Armor

Based on your option B, how about not only using armour to determine your defensive ability, but put some realism by having it affect your offense.

For example, a ninja in cloth is much more flexible and has a much better chance of hitting an opponent than a knight in heavy slow moving plate armour. However, if the ninja get's hit, it's going to do so much more damage than it would to the knight.

John

I think giving armor more chances to affect different stats opens up a wider range of use for the armor. For example, that uber leet defensive armor might come with a price. Maybe it makes you move slower or attack slower. Maybe you can't jump as high.

Maybe the armor can have a stat that raises the chance you'll take less damage from a critical attack. How about armor that gives you more xp per kill? Maybe the armor increases your luck.

All sorts of things can be done to make players want to change up their armor to suit their needs. (instead of just the need to provide the most defense)

To combat the "best armor" of A, allow the armor to be destroyed or to become less effective. Either though the standard shooter logic (pick up some more armor points to get full protection again) or though some other resources. System Shock 2 had armor that drained battery when used. Walking around with a battery-draining armor, a laserpistol and few batteries was a good idea.

To combat the second problem a idea might be some slot-system. toxic-ballistic might be good in the sewers but ballistic-energy might be good when assaulting the evil empire.

Personally I would go with suits instead of armor. A suit can have additional features such as on-board weapons, jet-pack, tactical-computer and strength but also disadvantages as less room for storing backup-weapons, general bulkiness etc, but your definition of armor may already contain this...

Maybe you could find ways to get the player to bond with their armour like they might with a weapon. Playing Fallout3 recently I found myself sticking to armour that I trusted as well as found aesthetic. It was like only certain types of armour had the right feel in sort of the same way that certain weapons just felt more right to use than others.

The other thought I have is that rather than upgrading to fully different suits what about applying small upgrades to an existing suit? Certain modifications to joints might make it more quiet or easier to move in or maybe a harder material is added to protect specific locations better. And of course, upgrades which may be purely aesthetic or show rank and affiliation.

The problem with armour is that it is almost always entirely passive. The only real active interactions the player has with it are choosing to put it on, and choosing to take it off.

I think if you want armour to enrich the gameplay, you'll need to come up with some ways in which the player can actively interact with his armour that go beyond this tedious binary swap-according-to-your-enemy nonsense. As you say, normally that ends up being a case of picking a suit of armour that has good overall defence until you're tough enough to not care, at which point you pick whichever one looks cooler.

What if different armours came with special abilities?
Maybe full plate grants you the mailed fist ability (a bonus offhand attack) which, if used at the right time, can cause minor damage and knock the opponent to the ground, for an advantage in the next round of attack. Perhaps Ninja armour comes with a complete set of assassin's tools, enabling you to get insta-kills against opponents in certain sneaky situations, and perhaps a few abilities to help you move around.

It's even easier to come up with ideas in a sci-fi setting - armour suits could have built in shield generators which can grant complete protection against ranged attacks for a short time, or they could have biosensors that can expose stealthy creatures in a wide area, or scanner systems that enable you to look through walls - which could be an amazing boon to a character with a weapon that can shoot through walls. My feeling is that these should all be set up as active abilities, with cooldowns or energy costs or whatever, rather than passive, always on bonuses.

While I'm in a brainstorming mood, what if additional abilities of those suits could be unlocked with continued use, like an armour-specific skill tree? What if you then combined this with the conventional passive strength/weakness tradeoffs that armours often have in existing RPGs?

You can still swap out your armour for something better or more appropriate to the enemies you're facing, but suddenly there's a good reason not to - you might have unlocked more abilities, or the abilities built into your current suit might generally suit your playstyle better. Perhaps I might be better off trying to work around the weaknesses of my armour, rather than simply swapping it out.

In the current incarnation of my game concept, my armour system will be such that all armour pieces are about equal and not very different. Player choice is mostly thrust toward the appearance of the armour. The player can then improve the armour in different ways. Both the armour and the improvements though are purely crafted, no in game finding. So the hunt that players are use to for armour is replaced by materials finding.

One thing the armour does have innately is weight and flexibility. Higher weight affects various things, allowing you to hit harder, but move slower, slower dodging, but harder to knock down, etc. The flexibility of the armour I haven't figured out all the pros and cons of, though obviously if it is more flexible it doesn't impede movement as much as if it was rigid.

edit- adding to post

One thing the flexible armours, like chain mail, would affect is how the block weapons. Soft armour might not stop blunt impacts very well. Such hits could cause the character to be winded and flinch.

Sandman's post reminded me though. One core idea in my combat system is that armour can be pulled off the enemy to expose him. Combat works such that it is very hard to get a kill unless you create a vulnerability, so you knock your enemy down or rip off a piece of his armour to create one, then strike and do real damage. The player may not be interacting with his own armour much, but I think that sort of interaction is more interesting that just adding more abilities based on what you wear, a mechanic that is already expected in other places and widely used.

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Original post by Sandman I think if you want armour to enrich the gameplay, you'll need to come up with some ways in which the player can actively interact with his armour that go beyond this tedious binary swap-according-to-your-enemy nonsense. As you say, normally that ends up being a case of picking a suit of armour that has good overall defence until you're tough enough to not care, at which point you pick whichever one looks cooler.

I've been playing a lot of Crysis: Warhead, and I think there could be some kind of carry over, even though its a FPS. For those of you who haven't played, basically you have a nanosuit that has 4-5 modes. By pressing the middle mouse button, which allows for easy quick switching, you can choose them in a radial type menu in a hexagon. Armor, Speed, Strength, Stealth, and a fifth mode that allows you to modify the attachments of your weapons, which you gain by picking up new items along the way (nothing too fancy, stuff like laser sites and several types of scopes). Eventually you can do fun stuff like activate Strength (which allows super jumps), jump high over the fence and mid air activate stealth again so when you land your hidden. Or while Stealth is on, sneak up on a guy, activate strength and knock em out with a single punch, then restealth. I've taken on groups with just my fists doing this (although its a bit tricky as stealth, getting hit, and other things lowers your energy).

You could evolve this into an RPG type deal how sandman suggested:

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What if different armours came with special abilities? While I'm in a brainstorming mood, what if additional abilities of those suits could be unlocked with continued use, like an armour-specific skill tree? What if you then combined this with the conventional passive strength/weakness tradeoffs that armours often have in existing RPGs?

This is just a fun idea. If done right this could greatly overcome the "oh yay, this new armor has 3 higher armor..." Which would work in just about any rpg, MMOs included.

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You can still swap out your armour for something better or more appropriate to the enemies you're facing, but suddenly there's a good reason not to - you might have unlocked more abilities, or the abilities built into your current suit might generally suit your playstyle better. Perhaps I might be better off trying to work around the weaknesses of my armour, rather than simply swapping it out.

I envision a Crysis RPG now, with 5 slots that you can access by hitting the middle mouse button (you have to try the game to see how easy this is, it was a great control design, and 5 is a perfect number) where you can swap out abilities similar to the concepts detailed about. Maybe extend it further with other cool stuff (like Sandman suggested) where you have slots in the armor itself for general passive bonuses, so you have passive as well as active stuff. I think having one suit of armor at the very beginning, or only a select few suits throughout the game (maybe others have more slots or provide certain bonuses based on the slots, like WoW's gems) and then looting stuff to enhance the suit that can be replaced and such based on what you need or want would be a fun idea.

It doesn't have to be limited to futuristic either. What about a fantasy game with runes you can carve, and there's only so much room to carve runes and eventually the armor just falls to pieces? Or a spiritual type game where you have tattoos that you add and add to throughout, as well as like piercing as well, evolving your own body. Maybe you can combine the tattoos and pierces (tattooed ear or lip perhaps, or dermal piercing). That's an idea I had for a game, like a shaman-esque type deal.

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Original post by sirGustav To combat the "best armor" of A, allow the armor to be destroyed or to become less effective.

That would work. But it would require armor to be more discardable. If finding armor is rare, and you can repair it (at a shop, or with pickups), no one will toss it aside for something less protective just because it becomes damaged.

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Original post by Sandman What if different armours came with special abilities? Maybe full plate grants you the mailed fist ability (a bonus offhand attack) which, if used at the right time, can cause minor damage and knock the opponent to the ground, for an advantage in the next round of attack. Perhaps Ninja armour comes with a complete set of assassin's tools, enabling you to get insta-kills against opponents in certain sneaky situations, and perhaps a few abilities to help you move around.

I really like this concept, but I may have some problems in my own game, as the armor comes in components. If the left arm of "Cogency armor" has a repair tool, and the pants of a ninja suit helps with jumping, players will feel compelled to just wear both together. I've seen some games get around this by only allowing such bonuses when all of that type of armor is worn, but that sort of thing is hard to sell (how does a ninja mask help with jumping?).

I could make each part have its own bonus or influence, but I run the risk of enticing certain players to wear bits and pieces, and forcing their character to look like a misfit junkyard man.

However, this "aesthetic vs use" problem seems to always be hitting me in the face when I try to come up with armor gameplay concepts. It's something that probably needs to be conquered separately (such as with the ability to modify one armor to work like another, without changing its appearance).

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It's even easier to come up with ideas in a sci-fi setting - armour suits could have built in shield generators which can grant complete protection against ranged attacks for a short time, or they could have biosensors that can expose stealthy creatures in a wide area, or scanner systems that enable you to look through walls - which could be an amazing boon to a character with a weapon that can shoot through walls. My feeling is that these should all be set up as active abilities, with cooldowns or energy costs or whatever, rather than passive, always on bonuses.

All of your tech brainstorming connected a few lose pathways in my brain. Some tech concepts could be used to explain what I mentioned above. The chest part of said armor may have a generator, while a wire runs down the arm to a scanner in the hand, and a probe in the other hand, making the whole upper body necessary for the system to function. This sort of thing could be taken pretty far. Certain computer components could function alone, but better with another component.

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While I'm in a brainstorming mood, what if additional abilities of those suits could be unlocked with continued use, like an armour-specific skill tree? What if you then combined this with the conventional passive strength/weakness tradeoffs that armours often have in existing RPGs? You can still swap out your armour for something better or more appropriate to the enemies you're facing, but suddenly there's a good reason not to - you might have unlocked more abilities, or the abilities built into your current suit might generally suit your playstyle better. Perhaps I might be better off trying to work around the weaknesses of my armour, rather than simply swapping it out.

Weapons are highly discardable in my game, so I wanted armor to be more personal and long term. Something that changes slowly over time would be really nice to promote that. This is one of those design concepts that would benefit from magic, but my game doesn't use it. Other than with character skills, I'm not sure how I can make specific armor become more useful over time or through use. I would prefer to do something other than boost the armor's defensive stats. I suppose some type of familiarity rating with armor could be used, where the rating needs to be a certain threshold to use each of the armor's gadgets. But I can easily imagine myself as a player complaining about that type of design. Why am I too stupid to use the suit's scanner? My INT stat is 100!

I appreciate all of your brainstorming. At least it threw me back onto a track (it felt like dirt and grass for a while).

The type of protection depends on the type of attack. Protection wasn't invented just for fun: it was invented to face specific weapons.

You first need to choose what the different types of attacks there are before choosing what types of protection there are.

If you want to go the realistic medieval way, you have cutting, thrusting, blunt, blunt projectiles (bullets) and sharp ones (arrows).
Cutting is mostly useless against steel armor. Thrusting can pierce through steel armor, but it can still be quite difficult. And finally, blunt can do damage without penetrating the armor, especially to or from fast-moving riders (gaining momentum is what allows to do the most damage).
As for projectiles, it really depends on how it's shot (bow, crossbow, cannon, early guns), the distance, the type of head, its size, its material, etc.

Note how the longsword, for example, is kind of a jack of all trades, since it supports all of cutting, thrusting and blunt attacks. Different swords are more tailored to a type of damage.
But the best type of weapon (assuming people are potentially wearing steel armor) is obviously a pole arm from horse back, which isn't very cool gameplay.

Typically, strategy or tactics games use a rock-paper-scissors-like system. A beats B, B beats C, C beats A. You can choose to go that way for a fairer gameplay.

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Original post by loufoque The type of protection depends on the type of attack. Protection wasn't invented just for fun: it was invented to face specific weapons.

This system feels satisfying from a designer perspective, but feels far less satisfying from a player perspective. It doesn't open up anything for gameplay.

Let's say you're pretty sure you'll be facing a lot of mutants, and mutants really like laser weapons. So you travel to your safehouse, or an armor shop, and put on your anti-laser armor... That's it. There's nothing else to it. There's absolutely no player cleverness required. It doesn't feel as good to get it right as it feels bad to get it wrong. On top of that, you have to keep changing your armor to suit the current situation. And if the gameplay is interesting, the current situation is likely to change rapidly and unexpectedly. There's no depth to work with.

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Typically, strategy or tactics games use a rock-paper-scissors-like system. A beats B, B beats C, C beats A. You can choose to go that way for a fairer gameplay.

The system might be more interesting when multiple characters are available. That way, if I see muties, I just bring up Jack, who's wearing anti-laser armor. If not, I leave Jack in cover and bring out someone else.

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Original post by loufoque The type of protection depends on the type of attack. Protection wasn't invented just for fun: it was invented to face specific weapons. You first need to choose what the different types of attacks there are before choosing what types of protection there are. If you want to go the realistic medieval way, you have cutting, thrusting, blunt, blunt projectiles (bullets) and sharp ones (arrows). Cutting is mostly useless against steel armor. Thrusting can pierce through steel armor, but it can still be quite difficult. And finally, blunt can do damage without penetrating the armor, especially to or from fast-moving riders (gaining momentum is what allows to do the most damage). As for projectiles, it really depends on how it's shot (bow, crossbow, cannon, early guns), the distance, the type of head, its size, its material, etc. Note how the longsword, for example, is kind of a jack of all trades, since it supports all of cutting, thrusting and blunt attacks. Different swords are more tailored to a type of damage. But the best type of weapon (assuming people are potentially wearing steel armor) is obviously a pole arm from horse back, which isn't very cool gameplay. Typically, strategy or tactics games use a rock-paper-scissors-like system. A beats B, B beats C, C beats A. You can choose to go that way for a fairer gameplay.

While this may be historically accurate, as Kest pointed out it doesn't make for very lively game play. The time when this kind of realistic system shines is perhaps in an RTS where you have several units that you can make and outfit to prepare for various situations. However, for a single player in an RPG, I don't think it quite fits. Maybe adapting something where you can switch stuff on the fly maybe, with some intricate system to make it more interesting, but at the base level I don't think this system is suitable for games where you control a very limited number of players.

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Original post by Kest I really like this concept, but I may have some problems in my own game, as the armor comes in components. If the left arm of "Cogency armor" has a repair tool, and the pants of a ninja suit helps with jumping, players will feel compelled to just wear both together. I've seen some games get around this by only allowing such bonuses when all of that type of armor is worn, but that sort of thing is hard to sell (how does a ninja mask help with jumping?).

Oh, this one can be way easy to sell, depending on how much the manufacturers in your universe are jerks. You can use the whole concept of technology licensing and compatibility, which could create mix and match problems for combat hardware lines just as it does for computers (e.g., Mac specific components not working with PCs).

If you create clearly defined hardware lines not only would it enhance the story universe I think it would create specific strategies. You can also offer another dimension to gameplay in the form of hacks and splices. Maybe I want to run around looking like misfit junkyard man, with spliced boards grafted to my gear that could fail at any time because it's an exciting way of beating the system.

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This is one of those design concepts that would benefit from magic, but my game doesn't use it. Other than with character skills, I'm not sure how I can make specific armor become more useful over time or through use. I would prefer to do something other than boost the armor's defensive stats. I suppose some type of familiarity rating with armor could be used, where the rating needs to be a certain threshold to use each of the armor's gadgets. But I can easily imagine myself as a player complaining about that type of design. Why am I too stupid to use the suit's scanner? My INT stat is 100!

Make the INT stat the rate at which the familiarity improves. Stealing a page from SF writer C.J. Cherryh, you could explain that armor is controlled with subtle movements that drive electronic and microfluidic sensors. So putting on another man's suit of armor could be downright deadly to you because you're not calibrated for it.

You could say that the weaker the armor, the less familiarity it takes. Strapping on a flak jacket is nothing, but try full body combat armor and you'll be crashing into walls and overshooting targets. This then opens up tuning shops and characters or some player skills.

I've decided to go with a suit-component-feature system. For example, one suit of armor in my game will have forearm reloaders, that allow nearly instant reloading of pistols. The player is still free to wear another type of armor on the shoulders or chest. I've set it up so they can find and install the forearm reloaders on other armor types. But they can't be uninstalled from another suit, and obtaining them will be difficult.

Each armor part will specify all of the possible gadgets it can be equipped with when I create it. Then the player uses suit modifications to "install" them. The suit mods actually just toggle a flag for the suit, and the flag being active activates certain visual models, stat modifiers, and new animations.

This fits into the "this is my armor" system pretty well. If players find and upgrade bits and pieces of their armor to do cool things, their armor will gradually grow in ability, and they will want to keep it, even if they could be wearing something that protects better. Unfortunately, this kind of system will also make it more difficult to upgrade suits when the player actually wants to, because they'll need to dump off cool gadgets to get better wear. But from what I can imagine, I think this will just lead to more personal-goal oriented gameplay, which is something I want.

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Original post by Wavinator Quote: Original post by Kest I really like this concept, but I may have some problems in my own game, as the armor comes in components. If the left arm of "Cogency armor" has a repair tool, and the pants of a ninja suit helps with jumping, players will feel compelled to just wear both together. I've seen some games get around this by only allowing such bonuses when all of that type of armor is worn, but that sort of thing is hard to sell (how does a ninja mask help with jumping?). Oh, this one can be way easy to sell, depending on how much the manufacturers in your universe are jerks. You can use the whole concept of technology licensing and compatibility, which could create mix and match problems for combat hardware lines just as it does for computers (e.g., Mac specific components not working with PCs).

I like the idea, and may find a way to cause factory-installed suit gadgets to require other components of that suit to function. If I allow the player to make them fully functional without those other components by taking it to a shop, or by installing some additional systems on it, it will reinforce the "my armor" system on suits that come pre-equipped with gadgets.

My armor is damaged, and here's armor just like it, but this other suit still has wires running down the elbows to the reloaders, instead of the battery system I installed. No thanks.

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Strapping on a flak jacket is nothing, but try full body combat armor and you'll be crashing into walls and overshooting targets. This then opens up tuning shops and characters or some player skills.

Heh heh, that's a pretty fun idea. Changing to different weights of armor could cause your character's motion accuracy to fumble for a while. It would be pretty easy for me to do - just penalize the dexterity stat in a way that works like a drug. The effect wears off after you run around in it for a while.

all this talk revolves around armor in combat.

And why not thinking on armor as a charisma enhancer? If you see a guy around the corner in leather, that wouldn't get your attention as much as a guy in a shinny full plate mail. But, maybe that hints a trader, and he will raise his prices. Also, you can have armor tied with ranks, armies, countries, and enforce that policy.

Just my non english thoughts, translated by my non english brain.