My Concern for Heavy Armors

I've been following AOC for several months now and have watched most of the videos showing off game play, weapons and armors. I know all of the footage and images are still in pre-alpha, but that is why I want to address this now. I'm going to post some official art from the Ashes of Creation Dev team and compare them to other art and games.

The Pros
I think overall, the armor is extremely good looking, elegant and well detailed.
Female Plate isn't useless or skimpy, and actually protects the vital organs.
The armors are impressively diversified racially and match the aesthetics of each race fairly well.

Concerns
My number one BIGGEST concern is that the armor looks flat. I don't mean this in the sense of low polygon counts or lack of detail. I mean that it doesn't have the FEEL of bulky heavy armor. If you look at the gameplay livestreams where Steven is playing the tank, he looks almost indistinguishable from a mage or a healer in outline. The shoulders are small, the breastplate wraps tightly around him like leather armor and doesn't have any apparent weight. Now i'm not a huge stickler for graphics, but I think this might be a big problem for the sake of immersion and class diversity in the long run.

52208.jpg?cb=4E37B0136549EE3915318F12AA147596

52208.jpg?cb=4E37B0136549EE3915318F12AA147596

The Lions Regalia Armor however looks amazing it looks bulky, protective and distinguishes itself from the armors above.

Also this concept piece looks very strong and bulky.

Conclusion Overall I think there isn't enough "Fantasy Bulkiness" in the heavier armors please let me know what you guys think, and let me know if you have any counterpoints!

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Comments

Valento92

Well when you're a lowlevel paladin of sorts it makes sense that from a story standpoint your armor still looks not so bulky as in you're still an amateur. On the other hand I hope they add more weight on late game heavy armor sets. And PLEASE, keep female armor actually a heavy armor because if a female decides to war as a tank she will need to protect herself too.

LowQuey

Squeezy wrote: »

I've been following AOC for several months now and have watched most of the videos showing off game play, weapons and armors. I know all of the footage and images are still in pre-alpha, but that is why I want to address this now. I'm going to post some official art from the Ashes of Creation Dev team and compare them to other art and games.

The Pros
I think overall, the armor is extremely good looking, elegant and well detailed.
Female Plate isn't useless or skimpy, and actually protects the vital organs.
The armors are impressively diversified racially and match the aesthetics of each race fairly well.

Concerns
My number one BIGGEST concern is that the armor looks flat. I don't mean this in the sense of low polygon counts or lack of detail. I mean that it doesn't have the FEEL of bulky heavy armor. If you look at the gameplay livestreams where Steven is playing the tank, he looks almost indistinguishable from a mage or a healer in outline. The shoulders are small, the breastplate wraps tightly around him like leather armor and doesn't have any apparent weight. Now i'm not a huge stickler for graphics, but I think this might be a big problem for the sake of immersion and class diversity in the long run.

The Lions Regalia Armor however looks amazing it looks bulky, protective and distinguishes itself from the armors above.

Also this concept piece looks very strong and bulky.

Conclusion Overall I think there isn't enough "Fantasy Bulkiness" in the heavier armors please let me know what you guys think, and let me know if you have any counterpoints!

The 3d effects of the armour, the "bulkiness" gets added later in the design phase so I wouldn't worry. I remember seeing armour in WoW as an early draft and thinking it looked that way and then when they released it it was too far the other way lol

Kemani

PlagueMonk wrote: »

Squeezy wrote: »

I’m saying artistically, the bulk is there. I’m not classifying it as the end all and be all of heavy armor and im not saying that its realistic. I know what full armor actually looks like, I’ve literally written papers about medieval warfare on infantrymen and knights armor, thats not the point. Just because something is closer to what it would actually look like in in real life doesn’t make it better in a VIDEO GAME. Also if you look at my first post I specifically show 3 or 4 armors that are much less dramatic than the WoW armor and still look great. This is high fantasy we don’t need obnoxious shoulders but we also don’t need realistic renditions of unsatisfying chainmail hauberks and gambesons.

Tldr: Studded Leather is cooler than a brigandine.

While, yes, this is just a video game, I would hope IS sticks to a certain level of realism. I can understand wanting a more 'fantasy' look (I said nothing about the completely UNrealistic face of sorrow armor in Tres post. All those points, while looking cool are definitely not practical) but please lets not get WoW crazy. There was a Dev topic about immersion and I should have listed things like that WoW armor as immersion breaking for me. That and carrying around FF sized weapons

Just remember, one of the reasons you wanted this bulkier look was to more easily see the tanks as opposed to casters. Well with 8 classes and x8 variations, that will cause so much mixing PLUS everyone being able to wear anything, I don't think you will be able to easily tell who is playing what based on what they are wearing.

Been practical or not does not matter, its a game. However been too practical can also hurt and been boring for the game. We don't want bulky armor to tell each other a part, its just that bulky armor look good and match that class look&feel overall. We don't want armor to look like w.o.w but we don't want it to look too simple/realistic, its a fantasy game to be what you want to be, not a clone of real life.

Nerror

I really like the current armor sets we've seen. I sure don't want World of Pauldrons armor looks as the default.

That said, I don't mind having bulky fantasy armor options as well as the more realistic options. I'm a long-time Warhammer fan, and I absolutely love the Chaos armors for example. All the spikes and stuff are ridiculously impractical in RL combat scenarios, but they do look badass

Give me something like the armor below, and I would 100% make a character just to wear it.

maouw

The other thing to keep in mind is that armour is not distringuished by class in AoC but by race.

I totally see where you're coming from though - some of the heavier armours we've seen look quite slim-fitted, rather than bulky

Honshu

There's a couple ways to approach this.

From a """realism""" standpoint (note: I am not advocating for realism in video games. Seeking "realism" is dumb because what is "realistic" may or may not actually bring about good game design) there is literally nothing wrong with what you are referring to as "smooth" platemail. Historically speaking, this sort of armor was not "big and bulky and hard to move in." That is a grotesque misconception brought about by armchair historians who have never had practical experience in the field of metallurgy and the demands of medieval warfare. Platemail was designed in large part to have its weight distributed evenly throughout the body, providing superior protection at nearly no cost to agility or maneuverability.

https://youtu.be/kK2S6WoPonY

In this sense, I see nothing wrong with "streamlined" armor.

Now, in the sense of building a visual distinction between classes and helping players to quickly identify archetypes at a glance, there may be an issue here. If the developers intend to allow for visual distinctiveness so that players can readily identify players by their equipment, this style of """realistic""" armor runs contrary to the design goal. If they aren't shooting for that, and are instead aiming for a soft "fog of war" that makes it potentially difficult to determine who is capable of what at a glance, this is exactly what they want; armor that does not have a silhouette that is readily different from leather, cloth, or other sorts of armor associated with casters.

According to the wiki, there is likely to be a "threat assessment" feature on someone's nameplate that will tell you what they're predominantly wearing (cloth, leather, plate, etc), and a number of other features regarding their equipment. Personally, I hope they don't bother with this feature because I prefer games with more fog of war, more interference with your ability to assess who is what, such as Dark Age of Camelot, where you could not readily assess class at a glance. It rewards careful observation and, given what they propose, I think will reduce visual clutter.

Songcaller

I had hope scale mail would be medium armour, not heavy armour.

Mushin

I would like it so we don't get impaled by our pauldrons when we raise our arms

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto

It's a subjective preference, so it's not easy. ......

As for me, I don't mind if it's a bit flashy as long as it doesn't spoil the world view of Ashes.

However, I don't like it if it looks too cartoony.

This is a discussion of character design, but I want a design like Dark Souls, and I'm not that fond of the slightly rounded design like Fable.

However, it might not bother me that much if there are a few of them mixed in with the many armors.

I'm sorry for my half-hearted opinion. lol

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