Hey ! I just wanted to make a few points about armors currently in the game, and how they were back then (as best as we know it of course).
I have done research, yes, before you ask. All my points, you can find serious places on the internet that agree with me. Again, I may be wrong, but I know that there aren't MORE evidence that I'm wrong than that I'm right.
Now, to the points.
1 - Armor protection values.I KNOW you can mod those for YO, but what interests me is the MMO. I would think the devs would go for the unrealistic "Each armor counters one type of damage, except for padded and leather who are weaker, but lighter".
Well, listen to me, and get that into ya brains
Plate armor is NOT vulnerable to piercing. It deflected arrows, spears, pikes, morningstars, and obviously swords. Except in SOME cases where the weapons / projectiles were made to penetrate heavy armors, but in that case, it would still be a bad idea, because the weapon would get stuck, and if the guy in plate is still alive, you're dead. Those skeptical
: remember that plate armor is never worn alone. In the game, it is overlapping mail, and padded armor. So.. yea.
As for
Scale.. it was not really used actually.. not by western nations that is. It was used quite a lot by Byzantines I think, but that's it ! I have no idea how protective it was. I guess kinda like mail.
Mail alone was VERY good against slashing damage, but weak against thin tip arrows and piercing in general, so that's already doable in game.
Leather ? Leather alone is as good as clothing. Leather by itself provides very little protection, almost nothing. I'm not even sure it really existed, probably invented my movie makers, like a lot of other things we can *sigh* see in this game.
BUT, some armors were made primarily of leather ! There were such armors called Lamelars, Cuir Bouillis..
Very interesting video made by Scholagladiatoria about them
:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUPIUHpkK88Finally,
Padded Armor : Padded armors, were EXTREMELY common and it is GOOD that it is in the game. I'm fine with those ones.. they were quite vulnerable to slashing, very vulnerable to piercing, but they were good to absorb energy from blunt strikes (that's why men at arms in plate also wore such padded armors bellow their plate and chain, not only to make it more comfortable !).
So that's it about protection values.. basically the game got that all wrong except maybe for padded armors.
2 - WEIGHT. Really. That's one of the typical things invented by movies.Armors were NOT so heavy that they would slow you down dramatically. The weight was applied on all parts of the body, evenly, and as such, you could go very fast with full plate, the only difference would be that you would consume more energy, so you could run at almost the same speed as a guy in cloth, but you would exhaust yourself quite a bit faster (not THAT faster tho).
Let me give you some facts to explain.
Let's take the heaviest armor in LIF
: Plate. In LiF, unless you have crazy high strenght, full set of full plate makes you reallllllly slow compared to "lighter" kinds of armor. So slow that it affects how you fight in melee.. way too much.
But in reality, FULL set of FULL plate weighted maximum 25 kilos.. and as I said, it's not like having 25 kg in your hands.. it is spread evenly on your body, which makes it feel a lot lighter.
So the fact that people in full plate were slow pokes that couldn't move or pursue someone for shit is just.. a myth. Invented by movies just to have an excuse to make bad / unimportant characters (the armored ones) slow in combat for the heroes to kill.
So what to do in game ? Simply remove the speed debuff of having an armor, and also remove the crazy extra drain of stamina while running.. remake the system, so, in general, fighting in armor will demand better stamina management (not to the point it is the best / only way to defeat one in such equipment tho). For example, make swinging take a bit more, running also, spinning..
Listening to those points is the only way to make armors actually worth something, and for ever remove the naked fighters from the game (because that's what we want, right ?). Plus, it would be more realistic, and so far, combat wise, realism as been SERIOUSLY lacking.
You must be already writing stuff about balance, so let me give you a few example of simple game design to keep stuff realistic.
Same example
: plate armor. If the devs would be so good to make it realistic, it would be essentially impregnable to slashing and piercing damage.. all swords, most axes, all arrows, most bolts (except the very heavy ones shot at close range with an arbalest.. that would definitly penetrate). And, at the same time, it wouldn't make you that much slower..
So, yea, it would be OP. Now, think for a bit. How could you fix something being OP, except by nerfing / removing it ? Well, make it hard to obtain ! If you make the process of making plate very time consuming and expensive (time consuming part is very important, as ressources can be easily accumulated, little matters the needed quantity), plate armors are going to be hugely expensive, so only the most successful players will have access to full plates.
You could also make full / royal plate only wearable by members of countries with a certain rank, so only kings / dukes / generals.. could use them (that's a lot dumber, I know, I would largely prefer the previous idea).
Same thing for other very heavy armors..
Sorry for the wall of text. If any of you have any points to add against / in my favor, feel free to do so here ! I will happily answer. I also really hope the devs read this, but I know this is a lot to ask ofc !