In light of a recent thread, I have discovered that many of you, for some reason, believe armour distinctions to be useless. I posit that this is a mistake, and give reasons for you to reconsider:

One must not only consider the protection granted to the wearer by the armour itself, but the overall advantages different armour styles grant the user. It should be obvious that a light armour user will be terribly awkward, unused to fighting, and perhaps not even strong enough to function in a heavier armour (anyone who has worn a full suit of plates before will confirm this).

On the other hand, imagine a heavy armour user going to light. How does a light armour user's fighting style differ from a heavy armour wearer's style? You must remember that part of the advantage of light armour is not only the (relatively little) protection it offers, but also in the maneuverability it allows. Thus, a light wearer will not rely primarily on his armour for protection against sword and axe blows, but rather attempt to evade such attacks, while hoping the leather will protect him in case his evasive moves fail him. What about a heavy user? He rarely dodges - he usually can't. But that's perfectly fine for him, because he relies on his armour for protection against brute force. Thus, when a heavy armour user goes into battle wearing light, how adept do you think he will be at dodging attacks compared to the nimble light user? Sure any warrior can dodge attacks, but the heavy user will be nowhere near as good as the light user, who dodges constantly.

Thus, in summary, light armour users rely on the maneuverability + little protection of light armour for defense, whereas heavy armour users rely on the pure protection of armour for their defense. Both are quite different techniques, and if you think armour is armour then I'm afraid you are sorely mistaken.

I agree, I like the different armor skills we are given, and more options are mostly always better anyways.

Its like saying, I can use a 2her weapons, I can use all weapons well. Why not just have one armor skill and one weapon skill?

Variety is the spice of life!

I have a feeling everything you just said will get ignored and tossed to the wind like in the other thread... I have the similar mindset as you.

But can't this be achieved by having several perk branches within one Armor skill? Like, we have one branch which covers the heaviest of the armors, one which covers the lightest, and one general/medium? As you say, one who has used heavy armor "all" his life will not be as good in light as one who has worn that, but he won't be completely helpless either.

I agree completely. Add diversity and dynamics to the game rather than remove them! The "superfluous" argument is a slippery slope, so where does one stop? Some might not be able to stop until we reach the horrid scenario you described.

I made this point in the other thread... and got this "its all mental" explaination saying spend a few hours and you can expert too.

I don't understand how they all agreed to abolish armour distinctions.

Perhaps for the average warrior different armour types wouldn't make that much of a difference. But for the seasoned veteran, who knows his armour like the back of his hand, of course he would gain a significant advantage in wearing his own armour and thus, the difference in protection offered by other types of armour would be much more profound.

I dont know but makes me wonder on some things about the person/persons who say armor type makes no differance in how you fight because its all in your head. If you think you can you will. I think I can use a axe does not mean I can weild it in a way that makes me good with it.

Armor might be better done with perks. You don't actually need a armor skill. (A single armor skill would be a lot like a jumping skill. Everyone wears armor. Just like everyone jumps.) You can just put armor perks on the other skills.

Is there going to be a diferance between perk some only good or active while using light or heavy armor or are they just active no matter the armor. If its armor specific I can agree with it but if its not then its just silly.

Then wouldn't wearing clothes increase your skill in armour too then? Where do you draw the line between a thick padded shirt and a leather vest, or a leather jerkin? Having one generic "armour" skill makes little sense to me.

as i said in the other thread i would like to have 2 armor skills : armor and unarmored. each with its own perk tree to further distinguish what kind of player you are.

I always liked the attribute/skill system in previous games and removing it seems strange, but if the new system works well enough I'd be open to it. Can't really speak yet since not alot of the details has been revealed yet.

Seems like its been an industry trend for the last five years to simplify or change a working system for no apparent reason other then to simplify. Sort of like the bright orange glow in Deus Ex HR that generated a controversy.
People always bring up graphics and really that is irrelevant. We'd all be watching movies if all we focused on were the graphics. Why must content and gamplay be sacrificed at the cost of prettier graphics?

Do we really need another thread for this?

But yes, there should be some distinctions. Because the Dragon Age method wouldn't really work, categories will have to do.

Even though, one skill would be enough, but there should be perks for different armor types.

Well that's the idea. I think the perks should be used to reinforce tropes. The ranger wears leather armor because he has a perk that lets him shoot faster in it. The warrior wears metal armor because he has a perk that makes his shield bash more power in it. Then you have perks that subvert the tropes. A battle mage perk that gives a mage more mana when he is wearing metal armor. These perks can even be narrowed down to what part of the armor matters. A perk that boost your unarmed damage well you wear metal gloves.

You can really do all kinds of things with perks.



One armor skill dosen't make sense. That's why I said you can't just have one armor skill. Everyone wears armor, so it would be a skill that everyone has. You don't actually need any armor skills. You can just use perks.

That said, I did miss the armor skills when I moved from Oblivion to fallout. I really felt like their should have been some kind of skill to boost my defense.

I don't think you'll find any disagreement in what you've posted above. The biggest debate is why medium armor was removed which you did not discuss.

I'm perfectly happy with medium armor being removed from the game, as there were very few artifacts that could take advantage of this skill.

The main purpose of this thread was to serve as a rebuttal to the other thread which claimed that all armour skill distinctions are unnecessary and that there should only be one all encompassing armour skill, which I thought had an alarming number of apologists. As for the medium armour matter, I personally found its removal distasteful, but I left that debate for another time.

A lot of people find skill specializations useless in general. Those people are action gamers.

Your title states why light/medium/heavy armor skills make perfect sense.

I, personally, wanted to read how medium armor made perfect sense.

Yeah sorry, I meant armour distinctions in general. I just copied the other threads title haha

I agree it makes perfect sense to have Light Armor or Heavy Armor. The reason being that you may be good in Light Armor but once you put on Heavy Armor you won't be as skilled at it. You won't have the speed advantage that the light armor has and you won't have the endurance at 1st to last in Heavy Armor.

At times Ihate action gamers/pro/etc gamers because they always think their way is better. This is a RPG not a action game.

Right. Pure action gamer think:
"hurr why is he talkign about all taht stuff. I just want my guy to have a armor that looks cool and badass because my hero is the best most strongest hero evarr herp derrr. wtf u dont need lite heavy armour or whatever. "

Edit: I'm not being sarcastic here. Just to make sure lol

The problem is not distinctions. I am all for distinctions. I want even more distinctions. I want to see medium, light all kinds of armors to return. I just don't want a skill for them because I believe wearing an armor is a passive thing.

What, you want to wear heavy armor and do a flip kick with your mighty 100 heavy armor skill? That's wrong.

And for Hallgerd's Tale, I would like to say to Tavi Dromio,

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IfHx0vWA0m4/TcC7WW-T9lI/AAAAAAAAAIU/HJx_C1P8z7c/s1600/1238993754704.jpg

Sounds like the people who put MLG in their name surrounded by all kinds of x's... remind me why I pay for xbox live?