Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
This seems to be something that virtually all single-player RPGs struggle with. The only games that seem to offer a lot of cosmetic options are MMOs and other live service games, usually ones where they can charge you real money for cosmetic options. It seems very de-prioritized by the developers of classic RPGs, in general.


One tendency I honestly dislike in most titles in the genre is what I call the "christmas tree syndrome" of your outfits getting more and more TACKY and ridiculous as you start ramping up in power, plus usually showered by an inane amount of permanent magic status effects.

For instance I found this among the "datamined stuff" on reddit:

[Linked Image]

This is allegedly the "standard" +3 full plate armor in the game (and I use the term "standard" loosely, since these are supposed to be pretty damn rare in general).

Now, besides the fact that it triggers one of my most fierce idiosyncrasies in gaming (I hate fucking giant pauldrons on armors with a burning passion), who the hell wants to look like this by the end of his adventure?
Unless you are SPECIFICALLY going for "gaudy paladin that loves to embarrass himself in public".







Baldur's Gate 3 is a fictional setting, in a setting full of magic and legendary adventurers and superhumans it's not that strange that the armor is very flashy.
I mean if this is normal in the setting then it's normal, people aren't going to look at it as out of the ordinary because it isn't.

If you actually think about it too irl armor has some pretty weird and crazy shapes, Samurai helmets in particular comes to mind but in the rest of the world people definitely got quite creative.
Armor wasn't just basic generic flat helmets and breasplates.

I think that the picture is quite unflattering tho.
It doesn't look that bad imo, the pic makes it look way worse.
It's not even that far off from a lot of irl armor ( minus the very overtly golden color I guess ).
There's also an issue of progression here, it's difficult to give the player a sense of progression without getting flashy with it.

I think that in the West there tends to be these very extreme reactions too against stylized things whether it be gear, weapons or characters.
Not saying that people aren't allowed to have preferences, but at times it sorta feels like people aren't actually taking the actual fiction and culture into consideration at all and just judge everything based on irl 14th century Europe...
It also becomes kinda difficult to not have your gear look insanely repetitive and like you just google copy pasted it from historical armor without adding to things like the pauldrons.

Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies

Yeah, I really hate oversized pauldrons too. And pauldrons with some weird-ass shape. And overly gaudy armor in general. Most MMOs have awful armor that I can't stand.

Three recurring cosmetic "tropes" I goddamn hate in games:

- giant or weirdly shaped pauldrons
- weapons floating without a sheet/scabbard "glued" on the back of the character
- horned "viking" helms (but then again I very rarely like how helms look, in general).

So far BG3 strikes the first two, but I'm confident we will get the third as well.
And well, anything that's excessively gaudy, really. But this can rarely work when it's a specific vibe you are going when designing a particular elite group (Knights of the Blazing Sun in Warhammer with their plumed hats come to mind. Or the Order of the Flaming Rose in The Witcher 2).

It's weird, honestly. It's like some developers just couldn't wrap their heads around how hilariously uncool some of this stuff can can look at times.

I mean, this is a possible example of what a cool BIG armor can look. Something that makes you feel like both someone of a certain status AND a seasoned warrior.

[Linked Image]

Not that shiny, pink abomination.


Cool to you, imo he looks incredibly generic and boring but I wouldn't sit around complaining about it.
Not to mention that we're talking about one set here, I have all of the ones I saw datamined saved and the rest of the heavy armor doesn't look like that.

I mean people can complain about '' WoW armor '' as much as they want, it's still very popular it's not a thing because developers don't know any better they just don't share your sensibilities...

Edit: Also, in regards to people being mad about colors...
Bright colors were normal back in the day too, this whole '' bleak and gritty '' thing is a more modern idea.

Last edited by Svalr; 09/11/20 12:18 AM.