In Oblivion a lot of people were kind of weirded out by the fact that when you maxed out heavy armor as a skill it became completely weightless, which was basically a big slap in the face for anyone who chose light armor because it was, well - lighter.
Now it seems the perks are once again permitting weightless heavy armor, and I'm wondering what the reasoning behind this is, and has been in Oblivion.

It just seems counter intuitive to me to include a perk that takes the disadvantage of something and removes it. Things need to have downsides to be balanced with the other choices, otherwise there really isn't a choice, just a right and wrong answer to what is the best armor.

Alright, the light armor perks haven't been revealed yet, but what could they possibly be to put light armor on par with heavy armor again? A variety of bonuses to stealth perhaps? Chance to dodge projectiles? Additional carrying capacity? (That's already rolled into pick-pocketing)

For that matter, what will be the compelling reason to wear cloth in this game? I mean Morrowind and Oblivion didn't make much of an effort to reward that choice, I really hope Skyrim has grown a little in that regard.

Maybe light armor will get a defense bonus. haha.

The armor classes should each have their advantages and disadvantages so that all are a viable choice and that there are reasons for picking X type over Y type. The perk to remove all of heavy armors weight and encumberance completely removes all of its disadvantages.

Of course we have to see how the light armor perks compare but if the heavy armor makes light armor obsolete again it will be because of that perk.

when you wear robes your spells will be more effective then if you wore armor

Really hard to tell what light armor is going to do.

In the past its largest drawback was it broke ridiculously fast. Given that isn't an issue now.....*shrugs*

Well, you wear something for so long, it becomes a part of you, to be honest. When people put weighted vests on - it eventually feels as if its not there if they wear it long enough.

Don't pick the perk. What's the problem?

The problem was that it negated the idea of selecting armor class. So if you had both skills maxed out, light armor was exactly identical to heavy armor in protection and weight.

So the idea of weightless armor at the pinnacle of a skill tree doesn't bother me, but the idea of all armor being equal was silly to me. In the end, it came down to which you thought looked best, and I modded mine anyway.

I think if Bethesda actually makes heavy armor lighter than light armor and light armor have more defense than heavy armor through shoddy perk design it would qualify as just flat out trolling their own community.



Yea, that's exactly what I'm afraid of.

Do agree with the post however, should of been something like light armor becomes weightless and heavy armor got a 50% reduction

How many perks will you have to take, which could otherwise have been put into smithing to improve the armour, or sweet weapon moves, just to move a bit faster?

Master light armor also gave u 50% more armor so that's also negating the negative aspect of it.
Also spellcasting was affected by the armor your wore.
Aka it's fine.

I see almost no chance of that happening. They didn't even do that in Oblivion. In TESIV, all armor evened out. One was not "clearly superior" unless you are measuring something I'm not aware of.

I still think there should be a difference to the armor classes, or a reason for choosing one over the other, but there's just no reason to think they would actually get anything backwards to the expectation.

Going to mod this one down to a 40% reduction. It's overpowered as-is.

Damn double posting

I think it will balance out like Oblivion.

Which isn't really a problem for me, I'm not going to choose the perks, to actually get some difference in my characters. Gearing myself for replayability.

The armors are, at this point, if you pick the perks, there to choose who you are playing, and just kind of fit into the role of the character.

The real question is simply: Will the three classes of armor be balanced or not.

In both Morrowind and Oblivion the armor choice was rather poorly implemented.

In Morrowind it was simply a total mess. Four different armor skills really made no sense, armor didn't affect stealth or magic at all, and heavier pieces had higher enchantment values. Basically this meant the only real consideration when it came to your choice of armor was how much of your carry weight you wanted to sacrifice for protection and enchantments. While not exactly an ideal system, at least there was some semblance of choice.

In Oblivion the entire system was completely overhauled to do away with the useless armor supposedly. Medium armor was dropped from the game and not wearing armor was no longer considered a skill. A penalty to stealth was added based on the weight of your boots and a penalty to magic based on your armor type and skill with that armor. Unfortunately Bethesda's system designer fell into one of the oldest game design traps ever, removing the drawbacks from things as you level them up.* Even though the system seemed pretty well balanced at low skills, by the time armor skills were maxed out heavy armor came out the clear winner, with essentially now drawbacks whatsoever this time around. Also again the enchantment value on heavier armor was the highest, so there was no point at all in wearing robes.

*If you remove the drawbacks of things as you level them the only way to maintain real choice is to have all things end up exactly the same. If one armor offers strong protection but is burdened with high weight and another offers low protection but also has little weight and you start removing drawbacks the first armor becomes high protection low weight and the second also becomes high protection low weight - even if you maintain balance, you destroyed what made them unique choices.


The thing is, these flaws in the armor design seem pretty obvious, yet once again Bethesda is going the "remove all weight from heavy armor" route, so this has me worried that they aren't learning from their past mistakes.

I miss medium armor

I'll be wearing light armor for aesthetic reasons. Couldn't care less the perks in it's tree.

There could still be other base effects, like noise (which we know to exist from the Sneak skill tree), that could balance out the armours. Of course, Light Armour perks may allow you to move faster than normal etc etc so I do not think anything can be said about balance right now.

It trivializes the whole choise if it removes the biggest drawback from wearing the heavy armour.

Both armour classes should have distinctive pros and cons which couldn't be totally nullified with perk choises. Yes a master in heavy armour should suffer lesser penalty to movement speed, casting and stealth, but a guy in leather armour should always be faster, more silent and able to cast spells easier.