I’ve been semi-ranting about how armor visuals and stats should be split up in various threads for a while, and thought it time to write my ideas more coherently. I realize it’s not the first time someone has thought of this, but none of the threads I’ve seen exactly hit on what I’d like, so here goes.
In a nutshell, do away with the link between armor visuals and the stats they provide. Have the components determine stats, and then have the visuals entirely cosmetic. I’m NOT talking about being able to change the cosmetic on the fly, or even at all. I like that you build armor to fulfill a role, and you can’t just switch out a part and now it does something completely different.
It would also make additional DLC easier to produce and balance, as it would make it just a matter of “skins”. Apparently that’s not technically possible at the moment though, so asking for it is perhaps pointless - but still.
One piece of armor consists of four choices (including the slot you’re targeting, ie chest - arms - legs etc):
So:
1. Slot (Base Item)
- Head
- Chest
- Legs
- Arms
- Feet
2. Attribute bonus. Call it “harness” or “core” or something. I’m sure someone smarter than me can come up with the perfect word.
- Strength
- Agility
- Vitality
- Accuracy
- Grit
- Endurance
- Survival
- (potentially others, don’t want to pollute my main point with details)
3. Temperature: Lining/padding (btw: make naming consistent. Why have two names for the same thing?). This can be
either:
- Thick Light (for protection against cold)
- Thin Light(for protection against heat)
- Thick Medium (for protection against cold)
- Thin Medium(for protection against heat)
- Thick Heavy (for protection against cold)
- Thin Heavy(for protection against heat)
4. Cosmetic “surface”. This is entirely visual in nature and has no stats. Whether it should still be limited based on weight class (light/medium/heavy) is sort of either/or to me. Personally I’d say no, but I can totally see why you’d want the visuals to at least indicate what effects it has. I disagree that you should necessarily be able to tell exactly what a given armor does just by looking at it though. I realize (some) PVP’ers might disagree with this, given that it influences their strategy, but I think some level of uncertainty adds to immersion.
Examples:
Combine a “Head” Base Item with a Strength Core, a “Thick Medium” padding and an Aquilonian Infantry cosmetic for a medium helmet with protection against cold that provides a bonus to Strength.
Combine a “Head” Base Item with an Agility Core, a “Thin Light” padding and an Aquilonian Infantry cosmetic for a light helmet with protection against heat that provides a bonus to Agility.
