feel you - start gear looks really nice, steel, leather, fur, all variations...but elven, glass, dragon, deadric etc...looks way too much fantasy...also the colours are sometimes a bit over the top - its easy to differentiate this way but...wow...hmmmm

i love the orcish warhammer - pretty much the best looking waepon in game for me - i also like the other orcish weapons BUT they kinda do not fit to the orcish armor and to the statement that orcs belong to the best smiths in land...they look too "simply built to hurt not to be very balanced/efficient", very crude with the exception of the warhammer which also doesnt really fit to the rest of the line...well....others then orcish i pretty much dislike all other "higher" gear...the way dwarven is designed fits the whole dwarfen fluff, but i dont like it personally - dont think they should change it, it fits, just not my cup of tea....

but i would also like if they would throw over board this whole system of steel-silver-orcish-elven-dwarfen-glass etc etc etc....its kinda boring if you A) always now the progression and B) have very limited possibilities to enchant stuff or find magic items...

"I like fighting giant, flying, fire breathing lizards, but the armor in Skyrim is much too fantasy like and unrealistic." That's what I'm getting from most people posting on this thread. Why don't you say that out loud for me and tell me how much sense it makes.....

I'm exactly the same. I far prefer using Fur/Leather/Iron/Steel. It usually bites me in the ass as I'm too stubborn to turn the difficulty down. I usually end up enchanting my armour with Shield, in Oblivion at least, don't know if I can do equivalent in Skyrim. At least Smithing keeps me in the fight a bit more. Weapon wise I'll bite the bullet and go for Orcish weapons (I play as an Orc, so it kinda fits). Still, Legendary Steel may be alright considering everyone's saying the game is too easy on Master.

PS: I haven't tried the Advanced Armours Perk yet, not exactly low level gear, but sounds like it should still fit with feel we all seem to like.

Not at all... they did a very good job at making the world of Skyrim uniformly gritty and "realistic" low fantasy - including the lower armors, which match the frozen Nordic tone of the rest of the game exceptionally well. And then there's glass and daedric and dragonbone, which look cool/good but do not match the game. So as you level up you become more powerful but it's harder to keep your character immersed in the world of the game.

I'm running around in imperial steel, Tullius' armor and a cicrlet for the head, I love the look of it but hate the fact that the armor is very bad <_<

I like the Steel Plate and Orcish armor, never had a chance to see Ebony yet though, hope its better than daedric and dragonbone because from what I'm reading they both look horrible.

I like the look of the Studded Armor on my character and wear that most of the time. With Fur Armor, I only like the look of one of them.

Then I think most people are looking at it this way. "Daedric armor looks nice, but I stick out way too much when I wear it."

I think of it this way. "I'm the freaking Dragonborn! All you normals can wear your boring steel armor while while I wear my bad ass, blood red, spiky, Daedric armor.". I guess I get what people are saying, I just don't have the same view point everyone else does.

I like to wear leather armor... just looks 'right'

Which is fine. I am wearing dragonbone armor at the moment and I like it. It looks decently cool, as does daedric. But I really do love the design of banded iron.