I was originally a huge hater of the merge. So much so, that I disputed them merging it all the way up until it was confirmed in the fan interview. However what Todd said surrounding it got me hopeful. Merging greaves and cuirass allows for a few things:

#1) Better armour looks and animations.

#2) More types of armour

#3) Far more people can fit on the screen at once.

After hearing the reasons why it was merged I realized, that I'd rather have those three things than separate greaves and cuirass. What about you guys? Have your views changed since reading the fan interview?

What's happening is pretty obvious...Morrowind to Oblivion, we lost Pauldrons. Oblivion to Skyrim, now the Pauldron-Cuirass unit becomes a literal unitard once Greaves are merged as well. 3 more games (Gauntlets, Boots, Helmet) and "Armor" will be a single head-to-toe garment. Who knows, maybe they'll even merge the shields. Why not, just consider it part of the sleeve on the one-piece "armor" garment. :thumbsup:

But then maybe once they merge all those other pieces we'll get entire armies on screen, eh? :lmao:

My views didn't really change. I always wore a full set as soon as I got one anyway, so I'm not really that bothered. I think some of the reasons are ok but in Oblivion a lot of guards could be on screen at once and I never had a problem.

First, I just didn't care, since I never combine armor if I can avoid it.

Then, once I heard the reasons why, I'm happy they merged them. The reasons are completely valid and will allow for some really awesome things.

Dissapointed regardless of their crappy excuse. Remember how extremely much Oblivion slowed down when you equipped one extra piece of armour? Yeah, me neither.

I like my armour to match so I approve of the change.

I love the change. More armor sets, better looking armor, and more NPC's on screen far outweigh being able to separate cuirass and greaves.

I hope the one piece for all armors/outfits will not happen in future TES games; it was something I hated in Fallout 3. I'm already skeptical about greaves to cuirass merge, but I'm willing to give it a chance because it could still work out fine. I just hate having less options for armor and outfit customization.

I disliked the merge at first until I saw that it makes the game much more smoother too run. They took out 2 things, it wont affect anything really. :spotted owl:

I'm disappointed with having greaves and cuirass merged. Whether I agree that the tradeoff for those other things is worth it.... Hard to say. It's difficult to assess the reasons Bethesda gave.

#1: If it's a matter of designing armour that fit the Skyrim art style, then I find it hard to believe that keeping greaves separate from cuirasses was an obstacle to that. If it's a matter of better animation, then I find that easier to swallow.

#2. I guess this is just a question of how much time + labour to devote to designing armour. If it's the case that it was indeed a choice between more armour types and combined cuiras + greaves, and less armour types and separate cuirass and greaves, then I am not unhappy with that tradeoff.

#3. I'll leave that to people who know something about graphics rendering.

Overall, even if it's just better animation, and Bethesda went one way rather than the other in the decision mentioned in #2, then I'm not too unhappy. Perhaps a little disappointing, but far from a deal-breaker. (I also don't buy the slippery slope argument that we'll end up with one-piece "jumpsuits"; I suspect that armour crafting + more types of armour will give us more armour customisation than in Oblivion - although not reaching Morrowind's level.)

Two things? Just greaves and cuirass are combined. Helmets, boots, and gauntlets are still separate.

doesnt bother me too much mainly because i wore same materiel items unless i found a new piece that was better. but i think as long as we get a good bit of customization with those armour pieces then it wont matter much. anyway i am glad they will be able to fit more people on screen and we get more armour variants.

Playing nerevar/hero of oblivion dress up was one of the high points of both morrowind and oblivion for me.

Slowly getting rid of that is not sitting well with me. Don't care about more people or whatever.

I think people worry and complain far too much. But I sure as hell can understand why.

What I'm going to miss most is actually searching for the separate pieces. In Morrowind, finding every piece of the armor you wanted was an accomplishment. In Oblivion you completed one set so fast it felt like no achievement at all. Add to that bandits with daedric armor, and you have no sense of progression whatsoever. I didn't care about armor in Oblivion at all because you basically got it for free everywhere.

If they could reintroduce this sense of progression in Skyrim with more armor types, I wouldn't be against combining two pieces, but I very highly doubt it.
But hey, Obliivon removed 3 pieces, Skyrim just 1, so I guess we are on the right track, right?

Yeah, I guess more people on screen, more types of armor and better animations are classified as "crappy excuse".

What he said.

To me it seems arbitry since most suits of armor in a lot older RPG style games are mostly portrayed as the Cuirass / briastplate / Suit of Armor being both the Curiass & Greaves as one. Gaunlets, Bracers, Boots, Helmets, and Shields generally are different based on determining factors. Even games as old as D&D use this same rule. Do I agree with it. No... I like having ultimate customization, I like being able to tweak my characters with lots of options, I like having the ability to dawn a Elven Chainmail briastplate with a pair of Glass or Amber Greaves, with Steel Pauldrons, some Ebon Gaunlets, some Daedric Boots, and a Orcish Shield, while displaying a bit of old fashion clothes and garments over some of them, a necklace, some braccelets, a couple of rings, and a pair of earrings. All of its spells immersion and a level of customization. Elder Scrolls in general are a deep game, huge and massive with stories and epic tales and journeys. Will I get upset if the scale drops on characters maybe a little bit, but keep the world the same as the last two Elder Scrolls and you can screw up anything else ause as long as I have that level of beauty I will learn to love the rest of it.

Well yeah actually it is, how many people are they trying to cram onscreen anyway?

I'm not sure how you suddenly can have more types of armor just because it's in one piece now. It's not like multiple pieces stopped them from creating more. Or how one piece allows them to suddenly make better looking armor.
I'm not sold on the "more NPCs" thing either. It's still rendering just as much in one piece as it would if it were in multiple pieces.

It's not a huge deal to me but I would have much preffered more customization options.

Im gonna throw in my 2 cents.

The idea behind faster rendering by combining greaves and cuirass is hard to consider for myself, unless the console hardware has that high of latency speed with it's RAM and VRAM. There is also the consideration about the software needing to make additional calls for the separate greaves and cuirass, so the point may be valid. Streamlining the system in those regards could be a good thing.

While I dont like it, I have to agree that it *can* help because of the frequency of the living world.

Though, one thing that I HOPE they consider if they read this thread: It doesnt take much to go in and add a tag to the greaves for the people who want the enchantment ability. It would be a tradeoff, yes, but that could make people from both camps happy.

That last part is from one dev to another. Vsions. Please, if you can, bring it up to them. The team IS big enough to devote one person to a week's worth of writing a couple of additional scripts and then tagging the greaves to allow one separate enchantment slot.

to people who say things like by their next game all armor will be all in one", its just the nordish styles that led to them being together. another style in the next game will most likely separate them again.

This trade-off does seem fair, but i like Lots of variety so by combining the two articles i had better see more than 12 standard sets of armor and more small variations in clothes and peoples faces and personality cause if they cant deliver on this they seriously need to look back to the first 3 TES, and see why those were so good because in my opinion it was choice that made those games great and to a somewhat lesser extent Oblivion.

Considering the fact that the AI and graphics in Skyrim are likely to hog a lot more resources than in Oblivion, I doubt we're going to see "far" more people on the screen. Oblivion could already put a decent amount on screen, like in the IC Market District.

Thats a good point i haven't thought about it but maybe the simpler clothes reflect simpler people after all the Nords are a barbaristic people and would wear more Bare-Bones style