Guild Wars 2

i played wow (in vanilla) and gw1 and have since taken a break from mmos. After getting a new computer i recently bought gw2 and have been doing endgame content for a couple of weeks now.

as i was leveling (charr warrior) i was constantly wondering “when am i going to get some armor that looks cool?”. however i was amazed by all the cool trinkets everyone seemed to have and thought i needed to hit lvl 80 to look cool. upon reaching max level and learning about the dungeon armors, i was massively dissapointed (to say the least) at the lack of cool looking armor sets for the char warrior (and other classes/races as well). I always appreciate symmetry in armor sets and was frustrated that about 70% of the armors are asymmetrical. Furthermore, there are a ton of armors that look as if they were improperly scaled or redesigned for the char (especially all of the helmets!). Furthermore, i was even more frustrated to learn that most of the cool asthetic things (blade backpack, flameing pumpkin head, ext) are relics of past events and are either extremely difficult to obtain or impossible in the current state of the game. Finally, thinking that arenanet was holding back the cool skins for whales (people who pay a lot for ftp games), i scrolled through he armor sets on the gemstore. I was shocked that 95% of the armor skins that required $$$ look almost worse than the dungeon/cultural armors. I would have thought that a company wanting to make money off of asthetics would have incentive to provide lots of intresting, flashy, and beautiful asthetics, but alas it feels as if anet has a tremendous missed opportunity.

if games like LOL show us one thing, its that monitization of asthetics can be massively lucrative, and i’m bewildered why Anet has not taken advantage of this. Ideally i would like there to be a lot of new and flashy armors obtainable from gameplay, but i would definitely pay for some cooler looking skins if they appeared on the store. in a game that requires so much time investment, looking cool is a big part of what ties a player to their character and i am dissapointed at my lack of choices to accomplish this for myself. (ascended armor and dyes help a little, but have a long way to go).

tl;dr
90% of the armors are dull, have unflattering porportions (especially charr armor), often asymetrical, and occasionally downright horrendous looking (im looking at you heavy Sylvari cultural armor). please add more appearence diversity to help players connect with their characters better (and earn you some more money so you can develop more content!).

People will say that it is your opinion and that others like the armor designs, but I agree with you.

BTW if you think the heavy armors are bad, wait till you see medium…

Even if people disagree with my opinion about the quality of the current aesthetics, I would still argue that the lack of diversity is an issue. In gw1 they introduced new armor skins with each expansion and it made the game more fun and allowed a more personalization.

On top of that I would say the amount of cool looking stuff that is impossible to obtain for new players is really frustrating. I believe there should be some exclusive content but it seems like they just kind of stopped rolling that stuff out after living world season 1.

Some very high quality skins has been released through the Gem Store, as full costumes (sadly). I absolutely love the Ceremonial Plated and Shadow Assassin sets, but it would be so much better if it were separate pieces of equipment, so you could mix and match with other gear designs. It’s a shame they’ve designed the outfits like one full piece of gear (which you can still hide Helmet, Shoulders and Gloves from by ticking them off on your gear, meaning they are perfectly capable of being separate pieces already..). I wish they’d redesign the costume system to let you hide and show each individual piece, dye each individual piece, and have equipment show up in their place if they are hidden. If you’d furthermore hide your equipment, it would show “skin” as it currently functions.

It’s of course also a shame that some of the best looking stuff are £/€/$-based through the Gem Store. It’d be nice to see an actual nice couple sets of gears added to the game. I do like parts of the Ascended though, that is a new design, at least we have gotten something. Maybe when they get around to adding Legendary armor, we can have unique designs with subtle neat effects for each of the professions? (Imagine the pink-purple glow around the character (I don’t mean the background, the glow as seen around the legs and hand), the flaring glowing eye, some sort of effect on the characters hair, draining parts of it white (sucks to be you, if you got white as a haircolor)—Things like that as you cast your Mesmer spells)

Have you checked out the Glorious armors they added a couple weeks ago? Those are really sweet, I’m going for the Heavy set for my guardian.

You get them through the Glorious Reward Track in PvP.

GW1 was notorious at the time for having the same complaint – especially in fact for elementalists. I had so many issues finding decent looks for my toons in GW1. I have only ever been spoilt for choice in GW2

GW2 has gone a long way at addressing thie issues of the predecessor and the variety is astonishing for an MMO in my opinion. The creativity I have seen in open world and in threads is greater than most other MMo’s I’ve played.

Having said that, there are still issues;

1 – Acquisition. More need to be in game to balance out the gem store. I have no issue with gem store releases, but the balance is skewed too far

2 – Whilst sheer volume and combo and dyes are available, not every taste is catered for. That’s a nigh on impossible job to do granted, but medium armour needs some love and I take the asymmetry point in the OP’s statement as well.

Absconditus.6804:

Some very high quality skins has been released through the Gem Store, as full costumes (sadly). I absolutely love the Ceremonial Plated and Shadow Assassin sets, but it would be so much better if it were separate pieces of equipment, so you could mix and match with other gear designs. It’s a shame they’ve designed the outfits like one full piece of gear (which you can still hide Helmet, Shoulders and Gloves from by ticking them off on your gear, meaning they are perfectly capable of being separate pieces already..). I wish they’d redesign the costume system to let you hide and show each individual piece, dye each individual piece, and have equipment show up in their place if they are hidden. If you’d furthermore hide your equipment, it would show “skin” as it currently functions.

It’s of course also a shame that some of the best looking stuff are £/€/$-based through the Gem Store. It’d be nice to see an actual nice couple sets of gears added to the game. I do like parts of the Ascended though, that is a new design, at least we have gotten something. Maybe when they get around to adding Legendary armor, we can have unique designs with subtle neat effects for each of the professions (imagine the pink-purple glow around the character (I don’t mean the background, the glow as seen around the legs and hand), the flaring glowing eye, some sort of effect on the characters hair, draining parts of it white (sucks to be you, if you got white as a haircolor) as you cast your Mesmer spells. Something like that.)?

No.. that would be nice and we cant have nice things now can we… armor designs in gw2 are bland to the greatest part to fit all classes in the weight class to cut down the costs and to add a bit more salt to the wound you better be a human (preferred human female) else you get stretched and ill fitted stuff all over the place. Saw the darn ascended armors on charr? Saw the “helmet”? its a sodding crown 10 times too small for a charr head…just stuck on there like a party hat.. just misses the rubber band to make that image complete. Medium armor is coats coats and coats… ah yea and coats with a coat here and there to make it complete. If they actually ever do legendary armor its gonna be like ascended… 3 sets with designs that say nothing, not related to any profession and especially not inspired, maybe well made in textures if you happen to pick the right gender and race…well MAYBE if you are lucky you get an aura with it.. but thats a BIG maybe. I personally wait since the release of the magitech armor on the gem store for another clearly with engineer in mind designed set of skins and since the grenth hood is on sale for a full armor in that fashion. Whats datamined for the next time are only outfits…dont expect anything nice armor related anytime soon. Prove me wrong a-net.. i beg you please do that i can eat those words.. cause id eat them with pleasure >_<

Anet clearly isnt capable of designing shoes. Until now there are only 1 medium shoe which looks elegant and functional. The rest looks like they stole it from some poor peasants. And another downside are those full armor costumes. They look pretty good actually but you cant pick specific parts of it to mix it with other armor. And judging from the datamining there wont be any near armor skins in the near future. Instead they will bring 1 or 2 armor costumes with the next updates.

pessimist.7294:

Anet clearly isnt capable of designing shoes. Until now there are only 1 medium shoe which looks elegant and functional. The rest looks like they stole it from some poor peasants. And another downside are those full armor costumes. They look pretty good actually but you cant pick specific parts of it to mix it with other armor. And judging from the datamining there wont be any near armor skins in the near future. Instead they will bring 1 or 2 armor costumes with the next updates.

Vampire clothes and that hooved lich from what the datamining says… also i saw something like a “commando” outfit that reminds me of some ww2 desert uniform shape wise… didnt find the textured version yet. Not sure where that fits in. Also it seems in winter we get a sweet warm looking and fur trimmed parker with hood…but also that one seems to be a frigging outfit…what else could it be…. Here´s that odd uniform i was talking about…really not sure where that may fit…almost looks “real live” rather then gw2 fantasy imo

http://www.mmozone.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/gw2-render-outfit.png

I agree with the OP … a lot. I’m one of those “whales” that would love to dish out real life cash to make my characters look cool (to me). But there’s just hardly anything to play around with. I also find the gem store armors, while usually visually better than in-game armors due to better coloring, etc, are just .. blah. And not enough! I would love to see ANet producing a new armor set every 2 weeks… you know… for when I get paid I really enjoy the dress up aspect of this game, but it’s not keeping me interested with the limited selection.

Absconditus.6804:

Snip

I didn’t get either of the outfits because… well… outfits. I would have bought both had they been pieced armor.

Basaltface.2786:

pessimist.7294:

Anet clearly isnt capable of designing shoes. Until now there are only 1 medium shoe which looks elegant and functional. The rest looks like they stole it from some poor peasants. And another downside are those full armor costumes. They look pretty good actually but you cant pick specific parts of it to mix it with other armor. And judging from the datamining there wont be any near armor skins in the near future. Instead they will bring 1 or 2 armor costumes with the next updates.

Vampire clothes and that hooved lich from what the datamining says… also i saw something like a “commando” outfit that reminds me of some ww2 desert uniform shape wise… didnt find the textured version yet. Not sure where that fits in. Also it seems in winter we get a sweet warm looking and fur trimmed parker with hood…but also that one seems to be a frigging outfit…what else could it be…. Here´s that odd uniform i was talking about…really not sure where that may fit…almost looks “real live” rather then gw2 fantasy imo

http://www.mmozone.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/gw2-render-outfit.png

Yeah either ww2 uniform, or the Star wars rebel soldier gear.

pessimist.7294:

Basaltface.2786:

pessimist.7294:

Anet clearly isnt capable of designing shoes. Until now there are only 1 medium shoe which looks elegant and functional. The rest looks like they stole it from some poor peasants. And another downside are those full armor costumes. They look pretty good actually but you cant pick specific parts of it to mix it with other armor. And judging from the datamining there wont be any near armor skins in the near future. Instead they will bring 1 or 2 armor costumes with the next updates.

Vampire clothes and that hooved lich from what the datamining says… also i saw something like a “commando” outfit that reminds me of some ww2 desert uniform shape wise… didnt find the textured version yet. Not sure where that fits in. Also it seems in winter we get a sweet warm looking and fur trimmed parker with hood…but also that one seems to be a frigging outfit…what else could it be…. Here´s that odd uniform i was talking about…really not sure where that may fit…almost looks “real live” rather then gw2 fantasy imo

http://www.mmozone.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/gw2-render-outfit.png

Yeah either ww2 uniform, or the Star wars rebel soldier gear.

yea now that you mention it… it does look quite a lot like a hoth echo base rebel uniform.

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131014190453/starwars/images/4/41/Echo_defender_TCG_by_Konstad.jpg

Might be that the guy on reddit mixed up his datamining on accident, wanted to showcase it and thats actually from that star wars mmo. Who knows. We will see soon enough.

yea i am still waiting for them to put wings and weapons like this

Sadly, Charr tend to get the short end of the stick when it comes to armor design. Due to their body shape, a lot of the standard armors tend to look stretched or warped when worn. Your best bet is to stick to the racial armors or the CoF dungeon armor, in my opinion.

Medium armor definitely gets the shaft. There’s cultural human/norn… and coats.

I’m really questioning their business model when they don’t provide any consistency of new armor skins in a cosmetic based end game. And if they aren’t selling, it’s not because no one wants them. Might be just because they’re bad.

Theyre all in GW1 sadly with all the rest of the good stuff lol

What you’re asking for are really basic things, I think most of us are bored of finding fresh variations to wear on our characters. For example my Norn Warrior still have his cultural armor, even reused when going from exotics to ascended. Really sad state when I can’t find anything better after almost two years.

The management seem totally lost of what the players want from their game. Instead of more armors and weapons (that doesn’t look like garbage) they like to spit out pvp finishers and gathering tools. Easier to make I guess when you don’t give a F…

Zackie.8923:

yea i am still waiting for them to put wings and weapons like this

You’re waiting to look terrible?

kitten.6582:

“when am i going to get some armor that looks cool?”

I’ve been playing since early release. I’ve seen all the armor in-game (easy to preview now via the wardrobe, btw). Alas, I’m still wondering when I’ll actually find some good looking armor…

At this point, I’ve resolved myself to the fact that there probably never will be any armors in GW2 that I find attractive. That’s a downright shame since pursuing cosmetic rewards was supposed to be part of the end-game allure.

Eh, mostly you can manage to get _something- good by mixing and matching pieces. Sure, sometimes things just don’t want to fit or keep glitching but… I managed to get unique styles out of the system for all my characters so far including all armor classes.

I’m open for new, flashy skins though. One can never have to few new, flashy skins lying around in his or her wardrobe

Sube Dai.8496:

People will say that it is your opinion and that others like the armor designs, but I agree with you.

BTW if you think the heavy armors are bad, wait till you see medium…

Or charr light, t3 is hilarious.

There’s actually loads of options for customization we can piece together with both in-game and gem store armour. Check out GuildWarsDyeJob on reddit or any of the ‘post a pic of your character’ threads in this forum for ideas.

Even some of the basic looking, lower level sets have a few parts that look amazing in the right combination.

We could use some more practical back items though. The recently released crafting discipline sets are kind of silly, imo.

“There’s actually loads of options for customization we can piece together with both in-game and gem store armour. Check out GuildWarsDyeJob on reddit or any of the ‘post a pic of your character’ threads in this forum for ideas.
Even some of the basic looking, lower level sets have a few parts that look amazing in the right combination.”

this is an opinion based argument so the only way i can objectively argue against it is to compare gw2 to other games with cosmetic endgame allure. The game i have most experience with is LOL (league of legends). its an ftp (free to play) dota style game and it generates 100% of its revenue (which is a LOT) on cosmetics. it feels like every time i open the game they are advertising new character skins (many of which change animations). I am normally really stingy with my money on video games but i have to confess i have spent about 40$ (which is a lot for me in a ftp game) on skins and other goodies for characters i am most attached with. It increases the fun of the game and makes me feel slightly better than my opponate who is wearing stock skins (even if they own me).

When comparing this game mode to gw2 it is baffling how little anet has embraced the people willing to pay to look cool. Again i think there needs to be more on the free and paid side of the table, but i’m purely arguing from an monitization perspective and my bewilderment at why they have not embraced a model that has been proven to generate money.

as a new player, i inherited all of the changes the have happend (like adding ascended armor), and i still feel the appearence diversity is lacking. I have spent a lot of time and a decent amount of gold getting my char warr to look fairly cool, but i still look at him and say things like: “why cant this shoulder piece look like this on both sides” or “why do i only get 2 different color combos on this piece” or “why is every helmet for a charr a bucket?” or “i wish a cooler pair of boots existed” or “why the hell do my boots stop at the bottom of my kneecap”

at the end of the day this is really basic stuff and SHOULD be super easy for a developer team to implement. They did such an amazing job designing the world and the skill dependent play style of the game. it feels like a shame to do it a disservice by limiting players ability to connect with their character!

To answer your tittle question, they are in the gem store. I’m still doing macumbas to whoever designed the heavy ascended armor for hating my character

(no, I wont transmute a whole set of armor that its entirely for showing off… though it would’ve been better if the armor wasn’t so ugly on a Norn… its a fatty on speedo).

hopefully we can get someone with some pull to look at this be inspired to fight for this idea. its simple, easy to implement, and if done right will have no baring on the economy or ballance of the game. it will just help people feel like more of a kitten when they look at their character.

one of my fondest memories of wow was rolling through ironforge after i picked up my molten core shoulders and armor and had people ooohhhing and ahhhing at me and asking where they could get those cool looking armors.

kitten.6582:

this is an opinion based argument so the only way i can objectively argue against it is to compare gw2 to other games with cosmetic endgame allure. The game i have most experience with is LOL (league of legends). its an ftp (free to play) dota style game and it generates 100% of its revenue (which is a LOT) on cosmetics. it feels like every time i open the game they are advertising new character skins (many of which change animations). I am normally really stingy with my money on video games but i have to confess i have spent about 40$ (which is a lot for me in a ftp game) on skins and other goodies for characters i am most attached with. It increases the fun of the game and makes me feel slightly better than my opponate who is wearing stock skins (even if they own me).

That’s a fair observation, I haven’t done any number crunching. However, within each armour class I’d wager that there are at least a hundred possible combinations using in-game armour only. And of course, dyeing and weapon skins are major factors as well.

LOL isn’t a very good comparison. Each skin is made for the individual champion, the models are smaller in scale and less detailed for example. You also neglected to factor in champion sales and a few other small offerings as a part of Riot’s revenue.

Having said that, I’m in agreement that we can never have too many cosmetic options. There’s quite a few NPC outfits that I’d love to see added as cultural or gem store purchases. I’m just suggesting that you might as well fully explore the wardrobe before you decide that it’s inadequate. After all, we aren’t likely to see any new armour skins for a while.

in my exploration of the wardrobe (mostly just for heavy armor), i have looked at my classes cultural armor, and have played around with different combinations of armor skins. it is amusing for a while, and i still get new ideas that might look cool, but the problem is that a lot of the items don’t blend well with each other (especially on charr). I normally find myself sticking to 1or 2 appearences for most of my slots and changing the others out.

there is still a lot for me to do in this game, and i can achieve some character appearences that i think look pretty cool, but i feel limited in my options. i have 0 background in game design so i cant speak for how easy it is to implement new armor skins, but from a conceptual point of view it seems reasonably straight forward (especially compared to skill balancing).

If you’re charr then you want cultural armor. They’re pretty much the only sets of armor in the game actually made to fit on charr. And even then they still have issues.

kitten.6582:

as i was leveling (charr warrior) i was constantly wondering “when am i going to get some armor that looks cool?”.

Charr cultural T3. You’re welcome.

I have a level 17 human warrior and haven’t yet been able to find a heavy armor that will even protect my player’s crotch.

honestly, i thought most of the early GW1 armors looked absurd/ugly (in Nightfall, they got much better), and there was far less variety in that game and its expansions than this one.

that said, they really need to add a few new ARMOR skins to the game that are not gem store-based.

I am actually agree with you OP.

I have 9 lv80 and none of them are Charr, at first i think i hated the running animation but finally i realized i can’t even mix and match a good looking Charr, since then i totally given up leveling a Charr.

There are good looking armor “piece” here and there, but it usually happens on glove, shoulder, legging that only left side or right side looks good. I can’t stand using a skin that only left shoulder looks good and extremely ugly on right shoulder…

If you want good looking armor, go human, still a great amount of solid choice.

On a Charr the only heavy armor that looks good IMO is t3 cult. I absolutely love that skin, but other than that it’s slim pickings. Other races often have a bit more choice.

carlobarletta.5638:

I have a level 17 human warrior and haven’t yet been able to find a heavy armor that will even protect my player’s crotch.

Stand behind an asura wearing a helmet.

I’m with you on the symmetry. Annoys the hell out of me that most of the sets are “wonky” in that aspect

I completely agree on the symmetry thing xD. It annoys me so much whenever i find a cool armour skin but its missing one of its sleeves.

I play an Asura engi, and while there are quite a few cool armours, the lack of variety is still sometimes annoying. Pretty much every piece of chest armour is a trench coat.

There’s alot you can do with dyes too though. I actually wear a studded leather chestpiece (that’s level 10 loot armour) almost all the time, but dyed in midnight sky with royal blue trimmings, it doesn’t look half bad.

Make sure you look around on the TP though. A large part of what i wear is Nika’s armour, which is exotic loot armour that you’re unlikely to find anywhere just adventuring yourself.

I agree that there could be better armour skins, but if you look around long enough and make combinations, you can usually find something you like :p.

I seriously agree on the costumes thing though. I really think they should let you customize and dye the seperate pieces so we can actually integrate these into our outfits rather than have to wear the entire set as a whole.

Can’t agree more OP.

Aesthetic differentiation through both options available and personal choice should be an integral part of any MMORPG. Players should be given the tools or options to express their individuality in game. I’ve played MMO’s with more options in this respect at character creation than this game has in it’s entirety. In saying it’s pretty obvious that Anet want this intertwined with both grind and the gem store. Every other day it’s “new skins at the gem store” most of which are pretty average anyway. In saying because of this they have to keep options limited else there is no market or desire for such things.

Simply put. Supply and demand, or more accurately, restrict supply to create a demand.

I was hoping this would be resolved with the LS. I was hopeful we would get at least a handful of new armor skins and options in each class. Instead we got a backpiece, some goggles and a kite.

Sad to say armor in this game is both a commodity and a symbol of in-game accomplishment and as such they have dictated the restrictiveness of such items. As a player who thrives on role-playing, character individuality and theme I’ve found it one of this games biggest negatives.

Clonewars 2.