Dark Legacy MUD Forum

Currently, most metal armor in Dark Legacy is useless, as the negative effects on your armor class far outweigh the damage reduction and enchantment benefits. The purpose of this proposal is to remedy this situation, and make metal armors worth the effort required to make them

All damage reduction would be universal, applying equally to all body parts. The amount of damage reduction a specific piece of armor provides is based up on the size, targetability, and importance of the area it protects. This is done for the same reason that your foot doesn't have a seperate hitpoint bar from your head: simplicity. Note that while this will give players much higher damage reduction on each body part than they have now, players will still be able to hurt and sever heavily armored opponents through use of different combat styles and attack types(jab/thrust/lunge).

The ratio of damage reduction for each armor type would be as followed:
Helm: 2.0
Cuirass: 2.0
Greaves: 1.0
Gauntlets: .5
Bracers: .3
Boots: .2
Shield: 1.5

Reforging an item will remove all enchantments from the item and return its enchantment value to 0/max enchantment. This would be to prevent somebody from making an item out of mitrill, enchanting it, and then reforging to adamantite to get the damage/damage reduction bonuses of adamantite, with the enchant space of mitrill.

The stats for each metal are as follows.

Bronze:
Damage: 1.0
Damage Reduction: 1.0
Enchant: 1.0
Mobility Penalty: 1.0

Iron:
Damage: 1.25
Damage Reduction: 1.25
Enchant: 1.1
Mobility Penalty: 1.1

Mitrill:
Damage: 1.25
Damage Reduction: 1.25
Enchant: 1.4
Mobility Penalty: .5

Adamantite:
Damage: 1.75
Damage Reduction: 1.75
Enchant: 1.1
Mobility Penalty: 1.1

Meteorite:
Damage: 1.75
Damage Reduction: 1.75
Enchant: 1.6
Mobility Penalty: .8

Emeralite:
Damage: 2.0
Damage Reduction: 2.0
Enchant: 2.0
Mobility Penalty: .75

So, for example, if you were at a level where the 'base' damage reduction of an item was 100, then if you had an entire set of armor (except shield), your total universal damage reduction would be 600.

If the entire set was mitrill, it would be 750 universal damage reduction without a shield.

Note that the value '100' is only an example, and we are not proposing any actual values, just ratios for how the metals should compare to eachother, and how the different armor types should compare to eachother.

This proposal is the result of extensive time and thought by Ocardus and Nuitari.

That's much better than how it works now, both for conceptual and balance purposes.

the damage reduction for mitrill should be higher than that of iron. don't you agree?

not really. classically, mithril has been as strong as steel but far lighter. since we don't really have steel in DL, we just use the properties for iron.

Edit: Actually, mithril COULD have more dr than iron, and that might be better for game balance.

Don't even get me started. There is so much 'wrong' with the current craft and item systems that a small fix would only be fooling ourselves. It would also turn attention away from the two systems for a LONG time. Why? Because "We fixed the worst problem didn't we?".

Personally I would just like to see everything stay the way it is, untill the next huge leap in crafting code. Kinda like the leap from the old system with fixed items to the new one with dynamic items.

You're pretty much right, Vogar....but how long will we have to wait until the next big change? And who's to say that cele will actually fix crafts and equipment in it? It's a gamble either way.

first
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Reforging an item will remove all enchantments from the item and return its enchantment value to 0/max enchantment. This would be to prevent somebody from making an item out of mitrill, enchanting it, and then reforging to adamantite to get the damage/damage reduction bonuses of adamantite, with the enchant space of mitrill.
-snip

i like it, definitely a submission for the next time cele feels happy

next
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There is so much 'wrong' with the current craft and item systems that a small fix would only be fooling ourselves.
-snip-

craft system isnt being replaced, posting your thoughts on how to tweak it is the way to go.


now, for the rest, you want the damreduction to encompass the entire body, like a forceshield? so, a person with 500 damreduction could possibly remove half their gear, fighting half naked, but still get great damreduction?

tweaking the ratios for various metals are definitely a good idea however, i'm just a little leary of the damreduction encompassing the entire body

Yeah, we realize how unrealistic that sounds...But think about it. Right now a cuirass has a lot more damage reduction than a helm, even though a logically built and well crafted helm should protect your head as much as a cuirass protects your chest, with both being the same material and level, of course.

This makes very little sense to us, and considering how easy criticals are to get, and how little damage reduction current armor gets, it only adds to our points. Either individual damage reduction on pieces of armor needs to be MUCH MUCH MUCH higher than they are now, or there could be a universal set. And then you have to take into account that just wearing all this heavy armor with lots of damage reduction lowers your mobility to the point that they get even higher criticals against you, effectivly MULTIPLYING their damage, making it even easier for them to pierce your damage reduction.

So yeah, either a universal set or increasing the individual pieces's damage reduction works, its just preference.

that we generalize dr for the same reason hp is generalized....getting hit in your head and foot count towards the same hp, and they count towards same dr for the same reason:simplicity. also, you will probably position yourself in battle to present the armored portions of your body to opponents, and guard the unarmored ones more adequately(with your dodging and parrying). you can do this since your armored areas protect themselves, which is distributing the armor's protection across the whole body.

also, if that person takes off half their armor, they aren't going to still get good damage reduction, they will get half damage reduction.

finally, like weems said, i don't really prefer universal dr over raising dr, just as long as its fixed somehow

Hopefully i didnt skip crucial parts while posting this, so plz dont yell!
The initial idea is fairly good except perhaps for the entire definition of damage reduction. Saying that a helmet of the same level and material defends as well as a cuirass is making it too simplistic because of the basic differences. Lets say i take the flat of a blade and smack it against your helmet as hard as i can, then against the front of your cuirass. There is most definitely going to be a difference in the damage suffered.
Another problem I see with the current system is that severs are based on crits which is based on AR to AC ratio. Right? This bit is pointless if its not :S. So a person wearing heavy armor, which usually means a stronger metal or metal vs cloth/wood has more chance of being severed than a person wearing a shirt and pants? It seems so strange to me as I write this that im doubting my whole theory. What if severs are based on dam reduction? This makes more sense to me because if u have a cuirass with loads of dam red, it should mean that when a weapon hits you it does less damage. The only way you could justify severing an arm without doing loads of damage is if you manage to hit a chink in the armor and avoid the armor all together and with heavier armor the vulnerable areas are better covered than if youre wearing a shirt.

If one was going to "Fix" the reforge command, one would also need to fix the spell Ironwood. Why should a person be able to make something from Hawthorne then enchant it, then get hte DamRed of Ironwood? *voice dripping with sarcasim*

WHY is reforging from Mitrill to Adamantite a bad thing? Or why is reforging from Mitrill to Meteorite a bad thing? Or why is going from Hawthorne to Ironwood a bad thing?

It takes time and resources to have enough ingots to reforge an item twice with rare metals. High level items thats can be near 150 ingots per reforge. If your willing to invest the time and energy to get those extra ingots, why shouldn't you be able to have a SLIGHTLY better weapon? After all, its not like the differences are huge.

True, Mitrill isn't worth the thousand or more an ingot that it in the days before CoS. However, if you find the whole idea a problem I have a VERY simple solution: REMOVE THE PILLAR FROM THE MINE. Doing this would make people have to work for even the basic metals like Mitrill, and increase their value above the current 200gp or so. Metals being rarer, the instances of reforgings would decrease.

Also, have you even stopped to concider the consequences of enchantments being stripped from your weapon? I for one don't always reforge before I enchant a weapon. I might not have the ingots to spare, so I run around with an iron or bronze weapon till I do.

Now lets say I just took my e100 bronze axes. Lets say I don't have the mitrill around. Borrow a pair of rune-word staffs from one friend, get a Bard to group me and I enchant them, then Holy Avenger them. Then lets say I enchanted them completely from items that held only 0.1 Attack to give maxium chance of exceptional enchantment. Thats a lot of attack items, and a lot of time collecting them. What if I also found a sanc item (which seem to be getting harder and harder to get), and put that effect on as well? How about other effects like elemental shields? Or maybe the EXTREMELY rare Air resistance?

So now I have spent the better part of a week or two doing nothing but trying to enchant my weapons to be the best they can be. Around about now I get my hands on some mitrill and reforge them. *PooF* that two weeks is gone! I don't get any of those drain items back. I have to call in a favor with the Bard and the friend with the runeword staffs again. In short, I am back at square one.

Now I am sure no one chars if Vogar is inconvienced. Heck, I am sure some people would do anything they could to spite me. But what about some newbie who CAN'T replace the drain items? Who doesn't even remember the name of the person that enchanted their sword for them? What about them?

In short, I personally feel changing it would do more harm then good.

if someone is a 'newbie' as you say, then they won't be doing the reforging themselves anyways, it will be done by a professional who is wise in the ways of crafting. And since that would be true, this professional would undoubtedly also be willing to sell their services to re-enchant the item. (or the whole reforging / enchanting thing would be a combined deal in the first place)

as for your question about why is mitrill worse than adamantite. mitrill has higher enchantment space than adamantite. I believe celeborn has set the material in proportion to the chances of finding those resources in the mines, the lower the chance of finding, the "better?" the item, although that term is subjective, damage-reduction, enchantment space, mobility penalty (weight), these are all things which are useful.

If you are basing your judgement on dungeons and dragons, thats probably the mistake, if you are basing your judgement on the chances of finding such materials in dark-legacy, then you can post your thoughts on those matters.

vogar, you are right. the thing about wiping enchantments was intended as part of the changes we suggested, and shouldn't be implemented without the rest of the changes. we suggested the wiping enchantments because, in our table, adamantite would have the same toughness as meteorite, just heavier and far less enchantable. in that case, using a few cheap mitrill ingots could render your adamantite armor barely less useful than the far rarer meteorite, and adamantite weapons just as good as meteorite.

we never intended for the enchantment-wiping to be implemented without the rest of the things, so direct your arguments towards Isabelle, not us.

Silvanos, I agree with you on some areas, but the changes you suggest would probably require massive rewrites of the combat system, which we are trying to avoid. Damage reduction DOES currently stop severs...If it blocks all the damage. If you do ANY damage to any opponent, it means you completly surpassed all forms of damage reduction that they had.

Vogar, anybody who has access to adamantite has access to at least 50 times as much mitrill, you can just enchant a weapon after a reforge to mitrill, then reforge to adamantite, and have a weapon thats ALMOST as good as meteorite, and you cant do the same with meteorite, because it has more enchant. This makes meteorite just not worth getting, and certainly not fair to the effort required to get it.

Also, I don't think the bronze axe scenareo is a realistic one, because if this is changed, it will be very well known to people, so everybody will know to reforge to mitrill/adam/meteorite/whatever before enchanting.

And remove the pillar?! Jesus! Meteorite would go from near impossible to get to virtually unnatainable unless you LIVE on dl. I mean it. Under the current mining system I'm pretty sure I have put in more hours than anybody, so I'm not talking out of my ass here. It would also make gemstone mining MUCH more difficult, giving older, established miners an unfair advantage over the new ones.

And the reason why didnt touch on resetting wood armor enchant values after you ironwood is because this thread is about METALS and METAL armor.

~Ocardus out

Oh and, as for the proportion of difficulty in finding the metal to usefulness of the metal, try wearing a full set of meteorite eq. your head will pop off after the first attack, and the rest of your bodyparts will soon follow. while meteorite DOES have high damage, the difference between mitrill and meteorite is rather insignificant compared to the amount of damage you can enchant on a weapon

For the record, my last posted was aimed directly at, and for Isabelle and not ment to argue a point with Weems or Nuitari. What I saw was Isabelle doing a classic Caretaker action of sweeping aside the bulk idea to pick and choose things that could make the game more difficult and annoying.

Weems, if anyone that has Adamantite has 50 times as much Mitrill, what about the Mitrill miners? Does that mean that if I have 150 ingots of mitrill I only maybe have 2 or three ingots of Adamantite? YES IT DOES! So what do you think is going to come first? 150 mitrill and 3 adamantite, or 7,500 mitrill and 150 adamantite. We both know the logicists say that its much more common that someone will reforge a mitrill weapon because they didn't have adamantite laying around. Heck, I think I have maybe 73 ingots of Adamantite to my name. Not everyone can wait for 150 adamantite just to fill their weapon with enchantments.

Isabelle, do you honestly think that 'newbies' don't make and use items? Also, how many charitable crafters do you know that are willing to say "Yeah, I'll forge till I get a three-socket exceptional, reforge it mitrill, collect all the items and enchant it, reforge it to Adamantite, and even throw in some runes and a special secret runeword! All for only about 100k extra gold" Now do you honestly think your AVERAGE newbie Avatar has access to really well crafted items? I know that they don't. Most of it is second and third rate stuff they made themselves, got from a friend, or bought on auction because it was better then what they had before: NOTHING.

I agree with Nuitari completely. As long as the current system of Severing, and its effect on metal armours continues.... "good" metals aren't worth a squat compared to silk. Heck, and silk is only a fraction better then cloth. Whats cloth made from? Cotton. How hard is Cotton to get? How hard is Meteorite Ore to get? How long does it take to addept Foraging Cotton? How about mining Meteorite?

you are way off, i have just re-read my previous posts, and i see nothing about sweeping aside the ideas, and only picking the annoying ideas?

i havent picked anything, other than to say he was on the right track with the wiping of enchantment when reforging, and that the resource modifiers could possibly be changed per his idea, and that i did not agree with his forceshield approach to damage reduction.

thats what i said.

i read it again, and its still there.

The wiping of enchantment when reforging is still a good idea, the current system allows a finished product to have more enchantment than it was designed to hold.

Being a caretaker, i have a pretty good idea (sometimes) of what (can) be coded, the possible limitations, and what Celeborn would like to see done. When i post my thoughts on something, it's to help the poster understand which way he can push his evolution of ideas.
Focusing on what 'might' be done, and building on those ideas.
-- But, so you know, i 'pick' no ideas, that's Celeborns privilege, i only give input on what i like. (and dislike)

And, i do not understand this 'newbie protector' role you have taken up. If a player makes an item, and uses it, then a month down the road finds mitrill, chances are good the player will be a higher level, and will not be reforging their newbie gear anyways, they will be making new stuff. And, for the remote chance that they still want to use their gear, they will simply find new drainer equipment to use to re-enchant the items, i do not see that as an issue, at all. The only adjustment made, will be by you. Not the newbie.

First off, I agree with Vogar, somewhat. Isabelle did pick out the one bad thing from that whole list and decide to recommend it to Cele, and that IS a classic caretaker thing to do. Like Isa says, however, she did read over the whole thing and give her opinions on a lot of it, the enchanting thing wasn't the only part she liked. So lets refrain from Isabashing

I find myself frequently enchanting and using bronze items until I can find Gaitika, Hardraak, Ocardus, or whoever to get mitrill from. Getting drainer eq is a big deal now, with that stipulation about fully identifying items before draining them(it fixed a very minor abuse by newbies, and created huge inconveniences for everyone else), especially with the high-enchantment items that you get as your epic level rises. The thing about wiping enchantments actually isn't a good idea, its a pretty crappy one, but it was the least of all the evils we thought up to keep meteorite worthwhile in our new system. Under the current system, mitrill and adamantite both suck so hard that there's no probelm with having the enchant of mitrill and the "toughness" of adamantite. My e200 double great axes gained like....8 damage when I reforged from mitrill to addy; that's a whopping 1200 enchant space BEFORE skillfull/exceptional successes. Compare that 8 damage to the difficulty in finding adamantite(or the 156k I paid Ocardus to buy the adamantite from him). My e200 bronze helm lost 20% ac penalty and gained 7% dr from reforging it to mitrill, I'm not going to bother wasting addy on it and probably not even going to use it; at -8 ac and +215ish dr, it is worse than useless.

The situation with metals is really, really bad and desperately needs to be fixed, preferably while taking into account player input(that means actually getting the input to Cele) from those who know the problem best(Vogar, Weems, and Lingolas come to mind).

Oh and, I am currently using an epic level 200 radiant emeralite cuirass, which was enchanted using the smallest possible increments so as to hold the most enchantment possible and has over half of its glory space enchanted. The enchantments on it were wisely chosen, I wouldn't do much to change them if I could. I'm currently looking for a spider silk shirt to replace the cuirass(because it sucks, in case that much wasn't obvious). What does that tell you about metal armors?

Isabelle, let me be the first to appologize if you took my posts as personal insults or attacks. I haven't been posting my usual disclaimers in this thread. They have been written very quickly and late at night as is evidenced by my typos, some bad logic, (and as I re-read them) a harsher tone then was ment.

As far as newbie protector roll, what well known Tri-av dwarf was known to be a lowbie the longest? What dwarf do you know bothers to craft excellent level 17 swords and give them out as gifts to people i have decided are trully new to the game? Remember the days when i had CoS open to the public so newbies/lowbies had a place to call home? (It only closed because a theif stole some of my best items when "Secure" was bugged and acting only like "Lockdown".) Heck, the whole origional premise of CoS didn't even have levels in there anywhere. We recruited from people generally under level 30 that were new to the game and interested in crafting. Most recently I made a bargin with Rahl for lots of mitrill. Believe it or not that was all ment for level 17 swords/axes/ect...

Heck, go look up my first 'influencial players' post, "...Lastly I do be thanking all the little people. The ones that try to make their way in Alora without Avatars to help them, without guilds to protect them. To the people who's only friend is their novice sword! Do be saluting you!"

I may be an a**hole, and may roleplay one too, but I do try to look out for the little guys every once in a while. Atleast once a year.

Once again, this is just the way I see things, warped an twisted as it may be. Take for whatever its worth, but please don't take it as insult.

i have a solution to the identifying problem. why not rid the whole identifying crap?

If you think about it, there isnt really a use for identify stuff. Most of us will not lose sleep if the the identify skill went away. it will probablynot effect the gaming quality either.
Personally, I find the Identify skill more of an inconvient than anything. Maybe one the id thing is gone, shops will no longer be bugged.

* give bards and whoever that can auto id some new skills to compensate for their useless autoidentify skill

hey, i give out level 17 (or lower) swords and stuff also!

*cough* You would have to be pretty creative to beat a Vogar made and enchanted sword *cough*

()+++{{============>

Just ask Brittania, a Vogar made level 17 can easily take you all the way to Tri-Av with faithful and reliable service. Don't trust your life to a lesser weapon. Vogar, a crafter you can trust.

<============}}+++()
*End Advertisement*

Isabelle, if you do not like the 'forcefield' damage reduction idea, then what about just increasing the individual damage reduction?

i dunno, i had a different idea, which would probably be extreme for some.. but here goes

any crafted gear would have 'armor class' instantly added to it, determinate upon the material and level of the item (and whether it be exceptional/normal/ quality)

enchanting armor, and weapons, gone

using spells to cast on weapons, gone

ironwood gone

hitpoints, mana, saves versus lightning, slash, etc would be only on jewellery? or.. removed altogether, and have hp be determined by level, and slash/poison/pierce all be merged into the 'armor class' bonus of the item?

it would be a big change though

getting back to your damage reduction thing, why was it you wanted more damreduction on items again?

Do not take diversity away!!!