Your input on: Class armour strengths/weaknesses

[Bragi]

As the title alludes:

Aside from any role difference, offence/defence ratio or item use, should the main classes have any specific strength and/or weakness when it comes to armour availability?

When considering your reply, bare in mind the sub-skill resist availability of each class.

• Each class has both an armour weakness and an armour strength.

• Each class has an armour strength but no weakness.

• Each class has an armour weakness but no strength.

• Each class has equal availability for all armour types.

This is about specific armour strength/weaknesses compared to with the average availability of a class.
Eg. Spies and Monks may have a lower average across all armour types compared with PEs and Tanks, but this concerns the increase/decrease in armour in a given armour type compared with another armour type that Spies or Monks have.

[Divide]

• Each class has equal availability for all armour types.

Armor should be readily-available at all levels for players to customize. Every type should be available beginning at the same level and should graduate at the same level.

Duranium/Inquisition/Battle/Carbon/Kevlar/Psi probably all deserve 5 levels to cover 0/2 play up to /60. The damage reduction provided by armor should probably also be re-plotted for several reasons.

One shouldn't be able to simply look at another to determine what they are weak to. You should have to fight to figure it out. Giving everyone the ability to completely customize their setup is going to bring excitement back to character setups and custom builds.

[Dasore]

probably i m still to drunk, bout could you also post a german translation?

[AlvaroT]

IMO, armors should be unified for all classes. Some things are good for immersion, but unnessesery duplicate other class armor (like crahn shelter). But how requirements should be calculated if all armors would be unified?

[OFT]

Bragi,

I'm sure this is a good question, but I need some clarification.


How would you classify the current armor sytem? I don't see any "weakness" in the armor types, but rather I see "each class has an armor strength but no weakness." Is this accurate?


Would another way to word your question be, "Concerning monks, for example, should only Crahn armor be available to them... or should the entire armor system be adjusted so that monks could wear and utilize other types of armor? Likewise, should Crahn armor be available to spies if they decide they want to wear it, but doing so might incur some sort of penalty?" (The "penalty," if any in this case, is what is up for discussion?)

One final result being: Spies can wear anything, but might wear some armor types better (or worse) than other classes.

Thanks for clarifying.

[Torg]

• Each class has both an armour weakness and an armour strength.

this is my favourite, as i strongly support rock-paper-scissors, even if that means "oh, a monk, weak vs physical damage like prc, and a spy, so lets bring in frc ammo, and a tank who is probably well shielded vs fire, so lets try xry".

[Bragi]

How would you classify the current armor sytem? I don't see any "weakness" in the armor types, but rather I see "each class has an armor strength but no weakness." Is this accurate?

More or less. Though the current system is a bit of a mess.

Would another way to word your question be, "Concerning monks, for example, should only Crahn armor be available to them... or should the entire armor system be adjusted so that monks could wear and utilize other types of armor? Likewise, should Crahn armor be available to spies if they decide they want to wear it, but doing so might incur some sort of penalty?"

Not quite, when I mean armour type I mean energy, xray, force, etc., not shelter/kevlar/carbon, etc.

Unlike the somewhat random (or at least seemingly random) way the current armours are given TLs/requirements and armour values, we hope to make sure that each armour is specifically designed with who can wear it in mind.

One final result being: Spies can wear anything, but might wear some armor types better (or worse) than other classes.

Sort of. Spies might not have access to the fire defences of inquisition armour, but they can use kevlar. Though that is more to do with spies having less armour in general than less in a given type.

[Gridcore]

I think one of the main problems is a change that was made long time ago. The runners body was splitted into 3 pieces, but the armor was not adjusted. High Level Belts (REQ: INT) now only cover the "middle Part" of the body. This fact make them weak compared to other amor combinations. i think the best solution would be:

- make resistens to the whole body (like in NC1)
- give more options zu customize armor for all classes (not only a Tank should be able to wear strong energy armor etc)
- different resist types (energy, poison, fire etc) armors should be available at all levels for all classes

[´Clayton]

• Each class has equal availability for all armour types.

Armor should be readily-available at all levels for players to customize. Every type should be available beginning at the same level and should graduate at the same level.

Duranium/Inquisition/Battle/Carbon/Kevlar/Psi probably all deserve 5 levels to cover 0/2 play up to /60. The damage reduction provided by armor should probably also be re-plotted for several reasons.

One shouldn't be able to simply look at another to determine what they are weak to. You should have to fight to figure it out. Giving everyone the ability to completely customize their setup is going to bring excitement back to character setups and custom builds.

I agree with Divide. Everybody should have the freedom of choice to use whatever armor he likes, thus increasing diversity. This way you will have to find out what a certain opponent is weak to. It boring to be able to look at the class you are fighting and know what damage ist best against it.

- Each class has an armour weakness but no strength.
The Problem here is that classes with a lot of CON (Tanks/PE) have an advantage, because they can more easily compensate missing armor with resists.

- Each class has an armour strength but no weakness.
This will benefit classes with low CON (Spies/Monks) more than classes with high CON (Tank/PE).


So I vote for:
- Each class has equal availability for all armour types.

[dWintermut3]

My vote is for equal availability, and I'd like to break my reasoning down into two sections.

First we have lore consistency-- if a certain weapon type, say, poison, was common in the wastes, then the powers that be would have developed countermeasures. Plus if there's a power field that can stop fire, it would be used in power armor as well as deflector fields.

Secondly there is the game effects. If there is one armor type that a class doesn't have, then the desirability of that ammo type becomes proportionate to the population of that class. It also would affect the economy, as weapons become less desirable if they cannot deal the favored damage type. In addition, if a class has a serious strength then you have a meta-advantage in deciding what to whack them with. For example, if spies have superior poison resist you know to stow your poison weapon and pull your fire one.
In addition, any class weakness or strengths would unbalance PvE farming, in proportion to their desireability for common/valuable NPC types. Force and Pierce are fairly universal, the "off types" are usually considered X-ray, Poison and Fire. You see this effect with Drones and their weakness to fire, "Droners don't go to Cycrow" is a saying for a reason, and not just because it rhymes nicely. Superior X-ray resist would make a class far superior to any other for farming WoC disks, and an inferiority in fire armor would make a class drag on in levelling as they have to avoid El Farid, and far inferior for farming rare parts without hacking, as they can't do fire mobs.

In addition, there's so many bosses and dungeon areas in the game that don't have any, or many, notable drops. No one bothers with Soul Caves anymore, and I'm not sure anything of note drops there (if there was would anyone know? I'd wager the number of boss kills in all of titan's history is less than ten). We could even use dungeons in Neocron to fill in the the mid-TLs too, a Mutant King with some TL40 armor drops. Maybe a mid-level dungeon designed for grouping that teaches the concepts used in endgame stuff. A sort of MC-5 light... an MC-2.5 if you will.