I completely disagree with the Diablo style. People should have to run the content and collect the gear. They should never just be given a series of unlocks. It means less, it might not mean less to you, but overall it means less. No different than being given something vs working for something.
Secondly, it need to be a grind. Maybe not always a severe grind, but it needs to keep people playing the game. It should be worked for individually.
From a development perspective, there is a ton of cost that goes into art, a TON of cost. You have to temper the players acquisition of these art elements with time because of the massive cost and time it takes to create them for the game. This is especially important for patches where the dev team does not have a 1.5 year cycle to create content, but rather months.
It’s also best to keep it simple. You want a specific helm, then go farm the helm. If you want a specific gun skin, then go farm the gun skin.
Elder Scrolls Online has probably the best armor transmog system. It would behoove the NW devs to study ESO’s system, if they already have not.
As far as weapon skins. I completely agree that there should be no cross pollination, its too obvious why that should not take place in this game, but the same issue does not happen with armor.
As far as names. I’d personally prefer to be killed in PVP by Octavio Windhammer than supDog69, I simply can not take bad names seriously (I rolled for ages on RP servers where names were reinforced and could be reported), and in my experience the people with the less than creative names are usually the most toxic in the community and the last one to spend money on cosmetics…ergo, the game does not need them.
Keep in mind that the investment required for the series of unlocks could be changed depending on how AGS wants to approach it.
In D3, it started out as just a gold investment and progressed into requiring crafting materials and gold as part of upgrading the NPC. After you hit 60 and started heading into the new expansion level range, you needed Death’s Breath which were required to be farmed and were part of most end game crafting recipes.
While it is possible to “complete” the NPC and max it out after a certain point, the process leading up to that means you would still need to invest resources. The resources you invest could be any number of different combination of things to progress your Legally Distinct Mystic™ transmogging abilities. My initial suggestion in the first post was that the cost of transmogging an item should be Azoth. Why not extend that to the upgrading process?
Maybe a combination of gold, materials, or azoth would be good. Or mix it up depending on the level of progression so that what’s needed to rank up your Legally Distinct Mystic™ would be different at different stages in the game. You’d still be earning the equipment appearance, just a little less literally.
I wouldn’t be too against the grinding aspect in New World specifically, but we already have plenty of other avenues of things that needed to be ground out. Territory standing, influence for zones to PvP, gypsum, world tours for expertise and refining materials, umbral shards, etc, and the worst of all, crafting itself. New World as a whole isn’t overly grindy (excluding crafting, ugh) but locking such a highly requested feature behind more grinding would not make people happy.
Towns need to have a little bit more inherent value; combine something like this the musical instruments coming up, and you can have people swapping outfits and jamming out to/with their favorite bands. Next up: The Mourningdale Misers in a haunting shade of blue. You couldn’t hot-swap to your band outfit unless everyone in the group had went and got the appearances before that! A tragedy to be sure.
You’re right. There is an absolutely enormous level of work that goes into art production. That’s why everyone should have as many opportunities, whenever the fancy strikes them, however often it does to enjoy that art. New World doesn’t operate on the same game scale as something like WoW and shouldn’t adhere to the same rules.
We’re just gonna have to agree to disagree on the simplicity of it. The extra step of going out of your way to go hunt down specific pieces of gear is more disruptive than investing something you’re likely already to have / buy / gather in the process of playing normally to unlock those appearances. To me the D3 system would be dramatically easier to manage and far more approachable within the context of New World.
I’ll go look into ESO’s appearance systems. Not familiar with the game at all.
Stupid/funny player names can be a nuisance and yeah I’d definitely prefer to get slapped down by Elequilos the Dawntreader, but until we have a larger player base and an actual RP server, we’ll just have to make light of it and have fun. Definitely disagree your perspective near the end of that reply though, “the game not needing them” has a lot of angles to it and comes off kinda hostile. Most of them don’t mean ill will against you. No need to go that far my friend.
I think you are making the system more complex than it needs to be.
People want to change their clothes, that’s it.
What we need is a simple to understand system of “if you collect wearable item A, you can transmog item A for your own outfit”.
The cost should be minimal, with gold (as a gold sink)…if any.
I would either mod current furniture in game to be interactive, that when activated allows for the player to create, save and apply “outfits” under a player crated name: “PVP Outfit 1”, “Mining Outfit”, “Night on the Town Outfit”, etc.
I would also create a separate system, an “armory” that has a new furniture piece made that looks like an armory, that is interactable and allows for the player to create armor profiles. This armor would not be in a collections tab, but stuff you actively have in game.
The more complex the system, the more coding, the more cost in development. AGS can put their own spin on it, but if they make it too complex, it will just turn people off because again, at the end of the day people just want to change their clothes/transmog outfits.
I don’t really see how you’re viewing this as a complex system. Directly comparing D3 to WoW’s you can easily see that D3’s is way more simple in how players handle progression and appearance acquisition. Like, I’m advocating for one of the most straight forward forms of appearance changing that exists in games. I just want people to change their clothes without artificial time-gating or grinding. Just log in, change your get up.
The only real difference I’m proposing and talking about for the context of New World are the basic functionary rules that it would abide by. There were some restrictions with D3, but not many. Those being recommended in this thread post are even more generous than the D3 restrictions, and by extension would be more freeing than WoW’s.
Even if players needed to adhere to the same equip load weight with their transmog, it would still objectively allow for more creativity than WoW does right now by comparison.
WoW’s transmog was limited by the armor your specific class could wear. In this, you could transmog any piece to any type of piece as long as it is within the range of your normal equip load.
The actual development process for implementing ways for the game to track if you’ve collected hundreds of different appearances might end up being more work than just having it be part of a menu that you can access only from a specific NPC, and view the icons of gear+ a preview of your 3d model with that appearance active. You’d also need to consider how the tracking elements would show up on your UI, where the tab for appearances would be stored (in the character bio section? achievements?) when it would be much easier just to click “Show me what you’ve got.” on an NPC and see the list of options.
What I’m trying to get you to understand is the simple system of “If you unlock this tier, you can transmog these items.” No farming items in the world or dungeons, no checking appearance tabs somewhere in the UI like with WoW. You just talk to an NPC investment materials, pop that list open, and get to creating your ideal appearance. It would take more work mimicking WoW and not be as good of a system for how New World plays.
+1 on the overcomplication. and +1 on the “don’t make it grind to unlock the same levels as everyone else”. I may have missed some subltey (it’s a lot of text), but the idea of having cosmetics being “legendary” seems sillly. NW has some amazing looking gear/armor that’s low level.
Neverwinter has a really simple system. RIght click any item you have and “Convert to Apperance”. It then goes into your “fashion storage” and the “change skin” on that weapon/gear slot will list it as an opiton. You can’t convert it if you already have the fashion.
Note that converting an item destroys it, so there some cost to the player (depending on the rarity of course).
Simple, easy, and lets people find gear they like rather than “oh I need to grind up my NPC to get the same set of options that everyone else has”.
AGS could do a system as simplle as that and just put the “convert to apperance” option in the Gypsum kilm and add whatever mats they feel reasonable (Azoth etc).
If they wanted to make money out of it (which I think is fair since transmog would likely greatly reduce their skins market), then there are options for that as well. As long as you have some way to properly preview without buying I would be ok with some level of real money. For example you could have free “convert to time limited” appearance (Prime gaming skins disappaer when your subscription expires I assume? so the concept is already there).
I recorded a short video from in game to try and show case more directly how it functions. Sometimes long text posts can be confusing or not represent the idea correctly.
New appearances are obtained by upgrading the NPC, which costs crafting materials and/or gold. (Materials you would already have by this point, and are easy to obtain.)
If you start with a completely fresh NPC that has not been leveled up, you would only have the appearances of gear in the level range of 1-10.
When you rank your NPC up, you unlock the next level range of non-specific, general loot appearances.
Appearance options with black/empty backgrounds in the menu are standard items, like ones you would have been wearing while leveling up in New World. These are regular gear pieces that are found with randomized stats. Example: “Swashbuckler’s Long Coat of the Fighter”.
Items with Orange / Green backgrounds are unique legendaries (think crafted weapons in New World with specific names, or stuff like Tiger’s Instinct, Firevine Battlestaff) or pieces of gear from a matching set.
These are unique items that do not share appearances with any other gear in the game. You obtain those unique appearances by finding them and picking them up.
Diablo 3’s transmog system is very simple. I hope showcasing it helps people understand.
I understand your suggestion perfectly, I just completely disagree with it.
People do not want unlocked “transmogs” in as much as they want to transmog what they get as drops.
Piecing together outfits from drops is completely different than unlocks because if you study many transmog outfits from players over time in various games, you see a common thread of dressing down. You see people doing away with flash, and using more basic items. Plain shirts, plain pants, etc. People get these as drops and do not want to let some of them go.
There is no need for the developers to create a separate system for transmog with unlocks. They simply need to allow what is already currently available as drops in game to be available as transmog outfits.
Are you misunderstanding that the system for unlocking appearances would be filled with separate, new art assets?
In Diablo 3, the gear that you equip while leveling, the exact same art assets, become accessible as transmog options in level-specific tiers.
You come back to town in Everfall, click “Upgrade” on your NPC, and have a couple dozen of new options to pick from. After fully investing in the NPC, you will have ALL the gear in the game available for creating your ideal look.
It’s not creating new art assets, it’s displaying all of the previously existing pieces of gear, as options in the game and then picking from that how you want, for each equipment slot.
It’s like clicking two buttons to unlock what you want vs artificial time gating. I genuinely don’t get how you can’t see the way this would make more sense for New World.
With WoW’s system, players would need to go find Every. Single. Piece. of gear that they wanted again. People would spend time grinding low level mobs that they get borderline nothing from to get one specific appearance, only to have to go to another zone and do the same thing. It’d be like the Corrupted Rabbit event all over again. You and I both know how much people enjoyed grinding thousands of rabbits to end up never having the corrupted chest drop.
You get an item drop, you can transmog it. End of story.
And I already went over your fear of “wows system”, because this game is not old enough for that to be an issue. The 10k players playing right now are not going to be affected if the game is still around in 5 years.
And having to collect Every. Single. Piece is a good thing.
When D3’s transmog came out, people laughed at initially for being too simple in comparison to other games appearance options.
Players recall to town, invest materials (iron ore, green wood, starmetal, etc.) that they already have or can buy, by clicking one button, and have the appearances right there, able to pick from dozens of options.
What is not easy to understand about that? That’s the basis of all NPC trading interactions in every game since text-based DOS games. You talk to a NPC, give them a currency, and you get something in return.
It’s not old enough right now for that to be an issue, but having it implemented the way I suggested means that it will -never- be a problem.
4 years down the road, say one of your friends that quit playing comes back and wants to transmog. You throw him a pile of gold and materials to upgrade with. Wow! Now he has access to all the appearances without having to spend three months playing catch up in PvE content and wishing he could look the way that he wants.
Collecting every single piece sucks. Crafting is already a slog fest of finding rare drop items that cost 18k on the trading post so you can finally make 600 GS weapons and armor. We don’t need that kind of additional market poison with players overcharging for a random lvl 24 green musket just because it looks a certain way.
Sorry, and I hate to say it like this but your idea is bad. not good, not how it should be developed because it misses the core reason why people transmog in the first place.
People who enjoy transmog for the most part want to express their characters in ways that make their character unique. This is done by having a unique piece of gear. Having a system that unlocks in tiers does not ensure that the player will be able to equip their gear when they want to equip it, and people dont want to see everyone around them wearing the same stuff (we see this already in game with outfits).
Transmog does not need a tier based unlock system.
EDIT: You desire to implement a system based on your own biases, that is not how design works friend. And the best design are the ones you don’t think are designed. Your system is too confusing, non-intuitive and does not allow for folks to take advantage of transmog when they deem it necessary.
Here is an example.
Player is leveling around, getting drops, upgrading armor. They hit level 10 and get a new bad ass green piece of gear to replace their grey straw hat. The new green piece of gear looks like a helmet, but the player wants to keep using that cool straw hat. In fact, in that players mind that straw hat embodies some of the personality of the character.
In your scenario, the player would not be able to keep using that hat, unless they grinded out unlocks. They are bummed that they cant use the cool straw hat, and discard it (because they needs the stats of the green piece)
In my scenario, they could use that hat ASAP and quest on happily with their straw hat.
How you acquire the gear/appearance does not equate to how players are able to express themselves.
The only difference between having all cosmetics unlocked because you’ve invested materials into upgrading the NPC and acquiring the pieces individually… is just that. It’s a time sink. It offers nothing additional but more time spent unlocking the SAME thing with less being rewarded to you.
It’s pressing “Upgrade” and unlocking I dunno, 4 new headpiece appearances, 6 glove appearances, and 4 new chestplate appearances, including the one you were specifically after.
What makes your character look unique is how you designed them. Not whether or not somebody dropped 40k more gold than you to get their preferred cosmetics from the market. Stop trying to gatekeep individuality. Even worse, is that in the video I showed you, NONE of the appearances were level locked.
Go watch it, because I know after you saying that players would experience an inability to equip the gear when they want, you did not watch the preview. An extremely good example of this, if you look in the top left of the video, you will see that my character is level 29. The max level is 70. I have transmogs available to me that are from much higher level pieces of gear.
Here’s an example using the exact same scenario you mentioned.
Player is leveling around, getting drops, upgrading armor. They hit level 10 and get a new piece of green gear to replace their grey straw hat. The new green piece of gear looks like a helmet, but the player wants to keep using that cool straw hat. They come home, talk to the NPC, change the hat appearance, and go back outside leveling.
I am telling you that you genuinely do not understand what you’re trying to argue against.
I fully understand what you are expressing. I watched how that transmog system works, and its not good. There is nothing compelling about unlocking a ton of stuff at the same time. Less is often more.
And YES how a player acquires a piece of gear equates perfectly to how a player will be able to express themselves. if they don’t collect it, they can’t express it. In your system, everyone will be given the same stuff, everyone can express the same looks. That is NOT what transmog is about.
Part of the fun of collecting a piece of gear is the work that goes into it. Unlocking a tier of gear, that EVERYONE has access to for that tier is psychologically not as engaging. How old are you? Do you drive? Have you ever been given a car and then had to purchase a car for yourself, with your money that you worked for? The car you worked for will be infinitely more respected than the one given to you. I mean this is human psychology 101, the basics.
You are suggesting to implement a system that does away with the aspect of going out into the world and farming gear because you did not like that system in wow. But you did not like that system in wow because you felt like you were forced to grind the same content again that you did years ago. Sorry, but that’s your issue, not an issue with design.
Making people go out into the world does just that, it makes them go into the world instead of standing around in cities. It makes the game feel more populated with people all over the place.
It also allows for new players to experience old content, even if they do so just to collect gear. I did mostly PVP i WOW since 2004. I have a high warlord (Well he is a grand marshal right now) I missed out on a LOT of raiding, but I was able to see most content later one when I could solo an instance for gear.
Allowing people to go back into older content, allows the content to be recycled. In an MMO recycling playable content/assets is an ABSOLUTE MUST because of the time and cost that goes into development time (I already explained this).
The transmog system as I have laid out (how wow does it, or ESO) allows for old content to be recycled or seen for the first time by new players. It allows for players to express themselves with a piece of gear they have collected without farming some NPC.
I appreciate that you are passionate about transmog, as am I and many folks…but the system you are suggesting be implemented is the same thing as giving someone a car (or in your case given 20 cars), vs the car they worked for. It will not be appreciated as much.
Everyone in WoW already DOES have the same stuff. Like I said previously, the only difference is whether or not you’ve invested the absurd amount of gold required to unlock them, or the disgusting time sink repeating content you’ve already seen a hundred different times.
To make this as clear as humanly possible for you:
WoW Transmog - 100 items available to transmog for all players, each piece must be individually found and collected, through grinding or gold sink.
D3 Transmog - 100 items available to transmog for all players. Multiple pieces are unlocked by investing in your local NPC.
These are just representative numbers, not the number of appearances that are actually available in either game.
Did you seriously just try to equate time, money, and effort involved in learning to drive and finding a suitable car to virtual cosmetics? Yeah, people are going to enjoy the things they invested more time in. When the investment is proportional to the SCALE OF THE ACTIVITY.
Cars are years of learning how to drive, thousands of REAL money being invested, and the risk of being hurt when you’re on the road even when you do everything right. This analogy is disgusting. Your entire basis on how investment and rewards work seems completely warped.
You said it earlier. People just want to change their clothes. Then just let them. We can do that without having to waste hours of their evening to get virtual fashion when it’s a game they’re supposed to be logging on to enjoy, or relax in. It is not supposed to be a chore, like real life.
For everything good about WoW’s transmog, it has no place in a game that operates on something that’s close to 1/4th or 1/5th the scale of WoW.
That system did not respect the player’s time. It was, and still is, part of the design that WoW has that you end up spending as much time as possible online, playing their game. You’re hooked with a subscription, and cosmetics you have to grind for, and gear that is almost entirely defined by RNG, (more grinding) and progressing in raids that takes some people months to ever fully complete. It’s just RNG and grinding stacked on top of more layers of RNG and grinding.
This seems like cosmic, weapons-grade level of sunk cost fallacy trying to spread itself to another game. You are so concerned with making sure that you get to be unique that you are more than willing to gatekeep self-expression. Masking it under the guise of “That’s how an MMO should work! People should spend more time getting what they want.”
I don’t know how long you spent grinding out every single item for your perfect outfits, but I’m sorry that you can’t see how toxic parts of WoW and it’s transmog system actually was.
This is patently incorrect based on the observable fact that World of Warcrafts Transmogrification system and their reward (loot) system do not operate as you suggest.
And the people who DO have the same armor as someone else, worked for it. This is a good thing.
And you are making what “clear as humanly possible”? I already understand what you are saying to degrees you can not even FATHOM…but I strongly disagree with you.
I already went through this, but apparently you need things explained a bit more clear. You need to take some classes on human psychology. It is a well known studied fact that when a person works for something (wows system of reward), it will mean more to that person vs something handed to them (diablos system of reward). Reward systems are important in gameplay, especially player retention and longevity. If you give up too much, too freely players will lose interest (there are threads complaining about this in this very section of the forums). At the same time if things are too difficult, the game will also lose the players interest. Its a balancing act, but your desired outcome for New World transmog errors on the giving up too much too easily aspect.
Unlocking multiple pieces is bad and does not align with the overall psychological goal of why people like to express their individuality, which in this case is through transmog.
Easy there, you are taking a discussion into personal territory…and have been for a post or two now. I suggest you refrain from personal attacks.
Yes, I used cars as an example, but the psychological component of a person working towards something is not exclusive to cars. In fact, the reason I use a car is because its the two extremes. Either being given something extremely expensive that you do not respect. Or working for something of equal value that you do respect. The difference is not in the price, it is in the effort put forth.
A 10 year old buying an action figure or doll will have the same respect for the doll they save and purchase vs the one given to them.
But they want to change their clothes for the things they worked for, but more importantly the reason for changing clothes is to be unique. Your recommendation for transmog is like communism, eveyone gets the choice of changing the same clothing every one else gets. There is nothing fun or rewarding in that, and nothing to be proud of because nothing was worked for. Unlocking clothing at a vendor that everyone unlocks at the same vendor is not the same as getting a unique drop from some random mob. Psychologically its completely different.
I completely disagree, if anything the smaller scale of this game lends itself BETTER to wow’s system of transmog.
I disagree. It enforces people spending time online getting their full 15 dollars a month worth. Just because you don’t like it, does not mean it sets the rule. I personally loved all my time in wow and never felt it grindy (except trying to get certain .01% mounts).
I have played wow since 2004. I have a massive ton of alts on horde and alliance on multiple servers, all with unique transmogs and the time I spent doing that stuff pales in comparison to the time I PVP’d or spent doing dailies or other in game activities. In fact, farming for transmog was one of the least amount of time sinks the game offered.
Incorrect. Because in the system I am discussing, a person gets to transmog what items drops for them ASAP. You assume that every player playing the game has committed to memory the existence of every single piece of gear the game has to offer cosmetically. Then and only then would your assertion make any sense, but that is so far from reality I can only laugh at your accusation.
There is nothing toxic about wows transmogrification system, there is a fair amount of toxicity coming from you in your replies to me, which is completely unwarranted in a discussion.
Wow’s system allows you to transmog a piece of gear you earn, when you earn it.
Diablos system does not, and it gives the same outfits to every player so that everyone can look the same.
For sure! Their system allowed me to go visit content I had never seen (and a reason to go there), and it allowed me to revisit old content I had done years prior seeing the sights a bit slower.
Sometimes raids happen too fast and you dont get to take in all the eye candy. This is especially true in new world. Being able to go back into those raids to get pets, mounts, gold, transmog options etc was a lot of fun and I got to see the sights at a pace that worked for me.
ya i went back and helped someone with depths before it was mutated and got thorpes helmet, never seen it before but i went in with full 625 luck gear and saw it, i was so excited, didn’t even know it existed.
That is cool! I hope you can use it for transmog someday.
i have only seen the instance once. My Gf and I had run through it for a quest, but the people we were with rushed through it, so it was hard to take in the sights.
