Why can't I inspect other players? (Noob question)

marshill88

Now on my 4th week of ESO, soon my plus membership will renew. I see all these players with cool looking stuff, I really want to bring up their paperdoll window and inspect their gear and stuff. This seems like a really basic function of an MMO, right? I haven't been in another MMO in many years (this is my first one) so maybe I'm a bit out to lunch here. Does anyone know why I can't look at other players stuff?

Is it not a cool thing in an MMO to have nice looking clothes and gear, and yet there's no way to "show off your stuff" other than just in passing....it kind of sucks, to be honest. I'd love to understand more what people are carrying and gawk at their cool things.

Sylvermynx

It's not a thing here, thank the goddesses. I HATED that in the other mmos I played. If you want to know what someone's using, ask them in a private message in game.

Madhojo

Cause ZOS doesnt understand basic quality of life things

marshill88

Sylvermynx wrote: »

It's not a thing here, thank the goddesses. I HATED that in the other mmos I played. If you want to know what someone's using, ask them in a private message in game.

no way man. when you park your awesome 1969 GT-350 in the parking lot, I'm gonna trot on over and give it much adoration. If you represent the majority opinion in ESO, then, well, shoot.

Sheezabeast

It doesn't fundamentally work in ESO because of the Outfitting station. You can make any item look like a different item. An axe look like a sword, for example. You would be like, oh wow, sweet mace dude! And inspect it to find out that it was really a dagger or something else.

PuppetShow

I'm really happy that its not a thing here, it would give me so much anxiety to know that ppl could be looking at my stuff anytime, silently judging lol

coop500

Sadly, the reason is people.

People will use it to harass and hurt others.

Snowstrider

Eso doesnt have alot of basic mmo stuff sadly.
We didnt even have chatbubbles at start.

AlnilamE

Snowstrider wrote: »

Eso doesnt have alot of basic mmo stuff sadly.
We didnt even have chatbubbles at start.

I wonder how many people use chat bubbles.

I use them for group and whispers, but just for giggles.

marshill88 wrote: »

Now on my 4th week of ESO, soon my plus membership will renew. I see all these players with cool looking stuff, I really want to bring up their paperdoll window and inspect their gear and stuff. This seems like a really basic function of an MMO, right? I haven't been in another MMO in many years (this is my first one) so maybe I'm a bit out to lunch here. Does anyone know why I can't look at other players stuff?

Is it not a cool thing in an MMO to have nice looking clothes and gear, and yet there's no way to "show off your stuff" other than just in passing....it kind of sucks, to be honest. I'd love to understand more what people are carrying and gawk at their cool things.

If you ask people, they will usually tell you what outfit they are wearing. There are also ways to link your gear in chat, so they can show you as well.

But no, having people just look you up without your permission is not cool. I don't think any of the MMOs I play actually allow that (except Diablo 3, but I only play that with a few friends).

Kel

No content would ever get done if that was a thing in ESO.
Everyone would be too busy telling other people the gear they have on is wrong, and what they should be using is "x" set with "y" set....count your blessings this isn't a thing here.

Zenzuki

marshill88 wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

It's not a thing here, thank the goddesses. I HATED that in the other mmos I played. If you want to know what someone's using, ask them in a private message in game.

no way man. when you park your awesome 1969 GT-350 in the parking lot, I'm gonna trot on over and give it much adoration. If you represent the majority opinion in ESO, then, well, shoot.

You can already trot right on over give them some admiration!

Do you think the owner of the GTO isn't going to mind if you just pop the hood, trunk, help yourself into the interior for a looksie?

Nobody is going to just allow you to start disrobing/disarming them so you can get a good, deep look at their gear/build setup.

But you know how you COULD find out...

Ask them!

If they're cool, they'll pop the hood, open the truck and give you the tour of their build.

Most people wouldn't be cool with you're "help yourself" attitude towards their loadout. And would definitely lead to griefing, etc. if people could give you the once over before, say, running a trial, dungeon, etc.

There is already a horrible amount of that currently with just the CP levels alone without adding gear/loadout lookie-loos!

CyberOnEso

For fashion, I think it would be a good idea.

But in terms of set items what would it tell you? Like I personally have 30+ setups I am not attached to my gear, I doubt anyone is. I think inspection is more relevant in MMO's where getting certain gear drops is a real achievement. Which thankfully isn't the case in ESO. There are as many Siroria Inferno staves as you wish there to be.

My setup changes many times a day. Unlike other games ESO doesn't really have a meaningful item level system (Which is great!) and seeing what gear people are running outside of trials/ dungeons isn't really useful.
In those situations, you can easily ask, log or tell via effects in combat.

You don't need to inspect someone's gear to tell if they're good or not. You can easily tell from combat. ESO is an MMO where your skill is detached so much from your gear that gear isn't really correlated to the ability to clear content.

Kurat

You can use ESO Logs if you're on pc. You can see all your group members gear, traits, skillbars, their dps in great detail, healing etc.

Stokowski

Just do what you would do in real life when you see someone good-looking.

Stalk them.

renne

Kurat wrote: »

You can use ESO Logs if you're on pc. You can see all your group members gear, traits, skillbars, their dps in great detail, healing etc.

From what the OP said they want to look at people's cosmetics. Does it do that?

FluffWit

Occasionally I get a whisper in game asking me what pants I'm wearing, what bow I have equipped, etc. Thing is I have no idea since it's an outfit I put together at the dye station.

I'd be more then happy for them to be able to click on my character or whatever and check- often I don't have time to go back to the dye station and check for them.

kmkastl

FluffWit wrote: »

Occasionally I get a whisper in game asking me what pants I'm wearing, what bow I have equipped, etc. Thing is I have no idea since it's an outfit I put together at the dye station.

I'd be more then happy for them to be able to click on my character or whatever and check- often I don't have time to go back to the dye station and check for them.

If you go to your collections and click outfit styles you can see what your character is wearing.

Crazyprophet

lmao this whole thread has been overtaken by the car analogy.

You could say it's... driving the narrative

Mitaka211

I think it has more to do with keeping your build secret than anything else. From people harassing others over their choices or simply preventing others from copy pasting your set up. Before the proc meta started it was a thing to ask someone how he is build , especially in pvp. Like if you duel someone and he wipes the floor with you, wouldn't you be curious what he is doing right. Sure you are, the difference here is that you can't straight up copy him, you can eiher ask the player and if he wants to teach you cool , or you can experiment on your own. Making builds used to be fun , now it's all about procs and mythics, just get this staff get this mythic light attack someone and your done, so there is no point in even asking. I personally like the new direction they are taking, the devs seem to know that we want to have more viable builds. Hope there is a point in asking someone about their gear soon lol.

Danikat

AlnilamE wrote: »

But no, having people just look you up without your permission is not cool. I don't think any of the MMOs I play actually allow that (except Diablo 3, but I only play that with a few friends).

Ultima Online used to. It might still do, but I haven't played it in about 20 years so I'm not sure.

But when I did play it you could click on any character and it would bring up a simplified version of their character menu to let you see what they were wearing, and a text box where they could write something about themselves. Many players would use it to say what content they did and what crafting skills they had trained up and role-players would often use it to give their character's backstory.

But as far as I remember UO wasn't as gear-orientated as ESO is. There were no item sets and stats were simpler (or I just never got very far with gearing my characters?) so there was less concern about someone stealing a great build, or criticising one you'd put together yourself, it was pretty much just about cosmetics and maybe finding out where they'd gotten an unusual item.

I'm not sure that would work in ESO though, given the combination of gear, outfits, costumes, skins etc. and some skills with cosmetic effects (like those glowing orbs around sorcerers). Even if there was a way to look at another player's cosmetics it would be pretty difficult for someone who didn't know what a cool piece/effect was to work it out.

So I think the best option is the one we've already got: ask them. If you see someone wearing something you think looks good send them a message saying something like "Wow, I love your look! That hat/sword/glowy effect looks really cool. What is that?"

RedMuse

Sylvermynx wrote: »

It's not a thing here, thank the goddesses. I HATED that in the other mmos I played. If you want to know what someone's using, ask them in a private message in game.

Hard agree. One of the things that keeps me around is that not everyone can snoop in what I'm wearing.

Seriously OP? Just ask. Like send a whisper along the lines of, "I think your outfit is awesome, could you tell me what it's made up of?," and 95% of the times people will happily tell you. The remaining 5% is mainly made up of people who don't understand your language and hence can't answer plus a few decidedly antisocial people and those who are afk.

If you're truly desperate take a screen shot of them and post it either here or on the subreddit and ask. I guarantee you that people will recognize the motifs/outfit and dyes used and again happily tell you about it.

emilyhyoyeon

I wish we could opt in to a feature like this because I would really rather people inspect me than ask me

Tsar_Gekkou

FluffWit wrote: »

Occasionally I get a whisper in game asking me what pants I'm wearing, what bow I have equipped, etc. Thing is I have no idea since it's an outfit I put together at the dye station.

I'd be more then happy for them to be able to click on my character or whatever and check- often I don't have time to go back to the dye station and check for them.

Same here. I get whispers sometimes and I have no problem telling people, but sometimes i'm afk and it would be easier if they could just inspect my gear style and move on without wondering if I even have my chat up to see their whispers.

SeekerAssassin

Considering what you see on a person isn't what they are actually wearing, being able to see there gear isn't going to tell you why it looks the way it does.

Danikat

I wouldn't mind an opt-in system to show the skins you're wearing to other players, but as I said earlier I think it would be quite complicated given all the possibilities. It could be the motifs and dyes on their actual armour, or an outfit which looks like armour but is largely unrelated to what they're actually using, or it could be a one-piece costume. In addition they could have skins, polymorphs, adornments, markings and other cosmetics which change how they look.

Of course the game can keep track of all that, and will know which are currently visible but displaying it in a way that makes sense to players and explains what these things are could be difficult. It would probably need an entirely new menu to be designed, and that would take a lot of staff time to do, which may not be worthwhile for what's probably a pretty niche function.

VaranisArano

If you are used to MMOs, then you need to consider that ESO comes from The Elder Scrolls series, a series of single player RPG games. A large portion of the playerbase of ESO comes from those single player games and its designed accordingly. So if you expect ESO to be like every other MMO, be prepared that it's not. Most of them didn't come from a successful single player franchise.

One of the major design differences is that there are no real-time "inspecct" features built into the base game of ESO. On PC, you can use addons to fill in some of those, but you may meet players who dislike those features. After that, you have to ask politely.

For example:
- there is no real-time combat log for the whole group. ESO Logs, the official one on PC, is explicitly after-the-fact to avoid concerns about group toxicity over low DPS. The main addon replacement Combat Metrics tells your DPS but doesn't tell you the DPS of other individuals without their permission.
- there is no "inspect" feature for outfits or equipped gear. If you want to know, you have to ask politely. Most players are pretty happy to share their neat outfits, I find, but may be more protective of their PVP build. Again, this is due to concerns about toxicity - kicking players for not having the correct gear, for example.
- there is no group loot log. You can use addons to provide this, but again there may be players who really don't appreciate the feeling that someone "spied on" their loot through using an addon to get info that's not available through the vanilla game


If you come in here with the attitude of "this is an MMO; why doesn't it have what I want from an MMO", I'm afraid that you'll keep running into the many ways that ESO is designed as an online MMO version of the singleplayer TES games. As a fan of the TES games moreso than most MMOs, I think its a good thing.

I offer this solution: grab yourself some addons to fill out some of the missing features and when you want to know something from another player, be polite.

Rukia541

SeekerAssassin wrote: »

Considering what you see on a person isn't what they are actually wearing, being able to see there gear isn't going to tell you why it looks the way it does.

I don't see that as an issue if they just added a tooltip like WoW/GW2/ I'm sure other MMOs have that show its original and altered version of the item when mousing over it. Its just 1 extra line. Come to think of it you can't inspect people in GW2 either, but you can see what both version of the item is when its linked.

Like others said its not in the game because of potential harassment.

Sylosi

marshill88 wrote: »

This seems like a really basic function of an MMO, right?

Not really. It is simply something some MMOs choose to implement and others don't. Those that don't include ESO, GW2, BDO, Darkfall, etc

Kiralyn2000

RedMuse wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

It's not a thing here, thank the goddesses. I HATED that in the other mmos I played. If you want to know what someone's using, ask them in a private message in game.

Hard agree. One of the things that keeps me around is that not everyone can snoop in what I'm wearing.

Seriously OP? Just ask. Like send a whisper along the lines of...

Personally, as a sorta-private person, I'd much rather they be able to inspect my character. Being bothered by people whispering at me is vastly more annoying/intrusive. It also wastes a lot more of everyone's time - the person whispering who has to type all that, instead of just looking at a character window, and the recipient who has to deal with the harrassment of people talking to them and/or replying to people.

But, hey - different people, different views.


edit: it probably helps that I don't play much/any content where someone might kick me because my gear doesn't meet some made-up "gearscore" standard.

ThorianB

Sheezabeast wrote: »

It doesn't fundamentally work in ESO because of the Outfitting station. You can make any item look like a different item. An axe look like a sword, for example. You would be like, oh wow, sweet mace dude! And inspect it to find out that it was really a dagger or something else.

Pretty much this. It doesn't matter what you are wearing in ESO because people can change the appearance of all armor to look like something else. You can wear light armor and make it appear like heavy armor and vice versa. You can be in a full set of heavy and put on a costume that makes it look like you are in a bath robe.

All gear spying would do here is the same thing it does in other MMOs, allow toxic judgy players to try to deny you content because you aren't wearing what they think you should for that activity.

If you want to know what someone is wearing just ask what outfit that is. Then you buy the style pages or motif or costume and you can apply it to any of your gear.

AyaDark

People do not want you just copy paste them. It is not Perfect World like game - so I really like that there is no such function.

I want all my character data by private !

But i always do not see problem to tell what motifs or style i use ... .

But it do not change that i want all it be private !

May be i would not like to say it to somebody