Armor types and how they function

In the recent social media post and in the recent stream they brought up concepts for Light, Medium, and Heavy armor variants. If we go by what has been said about armor types in the past we are in for a very limiting and binary system for armor with it being magic/physical mitigation based on type. I believe this will lead to issues where players simply feel like they lost because they were not wearing the right armor. I think armor defense should reinforce specific playstyles instead. With each armor type having a unique defense type.

For example:

Light - antiburst focused defense with an energy shield that takes a while to recharge, gives a larger initial health pool so you can get in deal damage and get out.

Medium - reduced periodic damage (damage over time), reduces damage taken by a flat amount like -15 from every damage tick with a short cooldown. In general this would reduce damage taken from bleed or poison effects the most. It would be good for medium or longer duration fights.

Heavy - reduced sustained damage, increasing damage reduction if you have been hit recently up to a cap based on armor stats and quality. You would want this for longer duration fights like tanking a raid boss. Getting hit by a lot of people in a short time would stack this up faster. Armor shred mechanics could remove stacks.

In the examples each armor type would fill a niche without being obviously better in every scenario. They could remove armor bonus for equipping all the same armor type and instead add stats on gear that increase the effect of the defense type. Like reduced energy shield recharge time or increased max damage reduction on heavy armor. This gives you stats to play around with on gear and allows some hybrid gearing options.

I am sure they could come up with something better than just a scaling magic or physical damage reduction ratio. I feel as though trying to add in other bonuses like mobility on light or damage stats on medium would just create more balance issues without solving the core problem.

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Dygz

What's wrong with losing because you're not wearing the correct armor.
Seems like that's to be expected.

Lash

Dygz wrote: »

What's wrong with losing because you're not wearing the correct armor.
Seems like that's to be expected.

That would very much still happen with any armor type system. However it becomes an issue if you feel like you lost because you did not follow the meta and use the "correct" armor type. For example if you are using heavy armor that mitigates mostly physical damage and you run into 8 mages, your armor choice was objectively wrong. It had nothing to do with your play style or your class really. You just take more damage because you did not predict an unpredictable scenario. This would most likely lead to everyone using the middle ground armor because it mitigates losing to a random chance encounter and it serviceable in other situations.

Armor choice should play to your own strengths instead of playing around an unknown opponent.

Azherae

I have no idea how to keep a post on this short, if I start rambling, so forgive the lack of details.

I disagree with OP overall, or at least the following:

If we go by what has been said about armor types in the past we are in for a very limiting and binary system for armor with it being magic/physical mitigation based on type.
I don't think that the information we have about armor types leads to this conclusion if you have played games beyond the Korean ones, i.e. if we believe that the non-Korean inspirations for this game still have any weight, this statement is making too big an assumption.

I believe this will lead to issues where players simply feel like they lost because they were not wearing the right armor.
Even if we do assume that we get a limiting system, the definition of 'lost' here is too nebulous, and I would not expect it as a trend across general functionality. Particularly in a game where the player does not have a heavy restriction on armor they can wear or swap to when out of combat. In a game with weight restrictions, this is a bigger concern.

I think armor defense should reinforce specific playstyles instead.
I think this is a bad idea and doing it correctly in a PvPvE MMORPG without simply relying on the player's options to change armor, is basically impossible. Having many different armor pieces may be an expectation in Ashes, though, so it might just be that I disagree with doing it to any meaningful degree beyond what I consider 'the obvious' (enhancing itemization)

With each armor type having a unique defense type.
Strongly opposed, I'd personally think that doing this would create the very problems it sounds like OP wants to address, within Ashes. It could be that I don't understand the goal, or misinterpret Ashes as a game (I've learned some things about ESO, for example, that could make me see how someone could conclude this), but as of now, I don't believe that unique defense types beyond Magical, Physical, Various Elemental (as examples of things beyond those, please reference the three given in the OP) would be good, as they are 'statistically variant' to a degree that inflates the difficulty of balancing.

Lash

You have to answer the question of why. Why does a mage want to use light armor with magic reduction when they will not always be up against other mages. To answer this question the devs have proposed adding secondary effect to the armor type that have nothing to do with actual defense. Now instead of 1 balance knob of magic vs physical you have many. It makes balancing 3 unique defenses against each other seem trivial.

My specific examples are something I though up in less than a minute and are probably flawed. However I strongly believe that armor type choice should be based on wanting a specific stat that is not based on opponent but based on how you intend to fight that opponent. Magical/physical damage reduction can still be a stat on gear to add however you see fit via crafting.

Dygz

People will always say there is a META, even when there is not.
Ashes is designed with a balance for an 8-person group with one of each Primary Archetype.

You might be losing because you don't have great Passive Skills.
You might be losing because you don't synergize well with your groupmates.
You might be losing because the Augments pllied are not good choices for your Active Skills.
You might be losing because your Weapon Skills aren't great for your build.
You might be losing because you gear is sub-par - regardless of the gear system.

Azherae

Lashing wrote: »

You have to answer the question of why. Why does a mage want to use light armor with magic reduction when they will not always be up against other mages. To answer this question the devs have proposed adding secondary effect to the armor type that have nothing to do with actual defense. Now instead of 1 balance knob of magic vs physical you have many. It makes balancing 3 unique defenses against each other seem trivial.

My specific examples are something I though up in less than a minute and are probably flawed. However I strongly believe that armor type choice should be based on wanting a specific stat that is not based on opponent but based on how you intend to fight that opponent. Magical/physical damage reduction can still be a stat on gear to add however you see fit via crafting.

Yes, I understand that my answer is insufficient, but a full explanation would take pages and pages. Sorry that I just basically ended up going 'nope, don't like that' and didn't elaborate, but explaining my reasonings in detail just takes way too much.

If for some reason you care a lot about gathering a massive amount of data on your own, there should be some resources on the Internet from the period where the original game that was adapted into Predecessor, 'Paragon', had alternate itemization schemes. You'd be looking for the one with the 'cards' and the 'leveling to get slots for the cards' one.

That's probably not much help without a ton of context, so I suggest just ignoring it for now. I'm also not saying that your overall concept is bad, I'm just 'overcomplicating it' relative to your goals, I think.

In short, a game that used three itemizations, found that two of them failed hard and one was only okay. Since that time, a new developer applied another itemization to basically the same game. I believe that by comparing the reasons that the two failures, actually failed, one can draw certain conclusions about Ashes of Creation relative to your topic.

Lash

My stance is to make it as uncomplicated as possible. I actually fear the idea that Light armor gives mostly magic DR. So the situation where you carry around light armor set on your tank just in case being significantly more complicated than just having a set of gear for what you plan on doing as a tank. If your goal is to tank a large amount of damage in a short time you go light armor, If your goal is to be disruptive for a long period of time you go heavy.

Maybe play-style is too nebulous of a thing for people and people simply want "I am a mage so I use cloth" and the fact that it mitigates more magic damage is just a bonus. It is mostly medium armor that is in an awkward place of being slightly good at everything but never the best.

Azherae

Lashing wrote: »

Maybe play-style is too nebulous of a thing for people and people simply want "I am a mage so I use cloth" and the fact that it mitigates more magic damage is just a bonus. It is mostly medium armor that is in an awkward place of being slightly good at everything but never the best.

I don't believe this is the problem.

Otherwise the solution would be to do what BDO does and have the same armor have a cloth design when on a mage, but a heavy design when on a Warrior.

I believe that even when this is done, people still look for the actual stats and stuff that help their builds.

I'm not sure I understand a specific difference you're proposing. If I have a Light Armor set so that I can avoid magic Damage, it'd be because I planned to take on something that did magic damage.

Similarly, if I have a light armor set so that I can tank big bursts of damage, it's because I planned to take on something that did burst damage.

What is the difference in how a player perceives this, exactly? Is it that somehow in the latter case I 'know' that I will be aiming to avoid sustain damage, but in the first case I couldn't 'know' that I was aiming to avoid physical damage?

Lash

In a pvp scenario you will never know exactly what type of damage you will encounter so you can never preplan for it. Having magic DR is simply a stat you happen to have, not something you built your character around (for pvp specifically)

The light armor suggestion I proposed would be an energy shield that is in addition to your normal life bar. It recovers over time while not being hit. So if you have 3k life and 2k energy shield you can take a large burst of damage due to your extended life pool. Say you are playing a mage, you might want this because your goal as a mage is to run in, pop aoe cooldowns then blink away. Sustained damage reduction that builds up over time would be bad for this playstyle. If you are playing a tank you might want this as an offtank, Where your goal is to tank damage at specific intervals for a short period of time. The armor type you have would change how you play your character in order to mitigate the most damage possible. It is very obvious in function and removes those scenarios where you feel like something happened outside your control.

Basically yes to your last point, I feel like mitigating that feeling of the unknown variable is valuable to armor type choice. Right now the main way to do that is simply pick medium so you get a bit of both but that is kind of a non-choice to me.

Tyranthraxus

Lashing wrote: »

In a pvp scenario you will never know exactly what type of damage you will encounter so you can never preplan for it....

To be fair, we are yet to know how the Arena system will work; There might be an arrangement wherein we know ahead of time that it will be Mage vs Mage, Fighter vs Fighter, etc. In those such cases, we'd know what to stack, ahead of time.

Yours truly will seek to have both the extreme protections against magic AND physical damage available, but will prob quest and wander the world mostly in the "middle" armor. There will no doubt be areas wherein we'll know/be able to guess ahead of time what to expect the greater of, but the average-against-each option seems like the best choice to just be travelling around in.

Azherae

Lashing wrote: »

Basically yes to your last point, I feel like mitigating that feeling of the unknown variable is valuable to armor type choice. Right now the main way to do that is simply pick medium so you get a bit of both but that is kind of a non-choice to me.

So, just for my final clarity, you don't perceive that the same thing happens when you have armor that 'helps you against a burst character but not a sustain character'?

If it helps, I'm mentally comparing:
https://omeda.city/items/Dread
vs
https://omeda.city/items/CrystallineCuirass

In MY mind, 'not knowing which of these to choose because I'm not sure which enemy I will encounter' is the same as what we're talking about because the game these come from allow certain characters to focus on either the burst damage or sustain damage parts of their build.

So I'm not seeing as much of a difference as you possibly are.

Lash

I am looking at it from the perspective of your own playstyle, not the playstyle of your opponent. You double down on how you want to play, it will not always be optimal against every opponent but that is not the goal. I do not think "I lost because I did not press my equip light armor button before the fight" is a valuable feeling. I think the core stats on the armor should be functional in all scenarios at least slightly. I get that "I want to burst people down so I am building anti-burst armor" sounds a bit odd. I am less hung up on my own hasty design for this and more so on how the current design is kind of all or nothing based on opponent

Azherae

Lashing wrote: »

I am looking at it from the perspective of your own playstyle, not the playstyle of your opponent. You double down on how you want to play, it will not always be optimal against every opponent but that is not the goal. I do not think "I lost because I did not press my equip light armor button before the fight" is a valuable feeling. I think the core stats on the armor should be functional in all scenarios at least slightly. I get that "I want to burst people down so I am building anti-burst armor" sounds a bit odd. I am less hung up on my own hasty design for this and more so on how the current design is kind of all or nothing based on opponent.

Ok, then I think we're all clear. I agree with you right up until the last part.

I don't think the current design should be described as that, but I agree that if the current design actually was definitely that, we'd want to avoid it.

For reference, Intrepid, here are the other items that go into that 'slot', if we're discussing just Magical Defense:

https://omeda.city/items/Leviathan (this is actually called Tainted Bastion now, but webdev is hard I guess)
That's the one for 'I just want to take less damage in general' and therefore it was the one that got the 'affects opponent' effect, since 'Opponent heals less' is a factor-function of 'I take less damage overall'.

https://omeda.city/items/FluxMatrix
This is the one for 'My playstyle is about actively stopping you from hurting me using my own skills but accept that it can't work every time'

https://omeda.city/items/Spellbreaker
And this is the 'I scoff at your single hit burst damage' one.

So, as Lashing says, if we're 'only getting Tainted Bastion' on Cloth armor generally, and relegating everything else in these Items to augments/skills/whatever, then I agree that the armor 'options' are doing nothing for playstyle.

Lash

As far as I am aware they plan on making set bonuses in addition to bonuses for equipping all the same armor type. Both things I generally disagree with design wise but it is what it is for now. In general we need to know more about armor and stats so I am talking based on the very little we know with light armor being high magic DR low phys, Medium being middle ground, Heavy being high phys with low magic DR.

Depraved

Lashing wrote: »

In the recent social media post and in the recent stream they brought up concepts for Light, Medium, and Heavy armor variants. If we go by what has been said about armor types in the past we are in for a very limiting and binary system for armor with it being magic/physical mitigation based on type. I believe this will lead to issues where players simply feel like they lost because they were not wearing the right armor. I think armor defense should reinforce specific playstyles instead. With each armor type having a unique defense type.

For example:

Light - antiburst focused defense with an energy shield that takes a while to recharge, gives a larger initial health pool so you can get in deal damage and get out.

Medium - reduced periodic damage (damage over time), reduces damage taken by a flat amount like -15 from every damage tick with a short cooldown. In general this would reduce damage taken from bleed or poison effects the most. It would be good for medium or longer duration fights.

Heavy - reduced sustained damage, increasing damage reduction if you have been hit recently up to a cap based on armor stats and quality. You would want this for longer duration fights like tanking a raid boss. Getting hit by a lot of people in a short time would stack this up faster. Armor shred mechanics could remove stacks.

In the examples each armor type would fill a niche without being obviously better in every scenario. They could remove armor bonus for equipping all the same armor type and instead add stats on gear that increase the effect of the defense type. Like reduced energy shield recharge time or increased max damage reduction on heavy armor. This gives you stats to play around with on gear and allows some hybrid gearing options.

I am sure they could come up with something better than just a scaling magic or physical damage reduction ratio. I feel as though trying to add in other bonuses like mobility on light or damage stats on medium would just create more balance issues without solving the core problem.

but that's the same thing...you could lose because you weren't wearing the correct armor.

Depraved

Lashing wrote: »

My stance is to make it as uncomplicated as possible. I actually fear the idea that Light armor gives mostly magic DR. So the situation where you carry around light armor set on your tank just in case being significantly more complicated than just having a set of gear for what you plan on doing as a tank. If your goal is to tank a large amount of damage in a short time you go light armor, If your goal is to be disruptive for a long period of time you go heavy.

Maybe play-style is too nebulous of a thing for people and people simply want "I am a mage so I use cloth" and the fact that it mitigates more magic damage is just a bonus. It is mostly medium armor that is in an awkward place of being slightly good at everything but never the best.

light armor might not always give more mdef than pdef. it could simply be less of both armors and just more movement for example..

every time you replace one effect with another, you can run into the same scenario that you want to try to avoid...you lost because you weren't wearing the correct armor.

CROW3

You’re never going to be able to mitigate all types of damage. Wear the configuration of armor you like best and focus on killing the other guy first.

Keep in mind rock, paper, scissors will be a core aspect of the pvpeeps.

Dygz

Since any class can use any weapon and wear any armor, expect most people to mix and match, rather than Mages only wearing “light” armor.

By design, Ashes is balanced for an 8-person group with one of each Primary Archetype. And it’s a PvX game.
So, expect the average player to gear according to who they are attempting to match in Rock/Paper/Scissors.

If the Mage is planning to focus on attacking Tanks, expect them to have some gear that mitigates Physical Damage.
If the Mage is plannning to focus on attacking Bards, expect them to have some gear that mitigates Magical Damage.

Of course, in Ashes, Tanks also wield magic.
Which is another reason most players will wear a mix of Physical Armor and Magical Armor.

Noaani

The only way to avoid a scenario where you won't feel as if you lost because you equipped the wrong armor is to make it not matter what armor you equip.

That said, I don't really see the issue.

I would perhaps understand some general distaste of the current protection scheme if people were assuming all light armor had caster stats and all heavy armor had tank stats - but this isn't the case

Lash

Depraved wrote: »

every time you replace one effect with another, you can run into the same scenario that you want to try to avoid...you lost because you weren't wearing the correct armor.

This is not the issue, It is where the player agency is placed. I prefer it to be placed on my own choices, not random encounter chance. The core stat of each armor type is currently based on mitigating specific damage types. I believe that specific damage type mitigation should be based on secondary stats not core stats. Meaning the core stats can now change HOW they mitigate damage instead of only mitigating a ton of one thing and nearly nothing of another. Massive damage swings are very hard to balance.

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