DDO Devs: Pls allow us to change the look of Armour!

[Tumarek]

One thing i really would like to know from the DEV's is what the problems ia atm. Is it a missing concept or is it a coding issue? If its mainly the concept we should continue to spam ideas how it could be done

[Ashiel_Dragmire]

Honestly, if all they offer us for starters is something akin to the LotRO customization, I'll be please for quite some time, as there are several decent looking skins that can be obtained just by buying Masterwork armor from vendors in the Harbor. Couple this with dyes and you've got a fairly solid starting system for armor "customization." Obviously this won't please everyone, but until the devs make a more in depth system, it should work.

Also, would we be able to customize the appearance of our helms? I loved how the Chimera's Crown looked on my Warforged Paladin, but not too long ago he had to give it up in order to get Minos Legens, and now he's helmless (since I refuse to /showhelmet on the same thing that everyone else wears).

Hopefully this will lead the way to cloak graphics too...

[AestorTheKnight]

I'd like to politely point out meshes and textures get re-used through different armour types.If a player wants his char's robes to look like scale mail over padded vest, or leather straps over chain mail, more power to him: it's harmless enough.

What chars look is really only a matter of aesthetics.
PvP factor is marginal, so you don't have to gauge your foe from his clothes.
PvE you can MyDDO if you really need to know his AC.
Also: armour type itself is pointless in DDO. Robes could give higher AC/DR than full plate.

Limiting overmeshes to specific armour types would only cramp customisation options.

Completely agree with Alabore here!

+1 for presentation
+1 for wittiness
+1 for being awesome

Who, me?

[IronClan]

Sounds good and all, but with non-DT armors, you should be limited to overmeshes of the same armor type. A Hide should not look like a Breastplate, nor should Brigandine look like Fullplate. I'm just saying they should enable all options for DT because, hey, you're customizing it to every extent anyways.

Here's the thing as others have pointed out, there's no valid reason to restrict it at all... There's no fundamental difference between robes and full plate in this game... an 60-80AC is attainable by anyone using robes or Armor and the right grindy items. No one needs to know what you're actually wearing... the Cleric isn't going to save SP knowing if you're in robes or full plate, your PvP opponent doesn't gain any knowledge that's usefull... if a Pali wearing robes and 8 AC bracers has a high AC and a Pali wearing DT breastplate with high Dex does, or one wearing Full plate; can all have the same AC... There's no way to tell anything useful from the cosmetics.

So for this reason alone there's no reason to restrict it. They probably wont give us the ability to make robes look like platemail... but that will be a shame not a good restriction... As it will mean my robe wearing Paladin will look lame, just because DDO's AC is so borked that wearing heavy armor is not viable later in the game without making the Paladin a tank DoS build...

Same with my Cleric wearing a monk outfit... Unless they fix AC so heavy armor is viable later in the game for characters that would tend to wear heavy armor, then they need to let me put platemail looks on my robes... Because the CURRENT setup is whats kinda ********... And letting us make robes look like scale mail will help FIX that...

Not to mention giving us a use for all those splint/scale/half plate textures that almost NO ONE uses.

[MarkusWolfe]

Same with my Cleric wearing a monk outfit... Unless they fix AC so heavy armor is viable later in the game for characters that would tend to wear heavy armor, then they need to let me put platemail looks on my robes... Because the CURRENT setup is whats kinda ********... And letting us make robes look like scale mail will help FIX that...

Not to mention giving us a use for all those splint/scale/half plate textures that almost NO ONE uses.

Real problems in bold.

Anyhow, yeah, it's good to be able to customize your items to look like any other item. However, due to the nature of the game, I suggest that unique items STILL have a unique appearance. Not that you shouldn't be able to customize them, but if they don't all have a common feature between them, they're difficult to show off.

[IronClan]

Real problems in bold.

Anyhow, yeah, it's good to be able to customize your items to look like any other item. However, due to the nature of the game, I suggest that unique items STILL have a unique appearance. Not that you shouldn't be able to customize them, but if they don't all have a common feature between them, they're difficult to show off.

I agree in principle but look at Minos or DT armor everyone has them so you're not showing anything off... most people put Minos on and do a /showhelmet off one time and never go back... So being able to make it look totally different is only a good thing... Frankly DT plate over mesh is already used in random drop plate armor. I've got a suit of +4 Mith FP that looks identical to DTFP.

Let people change everything that's feasible to give them control IMO sure there will be some people running around looking like circus clowns... or wearing DTFP made to look like a loin cloth... and a nipple ring... good for them if that's what they want. Doesn't hurt anyone. If I want people to know I have Minos on I will leave it's looks alone and /showhelmet on... I wont, but I have the option.

[Garbudo]

Cough.... cough You want to look cool you spent how much 500k plat???? I wanted to look really cool and evil at the same time I spent over 10 million platinum yeah yeah 100,000,000 GP LOOKING COOL COSTS A PRICE & NUMEROUS HOURS OF GAME-PLAY

If we let people customize their armor we would still all look the same and not to mention ummmm? (The Dungeon Master says: You open a chest their is a full plate inside What does it look like???) Player says it looks all shiny black sweet and full of spikes, so customization should always not be in game it makes things more diverse whether you think it or not I dont want to do a 3 hour shroud run or any quest for that matter because every Tom **** and Harry is customizing their sweet armor shield helmets and swords...... Lame

Guide to looking cool : whats the point 10,000,000 PP to look cool while you run around town! that is what I ended up with.

[MarkusWolfe]

Well yeah. Right now, Minos is pretty hideous. People who show off their Minos aren't doing it for looks; they're showing off the Heavy Fortification and +20hp (which is really pointless, since a GS item can do that and a little more). I'm proposing that we let people customize unique items so that they're good looking, but still have them retain one unique feature so that they can show off stats at the same time. I'm thinking that for Minos horns would be a good theme, but only time will tell.

[Garbudo]

Still working on Garbudo the Hated send me those Reds! ( I did not mean to "show my wealth" I wrote on here to make a point) It took me 1 Year of Grinding, buying & selling to look cool I wear this stuff in Town only when I am not Questing I understand you people want to look Cool BUT Looks have 0% of game-play importance PERIOD!
Its like saying I would rather have 1 negative level wielding a unholy weapon lose 22 ac cause this armor is cooler looking than this armor. At least you can hide a helmet But to be serious for one moment how many of you would look like a Drow Blackguard wearing a helm that looks like the one from Dragon (GS Helm) and how many of you would wear the evil looking Full Plate with the skulls on the shoulders The Sword of Shadows look alike Bastard Sword and so on.

Instead of Complaining about Armor Editors and such. Should you not be asking where are the Druids at its been what 6 years???? Why do Unholy's not drop anymore???? What can we do Next to bring a BIGGER fan base???? Why do you fix some bugs like charging energy cells with Holy Sword But you do not fix making a bunch of holy sword items on a pally then TR it so you have +5 holy burst items that have no level requirement and do not expire???? There are alot of things that need to be done and need to be fixed in this game an armor editor is not one of them you want to look cool start spending that plat so you can look good while your in town as you have better Raid Loot that may not look as cool yeah lets look cool and gimp out our characters.

If you had an option no new content for a year server lag due to people changing items around yes may not seem like alot of data but changing that stuff around is not as easy as you may think.
Or no item editing and what the game needs to survive more content!

Dont just Neg me because you can if you Neg me Please Quote it and Tear me Apart dont click Neg feedback if you cant say why you are doing it Being a shadow does not help your status on these forums I really dont care about feedback I would love to be back in the RED I was the Hated for a while it was nice.

Causing Drama one day at a time

[Alabore]

BUT Looks have 0% of game-play importance

...

[Odin's_Hugin]

Cough.... cough You want to look cool you spent how much 500k plat???? I wanted to look really cool and evil at the same time I spent over 10 million platinum yeah yeah 100,000,000 GP LOOKING COOL COSTS A PRICE & NUMEROUS HOURS OF GAME-PLAY

If we let people customize their armor we would still all look the same and not to mention ummmm? (The Dungeon Master says: You open a chest their is a full plate inside What does it look like???) Player says it looks all shiny black sweet and full of spikes, so customization should always not be in game it makes things more diverse whether you think it or not I dont want to do a 3 hour shroud run or any quest for that matter because every Tom **** and Harry is customizing their sweet armor shield helmets and swords...... Lame

Guide to looking cool : whats the point 10,000,000 PP to look cool while you run around town! that is what I ended up with.

Troll alert. Do not feed.

[AestorTheKnight]

For the sake of argument - I am going to counter the points made by Garbudo with reasonable and clear discussion.

Cough.... cough You want to look cool you spent how much 500k plat???? I wanted to look really cool and evil at the same time I spent over 10 million platinum yeah yeah 100,000,000 GP LOOKING COOL COSTS A PRICE & NUMEROUS HOURS OF GAME-PLAY.

At present in DDO - it is NOT Possible to purchase appearances with Gold / Platinum Pieces. Sure you can purchase many many different armours from the Vendor / Auction House trying to find an armour with the appearance that you like - but even so you will only ever be able to purchase generic chest loot Armours such as +5 Prefix Mithril Full Plate of Suffix etc etc. And such a generic armour is still far less powerful / useful than a Dragontouched Full Plate.

And no-one wants to sacrifice abilities / enchantments for looks. This is the reason we are asking for Armour Appearance Customisation options in this thread.

If we let people customize their armor we would still all look the same...

This is not true. I will now explain why. There are literally 1000's of different armour / robe / outfit appearances in DDO.

If for example Armour Dyes ( the option to change the colour of your armour ) were added to DDO - the idea that everyone would imediatly colour their armour Black is a naieve and ignorant assumption.

How about asking the entire DDO population what their favourite colour is? What percentage of the population do you think would reply that their favourite colour is black? Maybe 10%? Maybe 25%?(I doubt this) And in my oppinion people would be inclined to colour their armour with their favourite, or one of their favourite colours.
Perhaps instead you should look at DDO characters and see how many players have coloured their hair black - since it is highly likely that players would colour their armour to match their hair. Only approximately 10% of characters in DDO have Black Hair - so I am guessing that approximately 10% would colour their armour black.
That still leaves 90% of the population with different coloured armours.

So this is theoretical proof, that everyone would not look the same - there would be diversity in the colours of armour. From White, to red to blue, to purple to orange to grey, to green etc etc etc to black.

And this is just the question of colours. On the question of Meshes - I think players would choose a Mesh to suit the personality of the character, and to say that everyone, every character in DDO has the same personality - is another frankly naieve and perhaps slightly stupid assertion.

...(The Dungeon Master says: You open a chest their is a full plate inside What does it look like???) Player says it looks all shiny black sweet and full of spikes....

This is a rather naieve assumption about Roleplaying and about other people. Garbudo, not everyone has the same taste as you, or the same vision of their characters. Not everyone wants to wear black full plate with spikes. If you spend some time questioning your fellow players, I think you will find that their ideas and imaginations about how a suit of Full Plate should look are very very different and diverse.

...so customization should always not be in game it makes things more diverse whether you think it or not I dont want to do a 3 hour shroud run or any quest for that matter because every Tom **** and Harry is customizing their sweet armor shield helmets and swords...... Lame.

When Armour Appearance Customisation is eventually implemented into DDO - I am 100% certain that it will NOT be part of the Shroud crafting process.

Armour Appearance Customisation process's will either be something available through the DDO Store, or it will involve interactions with an NPC in Stormreach or with the Stone of Change or a similar public crafting altar. And so this point that you have made doesnt make any sense.

...Guide to looking cool : whats the point 10,000,000 PP to look cool while you run around town! that is what I ended up with.

The whole point of this thread is to allow people to choose the appearance of their Armours so they can have the look that they want in Stormreach AND inside quests.

BUT looks have 0% of game-play importance

You are correct - that looks have 0% effect on Game-Mechanics. That is they do not effect how the game works.
But I am afraid you have completely missed the point.

Game Graphics DO matter to a lot of players, and Game Graphics DO matter in a modern 3D computer game. If this was not true everyone would still be playing Text Based Multi User Dungeons (MUDs) with no graphics at all.

The whole point of a modern 3D computer game is that it is visually appealing and satisfying.

Garbudo, it is fair to say that looks have 0% importance to you. That is fine. But a very large number of other players do care about the appearance of their characters, and the visual / graphical appearance of DDO.
This is the reason we have requested Armour Appearance customisation options. Because it matters to us, and effects how we feel about the game we play.

But to be serious for one moment how many of you would look like a Drow Blackguard wearing a helm that looks like the one from Dragon (GS Helm) and how many of you would wear the evil looking Full Plate with the skulls on the shoulders The Sword of Shadows look alike Bastard Sword and so on.

Once again you have made the same naieve and rather ignorant assumption that everyone who plays DDO has the same vision / taste / imagination of their character. And as I stated above, I suggest you spend some time asking other players what appearance they would choose for their armour, and i think you would find that not everyone wants to wear Drow Blackguard armour and wield a Sword of Shadows.

Instead of Complaining about Armor Editors and such. Should you not be asking where are the Druids at its been what 6 years????

There are other threads asking for Druids. The implementation of Armour Editors and Druids, are dealt with by different departments within the Turbine Development Team. It is perfectly within their capability to develop Druids AND Armour Editors at the same time. Developing one does not exlude the other.

What can we do Next to bring a BIGGER fan base????

If you look at other MMO's on the market today - such as Final Fantasy 14 or Champions Online - and their Fan Bases you will see that most other MMO's have armour and cosmetic options, and that this is something that their players enjoy, keeps them happy and attracts new players. It is my oppinion that armour and cosmetic options will attract new players to DDO, and increase its Fan Base.

If you had an option no new content for a year server lag due to people changing items around yes may not seem like alot of data but changing that stuff around is not as easy as you may think.

Here you exhibiting your ignorance about the underlying network code of DDO and also about the development process involved in bringing new content and mechanics to DDO.

DDO already includes literally 1000s of different armour appearances, and these are all stored in the Client Data - that is on your computer. All an Armour Editor would do would give you the player the ability to choose from the Data already existing on your computer to customise the appearance of your character. It definitely will NOT cause any lag or increase lag in any way.

It will not take the DDO developers 1 year of codeing to implement armour appearance customisation options. And it will not lock out their development of new content. I expect Armour appearance options to be delivered along side new content in the future.

Tear me Apart.

Well you asked for it. I have not torn you appart, but I hope I have shown that all the points you raised were either, ignorant assumptions or just plain wrong.

Causing Drama one day at a time

Being a jack-ass is not big or clever. I can only enourage you to think more deeply about your oppinions and comments in the future.

[Archer001]

If you look at other MMO's on the market today - such as Final Fantasy 14 or Champions Online - and their Fan Bases you will see that most other MMO's have armour and cosmetic options, and that this is something that their players enjoy, keeps them happy and attracts new players. It is my oppinion that armour and cosmetic options will attract new players to DDO, and increase its Fan Base.

To reinforce this specific point of Aestor's character customisation is the main selling point of a large series of games, including but not limited to the Sims and Oblivion. In the case of the Sims it has been in fact their main selling point.

[hityawithastick]

We need custom armor, not trolls!

/signed

FTW

[AestorTheKnight]

...I suggest that unique items STILL have a unique appearance. Not that you shouldn't be able to customize them, but if they don't all have a common feature between them, they're difficult to show off.

/No Thanks and this is why:

About 2 months ago I started up an Epic VON 6 Group. So my 2 guild mates, a Favoured Soul and a Rogue said in Guild Chat they wanted to come along. So I invited them. I was playing my Rogue. And was just 3 of us in party, so we went to the entrance of VON 5 to wait for more players to join.

Oh wow, lol - all 3 of us were wearing Epic Kunderak Delving Suit! "Haha - funny" we said... and we laughed about it. But I think deep down we each felt slightly dissapointed, that we were all wearing exactly the same armour with exactly the same skin.

(sarcasm) Lets show off our diversity:



(This is not me and my 2 guild mates outside VON 5 - just another example of the same situation.)

So please explain to me Markuswolfe and anyone else who thinks Unique Armour should retain their static appearance - what exactly it is that your showing off? That you and everyone else are wearing the same items? Coolio... not.

Ok let me give you another example. Epic Vambrances of Inner Light - probably the best armour for a armour tank in DDO at present. Ok cool so youve ground out Wiz King a lot - big deal - so has Tom, John, Harry and Joe, and Frank and all of Franks mates. So what you want to turn up at a Raid to show off the fact that you have the same armour as everyone else? And soon the same thing will apply to the Epic Red Dragon Armour - thank god it comes in different armour types.

But look seriously - Unique items being forced to retain their static appearances is just more of the same problem!
And as the screenshot above shows will just lead to the exact same situation as shown in the Dragontouched Armour Squad pic at the start of this Thread - everyone looking the same. No Thanks.

If people want to retain their Unique items static appearance, let them do that. If they want to customise it - change its colour, over mesh or under skin, let them do that. If they want to change it to something completely different let them do that too. And this should apply to ALL armours, even dragonscale armours.

There is simply no good reason to stop people making their armour look any way they want it to. (apart from some ideological sacred cow of keeping the continuity of the Roleplay Fantasy World, which is already utterly broken by the simple fact that you have multiple copies of Unique items - like the Kunderak Delving Suit shown above.)

Let people choose - its not that complicated.

[Alabore]

For the sake of argument - I am going to counter the points made by Garbudo with reasonable and clear discussion.

Well-fed troll is well-fed.

How about asking the entire DDO population what their favourite colour is? What percentage of the population do you think would reply that their favourite colour is black? Maybe 10%? Maybe 25%?(I doubt this)
...
Perhaps instead you should look at DDO characters and see how many players have coloured their hair black - since it is highly likely that players would colour their armour to match their hair. Only approximately 10% of characters in DDO have Black Hair - so I am guessing that approximately 10% would colour their armour black.
That still leaves 90% of the population with different coloured armours.

With item customisation, some players would likely follow clichéd patterns.
But at least they would be patterns of some kind.

When I found pink and black mithral plate I promptly passed it to my blonde barbarian "princess".
It was perfect on her - about as perfect as it looked awful on my dwarven fighter.

When picking colours for my characters, I tend to emphasise hues that go well with the role I have in mind.
The dour red-bearded dwarf wears steel grey plate and a dark green hood.
The flamboyant bard wears red enamelled elven chain.
The silver flame paladin wears silver and gold trimmed adamantine plate.
The cleric of Dol Arrah wears a turquoise and bronze chainmail or a bronze full plate.
The rogues usually wear drow hunter armour or darker leathers.

Nothing fancy, actually, nothing original much at all.
But I am trying to play a role, become the hero.
A stern ranger in bright armour would look wrong to me, and I would have less fun playing it.

[Dunfalach]

There are other threads asking for Druids. The implementation of Armour Editors and Druids, are dealt with by different departments within the Turbine Development Team. It is perfectly within their capability to develop Druids AND Armour Editors at the same time. Developing one does not exlude the other.

Witness to this the fact that MadFloyd says they're working on this. It won't be in Update 7, but the fact that they're working on it and Update 7 has still appeared on Lammania suggests they can do more than one thing at a time. Most updates they put out contain a variety of things modified or created by different departments. Update 7 has significant changes to the inventory and auction house systems, yet they still found time to add new content and a number of bug fixes; I expect this to be released along with other content as well.

If you look at other MMO's on the market today - such as Final Fantasy 14 or Champions Online - and their Fan Bases you will see that most other MMO's have armour and cosmetic options, and that this is something that their players enjoy, keeps them happy and attracts new players. It is my oppinion that armour and cosmetic options will attract new players to DDO, and increase its Fan Base.

Valid examples, and we can even note again the fact that LOTRO, also created by Turbine, has a much more extensive customization available and it's a popular part of the game for many. The fact is, while there are powergamers who care only about the numbers they crank out, and more power to them for that's the fun part for them, there are plenty of people for whom their toon is a character they're creating and playing out, and customization helps them make that character closer to their vision, and thus makes them more attached to it. Which increases player retention of those kind of people.

[MarkusWolfe]

/No Thanks and this is why:

About 2 months ago I started up an Epic VON 6 Group. So my 2 guild mates, a Favoured Soul and a Rogue said in Guild Chat they wanted to come along. So I invited them. I was playing my Rogue. And was just 3 of us in party, so we went to the entrance of VON 5 to wait for more players to join.

Oh wow, lol - all 3 of us were wearing Epic Kunderak Delving Suit! "Haha - funny" we said... and we laughed about it. But I think deep down we each felt slightly dissapointed, that we were all wearing exactly the same armour with exactly the same skin.

(sarcasm) Lets show off our diversity:



(This is not me and my 2 guild mates outside VON 5 - just another example of the same situation.)

So please explain to me Markuswolfe and anyone else who thinks Unique Armour should retain their static appearance - what exactly it is that your showing off? That you and everyone else are wearing the same items? Coolio... not.

Ok let me give you another example. Epic Vambrances of Inner Light - probably the best armour for a armour tank in DDO at present. Ok cool so youve ground out Wiz King a lot - big deal - so has Tom, John, Harry and Joe, and Frank and all of Franks mates. So what you want to turn up at a Raid to show off the fact that you have the same armour as everyone else? And soon the same thing will apply to the Epic Red Dragon Armour - thank god it comes in different armour types.

But look seriously - Unique items being forced to retain their static appearances is just more of the same problem!
And as the screenshot above shows will just lead to the exact same situation as shown in the Dragontouched Armour Squad pic at the start of this Thread - everyone looking the same. No Thanks.

If people want to retain their Unique items static appearance, let them do that. If they want to customise it - change its colour, over mesh or under skin, let them do that. If they want to change it to something completely different let them do that too. And this should apply to ALL armours, even dragonscale armours.

There is simply no good reason to stop people making their armour look any way they want it to. (apart from some ideological sacred cow of keeping the continuity of the Roleplay Fantasy World, which is already utterly broken by the simple fact that you have multiple copies of Unique items - like the Kunderak Delving Suit shown above.)

Let people choose - its not that complicated.

You misunderstand. By all means, let them choose what colors and meshes people want. But there should still be some difference between a unique item and randomly generated items, a very tiny one, that shows up even if they're customized in the same way. It's not to show off the item; it's to show off that you worked at it for a while and now you have your awesome item.

To be fair, though, maybe it should still have an on/off switch. Y'know, for those who feel no need to show off to everyone around them.

[MarkusWolfe]

Well-fed troll is well-fed.

When picking colours for my characters, I tend to emphasise hues that go well with the role I have in mind.
The dour red-bearded dwarf wears steel grey plate and a dark green hood.
The flamboyant bard wears red enamelled elven chain.
The silver flame paladin wears silver and gold trimmed adamantine plate.
The cleric of Dol Arrah wears a turquoise and bronze chainmail or a bronze full plate.
The rogues usually wear drow hunter armour or darker leathers.

You forgot the barbarians wearing owlbears.

[Dunfalach]

You misunderstand. By all means, let them choose what colors and meshes people want. But there should still be some difference between a unique item and randomly generated items, a very tiny one, that shows up even if they're customized in the same way. It's not to show off the item; it's to show off that you worked at it for a while and now you have your awesome item.

To be fair, though, maybe it should still have an on/off switch. Y'know, for those who feel no need to show off to everyone around them.

I'd personally not be adverse to the idea that some of the named items should have some particular symbol or style that was unique to that item as separate from other meshes used. One possibility, depending how the whole system goes down, might be that rather than require a specific set of meshes for those items, simply have some meshes available for those items that aren't available for any other item. Then those who want to make it clear they're wearing Kundurak Delving could use one of the meshes only available for it with their colors, or completely ignore that and use a generic mesh they liked better. That way you're not limiting the player's control over the named items, but giving them an extra option for having achieved them.