So in the previous games you were able to mix and match light/medium/heavy and even unarmored item sets together to get your "taste" or the play-style you wanted. Heavy armored in all slots bare chest barbarian come to mind, or a thief I believe morrowind had a few male npc's with this look. Or a caster in robes with a heavy gauntlet, or heavy boots.

The mix and match was nice and added a good bit of realism/artistic flare to the game. However I am concerned about there no longer being legs and chest armor but just torso.... I hear the "technical" reasons for it but it also feels a bit like a short cut as far as development goes. Worse is it really takes away that great customization feel and makes everyone for clone like. But this is just my feelings on it. What about everyone else?

P.s. Is unarmored out of the game for sure? Will my robed mage be forced to wear his mittens and gloves?

It will still be an option, the only thing they changed (alas if ye ask me) is that greaves and "briast" are now one item (merged)! The rest can still be mixed...or not used at all if you so choose!

I completely agree with OP, it's a darned shame they've decided to set armor customization so low. And while they've only removed one slot since oblivion. it was already a huge step down from Morrowind. I guess we've just got to realize that bethesda do not care much for this aspect of the game, and will most likely keep "streamlining" it. It's sad, but in terms of visible parts, skyrim is closer to fallout 3 than Morrowind.

There is meant to be a lot more varieties of armour (for example, topless style) which will hopefully cover that artistic flare. We really do not know if it is going to be better or worse on the variety front till the game comes out.

that does nothing for the players own experimentation and fun though, they could have 50 suits, it's still just suits.

i hated mixing in OB... makes no difference to me that chest and greaves are merged

This is still one of the worst things i think they did to the game, i wanted them to bring back pauldrons. :sadvaultboy:

But we do not know how much customization there is. Smithing may open up tones of possibilities in editing the way armour looks! We have seen what looks like the same armour type, in many different styles, which either implies the devs have added a LOT of different armour for each type, or that small changes (shoulders, chest, etc) can be made.

As such, I think you are taking a step in the dark when you hit out against BGS for taking a step backwards. It may be the case. If it turns out we have no variety then I'm all for angry words and bashing, but right now there are to many variables to even draw a likely conclusion.

exactly my feelings. The ONE hope I had for skyrim, was to see pauldrons return, and I'd have been happy, alas, they made it worse.


@SugarRush

Different types of one piece is not at all a fair trade for actual customization. It's true we don't know whether or not smithing will do something in that area, but so far they havent really hinted at such imo. :/. And I'm not striking out against them nor are my "words" angry, they're merely quite sad

A shame indeed but the worst thing is the fact that armor and weapons no longer take damage! :rolleyes:

As a little bit of a history lover, this doesn't bother me that much because the only items I can think of that protected the upper leg were the Cuisse *may be spelled incorrectly* and the Tasset - both of which were usually attached to the torso armour and were made specifically for it. There were some cases where greaves (actually the name of the shin guard area of armour - see iron boots in oblivion) would have Cuisse attached, but they were mostly in steel armour and it wasn't always the case as it just means you're stuck walking really slowly because your knees have to power through a steel joint every movement you make.

I'm wondering how they're going to work the upper arm armour. is it going to be connected to the gauntlets or vambraces or will they be seperate as pauldrons or spaulders.

Imagine helms that have visor mechanism so you can slide the armour peice up and down on the face like a sallet.

even if you're a realism buff (which I am not). This still hinders us from wearing, say, pants and no shirt. Or say, a pants/shirt combo the devs did not include.