Discussion on armor

Discuss modding questions and implementation details.
ironmaskofhell
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Discussion on armor

Post by ironmaskofhell »

Since most armor in the game are just the same assest with different colors with tiny things added to make them seem different, I decided to make this topic to discuss how the armor in daggerfall should be remoldeled to be made more unique and interesting, how can it compare to later tes games, and how can we implement it since this will take a lot of coding. I think chain, iron, steel, should look realistic and usable, other armor such as orcish, elven, daedric, dwarvern, etc can be and look more fantasy like, although with a fair balance of realism to keep things from looking like an MMO/Anime. Do you agree? Tell me what you think.
Last edited by ironmaskofhell on Fri Nov 24, 2017 8:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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NikitaTheTanner
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Re: Discussion on weapons and armor

Post by NikitaTheTanner »

Wanted to start the topic myself, but you did first :D It's okay! It's an important topic and we need to come up with best concepts for equipment. Maybe some talented artists will even draw their own concept art for the game, that could be very cool and helpful. Though I would strongly recommend to separate armor and weapons into two different topics, because their implementation is going to be vastly different.

Weapons are easy, more or less. Design a weapon, stick it to the character, that's it. Of course, I am not talking about all the technical details, like coding and animating, but at least the system is more or less clear.

Armor on the other hand is a more complicated issue. We will first need to decide on the slot system, for example. Are we going to keep Daggerfall slot system? Adopt Morrowind one? Both these systems provide a lot of variety, due to high amount of armor slots, but they have their own drawbacks. It's much harder to model all pieces of all armors to fit all the possible combinations, to minimize armor clipping. Performance wise, it might be also more taxing, as it's harder to optimize. Finally, it leads to many funny combinations on NPCs, since their gear is probably going to be very much randomized, though that is a smaller issue. Player also sometimes looks ridiculous when trying to maximize armor effectiveness while having completely different items equipped.

We might go for Oblivion slot system, or even Skyrim/Mount & Blade/Dark Souls style. Four pieces is relatively easy to handle, but still provides good variety, unlike Fallout 3/New Vegas system with two slots only.

Depending on what we decide for armor, the style should also be altered to fit. No point in having pauldron slots if the designs do not have pauldrons. That's just my two cents on the topic. I will attach some pictures that I collected when I finish with my work today.

P.S. Also, remember that original armor only had 3 styles - leather, chain and plate, where 90% of game armor consisted of plate. We'll need to come up with better system. Are we going to think about armor skills? Like light and heavy? Maybe medium as well? Or will the stats determine armor, not its class? Important question to ask as well.

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LorrMaster42
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Re: Discussion on weapons and armor

Post by LorrMaster42 »

Following won't be possible without coding, but I'll mention it anyways.

In my opinion, we should make different material types in order to assign colors and reflection values to different kinds of objects. A dagger could have a hilt material and a blade material while an expensive door could be made out of ebony and gold. Dwarf Fortress has a system like this, where each object is made of a certain stone type or metal.

I was also thinking that materials should have more than just a "damage" value. In Dwarf Fortress adamantium is very light, making it the best metal in the game for swords, but the worst for maces. There could be magic values for materials to affect enchanting, certain materials that have bonuses against undead, etc.

Models for weapons should be made modular, so that weapons can have different blade types, handles, and pommels. These could affect gameplay or just be style differences.


Armor will be tricky do to the fact that we need to layer it. Morrowind would be a good example of a 3D game with a good layering system, but even that isn't as complicated as Daggerfall's.
Last edited by LorrMaster42 on Sat Aug 26, 2017 5:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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NikitaTheTanner
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Re: Discussion on weapons and armor

Post by NikitaTheTanner »

Followind won't be possible without coding, but I'll mention it anyways.
An interesting approach, I think we should consider it. It's closer to original system and might be interesting, though I suspect also quite difficult to implement.

But we do have TESO example on our hands, which does something fairly similar. I personally hate how it's implemented there. Compare it to Morrowind, for example, or even Skyrim - rare items like Daedric and Ebony have their own unique shapes. All armor and weapons have unique shapes. There is just something satisfying about it, especially when you find these items or even craft them. Just makes rare items truly unique.

While certainly, having system with different materials is cerainly more realistic and Daggerfall-like in essence, it's also a bit disappointing when you have such variety of items, but they essentially all look the same.

Could be good, but I am probably more in favor of Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim style.

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LorrMaster42
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Re: Discussion on weapons and armor

Post by LorrMaster42 »

That doesn't mean every material has to use every style, there could be a blade styles unique to certain material types.

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NikitaTheTanner
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Re: Discussion on weapons and armor

Post by NikitaTheTanner »

That doesn't mean every material has to use every style, there could be a blade styles unique to certain material types.
Of course, there could be. There might be some ways to make it interesting. But I don't know. There are so many materials in game, meaning that there will be a lot of the same gear, simply recolored. This is totally realistic by the way, nothing stops you from shaping these rare metals into various shapes. But when you find essentially the same gear you wore from level 1, just in different color, it's not the same.

So I am not sold on the idea. I think that unique designs are more interesting. While there still could be some variety, like several types of helmets for an armor, slightly different chest pieces, etc.

And I definitely agree that there should be differences between materials, not only in durability and damage/protection, but some more interesting distinctions, so that there would be a reason to wear different armors for different characters, apart from their look. Instead of giving flat armor rating to all pieces, armor can get different protection from blunt/piercing/slicing damage, elemental protection, stamina use, magic reduction, etc. Dark Souls style.

For example, Daedric Armor might provide some of the best defense and also protect you from fire. Fur Armor might provide very poor protection, but better protect you from cold. Silver Armor might have lower durability and severely reduce your use of magic effectiveness, but provide better protection from magic at the same time.

P.S. Look at two armor pieces from TESO, for example. The design is not bad for this armor. But one variant is made of iron and can be crafted at level 1, other one is dwarven metal for level 36. I just somehow think that if there were only one version of the armor, it would be more valuable, more interesting to find or craft.
ImageImage

IMHO unique is the way to go. If there were only like 3-4 materials, it might be a viable option, but when we have Iron, Steel, Silver, Dwarven, Mithril, Elven, Orcish, Adamantium, Ebony, Daedric - it's a lot of repetition. We might do it out of necessity, though, if we don't get enough artists to model unique sets.

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VMblast
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Re: Discussion on weapons and armor

Post by VMblast »

Ok Ill add few opening pro advices concerning 3D weapons, armor, fps character and other 3D characters:

-As you've mentioned before, this could only be possible after this option is implemented.



-Now that we have that aside, FPS (player) character can be created in 2 different ways:
------1. Full 3D character creation. -Pros [its 3D with all weapons and armor representation, along with animations] -con [vast building/modeling pipeline to accommodate myriad of faces and body types].

------2. Paper character creation, semi 2D/3D. Basically whats in the original DF game but making it HD with for example just single images used of that 3D character. -Pros [much less work with almost same effect] -con [character is static/lifeless]



///////Note. -FPS character is different thing (entity) from Character Screen Representation. This way, FPS (actual player) character could be made to be much, much simpler along with all that comes with it. This way only thing that is needed to be modeled are arms (to the shoulders) and weapons. Rig should be simple as well, making just the arms and slots for weapons/shields.///////


>>>NPC Human characters this way could be made in a much simpler fashion as well, accommodating several variations. Building a top of that would go cloth or armor elements connected to the pre-defined hard points.<<<

>>>Other characters and monsters, should be made in similar way as NPC Human Characters<<<




And now the weapons and armor.
-This way all the weapons and armor could be built separatly, following just the simple guideline system (default 3D character for example for the armor types for eg.). Also this way, weapons and armor could be used as game objects if needed, for example -weapon and armor piles/weapon/armor store shelfs ect.

To be continued...... ;)

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NikitaTheTanner
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Re: Discussion on weapons and armor

Post by NikitaTheTanner »

------2. Paper character creation, semi 2D/3D. Basically whats in the original DF game but making it HD with for example just single images used of that 3D character. -Pros [much less work with almost same effect] -con [character is static/lifeless]
Not entirely sure what you mean by semi 2D/3D. Pre-rendered characters? :) But I agree that we should make 1st person camera work with weapon and shield 3D models first and then we can focus on making actual characters 3D which would take a lot of time.
------1. Full 3D character creation. -Pros [its 3D with all weapons and armor representation, along with animations] -con [vast building/modeling pipeline to accommodate myriad of faces and body types].
Here, I think we should go with approach of later TES games. Pretty much one body type, at least for the time being would be more than enough. Then you select race and facial details, either like in Morrowind or a more sophisticated system if possible. In either case, it shouldn't affect how the armor is handled.

But I don't see much reason to change armor until we get 3D characters in game, except for shields, of course. Weapons and shields would be a thing to implement first.

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VMblast
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Re: Discussion on weapons and armor

Post by VMblast »

NikitaTheTanner wrote: P.S. Look at two armor pieces from TESO, for example. The design is not bad for this armor. But one variant is made of iron and can be crafted at level 1, other one is dwarven metal for level 36. I just somehow think that if there were only one version of the armor, it would be more valuable, more interesting to find or craft

IMHO unique is the way to go. If there were only like 3-4 materials, it might be a viable option, but when we have Iron, Steel, Silver, Dwarven, Mithril, Elven, Orcish, Adamantium, Ebony, Daedric - it's a lot of repetition. We might do it out of necessity, though, if we don't get enough artists to model unique sets.
Yeah thats the basic way to increase your assets value -Make one model and than just slap different color or texture on it. In other word for the price on one you get as many as you like. But thats the problem with MMORPGs, they inflate asset values with almost nothing and you get just a small, almost invisible increments of "improvements"

...but, as you've said, its just lowers the value. Its really a nonsense. Its better to have one line of simple armors that are different only in their condition (eg. normal iron, rust, damage etc.) and have one set of unique eg. dwarven armor.

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VMblast
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Re: Discussion on weapons and armor

Post by VMblast »

NikitaTheTanner wrote:
------2. Paper character creation, semi 2D/3D. Basically whats in the original DF game but making it HD with for example just single images used of that 3D character. -Pros [much less work with almost same effect] -con [character is static/lifeless]
Not entirely sure what you mean by semi 2D/3D. Pre-rendered characters? :) But I agree that we should make 1st person camera work with weapon and shield 3D models first and then we can focus on making actual characters 3D which would take a lot of time.
I meant the same system line in the Daggerfall. Its called paper character -basically you have just drawing or renders of the character and you just change images if you change weapons for eg.

Yeah, my suggestion is to divide the actual FPS player character from UI Character. You do combined approach only in case when you have 3rd person view option as character play style. So this is to be avoided and thus FPS player character will be much simpler to make.
NikitaTheTanner wrote:
------1. Full 3D character creation. -Pros [its 3D with all weapons and armor representation, along with animations] -con [vast building/modeling pipeline to accommodate myriad of faces and body types].
Here, I think we should go with approach of later TES games. Pretty much one body type, at least for the time being would be more than enough. Then you select race and facial details, either like in Morrowind or a more sophisticated system if possible. In either case, it shouldn't affect how the armor is handled.

But I don't see much reason to change armor until we get 3D characters in game, except for shields, of course. Weapons and shields would be a thing to implement first.
This is ok approach as well, but it is complicated. I would say -make FPS character work and than just after that, turn to make full 3D animated UI Character representation.



I had this made many months ago when I started my own topic on creators part of the forum. It is still WIP, however this should give everyone easyer picture of what is needed to be done as in etire production. (tho I made this with completely new procedural code/system in mind).
Image



And one good example of recent melee action combat game.

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