Legacy Based Cosmetic Appearance Tabs

[OkinBob]

/signed

 

Everquest 2 uses this system and it works extremely well.

 

Most players in that game look extremely unique, and it doesn't unbalance the game in any way.

 

I actually petitioned for this when SWTOR was first released, but Bioware thought they were so clever and came up with an alternative, more complicated, and much less effective system instead.

 

Let us have individual last names as well!

Edited November 24, 2014 by OkinBob

[Starglitter]

Mmm...

 

A very large number of MMORPGs already provides this feature, eventually Bioware will catch-up with the rest of their competition...

 

Sue

[zalio]

I was just going to make a post on just this EXACT issue and saw this post. This is exactly what is needed. I like to collect different looks for my toons and having to swap out armor/mods/enhancement is a waste of credits. An appearance tab just like the OP suggested is they way to make it easy to change our toons' appearance without all the hassle.

[Feargal]

Great Scott! So many tl;dr posts on a simple suggestions. I support OP's idea because I like it, not because I have some long winded justification.

[RowanThursday]

Signed, fantastic idea.

 

Let me- yes, wear the cold weather gear on Hoth, wear something appropriately protective on Tatooine, dress fancy for Nar Shadda, Imperial uniform for Dromund Kaas or starships, casual at home in my stronghold or on my own ship, and of course the dancer outfit for the odd occasion it's appropriate.

 

Now, Bioware, count the number of cartel coins I'd be spending to buy/unlock in collections all of those.

[Feargal]

and of course the dancer outfit for the odd occasion it's appropriate.

 

Dancer outfits are like pearls, always appropriate.

[Icykill_]

With the Cartel Market now a constant source of new equipment shells I think the game (and Cartel Market use/purchases by players) could see an improvement if you would implement costume tabs for players. In this way they can have a set of equipment that provides them their stats but change out equipment on a separate tab to change how they look.

 

This allows players to actually use many of the new 'costumes' that are available and change their appearances based on a situation. Visit Hoth? Break out the cold weather gear. Going to Tatooine? Do the opposite and wear more planet appropriate gear. Playing Huttball, break out your huttball uniform, etc.

 

By allowing players to easily change their looks without changing their primary equipment, you'll give them an incentive to collect this other equipment and thus to use the cartel market more. As it is, the cost is greatly prohibitive to changing your outfits and this acts as an inhibitor to character customization. It is both in the players and the Games best interest to make being able to change up your look easier.

 

I would make this Legacy/Subscription type based. An idea, for example:

 

f2p Players get 1 tab available.

Preferred Players get 3 tabs available.

Subscribers get 5 tabs available.

 

Tabs must be unlocked with credits or cartel coins and are part of your legacy perks.

Legacy level 1 gets one tab, with tabs at 5, 10, 20 and 40.

 

Mechanic is simple. You have a primary equipment tab, this tab is the equipment that provides your attributes. It will also be your default appearance if you have no equipment in any other tab. If you place equipment in any of your costume tabs and click a check box on the tab, then this tab will be what provides your appearance to others in the game.

 

I know I would use this, already having a collection of alternative 'outfits' none of which I can use in game without an immense cost in moving or duplicating mods.

 

Agree with all except free to play people should not get it... Then it would be an incentive for them to subscribe or at least become preferred

I believe they already get too many perks while the rest of us pay our way

[EnkiduNineEight]

I felt it would be most fair to give them a taste of the system, and leave them desiring more. Having f2p players have a single available appearance tab allows them some small freedom but is significantly diminished from a subscribers experience of 5 (or more) tabs.

 

Then also sell 'unlocks' in the cartel market for revenue generation.

[xberry]

Great idea! Signed.

 

Will it make it into one of the next 3.xx patches? Fingers crossed!

[Bloodhavenx]

Signed

[JarekCyphus]

Love this in Rift and LotRO. Make it happen!

[maximumdamages]

Signed.

[Nitblade]

This should have been IN when they went F2P both as an incentive to collect & keep a Sub.

 

With the prohibitive cost & time to swap stuff from Shell, single armor for me and that's it. Until they give us that TAB

[Choloe]

Don't think I'll use it... But this idea is great!

 

/SIGN

[rhinosenior]

!!!!

Sign

[LordArtemis]

I support this idea.

[EnkiduNineEight]

Update:

 

I had not really considered companions in this equation but really, outfitting our comapnions is a very similar process to outfitting ourselves and we may very well want to make the same appearance modification to a companion for the same reason we want to do it for ourselves. Sure, maybe Mako is hot in her dancing girl outfit but that's for special times, alone, on the ship. Since you're now on Hoth you should probably let the poor girl wear a jacket.

 

So, working from the previously described suggestion:

 

In your captains quarters, on your ship, the 'closet' model is made to be interactive. This is the interface that provides access to the PC's clothing changes for cosmetic appearance. This remains as previously suggested.

 

Options for companions:

 

Option #1 - Each ship has a communal crew quarters room. Have a wardrobe located here as well that is interactive and that works somewhat like the 'Guild Bank' in that when you open it, it opens to the first bank tab which in a guild bank you can name, but in the case of the companion wardrobe the tabs along the right side are already named for your companion. So, a level 60 Bounty Hunter with all the companions would have along the left edge:

 

Mako

2V-R8

Gault

Torian

Skadge

Blizz

Treek

HK-51

 

When you select one of these the primary portion of the screen where 'bank slots' are normally displayed would instead be a version of the paper doll/character screen. You then drag and drop equipment into the slot locations. This equipment then becomes available as an alternative outfit from your normal character selection screen. You go to the paper doll, use the 'torso' Icon you normally use to access darkside corruption, hide helmet, unify colours etc, and checkmark the box for the alternate outfit. Stats are still provided from the equipment the character/companion is wearing in their primary screen slots.

 

I think it would be beneficial/desired by the players to allow them to purchase additional 'tabs' for each companion, just as they can for themselves. With either game credits or cartel coin costs that escalate based on the number of tabs. I would expect though the companions choices of outfits should be limited to 3. (While player has potentially 5 or 6)

 

Character would select their companion onlg the left side of the interface, opening the primary tab on the right. In the upper portion immediately above the 'paper doll' display would be the ability to select the additional tabs and so equipment could be placed into those tabs for cosmetic appearances as well. When you place equipment into these slots (you still need to own the physical item) there will be a 'preview' button in the interface as well that caused the preview window for your character or companion to be opened up and reflect the outfit for the tab you are presently looking at. as more equipment is dragged and dropped, removed, changed etc the preview window is likewise updated so the player can mix and match with immediate visual feedback.

 

The 'torso' Icon on our main character screen/paperdoll would still be used to access the appearance tabs, just as you buy more tabs, more check boxes appear to allow you to select them and change the appearance of the character to the selected outfit while again retaining the stats for the equipment placed on the primary 'paper doll'.

 

As before, if NO alternate appearance box is clicked, the character or the companion will default their appearance to the equipment in their primary slots. When you do check an appearance tab box, the 'preview' window opens and the selected companion (or yourself) is shown in the outfit preresented by that check box. Unselecting the box reverts to their primary equipment/look being displayed in the 'preview' pane window.

 

As before, this provides incentive to save blue and green dropped/found equipment for aesthetic purposes. It creates a market on the GTN for some of these as well as while their stats are worthless their appearances are desired. This benefits the new players as well as the old as increasing the market for dropped goods.

 

As before, this increases the market for not only obtaining cartel items and placing them in a collection, but also unlocking the collection for all your characters. Players can now have a purpose for all their collected outfits/clothing and change their appearance more readily to better suit a roleplaying situation or their particular mood. Their stats remain bound to primary equipment and shifting of stats would still require changing the equipped items, modifying them and removing, changing the components within. So a necessary money sink still exists and you get the best of both worlds.

 

I'd rather play the game, and my photoshop/editing skills are crap, but I'll see if I can't create a 'mock up' set of images to give you a visual idea of how the system would work. May take me a bit to get that done.

 

Option #2 - Since I mentioned it, is essentially the same except you do it from the same wardrobe you use for yourself in the captains quarters and so may have an advantage in terms of only needing to go to one place to make appearance changes for all your companions and yourself, requires just a slightly more cluttered interface.

Edited January 3, 2015 by EnkiduNineEight

[EnkiduNineEight]

I've been wondering about the possibility of adding even more 'appearance' slots that are not tied to the present 7 pieces of armor/clothing.

 

These could be 'premium' drops from FP's, Ops, and heroic/class Quest content as well as some Cartel Items that can be worn and change the characters appearance but do not have stats attached to them at all.

 

In this way you can add items to your characters appearance without worrying about stat balancing etc. It also creates another market for EA/BioWare so there's benefit there as well.

 

Basically, what if on every 'paper doll' display there were an additional 3-5 boxes along the top or bottom in which you could place additional appearance modification items. These would not be 'location' limited, though player aesthetics would likely convince most players not to put all 3-5 changes for the same location.

 

Then, additional trophies/items can be displayed on a character, customizing them as well as perhaps advertising content they have mastered or defeated.

 

Just off the top of my head, these things could be items like:

 

Wookie Fur cloak, worn by certain BH's and Trandoshans. This item when placed in a pure appearance slot adds to the character a mantle/cloak of Wookie fur. Obviously most outfits that already include a cape you may not want to put this item on them as both would be displayed and it may not loog good. But it allows a bounty Hunter in hunters armour to have a dangly cloak like Cassus Fetts of Wookie fur, advertising their skill/dangerous nature.

 

Jewelry - Perhaps a large medallion or medal hat is displayed on the cheat, to show you have completed a specific operation.

 

Correlian Blood Stripes.

 

Various helmet antenna and accountrements or other head gear, crests, etc.

 

Cross Chest Sashes, etc.

 

Various items designed to hang at the hip, melee weapons, pouches, satchels, etc.

 

Not everything is going to mesh well with every piece of equipment but based on character model size and your pre-existing design bibles most of the aesthetic non-stat equipment modifiers could be added to most peoples outfits without creating too much of a clipping/aesthetic mess.

 

So, now when I say.. Finish an ultimate quest and beat some ultimate baddie I might receive a trophy from the encounter. And so I can have hanging from the back of my belt a beaten and battered cracked mask that lets people know I'm not one to be trifled with.

 

This allows for further non-stat based character customization that people tend to like. They can be more unique and express themselves without having extra stats. Gives you the ability to create more rewards for content performed without having to worry about gear inflation and also allows you to create items that can be purchased in micro-transactions through the Cartel market again without any worry of creating a game imbalance/gear inflation.

[EnkiduNineEight]

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j352/John_Grossund/Mockup_zps6e9d1345.png

 

I'm no artist. grabbed screenie from an underplayed alt.

 

I think though from this you can really get the gist of the ideas presented prior in text.

 

It would be simple/smooth and easy to navigate. Just go to the wardrobe on your ship in the captains quarters, open it up, navigate tot he tab you want to change, drag and drop equipment into the slots, and you're done.

 

To change your appearance open your main character equipment screen which houses your stat bearing equipment, Click on the 'torso' Icon and then in the area below, click in the box for which appearance you want to use.

 

Same for companions though they would have les tabs available.

 

Easy peasy.

 

Added as well 5 'decorative' slots for the idea above. So you could add your wookie fur cape or your Corellian Blood Stripes and Revan's mask hanging from your belt.

[DarthMetalJoey]

SIGNED

 

i have so many cartel market sets that id deff unlock in collections if there was an appearance tab and i could change my look at will

 

while ago i recall one of the devs on swtor livestream saying something about removing mods from armor /making armor just cosmetic. and since i heard that ive been keeping an eye out to see if its talked about anymore.. i really . really. want this....

 

please bioware?

 

Edited January 6, 2015 by DarthMetalJoey

[EnkiduNineEight]

SIGNED

 

i have so many cartel market sets that id deff unlock in collections if there was an appearance tab and i could change my look at will

 

while ago i recall one of the devs on swtor livestream saying something about removing mods from armor /making armor just cosmetic. and since i heard that ive been keeping an eye out to see if its talked about anymore.. i really . really. want this....

 

please bioware?

 

 

If they were to make a screen where you applied mods to your 'character' and not to armour pieces and then let you put whatever you want for appearances sake in in the slots that would certainly be acceptable and in many cases I think preferable as it removes sending mods around via legacy sets as each character would actually have to have their stat items slotted individually.

 

I could go for that as it would be better fro the in game game economy.

 

I would still want 'tabs' so I can change outfits more easily/conveniently.

[Chimp-face]

/signed

[Lyseira]

Signed

 

However a problem why this might never be implemented is, because of the (needed) money sink for removing mods.

[Yadarya]

Me likey.

[Hichitsuki-hime]

as a cosmetic extra tab sure, removing mods no way in hell lol. i've got 4 sages & 2 sorcs, never mind 2 shadows and 2 assassins.