The mess that is armour

There are many, many issues that can be picked up on in the balance of NC2.2. In time we'll probably cover a lot of them, however I'm going to start out with armour, simply because it is the most glaring example of how 2.2 was neither thought through, nor finished.

A History Lesson
To understand why armour is such a mess, we need to just refresh on how things started out to show what a mess they are now.
Before 2.2, there were 5 armour slots. Head, chest, waist, legs, feet. Power armour, if worn, took the chest slot. The armour values from all the separate pieces were summed, and then this was run through the resist calculator.
Most armour was strength based, with 5 different sets (battle/kevlar/inq/duranint/duranium) with a variety of ascending levels and a bumch of one-offs. Belts however were intelligence based, with the high level belts providing huge buffs to one damage type. All classes could hope for some reasonable armour setup then, with PEs having so-so pieces all around, tanks having good everything except belts and spies getting PA + belt, although many spies drugged to get fire resists, while PEs sometimes used monk armour.

Monks received their own psi-specced armour, taking them largley outside of relevance for any discussion (although the psi armour was very, very good)

What then happened
2.2 decided to implement locational armour. Slots were increased to 7, with Overall/Head/Shoulders/Chest/Waist/Legs/Boots. PA now takes the overall slot. Each area summed the 2 pieces from that area, plus the overall slot, then put through the resistance calculation. When a hit is received to a hit box, the damage is calculated based on armour for that area. Makes a little more sense, although how much it really adds to the game is debatable.

Duranint was also replaced by carbon, which is pretty rubbish, and means that strength-based armour for energy (one of the biggest damage types) is now tank only...

Monks kept their unique armour, although it's not as stunningly good as before.

However, leaving this as it was had some issues. Tanks, being unable to wear good belts, would have really weak chest hitboxes, the biggest and most often hit location. So strength-based belts were introduced, keeping in line with the other armour pieces. Int based belts were not however, removed - but they retain their status of only giving one resistance type - in the days of all over protection, this was fine, however now it just leads to the option of having really skewed resists in the chest hitbox. Meanwhile, overalls were introduced (with similar stats) for int, str and psi.

So we now have a new, location system, with hangovers from the old system that don't make sense with the new one. We have monks still off in their own little world, not linked in to what everybody else is doing, and meaning that having low STR doesn't actually matter. PE's are in a place where they don't really make any useful gains from their bonus str, frequently just relying on either psi armour, or the same kevlar that spies wear. Int based overalls just confuse matters even more.

So, what to do?

I'd say that probably for the best is if int-based belts were scrapped, meanwhile the int (nylon?) overalls are replaced by something fulfilling a similar role. Also, investigate bringing back Duranint, or modifying carbon so it's actually a useful step up from Kevlar (or preferably both). In an ideal world, I'd also like to see monks lose their special dispensation as well, however that needs to be looked at as part of the bigger picture of monk balance, and the contribution that a PE's points in psi play.

You've given us a history lesson and then a pretty wishy washy half arsed solution here tbh chief. I expected something with some real analytical breakdown from someone such as yourself but I am not sure that I understand your changes. It looks like you just ran out of steam at the end of the post....

I would prefer to see armour just go back to NC1 personally. It was simple and effective.

Man, I had totally forgotten how armor was in 2.1. The more I think about it, the more I feel like a lot of things need to be reverted back to 2.1 and rebalanced from that, rather than 2.2. The armor changes were a horrible idea, and so were the implant changes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by flib

Man, I had totally forgotten how armor was in 2.1. The more I think about it, the more I feel like a lot of things need to be reverted back to 2.1 and rebalanced from that, rather than 2.2. The armor changes were a horrible idea, and so were the implant changes.

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Yeah balance was a lot better in 2.1 IMO.
They would just have to tone APU's (and by that, also hybrids) and Xbow's down a bit, and balance would be pretty good (well, that's the things I can remember anyways :p )

If we're going to talk about armour, then we need to talk about resists and implants too. The whole thing needs to be built up from the ground again and made a bit more simple (or at least less confusing).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by William Antrim

You've given us a history lesson and then a pretty wishy washy half arsed solution here tbh chief. I expected something with some real analytical breakdown from someone such as yourself but I am not sure that I understand your changes. It looks like you just ran out of steam at the end of the post....

I would prefer to see armour just go back to NC1 personally. It was simple and effective.

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Honestly, was getting pushed for time. And yes, the solution I meant to include, and neglected, was to suggest simply going back to pre 2.2 armour slots. The locational stuff really doesn't add much to the game. I would however like to see 2.2 style kevlar (poision + fire) kept for example. And I'd really like to see psi armour give up the ghost, but that has to be looked at in the bigger context of the role of the APU and PE setups.

i just hope that it can be simplified again at first. Scrap this whole 3 locations thing. That way it will help to then balance, overall, the different resist values applied to each piece of armour and its relevant requirements.

This is a good thing.

Added to that it will then take out that really fucking annoying runspeed issue when your legs get "broken" ie from falling too far or because someone decides to use nc 2.2s equivalent of parashock on you and slow you down. i agree that this will not help when you got people moving so fast you can barely hit them but it will certainly help in the balanceing. a run speed cap (soft or hard) would take care of the crystal meth addicts who run like shit off a shovel. TBFH. ;)

I like the way this thread is going.

I dislike locational armor.

I dislike nanites.

Unfortunately it is impossible to think about changing armor without thinking about changing the resist nanites for spys and the PPU buffs. I would much rather have simple-to-understand 5 armor slots, no locational zone for armor, no nanites for spys, and a simple SD rather than a PAD.

I think adding complexity to the game should be avoided, to make the learning curve a bit less steep for new players.


P.S. I also dislike the nanites tool for tanks, when the 10 PSI was removed from the gentank, they should've given him a small HP regen bonus instead of a CON based heal tool.