Medium Armor

[Mushin.6789]

So how many new trench coats will be in EoD.  Design team please stop, this isn't the Matrix. There's tons of art on Art Station to draw inspiration from.

[Xanadrine.4352]

Oh god medium armor gets no love, from the ugly bulgy boots to the trench coats that looks too bland and bulky. Some of the hats are really nice, but then they ruin it by making my females hair disappear. Ya know anet when I wear a Stetson irl my hair dont just go away. the bald look is so unbecoming on females    

here are some nice ideas https://www.pinterest.com/pin/485403666093206329/?d=t&mt=login

Edited November 2, 2021 by Zuldari.3940

[genjonah.1253]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- best armors for non-heavies are in competitive. The WvW set for light looks amazing, and the PvP set for medium looks pretty good. Those sets are the best examples of what looks like I would actually want to wear into battle for those weights.

 

sure, there are some good spellcaster looks, but I gotta tell you- even if I was a necromancer, I’d wanna put metal plates or at least reinforced cloth/leather as protection, if for nothing else than elemental protection, let alone arrows 

 

edit- also, sneakthief does look pretty good for medium, forgot about that at first

Edited November 2, 2021 by genjonah.1253

[Gibson.4036]

Agreed, PVP Glorious chest piece to escape the buttcape.

[zityz.6089]

more pants for light, less coats for medium  and less bulky armours for heavy.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 11/3/2021 at 3:57 AM, Zuldari.3940 said:

Oh god medium armor gets no love, from the ugly bulgy boots to the trench coats that looks too bland and bulky. Some of the hats are really nice, but then they ruin it by making my females hair disappear. Ya know anet when I wear a Stetson irl my hair dont just go away. the bald look is so unbecoming on females    

here are some nice ideas https://www.pinterest.com/pin/485403666093206329/?d=t&mt=login

The irony - and this doesn't just apply to medium - is that female headpieces are also more likely to expose that baldness at the back. It's like the female headgear was designed on the basis of 'this is what you wear if you're willing to accept slightly less protection in exchange for being able to wear a helmet without cutting your hair'... and then they all shave their heads anyway, negating the need for open space at the back to let their hair out.

[Gibson.4036]

Free us from the tyranny of the buttcape!

https://imgur.com/ne4bkAO

Lily of Elon by moonlight.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[Ashgar.3024]

No "buttcape" here. Just have to be a bit more creative.

My Engi :

https://imgur.com/kWtRyBf

Mind you i agree a bit of variety doesn't hurt even if i personally don't mind the trenchcoats on most of my other characters.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Ashgar.3024

[Mushin.6789]

Anyone see the new map preview, it's hilarious.  Trench coats and butt capes for all of Cantha.  So the majority of the community asks for Anet to move away from this design element but they refuse to.  I feel like they are doing this in spite.  Have any of you actually done anything physical, do you folks know how difficult it is to move around in something like that.  There's a reason athletes don't wear clothes like that.  Why would my thief who is suppose to be swift and agile be wearing heavy bulky trench coats.

[Gibson.4036]

27 minutes ago, Mushin.6789 said:

Why would my thief who is suppose to be swift and agile be wearing heavy bulky trench coats.

Because the Matrix. 😄

But yeah, no idea why they are so stuck on buttcapes. There's clearly no technical reason for it, since there are a few options already in game. And for some reason female armor can have a lot more than male.

Kinda seems like someone at ArenaNet has a severe case of andropugophobia.

[Duke Blackrose.4981]

I like trenchcoats and buttcapes though. They look good.

[anninke.7469]

31 minutes ago, Duke Blackrose.4981 said:

I like trenchcoats and buttcapes though. They look good.

Yeah, but then there are others (including me) who would really like to have more options. Especially for medium armor males.

[draxynnic.3719]

45 minutes ago, Duke Blackrose.4981 said:

I like trenchcoats and buttcapes though. They look good.

The general objection, though, isn't that they exist, so much as how much they dominate, with the exceptions feeling like tokens. Going through the fourth row (chosen because it was the first row without racial-specific armours) of the medium armour chestpiece wardrobe, for instance, 8/10 all have trenchcoats or what people refer to as "buttcapes". And I'm pretty sure the exceptions were both gemstore armour skins. 

 

And apart from the gemstore part, that seems to be fairly typical - I'd estimate that the number of female medium armour sets that aren't trenchcoat or buttcape at being 30% or less, and that's counting the WvW and PvP armours - that are basically upgrades of the same basic design - individually. All up, I counted out of all the non-racial medium armour sets a grand total of 15 medium armour sets that weren't trenchcoat or buttcape (although I didn't include the winter sweater or metal legion shirt either, because no, they don't count as medium armour designs... but it is including mist shard, which has thigh capes instead), and if you only count the base armour of the armours that are chains of upgrades, that number drops to 9. That's out of a total of 94 pieces. Take away the winter sweater and metal legion shirt which don't count, and the racial armours, that's 77. So 15/77 sets don't have a trenchcoat or buttcape - that's about 20%, and that's with triple-counting the Glorious and Triumphant sets (apart from the special Glorious variant that only tournament winners get, because they aren't in my wardrobe even in a greyed out form)

 

For comparison, GW1 assassin had 19 sets to choose from. Two of them had short skirts in the female versions, but that's about all in terms things that could be described as buttcapes, let along trenchcoats.  Take out the elite sets, and that's 14. Assassin alone, over the course of about fifteen months, accrued more non-trenchcoat/buttcape designs than the entire medium armour group in GW2 has managed to receive since 2012.

 

Now, I actually like the trenchcoats and "buttcapes" myself. It's historically accurate for a lot of forms of armour to have some sort of skirt around the hips and thighs, because it's often the easiest way to achieve coverage of that region with a protective material. But I think that aesthetic has been well and truly catered for, and people who prefer a different aesthetic deserve more choice than Glorious, Mist Shard, Elegy/Requiem, Ice Reaver, Krytan, Triumphant, Sneakthief, Strider's, or... either I miscounted or I missed one. But you get the picture. Especially since three of those are gemstore. And I don't think Ice Reaver really counts either since I think that has the same appearance regardless of armour weight. (Oh, and a handful of race-specific armours, I think, if you happened to choose the right race.)

Edited November 11, 2021 by draxynnic.3719

[Duke Blackrose.4981]

1 hour ago, anninke.7469 said:

Yeah, but then there are others (including me) who would really like to have more options. Especially for medium armor males.

Sure. I'm all for more armor options in general. More armors without coats and skirting, and, yes, also more of them with such (especially in Heavy where my options are more limited). But just as I wish you more options, I don't appreciate that every new armor with coats and buttcapes is met with apparent vitriol.

[anninke.7469]

33 minutes ago, Duke Blackrose.4981 said:

Sure. I'm all for more armor options in general. More armors without coats and skirting, and, yes, also more of them with such (especially in Heavy where my options are more limited). But just as I wish you more options, I don't appreciate that every new armor with coats and buttcapes is met with apparent vitriol.

That might be because so many wishes for no-butt-cape armor are met with a new butt-cape (or skirt-like) pieces.

[Batel.9206]

Ugh, it's the "can we have an option to turn down visual effects" thing all over again.

- Can we have this option [less visual effects/less trenchcoats]?

- Awesome! Here's MOAR flashy lights and MOAR coats!

- ...we...we asked for less, though...

- CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER STROBE LIGHTS AND BUTTCAPES LALALA

 

[ahem] In all seriousness, while I do like trenchcoats and whatnot, I'd also like there to be more options for medium armor without the cape. It's not like the game engine is incapable of handling it due to how medium armor is constructed - armor like Elegy, the WvW armor, Strider's, etc. already exists.

Especially because my main is a male sylvari thief, and sylvari dudes in general have issues with armor ballooning out at the hips for some inexplicable reason. 😕 Trenchcoats look like ballgowns on my poor lil' guy.

[Firebeard.1746]

On 11/2/2021 at 12:43 AM, Mushin.6789 said:

So how many new trench coats will be in EoD.  Design team please stop, this isn't the Matrix. There's tons of art on Art Station to draw inspiration from.

I liked some of the Druid sets in WoW. Caster gear is possible for Leather too, and wouldn't be out of place on a Druid. They can also create their own lore for other types of clothing in Medium armor too. Some of the DH sets looked cool in WoW too, but those are based off of entirely invented class lore. 

Edited November 12, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

All I want for Medium is a proper dress. And not an outfit, there's no point if i can't wear cat ears/glasses/etc.!

 

Raven Ceremonial Gown comes close but is  110G+ on the TP.

Edited November 12, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Ashantara.8731]

13 hours ago, Duke Blackrose.4981 said:

I like trenchcoats and buttcapes though. They look good.

I like short buttcapes for Rangers. Trenchcoats only suit the Thieves profession.

Still, more options for players would be nice, especially since a lot of the viable skins (like the aforementioned PvP piece) are super ugly (low res textures, weird patterns, etc).

[draxynnic.3719]

2 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

I like short buttcapes for Rangers. Trenchcoats only suit the Thieves profession.

Still, more options for players would be nice, especially since a lot of the viable skins (like the aforementioned PvP piece) are super ugly (low res textures, weird patterns, etc).

I kinda look at it the other way around, to be honest. Trenchcoats fit Rangers as protection against the elements (look at GW1 ranger armour, that's largely where the trenchcoats and skirts being associated with medium armour came from, albeit not nearly as extreme as in GW2) and engineers as a garment that can provide protection against accidents with their equipment (there's not a lot of difference functionally between a trenchcoat and a labcoat, except that labcoats are generally made cheaply and undyed because they're only intended to be worn when there's a risk of something spilling on them) as well as providing ample space in which to add pockets for storing gadgets. While thieves can also make use of a few gadgets themselves, or wear a trenchcoat as an identity-concealing garment, thieves are probably the profession which most want to avoid having flappy bits that can be caught on their surroundings or by an enemy and thereby hinder their agile fighting styles. 

 

Bottom line, though, is that we really need genuine choices in all styles, rather than having a group which has less than ten to choose from. Again, that's less than assassin received in less than a year and a half.

[Ashantara.8731]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I kinda look at it the other way around, to be honest. Trenchcoats fit Rangers as protection against the elements (look at GW1 ranger armour, [...]

I disagree. Cloaks are for a classic fantasy ranger's protection against the elements, not trenchcoats. Yes, the chest pieces should have "buttcapes"/"skirts", but that's not the same as a trenchcoat:

https://i.imgur.com/Bm6nJVF.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/C2n6WqW.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/0LEl66o.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/VYhr6MG.jpg

 

And what are you talking about? GW1 Rangers did not typically wear trenchcoats, with only a few exceptions:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ranger_armor

Edited November 12, 2021 by Ashantara.8731

[draxynnic.3719]

17 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

I disagree. Capes are for a classic fantasy ranger's protection against the elements, not trenchcoats. Yes, the chest pieces should have "buttcapes"/"skirts", but that's not the same as a trenchcoat:

https://i.imgur.com/Bm6nJVF.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/C2n6WqW.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/0LEl66o.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/VYhr6MG.jpg

 

And what are you talking about? GW1 Rangers did not typically wear trenchcoats, with only a few exceptions:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ranger_armor

Because cloaks evolved into trenchcoats. Put sleeves on a cloak, add additional fastenings at the front, and you basically have a trenchcoat. "Classic fantasy rangers" are usually set in a period before trenchcoats were really a thing, but once they arrived, they became a more practical wilderness attire than cloaks. And in the Guild Wars context, I don't think ArenaNet has ever made a model for a proper protective cloak, just decorative capes, so trenchcoats and dusters are basically the closest thing to them.

 

Ranger armour wasn't all trenchcoats by any means (which just goes to show further how much GW2 medium armour designs have strayed from expectations), but compare to assassin armour. Male rangers have half a dozen trenchcoats (females a few less), and the only trenchcoats in the medium armour category. Assassins, the predecessors to thieves have none. Dervishes had full-on robes, essentially a light armour style with extra reinforcement, and you might have noticed dervish doesn't have a direct analogue in GW2. Male elementalist had a few longcoats, but that's an influence on light armour, not medium.

 

So the connection between medium armour and trenchcoats in Guild Wars definitely originated with ranger. It certainly not thief, since the antecedent to thief was pretty much all form-fitting leather armour.

[Ashantara.8731]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Because cloaks evolved into trenchcoats.

This is a question of taste. I prefer my Rangers high-fantasy, not modern.

We have capes now, so less trenchcoats and instead good-looking, classic armor designs would be welcome - and, as threads like these prove over and over again, many players agree with me.

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

This is a question of taste. I prefer my Rangers high-fantasy, not modern.

We have capes now, so less trenchcoats and instead good-looking, classic armor designs would be welcome - and, as threads like these prove over and over again, many players agree with me.

And I'm not disagreeing with the general principle of offering more choice, as my previous posts should show.

 

Just that the history of Guild Wars indicates that trenchcoats were originally an option for, and therefore associated with, rangers, but not assassins (which thieves are mostly based on). Therefore I disagree with your claim that it's thieves that they fit the best with and they don't fit with rangers. Engineers obviously weren't in GW1, but as I explained, the trenchcoat/duster look fits for them (although that doesn't mean they should be restricted to that look either).

 

Plus, it's a nitpick, but the capes we have now are decorative, not comparable to a traveller's cloak that is worn for protection. Most of them barely go past the waist, and they're all too narrow to wrap around the wearer for protection.

Edited November 12, 2021 by draxynnic.3719

[NotTooFoolish.7412]

9 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

And what are you talking about? GW1 Rangers did not typically wear trenchcoats, with only a few exceptions:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ranger_armor

Oh, this exactly what we need. Imagine Primeval armor as separate armor piece skins ❤️