What was it like before Outfit Stations?

Khenarthi

Back in the beginning (before rubedite weapons, and before dye stations) you could even tell if someone's gear was upgraded to purple or gold from its colour. And lots of people preferred crafted gear to get the best set look (and gear sets were a fraction of the ones available now).

I mostly equipped quest disguises on my characters; the maormer from a quest in Greenshade or Malabal Tor was a favourite, as was the simple servant one from the last quest on Stros M'kai.

Caligamy_ESO

Froil wrote: »

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.

oof.. I remember this lol.. purple and red weapons everywhere, and the argument someone at ZoS made for not adding weapon dyes was they didn't want to see people with pink swords all over the place in Cyrodil. What?

newtinmpls

AlnilamE wrote: »

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.

Me too. I have a few folks who irregularly do stealing and pickpocketing, but the RNG on "clothing" seems to be heavily slanted towards boots/shoes/sandals and gloves/gauntlets.

Elvenheart

I’ve honestly never known about the sound difference between light, medium, and heavy, that’s very interesting! I’ll have to check that out. But then, I have tinnitus, so sometimes the constant ringing sound all the time (imagine high pitched crickets) drowns out the little noises like that.

JobooAGS

Elvenheart wrote: »

I’ve honestly never known about the sound difference between light, medium, and heavy, that’s very interesting! I’ll have to check that out. But then, I have tinnitus, so sometimes the constant ringing sound all the time (imagine high pitched crickets) drowns out the little noises like that.

Yeah light and most med armors have a quiet thud like sound (Cloth and leather). Certain med armors and many of the low level heavy armors have a jingle like sound (mail) and other med armors and the vast majority of heavy armors have a loud thud like sound (plate) when you dodge roll.

Tandor

goldCoaster wrote: »

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

This, role-playing aside (which I don't dismiss, it is a role-playing game after all). Of my 42 characters, probably only 3 or 4 wear something appearance-wise that is not their gear, and I've never felt the need to look into the difference between an outfit and a costume although I assume there is one.

One of the reasons that a lot of people complain of a lack of sense of progression in the game is probably that their characters look the same throughout the game. I love the way in which characters can change and enhance their appearance as they progress through the game.

That said, I welcomed the ability to dye both armor and weapons, and my characters tend to follow their own color settings whilst not having a particular racial consistency to their armor pieces, but the significance of the switch from dye stations to outfit stations has pretty much passed me by.

Tandor

Elvenheart wrote: »

I’ve honestly never known about the sound difference between light, medium, and heavy, that’s very interesting! I’ll have to check that out. But then, I have tinnitus, so sometimes the constant ringing sound all the time (imagine high pitched crickets) drowns out the little noises like that.

I wonder if such sound distinctions are more commonly sensed by those wearing headphones or earpieces when playing. I can't do that even if I wanted to as, like you, I suffer from tinnitus which is aggravated by such things, although mine is more like opening a couple of cans of coke and holding them next to my ears with the bubbles fizzing.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Back then all my character used a crafted set usually julianos or hunding for the main body pieces, hided helmet, other non crafted set was jewels an weapon, if for some reason i did not get the weapon, the belt and glove or boot (watever one was less intrusive) were used

C0L0SSUS

Well the first hot look was xivkyn (2015) later the class motif (15 pages plz -) was in style .. players with motifs charge about 10k per armor pc. Costumes back then Tormentor etc. looks bad -) no outfit stations or change colors.,, simple times lol

Syldras

lozq wrote: »

Does anyone craft in specific styles outside of master writs? If so, why?

I still do that for chars who use craftable sets. Why? I consider it something like an additional free outfit slot.

newtinmpls

Syldras wrote: »

lozq wrote: »

Does anyone craft in specific styles outside of master writs? If so, why?

I still do that for chars who use craftable sets. Why? I consider it something like an additional free outfit slot.

Oh yes, and now that I have the Addon working to change equipment and such, I go in to the dye station and work with each setup to get it looking as ... not horrible ... as possible.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

With a character that often switches between several different gear setups (a trial healer benefits greatly from being flexible), I am grateful for the good looks of most recent styles. Olorime, Jorvuld's, Hollowfang, Hiti's, they all look distinctly different and nice in their own way - in particular once you spend a few minutes (okay, hours) at the dye station to put your personal touch on them. I really like that I can see what gear I am wearing by just looking at my character.

The only time I use an outfit is when I am dressing up for a costume contest, and sometimes not even then. Having a crafter who knows every style in the game, most items are actually cheaper to craft than to mimic by paying to change a slot in the outfit. Most style materials are cheap and easy to find.

Ithilis

Before there were Dye stations at all it was hard to distinguish a player from NPC. It was pretty neat for immersion.

Back then there were also no master writs, so you wanted to have motifs so you could make a crafted set with a good-looking style.

With Dye stations it became easier to make a mixed set look like it all belonged together. You could still see what type of gear other players were wearing, and recognize what item sets they had on.

ESO plus costume dying and outfit station widened the possibilities incredible, but when outfit system came out lot of players were complaining about the fact that they can't recognize what type of gear someone is wearing anymore (in pvp or dungeon with fake heal or tank)

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

Ithilis wrote: »

...
but when outfit system came out lot of players were complaining about the fact that they can't recognize what type of gear someone is wearing anymore (in pvp or dungeon with fake heal or tank)

To be fair, that was a problem already at launch, with people wearing costumes or using the goblin or skeleton polymorphs to hide their actual gear. But yes, outfits introduced the sneaky option of hiding your gear without others even knowing you did it.

Danikat

Ithilis wrote: »

Before there were Dye stations at all it was hard to distinguish a player from NPC. It was pretty neat for immersion.

That didn't last long though. I got curious and looked it up: dye stations were added in Update 3, in July 2014 (3 months after launch).

I was happy about that change, as much as I like being able to make my characters blend in with NPCs if I want to I wouldn't want to be stuck with the default colours for equipment. It's not too bad for most medium and heavy armour but a lot of the cloth pieces have some odd default colours which don't look very nice and don't go together, especially if you're using pieces with different level requirements.

I remember during the betas that was the way to tell players apart from NPCs - if it looked like a set that went together it was probably an NPC, if they looked like they'd been raiding the bins for whatever they could get it was probably a player. But I guess it was different after launch when players had more time to farm whole sets and worry about finding something that went together instead of just trying to try out as much content as possible in one beta weekend.

ghastley

The one thing I think is missing from the outfit system is the "unarmored" pieces. Whether they're the one from stealing, or just a few "civilian' styles, doesn't matter. The "soul shriven" style is a ragged version, so there's already precedent, but I'd prefer to use pieces of a less damaged nature.

FrancisCrawford

To this day a large majority of my characters are in costumes rather than outfits.

And yes, long ago -- especially when first leveling -- I did sometimes wear disguises rather than that true costumes. The servant costume from Stros M'Kai comes to you almost immedately if you start in the DC, and it doesn't look bad at all. And the other costume from that island actually used to look better than it does now.

newtinmpls

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

And the other costume from that island actually used to look better than it does now.

Because it's based on the Redguard motif, and they dumped the original lovely versions for cheezy Star Trek inspired stuff.

I don't go buying/farming motifs, but now after having accumulated quite a few of them, I am starting to experiment with the outfit system.

OTOH, I also recently got the Alpha Gear Addon on PC NA and have more choices as to quickie gear sets and changes.

West93

I wore a pirate costume.

Mettaricana

Feel like style materials should be turned into sell to vendor junk for 100g and retired literally craft bag fodder except for the few housing items that need it.

Nord_Raseri

Those were dark times

Chaos2088

Yeah you ahd best in slot gear but looked like a the junk lady of The Labyrinth

L_Nici

Without the outfit stations you could just dye your armor and hide the helmet, which is why some people actually always wore crafted Sets on their body, so they could at least influence a little bit how they look like.
Also you could at least narrow down someones possible combat abillities in PvP, that was fun as you could tell someone was wearing 7th legion or other popular and visually pretty unique sets. Monstersets were easy to tell of the shoulderpiece too.

If there was no other option to hide your appearence many wore costumes instead, especially to cover the more ugly styles.

Mettaricana

I remember the biggest opposition for the outfitter was and i loosly quote pvpers: i cant tell if using a tank or a dps or what monster set they're using hax hax p2w etc"

karekiz

They passed on a good thing.

Outfit system should have been templates crafters made and sold to convert armor to look a different way.

SirAxen

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

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

ESO, without question, has the better outfitter system. It isn't even close.

Nord_Raseri

L_Nici wrote: »

Without the outfit stations you could just dye your armor and hide the helmet, which is why some people actually always wore crafted Sets on their body, so they could at least influence a little bit how they look like.
Also you could at least narrow down someones possible combat abillities in PvP, that was fun as you could tell someone was wearing 7th legion or other popular and visually pretty unique sets. Monstersets were easy to tell of the shoulderpiece too.

If there was no other option to hide your appearence many wore costumes instead, especially to cover the more ugly styles.

Not me, I always wore costumes.

Mettaricana

karekiz wrote: »

They passed on a good thing.

Outfit system should have been templates crafters made and sold to convert armor to look a different way.

Yeah woulda been the meat of that sandwich now crafters are a dime a dozen and our cash cows are looking thin and sickly.. grandmaster crafter doesn't line my pockets...

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

Mettaricana wrote: »

Feel like style materials should be turned into sell to vendor junk for 100g and retired literally craft bag fodder except for the few housing items that need it.

Considering that you can buy them from NCP vendors for a lot less than that, I don't think that's a great idea. Besides, some of the more recent style materials are still reasonably rare and hard to farm.

On a side note, I laughed when I saw that a target skeleton requires one Animus Stone and 206 Bone to craft it. (That's the number of bones in a human body.)

JKorr

UGotBenched91 wrote: »

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.

Don't worry. People keep asking for capes and cloaks. If they actually put those in the game, no one will notice the hip flaps and shoulder pieces. It will be all the clipping with helms/hats/weapons/cardboard stapled to your butt conversations then.