I have to think this is at least partially a bug because it is so insane that I can’t comprehend how it can be anything else.
TRANSMOG COST
At the moment on live transmog is tied to level or ilevel (but same difference in a way). The upshot is if you aren’t max level then it’s a lot cheaper. I can transmog a complete outfit on my level 70 for around 250g, whereas it’s 1k for my main.
On beta that has gone totally out of the window! I checked on a variety of levels (apart from level 90 because I don’t think the new endgame server is functioning, there was no create premade option).
- Level 80: entire outfit for a Prot Warrior = 4,944g and change
- Level 71: entire outfit for Demon Hunter (more expensive!!) = 5,589g and change
- Level 55: ret paladin (minus 3 slots as no shirt/tabard or offhand) = 4,729g and change
- Level 10: mage (missing half slots as fresh roll) = 1,881g and change
I have the screenshots to prove all this ^^ Basically it is clear that to save an outfit is the same price no matter the level of your character. Which is particularly mind-boggling because it’ll completely price out new players from the system. Hello, welcome to Warcraft, want to look cool? Sucks to be you. Level up and grind some gold.
Ok fine, I hear you say, that’s alright because it’s just a one-time cost? It applies to slot and not the item. Hahahaha yeeeeah no. This isn’t the price for unlocking the outfit slot - this is the price for saving the outfit. Now you get 2 outfit slots ‘for free’. If you want to unlock more, then just like bank tabs the price increases astronomically with each new slot you buy. Wowhead has broken down the price per slot and in total for all 20 available slots it’s 800k - EIGHT HUNDRED!
But wait it gets worse. Unlike warband bank tabs which go up to similar eye-watering amounts - this is NOT warband wide. Want more slots? It’s up to 800k PER CHARACTER! Now you could probably go up to 5 slots without totally breaking the bank (the 5th = 1k) and then it really starts to jump (6th = 5k, 7 = 10k etc.)
However, to go back to the “saving the outfit” cost, even the ‘free’ outfit slots aren’t actually free. Each slot is an additional approx 5k (less or more depending on slots). So even if you only use the ‘free’ slots and don’t buy anymore you are still looking at 10k, and then you only have 2 outfits to switch between forever. Want to change up? That’s another 5k.
Ok, I know what you are thinking. Inflation has gone nuts in WoW and 5k isn’t what it once was. With world quests offering around 800g, you’d only have to do what 6-7 to make up the cost of the outfit. With two resets of world quests per week, while it’s RNG dependant on what quests are up, there’s likely to be that many within the week - so it’s a weeks worth of farming every quest for gold. Except that totally ignores all the other draws on a players gold - repair costs for one. At max level a repair from heavy damage (like 20% durability) is already over 1k and that was in TWW (I don’t know what it’ll be in Midnight!). For group content consumables are expected, and they come from a variety of professions. Costs vary, and yeah you can farm and craft everything personally but that isn’t free either as training up professions costs gold. And lets not even mention the other major (and brand new!) cosmetic feature of housing which is designed to be another gold sink.
I currently don’t transmog all that much because it already feels too expensive at max level. There is such a thing as ‘sticker shock’. There’s a reason for that phrase about slow boiling a frog so it doesn’t notice it’s being cooked. With the prices on live of 1k per outfit swap, which I wince at and thus don’t use (just re-mogging new upgrades to match instead). If the price instead was more like 100g per outfit swap, I’d probably wind up spending more than the 1k. It would feel much more accessible and so I’d do it a lot more often.
So in summary the outfit tabs get to be crazily expensive, especially as it is NOT warband wide. Maaaaybe I could unlock them on my main, but that would take out a big chunk of my savings. I certainly couldn’t justify unlocking more than 3 on alts, and why bother? As saving an outfit is even worse. So it’s not like I can avoid the cost of the slots, by just re-saving different outfits.
This system feels designed to make players choose 1-2 outfits (and have to front the cost of around 10k!!! just to do that) and then never change them ever again.
What needs to be done?
- Outfit slots should be warband wide. Unlock 20 - congrats you have 20 on every character now. That might justify the 800k cost for all of them, although I’d still prefer it to be less.
- Saving outfit cost needs to slash a couple of zeros AND go back to tying it at least partially to level. I suppose veterans could ‘abuse’ that by saving outfits as they level but I have almost 50 chars already level 70+, I’m not going to delete my main just to get some cheaper transmog. But whatever, tie it to the new player experience. You can already tell if it’s a new account by not allowing the player to choose anything other than Dragonflight. Well give them an easier ride into transmog. We want to welcome new players - not put them off!!
- Saving an outfit needs to at bare minimum go back to 1k per change. I suppose I could accept that because you don’t have to re-mog for upgrades. However, if you want people to really engage with what you called “the true endgame of WoW” (or was that just a cruel joke?), you should slash the cost to something that doesn’t induce sticker shock. Make it 500g and watch people have far more fun with the system and engage with it a lot more often
Other Feedback
- Choosing the icon for the transmog outfit is exactly like choosing one for the macro - a gigantic list with no filters. How is it 2025 and there is still not even a search bar?
- The filters on the set list are an absolute joke. PvE or PvP only. No way to filter by expansion, or source. No way to see a list of your raid tier sets, or filter out sets that ignore armor type, or incomplete sets. Forget anything more useful like filtering by colour, or theme e.g. dark, light, funny etc. It’s all mixed together in the order I guess it was added to the game, as the trading posts sets are sandwiched randomly in between. Everything is just in the one big list - and I say everything but it’s really not is it? So many sets like from dungeons or questing never made it to the list.
- There is at least a search function but that really relies on outside tools to then find what you want, to then know it’s name to put in it - and I thought you wanted to reduce our dependence on addons?
- I’ve been saying for years as the number of cosmetics exploded that the tab really needed an overhaul but it’s not been changed at all, and it seems that the appearance tab has just been copied over to the new transmog window without any refinements. Want to know where to get your missing pieces? The tooltop just lists ‘quest’ or ‘world drop’ or nothing at all. Why don’t you just build a window for Wowhead into the game and be done with it?
I am deeply unhappy. I don’t usually rant like this but I had high hopes for an overhaul of transmog. I’m a collector and I’m getting super excited for housing, and I was feeling really engaged and wanting to be very thematic with my characters. I had started designing sets for them, like this is their armor for ‘defending the sunwell’. This is what they can wear at home, this is for non-important quests, this is for travelling etc. because the new situation feature seemed to inspire such engagement. I don’t RP but this is a roleplaying game, and I do care about the story and the lore. I’m one of those that reads all the quests and catches feelings at the high emotion points - that’s part of being really engaged. And how this system is implemented (especially the cost!!!) is totally off-putting.
Sorry for the long post, I just really care about this. Thank you.