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Threat assessment with cosmetics
This discussion was created from comments split from: Sub price, cosmetic shop and alternative rules server..
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As far as weapons I feel the same as my last statement. Axes should transmog to axes, swords to swords.
I don’t think knowing exactly what gear they transmogged from is as important since they could not have any transmog and you still wouldn’t know what stats the crafter put on it the gear. Armor type is definitely an important factor that you would, could, and should be able to know by looking though.
This is already the case when you’re using cosmetic armor pieces.
However, we also have full body costumes that will cover any gear.
“Players will have a buff on their nameplate that indicates the gear set they are wearing. Other players will be able to see this buff by targeting that player at a distance.[26][27][28]
This will indicate the type of armor (cloth, leather, plate) that they are predominantly wearing.[29][27]
You can target a player. You're going to see what type of armor they have based on a buff they have available to them because obviously cosmetics can change appearance. You might have different silhouettes as a result of that.[29] – Steven Sharif“
Yes, this is a thing.
However, if ten enemies are coming at me any my friends, I need to target 10 people individually to find out this information on them.
I should be able to see this information by looking at their character.
Visually observing the persons armor would be way more difficult the more I think about it. Person could be wearing a cloth robe with plate boots, legs, and hands. All I see is the robe so at a glance I think I’m looking at someone weak to physical, “I’m gonna go stab that clothie with my rogue daggers, oh wait I do no damage, annnnd I’m dead”.
If you were going for the exact armor piece, yes it would.
However, that isn't what you would be going for. You would be looking for the base type of armor.
I'm sure it wouldn't take you any time or effort to distinguish between plate armor and robes.
The system as Steven described it is literally taken directly out of Archeage - so I have years of experience with it. It would be better if we could see what players were wearing by looking at them.
I have struggled in plenty of games to tell the difference between plate armor and cloth/leather armor with pads that is a silvery color. I definitely have trouble telling the difference between a black cloth shirt and a black leather jerkin. Sometimes it's obvious but often it isn't. Heck, I've even done it deliberately, where I want to look like I'm wearing an armor type that I'm not, so I wear leather-looking cloth armor for aesthetics, or leather with a lot of metal decorations. An icon could be better.
Steven doesn't have to rip it off exactly. Did he say that he was copying it from Archeage directly? Or did his description just sound a lot like what Archeage did? Until we see how it works, you're just making an assumption. You have zero years of experience with what Ashes of Creation is doing, same with the rest of us.
Steven said when you select someone, I personally think it should just be on all name plates.
I too much prefer this distinguishing factor compared to trying to check out each piece of gear someone has on to see if it all matches the easily distinguishable pieces. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.
Same. I think this would be ideal.
This is one of the solutions I offered up quite a while ago. If implemented, it would obviously need to be a customization option.
It isn't ideal, as it will result in a very messy UI, just to display information we should be able to garner from the game world itself. It also makes threat assessment on bunched up targets just as hard as if it were target only.
Basically, it is half way between target only icons for gear, and being able to identify gear type in game. It is far from ideal, but is better than nothing.
The reason I know the system as Steven described won't be good enough is because it doesn't at all address the actual issue - being able to tell multiple players armor type at the same time. In fact, the system as he described it still leaves you only able to assess one target at a time.
Threat evaluation is directly tied to the cosmetic shop, and peoples reasons for wanting a server without it - not that this will happen.
Talking about thread assessment in specific regards to gear identification is perfectly on topic in a thread where the topic is an alternate ruleset server where there is no cosmetic shop.
No, since you can also glamour in-game achievable armor onto your equipped gear. This thread specifically talks about separate servers with a higher sub-fee and no in-game shop, not about threat assessment.
So, what you are saying is that the cosmetic shop is simply a means to circumvent the need to obtain these cosmetic items in game?
Since that gives players an advantage, that makes it pay-to-win.
Obviously cosmetic transmog can’t abide by the idea of cloth to cloth, plate to plate, since we already have a cosmetic where you get to play as an ice cube, but as far as weapons go it seems like a reasonable ask of them to make that transmog 1:1 since the weapons will most likely have for more variance to how they operate compared to armor.
Sounds like something worth asking at the next Q&A to get the wiki updated on that
Since we do not yet know how in game cosmetics will work, but we do know how cash shop cosmetics will work as a single look covering up all armor visuals, it is 100% conceivable that a server with no cash shop will defacto result in players only able to appear in armor corresponding to the armor type being worn.
Such an assumption is about in line with the assumption that a no cash shop server would have all cosmetics earned in game - an assumption I would absolutely never make as it creates ongoing additional work for Intrepid in placing the items as rewards in game only for those specific servers.
I looked through the wiki again but I couldn’t find any direct quotes stating they wouldn’t.
This is the closest thing I could find in remotely speaking about removing cosmetics:
A "default player appearance" may be automatically applied during sieges or other large scale battles to improve client-side performance.[107][108]
I’m sure some people would be upset about their transmog/costumes being disabled but it might be the correct way to silence the people who would claim cosmetics are p2w.
I’m on the side that an indicator displaying the most prominent gear type is a quicker way to assess gear type than looking at someone so I feel like it would be a option that wouldn’t actually effect either side negatively.
Ex: Plate wearers nameplate has silver border, Cloth wearers nameplate has green border and Leather wearers nameplate has red border. Well something of this sort.
Information conveyed and no extra clutter.
I really like that. They will have an indicator in some way for most prominent gear type worn, as confirmed by Steven’s comments on such, but I always imagined a little buff/circle next to their name plate that represented it. I like outline of your name plate idea more though.
I really hope they are going to go ham on our UI flexibility so maybe make it a choice which version to use if it’s difficult for colorblind folks to have the colors.
It is up on the wiki from Steven that the UI is supposed to be super customizable.
But I have to agree that the threat indication should be visible on the name plate not just gear.
I'm hoping they have the ability to hide pieces like helms, capes, maybe chest pieces to show off those body tattoos. And that would throw off the threat assessment even more than having a cosmetic outfit in my opinion.
But that's not in the cards for Ashes. I really like your idea Sylvanar, can't think of any drawbacks and it would make the problem better. Good idea.
Especially in a setting where thieves/rogues and spies and illusionists are common.
For example cosmetics would be disabled by the game automatically during any sort of pvp activity that way you're not trying to guess what the enemy player is playing/wearing/wielding so you can react accordingly.
This is just something that will need to be addressed by intrepid later down the road.
The discussion about it happened on these forums (or perhaps the old forums, or even the old old forums) and Intrepid basically said that if you pay to have your character look a specific way, that is how others will see your character.
This is the discussion that lead to Intrepid first talking about the icon to identify armor type, so it was a long time ago.
While things do change in game development, I can not see them changing this. As much as I think we should be able to see players basic gear type by just looking at them, I fully understand why Intrepid would want people to know that others will see their character the way they have paid to display it.
This absolutely does leave things open for in game cosmetics to be restricted to the same base item type, but if costumes from the store don't follow this, there is no real point to that.
Arguably though, Intrepid would be better served by allowing in game cosmetics to be applied to any item type of the same slot - otherwise store cosmetics have a definite (albeit small) actual in game benefit to them that can't be found any other way.
I don’t doubt it was said, just curious if you had a quote somewhere about it. I know it’s my personal standard as far as AoC information goes and can’t expect others to feel the same, but if it’s not on the wiki somewhere I’m far more likely to assume it is an unknown.
Steven has definitely said some random off the cuff stuff when let loose into the environment. Margaret joining the team was such a positive addition to help lessen that.
I searched through the forums and I've found hints but no quotes. It may have been a livestream Q&A if it was somewhere, but I'm not sure which one. I found that someone asked about it for the March 26, 2021 Q&A but I haven't looked it up to see if there was an answer.