Donmai

Xenoblade costumes

Posted under General

Whether official alternate costumes should be general tags, character tags, or not tagged at all is one of the more perplexingly inconsistent standards of the site (just look at Fate/Grand Order vs Fire Emblem Heroes).

That issue has just spread into Xenoblade Chronicles 2 with the addition of the Mythra (Massive Melee) (Xenoblade) character tag shortly after the Disguised Pyra (Xenoblade) general tag.

Personally, I think it's kinda dumb to have an entire character tag for what is literally nothing more than just a pair of panyhose and a sewn-up cleavage cutout, especially when we have no tags for their swimsuit costumes. In any case, it should probably be standardized.

In regards to the creation of the Massive Melee tag, we've had at least two threads pop up on the matter (topic #17514 and topic #18116), which would warrant at least trying it out to see if it should stick around. An aspect to consider regarding the attire is that there wasn't any one tag searching combo sufficient enough to find all applicable instances of this outfit variant (and consider that we also have to account for non-users, who are restricted to 2 tags per search).

Of course, if it is kept around, it should be diligently gardened, since arguably not every instance of Mythra wearing black pantyhose should count.

We've already had the slow spread of costume tags as character tags within other non-gacha copyrights (unless wearable by many, in which case they are forced into being general tags), but the bigger question to ask (aside from whether or not, as you mention, Xenoblade 2's other costumes should receive tags) is what format the costume names should take. Aside from the character_(outfit) format, we also have the addition of the modifier before the name (as noted by evazion in forum #175824), with that format preferable if it maintains consistency with how the costume is named in the source game.

I really don't think we need the mythra_(massive_melee)_(xenoblade) tag. The only changes to Mythra's outfit in Smash Bros. are the removal of her cleavage cutout and the addition of pantyhose, while the entire rest of the outfit is exactly the same.

As of right now, it is essentially a composite search for mythra_(xenoblade) pantyhose - over 87% of the posts with this new tag are also tagged with pantyhose and, let's be honest, that's what people are really searching for. In fact, a mythra_(xenoblade) pantyhose search is actually better for this since it includes posts that don't have the costume tag and it won't include random upper body posts that are thrown in the mix because of a missing boob window.

We don't have costume tags for Pokémon characters that are redesigned for remakes and such, and their outfits get changed a lot more than Mythra's. Instead, we use the game tag that the redesign came from to avoid unnecessary composite tag padding. Take May, for example. Instead of using a tag like may_(pokemon_oras), we use both may_(pokemon) and pokemon_oras. Similarly, we should use both mythra_(xenoblade) and super_smash_bros. for this new Smash Bros. outfit instead of mythra_(massive_melee)_(xenoblade).

I agree with Zap.

Incredibly minor costumes and outfit updates like that don't really need a tag when they can be achieved by <character>+1 tag. There're tons of costumes from other games we don't have tags for because they'd be padding. For everyone's favorite examples: Fate. Penthesilea has a specific, purchasable costume, Amazoness CEO. We don't have a tag for it because it's just glasses. "penthesilea_(fate) glasses" gets you all images of it.

If you're looking for Mythra stuff specifically related to Smash, search for Smash.

For reference, there's also (XB1 spoiler) mecha-fiora_(speed_armour), which was originally a gentag, but because only one character can wear it, it was made a chartag.
Imo the problem arises with the rest of the outfits - Xenoblade 1 has a couple dozen outfits shared among the cast (with 6 unrelated ones only word by the aforementioned character), so making a chartag for each of them would be extremely bloating at the very least.
I've already seen a bunch of artworks of the Makna outfit (the tribal/feathery one). I think it should be a gentag.

I ended up not making character tags for every costume for Fire Emblem Heroes characters, with the argument that they shouldn't be tagged at all when it's under 40-50 images. And now I see you populating poppi_alpha_(swim_lesson)_(xenoblade) and similar to a whopping 4 with no discussion.

See topic #17733 for the discussion, namely Renim's counter-points. If I'm not mistaken, the Xeno-whatever series has a toooooon of random DLC costumes. Enough to where many of them get little to no individual attention, so the mentality is very similar to FEH.

Veradux said:

I ended up not making character tags for every costume for Fire Emblem Heroes characters, with the argument that they shouldn't be tagged at all when it's under 40-50 images. [...] See topic #17733 for the discussion, namely Renim's counter-points.

Renim's point was that alt costumes shouldn't be tagged when the original character tag is below 40 tags. poppi alpha has more than a hundred posts, so i guess it fits.
That said, i'm against making chartags for whatever outfit. For example, for Pyra's disguise, i think only the hood should be tagged, because there's a somewhat popular redesign/cosplay (post #4116402). As for the swimsuits, i think a character + swimsuit search would suffice? They're not that many, so it shouldn't be too much of a bane for normal users.

If I'm not mistaken, the Xeno-whatever series has a toooooon of random DLC costumes. Enough to where many of them get little to no individual attention, so the mentality is very similar to FEH.

Not really. (tl;dr only Xenoblade 2 has DLCs, they're a handful, and most of them are recolours of standard outfits.)
As far as i know the only games in the Xeno series with alt costumes are Xenoblade, Xenoblade X, and Xenoblade 2 (there are also KOS-MOS's minor redesigns, but they have been solved by searching for KOS-MOS + game name). Of these, Xenoblade and Xenoblade X have an equipment system, where there are various sets of gears for all characters (see Makna Armour), while all of Xenoblade 2's alternate outfits are from DLC and unique to each character. Using this video as reference, DLC outfits are composed of two outfit recolours and a swimsuit per main character. They can easily be handled with (official?) alternate color + chartag, or as i said before, swimsuit + chartag (except Nia who gets a sundress + chartag search). As a side note, Pyra also gets Disguised Pyra (Xenoblade), which appears in the main game for a small section.

Imo the only tag worth keeping would be Pyra's disguise, as a gentag.

MegaFlare said:

That reminds me, is there a specific tag naming convention to use?

We have the armor tag without the "u" in it.

I used "armour" because Xenoblade 1 is localized in British English. I almost always see Xenoblade 1-related things spelled with British spelling, regardless of the writer's own dialect. It just seems to be tacitly agreed upon by the fans. For example, the wikia uses the spelling difference to disambiguate between Xenoblade 1's armour and Xenoblade X's armor (which is set and localized in American).

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