Transmog System Idea

After watching some of the Q&A I know that the dev's are a bit reserved about transmoging, but if it was implemented I've had an idea for awhile I thought might be good.

I like it when a system can put something back into the economy. The idea I had revolves around the concept of being able to reverse engineer a piece of gear that has good stats, turning it into a blueprint, where you can then choose the cosmetic look of your choice with the same stats as the original item. The original item gets destroyed, but through collecting resources and also mats left over from the original item you create a whole new item with the look you want. It would also be limited to the same type of item. So you couldn't take a really good Sword and transmog it to an Axe. The item you make would have to be the same. Same would go for Armor. Cloth to Cloth, Plate to Plate. Transferring stat's to different armor type's would be way to broken. This is purely for looks.

As far as having a list of transmog's I can see two different ways it could be implemented. The simple way is to have a list of transmog's like World of Warcraft where when you get an item it saves the cosmetic to a library. You wouldn't be able to transmog gear like WoW does because I think that is kinda cheap and takes away from it actually being the piece of gear you are wearing. It would simply be a list of gear you can choose from for when you decide to make a blueprint. If the AoC dev's thought this was still a bit to convenient then the other option would be to do it on a gear by gear basis, but this option would mean you would be cluttering up your bag's/bank with gear that you might "potentially" transmog at a later time. That's why I thought that the first idea made a bit more sense because it saves the cosmetic for the gear you find but you don't actually get to transmog it until you take the time to reverse engineer an item, get the resources for the now made blueprint, then have someone make the item for you if you can't do it yourself.

I also think the blueprints shouldn't be permanent. At worst they should be a onetime use item, but maybe no more than 2-3 runs per blueprint. The reasoning behind having a multi-run blueprint would be for gold making. You make an item for yourself and if you take the extra time to get more materials then you can sell them on the Auction House. Since most items are BoE anyway in AoC at some point people will have the option of buying better gear down the line. The big problem though is by having multi run blueprints like this it could possibly flood the market with a lot of really good items devaluing them in the long term and undermining key game systems like dungeons/raids. Some people might start to think why run a Hard dungeon/raid when you can just wait for people to start making the gear and doing all the hard work for you. So I am unsure on the ramifications of having a multi-run blueprint. Since the idea is mainly for transmog's then having a single use blueprint also seems fine to me.

So in summary I would like to leave with a few points. Everyone in any MMO like's looking good as they do content. This system would be another "Sink" for resources/gold for those willing to put in the effort. Outside of all the content AoC dev's have put in place for building an economy this would be one more big way to also fuel that economy. It would also give yet another reason for people to go out and do all kinds of content to try and acquire gear for unique looks not just character progression.

If you have anything to add to this idea or poke holes in it please feel free to leave a comment.

Thank you for your time,

-MyReality

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Frosty_Tips

Interesting! I have not heard the Devs talk about the option of a player literally creating a transmog blueprint/pre-designed costume character skin in game that they can then sell that blueprint to other players. This would create a new type of vendor, another non-PvP profession players can spend their day on putting together costume skins to sell. Any "Tailor" can set up a player stall and sell shirts, pants, boots, armor, swords. But your shop would be a "fashion" shop, you would be providing (at a cost) a curated service of fashionable looks. Essentially you're talking about a cosmetic shop's costume item. The Devs would have to make it so players can apply your transmog skin to their character first to see how it looks before buying it from your vendor. I could see shoppers spending hours in your store just trying on your hundreds of transmog skins.

I like it, you should post that request here on the forums in the monthly Q&A dev stream thread and see if Toast can pose it to Steven.

Second part:
You ask if transmogs are possible and yes there is transmog in AoC, it's very much supported. It's a modular system so you can pick to show your boots only as a different skin, or to change only your gloves or you can wear a costume skin that changes your entire appearance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHC1A1wIsRk&feature=youtu.be&t=5m28s
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Gear_appearance

Caeryl

I’m not sure I entirely understand your suggestion? You’re asking to be able to copy the appearance of an item you deconstruct and make it a recipe/blueprint template for crafting, and also asking to be able to preserve the stats of an item you deconstruct, so you can mix and match them later on?

I’ll be honest, I don’t really see the purpose of that. Why not just use the normal transmog systems if the end goal is purely aesthetic based?

Talents

What do you mean that they're a "bit reserved about transmogging"? The devs are all for transmogging, it's why costumes are a thing and also why there is already a transmogging system confirmed to be in the game.

MyReality

Caeryl wrote: »

I’m not sure I entirely understand your suggestion? You’re asking to be able to copy the appearance of an item you deconstruct and make it a recipe/blueprint template for crafting, and also asking to be able to preserve the stats of an item you deconstruct, so you can mix and match them later on?

I’ll be honest, I don’t really see the purpose of that. Why not just use the normal transmog systems if the end goal is purely aesthetic based?

Steven in one of his Q&A videos said that yes there will costumes and such but also said he didn't fully like transmogs because it wasn't the actual item you were using just an overlay on top of it. So to better explain my idea is say you got a Sword drop from a boss that will become your main weapon. It has great stats but you don't like the look of it or it doesn't fit your theme. Then you can deconstruct it, pick the Sword cosmetic you want, and it then creates a blueprint of the original items stats with the new look of the Sword.
Like I stated, its a way for transmoging to be a literal part of the economy and people can even become fashion crafters.

Beekeeper

Honestly, I would prefer if transmogs were used as "alternative styles", similar to the racial appearance of equipment in ESO. A steel sword is a steel sword is a steel sword, but with a transmog you can make your steel sword look like a special steel sword (as opposed to a steel sword looking like a laser sword, or your super laser sword looking like a steel sword). That would preserve the idea of look progression and would make transmogs a bit more of a 'tell', in that cool costume leather armor will still be basic leather armor and I can tell that from a glance that it's not highly resistant endgame megasteel which I would have known to avoid had I known before shooting an arrow at it.

That will probably not happen because that severely limits the use of transmogs bought in the store, but I'd find that ideal.

MyReality

Talents wrote: »

What do you mean that they're a "bit reserved about transmogging"? The devs are all for transmogging, it's why costumes are a thing and also why there is already a transmogging system confirmed to be in the game.

If AoC just wants a traditional trasmogging system then so be it. At the same time my suggestion could add something new to the economy and make transmogging more fun.

MyReality

Beekeeper wrote: »

Honestly, I would prefer if transmogs were used as "alternative styles", similar to the racial appearance of equipment in ESO. A steel sword is a steel sword is a steel sword, but with a transmog you can make your steel sword look like a special steel sword (as opposed to a steel sword looking like a laser sword, or your super laser sword looking like a steel sword). That would preserve the idea of look progression and would make transmogs a bit more of a 'tell', in that cool costume leather armor will still be basic leather armor and I can tell that from a glance that it's not highly resistant endgame megasteel which I would have known to avoid had I known before shooting an arrow at it.

That will probably not happen because that severely limits the use of transmogs bought in the store, but I'd find that ideal.

Yah from what Steven said is when you click on a player they will have some kind of icon that tells you how good their gear is so you can decide if you want to PvP them. Being able to tell just by the gear is easier but you are correct with transmogs that goes out the window.

Caeryl

MyReality wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

I’m not sure I entirely understand your suggestion? You’re asking to be able to copy the appearance of an item you deconstruct and make it a recipe/blueprint template for crafting, and also asking to be able to preserve the stats of an item you deconstruct, so you can mix and match them later on?

I’ll be honest, I don’t really see the purpose of that. Why not just use the normal transmog systems if the end goal is purely aesthetic based?

Steven in one of his Q&A videos said that yes there will costumes and such but also said he didn't fully like transmogs because it wasn't the actual item you were using just an overlay on top of it. So to better explain my idea is say you got a Sword drop from a boss that will become your main weapon. It has great stats but you don't like the look of it or it doesn't fit your theme. Then you can deconstruct it, pick the Sword cosmetic you want, and it then creates a blueprint of the original items stats with the new look of the Sword.
Like I stated, its a way for transmoging to be a literal part of the economy and people can even become fashion crafters.

So, deconing items for a two single use blueprints, one for stats and one for appearance.

It sounds a bit too unruly to make use of, and I can only imagine the inventory bloat when you have a few dozen of those blueprints.

When someone crafts, they’ll be able to pick an appearance anyway (presumably). I just don’t think you should be able to retain stats from an item you deconstruct.

MyReality

Caeryl wrote: »

MyReality wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

I’m not sure I entirely understand your suggestion? You’re asking to be able to copy the appearance of an item you deconstruct and make it a recipe/blueprint template for crafting, and also asking to be able to preserve the stats of an item you deconstruct, so you can mix and match them later on?

I’ll be honest, I don’t really see the purpose of that. Why not just use the normal transmog systems if the end goal is purely aesthetic based?

Steven in one of his Q&A videos said that yes there will costumes and such but also said he didn't fully like transmogs because it wasn't the actual item you were using just an overlay on top of it. So to better explain my idea is say you got a Sword drop from a boss that will become your main weapon. It has great stats but you don't like the look of it or it doesn't fit your theme. Then you can deconstruct it, pick the Sword cosmetic you want, and it then creates a blueprint of the original items stats with the new look of the Sword.
Like I stated, its a way for transmoging to be a literal part of the economy and people can even become fashion crafters.

So, deconing items for a two single use blueprints, one for stats and one for appearance.

It sounds a bit too unruly to make use of, and I can only imagine the inventory bloat when you have a few dozen of those blueprints.

When someone crafts, they’ll be able to pick an appearance anyway (presumably). I just don’t think you should be able to retain stats from an item you deconstruct.

Yah I didn't see anything about being able to pick a specific look of an item when you craft. If that was the case then it would be basically what I was asking for anyway. Deconstructing an item to give it a new look wouldn't really clutter up bags since you would only need to do it when you decide to transmog something. Retaining the stats to me would be no different than having a blueprint you just naturally found off a boss. You would initially have the item, reforge it with a new look, and the blueprint could be only used once so there is no abuse of mass production.
I fully understand that they already have a transmog system in the game I was just trying to make it interesting by incorporating a way to make it a part of the economy instead of just a personal transmog system someone can use at will with no real cost.

Enting

Transmogging: so we don't all look like clones when we hit L50..

Beekeeper

Enting wrote: »

Transmogging: so we don't all look like clones when we hit L50..

My biggest problem with transmogging in wow was always a lvl 1 looking like a max lvl char, but if it's just one character, that's probably a good point.

Mochiky

so jeah But transmoggs are a realy good reward strategy fpr ingame stuff to do.And beside this did you guys ever participate at a Transmogg Competition its so much fun for real its for sure not a thing for everyone but you should not kick this out of a game cause appereance means allot and i dont want to wear the same endgame gear as everyone or the same transmogg i want to chose the look of eacht part of my gear to be different

Child Item