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Armor style adaptation to races ... why?

MedrashMedrash Member
edited September 2020 in General Discussion
I don't get why the armor will change style to fit the racial armor style. It doesn't make any sense, and it will broke the game immersion by a certain ammount.
You said that the armor set will be similar from race to race ... but at the end in the image of the wiki i saw two totally different armors (dwarf one and elf).. the only thing they have in common is the grey color xD .
If it was just the size that changed maybe was better ... but i get your point , you want a certain race to wear only racial armors , not exotic one xD what the hell is this?? a fk catwalk for models? Or a rpg game??? Are you dictators? xD Elf wear elf style .. it's prohibited to use any dwarf one for them ... it's a divine law . No it's a game , a rpg style game.
So i think this feature need to be changed.

Motivations:
1- First of all the player need to choose what to look like, and what to wear ... his style. It's part of the gameplay of a rpg game, just watch Asmonbald doing transmog competitions xD do you think it will be fun to just see an elf with only elf armor styles, or a dwarf with the same dwarf style? Where is the customization? Or the fun to just use everything you want , even if it leads to an obscene result. It's the player choise, and fun.
2- Collecting sets. The armor is like a mount .. you get it and you keep it. What if you go to buy a mount of another race but when you summon him it will transform into your racial mount? You want the exact same mount ... you want to collect stuff. Sure you can add a saddle that rappresent your race, but the mount should not change, why the armor should?
Do you want to add some characterization? i have some suggestion later on.
3- Droppable and craftable items, the difference between those is that the craftable is a custom one, that will fit the style of the creator. In this case you can make racial armor sets that follow the racial style, but if you take an orc armor and magically it will change into an elf one it doesn't make any sense, you want the orc style becouse it's what you got from the adventure!!!
When you drop an unique style you want to keep it as it is. trophy. Droppable items have droppable style (exotic style), craftable one have a craftable style (racial or personal style).
4- I don't know how it will change.. magically? changing between a style to another ... magic i guess? from what? It breaks immersion by a lot, it's stupid and doesn't make too much sense. This can be easly fixed though.
5- it will take you more time to make all this different variations of a single set for no purpose. that's a waste of time into a feature that is not good for the game. It takes resources .. for what? It doesn't change the gameplay or anything. Instead you can design more armor style and make more content to play with, doing so it will be way better to get all those different sets and style, instead of just having few, that will change automatically their appearence. Let the player play .. or "let the kids play" as someone said xD This is an unecessary work that will delete part of the gameplay aspect and the freedom of a player.
6- It doesn't make any logic sense to get an armor from a different culture, with a certain design ... and then change it to another type of armor. An elf armor that has round edges to facilitate agility and moviment .. with an increase in the agility.. weared by a dwarf it become squared... ?
7-and other motivation i missed or minor one.

How to fix or resolve this problem without giving up your idea of racial design?
Of course a dwarf armor cannot fit a orc body, in this case the easiest way but the worst of course is to just scale it up to fit him, automatically, like wow and other games do.
Anyway the blacksmit profession exist, it has a rule in the game ... why not using it?
to make an armor of a different race you need an artisan or a player with the profession. To scale it up/down or change it, to modify it. Decomponing and rebuilding it to fit the player. Or maybe you (the player with blacksmith profession) can get the blueprint to replicate it.
Of course some armor will be unchangeable.

Anyway that's not the only option ... you can always trade it in the market to get the armor you need or want. This will make the AH more usefull and fun, or just more interactive. It gives sense to the selling mechanics, if you have something that you don't need, instead of stuffing everything into the bank becouse you can use it.
Also the player have the transmog option, if they want to wear an armor with a racial look they can simply use the transmog right? So that's pretty much useless to add this heavy feature ... remove it.

Instead you can make different versions of the same set if you want, giving the freedom of choise to the player on what he can wear. An eagle set can have the elf version and the dwarf version available for drop, this way you get 2 or more sets, instead of 1 with this "Racial appearence" feature. The eagle dwarf set will increase maybe the defense and the elf eagle set the speed.

It will give to items more uniqueness if it has a race bonus/limitation or maybe a size stat. The item will be more rare and get value, making the game more interesting overall. Instead of just stats bonusses. It will add more value to the professions, and more depth into the game.

Anyway i don't like that you can wear only elvish style armor if you are an elf, it doesn't make sense with the lore and anything else. I just don't like it ... we are the players not you (devs) .. sometimes i think that your personality (devs personality) is more inclined to a player one instead of a game developer one. A game developper think differently to a gamer. You try to make the stuff look cool instead of trying to give to the player that choise. You are playing instead of making a game sometimes.
You also said that you are old player .. and that's great to build a nice game, but it's needed a different view to make games too. I have the mindset of a game designer, so my weak point is to not listen that much to the other opinions about the game sometimes, i have an idea and i follow my idea ... regardeless if it's actually good or bad. But you are too easly influenced by the people need or your game expirience and don't know how to build an idea to make it work into a game. An example is wow .. they usually get bad ideas and they never listen to the audience.
I'm a bit off topic right now .. sry, i wrote too much non sense stuff. Anyway i tried to send you a message for the job of junior game designer , you never replied me :( devs ..
I'm sry for my italian english xD

Give to me a good explanation to that game choise anyway.. pls, thz ;)
Hope the best.

Comments

  • MedrashMedrash Member
    edited September 2020
    sry i made a lot of typing errors, and my english is not that good sometimes ^^
    You can make joke of italian people of course , and my knowledge of the english as an italian xD feel free to do it!!

    i found how to edit stuff thz xD i corrected some of them.
  • VmanGmanVmanGman Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I have no idea what you’re talking about. Can you link the armor sets that you claim look so different between the various races?

    The differences I’ve seen between races are minor and look very nice.
  • DamoklesDamokles Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    1. You can edit your discussion. It is in the top right, the little gear/cog.
    2. It is so that some armors wont look REALLY weard on specific races (Tulnar, Dwarvs and Orcs most likely). If you know WoW, then you wont have to look further then to Gnomes and plate helmets. They look gigantic compared to the rest of the body.
    a6XEiIf.gif
  • @vmangman
    vmangman wrote: »
    I have no idea what you’re talking about. Can you link the armor sets that you claim look so different between the various races?

    The differences I’ve seen between races are minor and look very nice.

    https://it.ashesofcreation.wiki/Gear_appearance#Racial_weapons_and_armor
  • MedrashMedrash Member
    edited September 2020
    @Damokles
    Damokles wrote: »
    1. You can edit your discussion. It is in the top right, the little gear/cog.
    2. It is so that some armors wont look REALLY weard on specific races (Tulnar, Dwarvs and Orcs most likely). If you know WoW, then you wont have to look further then to Gnomes and plate helmets. They look gigantic compared to the rest of the body.

    1- Wow thz, i didn't saw it cause it's out of the discussion window xD and someone in the help chat said me it was not possible to do :/ anyway thz.

    2-If you don't like the gnomes , as many do, it's your personal taste. They are designed with a gigantic head.
    weird is what makes a rpg a good rpg, then what's the point of having to choose and design the style of your character. Weird is good and fun.
    Customization .. it's when you are not forced to wear a full set but you can activelly play the game and choose how to dress, from different styles. It's the basics of a rpg.
    i love Gromes and Plate helmets!

    Wow is a perfect example .. where almost every equipment looks nice regardless of the race.
    If you grab an helmet from the goblins and use it you should wear a goblin helmet and not an elvis one. That's a rpg ... when someone see you they know you come from the goblin village or dungeon.
    You use what you get .. maybe with a malus if the other race has body structure too different , and then the helmet doesn't fit well.
  • DamoklesDamokles Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Medrash wrote: »
    @Damokles
    Damokles wrote: »
    1. You can edit your discussion. It is in the top right, the little gear/cog.
    2. It is so that some armors wont look REALLY weard on specific races (Tulnar, Dwarvs and Orcs most likely). If you know WoW, then you wont have to look further then to Gnomes and plate helmets. They look gigantic compared to the rest of the body.

    1- Wow thz, i didn't saw it cause it's out of the discussion window xD and someone in the help chat said me it was not possible to do :/ anyway thz.

    2-If you don't like the gnomes , as many do, it's your personal taste. They are designed with a gigantic head.
    weird is what makes a rpg a good rpg, then what's the point of having to choose and design the style of your character. Weird is good and fun.
    Customization .. it's when you are not forced to wear a full set but you can activelly play the game and choose how to dress, from different styles. It's the basics of a rpg.
    i love Gromes and Plate helmets!

    Wow is a perfect example .. where almost every equipment looks nice regardless of the sace.
    If you grab an helmet from the goblins and use it you should wear a goblin helmet and not an elvis one. That's a rpg ... when someone see you they know you come from the goblin village or dungeon.
    You use what you get .. maybe with a malus if the other race has body structure too different , and then the helmet doesn't fit well.

    I dont have a problem with gnomes and their rather big heads. I played a Gnome mage and Warrior for some time after all.
    What I have a problem with is that plate helmets are roughly the same size AS THE REST OF THEIR BODY.

    You can still customize your armor appearance. But they also want things to look at least a bit realistic.
    WoW is indeed a good example, with how certain armor looks ridiculous on certain races. Tauren and Worgen head armor; Dwarven/Draenei/Orc/Worgen/Tauren shoulderpieces.
    They look ridiculously oversized while they look at least okay-ish on other races.
    Btw, WoW also changes the size of armor depending on the race. I dont really know what you meant with:

    "If you grab an helmet from the goblins and use it you should wear a goblin helmet and not an elvis one. That's a rpg ... when someone see you they know you come from the goblin village or dungeon.
    You use what you get .. maybe with a malus if the other race has body structure too different , and then the helmet doesn't fit well."


    The only thing that Intrepid wants to do in regards to adapting the armor design to different races is that some pieces wont be bigger in comparison to the rest of the armor depending on the race.
    a6XEiIf.gif
  • VmanGmanVmanGman Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Medrash wrote: »
    @vmangman
    vmangman wrote: »
    I have no idea what you’re talking about. Can you link the armor sets that you claim look so different between the various races?

    The differences I’ve seen between races are minor and look very nice.

    https://it.ashesofcreation.wiki/Gear_appearance#Racial_weapons_and_armor

    I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Those are different, but they are clearly the same armor and their style and design is obviously the same.
  • arsnnarsnn Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    So i dont have a strong opinion on this in term how its gonna impact my experience, but i hope they don’t go overboard with putting too much effort into the racial adaptations.
    Intrepid will have to edit every armor in the game for the 8 existing races, which is a huge work load and i dont think its worth it personally. The art pipeline seems already ambitious enough :smiley:
  • Balrog21Balrog21 Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Death to all gnomes and their stupid little bantering , annoying voices.
  • MedrashMedrash Member
    edited September 2020
    @Damokles

    If it was just the size it whould be ok. Nothing better and nothing worst, for my expirience in wow. But unlikely it's not just the size, also the style will change. When you wear a piece of armor it will look with a different design too. You elf will never be able to dress and look like an orc of the forest, or customize himself that way.
    The size is understandable, the style not.

    Ah, anyway, i see some realism but the game is far away from a realistic design in my opinion.
    Everything is made out of leather, super tight. They all wear leggins xD . Also the plate armor is too light, almost like a bikini armor style. Boobs on chest plate armor? Irregoral shoulders. Overly decorated armors, with thousands of laces and strange layers. Super long and unbalanced edges.
    it seems almost a fashion show, so to me is 90% fantasy and 10% realistic xD.
    Classic wow was way more realistic in his design.

    The weapons ... i don't see any realism so far for now. They are rly rly big and overly decorated. Not like Final Fantasy of course, or some other mmorpg. But they are pretty close to them. Also the combat style is not realistic. ^^
  • @vmangman
    vmangman wrote: »

    I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Those are different, but they are clearly the same armor and their style and design is obviously the same.

    I personally don't see that, they are just plate armor, with toally different styles. The elf chestplate is much better designer xD .. anyway.
    They tecnically have an armor with the same material, one with the style of dwarfs and the other with an elf like style. I don't see any common point at all. A part from the skirt, that can remind somehow to the same set.

    There are 2 different type of armors, racial one and exotic one. This game have deliberately chose to exclude exotic one and allow only racial style one.
    in a world where trading is essential ...

    So it's a bad design choise that i whan to point out .
  • @arsnn
    arsnn wrote: »
    So i dont have a strong opinion on this in term how its gonna impact my experience, but i hope they don’t go overboard with putting too much effort into the racial adaptations.
    Intrepid will have to edit every armor in the game for the 8 existing races, which is a huge work load and i dont think its worth it personally. The art pipeline seems already ambitious enough :smiley:

    Yea i absolutelly agree, they put too much effort in the aesthetic i think... generally this lead to a poor gameplay work ... :cold_sweat:
    it's not worth at all ... they have too big aspirations, they push everything too far , if you get what i mean
  • I think you are generalising one armour set shown to the many concepts they have also shown, sure some armour sets may change design via race like a simple iron armour like the one on the wiki but the legendary armour, the ones that have a a style that defines the armour will not.
  • Medrash wrote: »
    I don't get why the armor will change style to fit the racial armor style. It doesn't make any sense, and it will broke the game immersion by a certain ammount.
    You said that the armor set will be similar from race to race ... but at the end in the image of the wiki i saw two totally different armors (dwarf one and elf).. the only thing they have in common is the grey color xD .
    If it was just the size that changed maybe was better ... but i get your point , you want a certain race to wear only racial armors , not exotic one xD what the hell is this?? a fk catwalk for models? Or a rpg game??? Are you dictators? xD Elf wear elf style .. it's prohibited to use any dwarf one for them ... it's a divine law . No it's a game , a rpg style game.
    So i think this feature need to be changed.

    Motivations:
    1- First of all the player need to choose what to look like, and what to wear ... his style. It's part of the gameplay of a rpg game, just watch Asmonbald doing transmog competitions xD do you think it will be fun to just see an elf with only elf armor styles, or a dwarf with the same dwarf style? Where is the customization? Or the fun to just use everything you want , even if it leads to an obscene result. It's the player choise, and fun.
    2- Collecting sets. The armor is like a mount .. you get it and you keep it. What if you go to buy a mount of another race but when you summon him it will transform into your racial mount? You want the exact same mount ... you want to collect stuff. Sure you can add a saddle that rappresent your race, but the mount should not change, why the armor should?
    Do you want to add some characterization? i have some suggestion later on.
    3- Droppable and craftable items, the difference between those is that the craftable is a custom one, that will fit the style of the creator. In this case you can make racial armor sets that follow the racial style, but if you take an orc armor and magically it will change into an elf one it doesn't make any sense, you want the orc style becouse it's what you got from the adventure!!!
    When you drop an unique style you want to keep it as it is. trophy. Droppable items have droppable style (exotic style), craftable one have a craftable style (racial or personal style).
    4- I don't know how it will change.. magically? changing between a style to another ... magic i guess? from what? It breaks immersion by a lot, it's stupid and doesn't make too much sense. This can be easly fixed though.
    5- it will take you more time to make all this different variations of a single set for no purpose. that's a waste of time into a feature that is not good for the game. It takes resources .. for what? It doesn't change the gameplay or anything. Instead you can design more armor style and make more content to play with, doing so it will be way better to get all those different sets and style, instead of just having few, that will change automatically their appearence. Let the player play .. or "let the kids play" as someone said xD This is an unecessary work that will delete part of the gameplay aspect and the freedom of a player.
    6- It doesn't make any logic sense to get an armor from a different culture, with a certain design ... and then change it to another type of armor. An elf armor that has round edges to facilitate agility and moviment .. with an increase in the agility.. weared by a dwarf it become squared... ?
    7-and other motivation i missed or minor one.

    How to fix or resolve this problem without giving up your idea of racial design?
    Of course a dwarf armor cannot fit a orc body, in this case the easiest way but the worst of course is to just scale it up to fit him, automatically, like wow and other games do.
    Anyway the blacksmit profession exist, it has a rule in the game ... why not using it?
    to make an armor of a different race you need an artisan or a player with the profession. To scale it up/down or change it, to modify it. Decomponing and rebuilding it to fit the player. Or maybe you (the player with blacksmith profession) can get the blueprint to replicate it.
    Of course some armor will be unchangeable.

    Anyway that's not the only option ... you can always trade it in the market to get the armor you need or want. This will make the AH more usefull and fun, or just more interactive. It gives sense to the selling mechanics, if you have something that you don't need, instead of stuffing everything into the bank becouse you can use it.
    Also the player have the transmog option, if they want to wear an armor with a racial look they can simply use the transmog right? So that's pretty much useless to add this heavy feature ... remove it.

    Instead you can make different versions of the same set if you want, giving the freedom of choise to the player on what he can wear. An eagle set can have the elf version and the dwarf version available for drop, this way you get 2 or more sets, instead of 1 with this "Racial appearence" feature. The eagle dwarf set will increase maybe the defense and the elf eagle set the speed.

    It will give to items more uniqueness if it has a race bonus/limitation or maybe a size stat. The item will be more rare and get value, making the game more interesting overall. Instead of just stats bonusses. It will add more value to the professions, and more depth into the game.

    Anyway i don't like that you can wear only elvish style armor if you are an elf, it doesn't make sense with the lore and anything else. I just don't like it ... we are the players not you (devs) .. sometimes i think that your personality (devs personality) is more inclined to a player one instead of a game developer one. A game developper think differently to a gamer. You try to make the stuff look cool instead of trying to give to the player that choise. You are playing instead of making a game sometimes.
    You also said that you are old player .. and that's great to build a nice game, but it's needed a different view to make games too. I have the mindset of a game designer, so my weak point is to not listen that much to the other opinions about the game sometimes, i have an idea and i follow my idea ... regardeless if it's actually good or bad. But you are too easly influenced by the people need or your game expirience and don't know how to build an idea to make it work into a game. An example is wow .. they usually get bad ideas and they never listen to the audience.
    I'm a bit off topic right now .. sry, i wrote too much non sense stuff. Anyway i tried to send you a message for the job of junior game designer , you never replied me :( devs ..
    I'm sry for my italian english xD

    Give to me a good explanation to that game choise anyway.. pls, thz ;)
    Hope the best.

    It's simple really, orcs are not humans. Elves are not dwarves and so on. It's fine and the opposite of immersion breaking.
  • If my memory don't trick me , the artisans will be able to lock a race style while crafting them and does will stay in the race style dwarfs for example even if it's a elf that wear it.

  • arsnnarsnn Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Gimlog wrote: »
    If my memory don't trick me , the artisans will be able to lock a race style while crafting them and does will stay in the race style dwarfs for example even if it's a elf that wear it.

    Unfortunately not

    Quote from the wiki:
    "When you say, what if I'm an Orc but want to look like an Elf and I want my Eagle set to be the Elf representation? Well the issue becomes there that you know Orcs have a different organic model. You know, their body is different than that of the Elf. So, from a scope-creep standpoint, it's one thing to add different influences that represent the cultures that are donning the armor; it's another thing to adapt each influence as a matrix that can be worn pretty much by everything. From a scope perspective, that's a very difficult task for the character artists to kind of tackle. So instead what we've done is, in order to facilitate a variety of cultural representation between the races but allow for the sharing of assets like different armor sets, we give different representations of those armor sets to each race.[79] – Steven Sharif"

    So what they did is that they threw the racial adaptation of the cosmetic and the model adaptation in the same pool of the process, so that they don´t scope creep.
    At first i didnt want racial adaptations but minor tweaks are necessary for the cosmetics to not look like shit on wastly different character models like dwarfs and orcs.
  • pogybaitpogybait Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Based on the stream; armor adapts to match the race.

    When you get a unique breastplate what is to keep it looking unique if armor is morphing into the dwarf light, dwarf medium, or dwarf heavy archtype for instance... I do not want to look like every other character. Like the original poster said above building sets of armor is a game in itself... and the information presented in today's live stream speaks against that construct.
  • @arsnn ok my bad , look like I have start to mix people talk and real info ^^"
  • NagashNagash Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    There is no way an ork could wear dwarf armour
    nJ0vUSm.gif

    The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
  • mcstackersonmcstackerson Member, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    pogybait wrote: »
    Based on the stream; armor adapts to match the race.

    When you get a unique breastplate what is to keep it looking unique if armor is morphing into the dwarf light, dwarf medium, or dwarf heavy archtype for instance... I do not want to look like every other character. Like the original poster said above building sets of armor is a game in itself... and the information presented in today's live stream speaks against that construct.

    Your unique breastplate will still look unique, it will just be unique in the style of your race. It's not just going to become generic armor. There will still be variety in armor styles.
  • @Gimlog
    Gimlog wrote: »
    If my memory don't trick me , the artisans will be able to lock a race style while crafting them and does will stay in the race style dwarfs for example even if it's a elf that wear it.

    Yes ... but there is no need to use such crazy solution and this system overall. At the end is better without it.
    I think and i hope something like what you said will be doable for sure, but the artican need to craft them directly ... not locking this non sense magic ...
  • @arsnn

    I don't think they will look bad at all, ashes of creation have of the races pool with the most easy adaptation even. They are all pretty similar and close to human body type.
    Anyway killing the choise of the player to use bad combinations of "style" and dressing what he please, playing one of the most basic rpg feature, is useless. There is no need to do that, extra work to ruin the game customization.
    This is not necessary, at ALL. I don't get what look shit and what good... if they have good design then everything will look good, as all the older rpg have done in the past. To not look like shit there is the transmog avaiable. So there is 0 need for that at all.
  • @Nagash

    It's exactly what i'm saying xD , an orc helmet must not be usable by a race with different size. Sure, making it change just the size and not the armor design is not that good too right? But it's better that changing the armor completely. ;)

    An artisan can scale it up to fit your raze, with a simple + in the features ^^ .

    Immagine taking a good helmet and not be able to using it :smiley: that whould be awesome to add a sidequest to use it, or you can just sell in the AH. But this is maybe too much to ask. i wait some dev to read this discussion and express themself.
  • MedrashMedrash Member
    edited October 2020
    @pogybait
    @mcstackerson
    pogybait wrote: »
    Based on the stream; armor adapts to match the race.

    When you get a unique breastplate what is to keep it looking unique if armor is morphing into the dwarf light, dwarf medium, or dwarf heavy archtype for instance... I do not want to look like every other character. Like the original poster said above building sets of armor is a game in itself... and the information presented in today's live stream speaks against that construct.

    I didn't understood exacly what you meant. if you want to try to write a better message i will appreciate.
    Yes building freely your armor is a good thing in videogames, and it's a game itself.
    Actually you will not look like every other character, the set still an unique set with multiple "aspects" and design, each race will get his different design when the Armor is used. So an armor will lose his identity but still give variety, expacially between different races.
    But at the end you are right, if each set has many design it means there will be less in the game, and less means everyone will look the same, to a certain point.
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