Dev Discussion #42 - Gear Color Customization

Yinris

Full color!! Without eliminating actual color options, you can limit the saturation, contrast, lighting, shine, and general vibe or "neon-ness" as that specifically seems to be something people are worried about. I like somewhat retro colors, and most games don't allow that, even if it's more subtle colors, which if anything makes more sense with less technology where bright synthetic looking reds or neons are less realistic.

L1nkin

I guess the best way for customizing the gear is being able to change some parts only just to keep general style as it is.

savndor

I prefer a limited colorpallet. However, I feel like colors like yellow or pink should be ok. Its only a mather of not making them too flashy. The flashiness of spells or sword-runes or whatever should overrule any flashy armor color. The ''WOW'' effect should lie in the details.

chaoko954

On stream you said dye sets are applied to the character and then new gear is automatically dyed?

That's great!
Just please allow individual piece overloads as well.
Sometimes the way new gear looks with a dye combination is off and we're gonna want to change everything!

But the idea of a base character defined dye slot is fantastic, I'm just worried about the edge cases of when it's not. XD

NightKnight

I definitely think limited is a better option. while it is great to have loads of customization you will have many people using these bright yellow bright pink and other loud colors which really hurts immersion.
I think a good balance is allowing you to choose like maybe 2-4 cloth colors (Not too bright) and then a separate type of dye which is a bit more restricted for metal armors to make sure you can keep the matalic feel of the armor.
ex) your regular knight armor grey's raging between white and black, and some more special ones like a orcish type of dark green armor color a bronze type of brown your more royal golds and maybe even something like a rose-tinted gold color as well.

Virtue1

I like realism

SpazAttack

At first, I was disappointed that the dye system would be more limited than I’m used to. But Stephen’s explanation that we don’t want someone made to look like Ronald McDonald walking around made sense.

Wronin22

Please do full customization! I've spent dozens of hours in Warframe and BDO just playing around with colors. Check out r/Warframerunway to see what's possible when you give players the freedom to play around with everything. Despite it's other issues, Anthem actually had really good customization options too.
I'm personally not a fan of bright neon colors, but even adjusting the shade of white or brown can drastically change how something looks, and I want the ability to do that! Also, sometimes a small brightly colored accent works really well!
There's also a lot of times that I don't like the channels that were chosen for the boots or helmet, so I end up either not dying those pieces or I choose more muted colors for those. So maybe an option to turn off the dye for certain pieces if we can't dye everything individually?
Please and thank you!

Enigmatic Sage

I like the idea they're going for especially with an allowance slider of how affected the gear can be altered based on the modifier used. With that said, there is a lot of room for opportunities that maintain the integrity of immersion and gears design before becoming too out there with customisation options. Who knows what kind of modifiers could be applied down the road. Definitely interested to see a more in-depth example presented by the team in the near future when they have the time and resources put into it.

prymortal

Full color range. but some colors are harder to come bye.
~ By harder to come by as in monster drops the color itself & monster drops mats to craft color, Ideally same rate but different loot tables so still have a decent chance to get it. something like that.
~ Dyeshop/Tailor for general Color purchases. Hell even craft colors there to unlock.
~ Limited range in cash shop option e.g. Metallics/glowing-highlighter. Technically keeping them out of game unless players really want them.
~ Guilds all have access the the guild color regardless of what it is.
~ decent color customizing on gear BUT I don't want to see rainbow warriors!

pagemaster

Dyeing should be full color spectrum but only usable on dropped loot sources(raids,dungeons,quests, pvp caches, loot drop sources, etc).
Exceptions can be legendary items, items Intrepid sees fit and situational items, like wooden shields can't be hot pink.

Crafted gear can only be dyed by the player who crafted that item. It's unique to them. It's their personal touch to the item. Additionally, you can have players, through trade, put up a crafted piece of gear to the player who made that gear and remove their signature, so it can be opened to being dyed, but that will be up to the player who crafted said item.

Additionally, you can make only pieces of gear available to be dyed. Like the hilt of a sword, but not the blade or you can only dye the blade certain colors.

There needs to be a sense of realism, but have some unique freedoms as well.

kwakx

Definitely limited, if you give too much freedom there will be too many clowns running around. Unlocking colors would be a good idea to make them more unique or require very rare materials to do so.

Liniker

Please don't limit us on how much we can dye our costumes, At least 2 colors so we can make a full Black and Red set for All armor

BreN

I'm all for customization of things when they make sense. As for color customization, I'm all for it but I would prefer a limited version of it. Part of what makes an MMO so great is the immersion you get with the world and nothing takes me out of that more than seeing a bright neon colored person running by.

Gizban

Limited.

Too many asshats.

Cooller

LIMITED!

Zarnaris

I think there should be no limit to the range of colors. This way there can be a wide variety of combinations and you'll be less likely to find someone with the same or similar colors as you. Especially if they have the same armor.

Being able to apply gradients of colors might be cool.

Not only do I want color but possibly also a range of applicable materials that can change the look of armor even further. As well as being able to edit the properties of the material (i.e. dullness, luster, reflectiveness).

SUNSEEEET

I think it would be nice to create two types of paints, the first one is permanent. It will preserve the realism of the armor and make minor changes to the equipment. At the same time, temporary paints will make a more significant effect. On the other hand. They're temporary, so why not? I think the production of paints could be done by alichmists? .. I love AoC

Gelato

If you guys really land the presentation of your in game items, you wont need dye customization. Except for pvp/guild representation. Like a well cooked and prepared dish, no additional spices are necessary.

BUT, with that being said. GW2 dying was my favorite.

JustVine

Finally got around to hearing the news on Steven's current approach for the dye system.

There is a lot of uncertainty here. So much so that I'm sort of shocked Steven even mentioned it without more clarity and I am now more confused than before the question was answered.

Here are assumptions I was making before this discussion thread was posted:

1. Given the way alpha channels and texture lighting models work, all colors are going to be effected by the material they are being dyed by. No matter what color you would have chosen you would simply already have a built in limit in terms of brightness, saturation, and underlying palette unless you explicitly overrode the texture all together.
2. That due to the complexity in modeling certain texture effects like feathers and fur, there would be hard limits on colors depending on the material in question.
3. That we would be limited in what spots on a given gear piece we were allowed to effect due to the above since sometimes it just simply won't look good or stylish.

Given the above three points I had always thought the compromise of 'limiting certain color pallets depending on the material was always the main way to clamp down on the 'rainbow effect' while still allowing for a lot of customization. I was ready and willing to make this compromise. I'm very well aware that certain colors on certain materials can be immersion breaking and as Pyreal aptly put 'there are too many asshats' for there to not be limits.

The route Steven SEEMS to be choosing is explicitly taking all of the implied limitations of 1, 2, and 3 above and adding an entire extra layer of authoritarian control on how 'mismatched' we can look in our style. This seems to imply that Steven is very much against customization if he doesn't agree with you and I had always assumed he was a pretty pro player agency in cosmetics kind of person.

Now personally I think 50% customization is tolerable. The fact that you can't do it piece by piece is absurd to me and totally restrictive, however. Even this I am willing to tolerate however.

The way the 30/20% channels were explained was really unclear nor was the intent behind the way this split in channels will work or how much control we will have relative to where the dye applies on the over all body and if there will be a way to mix and match the layers they are effecting.

I am also confused as to why that 50% of control is not implemented piece by piece. I don't always want to dye every part of my gear and I was already willing to accept material based pallet limitations so why do you feel the need to be this heavy handed? You are stopping me from NOT dying certain parts of my gear as much as you are restricting exactly where I can dye and I think that's kind of silly.

I also don't quite understand why you chose 2 dye channels rather than 3-5. From my understanding a lot of the restrictions people are calling for are built into the fundamentals of modeling in the first place. Is it that it's more work to create the dye mapping for pieces this way rather than doing it piece by piece?

My bigger problem is that 2 channels is just so completely low that I can't even do things like 'create a gradient of orange' to have my accents differ depending on what part of my body they are on and things like that. Not only that but some people just quite frankly have a completely unique take on color theory and have personal patterns that require more than two colors. I feel like 3-5 channels is more acceptable given how little control you are giving us over where this dying is happening. If you aren't even willing to budge that much on this good luck convincing more fashion oriented people you actually care about giving them freedom of customization.

Given how much total control Intrepid wants to have in how we look, I think it's also reasonable to say that we can assume my first 3 assumptions before this was announced are also still present and those are still restriction I feel are reasonable, but combined with the new announced restrictions it's just a really confusingly overwhelming number of limits. That being said I feel like you should definitely let cloth material on gear and outfits be more or less unrestricted in color pallet in exchange for keeping things like leather, metal, hide, and feathers 'realistic' and 'un-immersion breaking'.

I think given the pallet limitations explained above having some sort of control over the brightness on each individual piece is also a fairly reasonable thing to demand so we can at least make sure the colors match the over all piece rather than just being applied haphazardly. I don't even care if you limit how much brightness is allowed in this case, but we definitely need more control than this to make the dyes actually look stylish in symphony with our gear.

I am not happy at all to be clear, but I think the above critiques pose reasonable demands for compromise. This is over controlling to a point that I find completely distasteful and if you do not increase the number of dye channels, make some sort of piece by piece exclusion for the channels and control on brightness for each piece, and have a lower restriction on color pallet for cloth I simply won't buy cosmetics since Intrepid does not seem to value player agency to the minimum level I require before I support their cosmetics.

The real question is if the other side of the debate that drove you(Intrepid) to make this decision in the first place is okay with the compromise. If they aren't even willing to make any of the above compromises and Intrepid goes along with their opinion, then this whole system is a complete nonstarter in my eyes. If that happens then I definitely won't be spending any money on cosmetics since the game has gone to such far lengths to implement a system that does not appear to actually value my(and others') agency and freedom of expression when it comes to cosmetics.

In light of all this and a lack of clarification on cosmetic policies, I'll be closing my wallet until things are clarified. Which sucks since I was really hoping to get the beetle and scorpion, but oh well. That's just how things are right now.

Verra is a diverse and colorful world with glowing mushrooms. That's what I signed up for.

Exosfeer

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Exosfeer

I would like to weigh-in on this topic.

I adore dyeing and altering gear, but I think the community would benefit from each gear having only a select range of color sets. So others in the community could easily recognize and identify other players gear. This does not take away of the active player to express himself with one of the chosen sets. My recommendation for a specific amount of color sets for each gear is 2 or 3, depending on the rank.

Thank you for reading this far ♥

Balfazar

Keep it true to the creative artists design/ vision. Very Limited dyeing options (keep it neutral/ natural). Seeing bright pink/green metal would kill the immersion for me. I would prefer having to unlock a different aesthetic on a set of gear, say changing the trimming or a rusty look and leave colour changes to things like particle effects. Go crazy on things like furniture in a Freehold where everyone doesn't have to see it.

Mangust747

I welcome everyone, I would like the colors to be limited, otherwise it would not be very nice to see another
clown in armor acid green or poisonous purple. I think you can make each race its own kind of individual shade, such that it would resemble their location where they live, for example: snowy location - blue white, jungle - green, desert - sandy yellow, and so on. I hope the translator coped

TheSturnOne

Personally I like a system of dyes based on material with any "naturally" occurring colours (anything that can be found in-game) regardless of what colour materials can be found in; if there are 'neon' crystals or what-have-you, then that's fine with me, if we don't have that colour occurring elsewhere I think they shouldn't be available for gear. Simple but as expansive as the game will be.

raylegh

You have to find a way to not make a world full of flashy clowns but at the same time give players some customizable options to make them feel unique.

I hope that together we could find a solution. Surely among all the comments there are interesting proposals.

Liniker

Really dislike the way steven said they want to do it being only 50% of the overall set ... I thought he was more on the player agency side of things, I understand not allowing individual pieces, but we should at least be able to completely choose the 2 main colors for our sets and dye 100% of our sets with the colors we want, I particularly really enjoy if all my guild members can have a "uniform" using our main 2 colors on armor/cosmetic sets. Please change this look at all the feedback from this thread people want player agency...

WoodOx

I love dying gear, it increases my enjoyment of a game and increases my DPS if I look good. On one hand, I like freedom, but seeing weird neon clowns riding on their glowing griffon is something else entirely. My absolute fav system is Guild Wars 2 though, and how the dyes look different depending on the material they are applied to. Cloth should be allowed to be vibrant, leather more washed out, and plate still shiny, but tinted. Collecting permanent dyes is enjoyable. Paying for one time use is less so (like in New World). Achievement dyes like in ESO is a really cool idea too! Perhaps if you become mayor you get a more regal dye that could potentially set you apart.

I like the idea of even only having one or two channels to dye, just to get my armor pieces to match is a huge boon.

Nylfaen

Everyone here has mentioned repeatedly the Dye/Colour systems of BDO/ESO/GW2/Neverwinter, however, let us go back to the beginning where it all began shall we? The first big MMO to create a wardrobe/costume system with a plethora of dye colours was RIFT. In fact, that system along with other systems in that game were years ahead of their time. In the past 5-7years though, that system has been picked apart by other developers for specific ideas within, and I don't blame them one bit! A good place for a starting reference is within that game. You could purchase the entire palette if you wanted, at a huge expense [only whales do that, and rarely to boot] or you could build your colours by earning milestones and achievements. Unlike [ahem] other games, Rift gave some of the better primary colours to you at an early start so as to let you create vibrant wardrobe pieces right away. You still had to do the work and get achievements, however it wasn't a 3-4 year ordeal unlike [ahem] other games I won't mention here. Allowing for 2-colour variations on loot drop weapons would be interesting, 3-colour for crafted weapons. Loot drop armor should have a 3-colour whereas the custom high-end crafted would have 4-colour customization. Same colouring aspects for pet armor/mount saddles, etc should apply. I would think that IS would pull the best ideas from the past and present in our community to build something incredible and unique for AoC. Anyways, that's my input on this subject, I wish the devs in this department all the luck in the world! Oops, almost forgot! Let's not forget about the colouring inside future player housing, right? Nothing gets a player more upset than not being able to change the colour of their bedding to reflect the seasons am I right? hee hee! That's all for now! - Nyl

Dromedary

I would love to be able to dye my gear. More player freedom to express themselves. The true end game of any mmo is, dressing your characters up, and flexing what you’ve earned, or purchased if you got a fat wallet.

I wouldn’t like to see simple access to it. I’d rather the dye system revolve around a profession or crafting recipes. Is it a true mmo if your starting gear doesn’t looks like a mess.

I’d love to be able to apply dyes to a wide range of things on top of gear; accessories for mounts such as saddles, free hold buildings, weapons to some level.

I’d like it to stay grounded in realism, but we should be able to create more exotic colors. I’d imagine there’d be some crazy flowers in a fantasy world.
Maybe glowing materials could make a glow dye? 🤔
Maybe that dye is extremely hard to make?
Is it dangerous to make/obtain?
Does it only grow in one location during a certain season?
Does it need another specific material to create it?
Or can I just mix it with red flowers for a red glow.
Where can I apply this crazy color to my gear, is it restricted to specific slots?
Can dye affect metals and gemstones or do those require different materials?
Do some dyes apply a pattern as well as color?

I’d love to see something fairly involved and grounded to its world. I think it would bring a level of interaction with the world that you would lose when having instant access to it. Plus more items for your team to create later on post launch, y’all could do some wacky stuff I bet.

I trust y’all will make something great.