Start Selling Weapons and Armor in the Add-on Store

Here's how it should work.

Weapons and Armor should be sold in the add-on store as "skins". Cool stuff that looks good!

The skins would never be lootable and would never have stats. You'd have to CRAFT anything that would cause the weapons and armor to have stats in the game. You could buy regular weapons and armor (with stat enhancements) from players in the game and add it to your "skin".

The crafted items could always be looted, but the skins would remain in the possession of the player that purchased it.

 

EvE online is doing something like that (ok it's more hardcore, you actually lose the stuff).
I like the idea.

 

100% agree with this concept. Its annoying that real money items are worth less in game than vendor trash or mob looted items. Not interested in P2W better quality weapons or armor, but very interested in the skin concept as it makes the real money invested in the game actually able to be used in game instead of sitting in the bank.

 

Neat stuff, but they would need to tread lightly and label them appropriately. Selling "weapons and armor" in the store would look incredibly like pay-to-win. I'm thinking that most onlookers would not read the fine print and instantly label it as such.

 

They already do currently. The number of people screaming pay to win or shameless cash grab on other forums/Steam is kinda sickening.

 

If you go down that route then how will you be able to identify your opponents armour & weapons and judge whether to engage them or not, isn't this the reason they decided not to hide helmets?

 

Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't saying they should hide gear. We already have a system where you can't see what kind of stats someone's gear has. I think that needs fixed.

What I was suggesting was a way to allow people to apply add-on store skins of weapons and armor that was player crafted.

 

I understood that, different weapons/armour have different stats which can be identifiable by their colour/design applying skins would moot that ability.

 

Its an interesting concern. I could see the argument being made that light armor skins only apply to light armor, to minimize people hiding plate mail stats behind cloth armor. If something is enchanted with fire I'd still have the effect apply even if you reskin it. Its just instead of the identical 1 handed sword that everyone else has, someone could use the skin of a founder scimitar. It still tells you that the person is a 1 handed blade user with a fire effect on the sword.

I haven't seen enough different crafted items to notice if there is an actual display difference between all the different potential enchantments, or if that is intended. However, I don't see it being difficult for the visual enhancement to display over the visual of the skin you'd be applying.

 

In cases like this it doesn't really make much difference for players evaluating each other, most will assume 'skinned' armour will just be high-end yet status quo stuff. They should sell these 'skins' as piecemeal pieces and limit them to covering only one type of material maybe to retain that basic evaluation balance.

 

I think this is a horrible idea. Therefore, I expect to see this in game next.

 

Why do you think it's a horrible idea?

 

Weapon skins like elemental effects?

 

It seems like an interesting idea but I agree with you. In fact, yours is exactly the point I was going to make until you beat me to it.

If the devs want players to be able to see what your gear is at a glance, then any changes to textures would still have to allow for that. Perhaps if the visual difference between all variations of crafted gear is significant enough to begin with (ie augmented vs epic) then the idea may be viable.

 

That's a good question. Purely cosmetic. I was thinking more more like if you could craft a generic looking scimitar in the game, then the add-on store might sell a scimitar that had gold runes or a shadowy blade. The stats would be whatever was crafted in the game, you'd just be buying a different look.