I thought about making a poll, but I like to have a discussion. I know many people will have mixed feelings about this. I believe if we have to repair our armor, we should be able to see damaged effects on it. Dents, broken pieces, torn/ripped, chipped, etc. Good thing about this is that not only it tells us when we need repairs without having to constantly look at stats after a few big fights, but also its a scene of realism.

Now I know many people do like to look ballin before and after the fights and adventures that take place. Then again I want to see myself tear up my enemies armor a bit when I fight them. So if I see damage on them, we should accept damage on ourselves too. I know in Oblivion, I wore some really nice gloves for unarmed fighting (one of the best gloves) and these gloves would wear out so quick it was unreal. It would be nice to see what something would look like with no durability.

If it can be done, I would be SO game for this.

Only if damage is visible after falling under like 25 percent. I don't want my armor falling apart after a couple hits. Its an rpg, you're armor is going to get hit often, and I like to look pristine most of the time

For the sake of performance, instead of having exact positions on the armor that were affected, perhaps instead have various renders of an armor set when they're at certain conditions? It makes little sense to have Ebony Armor look perfect when it's at 10% conditioning; perhaps it could then have a preset 10% rendering where it looks torn apart?

I don't know what kind of effort this would take, and it'd likely need to be an option to turn off for performance, but if it's possible then I'm down for it.

Yeah, has to be under a certain percentage. I wouldn't have to like to go to the repair shop every few hours. Got to admit though, RPG wise your armor should be getting Fed up, then again roleplaying would be more about that pristine thing. It's pretty tough.

I'd rather they remove armor degradation entirely. Repair hammers were just another way to encumber you while you performed pointless maintenance. But if it is in, it would be cool if it were visible. I'd prefer visual cues to knowing when to repair than having to check my inventory after every fight.

It would be cool, but I would imagine it would take a lot of extra effort on Bethesda's part that could be better spent elsewhere.

I never really carried the hammers much with me, but I mean with fast travel, you could just go back to your pad and start hammering off. Keep the degradation, keeps the realism.

Ah yeah, I hated fast travel. It probably taints my views on these things.

How about something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c_PVtMIz-A?

Not entirely. Just a bit of deform on the armor (at most), then some textures to make it looked dented and scratched. People keep saying any improvements would be too much work, but if we want to play Oblivion, we can go back and play Oblivion with some sweet graphics mods and be content lol.

I for one think it's a good call, as well as having NPCs get bloodied up and bruised as you hit them.

Actually, I do wish armor has a higher condition rating. I recall many times I had light armor unwearable due to one dungeon raid....I think even light armor should have double the condition. Constant repairing stinks

It would be nice, but only if it degraded at a steady rate according to its condition. Having something look perfectly pristine at one moment, then look completely tattered after one more hit, would just be ridiculous and annoying. Having it visually degrade just a little bit at a time at various damage levels would be cool, but would probably take quite a bit of effort.

If it can be done in a realistic fashion, I'm all for it.

I would love to actually see a degradation of my armor and my opponents while in combat. Of course it can't be a quick transition, but a long-winded battle will eventually begin to wear on the armor/shield of both participants.

That is awesome, period. If beth doesn't use this I'll almost be dissapointed

As a partial solution, rather than carrying 10 repair hammers on you at all times, Beth could implement hammers that themselves degrade over time, limiting their uses but not simply breaking like in Oblivion, so that you'd only need one in the inventory.

That is pretty neat.

Totally into this idea

Yeah, it doesn't need to be very hard on the performance, I don't remember if it was oblivion or dark messiah that had it, but your sword would get tainted with blood after some use. Same method could be applied to armor, just some dented and scratched textures would be ok.

Dents, cuts, tears, blood. I'm in all the way for visible combat-damage to armor and body if it can be done successfully.

Start out with scuffs and then chipping and dents and holes until it finally looks like complete crap.

Kinda like in the Dragonball Z fighting games.

Yes please!

I don't get the people who admire themselves in the games that they play. I mean, I care about the way I look in the game, but if something is better I'll use that instead of what I have now.