An idea you might hate...

A topic regarding armor defenses, I think that Dark Souls 2 should include an enhancement system on armor. Armors would have 1 or 3 slots of enhancement that you could use to uniquely improve the armor's performance. Your options would be (Their is no redo after you make an option, for balancing purposes):

1) Reduce damage from Slash/Thrust/Crush/Regular/Magic/Fire/Lightning by 2%
2) Increase Bleed/Poise/Toxin resistance by 5% (The armor's current resistance)
3) Reduce critical damage by 4%

The current armor system of Dark Souls is nice, but in the end it leads to players just using the same best armor (Note the Giants and pre-patched Gold-hemmed/maiden). This would make damage types meaningful.

Of course I just say armor, but I think to some extent the same could be done for weapons, but that would be easy to break.

So, I think the idea of enchanting has been a bit...overdone from my experiences and I'm not sure if any of you would like to see this in a souls game, but I would like to hear what you think about an armor enhancement systems.

I'm a huge fan of the Souls games, but I have to say that it's been a challenge for them to balance the options they've given (antiquated skirt or lightning weapons, anyone?) I think it's safe to say that we can expect more options (more armor/weapons/upgrade paths/spells/rings/etc) in the next Souls game - we've already seen at least 1 additional weapon, the falcata.

I couldn't imagine the developers balancing these new options with the old ones AND THEN exponentially increasing those options with the system you've described.

I do like the idea - it's been done well in plenty of games - but I just don't think it could fit into a Souls game that, I hope, will take PvP more seriously next go-round.

But why wouldnt people just find the best armour then enhance its weaknesses up and have the same problem?

Rings.

You could just take heavy armor for example and enhance it with crit reduction, and reduced dmg from slash, and so on. There won't be any variety

I think armors in generally having minor specials, like masks, but more minor, would be interesting.

Hate idea? Nope. I actually think it could be interesting if it were implemented, as long as these augmentations have a big variation and it's not just typical lightning defense, fire defense etc, but unique ones as well, like ''resistance against daggers'', ''extra damage against mages'', although that second one would be kinda hard i guess unless it was based on the weapons they used or perhaps if starting classes had a bigger impact on how you play rather than being able to get all stats with each class. Either way, if done correctly i'm sure it would be great, just gott a think of a way to make it fit with the lore. :|