The only thing I like about Two Worlds is the vast amount of armor and weapons and the leveling up of your armor by combining like armors.

I think that Oblivion and Morrowind had a wide enough variety for me but I would like to see more. You can't go wrong with making more.

It makes sense when you stop to think about it. Weapons are situational in most cases, though swords and the like are fairly versatile, thus you need many types to build an effective army. Armor on the other hand is still situational, but not in nearly as large a degree. Heavy armor is good for people who are in the thick of battle and need the protection it offers, whereas someone who needs to be fast or agile will use light armor, so you have different weight classes.

However, from a gameplay perspective I agree with you, how your character looks is an extremely important part of an RPG, your armor is a big part of that as well. So variety in armor is essential, at least in a fantasy game where realism really isn't that important.

well at least the some of the armor looks better, the http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4lrm97dBqNo/TTBUbM33FKI/AAAAAAAAAX0/-SE1Q1VIF0Q/s1600/skyrim_018.jpg looks like it got a hardcoe face lift :hubbahubba:

my favorite piece of armor has always been the elven but almost never used because it wasn't all that great stats wise

Oblivion felt very cheap on Armour, almost no choice, and not very diferenciated.
Its understandable under the light that an armour set require much more work than a weapon.

The problems is most players are about armor details then armour kind.
I would prefer more armour kind less detailed (let modders work on that), and diferent armor look upon damage, and armor with 1 (batered armor) of resistance looks exactly as an armor with 100% (brand new)

There was plenty of choice. How does losing 5 visible armor pieces make you completely lose choice?

What exactly, is the topic here? You stated your distaste for weapons being a priority in TES games. Which is also strictly personal opinion.
What do you want us to discuss?

If you don't what he is wanting to discuss then read the what we are discussing right now and state your opinion on it dude

You call 12 plenty of choices ?
And knowing that at max 4 for each kind (light/medium/heavy) it leaves you with 4 effective armors.
Even if you wish to mismatch you haven t got much choice assuming your not a "wear anything" (ie a thief with plate boots for example) and want to remain with a little sensitiveness upon character.

Thought for a warrior of course you could do anything.

Even then, mixing the armors together in the oblivion game didn't look all that great

To be fair, even in "The Illiad" the generals of the raiding greek armies do not switch armor types as rapidly as the average bandit in Oblivion. Generally, characters have a particular type of equipment that they use and change that kind of equipment rarely. Maybe armor could be customizable to some extent to change appearances (and possibly resistance to certain weapon types). The Witcher, Mass Effect, and Gothic 3 are probably the only roleplaying games I've played in which my character did not have an identity crisis every 2 hours. Mass Effect had too much armor floating around, but it all looks vaguely the same. The Witcher had five armor sets or fewer, and appearance of these armor sets was fairly diverse. Gothic 3 had a few armor sets, but they were mostly very expensive. Customization of armor appearance or function was not a possibility in any of these games except for Mass Effect 2.

While it's nice to have a large number of armor varieties to choose from, It's also nice to be able to stay with a single armor set through most of the game without being penalized.

I thought oblivion had quite good armour,it wasn't a bad selection really.
We had: Fur,leather,chainmail,mithril,elven,and glass,light armours. Also amber if you had SI.
Heavy we had: Iron,steel,dwarven,orcish,ebony,and daedric. On top of that we had guards armour,blackwood armour ( ok same as steel,but black ),and madness from SI.
I would say thats quite a few.
In skyrim i believe we'll have more.I 'm going to guess what i think will appear in skyrim.
Light armour: Fur ( different types ) like: wolf skin,bear skin,mammoth skin,maybe even sabre cat skin.
Leather ( we may have different types here,not sure ),elven,glass ( glass should have different colours ) stahlrim ( ice armour ),dreugh armour.
Heavy: Iron,steel,dwarven,orcish,nordic,ebony,daedric,dreugh ( could be classed as heavy,if in ),dragon scale,dragon bone,possibly silver armour,some sort of imperial armour, templer etc.
I doubt we will see amber and madness in skyrim,would love to see amber though,as this is a resin from trees,so should be in ,in my book.
We may have others too,as we or i rather,don't know what other materials exist in skyrim,so we could have even more,with crafting/smithing etc.
Thats my opinion of what armours may appear in skyrim,i may be wrong,but i'm willing to bet there will be more than oblivion.

There is plenty of choice out of it. Just because you can't sit there for hours adding pieces and mismatching them before you run out doesn't mean there aren't enough choices (btw, Morrowind you couldn't sit there for hours doing either) I don't know why some people think that there must be insane amounts of things in a game to make it a worthwhile game. To add that many choices in armor and weapons and what not would take away from the actual gameplay of the game. What good does it do when you get to be the patchwork armor monster if the gameplay isn't that good *cough* Morrowind *cough*

Weapons are basically X made from Y, where X = type of weapon (lots of them, as OP correctly stated), and Y = material.
Armors are "the same", but X is only one thing always, "armor". Though, actually, there are various pieces of said armor, while weapon always goes to hands.

Still, it'd be good to see some variety. Let's remember Y as it is in Oblivion - commonly known materials, from Fur to Glass and from Iron to Daedric. We obviously fo have 2 massives: Light and Heavy armors. There aren't any Light Steel armors, and there aren't any Heavy Glass armor. Which is, well, I dunno. Don't like it.

Proposed system - change X, tweak Y. Instead of basic "armor", we could have:

- Padded, from various types of cloth.
- Fur, from various types of beasts.
- Leather, obviously, from various hides - probably similar materials with fur, but this armor is way lighter and more costly, while providing similar protection.
- Hide, same material - various beasts, but this is Heavy armor type, crafted from many layers. It should svck compared to metal armors of similar level, basically a novelty item - powerful barbarian bandit-lords wear it, because they don't have access to better stuff.

- Mail, from various types of metal. Best Light armor in protection value, though it is considerably more heavy than Leather. Prices are similar, though.
- Lamellar, again metal, but also includes Glass and Ebony.
- Plate, same as Lamellar.
- Full Plate, extremely rare, because civilization is in downfall now.

So! Dwemer Lamellar Cuirass anyone? Or Elven Mail Gloves? Or Mountain Bear Leather Boots?

Won't happen in Skyrim, probably. Still, I like this idea. Maybe in VI.

I really like ^. Just because it's a different material doesn't mean it has to be a different type of armor. There should be a few types of heavy and light armours respectively, then different materials for those.

I like the types you suggested, lamellar especially. To me that fits Skyrim really well. I think medium armor should be back if this is implemented, so mail can be medium again(along with lamellar). :thumbsup:

To be honest, I never liked neither armor skills, nor crude division by three types. In my opinion, "Light" and "Heavy" disclaimers are redundant under aforementioned system. Yeah, Padded and Leather are lightest, Fur is heavier, Mail is even more heavy, Hide is equal to Lamellar in weight, and Plate and Full Plate are heaviest of them all. That is obvious.

Also it is obvious that a Steel Plate Cuirass should always provide better defense than Bull Leather Jacket. But Jacket is lighter, far less noisy, and way cheaper. These properties can not be changed by any skills, it makes no sense. You want to play leather-clad bowman ninja? You're welcome, but your protection will be lower than of canned knight. But you'll be able to move faster, sprint for longer, and that's what you really need, not raw protection. If character is wearing light armor, he is not friendly with concept of front-line slaughter. Well, maybe he is, with Greatsword, and/or very good swordplay with Sword + Shield, and/or with Magic... but still, you get the point: frontline battle is for heavily armored people. Actually, it is the other way around: heavy armor is for people who fight in melee.

So, instead of two-three artificial groups of armor, I propose approach not different from Mass Effect 2 weaponry approach. There should not be "no-brainer" choices. Well, sure, if you are playing heavy melee tank, you are going to search for Full Plate... or do you? Maybe you'll find that Lamellar armor provides you with enough protection, while being light enough to move way faster, helping to reach these pesky mages?

Or, remember, you always can mix and match. I do not understand people's dissatisfaction of "mix-and-match" armor. Well, duh. Your characters tend to look that way most of their careers. And this, well, makes sense and looks plausible. In real life I practice fencing, among other things, and when we do use dull steel swords and want to fight aggresively, we need to protect ourselves obviously. So, my choice of protective gear:

padded cuirass, which is both cheap enough and not-constricting;
some leather gloves or, sometimes, one steel gauntlet (don't need the second one, left hand is either behind the shield or far from blade on the hilt/pole);
common jeans, some kind of common boots;
and freaking closed steel helmet with minimum holes for vision and breathing. Because I don't want to miss a blow to my skull. Or face, which is located on my skull.

Other people have similar approach. They tend to protect head (obviously), hands (they are easy targets if weapons are not from renaissance or something). After head and hands are covered, they usually try to protect these places where they tend to receive blows. Someone protects their arms, someone is more concerned with their legs or torso. And yes, mix-and-match. People in real life wear mix-and-match, always.

Jeans, t-shirt and a leather jacket? No waaay, different materials, dude, you look like a clown!

Unique designs and design variations according to the culture. Like in FONV, The Great Khans had a unique "look" to their leather jacket style "armors", yet they had several designs. The NCR had their look, but several designs. The BoS had their look etc etc. But a certain culture may be strongly influenced by a certain material and make variations in this material, rather than try to use everything (too much). Also I'd expect more unique designs with materials that were easy to handle. So more unique furs and leathers, than steel and daedric. I don't expect more than one (maybe two) steel designs per major 5 city, but I do expect more variations in the lighter materials.

Oblivion had city designs too, as well as unique designs (saviors hide).

Haven't replied to this in awhile, but wanted to let ya know armor can come in so many different ways. Like for example the shape, the form of the armor, but as i read recently there's enchanted weapons.

Eh more isn't always better. That's part of the reason BGS cut down on so many weapons in Morrowind. While it's nice to have a huge variety of armor/equipment at your disposal, it all starts becoming generic and meaningless. It's much more fulfilling to have items with actual different utility rather than just a different model and texture with the same effect.

I think that they do that because when you got the best armor.... you dont need more armor but with weapons there is different playing styles and stuff... thats what i think. Sounds better in swedish.

There were multiple types of steel armor. Regular steel, Blades armor, and Legion armor were all steel with similar stats. But armor isn't something that needs to differ as much, different weapons of the same material don't all do the same thing. Different armor would just be cosmetic.

There should however be multiple types of helmets for each armor. Even if there's only one Ebony armor, there should be for example an ebony http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbute (like the current ebony helm), an ebony http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallet, and an ebony http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_helm.