Integrate (ADD) Costumes into the Outfit System

ArchMikem

Suggested before in this thread.

Integrating Costumes into the Outfit System seems like a logical next evolution that would seriously improve a player's Quality of Life over their Characters. Costumes as we know them are total outfit overrides that replace every body slot on our character, hiding whatever our character is wearing in it's entirety. While the still fairly new Outfit System allows us to customize each body slot with whatever style we want, granted the style is learned, it is safe to assume Costumes could, potentially, follow suit.

With the way outfits work on our characters, Costumes, in theory too, could be broken up into separate body slot pieces, therefore allowing us to equip Costumes the same as Outfit Styles, in pieces, instead of having to wear the entire ensemble. Below is a quick example I edited.



Here we see the Lizardly Four Fabric costume equipped in the Shoulders, Chest, and Hands body slots, while the legs and feet are regular learned Crafted styles. Being able to mix Crafted styles and Costumes would open up even more Outfit customization variables to players.

The downsides:
It's been brought up in the past that mixing Costumes in with the motif styles could cause serious clipping issues. Even though I don't disagree, clipping has always been an issue with no real viable solution short of the Devs going back and editing the style meshes by hand until every single one fits just right with everything else. That's a whole lot of unnecessary work to fix a problem we've already been dealing with for years now.

Update:
People have claimed doing this would remove the ability to wear costumes as they were originally intended, specifically in the case of ones where tthey leave much of your dharacters skin visible which allows players to display tattoos and other markings as well as not having to wear unsightly shoulder pieces and other bits. The idea for this would be to simply leave the Costume tab where it is in the Appearance section of our Collections. That way if you want to wear a Costume as part of an Outfit you can, while at the same time if you want to equip the full Costume you still can via the Appearance menu.

The upside:
Who doesn't enjoy playing Elder Fashion Online?

eklhaftb16_ESO

At the very least, costume hats, boots and gloves could be made separate from the costume body.

I want to use my wristbands and gloves separately. I want to swap hats between costumes or even wear them with an outfit. I want my beast characters wear sandals (because claws stuffed into boots don't make sense), and I want my human characters NOT wear sandals (because ZOS just can't make a decent foot model for open-toe shoes).

gimpdrb14_ESO

no thank you, like it just the way it is.

TheShadowScout

I suppose it would depend on how difficult the matter is, technically. How much coding time they would need to invest. And how much extra they could find ways to charge for this...

I suspect, they might sell every costume -again- sometime, as outfit pack, if they make this work...

And I know all too well people would buy that. I prolly would.

...


Also, another thing I would like to see added to the outfit system... adornment options, especially those "circlet" styles to use with a "no helmet" visual...

Cinbri

Another huge downside is that costumes will no longer hide tabards unless zos change outfit layer to go up and match costume layer.

ssorgatem

There's another downside:

Most costumes are actually missing one or more "slots".

As an extreme example, the Nord Bather's Towel costume has "invisible" head, shoulders, bracers and boots (and chest for females).
Turning it into outfit styles would either make people able to go almost naked with different pants by adding "invisible" styles (not bad IMHO, but I don't think it's going to happen.) or make them unable to wear just the towel unless they are actually not wearing any armor (not good).

Hotdog_23

I wear costumes so I don't have to have a shoulder piece showing. If they would hide shoulders I would be very happy and play elder fashion online.

Aliyavana

gimpdrb14_ESO wrote: »

no thank you, like it just the way it is.

You don't have to use the system if you don't want to

Danikat

ArchMikem wrote: »

Also turning Costumes into Outfit Styles would make the dedicated Costume tab in the Collections menu obsolete, though I don't see this much as a downside. Really the Costume tab would just be moved from Appearance into Armor Styles.

Am I understanding correctly that under this system we would only be able to apply costumes through the outfit system?

If so then there's another major downside - outfits are currently free to switch between. I have about 20 different ones, mix of purchased and in-game rewards, and at present I can switch between all of them or my outfit/s or my actual armour whenever I want. But if costumes can only be worn through the outfit system that restricts me to however many outfit slots I have on the character and requires buying more outfit slots to keep using costumes I can currently use for free and going to an outfit station to change the ones currently in use.

If I've misunderstood and we would still be able to use costumes as we do now, just going to a different menu to access them then it's fine and I'd support this idea if it's possible. But I don't want to lose the current functionality in the process.

ArchMikem

ssorgatem wrote: »

There's another downside:

Most costumes are actually missing one or more "slots".

As an extreme example, the Nord Bather's Towel costume has "invisible" head, shoulders, bracers and boots (and chest for females).
Turning it into outfit styles would either make people able to go almost naked with different pants by adding "invisible" styles (not bad IMHO, but I don't think it's going to happen.) or make them unable to wear just the towel unless they are actually not wearing any armor (not good).

I don't believe there's such a thing as invisible armor pieces. Costumes like the bather's towel would only have pieces for slots that it visually exists on, and in that case, it'd either be just Chest or Robe. You wouldn't be able to go into the station and select "Bather's Towel Legs" and have your legs be uncovered.

Costumes with full body pieces would have pieces for all slots. Costumes that don't would only have pieces for the slots they actually cover.

zaria

NPC does this, you can see npc with various pieces of outfits around. one has the dark shaman skirt and an shirt of one of the designs you can steal, so many designs support this.

Spacegato

I like the idea but think it might be a lot of work? I don't know but what I really want is a option to hide shoulders and those hidious things that float on the legs

Mettaricana

Yaaaaasss i would add that golden knoght and elven hero in on a heartbeat to my current look

Pastas

Devs have limited time, I hope that they spend it in something more usefull, like fixing bugs and perfomance or new content.

ssorgatem

ArchMikem wrote: »

show previous quotes

ssorgatem wrote: »

There's another downside:

Most costumes are actually missing one or more "slots".

As an extreme example, the Nord Bather's Towel costume has "invisible" head, shoulders, bracers and boots (and chest for females).
Turning it into outfit styles would either make people able to go almost naked with different pants by adding "invisible" styles (not bad IMHO, but I don't think it's going to happen.) or make them unable to wear just the towel unless they are actually not wearing any armor (not good).

I don't believe there's such a thing as invisible armor pieces. Costumes like the bather's towel would only have pieces for slots that it visually exists on, and in that case, it'd either be just Chest or Robe. You wouldn't be able to go into the station and select "Bather's Towel Legs" and have your legs be uncovered.

Costumes with full body pieces would have pieces for all slots. Costumes that don't would only have pieces for the slots they actually cover.

And that would make many costumes useless.
Like the bathing towel.
If you no longer can go around showing your skin... who wants a bathing towel around their armor...?

gimpdrb14_ESO

outfit system is just fine the way it is, there are more pressing matters to be taking care of first.

LordLomax

No keep it as it is works well

wolf486

Zos would love this. Instead of people buying a costume, you can then buy individual pieces of the costume meaning more money for them.

Aixy

@ArchMikem
1) "Improve a player's Quality of Life over their Characters".... You are a genius !!
2) I love your idea !! i hope they read your post !

Acrolas

Some of the earliest costumes did adhere closely to the gear template. To highlight a previous example, the skirt from Dark Shaman didn't originate on Dark Shaman. It's from the Ashlander Pack's Mabrigash costumes.

But over the years costumes have taken more creative liberties and don't have strict rules on what goes where so long as it fits the character model. So while I could definitely see taking popular costumes and creating new motifs and outfit styles around those design themes, there's probably no way to integrate costumes into the Outfit system without excluding somebody's favorite costume from the conversion. Same thing with polymorphs.

Kiralyn2000

Sooooo.... instead of having people able to pick & dye dozens of costumes and also have an Outfit.... you want to cut up the costumes (even all the ones that won't cut up well) into outfit pieces; destroy any costumes that have bare parts (since you can't make an outfit with no shoulders/gloves/etc); and force people to buy piles of expensive Outfit slots to even be able to equip more than one Outfit/Costume?


And how is this an improvement?

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

that would be interesting...sure then everyone would go with dark shaman chest on all their characters.

ArchMikem

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Sooooo.... instead of having people able to pick & dye dozens of costumes and also have an Outfit.... you want to cut up the costumes (even all the ones that won't cut up well) into outfit pieces; destroy any costumes that have bare parts (since you can't make an outfit with no shoulders/gloves/etc); and force people to buy piles of expensive Outfit slots to even be able to equip more than one Outfit/Costume?


And how is this an improvement?

Force to get more outfit slots? Why do people believe having more than the one is a necessity, ive been making do with the one slot just fine. If you want to change your outfit just go back to the station.

I gave a visual example how it would be an improvement. Not everyone wants to wear the full costume, being able to break them up to combine them with other styles will give players more opportunity to achieve the desired look they want.

Edit
Ive updated the OP with the biggest concern going around in the thread.

Danikat

ArchMikem wrote: »

show previous quotes

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Sooooo.... instead of having people able to pick & dye dozens of costumes and also have an Outfit.... you want to cut up the costumes (even all the ones that won't cut up well) into outfit pieces; destroy any costumes that have bare parts (since you can't make an outfit with no shoulders/gloves/etc); and force people to buy piles of expensive Outfit slots to even be able to equip more than one Outfit/Costume?


And how is this an improvement?

Force to get more outfit slots? Why do people believe having more than the one is a necessity, ive been making do with the one slot just fine. If you want to change your outfit just go back to the station.

I gave a visual example how it would be an improvement. Not everyone wants to wear the full costume, being able to break them up to combine them with other styles will give players more opportunity to achieve the desired look they want.

The way some people, including me, are interpreting your suggestion is that the current costume system would be removed and instead any costumes would become outfit skins.

Which would enable mix-and-match but would lose the current functionality where you can switch to any costume you have unlocked at any time for free. For people who currently use costumes that's a big loss of functionality - my current choices are my armour, an outfit or any of 20 costumes. Under the new system my choices would be 1 armour set or 1 outfit and if I want to keep using my costumes as they are now I'd have to buy extra outfit slots to do it.

Now maybe that's not what you intended and costumes would still be available to use as they are now, as well as becoming outfit skins. If so it would be helpful to clarify that's what you meant, as your idea would get a lot more support that way.

Jhalin

Don’t combine the costume into the outfit system, that’s a terrible idea that would just cause headaches just like the removal of the Morag Tong and Imperial style converters did.

Now, adding costume pieces as clothing options sounds good. Then we have the collection costume tab just as it is completely separate from outfits, and outfits that can use pieces from those costumes for free under the “clothing” section of the outfit styles similar to prisoner’s rags items.

ArchMikem

Danikat wrote: »

show previous quotes

ArchMikem wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Sooooo.... instead of having people able to pick & dye dozens of costumes and also have an Outfit.... you want to cut up the costumes (even all the ones that won't cut up well) into outfit pieces; destroy any costumes that have bare parts (since you can't make an outfit with no shoulders/gloves/etc); and force people to buy piles of expensive Outfit slots to even be able to equip more than one Outfit/Costume?


And how is this an improvement?

Force to get more outfit slots? Why do people believe having more than the one is a necessity, ive been making do with the one slot just fine. If you want to change your outfit just go back to the station.

I gave a visual example how it would be an improvement. Not everyone wants to wear the full costume, being able to break them up to combine them with other styles will give players more opportunity to achieve the desired look they want.

The way some people, including me, are interpreting your suggestion is that the current costume system would be removed and instead any costumes would become outfit skins.

Which would enable mix-and-match but would lose the current functionality where you can switch to any costume you have unlocked at any time for free. For people who currently use costumes that's a big loss of functionality - my current choices are my armour, an outfit or any of 20 costumes. Under the new system my choices would be 1 armour set or 1 outfit and if I want to keep using my costumes as they are now I'd have to buy extra outfit slots to do it.

Now maybe that's not what you intended and costumes would still be available to use as they are now, as well as becoming outfit skins. If so it would be helpful to clarify that's what you meant, as your idea would get a lot more support that way.

Literally while you were replying i was editing the OP with that concern and very idea about not removing Costumes as they were originally intended. Guess i wasnt fast enough, but yes i understand that point and actually agree.

AlienatedGoat

Also integrate hats into Outfitting.

I have several hats I'd love to wear with an Outfit.

Sylvermynx

Interesting, Arch. Now, I enjoy the costume setup (now that I have a different one for - almost - every girl). But I have really preferred the ability (in other games I played) to mix and match pieces to get a specific look. And that requires the outfit system - which is armor generally.

Some of my girls are in armor, though most are not. This is because I'm just not real fond of the armor in this game. So yes, as long as the costume system can be utilized as it is now, I'm on board with addition of costumes to outfitting.

Kiralyn2000

I'm still waiting for the looted civilian clothes and unique-model armors to be added to Outfits.

TheShadowScout

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

I wear costumes so I don't have to have a shoulder piece showing. If they would hide shoulders I would be very happy and play elder fashion online.

As I said elsewhere:

TheShadowScout wrote: »

The most reasonable thing we can expect...
...is for them to sell "invisible armor" motiv pages in the crown store.

I mean, the suits in charge certainly won't send a code-jockey to spend their paid time programming the hide function for all outfit slots without wanting to see some profit, right?

But selling people the option... that would appeal to their shriveled greedy little hearts, right?

As for the lore... well, I already said it. "Invisible Armor". Enchanting your sturdy armor with an invisibility spell, to lure your foe into a false sense of security...
I mean, look at this guy:

Saturnana

I'd prefer the costumes are left to function as they do now. I like the fact that they are one ensemble, and can't be pulled apart. Then again, as long as they leave in the option to apply the costume as a whole with the introduction of being able to 'pull it apart', that would work for me as well. (And by that I mean not having to puzzle together the costume by combining their individual parts, but rather still having the option to treat the cstome as one piece and apply it as such).

A change I'd love, though, and that is at least partially related to your suggested solution, is to adopt all disguises we've gathered along the way into the costume and/or outfit system. As it currently stands, mine hardly get any use at all.. even though some are just as cool as the costumes!