So first and foremost I think it's imperative to state that this new Outfit system, in terms of the features available, not only meets expectations but goes above and beyond my wildest hopes and dreams. It hit literally every nail on the head, first swing. For example :

• Any armor weight
• Account-wide utilizing the collections system
• Armor, shields, and weapons
• melee weapon interchangability (axe, mace, sword, dagger)
• all level tiers unlocked (such as the four tiers for basic racial styles)
• piece-by-piece slot selection and dyeing
• based on Motif knowledge
• fully-implemented preview system

To add WEAPON DYEING on top of all that, plus mentioning opportunities for the system to grow even more in the future, is massively, almost unbelievably impressive. This is an incredible, monumentally-aggressive achievement that should not be downplayed, and to my knowledge now makes ESO's take on a "transmog" system the best in the industry without exception. We are about to embark on an absolute aesthetic Renaissance and I could not be more awestruck by the transcendent efforts of the ZOS team. I mean just look at some more of this hot business.




Now, as to the matter of criticism. There will be no critique of the features available in the system itself. After testing them out and confirming that they work as I had hoped, I consider them beyond reproach. Rather, my one sticking point has to do with this gold cost to use the system. It is not consistent with how cosmetic systems have been treated up to this point, and in fact adds new and terrible costs where previously there were none. For example, it costs gold to dye your outfit (though it's still free to dye the actual gear that you're wearing), at 50 gold per armor piece and 350 per weapon. Yes, dual wield and one-handed plus shield count as two weapons so that's 700 gold in that case. That's a grand total of up to 1750 gold per dye job. Also, you cannot dye your actual equipped weapons for free, weapon dyeing is only available through the Outfit system.

Now, how bad is it to change your look? Is this going to break the bank? Actually, for a lot of players it just might. It's up to 3000 gold per weapon/shield and up to 2000 gold for armor slots. That's up to 20k gold per outfit change, not including dye cost. There is no discernible rhyme or reason as to what costs how much, either. It's certainly not based on the crafting level required to learn the style. Draugr, for example, requires rank 10 passives in an equipment-crafting profession, yet it only costs 750 per weapon and 500 per armor slot. Meanwhile Apostle style, which requires no ranks in crafting passives to learn, costs the full 3k per weapon and 2k per armor slot. It also doesn't seem to be based on the actual motif rarity in terms of drop rate/players who know the style. Apostle style, for example, is extremely easy to come by, with chapters generally selling for 10-15k gold on PC NA with many listings. Buoyant Armiger chapters, on the other hand, is rare as heck, selling for hundreds of thousands of gold with few listings. Yet Apostle style is a max-cost Outfit style, while Buoyant Armiger is half the cost, at 1500 per weapon/shield and 1000 for armor slots.

So back to the main problem, is up to 20k per outfit and up to 1750 per dye job really going to affect system accessibility and player enjoyment? The answer is very obviously "yes" and "yes", but it's also going to vary a lot from player to player. Some players don't much care about aesthetics, will at most play with the system for like 10 minutes, find something they like, and stick with it for months at a time, if they end up using it at all. Other players, who have been asking and waiting for this for a long time, are going to want to use it very frequently, for everything from dye changes to full-on equipment swaps. For those players, who have already dumped huge amounts of time, gold, and real-world cash into motifs, crafting, costumes, and the like, this system should be the culmination of years of effort, a grand payoff for diligently engaging with all the aspects of the game necessary to get all those styles. And in part, that's still true! But it will also completely bankrupt them, as they still have to keep up with motifs and then have to pay out the boot to even try them out and show their friends.

Like, let's just look at last DLC's motifs to get a picture of this for a second. Clockwork City, four new motifs. We'll throw Bloodforge and Dreadhorn out because even though they came with Clockwork City they really belong with Horns of the Reach. So let's just look at Ebonshadow and Apostle style. Well wouldn't you know it, both of those are max-cost styles, so 3k per weapon and 2k per armor piece! So just for armor that's going to be 14k a pop to show people, per armor weight, per style. So 14k (for 7 armor pieces) * 3 (for 3 armor weights) * 2 (for both motifs) = 84k just to show off the armor itself. And the weapons!! Well, let's just say that you're beign frugal about it and not showing off double axes and such, so we'll only calculate for each weapon once. That's 10 changes per motif (one for each melee one-hand, one for each melee two-hand, one for bows, one of staves, one for shields) at 3k gold per swap. That's 3k gold * 10 (for each item) * 2 (for both motifs) = 60k to show all weapon styles. So a grand total of 144k gold to show off all aspects of both motifs from the last DLC. Better hope nobody want a second look at one of them! I suppose you could instead just craft every piece of the gear, but that kind of goes against the purpose of an outfit system, doesn't it?

Now let's take a step back and appreciate that, at least, they went with gold instead of some other expenditure. A lot of people were asking for style materials and all kinds of other nonsense to be the per-use cost of the system. I have zero doubt that would have been an even bigger hassle, since not everyone has boatloads of style materials lying around, even those with the ESO+ Craft Bag. Still, I'm not really seeing the need for a cost at all in the system, when none of the previous cosmetic systems had a per-use cost. It was all one-and-done, you earned the achievement to get the dye or you bought the costume/accessory/hairstyle/whatever from the cash shop. So what is the rationale here? To drive Outfit Slot or Outfit Change Token purchases? Let's examine that for a moment.

It definitely can't be to drive Outfit Slot purchasing. First of all, you still have to pay the gold to create the outfit after you've unlocked the slot! And if the goal is to save gold while still having absolute freedom of style, buying more outfit slots isn't going to get you that. Beyond just needing to spend the gold to create the style, you would need to buy an outfit slot for every possible combination of gear, plus new ones every time a new motif comes out. Just fyi there are more possible combinations of gear than there are dollars in the economy. And possibly atoms in the universe, but who's counting. Oh yeah and you still have to pay for dyeing them! So that's not how you're going to save gold. That's not to say that Outfit Slots are bad and you shouldn't buy them, they are in fact very useful! You just need to know what their use value is. Specifically, Outfit Slots are good for when you've discovered a really nice look that you know you're going to keep coming back to. Something for when you're just too tired or bored of experimenting with other looks. Additionally, it lets you change into that outfit while in the field without having to find an outfit station. I know it sounds unlikely to need such a sudden wardrobe change, but it happens to us all! In any case, what this means for our purposes is that while outfit slots are a useful purchase and will almost certainly be bought, they do nothing to address the underlying problem of an expensive cosmetic system with per-use fees.

Now outfit change tokens I could definitely see being a driving force behind the gold cost... if people were actually likely to buy them. Something tells me, however, that people are going to be loathe to part with the $4 or however much it costs to get one of those. Even if they just cost a few cents per use, I really don't see people grabbing up a lot of them. Now, will the free one you get from the level-up rewards and the bunch you get from bad rolls on the gambling boxes be used to inflate the use numbers to present dishonest information to investors? Probably. But if we're talking about people actually going out of their way to buy them and generating actual revenue for the company, then I have my doubts.

So then, what can be done to help this system generate revenue, while still maintaining (and improving) its use to the community? I have a couple of ideas. The first, and my favorite, is to just drop the outfit change tokens and gold cost altogether, and market the heck out of the outfit slots option. Buying more outfit slots is something reasonable people will do because it offers a unique value : convenience. The convenience of not having to find all the pieces of a certain look in the Outfit Station UI, and the convenience of being able to change into it out in the field with just a couple of clicks. That's something everyone can get behind, and what those of us with a lot of tried-and-true looks would be willing to shell out for. Indeed, dropping the gold cost may even increase the number of slots we're willing to buy simply because we're more free to create new looks (and therefore more likely to find ones we'd like to frequently come back to).

The second, less-desirable idea is to negate the gold cost for ESO+ members. I would greatly prefer that everyone have the freedom to experiment, but if it comes down to it then having the goldless version be tied to ESO+ is not the worst thing in the world and will likely drive plenty of new and returning subscriptions. I can actually think of a small handful of people I know in game who aren't subscribed, but would almost certainly do so given such an offer. And, of course, there was that whole Ideas for ESO Plus thread, in which one of the most-requested features was a "transmog" system. You've delivered the system above and beyond expectations, and better yet given all players access to it. So giving ESO+ members more freedom to use said system than the base game offers would be a tidy way of getting a twice-stoned bird, or however that aphorism goes.

So just to reiterate the main points : Great system. Amazing feature inclusion. Too expensive. Two easy fixes. And THANKS!!!! For making it this far through all that slog, I offer a parting gift. Something very in the Men'Do spirit of things. My only regret is that it is not a parting gif instead.