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Armor

Armor isn’t really meant to provide much other than protection. Light armor will eventually get other stats to incentivize their use over heavier armor. But at the end of the day the clothing is where most of your traditional stats are going to come from.

And what do you mean “rather than being naked”? Do you consider inner armor naked? We have said numerous times it is not intended for you to fill all of the outer armor slots unless you are a defender. The armor, clothing, and character systems were all designed with this in mind - both from an artistic and technical point of view.

This is how we restrict what outer armor people wear. The other option is putting class restrictions on outer armor which will likely result in you having less options on how to outfit your character both visually and stat wise.
 
This is a function of Armor to Weight ratios on other types of gear not being balanced properly IMO.

If there is armor at level 10 that is metal that is 1 to 3 ratio like 25weight to 75AC metal chest. Why would anyone use the leather equivalent that is 20 weight to 45 armor or worse. Classes are already being penalized with low armor weight but also there is no cloth/leather chest/legs/helm/vambraces with the same ratio for them to wear. If there were say cloth chest 5w to 15ac and leather chest 10w to 30ac. Then various classes could mix and match their pieces to make a full set within the armor weight restriction. This way people would actually be running around with most of the slots filled with something rather than being naked.

As it is now, its better for a level 10 healer to wear a 25wt to 75AC METAL chest piece with a 5wt to 15AC METAL vambrace and run everything else naked. Why even wear leather at all that's not boss loot. Even most boss loot leather is worse than this. So pretty much every class is going for the 25wt to 75ac METAL chest piece regardless of class and leaving all other pieces naked unless they can fill those spots with 0weight items.

I would make all armor pieces cloth/leather/metal have the same weight ratios. Then if you want to change the stats on an item from its base, add that as a STAT + or - bonus. This way if you want to have that same chest instead of 75ac be 100ac, it would have +25 AC as a stat bonus. This would allow people to recognize it was special. It would also be easier to balance other piece stats later with +pen +hit +heals +haste or whatever you decide to put on it.

The same goes above with armor weight, I would add the reduced armor weight on a piece as a + or - stat, so that people can see it has intrinsic properties that are special. Right now it looks so boring and plain.

On top of this, there the stats being added to the game are not good which is another post entirely.
I beg to differ, I use leather because:

A) AC is kinda crap for defense
B) I prefer the stat bonuses on leather and love stacking that mobility
C) Wearing many leather affords me more bonuses than a few metal pieces
D) My main defense is to avoid getting hit
E) Most characters don't need AC as they are not taking the hits

Anyone who is not a tank shouldn't really be all that concerned with AC. This is speaking from plenty of experience tanking as a sub 100AC striker in the current hardest areas of the game vs at-level mobs.

Even as a tank, resist, block, avoid, parry, and level difference are far more important than AC, though I hear AC is supposed to get changed up.

If you have a couple of healers, you are good to go with only minimal defenses.

Tanks are mostly about being the focus of attacks through taunts and threat mechanics at the moment, and their capacity to absorb damage isn't really all that much greater than anyone else and in most cases, is not necessary at this point in beta for the content and mechanics we currently face. In addition to some bosses/names there are a few enemies that will do considerable damage to where a tank is required... IF you are actually tanking that mob.

What good does a 75 armor for 25 wt cuirass do a healer? absolutely nothing unless they are getting hit, which means there was another aspect of the party that failed first (agroing adds, breaking cc, failing to taunt/hold threat, etc.) and should be addressed rather than worrying about armoring non-tanks. But that's the beauty of the weight system, you are free to do as you please with armor not being restricted by class.

Now cms or some extra PEN or HIT is useful when appropriately not the focus of attacks.

So yes, leather is quite useful, even with the crafting system in its infancy.

Btw, my last crafted piece of leather armor was 54AC for 17 wt using the weight reduction/high dura leather and +5 cms using the threading for that bonus, So... 54/17 = ... hmm look at that 3.176 ac/wt
Wolfbane greaves are 2.66:1 with 4 cms, runner cuffs are a specialty 1:1 with 1% move speed or crafted bracers can give 10 cms and an amazing 6:1 ac/wt ratio. Pauldrons can be crafted with 2.5:1 armor (currently broken and receiving no stat bonuses)... the list goes on

So unlike your broski who is never wrong, do you care to retract any of your bogus statements? There are a lot of materials and options we haven't seen yet, but so far there is already enough hard evidence to counter your statements.
 
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Crafting has changed a lot in the last couple builds and I haven't done much experimenting due to the rarity of flux, but in prior experience, gear stats didn't really start getting good until the twenties. Level twenty plus gear started having interesting and more impactful stats. Options included Hit, Pen, Def, Haste, CMS, plus the ones mentioned by the Devs, but you had to use different materials to get these stats. Leather, cloth, metal gave different attributes with dropped metal having the best ac/weight ratio ( which is best stat at low levels because the amounts of other stats at low levels are miniscule). Once players level up, the stats on gear will encourage more choice.
 
On a healer, why do these even matter to me really. Geez what horrible game loot stats. I think a lot needs to be done in this area, because this is very bad having these 4 stats only. I really hope you have plans to add more different stats to armor pieces in the future so that loot will seem better than currently. Like +heals, +cast time, +range, +stamina, +stamina recovery, +regen, +crit chance etc... Doing this would really make drops seem much better and offer people something to look forward too. Additionally if these were random so any piece in the game had a random chance of dropping/crafting loot with various modifiers that would be huge upgrade to the current system. This way everyone doesn't have the EXACT same thing.

This is not the system we are looking to make, we will just have to agree to disagree. Certain slots will impact things like regen, crit, stam, heals, etc. but not outer armor, outer armor is specifically for the stats as stated. This is a general rule and we might break it on special circumstances, but not something you will find common.
 
I like the idea that any class can wear whatever armor they want but what seems to be missing are the benefits for choosing lighter armor. As stated by Razor, there is really no disincentive to wearing the best armor to weight ratio. Sure, there are some “blue stats” that may sway one’s decision towards a less-than-optimum ratio piece but since those blue stats are largely a mystery at the present, most will just just choose the highest armor they can achieve.

The first step in fixing this is to make movement speed, both in and out of combat, be entirely dependent upon your armor weight compared to class maximum weight. That should absolutely be part of “the ratio” and taken into consideration when deciding what pieces to wear.

Second, I would tie max stamina to weight. Yes, I realize that has been done but it works. By doing that, you can adjust stamina costs on abilities to incentivize the use of lighter armor for support and DPS roles. This would also open up some interesting design options for each class. For instance, you could have certain abilities be more useful in groups and cost more stamina while also having lower stamina abilities that lend to solo play.

Third, you can and should utilize the “blue stats” on individual armor pieces to incentivize use by certain roles. I am certain that is already the goal but at present it doesn’t seem like those stats make enough of an impact to matter much.

Just my thoughts. Still really enjoying the game!
 
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The first step in fixing this is to make movement speed, both in and out of combat, be entirely dependent upon your armor weight compared to class maximum weight. That should absolutely be part of “the ratio” and taken into consideration when deciding what pieces to wear.

Second, I would tie max stamina to weight. Yes, I realize that has been done but it works. By doing that, you can adjust stamina costs on abilities to incentivize the use of lighter armor for support and DPS roles. This would also open up some interesting design options for each class. For instance, you could have certain abilities be more useful in groups and cost more stamina while also having lower stamina abilities that lend to solo play.

OMG no please!
Movement speed based on weight is not a good idea IMO. There is so much travel in this game moving, I don't think its a good system to have people running around naked.
No, I do not think STA should be tied to armor at all, this would just force people to use lighter armor almost all the time STA is too important. It also feels bad enough already to be out of stamina and standing there.
 
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Third, you can and should utilize the “blue stats” on individual armor pieces to incentivize use by certain roles. I am certain that is already the goal but at present it doesn’t seem like those stats make enough of an impact to matter much.

I'm also not a fan of this 3rd thing but I think its ok.
I would much rather have them incentivize certain play styles based on what type of armor you want to use; however, I don't think it's needed. I think if you had options for all playstyles on all armor. If you want to have DPS stats on heavy armor I'm ok with that. So a "tank" who has high armor weight could wear DPS and still have tanky armor, because they have a higher weight.


Example is like Razor is saying.
T1 armor = 2AC:1AW ratio. (AC = Armor Class. AW = Armor Weight)
Greaves Cloth = 2AC to 1 AW
Greaves Leather = 4AC to 2 AW
Greaves Metal = 10AC to 5 AW
All would be the exact same ratio, however, only people with higher AW can wear the heavy armor. As if you had 8 items that were 5 AW, it would be 40 AW. So STR and SUP can't really wear that.


Now if you had the same stats on all of them, choices could be +2 HIT, +2 DMG, +2 CMS, +4 PEN, +2 RES STUN, +2 AC, -1 AW, etc etc. Then people can make choices on how they want to do things.
So someone who really wants to tank can go -AW or +AC, but say a DEF wanted to make it so their "threat" attacks don't miss at the cost of less defense, well they would choose more +HIT options.
This is how you balance stuff without forcing people down a path, you let them choose the path they like to play.



NOTE:
****Now of course all this would need to be balanced as you saw I did +4 PEN because pen is less effective than +DMG at about 2 to 1 ratio.
However, that's just my opinion right now. Maybe later it's not. I'm not sure.

@RazorBrains
@AdricLives
I think this is pretty much what I've talked to people and they are saying what they want to see.
ADDED to this, is you need to lower the lower tier armors pieces so people that wear a full set (or almost a full set) at lower levels, not make higher AC just lower the weight AND AC of the lower tier stuff so people are still running around with about the same AC but required to wear more of a full set.
 
Armor weights are static for the different slots across the entire level range. They only differ depending on the “class” (heavy/light) of the armor itself.

It’s important to reiterate that we do not intend for players to be able to wear a full set of armor (of any type) until higher levels. It’s part of the design of the system. Light armor is currently lacking a reason to wear it over heavy - we are working on it.
 
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Armor weights are static for the different slots across the entire level range. They only differ depending on the “class” (heavy/light) of the armor itself.

It’s important to reiterate that we do not intend for players to be able to wear a full set of armor (of any type) until higher levels. It’s part of the design of the system. Light armor is currently lacking a reason to wear it over heavy - we are working on it.
You are going to make my leather set even better? <3
 
I made the same mistake...I started the game gathering copper, leveled it to 6 and crafted a full set of copper armor, however I cant even wear the chest piece....NOT even close. I can wear maybe 1 shoulder? maybe....I'm not sure what happens if I get hit in the head or leg. And now that I think about it I'm not even sure different slots block damage from things. It may be REALLY horrible and you just have a flat AC value and the game doesn't even need many diff armor slots. Anyways I agree it is frustrating.
 
I'm not sure what games you've played where people craft all their gear at level 1 and can gather everything and craft everything right out of the gate.

Just FYI you can make more than 1 char and can gather with them too.

I've never ever played a game where at low level you get all your armor and can wear a full set of plate.
Any game I have ever played allows the player to wear a full set of base material armor, especially armor that you craft for yourself at low levels. I don't know what games you are playing.
 
There needs to be more info on this. Armor weight is way to restrictive at low level. I spent hours grinding out copper nodes to make armor, that I can't ever use apparently. So a "Warlord" is supposed to be half naked with some cloth shoes and a loincloth since, I can't wear the copper armor i was finally able to make? Ohh but, I can make better lighter armor at higher level? Well that is unhelpful, trying to grind out exp to lvl dressed like a caveman. Why even make any armor at low lvl if u can only use the yoou make at a higher level? I was having fun, until this point. It really makes me want to uninstall. I can't be the only person that this has frustrated...
Yeah, bad system.
 
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Any game I have ever played allows the player to wear a full set of base material armor, especially armor that you craft for yourself at low levels. I don't know what games you are playing.
WOW, you can't wear all the items at level 1, as I stated before. That's just the first one off the top of my head. I think you might just not be aware of it as they allow you to "unlock" the slot by level or even just put an item level restriction on it. Many games do this.
 
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WOW, you can't wear all the items at level 1, as I stated before. That's just the first one off the top of my head. I think you might just not be aware of it as they allow you to "unlock" the slot by level or even just put an item level restriction on it. Many games do this.
What games are you refering to out of interest? All of the dozen or so MMO's I have installed let you wear a full set of armour within the level range/tier from level 1 assuming you can get it. So for example in EQ I can fill any slot I have a piece for at level 1. If someone gives me a full set of banded armour at level 1 I can wear it all. WoW Classic it is the same. I don't need to unlock slots.

Any game I have ever played allows the player to wear a full set of base material armor, especially armor that you craft for yourself at low levels. I don't know what games you are playing.
It's the same at late teens as well. My Warlord has the majority of slots empty. I have even just banked armour that I want to wear from a quest or boss drop because of the weight. Maybe it sounds good on paper, but when you are binning quest or boss drops because of weight, it's actually more restrictive. It removes any achievement you may feel getting the piece. There is a reason it is not done this way. Imagine getting a great boss drop after a tough fight and not being able to wear it. It's feels like a system designed around limiting twinking.
 
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What games are you refering to out of interest? All of the dozen or so MMO's I have installed let you wear a full set of armour within the level range/tier from level 1 assuming you can get it. So for example in EQ I can fill any slot I have a piece for at level 1. If someone gives me a full set of banded armour at level 1 I can wear it all. WoW Classic it is the same. I don't need to unlock slots.


It's the same at late teens as well. My Warlord has the majority of slots empty. I have even just banked armour that I want to wear from a quest or boss drop because of the weight. Maybe it sounds good on paper, but when you are binning quest or boss drops because of weight, it's actually more restrictive. It removes any achievement you may feel getting the piece. There is a reason it is not done this way. Imagine getting a great boss drop after a tough fight and not being able to wear it. It's feels like a system designed around limiting twinking.
Yeah and thematically it doesn't make a lot of sense either. Like you're this adventurer who made it through the darklands and you are strong enough to pull back a bow and swing a great axe but as soon as you put on a leather jacket you can't walk? Not the best.
 
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What games are you refering to out of interest? All of the dozen or so MMO's I have installed let you wear a full set of armour within the level range/tier from level 1 assuming you can get it. So for example in EQ I can fill any slot I have a piece for at level 1. If someone gives me a full set of banded armour at level 1 I can wear it all. WoW Classic it is the same. I don't need to unlock slots.
You can't wear a cloak or shoulders at level 1 in WOW. Those do not unlock until later.
Lots of games do this.
 
Yeah and thematically it doesn't make a lot of sense either. Like you're this adventurer who made it through the darklands and you are strong enough to pull back a bow and swing a great axe but as soon as you put on a leather jacket you can't walk? Not the best.
This is not how it works in this game either.
You put on a leather jacket, and you can walk, it's just slower based on how much over your weight limit it is for you. I think this makes perfect sense.
I do think it's too restrictive however, it makes total sense, you ever fight in leather armor or metal armor (worse if it's not fit for you) it does take extra training and it hinders you. Again, I do think its extra restrictive for lower levels.
 
You can't wear a cloak or shoulders at level 1 in WOW. Those do not unlock until later.
Lots of games do this.
This is not how it works in this game either.
You put on a leather jacket, and you can walk, it's just slower based on how much over your weight limit it is for you. I think this makes perfect sense.
I do think it's too restrictive however, it makes total sense, you ever fight in leather armor or metal armor (worse if it's not fit for you) it does take extra training and it hinders you. Again, I do think its extra restrictive for lower levels.
I agree but I don't think it makes sense as a weight restriction slot by slot. I think it makes more sense to do it as an entire capacity. Walking 80 percent slower by wearing one slotted piece of gear is basically not walking. And to be clear in my case I am referring to the first leather chest piece you can make that caused this issue. Not a high level gift or a full set of plate. Seems weird to me
 
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I agree but I don't think it makes sense as a weight restriction slot by slot. I think it makes more sense to do it as an entire capacity. Walking 80 percent slower by wearing one slotted piece of gear is basically not walking. And to be clear in my case I am referring to the first leather chest piece you can make that caused this issue. Not a high level gift or a full set of plate. Seems weird to me

Well I think that's going to be a varied opinion. I agree with you partly, however, I also can see in D&D style wearing armor like that would hinder you greatly in spell casting and attacking much more than that.
I think the key is the system is not well balanced and needs to be looked at better. There is almost zero reason to level go over your weight limit as the punishments are so harsh for almost no reward.
 
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You can't wear a cloak or shoulders at level 1 in WOW. Those do not unlock until later.
Lots of games do this.
So a small % of the total slots which is a million miles away from where EA is. EA has level restriction for tiers but also the weight limit. It's far too restrictive. Having to put stuff from quests and drops in the bank because you can't wear them is just not a fun system.
 
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