’t cost charges at all, while the far more epic looking skins do cost charges.

Think about it, why would I want to waste a transmutation charge for a swindler mask on some mid level piece of trash? It makes no sense at all.

Any thoughts on this? I mean, at the best price, a charge is worth about 5 gold…

I don’t “waste” my charges. If I’m leveling up, I just use whatever comes with the gear. It’s also a really good use of outfits: I can keep the outfit while changing gear.

I don’t worry about the toon’s looks in any serious way until L80. Then I tend to spend a lot of time considering options before updating the skins. After that, I usually won’t touch the looks again unless I update the gear. For example, after creating ascended sets.

Daywolf.2630:

Prototypemind.4026:

This game doesn’t support a very good wardrobe system, unfortunately.

Seems really awesome to me…
Maybe I’m just untainted by modern games as I mostly prefer the more oldschool mmo’s. Walking 5 miles through the pixelated snow, let me tell ya…
Then not getting back to your corpses in time and your “wardrobe” decays and is lost forever! O.O
And you lost… SKILLPOINTS!!!
hehe
Then you enter a town and guards whack you dead, and everyone loots your new wardrobe, the one you just spent 3HRS killing and looting sewer rats for.
5 miles!!!

Maybe I only play modern MMOs, but this does not sound fun.

When I first came back, I was worried about transmutation charges. I just saved them while leveling (The only thing I would change were weapons.). Now that I’m 80 they seem to flow pretty freely. I always have plenty.

At least it doesn’t cost charges to change your dye.

Part of this game’s end game is wardrobe, though, something which is noted quite often to the point of it being called Fashion Wars 2 in threads and discussions, so it’s sad that it has such a poor cosmetic system. It certainly helps to sell outfits to players, but it is still a poorly done system. Again, there are threads where this is gone on about at length, but with the amount of armor upgrades you will need as you level your options are limited for maintaining a look as you go, especially if you level more than one toon at a time.

susonn.3284:

Maybe I only play modern MMOs, but this does not sound fun.

It’s a blast, actually. Some people really do equate challenge with fun. Long term rewards, or loss thereof. But I like different stuff, this and that, though I still don’t see the problem with wardrobe here. But really, transmutation has improved very much compared to how it was. And the charges really do start to pile up over time. The whole wardrobe system has improved 10x better than compared to the first year.

I really like the wardrobe system too. Like other people it may be because of the kind of games I’ve played (mostly single player RPGs) but it’s better than anything else I’ve encountered.

Most games, even brand new ones, don’t even give you the option to change what your armor looks like, you use the skin that comes with the stats you need, end of discussion. (Some, Dragon Age Inquisition for example, will claim to let you customise armor, but that’s tied to what materials and therefore stats you use.)

The ability to save every skin you’ve previously unlocked to apply at any point in the future on top of that, seems like a great system to me.

The wardrobe system is actually pretty ingenious and makes it easy to have many styles available without worrying about carrying multiple outfits in your inventory.

My only minor grip is that the old transmutation charges (which were used for levels 1-79) are only exchangeable at a 3:1 rate, so my lower level classes ended up suffering a bit of a hit when I had to convert them. I still have a lone transmute in my inventory, with no way to convert it into a charge.

Would have made more sense to have a 1:1 rate for all transmutes.

Doing different parts of the game rewards you with lot of transmutation charges. I have now 10 Characters and 9 of them looks just the way I want them too. My low level characters is using an Outfit so he will not cost me any trans-charges.

I have been playing since release and have been using Trasmutation stones, crystals and now charges every now and then. But playing PvE doing world compleation with my characters, having luck when opening chests and doing PvP rewards me with more charges than i use. I think I have bought 5 transmutation crystals in my life… thats all and not I have over 75 charges and I still use them now and then and I never go below 60 charges.

I have to say, I did prefer the system where leveling charges and max-level charges were separate.

That way, whilst leveling, I could actually look cool, and at max level, the higher cost made sense because I’d be stuck that way for a long time.

Indeed, I went through quite a lot of whatever the charges were called back then (I forget). Which is presumably what Anet want – i.e. for charges to actually get used!

Now, though, with them kind of hideously/hilariously expensive (or a really tedious grind, not sneering but it is tedious!), and being the same for all levels, I’ve just found I’ve not used them at all whilst leveling, and have been very reluctant to use them at max level.

With outfits not requiring them or interacting with that system at all, and all new store armour being added as outfits, they’re seeming increasingly irrelevant, to me. So I think in the longer term they might want to look at, say, allowing you to apply looks for free to gear levels 1-76, to at least get people thinking about their appearance and so on, then apply the cost only to 77 and up gear, meaning you still use these at endgame. They also might want to look at lowering the cost, but I dunno, maybe there are whales out there who buy tons of these things. I somewhat doubt it, though.

I got about 80 charges just from doing pvp

Daywolf.2630:

Prototypemind.4026:

This game doesn’t support a very good wardrobe system, unfortunately.

Seems really awesome to me…
Maybe I’m just untainted by modern games as I mostly prefer the more oldschool mmo’s. Walking 5 miles through the pixelated snow, let me tell ya…
Then not getting back to your corpses in time and your “wardrobe” decays and is lost forever! O.O
And you lost… SKILLPOINTS!!!
hehe
Then you enter a town and guards whack you dead, and everyone loots your new wardrobe, the one you just spent 3HRS killing and looting sewer rats for.
5 miles!!!

Older games had more purpose behind them, where games where focused more on the long term as well as character development. Where as GW2 is neither.

The failure of the wardrobe system, is a game that is designed around cosmetics, is actually discouraging cosmetic changes. I would highly doubt many use charges prior to level cap, more so I would guess that only the minority of players actually use charges on a regular basis.

I still wish you could use 6 charges to create an “outfit” from skins, then have it only require 1 charge to equip said “outfit”. Personally I would use more charges in the long run because I would actually use them when leveling alts or make different setups.

Because this looks better than 90% of all other light armor skins available in my opinion. I hope with HoT I finally get more choices for light armors to my liking which are not over-sexualized pole-dancing attires or
Frilly Garments of Frillyiness…sometimes simple beats overcomplex textures (them ascended (heavy) armorskins…yuk)

BrooksP.4318:

The failure of the wardrobe system, is a game that is designed around cosmetics, is actually discouraging cosmetic changes. I would highly doubt many use charges prior to level cap, more so I would guess that only the minority of players actually use charges on a regular basis.

I still wish you could use 6 charges to create an “outfit” from skins, then have it only require 1 charge to equip said “outfit”. Personally I would use more charges in the long run because I would actually use them when leveling alts or make different setups.

Yup, in a few other games out there, where cosmetics is a big part of the fun and buildup of your character, it’s not uncommon to have 3-5 looks for a character at any given time. Not including outfits, there’s no real system that allows that unless you just keep a boatload of armor in your inventory.

I should be able to have ‘open armor’ ‘heavily armored’ ‘special-look armor’ and ‘misc’ on any given character I can swap into for any given situation or environment! Doing so, you can actually introduce more niche armor looks (more ceremonial, or battle scarred…anything but just more shiny or glowie) that people will actually use! Right now, people mostly just piece together the most shiniest, ‘best-looking’ or most exclusive pieces they have and mash them together but if you can have more ‘slots’ for your looks, we can all use more variety in looks.

As for the idea of armor-to-outfits, I’d actually think they could make some extra cash on that. Give every character 1 “custom outfit slot” that you can then use a transmutation charge to ‘capture’ and then sell additional custom outfit slots per character for something like 800gems each. You’d still have to use the charges to make the look in the first place as well as additional charges if you decide to change a piece of the look and ‘re-capture’ it. At that point, you can have as many looks as you want that you can swap on the fly as your tastes change.

Rarely do I ever want to just abolish my old look for a new one, but definitely wouldn’t mind the system to put another look of my creation on for a while and swap back if I feel like it. Or, if I’m leveling a character, I don’t have to just use what skins I get or settle for an pre-set outfit.