Update #29: Fulfillment and the Pros and Cons of Nostalgia and Realism

[Kaz]

Like a lot of you, I enjoy micro managing my battles to squeeze out the last bit of combat efficiency out of my party. The type of micro work I find fun revolves around placement of my characters, what skills to use, and when.

 

There's been a lot of suggestions for different armor material having varied effectiveness against different damage types. While on paper it sounds really interesting, and I'm not saying it couldn't be implemented, I find it rather tedious and less fun compared to the former type of micro. Here's why.

 

The fast paced nature of RTwP means combat will turn into chaos fairly quickly. I know because I'm playing IWD right now. Even if the devs made the armor types visually distinct, if you are getting swarmed by a bunch of different armor types, character placement and tactics start to have diminishing impact.

 

Another reason is weapon specialization. I don't know how this will be designed in PE, but in the old rule sets the impact of weapon specialization was pretty significant. It was often the case where even if the weapon I'm using wasn't the most effective damage type, I'd use it anyway because the bonus from my weapon proficiency negated the disadvantage, and even worse, choosing the right type (such as maces against skeleton) might yield worse results if I hadn't invested in blunt weapons prior to the encounter. Hope you can see my point here. On one hand the system encouraged switching weapons against different armor, while on the flip side encouraging commitment to one weapon type via weapon specialization system. In the early game, you have very little weapon specialization, and all all weapons were cheap, so you weren't as invested in any particular type. During that phase I actually remember carrying multiple weapon types and switching them accordingly.

 

Which leads into my third issue, inventory. Having varied damage types would naturally encourage me to carry multiple sets of armor into a dungeon, just based on the fact that I don't know what weapon types I'll be encountering. Same for the weapons I'll be packing. The concept of change in and out of armor for each encounter is a bit silly to me as well.

 

Like I said it's interesting and has potential, but I think weapon specialization and inventory will have to be designed around this mechanic for it to be fun. I don't want to whine without proposing something myself, but it ended up being slightly beyond the scope of this armor discussion so I've made a thread over in the mechanics board. Come check it out!

[makryu]

 

Lots of cool images and the idea to use tunics over armor, etc.

 

 

I think the use of tunics, robes, etc over armor would be great.

[Jorian Drake]

Lots of cool images and the idea to use tunics over armor, etc.

 

 

I think the use of tunics, robes, etc over armor would be great.

 

now THIS would make for an interesting concept if we imagine an armored mage, who despite using sword and full plate still wears a mage robe and a pointy hat on top of it ^.^

[Cantousent]

Clothing is still a way for people to differentiate themselves in socio-economic categories. It was even moreso over much of the past. I think different countries where 'races' like elves and dwarves and humans identify themselves by nation or region ahead of elf, dwarf, or human makes it even more likely that the style and manner of dress will be more important in order to differentiate groups.

 

Along the lines of what Kaz said, I think the benefits of the armor should transcend mere protection. New Vegas, for example, had excellent reasons to eschew heavier armors in favor of lighter armors. In fact, with beasts like deathclaws ignoring DT, essentially equalizing armor effects from light to heavy, you're better off donning something that either enhances your ability to kill them faster or allows you to avoid them better. New Vegas armor might bump a simple stat, but it's just as likely to raise a skill, prevent radiation damage, provide faster health regeneration or other effects. ...And there's a pretty good assortment of armor in the game. If Project Eternity does the same thing, we might have a lot of different armors, but at least they'll be well differentiated by location, type, and function. Heavier is still better for sheer protection in the long run, but there are good reasons to wear a wide variety of armor. In fact, medium armor may well be the best in New Vegas, and there may be sensible reasons why medium armor might be best in a fantasy game. I think, for sheer protection, all things being equal, 'heavier' armor should be better, but there could be 'realistic' reasons for characters to wear lighter armors. For one thing, apparently mage armor is superior against everything except firearms, and that dimension alone could have all sorts of ramifications.

 

Great, JD. I'll finally be able to throw off those damned mage robes in favor of better kit only to be forced to wear my goofy assed mage robe on *top* of my armor. :Cant's rueful grin icon:

Edited November 5, 2012 by Cantousent

[ReyVagabond]

Personaly for armor i want:

1-Armors is all about damage reduction. Defence is something diferent, for example Does has anything to do how well you defend to somethign with what are you wearing? No akung fu monk with robes could defend himself dodging atacks with out beeing hit. And that has nothing to do with Armor.

 

2-different tires are tied with the material they were costructed and the craftmanship. Example a masterpise leather jaket it could be as good as a chain mail. why, because its so freckishly well made!

 

3-Now diferent materias and amors give diferent bonuses and penalties, for example a dragon hide armor gives less raw damage reduction that a platemail but has grate fire resistance so you want to use that kind of material armor to fight something that uses fire. and steel plate has a penalty with lightling, or something.

 

In conclution somthing simple and to the point Tipe of armor, material, craftmanship. Thats it.

[Aedelric]

You guys are doing great at keeping the community updated and listening Obsidian.

 

Nothing worse than when a successful Kickstarter ignores its fans once it gets the money.

[anubite]

I like the careful thought here and agree with the concerns laid out.

 

It has always bothered me that it is 'mandatory' to upgrade to a superior armor type in most RPGs. Why can't I wear some concept/aesthetically pleasing leather armor? Usually, if one can upgrade to chain/medium armor from leather, they will.

 

I think the solution to this dilemma is to go with what you've laid out, to some degree. In order to make all character concepts viable though - just include some very powerful, unique, niche low-tier armor in the game.

 

Let's say raw hide is tier 0 basic starting 'leather armor' for a Ranger.

Let's say Rangers are 'expected' to upgrade to chain by the end-game.

 

Let's agree there are some players who want to play a leather-armor, raw-hide Ranger in the 'end-game'.

 

The solution is to include special, powerful leather armor that has different bonuses on it. Unique bonuses.

 

You can purchase (or preferably, find) "Rhino Raw Hide Armor" - a very rare kind of armor a special boss drops, hidden vendor, or something. This "Rhino Raw Hide Armor" is tier 0 leather armor - it has a low base damage reduction. BUT, this Rhino Hide armor is magically enchanted and causes the arrows you fire while wielding it, to be enchanted with a special debuff. The armor also provides an increase to the Ranger's strength and charisma as well, making this item very peculiar. You could wear it instead of chain, giving up defense, and exchange, you would have added utility/support with the debuff on your arrows, and you would be able to exploit the bonuses CHA/STR offer for a ranger (whatever those unique bonuses/synergies might be).

 

Path of Exile does this particuarly well. There are very low level items in the game that offer significantly inferior base defense or weapon damage, but provide unique supporting effects. A staff which makes your burn debuff last twice as long, a sword exceptionally good at parrying attacks, a super fast machine-gun bow - that does pitiful damage. Each of these weapons are barely as effective or significantly less so than weapons generally found at a high level, but provide such unique effects that players can exploit these items if they wish to, and can create unique characters from them.

Edited November 5, 2012 by anubite

[rjshae]

It has always bothered me that it is 'mandatory' to upgrade to a superior armor type in most RPGs. Why can't I wear some concept/aesthetically pleasing leather armor? Usually, if one can upgrade to chain/medium armor from leather, they will.

Perhaps the developers could include "accomplishments" that apply to mundane weapons, shields and armor? If you use a piece of gear repeatedly throughout a large stretch of a game, then that very familiarity with the item's idiosyncrasies could actually provide you with some interesting bonuses? Said benefits might not be as good as those from a superior item, but they'd be enough to make it worthwhile for you to stick with the familiar. The developers could even allow some customization of the item, giving it a name and allowing it to receive some unique enchantments that are specifically tied to your soul.

 

Maybe they should give every piece of equipable gear an idiosyncrasy modifier? It could be zero for well-made gear made by a local craftsman, or negative for gear made by other races and cultures (and/or badly made gear). As you use the gear for a while, or have it adjusted by a craftsman, the negative modifier goes away... and eventually becomes a positive as you use it over the course of several class levels.

Edited November 5, 2012 by rjshae

[Jorian Drake]

In conclution somthing simple and to the point Tipe of armor, material, craftmanship. Thats it.

type of armor, etc

 

also: enchantment variants, various power levels of those enchantments, an ability to experiment and research/name your own enchantments, and of course in this modern age of rpg-s we should also be able to decide how an armor looks like (style) and what colors it uses, similar to how you could in NWN use the editor to make armor and weapons, but this time design it proerly ingame, and maybe give/sell your own creeations to NPC costumers or equip a whole little personal army (city guards?), naturally all wearing that fancy Coat of Arms/banner of yours/your family/your faction

 

Dragon Age 1 had an expansion which allowed one to change Coat of Arms/symbol (from now on CoA for simplicity reasons) on shield, NWN1 had a knight/jousting tournament styled expansion, I never understood why a game in which nobles and knights (or basically any kind of groups like guilds or realms) exists and allows a player to join or lead one of them (or even begin as one, as example in being born to royalty/nobility) doesn't allow a full access to customization of the personal CoA, heck even old games like Warlords 2 allowed you to make your own realm CoA, or even street racer or gang games like some Need for Speed or Saint's Row allows you to make a symbol/uniform style which is not just fun but also allows one to get more deeper into the game atmosphere, get attached to the character and story. I don't get it why things like the DA1 CoA placement on the shield didn't get into sequels, I blame the simplification of recent games.

 

I go even one more step further in listing possibilities: in a fantasy setting certain symbols and colors could mean something, so making at game start your CoA could influence how people look on you, as example a black dragon on your shield could remind people of an usurper for a throne or a bandit lord, a white unicorn on pink background may be the banner of the princess's favorite, a golden griffin on royal blue background may be the CoA of the former royal bloodline which was assumed to have been died out, a white tower on a blood red background may be the CoA for a family that lost its mountain castle and lands to orcs

 

we could even give some meaning to specific colors like white, black, green, or pink, heck even a minor bonus to some stat or skill, and of course if we give meaning to symbols and colors in heraldry then we need people to talk about the choice of CoA, fear it or say how great it is or mock it (three red hearts on pink background, I am sure many would mock it, especially if used by a gruff old male war veteran... not in his face though)

 

Imagine somehing like the Statler and Waldorf pair from muppets discussing your flag, one supporting your choice of symbol/colors or your heritage, while the other basically always opposing and mocking them, at the end of course they would both agree on something usually not in favor of you

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14njUwJUg1I

 

I think it would be fun, no idea about you though

Edited November 5, 2012 by Jorian Drake

[Ignatius]

Like a lot of you, I enjoy micro managing my battles to squeeze out the last bit of combat efficiency out of my party. The type of micro work I find fun revolves around placement of my characters, what skills to use, and when.

 

There's been a lot of suggestions for different armor material having varied effectiveness against different damage types. While on paper it sounds really interesting, and I'm not saying it couldn't be implemented, I find it rather tedious and less fun compared to the former type of micro. Here's why.

 

The fast paced nature of RTwP means combat will turn into chaos fairly quickly. I know because I'm playing IWD right now. Even if the devs made the armor types visually distinct, if you are getting swarmed by a bunch of different armor types, character placement and tactics start to have diminishing impact.

 

Thank you. I wanted to mention this but couldn't be bothered. It's reassuring to know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

 

Realism is neat and all, but a game must survive based on it's own internal logic and what makes the game most fun not necessarily the most real. I think bending any rule system to meet the expectations of hyper-realism is just a recipe for disaster when you end up including a lot of elements and variables that really don't need to be in there. There's a reason Chess has survived as long as it has, and it certainly isn't realism.

 

But don't worry, Sawyer has said many times he's not one to put realism before fun game play.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Ignatius

[SophosTheWise]

Different question. I got the Retail Collector's Edition tier. It's stated that we get the previous tier (and in that tier it's stated that you get another previous tier and so on...). Does that mean Retail Collector's Edition includes a t-shirt?

[Elitios]

 

You might also consider having equipment not have to be traded out all that often. There may well be weapons and armour that are of better quality than others with other considerations being trade offs between pieces that are more or less equal with advancement primarily coming through your characters becoming more skilled as opposed to primarily gathering ever more powerful loot.

 

I am of the same opinion I think. I feel like having to scavenge everything in search of more powerful loot tend to lose its meaning and fun as your characters become more powerful.

I also remember that in BGII most of the protection was not from the armor but from the spells (at least it felt like it). What I mean to say is that things that can feel extremely important as you begin the game, like armor class, can become far less important as your characters progress and gain access to more circonstancial means of protection like spells and artifacts.

 

I also have always disliked the way the characters interact with the items in a strictly utilitarian way in an RPG. It doesn't feel right to throw away an armor you have come to like after 10h of playing simply because you found another which is better in very aspect for your character's stats. I dislike even more when a repair system makes repairing an armor more costly than buying a new one.

This make me think that each item should come with its own skill gauge, so as the longer you wear the item, the more your character become "at ease" with it and therefore increase the efficiency with which it is used. I feel like such a system would make using "obsolete" armor viable for a bit longer, allowing for more characterization.

 

Finally, I feel that a big part of what make RPGs enjoyable is the rarity of the good loot. Since you usually can't find the perfect armor for your character, you have to make the best usage of what is given to you. It's always so much fun to distribute your items to your party knowing that you make a trade off which has its pro and cons.

 

PS: I just heard about your project yesterday, and it looks awesome! I wish you the best of luck

[Dersu42]

I thought about this topic again and decided I would have another go at it. Just a lot of random ideas about armor and how it should effect the way characters play. Well here goes...

 

First, I really like the idea that was stated earlier about armor causing a delay for actions. The heavier the armor, the greater the delay. This is a very straight forward approach to balancing the heavier armor types. This allows for players to cater to different builds with their armors.

 

Second, I like the idea of material composition representing the quality of an item. (Steel > Iron > Bronze ect.) However, I think really rare and semi magical materials like dragon skin or mithril, should at face value be inferior to the highest level common material items. Rare materials gain their power from having a greater potential for enchantments and other augmentations. This leaves them as a sort of blank slate and allows a player to invest a lot of their hard won magical crafting materials to make a really special suit of.. whatever happens to fit their needs.

 

I think there should be fairly limited sources for the best crafting materials. And I think many recipes should share components so the player has to decide exactly what item would best suit their team, while understanding what other items they may be giving up in the process.

 

Oh and a last thing on crafting, some of the really amazing materials like mithril, should be counted as the next rank down in terms of weight for penalties. So mithril chain wears like leather or maybe even like cloth instead of chain. Oh, just had an idea... maybe the player can enchant the material to go either way. Hardened Dragon leather confers extra protection and wears just like normal leather. Supple dragon leather confers it's normal protection but wears like cloth. That would make for some really interesting decisions when crafting.

 

Third, There should be some sort of modifiers built into the class skills that reflect the type of armor the character is wearing. Example: Sneaking type and acrobatic type abilities should suffer in heavy armor. I am not saying every skill needs this, but enough do so a heavily armored character of X class feels different from a lightly armored character of X class.

 

More on the sneaking and acrobatics; these two types of skills are usually used to avoid damage (not get hit), and heavy armor is used to reduce damage (get hit for less). So to make them not work well together really makes sense. It becomes a tricky either or decision and not an obvious one or both decision.

 

Fourth, The magic system is going to need special attention if there are going to be plate wearing wizards and such. I really like the idea that the more heavily armored a mage type becomes, the more self oriented their casting becomes until they become the only target they can cast on, or at least their range is reduced to only that which they can touch. Reducing the casters range, brings them into danger, which makes the heavy armor earn it's keep so to speak.

 

There should be some spell lines for each caster that support their efforts in the front lines. Enhancing or imbuing melee strikes, improved protection, caster centered AOEs, touch spells ect. These spells might not see much use from a robe wearing mage, but a plate wearing one will see them as a godsend.

 

Last point, I swear this time, light characters versus heavy characters in combat. So far, if we are going by these suggestions, we have light characters taking more damage when they get hit, but attacking more often. Also light characters can sneak and use acrobatic skills without penalty which leads to naturally higher rates of avoidance. So a light character could become an evasion tank if they really focused on their avoidance, stats, skills, equipment, whatever AND they can do more damage. So I think there needs to be another trade off with avoidance.

 

I think if a character successfully avoids an attack, they should stop attacking their target for a brief moment, or maybe just sacrifice their next attack. Of course this means a character that is non-stop dodging is effectively stun locked. So maybe they are just brought to a minimum attack speed (attacking as slow as possible). Why should this be? Well This creates a situation where you want your agile characters to flank the enemy forces, killing them quickly, and not getting bogged down or surrounded. You also want your heavy characters to create a front line and break up the field so the light characters have someone to maneuver around.

 

It makes light characters important because of their damage potential, it makes them viable through their damage avoidance, but it also means they need to be on their toes with positioning so they don't get stuck in a corner or something and unable to attack back successfully. LOTs of tactical play would come out of this one mechanic.

 

Let me know what you guys think.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Dersu42

[AugustSnow]

A few ideas to encourage using different armors:

1. magic and craft can't traverse armor type boundary. the best leather armor isn't as protective as chain but the best chain doesn't enable stealth like leather.

2. a unique modifier for each armor type which makes it super strong or super weak in certain situations. for example hide armor gives a huge stealth bonus in jungles, and plate armor super slows movement in cold regions. that way when going to the ice caves you need to think if you want to keep that great plate or buy a normal chain for this mission only

3. non combat effects for armor - like npc attitudes, map movement, maybe less stamina regeneration with heavy armor, etc. this requires something to prevent constant switching, for example only carry one extra suit, or can only switch into/out of plate while resting or maybe only in town (could be different for different armor types)

(sorry if this is similar to something written before, couldn't read all 200+ comments carefully...)

thx for a great update and interesting discussion

[Cowgoesmoo]

• Disassociate armor value from class type in favor of different build types. E.g. a wizard can wear heavy armor and be a different type of wizard instead of just "a wizard who is bad".
  

I like this.

 

I think a potential option with upgrades of armour types that may be worth exploring is materials.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Cowgoesmoo

[Cowgoesmoo]

 

I also have always disliked the way the characters interact with the items in a strictly utilitarian way in an RPG. It doesn't feel right to throw away an armor you have come to like after 10h of playing simply because you found another which is better in very aspect for your character's stats. I dislike even more when a repair system makes repairing an armor more costly than buying a new one.

This make me think that each item should come with its own skill gauge, so as the longer you wear the item, the more your character become "at ease" with it and therefore increase the efficiency with which it is used. I feel like such a system would make using "obsolete" armor viable for a bit longer, allowing for more characterization.

 

 

When thinking of this stuff I often think about the Lord of The Rings. Where swords etc where special and had effect but often had aquired their "powers" through the situations that the weapons themselves had participated in.

[esserius]

On a simple level I think that armor should primarily be aesthetic except for base damage reduction, while armor is otherwise peculiar in its effects on stats that aren't necessarily effective in battle. Battle readiness should likely be a set of conditionals that are based on character growth and progression through classes, as tying them up too heavily in armor forces the player into finding weird ways to game the system with armor (or weapons, or item X dissociated with the character) rather than attempting to be creative with the character and their pecularities. See Dark Souls for a system that dissociates armor from battle effectiveness?

 

Really though, I think to make this as interesting as possible a DM mode might be most effective, where a DM entity could effectively make these decisions over LAN or simple online-room setup situation. In this manner, the DM and players can come to agreed upon manners in which armor functions for their playgroup. Maybe reaching for the stars a little too much with that, but it's something I think any game using an AD&D concept should strive towards at some point.

[steelshark]

To throw in my 2 cents on armor:

 

I'm not a fan of having "armor" decrease the chance of your enemy hitting you.

It always felt more natural to have the following defense-system:

1.) to hit vs. evade (dodge/parry/block)

2.) damage vs. armor

Where one must decide, which part of defense he prefers, or is more suited to the character.

The more you focus on one are of these 4 (hit, evade, damage, armor), the more the other 3 decrease.

 

Since the player does not have to keep track/keep rolling, a hit-zone model would perhaps also increase variation.

Wearing ONLY a heavy plate on the torso, and a helm, is good defense until someone chops your arm off

 

For more inspiration take a look at GURPS's system.

Also DSA/TDE > "Das schwarze Auge / The dark eye" is quite good with this. It is used in the "Drakensang" crpg.

[O1Hill]

On armor I would say that I am generally not a fan of the teir systems similar to what is found in the Elder Scrolls series. I find it takes too much realism away, and creates to linear of a progression. E.g. at the begining you only ever see iron light armor and at the end you only see glass, and you always wear the highest teir available.

 

So instead of doublet -> Gambeson -> Armored Jacket over the course of the game where you wear the highest tier you can find I would prefer something more akin to having categories like leather, studded, scale mail, or ring mail, and each category have its own unique properties. Then the categories would have sub qualities that werent just a linear progression of benefits. Forinstance with leather it could be that elven leather has a bonus to sneak, dwarven leather has more damage reduction, and barbarian leather a crit bonus.

 

I think the point is that when deciding what armor to wear it should be a choice whats the highest tier available now, and instead should be more about matching the right armor characteristics with the right character.

 

As a side note I am also a fan of quality levels, and would enjoy some durability mechaninc with armor so that the player has to keep it in repair. Something along the line that maybe if you are crit hit there is a chance your amour get a "crack" property that increases chances of future cirts against.

[ThatGuyMontag]

There's 15 pages of replies, so forgive me if someone's mentioned this already, but isn't the easiest option that it's the character concept that should decide how useful a particular piece of armour is? What this means is that the absolute benefit of a piece of leather or plate armour is determined purely by the way I've built my character and how I've leveled up. The armour just needs to be a new skin and maybe a tweaked set of bonuses so we can still have the thrill of the loot. This means that if you want to make a character who dresses in plate but who dodges like a thief go ahead and build it. Want your leather armor wearing dex fighter to tank, do the same. Players should be given the option to simply pick our concept and play it, and the loot will then fit our character, not the other way round.

 

What's also brilliant about this, is that it means that the lore of an item finally becomes far more important than its stats. Wouldn't it be great not to be penalised for wearing a piece of armour because you like its back story or because you picked it up playing a mid-game class quest? And what an awesome way to promote proper role-play being invited to consider the history of the stuff you're wearing, not just its stats?

Edited November 6, 2012 by ThatGuyMontag

[ThatGuyMontag]

<Sorry, connection hiccup/second thoughts/double post>

Edited November 6, 2012 by ThatGuyMontag

[ncguthwulf]

How I would tackle the armour question.

 

First, I must provide definitions.

 

Defense: I refer to the classic idea of a 'miss'. If an attacker fails to defeat my defense score their attack fails to land and does nothing / fails to break my magical defense and doesn't turn me into a toad / goes sailing past my character's head leaving him unscathed.

 

Mitigation: The damage that the attack would do to my hit points is lowered.

 

Absorption: The amount of damage that a character can absorb before they die.

 

Now the synopsis of the system.

 

1) attacks come in different types and different classes have a higher defense against those attack types: wizards are highly versed at turning away spells but not arrows, warriors are great against berserkers with axes but weak against devious sorcerers and their magic.

2) the bulk of a classes defensive score is determined by that class and level. The classic level 20 fighter, having just come out of a bath wrapped in a towel, is still very likely capable of getting out of the way of a feeble dagger thrust from a level 1 fighter (not reflected in their vast hp pool but instead in a high defense score). Throwing on a breast plate isnt going to make him get out of the way, it is going to:

3) mitigate! armour's primary job is to mitigate damage.

4) absorb! lastly, armour should provide a bonus to the amount of damage a character can absorb.

5) armour should also affect mobility, visibility and flexibility

 

That being said you can then create armor that has different properties that appeal to different classes.

 

Lets take the archer in light leather vs full plate.

 

Lets say that the archer, at a mid way level in the game, has a 10 point defense to ranged attacks and a 2 point defense against melee attacks. Basically in his type of warfare, shooting arrows back and forth, he excels. Get up in his grill and the archer is much easier to dispatch.

 

Plate armour could be designed to provide minor bonus vs melee, a serious movement penalty and moderate mitigation and absorption.

Leather armour could be designed to provide a minor bonus vs ranged, no penalty to movement and light mitigation and absorption.

 

In a situation where the archer can dictate the grounds of the fight (ranged) he is going to want to have maximum mobility and also maximize his ranged defensive attribute so that his foes could never touch him. Making leather armour the obvious choice. But, funny enough, if that very same archer knows he is going to have to go toe to toe with an enemy in a short hallway, he is going to choose plate.

 

As armour grows in power it is important to ensure that it never provides a substantial bonus to Defense. Leave that to the class type.

Give it instead, larger bonuses and penalties to movement, mitigation and absorption.

 

Design your light armour wearing classes to want to be able to move quickly around the battleground and maximize their ranged defense.

Design your heavy armour wearing classes to want to maximize mitigation and absorption at the cost of movement and defense.

 

Design your light armour system to make higher quality suits (say hide armour vs basilisk hide armour vs dragon hide armour) retain the core bonuses (ranged defense, mobility) while providing higher mitigation and absorption than the earlier iterations of the suit.

 

Design your classes to be able to take feats and skills that modify their defense.

 

At the end of the day, with this type of system, you could have a wizard type character that is naturally good at defending against magic purchase skills that makes them a bit more difficult to hit in melee and they wear plate. They kind of look like this:

Level 10 Wizard wearing plait: +10 defense vs magic (class bonus based on level), +5 defense vs melee (0 from class, 3 from elected skills, 2 from plate), +5 mitigation vs melee (again from the plate), +5 absorption (extra hit points from being encased in metal)

 

vs the robe type wizard, let's say with some sort of spellweave robe that protects against magic and having elected class skills that make then even better against magic.

 

Level 10 Wizard wearing spellweave robes: +15 defense vs magic (10 from level of the class, 3 from skills, 2 from spellweave robe), +5 mitigation vs magic (robe), +2 absorption (robes just dont provide as many hit points as plate)

 

Your plate wearing wizard would be pretty hard to kill with magic and still kind of hard to kill with a sword. This is reflected in their 10 point magic defense score and 5 point melee defense score.

Your spellweave robe wearing wizard would be near impossible to kill with magic but if you can right up in his face he can be taken out with a sharp stick. This is reflected in their 15 point magic defense score but zero vs melee.

 

Also important to note is the plate wearing mage has zero mitigation vs magic. So in those fireball situations where you can't get out of the way and just have to absorb, the spellweave robe wearer is going to do better vs magic.

 

And that's my ramble.

[Slaunyeh]

The armour system in Skyrim was actually one of the few things I liked about that game. Your armour rating had an arbitrary (and secret) cap which was pretty dumb. But it also meant that you weren't required to grab the heaviest armour in the game to max out your armour stat. With the right choice of skills and perks, you could wear just about whatever suit of armour you liked best aesthetically, and still end up near or at the armour cap. I'm not sure it was entirely intentional by Bethesda, but this created a system that essentially divorced the appearance and function of your armour. As long as you build for it.

 

I liked that.

 

Not that I think that system should be copied over directly, but I think there's some inspiration to take away from it.

[steelshark]

One logical flaw I see with skyrims armor system:

It's armor value was translated to a percentage that reduced all incoming damage. That sounds fine.

But how exactly does a person increase the performance of Armor in such a drastic way that Skyrim showed? (Probably Magic )

 

What I would like to see in an Armor system is that armors have pro's and con's, limitations, and relatively fixed performance value based on design and material.

Steel Plate is Steel Plate, no matter how familiar you are with it. I can see small bonuses to the absorbtion/damage reduction, and to the maximum dexterity that is usable, but not in such quantities that the armor itself becomes a second thought to the skill used (which is what happened in skyrim).

[Slaunyeh]

One logical flaw I see with skyrims armor system:

 

Oh, there are several logical flaws with Skyrim's armour system, and I certainly wouldn't advocate adopting it. What it did manage to accomplish, however, was the ability to equip "old armour" because you liked the look, without suffering tremendously for it. Assuming you spend your points to that end. That, as a concept, I think it important.

 

In a perfect world, armour wouldn't improve significantly throughout the game, and different types of armour would have different pros and cons so your choice would largely be based on what you wanted to accomplish. I'd rather see character choices improve your abilities through the game than improvements being strictly gear-driven. Instead of starting the game with leather armour, and ending the game with leather armour +10, I'd rather start the game with leather armour and end the game with Leather Armour of Something Useful, while having picked up abilities that increased my armour by +10 while wearing light armour. Or some such.

 

Fortunately I'm not a game designer, though.