Does the heavy armor need some work?

[philthymcnasty]

I have been doing a lot of gameplay balance experiments lately, and this weeks project has been armor related.

As it stands i am using blackend chain mail, but the overarmor has been switched from mastercrafted samuari armor to mastercrafted white plate armor.

Now one clear bug is the white plate armor does not have the acid resistance, but that can be addressed later.

The issue is that i have seen no difference in combat time between the two armors. A cheaper, less soak armor seems to work as well as a more expensive higher soak armor.

One difference between the two, is the white plate armor has 100% soak on all stats, but the samurai armor does not. The other difference is speed. The samurai armor affects combat speed, the white plate does not.

I am going to test this some more, but at the moment this strikes me as a balance issue. I am just one guy, but if this is an issue, then other people who have payed around will have noticed this.

As it stands, fighting 100 fog men in both types of armors, there is no difference in damage.

the same goes with 100 paladins of various ranks.

The only thing i can think that might be throwing me off, is the high toughness of the test character, he is at 93. Does a high toughness make armor kinda pointless?

[Shidan]

Well, I just ran the numbers. Compared the Plate Jacket to Samurai Chestplate, with Blackened Chainmail under both. All Masterwork. I used 100 cut and blunt damage as the base for the calculations, so the numbers below are essentially the percentages of damage you'll take of that type.

They are ordered like this.
% of cut damage that will get through the armours.
% of cut damage that will be converted to blunt (will ignore blunt resistances).
% of blunt damage that will get through the armours.

Plate Jacket
9.9 Cut
15.3 Converted Cut
44.64 Blunt

Samurai Armour
1.6 Cut
0.3 Converted Cut
30.69 Blunt

Just Chainmail (For when samurai fails)
31 cut
6.9 converted Cut
72 Blunt

The Plate Jacket's numbers will be applied every time, as both the Jacket and Chainmail should apply their defence 100% of the time. Samurai will only apply its numbers 75% of the time (90% for chest hits) though, while the rest of the time it will only apply the Chainmail's.

So over 100 hits, 100 cut and blunt damage each, assuming they hit the same body part every hit (all parts but the chest on samurai will be identical total damage), and factoring in coverage chances, the average damage received would be around:

Plate Jacket
990 Cut
1530 Converted Cut
4464 Blunt

Samurai Armour
895 Cut (454 on Chest)
195 Converted Cut (96 on Chest)
4102 Blunt (3482 on Chest)

You'll notice, cut and blunt protection actually turn out relatively close. Samurai does a little better, but it is not that far off from the Plate Jacket, which has less penalties. The converted damage however changes things. That 40% stun on the Plate Jacket means you'll be taking a fair bit more damage per hit from cut attacks.

So heavy armour is still superior as far as resisting damage is concerned. Though the Plate Jacket handles itself quite well, especially if you go up against enemies with more blunt damage.

[philthymcnasty]

This is troubling.

The samurai armor both costs more, and has more debuffs, but only does a slightly better job?

The big factor here would be harpoon damage, but who uses turrets against the player?

So unless turrets and projectiles become a bigger part of the game, samurai armor is not as good of a protection deal as plate jackets, and with the combat debuffs probably is worse.

If acid becomes a big issue, then the plate jacket will be superior to the samurai plate.

Does mercenary plate fare better than? or would it be worse?

It sorta makes sense about these armors, because they are left over from the desert alpha map. I guess they really do need some tweaking for balance.

[dragonalumni]

double posted..

[dragonalumni]

It is more troubling than it looks like by just those numbers once you truly consider the debuffs for the Samurai set you would never actually consider wearing it in battle.

-combat stat
-combat speed
-athletics
-dodge
-stealth

no thanks.

As you can see this set is more useful for swiss guards protecting the Pope or something.

It would be really nice though if white AND black plate jackets got fixed soon too.

[philthymcnasty]

So far, the best solution i can see for the samurai armor is to lower the cost.

make it the cheapest heavy armor.

This fits in lorewise because "government owned samurai" meaning that they wear mass produced, cheap armor.

This means that all other values get left alone, but price and availability of blueprints.

I do want to see more heavy armor though, i think the equipment needs some work.

[dragonalumni]

So far, the best solution i can see for the samurai armor is to lower the cost.

I believe that is the wrong direction. Nobody is going to put on a negative 3 combat stat helm with a new squad unless they just like being bad. My own perspective is that heavy plate is something like end-game armor and not something new squads should be aspiring too. Secondly, I made 30 sets of samurai armor in my base before deciding not to use it, so the cost isn't even an issue.

My feeling is that Samurai armor needs to have less prohibitive stats so that all those negatives don't make it worse than middle weight armors or some rag-tag combination of other heavy and light plate.

I think the devs went a little too far in the realism of things like helms when they decided that those needed to make you bad at combat (- 3 combat stat), pushing most player to just not use them at all, at 30 combat skill that is a 10% debuff, that is significant on a "experienced" fighter and a 60, it's still -5% for just a helm. That is just one of the 8 or so debuffs that come with this set.

Another direction would be to add some benefits to heavier and heaviest armors, such as a critical strike nulifier attribute.

[philthymcnasty]

Another option is to just increase the coverage of the chest and call it the day.

The only armor from that set that is any good is the legplates.

The helm, boots and chest suck.

Now, if they made this armor upgrade able via one of the workbenches, then that would be one hell of a thing. That could be possible with the way the crafting system is currently set up.

At the moment though, i do not think that any new features will happen. i have some mod ideas i am playing around with, but it will be a while before anything shows up.

[philthymcnasty]

What if dodge helped armor?

say for every 20 points of dodge, you got 10% more coverage with a piece of armor up to 100%.

This would keep things balanced, encourage more combat training, and get more use out of the dodge skill.

no more need to adjust armor, heavy armor gets a boost, and balance stays the same.

[philthymcnasty]

I just realized something about the stun from your numbers post:

If i put the blackend chain mail on FIRST, then it's stun is applied. So that means that the plate jacket stun gets ignored.

[Shidan]

No, that's not how that works. You will get less damage by equipping the chainmail first, but it does not nullify the Stun value one the jacket. The numbers I ran above are with the chainmail equipped before the jacket.

[simpkin_11]

I would like to see some bonuses for matching sets..

A full set of the same type of armor should fit better than mix/matching


lets say.. by it's self a heavy chest piece is -10 with 80% coverage to attack (have you tried fighting in heavy armor?)

But if it is well fitted, and clasps to all of the other pieces it's only -5 to attack and 90% coverage

(just examples for arguments sake)

A skill for armor would be cool as well.. (light, Med, Heavy)

Just think.. if you have never used the equipment... it should have a huge penalty ... but if you wear it every day for a year... it should fit like a second layer of skin.

I know it would be a lot more work.. but an experience rating for all equipment would be cool too.
lots of work because it would need to be per person.

Rusty sword is ok... but lets say that rusty sword is your best friend and you two have been through a lot together. Your hands eventually make finger grooves. the weight of the blade feels like an extension of your arm.. everything just .. fits. Is it really worth it to upgrade to a newer shiny blade?

To counter that.. it would be cool to have a break chance for blades. Higher vs heavy weapon block, plate armor hit ect.

A very low % but makes having that secondary weapon even more important.



Ramble... Ramble... Ramble...

[dragonalumni]

What if dodge helped armor?

I hate to be contrary but dodge firmly belongs to the uber light builds and should do so.
The more I think about it though, I just think heavy armor needs to do A LITTLE BIT more,
have A LITTLE BIT less drawbacks and possibly scale (nerf) all lighter armors A LITTLE bit
to make it viable to use heavy plate.

I think it would be really awesome to be running a whole true samurai army around.

[philthymcnasty]

What if dodge helped armor?

I hate to be contrary but dodge firmly belongs to the uber light builds and should do so.
The more I think about it though, I just think heavy armor needs to do A LITTLE BIT more,
have A LITTLE BIT less drawbacks and possibly scale (nerf) all lighter armors A LITTLE bit
to make it viable to use heavy plate.

I think it would be really awesome to be running a whole true samurai army around.

The uber light builds are no joke. Once you get your toughness and strength high enough, you can beat people to death and take no damage.

I mention the dodge affecting heavy armor, because i train my martial arts while wearing heavy armor. once you are no longer encumbered in it, your dodge levels up pretty quickly.

the problem is once you have a sword in hand, the skill loses relevance. aside for being a competitionist there is no point in having every skill trained up.

It feels kinda wasteful to me. It only applies when unarmed? once your toughness hits a certain point, you no longer get staggered, so dodge becomes moot.

Things get concerning when you consider skeletons and hivers. They can't wear shirts. So if they don't have holy armor, then there is a 25% chance of being oneshot in the chest or stomach. I have seen this happen to greenlanders with leviathans. In the case of the hivers, they have to have 100% coverage on the chest and stomach, otherwise when fighting am opponent with good quality weapons, they can get killed.

[Captain Deathbeard]

So over 100 hits, 100 cut and blunt damage each, assuming they hit the same body part every hit (all parts but the chest on samurai will be identical total damage), and factoring in coverage chances, the average damage received would be around:

Plate Jacket
990 Cut
1530 Converted Cut
4464 Blunt

Samurai Armour
895 Cut (454 on Chest)
195 Converted Cut (96 on Chest)
4102 Blunt (3482 on Chest)

That seems like a huge difference to me due to the converted cut damage- 6984 total damage vs 5192 (4032 chest).

The big factor here would be harpoon damage, but who uses turrets against the player?

So unless turrets and projectiles become a bigger part of the game, samurai armor is not as good of a protection deal as plate jackets, and with the combat debuffs probably is worse.

Turrets and projectiles will be a much bigger deal some time in the future, so there is that to factor in too.



The idea is also that heavy armour isn't really suitable for a travelling warrior, it's supposed to be better for town guards and more static professions. I also like to think that a highly experienced fighter would prefer medium over heavy armour in general, that super heavy armour would be seen as a crutch for those with less skill and experience

[Berrial]

The idea is also that heavy armour isn't really suitable for a travelling warrior, it's supposed to be better for town guards and more static professions. I also like to think that a highly experienced fighter would prefer medium over heavy armour in general, that super heavy armour would be seen as a crutch for those with less skill and experience

From my experience with the game, less skilled guys are better off with lighter stat boosting gear, then with heavy armor. Speed and skill penalties are really painful. I use heavy armor only on med-high skilled toons to level stats in my training battle arena.
Maybe tying speed penalty to strength/encumbrance would be better?

[lucidmadness]

IMO they broke the game by putting in higher grades than "high". Seriously I will do 0 damage with a "multi-barrel" turret against a highly armored paladin. What is the point of having an experimental badass harpoon that costs like 2x the materials if it literally does no damage?