Heavy Armor Slug Rate

During the R8 test, I was initially of the opinion that heavy armor was not implemented well with respect to the slug rate and the card system. During the test, I used the fixed hotbar system which was not optimal, but allowed me to avoid drawing a handful of slugs while wearing heavy armor.

After giving this matter some thought, I have changed my mind.

In medieval times, heavy armor was fiendishly expensive. Only nobles and wealthy landowners could afford it, and as far as I know, the heavy armor featured on SotA was only used by mounted knights, not footmen, where it would be far to heavy to use, and you'd be begging for a bunch of guys in light armor to knock you over and start poking sharp things into every joint and crevice you had, but that's a different subject.

How does Portalarium simulate that cost? Within a short period of time, money in MMOs is abundant, so making it expensive in terms of gold would be ineffective. You could make it require large amounts of materials, but like gold, raw materials become abundant in short order as well.

It looks like Portalarium is making heavy armor very expensive in terms of the XP required to use it effectively.

The R8 test was unrealistic in terms of game play in that everyone comes in with a bunch of skill points to apply. Starting out upon release, that won't be the case. I don't know what the plan is, but I doubt they'll provide 60 points for your noob character. So starting out, at best people will be wearing light armor, or maybe no armor because they haven't earned the necessary skill points to invest in armor.

When you get enough XP to trade in for your first skill point, are you going to spend it on armor? Maybe not. Depending on what skills you choose on character creation, you may just have 1 or 2 attacks with a blade or a bludgeon, so you'll probably spend it on another attack. Investing in armor will probably have to wait. Investing in a lot of things will probably have to wait.

I don't know how many skill points you'd have to have to make heavy armor worthwhile, and given the current state of the skill trees, maybe Portalarium doesn't know either, but I suspect that it's going to require a crap load.

And that makes sense. Only the most experienced warriors would be wearing heavy armor, and it is going to take time to earn the necessary experience to be able to invest the points necessary to make it practical. Heavy armor won't be common in the first few months, I suspect, or maybe not in the first year, depending upon how hard it is to earn XP.

For a long time, I think people will be running around in leather armor with basic 4 card hands, because there will be too many other things needed before you can effectively change your card setup or your armor use.

I am fine with that. I don't want to hear people complaining after the first month about how there is nothing else to do in SotA.

 

You make a good point here. I don't want heavy armor like plate to be useless or near useless in the long run, but that doesn't mean it should be something that people can use effectively right away. It is nice to have goals.

 

I've thought a lot about heavy armor too:

I hope that heavy armor is more usable. I have been hoping heavy armor isn't like it was in UO... nobody used it except the arms which went over the chain shirt. Also mace fighters use to blow up full plate really fast because it absorbed more damage in combat. Then again it lowered a persons dex so much it that nobody would use it for that reason either. Heavy armor had three strikes against it.

I hope that heavy armor doesn't get trashed like it did in UO, and doesn't have so many negatives that only the noobs and non-pvpers want to use it. So I agree with you whole heartedly. I would like to see the Knight/Cavalier type character in this game. Maybe this kind of armor could have less slugs at higher level.

The defensive qualities of heavy armor, and the defensive qualities of a polearm seem to go hand in hand. It would be a great combination of skills. Or if you use a shield and a blugeon or a sword and have heavy armor, your chances of being stunned or knocked down should be very unlikely. So heavy armor has some serious benfiit, but the slugs might be too much of an offensive issue. If you can't kill your opponents then no matter how much defense you have you will end up dying.

Then again we are looking at it from a PvP perspective. In PvE this character could work just fine as a tank for a party, and it has a taunt skill. I would hope they address the PvP side of the heavy armor though.