Easy access to patterns. More patterns!

I'm a refugee from The Secret World (R.I.P. ), which was a modern horror MMO with no classes and no levels. One of its neat features was that "armor" was exclusively in the form of invisible talismans, which meant you could dress absolutely however you wanted. It was awesome.

I've heard devs say that in this game, for PvP at least, it would be uncool if a person who looked like they were in light armor were actually in heavy, and vice versa. Sure, that makes sense.

But apart from that restriction, I would really like more freedom to customize the appearance of my avatar's clothing and armor.

Patterns are great, but 1) there aren't enough of them and 2) they're too hard to find.

There should be a pattern for every craftable item. If I want to make my Epic Plate Helm look like a Plate Helm (I do!) then why not?

I'd love to see an option to "Salvage Pattern" in the crafting window to salvage a pattern instead of materials. (I'd like to see a "salvage recipe" option too!!). Or I'd happily spend $5 in the store for eternal patterns of basic craftable items I really like the look of.

Some patterns could still be rare drops, of course. I want easy access to more patterns, not easy access to all patterns.

 

Agreed 100%

Having patterns in-game is great! But getting them, not so great. There is a great disparity in availability of many of the items.
Look at drop rates on 'armor pieces' vs. weapons - I mean, something like morningstars (dropped by all undead) or kobold slag swords or kobold hammers which have many zones and many mobs that either drop them or used to drop them that there are dozens of these patterns taking up space. Half the time I don't even bother to salvage these things anymore unless I'm desperate for scrap. I can't even GIVE these patterns away for free.

Others, like the katana - the drop rate on the weapon is ridiculously low, in zones that are off the beaten path which means you'd have to go specifically to farm them - and then you need hundreds of them for a chance at a pattern. We were farming katanas for a deco project, not even to pattern them, and after several hours we had less than 20 and that was between two of us in different zones. I know some things want to be 'rarer' but 'downright impossible to go get' when we're talking about a COSMETIC SKIN just seems a bit...crap, really. Same goes for the new 'clan armor' pieces - based on the current salvage pattern chances, spending 10-12 hours farming these guys hasn't gotten me enough items to beat the probability on a single pattern. Getting a full matching set of this would take weeks if not months and that just for a cosmetic skin,? Gear durability doesn't even last as long as it would take to get this style applied. That's just not cool. Its cosmetics, why the big brick wall? Don't even get me started on my quest for a Steam Hammer pattern....

At the moment we have something that is a rare drop off a rare / limited mob that has a rare chance when salvaged to give a pattern. Rare x Rare x Rare is really just not necessary.

I also would love to be able to extract patterns from crafted styles - or crafted CLOTHES (to be used on cloth armor) - things like the wizard hat and such, circlets, tiaras. These really should be 100% salvage, too, since its logical that if you're making something just to use it as a pattern then you shouldn't need to do so 100 times, just saying....:X Or maybe allow grandmaster tailor / blacksmith / carpenter to 'craft' patterns of basic crafted styles via a pattern-create recipe involving paper and such. That'd be a nice fun thing, too.

PS - we need plate/chain patterns - for plate there's only founder stuff and clockwork, and for chain there's only founder stuff and elf stuff. There are dozens of leather/cloth option. Please some love for heavy armor, I want to look pretty too....