To what degree should players be able to change the appearance of armor?

Personally for me, I'd be in favor of having one of those "costume" slots you can put over the armor.
So for example, if you like how this one set of armour looks, but it has very low stats to what you have on now, you can toss it into the costume slot and get the appearance of it.. and the stats of the other.

I like that train of thought. Can the Devs make inventory customizable? Can we set items to "no trade" and "no sell". Maybe even add a background color (in hex) to them. Maybe even have the option for symbols over items, like Red 'X' or a blue line covering the bottom tenth of the icon?

I like to have the ability to make cool armors with layers of armor maby a combo with skinn armor and some fangs i have making it look more tribal. or maby skinn armor with metal plates. or skinn armor with coat of mail. or other combos. it be cool to have options and maby you have to be a realy good at making skinn armors to do combos maby with magic fethers and fur or scales.

Darrin, you just nailed the word I was looking for when it comes to armor and weapon customisation, the word being "Armor Families". This is one solution to the problem, allowing the players to have a fixed selection of Armor Models which is used as a preset for designing your own look and letting them modify that piece within certain constraints based on either fixed metrics or existing accents already provided from other armor pieces.

Of course, too much depth might make it complex to make your own appearance, but I'd at least allow the choice to have more (or less) tools/options at the player's discretion.
The first thing a player would instinctively look at first glance during open PvP to identify a class is their armor since it's the biggest area of the character and most obvious. "Is he/she wearing plate, leather or cloth?" Having this question in mind while designing the tools for modifying the armor will allow for more freedom of choice on other parts of the body.

The second thing a player looks for after confirming the armor is the weaponry (all of this happens within the first seconds to respond appropriately to the potential threat). "Greatsword, Shortsword, Dagger, Staff, Wand, Bow or Shield?" Designing the weapons to be easily identified is key to knowing the characters' role together with the armor.

E.g
Plate + 1handed & shield = tank
Plate + 2handed = dps, burst damage
Leather + 2x 1handed weps = dps, dot and interrupter
Cloth + Staff = Spellcaster of variations.


On a more personal note of mine (this might show up as a poll in the future), I've always been bothered with the lack of combat stances in RPGs in general. The last straw was Guild Wars 2 where the two-handed Greatsword animation started off on "Tutta porta di ferro" and don't utilize that stance to deliver a powerful undercut blow as the starting attack.
Making a long story short, please let us choose different fighting stance and/or styles if you have time left for the animation team to make a few more cycles in mocap or rotoscoping (whichever technique you use).

Regardless of what class or role I am playing, I would like to be able to wear any piece of gear or wield any weapon in the game. Whether that is effective or not, that is up to the game itself. For example, some games decide that because you are a "fighter" you cannot even try on leather or cloth type armor. Or because you are a melee class you cannot wield a bow or even carry one on your back. I disagree, and would love more flexibility instead of less (even it if means giving up something else).

A second request: If possible, it would be really interesting to see additional weapon sheathes, quivers, boot daggers, and so on in various places on the character. If just cosmetic, I am ok with that.. or perhaps it is another way to store weapons about your person. With the way AI is supposed to work in this game, perhaps guards could even respond differently to you if they see that you are bristling with weapons instead of walking into a town with only a simple robe and staff. Even if I cannot use a weapon I'm carrying, it would be interesting to be able to wear it or display it.

Thanks for listening, and I am very interested to see where this armor/weapon cosmetics thread goes.

I'm sure it's been brought up before in these 200 pages of comments, but I'd like to see my character the way I want and have some sort of inspect option to see what the other person is wearing.

About the armor and wepaons maby its nice if we have different classes doing different damage with the same weapon. Maby a hunter do 100% damage but a Rouge using the same bow only do 85% damage and a Mage using it only doing 70% damage. Maby some thing equal with the armor. Maby a Fighter have better traing using plate armors and have a bit of a advantage with plate then a Mage has.

My Opinion only.The thing I love most. Gaining new armor with new looks and trying it on.

CLASS: Armor types (plate, chain, cloth) can be worn by all. Penalties applied based on class.

RACE: Example. a wedding dress should look different on a human to an undead or elf

Armor broken down into sections.

STATS: better high end game content. Better stats on Gear.
UPGRADES: being able to upgrade a common piece to a rarer piece.Maybe slight visual modification to show its legendary or something will be a little something you go COOL.
DYES. Don't want the same colour dress as my friend. MUST HAVE!!!! whether it be only 1 part or several parts. More complex the better to allow more variation and creativity.

ARMOR LOOK: don't want a hotch potch of styles head to toe.
So COSTUME slots.
or UNLOCKING SKINS to apply to any piece of armor at any time.

please note i didn't read past page one of posts so this will probably of been said before.

I would like an appearance tab for armor that you like but is outdated or for a different class. Also, it would be cool to be able to design our own appearance armor just like we are designing our own buildings. This may have been said, but 224 pages of responses is a lot to read.

Color changes are good, I could also see lile an aug slot when used could have an effect on the look of that piece.

I think the answer to this question is surprisingly simple compared to the other threads on the Round Table Forums.

To what degree should a player be able to change the appearance of their armor?

To whatever degree materials and skills they possess allow them too.

Can't say that I am that big into cosmetics, but I know a lot of people that are. The more choices you give players into how there toon looks, the more invested they get. I would love to see characters that look unique, and that are not tied to how equipped items look. Let me find, or buy (from other player designs?) cosmetic outfits to consider. Selling designs and dyes could help fund the free to play game.

Graysaint

When i was talking about armors and weapons and ther apperance i was also talking aboute changing ther stats to uppgrade them with you armorsmit skill or some other person can make them better then ther start value. I realy like the apperance and the options to change it in areas with your wepon smiting and other skills.

I admit I'm a little confused by your use of language. Are you essentially quoting me saying you agree based on ideas you've proposed regarding <specialized> smithing skills, or did you mean something else?

I think vanity slots are great in reason. I don't care to see people tanking dragons in nothing but their underwear. On the flip side I hate walking around as a rainbow colored fashion disaster.

Dyes are an absolute must but if vanity slots are implemented I would prefer the aesthetic to be restricted to categories of armor. (Plate, chain, cloth, etc.)

First post.
Been watching some Roundtable on youtube and I got a great idea that I didn't see expressed. Why not included the option to pick from many different graphics that are unique to each piece of equipment. Giving this option would allow players to know what others are wearing, but also allows for greater customization.
Another option could be, allow players to adjust how their armor looks using crafting or questing.

An example
Say you have some cool leather shoulders, but you like shoulders that have spikes on them. Well go kill some some horned beast and put the horns on using tanning etc.

This could alter stats or just be cosmetic. I think that this is a great way to give players the ability to invest in the way they look while separating them from other's appearances.

I am all for customizing my armor as much as possible. Trying to get the best look for my character is something I love doing.

I much rather they just allow us to dye armor and give us a way to upgrade the stats to match something else as long as its the same type (heavy, medium, light, etc).

Fictional Example:
Breastplate of Freeport (very rare and hard to obtain)
Stats: HPs +20 Str +1 Dex +1

Breastplate of Commons (drop from dungeon abc)
Stats: HPs +100 Str +10 Dex +10 Vit +20
Dodge + 5 Parry +5

I love how the Freeport Breastplate looks, but hate how the Commons Breastplate looks. I want a way that I can get the looks of Breastplate of Freeport but stats of Breastplate of Commons.

You will be able to. In EQN stats or attributes will be very rare. You won't likely be finding armor with stats on them. This game is going to be more about finding ability modifiers instead of +str.

ITs a Fact MAJORITY of MMO players want great graphics they want to take pride in the character they are putting time in and developing. Role players especially. These graphics are over the line Cartoonish takes away the ability to sense of pride, so basically what i feel about customization in a game like this? does it really matter ou can put all the customization you want on these characters and you still playing WOW> (((DisAPPointed-Severely))

I strongly disagree. Most players couldn't care less what a game's graphics look like. Most people, like yourself, claim from the mountaintops that graphics are "oh so extremely important", but at the end of the day... WoW has 10 yr old graphics, yet still holds the highest subscriber base of any MMO in history. The idea that graphics are THE crucial element is a ludicrous notion perpetuated by players who don't really know what they want. Take Terraria and the future successor Starbound for example, you think it's the "graphics" that make players want to play those 2D sidescrollers... give me a break. Game-play quality, innovation, and ingenuity are infinitely more important than graphics.