Reworking The Gear System

(Hopefully this won't seem as out there as my suggestion about elemental weapons)

(I don't expect this to be implemented in Dark Souls, this just seems to make more sense as a system. I would love to see it in the next souls game, but I don't expect that either. More just a cool idea)

The way gear currently works is great due to the fact that it isn't necessarily restricted across your build. Your build may favor one set, but really any can be worn at the price of mobility.

But the current system of simply having a percentile of your END decide entirely your mobility regardless of your armor is a bit counter-intuitive. The most common complaint of this is the fact that players are able to use rings to wear sets like giants or Havels and get a fast roll or a flip roll simply because they have the right stats. It completely blurs the line between a heavy set and a light set, and it really just becomes having the correct poise you want out of an armor set, then configuring END with your rings to get yourself flipping around.

Although the idea of being able to wear whatever gear you want is cool, it seems abused, and at a certain point everything is basically "light" gear.


I think a system that would make more sense, and would also make more use of stats like str and dex, which are only mainly used for fulfilling weapon perquisites and scaling, is to have armors also have scaling.

What I mean is have armors have scalings with END STR and DEX.

This way a particular Heavy armor would a base mobility rating (one that is rather low), and then may have B scaling with STR, an A rating with END, and a D scaling with DEX.

On the other hand lighter armors would probably have a high base mobility rating, then just S or A scaling with Dex.

Each piece of armor you wore could have its own mobility Rating that all add together to make up your Real Mobility Rating, which then determines your actually speed and mobility.

This way you could still mix and match gear, but every single one still is factored in.


With this system, specific builds which are focused on DEX or focused on STR would get bonuses with armors as well as weapons. This would make specific stats more useful as well, since END would no longer be the complete deciding factor on armor. But in addition, unlike just setting perquisites stats on different armors, this would still allow a player who was perhaps a DEX build to throw on some heavy gear and play in it. They would have less mobility than if their build catered to it.

Also it could be tweaked correctly so that heavy armor users with a comparable level to light armor users, although with good mobility for heavy armor, aren't faster than opting to use a light armor. This would give a greater feel and noticeablity between builds using light versus heavy armor.

Side note: Lastly, something like flipping shouldn't be relegated to a power for a ring. Rather it should be something based upon a players DEX and END coupled with (if this was the armor system) their mobility rater. Meaning that you would have to have a very high base dex, like 45, then have a good mobility rating.

So, yeah.

+1

I disagree. The second a damage scaling stat becomes required for mobility it immediately becomes better than every other stat. If Dex determined mobility, you'd see nothing but Dex builds. If every armor has a "mobility rating" then what is the weight for? I thought that was the "mobility rating".

I don't understand why folks ninja flipping in heavy armor is such a problem. Why should the game artificially limit some players just because others choose to play differently. It's just a rehash of the "honorable" PvP argument.

^Realism

make it scale with res and you've got a done deal! for example give armors a requirement of say 30 res for havels but only base level for light armor etc...

Heavy armor takes strength

Light armor takes Dex

Endurance I think would have nothing to do with being able to wear armor but should affect your stamina bar depending on the type of armor. If someone has a lot of strength they can wear the armor but if they don't have a lot of endurance then they can only run for a short while or swing a weapon once.

Think about it. Weight lifters can lift 500 pounds once but can't run around with it. If they had endurance then they would be able to move with the 500 pounds.(I know that this an unreal example)

Sebastrd wrote:I disagree. The second a damage scaling stat becomes required for mobility it immediately becomes better than every other stat. If Dex determined mobility, you'd see nothing but Dex builds. If every armor has a "mobility rating" then what is the weight for? I thought that was the "mobility rating".

I don't understand why folks ninja flipping in heavy armor is such a problem. Why should the game artificially limit some players just because others choose to play differently. It's just a rehash of the "honorable" PvP argument.

If you read through I talk about how different armors would have different scaling requirments.

As it is now most people only dump points into Dex or Str normally. This is the same thing really, just armor is more specialized. At no point did I say DEX would be the determinant of a mobility rating.

END would still have a scaling on most armors that would really be necessary to make them effective.


And I'm not arguing over what is honorable, I play however is most effective. But in a game I like to see that playing effectively can mean different things if good versions of different builds are more differentiated.


I actually think you may have missed my point a little bit, I'll try to be clearer.

I got your point, I just disagree.

What is the benefit of marrying armor type to a specific stat? Why take away that choice? Should I be able to tell someone's build immediately based on their armor? Should Strength builds be restricted to heavy armors and Dex builds to light? What about Faith and Int builds?

I'm not saying it's a matter of honor, but it's the same type of argument. It's strictly subjective.

Just to be clear, it's nothing personal. I have nothing against trying to improve the game, but this kind of thing comes up all of the time.

As long as there is a meaningful choice we, being human, will find the optimal choice and exploit it. The vast majority will run around wielding the "best", whatever it is. Only the ignorant and those looking for a challenge will hamstring themselves by choosing the worse option.

Invariably, someone comes along upset because everyone uses the same build, the same gear, the same spells, etc., and suggests a "fix" that will force variety on the masses. The fact is it's a fools errand. As long as there is meaningful choice, the majority will choose the best option. All of the "fixes" in the world just change the best option to something else, and everyone uses that new best thing instead.

We could always make the choice meaningless - entirely aesthetic with no functionality whatsoever. And then it becomes no fun. If choosing your gear was like choosing your forum avatar, would anyone care? We'd all be different and revel in the variety as we all played the exact same thing with different colored clothes.

I agree that each individual armor piece should affect your character in more ways than just equip weight, which is determined by End. Like you say, with enough End (and the right rings and gear) heavy armor is the exact same as light armor. There's virtually no reason to pick light armor over heavy, in this game, if you've got the equip weight for it. And it isn't difficult to get equip weight!

This idea will get resistance from people who are too attached to their heavy armor ninja-flips. But those who see the big picture, I think, would agree that the change would be welcome. It makes gearing out your character a shallow defense, when all you have to consider is weight. If instead, armor was directly tied to mobility (and I would also throw in stamina regen, and even more facets of gameplay) then it would do nothing but add depth to the gameplay and weight to your gear decisions.

Or you could just remove the DWGR, and all the problems with "no variety in armor choice" go soaring out the window. :|

^That. And take out tthe MoF. That way if they want med rol they need to use both ring slots.

I thought that heavy armour did impede stamina regen, wouldn't it be enough to just make that more noticeable?

I don't really agree with dex/str raising the use of a certain armour, the major problem isn't the armours, its instead all the work arounds that are given. Maybe heavy armour impedes stamina, but there are 4 different items you can use to counter that so its meaningless. Weapons and armour may over burden you but there are hundreds of ways to work around that too, the dwgr just laughs in it's face.

But like others are saying, removing these things wouldn't really change the fact that people are going to look for the very best set, and so it will be seen frequently. It's true of any game, favorite guns, favourite armours, any game with PVP will have repeats of a common, effective tactic.

@Yukon only the very heaviest do and even then its not that noticable. (Stuff like ginats)

@Yukon:

That's precisely the problem, though; in Dark Souls, there is no best weapon. They're all pretty well balanced for pros and cons, so in the end it's your skill that matters, not your weapon. Armor, though? There are absolutely no cons to wearing Giant's. If you've got the weight for it (and like you said, there are so many ways to make weight), then there's no reason to pick light armor over heavy, which makes light armor useless.

DoughGuy wrote:@Yukon only the very heaviest do and even then its not that noticable. (Stuff like ginats)

Your stamina regen is actually factored based around your equip load as well, not specific armors. The closer you are to your maximum then the slower your regen. This was supposed to be another bonus to choosing to use the <25% weight, and to encourage players with the fat roll to use greatshields to reduce the stamina drained on blocked hits. Wearing full Giant's but still having less than 50% weight will give you the same stamina regen as a person wearing full Black Leather and only being at less than 50% weight.

But doesnt rthe giants armour say it sepcifically lowers it?

I think a few do, havels giants, say something like that I am pretty sure. Maybe even smoughs?

I think its true of the "heaviest" sets even if they don't say so in their item description, but thats just suspicion. Still, these problems with inequality to armour could probably at least be helped along by increasing just how much stamina is lost to wear them, right now it simply is too low. Like blaine said, any weapon can be made good, there is no con to using a weapon but there is no benefit to using a low armour either. You can try to rely on skill all you want but if you are in a 0 poise set, with low resistance nothing will save you from stun-locking while someone with 75 poise is doing the same roll speed as you. Theres just no con to wearing heavy armour... well, other than looking kind of boring/ugly.

Stamina is everything in this game, if you had to sacrifice it for defence there would be a decrease in the number of people who would I think

Why not just implement a hard-set weight limit on every character of a weight that cannot be exceeded in order to be able to roll effectively? A limit not affected by endurance levels. This way not even RoFaP, Father's mask, DWGR, Havel's Ring, etc... can help you change the quality of your roll. Seeing as how you are over the weight limit no manner of gear mixing and matching will be able to override the fact that you are overweight.

Yukon wrote:I think a few do, havels giants, say something like that I am pretty sure. Maybe even smoughs?

I think its true of the "heaviest" sets even if they don't say so in their item description, but thats just suspicion. Still, these problems with inequality to armour could probably at least be helped along by increasing just how much stamina is lost to wear them, right now it simply is too low.

They say it in their description similarly to the way that heavy weapons also say that "they are impossible to weild with human strength." As I said, stamina regen is tied into how close you are to your maximum equip load. It's not like those specific armors have a "-X amount of stamina regen" debuff applied to them, just like how those weapons can actually be weilded. The description of that was added because the developers likely never intended them to be used in <50% builds. Make a character with 99% of their equip burden being used by any kind of armor and tell me the reduction to stamina regen isn't significant.

Well you learn something new everyday. Thanks Reaper.

Oops, sorry reaper I guess I missed your last post.

I retreat a little now, sounds like we are headed for math n' numburz.

@Pendant

I don't know, that sounds kind of broken. If it was a set weight, no matter what, then small light weapons would allow people to stack more armor. This would advantage dex weapons that already have high DPS by also giving them more freedom in armor choice. Whereas someone who would want a heavy weapon would be forced to either go heavy, or wear light armor and have no poise (no poise, for Str weapons, is a terrible idea! Especially if you were faced against a fast weapon user who has more poise than you...). It would force people into a play style too much, rather than giving them the possibility to balance their build themselves (want Str weapon and heavy armor, then you have to pump End and make sacrifices somewhere else, for example).

Tying specific pros and cons to armor pieces would be different, since it would be the same for everyone. It wouldn't advantage or disadvantage the Dex or Str player, it would be up to each to balance their build how they want.

Yukon wrote:Oops, sorry reaper I guess I missed your last post.

I retreat a little now, sounds like we are headed for math n' numburz.

I don't know specifics on it lol, I'm never good with the number-crunching part of theorycrafting
I've done enough fat-rolling builds to know that there's a definite difference there, as well as had cosplaying builds with weird endurance amounts to know that there's a difference between, say, 35% weight and 49% weight despite the fact that they're both in the "<50%" category. I'd be real interested if someone could actually find statistics on it though

^^ the 'forum hunk' might be able to impress there. I seem to recall he has a somewhat more credible name before today

So far I have never gone over 50 burden, so I don't think I've seen what you are talking about first hand, I don't really like how the heaviest armour looks often.