My one gripe with body paint
Currently replaying for the third time, and wanted to share one of my minor pet peeves!
Given how much worldbuilding was given to the Tenakth body paint as being linked to achievements and feats of battle, it really irks me that the Tenakth armours come with preset body paint. It feels like Aloy is just larping as Tenakth - it’s weirdly disrespectful of their culture. And lets face it, she shouldn’t have the same body paint as random Tenakth villager B, given everything she accomplishes.
Imagine if you could choose your body paint separately from the armour, similarly to the face paint but with a modular system. If you could unlock and combine new patterns or upgrade existing ones based on story progression, arena progression, number of machines destroyed and so on, you could end up with some really cool & unique Aloy designs when combined with different armours.
It would be a cool way to tie Aloy’s reputation into the game more diegetically - rather than having everyone in the world just magically have heard of her. Word wouldn’t spread THAT easily. Tenakth would greet her warily but accep her initially, but the more paint she’s earned, the more they respect or even revere her.
Still love the game, but just wish this had been implemented as an actual system!