Costumes in PvP

Jamini

Original Thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/331603/civilian-clothing-should-not-be-allowed-in-combat/p6

While the thread above is mostly about people looking silly (or not being permitted to look silly, or a whole host of other bickering), a few comments from that thread brought up an interesting PvP application: Costumes can and do hide armor type and style in Cyrodiil, Duels, and very likely will in Battlegrounds. This does create a mild imbalance in PvP fights, especially when burst/light builds can disguise themselves as a heavy armor build or vice-versa.

What would the thought be about permitting players, via a menu toggle, to disable costumes and disguises? Ideally this would be client-side, so that people who do enjoy fasion (even silly fashion) to be completely not impacted.

Ideally such an option would have three options:

Disguises Enabled
Disguises Disabled in PvP
Disguises Disabled

I would like opinions on this idea. Thank you.

Hexys

Only after they fixed Pirate Skeleton.

Rohaus

Experience tells me what type of armor someone is wearing.

I could come up with a list of a 100 things I would rather see the Dev invest time and resources into than this type of option OP.

DocFrost72

It depends, really. If I see a redguard DK with sword and shield, I would bet it's heavy armor. If I see a templar spamming BoL behind a sword and shield, guessing it's heavy armor. If they crit rush me, and my attacks do next to nothing, assume heavy armor with impen stacked up.

Moral of the story is, it really won't matter what you disguise yourself as, because the meta will be heavy armor. Plan accordingly!

Jamini

Rohaus wrote: »

I could come up with a list of a 100 things I would rather see the Dev invest time and resources into than this type of option OP.

I can completely respect this opinion. It would still be nice to see alongside bugfixes, imo. (No team works 100% of the time on bugs anyway, in my experience.)

Jamini

Hexys wrote: »

Only after they fixed Pirate Skeleton.

What's broken about it? I wasn't aware there were any bugs about Pirate Skele.

Mappy2kx

I think is a good ideea ! and not the meta is not heavy armour the meta WAS , IS and WLL BE the light armour ! cos people in ESO only want to do DAMAGE ! nothing else !

DocFrost72

Mappy2kx wrote: »

I think is a good ideea ! and not the meta is not heavy armour the meta WAS , IS and WLL BE the light armour ! cos people in ESO only want to do DAMAGE ! nothing else !

Er, in PvP? I don't think it had been light armor meta for a long time now.

Jitterbug

If I want to know their armor type I can just poke them with my stick.

I'm in favor of options, but I see absolutely no reason to implement this.

CatchMeTrolling

I've been running around with a costume before I even hit vet ranks, never seen the problem outside of duel tournaments with set rules.

If you're experienced you catch on to what someone is wearing 9 out of 10.

Jamini

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Mappy2kx wrote: »

I think is a good ideea ! and not the meta is not heavy armour the meta WAS , IS and WLL BE the light armour ! cos people in ESO only want to do DAMAGE ! nothing else !

Er, in PvP? I don't think it had been light armor meta for a long time now.

Actually AFAIK, there was a comment in one of the heavy armor threads that heavy is still the least-used armor type in Cyro by a dev. It's a bit old though, since it came a little after 1T.

Gilvoth

i hate the way my forced armor looks, i would love to have my own crafted armor and show it off but the dropped sets are better and i cover them up with the dark brotherhood costume.
please don't take that away from me.

Rohamad_Ali

If you could see my real armor set it would look like a Space MMO not Elder Scrolls .

Jamini

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

i hate the way my forced armor looks, i would love to have my own crafted armor and show it off but the dropped sets are better and i cover them up with the dark brotherhood costume.
please don't take that away from me.

This change would not impact your view at all. It would be entirely client-side. The only people who would see past your disguise are people that intentionally have this option ticked so they do not see costumes and disguises. You would still see your toon in your preferred costume, as would anyone else that has costume viewing enabled (which would likely still be the default).

TyroneShoelaces

I would still like an option to just turn everyone in to a plain red yellow or blue texture in cyrodil. Might just improve performance in those big keep fights.

Minalan

No costumes? Forget that jazz, Mazzatun, necropotence, spinner, and Lich clothes look plain stupid.

Jamini

Minalan wrote: »

No costumes? Forget that jazz, Mazzatun, necropotence, spinner, and Lich clothes look plain stupid.

I'll reiterate that this idea would allow you to view costumes if you wanted.

Baobab_Theoldtree

Nope nope nope
No one touch my Goblin.

Joy_Division

Jamini wrote: »

Original Thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/331603/civilian-clothing-should-not-be-allowed-in-combat/p6

While the thread above is mostly about people looking silly (or not being permitted to look silly, or a whole host of other bickering), a few comments from that thread brought up an interesting PvP application: Costumes can and do hide armor type and style in Cyrodiil, Duels, and very likely will in Battlegrounds. This does create a mild imbalance in PvP fights, especially when burst/light builds can disguise themselves as a heavy armor build or vice-versa.

What would the thought be about permitting players, via a menu toggle, to disable costumes and disguises? Ideally this would be client-side, so that people who do enjoy fasion (even silly fashion) to be completely not impacted.

Ideally such an option would have three options:

Disguises Enabled
Disguises Disabled in PvP
Disguises Disabled

I would like opinions on this idea. Thank you.

So you want wizards to wear pointy hats because ... deception in war or games is imbalanced or unfair?

ESO already makes it so I can't hide my weapons. If I have a huge 2-handed Axe, it doesn;t matter if I happen to wear a wedding dress. If you are still somehow surprised when I cleave your skull with it, that's your fault, not because the game failed to make you aware that was a possibility.

You are asking for something ZoS has already accounted for.

zuto40

if a costume is affecting your gameplay im sorry but thats a l2p issue, im not even trolling this time, you should be able to tell what build someone's got from their weapons and health alone

Jamini wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

i hate the way my forced armor looks, i would love to have my own crafted armor and show it off but the dropped sets are better and i cover them up with the dark brotherhood costume.
please don't take that away from me.

This change would not impact your view at all. It would be entirely client-side. The only people who would see past your disguise are people that intentionally have this option ticked so they do not see costumes and disguises. You would still see your toon in your preferred costume, as would anyone else that has costume viewing enabled (which would likely still be the default).

so there are more things for the server to do in large fights? cool, tell me how that lag is lol

Fatalyis

Shhh! My Stam Sorc loves their evening dress....but you MUST refer to them as "they/them". They trigger easily!

Sheuib

I don't want people to know what I'm wearing. If they figure it out good for them. If they can't well that is just better for me.

ThePonzzz

Until we can get some sort of transmogrification to change styles of existing gear...costumes/polymorphs for life.

binho

So people pay good money for their costumes and then they wouldn't be able to use them ?!
No thanks, bad idea

Lieblingsjunge

Just assume everyone is a tank if they have 30k HP+ & assume everyone is a proc-set boy with 5k weapon damage if they got less than 22k HP.

I don't see the point of this tbh. If I want to give the impression that I'm in medium armour(Magplar in medium armour?????) nobody is gonna believe it. It's pretty easy to know which gear people are wearing. You just need to know which sets people use, really. You can guess what people are wearing by noticing their debuffs/buffs anyway.

Baboonezz

What I wear is my business, what you wear is yours. do you play a sport? do you ask the other team to give up their strategies? what sets we wear are an integral part of our strategy and if we choose to hide them so be it. you'll get a good idea of what i'm wearing mid fight and vice versa, adapt during if need be. that's the fun of PvP not all fights are the same and who knows what to expect.

Jamini

Baobab_Theoldtree wrote: »

Nope nope nope
No one touch my Goblin.

You would keep your goblin.

Joy_Division wrote: »

So you want wizards to wear pointy hats because ... deception in war or games is imbalanced or unfair?

ESO already makes it so I can't hide my weapons. If I have a huge 2-handed Axe, it doesn;t matter if I happen to wear a wedding dress. If you are still somehow surprised when I cleave your skull with it, that's your fault, not because the game failed to make you aware that was a possibility.

You are asking for something ZoS has already accounted for.

Fair points, and deception in PvP games is normally quite fun. As a counterpoint, many of the most popular PvP games on the market (TF2, ESO, LoL, Planetside2, Overwatch, even GW2, to a lesser extent the battlefield series) have as part of their original design document to make classes/archtypes distinctive enough to tell apart at a glance. I would argue part of their success as PvP games is that clarity between classes.

And yes, I'm aware that most of them have archtypes/classes that go intentionally against that.

zuto40 wrote: »

if a costume is affecting your gameplay im sorry but thats a l2p issue, im not even trolling this time, you should be able to tell what build someone's got from their weapons and health alone

I'm perfectly able to get a rough idea of what I'm fighting through costumes, but if a developer only balances for people experienced with their content then you can very quickly slide into the territory of making a game/gamemode unfriendly for newer players. Regardless, visual clarity is very important in most PvP games.

so there are more things for the server to do in large fights? cool, tell me how that lag is lol

Not at all. Graphics settings are client-side. The server already transmits what you are wearing to your client. It is your client that decides what to render. Actually, thank you for making me think of this. It may be possible to achive this by Addon as opposed to a developer-side change! Research is in order.

ThePonzzz wrote: »

Until we can get some sort of transmogrification to change styles of existing gear...costumes/polymorphs for life.

binho wrote: »

So people pay good money for their costumes and then they wouldn't be able to use them ?!
No thanks, bad idea

You would see your own costumes, as would anyone else that has costume visiblity on.

Lieblingsjunge wrote: »

Just assume everyone is a tank if they have 30k HP+ & assume everyone is a proc-set boy with 5k weapon damage if they got less than 22k HP.

I don't see the point of this tbh. If I want to give the impression that I'm in medium armour(Magplar in medium armour?????) nobody is gonna believe it. It's pretty easy to know which gear people are wearing. You just need to know which sets people use, really. You can guess what people are wearing by noticing their debuffs/buffs anyway.

Assuming you have an addon that does that (I do. Most regular PvP players probably do. There are certainly people that do not. Also Console.)

Baboonezz wrote: »

What I wear is my business, what you wear is yours. do you play a sport? do you ask the other team to give up their strategies? what sets we wear are an integral part of our strategy and if we choose to hide them so be it. you'll get a good idea of what i'm wearing mid fight and vice versa, adapt during if need be. that's the fun of PvP not all fights are the same and who knows what to expect.

I cannot think of a professional (or even many hobby) team sport that does not have a uniform and relatively concrete positions. Many positions (aka roles) can even be told apart at a glance by their specialized equipment (Goalies in football. Catcher VS Pitcher in baseball. Lineman vs quarterbacks in american football) So I would argue that traditional sports actually support my idea a fair bit more than yours.

Joy_Division

Jamini wrote: »

Baobab_Theoldtree wrote: »

Nope nope nope
No one touch my Goblin.

You would keep your goblin.

Joy_Division wrote: »

So you want wizards to wear pointy hats because ... deception in war or games is imbalanced or unfair?

ESO already makes it so I can't hide my weapons. If I have a huge 2-handed Axe, it doesn;t matter if I happen to wear a wedding dress. If you are still somehow surprised when I cleave your skull with it, that's your fault, not because the game failed to make you aware that was a possibility.

You are asking for something ZoS has already accounted for.

Fair points, and deception in PvP games is normally quite fun. As a counterpoint, many of the most popular PvP games on the market (TF2, ESO, LoL, Planetside2, Overwatch, even GW2, to a lesser extent the battlefield series) have as part of their original design document to make classes/archtypes distinctive enough to tell apart at a glance. I would argue part of their success as PvP games is that clarity between classes.

And yes, I'm aware that most of them have archtypes/classes that go intentionally against that.

You keep saying that we get to keep our goblins, but some people choose to wear stuff to present an image for others to see. Your proposal would be removing that.

Also, ESO is not like other popular games with distinctive archetypes. So comparing what works in other games is apples to oranges.

As I said, ESO gives you more than enough information to know your opponent because they cannot hide their weapons no matter what they wear. There is no need to remove the other customization options.

Waffennacht

They should let me make my own costume

Baboonezz

Baboonezz wrote: »

What I wear is my business, what you wear is yours. do you play a sport? do you ask the other team to give up their strategies? what sets we wear are an integral part of our strategy and if we choose to hide them so be it. you'll get a good idea of what i'm wearing mid fight and vice versa, adapt during if need be. that's the fun of PvP not all fights are the same and who knows what to expect.

I cannot think of a professional (or even many hobby) team sport that does not have a uniform and relatively concrete positions. Many positions (aka roles) can even be told apart at a glance by their specialized equipment (Goalies in football. Catcher VS Pitcher in baseball. Lineman vs quarterbacks in american football) So I would argue that traditional sports actually support my idea a fair bit more than yours.

Team uniform is not part of their strategy, it was a bad analogy I'll admit. Basketball have set positions, they constantly switch their positions and who they are defending. Guess during a timeout you'd be that guy walking over asking to see their board?

If i'm wearing for example Troll King, at 60% you know that's going to proc. Taking out that element of surprise you now know to save your burst for when I git 60%, and not unleash it right away to put me on the back foot.

Take another example in Molag Kena. If you know I'm wearing Kena then you see two light or heavy attacks at once you know the burst is coming and you just turtle right down before it even unleashes.

All these things you will figure out during the fight, and next fight you have a better understanding how to counter-act it. But to know straight up exactly what people are wearing will remove the element of surprise. People should have to think "OK, that's a mag sorc that just heavy attacked twice, why?" instead of "OK, that mag sorc is wearing Molag Kena, watch for the double light/heavy and bunker down. People should also learn what procs look/sound like, such as glowing orange arms for ravaging.

What we wear is not just a uniform like in sports (like I said, it was a terrible analogy on my part), it is one layer of many that make up our strategy. Should I also announce my 12 abilities, how I plan to use those abilities to kill you and my CP point allocation before we engage in fisticuffs?

Jamini

Joy_Division wrote: »

You keep saying that we get to keep our goblins, but some people choose to wear stuff to present an image for others to see. Your proposal would be removing that.

So you are basically saying you are doing it to get an artificial advantage over the other

Also, ESO is not like other popular games with distinctive archetypes. So comparing what works in other games is apples to oranges.

I very, very heavily disagree there. While ESO is quite freeform in how you CAN build, the actual effectiveness of a build is generally determined by your primary stat and armor type, with armor type being almost explicitly tied with what stat you are trying to boost. Magicka users wear robes, dodge-rolling stamina users use leathers, and people who want extra defense have heavy armor.

ESOs combat is not appreciably different in any form from other team-based games. We have, in effect, 12 major archtypes (one for each class in each style of play) with distinctive visual cues for each. Class cues are animations/effect based around buffs, role cues are based on armor type and health/shield values. ESO shares more with those games than it has distinct by a very, very large margin. (Compared to say... a game of Mafia, a Point and click adventure game, or a creative builder.)

As I said, ESO gives you more than enough information to know your opponent because they cannot hide their weapons no matter what they wear. There is no need to remove the other customization options.

Nothing is being removed in this proposal. It is an option that can be added.

Team uniform is not part of their strategy, it was a bad analogy I'll admit. Basketball have set positions, they constantly switch their positions and who they are defending. Guess during a timeout you'd be that guy walking over asking to see their board?

I'm not asking to see their board (skills and abilities assigned)

I'm asking to know their positions: https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/basics/basics.html

Player Positions
Center. Centers are generally your tallest players. They generally are positioned near the basket.

Offensive -- The center's goal is to get open for a pass and to shoot. They are also responsible for blocking defenders, known as picking or screening, to open other players up for driving to the basket for a goal. Centers are expected to get some offensive rebounds and put-backs.

Defensive -- On defense, the center's main responsibility is to keep opponents from shooting by blocking shots and passes in the key area. They also are expected to get a lot of rebounds because they're taller.

Forward. Your next tallest players will most likely be your forwards. While a forward may be called upon to play under the hoop, they may also be required to operate in the wings and corner areas.

Offensive -- Forwards are responsible to get free for a pass, take outside shots, drive for goals, and rebound.

Defensive -- Responsibilities include preventing drives to the goal and rebounding.

Guard. These are potentially your shortest players and they should be really good at dribbling fast, seeing the court, and passing. It is their job to bring the ball down the court and set up offensive plays.

Offensive -- Dribbling, passing, and setting up offensive plays are a guard's main responsibilities. They also need to be able to drive to the basket and to shoot from the perimeter.

Defensive -- On defense, a guard is responsible for stealing passes, contesting shots, preventing drives to the hoop, and for boxing out.

Right now we have people that pretend to be guards, for all intents and purposes look like guards, but then suddenly rush across the floor, grow two feet in height, and dunk a basket while screaming something profane to the guy they just dashed past in /zone chat.

I'm exaggerating a little, but did I make my own position clear?