Noob question: What is the point of plate?

[eekamouse]

I've been away a while, and got to talking with a friend...

Why don't they just remove the Mage Armor attribute, and make plate meddable. It seems like that's the only difference between plate/chain and leather...

Or, are we missing some bonus from metal armor... ?

 

[eekamouse]

We just thought of something. What if you let chain have 400 max durability and plate have 500?

That would be an interesting twist, considering Imbuing...

 

[aarons6]

the only benefit from metal armor right now is the increased bonus of being able to enhance it.

smiths get a better chance then tailors due to the ash.

other then trying to make that 25% fire piece its useless.

 

[Storm]

like you say it needs to come with more durability or more resist points or both
something on the order of 500 durability and a additional 5 resist i think would be fair! or like you say just do away with mage armor prop!

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Currently, all armor is equivalent if you can find armor with mods that you need.

Valorite Plate Armor has some-or-other noticeably better likelihood of good mods/higher resists, but it's easy enough to get around that by lots of barbed kits and burning through them. Sooner or later you'll get what you need.

Valorite Runic Hammers were widely duped a year or two or three back (or whenever it was) and to this day we're dealing with an influx of Samurai Plate Armor. Unlike normal Plate Armor, Samurai Plate has mage armor as a free property.

And now of course there is Imbuing, so customized armor, if you're willing to put up with the fact that it'll break sooner or later, is within reach more easily.

I and others have long proposed some kind of damage absorption for non-meddable armor. (Similar to the damage absorption from riding a barded-up Swamp Dragon.)

I, for example, am strongly attracted to a PvM-only damage absorption for wearing a full suit of non-meddable armor (regardless of type).

I envision it as something like a 10% damage absorption, that stacks with the swamp dragon barding but only to a very limited extent. (Say, up to a total of 21% or 22%, enough to be of use but nowhere near enough to create a new god-mode of Evasion-using Samurai with non-meddable armor.)

-Galen's player

 

[Aurelius]

I wish they had never lost the dex-inhibiting of metal armours, so you decided on speed of attack vs protection from armour.

 

[Beer_Cayse]

amen to that ... it was something that definitely affected choices in your equipment.

 

[Megilhir]

There currently is no point to Plate Armor. A step further, all metal armor is worse than leather.

In fact, there are far more arguments AGAINST ever wearing metal or making a Smith than wearing leather and leveling a Tailor.

But let us put theory aside and look at substance.

I have (approaching) Legendary Smiths and Tailors (shard dependent on where they are at in the process).

-Plate is HARDER to Imbue, just did some this week-end (FEB, 2010).

-Colored metals are more random and therefore harder to acquire than the various types of leather.

-There is currently NO difference on Armament verse Armor coded into UO. There was. There may be in the future. There is not now.

-Only Samurai Plate (Exceptional) allows for meditation. Leathers depend on WHAT item you are making, not the material is made from. Why not make Shadow-Iron “medable”? You are protected by Shadows…oo oo o oo.

-Mining takes longer than hide gathering. Simple fact based on GM+ crafters on 5 shards.

-Smithing requires a forge and anvil. Leather crafting required you to carry a 1 pound sewing kit.

-Leather can be dyed. Metal cannot. (yea, yea…Tokuno dyes. Costly, rare, one time use items.)

-Metal armor pieces are pound for pound slightly heavier I think. (Not sure about this one.)

-Ingots purchased from a vender cost more than leather AT THE BASE level.

-Harvesting leather can and does yield more items than harvesting ore. Dragons drop loot of greater quality and quantity than even a Valorite elemental. (I killed a few of each this week-end. (FEB , 2010)

-So my advice, given the current environment, is to forget blacksmithing. Forget the beauty of playing a knight in shining armor or the allure of a spiffy looking chain tunic and legs augmented and accented by some plate. Throw away the concept of Arms verse Armament verse Arms.

Go get an Imbued to the teeth Cloth Ninja hood with a set of spined leather armor and have at the Dragon. Probably won’t even need a shield if you have a straight 70s suit.

Lastly, don’t even mention tactics.

In conclusion, I have spoken at greater length about this issue and shall retain my passion for it even if UO fails to represent.

 

[Stupid Miner]

Because leather just doesn't look as good.

... other than that? Nothing.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I wish they had never lost the dex-inhibiting of metal armours, so you decided on speed of attack vs protection from armour.

The dex penalty....Lots its point years and years before AoS, I would argue.

With the advent of the new leathers.

Studded or Leather armors with the new leathers (this is old person's talk for spined, horned, and barbed leather) was better than most metal armor, and had no dex penalty.

With Age of Shadows the dex penalties were truly out of date, and would have even further relegated non-meddable armors to the dust bin.

As it is, no matter what else happens, there's at least one redeeming thing about non-meddable armors: The Jackal's Collar. So now if you are a dexer, already use the Collar, and find some wicked-cool item that's non-meddable, you have an excuse for using it.

With a dex penalty there wouldn't even be that!

Better, I would argue, to make a PvM damage absorption property for a fully non-meddable suit.

-Galen's player

 

[MalagAste]

I guess someone higher up likes the hideously ugly look of the Samurai Armor... and gave it this bonus of mage armor... shame that because it's hideously ugly.... bulky and as with MANY things of that era.... FAR too large... in it's size.... when being worn it makes you look as though you are a sumo wrestler under it.... nothing like looking about 500lbs more than you would like... The arms give new meaning to shoulder pads...

Personally I'd rather that most armor unless enchanted was not meddable.... save the leather...

And I still think that you should suffer a dex bonus when wearing plate... heavy chain and such....

As a stealther I suffer if I wear any of that.... so too should a dexer.

 

[canary]

I don't even TRY to use metal armor but I wish to god after 7 years they could differentiate the armors somehow to give some bonus or appeal to each set.

 

[Lady_Mina]

It's just for the look now...

Just as many things in the game...our old stuff is useless and rotting away.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Metal armor is dead.

Once upon a time, there was a tradeoff...

Leather: Low AR, no dex penalties, Meddable, easier to stealth
Metal: High AR, penalized dex (based on type), non-meddable, harder to stealth

This of course led to the various hybrid suits that players of pre-AOS will remember fondly.

One of the biggest mistakes of AOS was completely removing the protection differences and stat penalties while keeping the other penalties intact for metal armors.

With Imbuing, you'd think the playing field would be a bit rebalanced, but of course that's a lie as well as putting Mage Armor on a metal piece requires the sacrifice of a mod slot (20% of those available) and Intensity.

Thus Metal armor is dead.

 

[Lady_Mina]

what is even the use of dragon scale armor these days?

 

[Storm]

what is even the use of dragon scale armor these days?

Looks thats it! I made a set for my crafter just for fun and imbued it other than that its no better than metal armor in my opinion

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

Personal preference the old school plate style armor is the only armor that looks good to me.

The only time I wear it is if I'm trying to look good or if I'm wearing an arty. If I wear an arty it doesn't look good because the color mismatch since I never dye them.

I thought I could get a better enhancing result from metal, but my recent results are enhancing regardless of material type always seems to be around 2% even with a +60 smithy hammer.

I think the meddable property on metal armour counts in imbuing so even making it meddable I would still use leather due to the imbuing penalty. The samurai armour in my opinion doesn't look good at all and I wouldn't wear it even meddable.

So, to cut this short I don't think they should make it meddable, but I think the old school AR and dex penalties really made better sense. I think resists across the material types should have some variance per resist category, however, mismatched suits would even become uglier. I would hate to have to add in plate to get 70 physical for instance if leather had a lower limit on physical resistance, because it would make my leather suit look like crud.

-Lorax

 

[Warpig Inc]

We have the armor sets. So what you wear is reconized. What I think would be nice would be an armor type bonus. Wearing all the armor of one type / make would beget an addition bonus.

6 PART
M/F plate
Wood elf armor
M/F leather sleeves could also count toward the ninja/mempo suit
elf leather w/garland once the hats and mask added to the runic crafted
Gargoyle armor would need the addition of stone leather cloth and metal jewels that fall under the current runics.With them getting same mods as armor just need to move the metal to smith.
Bone armor would just need the addition of a rib bone colar
Studded leather w/odd metal helms
Studded elf w/circlet

 

[Uvtha]

Lookin' boss. Thats about it. Same with bone, studded, and any other metal armor. But if you don't have med, and have other ways to gain mana, it doesn't hurt to wear it. I wear bone myself.

 

[Jhym]

I think metal, hardwood and stone armor should all give dex penalty of 10-25% or so and have NO mage armor property allowed, but, for each full set worn:

Metal armor should give +25% physical and +25% poison;
Wooden should give +25% energy and +25 physical;
Stone should give +25 fire and +25 physical.
These would allow you to go above the 70's cap.

OR, add +5 of the above resists per piece. I like the idea of "setting" it so that you are forced to use a full set instead of picking one piece to give you that +5 extra.

OR combine both and allow the +5 per piece, but ONLY allow your resists to go above 70 if you have a full set of armor.

Also, I think stone and metal armors should give you +2 per piece in resist magic. Wooden should give you +1 stamina regen automatically per piece with a bonus of +5 for a full set. or +1 hp regen with a bonus.

This would give us a bunch of new options to use, but not be super powerful (since mages would start to shy away from them.)

To balance leather armor then, you'd make everything meddable, but drop the resists slightly. Perhaps add in +1 mana regen per piece, with +5 bonus for a set. Or addition to the meditation skill.


Ah well, doesn't matter, nothing will change on it as there's no real reason to yet.

 

[Harlequin]

A solution I favor is to add damage reduction to metal armour.

Eg Ringmail reduces damage by 1% for each piece, chainmail reduces 2% each, plate reduces 3% damage each.

Alternatively, a possibly simpler solution is to add some mage bonus to the mage armour property. Mage armour is a magic property, it should give extra bonus over naturally med-able leather armour. Say something like 2% lmc or 10% lrc or 2 dci or even all 3.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

I guess someone higher up likes the hideously ugly look of the Samurai Armor... and gave it this bonus of mage armor... shame that because it's hideously ugly.... bulky and as with MANY things of that era.... FAR too large... in it's size.... when being worn it makes you look as though you are a sumo wrestler under it.... nothing like looking about 500lbs more than you would like... The arms give new meaning to shoulder pads...

Yuck! Worst...armor...ever!

Gimme chain!!! Make chain medable!!!

 

[Connor_Graham]

what is even the use of dragon scale armor these days?

Looks thats it! I made a set for my crafter just for fun and imbued it other than that its no better than metal armor in my opinion

Use a Verite or Valorite runic on dragon scale arms or something. You'll see resists at 30+ depending on what type of scale you use. If I didn't use the Assassin Armor set on my sampire I would have dragon scale arms and legs for sure, using red scales, so hitting and overcapping fire resist would be a piece of cake.


-To the person that said metal armor can't be dyed, have you heard of the new dyes introduced with SA? They can and do dye metal armor just fine.

 

[Megilhir]

-To the person that said metal armor can't be dyed, have you heard of the new dyes introduced with SA? They can and do dye metal armor just fine.

I did not state that it cannot be dyed, rather that it is cost prohibitive and one-off vice a leather tub which is free after initial acquisition (or use a free tub at a vender home) and ever changing at no cost other than 3 gold dyes from a tailor NPC.

 

[Lucivius]

According to the stratics enhancing calculator there is a higher percentage chance to enhance an item with tailoring than with blacksmithing, even if using a +60 ASH.

I was looking to enhance a 100 imbued luck piece. Success chance for a leather piece using tailoring is 17%. The exact same metal piece using smithing and a +60 ASH is 8%. Both skills are 120.

 

[CroakerTnT]

It's useful for training smithing....

 

[Zyon Rockler]

Well it's been many years now and the designers don't seem to say if they even consider it to be an issue. I know the players don't like it because you can't wear plate in the game without it giving you major penalties.

I kinda look at things in a reverse way or maybe backwards is a better way of putting it than most people seem to. So, i'm opposed to what most people suggest because I see things differently. So, I usually end up compromising in my way of thinking and try to use all of the things in some way to improve ideas.

I think plate should be the main thing in the game, the best armour protection. To me it should give dexterity bonuses and dexterity regeneration bonuses, as well as, resistance, perhaps 85 physical.

It seems some people think that wearing heavy plate would actually take away your dexterity but that's if you just look at it as just wearing it or running around in it. What alot of people tend to forget is that if your in combat and you get hit it's going to save your dexterity. You might just be slower but possibly you would be more powerful wearing plate.

Maybe other skills should be added so that people are more proficient in wearing different types of armour, like body building, so you can increase your strength over the cap to maybe 200 or 225 and somehow link it to skills like heavy armour, where you would receive defense chance increase.

It just makes you wonder why nothing has been done to make it the equal or better than leather. I don't even like the leather for mages. I think there should be robes and clothing that add resistances and even supplemental skills like cold resistance as a skill. Leather armour should be for a thief and metal armour for a warrior.

 

[UOKaiser]

Just before imbuing plate was the way to go. Samurai plate actually with the free mage property,Higher ressit,better enhancing choices,etc.. Using runic hammers rwegular plate still went unused.. If not leather would work because barbed runic were-are cheap. After imbuing all plate went the way of dodo. Less use of higher end runics and mage property on samurai use up a imbuing property that is not acceptable. So no longer are being used for anything but cheap alternatives for newbies which selling the ingots and the runics would be a much more profitable and useful.
If they want plate to be used again all they need to do is. Automaticaly medable or mage property on them don't count to imbuing. Or strengthen the runic hammers to make even better equipment that they can now.

 

[Doubleplay]

Plate armor should repel arrows. Additionally, it should reduce damage to some extent for spears, axes, daggers and etc. compared to leather.

 

[Uvtha]

Each non medable armor can break resists maxes to some degree perhaps? Plate allowing for a max 80/75/75/75/75? Or some such? Probably too overpowered.

 

[Ancient Sosarian]

Hail Sosarians,

The only reason for differing armor types (various ores, leathers, bone, etc.) is for role-play or "Formal" dress functions. No "self-respecting" Knight or Paladin of the Realm would be caught dead in inappropriate suits of armor.

That said, barbed runic kits and barbed leather are far easier to obtain than Val runics and valorite ingots. Almost everyone is now wearing barbed runic leather pieces or arties or specials.

Tis a great shame, in my personal view. However, the Dev[il]s that control our beloved Sosaria herd most of the folks like docile herds of sheep in whatever direction or whatever sheep pen they choose.

I continue to encourage the Players to seize as much control of our virtual world as is possible, including our own fiction and lore, despite the attempts at control by the Devs.

Wear materials of your own choosing. Find ways to play the game on your terms instead of theirs.

An SoS

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

BTW. It is usually higher durability than leather so requires fewer POF's.

-Lorax

 

[jwauk99]

It's a shame metal plate armor is virtually worthless.

It is way harder to obtain and make (resouces and runics) and has NO benefit over leather armor. In fact, it disadvantages... (no medable)

Add me to the list of wishing UO would provide some improvements for metal armor over leather. You would think, one would takes LESS physical damage if wearing metal plate armor versus someone wearing leather armor....

Maybe one day they will address this.

 

[Evlar]

Unfortunately, having pretty much crapped on worthwhile differences in armour with AOS, then trampled all over it with imbuing. Yes I see the customization of armour as potentially beneficial, however, not at the expense of what the game was about.

Sadly, smiths and tailors seem little else than support skills for imbuing these days.