"Armour will be part of the silhouette and threat assesment"

So I watched the Jan stream and it was all nice and groovie until we got to that point
"Armour will be part of the silhouette and threat assesment"

I mean that sounds amazing and it is as it should be ... except ... its bullshit
Cosmetics will fuck this up
Last time I voiced my concerns I have been told we will get some sort of indicator what armour type our enemy is wearing under his wedding dress cosmetic (yea I know, dogshit and unimmersive). Did this change? I would love if it did, but I can imagine cosmetic Andy's going mental if it did

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AidanKD

We will see how it works in actuality but there is a way it can work which is my understanding so far:

Firstly, there are costumes which are full body suits. I don't know if these inhabit a slot to *act* as a skin, or if they occupy armour slots so would potentially be in essence stat-less.

Then there are skins. Skins require owning an existing piece in the game and this will be a mod to it. If this is how it will work going by everything I know thus far, then it will be known that x skin corresponds to y gear, it shouldn't apply to any piece of hear. Perhaps it will have some visual similarities?

I am not certain on everything but perhaps a more clear question to submit on the next screen.

daveywavey

So treat anyone in a cosmetic as a "threat" as part of your "threat assessment". It ain't rocket science!

tautau

I interpreted it that we can tell what the actual armor set on a player really is, by silhouette or by a label that pops up with a mouse over. The skin is just for show and never hides what is underneath. It can't hide the real armor set because then it would a benefit, which would violate the 'no pay-to-win' rule.

But this is just my interpretation.

mcstackerson

Yep, felt a little uncomfortable when he said that.

I don't think anything has changed for the indicators. I believe he was just trying to talk up the armor .

daveywavey

There will likely be in-game achievable cosmetics. Would they be pay-to-win, too, just cos they're a "cosmetic"?

Rageclaw

Nobody mentioned pay to win. Where cosmetics come from is irrelevant, what matters is that slapping cloth cosmetic over plate armour is bad design, to an extent that you need to apply some bandaid indicator onto people to offset the missing visual cue

CROW3

There's going to be some uncertainty about how powerful another player is going to be. I guess cosmetics are going to play into this. So, just as in real life, you're going to have to be careful of who you attack.

McShave

if you have plate gear, you can only have plate cosmetic on it. you wont be a tank going into battle looking like a fairy princess, unless you use a full body outfit on.

Tyranthraxus

In 25 years of online gaming, I've never once gained any benefit from - nor have I ever found myself capable of, in the heat of the moment of a battle - being able to identify an enemy's armor. It just seems like it's one of those things that sounds good in-theory, but is entirely impractical in execution.

The weapon? Sure - especially in FPS games, it's handy to know what an enemy is shooting at you with. Otherwise? Never a single instance of usefulness.

I've just always imagined the thought process of trying to identify an attacker's gear and the associated bonuses in the heat-of-the-moment goes something like this:

"Okay, he's wearing the CHESTPLATE OF CHEMICAL RESISTANCE, which gives a slight resistance to any Acid-based spells/weapons that I might use against him. His gloves are the GLOVES OF THE FALCON - which gives a slight bonus against any Air-based familiars/combat pets that I might be using in the combat. His boots are the BOOTS OF THE DOGWALKER, which grants a Terrain-Navigation bonus in areas with more than a 15-degree slant. Next, his bracers are.... Oh. Oh, I've been dead for 2 minutes."

TL;DR = In the argument between no-appearance-gear versus appearance gear in combat, it's a moot point to begin with, since combat happens lightning quick.

JustVine

McShave wrote: »

if you have plate gear, you can only have plate cosmetic on it. you wont be a tank going into battle looking like a fairy princess, unless you use a full body outfit on.

I don't suppose you would know where to find the quote for that? Last response I got when I asked was 'look in the apoc streams' lol.

Goatrek

I would love the option to disable cosmetics on my character and others. Just a toggle menu option. When I want to go tryhard/immersive mode I could activate it, and when I dont care I have the option to go back to default cosmetics everwhere stuff. Not adding such a feature just seems unnecessarily hostile/limiting towards a part of the playerbase for the sake of cosmetic users to be able to force their idea of good on others.

Nerror

For large battles, like sieges, they've talked about a setting for a Default Character Appearance. Meaning, cosmetics will be turned off and a more generic armor will be shown that show the correct armor type.

Like @Tyranthraxus is saying, I also think people are overthinking the importance of silhouettes a little. It's not completely unimportant for sure, but what really matters is recognizing the skills of the enemy. Much less so armor types.

Noaani

Nerror wrote: »

It's not completely unimportant for sure, but what really matters is recognizing the skills of the enemy. Much less so armor types.

In a game where different types of armor protect against different types of damage (or don't protect at all against some types of damage), knowing the type of armor is key to winning - if you are able to alter the damage type you deal. Knowing exactly which item you are wearing is less important than knowing the basic item type.

We don't know for sure if this is applicable to Ashes, but I would wager that it is.

I think what happened in the livestream is that Steven finally realized that cosmetics can be pay to win.

If you are charging at me with a group of three or four other friends, and I need to quickly ascertain which of you is wearing light armor so that my arrows will deal maximum damage, I should just be able to look at your armor and see. With cosmetics, I need to mouse over you each individually, wasting seconds of my time in the threat assessment process.

That is literally the definition of pay-to-win, you are using something you bought off the store to slow down my assessment of the thread you pose, thus gaining an advantage. These items being available in game does not make it less pay to win any more than it wouldn't be pay to win to add an experience boost to the store, but that can also be crafted.

I've been saying this for years. We need to have full threat assessment made available without the need to mouse over or target a character. This doesn't have to mean any changes to cosmetics, there are other ways to do it - but it does need to be done.

mcstackerson

Ok, they can have the icons hovering over players' heads around their names.

Samson1

mcstackerson wrote: »

Ok, they can have the icons hovering over players' heads around their names.

Eww... I hope not.

mcstackerson

Samson wrote: »

mcstackerson wrote: »

Ok, they can have the icons hovering over players' heads around their names.

Eww... I hope not.

Not sure what you are imagining but i don't think it would be that hard to make something small, simple, and recognizable.

Nerror

mcstackerson wrote: »

Samson wrote: »

mcstackerson wrote: »

Ok, they can have the icons hovering over players' heads around their names.

Eww... I hope not.

Not sure what you are imagining but i don't think it would be that hard to make something small, simple, and recognizable.

I think that's the plan actually? A recognizable icon on the nameplate you also can hover the mouse over.

Noaani

mcstackerson wrote: »

Ok, they can have the icons hovering over players' heads around their names.

From an information perspective, this is the only acceptable option.

It's shit, I don't like it one bit, but if the game is going to allow any cosmetic to be worn, this is the only way to communicate the information players should have, in the time they should have it.

Atama

It's very simple, everyone should have a gear score and their DPS rating (as determined by DPS meters) floating over their heads.

I bet Steven would love that!

Nerror

Atama wrote: »

It's very simple, everyone should have a gear score and their DPS rating (as determined by DPS meters) floating over their heads.

I bet Steven would love that!

I like it!

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