Armor Distinctions

[solo322]

Don't you guys wish that the armor selections weren't so black and white in terms of protection? Everything in Oblivion has one up and one down. Pretty much your entire goal from the outset of the game is to get glass/daedric equipment. I don't know about you guys, but i grew up on reading tolkien and playing d&d, where racial tendencies were much more pronounced. There, you hear stories that elven armor is super rare and special in its own way, that dwarven craftmanship is legendary, and mithril is precious... basically every armor has it's pros and cons. I realized this because I loved the look of the mithril armor in oblivion, but it was just another stepping stone for something better, and i dropped it the moment I found something better.

 

My suggestion is for a possible "comfort" gauge. I'd love to see the idea of a fighter growing into his armor after time, initially unaccustomed to a strange craftmanship but becoming more and more adept at moving in it. This could be reflected by any number of statistics changing over time, and I feel that the oblivion engine makes this possible if we could only create different skills, ie daedric armor skill, steel armor skill, as opposed to the standard light/heavy.

 

Possible attribute modifiers could be: lowered agility for heavier armors, higher marksman bonuses for light armor cuirass, decreases in blade skill for clunky gauntlets, lowered athletics with uncomfortable boots, etc etc.

 

As your skill with each material increases, then the positives increase and the negatives decrease. Therefore, when you pick up a new piece of armor, it's a balanced decision between what you have and what you MAY get, if you stick with it. Most importantly, I think that all armor should be possibly EQUAL in usefulness, and that we should instead have rusted, dented, fine, perfect, whatever prefix modifiers WITHIN the material sets.

All of these modifiers would be SUBTLE and well worked into the game, and that's the hard part because it would take some serious testing in order to balance every single armor for all the different playing types, but I think it could be fun.

 

I've always wanted to play the grizzled old veteran, who looks calm on the outside in dirty, battered armor, but who can actually kick your ass at the drop of the dime. Experience, really, is what this mod idea is really about, trying to get beyond the whole "arms race" of oblvion, and I'm trying to plan the most effective way of implementing this into the game.

 

If you have read this far, I thank you. In this age of quick replys, I understand that it is rare for you to have to read an entire post like this one, but I wanted to be clear about what I thought.

[Myydraal]

Well i like the concept, but this will be very very hard, for one i am not sure if it possible at the moment to create new skills thus making this mod infinitly more diffcult to implement. If Bethesda patches the CS maby. Shrug, ther emay be ways around the no new skills but its gonna be sloppy probly. Correct me if i am wrong about the skill thing.

[thanateros]

I love the idea of what you're saying. I've always had a problem with how the Armor skills worked in Morrowind and Oblivion. Standardzing AC classes would be a start, such that all heavy armors have the same AC's across the board. This would be the first step in levelling the playing field. Second, glass, elven, dwarven, daedric and mithril should be super rare and much better than the standard armor versions. If I found a piece of glass armor, I should pee in my pants (it's ok...it'll dry). Since we can't mod the skills, scripts could be added to the each type of armor such that when you pick up a new piece of an armor you aren't used to wearing, you're armor skill gets reduced to (say 1/4 of the related attribute). This essentially would be what you're describing, that each time you pick up a new piece of armor, your unfamiliarity would make it difficullt to wear. The same should be true of the rare types of armor, but as you hinted, there should also be scripts/ functions that represent the qualities of each armor (i.e. mithril having a scripted reduce damage script, or daedric having reflect damage and an increase in infamy score, glass increasing speed/agility/personality [it's beautiful], and dwarven having like 500 strength). This is a possible way to implement the changes you're suggesting. If I could script at all, I would deffinitely take this up as a project. Some begging might be in order. (There already is a rare items mod, but overall, I'm unsatisfied with how the armor works in the game).

 

You presented some great ideas here. I hope someone takes up the challenge.

[Myydraal]

I love the idea of what you're saying. I've always had a problem with how the Armor skills worked in Morrowind and Oblivion. Standardzing AC classes would be a start, such that all heavy armors have the same AC's across the board. This would be the first step in levelling the playing field. Second, glass, elven, dwarven, daedric and mithril should be super rare and much better than the standard armor versions. If I found a piece of glass armor, I should pee in my pants (it's ok...it'll dry). Since we can't mod the skills, scripts could be added to the each type of armor such that when you pick up a new piece of an armor you aren't used to wearing, you're armor skill gets reduced to (say 1/4 of the related attribute). This essentially would be what you're describing, that each time you pick up a new piece of armor, your unfamiliarity would make it difficullt to wear. The same should be true of the rare types of armor, but as you hinted, there should also be scripts/ functions that represent the qualities of each armor (i.e. mithril having a scripted reduce damage script, or daedric having reflect damage and an increase in infamy score, glass increasing speed/agility/personality [it's beautiful], and dwarven having like 500 strength). This is a possible way to implement the changes you're suggesting. If I could script at all, I would deffinitely take this up as a project. Some begging might be in order. (There already is a rare items mod, but overall, I'm unsatisfied with how the armor works in the game).

 

You presented some great ideas here. I hope someone takes up the challenge.

 

 

Hmmm, well i can script and the work arounds you described i belive are quite doable, i could probly help out with this maby, shrug. I have my hands in a few other pots but i really like this idea so...anyways if either of you or someone else wants to look into doing this i am up for it =P