Armor normalization

[ElPerro]

Looks like Starvault new genius idea is to normalize all plate armor sets so the only real difference is cosmetic. Like cutting back the armor pieces from 10 to 5 wasnt enough, instead of using their brains to balance merc armor they just gave up lol.

They are slowly taking out all sandbox aspects and turning the game into just another generic trash game without a soul.

 

[Emdash]

wat who said that?

edit: yo they won't balance trinks / skills / clades but they wanna normalize armor haha

 

[Iloros]

There's a big confusion here. Starvault is so alienated to the concept of balance they call balancing normalisation.

If you read the whole thing, the armors will still have differences they just wont have such smaller total pool of stats compared to merc plate. Draco might go from 51 69 60 to 51 69 63 thats a viable but clearly different armor set compared to mercs 52 66 66.

So they are just balancing armors by buffing weak ones really. And this is a positivr change as merc plate armor out of all the items is one of the biggest outliers in its category.

In short SV is confused and calls balancing armors normalization so people get confused lmao

 

[MortalEnjoyer42069]

If only we had a community manager that could parse together all this broken English and mistranslated key concepts.

 

[Emdash]

There's a big confusion here. Starvault is so alienated to the concept of balance they call balancing normalisation.

If you read the whole thing, the armors will still have differences they just wont have such smaller total pool of stats compared to merc plate. Draco might go from 51 69 60 to 51 69 63 thats a viable but clearly different armor set compared to mercs 52 66 66.

So they are just balancing armors by buffing weak ones really. And this is a positivr change as merc plate armor out of all the items is one of the biggest outliers in its category.

In short SV is confused and calls balancing armors normalization so people get confused lmao

why this, why now, tho?

Edit: I mean, people are playing a bit. The world is still pretty dead, but less dead, towns are poppin'. Can we just like make the game a bit more fun for now and not change shit? Imagine Sardu when skilling up is JUST AS AIDS. That's the kinda shit they need to work on. Make being out in the world fun so even if you die you are anxious to be back out.

 

[ElPerro]

There's a big confusion here. Starvault is so alienated to the concept of balance they call balancing normalisation.

If you read the whole thing, the armors will still have differences they just wont have such smaller total pool of stats compared to merc plate. Draco might go from 51 69 60 to 51 69 63 thats a viable but clearly different armor set compared to mercs 52 66 66.

So they are just balancing armors by buffing weak ones really. And this is a positivr change as merc plate armor out of all the items is one of the biggest outliers in its category.

In short SV is confused and calls balancing armors normalization so people get confused lmao

They did say "As such, we plan to adjust the stats of the lesser used plate styles to be much closer to each other, making your choice of armor style mostly a cosmetic preference rather than for its stats."

If they are just buffing the weak ones to catch up with merc while retaining what makes them different then thats good, but it sounds like the stat differences will be negligible

 

[Iloros]

They did say "As such, we plan to adjust the stats of the lesser used plate styles to be much closer to each other, making your choice of armor style mostly a cosmetic preference rather than for its stats."

If they are just buffing the weak ones to catch up with merc while retaining what makes them different then thats good, but it sounds like the stat differences will be negligible

Well lets say draco goes to 51 69 63 while merc is 52 66 66 rn (rounded up) thats small difference but clearly different armor and stats. Thats good

 

[Iloros]

why this, why now, tho?

Edit: I mean, people are playing a bit. The world is still pretty dead, but less dead, towns are poppin'. Can we just like make the game a bit more fun for now and not change shit? Imagine Sardu when skilling up is JUST AS AIDS. That's the kinda shit they need to work on. Make being out in the world fun so even if you die you are anxious to be back out.

This is something that must be done and is such a low effort thing. Buffing weak shit and nerfing strong shit. You can do many things at once. And one of the reason game has low number is 0 variety in general. Merc plate hgb age 31 alvarin is 30% of pop and 0.0000000001% of possible build combinations. So if we see different sillethes for start thats good.

Should they have nerfed Alvarins before merc plate, sure. Should they nerf merc plate or buff other armors 100%

 

[Emdash]

The thing is, draco and risar soldier are light heavy. Draco not even heavy in MO1. Draco fits its role. Risar soldier is all ways dogshit, and that would be a welcome change. Merc is heavy and since it came out, it was the best, but there was no competition. Its pierce is probably a little too high. Merc is like... all around, heaviest. Knight is supposed to be FF. Draco seems mounted. Not sure where they were going with soldier.

Soldier needs to be a viable light heavy ground set, something better than banded when you use metal. It is, but it's not. I think it's an overreaction to re-balance everything when there is only one direct competitor to it: knight, and can easily buff knight a bit. Fix Risar in general.

Like, if draco gets buffed, will the weight stay the same? Cuz like I said, I really think draco makes a lot of sense for so many builds.

In short, I would prefer for them to rework risar solider in general, but for TK and Draco, lean into what they were supposed to be, don't just add in some d because. I don't see how that makes sense. Could just subtract from merc, too. +2 armor is like +10 hp, don't know why it's a thing.

Edit: I mean they could also adjust the weight of the light heavy sets down. They could adjust the weight of TK down, too. There are options.

 

[Iloros]

The thing is, draco and risar soldier are light heavy. Draco not even heavy in MO1. Draco fits its role. Risar soldier is all ways dogshit, and that would be a welcome change. Merc is heavy and since it came out, it was the best, but there was no competition. Its pierce is probably a little too high. Merc is like... all around, heaviest. Knight is supposed to be FF. Draco seems mounted. Not sure where they were going with soldier.

Soldier needs to be a viable light heavy ground set, something better than banded when you use metal. It is, but it's not. I think it's an overreaction to re-balance everything when there is only one direct competitor to it: knight, and can easily buff knight a bit. Fix Risar in general.

Like, if draco gets buffed, will the weight stay the same? Cuz like I said, I really think draco makes a lot of sense for so many builds.

In short, I would prefer for them to rework risar solider in general, but for TK and Draco, lean into what they were supposed to be, don't just add in some d because. I don't see how that makes sense. Could just subtract from merc, too. +2 armor is like +10 hp, don't know why it's a thing.

Edit: I mean they could also adjust the weight of the light heavy sets down. They could adjust the weight of TK down, too. There are options.

hard disagree on almost all the claims other than risar being bad, merc plate is so much better than tind knight and draco is only useful in super nieche situations. If we had 30 armors niecheness like that is fine, if we have only 4 armor sets all 4 need to be very good and comparable or there will be 1/2 outlines on 80% of characters which is bad. The game suffers from outliers dominating almost everything, spells, pets, weapons, armors, clades, masteries, balancing is good.

 

[Emdash]

hard disagree on almost all the claims other than risar being bad, merc plate is so much better than tind knight and draco is only useful in super nieche situations. If we had 30 armors niecheness like that is fine, if we have only 4 armor sets all 4 need to be very good and comparable or there will be 1/2 outlines on 80% of characters which is bad. The game suffers from outliers dominating almost everything, spells, pets, weapons, armors, clades, masteries, balancing is good.

Like I said, if I keep subbed, I am gonna make all my cron into cron draco before they realize what they've done. lol.

Hard to make 30 armor niche when there are 3 defenses. There is blunt (risar, but it's worse blunt than banded??, ended up being the MID armor,) pierce (draco, which is good, does suffer from being weak to blunt, but... it makes sense,) and slash (Tin Knight.) The issue with Merc is that it's got no notable weakness while being close enough to / better than the others in everything except blunt, prol. It's the fourth set in a 3 type game. It should really just have been MID everything.

When cron Draco is like 45-77-70 at 19.5 weight I'm gonna die laughing.

So, you have an armor with no weaknesses that competes with every other set top-end, and the solution is to normalize all armors, not fix risar and give merc a weakness, heh.

You said "we only have 4 armor sets so all need to be good," no, they all need to have a role. If an armor set protects against slashing and nobody plays slashing anymore, then that's not a reason to change the armor set. It will become useful again as the game adapts. Again, having one set that is GOOD vs each type of dmg and one set that is MID against everything is the smartest choice, IMO. It's like that now, except they fucked up Risar and TN is kinda too weak vs slashing, but the main issue is just that Merc is THE BEST, and they thought it being heavy would balance it out, but now there is so much creep that anyone can wear it if they spec right.

 

[Iloros]

Like I said, if I keep subbed, I am gonna make all my cron into cron draco before they realize what they've done. lol.

Hard to make 30 armor niche when there are 3 defenses. There is blunt (risar, but it's worse blunt than banded??, ended up being the MID armor,) pierce (draco, which is good, does suffer from being weak to blunt, but... it makes sense,) and slash (Tin Knight.) The issue with Merc is that it's got no notable weakness while being close enough to / better than the others in everything except blunt, prol. It's the fourth set in a 3 type game. It should really just have been MID everything.

When cron Draco is like 45-77-70 at 19.5 weight I'm gonna die laughing.

So, you have an armor with no weaknesses that competes with every other set top-end, and the solution is to normalize all armors, not fix risar and give merc a weakness, heh.

You said "we only have 4 armor sets so all need to be good," no, they all need to have a role. If an armor set protects against slashing and nobody plays slashing anymore, then that's not a reason to change the armor set. It will become useful again as the game adapts. Again, having one set that is GOOD vs each type of dmg and one set that is MID against everything is the smartest choice, IMO. It's like that now, except they fucked up Risar and TN is kinda too weak vs slashing, but the main issue is just that Merc is THE BEST, and they thought it being heavy would balance it out, but now there is so much creep that anyone can wear it if they spec right.

And you will gain almost no beenfit over tind knight or merc plate and a small benefit over risar but less blunt. Also cron is way more expensive and worse than tung, which most people cna wear. You will do nothing and not be an outlier with that cron armor, it will not be OP or become meta, that I promise. 19.5 weight doesnt mean anything and blunt is abysmal and every weapon has blunt.

AND AGAIN, you making tons of draco, and I already know I wont use 1 draco piece because I prefer both stats and look of risar/tind knight mix.

Cron in general is pretty weak as full set. Tung is legit better stats than it and 3x less expensive and oghmium is like 1.5x the cost and 2x the defenses as defenses are % based. You arent inventing the meta brother. This change is good and your take is misinformed. If they push armors out the one that worries me the most is tind knight, but I think overall even fi its the best, it wont be near as much of an outlier as merc plate used to be.

 

[Iloros]

Like I said, if I keep subbed, I am gonna make all my cron into cron draco before they realize what they've done. lol.

Hard to make 30 armor niche when there are 3 defenses. There is blunt (risar, but it's worse blunt than banded??, ended up being the MID armor,) pierce (draco, which is good, does suffer from being weak to blunt, but... it makes sense,) and slash (Tin Knight.) The issue with Merc is that it's got no notable weakness while being close enough to / better than the others in everything except blunt, prol. It's the fourth set in a 3 type game. It should really just have been MID everything.

When cron Draco is like 45-77-70 at 19.5 weight I'm gonna die laughing.

So, you have an armor with no weaknesses that competes with every other set top-end, and the solution is to normalize all armors, not fix risar and give merc a weakness, heh.

You said "we only have 4 armor sets so all need to be good," no, they all need to have a role. If an armor set protects against slashing and nobody plays slashing anymore, then that's not a reason to change the armor set. It will become useful again as the game adapts. Again, having one set that is GOOD vs each type of dmg and one set that is MID against everything is the smartest choice, IMO. It's like that now, except they fucked up Risar and TN is kinda too weak vs slashing, but the main issue is just that Merc is THE BEST, and they thought it being heavy would balance it out, but now there is so much creep that anyone can wear it if they spec right.

And the role thing makes no sense. The way you balance games is you make everything viable, you invest time and effort into a model for it to be used, not for it to make ANOTHER MODEL (slashing weapons) not used lmao. This leads to more variety, still differences and unique builds and armor sets, and your suggestion leads to hard meta and 1 armor being worn and some weapons not working + way harder to balance. Games balance my way, nobody balances the way you suggest.

 

[Emdash]

Games balance my way, nobody balances the way you suggest.

are you high? That's the way it was and they are just thinking about changing now haha.

I dunno. Must be some miscommunication here. It didn't seem that complex.

But yeah balancing 'your way' is the 'normalization' that is happening. Glad you are getting what you wanted, but it's wild to say strengths and weaknesses are impossible to balance when it's been that way for the whole of MO history. I will not say any more, cuz I dunno what to say without just being like NO. NO. NO. etc. Seems like an impasse. Have fun, but remember you said Draco will not become meta, for anything I suppose; we shall see! I bet it does for mounted. If I am right, remember what I said and don't be so quick to dismiss someone's PoV.

 

[Iloros]

are you high? That's the way it was and they are just thinking about changing now haha.

I dunno. Must be some miscommunication here. It didn't seem that complex.

But yeah balancing 'your way' is the 'normalization' that is happening. Glad you are getting what you wanted, but it's wild to say strengths and weaknesses are impossible to balance when it's been that way for the whole of MO history. I will not say any more, cuz I dunno what to say without just being like NO. NO. NO. etc. Seems like an impasse. Have fun, but remember you said Draco will not become meta, for anything I suppose; we shall see! I bet it does for mounted. If I am right, remember what I said and don't be so quick to dismiss someone's PoV.

It wasn't that way, merc place was used in 90% of situation, tind knight in 5% and the other 2 in 5%. Also i said games, not a singular 500 pop game. Your way is just terrible

 

[MortalEnjoyer42069]

Not to derail this thread, but who cares about plate armor when ivory carapace is about to enter the game. Just run banded Ivory Carapace/Iron Fur and never even consider that another set even exist. It's gonna be around 62/62/62. Sure use steel, cronite, tungsteel, or oghmium. Guess what, some dumbass elf is gonna .5 your ass with magic that bypasses any armor you have. Or even better, a fighter is gonna use a lightning fast 1H hammer that completely ignores your metal armor.

 

[Emdash]

It wasn't that way, merc place was used in 90% of situation, tind knight in 5% and the other 2 in 5%. Also i said games, not a singular 500 pop game. Your way is just terrible

I dunno why you keep talking about my way. I was looking at the way it was and saying it seems obvious they were trying to make sets different and for a reason. Merc plate was the best, but it was also heavy. You keep saying use Tung, but Tung Merc was not something many people could mess with pre trink / mastery / human armor wt buff.

Now that weight is not as large of an issue (which is sad imo, another neuter change,) the OPness of Merc stands out even more.

Your mentions of aesthetics are completely irrelevant to armor balance. Maybe they could add armor skins or something and have core armor stats?

I still maintain that while these problems are long term and it is good that they have been addressed, they are being addressed in a low effort way with crazy reasoning (so players can wear the kind of armor they like the look of... lol, no offense, but that makes no sense to me as something to take into account when 'balancing.')

You said a lot of other shit and assumed a lot of other shit, and I'm not gonna address it. Was just saying it's yet another streamline change that I dislike. MO's flavor is why people play, and they continue to take it away because think every little thing is an inconvenience... which is ironic because there are so many things about MO that really are trash and make no sense (and make people quit,) and people have just accepted those.

Whatever, at least they stepped back on Prom and fixed Clade 15+. I am much less unhappy than I was.

 

[MortalEnjoyer42069]

I don't know how you can say that about armor. Armor in this game is a joke, even oghmium tier levels you're still going to die in seconds if mobbed. Magic is still going to obliterate you, weak spots is still going to ignore a large portion of your defense, and armor bypass is going to neuter your massive time invest and make bone tissue tier. Any game, MO included that has you make weeks/months long invest that you can lose in seconds to some bullshit cheese or the endless bugs is just a trash system. A system that is straight insulting to anyone with a life outside of a screen.

 

[Iloros]

I dunno why you keep talking about my way. I was looking at the way it was and saying it seems obvious they were trying to make sets different and for a reason. Merc plate was the best, but it was also heavy. You keep saying use Tung, but Tung Merc was not something many people could mess with pre trink / mastery / human armor wt buff.

Now that weight is not as large of an issue (which is sad imo, another neuter change,) the OPness of Merc stands out even more.

Your mentions of aesthetics are completely irrelevant to armor balance. Maybe they could add armor skins or something and have core armor stats?

I still maintain that while these problems are long term and it is good that they have been addressed, they are being addressed in a low effort way with crazy reasoning (so players can wear the kind of armor they like the look of... lol, no offense, but that makes no sense to me as something to take into account when 'balancing.')

You said a lot of other shit and assumed a lot of other shit, and I'm not gonna address it. Was just saying it's yet another streamline change that I dislike. MO's flavor is why people play, and they continue to take it away because think every little thing is an inconvenience... which is ironic because there are so many things about MO that really are trash and make no sense (and make people quit,) and people have just accepted those.

Whatever, at least they stepped back on Prom and fixed Clade 15+. I am much less unhappy than I was.

You dont know what you are talking about. OPness of merc doesnt stand out when all 4 armors are samd amount of defenses now. Now you can wear what you prefer and I akready see much higher variation. That is one way to balance sure they could have done somd goofy stuff and made all armors extremes but why bother. Also the way it was doesnt matter this is a low pop irrelevant game that you cant use as standard.

 

[Emdash]

They don't need to be extreme, just different.

Like MOEnjoyer said, I mean... addressing magic damage, offering either weak spot resist or something to kind of reduce weak spot dmg... those kind of things are good. They could look into that. Something like that, like say giving Draco magic resist and giving Soldier weak spot resist, leaving them lighter, and leaving them less armor, would be good.

They really did flatten everything. Whatever people said about it not being true 'normalization,' it turns out they made stuff within like 1 point of each other. Makes no sense, especially since they removed light heavy class of armor. Superrip. Making me join the MO discord again to bitch.