Hi Guys.

I'm trying to workout the Armor for TLA, but I don't have much experience working with Armor or Weapons, so I need some input.

We want to have three Armor Classes, Heavy, Medium and Light. And we want to have static armor values on each armor piece, so we can control the total armor value, when all piece are equipped. Example: Heavy a total of 500 points. Medium 400 points total and Light 340 points total.

Being naive I'm thinking. Hey that's easy, I'll just break down the numbers like below, create new base items for each armor class, add the armor values and I'm done. But it's not that easy, since the level of the armor comes into play and I can't just give the base item the value I want to end up with.

HEAVY ARMOR 500
---------------
Head 40
Shoulders 90
Chest 150
Hands 40
Belt 40
Pants 100
Boots 40

MEDIUM ARMOR 400
----------------
Head 30
Shoulders 70
Chest 120
Hands 30
Belt 30
Pants 90
Boots 30

LIGHT ARMOR 340
---------------
Head 20
Shoulders 60
Chest 115
Hands 20
Belt 20
Pants 85
Boots 20

So I need some input on how to handle armor in TLA. As it looks now, players will not level, they will stay at a predetermined number (currently 21) so that limits the level range needed for the armor (and weapons).

To sum it up: I'm trying to achieve creating three Armor Classes, with predictable and controllable armor values, on each armor piece. What would be the best way to do this? And/or do you have any other ideas on how armor could work, so it's easy to balance in a PvP environment?

Thanks for the insight.

If I go with the second option, and do affixes, would it be possible to make that armor reduction scale by player level? Just curious, because I've tried to achieve this before. So if we decided to do leveling, say 21-41, the player could keep the same armor, as it would scale with the player.

Is it possible to set a players armor values via the player instead of via their armor? My idea (which may be completely unworkable, I dont know) is that setting armor values via the player might be more controllable. Then the armor doesnt factor in at all.
Oops sorry i missed the fact that you might end up with a mix of different level armor items, so it cant be purely via the player (unless you go with "suits")

I'm glad it opened possibilities for ya!
hehe, I guess not knowing coding that well can have some advantages then 

Just saw this.

There are several ways to accomplish what you are wanting.

I think you may want to look into using Stats for accomplishing what you want.

Create armor with 0 defense, armor basically becomes suits with affix bonuses

Have players invest the stat points to get desired armor.

Magic gives bonus for Light Armor (as well as damage for elemental damage)

Dexterity gives bonus for Medium (as well as damage for ranged items)

Strength gives bonus for Heavy (as well as damage melee items)

This would also allow players to build hybrid builds too

Vitality would just gives HP bonus and maybe a Damage Reduction %?



The other way to do this would be using an affix with a static armor value.  You would have to create new unittypes for each armor type to be able to control what goes where.  Create an affix for that unittype and put a 2 billion value on the spawn rarity so it always spawns on that armor piece.  Make it take up 0 slots.

Create Unittypes
-Belt Light
-Belt Medium
-Belt Heavy

-Helmet Light
-Helmet Medium
-Helmet Heavy

Do that for all 7 types of armor and divide the Armor amount you want into those 7 types of armor

(just know this requires a lot of item editing by having to change the unittype on all armor pieces you are wanting to use)

Create an affix for every said unittype

Belt Light Affix (Assign say 25 Armor) Assign Unittype Belt Light
Belt Medium Affix (Assign say 30 Armor) Assign Unittype Belt Medium
Belt Heavy Affix (Assign say 40 Armor) Assign Unittype Belt Heavy

Set Rarity at 2 billion, slots 0. 

That way you will add the armor values on all the armor you want.  This entails quite a lot of work, but it is doable.  I think the easiest thing to do is to use stats??  Open up all the armor with note++ and strip all the armor values from all the armor pieces so they have 0 armor.

There are some other ways, but you don't want to do them

Hope this helps.

Alright, I've been reading through this properly.

The stats option sounds very interesting, but I don't quite get how to do it. Could you provide an example, or a short explanation?

Alright. I have a system in place, so I'll just use that for now and keep an eye out for the rework.

Wolven,

Talk to me.  How do you want your armor system to work?

This is a very good question and part of the challenge. The simple answer is I don't really know how it should work. I think it's more appropriate to ask: "How do we want the armor system to work?"

I didn't even know it was possible to do what you're planning to do for RnF, before you enlightened us. So I'm not sure I'm the right person to say what the best approach is. Same goes for weapons really.

I don't have a programmers mind or sense of logic and math. I'm more of a designer and architect and I don't have the same level of understand of the game mechanics as some of you guys have. Now I love thinking out details and I can be quite obsessive about things, but I recognize my weaknesses and I don't want TLA to suffer bad design decisions, just because of my ego or ignorance. I want TLA to be the best mod it can possibly be, and I don't necessarily have the best ideas for everything, even if I came up with the mod concept. I want TLA to be our collective project, and that all participants should have a say in decisions, and that we all get to utilize our knowledge and skills to the fullest.

Alright, enough ranting... What I do know is that I want to be able to control every stat and effect on every item. I don't want random affixes anywhere. At least not until we've managed to balance this beast somewhat.

I also like the idea of armor classes. Heavy, medium, light, what have you... And I like the idea of the system being flexible, so the players can build how the please, as much as possible. And perhaps there should be penalties, like move and attack speed reduction, when having high armor. I don't know yet.

Now, I'm not even sure if players should level, or not, but after play testing with Slacker I'm leaning towards not leveling, but players can earn/buy/acquire skill and stat points, but there should be a limit. This is all still very much just vague ideas at the moment.

Getting new armor (and weapons) should be somewhat hard, or rather you need to work a bit to be able to afford buying new gear and/or upgrades. It's supposed to be a part of the motivation of the game. To battle and earn enough to get better gear. Thus the starting gear needs the be good enough to use for a good while in the arena. And it should be possible to upgrade the armor with gems and enchantments. I think the suit with affixes solution is the way to go, and keep the armor value off the armor it self.

I know I'm being vague, it's simply because I really don't know what I'm after technically. I just have this general sense and idea of how the mod should be...

We need a base to test the skills against, so they can be balanced and tweaked and reworked and tossed out and reinvented. That's pretty much what I know right now.