This is something that has been bothering me for a long time. It's a completely obvious problem, I think, and I'm frankly shocked at how little it gets talked about.
Today, I played DM until I had over 11k gold, went Swadian Man At Arms and bought literally every piece of the most expensive gear possible: a charger, a coat of plates, a great helmet, a pair of steel greaves, a pair of gauntlets, a great lance, an arming sword and a heavy shield - just to test how it would feel. So I rode around a little -- the charger is just so painfully slow that it's unreal, but I still knocked some people over with its tank-like weight and lanced a few others, and... got killed by a single hit from a great long bardiche.
I put it to you that the current balance of item value and performance is completely ****ed up with respect to high-tier gear.
There is literally pretty much no reason to get the most expensive items, ever. IMO hands down the best equipment setups are ones involving mid-tier armor only, or even no real armor at all to speak of. It's nice that armor is more effective in the new patch, but the fact is that a leather jerkin or the Rhodok ragged outfit will almost always serve you better than the more expensive armors. In either you'll be able to survive a couple solid 1h hits, or a single good 2h hit -- or not. One-hit kills still happen, and when they do, they generally happen more or less regardless of what you're wearing.
And when I say "best equipment setups", I mean exactly that. I don't mean "the most cost-effective equipment setups", that goes without saying. I mean you are literally overall safer wearing a leather jerkin than you are wearing a coat of plates. Heavy armor might grant you an extra hit or two of survivability, but at what cost? The weight disadvantage is crippling, you're slow as a turtle -- dodging missiles becomes almost impossible, and as for melee, you completely cede distance control over to your opponents. You can't run away to avoid getting mobbed, you can't catch any fleeing enemies, and even one on one the enemy always has the initiative because he's just that much faster. Heavy armor isn't a benefit, it's a handicap... at ten times the gold cost!
The same goes for horses. Courser is fast, and good for pretty much any job. If you're worried about rearing up whenever you even go near an enemy infantryman, buy a hunter. But hey, what about that spiffy warhose? That thing looks like it means business! Wrong. WRONG. Making the move from warhorse to hunter makes lancing a lot harder. You can charge through enemies, sure, and the horse takes a few more arrows to bring down, but it's also easier to hit since it's slower, and you'll still rear up from enemies if you're not moving at a good clip. The speed and maneuverability cut of course makes you more vulnerable in melee as well, since the enemy can respond to your movements better, and you're slower to run away from trouble. Again, just not worth it.
Now, weapons are another story entirely! Weapons are balanced much more gently, with smaller differences between high-tier and low-tier gear... though as we all know, even those small differences make all the difference. But here's the thing. Anyone can afford any weapon at any time, using just the default 1k gold. Granted, stuff like the greatsword, you have to commit to, it doesn't leave much room for other gear. But hell, what other gear do you need? You just bought a mother****ing greatsword, the world is your oyster! Guy in full armor? No problem. Two hits from that big hunk of metal, wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, another one for the boneyard! And that's the single most expensive weapon in the game. The obscenity mentioned in my little anecdote, the horror that is the great long bardiche, costs... what was it? 300? 200? Was it even that much? I don't care, it's ridiculous.
Now, one thing I've seen a few people say is this: "The high-tier gear shouldn't be too good. It'll make things imbalanced." Excuse me? Did I just read that right? It's the high-tier gear. It's supposed to be the best you can get, that's why it costs so goddamn much. It should be balanced, yes -- not to be equivalent to the mid- and low-tier gear, but to be clearly better. The current situation, where it's clearly worse, is simply intolerable, and I won't let anyone tell me otherwise.
EDIT:
I'm adding in some stuff from my later posts to clarify my thinking and present actual, concrete suggestions. The following bits will be a bit jumbled, and less unified than the original post, because they're taken from different parts of an ongoing discussion. I'll put the lengthier bit in spoilers and leave the most key points visible.
All that I want to see right now is for items to perform in a way that justifies their cost, and I've given ideas on how that could be achieved. This problem has been in the beta for long as there's been a beta, and I find it mind-boggling that nothing has been done to address it. People don't even talk about it much, because everyone's come to just accept it as fact. Well, I don't like it, and I think we have to talk about it as much as possible, because how else can we expect it to ever get fixed?
I don't want to make all weapons useless against armor -- there should be ways of countering armored players. It just shouldn't be this goddamn easy. I think the key moves are:
Increase top-tier armor protection values a little (the current difference just isn't reasonable given the cost)
Slow the progression of armor weight a lot, or make it easier to carry (not saying knights should out-sprint nudists, but they should be nowhere near as slow as they are now)
Balance weapons better (make the best weapons more expensive, make the balance of length, damage and speed reasonable - 2h weapons need extra attention)
Make warhorses and chargers faster and more maneuverable (no-brainer. Both of them should be only a couple of points behind the hunter in speed and maneuverability)
Basically:
What it is now: "Hah, look at that idiot, he's bought heavy armor and/or a heavy mount. I'm gonna take him down!"
What it should be: "Oh crap, that guy's bought heavy armor and/or a heavy mount. I'm gonna need some help with this one!"
Today, I played DM until I had over 11k gold, went Swadian Man At Arms and bought literally every piece of the most expensive gear possible: a charger, a coat of plates, a great helmet, a pair of steel greaves, a pair of gauntlets, a great lance, an arming sword and a heavy shield - just to test how it would feel. So I rode around a little -- the charger is just so painfully slow that it's unreal, but I still knocked some people over with its tank-like weight and lanced a few others, and... got killed by a single hit from a great long bardiche.
I put it to you that the current balance of item value and performance is completely ****ed up with respect to high-tier gear.
There is literally pretty much no reason to get the most expensive items, ever. IMO hands down the best equipment setups are ones involving mid-tier armor only, or even no real armor at all to speak of. It's nice that armor is more effective in the new patch, but the fact is that a leather jerkin or the Rhodok ragged outfit will almost always serve you better than the more expensive armors. In either you'll be able to survive a couple solid 1h hits, or a single good 2h hit -- or not. One-hit kills still happen, and when they do, they generally happen more or less regardless of what you're wearing.
And when I say "best equipment setups", I mean exactly that. I don't mean "the most cost-effective equipment setups", that goes without saying. I mean you are literally overall safer wearing a leather jerkin than you are wearing a coat of plates. Heavy armor might grant you an extra hit or two of survivability, but at what cost? The weight disadvantage is crippling, you're slow as a turtle -- dodging missiles becomes almost impossible, and as for melee, you completely cede distance control over to your opponents. You can't run away to avoid getting mobbed, you can't catch any fleeing enemies, and even one on one the enemy always has the initiative because he's just that much faster. Heavy armor isn't a benefit, it's a handicap... at ten times the gold cost!
The same goes for horses. Courser is fast, and good for pretty much any job. If you're worried about rearing up whenever you even go near an enemy infantryman, buy a hunter. But hey, what about that spiffy warhose? That thing looks like it means business! Wrong. WRONG. Making the move from warhorse to hunter makes lancing a lot harder. You can charge through enemies, sure, and the horse takes a few more arrows to bring down, but it's also easier to hit since it's slower, and you'll still rear up from enemies if you're not moving at a good clip. The speed and maneuverability cut of course makes you more vulnerable in melee as well, since the enemy can respond to your movements better, and you're slower to run away from trouble. Again, just not worth it.
Now, weapons are another story entirely! Weapons are balanced much more gently, with smaller differences between high-tier and low-tier gear... though as we all know, even those small differences make all the difference. But here's the thing. Anyone can afford any weapon at any time, using just the default 1k gold. Granted, stuff like the greatsword, you have to commit to, it doesn't leave much room for other gear. But hell, what other gear do you need? You just bought a mother****ing greatsword, the world is your oyster! Guy in full armor? No problem. Two hits from that big hunk of metal, wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, another one for the boneyard! And that's the single most expensive weapon in the game. The obscenity mentioned in my little anecdote, the horror that is the great long bardiche, costs... what was it? 300? 200? Was it even that much? I don't care, it's ridiculous.
Now, one thing I've seen a few people say is this: "The high-tier gear shouldn't be too good. It'll make things imbalanced." Excuse me? Did I just read that right? It's the high-tier gear. It's supposed to be the best you can get, that's why it costs so goddamn much. It should be balanced, yes -- not to be equivalent to the mid- and low-tier gear, but to be clearly better. The current situation, where it's clearly worse, is simply intolerable, and I won't let anyone tell me otherwise.
EDIT:
I'm adding in some stuff from my later posts to clarify my thinking and present actual, concrete suggestions. The following bits will be a bit jumbled, and less unified than the original post, because they're taken from different parts of an ongoing discussion. I'll put the lengthier bit in spoilers and leave the most key points visible.
I don't think that the damage of 1h vs armor is in need of rebalancing. There are, however, many other issues that need to be addressed.
Overall, barring major changes to how armor works, I think the steps that need to be taken are to maybe buff the armor values a little, but much more importantly decrease the encumbrance penalties. The key thing is that if the prices are to stay the same, then the quality should also reflect that.
As for weapons, I think the weapon prices should increase much faster on the various tiers, to discourage people from always using only the best weapons. Also, the extreme damage on most of the 2h weapons needs to be brought back down to earth.
Making the top tier armors cheaper is also a possible solution, though it can't be the only part of the solution. Basically, if you make them cheaper, you can make them a little less better, but they still need to be better!
Ease of blocking has absolutely no bearing on armor balance. The great bardiche is just as easy to block for a naked guy with a long axe as it is for a fully armored greatsword knight... and the naked one has the added massive advantage of actually being able to dodge and vie for the first strike! The knight has no hope but to try to block the longer weapon, and if he fails, it's curtains because of that crazy 2h damage. If it's a bastard sword? He charges in, hits you once... and unless you get a lucky block in or he misses, you're dead again from stunlock. So again, the armor is purely a handicap. That's not balance. If I see a heavily armored footman, then regardless of what weapon I have or he has, I will consider him an easy target, attack, and win much more often than not.
The only situation I can think of where it could ever give you an overall advantage is in a group, where you can avoid getting singled out by virtue of being protected by teammates. Now, knowing what pub players are like, I really don't like to rely on my teammates like that. So, excluding that scenario, while the heavy armor will maybe let you absorb a couple extra hits, it will also make you take more hits. So the end result is that you might have a slightly better chance of surviving one or two one on ones (at least against 1h users), but even after those extra hits you'll be almost dead, whereas if you'd had no armor, or light armor, you'd have had a much better chance of not being hit at all. I'd say that the net result is, at best, plus minus zero. So yeah, you're literally paying 10k gold for nothing.
Even if you fix the facehugging bugs, heavy armor will still remain just as utterly broken as it is now, for the reasons I've given above. It's a crying shame no matter how you look at it. I'd love nothing more than to play a fully armored great lance/sword charger knight, or greatswording landsknecht, but as it is, the game punishes you horribly for even thinking that.
Some of the weapons are definitely too damaging, but I think it's more important that those huge-ass, crazy long weapons with damage in the fifties and forties be made a lot slower than they are now, and a lot more expensive as well.
The hunter is okayish. I really don't understand why it's speed 43 (slower than a saddle horse!) and think speed 46 or 47 would be better.
Overall, barring major changes to how armor works, I think the steps that need to be taken are to maybe buff the armor values a little, but much more importantly decrease the encumbrance penalties. The key thing is that if the prices are to stay the same, then the quality should also reflect that.
As for weapons, I think the weapon prices should increase much faster on the various tiers, to discourage people from always using only the best weapons. Also, the extreme damage on most of the 2h weapons needs to be brought back down to earth.
Making the top tier armors cheaper is also a possible solution, though it can't be the only part of the solution. Basically, if you make them cheaper, you can make them a little less better, but they still need to be better!
Ease of blocking has absolutely no bearing on armor balance. The great bardiche is just as easy to block for a naked guy with a long axe as it is for a fully armored greatsword knight... and the naked one has the added massive advantage of actually being able to dodge and vie for the first strike! The knight has no hope but to try to block the longer weapon, and if he fails, it's curtains because of that crazy 2h damage. If it's a bastard sword? He charges in, hits you once... and unless you get a lucky block in or he misses, you're dead again from stunlock. So again, the armor is purely a handicap. That's not balance. If I see a heavily armored footman, then regardless of what weapon I have or he has, I will consider him an easy target, attack, and win much more often than not.
The only situation I can think of where it could ever give you an overall advantage is in a group, where you can avoid getting singled out by virtue of being protected by teammates. Now, knowing what pub players are like, I really don't like to rely on my teammates like that. So, excluding that scenario, while the heavy armor will maybe let you absorb a couple extra hits, it will also make you take more hits. So the end result is that you might have a slightly better chance of surviving one or two one on ones (at least against 1h users), but even after those extra hits you'll be almost dead, whereas if you'd had no armor, or light armor, you'd have had a much better chance of not being hit at all. I'd say that the net result is, at best, plus minus zero. So yeah, you're literally paying 10k gold for nothing.
Even if you fix the facehugging bugs, heavy armor will still remain just as utterly broken as it is now, for the reasons I've given above. It's a crying shame no matter how you look at it. I'd love nothing more than to play a fully armored great lance/sword charger knight, or greatswording landsknecht, but as it is, the game punishes you horribly for even thinking that.
Some of the weapons are definitely too damaging, but I think it's more important that those huge-ass, crazy long weapons with damage in the fifties and forties be made a lot slower than they are now, and a lot more expensive as well.
The hunter is okayish. I really don't understand why it's speed 43 (slower than a saddle horse!) and think speed 46 or 47 would be better.
All that I want to see right now is for items to perform in a way that justifies their cost, and I've given ideas on how that could be achieved. This problem has been in the beta for long as there's been a beta, and I find it mind-boggling that nothing has been done to address it. People don't even talk about it much, because everyone's come to just accept it as fact. Well, I don't like it, and I think we have to talk about it as much as possible, because how else can we expect it to ever get fixed?
I don't want to make all weapons useless against armor -- there should be ways of countering armored players. It just shouldn't be this goddamn easy. I think the key moves are:
Increase top-tier armor protection values a little (the current difference just isn't reasonable given the cost)
Slow the progression of armor weight a lot, or make it easier to carry (not saying knights should out-sprint nudists, but they should be nowhere near as slow as they are now)
Balance weapons better (make the best weapons more expensive, make the balance of length, damage and speed reasonable - 2h weapons need extra attention)
Make warhorses and chargers faster and more maneuverable (no-brainer. Both of them should be only a couple of points behind the hunter in speed and maneuverability)
Basically:
What it is now: "Hah, look at that idiot, he's bought heavy armor and/or a heavy mount. I'm gonna take him down!"
What it should be: "Oh crap, that guy's bought heavy armor and/or a heavy mount. I'm gonna need some help with this one!"
