IMO upgrading costume textures should be FREE just like every other game. this is just a basic expectation of any gaming studio, particularly in 2021.

your thoughts?

my game doesnt run without the third party tweaker and i think the tweaker team are volunteers? so its pretty absurd to charge (or make me grind) for an outfit that i already own with a slightly smoother appearance

edit: on further thought i think there was a fundemental misrepresentation when they marketed NGS as an engine update when its really just an cosmetics scratch

edit 2: no one is suggesting all the old costumes be released all at once as new body type versions. this is a very common straw-man argument that has been used multiple times as a counter point against the original post (edit 2.5 technical mumbo-jumbo: however a true engine update should allow for importation of old models, procedurally generated texture upgrades and animation, with vertex rigging likely also being importable or easily recreated given a likely small number of pso2 body types)

edit 3: just to provide context to the discussion, Sega is in the top 25 earning gaming companies, roughly in the same economic class as Konami but is under performing them according to this link https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-25-companies-game-revenues/

edit 4: there is some dispute as to what features we are actually talking about. the update includes textures, rigging and animations. in any other game, updates will include these as free foundational features. noteable examples of games which have done similar engine updates (or have firendly micro-transaction based revenue) include blade and soul, warframe, league of legends, WoW, TF2, PUBG, fortnite and runescape. none of these games force the player to re-purchase updated assets of the same item if the player wishes to have the most up to date graphics possible (in fact, in NGS, its based on whether other players choose to equip the updated model AND the updated models are locked behind lootboxes).

edit 5: no one is suggesting developers work for free. this is another common strawman arguement that demonstrates that the user does not understand how companies operate. Sega has to invest in developing the game up front including paying developers up front. developers are not paid some sort of commission based on lootbox sales

@ENERSHA420 You're clearly lacking understanding of the difference between current costumes and NGS costumes. The NGS upgraded costumes are re-rigged to include hand / finger movement, have higher polygon counts, and have higher fidelity textures. It's not JUST upgrading textures.

Still extremely scummy to re-sell outfits to people, though. Many people are still playing PSO2 to "collect fashion" for NGS, except now they gotta rebuy everything.

I mentioned this in the other thread regarding the PSO2 Station broadcast that while not the same implementation the Japanese version has gone through something similar in regards to having almost all of their weapons being replaced by rebranded/tweaked versions (Old-Type weapons to New-Types) to the extent that almost all future content requirements negated the use of Old-Type weapons. You had the game shaped around them to the extent that the Level 75 level cap trial for each class required a thirteen-star New-Type weapon which was rare to get dropped upgraded to +35 (this was also back when weapons did not drop with a grind limit of +35 guaranteed like it does now) which really pushed up the power that players had as well as changed the fundamental experience as the New-Type weapon grinding much much more efficient, straightforward, and manageable compared to Old-Type weapon grinding (which is still how everything else works in terms of upgrading/downgrading risks).

New Genesis pushing on a new series of AC Scratches for rebranded "N" variants of clothing seems to be similar to me with the same rush there was to getting New-Type variants of weapons just to have them (the global version started with New-Type weapons right off of the bat but removed the "-NT" labels because there are only some Old-Type weapons that exist but cannot be upgraded to the extent they can be in the Japanese version) before they become the new norm. I don't agree with them being a part of AC Scratches that players have to buy into but with how the Player Shop works since everything costs Meseta on there I can imagine this wouldn't be so much of an issue in the long run other than running out of stock at some point when we move on weeks/months/years from now if there are no events/reruns for these scratches.

I would definitely agree that Sega could have taken the approach that Digital Extremes did with Warframe with their graphical enhnacements (when models and textures for equipment/characters were updated to utilize PBR/physics-based rendering it was all done retroactively so players got the new looks for free). Hopefully Sega considers a different approach for the N-variants of costumes in the future but considering there are already two planned AC Scratches for these makes me feel that Sega likely isn't going to step away from a profit on something new and shiny to build hype and to make a profit at the same time.

Quite a few old outfits were converted to layering wear later and required re-obtaining the now 2-3 piece sets too. It sucks, but that's how Sega has been rewarded with tons of cash for years now.

@Matt It's extremely unlikely that "everything" will be remade into NGS. Just iconic outfits, they're not going to dwell on the last 10 years for the next 10 years remaking the same old shit.

They should have released stuff like Fate collab earlier. Of course, that's on whoever has the Fate license. But now that these news popped up, interest in "old-type" fashion will plummet. I am at least mostly ignoring now Outfits and Layering Wear for sure.

"Old-type fashion" might be relegated to Mini suit memes. In fact, are Mini suits coming back with their meme potential on NG? Now that would be a tragedy if the new skeleton didn't have that.

on further thought i think there was a fundemental misrepresentation when they marketed NGS as an engine update when its really just an cosmetics scratch

The game has thousands of outfits that need to be designed again to add finger movement and higher textures. The amount of work that would be required would be astronomical. I think they plan to go through a large portion of the most popular PSO2 outfits and design them again for NGS. I'd love if they could somehow slowly re-design all the outfits in PSO2 for NGS but it is what it is.

This is an alternative to having a completely new game where you do not get to carry anything over - which is what most games do. Kind of like FFXI -> FFXIV. Had the same races at start, many similar class/jobs, but had to start over from scratch, no outfits - nothing carry over.

I feel like people asking for this for free don't realize how huge 10 years of cosmetics is and why it's a pretty different thing in PSO2 than other games. Like, WoW was able to update player models and armor sets for free, but that's because when it comes to armor sets that deform based on player models had like, 30 meshes total maybe, and once you changed those you could slap the old blurry textures as-is on them and have it work. The only complex parts of WoW armorsets are helms and shoulders, which are just attached to a point and don't depend on the model (just like pso2 accessories, which you can still carry over and use on NGS models).

PSO2 outfits are more similar to FF14 than WoW, in that almost every armor set has a unique model, which comes with considerable effort. That's why FF14's new races have body types that are just ripped from old races, so that they don't have to redo each and every armor set. If they had to completely redo every armorset in the game for free to implement a new race, they just wouldn't make a new race.

@ENERSHA420 said in monetizing costume textures:

on further thought i think there was a fundemental misrepresentation when they marketed NGS as an engine update when its really just an cosmetics scratch

It is an engine update. It's a fundamental misunderstanding to think that an engine update means higher fidelity models/textures just pop out of the box magically. An engine update means it's able to do more things, which the new models are able to make use of, but you have to actually make those new models first.

@Akonyl I've never heard of a game charging individually for character models (edit: i meant to say individual model updates) even if I pay real money for the updated model I still have to look at someone else's unupdated texture. they have have updated the engine but the implementation is paywalled. the colours in pso2 classic are already terribly monetized and they are just continuing bad habits and dated practices. it just makes them look desperate for money.

@ENERSHA420 said in monetizing costume textures:

I've never heard of a game charging individually for character models.

You've never seen a game charge money for character skins? It's pretty common, especially in games that do lootbox/gacha stuff like PSO2 does. Locking cosmetics behind payment is as old as TF2 hats and horse armor, and I'm pretty sure DotA/LoL/Fortnite all do it too (though admittedly, I play none of those).

Cosmetics are a large, large part of the engine that drives PSO2 monetarily. It's not "desperate for money" to not want to give away 10 years worth of cosmetic content for free, it's just running a business. I won't deny it kinda sucks at some level, but if the playerbase went up to SEGA and said "we demand you update every old outfit to NGS standards for free because it's still technically PSO2", I think SEGA would sooner just release NGS as PSO3 without any PSO2 linking than be forced to do 10 years of unpaid model work.

And now:

"During PSO2:NGS Story cutscenes, a player character that is wearing or using PSO2 Layering Wear or CAST Parts will instead be shown wearing or using default PSO2 Outfits or CAST Parts."

"Old-type" fashion is dead. Also, so much for using our old characters in the new story.

Edit: I learned through Reddit that this is a translation error and it should say instead that NGS stuff won't work on PSO2's Story sequences. What is with this translation team and their mistakes.

I think maybe later down the road; when 3d modeling and rendering gets a bit better (most likely I know Sega won't do this since they wanna make money first in the beginning), the development team can use a custom re-modeling, re-rigging, etc. model engine to take in the old fashion cosmetics and create new ones. I can't remember the technical term or if there is one yet. Basically, take the costume model data; maybe get all point cloud data, vectors, polygons, etc. then run through an algorithm for more fine polygon structure and smoothness (can use AI, I think Blender as something like that, etc.) Then use a custom plugin to re-rig the costume using the NGS model as a base. Once that's done, you can then turn it into a pipeline and do batch conversion of old-type to NGS-type compatible cosmetics. It's probably possible. Maybe take design as from the Unity rendering pipeline and Blender's conversion and rigging/animation techniques. :X