TLDR: the huge plumes and shields make them less distinguishable.
Disclaimer: the model quality and art are good but some details need to be revisited
In legacy, only hoplite gets a huge plume on the helmet and large round shields.
Toxotes and hypaspists have smaller plumes and smaller shields.
The weapons look very different.
The placement of player colors and the somewhat comical body proportions also make them look very different from afar.
Now here’s the problem with the new models:
Hoplite is the same as before so fine.
Hypaspist: the plume is very large, even though it is vertical and the hoplite one is horizontal, they still look like a similar batch of player colors when zoomed out.
And the shield is almost the same as the hoplite in size and pattern. Because shields and their patterns really stand out, they are actually pivotal in distinguishing units.
Toxotes: again, large plumes.
Also the arrow is so long and huge that it looks like a spear, making it actually less distinguishable. I’m not a fan of the “huge weapons to identify units” design logic since DE, but I get the point. However this time it’s doing the opposite.
I need more images from different directions to draw the conclusion, but the distribution of player colors seems very similar across these units.
Furthermore, the weapon textures are almost universally “a huge piece of shining metal”. If you look at legacy models, there are very distinct color schemes on the weapons.
Good thing is the poses are different enough.
I feel it’s the same thing as the excessive use of horned helmets on Norse units.
hm didn’t look at detail of the human units till now personally. but i personally thinkt he overall design is a huge upgrade. especially for Hypaspist who always looked a bit hilarious to me. looks now proper badass. glad to see hoplites look still the same. coolest human greek unit with myrmidons IMO.
i personally don’t see a problem with a a bit oversized weapons better those arrows than those in AoE4 IMO. i also like the look of the metal.
but i have to agree with you that the shields and their similarity between hoplites and Hypaspists are a problem aswell as the helmet between Hypaspists and Toxotes.
Maybe make the shields for Hypaspists bigger? And the plumes for Toxotes shorter?
Correction: just checked again and legacy hypaspist shield is also the same size as hoplite.
Maybe it’s the pose they’re holding them make them feel very different.
Pose and cape will make them distinguishable.
I prefer hypaspist holding their shields facing back like they did in original AoM. The large greek shield is so iconic and if Hypaspist holds his shield facing front, I think it makes it hard to distinguish Hypaspist and Hoplite in a quick glance.
i like the new pose. i just think they really should make the shield bigger since Hypaspist counters infantry. btw talking about this unit, i personally hope Hypaspist will move less “goofy” in Retold.
I personally really don’t like the armour though tbh.
Classical Age → Copper Weapons/Mail/Shields
Heroic Age → Bronze Weapons/Mail/Shields
Mythic Age → Iron Weapons/Mail/Shields
But the armour comes form the unit upgrades:
Classical Age → Medium Infantry/Archers/Cavalry
Heroic Age → Heavy Infantry/Archers/Cavalry
Mythic Age → Champion Infantry/Archers/Cavalry
The Heavy looks like Iron despite the icon of the upgrade and the weapons of that Age are Bronze.
The Champion looks like Gold/Bronze despite the icon and the upgrades of that Age are Iron.
So in Heroic Age you have Bronze looking weapons with Iron armour and in Mythic Age you have Iron looking weapons but Gold/Bronze armour.
To me my fear is that the greek infantry, cavalry, and even the toxotes, units will wear all corinthian helmets, or at least that it looks in the promo images, i like the variety in the original aom where we can see other helmets styles, like athic and phrygian and only the Hoplite wear the Corinthian helmet (The hippikon too but the original aom Hippikon has a very small and weird shaped head.
Since the aom greeks are based of the hellenic period, i would like to see also more linothorax, thracian and pylos helmets, but this is just a personal opinion.
Maybe other option is make the shield patterns different between units.
I think the hypaspist and toxotes helmets are still different from the hoplite. But again the huge plume makes them feel similar.
They seem to impose “huge plumes” as a universal icon for Greek units like how they overused horns in the new Norse unit models.
Interestingly though, in early screenshots before the release of the original, Greek units especially the hoplite had Mycenaean styles. Maybe to match the Trojan War theme.
