FA Uniform

[Strod]

I'm going to repeat what I said at the meeting and hope we go for the White/Silver crystal in all our lightsabers as a way to identify us. I know others will be doing it too, but not 20-40 people at a time when we're present. It may not cover all classes such as ones who don't use lightsabers, but it's a pretty nice "visual" start IMO.

Also, extreme disappointment on the Jedi Sage hat option. It could always change, but really that shouldn't be our hat. I don't want to look like I have Anakin's lovers hair due for a hat.

[Manic Velocity]

Capes look silly on the smuggler.  Too superhero-ish.

The trench coat is a much better fit.

[Solstice]

Sentinel idea looks pretty sweet.

[Fuse]

Capes look silly on the smuggler.  Too superhero-ish.

The trench coat is a much better fit.

I'm totally making my char look like Mal. I think this is the closest we're going to get to the actual FFMMO.

[Tbone]

First official part of the uniform: the white crystal! Figuring it out slowly but surely!

[Tbone]

I found an interesting post here about the modding system and changes that are being made. It's worth a read for all the content, but some stuff jumped out at me for developing a uniform:

To start with, we've introduced a new color and item type: the Custom items. Those are shown with an orange border and are fully moddable.

Partially moddable premium (green) items were removed as they essentially lied to the players: an item missing a mod slot would never be able to match a high end non-moddable item. Instead, to compensate for the loss of diversity, orange versions of all green armors was created and given to the crafters. So, yes, if you see a green armor you really like, you still can have that appearance until end level. It does take a bit of work - you either need to become a crafter yourself, befriend one or trawl the GTN.

(Note: recipes for those orange appearances are discovered through Underworld Trading missions.This allows us to have a truly large number of those recipes without overwhelming the crafting trainer inventory. As a side effect, this opens up class quest green armor appearances from other classes as well as long as you fulfill the armor requirements.)

So, instead of letting that happen, we prevented the Armoring, Hilt and Barrel from being extracted, but we also made sure of dropping purple Armoring mods of equivalent power as Operation loot. This means that players going the mod route can still take their favorite orange armor and make it as good as a operation purple armor (with some temporary caveats).

Instead, the crafter can now make a non-moddable item for those players that enjoy that and, thanks to newly introduced recipes, a moddable (but empty slotted) version of the item.

To summarize, crafters can now find orange (fully moddable versions) of every item of clothing in the game through Underworld Trading). These items can be kept up through mods to the end game and beyond, albeit it is more difficult to do so. These items also transcend class, so we could create a more uniform look, just needing to find light, medium, and heavy versions.

I'm still just confused about the Armor of an item. In my test time, I could never get the Armor of an item to change, despite changing out mods. If this gear can truly be upgraded to end game, shouldn't it give more than 42 Armor even with level 50 mods in it?

Edit: Nevermind. Found a video showing that the Armor stat DOES change with mods:

[Arawn]

Yes. The base Mod item has yellow letters and a rating number, the higher the rating number, the more level the equipment get.

During beta, I was able to keep a lvl 5 item until level 12, then I found a level 9 Mod Able Item, and with the same mods I still used it until level 16.

Note: Only the base mod item raises the level of the item. That means that it dosent matter if I have a high level crystal on my Lightsaber; unless I put a high level Hilt on it, the level wont rise.

[Anamodiel]

I didn't see this posted anywhere. They're taking out the Unify Color to Chestpiece for Launch. Details below.

http://www.swtor.com/blog/why-unify-color-chest-piece-gone-and-whats-next

Few of our systems seem to have generated as much passion as our 'Unify Color to Chest Piece' system. So, I'd like to shed a bit of light onto exactly what this system is, what happened to it and what is in store for it in the future.

Pretty much from the start of the project, one of our goals was to solve the 'mismatched color' issue that exists in many MMORPGs. This initiative has actually been driven directly by James Ohlen, our Game Director, as this is an issue close to his heart.

Now, it is useful to understand that when artists create a new piece of armor, they always create it as part of a set. A certain pair of pants, for example, is thematically meant to go with a specific chest armor, gloves, boots, bracers and helmet. If the players always put on full sets, they would look very good indeed and the colors from the different pieces would complement each other. Of course, at any given level, players have access to many such sets and wear bits and pieces from multiple sources. Now, in Star Warsâ„¢: The Old Republicâ„¢, we have created sets that, in many cases, are quite compatible with each other. You'll notice that, for example, Jedi Knight outfits use a lot of earthy colors that work quite well together regardless of which set they come from. Unfortunately, this is not always true - the Trooper is a good example of a class that does not look its best with mismatched pieces.

To solve this we created an option called 'Unify color to chest piece', which we also called 'Color Match'. Once turned on, the option automatically matched the color of any equipped piece of armor to the color scheme of the chest piece. This option was very popular with our testers and did solve the color clash problem, but not without introducing some issues.

While we have a policy not to give details on a system in progress, I do want to talk a little about the worst design issue we encountered. As implemented, Color Match had a subtle but ultimately perverse effect: from the moment it was turned on, the player would perceive far less diversity in their loot. In some cases, to be honest, there are only so many differences we can create between two pairs of boots apart from their color scheme. Take away their color differences - thanks to the Color Match system - and you are left with a game that feels a bit less rewarding; where, sometimes, putting on your exciting new gear barely changes the appearance of the character. Depending on your personal preferences and your play style, this may or may not seem like much... but an MMO is a complex system of challenges and rewards and, as designers, we must stay vigilant in that regard.

So, anyway, the good news is that we are not only committed to solving the color clashing problem, we want to actually improve on the Color Matching system players experienced during Game Testing.

The bad news is... well, this won't be in for launch. The system we are currently working on isn't quite done yet and has many dependencies. After taking a hard look, we decided it would be preferable to keep Color Matching turned off for launch rather than try to do a potentially messy post-launch conversion. If anything, the live changes we made during testing to other systems (like the cover system or the item modification system) have shown us how confusing switching things under people's noses can be.

This wasn't exactly an easy decision - we know how popular the feature is and how eager and vocal the community has been for its return. So, I humbly ask for your patience. The feature (or, to be exact, something I consider a better version of the feature) will return. The next time you find a particularly bad combination of armor pieces, take some screenshots - and hopefully in a few months (as always, no deadline is guaranteed), you'll be able to tell new players "Back in my day, we had to wear those orange pants with purple boots! Uphill! Both ways! In the snow!"

As always, I'm very interested in hearing from you... I have (so far) managed to read every single post on the Item Modification system and will hopefully be able to post a follow up clarifying any concerns and questions that you have.

Emmanuel

[Keeloth]

I really don't understand their logic, here.  

Take away their color differences - thanks to the Color Match system - and you are left with a game that feels a bit less rewarding; where, sometimes, putting on your exciting new gear barely changes the appearance of the character.

Do they not understand that we are NOT enthused by color changes?  Particularly if said color change is for the worse?  I love getting items with higher stats, and if it looks the same, I'm a-ok with that.  And it seems the majority of the fanbase shares this feeling.  Why is removing this feature a good thing?

[Avzeke (Khr0n1k)]

I really don't understand their logic, here.  

Take away their color differences - thanks to the Color Match system - and you are left with a game that feels a bit less rewarding; where, sometimes, putting on your exciting new gear barely changes the appearance of the character.

Do they not understand that we are NOT enthused by color changes?  Particularly if said color change is for the worse?  I love getting items with higher stats, and if it looks the same, I'm a-ok with that.  And it seems the majority of the fanbase shares this feeling.  Why is removing this feature a good thing?

What if you didn't like the look of the original item you had? I understand where they are coming from, if I had the same looking items for 30 levels, that would be really boring.

[Keeloth]

Then you have the option of switching off "match to chestpiece."  That said, if I didn't like the color of the original item I had, why would I have picked that color?

Personally, I think it would be sweet if I could look the same for 30 levels, simply because "Epic" sets in MMO tend to look fairly ridiculous.   However, if the only change across 30 level of items is color, then there's a bigger underlying issue here.

[Sared]

Regarding the color crystals, there are versions usable as early as level 1.

Also, 'yall are going to be pissed when you see the high level Agent PvP gear. It's the closest thing to the classic MxO uniform I've seen to date.

[Tbone]

So I've got my Synthweaving up to 400. I've been scouring the market for orange (custom) gear. It seems to be a lot of the same stuff. While they said ALL looks could be found, it looks like it's only certain green looks.

I did find a decent white robe for light armor (hood is down, though), and I can send that to whoever wants it.

For medium armor, the Corellia commendation vest looks AWESOME. It's level 50 and requires 12 Corellia commendations, though. It also isn't craftable, so there's no chance of getting an additional Augment slot.

Nothing for heavy yet.

One big issue is that the best PvP gear in the game has Expertise embedded into the gear, meaning it isn't mods that can be ripped out and put into oranges. Same with PvE gear and the high level Synthweaving stuff I can make. As it is now, it seems custom gear is always going to be a little gimped.

As a result, you may end up having several different outfits. A PvP outfit, PvE outfit, and RP FA outfit. I'm still experimenting with this, though, so we'll see. If we do just have an RP FA outfit, then we can expand into blues, greens, etc., since it won't need to be combat ready.

[JazzyC]

Roll on the introduction of clothing dyes!

[Manic Velocity]

There's a set of Smuggler PvP gear that is the quintessential "Han Solo" outfit.  Part white, part black, and it just looks good without sticking out like a sore thumb like some of the other gear I've seen.