Transmog as MTX might be a bit much.

Since PoE2 will be free to play once it comes out, I don't think anyone minds what GGG throws into the store. Sure, ultimately you will likely spend about 30-40$ on stash tabs for convenience sake, but that's nothing when you consider just how much you will be able to get out of this amazing game for free. I imagine long-term players on average will spend way more than that, and since I really enjoy the game, I will likely buy a thing or two from the store now and then as well.

However... transmog as microtransaction? That gave me a pause. I can accept ludicrously priced cosmetic items - free game after all (or will be). There is no visual character customization to speak of (nevermind other purchases that can alter the base character model) which I don't even mind. Having a pre-set look and personality of a character has its charm.
But the ability to at the very least change appearance of armor / weapon skins without it being a premium service has become such a common demand and a basic system in any RPG since 2020 and earlier that it's rarely even mentioned. You just assume it would be there as something you can do on the fly in one form or another.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, as PoE2 is my first GGG game so veteran PoE players are likely passive about it, but I really wish something that's so basic would be limited to in-game obtainable currency, rather than a premium one.

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Wren#8216 wrote:

Since PoE2 will be free to play once it comes out, I don't think anyone minds what GGG throws into the store. Sure, ultimately you will likely spend about 30-40$ on stash tabs for convenience sake, but that's nothing when you consider just how much you will be able to get out of this amazing game for free. I imagine long-term players on average will spend way more than that, and since I really enjoy the game, I will likely buy a thing or two from the store now and then as well.

However... transmog as microtransaction? That gave me a pause. I can accept ludicrously priced cosmetic items - free game after all (or will be). There is no visual character customization to speak of (nevermind other purchases that can alter the base character model) which I don't even mind. Having a pre-set look and personality of a character has its charm.
But the ability to at the very least change appearance of armor / weapon skins without it being a premium service has become such a common demand and a basic system in any RPG since 2020 and earlier that it's rarely even mentioned. You just assume it would be there as something you can do on the fly in one form or another.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, as PoE2 is my first GGG game so veteran PoE players are likely passive about it, but I really wish something that's so basic would be limited to in-game obtainable currency, rather than a premium one.

I too think it should be a base offering of the game but it would hurt sales of their Power Ranger Lego Fortnite Mystic Goth Knight armor MTX sets if they let you transmog into something from the base game that you felt looked ok, so it's not surprising they don't and I wouldn't bank on it ever being offered for "free"in a "free" game that charges you for the right to buy enough stash tabs that might store 1/10th of the drops that you reasonable need to engage in their slot machine crafting game.

So a few counter discussion points

A.) in almost all games where in game transmog happens or is allowed, there are other costs to entry just to load the game. (I will give you there is the "convenience stash tab POE cost") but on a stash tab weekend 70 bucks gets you all possible stash tabs made, and then some. AND you get the same amount of Points if you buy it via a pack add. AKA you buy a supporter pack get the free cosmetics from the pack, then use the points the pack gives to buy the stash tabs... aka GGG lets you double dip even, and then constantly rotates them through a sales option to keep the cost reasonable for everyone.

B.) Now they have added challenges to POE2 you get a free set of armour every league. and technically you can get a set in POE1 which crosses to POE2. So possibly 8 free sets of armour that have unique look free each year just for playing. I don't know I've every bought an actual armour or weapon piece/set. I have bought a few of the oringial kirac's passes, when they use to be cool... but never went to the shop to buy something direct piece / gear wise.

C.) Normal base gear in POE games tend to not have a lot of focus put on them. People aren't transmoging base armours/Weapons most of the time.... There are a handful which work really well, but in most cases they want to transmog a unique armour / weapon that has much more detailed art work. If they allowed this to happen by base/free. Then the unique artwork of the Uniques would blur out / remove the value of the shop/Purchased items. Thusly undercutting their revenue, and well I'm shocked that they pull off all of the overhead, development teams, and turn out 8ish expansions a year based on a purely volunteer donation system they call the MTX shop....

D.) gear works much more differently in POE1/2 than it does in other games. The gear in other games gets set towards the character class.... with limits. So what happens or what you will see for example in D4 you don't equip a bow on a necro, and barbs aren't whirlwinding with scythe's etc. This becomes a bit important cause it blocks what transmog does or how it looks. aka D4 has "class sets" where item class Leather Glove has 10 different looks one for each class.... Where it's the same across all classes in POE2. This changes how gear is built / art built. You end up making a lot more artwork to make this work... which ends up raising or slowing build out of things.

So while I get it, the premise or how the transmog in the shop gets used is much different than what you see in other games. It's usually to take a very specific looking unique item and copy it's appearance over.

I'll let you know I've spent close to 1k on this game OVER 13 years.... Mainly via buying the large yearly packs at 450/bucks a year, past year or two. But I also average playing POE1/2 2-4 hours a night (average) so at minium I'm around 800 hours a year. so I'm playing about 0.50 cents/hour for entertainment. Very few options around that cheap.... lol so if they want to protect the shop by not allowing free transmog I get it.