Armorsmith Archive
Thread: To whomever said armor is useless with CL grouping in the game:
ZionHalcyon wrote:
Thula wrote:
The arguments made during the "CU-revolt" still applies.Of coursearmor is notuseless, but it is much less important than level. And inmany of the PvE situations, the outcome of the fight is not depedant on whether you wear armor or not. This was very nicely explained in a post above so I am not going to elaborate more on it. And armor is an absolutenecessity in PvP, which is well known.
Most people don't know the realities about PvE, or don't care, so armor sales are still good. But with the high decay rate, people may start looking at alternatives and try out fighting without armor. When you take missions you are better off saving it.
Ok, lets see. If the argument was "Armor doesn't matter any more", which is was during the "CU-Revolt" (not saying by all AS's, just some), then NO, the argument does NOT apply.
Sigh, the problem is that you pick the worst argument and use that to represent the entire debate. The essence was the level system fundamentally changes how useful armor is, which it undeniable does. This was discovered duringthe limited periodwe had available for testing, and several people rightfully flagged it as a potential problem. The level system (damage multipliers) was also adjusted during the beta-testing and I wouldn't be surprised iffeedback provided by the community contributed to the changes. I can't recall you contributing much in that debate (in terms of testing), unless you consider "positive whining" to be an important contribution.
The argument that armor is now uselss is a fundamentally different argument than saying armor is less useful.
Lets rephrase that slightly: in many circumstances using armor is a waste of money, as such you can consider it to be useless (ie general hunting/missions). However armor is still useful for certain other cases, like fighting high-end bosses, PvP etc.
Saying armor is less useful also implies there is STILL a use for it. Saying it is useless, is well, saying there is no need for Armorsmiths anymore, which is NOT the case.
I can't recall anyone saying there would be no need for armorsmiths either. But people that care about the profession are in their full right to shout when they discover something that worry them. And a lot of the things that was brought up as concerns turned out to become problems that we are still haunted by (e.g. experimentation) and some of the concerns were rectified (e.g. switching from UT back to SR). Sometimes it works...
So I disagree that the Pre Curb argument still applies.
That is your privilege.
Thula wrote:
ZionHalcyon wrote:
Thula wrote:
The arguments made during the "CU-revolt" still applies.Of coursearmor is notuseless, but it is much less important than level. And inmany of the PvE situations, the outcome of the fight is not depedant on whether you wear armor or not. This was very nicely explained in a post above so I am not going to elaborate more on it. And armor is an absolutenecessity in PvP, which is well known.
Most people don't know the realities about PvE, or don't care, so armor sales are still good. But with the high decay rate, people may start looking at alternatives and try out fighting without armor. When you take missions you are better off saving it.
Ok, lets see. If the argument was "Armor doesn't matter any more", which is was during the "CU-Revolt" (not saying by all AS's, just some), then NO, the argument does NOT apply.
Sigh, the problem is that you pick the worst argument and use that to represent the entire debate.
No, I was just referring to the segment of the population who were so eager to hate things that they bought this info hook line and sinker. I in no way am saying Armorsmiths as a whole done fu'd up.
The essence was the level system fundamentally changes how useful armor is, which it undeniable does. This was discovered duringthe limited periodwe had available for testing, and several people rightfully flagged it as a potential problem. The level system (damage multipliers) was also adjusted during the beta-testing and I wouldn't be surprised iffeedback provided by the community contributed to the changes. I can't recall you contributing much in that debate (in terms of testing), unless you consider "positive whining" to be an important contribution.
In other words, I hit the nail on the head with this, and because you were one of the people who struck up the band for this argument, you now feel the need to make a long-winded posts to cover your own @$$, right?
The argument that armor is now uselss is a fundamentally different argument than saying armor is less useful.
Lets rephrase that slightly: in many circumstances using armor is a waste of money, as such you can consider it to be useless (ie general hunting/missions). However armor is still useful for certain other cases, like fighting high-end bosses, PvP etc.
Your personal opinion. Armor is still helpful, albiet not necessary, in many circumstances. generally I agree, but you realize that trying to rephrase the argument only supports what I said in my last paragraph, right?
Saying armor is less useful also implies there is STILL a use for it. Saying it is useless, is well, saying there is no need for Armorsmiths anymore, which is NOT the case.
I can't recall anyone saying there would be no need for armorsmiths either. But people that care about the profession are in their full right to shout when they discover something that worry them. And a lot of the things that was brought up as concerns turned out to become problems that we are still haunted by (e.g. experimentation) and some of the concerns were rectified (e.g. switching from UT back to SR). Sometimes it works...
I understand that, but isn't the onus on the people to be WELL-INFORMED first? That was my biggest beef with all the screaming and yelling; a LOT of it was based on uninformed hearsay and non-thorough testing. There were some cases where it was warranted and things worked (such as the UT back to SR thing you mentioned), but there were still other cases where people were playing Chicken Little claiming the sky was falling, when the reality is, they were just going along with the crowd and with hearsay. That was my biggest issue; I wanted people to have a grasp and understanding of the system before they so thoroughly crapped on it. Now I will agree AS is a shell of what it used to be - not in terms of output, but in terms of what they can experiment on to make each set of armor unique. It is now less creative and more just fills a function. To that degree, I wholly support the AS community. There needs to be more diversity with armor and crafting. I also think craftable armor coloring kits, ala vehicle coloring kits would be very nice. But I do hope that changes on that front come to the AS community soon, and I hope the AS community is responsible enough not to ask for changes that would unbalance the game.
So I disagree that the Pre Curb argument still applies.
That is your privilege.
Indeed.
Capt_Obvious wrote:
captenjonny wrote:
Capt_Obvious wrote:
Quite frankly Zion, I could give a rats ass less if armor worked anymore or not, all I care is that people still buy it like hamsters to a feedbar.
just my 2 cents
/ROFL
Thank you I'll be here all week
/APPLAUD
Great to see some humor here!
Now regarding the subject matter.
Ok, people during the revolts were certainly over-exaggerating when stating that armour would be completely useless. This is obviously not quite the case. However: certainly for PvE, Armour, Skills, Weapons, Tactics generally all count for very little when compared with Combat Level. This artificial balancing method (yes, balance has now been brought to the game) overrides all other considerations.
But this is not supposed to be about CL, this is about armour. Now I know I'm just talking about my own experiences, but I have heard similar things from others. When grouped on missions, I rarely bother wearing armour. Because of mitigation, I can wear it all the time anyway.But in fact only if things get hairy (eg, instead off pulling one mob, they all aggro) do I need it. This is for levels near my own. (NOT CL80!) For anything further above. I'm toast. Nothing I can do about it. No armour, weapon, tactic (apart from maybe running away and even then sometimes) etc will save me. For anything further below, they're toast. Unless a whole bunch aggro me at the same time (I mean more than just a few) in which case it can get interesting. So from these premises, we can see that there is a much limited set of circumstances where armour makes a difference.
As an aside, another statement that AS's made was that prices were going to increase dramatically. Guess what. It's happened.
Now I'm not gonna get into a point by point debate about all that was said at the time, however, I hope this shows that although there were some exaggerations, (Normal on a forum) the basic points were reasonably sound.
Message Edited by Skadoink on 06-08-2005 04:14 PM
Prices hiked because:
A) Armorsmiths could
B) People bought resource deeds for 5 mil each and the used them to make the "best" armor. Then hiked the price to cover their cost and stillmake a killing.
But, I think it's long overdue. WS have been making millions from one gun. Why can't an armorsmith make a tidy profit as well?
ZionHalcyon wrote:
Thula wrote:
...way too much combined....
Just a few points:
I stand behind everything I have written on this forum. If I have written something that turned out to be incorrect I would be happy to admit my errors. If you really feel the need to spend time looking for those errors that is...
I disagree with many of your conclusions above but I have also come to realise that a rock is more perceptive to an argument. I used to have a lot of respect for your opionins but eventuallydiscovered that you were just another whiner, just with theopposite sign. Your bickering were disruptive, anddid not add anything useful or constructive to the debate, just increased the flame wars(no test results, no evaluations, nothing, just a wait and see attitude that would lead us nowhere).Many of those that were yelling on the forums were active on TC, testing out theories and confirming whether or not those were true. How do you know what to test if noone puts forward any issues? I personally spoke to Blixtev on several occasions on TC and got more and more demoralised when I realised that the Devs had no intention of changing the direction of the road we were heading down.
Finally, the forum calmed down and started working together to get the best out of this profession, and then you come back to start another flame war. Nice. Good job. Another "constructive" post by the almighty Zion.
That is all I have to say, if you want to do something useful go out there and find which creatures that drop Recon Cores so I can add it to the guide.
PS. Consider yourself priviliged, you are the only one I have even half-heartedly tried to flame on this forum, and will probably still be the only one when I eventually leave this game...(oh come on, I know exactly what your response to this is, give it to me baby!)
Oh mate, im not saying armor is useless, far from it. What we are saying is that with an equal level creature or lower level creature its not needed as much, whereas before the cu, armor was needed in all forms of combat.
Sylow wrote:
I again speak out of the customers point of view... and i say, armour is worth it.
I lately have the habbit of being combatant, and when you hammer down some enemies on way to the starport and barely make it inside with less health left than the armour gives you as health-bonus, you sure know that without armour, you'd now be in the cloning center...
Whereas i don't claim that the health bonus is no more than a small addition (my armour basically gives me 6% more health, the protective values of armour translate into almost 100% more health due to reduced damage), this was my absolutely "armour saved me" experience...
Heh, a pure @$$ huh?
Fair enough.
Thing is, I don't troll, I just have a bad habit of confronting stupidity and calling people on it.
And given there is a lot of stupidity to go around in the world, it keeps me kinda busy. 
Besides, the fact that Thula dropped the argument on a point by point basis and went into political spin mode says more to me than the actual contents of his last post, which was actually very artfully done, and might have worked on someone with a less than keen mind. But it is what it is - the only reason to drop points in a debate is because you do not have an answer to them, or the only honest answer you can give to them makes your argument vunerable to look even worse.
Essentially it's the "I don't want to admit I am wrong" speech, which is as close to victory in a debate or argument you can get with someone who can't pony up to the fact they were wrong.
Anyway, long story longer, I am who I am - a nice guy in-game, and a bit of a rebel on the forums. Just know I never take a point or stance I do not believe in. I just wish there were more people like there were in the old days on the forums; guys like Screamfeeder and such - always well-thought out arguments, and had a knack for pointing out actual flaws instead of generalizing and over-reacting. Some of my best arguments came from those guys, and I lost more often than not, because they were more reasonable and rational.
To end it, I just get a kick that a post that was intended to be a 1 part silliness (at the beginning) and 3 parts informative (the rest) got such a response. It was not actually until Thula went into "cover my own @$$" mode that I began to take this thread seriously....
Think of armor as a debuff. Armor lowers your opponent's damage/second. Anyone think that a 50% debuff to your opponent's DPS is useless?
The reason that armor stops being useful at high levels is that your opponents are doing enough DPS, that even WITH a debuff, they're still doing too much DPS for you to stand. The result, then, is how long you stand before you go down.
Zion,
making bold statements and trying to ridicule your "opponent" in a debate is an ancient technique. So is playing with semantics. But it does not necessarily make you right, even though you seem to have a habit of saying "I win" based on these techniques.
Please feel free to demonstrate where I am trying to cover my a$$. Please also feel free to refute the following statements:
1. Whenfighting (PvE)against creatures with 2 or more levels below you, using armor willnormally not affect the outcome of the battle.
2. Combat level damage multipliers arising from level difference has a bigger impact on theoutcome of the battle thanarmor (PvE).
3. Increased armor decay andhigher armor prices post-CU are incentives to not use armor unless it is absolutelynecessary.
4. Armor is less usefull Post-CU than Pre-CU.
And please point out the last time you made a positive, constructive impact on the community. I really don't expect much of an answer from you so I might as well consider this thread for closed.