Dev Discussion #42 - Gear Color Customization

Owren

I would definitely like to be able to dye each armour piece separately, and have 2-4 channels per piece. I think the added customization will be worth it. We may see the occasional clown but so be it.. if we don’t go all the way in that direction, a good compromise might be that we can only select 2-3 colors for our character in total, but at least allow us to choose which channels those colors get applied to for each piece of gear..

I would also love it if we were able to change the Colors of our ability effects within a very limited range, for example various shades of red/orange/yellow for a fireball… and various shades of blue for ice spells…

Nerror

Putting the dye on the character instead of the item; fine, whatever, AS LONG as we can put different dyes into different item slots. Having access to only two dyes for an entire set is ludicrously restrictive. I would almost rather they dropped the dye system altogether if that is the case. Let us have black boots with red pants and a green top, if we want.

Patrull

I like the idea of having a three layer dying system. Each layer is a different part of the armor. Example for plated armor(plating/leather under plating/detailing,emblem). Each gear piece has its own three layer system. Have the dye system be a set colors in game that can be crafted, bought, found. Enough where players can feel creative but the game stays true to the realistic feel. No clowns running around. Have different rarities. Alowing people to stand out even more. Take it a step further with specific dyes that can only be applied to the type of material.

Izil

What is IP's thoughts on xenon/neon colors?

ogre

I think GW2 has a fantastic system for equipment dyes and would love to see AoC emulate it but with fewer of the super gaudy colors. I’m ok with pretty much anything, if someone wants to wear a clown suit I really don’t care however I would prefer that it be somewhat limited while still allowing players as much freedom as is deemed reasonable.

Vellety

Unpopular opinion:
I would want to be able to dye it however I like. Lets say I wanna go full jet black + red accents. Then let me.
But im ok with "limited" options as well ig.

Daddytaco

I think it would be nice to dye armor pieces individually, rather than applying 2 dye channels across your entire armor set. I would NOT like to see ridiculous dye combinations in the game. Like Steven mentioned in the live stream, nobody wants to see clowns walking around-- it's very immersion breaking.

markinoz

I like the idea of being able to dye your gear but definitely limit the system to preserve visual fidelity and realism.

NAZBOZ

Dye's is a huge part of the creativity and uniqueness of players, it's almost a must!
guilds and players can stand out.

- Trimmed gear
- Flags
- Sprays
- Mount gear
- weapon skins with options to dye

daveywavey

willchrisiam wrote: »

And like a broken record I'm going back to my now catchphrase - what about the Whispering Watcher?! You can have a green purple lion/bird hybrid with a human head and Medusa ''hairstyle'' but you can't mix and match colors? What realism are we talking about here?

Agreed. Any game that has this, should allow me to colour my armour the same way.

Benjini

I want to be able to dye each piece of gear individually; I am not on board with the two "dye channels" that determine the overall look of gear to keep it cohesive. Dye is part of the roleplay and immersion and overall character fantasy building for me. I spent A LOT of time in other mmos getting the exact dyes in the exact shades that I wanted to get my look right so my character would feel completed and would feel unique. I don't want 12 options that everyone shares where everyone has the same basic colors and gear becomes a nice inoffensive blur of browns, whites, blacks, and earth tones that are all related to each other. I want to look unique. For example if I'm a mage going for a pale aesthetic and I want to have white hair and a slim profile with paler features and maybe carry some of the white through my armor with some touches of pastels or pops of color (blue for example, to give a basic ice mage fantasy) I want to be able to do that. On the same token if I'm a necromancer I don't ONLY want to be locked into wearing black and green, I might incorporate those colors but I wanted to be tasteful and I want it to give me the fantasy and I want to make my own decisions.

ESPECIALLY when dying final / end game gear - I want to completely customize my max gear head to toe so that it looks the way I want it to look when I achieve it.

I don't know how you control for the "clown" effect with people running around looking crazy, I do think it's silly and a little immersion breaking. Maybe you don't get full individual dye customization unless you craft the gear and/or craft the dye at a high level? Maybe there are levers to play with here where we start with the restrictive dye channel system and as you level or get better at crafting maybe you graduate to full piece by piece customization, I don't know.

Overall I think more choice and autonomy is better than less choice and restrictions. Especially in a game like ashes where there is so much choice; you can play how you want and engage with the world how you want, the whole UI is customizable, etc. I think the overall philosophy of Ashes is leaning towards players having maximum choice for how they want to exist and play in Vera.

daveywavey

Yeah, I always like seeing the fabulous ways people colour and pattern themselves. Sure, there are some bonkers ones (and I sometimes have some of those...), but the absolutely amazing ones are worth them.

ItsmeToki

I dont have nothing against any colours. Let ppl dress as they wish. If you wanna follow a certain epoch, era or fantasy sure, you could limit the amount of options with colouring to get more natural colours out there. But all in all, variety makes the world more alive I would say.

OlympusBurns

Dying is great. I don't think this needs to be some elaborate system like Steven was laying out though. Seeing a rainbow dyed character doesn't bother me. Maybe just make the bright colors extreeeeeemely rare.

superhero6785

I just DON'T want dyes to be consumable. I end up finding myself so afraid to use my dyes in case I find different gear I'd rather use it on, then I just sit on it forever. Unlocking dyes is fine, but once unlocked they should be useable infinitely.

AlfaKrqll

How do you feel about dying your gear?
- Its fun, i like doing it, in Terraria i would always find all the colors i needed befor i progressed.
How far would you like the system to go?
- This is a hard one, on one side i want neon pink mohawk whit rainbow glowing armor, and huge "light" tendrils coming out off my back, on the other hand that might be a bit to much. If evryone is glowing, vapouring or sparkeling it might take from the guild colors, gear importance and make the journey peoples gear should show can come second. So iam up for some cool colors and effects but it should mean something and have limits.
Do you prefer a full-color range that allows for some odd color combinations, or a more limited one that preserves visual fidelity and realism?
- i like Getting one color for one gear color slot, and multiple color slots. Then be able to take it out and put it over to another item or sell it off.

daveywavey

OlympusBurns wrote: »

Maybe just make the bright colors extreeeeeemely rare.

That seems like a reasonable suggestion. I'd also really like a more customisable approach than "Dye the character and everything goes that colour". Just trust the players to not do anything too ridiculous, and to PK anyone that does. Problem solved.

GethOverlord

Dyes are an important modern addition to customization and character identity. The days of recolouring the same sets again and again are over. Obviously the colour pallette of the game is important but I feel characters are a unique little exemption to overall game aesthetic. I feel it's okay to make some gear simply undyeable. And I feel like the approach the team mentioned of having Dye Slots for your character to maintain a certain aesthetic makes perfect sense.
I feel like restricting the colours to a more moderate pallette is acceptable, but honestly if there was to be a shiny gold or a neon pink players should be able to flex that agency. A more reasonable compromise would obviously be to keep the louder options to the "trim dye" slot (the one that affects the smallest portion of the armor). Any of these are fine in my eyes as I see players as always the most unique part of the game world.

Anduin Kayvaan wrote: »

How do i feel about Dying Gear?Mount gear dyeing. I think it would be cool to dye saddles, armor, and other things on mounts that are man made so it can match your armor.

Guild Dye schematics. Basically a guild can create a "Guild Dye Pack" that can be used on a set of armor and it will dye the armor/ gear in that guild dye pack color

These are both AMAZING ideas! I've loved the customization systems in a variety of games but the sense of community a guild dye pack could add. And don't get me started on mount customization!!! Give. Me. All of it!!! XD

Sockski

Please take notes from the Guild Wars 2 system.
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How do you feel about dying your gear?
I love to be able to dye my gear however I want. Although you'll get people mixing/matching/cosplaying, that immersion cost is worth the customization benefit to me.
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How far would you like the system to go?
I like the idea of dye channels on pieces and dyes that you can apply. Middle-ground granularity.
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Do you prefer a full-color range that allows for some odd color combinations, or a more limited one that preserves visual fidelity and realism?
I prefer more "full-color" than limited realism, but somewhere on the spectrum rather than totally full-color. In the Guild Wars 2 example, they have dyes you can choose from, yes, they have some overly-crazy dyes, but that would be within Intrepid's control.
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In a world of magic and fantasy, vibrant colors should exist and be acceptable. Often art and fashion imitates nature, and if there are vibrantly colored flora and fauna, that should be imitate-able. The people of Vera should be able to decorate themselves how they wish, while still implementing mild limitation for the sake of the game's aesthetic.

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Idea:
Perhaps some kind of dye blending system that ties into crafting. Your character creator's "family blending" feature made me think of this. Perhaps a natural limitation on the crazy colors could be that they are harder to create/come by. Maybe to make a crazy vibrant red, one would have to mix multiples colors together, so the investment is greater. That will naturally reduce the amount of people willing to go the extra mile for intense colors.

Evangalise

I agree with others that say limited, but I do like how GW2 gives you a wide range of colors but only a certain amount of "channels" Like 4. I have gotten to where I can't stand all the glaring visual effects though. They should at least have the option to turn that crap off. Half the time I can't see a damn thing but blaring lights of colors. Sure, I can tone down ALL the graphics in the settings but then the whole game (landscape etc ) looks like crap.

E_THE_REAL1

I like SWTOR's approach to preventing "clown walking down the street" syndrome. Haven't played in a while but back when I did you could just sync your gear's colors to your chest without consuming any dyes. This was nice

NA125698

NiKr wrote: »

Limited to whatever the gear's style is. Don't wanna see some neon green wooden shields or whatever.

I agree wholeheartedly with this quote!

Mag7spy wrote: »

All colors should be a option be it a dull red or neon green. Bdo does a cool thing as well that allows you to change a items material type (ie cloth to metal). Though the latter part isn't as important I feel the colours people want is important so people can create their identity which is pretty important for some people.

I see some people don't want bright colours but I believe that is more so just their own taste. Some people might want a bright colour for smaller certain parts of their outfit for small details and such.

But I also heavily agree with this one!

I am sure it has been said somewhere but these two comments were what I saw and wanted to quote lol. I agree color customization is simple yet allows for so much character and identity to be built, however I also agree that unrealistic and sometimes odd color combinations can either break the immersion or just flat out feel to out of place. For example Blue and Red shield, with a pink hair style, yellow beard, grey top, purple pants, turquoise shoes and gloves with an orange sword just doesn't sound good at all. I do understand to each their own and some might find that to be cool or funny, but I also feel like there should be compromise. Color palette should be fully open and all colors added, however there should be restrictions to what can be dyed to a certain color. Maybe also add a texture like is stated above have material types so shields that are made of steel for example can only be these certain colors... something along those lines. At the end of the day I don't think it is that big of a deal but I do agree immersion can easily be broken when the aforementioned character is beating me up in a PVP or there is an army of them in a guild war.

Damagi

I just don't want black dye to cost a million gold. A lot of games will make the black and white dyes particularly rare and valuable. Then at endgame everyone is in armor dyed all black because it's a status symbol.

RpgFanatic96

I would definitely prefer having a few colour options to choose from that match the artist's vision of the armor set. Having too many options for dyes and colour customisation can completely change the look of gear, not to mention taking up time that could be used to explore the game and lore instead.

Blindside

Gear should have multiple dye channels for different material types. Brighter colors can be reserved for decorative bits such as feathers or guild emblems. However, I believe it would be beneficial to have a wide range of color options that preserve visual fidelity and realism.

NobleSavage

I beg of you, do not break immersion into the world and keep the colors fairly realistic. Not just colours but for everything introduced please 🙏, like creature creation and color schemes included

Valdek

One thing that I've found very frustrating in other games; when the dye you use creates a different colour on one item than it does on another.

Please ensure the same 'colour' you choose matches on different pieces of gear! And please bump this if you've also had this issue - it would be a bad one for them to miss.

NobleSavage

Like dont even give the option for customizable clown colors. Glowing items are nice, but if anything glowing items should only be on drops. Would suck to have beautiful gear and have their stats be atrocious

Valdek

NobleSavage wrote: »

Like dont even give the option for customizable bright/neon colors, if anything glowing items should only be drops

Perhaps not just drops - extremely high quality magical crafted gear too - but I agree with your point!

Tricky_70

I would stay away from vibrant colors as it wouldn't look good for the way this game is headed. Even when it comes to effects on armor or weapons can cause it to tip the scale between the balance of colors(unless its a mage staff or something which the colors are supposed to be vibrant to portray the concentration of mana). I've never really been a big critic on how my character blended in with the environment, but for this game I wouldn't want to be a glowstick.

I also remember that Steven mentioned a dye system that automatically changes the color of armor to match the current preset. That would be wonderful, but the amount of strain it would put on the design team and the team that puts the items in game(forgot the name) would be a lot. So having a low spectrum if you go with how big this game is along with the amount of colors that exist would be to much. So going small spectrum of colors for each armor would be better in my opinion. I'd say each armor have a certain spectrum of colors since it would put the load off the people designing them. It would definitely limit the amount of armors that can be put together, but some armor just wouldn't look good in black or red and such.