Although it has not been confirmed, its seems that pauldrons are once again not separated. It looks like the cuirass, the greaves and the pauldrons are combined together into one piece, called armor.

I know a lot of you people really don't like it. I also don't like it.

We haven't really heard a lot about the new skill 'smithing', but it seems like you can make your own armor if you have the right materials.


So greaves, cuirass and pauldrons are now put together which limits the way you can customize your character. But, maybe you can actually make your own pauldrons and greaves when creating armor with smithing.

The reason why i think this is because of a screen which was released a few weeks ago and the new info we saw last week on the E3. Remember the screen in PSM with the Nord with the hammer and the skull on his left shoulder? If you look closely at his armor you can see that it's very similair to - if not the same as - the 'dovahkiin armor'. First I though this did confirm seperate pauldrons, but after the E3 trailers i was confused, because there were pauldron on the armor, but no armor slot for pauldrons.

My theory is that the nord wears the 'dovahkiin armor' but it's a customized version. He used smithing to create his own armor and maybe had a recipe and the skill or something like that, to add a skull pauldron on the armor to give his armor a different look and maybe also increasing the armor value.

I'm pretty sure bethesda knows that we want more armor slots like we had in Morrowind. Perhaps it is too much work to do it the way they did it in Morrowind so they tought of a new way to please the fans but go in a new direction.

Pretty sure theres a couple other threads around here that talk about the same thing. I kind of came to the same conclusion as you did though the other day. Forging could allow you to create these different looks without actually adding an extra armor slot.

This is what I'm hoping for.

I'm not real knowledgeable with regards to game design, but I can't imagine that it would be less work to have additional armor slots with set options than it would to have completely customizable armor.

Can anyone with a good understanding of game design give us an idea of how much design time would even go into have the additional armor slots that were present in MW? Compared to everything else in the game, to me it would seem like a relatively small amount of work.

Its not about "being a lot of work". So what if its a lot of work? They get paid for that. Its probably because of a balancing issue. Im still against it though...they could just play around with decreasing armor values instead of decreasing customization.

It could very well be in effect to limit the amount of enchantable slots the player has access to. It's kind of broken if you can make yourself 100% chameleon, immune to magic, and super fast using nothing but the enchantments on your armor. The more armor slots you have, the more chance there is of this happening.

Finally, an interesting and actually plausible theory; this is actually a very good idea.

(not sarcasm, sorry if it seems that way)

it isnt about it being a lot of work.

They want to limit how much you can buff yourself with enchants. Although I think it could be done a much better way: Limit the player on the degree of the enchantment.

1. Only allow specific enchantments per item. As in, you can only enchant jewelry with passive buffs, like affinity to fire, and not armor and weapons.

2. The enchantments cannot exceed an amount of 1~5% per item enchanted. Seeing as we are given a very low amount of slots as it is, you won't be able to give yourself that much of an edge.

3. Combine both methods listed which further limits the enchantments available.

Other games have used systems similar to this, and therefore it limits just how godlike you can become. Only allowing the player a slight advantage over the opposition is better than cutting out customizing altogether. Which, is what it seems, is happening.

Id personally like to see the degree of complexity we had in Morrowind with a dialed back enchantment system which allows players a deeper and more rewarding experience. What happened to making the PC your own character? This isnt a cookie-cutter MMO.

funny how everyone thinks they know the reason Beth reduced the armor choice...

But then why not put a limit on that also instead of decreasing customization?... If they have that is.

what is your theory o-wise one

I dunno, it makes sense to me. Lets take cuirass number one, say, Orcish. I have no clue how that will look in game but imagine if its really bulky. Then, with seperate pauldrons, you add a very slender Elven pauldron which clips horribly with the Orcish armour. On the other hand you could have the Orcish armour and, with no seperate things, go to a smithy and get to select from a few pauldrons to add that don't clip with the armour.

I was starting this off as "Oh look, THIS again..." but I'll admit that this is a good way to shut everyone up about the lack of customization of armor.

What this tells me is they are probably using a biped slots+form lists to add a visual variation to the armor sets. ie so that all the Iron armor sets do not always look identical, and there are cool variations like different pauldrons, staps, belts, or anything you can think of.

Much in the the same way as the system the designed for Fallout 3.

I have no idea what smithing will be like. But possibly that will give you some way to interface/access the different form lists and actually change the look of your armor. It'll all be preset lists if that is the case. but still kinda cool.

After Morrowind hit it big with the mainstream audience, one of the biggest complaints people had about the game, from a console user's standpoint, was that the UI was clunky and not controller friendly, and most people can't(don't want to) micro-manage the large amount of clothing/armor slots which were accessible to the player (some were in the camp as so because of the clunky UI, and some just thought it was stupid to have that many slots). The argument even went into the fact that since the armor covered the clothing, there was no real reason to have the clothing in the first place. Some would ask, "Why do I have to put on a shirt and pants when I don't even see them under my chest piece, greaves and boots?" There was also the crowd of people who complained that it wasn't fair the player could become godlike with just enchants alone, without the need to use any passive spells or potions to boost their most used stats.

Bethesda even addressed this by saying they streamlined the clothing and armor system so people didn't have to worry about managing all those slots. Most people said they would be 'alright' if they nixed the clothing, but kept the same level of detail on the armor system, which, sadly, was not the case.

Many of the 'core TES players were a bit upset about the huge drop of interchangeable slots, which cut individualized customization down quite a bit. Not everyone would exploit the enchantment system, much like the levitation crowd, but in order to keep the majority of people happy, they've cut things out to 'balance' the game. At least, that is what I remember when Oblivion was released. Those threads are looooong gone now...

Either way, speculation is a wonderful tool. It allows you, the consumer, to aid a developer in their quest to perfect a game that you love so much. Without people praising and complaining about certain systems, tweaks, inclusions, etc., gamesas wouldn't know what we liked, what we didn't like, and what we hated.

Without knowing the details of how smithing works we really can't say if it will be like this or not. We know we can make our own armor and weapons, but how does this work, exactly? Do we actaully get some degree of customization in them or will we just choose from a list of generic items? I'm assuming that it's the latter, although I also recall it being mentioned that you can also use smithing to enhance your items, so if that includes visual changes, then maybe any instances where characters who seem to be wearing armor the same as someone else's except with different pauldrons could be explained as some modifications making minor changes to the look of an item such as changing the way the pauldrons look. Of course, it may also just be that there are some armors that are similar but still with minor differences in the game.

I don't really see anyone here saying they know why. I'm only posting a theory on why there are screens where you can see armors which appear to be basicly the same but only have different pauldrons.

Has not having seperate greaves and a cuirass been confirmed though?

No.

No it has not, this is all just some speculation. But it looks pretty clear to me that it's all put together.

We have seen lots of armor who is pretty similar, one is just a set of leather straps, one has leather armor under, another have some sort of leather scales. All had the same straps.
Now unlike greaves or to some degree pauldrons you can hardly make the cross straps separate items without lots of clipping far more if you tried to use them with other armor like iron.

Enchanting is not an issue at all here, far easier ways to nerf enchantments. Weaker sigil stones in Oblivion had made enchantment in that game weaker.

Main issue is the same as from Morrowind to Oblivion, fewer slots makes it easier to create better looking armor. Steel pauldrons would probably cause clipping issues on iron armor as they are designed differently. You also had to have the armor look decent without pauldrons.

trippel post stupid browser hang up.

trippel post stupid browser hang up.

Was too many armor pieces a major complain? Or was it clunky looking armor compared to other games, clothing under armor most of all created a restriction, the armor had to cover the entire body part, no skimpy armor, and this killed it.

It may just be put together in the inventory. So if you want to organize your armor within the inventory, you can choose to put all the parts together and take it on and off all at the same time. Or perhaps combine just cuirass/pauldron/greaves, and choose to wear different boots and gauntlets. Know what I mean?