Appearance over stats?

[NiceLord]

Awsome looking characters is #1! I even keep old armor and clothes in my inventory to wear.

 

[Gardenia]

When i play RPGs i always have to make a decision, a few more stats towards an attribute and have to wear something that doesn't match the rest of my armor or the opposite, get some more stats and look slightly ridiculous.

In almost all of these occurrences i will choose to keep my matching appearance over an item that will give me a few more points to my endurance. Obviously if it is a huge bonus to a stat i will choose the stats over appearance, i'm not THAT stupid.

So what about you Escapist? Would you rather keep a matching suit of Finely crafted elven armor, or walk around with a pair of green shorts that do not match the rest of your outfit what so ever?

Play Guild Wars. Why choose one when you can have both?

 

[Gitty101]

It honestly all depends on either how good something looks/is stats wise. If it looks amazing - I will choose it over average or even good stats. But if the stats make the armour truly special, I will take it over appearances.

 

[The Hero Killer]

Appearance by far. If I cant look cool then I'm not wearing it.

 

[Rainforce]

as long as it doesn't kill me, I go for visual. also, I just don't NEED the best stats/gear/whatsoever, It doesn't matter if I do 260 or 240 damage, on whatever scale.

 

[Rems]

I always choose visuals/style over stats. Rpg's are about immersion the story and the characters for me. It's hard to stay focused on that if all i cant think of is how stupid i look or how out of character/style.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

I try to go for both (i.e: if I get a magical helmet of potatoes I'll pick an armour set that loosely matches it).

 

[Mafoobula]

Reason #18 why I like WoW. I have a set of gear with the great stats and, and a set of gear with style. Fortunately, most of the gear sets look good anyway. Annnnd I'm a mage, meaning I'm almost always in a robe to cover the clown pants.

 

[Wolf-AUS]

I almost always do this. Half of RPGs is style and role playing anyway so it would be pointless if you had to go around like an idiot (which you often do). I wish designers would consider aesthetics more when designing clothing (I'm looking at you, monk's head wrappings).

Why did it have to be so damn good? I ended up making a faith build and just wore armour that made me look like a badarse, had a much more satisfying time

OT: Like a lot of people here I'll go for visuals over stats unless I'm crippling myself excessively by doing so.

 

[WanderingFool]

This is one of the things that annoyed me constantly when I played Wow. I discovered that most if not all the armor from BC (I only played during that time, when WotLK came out, I was already done) looked like shit compared to the pre-BC armor. Further more, you would find armor that didnt have a set that would be better stats wise, resulting in the "Clown Suit" effect.

The way I see it, until it becomes obvious that I wont survive with my visually appealing armor, I keep looks over stats.

 

[Insanity72]

A bit of both. I love appearance, but if this G-String of Power will make me immortal, count me in!

G-string of power......hot....

 

[Mauso88]

It's all about the stats for me, I don't care if a look like an explosion at fashion show. The endless micro management makes it all worthwhile when I go to fight a horde of enemies and walk away without so much as a scratch.
Perhaps I just have a tolerance for mindless tedium, who knows?

 

[Dracowrath]

Most of the times I'll go with stats over appearance, unless the difference is only very slight and the lesser item looks much more awesome. Earlier today, just before the last battle in DA2 I found a body armor for my warrior hawke which gave the same stats as the Champion's body armor except the stats were much higher and it added +47 defense. I almost used it instead, since I felt the set bonus wasn't worth it. But unlike the champion armor, this piece had no rune slots. So to make up for the loss, I simply put a rune of defense and a rune of valiance on the champion armor.

 

[Insanity72]

Here is an example

http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=demon%27s+souls+old+monk&hl=en&safe=active&gbv=2&biw=1920&bih=950&tbm=isch&tbnid=kyb3R057fM5X1M:&imgrefurl=http://videogamesasart.com/post/938170465/demons-souls-monks-head-collar-head&docid=ygiVHUHFk8uMGM&w=500&h=444&ei=pTZ_TtaeOqXPmAWNoLSiBQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=638&vpy=146&dur=658&hovh=212&hovw=238&tx=135&ty=98&page=1&tbnh=145&tbnw=163&start=0&ndsp=47&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0

Would you really like to go around wearing that just for the stats?

 

[Lilani]

When i play RPGs i always have to make a decision, a few more stats towards an attribute and have to wear something that doesn't match the rest of my armor or the opposite, get some more stats and look slightly ridiculous.

In almost all of these occurrences i will choose to keep my matching appearance over an item that will give me a few more points to my endurance. Obviously if it is a huge bonus to a stat i will choose the stats over appearance, i'm not THAT stupid.

So what about you Escapist? Would you rather keep a matching suit of Finely crafted elven armor, or walk around with a pair of green shorts that do not match the rest of your outfit what so ever?

When I played Final Fantasy XI, I mostly played mage classes. Now at higher levels, all classes, but ESPECIALLY mage classes require frequent equipment changes to maximize the effect of whatever you're doing (intelligence enhancers for black magic, mind enhancers for white magic, defense when you pull hate). So during battle, I really didn't care how I looked. My scholar class would switch between three different body pieces alone, one for white magic, one for black, and a third for when I was resting.

However, I kept my inventory as large as I could so that I could carry around a "pretty" set of armor to change into and run around in. It was usually the hard-earned class-exclusive set (called "artifact" armor) that you could only get through quests. One thing about FFXI is that the aesthetics and costume design are absolutely gorgeous, so there is always a way for you to look good in that game.

 

[dayjack01]

am i the only one who just runs around naked in these games?

 

[Sovereign _909]

Good looking vs minor state increase->good looking
Good looking vs major state increase->major state increase

Used this in Mass Effect 1 (I Did enjoy in ME2 where you made your armor look however you wanted then just bought upgrades).

On the subject of mismatched pieces, I must say I like the look. A single theme is cool, but walking around with different pieces cobbled together just say "I have been at this for a long time, and nothing is going to stop me".

 

[Hides His Eyes]

I made this thread a while back

As I said last time, Neverwinter Nights got it perfect. Nine levels of armour, ranging from zero protection but maximum flexibility up to maximum protection but also lots of encumberment. But at each of the nine levels there are five or six different "looks" for each armour. So once you've figured out what balance of protection vs. flexibility you want, you can still have a choice of which outfit looks coolest or fits most closely with your concept.

Compare that to, say, Oblivion. Think chainmail armour looks cooler than glass armour? Too fucking bad, glass armour's better.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Look almost every time. In Oblivion, I wore leather armour practically all the time simply becaus eit looked the part.

 

[Yopaz]

I like matching gear. If it looks completely fucked up when i've put on all the gear that gives me the best stats i'll look for the lowest stat thing that can be removed and replaced with something more stylish. Usually it ends up being the highest stat item because they tend to roll in one at a time and i won't have a suitable set until i'm alsmot at the end of the game...

This. Which is why I loved Monster Hunter Tri. They awarded you for having a complete set with armour, shoes, belt, helmet gauntlets and all that.
I often choose to use weapons that look cool if they're not much worse than the best weapons.

Take the joke weapons in Tales of Symphonia. They were special weapons and they were stronger than all weapons that did not require side quests to get. Except for the totally ultimate weapons (which were the ones with the worst stats, but had a different damage model) they were actually worth using.