Skyrim's armor system is broken

[WarKirby3333]

yes the armor system is broken. I realised this a long time ago. it was in Oblivion too.

the best armor system beth has come up with so far, was the directly quantified DT system in Fallout: New Vegas. Where each point of armor caused you to directly take X less damage from every hit. that system also included armor piercing bullets, and a minimum damage of about 20% of each hit that was unblockable. (which kind of nullified the system somewhat.)

 

I would point everyone's attention to the armor system in Heroes of Newerth. Each point of armor increases your Effective HP by 6%. So although your damage reduction percentage appears to be going up by smaller and smaller amounts with each point, your survivability is actually increasing linearly and it works fairly well. It's the same system as skyrim, but with less broken math.

 

I'm designing a game myself just now and i've done a great deal of thought on this concept. To my mind, a direct quantified system of reduction works best, with the inclusion of armor penetration mechanics as necessary to avoid marginalising weak, rapid attacks.

[Venima]

The only way we're gonna get an armor system that we're happy with is if we adopt Dungeons and Dragons because they have it sussed. The fact that Skyrim is so far from this concept is probably what the problem is.

 

In terms of level difficulty, there is a fundamental flaw that I've seen in Oblivion which has worsened in Skyrim, and that is that everything levels with the player simple and plain, except in Skyrim there are a lot more ridiculously difficult enemies, like hagravens which really should have a lot less health than they do, I mean look at them, they can barely stand up with their little legs.

 

When I level up, I want to see a linear change in the gameplay (not visually aka armor changes from steel to ebony) and it should be in my favour, not my enemy's (if you concentrate on stealth, when it comes to hagravens, you're fked). I think as quest levels go up the difficulty should go up, not with the player level. But heres for laziness.

 

And they need to sort out their enemies. I've killed one troll in 3 hits but another takes 20 and my entire supply of health potions. (Yeah its the one on the 2000 steps that 3 hit kills you but hits you twice at a go so you're drinking potions every second.)

[Perraine]

What I'd like to see is more variety in the Armor Value vs (Physical) Damage Reduction vs Elemental Resistance vs Hit Damage vs Damage Per Second (well at least once BS patch the bug in the patch that patched the bug that screwed up the elemental resistances) With much, much wider variations between Light and Heavy Armor and between the various materials, with a corresponding variety in weapons and projectiles ...

 

For example: Iron / Steel / Orcish arrows would have a high On Hit Damage, but low or no Elemental or Damage Per Second, so Iron / Steel / Orcish armor would have a high On Hit Damage Reduction rating but low or no Elemental Resistance or Damage Per Second (lasting effects) resistance ... So to fight a Bandit who uses fairly standard equipment or those Imperial dogs you have no problem ...

 

Dwarven (Dwemer) Armor would have a High DR and high resistance to Electrical and Cold Attacks but low resistance to anything else and low DPS resistance so you would have to decide, when entering that Dwemer ruin, do I wear Dwarven Armor to be protected against the spider drones and centurions, who mainly use Electrical/Cold/Physical attacks OR do I wear Ebony Armor would have a low Physical DR but high Poison and DPS resistance to combat the Falmer and bugs that are always lurking about and also to give you more protection against the "Flame Spouts" everywhere.

 

There should also be a way, way, way bigger difference between light and heavy armor vs Stamina use/recharge and run/attack speed Light armor means you move move quickly and dodge attacks more quickly (higher DPS resistance) but at the cost of Armor Rating Heavy armor would be the opposite your slower so DPS resistance is reduced (you can't get out of the way quick enough) but you can take more physical punishment in melee AND it also adds a bonus to power attacks and shield bash attacks ...

 

So you would have t choose very and the decision would a lot more critical depending on what armor suited your play style more and who you were fighting, even to having to have more than one set of armor in your inventory/stashed at home

 

Hide, Forsworn = low AR light + no DPSR + low ER

Leather, Imperial, Guard/Soldier = low AR light + low DPSR + low ER

Studded, Imperial = low AR heavy + high DPSR + no ER

 

Iron = low AR heavy + high DPSR + no ER

Steel = low AR Light + low DPSR + high ER

 

DB/TG = low AR light + low DPSR + high Stamina res. only

 

Orcish = high AR Heavy + high DPSR + no ER

Glass = High AR Light + no DPSR + high ER

 

Elven = low AR light + low DPSR + high magic/stamina res. only

Dwarven = high AR heavy + high DPSR + high Electrical/Cold res. only

Ebony = low AR light + high DPSR + high poison/disease/fire res. only

 

Dragon:

Scale = high AR light + high DPSR + high Frost/magic res. only

Bone = high AR heavy + high DPSR + high Fire/Stamina res. only

 

Daedric = high AR heavy + high DPSR + high ER = TANK!

 

Or anyway ... something like that.

[ishmaeltheforsaken]

The resistance bug was fixed ages ago.

 

I think that system is needlessly complex. I will just do what Dragon Age II did.

[Bismarck]

I'd love to see a more realistic armor and weapon damage system. Mount & Blade had a Realistic Combat Mod made by a guy called Ron Losey who changed the values of all weapons and armours to be more realistic. Afterwards, plate armour offered excellent protection (there is a reason why knights ran around with plate armour, but many games tend to ignore this fact) and in order to quickly kill a guy in plate armour, you had to use proper weapons like crossbows, maces, picks, axes, morningstars etc.

 

Skyrim needs an improved, more tactical armour and weapon damage system. Light armour should allow you to be quick and evasive while heavy armour offers excellent protection but decreased movement/evasion/sneaking. Maybe some perks need to be adjusted.

The material of weapons/armours also has to be taken into consideration. An iron shortsword should not be able to penetrate plate armour, but a daedric shortsword might be able to do so.

 

Of course, balance needs to be maintained so that non-melee characters (mages, thieves) can still be deadly, but that should be possible. Spells probably ignore armour, summons can distract the enemy and poisonous weapons in combination with distraction spells (paralyze, charm) allow thieves to kill heavy armoured opponents.

[janaseca]

tldr Skyrim's armor system is messed up so that effective HP barely increases so little from 0 to 300 worn AR that even mediocre +health enchantments are more effective, skyrockets between 301 and 567 worn AR, and then falls off completely. It should be fixed so that every point of armor increases effective HP linearly like in Morrowind.

 

WOW man, I think this is one factor which explains why the game gets SOOOO EASY mid-end. The damage you will receive don't grow with the HUGE mitigation you will get, the bigger health numbers, the bigger health regen...

Seriosly guys, my first experience in the game playing as a warrior with a shield was like:

1st -> not using crafting skills yet - the challenge was good - adept diff ok

2nd -> starting to pay attention on smithing, improving some weapons and armor - the challenge is gone so I tried the expert diff and the fun was back - adept diff -> expert diff ok

3rd -> smithing lvl 100 I was like ~lvl43-45, leveled enchanting skill too to get more money from the crafted items. After all this, I tried make some good legendary daedric set (without exploits, I think I was using 3 items with fortify smithing, something like +60-78 smithing) and surprise... I became a God and the challenge was completely gone. I tried the master diff and nothing changed! Fights with dragons were easy before, now these fights become ridiculous. :(

I tried to rush the main quest to see the story but I ended up deleting this char. lol

 

I still love the game, but this is sad sad we need to be cautious to not became too powerfull mid-end game. the mitigation shouldn't grow linearly with the armor rating, maybe that is one major cause.

And let the modders come to fix/balance the game.

 

I'd love to see a more realistic armor and weapon damage system. ....

 

Skyrim needs an improved, more tactical armour and weapon damage system. Light armour should allow you to be quick and evasive while heavy armour offers excellent protection but decreased movement/evasion/sneaking. Maybe some perks need to be adjusted.

 

I agree.

[Bryan065]

IMO I think the whole smithing system needs to be rebuilt. Right now it's way too easy to smith a full set of end-game armor.

 

Have any of you guys played monster hunter? The crafting system there was amazing and it kept me coming back for more. The skyrim smithing should be overhauled to become something similar to that

 

just my 2 cents

[WorldShaperDragon]

Why is there a negative slope on the last graph past the armor cap for skyrim? That was never there before. o_O

[inkco]

yes the armor system is broken. I realised this a long time ago. it was in Oblivion too.

the best armor system beth has come up with so far, was the directly quantified DT system in Fallout: New Vegas. Where each point of armor caused you to directly take X less damage from every hit. that system also included armor piercing bullets, and a minimum damage of about 20% of each hit that was unblockable. (which kind of nullified the system somewhat.)

 

I would point everyone's attention to the armor system in Heroes of Newerth. Each point of armor increases your Effective HP by 6%. So although your damage reduction percentage appears to be going up by smaller and smaller amounts with each point, your survivability is actually increasing linearly and it works fairly well. It's the same system as skyrim, but with less broken math.

 

I'm designing a game myself just now and i've done a great deal of thought on this concept. To my mind, a direct quantified system of reduction works best, with the inclusion of armor penetration mechanics as necessary to avoid marginalising weak, rapid attacks.

I agree with the defense system in fallout nw. So there is one what can we do... here in skyrim... more improvements...

 

Like: While you get input dmg by weapon what have dmg 160 and your armor rate is 90 you get 70 dmg -> no block... while you successfully block or the sword hit the shield (and the shield have 30 ar) the system reduce the dmg on 130 and armor r. (so... separate values of armor rating shield/armor) decrease this value to 40... and the next is Damage resistance 80% of 40 is 8 dmg to hp...

 

More complicated system ...

 

Separate value of armor pieces ... No helmet | head shot = full dmg (always critical) - % of Damage resistance = damage to hp

So shield and no gloves = what not negate the shield and the damage resistance will go to hp ...

 

Like in Vats in Fallout series... Head is weak point of body... hit to head with helmet = always critical but 100 - 40 (armor rate of helmet) will does 60 dmg but multiplied with critical dmg system ( for example 2 times) = 120 dmg - DR (it means Damage resistance like a spell) (For ex. 80%) will does 24 dmg to hp...

Also this game need broke system... i never seen i have broken my sword and need to repair or need to be sharpen...

 

Without this system is armor useless ... while the player get dragonhide spell ...

 

Also i will do separate resistance ... magic damage treshold and physical damage treshold... (like m def/p def)..

 

But im not modder...

[mezz1945]

no mod seems to change this issue yet.

 

the dmg taken calculation just needs a function like almost every other game. i figured out that DR% = (armor / (armor+350))*100 is pretty close to the current DR% values, except you cant reach 100%.

 

the current calculation seems to be DR% = (armor rating (+hidden armor rating)) * fArmorScalingFactor [which is 0.12 by default]

 

i would change it, but i have no idea where to find that calculation in that creation kit. i dont even know if the current calculation is right. it could be completely different (well it has fArmorScalingFactor in it anyways).

 

somebody able to help?

Edited July 15, 2014 by mezz1945