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Originally Posted by Black_Elk


The companion gear-up for Lae'zel and Shadowheart kinda suffers from them starting out with their coolest look right out the gate. Like I rarely want to trade out their gear even with the +1s on offer with merchants. It would be cooler if they started out more basic and had to recover their coolest looking equipment from the nautaloid via a quest during some later chapter.



Awesome idea, similar as Beast gets his Hat "Fran" back in DoS 2 i really liked that

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Originally Posted by Maldurin
Originally Posted by Black_Elk


The companion gear-up for Lae'zel and Shadowheart kinda suffers from them starting out with their coolest look right out the gate. Like I rarely want to trade out their gear even with the +1s on offer with merchants. It would be cooler if they started out more basic and had to recover their coolest looking equipment from the nautaloid via a quest during some later chapter.



Awesome idea, similar as Beast gets his Hat "Fran" back in DoS 2 i really liked that


Or maybe reinforcement option via crafting? It would be more logical than being stripped from their casual gear by, uhm, mindflayers?

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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.

Last edited by Tuco; 09/11/20 12:17 AM.

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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.
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Look, i was just searching randomly on google, but there's a buttload of examples here of what I'd consider "cool outfits for seasoned adventurers":
https://www.pinterest.it/pin/817614...=16&w=530&h=671&cropSource=6
EDIT: Aaand the link doesn't work anymore.it gives different images each time I click it.

i don't know why a lot of equipment in most games seems to constantly fall on the two categories "excessively plain and makes you look stiff like a mannequin" or "Tacky, gaudy and saturated of magic effects to the point you can hardly watch directly at it".

Originally Posted by Svalr
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.

"It's not that strange"? Who gives a shit if it's "strange" or "plausible".
The point is not realism, it's that it looks like a clown outfit. Absolute garbage tier, it's embarrassing. Something on which I wouldn't want even to be caught dead in.


Quote
Cool to you, imo he looks incredibly generic and boring but I wouldn't sit around complaining about it.


Yeah, yeah. WHATEVER.

Holy shit, they are right when they say that there's really a defense force for ANYTHING on the the internet.

Last edited by Tuco; 09/11/20 12:33 AM.

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Guys, guys calm down and

[Linked Image]

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Hehe well that wins for sure! I'll call him macaroni with that feather lol

Yeah I don't know, I'm sure a modeler spent a couple hours making the polished pink and plate from the screenshot. It could be improved with some textures and a different color scheme. Also if the head slot could be hidden, it might look better sans circlet. I just don't like the look of the circlets that I've seen so far, there aren't enough of them or enough styles, I wish I could hide them so they were more like rings. But this is an example of a circlet making someone look particularly silly. If he had a badass helmet on, some of the other elements in the armor might read a bit stronger. Then again maybe its the look they're driving for with that character? Someone who a villainous PC would just instantly chunk for no good reason other than their face "is boring!" As the goblins say hehe

That other illustration looks nice, I'm sure it probably took rather longer to draw. Might be more generic but shows an understanding of how armor functions. But the main reason its better is because of the cloth tunic component. In BG terms it looks like Platemail with white as the Major color and blue for the Minor/Trim color.

Is no one else bummed that we can't choose colors for our outfits?

In BG1/2 you could change your colors from the character sheet and it would automatically apply to the paper doll and the in game avatar.

Ps. Floating weapons are lame. Not having scabbards is a missed opportunity, that's where the flash and flair could go for bladed weapons. But in general I wish they'd have their modelers and animators spend some time on better belts and holsters and such. I wouldn't expect them to go so far as to have us actually stringing a bow, but you know, the little touches can make a big difference. Strapping a mace on the back is just agh


Last edited by Black_Elk; 09/11/20 05:44 AM.
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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".




This armor looks awful as top end gear.

Gold and excessive decorations reflect status, not combat prowess. This is something a high fantasy king would wear for public appearances to look fancy and have 13AC in it. It looks about as strong as tin foil.

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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.



Oh, see, I like this a lot. I guess I just like armor that looks more down-to-earth or lowkey edgy, not fancy or over-the-top. I like the "dungeonpunk" aesthetic of 3rd edition.


[Linked Image]


[Linked Image]

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Originally Posted by Tuco

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.


This is an ego thing I believe, especially in multiplayer games where players want everyone to look at them. In singleplayer games we just need enough options to please everyone. I mentioned crafting styles in another thread, dyes would be awesome as well.

As for that painfully bright armour, it makes me cringe because I always play stealth type characters in games. Someone else wearing that would be fine, useful even, because they would be getting all the enemy attention while I was attacking from the shadows wearing my simple darkened leather gear. smile

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Isnt this ethernal theme?
Style vs. functionality ... endless discusion in whole fantasy multiverse. laugh

I just leave this here ...
[Linked Image]

Last edited by RagnarokCzD; 09/11/20 10:05 AM.

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We could have an option to change the look of the armour based on its category and previously worn armours, that would help a lot for people who dislike that bright and flashy style. I dont like it as well.

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Just simple transmutation for the look while keeping stats unchanged. It would allow everybody to enjoy their fav style.

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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Isnt this ethernal theme?
Style vs. functionality ... endless discusion in whole fantasy multiverse. laugh

I just leave this here ...
[Linked Image]

Dreadful, like most armors in DA: O.


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I like them ... some more than others, most endgame plate armours in DA:O are horrible ... this one i like ... and i like it even much more in DA:I :3

[img]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/d...p/width/360/height/450?cb=20150115022848[/img]


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See, here we run into a problem, because there's no such thing as like "objectively good armor design". Some people like the shiny, big, gaudy platemail, others prefer the gritty, down to earth, super realistic armor. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle, and I think that this is where the game is going as well.
I also think judging the armors based on what is currently available through datamining is a bit hasty, due to the fact that the game only has a tiny portion complete at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the NPCs and companions we've already met will be given shiny new duds in time for the full release.

I do really hope we get some sort of transmutation/customization option for armors though. At least some dyes or something.

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I actually like the armour in Dao. The medium armor is the best. The heavy armor is kind of lame. The light armor looks really good on female models. The massive armour is fine. The dwarven massive armour looks awesome on dwarves and strangely bad on all the other races.


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Originally Posted by Abits
I actually like the armour in Dao. The medium armor is the best. The heavy armor is kind of lame. The light armor looks really good on female models. The massive armour is fine. The dwarven massive armour looks awesome on dwarves and strangely bad on all the other races.

I find almost all of them ranging from dull to absolutely awful.
"Smaller", lighter armors tend to be stiff, plain and make characters look like mannequins, while the big heavy one look like like coal stoves or old boilers and have almost invariably these obnoxious giant pauldrons that make everyone look ridiculous, with tiny heads, giant hands and shoulders that would act as nutcrackers with their heads if they ever dared raising their arms.

There are a couple of sparse exceptions that hit a decent middle ground, but nothing to write home about:

[Linked Image]

For all its shortcomings as a game and while keeping some problems (again, PAULDRONS) DA Inquisition was a massive improvement in that sense.

But I have to admit this a recurring problem in gaming.
Aside for sparse exceptions like The Witcher 2 and 3 I can't think of many games with *consistent* quality armor design.


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We officially disagree about everything


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"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
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Originally Posted by Abits
We officially disagree about everything
i noticed, but I'll try to not blame you for being wrong.


Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
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