I did make a thread 1 month ago with a similar solution to armour not feeling as protective as it should, but time passes and I've had more time to think and read other suggestions by fellow forumites. I wanted it to be more detailed, and also easier to read as a suggestion.
Armour and weapons should feature a stat describing the ability to shrug off extremely minor hits, a chance to deflect for armour and a chance to penetrate for weapons. This system would operate parallel to normal armour calculation, ideally complementing its shortcomings. Objectives:
All armour pieces should have, in addition to the regular armour stats, a deflect chance. This not only simulates the strength of the material but also the presence of weak points in the armour. The reason why I think the former can't be accurately simulated by itself is because armour tipically has more than one material (what's stopping a knight from wearing a gambeson underneath his chainmail) and the latter would require a level of precision rarely seen even in regular FPSs, let alone medieval ones.
Each armour piece would have its own pen chance, in cases where they can overlap the game adds up:
Directly countering deflect chance is penetration chance. Unlike the former, it's very, very simple. Pen chance adds to the dice roll to see if the armour was penetrated. What's a bit more complicated is how damage types contribute based on the outcome of the dice roll. But what if you're using a bad weapon on horseback and are able to whack a legionaire over the head with it? I believe it would be appropriate to add penetration chance for certain amounts of raw damage (I believe, in the game files, it is what is referred to as magnitude). That amount should be the current stagger threshold, which is to say 5 damage, though without the armour calculations.
The dice roll basically takes inspiration from how EUIV calculates siege surrender chance. For those that do not know, very briefly, when besieging an actual fortress in EU4 the fortress surrender when the dice rolls atleast a 20. However, when you start the siege, the dice can only roll up to 14. So how do you do it? Luckily for you, within the range of rolls your dice can make are certain events, once every time the timer runs out, that "add" points to the dice rolls. So month after month, at the end the surrender of the fortress grows near as the siege bonuses increase. Think of Pen chance in the same way, you need "x" amount of dice score to pen an armour, with Deflect chance subtracting from the dice roll and Pen chance adding to it.
OUTCOMES
1) DEFLECTION
The blow completely failed the dice roll, assuming a negative or low value. The blow is completely deflected, it won't even phase you or do damage. I don't think it's possible for a high speed hit to achieve this, in real life the weapon would probably break or atleast be seriously damaged if that happened and that is currently not simulated in the game, which is why I proposed the bonus per raw damage dealt
2) NON-PENETRATION
The blow didn't fail completely, but it still didn't penetrate.
Armour has failed you, the hit goes through and damages you.
Armour and weapons should feature a stat describing the ability to shrug off extremely minor hits, a chance to deflect for armour and a chance to penetrate for weapons. This system would operate parallel to normal armour calculation, ideally complementing its shortcomings. Objectives:
- Making armour more worthwile, both on the tactical and on the strategic level
- It should still be possible for lone knights to be ko'd when completely surrounded by enemies, even if of lower level
- Perhaps take down ranged weapons a peg or two, as they basically are the one weapon that actually decides the fate of the battle (kinda the reason why Sturgia sucks)
All armour pieces should have, in addition to the regular armour stats, a deflect chance. This not only simulates the strength of the material but also the presence of weak points in the armour. The reason why I think the former can't be accurately simulated by itself is because armour tipically has more than one material (what's stopping a knight from wearing a gambeson underneath his chainmail) and the latter would require a level of precision rarely seen even in regular FPSs, let alone medieval ones.
Each armour piece would have its own pen chance, in cases where they can overlap the game adds up:
- Arms, 100% Glove slot contribution, 10% Body slot contribution
- Legs, 100% Boot slot contribution, 40% Body slot contribution
- Cape slot is auxiliary, provides 100% contribution to parts it covers
- Deflect chance contributions only take place if armour contribution to affected bodypart >0
Directly countering deflect chance is penetration chance. Unlike the former, it's very, very simple. Pen chance adds to the dice roll to see if the armour was penetrated. What's a bit more complicated is how damage types contribute based on the outcome of the dice roll. But what if you're using a bad weapon on horseback and are able to whack a legionaire over the head with it? I believe it would be appropriate to add penetration chance for certain amounts of raw damage (I believe, in the game files, it is what is referred to as magnitude). That amount should be the current stagger threshold, which is to say 5 damage, though without the armour calculations.
The dice roll basically takes inspiration from how EUIV calculates siege surrender chance. For those that do not know, very briefly, when besieging an actual fortress in EU4 the fortress surrender when the dice rolls atleast a 20. However, when you start the siege, the dice can only roll up to 14. So how do you do it? Luckily for you, within the range of rolls your dice can make are certain events, once every time the timer runs out, that "add" points to the dice rolls. So month after month, at the end the surrender of the fortress grows near as the siege bonuses increase. Think of Pen chance in the same way, you need "x" amount of dice score to pen an armour, with Deflect chance subtracting from the dice roll and Pen chance adding to it.
OUTCOMES
1) DEFLECTION
The blow completely failed the dice roll, assuming a negative or low value. The blow is completely deflected, it won't even phase you or do damage. I don't think it's possible for a high speed hit to achieve this, in real life the weapon would probably break or atleast be seriously damaged if that happened and that is currently not simulated in the game, which is why I proposed the bonus per raw damage dealt
2) NON-PENETRATION
The blow didn't fail completely, but it still didn't penetrate.
- Cut weapons deal no damage with this outcome
- Piercing has severe penalties applied before the proper armour absorption calculations and can't stagger the opponent (though it may push them back if you get around to ever implementing that)
- Blunt receives penalties before the armour calculation has taken place but it can still deal damage and stagger.
Armour has failed you, the hit goes through and damages you.
- Cut proceeds with regular calculations
- Piercing proceeds with calculations, they should be more forgiving than they are currently
- Blunt proceeds to regular calculations and may inflict a knockdown on the opponent
- Piercing damage calculations need a buff, blunt doesn't need to hog all of the spotlight if they can knockdown with some consistency
- Damage type should be on the arrows, both bows and arrows may have penetration chance (maybe only for longbows or high tier bows)
- "Was this a spear buff thread?" ALL THREADS ARE FOOL
