Gotta agree with @Zouls & @KuroKuma here,
I always thought you were heading in the opposite direction : The role of a player can be clearly determined by simply looking at what they are wearing.
And I really liked that idea 
Besides of that I really enjoy playing the Divison. But IĀ“m a bit worried about the endgame and long-term motivation tbh.
I can totally agree with @Vastar. I really hope the stats have a huge impact on the visual of the Item.
You mean like fashion or vanity itens?
If sĆ³ of course vanity will or should havĆŖ 0 impact onnwhat youāre wearing. Exactly how it happens on MMOs
Itās not true vanity because youāre required to wear clothing. Itās just customizable, non-stat gear.
Yes I know but vanity says nothing about stats
Our goal with wearables is for stats to not affect whether you want to wear something or not. Players can look exactly how they want, with exactly the stats they want. This does mean however by just looking at a player, you wonāt be able to determine the sum of stats from his/her wearables. We donāt see this as a big issue for Boundless for a number of reasons: 1. Players gain stats from more than just wearables, and likely the biggest increases will come from weapons and abilities so showing it through wearables is a bit redundant. 2. Our proposed stat system is quite big and indepth, trying to visualise these stats would probably be a bit of a fools errand (hopefully youāll agree when you see the system). 3. PvP isnāt a significant part of the game.
Weād rather have a rich set of customisable items and a rich set of stat affecting items (youāre actually getting more than weād planned here).
Iām still skeptical but weāll see how the system plays out in the end.
Iāll have to wait with criticism until then.
To give you a little bit of visibility on what weāre planning (subject to change as always):
Customisation: Wearables, visual customisation items. Come in sets (planning 5 core, 5 additional sets) of pieces which vary in rarity (there are two of each piece per set). Full set example:
Stats: Rings, stat affecting wearable items. Are visualised on fingers. Rings are crafted and then stats are added/rolled via the Forge. Full progression of materials (wood, stone, metals, gems, specials).
Doesnāt sound too bad. So you can kind of see some degree of stats in the amount of rings someone has?^^
Like I said Iāll have to try it out myself first before I can say more about it.
wowowow that is nice having upper arm and lower. thank you! but again you mean āx2ā as in one is for the armor and the other is the vanity slot right? if so, i like it, just like MMOs but one thing im concerned about is actually that. i rather not have just as equal as to the other MMOs (im talking about the TYPE of vanity items). Where in the other MMOs you can have super ridiculous looking stuff like a frying pan or a candy stick. thats just me, that just my opinion.
a side from that there is a really small but yet cool detail that you could have. imagine you have a robe with a hood, a key that qould allow you to put on and off that hood would be great. i wished that had in every MMO that I have played, instead of just having the hod hanging around in the back --ā
and as we are talking about on/off things. the items we can use (with 1 to 9 ) it would be cool to be able to put them off/on (thing WoW, there are many other games but WoW is an example ) to put off and on your weapons or other items to just show you empty handed to show respect to, lets say, a guild. example: āput your weapon off when entering this location because the guild finds that disrespectingā. i think im a nerdā¦ well i like this idea! what do you this guys ? on and off hoods (hoods is also an example that could be with masks too etc) and usable items?
No, for each wearable set thereās a piece and a variant piece that looks slightly differently. So for a Stone wearable set you would have two right shoulder pieces. All body wearables are for customisation. All rings are for stats.
Could you provide us a visual example (Screenshots / Concept-Art). Itās hard for me to imagine / unclear at the moment.
Ok, so a full wearable set, is 15 items for a player to fully kit out their character. Each set piece has 1 additional variation of it ā¦
ā¦ 5 core sets (containing 2 of each piece), plus 5 additional sets (also containing 2 of each piece) ā¦ Wow thatās 300 individual wearable pieces!
Thereās certainly loads of scope there to make everyone look unique!
Question: will each set piece be created with fixed colours, or will people be able to customise further (by mixing wearables with Gleam for example)?
Looks interesting and satisfying to me. Thanks for info, Ben.
The ratio between optical and gameplay affecting items seems quite unusual (15 slots/9 items vs 3 slots + weapon mods) but itĀ“s hard to say if thatĀ“s good or bad without knowing how all the planed mechanics (progression, skills/perks, combat etc.) will tie together. But itĀ“s definitely awesome that we are going to get such an immense amount of optical customization.
One way to achieve both (free optical customization and role based appearance) would be to tie one set of wearables (or just the rare variation of some) to each skilltree/profession that can only be worn after you āfinishedā the corresponding skilltree/profession.
When I (and several others) suggested to tie the appearance and the role together I had the effect on the atmosphere of the game in mind and not the effect on potential PvP.
Just because im eager to see PvP in boundless doesnāt mean that everything I say revolves around PvP 
@TrikRisk
If I understood it correctly the āx2ā means that there are two different wearables for each slot in each set.
For example the ābasicā helmet from the leather set and the āextra fabulousā helmet from the leather set.
oh ok nice thank you. but so when you craft you gather the materials for 1 piece or 2 pieces?
I would imagine they are crafted separately - possibly one is basic crafting and the other is a rare drop (either pattern or item itself) or something along those lines.
Plus tints hopefully
Excellent! That should allow people to customise their wearables to fit with a guild colour scheme as well then.
Iām guessing thereās going to be some concept art floating around for these somewhere ā¦ hint hint 
DERAIL THE HYPETRAIN: itās designed and costed but not concepted yet, so weāre a little way away from sharing visuals just yet.