Adding Dye System into Transmog?

[Freedom]

I highly doubt that Blizzard would ever implement a dye system, simply because of how they are lazy with the differences between item set visuals being mainly color, especially with "red is for the elite" tendency they have, except for all Mythic sets since WoD having extra fancy added 3D geometry.

[Nutri]

Diablo 3, their own game, has dies.

The amount of transmog sets I could think of if you could dye them is insane. Hope it’ll become a thing one day.

[WowIsDead64]

I know people will say it is copy of FFXIV. but why not? it will not be the first or the last time Blizzard takes idea from different game and add their own version?

Basically it works like this, first you do a simple story questline to unlock the dye system which will be part of the transmog system.

Then Blizzard should add a lot of colors and dye into the game from different contents of the game like from dungeons, raids, reputation, npcs, rares, and even old contents. Just like how they add a lot of pets in the old contents of the game and new.

Maybe not everyone care about such thing but I am pretty god damn sure a lot of players still want that red cm paladin set from datamining!

Such a simple system will make players playing the game more and more!

Reason, why it's not in game, is simple:
Current system - just one prebacked diffuse texture is required
Dye system - at least two textures would be needed: diffuse and mask texture
For better quality - third normal texture would be needed

Examples:

Diffuse
Mask

And Wow engine is already at it's bandwidth limit. SSD is already required to avoid slow loading. And on average SSD is just 3 times faster, than HDD. So, having 3x textures would bring bandwidth problem back. I don't even talk about having 3x client size.

[gaymer77]

I love the way GW2 does their dye system. It is beyond amazing. The difference is how WoW rewards gear itself. Even if you take out class tier sets, each armor type has a minimum of 3 different color schemes between LFR, normal, and heroic with the mythic set usually being a slightly different loot but same general theme of the armor set the previous ones had. This means that for each raid there are a total of 8 armor sets made per raid (4 sets for the mythic difficulty and 4 sets with 3 different colorings for the other 3 difficulties). Assuming 4-5 raids per expansion that's a total of 32 or 40 different armor sets per expansion IN ADDITION TO any reputation rewards, any "extra" rewards, or any "unique" models. That's just the different looking armor sets without any recoloring involved. If you throw in that each of the 4 difficulties would now need to have their own unique looks to replace the current recoloring system, that's making it a total of 16 armor sets PER RAID or 64 or 80 unique armor sets per expansion assuming only 4-5 raids per expansion BEFORE any reputation rewards, "extra" rewards (ie covenant armor which currently adds another 64 unique armor types alone given 4 armor types, 4 versions, and 4 covenants), and before any "unique" models are added. Keep in mind this is also before any quest rewards are added or any crafted gear is added to the game. Assuming just 3 piece of gear are added per slot per expansion per profession (which is pretty average and given that Shadowlands added 1 piece before 60, 1 rare for 60, and 1 for legendary for a total of 3 pieces per slot added and BFA added 3 per slot as well) that can craft different armors, that's another 9 armor sets just from crafting alone per expansion (tailoring, blacksmithing, and leatherworking all have their own armor sets craftable and engineering has their helms which I didn't add to the 9 form the other professions). So adding everything up and NOT INCLUDING PvP gear (which would add a ton more unique armor sets to the equation if these are factored in), quest rewards, reputation rewards, "extra" rewards, or "unique" model types you're talking around 41 to 49 full armor sets per expansion required just from crafting and raids. Also keep in mind, this is assuming no class tier sets only armor type sets and assuming that there is no change to the number of raid difficulties in the game.

Given all that, would you rather have the Blizzard team working on making more and more armor sets that you can dye different shades or would you rather they focus on story telling, actual raids, balancing PvP, and the "main content" of the game?

[Azerate]

Pretty sure it was explained in detail as to why that will most probably never happen in WoW, maybe the old explanation/interview can still be dug up somewhere.

Basically wow items were never created with this in thought, and they were made with multiple layers of color, or something like that. It's impossible to introduce a dyeing option in that case.

[WowIsDead64]

Pretty sure it was explained in detail as to why that will most probably never happen in WoW, maybe the old explanation/interview can still be dug up somewhere.

Basically wow items were never created with this in thought, and they were made with multiple layers of color, or something like that. It's impossible to introduce a dyeing option in that case.

Major problem - is that Blizzard don't use normal maps and therefore try to simulate volume of their items via playing with colors. And using diffuse and mask textures brakes this tech a little bit. If you pick some color - you can have shades of this color only. No other colors. Due to this reason, armor looks ugly, if it doesn't have normal and/or specular map. And Blizzard don't want to use 3 or 4 textures for armor.

P.S. Funny thing, but in some situations it may be more optimal to procedurally generate 100500 variants from just 2-3 textures, than have 100500 copies of recolored ones in memory.

[Lazy Gecko]

They've already made a great deal of sets in several more color variants that are just arbitrarily not made available in the game. Remember that one guy in the Legion Paladin campaign intro that uses a brighter yellow version of the Judgment set?

Maybe every 8 years or so they suddenly decide to make some of these unused variants collectible like they did in island expeditions.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

You DO know that if someone logs in once for a moment or plays for 12 hours every day for a month it means the same thing on the MAU scale, right? Seriously, people use the whole "evil MAU" thing without even knowing what it means.

Stop following everything I post and responding nonsensically.

[MasterOfNone]

I know people will say it is copy of FFXIV. but why not? it will not be the first or the last time Blizzard takes idea from different game and add their own version?

Basically it works like this, first you do a simple story questline to unlock the dye system which will be part of the transmog system.

Then Blizzard should add a lot of colors and dye into the game from different contents of the game like from dungeons, raids, reputation, npcs, rares, and even old contents. Just like how they add a lot of pets in the old contents of the game and new.

Maybe not everyone care about such thing but I am pretty god damn sure a lot of players still want that red cm paladin set from datamining!

Such a simple system will make players playing the game more and more!

i dont think it is a bad idea. i think blizzard would use this as a main feature if they got ahold of it. through out the last few expansions blizzard implements remedial systems like this and uses it main focal point for their development teams. all the while major systems get neglected or little to no attention.

[Kyriani]

Reason, why it's not in game, is simple:
Current system - just one prebacked diffuse texture is required
Dye system - at least two textures would be needed: diffuse and mask texture
For better quality - third normal texture would be needed

Examples:

Diffuse
Mask

And Wow engine is already at it's bandwidth limit. SSD is already required to avoid slow loading. And on average SSD is just 3 times faster, than HDD. So, having 3x textures would bring bandwidth problem back. I don't even talk about having 3x client size.

One way to bypass this limitation (at least to a limited extent) could be to create a single specific set of armor for each armor type that can be assigned colors. It wouldn't allow the dyeing of other armor appearances, but it would allow us the option to make a close match when certain sets don't have a matching item for certain slots. If Blizzard wanted to take it a step further, they could build a system around this special armor set that allows players to choose the model for each slot from a selection of models that already exist in the game. The new color assignable texture may not look great with every model, but Blizzard could either leave that choice up to the player, or limit the model choices to only those that meet their aesthetic standards with the new texture.

[WowIsDead64]

Overall Blizzard claim, that their art is handmade and they're scared, that gear in their game would look like this:

[Venziir]

I know people will say it is copy of FFXIV. but why not? it will not be the first or the last time Blizzard takes idea from different game and add their own version?

Basically it works like this, first you do a simple story questline to unlock the dye system which will be part of the transmog system.

Then Blizzard should add a lot of colors and dye into the game from different contents of the game like from dungeons, raids, reputation, npcs, rares, and even old contents. Just like how they add a lot of pets in the old contents of the game and new.

Maybe not everyone care about such thing but I am pretty god damn sure a lot of players still want that red cm paladin set from datamining!

Such a simple system will make players playing the game more and more!

Dye system is much, much older than FFXIV and WoW for that matter.

[Velshin]

Dye system is much, much older than FFXIV and WoW for that matter.

Yup I know that I just merely used that example because it was the first thing came into my mind.

[cparle87]

Stop following everything I post and responding nonsensically.

You said this:

"I'd be all for that, but I can imagine Blizzard going "Hell nooooo" as it would eliminate a large source of time invested into the game by players, thus cutting down on players ultimately playing their game. All about the MAU's or whatever."

That's not how MAUs work. It doesn't matter how long they play, just that they log in at all. Your whole conspiracy theory about Blizzard is what's nonsensical. As for the "following" thing. If you don't want people responding to what you say on forums it's better not to say anything.

[Simple Rick]

I love the way GW2 does their dye system. It is beyond amazing. The difference is how WoW rewards gear itself. Even if you take out class tier sets, each armor type has a minimum of 3 different color schemes between LFR, normal, and heroic with the mythic set usually being a slightly different loot but same general theme of the armor set the previous ones had. This means that for each raid there are a total of 8 armor sets made per raid (4 sets for the mythic difficulty and 4 sets with 3 different colorings for the other 3 difficulties). Assuming 4-5 raids per expansion that's a total of 32 or 40 different armor sets per expansion IN ADDITION TO any reputation rewards, any "extra" rewards, or any "unique" models. That's just the different looking armor sets without any recoloring involved. If you throw in that each of the 4 difficulties would now need to have their own unique looks to replace the current recoloring system, that's making it a total of 16 armor sets PER RAID or 64 or 80 unique armor sets per expansion assuming only 4-5 raids per expansion BEFORE any reputation rewards, "extra" rewards (ie covenant armor which currently adds another 64 unique armor types alone given 4 armor types, 4 versions, and 4 covenants), and before any "unique" models are added. Keep in mind this is also before any quest rewards are added or any crafted gear is added to the game. Assuming just 3 piece of gear are added per slot per expansion per profession (which is pretty average and given that Shadowlands added 1 piece before 60, 1 rare for 60, and 1 for legendary for a total of 3 pieces per slot added and BFA added 3 per slot as well) that can craft different armors, that's another 9 armor sets just from crafting alone per expansion (tailoring, blacksmithing, and leatherworking all have their own armor sets craftable and engineering has their helms which I didn't add to the 9 form the other professions). So adding everything up and NOT INCLUDING PvP gear (which would add a ton more unique armor sets to the equation if these are factored in), quest rewards, reputation rewards, "extra" rewards, or "unique" model types you're talking around 41 to 49 full armor sets per expansion required just from crafting and raids. Also keep in mind, this is assuming no class tier sets only armor type sets and assuming that there is no change to the number of raid difficulties in the game.

Given all that, would you rather have the Blizzard team working on making more and more armor sets that you can dye different shades or would you rather they focus on story telling, actual raids, balancing PvP, and the "main content" of the game?

Can I give up only one of those?

Story telling has been utter trash for half a decade now. I would give up the entire sylvannas story line for more armor styles and dyes.

Actually will do you one better... would give it all up for one recolored cloak.

[Dwimmerlaik]

The only way that I could see Blizzard feasibly doing this would be as a start-point system. Meaning, from X date forward all armor will by dyeable and no older armor will ever get a revamp.

That said, have you paid attention to the art department for a while now? 4 sets, 4-5 recolors, per raid tier and that's considered... acceptable? Please.

Somehow Blizzard, despite getting tons of information to the contrary, just never understood that we want a TON more customization. They just don't get it. They're absolutely idiotic about shitting out raid tiers that, let's be fair, don't matter (gear resets too often) and completely neglect customization until they throw us a bone and act like it's the greatest thing they've ever done.

So, while I'd love a dye system, I'm sure if Blizzard implemented it that it would be half-assed, poorly supported, and deprecated quietly while also ruining something else. This is the Blizzard we have.

[Krek01]

Instead of a "dye" system, maybe have it where you can collect pigment to color armor sets in a preset manner. Rarer pigments can be used on harder or rarer armor sets.

For example, you can collect rare "Fel Green pigment" to be used on armor to get, for instance, the Tier 11 green DK armor.

[Squigglyo]

"Such a simple system"


to use maybe... to create? One of the biggest untertaking in the history of things ever done to WoW.


The entire system is NOT designed for it. EVERY SINGLE item would need to be remade, adjusted, added to, etc.
Its not just the Models but the Data would need to be restrucuted for items too.

And it is not just a simple matter of 'Make it blue', every single piece of gear would have parts that would change, parts that wouldnt, parts that cant, parts that can, etc that would ALL need to be set manually.


You want to sacrafice the next 3 raid tiers? Cause thats what it would cost to get a Dye system in the game after 2 decades.



The ONLY way it could really be implemented is on an item by item basis.
EG: Tier sets in the next raid can be swapped for different colored versions.
Not dying it exactly, but same result ultimatly.

[rowaasr13]

The ONLY way it could really be implemented is on an item by item basis.
EG: Tier sets in the next raid can be swapped for different colored versions.
Not dying it exactly, but same result ultimatly.

Are you a programmer that ever wrote anything related to automated graphics processing. No? Then please stop going around and spouting nonsense. Automatic or at least 90% automatic hue manipulation is one of the simplest tasks to program. Do you really think that they sit down and make all recolor completely by hand? Set a list of hues -> generate static textures -> pack them into game as usual. This is painfully trivial and will work even without changing anything engine-side.

Generating dye dynamically on the fly and giving a full color picker instead of preset list is harder, yes. But still it is nothing that could take more than a month of work AT MOST of just ONE dedicated member of a team. I don't want to spend time in debugger to see how game loads .blp textures, but considering it is a graphics format with a palette, all you need is to dynamically apply a trivial transformation of H through HSL on designated region of palette after you loaded texture and before you feed it to GPU to give full access to any color in that dyeing system. You don't need to even touch image itself - only small palette section.

[Jinpachi]

Dye system is much, much older than FFXIV and WoW for that matter.

Black Dye Tubs in UO rings a bell...