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Posts posted by Vastlyapparent
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I've always felt armor should be kept in 4 some-what abstract categories/tiers, and then have the material an/or quality dictate individual armor pieces exact stats, with armor types/designs relating to appearence. The tiers really just determines how the specific piece of armor relates to, protection, mobility/speed and endurance. Protection could be, deflecting attacks, reducing damage, or even increasing an opponents miss chance (a sheet of clothing may not stop a sword, but it makes you difficult to see!). Mobility could be your ability to outright dodge, use skills, how quickly you traverse the battlefield, or how quickly you attack. And Endurance would dictate how readily your skills and abilities are available to you, this might increase the cost of a skill, the time it takes between uses or weaken the an abilities effectiveness.
The 4 tiers are the established standards:
No armor / Adorments (Tier 0)
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Protection - None (_)
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Mobility - 100% (+++)
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Endurance - 100% (+++)
Light (Tier 1)
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Protection - Minor (+)
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Mobility - 100% (+++)
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Endurance - 110% (++)
Medium (Tier 2)
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Protection - Moderate (++)
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Mobility - 90% (++)
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Endurance - 110% (++)
Heavy (Tier 3)
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Protection - High (+++)
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Mobility - 90% (++)
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Endurance - 120% (+)
Once a piece of armor falls into a category, it's material and quality would further adjust the above basic stats or add new qualities to the item.
Materials:
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Iron - Increases Protection (+), Decreases Mobility (-), Decreases Endurance (-), Vulnerable to Rust
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Mithril - Increases Protection (+), Reduced Weight, Penalty to Stealth
Qualities:
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Masterwork - Increase Mobility and/or Endurance (+)
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Full Suit - Increase Protection (+), Reduced chance to be critically hit
So some examples of armors would be as follows:
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Breastplate (Heavy, Iron)
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Full Plate Armor (Heavy, Iron, Full Suit)
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Leather Cuirass (Light, Leather)
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Leather Armor (Light, Leather, Full Suit)
You could make armor designs, such as plate, scale, chain and make them armor qualities, but I'd personally rather make them dictate appearence. So mechanically scale armor (heavy, iron) and plate armor (heavy, iron) would be the same, but would have distinct appearences. Basically you're decoupling the armor design (plate, scale, chain, etc.) from the stats of the armor, and instead providing the stats through the various tags (heavy, iron, masterwork, etc).
It's a complex system I know, but I've always preferred to start with high complexity and then trim down and streamline a concept. I just hope it makes sense hehe!
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Protection - None (_)
Update #29: Fulfillment and the Pros and Cons of Nostalgia and Realism
in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News
Posted
Yes, that piece stems from a classic, DnD approach, but if you look at the concept, even the light, medium, heavy are really more of a baseline quality then anything. The point is people need a frame of reference and immediate context so that they can make quick informed decisions about whether the armor they found is better then what they have. Having 4 tiers of armor represent simple ideas allows this to happen; Since it's fairly intuitive that Light Armor offers less protection but better mobility, and heavy would offer more protection for less mobility, the tiers work, they make sense. Seperating out the designs, qualities and materials into their own tags (qualifiers) is where I diveraged from the traditional DnD mechanics.
Most 'original' ideas get their inspiration from someone or something else, ideas, concepts evolve so to speak, It's not a perfect system, and I've already thought of issues that one might run into due to the design, so it needs refining but I still like my evolution of the DnD model for armor stats. Not that I am biased or anything
Whatever Obsidian decides to do as far as the armor mechanics go, I feel that the following ideas are important to remember:
This is neither a definitive list, nor is it really anything new, Obsidian likely has similar things scrawled on white boards as reminders (at least I hope so). These are just things I feel are important to remember and reiterate.