While there are certainly examples of large shoulder pieces fitted like modern epaulettes in historic armor, it seems like we continually get essentially the same look with different colors and patterns. At worst some of these look like characters in football pads. How about some variety in the actual shape around the shoulders and torso area especially? Here's a few historical examples below. Granted some of these are nobility and perhaps not all for the common solider, but the idea is that this probably can be spiced beyond a few color and dimension changes in the existing model. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22275 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/23939 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/23944 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22521 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/35775 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/24937
I would like to see some of the heroes forge armor use the original Luclin robe design. I would like to see them add robe graphics for the missing luclin races.
There have been many posts in the past about the excessive shoulder pads on EQ armor. I have even posted a few times a link to an EQ parody webcomic that makes fun of it. So, yes, I don't wear many items because of the ridiculous shoulder pads.
Daybreak artists often use the same tired old 3D templates for many Hero's Forge armor pieces. It is relatively quick, and it is, to be frank, rather lazy. Almost no player uses leather masks, except BDSM players, and the double epaulettes look pretty awful. That stuff needs to be revamped.
Scrolling through the marketplace and looking at things like shield skins, there are SO many of them that are hovering in space not even near, much less attached to the character's arm. Enough daylight to throw a football through.
Speaking of masks, I really liked the way they used the helmet ornamentation to give the illusion of a mask in the Thaell Ew chain hero's forge set. I'd like to see more of this.
With each update EQ PC models went worse so there better won't be another one. It is hardly apprehensible why SOE had let noobs work on the TSoL PC models anno 2001 as PC models and their armors are such an important key factor in an MMO. While some heroes forge armor does look nice, most of them are ugly. Big mistake to remove the armor dye feature as there is near zero armor ornamentation that does fit to the rogue class. The oversized shoulderpads and oversized equipment in generally are really horrible and only do get topped by the majority of the shield ornaments. In Overseer there are now even manga style agents (Carlene Snizzlefriz) so the direction the game is going to is sometimes grotesque and inexcusable. I do like most of the revamped TSoV armor ornamentations tho. However they should had been copied more accurately. Back to the roots is definetly the right way imo. Medieval armor replicas would be a bad solution as EQ has its own style. The heroes forge medieval plate helmets are already very strange. Basically it would be the time for a complete PC model overhaul but I do not put much trust into the artists as all in all past work was to strange. The quality control was poor and to many bad decisions had been made without embedding the community and EQ veterans.
That reminded me of this video. And a little later there were these guys. I think this is where WoW shoulder pad designers got their inspiration.