What's the difference between armor types?

[Nalif]

I'm fairly new, and lately I've been trying to figure out how armor works. From what I understand, leather armor is best used by theives and mages due to being able to stealth easier and cast spells, correct?

Now, if a crafter were to make just standard GM plate, or GM leather, these items have base stats, correct? If I were to make an assumption, I'd assume leather would have lower average resists than plate, and plate would have higher resists, with the drawback being that it can't be used by theives or mages. Am I right?

Now, in order to craft armor with bonus stats, you need a runic kit. Right? And once you start using this runic kit to create armor, it adds on all kinds of crazy stats, and you basically pray that you get some awesome stuff before the charges run out on your kit, right?

Now here's where I get confused. Since GM leather stats and GM plate stats differ ( I assume, it makes sense to me that it be that way ), does plate get higher bonuses when being crafted with a runic hammer, and leather get lower bonuses? Because it seems to me, if they both get the same bonuses, then plate is pretty useless. I look around, and I see nobody wearing plate, and I'm confused...It seems to me that there should be no way to max out stats if you're using leather, and if you're using plate, it should still be hard as hell.

I look at the armor sets for this game, like the Acolyte set, Assassin set, Hunters set, etc, and I see very low stats, and yet these items are very hard to get, correct? By the time I'm able to even get those sets, it seems like they would be useless! And yet they're very expensive to buy. I don't understand!

And a second question: It's very possible to max out your resists. Is it equally possible to have a suit that's entirely maxed out on all of the relevant stats? For instance, as a warrior, could I get a suit that maxed out HCI, DCI, SSI, DI, etc?

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Now here's where I get confused. Since mages can't med in plate, and since thieves can't sneak well in plate, does plate get higher bonuses when being crafted with a runic hammer, and leather get lower bonuses?

Nope

Because it seems to me, if they both get the same bonuses, then plate is pretty useless. I look around, and I see nobody wearing plate

Yep

And to top it off, the highest level smithing runic is AMAZINGLY harder to get (aside from dupers) than the equivalent tailoring runic.

 

[WildWobble]

...

Now here's where I get confused. Since mages can't med in plate, and since thieves can't sneak well in plate, does plate get higher bonuses when being crafted with a runic hammer, and leather get lower bonuses?

Nope

Because it seems to me, if they both get the same bonuses, then plate is pretty useless. I look around, and I see nobody wearing plate

Yep

very true except with the exception of samurai armor which get the mage armor mod automatically. With good ingots you will get better resists total on the sammy plate then on any leather you may craft!. Now days the best outfits are val hammer (duped mostlikely) made sammy mage armor's.

 

[Nalif]

I don't understand why it would be this way.....

And if it's so easy to max out all of your resits and get full 70's, doesn't that make the resists pretty useless? Everybody runs around with full resists. What's the point?

Leather armor should get lower intensity bonuses. ( I don't understand how stats are assigned, but from what I gather, item strength is based on the intensity of skills, right? ) Leather armor should be crafted with a substantially lower intensity than plate armor, with the trade off being that you can stealth, meditate, and cast spells easier than if you were in plate.

And set armor should be stronger. As-is, sets look useless to me. I'm not saying make them stronger than crafted armor, just on-par with it. Or keep them as-is, but add a special ability to them or something. If I wear a full set of Death's Essence as a necromancer, give me access to a special move or something. The added bonuses given when the suit is combined seems like a step in the right direction, but as-is, the stats are underwhelming and the difficulty to complete them is very high. Instead of boosting the stats to crazy levels, and further making crafting useless, maybe just give a slight boost to the stats, and add a unique ability for each suit. For the necromancers suit, maybe add an addition form that the necromancer can transform into. For the Scout's suit, possibly give a reduction in the amount of ammo used. For the assassin's suit, add a damage modifier when attacking from behind, or make the assassin's poison harder to cure. When wearing the Paladin's armor, give a bonus to karma and an increase to movement speed or something ( the idea here being that paladins are melee fighters, and closing distance between ranged fighters is key ). Shouldn't these sets have a purpose?

 

[Uvtha]

leather/leaf > all other types.

All you need to know.

 

[von Beck]

I don't understand why it would be this way.....

Leather armor should be crafted with a substantially lower intensity than plate armor, with the trade off being that you can stealth, meditate, and cast spells easier than if you were in plate.

Yeah that makes sense. But it isn't how it is.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Before AOS, there was a tradeoff... Protection VS Dex. Leather gave you the least protection, but cost nothing in terms of Dex penalties. Metal armor gave better protection, but cost an amount of a Dex penalty based on how heavy the armor was. Bone Armor was an odd exception because it gave plate level protection with NO Dex penalties but COULD NOT be repaired.

When AOS came along they revamped the protection system of armor into the various resists. What they attempted to do was START each piece based on the type of armor it was (a base suit (i.e. NPC purchased) or leather armor had less resists than the same base suit of plate), however since they tied Meditation to the type of armor you wear, AND they made it so that resists could reach 70 (max) regardless of the material used and got rid of the dex penalty in the process, they in effect made it so that there was NO downside to leather armor, specifically high end drop, enhanced and runic crafted leather armor.

Since the AOS change, leather armor has had all of the benefits but none of the drawbacks while in the process, melee characters have been pushed into using more and more mana-based skills and options that they are likewise pushed into meddable armor types just to keep mana regen rates at a reasonable level.

 

[Green Meanie]

the mage armor property makes all armor just like leather. the samuri armor when crafted exceptionaly gets the mage armor property free.

The runic hammers for blacksmithing are much harder to get but way better. For example a val hammer always gives 5 extra mods with intensitys of 50-100

barbed runic give 4-5 mods with intensitys of 40-100.

the base resists on mettal are higher and the special metals add slightly more resists. So a piece made of all metal gives about 6 more resists than a suit of all leather. over the 3 pieces that arnt normaly arties this is 18 resists. dont seem like much but it makes that perfect suit much ezier to put together.

Still becouse of manna issues in a highly manna dependent game almost noone wears non mage armor metal pieces.

to one of your other questioins 70 resists is easy. max in whatever mods your looking for is easy. All 70s with 15 stack on fire and poison to avoid corpse skin max hci dci lmc mr is VERY hard

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

People generally avoid plate (non runic samurai) even with Mage Armor since MA takes up a possible mod slot which leather gets for free.

 

[Nalif]

samuri armor when crafted exceptionaly gets the mage armor property free.

So the mage armor property doesn't count towards the intensity given by a runic hammer?

The runic hammers for blacksmithing are much harder to get but way better. For example a val hammer always gives 5 extra mods with intensitys of 50-100...

...the base resists on mettal are higher and the special metals add slightly more resists. So a piece made of all metal gives about 6 more resists than a suit of all leather. over the 3 pieces that arnt normaly arties this is 18 resists. dont seem like much but it makes that perfect suit much ezier to put together.

So if samurai armor gets the mage armor for free, the runic hammer is better, and metal special colored ingots give bonuses to resists, doesn't this make samurai armor the best armor in the game? Not leather armor? And if so, the only reason it's not used so much is because the runic hammer really is that much harder to get than the runic sewing kit?

to one of your other questioins 70 resists is easy. max in whatever mods your looking for is easy. All 70s with 15 stack on fire and poison to avoid corpse skin max hci dci lmc mr is VERY hard

So then the true value of a suit is based not on being a suit with perfect stats on it, but a suit with perfect stats in addition to an additional +15 poison/fire resists. So if it's easy to max out all 70's, along with max hci, dci, lmc, mr, then the value of a real suit revolves around if it can counter corpse skin? That just seems wrong.

Edit: And wait...It's actually possible to have high enough resists to where a spell, corpse skin, does absolutely nothing? How does that even make sense? Shouldn't resists be capped, and anything above the cap be ignored? Otherwise, aren't necromancers casting corpse skin and potentially wasting the time and mana it takes to cast all the while not knowing if it's actually effecting the player? Or do they receive a message saying "Player has insane suit. Your spell tickles him."

As a new player, I'm finding all of this very frustrating. In other games, the stats/armor/skills/spells all make sense, and everything has it's place.

- Leather armor, runic or not, should have lower stats than plate, but allow players to meditate, sneak, etc. Stat bonuses that benefit mages, thieves, and ranged fighters should have a higher probability of appearing on leather armor in medium to high intensity.

- Plate armor, runic or not, should have higher base stats than leather, but disallow meditate, sneaking, etc. Stat bonuses that benefit melee fighters should have a higher probability of appearing on plate armor.

- The mage armor property should be removed. There should be a clear, defined difference between what armor is for a "warrior" template character, and which armor is for a mage, thief, ranger template. If armor were more defined and balanced, there would be absolutely NO reason for a mage armor property. To me, this seems like a quick way for the dev's to escape balancing armor. "Hell, instead of fixing armor, lets just make it to where armor can be worn by anyone without any negative side-effects."

- Armor sets, while not necessarily more powerful than crafted armor, should have their stats boosted and possibly be given unique abilities that actually make them worth wearing.

- Resistances and mods such as hit chance increase, defense chance increase, etc, should offer no benefit when "stacked" above their cap.

- Skills, such as corpse skin, should never be able to be completely nullified just by wearing better armor. The effect should decrease based on the player's equiped items, but never be completely nullified.

These are just my observations as a new player. I love this game, but things like this confuse me. It seems so counter-intuitive to have things like this going on.

 

[Green Meanie]

agreed items shouldnt beable to replace skills but its been that way longer than ive been playing.

cure pots nulify poison
trap boxes nullify resists
manna reg nullifys med

theres more im just lazy

if they fixed it where items couldnt nulfy something like corpse skin or hit lowerd then they would have to rebalance everything or corpseskin would own everyone.

and yes sami runic armor is the best armor in the game but the runic hammors are WAY WAY WAY harder to get and are also used to make weapons

 

[Nalif]

cure pots nulify poison

I've seen something about a system of reduced returns or something around here. That system isn't going to do anything about cure potions? Cure potions should have a very high chance of curing poison on the first use. If poisoned again, a cure potion should have a slightly lower chance of curing the poison. On the third/fourth poison, the only way to survive is to outlast the poison. As-is right now, infected strike takes, what, 5 mana to cast? No wonder cure potions are so damn effective. Anyone can spam this all day long. Up the mana cost of infected strike to something along the lines of 15. If the changes to cure potions make poisoning too overpowered, make it to where the player is immune to poison after being cured for a set amount of time, something like one to two seconds. If a player tries to poison a player currently immune to poison, they get the system message "Target is currently immune to poison." There are ways to balance this for sure.

trap boxes nullify resists

Trap boxes are ********. The fact they're still allowed to be used the way they are being used is mind boggling. Seriously, after I learned how players use trap boxes, I was so pissed. How is this even possible?! How hard can this be to fix? If a player, who is paralyzed, uses a trap box, make them die. Problem solved. And while we're at it, why don't we fix fields being able to cross each other? How does it make sense that a player should be able to be trapped by two cross fields? That's such an obvious oversight in coding. Make it to where if a player gets trapped by a crossed field, he's popped out.

manna reg nullifys med

Mana regeneration should be reworked to give a bonus to the focus/meditation skills. For instance, each skill in mana regeneration should give a 5% bonus to the mana gained by using meditate or focus. It's counter-intuitive to have two seperate stats, mana regeneration and focus/meditation, that help regenerate mana.

On that note, wouldn't it be easier to balance armor if the stats given by armor were based on the skills your character had? For instance, if your player has the stealing skill, leather armor would give you bonuses to your stealth and dexterity, because you're obviously playing a thief-like character. Runic crafted leather armor would give you more bonuses than GM crafted leather armor. Put the same armor on a character with magery, and suddenly you get a bonus to intelligence and meditation. If you have swordsmanship/fencing/whatever melee skill, then plate armor will give you a bonus to your strength, hit chance increase, etc. Bonuses gained in this way cannot exceed the cap for resists or modifiers. To me, that seems brilliant.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

So if samurai armor gets the mage armor for free, the runic hammer is better, and metal special colored ingots give bonuses to resists, doesn't this make samurai armor the best armor in the game? Not leather armor? And if so, the only reason it's not used so much is because the runic hammer really is that much harder to get than the runic sewing kit?

Yes, you're more likely to come up with a better bit of armor if you craft val hammer/exceptional sam then if you craft barbed kit/exceptional leather. But assuming the dice rolls come out at their absolute "best", sam armor only wins by one resistance point.

Also keep in mind that a legendary blacksmith only has about half a chance to create exceptional sam armor in any given attempt (assuming you don't have a decent ancient smith hammer, which in themselves are a pain to get). Legendary tailors are guaranteed to produce exceptional leather items (this grants an extra resistance bonus to both metal and leather items).

Oh, and just to be pedantic, leather ninja armor beats plain leather by weighing less.

Female/leaf armor is lighter still, but can only be worn by females/elves... People tend to only sell "generic" armor that any customer will buy, hence why the market is flooded with leather.

So why have the devs made most armor types redundant? Probably because Magery is just so useful. A character without magery is no where near as dynamic as one who has it. If the Mage Armor property was removed altogether, people wouldn't start using other armor types: Leather would just become far more popular then it already is.

So if it's easy to max out all 70's, along with max hci, dci, lmc, mr

It's not.

Otherwise, aren't necromancers casting corpse skin and potentially wasting the time and mana it takes to cast all the while not knowing if it's actually effecting the player? Or do they receive a message saying "Player has insane suit. Your spell tickles him."

You can get at most five property bonuses when crafting with a val hammer or barbed kit. Each bump in resistance an armor segment gets counts as one of those properties, so a segment with VERY HIGH resists on it is not going to have much in the way of other bonuses. So to get such an insane suit is no easy feat.

Resistances and mods such as hit chance increase, defense chance increase, etc, should offer no benefit when "stacked" above their cap.

They don't. The point you're really complaining about is that Corpse Skin isn't effecting the cap. Curse does, though.

 

[Nalif]

The point you're really complaining about is that Corpse Skin isn't effecting the cap. Curse does, though.

I'm not complaining - I don't even know for sure exactly what happens. I just saw that a player said that it's very difficult to get a good suit that also stacks an additional +15% fire/poison resist to prevent corpse skin. So you're saying that corpse skin, when cast on someone that stacks skills above the cap, would still effect that character? If it does, then that's perfect. If it doesn't, then stacking skills/resists seems to have a definite benefit. And it shouldn't.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Oh, feel free to complain around here... That's what everyone else does.

Anyway, yes, corpse skin can effect an over-cap character. The question is whether that actual effect achieves anything.

See, if your suit grants 80 fire resist and you get corpse skinned, that might lower you by 15, taking your total down to 65. Before that, you had an effective 70 resist (because you were over your cap), now you're down to 65. The "overall effect" is that your resists are down by 5.

Granted, you could get a suit that offers 85 total resist. Take 15 away from that, you still have 70, so the "overall effect" is 0. But in order to achieve such massive resistance levels you're missing out on other bonuses your suit could potentially give you.

Yes, this means that suit can beat skill (because not everyone can have a decent suit, let alone an uber suit). Make of that what you will.

Kinda worthy of note is the Virture armor set. Resistances out the whazoo, blessed, and doesn't need repairing. Non-medable and hence unpopular.

(Note that your suit is either made up entirely out of mage armor, or it isn't. If you wear one single bit which isn't medable, you lose the whole bonus).

 

[Green Meanie]

resists are hard caped and not soft caped so yes you can have 85 fire resist and 85 poison resist caped at 70 but them when corpse skin hits you and you lose 15 each you still yave 70 resists.

You claim to be new but you point out things that oviously arnt new problems me thinks your old playing new to make it seem like it drives off or confusses new players. I could be wrong though wouldnt be the first time.

And how exactly do you become immune to my magical concotion of garlic and whatever else goes in cure (alchamy implies magic) for that matter if the poison is so leathal how is it your becoming immune to it at all.

as far as making the bonuses to armor be based of the skills you have what would you do with this template for say, 120 fencing 90 tatics, 105 mage, 120 eval, 100 stealing, 75 snooping ?

I agree with the last poster if they nerfed the ability to wear metal armor even if it gave other buffs that wernt mage spacific some would wear it but it would result in even less wearing it and there for less varity in uo.

 

[Nalif]

Oh, feel free to complain around here... That's what everyone else does.

I just didn't want anyone to get the wrong impression. So far the thread is full of useful information, and no mud slinging is going on. As soon as someone thinks someone else is complaining about their play style, it's all down hill. Right now, this is just a conversation.

...if your suit grants 80 fire resist and you get corpse skinned, that might lower you by 15, taking your total down to 65. Before that, you had an effective 70 resist (because you were over your cap), now you're down to 65. The "overall effect" is that your resists are down by 5.

Then what's the point of caps? I mean, I realize that nothing above the 70 cap is going to be looked at for the purpose of damage resistance, but if that's the way resistance works, shouldn't all spells that reduce skills instead use a percentage, and never a set number? And even then, you would still have stacked resistance giving benefits, because then it would definitely be looking at numbers above 70 for calculations.

Yes, this means that suit can beat skill (because not everyone can have a decent suit, let alone an uber suit). Make of that what you will.

This is an item based game. That being said, as long as I have the ability to get an equally strong suit, there's nothing wrong with a more experienced player having something better than me. Note that I'm not saying an item based game beats a skill based game, I'm simply stating that people can't expect to enter into an item based game and be able to dominate in under a week.

Kinda worthy of note is the Virture armor set. Resistances out the whazoo, blessed, and doesn't need repairing. Non-medable and hence unpopular.

I have a set of that, and I love it. I wear it on my paladin/warrior. He's my main character. Obviously I can't PVP with it, but it's blessed, it repairs itself, and I can hold my own, to an extent, in PVP. I agree that it should be non-medable.

 

[Nalif]

You claim to be new but you point out things that oviously arnt new problems me thinks your old playing new to make it seem like it drives off or confusses new players. I could be wrong though wouldnt be the first time.

My account here was made in 2006. When I created it, I did not have a UO account, but I was interested in the game because I had watched a friend play it back in 2001ish. I'm not saying I'm new to confuse players, I'm saying I'm new because I am. And just because I'm new doesn't mean I'm blind to the problems this game has. Even if I were completely new to the game, I would see these things, because I browse this forum, and I play the game.

And how exactly do you become immune to my magical concotion of garlic and whatever else goes in cure (alchamy implies magic) for that matter if the poison is so leathal how is it your becoming immune to it at all.

I don't understand. You're saying "My poison is magic, so how would a cure make you immune?" ? Using that logic, why have cure potions at all? It makes sense that if there's a way to cure poison through consumption of a liquid, that the presence of this liquid in your system might provide some further immunity to future exposure of said poison. If the poison is so lethal to begin with, why have a cure for it at all? You're trying to talk about real world applications of things that don't even exist in the real world when I'm discussing game balance

as far as making the bonuses to armor be based of the skills you have what would you do with this template for say, 120 fencing 90 tatics, 105 mage, 120 eval, 100 stealing, 75 snooping ?

I obviously don't have the perfect numbers worked out, but it would go something like this: Melee skills such as fencing/swords/etc give you bonuses to physical resists and swing speed/hci/ whatever modifiers help melee characters. Magery, and magery related skills would give you bonuses to spell resists, such as energy and fire, while also giving bonuses to mana regen/spell dammage increase/whatever help out mage characters.

Obviously I haven't sat down and wrote a paper on this or anything, and it shows. I'm having midterms right now, but once they're done, I'll actually plan this out and post my idea in another thread, because as of right now, it's obviously a half-baked idea. I still thing it has merit, though.

 

[Harlequin]

Seems like my itchy fingers don't want my postcount to remain at 666...

What you observed is true, at the moment, metal armour gives no incentives over leather armour. I think non med-able armour should give more resists per piece. I also think that more metal armour should be made med-able, like elven plate, elven chainmail etc... These med-able ones would of course not have the increased resists.

I'm a great fan of balancing up and enriching gameplay.

From a previous mage armour post http://vboards.stratics.com/showpost.php?p=1123171&postcount=21 :


Metal armour gives 15 basic resists per peice just like leather armour. The are only a couple that give 16 resist per piece.

My warrior used to run in leather armour because with the mage-armour property, my med is actually faster, even if I don't have med.

Viewed in this light, there's no incentive to use metal armour. Barbed kits are also easier to get, plus they sell for much less.

The mage property puts at least 1 type of metal armour on par with leather. Making my lower end hammers actually useful and I am able to wear something other than leather on my warrior.

In fact, I think the rest of the armor should have their basic resists increased to 16. Leather and samurai plate that allows med should remain at 15 resists each. Also, I would love to see a more diverse range of med-able metal armour like elven chainmail and elven plate.

Edit: Expanding on the elven chainmail idea - all non med armour made by elven smiths all get the mage armour property but only 15 resists, while all non med armour made by humans all get 16 resists, no mage armour property. Should add another dimension for playing human and elves.

 

[Hopeful]

"The runic hammers for blacksmithing are much harder to get but way better. For example a val hammer always gives 5 extra mods with intensitys of 50-100"

I must say this is not true. On the test shard Ive come up with less than 5 lots of times on armor (even including applying bonus to a resisit).If the item does have 5 mods the resisits are always too low to be worth using .And it wasnt applied to damage type on weps a few times using iron.Again not giving 5 mods.
I waisted a val hammer trying to make a nice plate helm only to use a horned kit to make a leather cap that blew it away. I guess those old NFL players were better off than we thought.
IMO the val hammer was not worth its weight in gold that I paid for it and was most likely a dupe.The barbed kits Ive earned or purchased yeilded much better armor (per 15 uses). Given the effort to mine/smelt (smithy + mining skill) vs. kill/skin (wep skill + scissors) alone all metal should be more powerful.

 

[Green Meanie]

I wasnt saying cure makes you immune to poison or the otherway around.

I want to know how you think the magical cure potions has been rejected by your system to save you from the poison. Ive never heard of ppl becoming immune to the antidote to snake venom.

As far as poison goes how if its so leathal do you become immune to it?

Not what ever it is you posted.

This whole post im sry

just needed to clarify how he intrpreted what i said

 

[Nalif]

This whole post im sry

I agree Lets save the talk on poison/cure balancing for another thread, and try to stick to talking about armor here. I got way side tracked talking about the balancing of other stuff. As a matter of fact, my question was pretty much answered anyways. I asked what the difference between armor was, and now I know. Leather is better.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

*mutters about vampires curing themselves by drinking pure garlic*

 

[Harlequin]

Addendum:

Does any one remember that when UO first started, leather armour used to give you protection from fire? And you could wear a leather tunic under your platemail? To get both the increased AR from platemail while at the same time have protection from fire?

A way to add inherent bonuses like that would be nice too. Eg Platemail absorbs 3 points of physical damage (but lightning does 3 more damage), chainmail -2 physical +2 lightning, ringmail -1 physical + 1 lightning.

Bone -1 physical +1 fire, studded leather -1 fire +1 lightning, leather -1 fire + 1 physical.

Just a crazy idea...

 

[Connor_Graham]

For the assassin's suit, add a damage modifier when attacking from behind, or make the assassin's poison harder to cure.

Set armor gets bonuses to it's total resists when you have all of the pieces. The Assassin Set already has several bonuses built into it when all pieces are present. 20% SSI (which is like getting +60 Stam), +30 Stealth, and +12 Dex are all on the Assassin armor. I use this set on my dexxer and it's amazingly powerful. I tried it out on my archer with a 40 SSI heavy crossbow and it was like firing a repeater.

 

[Old Man of UO]

...
Does any one remember that when UO first started, leather armour used to give you protection from fire? And you could wear a leather tunic under your platemail? To get both the increased AR from platemail while at the same time have protection from fire?
...

Huh... I don't remember that. When was that taken out? Of course, I died so many times the first year of play that I couldn't afford more than one suit of armor. Heh

 

[Connor_Graham]

*mutters about vampires curing themselves by drinking pure garlic*

If you're in Vamp form the game will not allow you to drink a Gtr Cure pot.

 

[Harlequin]

I think it was taken out pretty early, like a couple of months into the game. Can't find anything on the net on this though...

Edit: Was replying to the old man