Feedback: Armors

General Feedback
#1

Okay from what i am seeing i do feel like the balance between light and heavy armor is too tilted to heavy.

Heavy armor get high HP, def which is fine but light armor is more close to Force armor and only get stm.

The trouble come from crafting aspect too. You could make a heavy armor as evasive as light armor and it be far superior to light since it retain its buff of heavy. As it is i do feel like light armor could had used a tiny evasion buff build into it from start. Even if it just like 2-3 per pieces so it stand out on it own little better or heavy should have evasion penalty.

This would also help for people who do mix up armor pieces lightly to get stm or force user trying to get a tiny better phys def while giving people who do focus on light armor small better edge in evasion over high def/HP.

2 Likes
#2

You’ll find that combat on SWLOR is more about managing resources than just blasting down an enemy. As time goes by and AI and NPC’s gets polished more and more this will only become more the case. I’m of the belief that heavy armor is the weakest option for this reason as you only wind up with a much larger pool of HP that you are not equipped to maintain because it doesn’t grant stamina or force points/regen. Heavy armor can survive massive damage in a short time but for any engagement beyond a few rounds anything heavy armor can do, light/force armor can do better, unless you have dedicated healers with you.

Giving heavy armor evasion penalties defeats its entire purpose and would cancel out any defense bonuses it grants.

#3

The thing is that, right now, the difference between heavy armor / force and light are just a stand point of having more stamina or force mana pool and regen.

In heavy armor you have at the same time damage mitigation and health improvement.
To put on exemple of what I saw, often against npc like an Tusken Elite I saw a heavy armor character take 20-ish damage. out of a pool of between 800-1500 health depending on vitality, needing less heal when hit.
Where a light/force armor user would take 50-ish. out of a pool of 450-ish health, that can melt so fast. (During events you can get one shoted if 2+ ennemies target you.)

Evasion wise, all armor are the same other than depending on character stat. But with the builds evasion will be mostly the same.Standard hit chance are between 50% - 75% against similar level opponent.

Alright, crafted armor can make a light armor on par of a “vanilla” heavy armor with 18 enhancement slot. Adding 72 defence at tier 4 if all used, or 576 health, 72 evasion, 90 stm or force, etc…
Like heavy armor can have the same boost than light and force (without regen). Or making heavy armor even more mitigating damage.
But the only uniqueness of light and force are that they give a regen.

Basicly it just make heavy armor the standard armor, then Force and Light the “support” one to mix with.
It make full light or force less interesting and unique.

A solution that I would see, it to keep heavy armor as it is.
But maybe add evasion to light / force armor, having a lowered profile, or something to lower npc attention. Where heavy take damage, light evade them, and maybe put force armor in between ?
Just a quick thought.

2 Likes
#4

I’ve found that in working with the numbers, it’s largely the stat delta values that give the most damage difference. Difference between for example, and 18, 22, and 26 VIT can be absolutely huge when reducing incoming damage.
Heavy armor has better defense values, but force armor has better force defense, which I think is fine. Most NPCs don’t check force defense at all though so force defense is mostly a PvP thing, with a few exceptions like sandswimmers doing force damage which checks force defense.
Light armors give stamina but they tend to get the short end of the stick. While heavy armor gets high physical defense+low force defense, and force armor gets low physical defense+high force defense, light armor tends to get both low physical defense and low force defense, making it defense wise suboptimal.
For example: take helmets defense values at T5:
Heavy: 18/10 Total: +28
Light: 10/10 Total: +20
Force: 9/20 Total: +29

Possible solution: give light armors a better balance of physical+force defense? Though admittedly light armor is the only way to boost stamina currently.

3 Likes
#5

Currently standing, every single person on the server “Requires” 20+ Vit, no matter what your build is. This is not counting PVP or DM Events. This basic mob facts. The genuine answer is basically to just get better stats, which as a light armor user, is kinda impossible as it stands. The armors are a bit unbalanced. This is a work in progress I know. There is no “Manage your resources better”. Thats literally ignoring issues and telling people to just “Get better”. No, I have 2 sets of knockdown, 2 forms of healing, high evasion, 25 str, and guess what…at the end of the day…when you are being mobbed by 3-7 on one…no matter how you approach it with precious resources…it does not matter one lick at all. You are “Dead” in under a minute. You can’t outrun them, you can’t out heal the damage. Especially when every single healing is on a timer, yes my healing is over 40 as well. There is a MASSIVE comparison between getting 25-30 damage…and 50-80 damage a shot. especially when the health difference is 280-340 to 700-1900. Again, not everyone on the server should HAVE to have 20+ Vit to survive…there needs to be a balance were not everyone has to be heavy armor to survive or be a force user.

1 Like
#6

If you want to be able to resist force powers, get will. If you want to hit hard, get perception or might. If you want to dodge, get agility. If you want to be able to take a beating, get vitality. Completely reworking how combat works because you want to be able to take a beating without stat investment really doesn’t seem like the way forward.

Work with a dedicated tank. Or figure out why you’re only healing 40hp. (Are you using benevolence or trying to outheal through regen?)

#7

  1. I was talking even base damage, being shot for 40-80 damage easily by 3-7 each is nearly impossible to keep up. I can hit like a truck. I have 18 VIT and am still working it up but dying in less then 1 min.

  2. I am a non force user, I have Medic up to 5. It is nearly impossible to do every single stat as it stands. As it stands as a non force user focused in Str, you need Str, Perc, Vit and Agi if you want to be anywhere decent as a build but get Will just so you can survive the force…do you realize how many points that is? Also to “get good” you need them ALL over 20. Which is entirely unrealistic.

  3. Yes I am in tier 5 gear. Yes I know right now Mobs are part of the issue on Tattooine. Though ignoring that Armors after a complete revamp have issues, is literally ignoring that there CAN be fixes made to make them at least reasonably on par with Heavy. Kobra made some really good suggestions. Lamarr even made some good points. Ignoring them is just again…slapping the face of anyone that says there could be some tweaking to balance them.

#8

Idk, MGT builds just stack MGT/PER/VIT and dump rest into AGI or WIL. Even without any WIL scaling at all the First Aid kit will heal you for like 140-160 HP. I agree that Heavy Armor is currently the superior choice for most situations, unless you are playing a dedicated DPS/Medic build that needs the regen in order to sustain itself, but it’s nowhere near as bad as you are painting it to be.

I accidentally gave Nrrax the wrong gear names to make, so am running an almost exclusive T4 Light Armor set with Evasion mods, which is far from optimal in PvE, quite the opposite in fact, and have none of these issues even if I didn’t utilize a single Force Power.

Yes, Vitality is required if you don’t have a dedicated tank with you, that’s kind of the point. Skipping out on that state to get full scalling on all of your damage abilities + medic/force abilities should leave you with some kind of disadvantage, if it doesn’t, we may just as well completely get rid of build diversity in the first place.

#9

Replying to Kobra, It would make sense for Light armor to have equal values of Physical and Force defense, as a sort of middle of the road option. That would help it reduce damage more evenly across the board without undermining the ability to specialize provided by the other two.

And yeah, Light armor is the only way to get Stamina, but that’s true for the others as well. Heavy Armor is the best way to get HP. Force Armor is the best way to get FP. There’s no reason I can see for Light armor to have the worst overall defensive bonuses.

I think the root of the problem here is that Might/Per/Vitality builds occupy the role of both tank and Melee DPS, since they have the best survivability and second best damage behind Ranged DPS, without any need to focus on one or the other when they’re gearing.

That puts the traditional MDPS role, which holds a middle ground between the survivability of a tank and the damage of RDPS, in a position where it has none of those things. They deal the same amount of damage as tanks (since everybody gets 3 APR by default and stacks Physical Damage mods) but with half the Physical Defense and a quarter of the HP. Evasion isn’t relevant enough to make up for that, since most enemies have high Perception specifically to counter it.

Tweaking the numbers is something that’s going to happen over time anyway, but I think this is less an issue about armor specifically and more an issue of gameplay. The players in those Melee DPS or Spellsword roles are making a lot of sacrifices, but getting very little in return. They want big damage, but the mechanics force them into a support role. Combat balance aside, that is something that needs to be addressed if we want build diversity.

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#10

Go sicko mode on rebalancing: increase mob damage at lower levels, punish people for leaving Viscara w/o 25 vit.