On heavy armor and recovery.

[Veevoir]

Yeah, definitely it is far from sound statistics It is closer to a short experiment.

However - it is the question of beloved balance as well. Once you put the full plate the recovery times become really long. Unless it is a tank or a gun user - the lost of adaptability to the situation due to high recovery is real. Which is also an issue when you need to adapt to an enemy overpenetrating - with medium you could relatively quickly cast a heal or a CC. With heavy - you're stuck in recovery or breaking engagement/running away while the OP enemy pokes through your armor

And that adaptability also moves into territory of player agency and very broadly defined "fun". Did a run with a heavy armor character and he spent most of his life in recovery. IT was quite.. boring. You schedule an action, go to kitchen, make a toast, action takes place, schedule another one, watch the paint dry

Naked/light/medium characters actually feel like "doing something". You can do this, that, options everywhere and the combat feels more fluid. I understand this is massively subjective, but still can be considered a factor.

That's why I argue that medium armor definitely has place in the game - without meta knowledge about enemies and swapping armors before each encounter - it gives a good balance of penalty vs armor. Sure, bosses will overpenetrate it no problem, but it is quite possible they will overpenetrate full plate as well, being, well, bosses..
At the same time it gives reasonable protection from the adds.

So, unless you are tanky frontliner - it is worth consideration.

Light armor I don't get. I actually don't think I met an enemy in beta that would not penetrate/overpenetrate fine leather. What is the meaning of light armor?

Edited March 9, 2018 by Veevoir

[Boeroer]

Hah! I think we actually mean the same thing.

 

Because for me leather is medium armor. And I agree that it seems to be quite useless.

 

My definition of heavy/medium/light is:

 

light:

- robe

- padded

- hide

 

medium:

- leather

- scale

- breastplate

 

heavy:

- mail

- brigandine

- plate

 

But only because of PoE. Maybe they need a different classification in Deadfire. However: there is a line or a "break even point" where it makes absolutley no sense to wear armor that is too thin. Of course there may be unique armors that have cool enchantments and that's the reason why you'd want to wear them - but that aside: it's a pity that you'll have no motivation to wear armor that is a tiny bit too weak. As you said: everything from leather and downwards seems to be useless in most fights in the beta. So - wizard in robe is actually gimpage...

 

In PoE every point of DR at least did something.

 

I think a percentage based system would have been better. Less "mushy" than PoE, still every kind of armor would do something for the wearer.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Boeroer

[Faustus2]

 

Of course for gun users, tanks etc. - heavy is the way to go.

 

 

 

 

 

[Boeroer]

Guns have no recovery time but only reloading time. Reloading time is not influenced by armor penalties, only recovery is. Thus you can shoot as fast in plate armor as you could in fresh underpants.

[Veevoir]

Just did a quick check in the initial beta shop.. and here it is, a handy cheat-sheet to Deadfire armor (as per current beta).
And yes, there is a line or a "break even point" where it makes absolutely no sense to wear armor that is too thin. But I feel it is much better than in PoE1
 

 

Clothes: usually 0, Robe gives 3 Armor, all clothing give 3 armor, +0% recovery.

Robe is better than nothing I guess. Especially if you can stack some extra armor on it from other items or enchant it, as long as you reach 6 or more
No penalty here, so no reason to run naked in PoE2 - clothes is what you should get at minimum ;)At least an aesthetics improvement.

Light: Leather, Hide, Padded. Base armor: 5, recovery: +20%.

All light & medium weapons have a base penetration of 5.. so, yeah. 20% penalty for nothing. If you get +1 armor (available by some class skills) above current equipment options = maybe worth something.

Medium: Scale, Breastplate (Chainmail?). Base armor: 7, recovery +35%.

Now we are getting somewhere. Most light & medium weapons (plus pistols, blunderbuss, hunting bows) don't penetrate it by default (even fine quality weapons! so always armor is one step ahead here) which I think makes a difference. Also greatswords and quarterstaffs don't go through.

If the armor has a weakness for damage type - armor is 5, so lacks that one point. Anti-armor light/medium weapons match your armor as well. Still, the lowest actual protection you can get. 

And if you can get it by +1 point by aura or some other means - you are only threatened by arquebus, arbalest and estoc.. So for Paladins or Barbarians this is a very good reason not to actually wear heavy armor with right skills!

Heavy: Plate armor, Brigantine (+ 3rd choice, there are always 3). Base armor: 9, recovery +55%

Now we're talking, except for.. recovery. It is really punishing, even if it doesn't look that much. Look at the jumps light to medium is 15%, medium to heavy -> 20%.
However - with Armor 9 you are ready for the big leagues, only arbalest/arquebus and Estoc can match your armor. But that is accomplished by armor rating of 8 as well, you only get that comfortable 9 armor just in case of something bigger or better. To beat those 3 weapons you'd need to bump it to 11 anyway.

Of course I compare to human weapons, natural weapons are "whatever goes" territory.

(let me know if I missed something)

Edited March 9, 2018 by Veevoir

[Faustus2]

Guns have no recovery time but only reloading time. Reloading time is not influenced by armor penalties, only recovery is. Thus you can shoot as fast in plate armor as you could in fresh underpants.

 

 

Partially ruins immersion for me...

 

Armor definitely needs to influence reloading time imo.

[Terminator]

If you want to make sure they only get 25% damage instead of 100% or even 130% and will not be the ones who get hit first all the time then yes.

 

For -75% damage everybody can handle longer recovery times.

 

In PoE there was a sweet spot when it comes to DR and rushing. Also every point of armor did something for you. In Deadfire it's more like all or nothing.

 

Of course it may be that we'll see some awesome unique medium armors - who knows...

Well can't you enchant that Medium armor in Deadfire to make it better? I have not played any Beta. I don't know if enchanting ingredients are more hard to get in POE2 Deadfire.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Terminator

[Yosharian]

Isn't it the case that we need to see the context of the entire game to see how the system really plays out?

[Boeroer]

That is true. That's the case with nearly every discussion that is based on beta experience. But the PEN/AR mechanic has this inherent flaw nonetheless. If you don't carefully create encounters around it so that light armors are viable then you'll face the aforementioned problem.

 

Today it's less bad than in beta1 where you only had that hard line: PEN>= AR = full damage, PEN<AR = 25% damage. One point would screw you over really hard. Piling up AR and PEN was the consequence. Now it's a bit better.

 

With a simple percentage based system things would have been... well, more simple. Also for the guys who design encounters and items.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Boeroer

[geala]

I hope on "normal" there is room for playing for visual reasons? Because that's what I want to do. My tank/fighter will wear plate, my damage/fighter and musketeer medium armor, my ranger from a backcountry tribe will be naked (~ loincloth, I think; some people may look better with full clothes, but not all  ), my casters will wear hide or cloth.

[Boeroer]

I think that hide armor is really ugly in Deadfire - at least in the beta.

[Tanred]

I think that hide armor is really ugly in Deadfire - at least in the beta.

 

Yeah, what a shame. It looked great in PoE1.

[Ensign]

I think their armor/penetration plan makes sense from a high level view - you compress the variation in performance into a narrower range of stat values to make each point higher impact and more meaningful, and letting it scale naturally throughout the game.

 

The main problem is...you want the range on the response to be slightly larger than the range on the inputs, so that each point is meaningful. If base armor values vary from 3 to 9 you would want the effects of armor vs pen to have at least as many values; otherwise your system is going to have many obviously 'wrong' values because you get no bang (reduced damage) for your buck (recovery)

[geala]

I think that hide armor is really ugly in Deadfire - at least in the beta.

 

Are there pictures available?

 

When shooting a bow, armor is a hindrance, the stiffer, the more. I would like "armor" for lightly clad chars which looks like Tekehu's stuff, basically just a kilt or loincloth. It's actually hot on the islands, isn't it?

 

BTW, heat management would have been a good way to balance armor in addition to recovery. While you can move more or less unrestricted in fitting heavy armor, the heat balance can greatly decrease your fighting abilties over time, and even kill you (happened possibly to the Duke of York during the battle of Agincourt).