decouple GDR and AC to improve armor


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Shoals Surfer

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Post Wednesday, 20th June 2012, 10:24

decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

Right now, players very rarely use the "middle" armors - the 'mails'. Even with good branding, the AC and GDR reduction isn't a good trade.

I think that the problem is having tiers of armor which only differ by str required, AC, and EV. Typically, players choose to maximize either AC (wear the heaviest armor you can) or EV (wear robes or leather). Hybrids are a bit more intersting, but not much, because then it's (wear the heaviest thing you can cast in)

How about reworking GDR so that certain pieces of armor have a higher GDR but a lower total AC? For example, give splint mail signifigantly higher GDR than plate, but less overall AC.

Alternatively, make GDR variable within a set range, at identify it like weapons, with numbers becoming visible faster at higher armor skill levels. This way, an armor in a lower 'tier' but high GDR bonus might compare to a higher 'tier' that has a low bonus.

I hope we can consider this to make all kinds of armor more useful and remove the no-brainer 'don't use anything with "mail" in the title'
(p.s. this is stupid some dev please make it not stupid) - minmay
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Dungeon Master

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Post Wednesday, 20th June 2012, 11:04

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

That seems complicated. Speaking of GDR, I like minmay's suggestion of having GDR affect the same things as AC does.
To increase the appeal of mid-tier armours, I'm thinking one or several of the following could help:

* slightly reduce their EV penalty (needs a finer scale)
* adjust the penalty formula to make it more significant on heavy armour with low armour skill (no detailed proposal here)
* make plate armour rarer
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 20th June 2012, 14:44

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

galehar wrote:* adjust the penalty formula to make it more significant on heavy armour with low armour skill (no detailed proposal here)

I like this. Kind of like for weapons, you need some skill to use the big ones.

Making GDR apply to everything would be good I think, but it might have to be lowered a bit to compensate. Also it should probably be better documented whether it changes or not.

I also like that idea that came up in some other thread, renaming the EV penalty to something a little less misleading (like encumbrance or simply penalty) and also making the scale a bit finer.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 20th June 2012, 19:42

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

Making the spellcasting penalty less harsh for mid-grade armors but still just as rough on plate would probably help.
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Lair Larrikin

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Post Thursday, 21st June 2012, 00:31

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

I don't know if it would impact much since it's most often melee guys that wear the heavier armour early on, but another penalty to wearing too "heavy" armour for your training could be a movement speed penalty. It would at least make my close-and-personal guys consider it since not being able to flee from or close on that orc priest or early centaur could be painful.

If this has already been tried (or actually works that way) just ignore me. I haven't been playing for that long and there's a lot of the combat systems I don't know much about :)
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Thursday, 21st June 2012, 01:46

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

a movement speed penalty would make it almost unusable, except for spriggans/centaurs (if small, like the black horse barding), cheibriados worshippers, and naga. retreating is just too important to lose without serious benefits. Note that the biggest change comes from going above or below 1.0 turns per step.
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Blades Runner

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Post Thursday, 21st June 2012, 08:10

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

Reducing armour's penalties to spellcasting might be a nice feature for an Elf-themed god. (Don't stop until all races have a god!)

dd

Shoals Surfer

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Post Thursday, 21st June 2012, 08:37

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

Isn't there already an elf god
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 21st June 2012, 10:30

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

no there isn't any elf god
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 21st June 2012, 11:33

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

there is an elf god but only cool players can have access

dd

Shoals Surfer

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Post Thursday, 21st June 2012, 11:43

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

Elyvilon?
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 21st June 2012, 11:46

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

nicolae wrote:there is an elf god but only cool players can have access

cool players... oh you mean the blue squad

Swamp Slogger

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Post Saturday, 23rd June 2012, 18:32

Re: decouple GDR and AC to improve armor

Armors you should be in by the end of a three rune as I understand it-
Anything dragon
Anything plate
Robe
Leather
Amazing artifact mail.



I really dislike that all mails are looked at as, "until I get x". I'd like to see that changed.

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