Guild Wars 2

100% agree. ArenaNet, please implement this in the future.

gibzy.7329:

…
Account-bound skins would mean you need to collect them only once, that’s true. But I truly can’t imagine a person collecting all skins on his main, then switching to his alt and starting to collect all skins there. Only because it’s such a huge undertaking (consider the legendary skins). 99.99% would just focus on the main, and for the alt they’ll just get one or two skins they like the best. So that doesn’t really add anything to replayability. But it does take away from player happiness.

I suggested a higher cost on transmutation stones just in response to those, worried about ANet loosing money on this (which I don’t believe they will, even if it costs 1 stone per 1 unlock).

I’d expect most people to do that to be honest (whether the skin is account or character locked), though there will be a few that would still try and get all skins for all characters.

Also once you have unlocked what you want on a character maybe they will then go to other areas, with that character for a purpose of getting the outfit (rather than just your highest/main/toughest character).
Maybe the outfit is more an added incentive to help out someone as you get something out of it (rather than nothing) even though it’s a minor factor as you may not have realy wanted it but its nice to get something ‘useful’ while helping someone else out too (other than the helping out).

This overall though is more a factor for places that all charcter eventuallly would go (like dungeons/god armours), than realy anything else.
Currently once you have the gear you want your likely to stop running it (unless its for fun/friends/guildies) untill you go there with an alt for the same reason (having only the need to run it with a single character and unlocking the skin, reduces the amount people will be going there).
If you unlock it on an account you only realy need to go with one charcter per armour type (or even just one character).

Take dyes as an example, if they were account bound, there would be much less of a market or trade for them. I can see skins adding to the market as people wll buy armours specifically to unlock skins they may otherwise not take a second look at too.

This also opens up the possibility of having a Master Transmutation Stone that can unlock an outfit for an account (as opposed to just a character). Adding more options to the transmutation stone market.

All in all I don’t realy see a downside to some kind of skins wardrobe/ clothing shop/ personal tailor/smith and allot of potential for both gem and gold spending options.

Katz.5143:

If this were incorporated into the Hall of Monuments they could go through a process of having the Hall repaired and populating it with multiple NPC’s, etc. A grand reopening of the Hall.

While I was thinking personal instance, this is also a great idea. Hall of Monuments is an awesome and nostalgic place!

Loswaith.3829:

Currently once you have the gear you want your likely to stop running it (unless its for fun/friends/guildies) untill you go there with an alt for the same reason (having only the need to run it with a single character and unlocking the skin, reduces the amount people will be going there).
If you unlock it on an account you only realy need to go with one charcter per armour type (or even just one character).

Yes, this could be the biggest problem with it being account wide. My reasoning for suggesting it was that there’s so many skins in game right now, and new ones are constantly added, that it’d be kitten hard for any regular player to run out of skins to collect, even on one character. As for the problem of people running a dungeon just enough times to get the skin and never returning to it again – well, first of all, there are still legendary skins, that do require dungeon tokens. While that is also a finite incentive to go there, it will keep the players busy for quite a while. Also, a simple “dungeon of the day” thing with x2 karma and gold reward will easily fix that problem for good.

I want this so bad. I don’t care how it happens particularly as long as I can obsessively dress my toon and organize his outfits/colors equally obsessively.

More skins? Better skin storage? More skins? Sign me up!

(did someone say more skins?)

This, a million times this. Heck, even make it a darn Mystic Forge recipe if you must, using the item some coins and the Transmutation Stones. I’ll STILL do it.

Lutharr.1035:

But since you can have unlimited toons in theory but your bank space cant ever go past a certain point people will be left having to make choices to save or destroy items. When that happens people will not be happy. better a good system now before it goes belly up.

I’m not saying that I’m against the idea of a skin wardrobe – I’m fully in favor of it. I’m just indicating that I don’t think it’s realistic to expect one, since there’s more money to be made by not implementing this.

I really like this idea. I would even buy gems to purchase a skin storage closet if that is the direction they wanted to go. Make it like the collection tabs except for armor and make it account wide.

/signed
This would really add to the fun factor for customization-aholics. I’ve not branched out and tried different sets much since I didn’t want to lose the skin already on an item. Having a skin wardrobe to pick from makes a lot of sense.

Blueshield.6291:

…
I’m not saying that I’m against the idea of a skin wardrobe – I’m fully in favor of it. I’m just indicating that I don’t think it’s realistic to expect one, since there’s more money to be made by not implementing this.

Actually I honestly dont see how they can make more money not doing this as they can by doing it. As it currently stands there is little incentive to use the transmutation stones for pre 80 gear, and aside from a few places here or there and little incentive to use the 80 transmutation on more than just a single (or a handful of different) outfit(s).

Those that want to change regularly will just make a few sets of outfits (or as much as their bank space they can afford), where most people will simply choose the one look they are happy with and stay with it forever more (virtually never using a transmutation stone on that character again).
A good way to look at it is, how often do people (check yourself or your friends) change the colour of their armour? Yet most people still want a good selection of dyes (or even to collect the lot) even if they have the 3-4 colours they would typically use, likely because they know it is a one time thing per character to do.

This is why the dye system change from guild wars one works very well for most people.

Loswaith.3829:

A good way to look at it is, how often do people (check yourself or your friends) change the colour of their armour? Yet most people still want a good selection of dyes (or even to collect the lot) even if they have the 3-4 colours they would typically use, likely because they know it is a one time thing per character to do.

That’s a fair point. Still, it illustrates another reason why we won’t likely see this implemented in the manner the OP suggests – specifically, the Skin Wardrobe being account-wide. Dyes are linked to characters rather than accounts presumably in order to keep the dye market robust, and encourage more game-time from players searching for their second and third copies of White or Abyss, or the money to buy said copies. Account-wide skins would be a step in the other direction.

Additionally, consider this. If a player rolls an alt and decides (s)he wants that alt to look snazzy from 1-80, (s)he will use 4-6 transmutation stones every 5 or 10 levels, for a total of around 40-80 stones, of which the vast majority will be Basic stones (which are rewarded free of cost via completion of maps). At level 80, (s)he is likely to spend somewhere between 6-12 Fine stones. The next alt rolled potentially uses as many stones. With an account-wide Skin Wardrobe, and assuming that the player rolls a character which uses the same armour class as a previous character, (s)he can use 0 stones of either type and have the appearance of a level 80 in tricked-out armour free of cost and as soon as level 1.

Full support – I really really want this right now, I always keep skins I might want to wear again later, clutteing up either my inventory or my bank tab…and changing back becomes quite difficult and expensive :/

I still want account-wide dye selections back, btw. And I do change the colour of my armor quite regularly

Also, I don’t see the problem in ‘looking like a decked out lvl 80 from lvl 1’ – you can already do that, after all, what with Dungeon Tokens being Account bound, not Character bound. What matters is that you still have to earn that specific skin first – what toon you use it on later shouldn’t matter.

@Blueshield
I do agree that ANet would likely see the better option as doing it per character. Thus more likely to swallow the red pill and heavily consider the benefits of adding in the wardrobe/armoury feature in some capacity.

Loswaith.3829:

@Blueshield
I do agree that ANet would likely see the better option as doing it per character. Thus more likely to swallow the red pill and heavily consider the benefits of adding in the wardrobe/armoury feature in some capacity.

There’s a logistic benefit to account-wide, besides being better for the players (IMNSHO): doing it per character basically means storing at least 5 times as much data, since each character would need a separate data set.

So yeah, as brilliant as this idea is, and I do love it, this is why I don’t think we’ll ever see it. Like someone else said, they’d think it would cannibalize the gem store (I personally think the opposite, and I doubt I’m the only one who passed on the skins and costumes because they’re not unlocks like in GW1) if it was account-wide, so they won’t do it that way, and they’ll say it’s too much of an infrastructure burden to do it per-character, so they won’t do it that way, either.

It will also help prevent people from knowing if you have exotics on or not and booting you from party if not.

Seen that happen too often in other games. it’s still a form of discrimination, and it’s still ugly.

@Targren
Yea I hadn’t considered the data storage cost (though an individual character is less than across an entire account, because things they cant use can simply not be allocated space, but it will still take up more than just the one batch if a few characters get in on it).

We can only hope they hear the number of people interested and believe themselves that it’s worth the effort.

Anet has great ideas but also many stupid ones… like this one. logiicccccc -.-

I can not support this idea enough! I have a bank full of stuff I want to use for the skins. I like collecting armour for its appearance, and I hate that I’m being forced to throw stuff away because I don’t have anywhere to put it.

Even if we didn’t have wardrobes, I think it could be implemented in the home instances. There are already weapon and armour vendors there. Every time you soulbind an item, this item could become available for purchase at the vendors in your home instance for a nominal fee of 20copper or something similar. That way it’s not a complete free for all, you can preview the armour itself, as well as armour combinations you’d like to use, and you still have to use transmutation stones to apply the skins.

Essentially this would just mean that the skins are easily accessible without having to keep them in your bank.

As far as whether it unlock for the account or for the character. I would prefer for the account but would be fine with either.

I don’t think it would prevent you from doing areas with your alts. I don’t complete areas to get the armor looks, I complete the map in the area to get the area completed. That won’t change. I think people who are completionists on characters will still complete them and people who aren’t will not.

As for the other objections to making it an account wide unlock such as economic ones to Anet. Only Anet has the data to analyze what would be better for them.

I’m in the group who doesn’t really bother with armor looks until max level because you out level the armor so rapidly. I’ve only got one set of armor for looks and won’t get more due to it taking up space. Plus, why buy another set of max level armor just to have more than one look? Not wasting the coin or karma on that. If I decide I want a different set of stats then ok.

Anet can probably tell by the fine transmutation stones how many are like me and how many are willing to transmute (and buy stones over and over) all the time.

The PVP locker opens armor for you so they already have some sort of system in place. I would be ok with purchasing a PvE locker.

Zone-specific skins do exist. T1 cultural weapons drop in the zones near the city. T2 weapon skins drop in the dungeons.

We do need a way to collect these. This would make many people buy cultural armors, which is a huge gold sink. Also, collecting is fun.

+1 to this idea.

I’d love to have the ability to collect weapon/armor skins. As a Norn, I need to be able to tell stories of my adventures. What better way to retell the tales than cataloguing/wearing the armor associated!

gibzy.7329:

- Sorry, I didn’t really understand that second suggestion of yours.

My bad, I didn’t really explain that properly. What I mean by a rarity filter is that you can’t apply a legendary skin to a common item, so I couldn’t roll a thief then instantly transmute my rusty 6-damage dagger to a legendary item. Maybe having one stage of lee-way (so that exotics can be skinned as legendary).

However I think it is most likely that if this were implemented skins would be made character-bound, as with dyes.

+1

Full support.

/signed

I would love this. It would make me want to collect skins.

Yes, please!

This message was brought to you by a Kitten with a Keyboard

I am fully behind this idea as outlined in the first posting. As an alternative to the tabs, there could be a WARDROBE NPC in Lion’s Arch that is similar to “Kimmes the Historian” in the “Hall of Monuments”. The wardrobe NPC in Lion’s Arch could have a separate tab for different armor types. Also, although the general armors should be available account-wide, I think it could be reasonable that the special armors must be achieved by individual characters on the account. *PLEASE ENABLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS SOON as I have bought ALL the bank slots and I have no more room.

Full support !!!! I love this idea!

yes! please i hope they will add something like this!

This is an exceptionally good idea that’s well thought out and brings the kind of awesome flexibility and collectibility I experienced in DCUO to GW2.

But whilst I’ve up-voted it, I still don’t see it happening.

ArenaNet probably believe that at the moment, if they leave it the way it is, it will foster infinite investment in fine transmutation stones.
Of course, it doesn’t really work that way, but in theory it does, and that’s good enough for their economist.

Let’s debunk the theory:
Once people have spent a huge amount of gold or time on one particular style, ArenaNet know that players will do a lot to keep that look, even pay for the privilege.
What ArenaNet DON’T see is that it stifles experimentation in both style and gameplay, as players are reluctant to throw away in-game time and gold as well as real world cash in order to try a different build whilst retaining the look they’ve invested so much in.

Let’s face it, even if you’re really fond of your Tier 3 Cultural set, you’re not going to spend 120 gold every time you acquire a new set of armour in order to give it your favourite look.
ArenaNet would LOVE it if you did, but players are so cash poor in this game, this’ll never become commonplace enough for them to profit off of it.

So eventually, because you’re reluctant to change your aesthetic style in order to try a new build, and because acquiring new, top-tier gear requires a big investment of time, chances are, the majority of players will get locked in to one build. And over time, you’ll get bored of that build.
And when you get bored enough, you’ll stop playing.
If you stop playing, you stop paying.

Adopting the OP’s idea would solve this problem and add a whole swath of new goals for the player base to pursue and encourage investment. Sure, it would also require a lot of work on the art team’s behalf in order to keep things fresh and interesting, but hey, you have to work to make money.

And there’s the other rub: now the game’s out of the door, it’s hard to justify spending more money in order to make more, and people like publishers and shareholders aren’t interested. They want their money, and they want it now for no further investment.
That’s why you see the crap you see in the gem store.
That’s why we have copious amounts of RNG.
That’s why we have the current, callous aesthetic model.

It’s all about investors interested in short-term gain with no interest in better, longer term gains through fostering good relations with the player-base.

+1. Arenanet plz help me give you my money.

I agree with and endorse this idea 100%. I think it should also extend to town clothes as well, and should include a wave of new and different items of town clothing. I really think that there should be more opportunities for Town Clothing to be used in general; it has such awesome potential and yet all of it is untapped.

This is a great Idéa and I really wish to see it happen! The current system is a mess in my opinion. We shouldn’t be forced to pay every time we want to change a skin, but rather pay every time we aquire a new skin.
(Tip to ANET: give us more skins. More skins = more transmutations = more transmutaion stone sales = more crystal sales = more money.)

The main reason I’m not getting the cultural armors and most other armors is because I have no place to put them once I get them. Keeping them in your bags is not a decent option.

If there was a per-character locker in our home instance and/or our bank, I’ll definitely try to fill it with at least one character, and get quite some skins with the rest.

the only thing i disagree’d wiith is the skins being available accross all characters i think it should work more like dyes you choose which character you want to unlock that skin for so that you cant just get everything you need by only ever playing one character other than that i was confused as to why this wasnt implemented in the first place i actually expected it, i remember the Anet devs talking about how they want the fashion of GW2 to change depending on the majority of people but we dont have much freedom for changing our look when we have to destroy one of the items skins for a one time change

Absolutely agree to this. I’m a recent convert from LOTRO, and the cosmetic system there (while not perfect) is something I would love to see emulated in GW2.

For those unaware, LOTRO has a separate “wardrobe” bank for storage of purely cosmetic clothing/armour. It also has separate a separate section of your character window for cosmetic outfits that override the appearance of your actual equipped gear. For ANet, via the micro transaction market, you can purchase more space in the cosmetic bank and more empty tabs for cosmetic outfits. It also encourages players to spend more time/money on cosmetics collection/purchasing as they know the cosmetics will actually be put to use.

very good idea. i would love to see this happen. i don’t care if it’s account or character bound. either way it would be a great addition to the game.

Champions Online has the perfect system and I was extremely disappointed when GW2 didn’t copy it

Oh, there’s another reason I don’t think we’ll see them do this: Even GW1 had a better system than GW2.

In GW1, you could buy “Perfect” salvage kits for materials, gold and skillpoints that would extract the inscription from an armour whilst leaving it in tact, meaning if you wanted to change stats, you weren’t going to destroy the look you like.

They could have just brought this system across unchanged, yet they didn’t.

They WANT you destroying styles so that you’re forced to buy them again.

Great idea. Even if it was only was a skin wardrobe per character, where each one was able to collect the only the ones it could wear it still would be an improvement over what we have now. Right now you can either
1) change to a new skin and lose the old one, forcing you to rebuy if you want to change back or
2) store old skins in the bank, which is expensive if you have exotic armor and have to buy a new set for each skin.
The system in place now discourages people from changing the way they look, since they are penalized for dong so.

It would encourage people to buy skins from the trading post.

It would be nice to have a weapon skin wardrobe also, for that matter.

I am one of those collectors who would love to collect skins of armor and weapons. It would be a focus of the game for me. It would get me to participate in parts of the game I wouldn’t routinely participate in, just to unlock a skin.

I like this idea. I would like for them to set up something combining the features of the Hall of Monuments and the PvP locker. The specifics of how it is implemented are less important to me than just having it implemented. I want some way to have different looks without it being a huge ordeal and taking up too much space.

I love dressing up my characters. I collect various armor and weapon skins for my characters so I can mix and match the style to my mood. I have upgraded my bank tab fully, but I’m running out of space for storage so I can’t enjoy collecting all the skins for my characters. Mind you, this is only for 1 character, and I’ve got several alts lined up…

Many suggestions here in this thread is great, so I really don’t care how this gets implemented, but here’s my 2 cents:

Just use what we already have; in other words, use the locker from sPvP. Expand that feature to PvE as well. It’s already there, so implementation to PvE shouldn’t be too time consuming right? Drag/Deposit an armor/weapon to the locker and that’s it. The slot will hold 1 item per skin. Any excess skin must be stored in the bank (i.e. same skin with different stats for different builds).

-Pros-
- Easy implementation for Anet (The code, the UI, everything is there. Just expand it to PvE). The easier it is to implement, the faster it gets in.
- Player is guaranteed 1 space for each skin.
→ Frees up bank space.
– This does not have a negative effect on bank tab sales, as players uninterested
in dressing up their character have enough bank space and won’t buy that tab
either way.
– Since you can only hold 1 of each skins, players who want several of the
same skin with different stats will have to use the bank space, leading to
potential bank tab sales.
→ Increased use of (fine) transmutation stone.
– More Gem sales.
– More consumption of mats.
→ Increased skin collecting activity.
– Various dungeons will be run more often.
– Players will craft more items.
– Players will spend more karma.
– And probably many, many more pros that I’ve forgot to mention.
-Cons-
– Nothing that I can really think of.
– Anet not implementing this in any form suggested here. Players want this. Make
your players happy!!

Now, I’d personally prefer items being Account bound rather than Soul bound so I can dress up my characters easily, but if Anet feels strongly against it, I don’t care. We already have the transmutation trick to make items from Soul bound to Account bound, so more sales on transmutation stones eh?

TLDR; just implement this in whatever form please.

why ward robe with limited space when we can have a smart armor system that saves everything?

I want a closet of old loose skin. Give it to me.

This is the best idea for a game improvement I have heard.
As someone who has a character who actually got extra storage slots so they could carry around a second outfit or two this sounds like something that would make me really want to collect all of the armours I like the look of.
I would also vote for being able to convert / use town clothes as normal armour, I want to wear my winter outfit in the snow

Oh god, please, I need this so bad. I intend to mix armours on just about all of my characters (all eight of them..) so this would be a really nice thing to have. Right now, it’s just not realistic for me to drag around spare bits of armour, which discourages me from collecting pieces I don’t absolutely need. In turn, I play dungeons less because I don’t NEED most dungeon armour.

And if I played dungeons more I would probably need to buy more bank slots to store all my dungeon tokens, which would be good for Anet. And with a wardrobe, I would buy more costume skins. It goes on and on..

i find myself astounded that, as much as has been written about this — as many times as this has been requested; as many times as suggestions have been offered; as many times as people have pleaded — anet still has not seen fit to either recognize it and comment on it, nor to enact anything showing they’re hearing this request.

this goes toward “town” clothing, too, anet. your players like variety for their characters. put it simply? my leather wearers do NOT all dress in the same skins — they’re each different, and they each have different tastes. the small amount of differing armor you’ve provided has made me really stretch to match their clothing to “them,” and i’m still not “satisfied” with the result … even less satisfied that, barring racial differences, they all wear the same bloody town clothes, or silly pirate outfit, or if i WANTED i could get the cook’s outfit? puhleeze. let’s get some variety going in armors and town clothes, PLEASE!

@Mungrul
You not only hit the nail on the head you knocked it clean through.

This would be amazing, but I have to agree we aren’t likely to see it
Too many decisions based around that stupid gem store.

I can completely agree with this.

I’m bringing this thread up again cause it got into the void a little and I agree totally with the OP. Why do we have to unlock every skin over again, and why can’t we attach the skins to our armour for free, after we’ve already bought that item. Why pay double…?
This only encourages transmutation stone farming, something I do a great deal cause I have lots of alts.

+1 +1 +1
This is the best idea I’ve seen, having searched the forums for something like this. If ANet would implement something like this, I guarantee I would be much more comfortable purchasing things like skins and stones.

As it is, I’ve purchased one extra bank slot. I think I purchased some keys once, and immediately regretted it. What a waste of money.

I’m just coming back after a long break, brought on by endless grinding at lvl80 for skins and gear that forces me to buy more bank space. And the only reason I’m back is because the gameplay and progression is fun at low to mid levels. Once I hit the higher levels again, I’ll most likely stop again. And I won’t spend a penny more unless there are some major improvements. /rant