More Revealing Outfits

[Leriko]

"There will be less outfits with too much exposure or somewhat revealing designs."

How about you don't do this and instead provide a fashion experience similar to the MMO this game is based off? With lots of risque outfits, and even an option to choose/customize character underwear, no matter the sex of the character. After all, Western attention, at the moment, is focused on this game due in part to Stellar Blade's rising popularity revolving around its heavy fanservice designs and costumes, as well as the idea this game seemed to be heading in the same direction while also being produced by Korean developers. People are desperate for games with those kinds of designs at the moment, and disappointing people in the long run with what seems to be a bait-and-switch isn't going to help this game at all. Especially if people look into it thinking it'll have designs similar to the Vindictus MMO.

[Ven]

I mean if you go take a look in the Screenshots/artwork section you'll see what players responded to the most

[vilvec]

Well, they do this because Vindictus had many many armor sets and very rarely rather mild sexy ones. They stick quite close to very initial designs, Lanns new armor has hints of the old Sinister Half Plate.
Season 1 had a different design team than season 2 and so on. Specially for Season 1 it's difficult to pin down one, but in the Credits you have KeunWoo Lee, JinHyung Kim, HyoungWoo Kim and SeungMin Lee. There was rarely revealing armor, mostly heavy stuff where you couldn't distinguish between men & women. Spider Glory Armor would be one of those. Laghodessa as well of course. Recently while indulging in nostalgia I went through old screenshots. I was surprised how many armor sets were just variations of armor. There were female only armors like "Silent Quemielle" or such that were heavy plate armor. Glas' Raiders was very popular for it's short skirt. Swift & Black Hammer armor was popular for its heavy leather look that some considered a biker look. Would post pictures as examples, but can't in the thread. There were some costumes, but those were rather mild as well. Armor would break and leave you in your underwear ("inner armor"). Some armor designs had very wacky designs, like the huge thorns of Laghodessa armor, the strange hats of Evie or the big sting on Black Hammer. Or Erg River Set, that had a bicket of ergs on your back. Northern Spike showed a lot of skin, but still had a lot of metal. Stuff like Shining Will was the exception, not the rule. Evie had quite some cute stuff, which led people to play her as a fashion doll.

In Season 2, most Concept Art had "Celder" as artist on it. You can find his artstation (https://celder.artstation.com/). They kept heavy armors, but the were less gritty, more fantasy. Less wonky design. Season 2 started more of the loot boxes with costumes. Those loot box costumes is what developed into what you are referring to. But not yet, because they really got a lot more common from 2016 onwards/looks more like 2014 with Succubus Queen. Not sure when Celder left or did his own thing, but I haven't seen his signature on season 3 concept art. wrong again, Laura still has his signature. New armor sets are rare now. Usually just one for the new level cap (considering that 2015 was 90 and we have 115 now. Meaning new armor every 1.5 years or so). But a new costume asset flip every month for the loot boxes. The costumes were usually lewd, the armors followed to some degree.

Depending on what you consider relevant for Vindictus, you are right or wrong. From what I've seen the developers presenting so far, it seems like they want to bring back the era from Season 1. Vindictus, the online one, will still be developed and will bring new costumes. But it's story went so far off the rails of the original concept, that it became it's own thing. Vindictus: Defying Fate starts anew, suggesting they would want the original setting. That setting includes a lot of armor sets. Doesn't mean it has to be this way, but that's how it looks to me. I found the variety of stuff they had in season 1 very enjoyable, while the creativity slowly decreased with a sharper turn down after Ben Chenner in Season 3.

TLDR: If they do designs similar to the Vindictus, you'll rarely see any skin. If they do designs similar to the loot boxes in Vindictus, then you'll have lewd outfits.

[Setian]

I wonder why they mention less and why this would be so important.
Its not like original vinductus had a majority of revealings skins.

Players just choose for the revealing skins, I remember season 2 had almost no revealing skins... but almost everyone reskinnen the lvl 80 gear with level 60 revealing looks.

I don't know if its something woke... or to make the game more appealing to a wider audience... I'm of the opinion the priority should not be on making the outfits less revealing but to make a quality game first.

[vilvec]

Oh, it is important ...for Korea. The expectation is to have revealing outfits, not the other way around. To expect realism in proportions or include "normal bodyshapes" is only true for the american influenced market.
The expectation is to at least have some kind of swimsuit event or something. So I guess it's some kind of expectation management. Lewd swimsuits sound great on paper, because it's fun to have some downtime every so often. But not providing such content can cause serious backlash in Korea.

What level 60 armor do you think would be as revealing as to exclude them? I doubt stuff like Broken Feather or Wonderland would even count as "revealing". In the level 80 times many used Pirate, Everlasting and Black Pearl as well. Everlasting was quite risque, but it was an interesting design. Will be interesting to see if that would be considered too much. They did close up Shining Will compared to the old version, so who knows where they draw the line.

I absolutely agree that the game needs to be good first and foremost. Interesting boss patterns, good feeling in movement, attacks that give good feedback on hits (very happy that hit-confirming is already a thing in the pre-alpha), interesting and challenging AI. Positioning was always good fun too.

Hopefully there will be many armor designs that are cool, dark, interesting and sometimes a bit wonky, sometimes a bit lewd. Variation is key. If less revealing means excluding the outfits that Vindictus sells nowadays (just look at the news for whatever crystal is sold on the storepage for the old Vindictus) I'm happy about it. I can't see how Broken Feather or Temptress could be considered "too revealing" - specially since Shining Will seems to be fine.

[Sweets]

idk i kinda agree with op

the erotic and wild looks Vindictus had, kept it alive to this day and kinda suits the game. Removing or lowering it would feel odd.

Yeah in modern games it is frowned at to have fan service but 1 game still keeping the ol style of extreme oversexualized armors and characters would not hurt

[vilvec]

Not sure either. I wouldn't want any designer to restrict outfit design either. The old Vindictus definitely lost me on the AC outfits and the K-Pop stuff. The "funny" bumper cars outfit was a hard miss as well.

I mostly argue for keeping it believable within the world. Not realistic, but immersive. The Secret Agent Outfits and later loot box stuff certainly broke that for me. But everyone will draw that line at a different point. I've met ppl complaining about the midriff of Apocalypse (great design imo) as well as players angry when they prohibited coloring the undies in skin color (that was funny though).

My problem with the later lewd stuff just boils down to the uninspired nature of it. The forced nature of it needing to be lewd all the time.

Keeping it with Vindictus: Defying Fate... I'm not too happy so far. Shining Will looks good, although it's basically a ceremonial armor, which is far too shiny with its little details. I miss the roughness that can come with armor. The Merc outfit has nice materials, the badges, belts & knife are nice touches.
The hotpants costume ... it's great to look at but doesn't fit too well. It's sorta reminiscent of the first Succubus and it's fine.
The white cloth dress is mostly boring imo. Not sure if that material fits too well, might be an edge case. Probably going more towards the Sophitia/Elysium design from Soul Calibur might work better. Good costume to test unrestrained jiggle physics (really appreciate that the jiggle adapts for the costume you're wearing - Vindictus had that too and it's a nice touch). Nice to look at if you're in the mood.
The yoga outfit completely misses me. How does that fit into the world? I like the underboob for obvious reasons, but yogapants and sneakers? Really?
The last one is too fatasy imo. Only positive here is the helmet with hood & horns, which looks cool although edgy. It's a classic loot box costume that tries so hard to look cool, that it's rather meh.

If they decide that this is the direction they want to go - oh well. I'd rather see other designs. As long as there are lots of armors there should be some interesting ones. And if it's sinple-player/co-op you can do your own thing. A hub with glowing wings, glowing weapons, comrades and objects would be ♥♥♥♥.

But alas, those are just opinions - to each his own.

One more thing: Even if oversexualisation is frowned upon in western big budget titles, there are more options than ever to find outright perverted stuff. The middle ground is kinda rare though.

[Leriko]

Originally posted by vilvec:

One more thing: Even if oversexualisation is frowned upon in western big budget titles, there are more options than ever to find outright perverted stuff. The middle ground is kinda rare though.

I think the reason why people scramble for the first instance of the middle ground (re: Stellar Blade, et cetera) is because any requests for - or complaints against the censorship of - the middle ground instantly gets you branded, by many, as a coomer/porn addict/gooner/coom brain/whatever insult there is. People have trouble distinguishing the middle ground eye candy from fully erotic material, and there's just no in-between for people to enjoy, especially in the Western industries, from AAA to indie. So as a rambling comment, yes, pornography exists, but I don't *want* to get off in that way, necessarily. I just like seeing attractive characters in attractive and compromising outfits doing a variety of RPG things, and MMO Vindictus offers that and gave me the hope Defying Fates would, too.

[Tariff Mike Hawk]

Originally posted by Leriko:

"There will be less outfits with too much exposure or somewhat revealing designs."

How about you don't do this and instead provide a fashion experience similar to the MMO this game is based off? With lots of risque outfits, and even an option to choose/customize character underwear, no matter the sex of the character. After all, Western attention, at the moment, is focused on this game due in part to Stellar Blade's rising popularity revolving around its heavy fanservice designs and costumes, as well as the idea this game seemed to be heading in the same direction while also being produced by Korean developers. People are desperate for games with those kinds of designs at the moment, and disappointing people in the long run with what seems to be a bait-and-switch isn't going to help this game at all. Especially if people look into it thinking it'll have designs similar to the Vindictus MMO.

I agree. This has the potential to be PC's equivalent of stellar blade

[TysonL]

will buy

[Discombobulating]

+1 The more revealing outfits the more i'm interested.