CUEmu - Thread Posts

New-Name

Tue Apr 20, 2004 5:36 am

I just read a recent interview done with Shug. In it, he is asked several questions about armor, and then mentions more when addressing the combat balance. The interview can be read here, but it it pretty long, and yields very little new information. (Mostly just "We'll look into that." answers.)

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=30884

Anyway, I know it is not a new idea, but armor certifications would add a great deal of diversity to armor and armorsmithing that is currently not there.

Let's face it, everyone wears Composite. There is really only one kind of armor in this game, because one type is hands down better than all the rest, including most RIS.

But what if armor matched your profession, like it does in other MMO's?

It is a treasonous thought, but what if only Commando's and Heavy Swordsmen can wear Composite Armor?

In the upcoming Combat Balance, an Armor revamp would probably fix just about every problem inherant in the current system. Professions are imbalanced because some get stun damage, and others don't. The professions that don't cannot beat the professions that do, because armor is too damn good.

There are far too many professions and types of armor for me to compare and contrast them all. AlsoI feel that most armor would need to be beefed up greatly before this idea would even be feaible. This cert idea WOULD NOT WORK with the current stats on most armor. Padded, Ubese, and Mabari would all need to become comparable to Composite, though they should never be as good.

Think about it. Composite, Padded, Ubese, Tantel, Mabari, Bone, Chitin, RIS, Mandalorian, PSGs.......Any player, in any profession, will ALWAYS choose the best armor. Right now, it is composite. Some day, Mandalorian may take over as champ. But we can all agree that a Bounty Hunteris more entitled to mandalorian armor than a Combat Medic.

Armor certs could make profesisons, and professon combos more interesting by providing access to armor, instead of just weapons. A Rifleman gets a cert for Padded armor, which gives him certain strengths and weaknesses when compared to a Pistoleer wearing Mabari. One is better for running around, one is better for standing still...in theory.

The fact is that everyone is going to wear composite forever if something is not done. I have a great RIS helm for PvP that I made for myself, and I'm sure I will have Mandalorian armor when it cmes out. But adding new armor types is a waste when there are 5 and a half completely neglected armor types already out there. (Ubese has limited use in PvE.)

I was the first person on Bloodfin to make and slice armor to and above 90%. The day I did that, I ruined PvP. Armor should never get to 90%. Everyone on Bloodfin now has to be a Rifleman or Combat Medic to do any damage in PvP, because everyone has Uber armor. We can now hit 43% stun protection as well, which is in almost every helmet these days.

I have racked my brain, but there is no solution unless you nerf the living hell out of armor, and I don't really want that. I think that an armor cert system would change templates just enough that balancing a good offense with a good defense will become very important.

This would be a huge revamp, and would take months. Moreover, it would make a great deal of armor unusable and obsolete, which players would protest strongly. But if the other armor types were boosted up to be able to hit 60%+ and have only 2-3 vulns each....we would have something to work with.

Nobody is going to like this idea, but think about it. There is no diversity in armor. We all wear composite, and we will always wear composite until it is nerfed or taken from us. When the armor hole is fixed, my suit of 95% composite will protect me permanantly from any enemy I could ever find in the wild. I will never see another PvE challenge as long as I play, and in PvP I will be untouchable by all but the best Stun Weapons...which bounce of my 60% PSGs anyway. Then the only thing that can hurt me is DOTs, so i picked up doctor. In short...I am almost unkillable.

Please, take away my armor, or force me to make a compromise to keep it. I wouldn't mind being a Commando Pistoleer again to keep my Composite. But if I want to keep Doctor, I will have to settle for armor that leaves me a little less invincible. If my armor is vulnerable to Acid, yours if Vulnerable to Blast, and his is vulnerable to Stun....we will have some interesting fights. Some players will gain an advantage against others, but everyone will have a weakness.

And most of all, Mandalorian will be for BH only. They deserve it after all the points they wasted. Give them better defense, without having to give them wacky skill mods. I often change my template based on what weapons I have available to me. (Enhanced, DOTs, Exceptional) I would be just as happy picking my template based on what armor I have as well. If I looted a legendary piece of Chitin, I would consider becoming,say, a fencer to be able to use it.

Or don't make a cert mandatory to wear it. Just have distinct downsides for not having the cert. Maybe the protections cap at 20%, or the encumberance is double...something like that.

In conclusion, all armor should get better. Composite should get a little worse. And each profession should only have acces to one or two armor types...plus one that everyone can use, like Tantel, or RIS.

Thanks for your time....man this ended up long.

Kain on Bloodfin

Founder of FIGHT Club.

Kain

I'm going to say this once, and once only:

This is a company, one that is out to make money, so banning people who hadn't done anything wrong would be really dumb since it would mean that we would be losing money. So before you just believe someone who says they are being wrongfully punished take a moment and reflect.

Also, ranting/flaming and attacking customer service isn't going to fly on these boards so any further posts about it will result in the suspension of that person's forum account.

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GraySeven

Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:06 am

#2

If you nerf "The Best" you simply chase everyone to the next "The Best". Certifications are not the answer simply because people would still get "The Best" based on their profession. If only Commando's can have Composite, then every PvPer will become Commando's so that they can have "The Best" and everyone else will cry because it won't be fair that one profession is "The Best" which would require the Dev's to nerf "The Best" which would chase everyone to the next "The Best"....

You see the problem. Endless "rebalancing" to placate the masses.

Certs for weaponsare easy to understand, simply because pistols are different from rifles are different from carbines. Armor is simply worn. Anyone can put on clothes designed to protect as long as they are strong and healthy enough.

If you are looking for diversity, then the entire way armor is made needs to be changed. Forcing diversity just angers people, and unhappy people go play elsewhere.

Currently, Composite is "The Best" because it protects against everything but Stun and can be 3X layered. Ergo, everyone who seeks/needs "The Best" wears it. If I could make Chitin or Mabari that had the same protections available in Composite, people would buy it as well. Some would even mix and match the Armor styles to come up with a new "design". Bingo, we have diversity while still allowing everyone the chance to equal protection.

Armor styles should be just like Armor colors, i.e visual fluff. The meat, as you will, should not be dependant on the style. This allows diversity without nerfing, without cert's, without needing a rebalance. Granted, it requires a major rework to the "way things are done" but if it works for Jedi.....

Vahl Arturin - Elder Ranger, Elder Bounty Hunter, Elder Rifleman
&
Vaylis Arturin - Elder Armorsmith
Starsider
"The burning is love"

Winnebago

Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:23 am

#3

Other than one anomoly in the SWG storyline, Mandalorian Armour is not for BH's. One guy who was a BH wore it once. 99.99% of anyone who ever wore Mandalorian armour was defined by the sole fact that they were Mandalorian, a condition that doesn't apply well to this game. The BH's deserve better innate defenses, and better combat balance, but they chose to play the class they did, and they shouldn't get an armour all to themselves. As a master AS, presuming that Mandalorian is better than composite, I'm not even gonna bother making it if it's BH only, and I presume I'm not the only one. If it's say hard as or harder than RIS and BH only, I doubt a suit will ever get made.

Faction, Race, or Class specific armour is a great idea, but not for Mandalorian, there are too many folks out there that want to be badass warriors, like the Mandalorians, just as there are folks who want to play as Boba Fett. Boba Fett is designated as the only BH that wears Mandalorian, and you are not gonna be Boba Fett. Whereas many, many warriors and mercenaries have worn Mandalorian over the years, it's a lot more likely, that mastering an elite melee or ranged profession would grant the cert, frankly.

Why bother coding a new piece of gear and then make it available to a tiny minority, when the bulk of us folks need new content?

If armour is going to be introduced with certs, they should throw in at least a dozen new suits, and do it at the same time, so tha there is some balancing potential.

Yakov Lindbergh - Fighting Fish

JawaPr0n - "Pretty signatures are over-rated. Now cool quotes that other people use in their signatures...those are forever."

ZionHalcyon

Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:51 am

#4

GraySeven wrote:

If you nerf "The Best" you simply chase everyone to the next "The Best". Certifications are not the answer simply because people would still get "The Best" based on their profession. If only Commando's can have Composite, then every PvPer will become Commando's so that they can have "The Best" and everyone else will cry because it won't be fair that one profession is "The Best" which would require the Dev's to nerf "The Best" which would chase everyone to the next "The Best"....

You see the problem. Endless "rebalancing" to placate the masses.

Certs for weaponsare easy to understand, simply because pistols are different from rifles are different from carbines. Armor is simply worn. Anyone can put on clothes designed to protect as long as they are strong and healthy enough.

If you are looking for diversity, then the entire way armor is made needs to be changed. Forcing diversity just angers people, and unhappy people go play elsewhere.

Currently, Composite is "The Best" because it protects against everything but Stun and can be 3X layered. Ergo, everyone who seeks/needs "The Best" wears it. If I could make Chitin or Mabari that had the same protections available in Composite, people would buy it as well. Some would even mix and match the Armor styles to come up with a new "design". Bingo, we have diversity while still allowing everyone the chance to equal protection.

Armor styles should be just like Armor colors, i.e visual fluff. The meat, as you will, should not be dependant on the style. This allows diversity without nerfing, without cert's, without needing a rebalance. Granted, it requires a major rework to the "way things are done" but if it works for Jedi.....

You and I have the same line of thinking... why not let the level of the armorsmith dictate how good an armor is, not where it is placed on the armor totem. Let bone armor be triple layered. Let them all be triple layered. And let what separates them be their vunerability (which I think should be one per suit, and a different kind per each suit)

Z I O N U H A L C Y O N

J O R R EN U DA RK S T A R

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jorren's Spy Kill-o-meter:

and countless speederbikes and land speeders.

I love being a spy.

Shilak

Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:10 am

#5

The reason composite is the only armour people consider for the endgame is purely because all other armours have no tangible benefits over composite. The only possible exception to this is kinetic layered ubese because its much more cost effective to use it for grinding against creatures than a suit of kinetic layered composite.

If encumberance actually played some part in the endgame, people would not be so willing to wear their 800+ encumberance 90% base composite for PvP. Simply fix the encumberance check to be applied against base stats and not buffed stats, it would solve the entire uber armour problem as people would not be able to wear that 90% base armour on every location anymore. Introducing faction armour with similar stats to composite and giving composite another vulnerability would also help to further address the problem.

Armour certifications arent the way to go, what armour you can wear is purely down to your physical attributes. Anyone can throw on a suit of leather, chain or plate and use it with zero training as long as they have the physical attributes to allow it.

M O R T A R I U S
Master Bounty Hunter / Master Pistoleer / Small Blue Fly on Chimaera

Manbush

Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:07 am

#6

I'm getting a little tired of people claiming mandalorian armor is a bounty hunter armor. It's a soldier's armor that Jango and Boba adopted because it was effective, and theirs were far from standard.

If anything, mandalorian would better fit it's history as commando armor if you want to add profession-based certifications.

Anyway, I digress.

I see a lot of good points for armor certifications, but I see more problems.

* combat would be even harder to balance. I'm sick to death of getting new content while existing broken content goes ignored

* "template of the month" would simply add armor quality to their list of deciding factors. People would begin to pick up novice level in whatever profession gave them access to the best armor.

* it's hard enough collecting top grade resources for Ubese and composite consistently, now add acouple of wookie armors, and you want to add a lot more? Good luck ever getting anything done besides crafting and searching for resources.

* not everyone has the option of simply focussing on a couple of armor types. Many armorsmiths supply their guilds, and guilds will generally need a few of each certified armor on a regular basis. This would spread the armorsmith's time and resources way too thinly.

* professions deemed to have inferior armor would be dropped across the board.

Frankly I have no problem with 1 armor type being dominant, it makes perfect sense from both a realism and gameplay viewpoint. What I would like to see though is a few options for appearance while crafting composite. They would merely be cosmetic differences (models and/or skins) but would add a lot of variety to the standard composite clone army's appearance. Think about it. If composite was the best armor available I would make it almost exclusively, but I would also try and add a personal touch, to seperate my armor from my neighbours in a way besides stats and color. Armorsmiths are craftsmen, and craftsmen are part artist, part engineer. The engineering side is covered, but currently there is no scope for either the armorsmith or the armor wearer to express any creativity or originality. The amount of variety obtainable by simply mixing and matching pieces from 2 or 3 cosmetically different varieties of composite would be huge. Do all kevlar vests look exactly the same? The helmets worn by the nazi's and allies in WWII looked completely different, but I would hazard a guess that they had identical resistances.

All I'm saying is that I would probably prefer new looks to new armors.

Under a system that used armor certification I would still be restricted to wearing one type of armor, the "composite" of my chosen profession. The only difference is that my neighbour would be restricted to a different kind of armor, and our local armorsmith (me) would quickly go insane trying to keep 15 different varieties of high quality armor stocked.

Bongo

Valcyn

owako

Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:05 pm

#7

I agree. In the middle ages, everyone wore the same armor type. They all wore the same armor because it provided the best protection. Why would you wear something inferior? The learning curve for weapons is much higher than armor, weapons take lots a time to learn how to use effectively, armor only takes a short amount of time to adjust to the weight distribution change. People use the best because it is the best, plain and simple. Making composite not the best will simply move everyone to the next best. Any yeah, making comp is hard enough, I really don't want to have to have full resources for many different professions "best" armor. Armor is available to everyone, buffs are available to everyone, its good cause eveyone can do it. If only a few classes could wear "good" or "the best" armor, then most people would be that class, and the ones not would cry nerf. At least comp looks pretty good, I would hate it if tantel was the best.

And yeah, mandalorian armor is the armor worn my the mercenary race known as the mandalorians. The Fetts wear it cause it is good armor. Its not BH armor, it is fighter armor.

Message Edited by owako on 04-20-2004 10:07 PM

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein

RonianTitus

Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:38 pm

#8

Lot of good points are made here. Thanks for the reading.

However, i do agree with certs. Why ? Im in the military and you cant just throw a suit of kevlar, nightvision, thermal scopes, laser pointers, GPS'sor even that fineexoskelly etc.. on a general_01 soldier and expect them to perform to the level of those who have trained/cert'd for this style of equipment. Same thing works for weapons as we already agree on. It takes time and training to be proficient in weapons. This is the same formula that should follow in armor.

In contradiction to my above points, applying those rules and nerfs at this point in the gameis farrrrr too late. And if you did , it would come in the combat balance and armor revamp. We are already accustomed to our armor. We need it and rely on it heavily in the game at this point to perform at the level that we are accustomed to. No one wants to stop hunting Geo caves, NS's or krayt dragons just cause their armor now sucks or it calls for certs.

In contrast im neutral on both subjects. As many points have been already made for us. Adding something then taking it away= nerfs... Nerfs = whining and high levels of frustration.... and we all know what that leads too... Deactivation and lose of business for SOE...

It will be interesting to see what comes from this.

Ronian Titus
Master Bounty Hunter
Pho-Tek Mining Corp
Kauri's First and Oldest Master Bounty Hunter

"You smell something rabbit??....... Fear

justapilgrim

Tue Apr 20, 2004 11:37 pm

#9

too long to read

besides these posts always return, heard it before

/shrug

SkinnyManDo Businessman

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Krallic

Wed Apr 21, 2004 4:43 am

#10

Actually, we allready got certifications. It comes in the form of encumbrance which can be a killer if you need to use your specials alot. Each profession has different specialcosts which are also tied to the weapons used. Of coarse this is not working quite as intended since buffs help you remove all penalties.

I'd say that you better wait for the combatbalance before you go crying for certifications.

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Thread: Why aren't there armor Certifications?