Guild Wars 2

The dye takes different color with different gear. As you can see the die becomes very dark black, but in other gear it becomes dark brown.

Name is midnight fire dye
Please fix this!

This isn’t a bug, dyes affect different materials differently. There are three types of material visible on armour: cloth, leather and metal. Because of the natural properties of these materials, dyes will appear lighter, darker or brighter than the standard swatch.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Midnight_Fire_Dye On the panel on the right of this wiki entry, there’s a header for colour with 3 different colour swatches next to it, one for each material.

Please take the time to look at the provided screenshots.
The OP complained about “different gear” being colored differently, not different “gear types”. The screenshots show different pieces of medium armor type equipment on his ranger. Some of the pieces are a lot darker (almost black), while others are unimpressively brown. That brown is very much unlike what the ingame “preview box” of the color suggests what the outcome should look like.

The complaint is unrelated to colors affecting light, medium and heavy armor types differently.

I use this dye color often. It truly does change color depending on the armor piece in a set of armor. I don’t think there is any ‘bug’ about it at all. Some parts of some pieces of armor show up as very black, some parts as a reddish brown, and everything in-between. Many dyes do this, it may be more pronounced with Midnight Fire.

Shikigami.4013:

Please take the time to look at the provided screenshots.
The OP complained about “different gear” being colored differently, not different “gear types”. The screenshots show different pieces of medium armor type equipment on his ranger. Some of the pieces are a lot darker (almost black), while others are unimpressively brown. That brown is very much unlike what the ingame “preview box” of the color suggests what the outcome should look like.

The complaint is unrelated to colors affecting light, medium and heavy armor types differently.

I’m not talking about armour for different classes. There are different materials incorporated in all armours or outfits: cloth, leather and metal. Often there are metal or cloth elements in medium gear, even though it is expected to be leather.

In this instance, the midnight fire dye appears to be very dark on cloth material (present on the pirate outfit’s leggings), but a medium brown on all the leather components (the boots and top part of the pirate outfit, and on the armour underneath the outfit).

The swatch in the dye panel for midnight fire is representative to some extent- the swatch is very similar in colour to when it is applied to cloth material. It’s just not as representative for leather.

Unfortunately the icon for Midnight Fire in the dye panel can’t show all possibilities of how it looks on all materials- it’s down to the user to preview it.

Yeah, as was said, this isn’t a bug. It’s how the dyes look on different types of material in each armor piece. For example: Abyss looks the blackest of blacks on heavy (metal) armor, but it looks like a very washed out black/grey on light (cloth) armor.

And there are light armors with metal pieces, heavy armors with cloth pieces, medium armors with metal pieces, etc. It’s annoying, for sure, but it’s not a bug.

I presumed that a medium type armor pants would consist of leather and not cloth.

If it is the general consensus that medium armor pants can be either cloth or leather, despite leather squares being used for the outer armor component in all the pants recipes I looked at, then I guess the difference in color is explained.

On the other hand, I think the difference in color is way too drastic and should be looked at regardless of bug or not. Even on leather material the colors should not look totally different than in the little preview box (“swatch”? never knew these boxes were called that).

I know it’s inconvenient (to some extent) that the dye swatch doesn’t match the outcome on some materials.

Most medium armours do consist of just/mostly leather. The first picture is the preview for an outfit, so it’s kind of a moot-point. The second armour is the medium pirate set, and most of it appears to be leather. A good example of medium armour that incorporates leather, metal and cloth is the Order of Whisper’s medium armour.

It is also worth mentioning that not all cloth, leather or metal dye exactly the same. For example, http://argos-soft.net/GW2/ArmorGallery/index.php?color=2&sex=0&race=0&w=1&skinID=meoi&lang=en and http://argos-soft.net/GW2/ArmorGallery/index.php?color=2&sex=0&race=0&w=1&skinID=bdi&lang=en . Look at the chest armour, both are dyed the same, but one is much brighter because of the material/reflection.

The swatch for the dye in game is a rough approximation for most outcomes whereas the three swatches on the official wiki are slightly better approximations.

However, I’ve noticed that rarer/more expensive dyes (especially the exclusive dyes e.g. Tower of Nightmares, Flame and Frost) generally have a larger colour variation on different materials. This actually makes them more attractive to many players. It’s almost like the different shades add dimension to the armour.

If the colour was changed (so that the dye effect would match the swatch better) Anet would probably have a lot of upset players on their hands who quite happily use the dye at its current setting. The swatch can’t be edited to represent leather result because it is representative of the metal and cloth result.

It was exactly like this in GW1. I guess I’ve grown accustomed to it and don’t think about it much anymore. Forget that two items are supposedly the same material. It doesn’t matter one iota. Dying has always been inconsistent between different armor pieces in both games. Some dyes are worse than others. (There is a contrast difference too, that is the main difference you get when sorting by material. “Metal” colors have higher contrast).

For best results, use armor pieces from the same “set”. But that doesn’t always guarantee a color match either. It’s a Guild Wars fact of life: different armor pieces dye differently.

I am a die-hard mix ‘n’ matcher. Often, none of the pieces of armor I am wearing are from the same set. The only solution is to get a huge dye collection and do your best with differing dyes. Sometimes, there are looks you just can’t accomplish with a certain color. Many times, a color you would never have considered using looks great on a particular piece.

Conclusion: Get a big dye collection, and try ‘em all, even if the thumbnail color swatch doesn’t look promising. It’s a pain, but I’ve been dealing with it for over 10 years now.