Armor ideas. Could this work?

TheAmu · September 2014

Please keep in mind these are just my ideas. But I'd like to hear your reasoned opinions.

So it seems to me that the main issue is incentives. What are the incentives of using medium or heavy armor over light, when light gives you everything you need.

My idea is a simple reallocation of the focus of each armor type.

Light
Focus on magicka regen, and spell damage/critical/skill cost

Medium
Focus on stamina regen, and weapon damage/critical/skill cost

Heavy
Focus on health regen, and weapon and spell damage mitigation.

In other words, Light is purely for spell offensive. Medium is purely for weapon offensive. And Heavy is purely for defense of both.

This creates a clear distinction between DPS builds and Tank builds. Especially tank builds. Or should I say, traditional tank builds.

It also means a player in heavy armor won't hit hard, but the defense buffs makes up for it.

Light and Medium will both hit hard, and be, well, relatively squishy.

This eliminates the way light Armor spell penetration and mitigation cancel each other out in PVP.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I wouldn't touch other passives unique to the armours like sneak buff for medium armor. This is only about the reallocation of offensive and defensive passives.

Stx · September 2014

That would probably be better than what we have now for balance purposes... but it is also boring.

I think the main issue with the current armor disparity is that light armor doesn't take enough damage from physical attacks... due to skills that increase armor.

I think what needs to happen is skills that increase armor should be changed to straight damage reduction (like 15%), that way, Heavy armored players still benefit from it, and it won't give light armored characters crazy high armor.

Also, the stat budget on jewelry is way out of balance... you get 9 regen from a set bonus and 170 armor... but on jewelry, you get 18 regen but 600 freaken armor. You should only get like 300 armor from a legendary enchant. This would make it harder for light armored characters to reach heavy armor levels of damage reduction.

The main issue I have with your idea is that Medium armor would lose its dodge, sneak, and sprint bonuses...

I think every armor type should have a regen passive, a critical passive, a survival passive, and a penetration passive.

Light:

3/3 Increases Magicka Regeneration by 3% per piece of light armor equipped.

3/3 Reduces the cost of spells by 3% per piece of light armor equipped.

2/2 Increases your critical strike chance with spells by 2% per piece of LA.

1/1 If wearing 5 pieces of Light armor, you mitigate twice as much damage when blocking a spell attack. Also increases your healing output by 10%.

2/2 Increases your spell penetration by 2% per piece of light armor equipped.

Medium:

3/3 Increases Stamina Regeneration by 4% per piece of Medium armor equipped.
2/2 Reduces the cost of Stamina abilities by 2% per piece of Medium armor equipped.
3/3 Increases your critical strike chance with physical attacks by 3% per piece of Medium armor equipped.

1/1 If wearing 5 pieces of Medium armor, your dodge roll, sprint, sneak, and break free abilities cost 30% less stamina. Also increases sprint speed and reduces your chance to be detected in stealth.

2/2 Increases your armor penetration by 2% per piece of medium armor equipped.

Heavy:

3/3 Regenerate Health 6% faster per piece of Heavy armor equipped.

2/2 Increases Armor and Spell resistance by 4% per piece of Heavy armor equipped.

3/3 Increases the amount of healing received by 3% per piece of Heavy armor.

1/1 Reduces the cost of Blocking and Breaking free by 20%. Also, regenerate 3% of your magicka and stamina when struck in combat, 2 second cooldown.

2/2 Increases Weapon and Spell power by 2% per piece of Heavy armor equipped.

TheAmu · September 2014

Okay I can see how I was unclear.

I would not have the sneak bonus removed from medium armor.

I was thinking purely of changes to offensive and defensive buffs and on which armor set they should be.

I still think the problem is that light armor has any defensive buff at all. If I want to focus on defense my intuition is to pile on the heavy armor. Not put on some nice soft cotton threads.

Draxuul · September 2014

I think your ideas would appease a lot of the complaints that people are having right now but that would bring us back to the old school way of doing things in MMO's .

Zenimax wanted us to think outside the box for our builds. To be creative . To break that stereotype of seeing mages dressed in robes and using staves . Or warriors in full plate wielding a sword in one hand and a shield in the other , or seeing sneakies in leather armor with a bow in his back and 2 daggers on his belt.

Those classic builds can still be seen in the game but the devs want to give us more options .

If they were to apply those ideas of yours then those new options would no longer be worthy of even considering .

You wouldn't see sorcerers in heavy armor anymore which i've seen in the game more than a few times.

you wouldn't see NB's in heavy armor and sword and shield .

Things would all go back to the way they were for so long and even though the game would still allow us to create characters that don't fit those stereotypes, those odd builds would not be very effective.

I preffer for things to remain as they are .
Plus i don't agree that heavy armor isn't good. I use heavy armor and im happy with my character .

Draxuul

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO · September 2014

I think the problem is that in Elder Scrolls games you traditionally had multiple ways to do things. Don't want to wear heavy armor? Use spells to compensate. Want to cast spells in heavy armor? Enchant your armor to increase your magicka and spell power.

ESO can't really work like that since the armor lines have very specific passives that boost your other stats. In single player games, armor simply weighed you down more the heavier it was, making you move more slowly and lowering your chances to perform sneaky abilities (Morrowind it did anyway). In Skyrim for example, the armor skill lines really just removed the negatives that each armor type bestowed upon you, removing encumbrance and increasing armor ratings etc.

Because ESO chose to make armor lines buff aspects of your character, you have a much more narrow choice. If you don't pick a particular armor type that synergizes with your chosen role, you are crippling your effectiveness.

To do what you suggest makes a great deal of sense in general terms for an MMO but it goes against the freedom of the Elder Scrolls IP. What you wore in single player games didn't determine how well you did, what you did with your weapons,spells and additional abilities was.

I still think there is a happy medium and that all roles can be possible in all armor types, complete with trade-offs to ensure that no one method is more powerful than another while still maintaining a unique 'flavor' to how each is achieved.
It's just going to take a lot of juggling and more than a few headaches in the mean time.

sagitter · September 2014

Like someone said , i would put different soft caps on physical damage mitigation ,for exp. : Light 20% , medium 35%, heavy 50% and hard cap at 55 or 60%. That would positive on revaluate ,wearing an heavy armor.
Would be also cool, have malus and bonus on dmg with spells vs armors for exp. :

lightning spells , +10% dmg bonus vs heavy , -10% dmg malus vs medium , neutral vs light .
fire spells, +10% dmg bonus vs medium , -10% malus vs heavy, neutral vs light.
cold spells , +10% dmg bonus vs light , -10% malus vs medium, neutral vs heavy

Forgot to say that active armor abilities should be limited on wearing 5 pieces of that armor type.