The armor system needs work

[Sensuki]

@Sensuki Actually Vancian casting and trial-and-error set-pieces are kind of two sides of the same coin. The rhythm becomes fight, get beat up to know what spells I should have had to win, reload, shuffle spells around, rest, fight again, win. It breaks mah immershun to have to consciously play with meta-knowledge like that.

 

I don't play like that. 

[PrimeJunta]

Not anymore you don't, I'm sure. But did you, the first time you encountered these games? I certainly did. And more to the point, the games have strong incentives that push you to play that way.

Edited September 5, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Seari]

 I want low and clean numbers, and also the "will I hit or not"-excitement, should be in, IMHO.

 

This

[Sensuki]

Not anymore you don't, I'm sure. But did you, the first time you encountered these games? I certainly did. And more to the point, the games have strong incentives that push you to play that way.

 

I first played them when I was pretty young. I'm 27 now but when BG1 came out I was like 12. I didn't know how to cheese stuff and I even LARPed getting married in BG1 by casting bless on two of my characters in the Beregost Temple

[Seari]

I first played them when I was pretty young. I'm 27 now but when BG1 came out I was like 12. I didn't know how to cheese stuff and I even LARPed getting married in BG1 by casting bless on two of my characters in the Beregost Temple

 

LOL how adorable.

[Fiebras]

It would be nice to include the updated "how recovery works" image Sawyer made in the OP for convenience sake as it pertains to the discussion.

I dont think any light armor should give attack speed penalties, quite the contrary.

It will probably come down to being naked giving you a -DT penalty, light Armor giving you either a boost or nothing, and Heavy armor giving you only a mild penalty all this while under the hood recovery times are tweaked do that with this setup gives you the same or tweaked recovery times we have now.

 

I think its also an issue with presentation. When you see nothing but negatives your of corse react to minimize the negatives as much as possible. The same happened with Attributes giving you nothing but positives even when dumped. It creates a backlash reaction on people not used to the system(ie:all the backers) and keeps nagging them theough the whole game.

[Elerond]

 

3. Add more enemies with ranged attacks, and tweak the AI so it picks its targets more intelligently, e.g. targets the squishiest ones first.

 

 

I read updates about game through I find lore tidbit, which tell us that Wizards have started to use heavy armors, because of use of firearms that penetrate arcane veil. But currently beta don't draw that picture to us as number of enemies with firearms is so low, that one don't really consider them as serious danger for one's back line characters. 

[Monte Carlo]

 

 

Vancian casting

 

Vancian casting - you can cast a spell 'x' amount of times day/level

 

PoE - you can cast a spell 'x' amount of times day/level

 

As Volourn says.... r00fles!

 

Old wine, new bottles.

[PrimeJunta]

That's not what Vancian casting means, MC.

[Elerond]

Memorization — The game character must memorize a fixed number of spells from the list of all spells the character knows. This memorization can only occur once in a specified time period, usually a day, or it may require the character to rest for several hours. This system is sometimes called "Vancian" in the game designer community, since its first use, in Dungeons & Dragons, was inspired by the way magic works in Jack Vance's Dying Earth world.

[Marceror]

Image

 

It's sad when people can't distinguish between people sharing their opinions on a topic they care about, and whining. Thus far this has been one of the more respectful, productive discussions on these forums, and I would appreciate people not trolling to make it otherwise.

[Karkarov]

Well the problem as it stands is two fold.

 

1: There is no reason for anyone who isn't getting hit to wear armor due to action penalties from armor use.

2: There is no reason to wear anything other than the best possible armor if you are getting hit so your DT is crazy high and most hits end up doing very very little damage.

 

I would propose a couple things.  First... on all "light" armors... just toss the speed penalty all together.  Let the Mage wear padded and see no speed loss.  Second, lower every other armors penalty by 10-20%.  Leather/hide drops to 10%, plate drops to 30%, chain is 20%, Brigandine 25%, Breastplate 15%.  Third add in another 50% speed reduction on armor to the "weapon focus" talents.  Example.... a character who picks "Noble" weapon focus gets 50% speed penalty when using Breastplates or Leather, Knight focus get the bonus on Plate and Chainmail, Ruffian focus gets it for brigandine and leather, Soldier gets it on chain and breastplate, Peasant on leather and hide, etc etc.   Thus no one is picking "just" reduced action penalty.

 

To take it a step further  the three tank classes get special perks for armor.  Fighters get a class skill that reduces all armor penalties by another 50%, meaning a fighter with the Knight focus could wear plate and only see a 8% reduction in speed.  Barbarians would get a skill that lets them ignore armor speed reduction and gain +2 DT as long as they are in hide or leather.  Monks in "light" armor (robes etc) would gain DT as if they were in chain.

 

This would make it pretty reasonable for even your most ranged character to fit in some kind of clothes.

[Mayama]

Its the typical problem of every system that only works with a game master that shows you the finger if you want to do rediculous stuff like resting every 5 min in a dungeon.

[Ondb]

Let me summarize my thoughts:

1/ We have design goal -- every class can use any armor.

2/ Problem: we have to balance armor to different classes.

3/ Problem solution: Different classes have different basic recovery time. Melee 1s+1s. (example: -%50  penalty is 0.5s), spells 3s+3s (-50% penalty is 1.5s)

4/ Problem solved. Now the recovery penalty from armor is different absolute number in second for different class. Good.

5/ Problem n.2: Spells are now forced to have the same casting time 3s and same recovery time 3s.

6/ Problem n.2 solution: Nobody will notice the spells animations. Finger crossed.

7/ Problem n.3: Ranged classes are now fighting without armor.

8/ Problem n.3 solution: Hey do you know that any class can use any armor.

 

If you ever wondered why almost all spells have the same casting and recovery time. Its because all spells needs to be balanced against armor. And overall against total 6s time.

 

Do you want different spell versions?:

1/  Fast spells with 1s casting time and 1s recovery time?

2/  Powerful spells that have 6s casting time and 0s recovery time?

 

It will not happen. Its really wonderful how armor design is forcing certain spell casting system and changing overall feel of spells from IE.

[Monte Carlo]

That's not what Vancian casting means, MC.

 

I know exactly what Vancian casting means.

[Monte Carlo]

Well the problem as it stands is two fold.

 

1: There is no reason for anyone who isn't getting hit to wear armor due to action penalties from armor use.

2: There is no reason to wear anything other than the best possible armor if you are getting hit so your DT is crazy high and most hits end up doing very very little damage.

 

I would propose a couple things.  First... on all "light" armors... just toss the speed penalty all together.  Let the Mage wear padded and see no speed loss.  Second, lower every other armors penalty by 10-20%.  Leather/hide drops to 10%, plate drops to 30%, chain is 20%, Brigandine 25%, Breastplate 15%.  Third add in another 50% speed reduction on armor to the "weapon focus" talents.  Example.... a character who picks "Noble" weapon focus gets 50% speed penalty when using Breastplates or Leather, Knight focus get the bonus on Plate and Chainmail, Ruffian focus gets it for brigandine and leather, Soldier gets it on chain and breastplate, Peasant on leather and hide, etc etc.   Thus no one is picking "just" reduced action penalty.

 

To take it a step further  the three tank classes get special perks for armor.  Fighters get a class skill that reduces all armor penalties by another 50%, meaning a fighter with the Knight focus could wear plate and only see a 8% reduction in speed.  Barbarians would get a skill that lets them ignore armor speed reduction and gain +2 DT as long as they are in hide or leather.  Monks in "light" armor (robes etc) would gain DT as if they were in chain.

 

This would make it pretty reasonable for even your most ranged character to fit in some kind of clothes.

 

This is a very good idea.

[archangel979]

The problem with armor is that it is two dimensional. Actually that is the problem with most game systems in PoE and that is a shame. 

What do I mean? Armor gives one bonus and one penalty and has nothing else around it. 

 

Lets compare to IE games and AD&D (which was even worse than later editions): Armor in IE had armor class (which was different for each damage type), it effected move speed and it was limited by both Strength of character and his class. Than magical armor would not stack with magical rings. There was even this super rare occurrence of lightning during storm hitting metal armored characters. On rare occasions Encumbrance also created a problem with some heavier armors that didn't take that much Strength to use. You could not cast arcane spells in armor even if you had the right class to use it.

That is many different factors connected with armor. Weapons were even more interesting. 

 

Then in PoE you have DT and speed penalty (and Sensuki claims different armors have hidden DT values vs other types of damage). Attributes affect 2 things and nothing else. 

[Infinitron]

it effected move speed

 

wat

 

 

 

and it was limited by both Strength of character

 

Only plate armors, and both had meaninglessly low thresholds considering the type of characters that usually wore them.

 

It's absurd to suggest that AD&D armor was more complex than PoE's system.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Infinitron

[archangel979]

 

it effected move speed

 

wat

 

 

 

and it was limited by both Strength of character

 

Only plate armors, and both had meaninglessly low thresholds considering the type of characters that usually wore them.

 

It's absurd to suggest that AD&D armor was more complex than PoE's system.

 

Yes, start BGEE put heavy armor on one guy and no armor on another, they guy without armor will move a bit faster. Or maybe the bad pathfinding made me think so :D 

Maybe someone can confirm I wasn't daydreaming.

 

As for Strenght... Viconia anyone? In my BG2 game I made a Cleric/Mage and didn't put enough Strength and cannot use better shields. 

Edited September 5, 2014 by archangel979

[Marceror]

 

 

it effected move speed

 

wat

 

 

 

and it was limited by both Strength of character

 

Only plate armors, and both had meaninglessly low thresholds considering the type of characters that usually wore them.

 

It's absurd to suggest that AD&D armor was more complex than PoE's system.

 

Yes, start BGEE put heavy armor on one guy and no armor on another, they guy without armor will move a bit faster. Or maybe the bad pathfinding made me think so :D 

Maybe someone can confirm I wasn't daydreaming.

 

As for Strenght... Viconia anyone? In my BG2 game I made a Cleric/Mage and didn't put enough Strength and cannot use better shields. 

 

In BG, BG2 and the EEs armor does not affect movement speed. Encumbrance does, so if that armor causes a character to become encumbered, than sure, their movement will slow down. Otherwise the armor system in BG really is nothing more than AC value, weight and class restrictions.

[Shadenuat]

For some reason plate armor created by Limited Wish made character walk slower in BG2.

 

In D&D carrying capacity affected speed I think. I remember a rule for dwarves that they always moved same speed no matter how much they carried (20 ft).

[Marceror]

For some reason plate armor created by Limited Wish made character walk slower in BG2.

 

In D&D carrying capacity affected speed I think. I remember a rule for dwarves that they always moved same speed no matter how much they carried (20 ft).

Wasn't aware of the armor with limited wish slowing characters down. That very much sounds like an exception.

 

The dwarf moving 20 feet even with heavy armor or while encumbered was a 3rd edition pen and paper D&D rule.

[archangel979]

 

 

 

it effected move speed

 

wat

 

 

 

and it was limited by both Strength of character

 

Only plate armors, and both had meaninglessly low thresholds considering the type of characters that usually wore them.

 

It's absurd to suggest that AD&D armor was more complex than PoE's system.

 

Yes, start BGEE put heavy armor on one guy and no armor on another, they guy without armor will move a bit faster. Or maybe the bad pathfinding made me think so :D 

Maybe someone can confirm I wasn't daydreaming.

 

As for Strenght... Viconia anyone? In my BG2 game I made a Cleric/Mage and didn't put enough Strength and cannot use better shields. 

 

In BG, BG2 and the EEs armor does not affect movement speed. Encumbrance does, so if that armor causes a character to become encumbered, than sure, their movement will slow down. Otherwise the armor system in BG really is nothing more than AC value, weight and class restrictions.

 

I just tried it. Characters don't all move same speed in same conditions but it is not based on armor, probably some pathfinding thing that I mistook to be caused by armor.

[Zansatsu]

Well the problem as it stands is two fold.

 

1: There is no reason for anyone who isn't getting hit to wear armor due to action penalties from armor use.

2: There is no reason to wear anything other than the best possible armor if you are getting hit so your DT is crazy high and most hits end up doing very very little damage.

 

I would propose a couple things.  First... on all "light" armors... just toss the speed penalty all together.  Let the Mage wear padded and see no speed loss.  Second, lower every other armors penalty by 10-20%.  Leather/hide drops to 10%, plate drops to 30%, chain is 20%, Brigandine 25%, Breastplate 15%.  Third add in another 50% speed reduction on armor to the "weapon focus" talents.  Example.... a character who picks "Noble" weapon focus gets 50% speed penalty when using Breastplates or Leather, Knight focus get the bonus on Plate and Chainmail, Ruffian focus gets it for brigandine and leather, Soldier gets it on chain and breastplate, Peasant on leather and hide, etc etc.   Thus no one is picking "just" reduced action penalty.

 

To take it a step further  the three tank classes get special perks for armor.  Fighters get a class skill that reduces all armor penalties by another 50%, meaning a fighter with the Knight focus could wear plate and only see a 8% reduction in speed.  Barbarians would get a skill that lets them ignore armor speed reduction and gain +2 DT as long as they are in hide or leather.  Monks in "light" armor (robes etc) would gain DT as if they were in chain.

 

This would make it pretty reasonable for even your most ranged character to fit in some kind of clothes.

This is a good idea.

 

I would prefer the armor bonus be inherent in their class as opposed to tied to weapon specialization. I was looking at the chart again and I like this concept in theory.   I like that Spell Casting in Heavy Armor is not optimal, that makes sense to me. hmmm I think just playing with the numbers would make this feel right.

[Marceror]

Josh's response to naked ranged characters. Adding here for posterity:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68374-josh-sawyer-on-the-naked-ranged-characters-issue/