Larian Studios
Ok... armor magically transforms itself into boobplates when equipped by females. A bit borderline, but well... fine.

Now... just found a scalemail and gave it to my elf and it turned into a bunch of leaves... *ouch*

Please tell me that's not final... The integrity of the game was one of THE selling points for me. So many games today neglect this.
When something exists in the gaming world I want it to have a meaning.

If you don't want to model metal armor for elves, because it is to much work, then please adjust the usage instead, so elves can wear "leave-armor" while dwarves can't, or whatever.

Really bummed right now, tbh. frown
Posted By: Tuco Re: Tell me my eyes fooled me: "morphing armor" - 22/09/16 11:51 AM
Armors appear different according to what race is wearing them, yes.
was announced in one kickstarter update i think
It's a very gamey feature but hey, this is a game and I like having special racial armour sets so I'm happy.
Am I the only one who thinks seashells should be craftable into female armor??
+1
As I said elsewhere, I don't really see it as any more daft than the expectation that I would be able to squeeze into a size 10 dress without some pretty serious alteration...
i kinda like that armor looks different depending which race is using it, otherwise might be kinda boring if you have multiple leather or robes users.
Originally Posted by Deimos
i kinda like that armor looks different depending which race is using it, otherwise might be kinda boring if you have multiple leather or robes users.


i also like that armor varies depending on race, since in D:OS 1 there was like 3-4 armor types and robes looked kinda bland imo, in D:OS 2 they have upped their armor model game tremendously, the only thing i can wish for now is that you can find divine order armor sets in the prison camp, since all their armor look awesome + it would be fun to pretend to be a someone from the order (when you get your collar of) and lead the rest of your party who pretends to be prisoners out of fort joy.
Looks retarded and lazy to me.
Sad.

Just make different armor sets, elf branch armor and metal chain armor, and let a human wear branch armor or an elf wear mail armor.
What if I don't WANT this aesthetic on my elf character?

fucking lazy and retarded.
I'm also totally find with finding armor sets that nobody on my group can actually wear (lizard armor if I have no lizards on crew). I can sell them or keep them for later.
Make it not so freaking LAZY
Its a racial / cultural style? Male elves are "skimpy" too so I don't think this is a fair comparison.

Now, I haven't tested heavy armor on human / dwarf female so I don't know yet.

I like the race-specific armor but understand the argument that any race should be able to take something like a bucket and put that on his / her head without it turning into leaves. Can't satisfy both I guess.
I personally like the idea of the armor morphing to look unique for the race that's wearing them right off the bat. I remember in Guild Wars 2, it felt really disappointing not to have the cool looking 'leaf' armor for the majority of your playtime if you played a Sylvari. And as long as the male elves look just as underdressed as the female elves I don't care if it looks impractical.

I think if they just added a bunch more armor that had race limitations, it would cause a lot of frustration for players because if for example you had a lizard and dwarf party and kept getting elf armor drops you'd end up frustrated. Maybe a compromise would be to change the names for something more neutral so the 'chainmail' doesn't turn into leaves when worn by elves, etc?
I remember that during the Kickstarter campaign there was a discussion on whether there will be for each race dedicated armour sets in DOS 2 and they decided against it because it would be quite hard to balance. So, let's hope there will be a mod for that!
Using race specific armor wouldn't actually be that much work to implement. They already have the models.
But race specific armor gets a problem with the random loot system. You might only get really good elf armors, but you need a good human armor.
While armor morphing is the "lazier" option, its kinda necessary here. If they would change loot system to fixed loot then race specific armor would be the better choice.
Another one of these?

So you think that this issue would somehow not be there if dwarves could wear elven armor?

If you want realism: have every piece of armor to be brought to a blacksmith to be adjusted to your character, then have this be incredibly expensive.

You complain about the game having a distinct style for each race (and lol boobplate: where is the boobplate? please show me that boobplate, OS2 is fairly conservative when it comes to its armors) out of "realism" when realism would mostly entail tedium.

Also "what if i dont want to wear elven armor" then dont play an elf.
I for one prefer more aesthetic integrity for the characters rather than genericness and pseudo realism that isnt any more realistic than the current system.

Somehow everytime i see a complaint like this i just feel like you want to score "grown up points" by showing how much you care about pointless things.

EDIT: actualy making "race armor" would be an extremeley annoying task since it would require all the armor models fitted to all the character meshes in the game. Which is a fairly complicated task just to be able to play a half naked dwarf.

The current system allows us to have armor that actually looks fitting on a less humanoid character race like lizards, few games have that. Im glad this game does.
Originally Posted by Sordak
EDIT: actualy making "race armor" would be an extremeley annoying task since it would require all the armor models fitted to all the character meshes in the game. Which is a fairly complicated task just to be able to play a half naked dwarf.


No it wouldnt... there are plenty of ways to do it, and there are plenty of games that do it. And if it was annoying, thats beside the point. Creating content, and 3D has lots of "annoyances", are you suggesting that none of it should be done because its annoying?

Also, since its annoying, lets just do either all males or just females, for annoyance sake, don't bother refitting them to another body type! LOL...

I guess devs should just make stick figures from now on, since its easy and not "annoying".

Its a fallacious argument.
I've been through a lot of this already. I'll make these points for now.
Boob plate doesn't exist in the real world, at least not in the sense that it's a good idea. Armour should deflect weapons, not focus them towards your sternum. But whatever, I think we all feel comfortable letting this go.

I don't like morphing armour. I prefer to have control of the aesthetic myself. But if you really want to put effort into giving each piece of armour a unique feel for each race, then fine. Though it really makes me worry. D:OS had only a handful of different outfits, and by adding 3 new races, they're going to have 4 times as much work (a lot of which will probably wasted, because elves and dwarves are biased towards certain classes anyway). I'm definitely not optimistic for a lot of variety here. I expect elves are going to look pretty much interchangeable with each other.

Anyway, if I give my elf (boy or girl) heavy armour, as a minimum I want it to look like the elf is wearing heavy armour.
Originally Posted by Ayvah
Anyway, if I give my elf (boy or girl) heavy armour, as a minimum I want it to look like the elf is wearing heavy armour.


Branches are heavier than leaves. :P
If you're capable of suspending your disbelief regarding handwaving resulting in fireballs and lightningbolts, i'm sure you can with this aswell, no ?
I prefer finding morph Armour that anybody can use than have a lot of loot wasted on race specific Armour like in most RPG's. I actually like that different races have their own aesthetic look, too many games end up with most or all my party members looking the same by the end of the game since there is usually a specific Armour that is the most powerful in the game.
If every single class is wearing exactly the same armour, then there is probably a larger problem with the game design.

And no, I can't suspend disbelief on this. There's no in-game magic that explains why heavy armour made from metal turns into a bunch of tree branches on an elf.
Sure there is. It was done by...

MAGIC! laugh (or source, pick whatever feels better)
To be honest, if this game is completely ruined for you because you absolutely can't accept that the Developers wanted to give each race a specific aesthetic and chose programming practicality as opposed to complete gritty realism concerning something as off to the side of game mechanics as armor appearance, then just find a game that does. Or wait for modding tools to come out and do it yourself. Having played games with a large number of race/class specific armor and weapons I much prefer having the ability to easily swap gear. I've seen people say 'well if the game had more depth then race specific gear wouldn't change what armor you had available' but to such a degree if you put one awesome lore related piece of gear in the game worn by humans, well you'd need another quest or quest line for one that could be worn by dwarves, and elves, and lizardmen, and eventually undead, and possibly another race if they feel motivated to do that with dlc. And say you wanted to play a party of only dwarves, well than 4/5s of all those quests are now pointless and can be avoided, because the awesome rewards are just vendor trash. Your claim that it's just the 'developers being lazy' is kinda a weak claim when if they actually did what was expected, and balanced it properly, it would literally add 100s of man hours of work for the developers. Personally, I'd prefer them to actually finish the game and fill it out with compelling story content before they focused on turning the game into a fashion dressup game.
Originally Posted by nojanath
To be honest, if this game is completely ruined for you because you absolutely can't accept that the Developers wanted to ...

If everyone always agreed with everything the developers were doing, then we could just close down these forums right now. No one said it's "completely ruined". We said we don't like it.

It doesn't necessarily have to require 100s of man-hours custom designing every item of armour for 4 different races (although that's something they seriously should have considered as a cost of trying to promise 4 races that are very physically diverse).

Ideally, what I would like is for them to commit some effort into designing a system that allows armour to automatically morph to different body shapes without them having to hand-craft it from scratch every time. I'm certainly not expecting that armour should generally be restricted to specific races, but if they really want to enforce a particular aesthetic, it would be best if they would rely on providing benefits to the armour that work with specific races.

As it is, if someone wants to mod in an extra playable race (such as orcs), and they want to match the visual quality of the existing races, then they'll need to do the same heavy lifting to hand-craft all of the armours. It's pretty much guaranteed that won't happen. This is a big blindspot as far as modding support is concerned.

I am concerned generally with Larian's strategy this far of using brute force and manual labour to solve problems instead of building systems.
Posted By: Nivv Re: Tell me my eyes fooled me: "morphing armor" - 24/09/16 11:25 PM
The only way they could do what you are asking for, is if they had made all the races share the same skeleton. But in doing so, the races would not be as unique visually as they are now. It would be like in Skyrim or Dragon Age, where everybody obviously has the exact same body and animations.
Do you think they don't already share the same skeleton? Haven't you noticed that sometimes the lizard's tail looks a bit weird because they're using human animations, which weren't designed for a tail?

They all have two arms and two legs. The lizards also have a tail which you need to account for but that only adds a little extra complexity.

For the most part, when it comes to chest and leg armour, it's a matter of connecting it to the universal skeleton, and applying the relevant morphing rules to make it match the body shape and animations of the specific body type.

Lizards would need unique boots and possibly also gloves. Of course, many of the races may also need unique helmets, but this limits the amount of extra work you need to do just because one race has a bigger chest than another one.
Originally Posted by Ayvah
[quote=nojanath]
Ideally, what I would like is for them to commit some effort into designing a system that allows armour to automatically morph to different body shapes without them having to hand-craft it from scratch every time. I'm certainly not expecting that armour should generally be restricted to specific races, but if they really want to enforce a particular aesthetic, it would be best if they would rely on providing benefits to the armour that work with specific races.


As someone who recently came off of working on a game with just such a system, the results tend to be (specifically with a smaller team like Larian's) a small mix of boring generic armors with issues like stretching and clipping. And in part of the "resource saving" strategy, you also get a lot of reskins. Really, it just ends up making the armors bland. You're not really going to find a non-AAA studio that can make 100s of different armor sets that fit all races. Hell, Bioware couldn't even do that for the first Dragon Age, and they cut tons of corners (remember that sweet sweet dwarf beard attached directly to their chest?). Even 2 didn't really do it well. It wasn't until 3, when their manpower reached several hundred artists, that they could reasonably create that many unique armors. Other games of this nature, like PoE or Sword Coast, have such low graphical fidelity that they don't even need to worry about the armors looking good. But Divinity has a certain style to it and they've chosen to embrace that style. Maybe it'll mean one elf looks pretty similar to another elf, but I'll take that over having the same 4-5 pieces of armor haphazardly stretched across all the game's unique races.
Seems I misses the KS Update mentioning this... still, doesn't change the fact, that I dislike it.

@nojanath
Well, the fault with that "one super awesome piece of gear not available to everyone" statement sadly is the notion itself. Something like that shouldn't exist at all. If it does, then there's something wrong.
A simple example: If a farmer wants to transport a truckload of potatoes he won't use a ferrari, as well as you won't se a tractor in the formula 1.

That also applies to the drop mechanics, and is where I say the crafting should be improved instead of being cut down.
Then players can decide for themselves what they want to do with the resources they bought from vendors for example. Something that was a nice start in Original Sin 1, but was just in the fledgling stage.
Originally Posted by Seelenernter
Ok... armor magically transforms itself into boobplates when equipped by females. A bit borderline, but well... fine.

Now... just found a scalemail and gave it to my elf and it turned into a bunch of leaves... *ouch*

Please tell me that's not final... The integrity of the game was one of THE selling points for me. So many games today neglect this.
When something exists in the gaming world I want it to have a meaning.

If you don't want to model metal armor for elves, because it is to much work, then please adjust the usage instead, so elves can wear "leave-armor" while dwarves can't, or whatever.

Really bummed right now, tbh. frown


Can't say I'm really a fan of the morphing armor either.

Different looks for armor is fine. Different materials than what the armor says it is, is not fine.
Yeah, small differences can be ok-ish.

And for everything else > new category/instance. Meshes, and texture etc are all there, so numbers just need to be juggled to a new table entry. The only additional work would be the need to create another inventory icon.
I'm bummed about this also.

First of all it takes control away from me regarding the aesthetics of my own player character, which is retarded I think.

Secondly as you mentioned they advertised this game's theme as "not pants on head retarded like DOS1", which was the main complaint about DOS1, and now you have chainmail morphing to leaves and INSANE body postures on female models, etc....

It actually shows integrity and maturity, plausability of the gameworld if there are great pieces of armor which are made for dwarves, and you can't wear as a lizard, etc.
It's just better. Less lazy too.

But hey it's Alpha so let's hope they get their shit together
Oh really? How are the elves in DOS2 insane? Sounds like someone is judging elf culture by human standards. Perhaps the elves think human clothes are insane and an affront to nature? wink
The morphing armor is sometimes strange, but otherwise the RNG would even be worse. You would more likely get good stuff, but no one can wear it. Because the specific race members in your team are skilled in a different way.

They would have to make the loot drops accounting for the group your are playing.
Originally Posted by Kalrakh
The morphing armor is sometimes strange, but otherwise the RNG would even be worse. You would more likely get good stuff, but no one can wear it. Because the specific race members in your team are skilled in a different way.

They would have to make the loot drops accounting for the group your are playing.


I already mentioned that some posts earlier. There is no need for that problem to exist at all. Crafting is just one aspect.
It's only another reason to get rid of that aweful RNG.
Does character appearance really bother people?

Its important to me in a lot of rpg's, but you know... with an isometric camera which has no value being zoomed into the character I barley notice my characters appearance.

its a thing that definitely is important to me in many games just not here.

EDIT ah i realised its more about integrity than looks in this thread, *shrug i guess I see the point.
If you enter the inventory you see the look.

What bothers me there is: female lizards are so tall, their head gets cut off all the time.
I think from a dev standpoint expecting the armour on any of the races to be changed in such a drastic manner at this stage is highly unlikely.

(I could be wrong) but I don't think I am.

It seems fine, a handy convenience. Imagine how annoying it would be to have RNG armour perfect for one race which happened to be in another race's size. I think it's a sensible concession to party flexibility and playing for fun.

Btw, it's really really not ok to use 'retard' as a pejorative word, any more than you would a racial curse or a sexist curse. Sheesh.
Originally Posted by Vandraman
It seems fine, a handy convenience. Imagine how annoying it would be to have RNG armour perfect for one race which happened to be in another race's size. I think it's a sensible concession to party flexibility and playing for fun.

I'll go ahead and repeat myself:

Originally Posted by Seelenernter
Well, the fault with that "one super awesome piece of gear not available to everyone" statement sadly is the notion itself. Something like that shouldn't exist at all. If it does, then there's something wrong elsewhere.
A simple example: If a farmer wants to transport a truckload of potatoes he won't use a ferrari, as well as you won't se a tractor in the formula 1.

That also applies to the drop mechanics, and is where I say the crafting should be improved instead of being cut down.
Then players can decide for themselves what they want to do with the resources they bought from vendors for example. Something that was a nice start in Original Sin 1, but was just in the fledgling stage.
Originally Posted by Vandraman
It seems fine, a handy convenience. Imagine how annoying it would be to have RNG armour perfect for one race which happened to be in another race's size. I think it's a sensible concession to party flexibility and playing for fun.

Btw, it's really really not ok to use 'retard' as a pejorative word, any more than you would a racial curse or a sexist curse. Sheesh.



1) It's absolutely fine to have the RNG give you whatever it wants. You can sell it and buy other stuff. You can dismantle it and craft it into something else. You can save it for a future follower. If you have a menagerie of followers than certainly that piece of equipment will be fine for one of them.

2) A "convenience" feature it may be to you, a "lazy" feature it is to me, and also retarded. Sorry, I mean, "dumbdown" feature. Both from the aspect of the promise of integrity and maturity which they repeatedly promised (and why I supported in kickstarter), but also because I don't want the sillier aesthetics forced on my player character.

3) I'm sorry the word retarded offends you. I certainly won't stop using it but.. yeah. Let's not discuss this because it is offtopic.
Racial armor would be just annoying, getting cool loot which you can't use because you picked the wrong race in the beginning. Going around the problem with crafting and such still drains the fun out of the game. Sure 1% of the player base doesn't want simplifications such as this, but why go through the extra effort that makes the game worse for 99% of the players?
Morphing -> Not a fan

RNG -> It's fine

Handcrafted and placed loot -> Need more of it

Crafting -> Could really use some work to flesh out the system and is a good addition

BTW, RNG & Loot & Crafting were all discussed at length in another thread concerning "The loot problem".... Someone actually gave a well formatted and extensive system and spectrum for how it could all gel together
Originally Posted by Bercon
Racial armor would be just annoying, getting cool loot which you can't use because you picked the wrong race in the beginning. Going around the problem with crafting and such still drains the fun out of the game. Sure 1% of the player base doesn't want simplifications such as this, but why go through the extra effort that makes the game worse for 99% of the players?


It's not that hard: You can buy loot, get more drops, find it in the world, get it from boxes and chests, and/or craft it......

No morphing would actually encourage players to get out and do more than just kill things and they might actually have to think :P and think about how to use the limited resources that is specific racial armor drops they find.

Also, I it seems to be much more than 1% ... I don't know if we're close to 50% but it's at least a quarter of us I'd say.
Having weapons with wrong stat buffs is already annoying, searching for a lizard armor with the needed buffs seems like it would be even more annoying. Compared to DOS1 where we had about 300k gold at the end, money in DOS2 so far seems to be more scarce, even with bartering on 5. Honestly I liked that, made a better immersion of the situation. I don't want to be forced to rob everyone and anything just to get some decent outfit. Most of our outfit was still 'normal' at the end. I think those racial specific armors would need respawning mobs, just to get enough loot.
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