Changes to Armor

[Einlanzer.1627]

At this point, especially since cosmetic options are king in this game, I don't understand the importance of locking professions to a particular armor class. What exactly is the problem, conceptually, with a Mesmer wearing heavy armor, a guardian wearing light armor, or a Warrior wearing leather armor? All of these concepts make plenty of logical and thematic sense and _can already be achieved cosmetically in a limited fashion through outfits_. The current armor system is needlessly limiting, and it doesn't even really matter because the armor values don't even differ significantly enough to be that noticeable in combat.

 

It would be far more interesting to untie them from profession choice and make them more of a build/customization option with light armor moderately favoring active defense and heavy armor moderately favoring passive defense **which is exactly how it should work.** Players who are really adept and enjoy the active style of dodge-focused combat would favor light armor while players who don't trust their reflexes or enjoy a slightly more relaxed combat style would favor heavy armor.

 

First - open up all armor types to all professions

 

Second - modestly spread the defense ratings for each class to make the difference between them a little more significant. For example, instead of 916, 1118, and 1271, have it be more like 800, 1100, 1400 respectively for a full set of light/medium/heavy armor at level 80/ascended.

 

Third - add an endurance duration modifier to each armor piece by slot using Light/no armor as the current baseline. So, light or no armor would give you normal endurance regeneration. Each piece of medium armor would decrease your endurance regeneration by around 2-6% depending on slot, and each piece of heavy armor from 4-10% depending on slot.

 

I'm sure it would need some gradual tuning, but I think this is something that needs to happen. I do not believe it would tamper much with class balance, either. In fact, it's more likely to improve class balance than it is to harm it since it would set a more solid baseline between them. An added bonus is that you could pass ascended or legendary armor around a bit more freely.

 

 

[SeikeNz.3526]

so what will be the point of heavy armor if dodge >>>.>>>> everything>>> toughness?

[knite.1542]

We might be too deep in the game for a change this big. Maybe in Guild Wars Immortal

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> At this point, especially since cosmetic options are king in this game, I don't understand the importance of locking professions to a particular armor class. What exactly is the problem, conceptually, with a Mesmer wearing heavy armor, a guardian wearing light armor, or a Warrior wearing leather armor?

Conceptually? None. It's not conceptual problems however that prevent that change, but purely mechanic ones. From what they explained once, each weight armor type is done a bit differently. Most armor pieces simply werent't designed to be matched up with those of different weight category. It's not as hard to circumvent with helmets, gauntlets and boots, but chestpieces and pants are joined differently depending on armor weight. Basically, in order for this to work, they'd need to redo all armor sets of at least 2 weight categories, so that all of them are on the same page.

Additionally, whenever they add a new armor set to the game, they need to check its every possible combination with all already existing armor pieces o to make sure they fit each other, and that nothing too drastic will show up. From what i said, this is the part requiring most work, and the very one that prevents us from getting more armor sets. With all 3 weight classes merged together, the amount of work in that step would triple.

 

So, basically, they have made some really bad design choices with armor implementation once, and we have to live with consequences of those choices now.

 

[Knighthonor.4061]

There are three schools, Soldier, Adventurer and Scholar.

 

That's why armor is the way it is. Because of Lore reasons.

[Weindrasi.3805]

This would be an interesting concept. However, I disagree with reducing the endurance recharge of medium and heavy armored characters. I also question the effect that would have in PvP--it sounds like a balance nightmare.

As someone above pointed out, there would be all sorts of visual and clipping problems if you could combine armor sets (medium pants+light shirt, for instance). This could be easily avoided by having each character choose its armor type. For instance, a warrior selects medium armor--and can thus only use medium armor in that setting.

 

Cosmetically, I would LOVE to have my characters able to choose their armor class. For instance, why does a Revenant have to be a heavy-armor wearer? Attuning to the Mists is magic-based, not martial. And Revenants attuning to someone like Ventari--who is not a fighter--may not be soldiers at all.

Or, for instance, a charr "war-mage". Why would a charr elementalist go into battle any less well-geared than a charr warrior? Both are soldiers.

 

In the designs of some of my characters, I definitely use Outfits and non-traditional looking armors to create looks like those described above. I would have preferred if Arenanet had implemented a system in which your characters choose their armor class regardless of profession.... but it's been years now, and I don't think such would be possible anymore.

[Yamazuki.6073]

> @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> There are three schools, Soldier, Adventurer and Scholar.

>

> That's why armor is the way it is. Because of Lore reasons.

 

Armor is really the way they are because that's how most RPGs have armor done. MMORPGs forcing armor types based on class never made sense considering outfits are thing, as well as cases in the "story" where a (an example) Warrior wears Medium or Light armor anyways.

[Knighthonor.4061]

> @"Yamazuki.6073" said:

> > @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> > There are three schools, Soldier, Adventurer and Scholar.

> >

> > That's why armor is the way it is. Because of Lore reasons.

>

> Armor is really the way they are because that's how most RPGs have armor done. MMORPGs forcing armor types based on class never made sense considering outfits are thing, as well as cases in the "story" where a (an example) Warrior wears Medium or Light armor anyways.

 

No makes lots of sense in RPG story telling. A Paladin wear plate armor not cloth. A knight wears plate armor not cloth armor. Makes sense to have restrictions especially when classes are more defined in the Lore.

[Yamazuki.6073]

> @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> > @"Yamazuki.6073" said:

> > > @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> > > There are three schools, Soldier, Adventurer and Scholar.

> > >

> > > That's why armor is the way it is. Because of Lore reasons.

> >

> > Armor is really the way they are because that's how most RPGs have armor done. MMORPGs forcing armor types based on class never made sense considering outfits are thing, as well as cases in the "story" where a (an example) Warrior wears Medium or Light armor anyways.

>

> No makes lots of sense in RPG story telling. A Paladin wear plate armor not cloth. A knight wears plate armor not cloth armor. Makes sense to have restrictions especially when classes are more defined in the Lore.

 

You can't use the lore excuse when plenty of games, GW2 included, has moments where professions/classes are wearing armor not of their class. Not only that, but no modern game locks heavy, medium, or light, cosmetics to specific classes, anyone can wear any outfit. Even some of GW2s armor skins are the same for all 3 armor types.

 

It's just tradition, and money, nothing at all to do with lore. Some modern games already allow any class to wear any armor.

[Einlanzer.1627]

> @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> There are three schools, Soldier, Adventurer and Scholar.

>

> That's why armor is the way it is. Because of Lore reasons.

 

The lore was invented to fit the mechanics, not the other way around.

[Harak.8397]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> Additionally, whenever they add a new armor set to the game, they need to check its every possible combination with all already existing armor pieces o to make sure they fit each other, and that nothing too drastic will show up.

>

 

I'm pretty sure they skipped that step altogether when it came to Charr way back in 2012... ;)

 

 

[Lonewolf Kai.3682]

> @"knite.1542" said:

> We might be too deep in the game for a change this big. Maybe in Guild Wars Immortal

 

What is this GW Inmortal that you speak of?

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> > At this point, especially since cosmetic options are king in this game, I don't understand the importance of locking professions to a particular armor class. What exactly is the problem, conceptually, with a Mesmer wearing heavy armor, a guardian wearing light armor, or a Warrior wearing leather armor?

> Conceptually? None. It's not conceptual problems however that prevent that change, but purely mechanic ones. From what they explained once, each weight armor type is done a bit differently. Most armor pieces simply werent't designed to be matched up with those of different weight category. It's not as hard to circumvent with helmets, gauntlets and boots, but chestpieces and pants are joined differently depending on armor weight. Basically, in order for this to work, they'd need to redo all armor sets of at least 2 weight categories, so that all of them are on the same page.

> Additionally, whenever they add a new armor set to the game, they need to check its every possible combination with all already existing armor pieces o to make sure they fit each other, and that nothing too drastic will show up. From what i said, this is the part requiring most work, and the very one that prevents us from getting more armor sets. With all 3 weight classes merged together, the amount of work in that step would triple.

>

> So, basically, they have made some really bad design choices with armor implementation once, and we have to live with consequences of those choices now.

>

 

Theres another issues on top of that. Each armor piece for each weight class is categorized as different items, even if they share the same skin. You see this a LOT with Helmets having 3 different pieces, or unlocks 3 different skins, despite them all being identical. Weight classes are hardcoded into the Armor system and its UI elements, where as Outfits get around this by being whats essentially a 4th armor weight that bypasses the rest of the system.

 

If this is to be taken at face value, it means the Devs have to unravel a significant portion of the equipment system, and convert the frame work to handle skins (or the skin channel) completely independent of the item IDs. The way it works now has the Skin being a meta data tag on the item, but that too has to be a valid item ID.... which is why reskining an item causes it to retain that skin when its moved off the character.

 

While it might sound trivial to fix now that we have wardrobe, you have to keep in mind that the original system was made with the assumption that you reskinned things by combining meta data from 2 different items (destroying both in the process) and creating a 3rd item as a result. You needed "Like items" as part of a compatibility check, which itself was probably a safeguard for the art metrics. And that doesn't surprise me, since this engine was built on the back of Guildwars 1's engine, in which that game had different armor categories for each Class.