i think that it was okay, but i agree it could of changed a little. For one, i felt like there was not a lot of armor. In many other rpg like TES, they had tons of armor, and they were different. Maybe you recieve medium armor that provides good physical and magic attacks, but maybe it makes you slow. You should also have more customization with our armor. Instead of the chestplate including your whole torso, they should have the shoulder pads and the chestplate seperately sold. I also think we should forge our armor. like maybe they could make plenty of designs of armor that you can buy at XBL market , or unlock from skill level. These are most of my ideas for armor.

I'll need to see the proof, but I know where to look now. Tell me, from what you saw of the documentary, does mastering the wearing of leather boots take as much skill as mastering a Wakizashi? Does it take as much time to learn to wear a briastplate as it does to kill someone with a throwing knife? Does wearing a steel pauldron take as much effort to master as sneaking into a bank would? You know that you can become a master of light armor in Oblivion by wearing nothing but a leather hat for awhile.

Labor was cheap, but that doesn't mean skilled labor was easy to come by. That's why the guild system got started; to train people in the specific trades, to make a monopoly. The steel was harder to procure, but it's not like they had a shortage of it in the west. In the East, they definitely did. That's why the Japanese didn't have steel plate armor, they couldn't get enough steel to use it practically that way. As far as demand goes, not a lot of smiths should be making steel armor anyway. Smiths are mostly needed to make nails and horseshoes, and cookware. It's also worth pointing out that the higher quality steel you had, the thinner and lighter the armor was, so better technique allowed them a cheaper overhead.

It's a dangerous thing if armor or swords are in the price range of a peasant. The empire in theory should keep the production of armor low by squeezing the guilds, and the cost high to prevent a group from arming itself on a whim. Yes, the peasant might be hungrier for a week if they donate their lunch money to a cause, but that cause can roll out soldiers armed with decent weapons and armor rather quickly if they get some membership. The nobles have to do what they can to prevent peasant uprisings. Love is not the answer. The cost of the plate armor should be more like the cost of a new SUV in modern terms, paid in full up front.

In real life any idiot with $100-$200 can afford a handgun on the black market, or in some gun shops. Even although, yes the government does what it can to crack down on trafficking firearms, they don't really have the fear of uprising struck into their hearts by virtue of how easily armed the average U.S. citizen can be. So feasibly the only time such a government might restrict the ability of its citizens to arm themselves is when uprisings are a very imminent and serious threat. Otherwise it is usually within the rights of citizens to protect themselves.

As an aside, it's fairly well known that a great many ancient weapons developed from modified farm tools. I won't claim any knowledge of the average weapon cost or average income of medieval peasants, but if so many weapons came about as a result of peasants not using pre-existing standard weapons, that itself says to me that most of them probably could not afford one.

No armor skills sounds good. Make armor part of Block or something.

using armor properly does indeed take training. you cant just stick a full suit of armor on and expect to carry it like a tuxedo. it takes time and practice to get used to the movement limitations and the weight itself. most special forces dont use body armor precisely because it inhibits their movement.

not so much an issue with full plate armor but with other types of armor especially ones that didnt cover everything, there was indeed a way to "wear" the armor. soldiers were trained to slash at an enemies exposed inner thighs, that meant pretty much instant death. in turn soldiers had to keep from exposing such weak areas to the enemy. that is essentially using your amor skill. while it doesnt take as much practice as learning to shoot a long bow. if you have to warriors who equally trained but neither has ever worn heavy armor......put a suit on one of them and i pretty much guarentee the other guy is simply going to wait for the turtle to wear himself down and then hit a weak spot such as the visor or underarms. there was also a portion of a medievel training manual which was thought to be a training guide that showed getting knocked over and getting up quickly while wearing a bunch of steel.

Yes, because a modern computer would have so many problems with three (or even 400) damage types as opposed to two ...

Remember, we're talking about a computer program here, not a pen & paper RPG. Frankly, I think they should just use Havok and its collision detection for the interaction of armour and weapons.

OK, so you're not guessing on the economy but making an explanation. It can be explained away in whatever way you want, but the system itself is not based on logic. It's just a tiered system with 2 distinctive armor types that also don't make sense, where good armor is extremely cheap and better armor is extremely expensive. The reason I want a new system is because it would be more fun, but also because it is more realistic.
As for peasants affording a full armor, it's different than modern gun laws. Modern guns are mass produced and much cheaper than armor or weapons would be back in the day. Also, a few guys with guns can't start a proper uprising because of all the things they would lack to fight a modern army. Peasants with armor an weapons are a medieval army, a weak one. Mages in TES are just a support for an army compared to what a tank would be for people with rifles trying to start an uprising.

The empire should designate certain arms and armor as "martial", and restrict ownership and sale to members of the Fighter's Guild in good standing (and even then, only higher ranking members should be granted a license for ebony, daedric, or enchanted arms). Well, it's more realistic based on what we know of civilizations and history (not to mention guilds -- what kind of guild doesn't punish practitioners who don't join the guild?), but of course it isn't too fun for adventurers.

On the other hand, it adds a little color to the setting to help differentiate between the tame, civilized urban areas, and the areas effectively outside of the reach of imperial law, where every other person straps a blade to his back for protection. And it's a reminder of the drawbacks of the Empire -- how much of an obstacle it can be if you're on the wrong side of law or, (more likely, as an adventurer) the wrong side of the elites' idea of "order".

I'm not trying to point out how guns and armor are similar. I'm pointing out how they serve similar roles in different times, they both help to make the average person slightly more dangerous in their time era. So a government in either era might see the same threat. Therefore, they might want to regulate them similarly.

As for poorly armed civilian defeating armed U.S. forces, I believe you must not be well informed about Vietnam. We were defeated by a bunch of poorly armed civilians, not because we were outnumbered, not because we were out gunned. We lost Vietnam because we thought they couldn't win, and we got out thought. The tactics the Viet Cong used were far more thought out than we imagined, and they made American Morale deplete. In any war either side can win, if they play smart, regardless of resources, so I would not underplay the position of a government to step in. Especially in a more middle ages like environment, where the same spectrum of weapon capacities don't exist. Its much easier to fight a man who has a sword, shield, and full-plate with a knife than it is to take a tank with a pistol. So the threat is ever more real.

Plus magic can't really be regulated easily so I'd imagine that that downplays the empire need to regulate arms and armor because anybody who wants to learn to fight, but can't afford a weapon, might not have a hard time learning to use some simple spells. The fact that most prisoners come out of imperial jails knowing to cast a fireball spell speaks to the fact of how easy it is to learn some simple spells.

Easy for the computer, but harder for the programmers, plus it's harder to play-balance with 3 choices than 2. Either 2 or 3 is fine with me, but I don't see adding that 3rd as "essential".

Adding a third damage type is rather an overhaul. It sounds a lot simpler than it is. The computer itself might not have a hard time, but programming for a third damage type would require a rather large overhaul for the dev kit, and I'd imagine they would have to create an entirely new class library for the dev kit to model the new damage type. Then they would have to go back and modify previous ones to remove redundency.

not too say it'd be impossible though. It'd just be a costly pain.

Overhaul? Physical damage, fire, frost, lightning, damage health, damage magicka, damage fatigue, are all different damage types. The game throws it against a target, compares it to the target's defenses against that type, and comes up with resulting damage. How would adding new ones possibly require some kind of massive overhaul? You're adding a new label and factor to an equation the game is already doing anyway.

Many, many games use several damage types. Baldur's gate 1 has what, three? URW has five or six. I'm talking about old games. Games made by a single guy. It is a lot simpler than it sounds.

Guerilla tactics work better in jungles, starting an uprising against a government is different. That's all I have to say, I agree with the rest.

No the equation wouldn't have to be re-written. But every character would have to have an assigned defense. Then armor would have to have a variable stored which would adjust it. The concept is simple enough, but you'd have to go back and modify EVERY item and person to make it work. Its not a matter of simplicity or computing power, its a matter of time in going back and modifying all that previous content and taking all that time.


Yes, but those games were developed with such content in mind. Your talking about stuff that goes into the development of the tools that go to be used in the development of the game. You have to modify the toolset to effectively implement it. It'd be like building a house and then deciding when it was finished that you wanted a basemant. A basemant isn't some advanced piece of technology, but you might have wanted to decide that you needed one before the rest of the house was made, because changing that after the fact is a lot harder than developing with it in mind.

Looks like you want TESV to be a glorified Oblivion mod? Mechanics in every TES game have changed a lot. Extra damage types are such a minor thing compared.

Who says we're changing anything after the fact? None of us knows if suggestions at this point are in time or early or late. By the same logic very few things wouldn't be too much effort to bother. At any rate, I think you're still overestimating the time involved. Oblivion has roughly 100 different creature and NPC types combined, maybe 80-something base armors. It's tedious to be sure, but compared to the thousands of lines of code applied to each of them over years of development and the times they're inevitably going to be returning to each of these things for tweaks and balancing, I wouldn't expect an extra damage type to be that large of a drop in the bucket, and that's IF the game has already been made without them, which again we don't know. I don't think many people are making any kind of suggesting based on the idea that the game is mostly done and it's too late anyway.

So just friggin' use the physics engine for it already.

Which parts does armour cover? Depends on it 3D model. How well? Depends on the thickness of the model in this place, the place, angle and power (momentum) of attack, the shape of the weapon's or projectile's 3D model, and the physical properties of the materials involved. How much damage does it do? Depends on which organs it hits and how much energy, and in which form (kinetic, heat, ...) and where (again, shape of the 3D model of the weapon or projectile) it lands. If you really still want the abstract "hit points" method, just check how much energy get transferred through the armour layers (skin counting as armour) to the inner body and use that.

You want to make a better armour, just make it thicker (though it will automatically get heavier in the way), or alter the physical material properties. You want to make a better weapon, again change its material properties and/or alter the shape.

For gaming purposes, our real-time physics simulations are already good enough to handle all this. Time to use them. And kick "hit points" in the trash bin while you are at it, please.

Rhekarid's got a point. I think the biggest thing would be balancing weapons and armors so they don't end up with another spear that they decide to cut.

By the way, its hard to go fishing without a spear or a pole. *hint**hint*

I'm for revamping the armor system as well as the injure system to include different kinds of damage and how armors block damage.

Attack strength should be based on momentum and the type of weapon. Some weapons are not able to penetrate some armors, they will bounce off of them, but they still carry over the momentum, this is why blunt weapons would be effective in some situations a sword isn't.
Armors could simply be based on a calculation, take the armor material (this in itself having a few variables like flexibility, mass and special properties) + it's thickness + the quality = maximum resistance/weight. The craft type can determine against which attacks it protects better, some are better against stabs, some better against slashes, some better against blunt impacts, also how "cumbersome" the armor is (some armors being harder to move in, having more mobile parts or stiff plating). Plus some material have different capabilities like leather being fireproof but also protection against heat better while metals transfer heat.


Of course locational damage should come into this too, a glove doesn't protect your head, wearing a chest plate doesn't protect your back. Only wearing strategic armoring can be a huge advantage as it gives you more mobility and weighs less.


Like this it wouldn't even need a full out physics based system, the armor is simply based on values it adds up to numbers, and for the damage it does the same process (speed of attack, weight of the weapon, center of weight, sharpness...). The only physics it kinda should take into account is where you hit and the relation between you and the target (targets movement, angle of the hit...).

If someone is wearing heavy plate, it should be easy to tip them over. Not only is this realistic, but I would love to don an invisibility cloak and go Legion-Tipping some day....

That's not to say armor is astounding heavy or cumbersome. I've seen men in full plate armor move faster than me. And yes, a young physically fit Knight could mount his horse in a running leap. Those guys were bad-pardonmyfrench.

I was just reinforcing Kovacius in the idea that the difficulty behind a new system lies not in computer technologies, it lies in programming. I still stand by that point. I never said they wouldn't/couldn't do it.

Armor:
Instead of armor having a given value for it's protection point and weight it should calculate that on variable. Those variables should be:

Materials (dropdown list):
Determines the armors mass (weight per cubic unit) and it's material properties such as flexibility/stiffness, conduction, resistances/weaknesses, corrosion resistance etc.

Material quality (1 – 100, floating value*):
Modifies the materials strength and how fast it degrades, lesser quality offers less protection and degrades faster. Haphazard repairs or flawed materials can lower the material quality.

Thickness (in mm):
Plays a role into how well the armor protects (thicker means it needs more force to penetrate) and how heavy and cumbersome it is (more material – more weight).

Corrosion (1 – 100, floating value):
How damaged the material itself is, higher corrosion reduces protection.



Craft type (dropdown list):
This modifies the armors weight, it's size, shape, flexibility and also how cumbersome it is to wear.

Craft quality (1 – 100, floating value):
Modifies the weight, how cumbersome it is to wear and how well it holds together. Haphazard repairs or not having the right tools can lower craft quality.

Craft damage (1 – 100, floating value):
How damaged the armor is, 1 is fully intact, 100 is unwearable.


Materials and Craft type would extend into more sub categories with more variables and special abilities.

Materials:
-Name (Text field - Iron, Steel, Leather, Daedric...)
-Mass (-.-- g/mm3)
-Stiffness (1 [very soft fabric] – 100 [glass])
-Hardness (1 [felt] – 100 [diamond])
-Corrosion resistance (1 [corrodes fast] – 100 [barely corrodes])
-Heat conduction (1 [isolates, almost no conduction] – 100 [conducts very fast])
-Electric conduction (1 [no conduction] – 100 [no resistance])
-Magical conduction (1 [blocks out magic] – 100 [absorbs magic])**
-Special abilities (drop down list to add scripts to the material, can be more than one)


Craft type:
-Name (Text field)
-Mesh (Select the mesh folder for this armor [should contain varying meshes for different races and “on – off” model])
-Cumbersomeness (1 [not cumbersome at all] – 100 [very cumbersome to wear, hard to move in])
-Build stiffness (1 [flexible, chain mail] – 100 [stiff, solid plates])


* Floating values can be set in the beginning but they will change throughout the game

** On magical conduction both 1 and 100 would mean you can't regenerate magic very well while wearing this armor, the difference is on 1 magic is deflected, this can also reduce the harm some spells do to you but also makes it very hard to enchant. High magic absorption can make it more prone to magical attacks but it can hold stronger enchantments and regenerate them on it's own faster. 50 would make the material have no altering influence on magic.


Now all those values add up into:
-How much force it takes to penetrate the armor
-How much it absorbs a hit
-How heavy it is
-Against which weapons it offers more protection
-How well you can move in it
-How well it protects against temperature, electricity and magic

Armors of the same type can vary depending on what material they are made from, how well they where made and how thick they are, this way there can be fine nuances and differences. A smith offering cheap armor may not make the best build quality, or used less quality materials.
And it can put more emphasis in repair skills again, you may be able to repair damages but degrade your armors quality that way, makes seeking out a professional to repair a bigger option or to really put a lot more effort into your repair skills and money into tools and materials.

PS: This isn't fully fleshed out yet but a basic outline of a system I'd want to see.

An iron cuirass in Morrowind is valued at 70 gold coins, and 85 in Oblivion.
If your argument is based on realism, then I think that you'll understand that 70 gold coins isn't cheap at all. Sure, I may have 30,000 coins, but with that I can buy a warhammer forged from ebony that was refined using magic in oblivion.