When it comes to armor, the two biggest suggestions floating around this forum and other forums are armor storage ideas and the smart armor system. I think I’ve come up with an effective way to combine the two, while keeping balance and the economy in mind as well.
The Plan:
When you go to an armor crafter, instead of crafting armor pieces that take up an inventory slot, you “unlock” that armor piece for your character. To equip the armor, I propose a pop out window much like the dye preview window. To get to the “Armor Window”, you simply double click an armor slot (i.e. chest piece, leg piece, etc.) and a window will appear with an armor preview on the right and 3 drop down boxes on the left.
The topmost drop down box will be the “skin” of the armor. You could choose between any chest piece you have “unlocked” for your character (Sunspear, Istani, Ancient, Canthan, Obsidian, etc). When you click the skin dropdown menu, the topmost skins in the list will be the most expensive ones and bottommost in the list will be your starter armors. Most of the time, characters will want to use their most expensive armor, so putting it at the top makes sense. No one wants to scroll through an entire list of low AL armor you craft along the way, just to get to the armor they really want to wear. By the same token, low AL armor MUST stay on the list because who knows when some brilliant person will come up with another build that takes advantage of low AL (i.e. Spirit Bonder)? Also, for headgear, all special holiday item unlocks would be listed here! Again, saving inventory space.
Once you pick a skin, the other 2 drop down menus become active. The 2nd drop down menu would be for any runes you have applied to this skin on this armor slot. This is an important detail I think. If you have Istani chest armor unlocked and you’ve applied a minor Command rune and minor Motivation rune to it in the past, if you all of the sudden unlock Sunspear chest armor, you won’t have access to the Motivation and Command runes on the Sunspear skin unless you buy new ones and apply them to the new armor skin. The reasoning behind this is that it makes the least impact on the economy. Right now we currently have to buy new runes for each set of armor we craft. If we only had to buy runes once for all armor skins, the price of runes would just plummet.
The 3rd drop down menu would be for Insignias. It would work in exactly the same way as runes do. You have to buy insignias for each armor piece and skin.
To apply runes, insignias and dyes to armors, you have to be wearing them since they no longer reside in your inventory, but on a drop down menu.
Pros:
- It seems that the template system in place only allows you to switch menu driven character attributes like skills, stats and profession. By switching the armor over to this menu driven interface, perhaps templates could expand to include armor sets as well. This would be a huge time saver, especially for PvPers and anyone who likes to micromanage their armor down to the very last detail with attunement runes, insignias, etc.
- Since armor would be stored as an unlock for your character, it would take up less space on ANet’s servers than many of the armor closet ideas proposed.
- As pointed out in the Smart Armor thread, there are so many ways for characters to micro manage their armor these days that the current system is too static. On my monk, I run 3 builds in PvE. A full heal build with Healing Prayers, Divine Favor and Inspiration. A hybrid build with Healing Prayers, Protection Prayers and Divine Favor and a protection build with Protection Prayers and Divine Favor. In the past, I simply had one piece of headgear with a Superior Healing Prayers rune and one with a Superior Protection Prayers rune. Then for my other 4 armor pieces I put in a minor divine favor, minor healing prayers, minor protection prayers and Superior vigor. This allowed me the greatest flexibility because if I was using my Superior Protection Prayer head gear, I would still have the minor healing rune and vice versa. Now however, there are other useful runes I want to use on a per build basis (Attunement and Vitae), but this would either require me to craft many more pieces of armor which take up a ton of inventory space or buy new runes every time I switch my build. With all the emphasis on easy build switching (templates and profession drop down box), why carry on this dated, inflexible armor system?
Effects on the Economy:
- This system is almost exactly the same as the current armor system from an economic stand point. You still have to buy runes for each piece of armor you craft (unlock). You still have to buy insignias for each piece. You still have to dye each piece individually. The only thing this eliminates is having to buy the same rune over and over again because you keep switching runes in your current armor as your builds change. And honestly, how many people do this often enough to affect rune prices? Most people just buy the runes that are useful to the build they run most often and deal with it. This also eliminates having to recraft armor in case someone deletes, sells or salvages it, but again, how many people actually do that?
As a plus for the economy, this would once again make armor a HUGE money sink. I’m guessing I’m not alone in saying “I can afford to buy more armor and would like to, but I have no where to put it”. With the restrictions of space and time switching armors gone, we are free to craft (unlock) all the armor skins we want!
So, what do you guys think?
L
sadly Anet seems to enjoy hearing players crying for more storage space...
