Discussion: How to solve "problem" of unused armor?

[Mockduck]

I'm going to try to keep the original post simple and without a lot of personal ideas in it, because I'm really curious to see what y'all can come up with.

I was reading a recent thread about the look of armor in Stormreach, and this was said:

*snip* Someone mentioned the unused armors (padded, half-plate, brigadine, banded, splint, etc.) and many of those have very cool designs. *snip*

Got me thinking: Turbine's done a pretty good job recently to balance out some of DDO's big issues with weapon choice. In the past, lots of weapons just weren't used because of swing rate, etc. Now, weapons have largely (obviously not totally) been balanced to the point that it's mostly okay to use weapons that might have been verboten in the past.

Wondering how Turbine could change things to make the unused armors viable? Is it even something people would like to see? I'm talking things like half plate, splint mail and the like.

Kind of related: If there's no way to really make these armors viable, but people want to be able to have the look of them to add variety to Stormreach, then maybe armor skinning is the answer? Keep the stats out of it, so to speak.

Seems to me the biggest issue is weight: The best armor properties for light, medium and heavy armors will almost always be the "go to" armor in an MMO for simple stat reasons.

Any ideas?

[Montrose]

Yep, there are a lot of unused armors in the game. Does anyone out there really wear scale armor... like, at all?

The problem is that there isn't enough to dinstinguish one armor from another. They basically have three properties:

1) Type: Light, Medium, Heavy
2) AC Value: 0 to N (don't remember that the highest value is offhand)
3) Max AC allowed

There's also weight, but that's largely a non-factor since everyone runs around with a +6 str item and can carry essentially unlimited amounts of stuff.

I suppose there is also skill penalties and ASF, but meh. Nobody generally cares about those either.

Other than those three factors, the only thing that matters is what effects the armor has. Tie-break goes to the best looking armor, for some people.

The solution would be to give the armors more variables. Didn't armor used to have various vulnerabilities way back in the day? Like chain was +1 against slash and -1 against pierce or something?

Alternately, scale armor could have higher DR, but worse AC than plate. Or maybe plate lowers your movement speed (like it does in 4e)

What turbine should really do is just reuse the textures and put them all on plate mail and breastplates. :-)

And just get rid of studded leather. Nobody wears it past level 5 or so. Robes give you better AC at that point if yer dex based, and mith breastplate gives you better AC if yer not.

[captain1z]

I think the key was armor properties.

Any armor can posess any of the valid armor properties. Had some been exclusive to certain armor types, other armors would become more desirable.

In real life chainmail if effective vs slashing weapons but lacks protection vs bludgeoning and piercing. If they came with some sort of damage reduction vs slashing that might be more attractive than an armor that gave 2 points better AC.

If half plate at higher levels stood a better chance of having light, moderate or hvy fort.

As it is now you can go for the best possible AC and still get all the randomly generated perks.

[MrWizard]

Got me thinking: Turbine's done a pretty good job recently to balance out some of DDO's big issues with weapon choice. In the past, lots of weapons just weren't used because of swing rate, etc. Now, weapons have largely (obviously not totally) been balanced to the point that it's mostly okay to use weapons that might have been verboten in the past.

Wondering how Turbine could change things to make the unused armors viable? Is it even something people would like to see? I'm talking things like half plate, splint mail and the like.

Kind of related: If there's no way to really make these armors viable, but people want to be able to have the look of them to add variety to Stormreach, then maybe armor skinning is the answer? Keep the stats out of it, so to speak.

Seems to me the biggest issue is weight: The best armor properties for light, medium and heavy armors will almost always be the "go to" armor in an MMO for simple stat reasons.

Any ideas?

simple.

There are many many many people who play that consider AC useless as you level. Just not worth it and gimpable to your toons.

Why not make some of these lesser used armors have really good and cool effects on them..really good stuff that helps a toon out with other than ac?

they are good for roleplaying I think too...

[Targoth1]

Of two minds on this one.

1. EQII has a very nice feature, appearance slots. Weapons and armor in these slots will have their graphics override those of items in the regular slots. The stats on gear in appearance slots is ignored.

2. The above idea would be a large deviation from baseline D&D rules. In PnP games these armors are also largely unused unless they possess specific enchantments that make them desirable.

[Hafeal]

Unused armors. Indeed.

I like some of the ideas before and they would be in keeping with some of the general themes and spirit of prior pnp rule sets even if not following the letter of the law. And isn't that what DDO does anyway? The problem will be the "restriction" - as people always want what they really can't have (e.g., plate mail that allows them to run as fast as someone in light armor) and there is the "fun" element as well. In keeping with the "fun", Turbine really does not want to "burden" people too much nor "slow" them from traversing Stormreach, thus several major variables are limited. Given that, perhaps you could, in summary with other suggestions in the thread:

a) give a stackable travel bonus to lighter armors (e.g., +20% naked, +15% robes, +10% light, +5 medium);
b) change the equip time from longer to shorter from heavier to lighter armors instead of just between robes and everything else;
c) increase d/r for medium and heavy armors in particular;
d) provide specific d/r strengths for armors as a new attribute;
e) change looks or provide function for customization of some kind; and
f) restrict casting classes to medium or less armors, clerics and fvs in particular, without having to spend a feat (it is only a suggestion before the flamers start).

I think a combination of these would make other armor more valuable and more used. Still, once you get to start grinding and crafting, armor may still not have the value that certain raid or craftable armor does.

But I fully support the cause!

[quickgrif]

I would think different armors should have some added benefit against different kinds of

damage. Maybe some minor form or DR against specific type of physical damage. And

make it where special set would have higher forms of this. That would put robes with no

benefit from it and maybe help somewhat the little used armors.

Would hesitate to add any further penalty to any armor simply because its so rare to

have armor wearing now.

[Shassa]

One way they could incorporate new features to armor without changing what's already out there is to introduce new alchemical rituals that are dependent on armor type. Like this (just brainstorming, not claiming this to be prefectly balanced)

Splint Mail: Ritual of the Elements. Energy resistance of 2 and energy guard 1 (inflict one point of untyped damage when hit)
Banded Mail: Ritual of Mobility. Increases max DEX bonus by 4.
Half Plate: Ritual of Endurance. DR 2/- and +25% chance to negate item wear.
Full Plate: Ritual of Skill. Decreases armor check penalty by 3 and arcane spell failure by 10%. Stacks with Mithral bonuses.

[Mockduck]

I was kinda thinking of a simpler (but less pnp-like) system - Since people generally go for the weight type (light, medium, heavy) with the highest AC and Dex bonus (unless DT properties and such are your goal), why not just assign the highest current bonus for the entire weight class? So, light would always have an AC bonus of X, medium would be Y, heavy would be Z, although you could keep the current minimum level and +1-5 bonus to encourage armor development over time (so +1 Full Plate would still be not as good as +5 FP.) Same with Dex and other basic bonuses. So, you could wear the weight type that you wanted with the look you wanted. Although this combined with an armor skinning system might be even better.

[Pyromaniac]

I see lots of new players using these armors. There was a close to cap barbarian in our shroud group the other day wearing +1 hide armor with acid resist or something on it...and yes I'm serious. Also had a +1 protection ring on.

[AMDarkwolf]

I see lots of new players using these armors. There was a close to cap barbarian in our shroud group the other day wearing +1 hide armor with acid resist or something on it...and yes I'm serious. Also had a +1 protection ring on.

This has less to do with the armor available and more to do with casual-riding all the way to shrouds.

[Mjoll]

I imagine a system where armor properties are saved on a rune/gem/enchantment! stone/whatever that can be removed and placed into another piece of armor.

How this works:
1. You have a lousy looking armor with awesome properties on it.
2. You find an awesome looking armor with lousy properties.
3. Detach the runes from both armor pieces at the stone of change (costs plat) and attach the awesome properties rune to the awesome looking armor (costs plat).

(lousy + awesome) + (awesome + lousy) = money sink + (awesome + awesome) + (lousy + lousy trash that gets vendored)

The same can be applied to weapons, you want your Shroud soloer to wear rags and a rusty and dented axe? Done! You want your 8 CON 8 INT rogue to wear a gilded armor and gem encrusted swords? Done!

The only restriction should be that runes detached from a certain armor type (cloth, light, medium, heavy) can be attached to an armor of the same type, so no mages or monks wearing heavy armor models.

[visionary1977]

Personally I think it would be a whole whole lot simpler for turbine just to steal a little code from LOTRO and implement that.

In Lotro you have the overview of your body, which is where you slot things like we have...

with lotro though you have Outfit 1 and outfit 2 layouts, the appearence of the outfit can override the armor and stuff you are physically wearing. and once you have slotted them in the outfit sections you can go ahead and sell them, it keeps a virtual image of the outfit regardless if you have them on you. That would give at least some use to splint mail etc..

Then they could introduce bracers & cloaks and even dyes...

that would be cool..

I could have the first entirely pink WF Monster.. woot

[Kriogen]

Many ways to fix this problem:

1. Make only 3 types of 'armor'. Full Plate, Chain Shirt, Pyjama.

2. Let material have different uses:
- metal gives DR vs physical damage. Heavy metal (the one with lower Dex bonus) gives bigger DR
- material could give extra inherent resistance vs elements/effect. Leather/fur vs Cold for example
- better generic loot table. Full plate with sneak bonus FTW!
- armor is lots of material, you can say you could store more 'magic' inside. Let armor have more then just 3 effects (enhant, prefix, suffix). More 'metal', more magic.
- add all 'ring, amulet, cloak' effects on armor also.
- change PnP rule of "+1 Dex bonus for Full Plate" into a more DDO like rule. Let armor have higher base Dex bonus.

3. Let me change armor skin. Not properties, just 'skin'.

4. WTB: Black dye. Will pay 8 large scales.

[Averla]

I think Mjoll is onto something - but perhaps it can just be more succinctly summarized by saying:

Solve the problem by making armor an ingredient for Crafting Recipes.


For example (some other variants beyond what Mjoll suggests):
- allow any armor to be crunched into khyber shards
- allow adamantine armor to be converted into adamantine ore

[Hellllboy]

This is a good idea!

But back to the "skin" appearance of the armor. Could we, perhaps, get some new unique WF "Skins" in the process as well?

[Matuse]

Let Banded and Brigandine be available in Mithril.

Problem solved.

[Steiner-Davion]

Of two minds on this one.

1. EQII has a very nice feature, appearance slots. Weapons and armor in these slots will have their graphics override those of items in the regular slots. The stats on gear in appearance slots is ignored.

2. The above idea would be a large deviation from baseline D&D rules. In PnP games these armors are also largely unused unless they possess specific enchantments that make them desirable.

LoTRO has the same thing, but they call it Outfits, and you have two whole "Equipped Equipment pages to paly with. I have been advocating that they use their own system now for over a year or so. It really seems like a no brainer to me.

[Steiner-Davion]

Then they could introduce bracers & cloaks and even dyes...

that would be cool..

I have actually talked with the Devs about this, and it is just not possible, because the character models do not have an attach point on them where the artwork/model of the cloak, quiver, bracer, boots, belts, gloves etc... could be attached, and thus made visible on your character.

[My2Cents]

I'm all for making all the types of armors useful, but please please keep it simple.

One of the main problems I had with another major MMO (won't mention its name, Wow), was trying to keep track of all the complexity. This spell lasts for 4/8/12 seconds unless you have this mod in case it goes from 8/10/12 unless you have this other buff which is only available on tuesdays if you are between levels 6 and 8 and are grouped with exactly 3 people in the following 5 instances. All cooldowns should remain the same at a standard measure whenever possible.

That doesnt mean you cant vary things, please just make the ramifications of the complicated variances less important, so those players who enjoy complexity can enjoy it, and those who prefer simplicity won't be too adversely penalized for not focusing on it.