Why doesnt the armor cap scale with armor type?

Lynx7386

It seems, to me, like the cap system would make more sense if it were based on the type of armor you're wearing. Assign each type of armor a specific limit for the armor softcap (and spell resistance softcap as well), and then assign each slot a percentage value contributing to that softcap to adjust for players wearing mixed armor types.

Chest = 25% value
Helm, Shoulders, and Legs = 15% value
Belt, boots, and gloves = 10% value

for example purposes, lets say that the light armor cap is 1,000 armor, the medium armor cap is 3000, and the heavy armor cap is 5000. With those numbers, each item slot would attribute the following towards the cap:

Light Armor
Chest = 250 armor
Helm, Shoulders, and Legs = 150 armor
Belt, Boots, and Gloves = 100 armor

Medium Armor
Chest = 750 armor
Helm, Shoulders, and Legs = 450 armor
Belt, Boots, and Gloves = 300 armor

Heavy Armor
Chest = 1250 armor
Helm, Shoulders, and Legs = 750 armor
Belt, Boots, and Gloves = 500 armor

This means if you wore 7 pieces of light armor, you'd have an armor softcap of 1000. If you wore 7 pieces of medium, a cap of 3000. If you wore 7 pieces of heavy, a cap of 5000.

If you decided to mix, and go with a heavy armor chest piece and shoulders, with your other 5 slots using light armor, your cap would be 2600. If you were wearing the heavy chest and shoulders with the other 5 slots using medium, the cap would be set at 3800.



The issue right now is that heavy armor is already hitting the softcap without any skills or bonuses implied, automatically reducing the effectiveness of any survivability buffs by 50%. Light armor wearers can reach the same levels of armor through those survivability buffs (things like circle of protection or immovable) because the softcap is the same for both.

Using the above numbers, let's say you have a light armor wearer who is at 700 armor, and he uses circle of protection for a 600 point boost in armor rating. He'd go up to 1150 (hitting the softcap after 300 points from the buff, and then only getting 50% benefit for a gain of 150 past the softcap). A heavy armor wearer might be at 2100 armor unbuffed, but because that 600 point buff from circle of protection doesnt push him past the 5000 armor softcap for his armor type, he'd gain the full amount and be boosted to 2700 armor.


Light armor is widely recognized as the best armor type for a few key reasons:
-almost all abilities in the game are magicka based, medium and heavy armor do not offer bonuses to magicka
-Light armor reduces the cost of those magicka abilities, while medium armor does not reduce stamina cost
-The soft cap overly penalizes medium and heavy armor wearers by limiting their max attainable damage reduction, while light armor doesnt suffer from the cap as heavily
-Because the armor cap is so low, and is the same for all armor types, light armor wearers have nearly the same damage reduction as medium and heavy armor wearers, while gaining vastly better resource management and damage output with no tradeoff

Light armor needs to have low survivability associated with it compared to the other armor types, and right now that isnt the case.

Kalman

Yeah they really need to look at balancing the Armor sets and magicka/stamina skills(esp melee) much better. If they don't do soon I bet a ton of subscriptions will lost. So I hope they do because I really like the game despite the lack of balance.

kelebra

Balancing armor the way you suggested is a waste of their time. They just need to adjust the caps and balance the passives. Much simpler and same affect.

Shaun98ca2

The armors are not supposed to really be a role defining. So this allows for some creative builds IE light armor tank, Heavy Armor DPS, Medium Armor Healer.

This goes to the whole play as you want and I have to say so far its working but again you have min/maxers say Light Armor is the best cause all class abilities are Magicka based and the strong from of DPS in the game right now.

There is a LOT of balancing going on. Templars being the template for the basis of how we will see other classes. NB's being next as all their bugs getting fixed they will also be brought into line with Templars.

Then DKs and Sorcerers are going to get the Nerf Wrecking Ball as they are CLEARLY OP doing things in the game they simply were never meant to IE fighting 8 mobs at a time dropping the all unscathed.

After that Weapons will get looked at and brought into line with class abilities.

But right now if we use DKs as the template all classes and skill lines will destroy most if not all challenges unless you don't use a simply broken build and look and play like everybody else around you. This is something Zenimax DOESNT want. But you gotta start somewhere.

trimsic_ESO

The idea of having a different armor cap for each armor type is just great.

Jade_Knightblazerb14_ESO

I like it and would give purpose to a much needed issue.

catpower

kelebra wrote: »

Balancing armor the way you suggested is a waste of their time. They just need to adjust the caps and balance the passives. Much simpler and same affect.

If by "adjust the caps", you mean just raise them, then no, that is not the same effect at all.

That would just make the problem even worse as light armor will be able to use immovable and other armor buffs to mitigate more than they already do while heavy will still cap out much faster and lose the gains from buffs (which is what happens now).

Having the caps slide based on armor type worn is an excellent way to allow heavy and even medium (to an extent) provide a real bonus to mitigation as they should.

It would also allow armor buffs to benefit heavy armor as much as light.

Hodorius

I vote for adjusting armor softcaps by the armour you are wearing!

I was tanking with full heavy armour and tried it yesterday with full medium.
The only difference worth mentioning was that Immovable had a shorter duration.

edit: My dmg was increased due to 21% crit also.

Thechemicals

Man has a very good point Zeni....mind answering that for him?

demonlkojipub19_ESO

They should indeed to this, tho the stat cap increases on med and heavy armor are set too high in this instance. A heavy armor wearer would probably never reach the armor cap with 5000 to play with, and could use pretty much every armor increase skill and still not touch it.

Meanwhile there is also spell resistance the spell resist cap. Another problem with the armors is that they do not increase spell resist, only the traits within the armors do and some class/race lines. The lack of increasing spell resistance is also what makes spells so much better in this game, so this needs to change as well. Light armor should have more spell resist, less armor. medium should be about balanced, and heavy armor should have less spell resist, more armor. Along with this the spell resist caps need to change based on what armor type you are wearing.

For an example:

Light armor Chest: 150 armor, 250 Spell resist. Lower cap on armor, but higher cap on spell resist.
Medium armor chest: 225 armor, 200 spell resist. About the same cap for both, slightly lower spell resist.
Heavy armor chest 300 armor, 150 spell resist. Higher cap on armor, lower cap on spell resist (but higher than current)

overall caps on spell resist need to increase for all armor types, with light armor being the highest. To go along with this, overcharging should start hard instead of soft.

Shaun98ca2

catpower wrote: »

kelebra wrote: »

Balancing armor the way you suggested is a waste of their time. They just need to adjust the caps and balance the passives. Much simpler and same affect.

If by "adjust the caps", you mean just raise them, then no, that is not the same effect at all.

That would just make the problem even worse as light armor will be able to use immovable and other armor buffs to mitigate more than they already do while heavy will still cap out much faster and lose the gains from buffs (which is what happens now).

Having the caps slide based on armor type worn is an excellent way to allow heavy and even medium (to an extent) provide a real bonus to mitigation as they should.

It would also allow armor buffs to benefit heavy armor as much as light.

Heavy Armor already stands above Light Armor. Do you KNOW what the difference is between Soft cap and Hard cap is....20%.

Heavy Armor you have MUCH better chance of getting that 20% than Light armor. On TOP of that you have increased survivability over Light Armor.

The current caps are FINE. People just have never seen the true power of Hard cap cause it just doesn't "seem worth it". That's because you HAVENT seen what hard cap can do.

demonlkojipub19_ESO

^^^ can't envision a world without senseless caps. Or likes the whole tanks in light armor bit

The caps are not fine, should be raised, and new caps become hard caps.

Shaun98ca2

demonlkojipub19_ESO wrote: »

^^^ can't envision a world without senseless caps. Or likes the whole tanks in light armor bit

The caps are not fine, should be raised, and new caps become hard caps.

WHY do you think the system isn't fine what exactly do you think is wrong with it?

Trayyacakes

In all actuality it isn't the armor or the armor cap that is the problem... It is light armor passives that are the real issue. There is nothing wrong with tanking in light armor and giving up 2 skill slots to do so. The problem is Light armor has far better passives than any other armor, so you can use those other 3 abilities on your bar way more than a tank in Heavy. Also those abilities hurt more from the spell penetration, and they have a chance to crit for a little extra damage. Heavy and even Medium armor passives pale in comparison to Light armor.

Sleepydan

How would it work, specifically?

Whatever armor you have the most of, it uses that armor cap?

3 heavy, 2 light, 2 medium would have the "heavy armor cap" in this scenario.

Or would each armor piece worn increase your armor cap by an amount determined by the armor type?

Light armor increases armor cap by "1," medium armor increases your armor cap by "2," and heavy armor increases your armor cap by "3?"

What happens when you cast one of the many spells that increase armor in this game? Lightning form, spiked armor, circle of protection, etc?


I would prefer something more straightforward, or at least less arcane than this for sure.

Shaun98ca2

Sleepydan wrote: »

How would it work, specifically?

Whatever armor you have the most of, it uses that armor cap?

3 heavy, 2 light, 2 medium would have the "heavy armor cap" in this scenario.

Or would each armor piece worn increase your armor cap by an amount determined by the armor type?

Light armor increases armor cap by "1," medium armor increases your armor cap by "2," and heavy armor increases your armor cap by "3?"

What happens when you cast one of the many spells that increase armor in this game? Lightning form, spiked armor, circle of protection, etc?


I would prefer something more straightforward, or at least less arcane than this for sure.

Our damn luck a system like that is put into the game just to find out the armor set you described

3 heavy, 2 light, 2 medium

Would for some dumb reason turn out to be the "best" tank set as all Heavy would still be "worthless" as they would find 7 Heavy pieces is "overkill" and not "worth it".

Wifeaggro13

Lynx7386 wrote: »

It seems, to me, like the cap system would make more sense if it were based on the type of armor you're wearing. Assign each type of armor a specific limit for the armor softcap (and spell resistance softcap as well), and then assign each slot a percentage value contributing to that softcap to adjust for players wearing mixed armor types.

Chest = 25% value
Helm, Shoulders, and Legs = 15% value
Belt, boots, and gloves = 10% value

for example purposes, lets say that the light armor cap is 1,000 armor, the medium armor cap is 3000, and the heavy armor cap is 5000. With those numbers, each item slot would attribute the following towards the cap:

Light Armor
Chest = 250 armor
Helm, Shoulders, and Legs = 150 armor
Belt, Boots, and Gloves = 100 armor

Medium Armor
Chest = 750 armor
Helm, Shoulders, and Legs = 450 armor
Belt, Boots, and Gloves = 300 armor

Heavy Armor
Chest = 1250 armor
Helm, Shoulders, and Legs = 750 armor
Belt, Boots, and Gloves = 500 armor

This means if you wore 7 pieces of light armor, you'd have an armor softcap of 1000. If you wore 7 pieces of medium, a cap of 3000. If you wore 7 pieces of heavy, a cap of 5000.

If you decided to mix, and go with a heavy armor chest piece and shoulders, with your other 5 slots using light armor, your cap would be 2600. If you were wearing the heavy chest and shoulders with the other 5 slots using medium, the cap would be set at 3800.



The issue right now is that heavy armor is already hitting the softcap without any skills or bonuses implied, automatically reducing the effectiveness of any survivability buffs by 50%. Light armor wearers can reach the same levels of armor through those survivability buffs (things like circle of protection or immovable) because the softcap is the same for both.

Using the above numbers, let's say you have a light armor wearer who is at 700 armor, and he uses circle of protection for a 600 point boost in armor rating. He'd go up to 1150 (hitting the softcap after 300 points from the buff, and then only getting 50% benefit for a gain of 150 past the softcap). A heavy armor wearer might be at 2100 armor unbuffed, but because that 600 point buff from circle of protection doesnt push him past the 5000 armor softcap for his armor type, he'd gain the full amount and be boosted to 2700 armor.


Light armor is widely recognized as the best armor type for a few key reasons:
-almost all abilities in the game are magicka based, medium and heavy armor do not offer bonuses to magicka
-Light armor reduces the cost of those magicka abilities, while medium armor does not reduce stamina cost
-The soft cap overly penalizes medium and heavy armor wearers by limiting their max attainable damage reduction, while light armor doesnt suffer from the cap as heavily
-Because the armor cap is so low, and is the same for all armor types, light armor wearers have nearly the same damage reduction as medium and heavy armor wearers, while gaining vastly better resource management and damage output with no tradeoff

Light armor needs to have low survivability associated with it compared to the other armor types, and right now that isnt the case.

you dont even need to use those every class get some stupidly ridiculous buff. the armor system in this game is hands down the worst design i have ever seen. There is literally no point in wearing but light armor. matter o fact i have cleared a VR dungeons completely naked using buffs. Everything you have posted ive been screaming about in the forums for near a month.

Im done with ESO , it was clearly still beta more so then any game ive ever played. aS bad or on par with Vanguard and AOC. only ESO ran better with less crashing. But the bugged quests broken classes and litteraly void of any end game and the stuff they put in after launch was not even tested lead to a very very poor product and not worth 15 $ in its current state.

dietlime

A simple, practical idea that could improve the game without undoing it.

I really respect that idea OP.

Wifeaggro13

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

The armors are not supposed to really be a role defining. So this allows for some creative builds IE light armor tank, Heavy Armor DPS, Medium Armor Healer.

This goes to the whole play as you want and I have to say so far its working but again you have min/maxers say Light Armor is the best cause all class abilities are Magicka based and the strong from of DPS in the game right now.

There is a LOT of balancing going on. Templars being the template for the basis of how we will see other classes. NB's being next as all their bugs getting fixed they will also be brought into line with Templars.

Then DKs and Sorcerers are going to get the Nerf Wrecking Ball as they are CLEARLY OP doing things in the game they simply were never meant to IE fighting 8 mobs at a time dropping the all unscathed.

After that Weapons will get looked at and brought into line with class abilities.

But right now if we use DKs as the template all classes and skill lines will destroy most if not all challenges unless you don't use a simply broken build and look and play like everybody else around you. This is something Zenimax DOESNT want. But you gotta start somewhere.

well your theory is just that. the end game implementation is light armor is better for all roles and all classes its simply the facts. its not even the min maxers, the fact is you can have more survivability in light armor based of spell resistance and a few buffs then heavy armor, you can reach the max physical mitigation in light armor with one buff . you will have more magica and more use of class abilites do to magica pools.

Here is the siutation. they acknowledged these imbalances months ago .the community has been complaining about imbalances for months. there are videos all over the internet showing people naked and in heavy armor doing comparisons on amount of damage mitigated. there are videos all over the net showing 4 mans doing content in all light armor with no heals and no tanks , doing it better and faster then actually having some dedicated roles.

Trials is the same , there is no defense for the armor passives being in this state for so long. Did they make some changes? yes . Very slight tweaks and finally added some gear set bonus's for stam. but the nerf hammer was hard real hard and quite frankly all the nerfs did was hurt the Stam and heavy armor specs harder then the dress and stick.