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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
"Enable Default Skins" settings concept - Not "Hide Cosmetics" concept
Threather
Member, Alpha Two
I see a lot of people in discord and discussions around this topic during live streams or dev questions. I do have a personal take on this idea that I think can have actual benefits for the game in the following manners:
Location:
The downfall would be that a person's cosmetics they have gathered in game and/or acquired through the shop/store/backings would not be visible to those players with this option enabled.
[EDIT: Corrected typo's and better wording]
Location:
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In-game settings under Visual/Video category would contain the option for "Enable Default Skins"
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This would apply a Default Skin for each race (Male and female) that is within your drawing/rendering distance and prevents the equipped items, equipped transmog's and equipped skins from being rendered.
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This mirrors the same concept as Wars/Sieges but is utilized in all scales and outside of Wars/Sieges in all population sizes (1, 10, 200).
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This would have a positive impact on a players PC performance by reducing the amount of unique objects to render. Same concept being used in Wars/Sieges to allow 100's of players to more 'seamlessly' function in the same area.
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It can be used to help reduce the minimum PC requirements as well by having this option enabled. This could enable the ability to target a larger gaming audience that might have older gaming systems.
The downfall would be that a person's cosmetics they have gathered in game and/or acquired through the shop/store/backings would not be visible to those players with this option enabled.
[EDIT: Corrected typo's and better wording]
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Comments
People pay $$$$ to appear a certain way, ingame, to you.
If they cant appear that certain way to the other players then their money wasnt well spent.
I dont like the way 90% of the people customize their characters, but since cosmetics has become detached from gameplay, and an income stream for developers, I doubt you will ever get any settings option to hide visuals that other people paid for. It would hurt the sales.
"Hide Cosmetics" discussions normally are saying that you hide full body skins and/or transmog options on gear and see all of the gear that the person has equipped. This would allow you to see if they are using light/medium/heavy armor. This is not what I am proposing and it is also not the reason I am proposing this change.
In my post above I mention that enabling default skins is to help reduce the strain on a persons system when multiple players are in the same area. I hope this makes my post a little bit more clear. My title also has in it that this is not a Hide cosmetics post - because I am basically suggesting putting a full body cosmetic on everyone based on their race so there are greatly reduced number of unique skins to render at one time.
Making a person look like a level 1 newbie just out of the portal isn't going to really do much of anything effective to help your graphics rendering, compared to the plethora of other options that affect your entire visual environment.
The "your silly hat gives me lag" argument is a bit eyebrow-raising.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
You both are correct, these are also great methods to reduce the strain on one's system. The issue I am addressing isn't that a single unique hat gives me lag. It is the fact that I could be asked to process 200 unique hats, 200 unique legs, 200 unique boots, 200 unique weapons, 200 unique gloves and the list goes on with every visible piece of gear a person can wear.
This actually does have a large impact on lag. That is the reason why Intrepid is already using this exact concept in their sieges to use a universal skin.
I also made no suggestion to make them look like a "Level 1 newbie". I do not have a concept in-mind in how to make each individual skin look.
I'm not sure if you truly understood the reasoning behind the suggestion I made. This doesn't reflect the concept of reducing the strain on systems for processing so many unique objects in a single area at one time. This is a similar concept to a real life where people suffer some Sensory Overload, but instead oriented towards technology not having the capabilities to process what it is being asked to.
yes
It was a joke. I would actually buy my hypothetical AR glasses from my example if it meant I did not have to see people wear socks with flip-flops though...
I understand your intent, but the net affect of your suggestion is that it devalues other people's purchases for cosmetic items. Personally, I would prefer no cosmetics. I think I have beaten that horse into the ground during my time on these forums.
Since cosmetics are both a permanent reality for us all in Ashes and good for the financial well-being of the game. I have to agree that things like your suggestion that reduces the value of cosmetics is not in the best interest of the game.
Unfortunately, people do pay good money to show off. Until the day comes where we are all living in a Black Mirror episode where we all wear AR googles to filter out the things we prefer not to see. We are stuck seeing the games the way Intrepid and the buyers of cosmetics want us to see.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Poor snail boi is crying...
You can never block out my shameless revealing robe! Mwahahahahaha!!!
I bet he would be stoic enough not to shed tears over my preferences if he was earned via my in game performance and not with my credit card...
That said, would the salt from a snails tears harm it?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
You're killing hiiiiim! You're KILLING HIIIIIIIIIM!!!
HOLY SHIT! There is a render now!? I had not even seen that until this moment.
This thing is incredible.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Oooooh, maybe it'll rise up out of the ground like the weird floaty jellyfish-mount-thing did.
OP obviously has a very good knowledge base on how these systems work, and how computers generate models from a technical standpoint. Just putting in "sliders" doesn't fix the issue, when it does nothing to help reduce the amount of things your computer has to render.
It's like telling someone they need to eat 100 hotdogs, and telling them it's easier if the hotdogs are store-brand generic hotdogs, and not gourmet. You're doing nothing to fix the fact they still have to EAT 100 HOTDOGS. It's about the quantality, not the quality.
@Threather This is one of the best posts I've seen on here in a while under the topic of suggestions in order to make the game better. Fuck the haters. They have demonstrated they lack even the fundamental knowledge required to make a response, not to mention even rebut what you're suggesting. Well researched, well rationalized.
Serious PvPers would default to this option, because they want to instantly and accurately know how their opponents are equipped (not to mention get the best performance out of their encounters). Gankers would quickly follow suit for the similar reasons, as they want to be certain of victory before they even engage. Soon after everyone else in the game will feel like they need to default to this option in order to even compete.
It's an advantage, and if you give players the option to use it, they will feel they have to use it, because everyone else is using it. End result - nothing unique anywhere in the game, just a world of cardboard cutouts.
Personally, I anticipate the negatives outweighing the positives. As others have mentioned, this feature has been advertised to be automatically employed by the game on it's own where it is needed for performance, so putting the option in the hands of the player seems redundant.
Again what theater is saying wouldn't give you this information.
Theater is saying that there would be 18 default models.
1 default model for each race male, and 1 default model for each race female.
This would allow people who can't play the game due to hundreds of thousands of different items having to be loaded in populated areas, to be able to play with a lower overall quality due to only needing to render 18 models x the number of people in the area.
PvPers wouldn't default to this model because it would give them no additional information. They wouldn't see the gear, they'd see the default model.
This is no different than ArcheAage having "Default Player Appearance" which is what Intrepid is Going to have, but instead this suggestion is a halfway point.
Normal Displayed Characters
18 Models
4 Models (Enemies / Allies Male/Female)
Everyone will be able to see the gear type and tier on the buff on the player bar.
I'd even say I'd like the ability to turn off cosmetics on an individual level. So that I can ban the cosmetics on the first bsdm stripper I see in game.
I do understand this isn't exactly what he is saying, but I'd like a few different variations on this idea. Turning off cosmetics should be an option, along with turning off all gear for the base model, and then lastly hiding characters all together past a certain number.
U.S. East
This is why I choose to play a game like Ashes of Creation, where there are no stupid transmogs, as opposed to a game like TERA Online which is full of trash.
An opinion that is bad for the health of the game. If people can turn off cosmetics, then it lowers the value of cosmetics. This lowers the selling power of cosmetics. Then lowers Intrepid's income.
It could very well be the difference between a successful MMO and another failed MMO.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Exactly.
If a handful of players want to run Ashes on their minimum spec potato, the rest of the playerbase shouldn’t be penalized for that.
Not really. People in mass are probably going to enable them anyway. There are people who don't want any transmog in the game at all though. This would an option for them.
I'd rather have an unpopular option that has no effect on the game. Than punish players for playing the game by showing them crap they don't want to see.
There are a ton of players who said they wanted to see people with no skins so they know what they had to do to achieve the gear. This is an option more for them than anyone else.
As for the people who bought the transmogs. Fuck them. If they want to buy shit in a game to show off how rich they are in real life I don't really care. They shouldn't have an automatic final say on any new options in the game though.
U.S. East
You do realize that there will be transmogs in the game you can earn equivalent to what's in the shop, correct? Are you saying "fuck them" to people who earn things through achievements via play? Because when you want to turn off all transmogs, that's what you're saying.
By the way, people earned skins by funding the Kickstarter. The people who helped make this game possible by their financial support. Oh, and you might as well curse out Steven Sharif for showing off how rich he is by making a game like this possible through putting up a lot of his own money.
You're truly a troll of the lowest order. You've gone way past just disagreeing with the way Ashes has been developed, and you're going flat-out into attacking large swaths of the community, especially those responsible for helping this game become a reality. It's clear that your opinion here is worthless, and that's assuming the opinion you're expressing is even a sincere one and not just role-playing (which I'm starting to doubt).
Don't care. It would be effecting so little of the community that it should not matter in the overall benefit of the game. You can use it both to lower the specs required and if you dislike skins overall. You aren't entitled for everyone to see your skin if it gets in the way of them enjoying or even playing the game at all. Special effects on these things can use the most resources.
Realistically no one is going to do it if they like transmog. You can share your transmog with them.
U.S. East