What was it like before Outfit Stations?

lozq

Always wonder this anytime I select 'No Outfit' on a character and am horrified at what I look like when you strip away the wonders of modern cosmetic surgery (aka. Outfits).

Was everyone running around tinted red wearing the BIS gear of the month, with ghastly monster helms and shoulder gear? Or did lots of people wear off-meta stuff that visually appealed to them when they were doodling around in towns? If not it must have been very...samey.

On the same topic, I feel like style materials when crafting gear are pretty much obsolete. If I make crafted sets for myself or others I always just make them in daedric or whatever I have a lot of, assuming that it'll always be covered up by an outfit. Does anyone craft in specific styles outside of master writs? If so, why?

UntilValhalla13

They originally were dye stations, and you could just wear costumes

NupidStoob

Being a master crafter that knew all styles was actually very useful and could net you a lot of money by just crafting gear in certain styles for people all day. Style stones were also worth a lot more.

You could hide your helmet via the collections like you can still now so people mostly only had to deal with ugly shoulders. Most meta builds were a crafted set plus a farmed set so you had some power over how you looked and could incorporate the odd looking piece. Farmed sets were usually jewelry since you couldn't craft those either which meant you usually only ended up with one or two odd piece on the body or a weird weapon.

Costumes were also more popular back then.


I like the outfit system, but I really hate how it devalued my master crafter. Nowadays when I craft for someone it's Breton 99% of the time. It's especially annoying for exclusive crown store motifs.

Froil

Old dye stations were fine, but if you wanted to get a certain look (mix'n'match) it could end up costing a lot of style mats. Oh and all weapons were red. Couldn't be dyed. Ruined a lot of color schemes.

BoraxFlux

Most people I've crafted for didn't specify a style, though sometimes they can be pleased with what they get. There was one request for a " Lord of the Rings" elven look.

Mostly, cetrtain style materials are good for furnishings.

Darkhorse1975

I used to save all the costume disguises from quests to wear in town. You had to be careful with some of them, or they would disappear if you entered combat and the only way to get them back was to roll an alt to do the quest again.

Eifleber

What I dislike a lot about ESO outfitter system is

• that you always have the same look
• without outfit monster sets mostly look terrible even if you just show the shoulders
• mostly if you dye a set it looks like shiny plastic

I think the ESO method is way inferior to the GW2 system where you can mix 2 sets and get stats from one and looks of the other (they also have costumes).

Nairinhe

How is looks from whatever style you want is inferior to looks from "other set"?

Edit: I messed up sides of comparison, sorry

Raudgrani

Nairinhe wrote: »

How is looks from other set is inferior to looks from whatever style you want?

Ehum... Compare like old basegame sets like Draugr and Woodelf (as in Bone Pirate and Spriggan, just as an example) to some of the newer styles. If "superior" equals actual better looks, higher resolution textures etc., there you have the answer.

It's always subjective when speaking about style, of course. But quite a few of the old styles are very simple, very low resolution, and at least imho not aesthetically appealing at all. Many of the new styles looks really nice in all ways.

Nairinhe

Raudgrani wrote: »

Nairinhe wrote: »

How is looks from other set is inferior to looks from whatever style you want?

Ehum... Compare like old basegame sets like Draugr and Woodelf (as in Bone Pirate and Spriggan, just as an example) to some of the newer styles. If "superior" equals actual better looks, higher resolution textures etc., there you have the answer.

It's always subjective when speaking about style, of course. But quite a few of the old styles are very simple, very low resolution, and at least imho not aesthetically appealing at all. Many of the new styles looks really nice in all ways.

Oh, I just realised that I messed up sides of comparison in my question, sorry for confusion. Fixed it
To further clear up: how is ESO system worse that GW2 system?

red_emu

It was awful before the outfits became a thing. I remeber I would always wear a costume instead.

And when I wasn't wearing a costume, nearly all my characters would wear molag kena shoulder.

The red weapons though... Ouch! That was a massive eye sore. Now I spend more gold than I'd dare to admit, changing my outfits all the time.

aaisoaho

Costumes were almost mandatory, since all celestial medium + velidreth head'n'shoulders looked ugly. Also, weapons were all red thanks to no dyeing of weapons. (IIRC maelstrom weapons weren't red, so they were one of the better looking weapons)

Loralai_907

Costumes and crafted sets. I'm sure some people didn't care as much, but for me a lot of the meta farmed sets just didn't suit my characters and being happy with the overall look/theme of a character is important to me. If I'm going to look at it for hours and hours I'd rather not be mad because they look ridiculous lol.

Danikat

Before the outfit system we had dyes, the hide helmet option and costumes so it wasn't really that different.

Some people used BiS gear and dyed it to get a coherent look (maybe hiding the monster helm, maybe not depending on what they were going for), some used costumes and some used crafted/farmed gear in specific styles to get the look they wanted. Or all 3 for different things.

The main thing I remember being requested was the ability to dye weapons, because once you got to CP160 you were stuck with light red rubedite weapons which were difficult to match to other things. Styles which made the red colour less noticable were often popular.

Amusingly (to me anyway) when the outfit system was announced there were some people who were very concerned that everyone would use it to make all the characters look like they were in end-game gear no matter what they were actually using and ruin the alleged prestige of those items. In reality the opposite seems to be more common, with people using outfits to regain access to the lower tier racial styles and other things you can't use on actual CP160 gear.

As for why anyone would craft specific styles I do that so I can use my actual gear as basically a free second outfit slot. I use crafted gear anyway because I don't like farming and crafted sets are good enough for everything I do, and by taking the time to choose good styles I can have two different looks for my character without buying an outfit slot for it (which IMO are over priced). For example my khajiit templar has a traditional set with minimal armour for increased manuverability and one where she's actually fully covered head to toe for times when I'm thinking she really shouldn't be standing or dodge rolling in whatever's around. (That one uses the welkynar boots, so at least they have claws on, even if it's not her claws.)

Fischblut

I think the ESO method is way inferior to the GW2 system where you can mix 2 sets and get stats from one and looks of the other (they also have costumes).

Interesting... I think ESO has much better outfit system than GW2 Sure, we can hide shoulders/gloves in GW2, but that's the only good thing about it.
If the character has profession (class) that can only wear heavy armor, you can only change your look to other heavy armor styles - you can't use medium and light styles

In ESO, outfit system is almost perfect. I think about old pre-outfitting times with horror; and there was time when we couldn't even dye costumes

Does anyone craft in specific styles outside of master writs?

When my crafter creates gear for my alts, she uses only Imperial style. Simply because I have much more of those style stones, than other styles

DMuehlhausen

It wasn't that bad. As sets looked like they matched, not always a look you anted, but not a mix. However yes the weapons were red light sabers basically.

The worst was the monster sets. You would spend all this time getting like the daedra looking set you wanted or something then boom Skoria helm and shoulders

goldCoaster

With the sheer amount of armor piece customization, it boggles my mind why anyone would want to wear an outfit / costume.

nukk3r

goldCoaster wrote: »

With the sheer amount of armor piece customization, it boggles my mind why anyone would want to wear an outfit / costume.

Outfit is an armor piece customization.

JamieAubrey

I always wore a costume and still do, I can never get anything that looks amazing

blabliblargh

There's a real pride (and effort) in wearing exclusively crafted gear with the style you want.
There are also some overland sets that look very good, for example the Psijic light set (Vanus) found in Summerset in Psijic style.

emilyhyoyeon

goldCoaster wrote: »

With the sheer amount of armor piece customization, it boggles my mind why anyone would want to wear an outfit / costume.

Outfits are good for looking like a regular/casual civilian, and a lot of them actually look amazing, like the imperial style dresses.

Sephyr

Fischblut wrote: »

I think the ESO method is way inferior to the GW2 system where you can mix 2 sets and get stats from one and looks of the other (they also have costumes).

Interesting... I think ESO has much better outfit system than GW2 Sure, we can hide shoulders/gloves in GW2, but that's the only good thing about it.
If the character has profession (class) that can only wear heavy armor, you can only change your look to other heavy armor styles - you can't use medium and light styles

In ESO, outfit system is almost perfect. I think about old pre-outfitting times with horror; and there was time when we couldn't even dye costumes

Agreed. I want to get into the Revenant, but I can't because of how I realized how much I hated how the heavy armor looked there aside from just a select few things. That and the transmutation charges were just not easy to farm up. I think that ESO had something with they added the ability to really customize things, but even then they fall short when they don't exactly allow certain dyes to work (Sai Sahan's Jack for example). But then again - almost perfect.

AlnilamE

The only thing I would like added to the system is that the clothes we can steal be added to the outfit system.

I used to have "in town" outfits for my characters, where they would wear a combination of gear in certain styles and the stolen clothes and it looked really nice.

Mettaricana

Same 10 costumes and the color red or the color blue depending if ya wanna go back before we had dyes as well

Danikat

goldCoaster wrote: »

With the sheer amount of armor piece customization, it boggles my mind why anyone would want to wear an outfit / costume.

Outfits use the same skins as armour, the only difference is it's not tied to what you're actually wearing. So for example if you want a battle mage character you could put them in light armour for the stats and then use an outfit to make it look like they're wearing heavy armour to fit the theme.

As for costumes I like using them for things armour can't do, mainly 'civillian' clothes for when armour would look out of place. My crafter has a full set of ebony and glass heavy armour he made himself, which he uses when he's out gathering materials. But when he's in town he wears something more practical, usually one of the jerkin/doublet and breeches costumes. They all have at least one formal costume for important ceremonies, meeting royalty and things like that and at least one more disreputable costume for when they need to blend in with pirates, beggers and people like that while doing investigation for a quest. (There's lots of places in the game where a disguise is not required but I think anyone who is obviously a wandering adventurer going around asking questions would look very suspicous, so I like to have them blend in even if it's not required.)

Ragged_Claw

It was very expensive, every time a new motif came out you had to re-craft and improve all your gear (if you were fashion conscious). I spent a year combing containers to get the Daedric style and then after I'd managed to farm all the necessary materials, level up my crafting and finally craft the set I wanted, the Trinimac motif came out and I decided I wanted that instead :lol Before dyes were even a thing the only 'shiny' gear was top level stuff, I think it was void-cloth (?) then. Then the next level of mats appeared and I had to do it all over again! And the red weapons... *shudders*.

Dojohoda

As a magblade, unless my potential foe was wearing a costume or 100% crafted gear, I could guesstimate the person's gear. I really miss that.

UGotBenched91

lozq wrote: »

Always wonder this anytime I select 'No Outfit' on a character and am horrified at what I look like when you strip away the wonders of modern cosmetic surgery (aka. Outfits).

Was everyone running around tinted red wearing the BIS gear of the month, with ghastly monster helms and shoulder gear? Or did lots of people wear off-meta stuff that visually appealed to them when they were doodling around in towns? If not it must have been very...samey.

On the same topic, I feel like style materials when crafting gear are pretty much obsolete. If I make crafted sets for myself or others I always just make them in daedric or whatever I have a lot of, assuming that it'll always be covered up by an outfit. Does anyone craft in specific styles outside of master writs? If so, why?

I can’t even imagine. This game has some of the ugliest and dullest armors in any MMO I’ve ever seen. The only slight saving grace is the outfit system.

Before anyone jumps to defend the appearance of armor images... hip flaps and
Magical floating shoulder pieces.

Strider__Roshin

I used to wear my emperor costume all the time. Still looks good honestly.

zaria

Eifleber wrote: »

What I dislike a lot about ESO outfitter system is

• that you always have the same look
• without outfit monster sets mostly look terrible even if you just show the shoulders
• mostly if you dye a set it looks like shiny plastic

I think the ESO method is way inferior to the GW2 system where you can mix 2 sets and get stats from one and looks of the other (they also have costumes).

Assume the GW2 system is the same as in WOW where you change the look of an items by making it look like another item who fit the same slot / are the same type.

This has the benefit that you can see the set you are wearing something who is an issue with outfits and costumes.
An problem as you can have different gear sets for dungeon, pvp and overland and dressing room is not always reliable.

I once queued as healer for an random dungeon leveling up new characters who shared gear only to find caracter was naked under the costume Think I had an staff but it was probably something nonsense like an level 3 ice staff.
Well I said as I have no gear I'm an very fake healer and left group.

Started using ledgerman clothing on alts with no gear

JobooAGS

One thing that irks me about the outfitter system is that what you wear doesn’t match the outfit. Let me explain.

You wear a heavy chest. But your outfit has mail such as medium yokudan armor. When you roll dodge you get a clunk instead of a jingle that you would get when you run medium armor yokudan and when you move, your armor clunks instead of jingles

and vice versa.

You run 5 piece vicious ophidian (yokudan med) and your outfit resembles a knight in full plate. You get a jingle instead of a clunk when you dodge roll and your armor jingles instead of faintly clunks when you move.

This can be immersion ruining when you pay attention to sound.