Why do clothes replace armour?

[Macsum]

Am I the only one that thinks it's ridiculous that clothes replace armour? If I wear a hat why does my helmet come off? This is silly. Especially since clothes deteriorate from reequipping.

 

[Macsum]

I know some clothes do not correspond with armour but things like the green alien head which I love to wear, why the hell can't I wear a helmet underneath it? Why do I have to choose between armour and clothes?

 

[Katie Chalmers]

Yeah it’s stupid. But then so are clothes in general I think.

 

[monkey lou]

No pants Monday!

 

[ProActive Mango]

lets hope the new engine solves this.

 

[Waka]

The old engine worked better with clothes. I remember more armor allowed glasses and I don't remember it removing shoes either

 

[Wistrel]

Nothing to do with the engine. Just MA's sloppy conversion for old things and not having a proper logic (or properly implemented logic) for categories of clothing that should or should not de-equip when other items of armour or clothes are equipped, that can be applied to new things. The one that gets me is that equipping things like the different versions of the noob suit (formally "oranges") and similar "full outfits"* cause everything to be auto un-equiped even stuff that would make sense to be worn underneath.

I guess this is a double edge sword. I'm a big fan of experimenting with clothes and seeing what looks I can get from combining different clothes and armour. It's never entirely predictable with how MA handle things and the results are sometimes quite fun!

But yes, it's something that could do with looking at when they get to moving things over to Untropia, the logic of if something can remain equipped when other similarly located clothes/armour are applied, and also if it should remain visible too. Maybe even let the player decide on that last one?

Will be interesting to see what MA do with clothes and armour this time around. This sort of thing has come on a long way in recent years. By now you'd like to hope things like cloth physics might be on the cards. After all, it's not something that needs to happen server side really (any more than physics hair) so can't see why they couldn't have that as something the player sees.

Just a thought anyhow

Wistrel

* @MA why is the female noob suit a full outfit when it has thigh lengths, shorts and a top (should be 3 items)? Why isn't the male one trousers and a top?

 

[INTERNUT]

Not only do they replace armour, they also make other clothes invisible. If you wear a coat over a top, you can't see the top even though PI says it's equipped.

 

[San]

This is a very old issue and has been complained about a lot. It seems to be a platform limitation, hence there should be a chance it gets taken care of with the new engine. I don't know all the details of UE5 but it would be great if it allowed for layers for each attachment point, like underwear, outerwear, accessories and armour.

An issue is that the more items avatars wear (esp. customized ones), the more it increases the data volume that needs to be exchanged when people meet. Right now it is very lean which actually is good. We should expect that compromises will be made.

 

[Wistrel]

it increases the data volume that needs to be exchanged when people meet. Right now it is very lean which actually is good. We should expect that compromises will be made.

I disagree. The reason why you have so much to download for just say one planet is that the only thing that is left out is data specifically associated with what is on the ground on that planet. Basically you have all the resources/textures and so forth (that could travel) already on your computer. So yes, while more data needs to be exchanged when you can see other avatars, the data only consists of a handful of codes and values. Even scaled up to the pitifully small amount of avatars in a single area that the game can currently support (well) this still doesn't come anywhere near the bandwidth available to modern home connections or to servers for that matter.

Think about it, take a standard shirt and trousers. That's 2 item codes and 2 values to represent how worn the two items are, then for each item there are 2 fields for colour ID, plus % applied and 2 fields for texture ID plus % applied. So assuming 24bit IDs (16 million possible in game items) and 16 wear/application levels (greater detail needed for item view but not for watching an avatar run about) we are talking (for basic clothes) the need to exchange something in the region of 25 bytes per avatar.... I mean, you could drum that one out with bongos.

My workings:

(in bits)
Item ID 24
Item Wear 4 (assuming in reality clothes only ever show 16 different levels of wear)
Paint1 ID 4 (assuming only 16 colours - is that right?)
Paint2 ID 4
Paint1 % 4 (assuming only 16 levels of application ever actually shown)
Paint2 % 4
Texture1 ID 24
Texture2 ID 24
Texture1 % 4
Texture2 % 4

= 3+0.5+1+1+6+1 = 12.5 bytes
x2 = 25 bytes per avatar (for standard shirt and trousers)

And remember this only needs to be exchanged once on first contact (and if someone switches clothes) and could even be cached for a while. So in short, no, I don't seen any reason to compromise.

Wistrel

 

[mastermesh]

armor used to decay. There's a call to action to have Mindark remove decay on clothing too but not many supporters for that yet.

 

[Crabby]

This is a very old issue and has been complained about a lot. It seems to be a platform limitation, hence there should be a chance it gets taken care of with the new engine. I don't know all the details of UE5 but it would be great if it allowed for layers for each attachment point, like underwear, outerwear, accessories and armour.

An issue is that the more items avatars wear (esp. customized ones), the more it increases the data volume that needs to be exchanged when people meet. Right now it is very lean which actually is good. We should expect that compromises will be made.

It aint the engine though. And its not that much data.

It has to be the way the database is structured.

Player ID	Head	Face	Chest Gaurd	Shirt	Shoes
San	HAZEN Helmet	HAZEN Helmet	CDF Chest Gaurd	Island Shirt	CDF Foot Gaurds

Ofcourse they would be item IDs referencing the item and values within an item table but you can see for example some helmets are made to take up multiple slots.

Like a coat takes up like outerwear + back slot, or gold starter pack armor taking up chest gaurd + back slot. Some armor parts can go over clothing because there is cells for say thigh gaurd. Shoes are just shoes, maybe theres socks too.

It could be fixed, but its a non issue except for those who complain about 0.002 USD. Which comes out to be a small contribution for the individual while being beneficial to the company in a collective manner.

To fix theyd have to create and run a sql script to add the necessary columns, AND move the appropriate items to new columns AND make them from there on out be equipped to those slots. which for all the existing players and items is probably not worth the time. And to be fair its fine, who wears one pair of shoes over another?

And if it were me personally I wouldnt take suggestions from someone on about some small shit like 2 pecs. The moment you begin to listen and appease to people with no intentions of supporting your endeavors it all goes downhill from there lol. Im not talking about you but ive heard people call it 'theft decay'.

 

[San]

Lol, I didn't think this would become such a discussion. I did say above that it doesn't involve much data traffic now, but that it would increase if we allowed for more layers of avatar accessories. Ofc each individual part doesn't comsume much data since it is only referenced plus a minimal payload like percentages. Facemasks are the exception but this is the reason their resolution is so low, network packet size limitation. All of this is nowhere near a system e.g. like Second Life where everything is downloaded on the fly.

I don't know if it would be a problem to expand it a little or not, it was just for the sake of consideration of imaginable caveats. Another possibility is that we'll get a more advanced networking system where more exchange happens between peers directly, instead of everything having to go through the server, which would give a lot more leeway. But that, too, would have implications such as described in another game here.

All of this is speculation, and much of it is pointless as the development team knows all this and we don't. It will be better in the end, and chances are the problem of this thread can be attacked from a new angle, and then some.

 

[Crabby]

Another possibility is that we'll get a more advanced networking system where more exchange happens between peers directly, instead of everything having to go through the server, which would give a lot more leeway.

In a perfect world yes but I think it opens the door to certain kinds of exploits.

 

[nutter]

Used to be able to wear oldschool armour with hats (ghost, paladin etc) without the clothes coming off.

And you can still wear a coat, afaik without the armour coming off.

All design choices by MA.

 

[Wistrel]

In a perfect world yes but I think it opens the door to certain kinds of exploits.

Maybe... but one could take a danger approach. Realistically, if I happen to be wearing a coat or not, at least as far as appearance... doesn't make a lot of difference to game play or anything that matters. So a player cheats to look like they are wearing dark divinity underpants or something (rare), no problem really. I guess there might be a danger if a player could spoof that they wear full shadow or something in PvP even if it's only in appearance it could give them an advantage if other players decide they are not worth attacking.

But at the very least anything visual only (clothes/handhelds/avatar params) could go peer to peer without much risk, so long as armour and inventory etc etc always goes from the center.