Why not both?

This game is practically about options and freedom. Instead of forcing players to go down one path or the other, why not (patch, or more likely mod) have both styles in game? I like the realistic looking armors as much as I like my Daedric armor set. Perhaps an option when crafting to toggle versions, or allow a similarly balanced armor to be crafting in a fittingly equal difficult manner. Variants should also be found naturally, as the various appearances of hide and elven armors can be.

There really needs to be some options like this. I liked the 'trailer' armor a lot, but I love my Daedric set even more. I prefer to think that the impractical additions to my armor are designed to intimidate and frighten my opponents. It's assumedly worked for the Dremora, why not for mortals? The armor is a weapon itself as much as it is a shield. Covered in deadly spikes and appearing demonic, it's also strong armor.

I myself think the best looking armors are the steel full plate and the elven sets. The ebony looks pretty good too. I can understand the OP though. You go through the whole game pretty much having semi realistic looking gear then the higher stuff starts taking a drastic visual turn. But in past games the daedric was supposed to look evil since it was oblivion born so the sames gonna apply in skyrim. It would be nice to have a knight in shining armor good guy variant of the top grade armor. Something like the steel full plate but with the kind of detail that was in the ebony.

Agreed with this! I wanted my Nord to be a viking-inspired, well, Nord, who'd fit into the awesome atmosphere that Skyrim has. Once you equip that Dwemer or Daedric armor, it just feels very out of place. If the über armors were more realistic, it wouldn't be the case so much. The NPCs wear nice looking, mostly practical armors. Then you walk around covered in spikes and whatnot... I dunno, not my cup of tea.

if you want to wear realistic looking armors at high level you may want to be looking for historical fantasy.

I wish the normal-looking armor & weapons could be improved to endgame quality via smithing or something.

Mods will add more aesthetically pleasing armor sets, but that doesn't help us consolers.

It is a fantasy game obviously, but I think the man gripe people have is the fact that for most of the game everything fits really well. I wouldn't call stuff like the Dark Brotherhood, or Legion armor necessarily super authentic, but the game does a pretty good job of making the gear look awesome while keeping it all somewhat rooted in a practical setting. Obviously the Daedra and Dwemer stuff has always been that way, so it's par for the course, and personally I like those styles as they fit into games atmosphere. (What with Daedra being from a different plane of existence and all that, Dwemer and their technology, etc)


The thing that's slightly annoying is all of the endgame armors seem to just come right out of left field. It's not that terrible as running around in full Dragonplate is sort of cool at times, but personally the barbaric looking nordic themed concept art was one of the things that got me hype for this game. I guess it wouldn't even be so noticeable except the game really does shift gears with regards to endgame armor and there's no real consistency with how the first half of the games loot looks. It's merely slightly unsatisfying that there's no end-game Nordic, Steel, Companion type armor variant unless you want to take a stat hit.

I basically did the same thing, i got my dragon armor and hated it and sold it and went back to full blades armor

Hahahahha, I love you OP and I agree with you. Daedric looks like it's trying too hard if you guys know what I mean.

YES - i think thats REALLY annoying and dumb and kills lots of my imagination (thats also why i liked the witcher - realistic armor)...thats why also in this game i run arround in beinnger armor - lat game armor just looks incredibly dumb...at least mages outfits look realistic...i rather want the option to paint armor, hang it with icons, trophys and stuff then having ridicoulos armor and pauldrons (wow?)

could not agree more.

I still wear my Blade gear. Guards constantly tell me, "You should sell that junk to the local store."

you can have realistic AND fantasy in one

you can have both - witcher 2 wichter 2 witcher 2....

Don't know why you people assume that fantasy = over the top looks; the cheap fantasy, maybe. Look at lord of the rings for an example of fantasy done right.

Fantasy is a part of the realm of fiction and within fiction, ANYTHING is possible. Fantasy is just a sub category of Fiction. Why complain about the style of this game when the way the weapons and armor are designed are done so through precedence of the series and through LORE.

Yeah. I find the "It's fantasy, hence impractical armors are justified!!" argument kind of weak. Why aren't fireballs pink and why do they burn instead of exploding into unicorns? Why do the weapons resemble what we have in-real life instead of being 20 meter long weaponized giant-toes? You get the point. There's a reason pretty much all of fantasy is rooted in reality, and why even the most impractical of armors are still recognizable as armors.. there's a line past which people have a hard time suspending their disbelief and it becomes a detriment rather than a "wow, that's cool" kind of thing. The line is in different place for people, as is obvious by the varied replies in this thread.

I don't agree with what Bethesda did with the high-end armors because of what's already been said by other people: it comes out of the left field and doesn't really fit in with the rest of the game (in my and some other people's opinion.) If you love how Daedric armor looks, more power to you. Do post about it, too, it's nice to hear different opinions. But please stop with the "go find another game" and "it's fantasy!" posts, they're not helping anyone.

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1184568_99120201008_ChaosWarriorsMain_445x319.jpg

I think the Warriors of Chaos from Warhammer wear armor that'd be a lot more fitting to Skyrim's setting for high-end armor. Kind of like Ebony (I think the helmet ruins Skyrim's ebony armor) but more Viking-y.

Couldn't agree more. Fantasy doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to make the world believable.

Glass, Dragonbone/scale, Daedric all look silly to me. My favourite armours are the Plate Steel, Steel, Ebony and Iron armours, as well as some of the guard versions. Elven and Dwarf armour are kinda meh as well, though at least not too over the top.

Some of them do have that issue, I think Glass looks reasonable this time around though, relative to Oblivion's(although that doesn't say much...).

Ebony is my absolute favorite appearance wise however - minus the helm maybe but I'm picky about helms. I restarted recently just because I felt like I had to go heavy instead of light for ebony armor.


When the construction set comes out you'll be able to edit armor values and make yourself a set of whatever type you like with Daedric stats though. If you play PC anyway.

Mods will probably help with this eventually. I mean look at some of the modded armor I have in Morrowind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03QOwJBS4dU

It's realistic with an elegant flair. And that's just Morrowind.

We just may have to wait a while for those kinds of mods.

I suppose the heavy armors are pretty out of place. In Oblivion's Cyrodiil, it was a land of castles and armies and knights. Heavy armored hero jumping into a pile of Dagon's daedric servants, tearing gates apart. Skyrim is barbarianesque. I see the lightly clad hero, mighty viking arms swinging deadly, heavy weapons. All the men want him. Women want to be him.

It bothers me to no end! I am the same in all games!

To fit in the Germanic influanced Nord world, I'd happily just ware a chainmail hueberk, with a sword and sheild. That, for me, is FAR more immersive than some of the stuff we are seeing. Almost all high tier weapons and armour are hidious imo.

...there is plate armor. It's on the light side of the Smithing tree for some reason, under the Advanced Armors perk. Lets you make Steel Plate armor. It's Heavy Armor, iirc.

I think it's around as strong as Dwarven armor