Create-an-armor

i thought it was a good idea to make a create-a-weapon but it was taken(kudos to Obsidian) so i thought. create an armor/tunic

The MJOLNIR Mark VI tunic! j/k

I'd want some type of leather armor to put over the tunic, or (the most protective, yet heaveist) some plate pauldrons, breastplate, gauntlets, and boots. You could have maybe 3-5 levels of armor: The first would be the tunic, then would be the chainmail with the, some leather armor, leather armor with chainmail, and finally chain mail, leather, and plate armor. Each one would make damage less, but would make you slower and less agile.

Or, something I think would be better, would be you can accuire/buy different peices of armor with different weight and protection levels, and you can mix and match whatever you want. Meaning, you could have plate gauntlents and boots and some chainmail, or leather armor with plate pauldrons.

SJ

Originally Posted by SilentJoe

T

I'd want some type of leather armor to put over the tunic, or (the most protective, yet heaveist) some plate pauldrons, breastplate, gauntlets, and boots. You could have maybe 3-5 levels of armor: The first would be the tunic, then would be the chainmail with the, some leather armor, leather armor with chainmail, and finally chain mail, leather, and plate armor. Each one would make damage less, but would make you slower and less agile.

Or, something I think would be better, would be you can accuire/buy different peices of armor with different weight and protection levels, and you can mix and match whatever you want. Meaning, you could have plate gauntlents and boots and some chainmail, or leather armor with plate pauldrons.

SJ

As usual, I find your ideas to be incompatible with the Zelda series. Some people may really get into character customization. Those people can go play a different game.

It's not that I'm against armor. It's that I'm against having to choose one thing over another. I don't want to have to balance my speed and my defense in Zelda. It takes the focus off of gameplay. I don't want to have to play through the game ten times to experiment with different combinations of armor. I don't want to have to worry about stats. I'm a firm believer that less is more--too many unnecessary features reduce a game's quality as much as not enough features.

What this means is that every piece of equipment/armor you receive should be all around better than the previous set. Wha? But then there's no strategy in balancing your character. And that's the way it should be for this series. That way, when I acquire a new piece of armor, I can equip it and completely forget about the old piece and not have to feel like I'm doing something wrong. This idea of balancing your armor/weaponary as a way of increasing strategy may be an integral part of RPGs, but has no place in Zelda.

It's not like there should be a plethora of different types of armor anyway. When I look at all of the types of armor you suggested, I can't help but think that those are far too realistic, unoriginal, and "mid-evilistic" for Zelda. I know it is probably annoying to see that phrase over and over again, but it's the truth. Zelda is not set in midevil times. It is set in an alternate, completely imaginary world which has no connection with our real world. It's about fantasy, a little bit of magic, and original characters and items not seen in other adventure series.

Basically, I want Zelda to stay as far as possible away from the realisticly drab environments, midevil cities and themes, english accents, cliches, overuse of brown, basic fantasy characters and armor, and anything else even closely resembling Morrowind, LoTR, WoW, Fable, or anything else like them. Zelda has to this point maintained an identity, and has remained unique. Your ideas would crush and degrade the series.

The Tunics seen in OoT nailed it perfectly. The truth is, while it may be fun to share ideas, only Nintendo knows what is best for the Zelda franchise. I play the role of a critic. I definitely don't claim to be able to come up with ideas that are appropriate for Zelda. But I'm pretty sure I can see which ones aren't--it's obviously a much easier thing to do.

All right.

Shadow Tunic:

Black tunic looking like the one worn by Adult Link in Ocarina of Time. It is used to transform Link into a spirit like persona that can attack undead ghosts. This tunic turns him into a ghost and allows him to become invisible to the living.

Originally Posted by Shiek 84

As usual, I find your ideas to be incompatible with the Zelda series. Some people may really get into character customization. Those people can go play a different game.

It's not that I'm against armor. It's that I'm against having to choose one thing over another. I don't want to have to balance my speed and my defense in Zelda. It takes the focus off of gameplay. I don't want to have to play through the game ten times to experiment with different combinations of armor. I don't want to have to worry about stats. I'm a firm believer that less is more--too many unnecessary features reduce a game's quality as much as not enough features.

What this means is that every piece of equipment/armor you receive should be all around better than the previous set. Wha? But then there's no strategy in balancing your character. And that's the way it should be for this series. That way, when I acquire a new piece of armor, I can equip it and completely forget about the old piece and not have to feel like I'm doing something wrong. This idea of balancing your armor/weaponary as a way of increasing strategy may be an integral part of RPGs, but has no place in Zelda.

It's not like there should be a plethora of different types of armor anyway. When I look at all of the types of armor you suggested, I can't help but think that those are far too realistic, unoriginal, and "mid-evilistic" for Zelda. I know it is probably annoying to see that phrase over and over again, but it's the truth. Zelda is not set in midevil times. It is set in an alternate, completely imaginary world which has no connection with our real world. It's about fantasy, a little bit of magic, and original characters and items not seen in other adventure series.

Basically, I want Zelda to stay as far as possible away from the realisticly drab environments, midevil cities and themes, english accents, cliches, overuse of brown, basic fantasy characters and armor, and anything else even closely resembling Morrowind, LoTR, WoW, Fable, or anything else like them. Zelda has to this point maintained an identity, and has remained unique. Your ideas would crush and degrade the series.

The Tunics seen in OoT nailed it perfectly. The truth is, while it may be fun to share ideas, only Nintendo knows what is best for the Zelda franchise. I play the role of a critic. I definitely don't claim to be able to come up with ideas that are appropriate for Zelda. But I'm pretty sure I can see which ones aren't--it's obviously a much easier thing to do.

If you yourself cannot come up with any ideas, please don't just say "Hey, your ideas suck." As far as I'm concerned, I think of it as spam, not to mention annoying.

That's a pretty sweet idea, Power Shot. It's the best "black tunic" idea I've ever read (most are just the same idas over and over again).

I'm thinking about trying to sketch my ideas out and post them, though I'm not a good artist when it comes to armor. But, I'll try. I'd do it now, but I have to go. Expect at least one sketch by tonight.

SJ

Originally Posted by Shiek 84

As usual, I find your ideas to be incompatible with the Zelda series. Some people may really get into character customization. Those people can go play a different game.

It's not that I'm against armor. It's that I'm against having to choose one thing over another. I don't want to have to balance my speed and my defense in Zelda. It takes the focus off of gameplay. I don't want to have to play through the game ten times to experiment with different combinations of armor. I don't want to have to worry about stats. I'm a firm believer that less is more--too many unnecessary features reduce a game's quality as much as not enough features.

What this means is that every piece of equipment/armor you receive should be all around better than the previous set. Wha? But then there's no strategy in balancing your character. And that's the way it should be for this series. That way, when I acquire a new piece of armor, I can equip it and completely forget about the old piece and not have to feel like I'm doing something wrong. This idea of balancing your armor/weaponary as a way of increasing strategy may be an integral part of RPGs, but has no place in Zelda.

It's not like there should be a plethora of different types of armor anyway. When I look at all of the types of armor you suggested, I can't help but think that those are far too realistic, unoriginal, and "mid-evilistic" for Zelda. I know it is probably annoying to see that phrase over and over again, but it's the truth. Zelda is not set in midevil times. It is set in an alternate, completely imaginary world which has no connection with our real world. It's about fantasy, a little bit of magic, and original characters and items not seen in other adventure series.

Basically, I want Zelda to stay as far as possible away from the realisticly drab environments, midevil cities and themes, english accents, cliches, overuse of brown, basic fantasy characters and armor, and anything else even closely resembling Morrowind, LoTR, WoW, Fable, or anything else like them. Zelda has to this point maintained an identity, and has remained unique. Your ideas would crush and degrade the series.

The Tunics seen in OoT nailed it perfectly. The truth is, while it may be fun to share ideas, only Nintendo knows what is best for the Zelda franchise. I play the role of a critic. I definitely don't claim to be able to come up with ideas that are appropriate for Zelda. But I'm pretty sure I can see which ones aren't--it's obviously a much easier thing to do.

What you said was all a matter of opinion, when you get down to the basics, zelda is Nintendo's medival fantasy, the first zelda gave the player a more powerful tunic later in link's adventure. Armor is an integral part of the zelda series, and OoT futhered that idea by giving the player the option of actually changing between 3 tunics any time he/she wanted to, which coincidentally is a feature that many players love. OoT gave players the chance to be a very very amature fasion designer, and I think that's an option that Zelda needs to keep.

I understand your dislike for armor stats and such, but you need to look at OoT, which you beleive had the perfect system, actually did have "stats" for the different tunics, the fire tunic being the strongest against any attack of the 3, but of course, these tunics were balanced fairly well, each tunic being given special attributes, like being able to breath under water, or survive extreme heat. Nintendo did a good job there, theres no contest.


Now, what nintedo needs to do, is actually evolve that concept of "specialized" tunics, perhaps have an actualy set of armor that allows link to survive heat, or somthing that gorons wear, because I'm sure as hell that the gorons in OoT didn't wear tunics, zelda needs somthing more plausible that tunics. Nintendo should have different sets of armor for the 3 or so tunics, or rather, "power clothings", say, for link's green tunic, he could get a set of leather armor later in the game, and near the end of the game get an actual set a Hylian knight armor, same goes for Zoran and Goron clothing, as link further does quests for each race, the further in rank he will progress, giving him accsess to better armors.

An example could go as follows. Link performs som sidequests for the Gorons, the first quest gives him permission to use a peice of cloth that lets link access the top of the volcano, very warm areas, allowing link to surive extremely hot steam, after a few more quest link is finally given access to the Goron armor which allows link to be around lava and such.
The zorans would give link clothing that would let him dive deep, and finnaly the zoran amor would allow link to actually breath underwater.

I'm a firm beleiver in actually seeing your character grow as the game progresses, simply looking at your quest screen isn't enough, the character needs new clothing, or torn clothing, just somthing that lets you, the player know that you are growing as link grows.

Zelda definantly has core ideas, but the idea's themselves are way more flexible that you make them out to be, look at how different tWW was, and yet it was still a good zelda title, and now we have TP, which according to speculation will have more new elements than ever seen in a zelda title, I don't think armor custamization is out of the question, it's just a matter of how Nintendo goes about it.

I like the idea of adding layers to already equipped armor, but agree with Shiek 84 that equipment management wouldn't be the type of depth that the Zelda series needs.
Every piece should add to the armor you've already equipped, and the only time you should have to choose between two pieces of armor should be dealt with like in OoT, where iron and hover boots are only appropriate in isolated situations.
You should start with a canvas tunic and boots; and start by upgrading to a leather set consisting of a tunic, boots, and gauntlets; then move on to building a chain set with chest armor (under your tunic) and gauntlets. I think plate is a bit much for Link, but maybe if it is limited to just his shoulders.
As long as heavier sets don't affect speed negatively and only increase defense it could work.

I think armor should be kind of like Ocarina of time in a sense.But only on three levels.Like the one you start with would be the green tunic.After that,a simple leather tunic(this would be the equivalent of the blue ring in the first zelda).And the last level,to go along with more powerful enemies would be a chain mail shirt worn under the green tunic(equivalent of the red ring in the first zelda) un fortunately i lack the creativity to figure out something to give these items the zelda style that would make them truly unique to the game.

I also think that the armor should serve a use more creative than breating underwater and withstanding extreme heat.

The Darknut armor in TWW was cool. If you ajusted it to Link, colored it red or something, and changed the helmet a bit, it would be pretty cool.

Maybe,but not the helmet...i don't think that it would fit the game to give link a helmet.

Originally Posted by Shiek 84

Basically, I want Zelda to stay as far as possible away from the realisticly drab environments, midevil cities and themes, english accents, cliches, overuse of brown, basic fantasy characters and armor, and anything else even closely resembling Morrowind, LoTR, WoW, Fable, or anything else like them. Zelda has to this point maintained an identity, and has remained unique. Your ideas would crush and degrade the series.

I agree with you so much, Shiek! I was at first afraid that TP was going too far from Zelda and more midevil. I am still nervous about this because the new screenshots of the Hyrule Market looks very midevil. It is brown and ugly, and I hate it. I really hope they change it.


Also, this may be random but the whole reason I do not want a Zelda movie is because I know everyone will have English accents. I don't mean to be offensive, but English accents do not fit the Zelda series and the accent is one of the most annoying in my opinion.

Wow! I got way off topic. To get on topic, I will just say that the Create Armor feature wil never happen in a Zelda game.

Well I guess this is settled. Link won't ever need armor.

Originally Posted by SilentJoe

If you yourself cannot come up with any ideas, please don't just say "Hey, your ideas suck." As far as I'm concerned, I think of it as spam, not to mention annoying.

Not spam in any way. I explained why I don't like your ideas. You obviously posted them to get feedback, I saw them, and I gave my opinion on them. The opinion being that they are in no way creative, and actually quite cliched. This is the same argument we had last time. If all everybody does is share ideas and not look at the broader topic, then there isn't any good discussion. It would end up something like this:

Originally Posted by Deadly Mage

Spiked boots. These boots make you heavier and hurt enemies when you kick them. Then you can upgrade them into super spiked boots.

Originally Posted by Ganon's Wrath

Those are some great ideas.

Yep. Exaggeration aside, that's pretty much what would happen. That's why I feel you have to look at the broader topic.

If you yourself cannot come up with any ideas, please don't just say "Hey, your ideas suck."

That's what I consider exaggeration to prove a point. That's not what I did at all. I went indepth on why I don't like your ideas. I did not make a one line post saying "your ideas suck". That WOULD be spam and just plain hateful . . . sort of like this . . .

Originally Posted by Silent Joe

Oh, and while I personally love the idea of different sword styles, I doubt others *coughsheik84cough* will like it.

How random. I hadn't even posted in that thread, but you found it necessary to bring me up. Oh well. At least it was clever, funny, and relevent . . .

And yes, I could submit some ideas, but I choose not to, because I myself believe they do in fact suck.

That's a pretty sweet idea, Power Shot. It's the best "black tunic" idea I've ever read (most are just the same idas over and over again).

Black and White tunics are commonly brought up ideas indeed. It's like everybody saw Link wear black and white in SSBM or SCII, and then thought they had a massive surge of ingenuity. "Let's give Link a black tunic and he can have stealth moves/undead qualities", or "let's give him a white one and he can survive the cold!"

The truth is, ideas like this used to run through my head all the time. Now I realize how lame, cliched, and ridiculous they were. I'll see a good fan submitted idea here and there, but a lot of them do leave a lot to be desired. Including my own. For example, when I first came to these forums, I thought I came up with something truly brilliant. "Maybe you can collect natural resources to be given to a blacksmith to be turned into swords, such as Gerudo sabers, Kokiri daggers, BGS, Double Helix Sword, ect ect." Except it isn't brilliant at all. Its a concept that you see in almost every single RPG out there. Just like all of your ideas.

OoT futhered that idea by giving the player the option of actually changing between 3 tunics any time he/she wanted to, which coincidentally is a feature that many players love.

The reason that was good in this case is because it was built into the game. They were items that you pretty much had to obtain if you wanted to beat the game. They didn't actually affect the gameplay at all. Acquiring them was basically like acquiring keys that opened up new areas. I didn't have to worry about balancing my weight and defense. That whole concept is very unappealing to me.

If there is to be upgradable armor, then I think that it should be completely superior to the set of armor that comes before it. Say you start Twilight Princess without the chainmail seen in all of the trailers. Somewhere along the lines, you obtain it. It appears on you. It reduces damages by 1/4, but does not reduce your speed or change gameplay at all. That's okay.

Another thing that may simply be narrow-minded thinking, but really is important to me is that Link's basic tunic looks relatively similar to the way it always has. I think it is cool that he starts the game in alternate clothes. But once things get rolling, I want to see Link with the same boots, tights, and goofy hat I always have.

I do agree that enhancements should appear on the character. And they will. They even did in OoT. Things like the Goron bracelet and Golden Gauntlets actually appeared on your character. They were very subtle changes, and I think that is a good thing. A little chainmail hanging out is subtle as well, and that's why I'm okay with it. But I don't want to see Link wearing helmets or a ridiculous amount of armor (3-5 layers, haha), and looking totally like a generic gladiator.

fire tunic being the strongest against any attack of the 3

Was it really? I actually never noticed this. I sort of figured that both the Zora and Goron tunics (also notice how they aren't called "leather armor" or "bronze shell", any way you can avoid RPG cliches is good) were better than the Kokiri Tunic, but now I'm not so sure. I think they may all be the same. Only the Great Fairy could enhance your defense (by adding the little white outlines). Either way, I always would wear the green tunic, because I like it the best.

English accents do not fit the Zelda series and the accent is one of the most annoying in my opinion.

Yeah. I don't know what it is about those English accents, but I hate them. Not in real life, but definitely in my games. Every single midevil based game has them. I just despise this certain midevil aura that too many games emit. Some may consider Zelda somewhat midevil, but I don't. The characters, the items, the feel, the atmosphere, the story, none of it feels midevil to me. And for that, I am thankful.

I also think that the armor should serve a use more creative than breating underwater and withstanding extreme heat.

And what do you suggest? The fact is, there isn't a whole lot of interesting things you can do with armor. It defends you. It can (in a very unrealistic way) protect you from drowning and extreme heat. Naturally, it could also protect you from the cold, but that's kind of weak.

I'm a firm beleiver in actually seeing your character grow as the game progresses

It's already there. You see it in your increasing heart meter, items, and magic powers. Character progression is extremely important. The good thing about Zelda is that it does it in a more unique way than increased numerical stats and better armor. And because the combat system is in no way based on chance and numbers, you also see it in your improved skill as the game goes on. Items demonstrate it the most, however.

Zelda definantly has core ideas, but the idea's themselves are way more flexible that you make them out to be, look at how different tWW was, and yet it was still a good zelda title, and now we have TP, which according to speculation will have more new elements than ever seen in a zelda title, I don't think armor custamization is out of the question, it's just a matter of how Nintendo goes about it.

Wind Waker was only hugely different from a graphical standpoint. There was sailing too. The actual ideas that made up the game were similar to those seen in OoT/MM. Goofy characters. Puzzles. Very little if any character customization. Twilight Princess will delve into a lot of new features, but I can almost guarantee that indepth character customization won't be one of them. I'm not even worried about it. Tunics will make a return, but they won't be much different than those seen in OoT. And the whole reason for me writing this is that I would like to explain why I don't necessarily see this as a drawback or shortcomming.

Originally Posted by Shiek 84

If there is to be upgradable armor, then I think that it should be completely superior to the set of armor that comes before it. Say you start Twilight Princess without the chainmail seen in all of the trailers. Somewhere along the lines, you obtain it. It appears on you. It reduces damages by 1/4, but does not reduce your speed or change gameplay at all. That's okay.

Hey, that's fine by me, personally, balancing armor according to their traits is definantly one aspect that zelda should and will never have. But, physical change is a feature that I would like to see more of in zelda, there is one peice of artwork from LOZ that features link walking while miracleously holding all of his items; that peice serves as a personal idea of what link should look like near the end of your adventure, beaten down carrying a large burden.

Originally Posted by S84

Another thing that may simply be narrow-minded thinking, but really is important to me is that Link's basic tunic looks relatively similar to the way it always has. I think it is cool that he starts the game in alternate clothes. But once things get rolling, I want to see Link with the same boots, tights, and goofy hat I always have.

I dunno, the Hero of Men only had a green headband, and after his appeance, I would saw that the headband looks much better and more mature than the green hat, and hopefully as some bonus we will be given the option to don the headband as opposed to the hat.

Perhaps there could be some sort of fasion designer in TP, who, after you complete some side quest which involves link helping build the designers studio shop, starts to make outfits for link. The first outfit could be link's taoru clothes, and perhaps as the game progresses more and more outfits would be made availible, such as all of the other link's outfits from the other zelda titles, and of course, the option of using the headband. Hell, perhaps you could customize your defaut outfit, I would link that link without his hat and tunic (just his white shirt and brown pants) w08uld looks rather cool. Of course this is extremely unorthodox, but Hyrule should become more of a living breathing world.

Originally Posted by S84

It's already there. You see it in your increasing heart meter, items, and magic powers. Character progression is extremely important. The good thing about Zelda is that it does it in a more unique way than increased numerical stats and better armor. And because the combat system is in no way based on chance and numbers, you also see it in your improved skill as the game goes on. Items demonstrate it the most, however.

Like I said previously, physical change is a feature that really should make more of a presence in zelda. Sure, link doesn't need armor, but increased numerical stats and new abilites plays out much in the same fasion as the increasing heart meter and magic power go. You can't see increased magical power on link, nor can you see an increased health meter. The Hud could very easily be on the quest status screen if it really needed to be, but alas, tradition.

I don't know though, is zelda combat really based on skill? For most of the 2D zelda's yes(sort off) but the 3D zelda's are really a matter of being able to press the R button (how fast can ya do it!!) and simply pressing the B button as fast as you can. I don't know, I really don't see the fighting in any of the 3D zelda's so far having even a semi-steep learning curve, it's really a matter of the AI difficulty.