So they did an “emergency” eso live where they previewed update 17 and the outfit system. For those who don’t want to go watch this, here’s the run down on how this works:
- transmog is available to ALL players
- dye stations become outfit stations. All dye stations will upgrade automatically, including those in your homes. No need to buy new stations.
- at the station, you use “outfit slots.” Think of an outfit slot as a blank costume. You won’t be permanently changing the look of your gear, just creating a costume you can toggle on or off.
- every character gets one free outfit slot. You can buy additional slots in the crown store. You’d use addl slots to create multiple looks you can save and instantly switch between. (I’m pretty sure toggling between slots can be done in-world, away from a station).
- when building your outfit, you can program each piece of gear to look like ANY motif item you know (see next for motif requirements). In other words, say I am wearing a heavy c160 ancient orc chest. Assuming I know the relevant motifs, I can make my outfit a heavy primal c160 chest, or a light c160 Breton chest, or a medium level 30 Dunmer chest or a level 1 telvanni robe. I can choose the look of any piece in the game, and it will NOT change how the armor functions.
- weapons are included in this system...and this gets a bit complicated. You CAN dye your weapons. You CAN change the look of your weapons, and there’s some weird versatility. You can make a bow look like any bow. But you can make a sword look like any 1h weapons...ie, a sword can be made to look like a mace. But you can’t cross weapon types...ie, you cannot make a bow look like a stave.
- for outfits, motif knowledge becomes ACCOUNT WIDE. If my crafter knows the Celestial motifs, any character can create outfits with Celestial. If I’ve split characters, and one knows Celestial and another knows malacath, then all characters should be able to use those motifs.
- motif knowledge is still by the piece. If I only know malacath legs, that’s what my characters can use on outfits...they can’t use malacath chests until someone learns that motif.
- You will be able to preview ALL motifs in the game in this system, you just can’t save an outfit until all the pieces are items you know. So if you’re thinking of pursuing telvanni motifs, you can use this system as a motif previewer on that character in advance. Previewing is free (see next item)
- playing around and previewing in the outfit system is free. To permanently save an outfit, it costs in-game gold each time you redo an outfit. Gold costs are per piece, and depends on the rarity of the motif you’re using. The example they used was if you want to go in and change only your head to a Breton hat, maybe this costs 100 gold. If you wanted to do the entire outfit in a semi-rare motif, it would cost several thousand. They will be selling outfit tokens for crowns that eliminate the gold costs.
- it sounds like gold is the only cost to creating an outfit. In other words, I don’t think you’re putting any mats...even style stones...into it. I’m 90% sure this is how it works, but they went through it quickly using a bad camera and talking over one another like jabbering parrots.
- you only pay gold when you change and save an outfit. Once saved, it’s permanently available to you like any costume. You can turn it off and on at not cost. If you buy and program multiple outfit slots, you can change between them at no cost.
The good
- this will offer appearance flexibility that goes fifty times past anything we’ve ever had.
- It sounds like crown purchases will be entirely optional and they’re not forcing people to spend real money to play this system.
- this should really fire up the motif market.
The (maybe) bad
- the system favors people with extensive motif knowledge. New players or people who don’t want to collect the >600 motif pages in the game will have more limited options. But they can preview and go farm/buy the motifs. I’m not sure that’s going to seem fun to someone who wants to quickly create an outfit with 10 motifs they don’t know.
- no love for crafters. I’d hoped to be able to alter my friends’ items using my extensive motif knowledge (working on last ten chapters in the game right now). But people will have to learn the styles on their own. The more customizable systems we get in the game, the less social it feels.
- thus, all our motif work and collecting style mats is becoming somewhat obsolete. Why make gear with rare motifs when you can just make everything Nord then skin it to look cool? Maybe this is a pro...but it also makes a lot of mats relatively worthless, in an already suffering economy.
- I don’t love the idea of players disguising themselves even further in pvp. Some aspects of pvp should be visual...if I’m defending a keep against ten enemies I kind of want to be able to identify the light armor siegers and nightblades so we can take them out first. On the one hand, costumes already allow players to hide what setup they’re running. On the other, Now players can make light armor dps builds look like tanks, and tanks look like dps builds...and I find that prospect rather stupid.
- no underwear customization. Is this a thing? No idea...I just randomly came up with it. But it’d be nice if my khajiit didn’t have to wear ugly puce boxer briefs that stick out from a lot of the costumes.