Naked Broken Armour (Yay/Nay)?

Master10K

This has been coming up quite a bit. Okay so we know that currently when all your piece of armour become damaged (by being defeated), that subsequent defeats will result in them breaking. And when armour breaks it loses its appearance. Some may find this little feature amusing, whilst others may find it is a detriment to their immersion, or you simply just don't care eitherway. So voice your opinion.

 

Me personally, I love the system, because it makes it blatantly obvious who sucks and hasn't been fixing their gear and those that care so much about their IMMERSION, will have an incentive for not dying a lot. Also it's freaking hilarious.

Exilor

I think broken armor should look broken instead of gone.

Xasapis

Well, on that particular aspect, you could implement three solutions:

• 
  Broken and working armor having the same looks
• 
  Broken armor vanishes
• 
  Broken armor looks broken

Out of those three, only the last one actually requires from the developers to denote resources (art in this case) to create a broken state for every piece of armor.

 

So, taking the two solutions that don't require extra resources, I'd rather my avatar did not lose an armor piece visibly when it breaks.

jdlamson75

It shouldn't just pull a Houdini and disappear from the body.  Instead, maybe an "Oh, crap" look on the toon's face, then a breastplate slides apart in two pieces to clank on the ground.  Or a helmet goes flying in hundreds of pieces when it shatters.  Or people repair their stuff so it doesn't break to begin with...

Master10K

Originally posted by Exilor

I think broken armor should look broken instead of gone.

That would be nice if it didn't mean going through the 100s of different armour skins they have and making broken versions of each individual one, thus wasting dev time that could be spent elsewhere.

1carcarah1

Originally posted by Master10K

Me personally, I love the system, because it makes it blatantly obvious who sucks and hasn't been fixing their gear and those that care so much about their IMMERSION, will have an incentive for not dying a lot. Also it's freaking hilarious.

THIS

 

For me, immersion breaker is having broken gear and not looking like it

Kityn

Broken armor losing its appearance is an obvious visual clue that your piece of armor is broken and no longer working and needs to be repaired. I do not think that damaged looking armor would be enough of a visual clue.

Creating a damaged model of every piece of armor? No way they are going to do that.

Purutzil

Ideally it should look broken. Issue is as many state it requires attention to armor in various states. That being said, I'm sure there are little tricks that can be done to simulate damages without having to edit each individual armor, however, those little tricks can likely have faults with them (not seeming correct visually on some pieces among other things). Actually editing armor isn't all that hard if its designed in such a way to involve layers. The issue comes just how many different 'changes' there might be in which you want to have the effect show. The more you want to show, the more work and tweaking is needed.

fenistil

Overall idea is good ,would be bit better if armor would just fall apart and reveal body but not disappear completly.

Anyway nice heh

Exilor

Originally posted by Master10K

Originally posted by Exilor

I think broken armor should look broken instead of gone.

That would be nice if it didn't mean going through the 100s of different armour skins they have and making broken versions of each individual one, thus wasting dev time that could be spent elsewhere.

Can't be that hard. Just some random scratches here and there, and some holes. Maybe a burn or a stain.

I don't think devs would be doing this, you surely mean the artists?

Ezhae

Originally posted by Purutzil

Ideally it should look broken. Issue is as many state it requires attention to armor in various states. That being said, I'm sure there are little tricks that can be done to simulate damages without having to edit each individual armor, however, those little tricks can likely have faults with them (not seeming correct visually on some pieces among other things). Actually editing armor isn't all that hard if its designed in such a way to involve layers. The issue comes just how many different 'changes' there might be in which you want to have the effect show. The more you want to show, the more work and tweaking is needed.

Considering the variety of looks in armor plus different races (especially Charr/Asura) creating an automated script to recalculate broken version of every armor mesh wouldn't really give good results in most of the cases. Plus You also need to re-adjust the textures as well. 

Not to mention it would additional load on computing/rendering and bandwith. Fine for singleplayer/singleplayer with co-op games, not so much for MMMOs. 

 

Vanishing armor is fine, can't see anything bad about it really. It gives You obvious "crap, armor broken!" cue when You suddenly look at Your characters naked butt. 

Master10K

Originally posted by Exilor

Originally posted by Master10K

Originally posted by Exilor

I think broken armor should look broken instead of gone.

That would be nice if it didn't mean going through the 100s of different armour skins they have and making broken versions of each individual one, thus wasting dev time that could be spent elsewhere.

Can't be that hard. Just some random scratches here and there, and some holes. Maybe a burn or a stain.

I don't think devs would be doing this, you surely mean the artists?

Yet it still takes time away from other things. Even if it's just the artist, those same artist will be the ones designing and creating new gear, or new costumes and towns clothes for the item store (most likely around this time).

Phry

why should the armour look different, most of the reasons given seem a bit pervy tbh, if its too complicated for the armour to look broken, then rather than it disapear, perhaps they could have it turn bright red or something.

Master10K

Originally posted by Phry

why should the armour look different, most of the reasons given seem a bit pervy tbh, if its too complicated for the armour to look broken, then rather than it disapear, perhaps they could have it turn bright red or something.

You can already dye your armour any colour, including bright red. 

Draftbeer

'Yay'

I find the idea quite funny actually.

Exilor

Originally posted by Master10K

Originally posted by Exilor

Originally posted by Master10K

Originally posted by Exilor

I think broken armor should look broken instead of gone.

That would be nice if it didn't mean going through the 100s of different armour skins they have and making broken versions of each individual one, thus wasting dev time that could be spent elsewhere.

Can't be that hard. Just some random scratches here and there, and some holes. Maybe a burn or a stain.

I don't think devs would be doing this, you surely mean the artists?

Yet it still takes time away from other things. Even if it's just the artist, those same artist will be the ones designing and creating new gear, or new costumes and towns clothes for the item store (most likely around this time).

Ah, the item store. God forbid it was neglected.

Sovrath

Originally posted by Master10K

Originally posted by Exilor

Originally posted by Master10K

Originally posted by Exilor

I think broken armor should look broken instead of gone.

That would be nice if it didn't mean going through the 100s of different armour skins they have and making broken versions of each individual one, thus wasting dev time that could be spent elsewhere.

Can't be that hard. Just some random scratches here and there, and some holes. Maybe a burn or a stain.

I don't think devs would be doing this, you surely mean the artists?

Yet it still takes time away from other things. Even if it's just the artist, those same artist will be the ones designing and creating new gear, or new costumes and towns clothes for the item store (most likely around this time).

I've seen this argument before and it needs to be said that when devs do something that "takes time away from other things" what they really are doing is taking time away from other things that some players feel more important.

Anything a developer does is to their design. Whether players like it or not. If they want to spend time on this then it's something they want to see and is important to them.

I say "yay" only because I like the idea of having a visual representation fo what's going on wihout cluttering up the screen. My take is that they want to inofrm the player their gear is breaking but don't want to have a paper doll with red indications. which to me is the better way to do it.

Loke666

It is good, but i think it would be even better if it looked like rags instead (or maybe something a bit bulkier for leather and metal).

That I actually can see when the armor is gone is good if I play too long and is playing in zombie mode.

gainesvilleg

I thought the point of GW2 was to "remove the grind" as everybody keeps posting.  In other games that have armour breaking people complain it is just a timesink in order to get you to earn gold in order to repair armour.  But this is a good feature in GW2???  But to the original question, breaking armour is a poor substitute for an actual death penalty so I don't really think the mechanic should be used at all.  But if it were used, then the armour should be shown as broken.  That is the more realistic option...

 

Razephon

Simplest way to do it is have a voice over for each broken item:

"My chest armor is broken! I need to replace it!"

Perhaps if they wanted to invest further into this feature, you could have different 'statements' for a piece of armor with a bit of character. E.g.

"My chest armors gone! I gotta be extra careful!"

"My boots are broken! Guess I'm going barefoot on this one!"

Sovrath

Originally posted by gainesvilleg

I thought the point of GW2 was to "remove the grind" as everybody keeps posting.  In other games that have armour breaking people complain it is just a timesink in order to get you to earn gold in order to repair armour.  But this is a good feature in GW2???  But to the original question, breaking armour is a poor substitute for an actual death penalty so I don't really think the mechanic should be used at all.  But if it were used, then the armour should be shown as broken.  That is the more realistic option...

 

To each his own I suppose.

For me, anything that causes me to have to earn money in these games is the most viscious death penalty at all. I would rather take 50% xp loss than have to spend time "making money" as that for me is usually atrociously tedious.

You want to talk about a death penalty that matters? Well for me it's economic loss.

Volkon

As long as I don't break my underwear I don't really care.

 

But, to be honest, the visual will come in handy... I recall "other" games where the armor would be broken yet I wouldn't realize it until too late.

gainesvilleg

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by gainesvilleg

I thought the point of GW2 was to "remove the grind" as everybody keeps posting.  In other games that have armour breaking people complain it is just a timesink in order to get you to earn gold in order to repair armour.  But this is a good feature in GW2???  But to the original question, breaking armour is a poor substitute for an actual death penalty so I don't really think the mechanic should be used at all.  But if it were used, then the armour should be shown as broken.  That is the more realistic option...

 

To each his own I suppose.

For me, anything that causes me to have to earn money in these games is the most viscious death penalty at all. I would rather take 50% xp loss than have to spend time "making money" as that for me is usually atrociously tedious.

You want to talk about a death penalty that matters? Well for me it's economic loss.

I was just poking fun for the most part at the "GW2 does everything different and no grind" crowd.

I'd be ok with an actual painful economic loss as a death penalty.  But if it is anything like how it is implemented in WoW for instance, the penalty wasn't severe enough to really be any deterent whatsoever.  My actual idea is to go roguelike and make it an actual death as in you die start again (with maybe some ancestry bonus or something to your new character).   Games are   

Master10K

Originally posted by gainesvilleg

I thought the point of GW2 was to "remove the grind" as everybody keeps posting.  In other games that have armour breaking people complain it is just a timesink in order to get you to earn gold in order to repair armour.  But this is a good feature in GW2???  But to the original question, breaking armour is a poor substitute for an actual death penalty so I don't really think the mechanic should be used at all.  But if it were used, then the armour should be shown as broken.  That is the more realistic option...

But if you are dying, then you are doing content and if you are doing content then you are making money. Where's the grind in that? Especially having seen how little it cost to repair and the abundance of gear that mobs drop, that can be sold off for money? :P

Master10K

Originally posted by gainesvilleg

*snip*

I was just poking fun for the most part at the "GW2 does everything different and no grind" crowd.

I'd be ok with an actual painful economic loss as a death penalty.  But if it is anything like how it is implemented in WoW for instance, the penalty wasn't severe enough to really be any deterent whatsoever.  My actual idea is to go roguelike and make it an actual death as in you die start again (with maybe some ancestry bonus or something to your new character).   Games are   

Now you're approaching The Witcher 2 territory, with it's new difficultly option. Where you die and have to start over.

Kyuz0o

I`m for the option Normal armour looks normal, when it gets damaged, it looks shabby, and when it totally breaks, it disappears. I´m all for naked characters ;P