Skins x Popularity
I have always wondered why some original characters get awesome skins while others just get ''more of the same'' or ''recolors''. After debating about it with a lot of people, the general consensus was that it's due to their popularity. But is that true at all? Aren't these characters popular due to the ammount of cool skins they have? I feel like this is case.
Let's take Kate as an example.
Kate has the ballerina outfit, the Alice in Wonderland outfit, the awesome void rift one, the up-beat (musical) one, Yennefer's cosplay one, Lyrical Goddess one, some country ones, some ''Pop artist" ones, a Snow-white themed one, Attack on Titan one, the crazy gorgeously Award Night one, Maria Renard, etc. So many…
Now let's take David as another example.
Aside from Young Blood one (the blue fighting hood), and the Void one, they're all very basic or more of the same, just a few tweaks here and there. La Muerte one and Saint's Patrick day one are virtually the same skin recolored and his face, on La Muerte one, has some make up on it.
Isn't it worth testing out this theory, Behavior? Try revamping some old skins, or creating a few nice ones for "unpopular characters" and let's see if their popularity grows up. It's worth a shot. I understand that you always try to stick to the "terror game" genre, but still… look at Feng's ones. Pretty cool skins, the ones with LED's, the chinese new year one with that big red and gold dress, the musical one is pretty nice as well…
I honestly feel bad for some characters such as David, Gabriel, Jonah, Haddie, Renato, Thalita, Vittorio, even the new ones, Vee and Orella…
Comments
Downvoting people be like:
This great!
This not good.
This great!
This not good!
Don't know why the boys images got so big though. It's pointless trying to debate with people that see an attack/an enemy in every single thread/post.
Your examples don't really correlate when its all about taste. I would rather use the Vittorio cosmetic than the David one but as I said its about taste and preference. The straps on David chest look really horrible for example. Same goes with the other set I would never wear the first one and might wear the second one but it still is not better than the current one I am using on Kate. They make what they want and they make skins for the more popular ones because those have higher chance of selling. Behavior is a business so they need to make money or why else do you think Feng has the a lot more of cosmetics compared to some others.
Also your extra post are about the same as you talking to yourself. Why are you getting triggered of someone down voting this is the same level as you feeding into people who intentionally rile you up in the game chat.
Between kate and david everytime they want to make a "white girl" cosplay of some kind she usualy fits the look they are going for. David on the other hand they don't seem to try and get a lot of male cosplays, and there are several "white guys" that usualy fit the look better. Its a wonder why felix got the chris re5 cosplay instead of david tho.
I just mean most of the outfits mentioned for kate were cosplays of some kind of license. But as far as her regular outfits go, its a difference of "theme" like how taurie has to have cultist like stuff, gabriel has to have scifi outfits, and david king im guessing they were going with some kinda of "tough russian" theme or whatever nationality he is. But kate is just "american country girl" themed which has a much broader range i guess, along with fitting most of the cosplay roles.
It could be the characters background as David is not someone I would see dressing up as some character from a game.
It's funny how taste cannot be questioned in a world where that questioning is exactly what differentiates drugstore makeup brands from MAC, or department stores t-shirts from Tommy Hilfiger's ones, Balenciaga's ones, etc.
Of course personal opinion matters, but it's kinda of a consensus that Armani makes awesome suits, Nike makes great sports sneakers, etc.
And is precisely why Behavior should start paying more attention to their skins. Skins = Money. Or, at least, more money, cause in Behavior's case, DLCs = more money.
One could say that those skins are, more often than not, "kinda bad" because it needs to fit the "horror genre" thematics, but I'd love to know what are DbD's top 10 skins revenue. Something tells me there won't be a single "bad" skin in that top 10. Also, if that was the case, then why making a Ballerina skin for Kate? A LED Christmas Tree skin for Feng? Or even a Santa's Dwarf Helper for Dwight? I think we're past this point of "fantasy or some bling bling does not fit DBD at all". Heck, we got Trickster, for God's sake.
Also, I'm getting salty because everytime we try to discuss something in this forum, people start downvoting and refusing to elaborate. It is indeed infuriating. A forum is a place to discuss ideas, not to simply shun them and walk away slamming the door in the process. This kind of behavior sounds even more childish than being "salty for apparently no reason".
Taste can be talked about but in the end its up to each individual what they like. Something you think is bad to another is good as I gave you examples of your own taken pictures where my taste preferred the ones that you did not.
Another factor why some character have got more skins is also sometimes the community voting to give those characters skins. Like the few times community skin have been added there has been skins for popular survivors/killers because people voted those. I would love to see more skins for every character but in the end they have limited amount of time and so many characters to make them for and ideas need to be invented. Still even reskins are good as it still gives variety but of course would be nice to get skins that change the look of the character more. Like my current favorite Vittorio skin is just a mix of recolors of his original outfit and the longer hair/beard that was in one of the rifts recently because the combination just looks good for me.
You are not trying to imply Kate's gold outfit is good are you, that's probably one of her worst looks, bar the hair. I use it in troll outfits
No he is saying that Kate's is bad and the top one is the good one. Still as I said I like the Kate's one more anyway but thats just my taste. I am not saying its Kate's best outfit.
I'm sure they released a top 10 purchased skins not too long ago - sure it's on this forums if you searched.
On a side note, you really need to ignore the Vote Downs. I've been down voted for simply writing "Thank you" to someone. It means nothing.
No. I'm actually implying that Kate's outfit is way better than Elodie's one. It may be "simple", but it's waaay better than that horrendous cat one. (And Kate has a lot of good, simple outfits that are cool, I mentioned some above.)
Same goes for Vittorio's. Way better than King's. Has logic, has theme. What was David's supposed to be? A BDSM community hipster that's now writing some poems about gangsters and how their lives are as fleeting as butterflies lives while smoking his marlboro and trying to avoid ADHD at any cost, while his mind is racing about politics??? I can't find a theme. Some people said to me: "Oh, it's the same as the roadpunk skin, etc."
Oh, great. So we are going to have another Gabriel Soma case on our hands? People begged (for months) for something that's not "space related" to Soma. Look at Soma's outfits in the store. They all give the same vibe, they all feel the same in a way or another. David's going the same way. Road punk skin, revolt skin, etc. When they release something like ''David's on a date'' skin, is a breather.
In the end, DbD has so much potential for skins. I feel like Dbd Mobile was going this way… was surfing on this potential. Check this topic out:
I'm completely "in love" with this set:
Yes and no, I think. When I decided to start playing survivor in addition to killer, one of the reasons I picked Felix was his wealth of cosmetics, many of which I liked. But I really don't see that many other Felixes in the fog, despite his ample wardrobe. There was a slight uptick after the Entombment Rift because he had a cool suit in it, and then again with the most recent unlockable Halloween skin, but I'm back to being the only Felix I see. I get another one maybe once every 50+ matches. And I think he has the most cosplay skins as well, at four.
You have to consider why people pick a character. If I were to guess, they'd be:
Character they can project themselves onto.
Character they think is cool.
Character they think is hot.
People argue strategy for picking female survivors but the newest stats had all male survivors as highest escape rate in upper MMR, so is that even really true? I partially chose for skins but that wasn't the whole reason. Skins won't make me pick a character. And most people have their mains already.
Vee and Orela are pretty new. Give them time. I see a lot of Vees. She's popular enough. Gabriel has a limited wardrobe but probably the wackiest. Jonah is one case where the character is tragically unpopular. His skins are all ugly too. Thalita and Renato are also fairly popular. I've seen their recent Halloween skins and that God awful 80s Renato from the current Rift quite a bit. Vittorio is popular too. So I don't think popularity is what's holding back the skins.
I would like to see some of the mobile skins get added. I don't know why they haven't done it. These, for example:
I can't even imagine how well cat maid Sable would do.
as a Claire/jill main, what’s a skin?
Its the biggest organ in your body that covers most of your outside surface.
lol
”I honestly feel bad for some characters such as David, Gabriel, Jonah, Haddie, Renato, Thalita, Vittorio, even the new ones, Vee and Orella…”
It was actually worse before. Back then in the store you could see how many cosmetic pieces every character had and for characters like Adam or Elodie, they had like 30 or 40 and then you saw characters like Feng or Meg with 90+. And I remember mikela had more than Adam Jeff or elodie and those characters came out like 3 or 4 years prior
I think there are probably a lot of factors that go into which characters get new skins and/or high-effort high-resource skins. I don't think it just goes in one direction — I think there's a loop where we like characters like Meg, Kate, Feng Min, Yun Jin, and then BHVR is like, "I bet they'll like Sable," and they put a bunch of effort into making good cosmetics for Sable, and we do like Sable and we buy her good cosmetics and it further reinforces the loop.
They aren't really trying that hard to convince us of what's sexy and cool about Haddie and Jeff.
I also don't think the loop is random — it's part of a larger culture where we're used to thinking that the way clothes look best is when they're draped on one particular body type, and so if no one is deliberately trying to steer out of that, that's what we all steer into.
I actually do think BHVR puts effort into making lore-accurate outfits for a lot of the characters, but it's almost like that's treated as a completely separate exercise from making something people will want to buy.
I agree with you. That's why I created this topic. To try and shed some light on this subject. I mean, ok… Jeff may not be the "strong male standard", but if I were responsible for developing a new skin for Jeff, shouldn't I try harder? So the skin ends up amazing and people would want to buy it and play as Jeff? This is how I think. I'm not exactly sure if I'm "thinking correctly", business-wise, but imo, I am. I'd totally create a cool skin for Jeff, for Jonah, etc. I'm not saying that Behavior does not try as hard as they can, but… when you look at Nancy's face… That's not Natalia Dyer at all. To me, sometimes, it feels like "awwwwwwwwww, this subject again, oh no, just change something there and let's get back to the new killer asap".
And at this point, I have to remind everyone that a famous MOBA that we all know its name (dunno if I can say its name here) made its living by creating cool skins all the time. I'm pretty sure DBD can get a lot more money if the skins are awesome. It doesn't necessarily needs to be torn clothes and the character is all dirty, but it's ok if they wanna follow this path. Just… do you remember Jonah "investigator skin"? So cool, right? When you look at his back… there it goes, a perfect suit, completely ruined by tons and tons of leather to "prevent the suit from being ripped acidentally". Seriously, in all my life, I have never seen a suit like that. Why ruin a perfectly good skin with "add this detail, now add this one, now add another one, i think a pink flower on his hat would be great, and what about if half his moustache was shaved"?
Seriously, it breaks my heart, specially when I look at dbd mobile skins. We need that kind of tryhard here. I'm not surprised to see how everyone loves community created skins, such as this haunted house for Dredge, the ghost for Dredge as well, if I recall correctly, Kate's Ballerina was also community-designed? That Artist one is great, etc. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to participate in these contests, as I do not live in NA. I know some artists that would love to participate and help change this "wardrobe problem" Dbd has.
Now I get why people say it's pointless to try and "solve" something on forums. :-(
Yeah, they know what they're doing here, and it's mostly about money and how predictable people are. Sable is a great example of this; you don't need to be a marketing genius to know that she was gonna be popular and get a bunch of cosmetics queued up for her.
But I also think it is kind of a self-propagating thing; many people do choose/stick with certain characters because they have a ton of available cosmetics and avoid characters that don't. Then the characters that don't get cosmetics because they are less popular stay unpopular because they don't get cosmetics.
Haddie is a great example; she came out of the chute with few cosmetics and never really caught on at least in part because of that, even though she's a unique character plucked out of the lore (Haddie is probably my 1a surv so I am biased, but I think your other example, Jeff, has been treated even worse). But certain characters do get more support at their launch than others, and it's obviously due to who they predict will be popular.
And you're spot on about the body type thing. You don't have to tax your brain too hard to notice the pattern of giving certain kinds of outfits to certain types of characters and not to others, and how that reinforces the way we look at them, and in a negative way that reinforces body image issues, but that's almost a separate discussion.
My question is if you're not going to set up a character for success, why bother at all? I mean why waste the labor creating characters just to let them rot from the outset?
And you're also right that they do put out the occasional amazing lore accurate cosmetic for even the neglected characters, but it only serves to highlight how neglected they are, like "wow what an amazing outfit for that character I almost forgot existed".
Yeah, it used to be so much worse; it was a joke how many cosmetics a select few characters got (FENG) compared to others, and every match seemed to have 2-3 Fengs in it. The money motivation was not hard to see.
Now I think Feng has been supplanted by Sable as the "cute" surv like half of people seem to main. But I think we notice it less because with the larger roster there are more "favored" characters, but the dynamic is still the same.
I try to speak with my wallet as best I can (for the little good it'll do); I almost never spend actual money on cosmetics, and when I do it's on characters who don't get as many and I would like to see more (like I will buy every Haddie outfit on day 1 even if I'm not crazy about it). The rest I will wait until I can buy them with iri shards.
Except licensed characters, obvs.