Low-Level Armors' Color-Schemes "Nerfed" by Craglorn Update

Omnevolus

The color-schemes of the lower-level armor/clothes pieces have been completely "nerfed," by all appearances. Anything resembling dynamics in color and shade variations for the pieces and possible outfits at these levels has been replaced by shabby and further-homogenized versions of an already discouragingly conservative suite of dull color options. We lower-level players logged on this evening after the update to find that the colors of all the armor/clothes that we logged off with last night had been changed to versions of the aforementioned travesties of customize-deficient visual dismay.

The change is most certainly a detraction from our gameplay experience, but it is also VERY DISAPPOINTING. For example, there does not seem to be a difference between the color schemes of level 1 armors and level 14 armors of the same style anymore. And the full suit of blue shades that I had JUST CRAFTED YESTERDAY AND WAS VERY SATISFIED WITH on my sorcerer, including 3 pieces of Death's Wind cloth armor, were a most-welcome change from the drab and tiresome shades of green that I had been discontented with for 4 weeks. Then I log on this evening to find to myself in a full suit of drab and tiresome shades of......green! And everyone else is running around in washed-out, muted jokes of armor pieces that are not even a pale reflection of what were already lackluster and limited outfit options, previously.

I really hope that Zenimax quickly and earnestly corrects what must, surely, be a "bug," or unintentional side-effect of this update. At this point, it is only the high levels of thorough and honest enjoyment (despite the overwhelming bot problems!), and appreciation for what has the potential to be one of the best MMO's of all time that I was experiencing prior to this most-deflating and discouraging of developments that is keeping me even slightly optimistic about the possibility of such a "fix."

Anath_Q

My toons all look like they decided to exchange their nice outfits for dirty rags. Even dye wouldn't help.

Catches_the_Sun

The armor appearances were bugged...some lower level armors had the appearance of VR gear & vice versa. On the plus side, armor appearances now do exactly what they're intended, which is look increasingly better as they increase in level. My VR4 Argonian looks incredible today, where yesterday you couldn't pick him from a crowd of level 30s.

ZeroInspiration

Dude, keep leveling up. They did this to provide a greater feeling of advancement. At lvl 14 youll be changing gear quite often so it shouldn't matter

skarvika

And unfortunately vet rank imperial gear still has the color of canned cat food.

Zionysus

This armor was a tease to the lower levels. Z doesn't want you to enjoy leveling with cool armor on. Well, now it's drab and I don't want to look at my character anymore or level him. Whatever...

I've seen other mmo make errors and give low level players high level stuff, and leave it alone and possibly make even BETTER high end gear. But not Zmax. Give the baby some candy, and rip it out and then demand more money.

SWTOR gave all levels access to high level lightsaber crystals. They left it in. It hurt crafters, but I think it was the right thing to do. This ESO error was only cosmetic.

Having nice gear at the low levels is too... original for Z. They're trying to follow the footsteps of MMOs pre-2010. Stop interrupting them! It's too hard to be innovative. Why do you think the talking animation is so... 2005? Head tracking... Their was no head tracking in 2002 mmos! Why break something if it isn't broken. NOW GIVE US YOUR MONEY!

Older brother Beth's shoes are much too big to fill. Crap is a viable product. Look at GM.

*sarcasm off

I'm hungry. That cat food looks good.

ArcaneBlue

bosmer style linen robes don't look that different from before but altmer robes... my my they look so drab, washed out and faded. they might not have been great but they were fine before, so why the change?
if it's not broken don't fix it.

Fruity_Ninja

so do the Vet Level armor look better now? Is there a noticeable increase in armor quality and colours as you level up now?

fyendiarb16_ESO

One of the main things I keep repeating when people ask me why I love this game so much is that I don't feel the urge to get the max level. I can relax, take my time and enjoy all the content.

Other mmo's in contrast have always been, or at least all the ones I played, a rush to endgame. You would outlevel content too fast to enjoy the quests which were bad to begin with and the endgame was where it's all at. The running joke, which had too much truth in it than it should was and is "the game does not begin until endgame". The Elder Scrolls Online went against this way of thinking and I fell in love with the game because of it. The fun really did start at lvl 1.

This change they decided on regarding gear is a step away from that relaxed feeling and towards the same old feeling of having to get to high level as fast as you can because until then your characters will look bad.

I admit that not all low level outfits are now terrible, but after messing around creating gear of all kinds of motifs on my lvl 28 DK and seeing that no matter the motif, every heavy armor item was green as grass, I got disappointed. No variation in color between motifs anymore, no possible way for him to get the looks I wanted.

I did that for a while, relogged a few times because the new face uglification bug turned him into a freak of nature, and finally gave up. I have no desire to play him atm, all I see and feel is disgust for the way he looks compared to before the big patch.

My lvl 34 healer in cloth looks about the same as before the patch, but afraid to see the next tier. One of my new alts, a pure caster DK at only lvl 10 had found herself an awesome dark robe which besides her body and face were the only good things about that alt. Now that robe was light grey and dirty looking, the level 1 robes look better! Leveling a pure caster DK from the get go btw is suicidal to say the least and from the patch notes I can see that going pure caster as a DK has been nerved to the ground so deleted her, but that is another topic entirely, although still related to this nightmare patch.

So is this the direction you want to go in @Zenimax? Do you want us to feel the urge to level faster? Do you want us to enjoy the leveling less? Do you want to shift focus completely to the highest levels?

Please say it isn't so, I beg of you, please don't!

PBpsy

Fruity_Ninja wrote: »

so do the Vet Level armor look better now? Is there a noticeable increase in armor quality and colours as you level up now?

From what I have seen yes. I think what actually happened was that some models were switched. I had seen a helmet on a level 40 something that looked exactly like my helmet looks now only that before mine looked like complete garbage,

Omnevolus

ZeroInspiration wrote: »

Dude, keep leveling up. They did this to provide a greater feeling of advancement. At lvl 14 youll be changing gear quite often so it shouldn't matter

I appreciate what the quote above is trying to do, but I would like to be able to choose for myself, what should or shouldn't matter to me and my gaming experience, the preferences of such being as subjectively diverse and varied from gamer to gamer as they, in fact, are.

But, before the patch, we actually had more variations, which did indeed provide a greater feeling of advancement, yet this patch has done the opposite, homogenizing further the look and feel of our appearance and what are now faux-customization options, and over an even greater span of levels than before! One look at eso-fashions.com showed that the progression from simple to elegantly detailed and color-rich was already in-place (sure, there may have been some very few anomalies, but the progression was quite evident and the anomalies very few), each tier of outfit schemes actually containing 3 - 4 progressions in this manner, as well!
Despite the many groans about the lack of personalization options at launch, I was quite satisfied with what was available, because the feeling of advancement was already evident, while providing players of all levels appearance options they could at least be content with, even at low levels.

Now, what was given has been taken away, when the appearance issues in the game only justified minor tweaks here and there, and mostly at high-end levels. Improvements to those high tiers could have been provided without snubbing and/or disappointing a large percentage of low level players, many of whom will always have some low level characters (such as myself, an admitted and proud alt-aholic), as well as years-worth of new and returning players. The time and energy that went into such a sweeping, yet wholly unnecessary, change to appearance options would surely have been much better served in the application of fixes to the host of other, much more serious problems that this still great game already contains.

But all of this is really just secondary to what, by far, bothered me the most and prompted my original post:

Like some of the other examples given above, ZOS completely neglected to inform us of the changes. If these other changes had been announced, I would never have ventured into these forums over this issue.

Nephys

Bah! I missed this post and made one of my own stating more or less the same. I agree, 100%.

ZeroInspiration

There is just no way to satisfy you people. First everyone was complaining about how ugly VR armor was and how better low level gear looked compared to it. ZoS listens and fixes it. People complain even more. Just stay put for a while all this armor color thing will be trivialized once the dyes come out.

And for the issues, I wouldn't know about them since I have yet to experience anything, matter of fact my game is running smoother than before even with higher settings than pre-patch.

Omnevolus

Lol, I thought it was apparent that I'm a lowbie complaining that my new plain blue outfit was changed back to the same green I'd had for 13 levels prior, without warning, explanation, or lube. I didn't complain about anything before this, for one, so not sure what you're really trying to say. I freakin loved this game before yesterday. LOVED! Now that has been bruised. Over plain blue vs. plain green. Thought it was pretty simple, and certainly justified. /shrug

And, well, you probably have a nice rig,eh? Grats! Mine, and my wife's, are experiencing new and frequent glitches, freezes, lag, and when I closed the game, it froze my rig for several minutes. Guess it's my bad luck that I gotta know about them, huh?

fyendiarb16_ESO

ZeroInspiration wrote: »

There is just no way to satisfy you people. First everyone was complaining about how ugly VR armor was and how better low level gear looked compared to it. ZoS listens and fixes it. People complain even more. Just stay put for a while all this armor color thing will be trivialized once the dyes come out.

And for the issues, I wouldn't know about them since I have yet to experience anything, matter of fact my game is running smoother than before even with higher settings than pre-patch.

No satisfying us people? If they had just fixed the VR gear and left the rest alone I would have been very satisfied! Why destroy a part of the fun pre-VR? It makes no sense.

If it has anything to do with dyes they should have done this change and the dye adding in the same patch instead, so that is no excuse.

wafffllesss

Could someone upload some pics. or something? I haven't had the chance to log in to the game after the patch (My slow internet took me 20 hours to update the game, and now I'm at work...)

Thank you very much in advance!

yodased

Wasn't nerfed, was put to the way it was supposed to be. I don't understand how this is confused.

You had specular mapping and colors on low levels of armor and not high levels of armor. This was not as intended, they swapped the pallets and maps and everything is as it should have been.

They didn't "break" the lower armors, they just removed what wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.

If you came to this game right now and started leveling this would be a moot point because you didn't see the wrong lower level gear in the first place.

Omnevolus

yodased wrote: »

They didn't "break" the lower armors, they just removed what wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.

You're still spreading this purposefully misleading misinformation while stubbornly ignoring all evidence to the contrary, despite the glaring logical fallacies inherent in it? I'm beginning to think you're either a fanatical but well-meaning fanboy that, unfortunately, has no integrity or sense of responsibility for your "opinions," or a paid plant/troll hired to deflate discontent on these forums, no matter how legitimate the complaints may be, lol. But seriously, how many of these discussions are you going to try to needlessly and obviously sabotage today? For shame.

Folks, this dude, in other armor color threads today, has not quit with this erroneously generalized assertion even when forced to assert (in order to support his position) that a color as simple, fundamental and ubiquitous as Blue was taken out of all color palettes below Vet 1 because the color Blue is exclusively reserved for Vet gear, lol. This was in response to the fact that my cloth armor went from plain, dull, muted blue, to green after the update, with not even a change in pattern. This, rather than allow himself to appear mistaken. I'd advise paying him no mind. He obviously has an agenda that does not take the best interests of the vast majority of ESO players into account, much less the integrity to admit he's flat-out wrong, or at best misleading, to generalize what, in reality, only affected a handful of armors.

Are you seriously going to continue supporting such an "opinion" with sweeping generalizations about just a portion of misplaced Vet textures? I'm sorry, but you'll have to forgive me if I am reluctant to buy what you're selling.

Anyway, whether by accident or design, at this time I think it's safe to assume that Zenimax has chosen to save time and energy by leaving all the pre-Vet armors color-nerfed for now, due to the imminent release of armor dyes into the game (okay fine, can't really blame them for that, but how about just being honest and up-front with us next time, Zeni?). Or so I'm told. And so, I'm over it.

rayeab16_ESO

well i hope that their idea of 'imminent' is not the same as 'soon' (tm by blizzard) because a lot of players wont be able to face leveling up in gear that look like it was left under a guar heap for a year (metals) was dyed by the old urine method (leathers ) or was vomited out by a zombie (cloth)

it wont help if all the dyes are locked behind 'achevements' in any case.
(personaly, i dont mind if some of the purest/darkest shades are achevemnt dyes, so long as they allow us to buy or achemy up the pailer shades...ya know, royal purple came from a tiny little sea snail....but you could get a nice shade of pastel purple from soaking stuff in beetroot.....if its about how *rich* you would need to be, to be allowed the dyes, use the old way befor chemecal dyes to determine what needs to be alchemy dye)

Wicked_Wolf

How are people claiming this is how it's supposed to be?! You're telling me that all armors pre VR are supposed to look the same; like drab homeless rags that all sport the same greenish and orange brown color with no variety whatsoever?

VR armor appearance was supposed to get a much needed boost. I fail to see how that translates to ruining all the armor that comes before it. Is this just supposed to be another MMO where we just race to cap because everything before it is filler including something as simple as decent cosmetic appearance and variety? ESO actually stood out from other MMO's with the awesome variety of pre 50 armors. They didn't need to take that away to fix VR gear. To me, that's simply a cop out and quick fix.

Poeskas

Wicked_Wolf wrote: »

How are people claiming this is how it's supposed to be?! You're telling me that all armors pre VR are supposed to look the same; like drab homeless rags that all sport the same greenish and orange brown color with no variety whatsoever?

Lol this. Whoever thought it was a legit improvement to make all armor look the same and give it all that nasty tan color needs to stop smoking whatever they're smoking.

Omnevolus

It's clearly a mistake, or a side-effect that ZOS couldn't avoid without a lot of work they obviously didn't want to do. Either way, they didn't want to tell us it was going to happen due to the predictably loud uproar it would have caused lol. Because it's also clearly not the intended look of any armors for any game, much less, I'm confident in saying, this one. Hopefully they'll get those dyes churned out while ignoring more bugs, glitches and bots during development of the next inappropriately timed content update/patch.

Poeskas

ZeroInspiration wrote: »

There is just no way to satisfy you people. First everyone was complaining about how ugly VR armor was and how better low level gear looked compared to it.

That doesnt mean they have to make all other armor look ugly!! I dunno, why not leave non VR alone and just UPGRADE the VR armor???????? Mindblowing, i know.

rayeab16_ESO

yes, but from what we hear, dyes are going to be achevement based, which means they will likely be character bound (as are the achevements) and so swapping and trading will be a nono.

'want that superior shade of dark forest green? well your going to have to PvP for it! want to wear dark pruple? Become Emperor! and you can kiss your ultramarine blue goodbye, becasue that baby is for completing 50 Publick Dungeons AND getting their achevements! '

*sighs*

sonofstagub17_ESO

I have to say I agree, except I am on the opposite view. I like drab, dull, real world looking colors, designs and tones. I despise giant shoulder pads, randomly protruding spikes and gaudy golden armor. When I was finally able to craft with Fell hide my armor was black and red again... but then after the patch it was shining gold and light gray leather. I wrote in several complaints and the response was to relog and my armor would go back to normal.. that was a lie.

Omnevolus

Ugh.....

Jim_McMasterub17_ESO

ZeroInspiration wrote: »

There is just no way to satisfy you people. First everyone was complaining about how ugly VR armor was and how better low level gear looked compared to it. ZoS listens and fixes it. People complain even more. Just stay put for a while all this armor color thing will be trivialized once the dyes come out.

And for the issues, I wouldn't know about them since I have yet to experience anything, matter of fact my game is running smoother than before even with higher settings than pre-patch.

Troll level +2

Fail level +VR13

Evergnar

The "This was the way it was supposed to be" argument I'm just not buying.
So every since beta what we have come to know as the golden vet Templar armor look was always intended for level 40ish armor of all classes? Both my level 40+ bosmer NB & DK orc have armor that looks identical to all Templar armor seen in character creator.

Praise_Kynareth251

I have not complained once about this game. I've loved mostly everything about it and I worked really hard to get my character's armor the way it is.. well.. what a disappointment. I went from my black and dark blues to being a muddy brown head to toe. Looks like my character was rolling around in dog poop. I hope they change the non VRs back or else I don't think I'll be playing as much anymore.

ArcaneBlue

if they had to change VR gear appearances that's fine. fair enough.
but why on earth take color away from non VR gear?
some may say "they looked good, they weren't supposed to look that good" but IMHO, they (non VR gear) never looked that good.

Wicked_Wolf

Praise_Kynareth251 wrote: »

I have not complained once about this game. I've loved mostly everything about it and I worked really hard to get my character's armor the way it is.. well.. what a disappointment. I went from my black and dark blues to being a muddy brown head to toe. Looks like my character was rolling around in dog poop. I hope they change the non VRs back or else I don't think I'll be playing as much anymore.

right there with you. I havent made a peep about any other issue and was playing along all happy until this. What a ridiculous change.