PvP and PvE Armor Design: Why Bioware's Design Aesthetic is Fundamentally Flawed

Can we sticky this thread?

EVERYONE AGREES /THREAD

seriously, this is magnificent and idk why bioware didnt realize/acknowledge this when designing the game. I understand making characters feel "uber" but thats just not what star wars is about.

I guess I haven't seen any armors yet that made me think, "No way. There is no way that is part of Star Wars." I mean, every new movie of the prequels that came out, we saw something crazier than the last. Amidala's stuff I never in a million years would have attributed to Star Wars before it showed up in the movie.

So how do we determine what does and doesn't fit in with Star Wars' asthetic? And must we (or should we) limit ourselves to only those asthetics which showed up in the movies (or comics?) when large portions of the universe were never illustrated therein?

Correct me if I'm mistaken but isn't one of the level 50 gear for IA....Ninja Suits?

Thats just...wow.

I lol'd at the BH design. The Sith Warrior one is terrible though.

Here's one thing I don't get about BioWare Austin.

If they think their level 50 end game armour is so aesthetically pleasing and a proud work of art, then how come they didn't use said armour for their latest website revamp?

Why did they choose to use stuff like the Jedi Battlelord armour gear set (with hood down, no less. seriously, way to mislead new customers over what is actually aesthetically possible in-game at the moment) instead of these "great" new armour sets?



They talk about how they want to let players be able to freely choose what appearance they want in-game. Yet the new crafting system still forces people to jump through RNG hoops just to find schematics, and hope for crits to get augments. There's still no Jedi Battlelord set schematics either. Then comes the armour bonuses, which can only be obtained from post 1.2 items, for a PVPer that means I have to grind for War Hero stuff just to get the mods needed. It also gets really expensive for a casual player to pull said mods out.

Is getting what you want to look, possible? Yes. Will it be practical? For most people, no since they can't get augmented slots so there will always be an issue of Min/Max, an issue that they really shouldn't have introduced by making things so convoluted. It's going to cost a lot of money, time, and effort.

So is it straight forward and easy to look like how you want in SWTOR? No, a resounding no.
I'm not sure why they made something as basic as appearance customization be so grindy and convoluted, especially considering one of their initial goals was supposedly to take the grind out and make things easily accessible.

Great post and I totally agree. I got my first level 50 a few weeks ago and hadn't gotten the ability to purchase champion gear, then 1.2 came out and I decided to buy the recruit armor for my Sentinel. I could help but start laughing the second I saw the helmet which was by far the worst piece despite the whole set not looking that great. I though okay, this is the starter set I'm sure war hero will look amazing, *ctrl-left click* Oh my god, are you serious?!


It's weird too because I've played KotOR 1 & 2, Dragon Age and Mass Effect 1 & 2 and the wearables in all those games look great in comparison to their respective universes. These over the top designs definitely make the game feel unbelievable, which is shocking since so many other aspects of the game are amazing. I mean, ship and planet details just make you say, "wow!"

I would love to see a back to basics approach for the armor in this game, I've always been happy to have a robe for my jedi/sith in every force sensitive based game and the armor designs from the movies for Troopers/BH's/Agents/Smugglers looks fine too. If the WoW and other games like it crowd doesn't like it they can just go back to those games!

The OP nailed it. The designs would look very good and creative - IN ANOTHER GAME OR ANOTHER SCENARIO. The gear doesn't look bad because they look bad by nature, we dislike them because they DON'T LOOK LIKE STAR WARS GEAR. . The OP also nails it on the fact that BW gets it right on the path from 1-49. Characters look great from 1-49. Then, hit 50 and the gear looks like it's from another MMO. If BW wants some inspiration to how characters should look, they should look at some NPC designs. Some NPC's have gear that truly looks great and fits the description of their characters.

The one main reason that BW, I think, like the OP does, designed such "overreaching" gear is because they don't want level 50 gear to look "boring" and "regular" like the 1-49 or NPC gear. They want to distinguish level 50 from 1-49 gear. But I don't think they realize, we want to look our class and our faction. Not outrageously colorful with outfits that blatantly speak out "hey, we're level 50". Other players can just click on us for that.

I'm not a Star Wars fan, but I like this about the movies and some of the older and newer prieces follow this logic already. I play a bounty Hunter, a class for which this is most appearant and while all of the tiered sets look distasteful I really think the War Hero PvP Helmet is very well done for the class.
As are the Bounty Hunter War Hero Gloves if used for Juggernauts. ;>

My Orange Armor Pieces all have chipped paint on them, my ship looks like the paint job was done a thousand years ago and my blasters have a very simplified and utilitarian design - all I could want for my main character is a greater variety in colors ... eg the black-red chest piece, Mercenary Chestguard in different colors etc.

Other classes, like the agent have great armor pieces as well, but most of them arn't craftable ... Assassins are a lot more fun with pants imho and Sith Warriors haven't got enough options without capes and little choice when it comes to boots (the black ones from the Legacy vendor are pretty neat) but otherwise fine imho ... some ragged capes like Inquisitors have for T1 PvP and T2 maybe.

I don't know about the Republic, but Agents for example should look less 'used' than other classes ... top of the line gear straight from secret imperial research facilities is the class' strenght and the equipment can look like that.

This used look is what I really approve of and I can actually see it in the game.

What I'm really missing is that skins like "Rampart Rampage-X Blaster" and other blues arn't craftable or "TT-16B Master Powertech Helmet" and others can't be fitted with Augments and are thus inerior.
I also really disapprove that only people who have Campaign set items can look pretty without gimping themselves ... who came up with that idea? O.o

Yep good post. I agree and also is the reason why I pretty much have stopped playing my battlemaster sorc now.

I look ahead at the next level of gear for me, and see yet more tripe.

There is no incentive to gear up to look like a circus clown.

Out of all the classes the sorceror has by far the craziest (read: worst) gear design.