Can you imagine the rage on the forums if they actually did this? OMG THEY ARE DUMBING DOWN EVEN MORE

Mind you, I think it's an idea that could actually work really well.

While I kinda see light as the medium, and 'cloth' (like mages robes) as the light in Oblivion, adding an actual medium on top of that couldnt hurt. So you hve something to wear as like an archer. Heavier than a thieves light armor, but not as heavy as a warriors thick plate armor. It would also give warriors the chance to wear medium so they are more mobile while still having ample protection.

I'd like to see a return of all three armor types, and in all honesty I think most of the things we have as light armor should be medium armor. I really believe that Mithril and Glass should be medium armor, and leather, fur, chainmail, etc should remain light armor. This leaves room for newer armor types I think.

Nah, chainmail should probably be medium. That stuff's actually pretty heavy. Yes on fur and leather though.

I want all three back aswell.

I suppose I could be remembering wrongly on this, but I dont believe so as in Daggerfall you couldnt wear certain armors due to restrictions in their make, which you had an active part in like collecting ebony to make ebony armor, once again I could be remembering wrongly, but I find the argument that different types are unnecessary to be silly, so what if they magic differently or protect from different elements.

The argument that different armors dont require different skills is plain silly, someone that moves/fights good in light is not gonna know how to move/fight well in heavy/medium except by practice and training that is a real world fact,.... point of reference,... when I first became a sailor I had to learn to do everything in a protective life vest, this was quite a pain for some time until I became accustomed to it and no longer noticed its restrictions thats because after a time they were no longer restrictions to me, and that was just a vest weighing no more the 5-6 pounds most, more to point would be armored vests soldiers wear or fighting with a backpack/rucksack/radio on you back and a helmet on your head and by ancient armors these would be light to medium pieces of armor at most.

As few people already said, remove all armor skills and make it like in Fallout ...

I wouldn't mind the return of Medium Armor but I don't know how they would bring it back as a skill.

No, I rather have it as it is, or even fuse all those skills to just armor, divining it only makes the game more complicated than it needs to be and gets in the way. Or hell, get rid of the skill altogether, I never found it usefull or interesting in the slightest.

Morrowind had a lot more of almost everything, so that doesn't prove anything.

I think what Shades meant is that if there are no armor skills you are free to mix and match different armor sets without penalty. By contrast if a character in Oblivion who was highly skilled in Light Armor and had no skill in Heavy Armor tried to wear a mix of light and heavy armors that character would be penalized.

It's even more glaring in Morrowind. You can have a character who has a high Medium Armor skill and low Heavy & Light Armor skills. If that character tried to wear a mix of say Steel and Leather they'd have a horrible AR even though the combination of armor they are wearing is effectively "medium" in weight.



Actually historically chainmail had about the same actual weight as plate armor. And the plate armor had the weight more evenly distributet so it was actually easier to move around in it. Chainmail is only "medium" in terms of protection, in terms of weight it belongs among "heavy" armors.



There are two things to consider here.

1. Proper usage of armor does require a certain amount of skill and you do have to get used to it. But it's not on the same scale as mastering the use of swords. Armor skills might be justifiable on a scale of 1-25, but not on a scale of 1-100.

2. The second thing to consider is the effect on gameplay. Armor skills encourage players to pick one of them and focus only on armors from that specific category. Maybe you find an artifact cuirass but because you chose another type of armor to specialize in you're better off sticking to your normal armor. No armor skills on the other hand allow players to freely mix and match any pieces of armor they come across. And to me that is simply more fun to play.

-temporarily under revision-

I'm glad to see that far more people voted in favor of returning the skill, and then proceeded not to say anything at all, than those who came here and did nothing but claim armor skills should be removed. It really doesn't even dignify a response, for most of them. There was -one- bloke, whose post I can't quite find again at the moment, who did have a rather interesting idea... but it really had nothing to do with The Elder Scrolls series' way of handling armor. It would be much better used on a unique title, rather than being amended to one with an already-extant system.

I love the way armor skills used to be set up. Having four tiers, ranging from Unarmored to Heavy, was quite fine by me. I enjoyed having to consider my skill level, as opposed to simply being able to excel with everything without having to put any effort into it at all. I enjoyed having to have my characters practice and practice and study and learn in order to adequately wield armor.

Oblivion dumbed it down once already. I'm one of the crowd who would be right back out there complaining again if they removed the skill entirely. What kind of lazy, mindless game-design process would that be? Why have skills at all, then? If one suit of armor is the same as any other, save for stats... then why is one spell any different? Or one weapon?

The faulty logic that somehow removing armor skills would suddenly make armor all better is laughable.

The problem with armor and armor varieties has nothing to do with the skills attached to them... and everything to do with the offending player. The armor system of Oblivion was ludicrously bad. It's one saving grace was the fact that... damn... armor was very pretty. Otherwise, everything about Morrowind's system... from the way it allowed the player to mix and match armor to the ability to wear clothes under it... was superior. Not entirely without flaw, mind you: there was a noticeable lack of higher-end Medium Armors once you approached the end-game, and some armors seemed a bit unbalanced when you considered their protection values...

Even still, the overall system was quite exemplary. The problem most people are describing here is their own laziness... an unwillingness to be bothered training up a skill, and a desire to instead have everything lain out at their fingertips without any kind of structure or restriction. That's not an issue with the game. That's an issue with the gamer.

Here is how The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind handled armor...


Wear some Light Armor... go out and cut down some cliff-racers... learn how to properly wield Light Armor.
Wear some Medium Armor... go out and pick a fight with a few skeletons... learn how to properly wield Medium Armor.
Wear some Heavy Armor... go out and slaughter some slaughterfish... learn how to properly wield Heavy Armor


How complex is that? How complicated can it be, when it can be adequately summed up in three sentences? You could do it in your sleep... and some people actually did. Boo-hoo... it takes time to master Heavy Armor. Big deal. Get over it. If players aren't willing to invest any kind of time or effort into playing the game... then they have no place acting as if their opinions on how the game plays should matter. There are plenty of other games for that sort of gamer, and the day that The Elder Scrolls finally topples off the edge of that slippery slope... is the day I stop giving them my money.

Obviously, this little rant doesn't apply to anyone who suggested armor skills be removed but then provided another possible alternative. I'm not opposed to new ideas. I'm just mostly opposed to them being applied to a game series where such systems have already been established for decades. In my opinion, the rules of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" apply here.

That's all for me, for now.

Cheers.

Depth is good and more armor levels will certainly add more depth. Going back to having four (with unarmored) would be excellent!

Just so long as the Unarmored system gets a reboot ill be happy. Tying it to magic in Oblivion really ruined trying to play as some sort of monk character, someone who is unarmored but dosent use offensive magic.

No reason not to have it honestly. Simplification may be good for sales, but it makes the game shallow, and the people that matter most will resent you for it in the long run.

I agree with all of that, you said it well.

I disagree with your opinion. More types of armor does not equal more depth. But maybe we have a different idea of what exactly constitutes "depth". To me depth is linked with options and the consequences of these options. A system where I would have to use different armor types for different tasks would be deep.

But adding another armor skill doesn't do anything like that. It just imposes artificial limitations.



http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1149632-anyone-want-medium-armor/page__view__findpost__p__16814163



It wouldnt suddenly make all armor better. But it would be an improvement.



I agree that apart from having more armor skills Morrowind handled armor better than Oblivion.



My suggestions have nothing to do with any unwillingness to train up my skills. And nobody ever said it was to ocomplicated. at least not in this thread, as far as I'm aware. Here's a list of why I dislike armor skills.

1. The way they are implemented doesn't make sense. I have already mentioned the example of a character skilled in Medium Armor trying to wear a mix of Steel and Leather in an earlier post. Basically the flaws here are that the skills are entirely independant from each other and that the game uses the weight of each individual piece to determine which armor skill to apply rather than the combined weight of the armor you are wearing. Of course you can resolve these issues without removing the skills, but removal is one possible solution.

2. Proper use of armor requires a certain amount of skill, but the scale of skill is smaller than for example the scale of mastering swordsmanship. Armor skills are justified only to go from 1 to 25, not further. OK, maybe they could go all the way to 50, but I doubt it. Armor simply isn't a skill on the same level as Long Blades or quantum electrodynamics.

3. It imposes limitations without resulting in meaningful strategic options. If you have Heavy Armor as a major skill you are strongly encouraged to stick to heavy armors, but the decision is straightforward to the point of being mindless.

4. If I want to use a mix of different armor categories I can take multiple armor skills as my class skills, but that results ina weaker character. Firstly it splits my skill increases between two different skills so they each advance slower than if I stuck to a single category and single skill. And secondly choosing a single armor skill would have allowed me to pick a completly different skill to supplement my character. For example if I want to wear a mix of Steel and Leather and pick both Heavy and Light Armor as my clas skills my character will be weaker than if I picked Heavy Armor and Restoration (or whatever other skill).



My suggestion, which I posted years ago is to implement armor with perks. But first I need to explain perks.

Remeber the skill perks from Oblivion? Something like that except you don't get them automatically and they are not tied to skills. Instead you learn them from trainers and they have various skill and attribute prerequisites that you must match before you can learn them. Certain perks could also require you to already have a more basic perk.

So for armor you could have a series of armor proficiency perks. You can call them Light, Medium, and Heavy or you can call them Basic, Advanced, Expert, and Master. Exactly how these perks would influence armor is still up for debate, but one way is that each of these perks would simply reduce the effective weight of the armor you're using.

So let's say we're using the Basic through Master model and that Steel armor has 100 weight. If you wear a full suit of Steel Armor and have none of these perks you are slowed down by the full 100 weight units. Then you get Basic Armor Proficiency and that reduces the effective weight of the armor you are wearing by say 20 points. So you're moving around in your Steel armor as if it only weighed 80 weight units. Then you get Advanced Armor Proficiency and it reduces it by a further 20 and so do Expert and Master. So when you have Master Armor Proficiency you move in Steel armor as if it only weighed 20 weight units. If on the other hand you used an armor that has half the weight of Steel (maybe Glass) it would become effectively weightless at Expert Armor Proficiency.

The exact numbers aren't that important. If 20 is to high it can also be lower, but you get the general idea.

Hey! What about us Unarmored phreaks? I hate having to lug even the light stuff around in Oblivion.

All of the above.

What exactly does medium armor consist of? Heavy Leather? If so, thats what I'll be wanting.

Indoril was one of my favorite sets in Morrowind (especially the high ordinator version in Tribunal)! The more armor the merrier I say. Oblivion just didn't have enough sets to truly give the player a diverse selection to pick from. The level scaling also didn't help either.

You're kidding, right? I want my medium armor...long and short blade...axe skill...unarmored...shall I continue?

To me, that was the point of having an armor skill. You made a choice and had a consequence. Kinda like the choosing of a short sword skill, but finding an enchanted axe that you would love to use. Too bad, you've not been trained on it, so you are hindered in your use of it. There are things you can do in Light armor, that you can't do in heavy. There are things you can do in Heavy, that you can't do in Light. It makes sense that if you are an expert in Heavy, you won't move properly (to your best advantage) in Light. As an example, fighting in heavy, a warrior might step into a thrust, trusting his steel plates to block, so he can make a devastating slice on his opponent. Doing that in light armor would likely kill the warrior. Whereas he could easily sidestep the thrust to make the cut in light armor, he wouldn't think of it because he is trained to fight in heavy.

And I would also like to see spear, throwing weapons, short/long sword, axe and so on skills.

Also, I say that mixing light and heavy doesn't make it medium just because the combined weight is medium. I see the classification of armor as based on both weight and protection. Leather grieves and iron cuirass light protection on your legs and heavy protection on your torso. T

I most DEFINITELY want not only medium brought back, but also unarmored (and to have it be a skill worthwhile)

all 3, id like unarmored to come back as well

The more variation the better. And I also vote for unarmored as well.