As I've noticed most of the armor in the screens seems to be very distinct. For example the metal armor the Kajhiit is wearing seems to be a simplified version of a full cuirass, and the armor the Orc is wearing seems to be more full upper body protection. So I was thinking, do you think with smithing, for example, there will be the option to make a "heavy iron cuirass" and a "light iron cuirass"? And so on and so forth for the different types of metal.

I wish there'd no longer be heavy and light armor. All armor should just have a defense rating and weight.

If they feel the need to distinguish further between heavy and light ... http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/6686/tiapft.jpg.

Yes simply have 1 'armour-skill' and then your character will have penalties after your playing style, meaning weight mostly..

EDIT: Right, and on topic, ^this would also make it possible to fuse different metals together for armour. Simply use more glass than iron, and it would still be lighter than a full cuirass (for instance). Thus, meaning less penalties for less characters strength, but still protect more than putting a thin piece of leather on you for protection. Good idea :goodjob:

I agree, and personally I don't even think armour should have it's own skill, but 1 armour skill I would be okay with.

Armour as a skill doesn't make sense. Although, have 1 Armour skill rather than 2 would make a lot of sense. Having low-grade Heavy Armour be about equal in protection to mid-high tier Light would make it work. Speed and maneuverability, or do you want to be a walking tank? Offset by big deductions to movement speed with heavy Armour of course.

Agreed. The heavier the armor, the better the defense rating. The increased weight should also influence how much stamina you lose by performing actions.
This way you could even reintroduce unarmored with perks. You lose almost all defense, but you can move faster and lose less stamina.

Now somebody has to tell Bethesda.

I think if you did this, you would make high end light armor too good. It would be the only choice endgame. If I understand the new oversimplified leveling system correctly, as you progress in the skills, it affects your catchall stam or hp stat. It also unlocks perks from the use of that skill. Meaning they will need the light armor to give you a way to boost mobility and stam, and the heavy armor will boost hp. The heavy armor is also going to allow you to act as a tank for your companions in boss battles. Whereas if you go with light armor you will need an NPC to tank for you as you will be more a DPS role.

Having worn different types of armor over the years (historical re-enactment, costume/prop, modern riot and combat) I think having the multiple armor types is valid. You move differently depending on the armor materials, quality, weight, and coverage. While experience with one type, say combat Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) , translates into some level of familiarity with another say, Late 14th/ Early 15th Century Full Steel Milanese Harness they require a different set of skills. I actually was hoping they would bring back medium and unarmored.

My idea:

Block is now defense. Defense contains 3 to 6 perks that affect how well/fast you do things while wearing armour, and posssibly how much it encumbers you while wearing it. Other than that, armour gives all players equal defense, and how well it works is dependent entirely on it's own attributes. Unarmoured doesn't need movement perks. Faster movement without armour exists by default, because the more encumbering an armour is, the worse you move in it. Unarmoured is just a lack of an obstacle.

I don't get it. Heavy gives better defense and light gives less defense but less movement inhibition. That's how it was in Oblivion and it didn't make light the only option (in fact, it was unbalanced so that heavy was more useful). You don't have to take it to an etreme.

I can't imagine the difference would be any more than, say, fighting with a shortsword instead of a longsword. Maybe not even enough to deserve one full skill, let alone four.

I'm glad there are some people who get this.

Very nice idea. Light iron armor and heavy iron armor?

I'm all for it. All we know so far is that there are more options than Oblivion.

In Oblivion Heavy armor was based on Endurance, which raising your endurance raised your HP, hp per level, and to some effect fatigue. When you leveled up your heavy armor skill you got bonuses, less encumbered, less wear ect. Only 3 skills affected endurance, heavy armor, block, and armorer.

Light armor was based on speed, raising your speed made you faster and increased your travel distance in jumps. Your bonuses were the same as heavy armor(save for the last bonus on each). Only 3 skills affected speed, light armor, atletics, acrobatics.

Endurance and speed were both much wanted attribs to raise, so most would try to get a 5 multiplier in each per level until they maxed it out in oblivion.

What I was trying to say, is they have removed the attribs. They have .... lets say de-complicated the system. Meaning the skills they have left will need to be raised to affect the catch all melee stats left, HP and stamina. What you are asking for is a further dumbing down of the system, making armor skill raise both stam and fatigue and probably speed(not the attrib but rate at which you do things). That leaves a skill too powerful, that everyone would max, and make the upper tier light armor more desirable as it will make you to be more mobile which has always been more disable, especially in the even more action orientated combat we have seen.

Ok, i have no problem with a one armour skill. But it begs the question,what about the 18 skills now we know 100% what three have been taken away?
Does that mean we still have heavy and light armour?
If armour is one skill ,where's the filler?


Just thought,if athletics and acrobatics is gone,does that mean hand-to-hand stays?......hell yeah! :thumbsup:
Might be worth going over the 18 skills again now we know the missing three.

It seems to me that having only one armored skill defeats the purpose of having armor skills at all, unless you use perks to allow the player to specialize in certain types of armor, because the main function armor skills served in past games is that you could choose the armor skill you want, and would benefit most from going with it, so if you wanted a lightly armored character, you could choose light armor and stick with it, if you'd rather have heavy armor, you could go with that instead, I mean, armor skills improved your defense with specific armor types, but that was just so there would be a point in using the armor type you specialized in, if your going to remove the distinction between armor skills, there's really no reason why you can't just scrap armor skills entirely and have armors just provide a static amount of defense, other games seem to work just fine with this, either have at least two armor skills, or do away with them entirely I'd say.

Even if armor skills are removed, though, I'd still say there should be distinctions between light and heavy armor, leather armor still needs to have diffferent advantages and disadvantages from steel, just because there's no skills for armor doesn't mean you can't still put them into different weight categories, New Vegas for example had light, medium and heavy armor despite lacking armor skills, with heavier armors causing penalties to movement and sneak, Skyrim could do something like that too, if armor skills are gone.

Regardless, though, Skyrim can have more than one style for the same material too, this doesn't have to be just for different armor categories either, rather than just steel, you could have Nordic steel and Imperial steel and so on, and these could either be items that have the same stats, with the differences being purely cosmetic, or they could have different stats, after all, material isn't the only thing that would effect how much protection armor offers or how heavy it is.