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

[drunetovich]

Why do you keep ignoring armor enchantments? Medium armor can outperform heavy and especially "no armor" with proper enchants

[Luckmann]

Why do you keep ignoring armor enchantments? Medium armor can outperform heavy and especially "no armor" with proper enchants

What non-unique enchants are exclusive to Medium Armour?

[Voss]

Why do you keep ignoring armor enchantments? Medium armor can outperform heavy and especially "no armor" with proper enchants

Clothing can be enchanted too.  Enchantments apply equally to everything since they are (IIRC) linear upgrades and not multipliers. 

[gkathellar]

Why do you keep ignoring armor enchantments? Medium armor can outperform heavy and especially "no armor" with proper enchants

 

Yes, and a matchlock with powder and lead can outperform an M-6 carbine that doesn't have any ammunition. That doesn't mean the matchlock is better, it just means you've weighted the scales.

[drunetovich]

 

Why do you keep ignoring armor enchantments? Medium armor can outperform heavy and especially "no armor" with proper enchants

 

Yes, and a matchlock with powder and lead can outperform an M-6 carbine that doesn't have any ammunition. That doesn't mean the matchlock is better, it just means you've weighted the scales.

 

 

Scales are already weighted, you will start the game with basic armor set, and will slowly find components for basic enchants and some already enchanted armors that will be better performing due to lack of top enchants on your basic armor. I also believe there will be many unique armor sets that will not follow baseline armor sets very much. They will be medium and they will be amazing.

Edited March 23, 2015 by drunetovich

[Luckmann]

 

 

Why do you keep ignoring armor enchantments? Medium armor can outperform heavy and especially "no armor" with proper enchants

 

Yes, and a matchlock with powder and lead can outperform an M-6 carbine that doesn't have any ammunition. That doesn't mean the matchlock is better, it just means you've weighted the scales.

 

 

Scales are already weighted, you will start the game with basic armor set, and will slowly find components for basic enchants and some already enchanted armors that will be better performing due to lack of top enchants on your basic armor. I also believe there will be many unique armor sets that will not follow baseline armor sets very much. They will be medium and they will be amazing.

 

Unsubstantiated, and by that logic, you will find equally amazing unique heavy armours or maybe even clothes.

 

When discussing armour balance, we're strictly discussing the mechanics as they are, not theorycrafting air-castles that may or may not come to pass. Even if there would be amazingly overpowered armours in the game that are specifically medium armour, and all the rest would get nothing but rusty trash, it would not mean that the base system would be balanced.

[drunetovich]

My point is that baseline calculations may have a very little relevance to actual gameplay.

[DigitalCrack]

My point is that baseline calculations may have a very little relevance to actual gameplay.

Any "foundation" element in a game system has significant relevance to gameplay because it effects everything "above" it. So baseline armor stats have significant gameplay relevance cause they affect the balance of all unique armor since its all built around that baseline.

[Luckmann]

And if it had no relevance, you would have to ask yourself why it exists to begin with. Of course it has relevance. It's the foundation of everything above it.

[Voss]

My point is that baseline calculations may have a very little relevance to actual gameplay.

This is entirely wrong.  Your argument at this point is 'Medium armor is DR 7, and heavy armor is DR 10, but if you add 4 to 7 it is 11, and then inexplicably claim the argument ends there.  But you can also add 4 to 10.   Enchantments are a constant, they don't change the relative values. 

[anameforobsidian]

 

Min/Max mentality is neither counterintutitive nor artificial.  It recognizes how the game world works and reacts to it appropriately. 

 

Think of it as the age of gunpowder, with dps characters taking the role of guns, and tank characters taking the role of swords.   The overwhelming power of guns (dps characters) makes armor irrelevant.  Logcailly killing people as quickly as possible so they deal less damage overall is superior just trying to tough it out.

 

 

That's not actually what happened with guns.  People wore plate many years after guns were widespread.  In fact, some plate designers would shoot their plate to show that it could repel bullets.  It took hundreds of years for guns to make plate obsolete, and even longer to make other forms of armor obsolete.  When arquebus were used in the Italian wars and many wars analogous to the PE age, they used mixed formations of pikemen and guns, and both had a wide variety of armor.

 

Gunmen are less likely to wear armor not because it isn't valuable, but because it's expensive and they couldn't afford it.

[Doppelschwert]

It raises an interesting point however, since additive enchantments shift the ratio of DR/slowdown in a way that lighter armors become more attractive.

Since you can add the same value to each armor, the slowdown of the armor only relates to the actual difference between armor types.

Glancing at the Wiki it seems like 1DT equals roughly 5% slowdown. I'd argue that this system scales in a way that it's better to use lighter armor once the additive bonuses get higher, as the slowdown gives you only an marginal increase in overall DR.

I'm sure they'll get back to the armors in a patch anyway. I think a nice way to boost the medium armor would be to arrange the armors on a triangular shape whose vertices consist of 'speed', 'DR' and 'saves', such that there is a tradeoff between the three stats. Would create more situations for armor to shine, although min/maxing will still be applicable. But that's a given.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Doppelschwert

[DigitalCrack]

It raises an interesting point however, since additive enchantments shift the ratio of DR/slowdown in a way that lighter armors become more attractive.

Since you can add the same value to each armor, the slowdown of the armor only relates to the actual difference between armor types.

Glancing at the Wiki it seems like 1DT equals roughly 5% slowdown. I'd argue that this system scales in a way that it's better to use lighter armor once the additive bonuses get higher, as the slowdown gives you only an marginal increase in overall DR.

I'm sure they'll get back to the armors in a patch anyway. I think a nice way to boost the medium armor would be to arrange the armors on a triangular shape whose vertices consist of 'speed', 'DR' and 'saves', such that there is a tradeoff between the three stats. Would create more situations for armor to shine, although min/maxing will still be applicable. But that's a given.

I like it even if only for the fact that it sounds interesting haha. But really I want something that will make armor more compelling, especially if it means individual categories getting their own "identity" (unique benefit to using a certain kind of armor).

[wanderon]

Armors are different now - different DR for different damage types & different recovery penalties suitable for different character concepts.

[DigitalCrack]

Armors are different now - different DR for different damage types & different recovery penalties suitable for different character concepts.

Yeah but their differences are too subtle and could be much more compelling. Right now its all so insignificant that it really makes no difference or at least no noticable difference.

Edited March 24, 2015 by DigitalCrack

[Luckmann]

It raises an interesting point however, since additive enchantments shift the ratio of DR/slowdown in a way that lighter armors become more attractive.

Since you can add the same value to each armor, the slowdown of the armor only relates to the actual difference between armor types.

Glancing at the Wiki it seems like 1DT equals roughly 5% slowdown. I'd argue that this system scales in a way that it's better to use lighter armor once the additive bonuses get higher, as the slowdown gives you only an marginal increase in overall DR.

I'm sure they'll get back to the armors in a patch anyway. I think a nice way to boost the medium armor would be to arrange the armors on a triangular shape whose vertices consist of 'speed', 'DR' and 'saves', such that there is a tradeoff between the three stats. Would create more situations for armor to shine, although min/maxing will still be applicable. But that's a given.

This, this is something I would like to see coupled with my own suggestions earlier in the thread. Yes, it is still possible to min/max, but the way you min/max would be different, with several different styles and ways to min/max.

 

Which will always be the goal, because min/maxing can't be avoided. Like. At all.

[Zansatsu]

How does something like this happen? I mean all these guys are pro's. How could they create, in an effort to make a flexible armor system, a mostly useless one? Have the developers commented on these numbers at all? Do they think this is a problem?

[Luckmann]

How does something like this happen? I mean all these guys are pro's. How could they create, in an effort to make a flexible armor system, a mostly useless one? Have the developers commented on these numbers at all? Do they think this is a problem?

 

There are a lot of issues in PoE that aren't really addressed and sometimes it's understandable, and sometimes it's honestly a bit daunting that it turned out that way when it all tied together. But I think that they are aware of most of the major issues, but either couldn't find any solution that would be realistic to implement in time (or at all), or that they felt "just had to work".

 

Some can probably be chalked up to pure stubbornness on some select people, though, or wilful ignorance. I know Sawyer specifically has had a hard time understanding issues plainly explained to him, and either misunderstanding the problems because he didn't read up on it, or just brushed them off without investigation.

 

The idea of the armour system was actually pretty good, it just sorta grew into this, I think, and I hope that they keep working on it in the future. I think it was a mistake to remove DR in favour of DT alone (which is now called DR, I know, it's confusing, but DR was basically % while DT is what we have now, a flat mod), because it could've been an additional balancing factor to be used, but now it's going to be hard to re-introduce.

 

It's not a lost cause, it's just going to take considerable effort to fix. I'm hoping that it'll be taken care of in an expansion, but invasive system operations like this tends to be beyond the scope of an expansion.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Luckmann

[Doppelschwert]

Armors are different now - different DR for different damage types & different recovery penalties suitable for different character concepts.

 

Was there some social media news from one of the devs recently or what do you mean by 'now' ?

[Quetzalcoatl]

How does something like this happen? I mean all these guys are pro's. How could they create, in an effort to make a flexible armor system, a mostly useless one? Have the developers commented on these numbers at all? Do they think this is a problem?

By many accounts, the armor system isn't 'mostly useless'. If you'll notice, in this thread it's mostly the same person parroting the same arguments.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Quetzalcoatl

[wanderon]

 

Armors are different now - different DR for different damage types & different recovery penalties suitable for different character concepts.

 

Was there some social media news from one of the devs recently or what do you mean by 'now' ?

 

 

Now - as in today - or as of the last BB build and/or also in previous builds the armors are/were different - they have different DRs for different damage types within the same categories as well as different DRs from one category to another - they have different recovery penalties from one major type to another (heavy vs medium vs light etc) and these differences offer people the opportunity to choose different armors for different class concepts - in fact even the min/max awesome vs useless crowd has decided there are two different choices - Plate or naked - 

[Jon of the Wired]

To be fair, according to my model, all you have to do to give breastplates a viable niche is change the -40% recovery penalty to a -35% recovery penalty. It's not exactly a massive overhaul.

[DigitalCrack]

 

 

 

 

Armors are different now - different DR for different damage types & different recovery penalties suitable for different character concepts.

Was there some social media news from one of the devs recently or what do you mean by 'now' ?

Now - as in today - or as of the last BB build and/or also in previous builds the armors are/were different - they have different DRs for different damage types within the same categories as well as different DRs from one category to another - they have different recovery penalties from one major type to another (heavy vs medium vs light etc) and these differences offer people the opportunity to choose different armors for different class concepts - in fact even the min/max awesome vs useless crowd has decided there are two different choices - Plate or naked -

I am not a min maxer by any means. I just want mid ranged armor to actually be a benefit of some kind to wear. As it stands it actually disadvantages you. "you can still use it and be fine" shouldnt be a reason not to make it better, especially when it could be better.

[wanderon]

 

 

 

Armors are different now - different DR for different damage types & different recovery penalties suitable for different character concepts.

Was there some social media news from one of the devs recently or what do you mean by 'now' ?

Now - as in today - or as of the last BB build and/or also in previous builds the armors are/were different - they have different DRs for different damage types within the same categories as well as different DRs from one category to another - they have different recovery penalties from one major type to another (heavy vs medium vs light etc) and these differences offer people the opportunity to choose different armors for different class concepts - in fact even the min/max awesome vs useless crowd has decided there are two different choices - Plate or naked -

I am not a min maxer by any means. I just want mid ranged armor to actually be a benefit of some kind to wear. As it stands it actually disadvantages you. "you can still use it and be fine" shouldnt be a reason not to make it better, especially when it could be better.

 

 

YMMV

[Voss]

How does something like this happen? I mean all these guys are pro's. How could they create, in an effort to make a flexible armor system, a mostly useless one? Have the developers commented on these numbers at all? Do they think this is a problem?

Quite easily. Game design(certainly not the mechanical, non computer part of it) isn't a 'professional' business. It is a matter of math, and, quite honestly personal preferences, which need to be run into the ground of rigorous testing. Which frankly there wasn't time for.

 

They also have the major flaw when it comes to game design- if someone has a precious idea that turns out to be not so good, they cling to it hard, rather than discarding it in favor of something else. But game design is like writing- you've got to kill your babies.

Now, note here that this isn't particularly exclusive to obsidian. Even in the pen and Paper realm, a lot of games lately have been absolute atrocities in terms of design. Take d&d 4 or shadowrun 5.

 

Second, the obsidian guys in particular... Haven't done a lot of original work. They mostly do sequels or spin offs of other people's systems. And design from the ground up is a lot different from tweaking an existing system.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Voss