What's up with the outfit design? Pauldrons, tassets, and faulds keep being thrown on everything

Operativ · August 27

Addressing the elephant in the room here - too many costumes have these:

Pauldrons (shoulder armour)
Tassets (hip armour)
Brayette / Fauld ("crotch flap")

Oftentimes they look out of place, and not even fit. I wouldn't be surprised if this design choice was AI generated either, but also it could be possible we have a "Let's throw pauldrons, tassets, and fauld on this costume!" person in the team - who knows?

Can the recent outfits be reviewed again, and potentially revised? Also a "Hide Costume Shoulder" option would be awesome, if not also the "Hide Costume Fauld".

Examples:

Dragon Rage Berserker's Garb:

I won't go into details as to what connects the pauldron, because it seems to be held in place by dreams and wishes (no visible leather strap, etc.)

Relic-Apprentice Marafar (houseguest):

Dwemerdelve Scavenger:

Sister-topics pointing out individual outfit issues:

1. Queen Ayrenn's Diamond Gown: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/660957/dress-oversight-why-the-sausage-toes
2. Dragon Rage Berserker's Garb: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/679330/can-i-gripe-about-the-new-costume-design-and-pricing

GloatingSwine · August 28

The worst thing is that the tassets/faulds aren't.

They're in the wrong place. No armour ever had that stupid crotch flap, that would decapitate your horse even if you could get on the thing with it in the way. Real braeis/brayettes are usually maille because, get this, they cover a bit of the legs that has to move and bend and the skirted armour of breastplates that have it often has a cut out at the front exactly where we have a giant steel spike pointing right at the back of our horse's head because, again, needs to bend and sit on a horse.

Faulds/tassets should come down the outside front of the leg covering the quad because that's the most likely place to get stabbed when you're riding a horse towards or otherwise fighting people who might get stabby at you. They shouldn't be wide out on the hips.

(Also mostly we fight on foot but not a lot of the leg armour is closed cuisse, it's all cavalry armour in a world that has never had mounted combat.)

Operativ · August 28

GloatingSwine wrote: »

The worst thing is that the tassets/faulds aren't.

They're in the wrong place. No armour ever had that stupid crotch flap, that would decapitate your horse even if you could get on the thing with it in the way. Real braeis/brayettes are usually maille because, get this, they cover a bit of the legs that has to move and bend and the skirted armour of breastplates that have it often has a cut out at the front exactly where we have a giant steel spike pointing right at the back of our horse's head because, again, needs to bend and sit on a horse.

Faulds/tassets should come down the outside front of the leg covering the quad because that's the most likely place to get stabbed when you're riding a horse towards or otherwise fighting people who might get stabby at you. They shouldn't be wide out on the hips.

(Also mostly we fight on foot but not a lot of the leg armour is closed cuisse, it's all cavalry armour in a world that has never had mounted combat.)

I fully agree with you! Thank you for the insightful post.

I've also added two sister-topics to the bottom of the OP, as it seems the outfit art/design has been somewhat lacking lately.

@ZOS_Kevin Can you please pass this thread to the art vision responsible people?

darkriketz · August 28

I hate the outfits that have this long piece of cloth in front of the legs, it almost never matches with other styles and I try to avoid it as much as possible.
I don't remember what my main character wears (and I'm not logging in just to check) but another wears a Dead-Water Jerkin, another an Ashlander jack, and my main used to wear the Order of the Hour jack.

Protections on the hips are so more realistic and relevant, since most of the time if you're facing your opponent you'll protect your legs and crotch and are moke likely to be hit on the upper part of the body, or on the sides.
This cloth even sometimes goes as down as the knees and has straps -_-'

AcadianPaladin · August 28

All those flappers should be limited to heavy armor. There is no reason for any of it on medium or light and it ruins otherwise nice chest/leg pieces. A great idea would be to attach all such flappers, pouches, potion/scroll cases, etc to belts since belts are such a natural and ever so much more flexible option.

Unholy_Holywarrior · August 28

i want in game codpieces

MrGarlic · August 28

I like plain clothes.

I want my characters to wear peasants clothes, not armour.

There are scant few options. We definitely need more.

lillybit · August 29

The thing that really annoys me is leg styles are never finished below the knees. There's not many shoe styles that aren't knee length boots but I struggle to use the few sandals because of this.

Also (more on topic, sorry!) why the insistence on adding leg warmers to almost all the skirt styles? Same with chests and wrapped forearms. Why add something when it's completely hidden by different parts of the same style?

silky_soft · August 29

Should be able to turn all these accessories off. Also detach clothes from legs again. Make the animations flow instead of be static. It's so ugly.

Seaviy · August 29

I don't like these tassets and fauld things. It's like a disease that exists in 80% of the armor in the game.
On some motifs, they look completely out of place . they don't allow chest and legs from different styles to match and clip into each other

Tazzy · August 29

My female Khajiit has small breasts. Some of the costumes make them swell to twice their size. I hate that. If she were supposed to have big breasts, I would have given her some from the start.

colossalvoids · August 29

Personally my biggest issue is that those clearly supposed to be motifs instead of just a costume. Here comes motif driven decisions and how pieces doesn't really match the same way as proper costumes were years ago.

cyberjanet · August 29

Oh, they have special name? I use an anatomical description for them, which is not applicable to female characters. But I have found a way to dress my males - and females - without using them. It takes a long time.

GloatingSwine · August 29

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

All those flappers should be limited to heavy armor. There is no reason for any of it on medium or light and it ruins otherwise nice chest/leg pieces. A great idea would be to attach all such flappers, pouches, potion/scroll cases, etc to belts since belts are such a natural and ever so much more flexible option.

They shouldn't be on heavy armour either.

Here's a suit of 15th century gothic plate armour with faulds. Notice how they're in exactly the opposite place to where they would be on ESO armour. The flappy bits on our armour are in all the places the real armour isn't and the one place they decided needed extra protection is exactly where the flappies miss!

We are in bizarro-world armour.

BlueViolet · August 29

People have been reiterating this topic for years now, and they STILL keep designing armours that have massive shoulder pieces, enormous tassets and crotch flaps. Not to mention the chests that are all beginning to look the same - like they are made from a gigantic baby bib, or damned scraves that aren't even recolourable.

I also hate the armour that makes my characters look like they have HH boobs. I make most of my characters with flat chests now to compensate for this. I hate it.

GloatingSwine · August 29

Also if the armour is supposed to be plate it still flexes when you do animations like smithing.

(Personally I'd like something that looks like a long chain shirt to do a huscarl style outfit, closest I can get is Windhelm Scale but that's scale not chain and a bit short).

Gabriel_H · August 29

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Here's a suit of 15th century gothic plate armour with faulds. Notice how they're in exactly the opposite place to where they would be on ESO armour. The flappy bits on our armour are in all the places the real armour isn't and the one place they decided needed extra protection is exactly where the flappies miss!

We are in bizarro-world armour.

Ever considered that 15th century armour was badly designed?

cyclonus11 · August 29

It's almost like we're being trolled at this point

AcadianPaladin · August 29

lillybit wrote: »

The thing that really annoys me is leg styles are never finished below the knees. There's not many shoe styles that aren't knee length boots but I struggle to use the few sandals because of this.

Also (more on topic, sorry!) why the insistence on adding leg warmers to almost all the skirt styles? Same with chests and wrapped forearms. Why add something when it's completely hidden by different parts of the same style?

@lillybit I agree. It seems, when it comes to short skirts, by the time I weed out the flappers, calf warmers and garters, about all that's left is the Mazzatun skirt.

Now, that all said, overall I absolutely love the whole ESO outfitting system - the ability to dye, mix and match what your character looks like regardless of whatever functional bits may be hidden beneath is wonderful. Like you and others, though, I am hopeful for some tweaks based on input from threads like this.

MercilessnVexed · August 29

I'm still giggling about OP's comment about things held on by 'dreams and wishes.' That was fantastic!

Gabriel_H · August 29

cyclonus11 wrote: »

It's almost like we're being trolled at this point

You should try tanking in 1st person - 99% of boss fights is your face in boss crotch. Now that's being trolled.

GloatingSwine · August 29

Gabriel_H wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Here's a suit of 15th century gothic plate armour with faulds. Notice how they're in exactly the opposite place to where they would be on ESO armour. The flappy bits on our armour are in all the places the real armour isn't and the one place they decided needed extra protection is exactly where the flappies miss!

We are in bizarro-world armour.

Ever considered that 15th century armour was badly designed?

Some of it almost certainly was, there are fashions in armour just as in clothing (because the sort of people who wore it were high social status and needed to show off, especially in battle because showing that you were doing what was expected of you was as important as doing it), but it's not badly designed for the same reasons as ESO's armour.

lillybit · August 29

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

lillybit wrote: »

The thing that really annoys me is leg styles are never finished below the knees. There's not many shoe styles that aren't knee length boots but I struggle to use the few sandals because of this.

Also (more on topic, sorry!) why the insistence on adding leg warmers to almost all the skirt styles? Same with chests and wrapped forearms. Why add something when it's completely hidden by different parts of the same style?

@lillybit I agree. It seems, when it comes to short skirts, by the time I weed out the flappers, calf warmers and garters, about all that's left is the Mazzatun skirt.

Now, that all said, overall I absolutely love the whole ESO outfitting system - the ability to dye, mix and match what your character looks like regardless of whatever functional bits may be hidden beneath is wonderful. Like you and others, though, I am hopeful for some tweaks based on input from threads like this.

I love it too which is what makes things like this so frustrating - when you find the perfect top but it leaves hip flaps floating a foot off the side, or you hide shoulders for there to still be an echo of them left (Crimson Oath I'm looking at you!)

It's even more annoying that event outfit styles are mostly more of the same, when they aren't tied to an armour type and should be used to give us some more variety

darkriketz · August 30

Tazzy wrote: »

My female Khajiit has small breasts. Some of the costumes make them swell to twice their size. I hate that. If she were supposed to have big breasts, I would have given her some from the start.

You mean Seducer armor and Mazzatun ? ^^
My Breton templar had the same problem, now she's in mercenary armor like a proper battlemage xD

darkriketz · August 30

Gabriel_H wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Here's a suit of 15th century gothic plate armour with faulds. Notice how they're in exactly the opposite place to where they would be on ESO armour. The flappy bits on our armour are in all the places the real armour isn't and the one place they decided needed extra protection is exactly where the flappies miss!

We are in bizarro-world armour.

Ever considered that 15th century armour was badly designed?

A youtuber named Skallagrim, specialized in historical weapons, has said in a video years ago that some swords, axes and even armors designs really look like one another because they were practical and effective, and because uneffective gear wouldn't be used, reproduced and kept along the centuries.

So, no, this armor isn't badly designed. It's effective even if quite light on the wearer, with a well balanced weight, you can fall on your back or fall from a horse with it and get up again without any problem, you can move freely, the only problems I see is that you would have heat problems and wouldn't see much with that helmet.

zaria · August 30

GloatingSwine wrote: »

The worst thing is that the tassets/faulds aren't.

They're in the wrong place. No armour ever had that stupid crotch flap, that would decapitate your horse even if you could get on the thing with it in the way. Real braeis/brayettes are usually maille because, get this, they cover a bit of the legs that has to move and bend and the skirted armour of breastplates that have it often has a cut out at the front exactly where we have a giant steel spike pointing right at the back of our horse's head because, again, needs to bend and sit on a horse.

Faulds/tassets should come down the outside front of the leg covering the quad because that's the most likely place to get stabbed when you're riding a horse towards or otherwise fighting people who might get stabby at you. They shouldn't be wide out on the hips.

(Also mostly we fight on foot but not a lot of the leg armour is closed cuisse, it's all cavalry armour in a world that has never had mounted combat.)

This an maille skirt was pretty common on heavy armor.
However you could have an maille, scale or segmented plate loincloth, but a split skirt and a codpiece was more common.
It would never be stiff however.

SilverBride · August 30

We've been asking since launch to remove tassets from our armor, yet here they still are.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/133291/please-remove-these-huge-hip-pieces-from-light-and-medium-armor/p1

ArchMikem · August 30

I at first loved the costume, then I hated it for the pauldron issue. Then i bought it and slowly came to love it again, albeit in a "Im purposefully remaining ignorant of the problem" kind of way.

The Pauldron for the Berserker Garb looks really similar to Elsweyr cultural esthetics, so one of my Khajiit has been wearing it now. I just wish they included SOMETHING that indicated the piece of metal was strapped to the arm.

LunaFlora · August 30

Yea we really need options to hide Tassets and Loincloths.
i do not remember many Costumes with
weird shoulders like Dragon's Rage Beserker, but that would also be useful to be able to hide.

Marafar the Houseguest is using the Psijic Order motif style so as this post is not just about costumes,
Last year i made a post listing the Outfit styles without Tassets and Loincloths. Which i have updated when possible.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/650919/list-of-outfit-styles-without-tassets-and-loincloths-will-try-to-update#latest
Of course weird shoulders are irrelevant for styles as we have the Hide Shoulder style. And we are probably not getting any options to adjust Houseguests' appearance.

magnusthorek · August 30

While I do understand that changing ALL the armour models isn't something financially viable, it's not something that's been bothering (part of) the player base only recently, it's something very annoying — and inaccurate — from YEARS ago. What I DON'T understand is why ZOS kept doing armours wrong since... Orsinium styles, if I recall correctly, instead of doing things right back then, leaving only the handful of racial styles (and Orsinium's) plagued by such elements.

Now that we have hundreds of styles this likely won't be fixed AT ALL

Operativ · September 1

I'm very happy that we're all like-minded on this matter! Let's make sure this time our voice gets heard, especially now that ZOS underwent some considerable changes internally.

Can we have any feedback, statement, or otherwise any kind of recognition that the team over there at ZOS is aware of this? @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Finn

This has been a constant pain point of the ESO community over the years, and it's really not going to go away. Please consider how many people care about either fashion, or believable & plausible designs in ESO. That's many thousands of people, who have been regular paying customers. This may seem a small matter to some, but outfits & styles are not only a gameplay loop that people enjoy; it's also a revenue source for ESO.