what armor might look like if it used the MTX version of the god wars sets

[peak oyster]

Saw a post on redddit where mod ryan said there's an update pending for later this year to update the smithable metal sets to be more in line with the game's art direction. So i thought, what would it look like if we used the paid version of rune armor on all smithed metal sets? this is a concept for what they could look like compared to what we have now.

and yes, besides from me using the smudge tool to create my own version of the dragon full helm, the majority of this is done using ai and the saradomin set in the bottom right.

[abstract wing]

Those all look great

[fallen glen]

Aside from the dragon helmets, I think that these look quite nice. Hopefully a possible concept taken into account when the time comes!

[abstract wing]

Old dragon armor for comparison

[tired raven]

Huh. i actually really like that look. Dragon especally. A few tweaks could be made but overall itspretty nice

[gaunt root]

I like most of the current smithed armor models, although Mithril and Adamant look a little chunky. I also really dislike any helmet plumes but maybe that’s just me.

[peak oyster]

the current ones look like garbage and jagex has acknowledged it

[wind pewter]

ughhh... hell no for that dragon full helm. Hmm... Yeah, it's easy to tell this ai. Yeah, ik you said that in your post too. I read it. I'd rather they just look like what's already been going around from this pic. Gotta say I would personally prefer the current dragon armor be an updated version of the retro one too.

[gaunt root]

Besides the helmet plumes the reforged models look pretty good, but I like the unique models a bit more

[wind pewter]

Something maybe like this by LegendsArts for full Dragon would be very fitting imo. Maybe just a bit less bulky.

[bleak trail]

The one part of old graphics I actively miss is helmet plumes. helmet plumes are amazing

[peak oyster]

i think dragon should stand out more than regular armor as the next tier of gear. i like the long neck that rs3 uses vs the osrs style of dragon. the other issue is you blow through the levels so quickly in this game that you don't spend a lot of time using those items.

[wind pewter]

I suppose part of what made Dragon armor look cool is that it did stand out more because of all the spikes and ofc the bright red color. I personally don't like the long neck look.

I do think the current in game dragon full helm looks okay, but to me at least, it doesn't look like a dragon helmet. If I were ignorant and had to guess, I'd guess it's part of Demon armor set or something. It looks like demon armor to me.

The retro look is just what the majority of people, including me, would consider dragon armor to be, which is why I would prefer for it to go back to those fundemental designs. Like the plume being part of rs helmets. It's just something that's become very rs and part of the rs basic armor identity. The black crest, white/gray spikes, and black plume have themselves become part of what makes dragon armor, dragon armor.

You right about blowing through levels, but hey, we can always keepsake cool armors we like and see them on us all the time c:

[frozen barn]

helmet plumes, insignias, and the horns/spikes being a different color than the metal are all what the armor is missing

[frozen barn]

I REALLY don't think it's a good idea to just revert the armor to look all same-y like that. I've seen others say that the highly visible visual progression is what stands out and makes all of them shine and look excellent and unique, and I have to agree with that. Only thing is their textures should be modernized and their shapes tweaked to fit thematically with their respective metals, and just look a little better in general. There's just a LOT that we lose with the option on the left.

Plus, the barrows equipment in their current stylings are basically retooled from the base metal sets, and a reversion would cause a disconnect.

[wind pewter]

I understand your point and I agree that the current in game armors do look like they get visually stronger through the tiers. I'm not for it or against. I think it's cool if they do visually look stronger.

The reason I'm indifferent is because the whole point as to why Addy armor is stronger than bronze was never that it covers more of you, but simply that addy is a stronger ore and metal, so ofc it was the better armor. Higher tier armor didn't necessarily need to cover more to show that progression. It also made me question as to why, addy or bronze, we'd make armor that doesn't cover every part of your body? It seems like a bad decision to do that for your armor.

For example, you look at a current in game "full" bronze helmet and a bronze med helm and there's barely any difference between them. A new player, heck the majority of players would not be able to see one and know with 100% certainty if they're looking at a full or med bronze helmet because they basically look the the same cause of the whole visual progression thing. Contrast this with the addy med and full helm and the differences become way more apparent.

Further, I think it it a very important to note how big of identity these armors are to the game, to all of rs. While differences are cool, they get away from a solid visual standard that makes these known that they are from rs, that when they are seen anywhere, people know they are from rs. For example, you see an armor with full face guard and purple plume that's rs. That has become an easy, recognizable thing from the game.

Anyway, whether we prefer something or not, who cares because I think the progression thing can exist along with having a grounded indentity the Jagex team is going for. Mostly all basic armors need full helms with the guard and purple plume. That pic and the one Phage posted are all good starting points. Whatever they do is likely to an improvement than what we currently have. I hope.

[gaunt root]

IDK if it’s possible tech-wise but maybe we could get a toggle like with the retro skill capes?

[frozen barn]

I wasn't even really specifying coverage wrt visual progression, heck I don't even see anything from steel to rune covering each other any more or less than the other, that problem's restricted to bronze and iron. I just think that different metals would need different processes and techniques to properly shape them, alongside them needing different shapes overall in order to meet a desired outcome, e.g. a bronze sword would need to be differently shaped from an iron sword on account of different strength, malleability, etc. Heck, runite has lore that specifies that its toughness is in part due to it generating a magical membrane on its outside, which should feed into how a smith shapes the metal and what they shape it into. I think metal armors in Daemonheim were originally designed with that in mind, but they also suffer from some level of sameyness between certain tiers (though that can be explained away with all the metals having the same taint of Daemonheim that leads to less needed differentiation in their shaping).

But with game identity, I can't fully agree with "face cover and plume makes it visibly identifiable as RS." That's oldschool. Same origin, different game. Sure it's recognizable, especially being the same style of RuneScape that everyone who's played RS grew up with, but even if oldschool is more popular than RS3, I don't think we should seek to implement certain stylizations on the basis of recognizability of something else. I can agree with ensuring some form of consistency, but the popularized retro plate reversion would lose a lot of visual identity of each tier of equipment. Same would have to retroactively apply to orikalkum and above.

Plus, it'd make their cosmetic override releases in Marketplace pointless. Not that that specifically would be something to avoid, I mean it wouldn't be too bad to me if they were suddenly made free or ingame items separate from their originals, but I just think it'd be weirdly specifically cluttery and a little unnecessarily confusing if we have the ingame item of a Saradomin platebody not only be identical to the Marketplace Saradomin platebody override, but also the ingame version still be able to be keepsaked. As one example.

however, I will agree to giving ALL full helmets plumage, as well as making the current bronze and iron full helms into their medium helmets and visually make the full helms face guarded (of course, not with the SAME face guards). Less of a recognizability thing and more of a rule of cool imho. If that does make it more recognizable as RS somehow, then sure, let that be a bonus.

[peak oyster]

rs3 comes off as the ugly middle stepchild. osrs and dw both use the same look for their full helms.

[wind pewter]

I mean both osrs and rs3 are runescape. The current armors osrs uses now were used in rs3 when it was rs2 too. This identity was established before the release of osrs imo. But I think I understand your point better now. Idk much about smithing or metallurgy but I assume different minerals could be shaped to almost any form with proper tools and knowhow? Idk. I do think the chain/med/skirts did always add bit or nice variance, like I said, I don't mind it.

[frozen barn]

well yeah, any form sure, but I think if you had bronze equipment shaped the same as runite, the runite-shaped bronze equipment would be substandard compared to the standardized bronze shape of bronze equipment.

I'm not big on metallurgy myself, but if irl is anything to go by, then it'd make sense for different metals shaped into armor to themselves be shaped differently. Chemistry and physics and all that.

[frozen barn]

Just checked Dragonwilds' page on armor, and sure. I'll even grant that with that pic being of white armor being compared to OSRS and RS3 steel, considering Dragonwilds steel is visually very similar to Dragonwilds white, and both seeming to be more visually aligned to OSRS steel than RS3 steel. Same can't be said about Dragonwilds bronze or iron though. Bronze especially seems to borrow its aesthetics from RS3, iron a little bit less so but it's still there, and it looks like black armor is gonna be mostly RS3 inspired.

Big ups to green d'hide in Dragonwilds, that looks fantastic and nicely divorced from both RS3 and OSRS' aesthetics. Honestly that should be the posterboy for the Dragonwilds payer character.