Hat problem and how to fix it

[warget]

People had been discussing this for a while, and it is a pretty known fact, that just adding Lohner’s Emporium of Wonders into the game didn’t solve as many problems with visual customization as people have been hoping.

Right now, there are multiple hats/skins that people just outright never use because they either look too similar, have a much cooler version, or THE WORST - don’t match other cosmetics available for the character.

I would love to use a blue cloak on Waystalker, but there are exactly 0 hats that would go well with it.I love the colorful armors on Ironbreaker, but NONE of his helmets have a fitting color palette.

In addition to that, we have some of the “hats” which look downright ugly when worn on their own.

This is a well known problem and there have been multiple threads on the forum (as well as outside of it) discussing this topic.

What I personally want to do is to make a big though-out suggestion on HOW to solve this problem in the most sure and proven way.
Sadly, this solution does require work and an overhaul to many things already present within the game, but when done, I doubt there will be anyone opposing this change.

My solutions:

1. Make it so Ironbreaker/Foot Knight helmets, Kerillian’s hoods+balaclavas, and Unchained black metal elements use the same color palette as the armor worn, similarly to how Handmaiden/Shade hoods match the color of the cape Kerillian is wearing.
   

   
   
   This is important because this will make people choose helmets based on aesthetic/personal choice, instead of color match.

2. Add a second cosmetic slot, named “Accessory”, change some of the hats so they go in this secondary slot instead of the main one, “separate” some of the already existing hats into different items, to avoid overlap.

The second step is based on how a well known game, Team Fortress 2, handles it’s customization.
TF2 is famous for many things, freedom of visual expression being one of them!

We don’t have to add any outright SILLY cosmetic items, because that’s not what Vermintide is about, but the overall inventory structure is tried and proven to be great! People love it and the flexibility it offers in creating unique and expressive appearances.

But how should the hats and accessories be split?
How should it even look?

As a short answer:
Hats should be the headwear that changes the appearance drastically (like helmets on the Foot Knight, or hairstyles on the Slayer).
Accessories should be minor elements that change appearance less drastically (like the beard/mustache on the Foot Knight, or eyepatch/piercing on the Slayer).

Now the long answer, explaining every Career separately…

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Mercenary.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearances like these two:

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Huntsman.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearances like these two:

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Foot Knight.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearances like these two:

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Ranger Veteran.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearance like this one:

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Ironbreaker.
Due to his appearance being a bit more nuanced, here is the simple schematic:

So it should be possible to combine different beard-plates with different helmet shapes, like it is already done for some of the existing cosmetics.

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Slayer.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearance like this one:

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Waystalker.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearance like this one (with no need for recolors):

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Handmaiden.
Due to her appearance being a bit more nuanced, here is the simple schematic:

Because her helmets already reuse quite a number of similarly-looking assets, it should be possible to combine them together similarly to the Ironbreaker proposal.

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Shade.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearance like this one:

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Witch Hunter Captain.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearances like these two:

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Bounty Hunter.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearance like this one:

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Zealot.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearance like this one:

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Battle Wizard.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearance like this one:

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Pyromancer.

So in the end, it should be possible to have appearance like this one:

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Unchained.
Due to her appearance being a bit more nuanced, here is the simple schematic:

Because her helmets already reuse quite a number of similarly-looking assets, it should be possible to combine them together similarly to the Ironbreaker proposal.

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UPDATE
Here are some more illustrations for the concept.

Color Match

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Hat + Accessory

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Inventory System (using Controller UI)

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Solution for “difficult” hats

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P.S.
I am sorry if the post is hard to follow due to it’s length. I forgot how to make collapsable spoilers. <_>

[Ghoth1ckov1tch]

Really like these ideas, thanks for the work.

In my solo games, the appearance of my bots is very important, because they are always in front of my eyes. I am always happy to improve their appearance.

In general, in an ideal world - in a good Warhammer Game, there should be an option to repaint the models to your liking. If this is technically impossible in Vermintide, then I would like to ask for more skins in different colors.

For example, I would really like to get purple + gold / brass, like for RV / OE - but for all careers.

[warget]

Thanks.
I am thinking about doing an even more in-depth look at each hat available, because some of them would have a slight “conflict” with my proposed approach. But in the grand scheme of things, there is always a workaround, be it “disable X items” when wearing certain cosmetics, or just use the same approach as the VT1 skins with their unchangable hats and just simply not display the conflicting accessory.

[Jaffawer]

Didn’t Hedge say that they were experimenting with a system that would allow you to change the colour of hats/armours? I wonder how that went.

[warget]

Last time I heard about that, was way before they released 3 beanie and 5 hood variations for Ranger Veteran.

If you have newer sources, I would be more than happy to see them tho!

[Maddred]

I don’t want to disappoint you, but similar topics has been rolled over so many times and for so long that probably almost all of us has no doubts about this game element

[ZinStonehead]

It is amazing idea. I hope.

[Slowdive]

Tbh with Waystalker all of her head “wrappings” you can obtain with coins and via achievements look nauseatingly, so dyeing them won’t help at all. Default one (Stalker’s hood) is the only decent of them and could have used some recolours for sure.
That is why I use only “Aspect of Adanhu” since It matches all skins.

[Spike_Nitros]

Loving this idea.

It really baffles me why FS doesn’t allow hat colors to be changed. I’m a 3D artist by profession, and adding color tinting and modularity to cosmetic items really isn’t that big of a deal. Sure, it’ll take a few lines of code and a proper UI to make it intuitive for users but that’s what the Devs do on daily basis anyway.

Converting to TF2-esque per-slot customization, especially when the models area already chopped to easily manageable pieces, shouldn’t take too much time or effort per se. The problem here is whether the people responsible for these kinds of things want to go through the hassle, since y’know, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it.

–Edit–
Some hats, especially Bardin’s beanies, might already have color tinting enabled. Not sure though, can just be texture variants. Needs confirmation from someone who has ripped assets from the game files.

[poob]

A truly damn good idea. I’d prefer the first one only because it’d be less work on FatShark’s part. All I really want to say is there’s no such thing as an “ugly” cosmetic but you are 100% correct that a lot of cosmetics (especially Sienna’s tbh) either look too similar or don’t match the color scheme of any outfit that isn’t the default color. Also really nice editing.

[Unskinner]

He also said this:

@Unskinner

And while I’m on the subject:

@Fatshark_Hedge

but ultimately for us to move hard-baked items (cosmetics/items that cannot be customized) to a different storage solution

does “cosmetics/items that cannot be customized” mean that the color picker is off the table and we have to continue buying Bardin Beanies in different color variations for shillings with every item taking a seperate slot? (even if it’s not taking inventory slots then, this is just another example for poor implementation in terms of user-friendliness)

in a thread about inventory size and didn’t react to that question at all…

I find this modular system that @warget has proposed really good and had already asked myself why FS has not chosen such a system from the very beginning, when a large part of the cosmetics obviously only consist of basic building blocks thrown together. The only problem is that the questions about a revision of the cosmetics system come up again and again since the release of the game… I think at this point we just don’t need to hope that Vermintide 2 will see any big changes, but that FS will do it better with Darktide… There was really enough feedback on every conceivable topic. Anyways thanks for the nice work and visualization.

[Jaffawer]

I mean… we are talking about the same people who refuse/cannot make new shield skins despite the fact that there are literal pages of shield heraldry art already established in Warhammer lore books.

[warget]

Updated the main post with a few more pictures (just to be sure).

[Saryk]

Just leaving a comment to say how much I support this.

[Ghoth1ckov1tch]

Apologize for the small offtopic, but perhaps this is related to the theme. While creating a trading offer in Steam, I noticed this:

This is how I understand - tab for in-game tradable items, right? Kind of like for Team Fortress or Killing Floor (I personally don’t play these games and don’t have such items ).

Are Premium Cosmetics stored here or will there be a system of in-game items like in games above?

[Adelion]

Hm, I wonder since when it was there. I trade to rarely to know. It may be a recent change or an artifact from way back last year as they tried out different systems for adding the new premium cosmetics.

But yea, from what has been talked in the “Early July Premium Hats” thread, the general idea is to remove the existing Premium cosmetics from the Store Page. So it may serve as some kind of confirmation on what you have bought as you can currently only see it in-game. Maaaaybe we will know after the next update for Kerillian’s new digivoluted form and (hopefully) potential fixes for other stuff.

[Rebel]

Isn’t that for the trading cards? To level up your badge.

[Xanoth]

trading cards don’t get sub catagories in steam, they’re in the general “steam” section from that image.

[Spike_Nitros]

Whatever FS opts to do with the cosmetics, changing the current system is going to require a massive overhaul on their end. Personally I don’t trust anything will be done.

[warget]

I try to be optimistic.

Afterall, they seem to have started paying a closer attention to the visual aspect of the game (weapon inspection animation in third person, for example)