Fixing the armor min/maxing: an interesting new gameplay mechanic?

[Bazy]

Also I like Padded Armor. I wear it on my casters. It's a 20% penalty for 6 DR, but 8 Piercing and Crushing. Most ranged damage is piercing and that's a decent amount of mitigation. Plus I'm not always chain casting, you only get so many spells/rest so time constraint often doesn't play into it except on the occasional bigger battles.

This is a decent point. It's not like I feel like I have to chain cast a bunch of spells to live. Most of the time I'm autoattacking anyway. 

[Shdy314]

Maybe the easiest solution would be to just ease up on the penalties. Couldn't robes just be a 5% penalty? If it went Cloth 0 Robes 5 Padded 10 Light 15 and Medium 20 You'd at least feel a little less punished for wearing what you wanted. I really don't see this unbalancing the game unless the AI learns to start targeting non-tanks.

[PrimeJunta]

Maybe the easiest solution would be to just ease up on the penalties. Couldn't robes just be a 5% penalty? If it went Cloth 0 Robes 5 Padded 10 Light 15 and Medium 20 You'd at least feel a little less punished for wearing what you wanted. I really don't see this unbalancing the game unless the AI learns to start targeting non-tanks.

 

That'd just make light and medium armor even less relevant.

[Arctic]

Well .. i will mod the armors so it dont give the -speed, even something else as a bonus agains some damage tipes (crushing and cold in cloth for example). I really dont like how it is now (-15% casting speed for using a robe ...)

Some kind of armor expecialitation removing the -speed or giving other bonusses will be a good thing, but as i said i will just tune it my way.

[Veevoir]

 

Maybe the easiest solution would be to just ease up on the penalties. Couldn't robes just be a 5% penalty? If it went Cloth 0 Robes 5 Padded 10 Light 15 and Medium 20 You'd at least feel a little less punished for wearing what you wanted. I really don't see this unbalancing the game unless the AI learns to start targeting non-tanks.

 

That'd just make light and medium armor even less relevant.

 

 

Only if the progression will be kept linear.

 

If not - one of the armors will be considered "sweet spot", those who want speed will still run around naked and those who want protection will wear plate.

 

At least one more armor type will be used It is a fight that cannot be won, but easing the restrictions for lightest armors would be a good start. Especially robes, which currently suck beyond belief.

 

EDIT:

The system as I proposed offers me to build a character with more survivability at the cost of flexibility. The lack of good non-reactionary buff spells is not really a system flaw, just a flaw in spell design (which can be easily fixed with new spells).

 

But yes, this idea only works with better AI; because why would I limit my spell choices if my spellcasters won't get attacked anyway?

So.. if we fix AI and fix the way buff/support spells work then this armor idea will be great? Yeah, I can support that reasoning

 

Because either armor system fix is also a compensation for other systemic flaws that it might touch or it comes with an overhaul of some other mechanics.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Veevoir

[Falkon Swiftblade]

I haven't played yet, however I would think the more elegant solution would just limit frequencies of how often you can cast spells. Similar to per encounter or per rest use is now, you just scale those up or down by 1-3 based upon the level. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't currently gain additional uses of spells as you level up like the old dnd, but some per rest skills become per encounter. I would treat it the same way with armor types, except maybe you earn the right to wear plate at lvl 5 or above and leather at lvl 3. As you gain levels not only can you still wear all armors, but the amount of spell use per encounter or rest will increase by 1-3 based upon earlier context of what I said. Hopefully that makes sense.

[damage991]

The way I see it the tradeoff will be in what effects are on the armor.  If youre a wizard wearing plate youre going to have high MIGHT (and DEF) but you'll be doing mediocre damage as a caster.

[JackWeed]

 

Wait, then you understood the idea wrong: the idea is to get rid of the recovery time penalty and instead apply limited spell choices.

All that'd do really, would be to re-create class restrictions on armour, albeit "soft" restrictions.

 

If we want to "fix" the armour system, I think we need to incentivize (sp?) the use of the various armours, rather than to restrict their use.

 

First, I'd like to see the various effects of armours "upped", so that there'd be meaningful and clear differentiation between them, instead of just No/Robe/Light/Medium/Heavy armour (as it is now, despite the obvious attempt to get away from it).

 

This could be done by drastically upping the effects of the armours vs. different weapons. As an interesting side-effect, this would also mean that there'd be a meaningful differentiation between the various weapons used against humanoid opponents.

 

Second, I'd like to see Talents to support the use of various armours, with interesting effects, to discourage the constant swapping of armours between encounters and promote specialization on a per-character basis.

 

This would mean that it wouldn't be a bust to use Medium Armours, if, for example, Medium Armours filled that niche that was good against crushing weapons, and had a talent that made you move faster, Plate Mail would be good against Slashing, with a Talent that turns (%) incoming Hits into Grazes.

 

Something along those lines. The added perk is that the game is already structured somewhat like this, it just needs to be upped to 11 to make it matter.

 

 Pretty much agree. I like how they approach it, and I also think the incentive to wear armor is not big enough (vs the recovery speed penalty). I might be wrong on that since I've only seen BB footage and not the game in its entirety, plus theres armor with bonus to certain stats. That might change the balance a bit.

That said, I am NOT going to let my squishies just run around in their underwear just so they do a little more damage. Even just the thought of it makes me shiver. My rogue will be getting a leather armor, my mage a robe and my warrior plate armor, because oldschool. One of the main reasons I am looking forward to this game is the fond memory of immersion I have from the BG series. And I am certainly not going to break that myself, even if it means that combat will be a bit more difficult. 

[Luckmann]

Maybe the easiest solution would be to just ease up on the penalties. Couldn't robes just be a 5% penalty? [...]

 

Robes should have no penalty, honestly. Clothes have no penalty, and robes are basically clothes. The distinction between them is ridiculous.

 

 

Either that, or clothes should have the same penalty as robes, but then we're pretty much back to the "I'm going to quest naked" problem.

 

Edited March 18, 2015 by Luckmann

[Shdy314]

 

Maybe the easiest solution would be to just ease up on the penalties. Couldn't robes just be a 5% penalty? [...]

 

Robes should have no penalty, honestly. Clothes have no penalty, and robes are basically clothes. The distinction between them is ridiculous.

 

 

Either that, or clothes should have the same penalty as clothes, but then we're pretty much back to the "I'm going to quest naked" problem.

 

 

I'd be fine with robes having no DR (it's a robe!) and no speed penalty like clothes. It should just be an aesthetic choice between them. Some people want the classic wizard look where others, like me, appreciate a caster that wears pants and a stylish jacket.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Shdy314

[gkathellar]

Thought: What if cloth/robes/etc. generally did well against magic damage types, and heavy armor was better protection against physical damage types, with light and medium falling somewhere in between? I can see some potential problems in the idea, but if the scaling was well-done, might it produce better results?

[Zwiebelchen]

Thought: What if cloth/robes/etc. generally did well against magic damage types, and heavy armor was better protection against physical damage types, with light and medium falling somewhere in between? I can see some potential problems in the idea, but if the scaling was well-done, might it produce better results?

 

Then we have the same problem that Archeage (a korean MMO) suffers from:

Everyone wears leather. The reason for that is, that defense bonuses usually not scale linear, but logarithmic with a diminishing effect the more you stack. Leather with has balanced magic and physical defense offers the highest "bang for your buck" in standard situations.

So, again, we would have a clear "optimum" choice which we are trying to avoid.

 

But yeah, it would at least be an upgrade from the status quo.

 

 

Again, I want to highlight the importance of incomparables in balancing. After all, this is the reason we got an unusual attribute selection in the first place ("might" instead of "strength", boosting magical and physical damage instead of just physical). And while the attribute system is still somewhat flawed, I feel it's at least going into the right direction. We can't say that for armor choices.

 

 

As long as armor choices are only balanced on defense vs. offense we have no real fundamental choices. Because decisions between defense and offense can clearly be made on the purpose of your character in the holy trinity ruleset. Damage? Full offense. Tanking? Full Defense. Everything else is just gimping your character.

The decision for armor types should be based on a different choice that can not clearly be made by just your role alone. Attributes on armor only distort our decisionmaking process by giving us incentives based on what the developers would recommend for your character. It's actually reducing the opportunity of choice, not increasing it.

 

A different take on this could give incomporable bonuses and maluses based on the different types of armors.

 

Maybe something like this:

Light armor: immunity against certain status effects like stuns or knock downs

Medium armor: disables disengagement attacks towards this character

Heavy armor: you can not be interrupted via normal means

 

This is obviously just an example. It would at least offer benefits in armor choices aside from the simple defense vs. offense choice.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[wanderon]

I tend to use a mix of armors in the BB myself just because I can but then I don't pay all that much attention to the numbers I just want it to be viable (usually on hard).

 

 So I have been rarely using plate (BB fighter in fine breastplate), PC generally in Night Stalker (?) armor for the perks for most classes, BB rogue in fine padded, BB priest in either leather or scale, BB Wizard varies between Breastplate, leather or robes and now clothes options, and adventurers vary by class with the bulk of them falling into some sort of medium armor altho yesterday I did a tanky Barbarian in plate that I enchanted to fine (plus large shield).

 

I have not had any extreme issues with this - folks sometimes die sometimes not - I rarely have full party wipes so I consider the choices viable (if not optimal) and of course some of my choices are based on what is available "free" so I can save my loot for other goodies.

[mutonizer]

So you're min/maxing and complaining that things are being min/maxed? Nobody forces you to do anything. That's like saying the game economy sucks because you loot everything there ever was.

 

I always use variety of armours, usually heavy for front liners, medium for skirmishers and light for back liners and find the current system decent enough. Added onto that are look and feel of course, which are quite important to me as well.

 

The only thing I really wish they'd change (though maybe they did for release or something) regarding armour/DR system is to handle crits differently so they don't scale completely off the chart, which would help a lot in making heavier armour more viable for non pure tanks (lower spikes that one shot you). It'll get modded I'm sure though.

 

Otherwise, seems just fine to me.

[Endrosz]

If we want to "fix" the armour system, I think we need to incentivize (sp?) the use of the various armours, rather than to restrict their use.

...

Second, I'd like to see Talents to support the use of various armours, with interesting effects, to discourage the constant swapping of armours between encounters and promote specialization on a per-character basis..

 

I second the idea of Talents for armor. That way you can "dress up" the base numbers more without changing them, and support certain playstyle+armor type combos. There should be about 2-3 Talents per armor type, supporting different playstyles/character concepts. You wouldn't take all of those, just the one that fits best.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Endrosz

[Luckmann]

So you're min/maxing and complaining that things are being min/maxed? Nobody forces you to do anything. That's like saying the game economy sucks because you loot everything there ever was.

 

Two points here.

 

The complaint isn't really that things are "are being" min/maxed. The complaint in general is that the game promotes and rewards min/maxing, so to the point that it's hard to even make an argument as to why not do it.

 

Second, the comparison to the broken game economy isn't apt, in the context of PoE, because you will loot everything there ever was. I'd see this argument in some games, like D:OS, where there could be an argument that if you loot everything that isn't bolted down, including random cups and such, you're going to "break" the economy by using it in a way it was not intended. In PoE, however, you have an infinite stash that you can access anywhere at any time. If you don't loot everything, the question really is why.

 

I always use variety of armours, usually heavy for front liners, medium for skirmishers and light for back liners and find the current system decent enough. Added onto that are look and feel of course, which are quite important to me as well.

 

The thing is, just because you do something one way, even to the detriment of yourself, doesn't mean that there's no issue. Yes, it's entirely possible to gimp yourself and still play through the game. Yes, it's entirely alright if someone wants to limit themselves for the sake of roleplay or a fun idea. I should know; my first character is likely going to be a duelist Paladin specializing in Resolve, dressed in nothing but cloth.

 

And that's fine. I realize that this is sub-optimal, and I accept it as it is, because I'm willing to bite that bullet.

 

But it doesn't mean that there's no issue. Just because I say "I'm going to use one-handed light weapons even though it's objectively terrible, because I like the idea" doesn't mean that being a duelist isn't inferior, or that light weapons aren't bad by comparison. And it's the same with armours. Just because you will be using medium armours doesn't mean that medium armours are balanced.

 

When someone comes onto the forum and asks us "What armour should my character pick?", there should be an argument, there should be a discussion. What does he want to do? What does he want to be defended against? What does he hope to achieve? What kind of character is it? X is good at Y but Z is good at A, B, C, but you might want to consider Å, Ä or Ö for rape prevention.

 

But today, it boils down to "Nothing" vs. "Full Plate", depending on whether he's a DPS/Caster or a Melee Tank. If the only argument for the in-betweens that we can collectively come up with equates to "Chill out and do whatev, like, man", that is a problem. Yes, you can probably make it through the game, it's not like you're pulling the trigger to your head, but you could probably "make it through the game" playing as a murderhobo vagrant with a pogo stick.

[morhilane]

 

So you're min/maxing and complaining that things are being min/maxed? Nobody forces you to do anything. That's like saying the game economy sucks because you loot everything there ever was.

 

Two points here.

 

The complaint isn't really that things are "are being" min/maxed. The complaint in general is that the game promotes and rewards min/maxing, so to the point that it's hard to even make an argument as to why not do it.

 

All games reward min/maxing without exception. Min/maxing is the idea of exploiting the game mechanics as much as you can to trivialize the content.

[mutonizer]

[..]the question really is why.

 

Because it's up to you, that's the point I was trying to make. Depending on how you approach these games, you'll have vastly different experiences and that's a good deal why they're cool in my book.

 

You cannot fight (nor is it in any way a good idea, I mean, they do whatever they want) against players who will just try to "beat the game", they will always look for the next advantage they can get because that's how they play and it's fine. If this was a competitive game, then sure, go ahead and really limit how people can play it, balance everything and whatnot, but this isn't, so why bother. It's 100% single player so the game is defined by how YOU play it, as long as it has decent base mechanics of course, which I think, PoE now has (didn't before they pushed release though, not to me at least).

 

Same argument came up with rest-spamming, which brought us supplies. What does that changed? Nothing whatsoever. People who rest-spammed before, will rest-spammed now, only find it more tedious and either will stop playing, or just mod/cheat it. It however affects people like me, who never rest-spam, by adding some completely useless mechanic that wastes my time (running back and forth) and is completely devoid of any interesting potential (no ambushing etc) for the slightest mistakes. That'll be the first thing I do before booting the game: mod it out.

 

On the other hand we now got unlimited stash, but how you use it is 100% up to YOU. Heck, they now even have an option for "access anywhere", that really shows that how you play PoE is up to you. Personally, I'll limit myself to never use stash to store/grab anything while I'm "adventuring", and only use it as some kind of chest in the Stronghold (and tavern before that maybe). That'll put, to me at least, an interesting pressure on the money available, force me to choose what I loot, and bring back some of the inventory managements mechanics that I like.

But that's just my way. You might choose to just auto loot everything, down to every little piece of cheese hiding in the corner. To each his own. BUT if you start reducing the value of everything because you assume everyone will loot everything anyway, I'm screwed. I rather you just accept that some people will get INSANE cash and don't get bothered by it nor try to fix it.

 

Now for armour. Personally, since I really delved into it, I think anything below Path of the Damned is just "whatever man" as you said, so not even gonna bother because I don't want to spend 30+ hours just roflstomping everything like Josh did in all his demos. Now, Path of the Damned is another story entirely. Sure you can still cheese it, bring 4 druids 2 tanks and rest-spam, but if you don't, you'll want to put some armour on everyone because there are a LOT of dudes to fight and your one or two tanks won't hold them all up and if one of them gets a hit on your naked caster, it'll be a one shot.

 

That said, and it comes back to my issue with Critical hits and DR, I do agree that since you're back liners WILL be critted (low def) and because DR means **** when you get critted, armour as a whole is, indeed, a go max or go min thing. But, to me, THAT's the problem with armour, not what you described.

 

All games reward min/maxing without exception. Min/maxing is the idea of exploiting the game mechanics as much as you can to trivialize the content.

Exactly and it comes down, in the end, to the way YOU (as a player) play the game, not the game itself. That excludes competitive games of course, where min/maxing is the actual goal. Edited March 18, 2015 by mutonizer

[gkathellar]

 

 

So you're min/maxing and complaining that things are being min/maxed? Nobody forces you to do anything. That's like saying the game economy sucks because you loot everything there ever was.

 

Two points here.

 

The complaint isn't really that things are "are being" min/maxed. The complaint in general is that the game promotes and rewards min/maxing, so to the point that it's hard to even make an argument as to why not do it.

 

All games reward min/maxing without exception. Min/maxing is the idea of exploiting the game mechanics as much as you can to trivialize the content.

 

 

True. But ideally, there are a greater variety of distinct ways to min-max. Having all characters divided along this Tank vs. Non-Tank line is kind of obnoxiously binary.

[Luckmann]

 

 

So you're min/maxing and complaining that things are being min/maxed? Nobody forces you to do anything. That's like saying the game economy sucks because you loot everything there ever was.

 

Two points here.

 

The complaint isn't really that things are "are being" min/maxed. The complaint in general is that the game promotes and rewards min/maxing, so to the point that it's hard to even make an argument as to why not do it.

 

All games reward min/maxing without exception. Min/maxing is the idea of exploiting the game mechanics as much as you can to trivialize the content.

 

 

Except.. they don't. There are a lot of games where the choices aren't nearly as black and white as in this situation. It is entirely true that many games have a potential element of min/maxing (which I thought I acknowledged in my post, but I now realize that I was a bit vague). There is a difference between there being min/maxing and the game actively promoting and rewarding it, and a lot of games where it is possible to min/max, the way you min/max is different based on what you want to do or what you are.

 

DnD is a perfect example of this, where min/maxing is alive and well. But two characters will likely never be min/maxed in the same way, because the game is structured differently. Not specifically to avoid min/maxing, mind you, but it simply is.

 

But when it comes to PoE, min/maxing is blatant, obvious, and rewarded. The choice between the best armour is binary, independent of what what class you are, independent of what build you are. For the best possible outcome, unless you personally for whatever reason choose to actively gimp yourself, there are only two choices; the heaviest available, or none at all.

 

This is not a good system, again, unless we can come up with better arguments to use the in-betweens than "I want to, because, uh, reasons". There should be practical incentives to engage in game content and game mechanics beyond "This looks fancy", "I like the look of it" or "I enjoy gimping myself". I'd even go beyond dismissing these arguments as acceptable, but downright counter-productive in that they're aimed against attempts to balance the game further.

 

Edit: Ninja'd by Gkathellar.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Luckmann

[Voss]

Trivializing the content? No. Responding appropriately to the game world and understanding system mastery is part of the RPG experience.

 

 

 

 

As for how I'd fix the armor problem, I'd do two things (Note: all numbers are arbitrary and can be changed)-

 

First, rework the armor recovery times into something sane:  0% recovery penalty for robes and padded, keep plate at 50%, and put everything else on a curve from 10% (leather) to 40% (brigandine).

 

Second, add a % ignore recovery time to Consitution, say at 3% per point.  This wouldn't be a percentage reduction, but an absolute number that subtracts from the recovery percentage of armor.  So, say a 14 Con character would ignore 12% recovery time, so they would suffer no recovery penalty from the revised number for leather, and drop Plate recovery penalty to 38%.  

 

This would encourage some armor on everyone, more use of medium armors, and as a bonus, find a use for Con.  Rather than the defacto dragon age style system of 'wizards only wear this and fighters only wear that.'  Which is what the current system effectively amounts to while trying to pretend it doesn't by filling in the middle with junk.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Voss

[mutonizer]

This is not a good system, again, unless we can come up with better arguments to use the in-betweens than "I want to, because, uh, reasons". There should be practical incentives to engage in game content and game mechanics beyond "This looks fancy", "I like the look of it" or "I enjoy gimping myself". I'd even go beyond dismissing these arguments as acceptable, but downright counter-productive in that they're aimed against attempts to balance the game further.

First, **** balance.

Second, look'n feel is easily one of the most important aspect in these games, as long as it has a decent enough core system. PoE system takes a while to get into, but once you get it, you can play around with it a bit.

 

This is also a new system without the decades of feedback and experience that DnD has and probably very little tabletop practice. They'll learn from this release and will most likely tweak things around for add-on and sequels as well as expand possibilities, builds, etc.

 

 

Really odd though that they ended up with this, which I agree promotes min/maxing like nothing I've seen before, while they wanted the opposite. But with difficulty settings being total cakewalks, that's probably how they achieved their goal: Pick whatever, click click click.

Almost gave up and cancelled my pre-order when I saw Josh demo the game on hard, it looked like a game made for one-handed paraplegic retards. Glad I finally came back around couple weeks ago and tried Path of the Damned though, totally changed it for and now I'm supra high on the hype train...can't wait for release.

[Quetzalcoatl]

 

 

 

So you're min/maxing and complaining that things are being min/maxed? Nobody forces you to do anything. That's like saying the game economy sucks because you loot everything there ever was.

 

Two points here.

 

The complaint isn't really that things are "are being" min/maxed. The complaint in general is that the game promotes and rewards min/maxing, so to the point that it's hard to even make an argument as to why not do it.

 

All games reward min/maxing without exception. Min/maxing is the idea of exploiting the game mechanics as much as you can to trivialize the content.

 

 

Except.. they don't. There are a lot of games where the choices aren't nearly as black and white as in this situation. It is entirely true that many games have a potential element of min/maxing (which I thought I acknowledged in my post, but I now realize that I was a bit vague). There is a difference between there being min/maxing and the game actively promoting and rewarding it, and a lot of games where it is possible to min/max, the way you min/max is different based on what you want to do or what you are.

 

DnD is a perfect example of this, where min/maxing is alive and well. But two characters will likely never be min/maxed in the same way, because the game is structured differently. Not specifically to avoid min/maxing, mind you, but it simply is.

 

Armor in AD&D is pure benefit. That's an example of a binary choice.

 

You can wear no armor to maximize your DPS, but it also means you might get dropped with just a hit or two. That's a risk you take.

 

[Headbomb]

Personally, I use medium and light armors. I want my rogues to have some protection, but not so much that they have the attack rate of a glacier.

 

Now to me the main problem is that you always get the same type of bonus (DR), and always have the same type of penalty (attack speed). If you vary the bonuses and penalties, then you get different flavours of armor that is beyond "ajust the DR/attack rate slider to where you want it".

 

Here's some proposed solution to diversify things a bit more

 

Unarmored  DR Defl Speed  Crit Special

                          Dmg

Cloth       0  +10   -0%   -0%

 

Light

Robe        2   +7   -5%   -0%

Padded      3   +6  -10%   -0%

 

Medium

Hide        4   +4  -15%   -5%

Leather     5   +3  -20%   -5%

Scale       6   +2  -25%   -5%

 

Heavy

Breastplate 8   +0  -25%  -15%  -1 Stealth

Mail        9   +0  -30%  -15%  -1 Stealth

Brigandine  10  +0  -35%  -15%  -1 Stealth

 

Heaviest

Plate       12  +0  -50%  -25%  -2 Stealth

 

Not saying the balance is perfect here, but that would allow for each armor to have more flavour.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Headbomb

[Luckmann]

Armor in AD&D is pure benefit. That's an example of a binary choice.

 

You can wear no armor to maximize your DPS, but it also means you might get dropped with just a hit or two. That's a risk you take.

In AD&D, maybe, but I didn't say AD&D specifically. The point was that there's different armours, and all of it will get used, based on what choice of class you are and so on. The Min/Maxing will be different based on what you play. There is no such distinction here, which was my whole point. In AD&D, Wizards will use robes, thieves will use leather, and fighters will use full plate.

 

In PoE, anyone that isn't a tank will do best in clothes, and the tank will be best supported by people capable of killing things before the party is violently murdered, which armour interferes with.

 

I would not trade the PoE system for the AD&D system for all the butter in Småland, but my point still stands.