Whats the point of crafting styles long term?

khele23eb17_ESO

Initially I was very happy with how often Devs added new crafting styles to the game. So much customization. Awesome. Nowadays Ive come to the conclusion that its all somewhat pointless. I no longer feel excited to see new cool looking styles coming out. In fact I feel like Im being mocked.

How so? Well, Ive got these 2 Maelstrom daggers plus a bow. Ive had them for 2 years now. And so ever since I obtained them, all the awesome 1h weapon and bow crafting styles have been useless for me. Same thing with armor - a lot of my gear comes from drops. You cant alter the appearance of drops. This is the first MMO Ive played which suffers from the reverse clown suit syndrome. Usually you look like a clown while leveling - wearing an outfit made out of random mismatched item pieces you got while questing. In ESO you look like a clown when youve reached max level and obtained your BiS gear.

What is the point of all the crafting styles when your goal in game (gear progression wise) is to gear up with items that dont match each other and cant be modified to look like any of the styles youve learned to craft?

Didz

True, but I'm still glad to have some means of changing the appearance of crafted gear. I've even considered using crafted gear just to produce a decent outfit for non-combat wear, as many of the costumes provided by the Crown Store are ugly and involve men wandering around in skirts or bedsheets etc.

Some of my crafters have managed to retain their servants disguises which they use as work wear, and some of ladies have opted for attractive dresses, even though they never get invited to parties. But generally unless you want to look like a clown the costume options are limited, so putting together something using crafted styles is a useful alternative.

Aureli

Didz wrote: »

True, but I'm still glad to have some means of changing the appearance of crafted gear. I've even considered using crafted gear just to produce a decent outfit for non-combat wear, as many of the costumes provided by the Crown Store are ugly and involve men wandering around in skirts or bedsheets etc.

Some of my crafters have managed to retain their servants disguises which they use as work wear, and some of ladies have opted for attractive dresses, even though they never get invited to parties. But generally unless you want to look like a clown the costume options are limited, so putting together something using crafted styles is a useful alternative.

So hundreds of thousands of gold for rp outfits, gotcha. What?

This isn't an acceptable solution to the issue with crafting motifs.

T1y4hoon

You actually can change to appearance of the end game gear, but only if you are an imperial and are converting it into the imperial style. Otherwise, its a nono.

The fact that they have the ability to do that in game already means it can't be that hard to implement more of these converters for different styles, if not all styles.

khele23eb17_ESO

T1y4hoon wrote: »

You actually can change to appearance of the end game gear, but only if you are an imperial and are converting it into the imperial style. Otherwise, its a nono.

The fact that they have the ability to do that in game already means it can't be that hard to implement more of these converters for different styles, if not all styles.

Well, its quite obvious why you cant change the appearance of most drops. The answer is crown store sales. ZOS offer you the illusion of customization in the form of crafting styles (hoping some players will buy them from the store) and then once you realize youre stuck in a clown suit of endgame gear with mismatched looks ZOS offer you costumes to cover up the ugly.

The sad thing is, ZOS dont really need to screw players out of customization to sell costumes. As long as they looked good costumes would still sell.

And there are multiple ways customization like this could be done. In fact some systems already in game seem like a perfect tool to implement it. Theres a disguise slot - why not allow crafters to create disguises? Theres a costume library - why not allow people to unlock costumes by collecting motifs? Theres the system for converting items to a different style, which you mentioned. They could use that. Or just add a vanity tab where youd place the items the appearance of which youd like to have displayed on your character. But no. Its all about the fear of costume sales dropping. Again, make good costumes, they WILL sell.

gamsir

This is why I love costumes.
I've just returned to a completely different (better) game.
I once bought a costume collection with soul shriven armors. These look fantastic in their own rights, and now I can even dye them.
Only problem now is finding a great style for my 2h sword..

khele23eb17_ESO

gamsir wrote: »

This is why I love costumes.
I've just returned to a completely different (better) game.
I once bought a costume collection with soul shriven armors. These look fantastic in their own rights, and now I can even dye them.
Only problem now is finding a great style for my 2h sword..

Thats the thing tho, it is not a better game (as far as visual customization is concerned). You might find a great style for your 2h sword for now but in a week or month or three youll be stuck with the BiS drop sword (be it the Maelstrom sword or something else), the appearance of which you might loathe and also can do nothing about. It used to be that crafted items were BiS and back then customizing your looks through crafting styles made perfect sense. Now you look at the collection of styles you gathered on your crafter and theyre uselesss. Instead you have to pony up for costumes to hide the clown suit of mismatched drop gear.

Reivax

They need 2 slots for each armor piece. One slot is for the stats, the other is for the visuals. It can't be that difficult.

khele23eb17_ESO

Reivax wrote: »

They need 2 slots for each armor piece. One slot is for the stats, the other is for the visuals. It can't be that difficult.

Its not that its difficult. Its that they think they will lose money on it. Its an example of typical f2p/b2p game design. You can see how fun game features are cut because not having them in game potentially makes more money.

Anunakis

T1y4hoon wrote: »

You actually can change to appearance of the end game gear, but only if you are an imperial and are converting it into the imperial style. Otherwise, its a nono.

The fact that they have the ability to do that in game already means it can't be that hard to implement more of these converters for different styles, if not all styles.

u cant change style of non crafted sets