Then you might want to do some more research. They have never used the gamebryo engine. Only the renderer, which they have recoded for Skyrim, so nothing Gamebryo is left.

No offense dude but even though they did combine the armor slots and you moan now you wont give a crap about it when you are playing the game and see how amazing the different types of armor look on each race. One of the biggest problems for me was that the number of NPC's that could appear on-screen were a hassle and if this change helps correct that then so be it. It also prevents silly clipping issues (how is my waist moving through my leg?) which is always a problem.

-KC

I think that the real reason that armor is merged is for artistic style and ease of armor creation. the technical aspects should come second, since they seem to be negligible

My quote was applicable to the stance you adopted from the developers: "you" and they assumed I would be wearing an upper part of armor over my lower part, which would hide it.

The flaw in the entire line of reasoning (Regardless of who says it; which would otherwise be an ad-hominem logical fallacy), is that the player would be wearing an upper part that would cover the lower part. And, because they apparently didn't think of that, Skyrim will find itself being saved by a nearly-naked warrior dressed in just boots, gloves, and a helm, because he did not like shirts.

Don't do it!

Someone who actually knows what they're talking about will appear (like a Bethesda dev) and call me out to validate my claims. Whilst I have been to SIGGRAPH, and done what I've said... I won't kid myself... I'm no expert. Just a student. That means I'm worth nothing at all.


Plus I can see why it would be easier to work with 100 assets as opposed to 500. When the game gets bigger, that would be 1000 assets as opposed to 50000! It would be a major design headache to make each unique item fit visually and not look like the circus come to town when players decide to mix and match. That's not to say they shouldn't do this... but more work is more work, and who wants to do more work.

I still don't see how it saves rendering time. There is no difference between rendering the same model but split into two as opposed of one. Sure, there is a difference between rendering 10 items and 20, but when those 20 items are exactly the same as the ten with a few more split vertices... the difference is minimal.

They've stated that multiple times armor will look better like this.

I hate to top the herp with derp but do you know what it would cost them to change this? Hundreds of thousands of dollars, and delay the 11-11-11 release date. It's not going to happen, and there have been enough of these threads. Modders will have tes 3/4 style armor in a few weeks after the release.

Even if they got rid of the slots and there is now just single BODY SLOT there's probably a tail slot so one way to do it would be to make greaves that have a bare chest use the body slot, and then equipping the tail item (shirt/cuirass) doesn't hide the chest, but goes over it. Have to get the tools to see what it will take, but I'm sure there is a way and it will be easy too.

The problem with the tail slot is that using it amputates Khajiit and Argonian characters... and judging from the polls, that's half the Dhovakiin numbers!

Why are some people being such a dike to the OP?
Why are you getting angry at him claiming he's whining when hes simply voicing his frustration on a topic many others are concerned about. Its what forums are for. You guys are insinuating that he thinks they're going to change their mind because of this post and ridicule him for posting it which implies that, what, every other topic on this forum is also meant to change the developer's mind's?

I misread what you were saying. I understand what you mean now, and you're right. I really don't know why I was so hung up on this lol.. my mind was WAY in left field thinking you meant something entirely different. The fact that you meant you didn't WANT to wear shirts, and just pants/greaves totally went over my head.

I am a little confused because Ive seen in-game footage that shows greaves and cuirass as separate pieces for elven armor. So, my understanding is that not everything is merged. I, for one, would like to be able to wear armored boots and gauntlets with my mage robes so as long as boots and gauntlets are separate then I'm happy.

actually more slots equals more variants because you can have a robe with glass pauldrons hows that for variety glass pauldrons on everything

True. Splitting the slots = a number of combinations equal to the # of Cuirass x # of Greaves, instead of merely # of individual sets.

Yet again everyone forgets about smithing and the obvious customization it gives <_<

Unless it doesn't give any, except an arbitrary armor boost (Which it's been explained as doing: Upgrading armor does not change the armor's appearance)

But we have already seen different varients of the same armor.

To everyone telling the op to stop whining and that it can't be changed: We have to make this a big issue, so Bethesda doesn't continue the trend into the next elder scrolls.
Morrowind -> every armor piece is separate
Oblivion -> L and R gauntlets combined, pauldrons combined with cuirass
Skyrim -> greaves combined with the already combined cuirass and pauldrons
TES 6 -> armor is consolidated into one piece, and helmets are left separate.

To the people who say "mod it in": YOU CAN'T EASILY MOD IN MORE ARMOR PIECES. In order to mod separate pauldrons in for Oblivion I think that the ring slots had to be used for pauldrons. The game editor only allows for specific pieces to be added to the game (i.e. no pauldron slot, had to use ring slot).

I really think this is Bethesda making it easier on themselves. Like someone said already, less armor pieces means less items to worry about. I do think they could have separated the armors we've seen into as many armor pieces as Morrowind had, and still have them fit together nicely. It would take some work, but they could have done it and still made the armors look good.

Attention incoming whine: I'm getting a bit tired of how Bethesda has been gradually simplifying TES games over each iteration of the series. To me, saying that they are making a game more accessible is something a developer doesn't want to say to me if they want me to buy their game. I've heard that word "accessible" mentioned around video games far too often these days. I take it as more of a cop out, than anything. Devs are actually saying "We were too lazy to make this more complicated, so here you go, we've made it more "accessible" instead". If someone doesn't like a game series that I like, that's fine with me, but developers don't seem to agree. I don't want a developer to change their game series to try to appeal to an audience that doesn't like their game series. With everything Bethesda has changed in tes series over the years they seem to be trying to gradually change TES games into action games. It's been a trend throughout the series so far. I started with Morrowind, but even I can see how they simplified the series between Daggerfall and Morrowind. Now, they have begun moving the RPG elements of this RPG called SKYRIM, into the background, behind the scenes. The next elders scrolls game(after SKYRIM) won't even be an RPG if the trend continues this way. I don't get why BethesdaGS seeks to simplify the series so much. I was 12 when I played Morrowind and it is the game that got me into gaming(favourite game I've played). I did not think the game was too complex to play. /end whining (had to get that loosely down in writing)

Oh, that one again.



Yep, just like Oblivion's armor system was very similar to Morrowind's? And in TES 6 they say the armor system is very similar to Skyrim's, only that boots and gauntlets have been merged with the armor.



Valid reason, actually the only valid reason they have given. Hope they make use of it and the armor designs are really much more interesting.



Looking at the screenshots the upper armors don't cover more or less of the lower armors than it was the case in Oblivion. If you wear no upper armor or clothes like shirts it doesn't matter anyway.



Ridiculous excuse. Just look at the armor variation all people are so excited about. Those are separate pieces as well (in game engine terms) and they have a lot more polygons than separate greaves/cuirass meshes would need. That alone crushes all the really silly arguments the devoted fans come up with why a few polygons less and one armor piece less would make any difference at all in rendering performance. This one is simply a lie or at least a heavy, heavy exaggeration.



Yep. Because adjusting the armor meshes to make them separate takes almost as much time as creating an armor from scratch. < sarcasm

I have accepted that armors are merged and it's not the end of TES. But the only valid reason why they merged them is that they wanted cool looking armors and didn't care about one additional slot. It was easier to create the armors they wanted that way because the concept artists/modelers didn't have to think about matching cuirass and greaves while designing the armors. That's an ok reason, although I would have preferred separate armor in exchange for a slightly more 'generic' armor look.

The only people who care about this are people with no appreciation for art design.

The fact is that less armor pieces = less options and customization.

I don't understand how people are defending Bethesda's decision on the greaves merge, if anything we should be getting the separate pauldrons back.

the fact that they could only get extra npcs by combining greaves and cuirass is really really pathetic. consoles are really holding back gaming at this point. :sadvaultboy:


of all the games that some people might want to play a shirtless barbarian "conan" type skyrim is THE game you would do that in. now you cant unless you want to run around in you skivvies or wear purple pants.

Sorry for bringing it to you but all the armors we've (I've) seen so far would have been equally possible with none-combined greaves... and infact equally possible with none-combined pauldrons.

Not important to me. And I am not being flippant, there really are more important things to worry about, as far as I am concerned. There is still no mounted combat, you can't toggle POIs, and some elements of the HUD look less Skyrim and more contemporary/futuristic action shooter. On the other hand, we get more detailed dungeons, slightly better graphics throughout, a Brave New World of UI ( watch this get copied ), branching side quests which implies player choice has small effects on the world, a companion/follower/friendship system, more crafting and collecting options, and a skill/perks system which though you may view it as simplified, now forces you to make progression choices and results in unique characters. Compared to those pros and cons, I personally couldn't give a damn about one less slot.

I obviously don't know how Skyrim renders objects, but if it is anything like other games I can kind of see why they would choose to merge the pieces. Basically, if they went back to the way Morrowind had armor it would go something like this:

Object 1 character
Object 2 character hair/helm
Object 3 torso armor
Object 4 right pauldron
Object 5 left pauldron
Object 6 left glove
Object 7 right glove
Object 8 legs
Object 9 boots
Object 10 shield
Object 11 weapon

Now obviously, that seems like a lot, but it was not an issue in Morrowind as the graphics obviously were not as demanding. With newer games, more complex models, with shaders, filters, lighting and other features working in the background it will put a bigger dent in performance. Armor also needs to be fitted onto however many unique body types may exist, thus with fewer unique body types or skeletons, it saves memory there as well.

If the armor does not autoshape itself to each race, having two different raced individuals wearing the same armor on screen could technically double the amount of objects on screen as far as armor goes. Now if the armor autoshapes, then it knocks that number almost back to the original value as the current armor would already be in the memory. If someone else shows up on screen with an entirely different set of armor, unless the armor types share the same mesh/model beneath the actual texture, then it would have to render all of the other character's pieces as well because it is different.

Basically, for each unique piece of geometry on a character or player via armor parts and mixing/matching, it in theory would add that much more for the engine/system to render in addition to everything else in the scene. Thus, having armor be made up of fewer parts will end up saving on memory and rendering.

Again, I am not saying that is the case with Skyrim, but it is a possibility based on how some other games work.

This is one thing I don't understand. All the reasons they gave, they didn't say it works better now we have a body size slider. If they had said you know choose your body type, the downside is cuirass and greaves are merged, I would have said "der, okay".