Crafting and Armor

I would like to see players drown when they try and swim in heavy armour. We also need more water in the game.

 

Likewise, swimming while heavily encumbered (e.g. removing heavy armor and putting it in your backpack) should result in drowning as well.

 

For me, it is as simple as this:

Naked - Reckless Risk (no defense), Reckless Reward (no penalties, no bonuses)

Cloth - High Risk (minimal defense), High Reward (no or minimal penalties, great bonuses)

Leather - Nuetral Risk (some defense), Nuetral Reward (some penalties, some bonuses)

Heavy - Low Risk (high defense), Low Reward (great penalties, no or minimal bonuses)

What I am hearing is a desire for the lowest risk (highest defense) without being forced to deal with commensurately low reward in return for low risk. I wouldn't suggest that this should not be expected as this is a rut that many games fall into.

 

To be more precise, the question was should the type of armor affect your success. The question of why was never asked in the OP.

The difference I'm making between comfort and function is a matter of how long the armor has been worn. If you're fresh, you're only just donned the armor it wont prevent you from doing anything. The armor's function does not prevent the range of motion necessary to do the skills in question.

As a matter of practical design. It is too much to expect that the game will account for fatigue or discomfort brought on either directly or indirectly by the length of time one has been in their armor. Most of the arguments that have been made all assume that certain level of discomfort or time. Neither of which addresses the affect of its function which relates to your range of motion in that armor.

So if the design doesn't account for time.. you're left with either one of two options. A constant negative or no negative.

This is a game.. not reality. There's no design reason why heavy armor should impose a negative on normal skills. You're effectively handicapping all non-mages by doing that with no other reason than a level of realism that isn't fun for anyone.

To say then it should also negatively affect combat skills in favor of defense, that's just not a good way to balance a game. I know from long experience that sacrificing offense for defense just means you'll stink at PvP because you won't be able to kill anyone before they kill you. (Which assumes mobs have low damage output to actually make your little extra defense worth while.)

 

What you're analysis is lacking here is play style. This is what I see in a properly balanced game.

Naked - Dead
Cloth - Mages, low risk ranged fighting. Pure mages rarely engage in melee. Yes they're squishy, but the high risk of the lack of armor is mitigated by ranged tactics and abilities non-mages don't have.
Leather - Rogues. Less squishy but can usually hide and used ranged tactics.
Heavy - Here I am, come and get me. Ignore that healer that's keeping me alive.

Ultimately the risks you take are more a matter of your style than they are of armor.

A powerful mage can be a much lower risk character than any heavy fighter depending on how a game is balanced.

 

If it's realism you're after, may I suggest there be no magic at all?

 

Pressing the hunt for realism should not make the game artificial harder
There is a nice balance that should be kept .

Realism is nice but when pressed to far it will be come a simulator not a game .

There is so much joyful fantasy in the game we would not want to scrap that either .

 

Couldn't we just call it Mage Armor, Rogue Armor, and Warrior Armor? Your preference seems to lead more towards a class system and mine leans more towards a classless system. I did say in an earlier post that his is a common rut for games to fall into and I don't expect SotA to climb out of this rut.

This is the age old discussion in RPGs. Speaking for myself, a game with low risk mages is designed improperly. Depending upon how you view the matter, the lack of balance between classes in some games b is a good trait. I detest the need to balance classes. It waters the game down so that classes are simply a matter of different shades of fluffy flavor if the classes are completely balanced. I personally prefer playing cards and chess over tic-tac-toe and checkers.

Speaking for myself, SotA's ship has sailed but there was potential for a truly classless system that encouraged cooperative play. For some of us, we have come to realize that the crux of developing SotA is balancing SPO with an MMO. This is yet another example of the friction between the two and balancing the two genres, or the failed experiment in balancing SPG and MMO, may even be the legacy of SotA though I am hoping and aim to offer some assistance to ensure the legacy is community.

Maybe you are right. My most favored character and main character on a production server in UO was one of the most unconventional builds that I saw in UO during the time I most actively played UO. That character was ridiculously weak in PvE. He couldn't craft much of anything. He could stun and disarm a criminal (weapon and reagents or anything else), disarm bombs (trapped containers), investigate crimes (e.g. who was responsible for a murder), and win an unarmed bar fight with a drunken patron. That character was balanced in no way for PvE or PvP but that was where the fun started. Other characters enjoyed criminal plots in our Player Town because there was a challenge that they couldn't find elsewhere. They could go to other Player Towns (or even ours) and find PvE and PvP threats but you couldn't roll up on any Player Town on the server and find the same RP threat to criminal activities that we offered.

The exact same play style will not be possible in SotA but I want a SotA where the possibility for these type of unconventional play styles exist. I didn't have an unorthodox in spite of game mechanics. I had one because it was possible to have an unorthodox build and there was a purpose. I feel that play style follows mechanics. I know that Portalarium has the team to give a rich and diverse set of mechanics that allow creative play styles. I don't want Portalarium to build a game that caters to my personal play style or even the play style of the majority. Give us a rich and diverse set of mechanics and let us play the way we want.

 

Hmm, I wonder who you might be? This is your first and only post as of my reply. No one suggested anything remotely close to this but thanks for your suggestion.

I understand because I have fallen on both sides of the "realism" discussion. You are correct that this is not a simulator. I have made the same comment in this forum. Perhaps the commentary about drowning in heavy armor goes too far. I am of the opinion that swimming should be difficult. But I can be agreeable in my disagreement that crafting in cloth armor should be easier than crafting in heavy armor. It seems reasonable to me and does not make the game artificially harder in my opinion. On the contrary, I think it could add a nice element to the game that might even make the game more cooperative (which causes concerns in SPO).

 

You skipped over medium armor, chain armor, etc.?

 

If you're going that route then we shouldn't have any armor at all. The fact of the matter is.. different armor lends itself to different types of characters. I said nothing to suggest a class system. It is simply the way it goes.. mages tend to prefer light or no armor. Rogues don't use heavy armor because it tends to negatively affect that play style.. fighters who charge into waves of enemies want all the protection they can get.. thus.. heavy armor. Predetermined classes have nothing to do with it.. but archetypes exist for a reason.

I also said absolutely nothing about my 'preference' on the matter. It's just how armor use usually goes. Armor type does not directly correlate into risk and reward. It's there for the player to balance their play style. There's nothing stopping a mage from wearing plate if they want.. but that actually puts them at a much higher risk because their magic is less effective. A fighter could wear cloth but he's already high risk (or should be) because he has to stand there and take the hits.

 

To be fair, at the moment chain is considered heavy.

 

Oh, I thought they kept a medium armor category even without the skill tree for it. Leather as far as I can tell is still light armor, since I can still use my light armor skills with it.

They should keep a medium armor category that doesn't require skills but doesn't give strong benefits.

 

To be fair so are the whole armour system out of whack due to the "to hit" system dexterous player have no real chance to avoid to be hit at the moment but that is another issue that will be solved another day.

 

I am not the one who assigned classes to armor types... you were. I asked why not entitle armor types according to classes if you are going to assign classes to armor types and design the armor for those classes to the exclusion of features that don't fit within the assigned classes. The OP asked for an armor feature that does not align with the classes that YOU assigned to the armor types. I would engage in further conversation about this but there is a much bigger issue in your post.

Respectfully, you are wrong and do not understand the purpose of armor. In both real life and game design, armor directly correlates to risk and reward. The very purpose of armor is to mitigate risk. End of story. The purpose of armor is to mitigate risk of damage. The reason you took the risk in the first place was for the reward. Play style follows from this risk and reward relationship.

Allow us to start with an example from trading stocks. The reward is the dividends during ownership and the profits upon sale whether you calculate profits in accordance with accounting principles or economics. The risk of trading stocks is that you suffer accounting losses upon sale or the much more likely economic losses during ownership and upon sale. How one trades stocks is determined by their comfort factor with the risks and desire for the potential rewards. One of the ways that an investor can mitigate the loss of both accounting and economic profits is short selling. Short selling eliminates the risks of accounting losses from taking a long position in a stock that is expected to experience a decrease in price. Short selling comes with its own risk of course. Short selling mitigates a risk associated with trading stocks (while introducing a risk of its own).

Moving to real life armor... the reward that starts the process is conquest, winning a joust, abating asbestos, surviving an encounter with a criminal or whatever reason someone might engage in an activity that benefits from armor (or personal protective equipment more generally). Even if you did the activity for recreation, there is a reward of some sort that was the impetus. In addition to all the other risks associated with the activity, there is a risk that can be mitigated by armor (or personal protective equipment more generally). The choice to wear armor introduces its own risks. If wearing armor only mitigated risk(which is theoretically and practically impossible), then we would walk around wearing all sorts of armor all day every day because their would be an incentive to mitigate as much risk as possible by wearing armor (or personal protective equipment more generally). Because there is risk associated with wearing personal protective equipment (the money could have been better spent elsewhere, it prevents us from wearing a different piece that would be much more useful, we might overheat, it makes some other activity impossible or difficult, etc.), we don't walk around in all sorts of armor all day every day. Again, the purpose of armor is to mitigate risk of damage. We choose to mitigate the most significant risk that we are presented with because there is a greater risk associated with mitigating all risk.

Moving to game design... the reward is gold, loot, a PvP victory [or crafting successfully as suggested by the OP]. The risk is dying or a PvP loss [or a lower success rate and lose of materials when wearing heavier armor as suggested by the OP]. We have a reward and we have a risk. Mimicking real life, we mitigate the risk in game design with ARMOR. Armor mitigates the risk of damage that the players are willing to take on in search of a reward. If armor was merely for aesthetics because a knight should have plate armor and a mage should have robes while a ranger should wear leather, then we would hand it off the the artists to design the armor and call it good. I understand that you didn't suggest that armor existed for aesthetics but that is my rhetorical response to your rhetorical comment about armor not being necessary. Aside from the rhetorical nature, it establishes some foundation for later.

Since armor is not aesthetic and has a deeper purpose (to mitigate the risk of damage) then the designer must decide how to implement armor in the game. We could have one type of armor to mitigate the risk associated with going after rewards. One might be inclined to say that is much the same as not having any armor in the game. For the most part, that may be true depending upon the game design. Nonetheless, SotA is going to have a much more sophisticated combat system. For starters, players have come to expect different types of armor. What is the purpose of different types of armor? From the point of developing the game, it requires resources to have different types of armor in the game. We already decided that Portalarium is not committing resources to developing different types of armor for aesthetics. Is it merely to satisfy players? If it was just about providing archetypes, then we could give Knights some plate armor and robes to mages and they could all have the same properties. Why commit resources to a task that we could just hand off to the artists and be done with it? Archetypes can be resolved with aesthetic armor. That is not why we have armor though.

It goes back to the purpose of armor... to mitigate risk. The reason we have different types of armor is because different types of armor mitigate risk in different ways (i.e. different rewards for wearing different types of armor). Since we are using armor to mitigate risk, it affects game balance. Since we have mitigated risk in different ways by wearing different types of armor, we MUST balance the risks with wearing different types of armor in some manner. If we did not, then everyone would wear the armor that mitigated the most risk (i.e. absorbed the most damage). This in effect, would negate the different types of armor for the most part for any reason other than role play. Determining how to balance the risks is where the complexities of game balance are compounded. We already have game balance concerns with different schools of combat. A mage already has considerably less risk than a melee warrior who must be within melee range. Simple fix... the armor worn by mages should mitigate less risk (i.e. absorb less damage). How do we force a mage to use armor with less risk mitigation since the mage already has less risk? We introduce a property to heavy armor that makes heavy armor so risky to mages that mages will not want to wear it. Easy enough, mages cannot absorb the energy that they use to cast spells when they wear heavy armor. Mages have less risk due to range and melee warriors have less risk due to armor that mitigates more risk. We start to achieve game balance and we accomplished it by using the consequence of mitigating risk in different ways with different armor types to our advantage. Naturally, this was a simple treatment of a much more complex system.

Realizing that the purpose of armor is to mitigate risk and we can use that risk mitigation to achieve game balance, let us look at the OP:

I read this and I see someone asking about game balance. I see someone offering a suggestion about how to have an effect on game balance. He seems to be asking for some risk to be added to heavy armor (which mitigates a lot of risk associated with combat rewards) in a relatively novel manner that some of us find to be compelling. Why would someone be mining in full plate other than the obvious reason that full plate mitigates the most risk? Baron Drocis Fondorlatos seems to be asking for some risk to be associated with gathering in full plate since gathering in full plate seems to have the least risk as it currently stands. Gathering skills are not combat though. It is not unreasonable that people would not mine in full plate. The suggestion certainly adds a complexity and would make for a more meaningful decision when a player decides to create a heavy armor character. Is it necessary, no. Would it add more to the game than it takes away? That really depends upon what Portalarium's mission is. If the mission is to create a cooperative game as was expressed from the beginning in Kickstarter, then this suggestion offers a lot with some consequences in SPO where cooperation (other than companions) is not available.

 

I most certainly did not assign classes to armor types. I merely stated which play styles typically use armor types. Also, you only said why not call armor this or that.. you said nothing about how those armors should be designed. Which is moot anyway since you were apparently posing the question under the assumption that armor might be assigned by class. Something you did not explain.

Also the OP did NOT for armor features. It only asks if armor should affect success rates in crafting.. that's IT. Nothing more than that. It's a very short post.

Again.. I didn't assign anything to anything. I merely pointed out which play styles typically use what armor.. to make a point that armor isn't just risk vs reward. You completely ignored play styles saying it was just a risk vs reward thing.

You are again neglecting the play style of whomever is wearing that armor. I am only taking a risk if I am putting myself in danger. I then balance that risk with my play style and ascertain what kind of armor is going to suit me the best. People who need that heavy armor are the ones taking the most immediate risk. On the assumption that combat is well balanced.. that armor only reduces risk to an acceptable level.

Different styles take different risks. But all are taking risks. You say that heavy armor lowers risk to a point that justified less reward... but that fighter is usually taking more immediate risks than anyone else.

I can wear any kind of armor I want.. but it all means precisely squat if I never step out my door. As for thinking I don't understand the purpose of armor.. I'm simply not going to comment. I know darn tootin' well what it's for. Your whole argument again neglects play style. It's the player that determines how much risk they are taking and that is where the reward should come from. Armor can mitigate damage, but it's the player wearing that armor that decides how much risk they're going to take.

Finally, you certainly read an awful lot into 2 sentences.

 

I think I get it. We seem to be talking apples and oranges. You specifically listed a class with each armor type. At least in my mind. It would appear to me that you consider mage and rogue a play style rather than as classes. I apologize if I misunderstood your use of words.

I disagree that the OP did NOT ask for an armor feature unless you are getting hung up on the word "feature". He asked whether or not armor should affect your success rate in the crafting sigil in not so many words. "Feature" was poor word choice on my part. I should have used the word "property". The OP asked if a property should be added to armor that affects your success rates in crafting even if he framed it differently. The property does not exist on armor at this point and the OP is saying that he thinks it should be. YES, I am paraphrasing.

It isn't what I read into the sentences. The sentences made statements that are either true or false. They are valid statements if you ask a psychologist. The logic behind the statements is not valid though. The statements are wrong and I stated such. It might be what you perceive as a player thus making them valid statements (again, using the psychological definition of valid statement). Armor type DOES in fact correlate into risk. The first statement is a false valid statement. Game designers do not put armor types in the game so you the player can make a choice between armor types to balance your play style. The second statement is a false valid statement. Given that they are false statements, I addressed the statements.

You made a statement that they do not directly correlate. Nothing to read into this. The whole purpose of armor is to mitigate risk. Armor and risk are directly correlated. I went to painstaking efforts to demonstrate the correlation between armor and risk.

You made a statement that armor types are there for the individual play to balance their play style. Nothing to read into this. It is a statement of purpose for types of armor. Armor types are there so game designers can balance the game. I went to painstaking effort to demonstrate that because the purpose of armor is to mitigate risk, types of armor can be used to mitigate and create risks in different degrees and different ways. These different degrees and different ways of mitigating and creating risk can then be used to balance the game. Armor types are not intentional dials in the game for you to turn as the player. Yes, they are a dial that you can turn but that isn't why they are there. Most everyone turns the armor type dial to OPTIMIZED in the game. Yes, you can turn the armor type dial off of OPTIMIZED for a greater challenge or RP purposes.

This discussion about play style of the player wearing the armor, choosing your armor type, and risk is white noise for the most part as far as I am concerned. I would agree that we take different risks. I don't care how you play and I doubt you care how I play. What we probably both care about is whether or not there is some measure of balance provided one or both of us is not purposely handicapping ourselves for added challenge or role play purposes. While we probably both care about balance, we are probably equally unlikely to agree about what is balanced. It would seem to me that we probably disagree about how to measure risk in the first place or the net value of risk after all factors are calculated. This disagreement is normal so I am not going to get excited about it.

I did state and suggest that heavy armor lowers risk significantly in general. We don't really know how the dials will be set when the game is released but it is a reasonable assumption. I did say that in my mind, it is fine for the reward to be tied to the overall risk. Personally, I do not care if characters are balanced such that there are even odds in a duel. I find it boring when flavor is all that separates classes, archetypes, or play styles. Personally, I would rather have different risks and rewards with different templates such that you can build a party of characters that is stronger than the sum of the parts. It is probably difficult or impossible to achieve with all of the other priorities in a SMO and I made statements to that effect. I am also a person who believes that great results only come from great expectations. I understand that you would have objections to my stated preferences and I understand that my preferences are extremely unlikely to be incorporated into the game. No harm, no foul.

I still heavily endorse the OP's intent as I understand it and has he elaborated in this thread.

 

On the class / style thing.. it's just arch types are a good representation of play styles. Features vs properties.. meh ok not really worth nitpicking.

I didn't say armor didn't correlate into risk.. I said it didn't DIRECTLY correlate into risk. As in there is acknowledgement there that armor does in fact play a role in risk management, but I consider that secondary to player choice. I risk nothing if I don't step out of my door, heavy armor or none at all.

The argument as you made it earlier.. does not factor in play style. It sounded like simply reward should vary inversely with armor type. Light armor = more risk so more reward. That's too simple and armor type alone does not dictate the full measure of risk a player decides to take or not take. Ultimately it's a lesser part of the equation. (Lesser does not mean insignificant).

Furthermore.. I didn't say Devs didn't anything for any reason. You read into that. It remains that players choose the armor they wish to wear as part of the process of building their character. What armor is best suited for their play style. The amount of protection that armor provides vs how it affects their skills is part of that. I didn't say Devs put armor in the game for that reason.. though it is the Dev's job to properly balance armor with character abilities in mind.