Specially against enemies.

If they have good AI (which will not be the case for these options) they could find away around the water protecting you or drop their armour allowing them to swim but unamoured and easier to kill or pick up a range weapon from a fallen comrade.

:huh: These things should depend more on how much weight you're carrying...

Actually, it is pretty flexible, and since all the weight is evenly distributed, it doesn't hurt ones speed and movement all that much. Sure, flips will be out of the question, unless you got some serious legs on you, but doing rolls, jumping, and other general movements shouldn't. Also, you have to remember knight had to be able to mount and unmount a steed on foot. Wouldn't do much good if they could hardly move as is.

One will get much hotter than someone who isn't wearing plate armor

It's been tested and it is definitely possible to swim in combat-ready plate armor. It is even easier than in mail armor, which lacks good weight distribution and basically just hangs on your shoulders.

I believe that tournament-grade plate is too heavy for most people, but who knows, maybe someone strong enough could swim in this.

And if heavy armor penalizes a warrior for using it too much, it just won't be used. Extra weight and cost are already noticeable punishments. Maybe more fatigue loss (at least until you are strong enough) is fine too. But no locks on movement options, definitely.

As for backflips in plate armor — I will do it after you'll conjure a fireball from your hands. It's a fantasy game about superhero who saves the world by killing dragons. Yeah, he is cool enough to perform as an acrobat in heavy armor. Just because.

i submit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg for why i voted yes on armor rolling and flipping. be sure to read the description of what he's wearing.

i would however like to see a fatigue penalty put on the player if he does do any rolling, flipping, sprinting, and jumping. master though should have a significant reduction of this penalty.

The weights of weapons and heavy armors in Oblivion were actually a big improvement from Morrowind. Daedric greaves weighed 80 lb, and a Daedric Longsword weighed 60 lbs. Ebony and Her Hand armor were similarly ridiculously heavy. Not that there isn't still plenty of room for improvement.

Exactly,this was a major flaw in Oblivion.I always ended up wearing heavy armor because there were no restrictions.
I know we should all do some roleplaying ourselves when playing TES but I also think it's Bethesda's job to fix this.
There should be pros and cons for light,medium or heavy armor's.

Huh, I found both ended up being exactly the same, save for aesthetics.

Pros and cons, yeah. Also, I've used all the different types of armor in MW and OB, and the weakest link was definitely the medium armor, due to a lack of Indoril bits to complete the set. Light Armor ended up being pretty worthless at first, but easily overtook medium armor once glass was factored in (even if one were to make Indoril armor for all body parts). With heavy armor...it was indeed heavy and expensive to buy. Not to mention ebony armor only ended up having 60 defense (glass 50, 55 for chest), and weighed a helluva lot more than glass (18 for glass chest, 60 for ebony chest). Daedric was worse! Sure, 80 defense, but weighed 90 points for the chest piece.

Really??? I was at re-enactment once where we tried on a plate cuirass, and it was ridiculously heavy! I can't imagine you could flip and do cartwheels in heavy plate. I no expert just judging by this small bit of experience it would be incredibly hard to jump, flip and do cartwheels. (Not necessarily saying your wrong even just saying I don't understand how you could do this)

yes hes able to do cartwheels but hes barely standing afterwards, what he is doing is just a cartwheel and not an evasive move . . . im pretty sure hed be barely standing after trying two at quick succession, and in oblivion you could even do a backflip in heavy armor

if those evasive moves are allowed in HA, then they should definitely come at a hefty fatigue loss so you really have pick the moment when to use those moves

Fatigue loss — sure, no problem.
Impossibility of performing these moves — really wrong idea which makes no sense for informed people.

=p remember, those aren't pounds. The unit of weight for the elder scrolls universe has been off from our world. I don't know what you would call it, feathers maybe?

There's a lot of discussion about the realism going on here, which is good, but there's a lot to consider gameplay wise, too.

Edit: Missed someone with the same link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg

Not a backflip, but people seriously underestimate the mobility of full plate. They were good at what they did, we still can't make replicas of their armor of the same quality.

Swimming, cartwheels, backflips, rolls, it's all possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnqOMbFDEAI&feature=related

Stealth... Not so much.

I voted for fatigue and stealth losses, and not much else.

a already posted evidence that swimming wasnt possible, and no one posted backflips in armor . . . have you ever tried a backflip? if u put 20 kg on yourself forget about doing it

Doesn't matter if those numbers aren't actually pounds or grams or whatever. If you do something as simple as compare weights against each other, it's pretty clear that things are really wonky.

"Should you be able to swim in heavy armor?"
If you think it's unrealistic to swim in a full suit of armor, is it anymore realistic that I can carry a whole set of armor on myself without wearing it? If this was in, all I would do it just unequipped my armor when I swim then put it back on when I reach land. How many fights are really in the water anyways?

I think i'd be awesome to just walk on the ocean floor when you put on heavy armor. that'd be pretty cool IMO. It's obviously worse than being able to swim but i think i'd be pretty realistic.

I voted:

-swim on master level

-Yes

-master level

-yes

-yes

I think if you're carrying enough weight, but your levels are so that you can swim anyway, you should be able to choose whether to sink or not.

good point!



true that it's wonky no matter what way you examine the "weight".

It isn't generally viewed as weight alone, it is also contains the size/shape//awkwardness of the object itself. Encumbrance is the word.

Couldn't vote, as I think "heavy" armor is a weird concept. I'd much rather have weight and buoyancy. Weight should weight more compared to someones athletics skills, although they would help. If you have 200 lbs of equipment, there is no way you would outperform a light weighted monk, in jumping, running, swimming, anything.

With buoyancy I mean you struggle to keep afloat. If you're heavy to tend to sink, and have to thrust *upwards*, limiting your forward momentum. It becomes the players choice: Do you want to lighten your load, find another route, or suffer the penalty of slower movement across? If wetness (and wind) was multiplicators to hypothermia (replaces FONV radiation handling, which is also present without any hardcoe mode), gaming could get interesting. The more athletic you are, the more thrust you have available of course, easing things up along the game.

If you are a mage, you can further boost that thrust with a constant draining spell, to the point where you are able to swim better, walk on water, or even limited levitation when you're powerful enough at it (just no flying as a means of transport).

Unfortunately that argument doesn't hold up very well, in my mind, when you compare an iron longsword (20) to a daedric longsword (48). They're both about the same size and same shape, yet the latter's weight (or encumbrance) is about 2.5x as high. That also makes no sense.

As for armor, I think they should scrap "heavy" armor altogether. A system of light, medium and heavy armor oversimplifies the whole thing. There should just be "armor" with each one treated individually. It's weight, stealth penalty and other such attributes should be treated individually. A straight scale from lightest and weakest armor to heaviest and strongest needs to be replaced with something more accurate and more complex.

There should be no penalty.

While it may weigh more, there's nothing to indicate (either in-game or in the real world) that this armor would be less articulated (i.e. more restrictive with regards to movement) than lighter armor.

In fact, the whole designation for light, medium, and heavy is nonsensical. Plate armor is less encumbering than chain mail because of its rigidity; it distributes the mass well. Plate armor is also articulated; a fully armored knight can kneel on one knee just as well as if not in armor. These people aren't idiots, they aren't going to make armor that doesn't allow for range of motion in combat. I would imagine this would extrapolate into a fantasy setting as well.

Also, as far as I'm concerned, the skills should govern the protection granted. Therefore, the best light and best heavy (if those designations are used) should offer the same base AR. If your light armor skill svcks but your heavy armor skill is high then the light armor won't do you much good even though it is a high-end material (say, glass). The skill is supposed to govern the character's adeptness at fighting in the armor and learning how move in it. A master of heavy armor should be almost as flexible in articulated, jointed heavy armor as a character wearing light armor. Mostly, I'm thinking of TESIII's system where the best heavy armor was about 20 to 30 AR points better than the best light armor.

I like the idea of armor being classified in terms of protection vs. a specific kind of damage. For example, in the real world chain mail is good at protecting against slashing blades. However, a thrusting blade can pierce the mail, and chainmail offers no protection against the crushing forces of impact. Steel plate, on the other hand, is good at deflecting thrusting, slashing, and brunt impact.

Naturally, the conclusion is that plate is superior to mail. So, yes, trade-offs are necessary to give a player incentive to diversify their armor choices. Weight could be one factor, though I personally think that equipped armor's encumbrance should be reduced because they are equipped on the body. Some games use an attribute that translates into a numeric point meter. For example, say you have 50 Endurance. Armor pieces have an Endurance rating representing how much endurance they "cost" to equip. For example, say Cuirass A costs 20 endurance while Cuirass B costs 10 endurance to equip. If you've played Hellgate: London, you'll know what I'm talking about.

But, that's just my take on it. Whatever method Bethesda uses, as long as it is balanced, it will probably plenty sufficient.

people need to remember, the steel we have available today is lighter and stronger than what was available during medieval times. So of course armor made today can be quite light. Thats not to say that knights in full plate couldn't move around well, but it would be fairly exhausting in battle.

Not to mention that mail was often worn underneath plate. So saying that plate is lighter than mail is silly, because the two were mostly worn together.

I know, and in my first post I was referring to authentic medieval (or renaissance) full plate. Not modern reproductions.