Equipment Scaling?

[Reapy]

I have just played one night so far in the beta, but I had a question in terms of weapon/armor upgrades.

Actually this was something I never noticed in depth when playing regular m&b either....What does upgrading armor really points get you? Meaning, going from say 10 chest armor to 25? Is it balanced out for the gold cost per increase?

At the end of the day, I would think the thing you really want to gain is being able to take an additional hit. Like, if I have the free chest armor on, and someone can kill me in two hits, if I buy the most expensive armor, does that increase to 3 or 4 hits? I guess what I'm trying to get at is, say someone hits me once when I have no armor on and I go down to 25% life, then I'm hit again and die. If I buy armor, and the first hit takes me to 50% life, then I get hit again and go down another 50% and die. So despite the extra armor, I've really gained nothing in terms of gameplay.

Does it work like that, or is there really a good reason to buy that extra set of armor? I mean if you go spend say 3000 gp on maxed out everything, and some guy charges you from behind on a horse, are you still going to explode from one hit? Was it really worth all the armor in that case?

So, what kinds of gains do you get for +armor points? Is say going up 10 armor going to help you take one more shot, 2 more shots? What's the ratio?

Also, in terms of a suggestion... do we really need all those slots to fill up with gear? Would the game benefit from allowing a player to decide if they want to spend 500gp on +6 gloves, or should we have some sort of complete armor sets that scale up. Would that be easier to balance. Ie you can buy the leather set for 200, the chainmail for 400, the branded mail for 600, plate for 1000, or something like that?  Is it worth having everybody cobble together armor pieces, or would it be better to have 4 or so armor levels, with a distinct look for each level by faction?

I have no problem with the weapon loadout methodology, as having 4 slots to fill with a large array of items is a fun thing to pick out, and has a pretty large impact on your playstyle depending what weapons you take.

 

[Kapt Torbjorn]

Increase in armour is an increase in protection, which means you can take more hits, yes.

say someone hits me once when I have no armor on and I go down to 25% life, then I'm hit again and die. If I buy armor, and the first hit takes me to 50% life

What if instead of taking 50% on the second hit, it's 25%?  Then you'd survive 4 hits with good armour, and 2 with none.

 

[Night Ninja]

As I understand it armour in M&B doesn't work that way. Don't quote me on this, but I seem to recall that armour reduces the damage value of an attack by 50-200% of the armour value (compensating for damage type). This means that there's a very large random factor included.

Anyway, if the other fellow knows his business you shouldn't be alive after two hits or so.

 

[docbates7]

I would say that there should be a "fast equip" option in the final game, or like a way (unless there is an i just haven't seen it yet) to do preset loadouts.  It takes too long to select equipment.  This is especially true in conquest maps where the game runs incredibly fast.  Options would be to increase the respawn time to accommodate equipment selection, which would piss everyone off, or have a fast-select option. 

 

[Daergarz]

I would say that there should be a "fast equip" option in the final game, or like a way (unless there is an i just haven't seen it yet) to do preset loadouts.  It takes too long to select equipment.  This is especially true in conquest maps where the game runs incredibly fast.  Options would be to increase the respawn time to accommodate equipment selection, which would piss everyone off, or have a fast-select option.

Yup. A whole thread about it too. =)

And iirc, armor negates 100-50% of the listed value, say 40 chest armor. So that would stop, at random, 20-40. Weapons do 100-50% listed damage, taking into account speed bonus/penalty and damage type. Which is why lancing is often a one-hit wonder, given the massive speed bonus and piercing damage.

 

[Reapy]

So if this is the case, I could argue that the armor selection should have more of an impact on your gameplay for that round, or cost significantly less. I saw the price for some of the gloves you could get, and it just didn't make sense to me, with the frequency that dieing and respawning occurs in some game modes, that you would ever spend 300+ gp for such a small upgrade. You might if you were swimming in money, and if you are swimming in money you would not really NEED that exta protection.

I honestly thing going to preset load outs of varying armor stength/type would make a more interesting game choice then trying to keep it similar to single player M&B equipment selection.

Though, I am sure someone has done the math already on gear load outs, and maybe it is at a good place right now.

 

[MaHuD]

If you dont like the gloves, (and thus like cold hands instead) dont buy them.

 

[Mercenary88]

There is no random factor in the calculation of damage, its just a physics engine that takes into account the spped at which the impact occurs. also things like damage type are taken into account (blunt, cutting, piercing).

@Reapy, I understand how it may seem that armor does not make much of a difference as it gets more expensive. But hte thing is you don;t always take massive hits in combat, sometimes for example you move away in the direction that the weapon is winging and the attacker is standing still and the result is very low damage (close to none) if you are wearing lets say mail, where as is with leather or no armor it would take a big chunk of your health. For direct hits  at full force you will take lots of damage no matter what you are wearing, but that makes sense