The New Look for Circle of Thorns

Yeah, that occurred to me after I posted. Can't say there's really much I'd have the art team do other than "make new stuff." I mean, was anyone really complaining about the CoT's look?

I don't care for the new COT designs.

I feel they've gone too over the top and they don't look like COT anymore. I don't buy it.

Sorry. Can we have the old COT Back?

Sorry, it's settled. The new designs stay.

Additionally, the villain group's name will be changed from "Circle of Thorns" to "Ow! Ow! Ow! Thorny!"

you people complaining about the new looks need to calm down :P


if you recall, orenbega in the story USED to be some huge glorious city and one of the mystic superpowers of the world, so...it makes sense that they would want to make the crazed, orenbegans a bit more ornate than they already were.

I do think though...if they're going to make the CoT look this amazing, they should rework the other enemy groups as well.

Wow. Over the top, much?

And I'm speaking about the new CoT costumes. Sure, they're pretty, and really nice work on WOW SPIKY WOW PRETTY, they are indeed well made and very eye-catching... but each and every one of them looks ornate enough to qualify as a super unique, super rare boss. Every. Single. One.

So, wow. Over the top, much?
It all just looks so busy, I guess is what I'm saying. REALLLLLY busy. But it's just my preference to have one or two bits of eye-catching detail, and not an entire costume that's gobsmacks of non-stop eye-catching detail.

Yeah, this is a change I can get behind.

Every problem with the old new design gone, and every problem with the old old design fixed. Nicely done.

These costumes are a huge improvement over the last incarnation we were shown.

The Circle of Thorns is the ruling body of a dead civilization stealing back their lives from the descendants of their ancient enemy, while trying desperately to outmaneuver the forces of Hell that they unleashed trying to defeat that enemy. Their people were defeated so long ago that they barely remember who or why they are fighting.

Before this war Oranbega was peaceful, the pinnacle of knowledge and magical power on the planet. The Mu were merely tribals who were more or less conscripted by divine powers to destroy Oranbega for their audacity to be independent. But they had to have known they would eventually have to fight - they would have been prepared. So having intimidating, ornate and battle ready looking costumes makes sense. I like these costumes. Their style makes sense for the group.

Except for one thing. The highest echelon of Oranbegan power is incapable of walking past a chair or chandelier without turning sideways. Ornate is great, but having six foot wide pant legs is impractical. The Death Mage looks very intimidating, but he also looks like a pufferfish who just got startled. Does he have any idea how low the ceilings are in Oranbegan tunnels these days?

These costumes would look perfect (Life, Agony and Death) with the minor modification of moving the spikes on their pant legs closer to the ankles, and lifting the other vertices on that piece so that they retain their spikiness, but with a less horizontal flare.

However I make this minor criticism with the emphasis on the fact that I REALLY like this version, a lot. My first reaction was "Oooh! Now this I like!" I am okay with this version replacing what we have now, I simply have the kind of mind which will always see the impracticality of the costume as an immersion breaker, so I must mention it.

A subtle third color, or not so subtle helps break the cot up. Here's how I'd recolor the minions. More true to the originals.... Also runes in the archers belt

Where are the Possessed Scientists? On a side note, don't they deserve a boss class entity?

There's one right in the picture above your post

The more I look at them, the more I realize that the reason I like these new updates is because they're close to Blast Chamber's Photoshops. Then I look at BC's shops and I kinda don't like the new official CoT for how they don't look like them, then I forget about BC's shops and like the new CoT, then..................

This is what I am pushing for, done with AE custom edits.






(Male Minion figures are not available to edit in the AE.)

The reason for them being so dull is that they looked silly in their more colorful incarnations, when put next to the demon and ghost NPCs within their ranks. After testing a lot in the open air maps and Oranbega tunnels, the more dull tones help them to look like they belong while also having varied colors.

I feel that it is now somewhat of an unfair comparison, because the devs have already shown that the planned color scheme for the CoT now addresses some of the problems with the ones currently on test, but this is a comparison between current and AE edits.





Clarity of bodies and ease of threat assessment were my primary concerns. The pre-edit CoT are very guilty of being zebra-like in their silhouette breaking camouflage. When tightly packed and with powers going off, it is near impossible to distinguish them from one another.

I really like the toned-down extravagance and the better coloring edits made above! It literally takes me all the way from 'ugh these new CoT make my eyes hurt' to 'wow! that's fantastic!'

My only complaint would be that I dislike how the new clothing is...shiny? I suppose? It looks incredibly like plastic to me, and I find that plastic look really cheesy. Cloth, silk, even leather would be great... but not plastic, please. Maybe it only looks that way in the screenshots, however? Is it different in-game?

Those edits in Oranbega look a lot better than the striped ones!

@Shazzie: I think it's supposed to be snake skin, which would be leather.