2w ago

Open world RPGs need a standard feature whereby you can transfer your current clothing stats to any other equivalent piece of clothing in your inventory

I'm kinda sick of walking around Witcher 3's world looking like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. I'm supposed to be a gruff and grizzled monster hunter, living in a filthy world and at the bottom of the social hierarchy, dishing out menacing threats in a monotone voice, yet I'm dressed in pristine baby blue prince pyjamas because they happen to be the strongest clothes I've come across so far. Let me cut & paste the stats from these Pierrot cumrags into a butcher's apron or something. And let me do it freely, with no in-game wank about having to visit a special magic tailor in the bumhole of nowhere, and with no restrictions on how often I can do it.

Fuckin' 17th century unsuccessful baroque composer lookin' ass. If someone came up to me dressed like my Witcher character, and challenged me to a fight to the death, I'd take the challenge because I know that no just universe or god would allow any harm to come to me from a person wearing that outfit. They could thrust an obsidian-tipped spear directly into my belly, and it'd harmlessly curve around me like a snake climbing a banana tree. The sacred blood of Christ would not allow for even a mild abrasion to befall me by the lace-gloved hand of a ballet theatre's chief bathroom attendant.

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No, fuck that. The dev should have better design here and there, but that's the issue I have. I want an item to have an identity.
I have traded stats for easteticas and the oether way around, but it feels more grounded. Transmogrification feels like cheap metagaming cheat codes.
- every time games let you do things like this for "quality of life" it's basically dead to me, at that point why the fuck are you even playing the game? hey all of this running around on the football field is annoying, let's just roll a dice to decide who scores a goal
- I agree with you, if equipment is just cosmetic, then at the end of the day why even bother with equipment at all? Just have cosmetics without stats and leave it at that.
  I think fallout does a good job of this with having hazmat suits that help with rad, or "cool" attire that helps with bartering. The idea is that the design should complement the stats.
World of Warcraft had the transmogrification system that did this. They introduced it a few years into the game and it was great. No longer looking like a clown while playing your character really helps with immersion.
- There's a penny arcade comic that makes a good argument. About printing out your character as a figure or something they have/had. Heck I wonder if it that was part of the reason, unsure if it's still offered.
  I always enjoyed the bit of making my character looked like how I preferred though it wouldn't detract me overly if I wanted to play. I play sometimes but not often.
This is pure poetry. Brought a very literal tear to my eye.
Now that I can breathe again, yes absolutely this should 110% be standard QoL for next-gen RPGs. Hopefully.
I finished The Outer Worlds looking like a psycho in mismatched mascot hats and boots, rapid-switching in my inventory depending on the skill buff I needed for each dialogue check.
- What's your criticism of Cyberpunk 2077's wardrobe system?
Any game that allows for a significant amount of visual customisation should have some sort of transmog system. Having to look like a clown for optimal stats is never a fun or enjoyable gameplay experience, while on the other hand feeling like you look awesome adds so much.
The new dragon age game has this. As long as you don't care about a good story, the combat is super fun and there are lots of nice quality of life stuff like that. You can reset the skill tree at any point, copy your character's appearance if you want to start a new play thru.
If the execs didn't fuck up the story, I think the game would sold big time. Fuckin idiots
Any Asheron's Call alumni up in this piece?
AC had randomly generated cosmetics on randomly generated stat loot. Old game so models were limited but colors widely varied.
Trading pieces that "looked good" or sets that matched and had great stats was a huge part of the game economy.
Also was awesome to just have great stats and run around looking like a damn fool.
Miss that game. Golden age of MMOs. We can never go back, and it's a shame.
Edit: eventually they added in dying as a trade skill, with materials for dyes tough to come by. Success? Good job, your armor is dyed the right color. Mid fail? Your shit is random outrageous colors, no stat change. Low fail?... Sorry, stats are trash now AND it looks ridiculous. Very sought after trade skill because getting a good stat piece and not wrecking it with a botched dye job meant burning tons and tons of dyes on throwaway armor to level up your skill.
There are mods for that, if you're on PC
I love the default armor and often keep using its visuals while using the griffin or wolven armor

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