What is with this game and BDSM armor?

Conan Exiles General Discussion
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Like 95% of the armor sets are clearly modeled with extreme BDSM in mind. I for one would like to see a BDSM filter, something I can set to perhaps put a crotch or rear to assless-chaps. I’d love to be able to toggle something to remove gags, nipple clamps, chains and flat out holes put through the armors. It’s hard to take the game seriously when your character is dressed like a hardcore-gimp. Then add the suggestive emotes, melee lunges and prancing?

Seriously, can you imagine Funcom having these early art, design, modeling, etc. meetings & discussions at work? How did this not result in anything other than the immediate termination of the employee who suggested it???

WAIT here comes the Roman armor set to finally save the day! …only it’ll just be a cosmetic change to the broken armor “system” that lacks any sensible balancing or reason to even use most of the gear.

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You never saw the conan movies did you?

All these sets are from the movies or books. That’s what they looked like

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I’m going to have to call you out on that one; no sir they did not. Have you taken a close look at the Stygian Raider set?

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Since we no longer possess the negatives from the Classic Roman Epoch including Ancient Rome, I doubt anybody has a clear understanding of what “the clothes” were like, any more than historians have a single clue about customary garb for the Cahokians. The layers of history are dense and deep.

That said, the grabs and assets I’ve seen look a lot more like legionary Byzantine cohort gear, circa mid- 10th century.

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I’m going to have to agree with the initial post here, most of the armors have a serious fetish feel. The reference material had skimpy armor but they still had more cloth than most of these designs.

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Quite the expected in the Sword and Sorcery genre. I just googled images of “sword and sorcery artwork” and was confronted with much flesh, mostly male.

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I think there is some misunderstanding of armor types and fighting styles from stone age and early metal work periods, being put under a microscope of modern values and interpretation here.

A lot of individual fighting was done nude and near nude, because armor bits do go into wounds, and make otherwise survivable wounds lethal when you have no effective medical disciplines.

Flexible, and breathable armor, able to withstand fighting long enough to be worth it, was not in many cultures capability to do economically. You had chafing, human fleas, material rot, all leading back to the infection issue as well.

What was left were ‘precautionary’ armor pieces, meant to protect major blood vessels at the neck, under the armpits, and inner groin (center groin if you were lucky), or classic ‘kidney belt’, and even these were often not effective enough to justify wearing in non formation melee. Formation melee is a whole other deal. Easy to wear proto scale and plate a third your body weight, when a mate is covering your vulnerable side with a shield and all you have to do is go forward with a pike.

So in short, armor sucked, and posed more of a risk than was worth it for those engaged in non formation melee. Thus lacking armor, flexibility, and raw agility from being as unencumbered as possible was your best bet, and that comes with being bare.

Now put this in the Hyborian Age, a fictional prehistoric period with races of differing technical levels meeting, and you get many other considerations that add on here. You also have the writing of R.E.H., which does make note of how bare many are while fighting.

I think Funcom nailed it on most of the armors I have seen.

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Perhaps for the sake of clarity could you perhaps post some pictures of the particular armor sets you are talking about?

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What is their to clarify? Is there a particular armor set you have in mind that you feel a reasonable person would say is just the lowest denominator of fan service?

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That was meant to be directed at the OP…

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I just read Pool of the Black One. Bunch of naked pirates and a naked concubine (Sancha, who’s in Age of Conan). This game is normally tame by comparison.

Here’s my suggestion. If you have any sort of puritanical modesty. Uninstall the game. You’ll do yourself and everyone else here a big favor. Best to let it go.

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It looks like you either misunderstand the argument or are misrepresenting it to make yourself feel better. I don’t think anyone here is objecting to showing skin, more the way its done. Conan is a hyper-sexualized universe to be sure, but that doesn’t mean I want to walk around in armor that is less functional and more fetish. Lets take the hyperborean slaver as an example. Heavy armor that has my character running around showing off his ■■■ cheeks. while having almost no upper armor. Or the Darfari light armor, that is literally just a loincloth, or the stygian archer medium armor that has backless leggings. These things fit in the conan universe on a certain level, yes, but not something every player wants to show off or meets the functional aspirations of our other speakers here. If you look at the various art styles from the conan media there is almost always more to it than the bare minimum; accents, like claws, fangs, bones, hanging jewelry, layers of detail or clothing. The exiles designs are not about a functional minimal rather they carry off a fetish design, with open chest armor where it wouldn’t be necessary or wise, among other things. It really looks to me like they got carried away with their vaunted cloth system and that is why actual pants are a rarity.

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Don’t like it? Don’t wear it.

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So basically you think most of the armor looks like something out of Voldo’s closet?

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If the armor system was more modular that might be an option, but they decided to make more work than necessary for themselves and tie stats into certain designs.

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I love the way Conan Exiles actually sexualizes everything.

It’s the reason i’m not playing ESO, where armor makes so much sense, everyone looks like a heavily studded sack.

I quit WoW, cuz all of the new armors are also studded sacks with adornments.

I play Conan because I want soft-■■■■. Let this game stay European, not become American. . Kthx.

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Ever read the description to some of the armors? The hyperborean slaver one in particular…
Because according to the description: “It is considered a challenge among Hyperborean slavers to go bare-chested on their raids, wearing nothing more than this waistguard. While it offers less protection than steel leggings and a breastplate, it intimidates newly caught slaves into submission.”

Now with that exact one off, it’s just a game… Seriously… Plus it’s just very typical Conan universe armor… Not saying every armor is like this of course, but still… I’d say, just deal or stop playing… For me, i think it’s fine, because the armors in game fit the way i know and “understand”, for lack of a better word, the Conan universe

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“Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.” - Conan, novelette; Weird Tales 23 5, May 1934

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You have no idea how much I agree with you here. The Fashionist mod needs to be made an official part of the game.

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Never read any of the stories… never watched the movies… complains about the aesthetics of the genre.

A good place to start would be to google “Frazetta Conan”
(I would post some examples, but not sure about copyright on the forum etc)

Also, much of the design choices are adaptations of Funcom’s other Conan game - Age of Conan: Unchained.

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