I only brought up the toggle as some people here seem vehemently against the mere thought of seeing a player appearing in gear they're not actually wearing. Personally it doesn't bother me that someone could toggle off the costume I put together for my character on their screen, but I can understand y'alls point.
That's why I mentioned how Rift designed their inspect system. When you inspect someone, it brings up a window with two tabs - one with the player's actual gear and a paperdoll character model displaying what the actual gear looks like, and another with the player's costumed gear and what that costumed gear looks like.
On a side note, I want to make sure that everyone understands exactly what "costume system" means. Folk have brought up "cosmetic gear", and I get the feeling some of them are imagining specific items in game that were designed with no stats but only for a specific appearance. While those things are fine to have, I think it's important that any costume system allows the use of both non-stat cosmetic items AND appearance skins of actual gear/weapons.
Take for example, WildStar's holo-wardrobe. In the game, you ctrl+click on an item that dropped and select "Unlock appearance" from the drop-down. Then you pay a small fee to unlock that appearance in the "holo-wardrobe" forever. It's a UI that stores a list of of every weapon, hat, shoulder, etc skin you unlock. Creating an outfit is just a matter of pulling up the holo-wardrobe, selecting a costume slot (you can create 12 different costumes), and then clicking on each armor/weapon slot and picking out which skin you want to use. The dye system employs the same UI, and each piece of gear has 3 dye channels so you can color different parts of the gear. Dyes are dropped from various activities in game, and after you consume the item, you "learn" the color forever to apply wherever you want. In WildStar specifically, creating the costume is free but dyeing gear is a gold sink (i.e. if you don't dye the gear, it doesn't cost you anything, but dyeing your entire outfit will cost you a few plat at level cap).
I'm more in phase with an EQ2 style of "appearance", I don't like when you unlock or project an apparence of some sort on an item, but I like the idea you can "wear" them on a second character inventory that will overwrite the appearance of your worn item.
Where I think it would fit pantheon, is because they said some "Visual set would drop" (set in the sense of an ensemble, like the ivy etched or ravenscale) but it different areas and level range, meaning if you want to gather all the pieces you might not be able to keep them on unless you sacrifice some overall stats. That would make it hard to keep a matching appearance, but that avoid having to create some makeshift of some sort to explain or offer a visual modification of gear. (I would be fine with reforging/recrafting of some sort, but there is the drawback of making it long and tedious to change anything, and tie it to the item worn).
However, that secondary inventory would mess with a weight system and possibly either double your actual weight worn, or be exploited as a "free of weight slot" .
Kaen said:Please comment on whether or not you would enjoy the following system:
I wouldn't pursue any such item in a system like this. IF by chance I stumbled across such an item I would see how it looked and then decide weather to keep it or not.
Since I wouldn't pursue it, I wouldn't consider it horizontal progression.
