About the Skins/Cosmetics/Transmog policy in AOC

Stop me if I've misunderstood this subject, but I think the skins/commetics policy is going in the wrong direction.

In my opinion, skins cosmetics should be a modification of existing skins (armor, weapons etc.) without making the original item unrecognizable (total transmog).

In my opinion, a player's appearance should remain indicative of the equipment he wears. And I think that all these skins with no level restriction and skins that allow you to copy the appearance of another item should not exist.

On the other hand, I'm all for costumes. If some people like to strut their stuff in extravagant costumes, then there needs to be a special fashionista PvP Off zone where they can show off their finds.

I know that many of you will disagree, and I'm just sharing my humble opinion.

It seems that there will be an icon showing the armor category of opponent, I don't think it's enough.

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Comments

Dygz

Ashes is a High Magic Fantasy setting.
Which means we should expect Illusions to be common. "Realistic" is irrelevant when it comes to appearance.

George_Black

Dygz wrote: »

Ashes is a High Magic Fantasy setting.
Which means we should expect Illusions to be common. "Realistic" is irrelevant when it comes to appearance.

Ignore this.

George_Black

Even though I dislike skins and cosmetics, I dont see the issue in PvP, having played ESO.

Your enemy archetype icon is easily recognised in that game. In a split of a second, even before they use any skills.

I much preffered the old sttuff, of looking at your enemies appearance and knowing what he was.
But again, things have changed in videogames business models and products.

Tyranthraxus

If you want to be Raistlin, THAT'S FINE....

But keep in mind that the actual Raistlin's world was based on GAME RULES; Wizards couldn't wear armor tougher than velvet robes.

SS's world is one that doesn't depend solely on magic moons and spell-casters by the rules of magical moons; Perhaps the standard that some of us have previosuly judged magical "rules" by is irrelevant and out-dated, by modern standards?

As far as cosmetic gear goes? Just accept it for what it is. Yours truly will be COMING TO Verrra as a member of the upper-Class; Maybe YOU are a scrub who can't get no love - BUT, *I'm* a perons of degree - with a PEDEGREE - of whom most of life is behind him?; My glory days might have been High School/College on Sanctus, wherein a non-magical world has the *most* magic, that life had to offer?

How can you argue that a 40-something on Sanctus *SHOULDN'T* look like a socially-advanced person, upon the moment they come to Verra?

Noaani

George_Black wrote: »

Even though I dislike skins and cosmetics, I dont see the issue in PvP, having played ESO.

Your enemy archetype icon is easily recognised in that game. In a split of a second, even before they use any skills.

I much preffered the old sttuff, of looking at your enemies appearance and knowing what he was.
But again, things have changed in videogames business models and products.

For small scale, this is true.

It's larger scale (anything more than 8 players, really) where this method starts to become cumbersome.

Myosotys

Dygz wrote: »

Ashes is a High Magic Fantasy setting.
Which means we should expect Illusions to be common. "Realistic" is irrelevant when it comes to appearance.

In this case, a video game being a virtual world, it's all illusion and appearance, and nothing is relevant. But rather than imagining ourselves evolving in nothingness, we can take AOC's parallel reality into consideration and present our point of view.

George_Black

Noaani wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

Even though I dislike skins and cosmetics, I dont see the issue in PvP, having played ESO.

Your enemy archetype icon is easily recognised in that game. In a split of a second, even before they use any skills.

I much preffered the old sttuff, of looking at your enemies appearance and knowing what he was.
But again, things have changed in videogames business models and products.

For small scale, this is true.

It's larger scale (anything more than 8 players, really) where this method starts to become cumbersome.

Pfff.... always arguing. Not only the icons are instantly visible, but on large scale, the players know each other by name, let alone class.

Noaani

George_Black wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

Even though I dislike skins and cosmetics, I dont see the issue in PvP, having played ESO.

Your enemy archetype icon is easily recognised in that game. In a split of a second, even before they use any skills.

I much preffered the old sttuff, of looking at your enemies appearance and knowing what he was.
But again, things have changed in videogames business models and products.

For small scale, this is true.

It's larger scale (anything more than 8 players, really) where this method starts to become cumbersome.

Pfff.... always arguing. Not only the icons are instantly visible, but on large scale, the players know each other by name, let alone class.

Icons are only visible when you have someone targeted.

With 10k players on a server, you won't know everyone. You are thinking of L2 (probably private servers) with a few hundred players.

The system Ashes is looking at is exactly the same as the system Archeage had. The problems I am talking about were problems in that game.

Depraved

archeage didnt have classes you could choose at the start, you had 3 trees that you would combine into your class, so it was harder to tell.

i played on rpg club gracia final, a p. server with 15000 players in L2, its true that i didnt know everyones name, but most people were irrelevant, you would just kill them. you would learn the cp, not individual players.

you were either in ooc or the russian ally (forgot the name but leader was called pinky i think) and if you not, you basically didnt matter. we all had macros with their doombringer's names and healers. im talking about 300vs300 and 500 vs 500 fights. you learned the name of certain people and for the rest you would just know what they were by just looking at them. you couldnt even tell who was what by clicking them, you had to actually look at them and know.

also, as you level up, you will be running into the same people over and over at different spots, you will eventually learn their names and their class and gear, etc.

if you have beef with another node or guild, you will also learn their names, their class, etc. and usually just the ones that either give you trouble in pvp, or die really fast / are so bad its funny T_T people who are at the other side of the map who have no beef with you, might as well not even exist. so the 10k players gets reduced to a few hundred.

George_Black

Noaani wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

Even though I dislike skins and cosmetics, I dont see the issue in PvP, having played ESO.

Your enemy archetype icon is easily recognised in that game. In a split of a second, even before they use any skills.

I much preffered the old sttuff, of looking at your enemies appearance and knowing what he was.
But again, things have changed in videogames business models and products.

For small scale, this is true.

It's larger scale (anything more than 8 players, really) where this method starts to become cumbersome.

Pfff.... always arguing. Not only the icons are instantly visible, but on large scale, the players know each other by name, let alone class.

Icons are only visible when you have someone targeted.

With 10k players on a server, you won't know everyone. You are thinking of L2 (probably private servers) with a few hundred players.

The system Ashes is looking at is exactly the same as the system Archeage had. The problems I am talking about were problems in that game.

I am thinking of every mmo with large scale pvp

daveywavey

Noaani wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

Not knowing someone's build before you attack them just adds to the Risk in "Risk vs Reward". It's part of the game.

Oh?

Where does it add to the reward part?

The 'Reward' part is the loot you get from the kill. That's why I said it added to the 'Risk' part, and didn't say it added to the 'Reward' part.

If you've already calculated that you're going to win before you've started the match, then that's not Risk. That's Calculation. The game hasn't been sold as 'Calculation vs Reward'.

Knowing too much about an opponent just makes the process too simple. Working out info about the character from subtle nuances in how they move and react with the world around them, and working out resistances from your own damage scores and reacting to that yourself, and always having that possibility in the background that you may lose - that's much more interesting than simply sitting in sneak, looking at a list of stats, and going "Nope" .... "Nope" .... "Yep" .... "Nope" ....

I'd much rather take an interesting experience over a hand-holding Nope-Yep game.

Dezemi

I for one am EXTREMELY happy about outfits and "transmog" being a thing. So many seem to forget the RPG aspect in a MMORPG.

I do not miss the times -at all- when you were stuck with the look of often awful over-the-top gear.

I am all for putting some restrictions like "heavy armor", "medium armor", "light armor" etc, but I do not care if they don't do that. Good PvP players will read classes easily by their abilities either way.

Kilion

I think most of the people on the forums would agree that the current skin & cosmetic policy is at the very least reason for concern. With that being said: I think this discussion is postponed by Intrepid intentionally until we are in Alpha 2.

Why would they do so?
- During the Alpha 2 the cosmetic system should be in place so that we can see how well the indicators for armor work. This is - for now - the way to mitigate the fact, that a player could disguise their armor type intentionally
- The alternative to disable skins would be financially VERY significant. Therefore IF it turns out during the A2 that it is necessary to abandon the skin system (as unlikely as it may be) it would be better to do so after they generated some hype and with it additional income which they could in turn use to pay out the customers who lost their skins and costumes.
- During Alpha 2 they have the chance to familiarize players with potential solutions to the question "What gear is this one wearing?" and find one that a lot of us sceptics will agree with. Addtitionally they can still adjust the system which might gain them more approval except from the crowd who is not strictly against all sorts of cosmetics. Maybe they conclude that there could be servers where cosmetics are only visible to the one wearing them - who knows.

Suffice to say: The cosmetic system and gear indicator, IMO are more subject to change than many others and therefore as much as I also dislike the extent to which current cosmetics could deceive in PvP, I am optimistic that there will be an acceptable solution to this during A2

Myosotys

Dezmerizing wrote: »

So many seem to forget the RPG aspect in a MMORPG.

What do you mean excatly ?

Kilion wrote: »

current skin & cosmetic policy is at the very least reason for concern.

I agree that is not the most important thing but I could tell the same about most of current topics on the forum.

A simple button to deactivate transmog seems to be the best solution. Those who want to look like a mage, a warrior or a camel are free to do so. Those who want to know the true appearance of other players can do so.

That way, everyone's happy.

Absolut

Depraved wrote: »

just make it so that you can turn off everyone's transmog

Honestly this would be the best solution. Either that or make cosmetics be usable when you reach max lvl. Or do both lol

Kilion

Myosotys wrote: »

Kilion wrote: »

current skin & cosmetic policy is at the very least reason for concern.

I agree that is not the most important thing but I could tell the same about most of current topics on the forum.

A simple button to deactivate transmog seems to be the best solution. Those who want to look like a mage, a warrior or a camel are free to do so. Those who want to know the true appearance of other players can do so.

That way, everyone's happy.

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say, which is that the people in the forums in a large number are concerned about the current skin & cosmetics policy or more than just concerned. Meaning I think people are very much aware that this could become a huge issue for PvP in particular^^

And like I said - it would probably be okay if people were the only ones to see their cosmetics.
Other options would be:
During sieges there are no cosmetics.
If one turns red or purple cosmetics become deactivated for others (they can see your real armor)

The minimum requirement in my opinion is this: the indicator for what the actual armor is has to be something very clear, that has to be visible on the character, not just in the UI.

Myosotys

Kilion wrote: »

Myosotys wrote: »

Kilion wrote: »

current skin & cosmetic policy is at the very least reason for concern.

I agree that is not the most important thing but I could tell the same about most of current topics on the forum.

A simple button to deactivate transmog seems to be the best solution. Those who want to look like a mage, a warrior or a camel are free to do so. Those who want to know the true appearance of other players can do so.

That way, everyone's happy.

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say, which is that the people in the forums in a large number are concerned about the current skin & cosmetics policy or more than just concerned. Meaning I think people are very much aware that this could become a huge issue for PvP in particular^^

And like I said - it would probably be okay if people were the only ones to see their cosmetics.
Other options would be:
During sieges there are no cosmetics.
If one turns red or purple cosmetics become deactivated for others (they can see your real armor)

The minimum requirement in my opinion is this: the indicator for what the actual armor is has to be something very clear, that has to be visible on the character, not just in the UI.

Now I get you means now. Yes agree 100%

Ruerik

Myosotys wrote: »

A simple button to deactivate transmog seems to be the best solution. Those who want to look like a mage, a warrior or a camel are free to do so. Those who want to know the true appearance of other players can do so.

That way, everyone's happy.

Honestly this. Doesn't matter to me at all what you see me like.
As the game goes on chances are my appearance for my own use will be modded anyway to support my RP character development, because looks matter a lot for a character, and you wont see any of what I see

Myosotys

Taerrik wrote: »

Myosotys wrote: »

A simple button to deactivate transmog seems to be the best solution. Those who want to look like a mage, a warrior or a camel are free to do so. Those who want to know the true appearance of other players can do so.

That way, everyone's happy.

Honestly this. Doesn't matter to me at all what you see me like.
As the game goes on chances are my appearance for my own use will be modded anyway to support my RP character development, because looks matter a lot for a character, and you wont see any of what I see

Here I don't get you, because your RP char is already the orignal one withotu cosmetics. Cosmetics is kind of RP in the RP. No ?

Ruerik

What I wear is part of my identity.

Also, I get the feeling from reading comments from some people that they expect RPers to be in character 100% of the time, which maybe a portion of them do, but I dont. I only RP with a handful of people at a time in story campaigns of our own making. I very rarely do walk up open world spontaneous RP, can be fun, and many people like that, but its my character, my story, I do what I want.

When I pvp, I pvp
When I pve grind, I pve grind
When I want to RP, I RP

And in each case, I want to look like however I want to look like, and quite honestly that doesnt have to be the concern of anyone else if they dont want it to be.

I've used mods for my own look and even spell animations in games for years, and the only people I am concerned with seeing me how I see myself, are the people I play with. The same will hold true with cosmetics in ashes, which I will use until a stable moding community grows here. (To be fair, the spell effects I've seen from Intrepid in these monthly showcases are pretty badass, I doubt I will want to mod them)

However I picture my character in whatever he is doing, is how I will make him look.

I could care less how someone else sees me if they dont want to see what I see.

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