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[Column] Elder Scrolls Online: On Armor and Weapons
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Armor and weaponry are two critical components to any MMO player's arsenal. In today's Elder Scrolls Online column, we take a look at how weapons and armor will be utilized in the game. See what we have to say before leaving your thoughts in the comments.
If you go based on the Heavy and Light Armor models in the Elder Scrolls games, how much protection will these afford players? Now balance this with Mages who are normally known for only wearing robes, yet in Elder Scrolls you can also play a Mage who wears full plate-mail that is even designed to enhance your magic. So, the armor in the game becomes very important. If you still want your Mage to look the part you can wear all kinds of robes and hoods that also boost your magic. Basically the idea of play how you want is very open in Skyrim.
Read more of Garrett Fuller's Elder Scrolls Online: On Armor and Weapons.
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Comments
The weapons and armor just all the same to me. I can't be impressed anymore because previous MMOs have covered everything in terms of armor style.
What would impress me, however, is if they announced an endless amount of different armors, so we don't see people wearing the same stuff....especially in end-game.
Maybe you didnt get it, armor is not class restricted. The armor you wear will define your what your class can do. Like a mage in plate could tank more but the plate shorten the mages range.
I think they can balance it the way they did in morrowind.
In morrowind each item had a numerical value which showed the maximum enchantment power an item could store. So it wasn't possible to enchant an item with ridiculus values like later in skyrim.
If now eg the maximum intelligence you can enchant on a heavy armor piece is +50 but the int value on a light armor from a dungeon drop is +100, the player really has to choose if he wants the additional protection or the power upgrade to magic.
In skyrim the enchanting was to unrestricted so that you didn't loose anything wearing heavy armor as a mage for example.
Another way to balance things out would be differences in movement speed or casting time based on the armor that would really matter to the player.
Overall a difficult task to balance armor but doable.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
I wouldn't worry too much here. MMO players have been wearing the Steel Bikini for one reason or another in so many high fantasy MMOs that it should be expected that you will encounter someone tanking powerful foes in their undies. Another reality of MMOs is unfathomably large swords, so big that to wield them in combat would cause the player to fall over, assuming they could lift the mighty blade from the ground, if they ever tried to swing it. A sense of realism has never held back MMO developers in the past, and I am expecting high fantasy armor excess with ESO too.
Sounds almost as if they are leaning towards a weapon based ability system similar to GW2. I'm hoping its so restrictive or falls prey to pigeon-holing where you end up specialzing in X and can never really use Y because it isn't optimal.
Variety with EoS will be key to success, while still making it challenging and requiring some semblance of the holy trinity.
I get it just fine. I'm talking about the aesthetics. There will always be "the best" rare armor piece for a tank for whatever reason. Thus, we will have every tank wearing that piece of armor.
Will agree, having 50 people in a group and 75% of them all look the same kinda kills it.
What would be intersting only about fancy weapons and fancy armours if they would anything meaningfull to the game. Like weapons damage categories piercing hacking slashing bludgeoning,crushing etc .each weapon with each own lenght reach ,by the way are there 1 handed spears or polearms in the game?
About armours different types of protections bonuses (or penalties)depending what short of weapon hits u?
Now those things offer something deep in the rpg essence of a game and that would impress me.
"There is no reason a rogue would wear heavy armor in the game."
With a high enough sneak skill, muffle with a decent illusion skill and either the invisibility spell or invis potion, you can wear a pair of cymbals as earrings and get away with it. Heavy armor does crimp the style of a stealth character, but it should not be a pre-req to ONLY wear light armor.
I do have to admit, I used a mod to make an enchanted ring of invisibility in Oblivion.
Named it One.
I like this idea Nanfoodle :-) Thanks for making me think it!
This is the fascinating part of TESO. Tanks won't be wearing the same chest piece, just because everyone will specialize in different things. The whole point of the system is to provide benefits and disadvantages from the specialization you go for, and gear should of course be adjusted to that.
People who have commented here don't seem to have the knowledge of how TESOs armors will work. Cloth armor boosts mana, medium stamina and heavy HP. They all have their own skill trees for people to spec into, and people can mix-match to their liking. In addition people will allocate points to health / stamina / mana. This causes everyone to have different builds, and with limited tool bar of 3 class abilties, 2 weapon abilities & ultimate, "fotms" or "cookie-cutters" will hardly exist. Just look at Shadowbane, that's the closest system to TESO, there were no cookie-cutters. Everyone will have their advantages and disadvantages.
This can only happen if we get raw armor/weapon, without stats, from loot or crafted, then use enchanting to enchant any armor you want/like.
Honestly, thou, no matter how well a developer prepares for pvp and pve, you will always have someone complaining that something is overpowered or is not fair.
What we should all really be hoping for is a community of gamers who want to play ESO because its fun and they enjoy playing with others. Not those whose only purpose is to get epic loots and show their epeen.
And of course we need a quality beta period that takes as long as necessary to make sure the game is done well, and not rushed out the door like some other studios have done.
I'd actually disagree with that. I like feeling that sense of autonomy, particularly in a group battle. Seems to create more unity and immersion - 40/50 warriors in standard issue heavy armor as opposed to 50 individually painted warriors with their own flashy getup.
But that's just my opinion, and its just aesthetics. Maybe I'm in the minority.