The poll is obviously biased for one simple reason: You mixed "higher detail" and "faster rendering", and on the other choice "less detail" and "slower rendering".
Which is of course stupid. The slower rendering would occur if the armor had the same amount of detail, not if it had less detail. You're making it sound like those are two advantages of less armor pieces, when it's just one.

Me either. What's the point of looking like http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/The_Zink/Oblivion2009-12-1020-34-51-09.jpg The funny thing is they've also said they improved what it looks like to wear mismatched armors.

Wait... Santa isn't real? My hopes! My dreams! All crushed. :sadvaultboy:

:facepalm: I hope the folks that did tailor maid is considering addressing this.

I wonder what the poll would be if it was a high number of highly detailed armor sets with greaves and curaiss and pauldrons combined...or low number of highly detailed armor with all separate peices

False. My characters always had a mixture of clothing and armour, and they always looked a thousand times better than any NPC walking around.

Obviously if you mix something like glass armour with beige greaves and red shoes it'll look like crap, but there are TONS of possibilities to mix and match and make an awesome-looking character. It's called coordination.


That's just an awful example of someone who doesn't know how to match items together.

I'd rather the programers worked on their much vaunted Creation engine (which looks a lot like a tweaked Gamebryo to me) until it can render armour in multi-parts AND have lots of NPCs on screen at the same time. But I guess that's tough with the consoles.

I like to combine armour and clothing (e.g. chain-mail cuirass + tan pants + leather boots) so the boiler suit approach is a bit of a bummer for me.

I never 'mixed and matched pieces' unless I was forced to.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't you wear the best possible armour you own?
I've never heard of someone wearing rusty iron greaves with their steal curius because it "looks cool" Instead of wearing the steel greaves.

I'd only mix and match if the armors were similar enough to not look stupid when doing so. So, yeah, I never did in Oblivion, more so in Morrowind, but I often wore a robe to hide it. I don't mind the change all that much. Overall I'd prefer more pieces, say, the armor pieces in Morrowind without clothes or robes, but it doesn't bother me too much.

Please stop quoting the 'faster rendering' nonsense. It is clearly a reason they made up to sell their decision to the fan crowd. Combining two armor pieces into one will give a performance boost (so it is not a lie...), but it is so minimal that you won't even see your framerate go up by a single frame even if there are 50 NPCs wearing armor on screen. The game renders hundreds or even thousands of objects with hundreds of thousands of polygons in a scene plus particle effects, animations and tons of other stuff going on in the background. If there are a few dozen polygons less to render it makes about as much of a difference as removing a single small rock from the scene.

But I guess if they merged gauntlets, boots and helmets into the armor we could finally see Total War style battles in TES games. :rofl:

Oh, and higher detail is also not a reason. Why would they be able to add more detail? Maybe a few polygons, but nothing that would make a difference. More artistic freedom, yes, but more detail - no.

I think the fact that there's no clown armor or the ability to stick tree branches in my ears limits the character's creation potential severely. :tongue:

Considering what's beautiful or not is an opinion, it can't be wrong or right (something clearly most people don't get, myself included sometimes I guess <_<) but I stand by what I said, imo almost all combos look terrible.

IN YOUR OPINION, the pros outweigh the cons. By including YOUR OPINION in the poll questions, you made it biased.


That's not true at all. The numbers are based on exactly what's being discussed. 30 sets of cuirass and greaves combined is 30 combinations. 10 sets of cuirass and greaves separate is 100 combinations. It's simple math.

Once again, if you have read Bethesda's fan Q&A you will know exactly what I am talking about. I have the exact quote from the question this entire topic/poll is about, and it clearly states that combining the cuirass and greaves allows them to have more time to further detail the armor sets, and also allows faster rendering times.

It seems like a lot of people don't like to read.................

I was simply stating one of Beth's arguments. Wheter it's true or not I doubt anyone but them truly know.



I think this is what they meant.

And in MY OPINION BLARGGHH I'd rather have 10 sets of combined cuirass' and greaves that looked great than 20 awkward looking ones.

Walking around in Oblivion in a full set of steel armour looks terrible. Walking around in a handful items from different sets that still match well doesn't. Leather armour for example mixed really well with a lot of clothing items.

But you're right, a lot of it is down to opinions... which is why they should give people THE CHOICE. With separate pieces, people who still want to wear sets can do that. While others can mix and match. With merged pieces, you're basically forcing everyone to wear sets.

I'm glad they're taking the quality over quantity approach. It's not like Skyrim is going to be lacking in the quantity department anyways

And then you could get into functionality vs aesthetics. What if you wanted heavy armor? Not many heavy armors can mix well, just saying :shrug:

When I first read that cuirass' would be combined with greaves, I was heartbroken. But, to then see them say that we'll have more armour sets, I'm over the moon!
Hopefully, this means a lot more armour sets than in Oblivion. I'm talking something close to Morrowind. Oh, please, please, please. Let there be twice as many types of armour as there were in Oblivion. I want to see Bonemold, Chitin, Netch, Dreugh, Indoril, etc.
And I hope that being able to smith new armours out of raw materials found in the world is as good as it bloody sounds! Maybe I can create a light armour made of Spider Skin, for example.

It seems like everyone calling this a biased poll has not read the question from the Q&A.... Please read it again and you will see why I combined higher detail and faster rending with the first option, and less detail plus slower rendering with the second.

(hint: I combined them in this way because that is what Bethesda said would be the result of each design choice. How dare I. I must be incredibly biased towards option B.)

Creepy. I like it :mellow:

The armor doesn't bother me though hopefully we'll have more armor than Oblivion but also be able to add clothes underneath the armor. :shrug:

How is my opinion in either of the questions? Please, explain, because both questions are based entirely off of what Bethesda has officially stated, and I'm 100% sure they know more about making videogames than you.

If they say that combining the cuirass and the greaves will quicken rendering times I'm inclined to believe them, considering they've been making games since 1985 and considering that they're the ones developing Skyrim.... I'm also inclined to believe them when they say combining the two pieces allows them to put more detail in each armor set, you know, because of those two reasons I just stated.

So? Like I said, if you want to wear a heavy armour set, that's fine. Having armour in separate pieces doesn't stop you doing that.

All it does is stops people like me who want to mix light armour with clothing from being able to do so. :confused: