Void shell skins confuse me.

[Hypernaut1]

People really acting like changing the texture on skins is a standard feature found on most games. Why do people insist on finding a reason to be disappointed?

[Jarriaga]

30 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

People really acting like changing the texture on skins is a standard feature found on most games. Why do people insist on finding a reason to be disappointed?

The only game I can think about popularizing the idea was Anthem, a 2019 game designed from the ground around said concept. Just the fact DE could implement the tech into a game that is 9 years old is an accomplishment in my opinion. But to some people, concepts such as a "middle ground" or "compromise" don't exist. To them, it's give me perfect, or give me nothing without ever questioning if they have flat-out unreasonable expectations to begin with.

Wanting, desiring, looking for, or expecting for 9 years worth of content to be converted while at the same time DE continue to add new content (They can't pause) borders on entitlement.

[-Acquardio-]

3 hours ago, Lutesque said:

I don't think you appreciate how Time Consuming Texture Painting and 3D Modelling is

 

13 hours ago, Acquardio_ said:

But either way I understand the work load is giant for what they plan to do already. But I'm afraid that they're gonna just bang out all the skins for popular frames first (saryn is already confirmed and if wisp includes the confirmed 4 im gonna blow my brains out) and then slowly add them for the rest of the frames or straight up forget about them.

Yeah, I do.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

as much as we'd all like them to go through the MANY skins in the game and retroactively allow us to mod textures, it's far too unreasonable. the way it was worded it seemed like maybe a Void Shell skin would be released for each frame eventually: my question is would they add this feature to EVERY skin going forward?, because if they do, it could take longer for skins to come out as they would have to make each part of the design compatible with different texture types.

I for one am glad that we'll finally have a way to retexture a frame, even if it's not perfect. think of it this way: Void Shells are basically "modular skins", where you can use the basic template to design your own look. it's sort of like having the devs do the hard work of designing the skin and then leaving the fun final stages up to us. I look forward to seeing what people come up with!

[atteSmythe]

12 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

But to some people, concepts such as a "middle ground" or "compromise" don't exist. To them, it's give me perfect, or give me nothing without ever questioning if they have flat-out unreasonable expectations to begin with.

DE is in a weird place. They have a huge game, which makes it hard for them to make big changes. But they’ve built their live service model around making big changes. It’s probably a big reason so many features are, shall we say, inconsistent. 

[X7PLVTINUM]

I'm appreciative of DE's attempt at it, but tbh I'm a little concerned how it will play into fashion overall

Syandanas, Attachments, Ephemera's, Fashion enthusiasts may be worried about how they might find a really cool design yet base attachments like the ones mentioned just don't fit no matter what they do because they can't be void shelled like the Warframes can

Tho this could be an easy fix to just make a line of attachments with void shell properties, a couple armor sets, maybe void shell reskins of existing syandanas that Baro pumps out every now and again

My biggest worry may be the profit they turn tho, Void Shells won't be worth the purchase for alot of people if the modifiable patterns suck, or at least for me

[Jarriaga]

36 minutes ago, atteSmythe said:

DE is in a weird place. They have a huge game, which makes it hard for them to make big changes. But they’ve built their live service model around making big changes. It’s probably a big reason so many features are, shall we say, inconsistent. 

I agree with your overall sentiment (Just now we'll get another Operator rework). However, I think the case with Void Shells is a on a different league.

One thing is to change a game's mechanics or part of them as new plans for them are developed or issues tied to spaghetti code or powercreep arise, but reworking elements that are not directly tied to game mechanics is a different beast that not always yields a measurable benefit. 

For reference: DE are not even done yet converting all current materials to PBR last time I checked. That's how slow the process of art-tech iteration/conversion is. So on top of working on new content alongside the backlog of past promises/"paused" content, add 9 years worth of skin conversion when they are not even done with PBR.

Making Void Shells a standard feature for all future skins? Sure.

But backlog conversion? That's should not even be a discussion in my opinion.

[atteSmythe]

3 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

One thing is to change a game's mechanics or part of them as new plans for them are developed or issues tied to spaghetti code or powercreep arise, but reworking elements that are not directly tied to game mechanics is a different beast. 

Oh sure, this isn’t the worst example of the problem, but it sure feels like the same root cause. It’s also why the most painful (but complete) answer to “how can we improve the new user experience” is “pay your back taxes, finish all the revamps you’ve started, and do a consistency sweep.”

It’s not sexy, but it’d get the job done. 

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

23 hours ago, NeoRetro10K said:

Could they not write some sort of program that can procedurally convert old skins into the new custom material format? Then, once the initial work was done, they could just run the skins through the program. No manual tweaking required. It is not like the actual shape of the mesh geometry would need to change like they have to do to match old Operator outfits to the Drifter. That is more understandable in terms of needing manual changes than the skin formats.

Um, no, because remeshing something is not a simple button press or a set of commands. There's over twenty different materials that would have to apply to 50+ different Warframes and their specific mesh channels, some Warframes are different heights and sizes, so that has to be accounted for. That's not even counting all of the different helmet shapes or vastly differing body changes from Deluxes. Every one of those textures forces you to remesh the entire character, and meshing itself is a process that has to be done manually and is known to take hours.

Considering that DE said they'd have to rework the entire skin system to get that to work, and the backlog is over 9 years old, I can see why they'd just stick to Voidshell skins doing that. We may see that come with future skins, but I doubt it.

[TheArmchairThinker]

On 2022-03-12 at 8:53 PM, Jarriaga said:

The only game I can think about popularizing the idea was Anthem, a 2019 game designed from the ground around said concept.

Payday 2 has this, but only on mask and material/texture + pattern is one time use so you need to get the card again from doing heists

[Jarriaga]

6 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

Payday 2 has this, but only on mask and material/texture + pattern is one time use so you need to get the card again from doing heists

Never heard of that game before, but it does fit the bill as well.

[Tsukinoki]

On 2022-03-12 at 2:32 AM, ant99999 said:

Players were asking to add material customization. DE couldn't do that for the reasons they stated (too much work). They could just not do it and explain it honestly to players. They could add customization, but only for Operators. Or only for deluxes.

What they did instead is neither. They just made completely new skins which was never asked for. Which is what I call a band-aid solution.

So you're in the camp of "IF they can't do it 100% perfect right now and have it on everything they shouldn't even attempt to give players an alternative!!!!"

and I have to ask "Why?"

 

DE has stated that they can't realistically do it to every skin but are giving us an alternative, which is beyond fair IMHO.
Imagine how many people would be yelling and howling "Sure DE can't do it to every skin but why can't they make new skins that can do it??!?!?!?"

 

DE is giving us what they can, and players like you that yell and scream about how that's not good enough maybe need to take a step back and actually look at things.

 

Sure it's not "exactly" what player asked for, but its not a terrible compromise either.

[Kaotyke]

54 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

Never heard of that game before, but it does fit the bill as well.

Its a fun game, the 3rd is already in the works, no idea when it will come. But Payday 2 is a horde shooter ala L4D, also has some nice music. If you want a funny but informative review, RussianBadger has one.

[ant99999]

28 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

So you're in the camp of "IF they can't do it 100% perfect right now and have it on everything they shouldn't even attempt to give players an alternative!!!!"

Yea, came to their camp to hang out a bit. They have cookies in there!

 

But, really, I'm generally against assigning people to "camps" or something... whatever.

My view on the matter can very well change depending on the situation. But right now it seems that the people who bought Deluxes and Tennogen and who wished to one day maybe receive material customization option are being tossed aside and instead offered a set of completely new "shinies" which have their desired feature limited to them and them only.

Pretty much like "Oh, we know you guys wanted the best skins the game has to also have this one feature, but how about you instead buy those worse basic skins we recycled and added the feature to them instead?"

I don't know about you, but for me it seems counter to the players' interest and more towards making more cash.

I may be wrong, we don't see the full picture yet. Hell, maybe they will indeed gradually add the feature to all the best skins. But I'm sceptical about this considering their presentation.

 

Also, I do not "yell and scream", nor I expected to make such an impression. So, sorry if that's the case. I really want to keep my posts as polite as possible.

[Jarriaga]

15 minutes ago, Kaotyke said:

Its a fun game, the 3rd is already in the works, no idea when it will come. But Payday 2 is a horde shooter ala L4D, also has some nice music. If you want a funny but informative review, RussianBadger has one.

Thanks.

11 minutes ago, ant99999 said:

I don't know about you, but for me it seems counter to the players' interest and more towards making more cash.

Unless DE suddenly start selling Tennogen/Deluxe to Void Shell conversion packages that sentence is nothing but malicious projection on your end.

[Hypernaut1]

9 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

Thanks.

Unless DE suddenly start selling Tennogen to Void Shell conversion packages that sentence is nothing but malicious projection on your end.

Why is DE making money off of cosmetics seen as a bad thing anyway? 

[Jarriaga]

5 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

Why is DE making money off of cosmetics seen as a bad thing anyway? 

I guess it varies per individual and the degree they perceive what they should be receiving per X amount of cash.

Using myself as an example: I'm fine with DE selling color palettes that are global for all frames and accessories. I'm not fine with the (Hypothetical) idea of DE selling color pallets individually per frame or accessory.

[ant99999]

15 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

Unless DE suddenly start selling Tennogen/Deluxe to Void Shell conversion packages that sentence is nothing but malicious projection on your end.

I have an impression they intended to sell the skins for plat. Am I wrong? 

If I'm wrong and they do not intend to do so, then it's just a counterproductive idea on their part, as they coild just convert base skins or Immortals into Void Shells. At least there's no greed in that, so that's better I suppose.

[Jarriaga]

9 minutes ago, ant99999 said:

I have an impression they intended to sell the skins for plat. Am I wrong? 

If I'm wrong and they do not intend to do so, then it's just a counterproductive idea on their part, as they coild just convert base skins or Immortals into Void Shells. At least there's no greed in that, so that's better I suppose.

The new skins? Yes they will sell them, but I was not talking about them. The argument you presented is projection unless they sell you the option to convert old skins to Void Shell versions. Meaning, intentionally holding back Tennogen/Deluxe Void Shell skins until you pay them for those versions despite owning the original non-VS version.

[ant99999]

7 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

The argument you presented is projection unless they sell you the option to convert old skins to Void Shell versions

What? How? 

Ok, we have two options:

1) your skins have material customization implemented. We are happy, DE did a great job. All is great.

2) your skins are left as they were and if you wanted to have the material customization, you're welcome to buy new skins. And if you do not buy, no material customization for you.

 

You see now? No matter how DE explain that, they invented a completely new way for you to spend money, which they could've easily avoided doing, but they chose not to.

That's why it's greedy.

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

14 minutes ago, ant99999 said:

You see now? No matter how DE explain that, they invented a completely new way for you to spend money, which they could've easily avoided doing, but they chose not to.

How could they avoid it?

[ant99999]

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)C11H22O11 said:

How could they avoid it?

By not making them cost plat.

We don't know by the way if that's going to be the case still, so as I already mentioned, it could be greedy, or could be not.

I was just explaining in which way exactly I find the option with buyable Void Shells greedy.

[Jarriaga]

33 minutes ago, ant99999 said:

What? How? 

Because of this sentence:

1 hour ago, ant99999 said:

Pretty much like "Oh, we know you guys wanted the best skins the game has to also have this one feature, but how about you instead buy those worse basic skins we recycled and added the feature to them instead?"

I don't know about you, but for me it seems counter to the players' interest and more towards making more cash.

Highlighting that old skins can not benefit from a feature that is available in new skins followed by implying this is intentional to make more cash signifies there's somehow a monetary incentive to lock out old content from the new tech, which is projection unless they also sell you an option to convert past skins into Void Shell skins.
 

33 minutes ago, ant99999 said:

Ok, we have two options:

1) your skins have material customization implemented. We are happy, DE did a great job. All is great.

2) your sk8ns are left as they were and if you wanted to have the material customization, you're welcome to buy new skins. And if you do not buy, no material customization for you.

You see now? No matter how DE explain that, they invented a completely new way for you to spend money, which they could've easily avoided doing, but they chose not to.

That's why it's greedy.

You make it sound like Tennogen is free and you don't have to buy each individual new Tennogen skin released independently from your previous skin collection. Even if just for the design alone and color separation details (Irrespective of materials) or the helmet, one skin type does not replace or invalidate the other.

[ant99999]

6 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

You make it sound like Tennogen is free and you don't have to buy each individual new Tennogen skin released independently from your previous skin collection. Even if just for the design alone (Irrespective of materials) or the helmet, one skin type does not replace or invalidate the other.

That's the point that Void Shells aren't plain new design. For a player who already bought other skins it is now either the skins they enjoy, or the new feature. And if they choose the latter they have to spend money.

 

The Void Shells only are desirable because their new feature. If it wasn't for material customization, a lot less people would want to buy some basic skins. So in a way DE is asking you to pay for the player requested feature they're now adding masking it behind it being "just another skin collection".

The option with buyable conversion to Void Shell you were comparing this to would actually be more honest in some aspects (although being of course worse in general), because at least it respects your choice in skins. It wouldn't be "either what you enjoy, or new shinies", you see.

[(NSW)Cephalon_Sugma]

On 2022-03-11 at 5:44 PM, Acquardio_ said:

Yup. The void skins don't need to be complicated (as in how they look). They can (at fist glance) look as basic as immortal skins since we can change the textures around.

 

but is that what would actually be a good idea for the game?