Post:Armor Hindrance Updates - 7/1/2010 00:53:35

Armor Hindrance Updates · on 7/1/2010 12:53:35 AM	3130
Heyo! The first phase of Combat 3.0 (we are skipping 2.0 because we are cool that way) will be released in Prime in approximately 30 minutes from the time of this post. These changes (and a bit more) are already live in Plat and have been for several months. TF will follow once I'm sure I didn't just kill everyone in Prime...and maybe even if I did. On a more serious note, here's the details: (1) Armor hindrance will be based on skillset placement, not guild. What this means is that all armor secondaries will have the same minimum hindrance, as will all armor tertiaries. In most cases, this will be either the same or, more often, a slight reduction in hindrance. The exceptions are bone armor for rangers, leather for thieves, heavy chain for barbarians, and heavy plate for warrior mages. Before anyone panics, in all four of these exceptions, the increase is very small, translating to a loss of at most 1-2% of evasion in all but the most hindering armor (in which case we are looking at maybe 3%). Armor primaries (paladins) are completely unchanged, except for a reduction in shield hindrance. (2) While I won't give exact numbers, here is the order armor falls into in terms of least hindering to most hindering as far as minimum hindrances are concerned. Cloth Leather Bone Light Chain Heavy Chain Light Plate Heavy Plate Please note that in the old system, light and heavy version of chain and plate were typically treated as being the same for minimum hindrance purposes. This is no longer true -- light chain and light plate will have lower minimum hindrance ratings than their heavier counterparts. (3) This update introduces a "maximum hindrance" in addition to minimum hindrance. Right now, it is very possible to have over a 100% reduction in your evasion skill due to armor hindrance, especially at low levels. This makes the game very difficult for new players, especially those who rely on evasion. The purpose of maximum hindrance is two-fold. It makes the game a bit more playable for folks who haven't had a chance to train armor yet (new players!), and it helps make lighter armors more desirable, especially for armor terts. The maximum hindrance is double the minimum hindrance for tert guilds. What does this mean, exactly? It means that the worst possible base hindrance for cloth armor is better than the best possible minimum base hindrance for light chain for non-primaries. It means that the worst possible base hindrance for leather is better than the best case for heavy plate for non-primaries. This means that in addition to guaranteeing the players will never be 100% hindered (a very very real possibility prior to this update), less hindering armor types are far more friendly to players who do not wish to invest a lot of extra effort in armor training. The reason the latter bit is important is not readily apparent right now, but it will be extremely important once the next portion of this update is released. Right now it is possible to permanently minimize hindrance by achieving X ranks in the appropriate armor skill. In the very near future, this will be changing. The next phase will eliminate the ability to do this, and require that armor skill be roughly in line with your other main combat capabilities (evasion, in particular) to maintain minimal hindrance. It has never made sense that you need 500 ranks of defense and offense to fight Critter X, but only 50-150 ranks of armor. That will no longer be true. The maximum hindrance is a means by which folks who do not want to invest the time in keeping their armor skill close to their overall combat level a few options that will let them still be effective -- it just means they'll need to stick to the lighter armors and rely more on their other defenses. For armor to be a viable defense, you'll need to keep it relatively close to your combat level, just like you would your other combat skills. Before people panic, when I say relatively close, I do mean relatively close...there will be a reasonable allowance for armor lagging a bit behind. I know a few people will ask about backtraining, so I will just say that we are aware of that concern too, and have something in the works that will ease backtraining concerns on many combat skills, including but not limited to armor. In closing, I want to reiterate that with the four noted exceptions, this current update will result in either no change or a reduction in hindrance for all players. This is a good thing. Traders, moon mages, and necromancers in particular should see some improvement in their hindrance situation -- traders because they are armor secondary but have always been treated worse than most terts, and the latter two because they had by far the worst hindrances in the game.
This message was originally posted in Discussions with DragonRealms Staff and Players (1) / Game Master and Official Announcements (1), by DR-DARTENIAN on the play.net forums.