I'm pretty sure this isn't true unless everything I've read about armor use has been wrong. Most armors were made specifically to provide passive protection against the popular weapons of the time.

sorry this is quote off topic but i had to post this. the higher level armors are extremely weird imo; i've been finding many ways trying to get as much armor out of my iron armor / imperial legion light armor as possible

One possibly negative thing I'm curious about is if I still get my armor skill rating increased when I successfully block an attack.

Get the Lord Stone Blessing.+50 Damage Resistance and +25 Magic Resistance,but I think it only works if you don't wear armor

I did not say he would like it, but is an in game way to get the skill up without paying for trainers or getting killed in battle.

There are 2 armor skills. Would you suggest combining them into one? That would be silly because the use of light and heavy armor are vastly different.


Then yes, everything you have read is wrong. One benefit of armor is passive protection, but even the best defense has its weakness. That is why it is important to train in the armors use so that you know how to protect the weak points of the armor, making it active protection rather then passive.

A very easy way to level up armor skill is getting the Dark Brotherhood Initiate follower bring her to your house.. Then give her a really good sword.. Hit her intill she is hostile... When you are close to dieing then kill her and sleep one hour.. She will wake up because she can't die.. And just keep doing

You can train skills for money, just have to find the right one for Light Armor.

find spot where enemies attack and miss contrantly
afk for an 20 mins
switch armor from light to heavy or vice versa
lvl 100 armor in both skills

Can already exploit the current system by setting it to lower difficulty and having something weak beat on you instead, since you regen health.

I'd take a link then, 'cause I've read otherwise. Most of medieval and early armors were either so heavy you had no weak spots but had very limited movement, or light enough that it was practically no different than being unarmored. They didn't need training in armor specifically, even when it came to the really heavy stuff they simply had to have the strength and endurance to handle it.

Not that TES has to be completely true to reality, but since the current system is neither good for game play or true to reality I see no harm in changing it to something better.

So...

You want to be a heavily armoured beefy character that can avoid all damage from level 1?

... Mkay.

Stop trying to make Bethesda cut MORE from the games. If some people had their way, we'd end up with a "damage" skill and nothing else.

Generic straw man, generic rhetoric.

Was going from 3 to 2 silly? Is having blunt weapons and swords under same skill silly? I see the new skill tree system to be sub-skills. We are really not going down in skill numbers. It is exact opposite now.(at least potentially)

I suggest removing both. In my view, any difference between light armor and heavy armor, or any armor, would be between armors themselves. A skill themed like combat maneuvers would be a great addition where many styles could benefit(armored/unarmored/handtohand) from.

That's what I do.

Actually, the better protection could be rationalised in the sense that you know how to take hits in the armour better, therefore greatly increasing your capacity for punishment.

If you wore armour and fought and somebody skilled in fighting in armour did the same, you'd probably still be injured/dead against a good combatant, whereas they'd probably be ok.

The most equivalent skillset would be footwork and balance in combat sports; they're incredibly important in terms of increasing damage resistance.

I'm sticking by the idea that passive skills ought not be in a game where leveling is based around "improve-through-use". Every single other skill in the game requires the player activating the associated ability. Armor skills instead rely on some other character performing an action on the player character. Essentially, what you have here is the exact same problem that existed with athletics. It's simply less noticeable because you aren't constantly being hit, whereas you are almost always running places.

There's simply no way to effectively level a skill that improves when you [censored] up---ideally, in a game like this, you don't want to get hit. If armor skills are supposed to model a character's ability to avoid attacks while wearing certain armor, or reflect the ability to roll with a blow, then that should be the skill: actually rolling with blows, actually dodging effectively. That's a user initiated action, and so it makes sense to implement that as a skill.

If there is to be any implementation of actual "armor skills", I'd much rather they implement in a way similar to traits in Daggerfall. The player can choose from a list of character traits at character creation describing past experience with various armor types. Ideally, I'd like to see the option to select specific armor types in addition to a general light or heavy classification. Those traits would then grant bonuses, either directly to armor rating or used in conjunction with other skills (faster dodging in trained armor, faster attack speeds, etc).

Armour skills should not exist or at least be merged into 1. Might as well have a fancy clothing skill that makes NPCs like you more from wearing fancy clothing the more NPCs look at you while you wear it.

your talking about technique which i addressed. that has no bearing whatsoever on the amount of protection it offers, that is just how well you can function while using it. if that were the case then someone should have told the highly trained french knights that were decimated by english longbows. if someone lands a direct hit on you, your in for a world of hurt no matter if your a squire or a battle hardened knight with decades of experience. as far as dodging is concerned you can already do that in game so it isnt included with the armor skill. and armor does in fact do nothing but passively protect you. if you stand still its not going to magically shoot out spikes or chains to block the attacker.

if it were up to me we would have fallout NV DT/DR system or better yet the typical dungeons and dragons system with different defenses against different weapons like slash, blunt etc. even mount and blade had a fairly decent variable armor system. this is one of the weak parts of TES games where they only give you one damage type and one defense type. takes away alot of the strategy that you get in other games. ideally you would use quick blades agaisnt lightly armored foes and you would have to use axes and maces against heavily armored foes that slashing swords would be pretty much useless against. but im kind of a realism nut to begin with.

as i said though im fine with it as it is now until someone comes up with less goofy looking high end armors. i really love the starter stuff like leather and especially scale but glass and dragonscale look about as sneaky as an fat opera singer with tourets syndrome.

although im loathe to loose more skills i wouldnt mind them having just 1 armor skill and then making the penalties for choosing light or heavy based mostly on the armor you pick. light armor offers far less protection and i mean alot less not this current system where you can get to the max AR without using exploits. and heavy armor should slow you down, use more stamina and be very difficult to sneak in. also, i think both types should have significant magic penalties so that someone who wants a high powered mage will have a reason to wear robes and circlets etc.

I can see both sides of the conversation. Skilling armor up by getting hit seems counter intuitive when the idea in a fight is to avoid contact as much as possible. I too have the same issue as the OP and yes i too used the quoted remedy. Standing at the edge of a stream getting pinched by a mudcrab while i cast heal spells seems kind of an exploit as i get to boost both restoration and the armor skill, but wax on <--, wax off --> lolz. The soultion while not really the best is still up to the player as to whether they want to use it or try to do it the old fashioned way by actually getting hit on occasion and casting heal spells after each taken hit during random game play.

Asai

This is going to be my reply to anyone who just says LOL MODS

CONSOLES (ie, the much bigger audience)

PC user here, you can't just scream mods everytime something is wrong with the game.
Its something that bethesda should've done.

I agree here that it makes no sense. If anything you would get perks to move faster and perhaps more quiet, rather than make the actual armor tougher. As you said, you get used to move in that type of armor and can use it better, making you not get fatiqued quite so fast, and letting you sneak more quiet.

Yes, lets lump everything into a single skill. That is the only logical solution.

The system is fine as it is. It has been this way for a long time and it has worked well. You improve skills by using them. How do you use armor? You wear it and take hits.

I like armor skills. Big fan of the idea of the skill affecting movement speed rather than level of protection, though, with stat gains caused by moving around enemies (kind of like how you only gain Alteration points from Stoneskin when you cast it around enemies). Somebody should get on that mod if it's not done already.

I agree with the OP that the way armor skills are increased is poorly implemented if you play smart (blocking, dodging etc). This is the third game in a row where the main source of armor skill increases are from either training or gathering up small pests and letting them beat me up. In Morrowind I'd enter the Vivec canols, In Oblivion there was a cave with a little rat farm and now I just round up some wolves, mudcrabs, slaughterfish or skeevers.