Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Comments
Player one : "Hey I just got this awesome looking +5 Vorpal sword from King Kickbutt."
Player two: "Really? it just looks like a dagger to me."
Player one: "What are you talking about? This thing is a Jedi Sword.
Player Two: "I turned off all special appearances. It makes armor and weapons look drab and boring"
Player one: "Why did you do that?"
Player two: "Well I was not a very good player and I had a hard time making friends. I also did not want to purchase any cosmetics. Since I cannot get the items, I did not think it was fair that I had to look at other players who managed to get them. Also, it ruins the immersion of the game when the bad guys have pretty things."
Player one: " So why do you play this game"?
Its not going to happen.....
This is a very petty response.
To buy something strickly to show off is so shallow, for one. To be upset others dont have to see your cosmetics is so shallow as well.
That being said, i dont care either way. How others look to me, and how i look to others in game does not matter to me.
I would hope that seeing as they are making a default look for high traffic parts of the game, that i could apply that default look to others in my settings if my pc had a hard time rendering things. I would perfer to be able to play the game, than not to be able to play the game because everything looks too fancy. At the same time, thats not my problem because my pc is OP. But its someones problem im sure. And i still would like them to be able to play.
Yes, our society is shallow. Have you seen all of the forms of shallow that exist online?
Instagram
Facebook
Tiktok
snapchat
twitter
and the list goes on. These are not small companies. So it would appear that there is money to be made from "Shallow". Players play the game to show off items. It is the major appeal of the game for many of the player base. You expect the company to not profit off this? I hate to say it but you are one of the very few online players that do not care about showing off. The company is not going to cater to the 1-5% unless it is game breaking.
Sorry to be blunt,
I dont think this needs an apology. And you have a point in the fact that it is something they can profit off of.
But surely, choosing absolutely lowest graphic settings, and making characters appear as the default model, vs a turn off cosmetics button is a middle ground between cosmetics always, and cosmetics never.
Each month I check out the Ashes shop and I've been able to pick and choose different pieces that go together. By the time the game goes live, I should already have some nice choices before I even got started. And Intrepid got a good chunk of cash from me. It's a win-win for everyone but the people who stubbornly insist that nobody should be able to have cosmetics because of "principles". Tough.
I guess it's the way I think about cosmetics. They cover your gear, it's a skin to make an item the way you want it to look. NPCs don't do that. The cosmetic is just their gear. So it's not really players making use of NPC assets, it players using NPC skins to cover their gear that I have an issue with. Looting an NPC and taking it's helm and using it and looking like the NPC is fine. But buying a skin in the cash shop to look like you got that helm off an NPC is what bothers me. It skips aesthetic progression with a cc swipe. The bonus to the game is more assets, but at the cost of aesthetic progression. So why not let people pay to have aesthetic progression? It seems everyone against it wants EVERY player to see their purchased skins, which is odd to me. During my time playing POE I bought a few skins to support the game (before being sold off), the different portal skins, some spells, cool looking foot prints. It was neat and a good way to support the devs, since it was a 100 percent free game. I would never care if people seen them, I just don't get why other people require other players to see their cosmetics or costumes for them to have value to them. A lot of good points have made but I just don't value the same things as people that purchase cosmetics.
Didn't devs say what's in those packs are *actually* what's in game? So how would it be immersion breaking? Presumably those mounts are mobs and NPCs also have the various armors? Wanting to "turn that off" is pretty much saying "hey I want a single player Skyrim experience" to each their own but this is an MMO not a single player game. There are actual people behind those characters and devs who put crazy time into all of it, I think that everybody involved deserves some basic respect/being seen properly and not just being tuned out.
Sidenote: omfg I want that bear mount😭🥰
You are working under the assumption that NPCs (such as quest-givers, social guilds etc) can be attacked and looted.
IF the game has no quests or rewards which provide the gear pieces of, let's say, the Knights of That One Place Over There, then I don't see an issue with people purchasing those cosmetics.
And of course people buy cosmetics for two reasons and two reasons mostly: to look good for their own taste, and for everyone to see that they look good (completely disregarding subjective taste but whatever). So I can understand a player being upset that he purchased a skin that people can opt to not see.
Ultimately I still don't believe it has much bearing on the way people will play. And we'll all be wearing cool plate sets by the time we reach level 20 anyway. So I'm not overly concerned if someone has a cool looking knight set that can't be obtained in any other way.
Real players will know what set is cosmetic and which is not, and potentially exclude them or ridicule them if needed. Kinda like how WoW players started using the /spit emote so much to ridicule players who bought store mounts, that Blizzard had to remove the emote altogether.
i understand the skins are in the game. i don't really care if the skins are the in the game or shop. i don't like skins that cover your gear. that is what i want to turn off. you want to buy them and want me to see them. i think they're skins in general are immersion breaking because they skip the aesthetic progression. buy all the skins you want. i don't care, i just don't want to see them and I'm willing to pay for it. i don't see how that's want to play a single player game, not sure how you got there. point is i just don't care about your dressed up character.
I think we're all working under a lot of assumptions since the game isn't out. I suppose I just assume the worst, because that is what the mmo market has taught me. I say let the wallets do the talking since they we're in the age of cash shops. Man there's a lot of things I'd pay to not see, pay even more to unsee somethings.
My whole point is it isn't a "dressed up character" because these are all things throughout the world
In node wars and large scale PvP events, cosmetics are going to be disabled for performance and clarity reasons. If you’re considering small group, open world PvP, you can still assess gear based on visuals even if a player is using cosmetics because you can’t skin a staff into a battleaxe. But hidden information is a key part of the Open World PvP experience. It’s by design that you can’t assess everything about a player’s power via the HUD or visuals.
It can’t be a shortcut when the cosmetic in question only has one path.
lmao! okay, i guess that's one way of looking at it. feel better about yourself now?
I love that they're turning it off for large scale pvp. that is awesome! and limiting what skins can be put on items is great too. hiding things from your enemies makes sense, just don't like the cc swipe for it.
It doesn’t require a cc swipe, it’s just an option. Same as there will be options for crafters and options for hardcore raiders to earn cosmetics in different ways. Cosmetics earned via gameplay will have quality matching or exceeding cashshop cosmetics.
You’re never going to see a multiplayer game without a cash shop because there is nothing with even remotely comparable profit margins, but Ashes is doing it in the healthiest way possible, with cosmetics only and not with unreasonably more resources sunk into the cash shop over gameplay rewards.
Anything that lets someone totally hide cosmetics in the open world isn’t gonna happen because every type of player finds use or prestige in cosmetics. Killers find use in being able to obscure some information. Socializers like to look good. Achievers want to display their successes. Explorers want to show off things they have found or earned through their explorations. None of them want someone else to be able to alter how their character looks, a character that they’ve decorated a certain way for a reason.
well first thing: the world of verra if huge
second only 10000 player per server
raids are limited to maybe 1000 players
so there're not many chances to see many players and then you prefer to see them naked instead of their gear.
a option to blur or so seam reasoneble specialy by looking at performance of less high end pc's but not as shop cause that would be most likely called pay2win if you get a tool for money that improves your game performance.l so as a option for the performance wy not
but you will rarely see many players around you
Killers want to obscure some info. -- yes but not all rely on cc swipes, but the bad ones will
Socializers like to look good. -- yes but not all rely on cc swipes, but the bad ones will
Explorers want to show of things they've found. -- found with in the cash shop?? we all found it lol
the alteration of how it looks is only from the pov those who don't want to see cosmetics. why does it matter so much to them what i see? when you swipe you're cc for cosmetics AND require me to see it, then either you're doing a weird money flex, or you need an emotional boost from your false prestige. Why else would you care what I see if you don't even care what I think? can we pick a lane?
i wonder wy you're not yet a alpha member if you like that swipe so much you missing every month a skin that you will never ever agin have the chance to get.
...um... did you just cherry pick one snippet and reply to it without getting context of the whole? bless your heart.
There is a build in option(I don't recall it's a slider or drop down menu) let you able to turn down other player's 3D model down to default 3D model so you only see your character. So you don't need to pay to not to see other people just ask Intrepid to implement similar feature for you and you will be ok.
I can get that viewpoint but to me, a skin is the same as be going to a blacksmith/tailor and getting them to change my armor style. The system is just served up in a more convenient interface.
I feel like the same can be said for you and why you care about turning off everyone appearances.
I’d recommend either rereading my post or clarifying how in the world you got from “earned through gameplay” and concluded I was talking about cash shop cosmetics.
You said you want to hide all cosmetics and costumes. That includes the cosmetics and costumes earned exclusively through gameplay. There is no functional difference between the Elite Blacksmith Golden Hammer cosmetic someone earned through being a master crafter, and the Jeweled Dwarven Gloves someone purchased in the cash shop.
Your arguments are really just starting to sound like tantrums (“They bought this thing so they’re bad and suck at the game”) and you’re expecting people to just.. think that’s any sort of argument. People aren’t purchasing the drops of a raid boss. They’re not minimizing your skill at the game because there is no ”cc swiping” cosmetics earned by completing raids. There’s no “cc swiping” cosmetics earned by dedicated time invested into crafting or other aspects.
The players control how their character looks. If that control is taken from one player and given to a different one because they don’t want you to be able to show your character how you want them to be seen, are you really saying you don’t understand how that’s going to negatively impact player motivations to do content that results in cosmetic rewards?
Humans like to show off. That’s how we are. That’s why you made this thread! You heavily implied that you think you won’t be able to show off enough when other people might look just as good by spending real money instead of game time.
I would feel okay with a player or npc crafter being able to change appearances of gear (within reason), actually a really cool idea! I'd actually want to see those, it'd be a cool way to obfuscate your gear for pvp too.
Not sure how I could be more clear... I said in response to this "Killers want to obscure some info." they do and not all rely on swipe their cc. Because they'll get the cosmetics in the game. Other's won't get it, either because the drop rate is .0002% which basically means it can only be purchased, or most likely they're unable to complete the task to get it, or unwilling to the time in, ie they're "bad". Don't feel salty if you're a cosmetic buyer, i'm just some random dude on the internet with another shitty opinion lol.
Yes I'd like to hide all cosmetics in the game from my pov. Cosmetics being a mesh and texture overlay of an assets normal mesh and texture. Since the cosmetic can be put on any newly acquired gear, it's not like something like a transmog. Since transmog is permanent I don't see an issue with it, because the gear has actually been changed, not "dressed up". So yes cosmetics earned by completed challenges, quests, or even random drops I'd like to block from my POV, so much so I'd pay for it. I'd settle for hiding all cc cosmetics though.
I'm not trying to change other's appearance to them, I don't care what they see. I just want to hide their fluff from my POV. There must be some fear that a lot of people would purchases this, because if it was just a handful, why would the buyers of cosmetics care, most people see them.
Not everyone likes to show off. Ever heard the term "Nobody likes a show off". I made this thread for discussion out of bored, not to convince anyone to change their minds, or talk intrepid into adding this feature. You make a lot of assumptions. I understand people like to dress up their characters, make them look badass, sexy, goofy, strange, whatever. I just don't want to see it, not really sure if I can explain my position any more, I'm not trying to make a case for it or convince anyone their wrong. Literally just stating my opinion and why.
Of course they don't want this option because they want everyone to have to see their cosmetics they've been buying for years.
Even though they argued to me that an individual's cosmetics have no affect on other players' experiences, they think this would be a bad idea... Even though they argued the need for more profits for Intrepid, they think selling this would be a bad idea... Even though they argued to me cosmetics are not part of the game experience, they think this would be a bad idea because npcs cosmetics are actually part of the game experience...
My impression is simply that the company wont do it because those who buy cosmetics from the shop are their free walking advertisements and it would be essentially buying an ad blocker.
No people argued with you because you said buying cosmetics is pay to win, it had nothing to do with buying items to remove cosmetic looks. Stop trying to get people to group on your weird concept you created in your head.
if i recall Aion where you could ether wear the new achived gear or also simply use its skin to add on your current gear to alter its apearance. besideds the Skins from the shop i would dislike that theres skin only gear in the game so that everything is actual gear but you can use it as skin on your current gear. whats however happens to the gear used as skin i dont know, maybe it doies vanish and the skin is now on the applied gear until its been removed or a diffrent skin is made over it - or - if theres a are skin slots in your character window where you can but them in to get the skin only but you dont lose the items and allways can change your appearance even on the go.
Given your perspective on ‘winning’ visual progression, is being able to turn off someone’s costume a form of visual pvp? If you turn off a green’s costume do you gain wardrobe corruption?
There’s a Roald Dahl short story here, I just know it. 🤗