[D4] How armor should be(mechanic and visual wise)

General Discussion
1

Since the marketing of D4 is “return to darkness”, armor should work more akin to previous armor design. HEre is how a good armor looks on D1 :

https://diablo.gamepedia.com/File:Full_Plate_Mail_(Diablo_I).gif

How Amazon characters looks with many armor on D2

https://i.redd.it/6fl2npe1d8911.png

Now look to D3. Armor looks like a Carnival suit. 50kg pauldrons, 50 kg open helm and bikini armor.

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/VU0BFFSL8YXD1366851838089.jpg

heavy templar armor on Gothic 1

http://www.worldofgothic.com/images/g1charaktere/templer.jpg

Dark Souls elite knight set

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/elite-knight-set

As you can see, there are fantasy elements in all examples, but the unique that is ludicrous is D3. And most fantasy elements has a interesting lore explanation, templars have a weird religion on G1 and the armor is not only for combat. Is ceremonial. Also, the game happens in a penal colony and articulations are not something easy to do.

“But mages uses robes in most fantasy settings, armor makes more difficulty to cast spells in a lot of games”

Sure, but even robes, could be more akin to ancient religious figures and folklore, example? Firemage robes on G2.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkHR3vnzlI4k033L_qYwvFhPtLO5wKvFxsi2usv8pLwKUP0t-N&s

Mages would probably use something akin to Gambeson.

This talking visual wise. Mechanic wise, i don’t wanna see your can’s DNA being 100% tied to the gear that you are wearing. Gear offering minor bonuses is FINE but as Kim said, gear will matters but not be everything on sources of power.

That said, armor should offer protection. Nobody believes that a naked char and a guy with the best armor in the game should have the same defense. But how the defense should work? In video games, you have basically 3 main systems.

  • Armor class with chance of deflecting blows(eg - Diablo 1/2, most D&D adaptations with excpection of SCL)
  • Armor reducing in a flat amount(EG - Most Gothic series)
  • Armor reducing in percentage(eg - Skyrim, diablo 3)
  • Others(like morrowind’s armor system)

PS : This is a simplification. On Dark Souls 2 for eg, physical defense reduces in flat amount but the defense vs dark/fire/lightning is by percentage.

What i don’t like in armor reducing in percentages is that it kinda trivializes the weaponry. For example, a sword vs a warhammer. You can make the sword faster but the warhammer draining more stamina, slower and dealing more damage, with flat amount and AC, you can have a weapon better vs poor armored enemies and another better vs heavily armored enemies. This applies to any setting, even futuristic ones. On FNV, a SMG will outDPS a rifle VS unarmored enemies but deal almost to no damage compared to a .308/.50 BMG armor piercing vs heavily armored enemies. It is amazing. Collaborate to build and weapons being more situational instead of having a "best build"

The flat amount can also be used as “immunity”, eg, if an playing gothic 1, and only know fire bolt(30 damage), any enemy with at least 30 fire resist is immune to my fire bolt. Same for melee weapons. You will not gonna pick a shortbow and damage Gomez from his thick armor… Once you find better spells/weaponry, then enemies that you could only hit on critical, now you can hit. It serves as a reward system too and make little incremental damage gain much more important.

Eg - Enemy with 30 ARMOR and you with 35 damage. You will deal just 5 damage. With a better weaponry or better stats, if you now have 40 damage, you doubled your damage vs that enemy. If armor absorbs 30% vs any weapon, the damage gain will not be significant and also will be the same in all encounters, when with the flat amount, the 5 damage gain can double the damage in one situation and be a minor gain in another(eg - enemy with 5 armor), making each encounter and each mob more unique

So, IMO Diablo 4 should armor be back to AC of D1/Defense of D2 or move to a flat amount.

14 Likes
2

you like, looking at this booty, dont you? :v

3

Boody in a armor is just silly. Wanna do fan service? Put half naked girls in a night club but don’t make amazons with this awful type of armor…

1 Like
4

Armour that rides up your butt would not be good, but there’s actually a fair bit of historical precedence for armour that’s designed to look attractive.

It’s just that most of the historical examples of armour are designed for stuff that was considered attractive for men at the time, so we did things like put 6 pack abs on armour.

Also mages would probably wear plate armour because the whole idea of casting failure makes little sense to begin with and in reality well made plate armour is so incredibly overpowered you’d never not want to use it if it was an option.

At least until everybody was running around with firearms.

5

Most from custom made wealthy mercenary armor, officers and ceremonial armor. Is like this “gold bathed firearms”…

6

The sorcs are where magic comes in consideration
Robes are magic

7

Actually there was plenty of combat armour that had designs for appearance.

Also when we get into the medieval era, there’s a lot of custom made plate armour because plate armour was rather expensive. Often it was commissioned by a lord for the knights sworn in service to him while the common soldiers were more likely to use gambeson and chain mail.

and in the ancient world, you have stuff like the Greeks loved to stylize their armour to make them look more like their idea of the heroic man.

Contrary to popular belief, those sorts of designs don’t really create weak points in the armour.

1 Like
8

Nice points. You are right.

Anyway, stylize a little a armor and have amazon with chainmail bikini and shoulders of doom(two tropes) are two different things.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChainmailBikini
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShouldersOfDoom

Would be cool if transmog is improved over D2 and you can put emblems, text, runes, etc in your own armor. But i don’t know how hard it will be to implement that level of armor customization…

9

Ugh, you can’t even actively identify what that armor would of looked like / should of looked like because of how damn pixelated it is…

You have no idea, what inspiration / ideas they were trying to draw on because of the massive lack of polygons…

Item’s should look ornate and unique, not dull - Diablo 3 was over-done, but you have no idea how previous games could of looked with the same technological availability to make comparisons.

10

Bikini armour is a bit of a lengthy thing to get into, but there’s a few things that could make it plausible.

Though for the purposes of aesthetics in a Diablo game yeah, I’d agree that bikini armour feels too much like fan service given the game’s aesthetics are rooted in a more Gothic style.

Armour should be getting into very ornate full plate, which when accounting for some fantasy you can still do a lot with that.

11

That is right, if the rules of magic were that is more difficult cast magic with plate armor, that would be fine. But that isn’t the case, in D1 one could use all magics with the full plate warrior.

In Diablo we should be able to use plate armor with all classes. Well, maybe Druid would have problems with the shapeshift?

Gamberson would be great. I think they could do it in ways that one would use different armors for different things. Gamberson is better for travel and also is cheapper. Plate armor is a lot better but is a lot more expensive to make and to repair. It can also slow you down, cost more stamina when move.

Yes. Plate armor is op, but some times gamberson would be better, for example when travel.

12

I’ve seen the D4 concept art of the legendary armor for the first 3 classes and I’m quite happy with how it’s looking. It has a more grounded/realistic look. It’s definitely not the flamboyant fantasy style of D3! I also hope that they don’t start off half naked like a few of the D3 classes… :sweat_smile:

13

Yep. I an not saying that Diablo should be 100% historical accurate either. Only that the fantasy elements on armor should be more in line with the Diablo’s lore. Eg, on Gothic 1, i can see a lot of religious symbols on the Templar’s armor.

https://i.imgur.com/wAimeVh.png

Faraam armor on DKS2

https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Dark-Souls-2/xFaraam_Set.jpg

I know that is not a isometric ARPG, but both games are heavily influenced by gothic armor design and architecture

And i an not against fan service. But i don’t think that should be fan service on armor design. Put romanceable succubus, put a nightclub, put everything, except bikini armor.

You are right. Diablo is not like other fantasy settings with arcane failure or where iron can interfere with arcane energy manipulation.

Where i can see the D4 concept art of the legendary armor???

14

Maybe was talking about the concept art? or the look of the characters of the demo?

The only one that i would change is the male barb without a cover on his chest. The female has it, why not the male? I mean, that is one of the most important parts of the body to protect. And they could get away with it if it was a class that use a shield, but not even that.

Ofc, one could argue that if you fight a huge creature no armor could save you from that.

15

they posted photos on their Facebook and Twitter pages!

each class looks unique to their culture i think. they do have some fantasy elements to them but they don’t really look over the top like D3.

I’m already sold on the Sorceress :sweat_smile: That black and gold armor looks amazing, heck i even just like her normal armor!

2 Likes
16

Still too much flamboyant IMO. Less than D3? Sure. But nothing like D2.

Taking gothic as a example, here is a screenshot showing the basic fire robe(wear by the main character) and the best fire robe from the magician instructor who is teaching circle 3 spells in a single conversation. There are more ornaments and decoration on the high robe, but nothing who makes no sense.

https://i.imgur.com/BJQAFhG.png

edit : Here is the BEST water mages robe where you can see the weapon better https://i.imgur.com/uvCQC4n.png

And here is Gomez, the richest ore baron in the penal colony the guy who is the responsible to the penal colony takeover and of course, he uses one of the best in game armor.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gothicpedia/images/7/74/Gomez.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130321190825&path-prefix=cs

Repare that the MACE that my character is using is not ludicrous big like in other games. Even the best hammer(God’s Hammer), doesn’t have much flamboysm on it… Hell, even Orc weaponry looks something appropriated to orc size…

3 Likes
17

Barb

  • The barb of the left looks good. But there is a hole between the chest and waist? If that is the case, it shouldn’t be there. The pauldrons are too big maybe. And the horns… it is a bad idea to have them bcs someone could grab you from them and have your head at their mercy, but i guess is part of the barb’s fantasy, so it is ok.

  • The one of the middle: the chest is a big no, seeing that the armor has bones and stuff like that, maybe make a bone armor chest or something like that. The rest is okish but again, have things others can use to grab you isn’t a great idea.

Druid

How is the druid has better armor than the barb? hehe. Not big complains here, it is a little too ornamental but if it is a legendary armor could be ok.

Sorceress

  • The middle one: this one is great, maybe again the horns but the rest looks good. The horns here are a little better bcs this class fight from the distance.

  • The other too look more ceremonial or something like that but not very protective. They could be gamberson (gamberson looks awesome, they should use it more) but the chest shouldn’t be open like that, that is one of the parts one should protect.

1 Like
18

Armor for each Tier (t1=lvl1-10;t2=lvl11-20;etc…)

  • Cloth: 10/20/30/40/50 armor
  • Leather: 20/40/60/80/100 armor
  • Studded Leather: 30/60/90/120/150 armor
  • Chain/Mail Armor: 40/80/120/160/200 armor
  • Plate/Scale Armor: 50/100/150/200/250 armor
  • Shield would range similarly, from cloth to plated shield

Then each piece of armor has the following armor weight ratio:

  • Glove/Boot = 1x
  • Helm/Legs = 2x
  • Chest/Shield = 3x

Then if the item is of improved quality, its armor would be upgraded to the next armor type:

  • Improved Cloth t1 would be 20 armor
  • Improved Leather t1 would be 30 armor
  • etc…
  • Improved Plate t1 would be 60 armor

So the maximum armor on a single piece would be:
Improved Chestplate/PlatedShield T4 for 300 armorx3=900 armor

Now comes the difficult part:

If a character wears full cloth armor of his level, not improved he would have (t4)
50+50+100+100+150+150=600 armor
So 600 armor at t4 means you take full damage.
While the maximum armor one can have would be at t4:
300+300+600+600+900+900=3600 armor
So 3600 armor at t4 means you take 75% damage
3600=600*6 so 6 tiers of reduction to reach 75% damage reduction.
75/6=12.5
This means that every 600 points of armor you’d get 12.5% damage reduction up to a maximum of 75% damage reduction (physical damage).

If any class can wear any armor, but armor is restricted by stats :
Then somebody might choose to wear a t3 (lower stats) plated armor instead of t4 Chain armor.
Armor can be refined via craft to be upgraded.
Armor can be enhanced via runes.

Now the drawbacks:
For each tier of armor the movement speed is reduced by 5% up to 25%

  • t0=600 armor or 120 at level 1-10= 0% movespeed reduction
  • t1=1200 armor = 5% movespeed reduction
  • t2=1800 armor = 10% movespeed reduction
  • t3=2400 armor = 15% movespeed reduction
  • t4=3000 armor = 20% movespeed reduction
  • t5=3600 armor = 25% movespeed reduction
    Can be removed through skills/runes/charms/etc…

What could be also introduced is Elemental Armor:

  • As a skill: get elemental armor equal to your armor for X seconds
  • As a rune: the armor is converted to elemental armor
  • As basic armor piece: Dragonscale would be the equivalent of plated/scale but as elemental armor. Demonleather/Thornmail/Lunarcloth/etc…

The drawback of elemental armor would be physical damage reduction:

  • t0=600 armor or = 0% physical damage reduction
  • t1=1200 armor = 5% physical damage reduction
  • t2=1800 armor = 10% physical damage reduction
  • t3=2400 armor = 15% physical damage reduction
  • t4=3000 armor = 20% physical damage reduction
  • t5=3600 armor = 25% physical damage reduction

If not physical damage reduction because it’s not very logical, it could be other things such as: physical armor reduction or even movespeed increase to counter the physical armor drawbacks.

To simplify the whole thing, i’d put in the UI two bars that show both physical and elemental armor tier, with on mouse over shows the drawback/benefit. Upon switching gear, one can see clearly what change of armor tier it has and make an easy choice instead of calculating.

Now to double check:
full leather armor t4 0%qual would be:
100+100+200+200+300+300=1200=>t1 physical
full leather armor t4 perf would be:
150+150+300+300+450+450=1800=>t2 physical
full studded leather t4 0%qual would be:
150+150+300+300+450+450=1800=>t2 physical
full studded leather t4 perf would be:
200+200+400+400+600+600=2400=>t3physical

So full perf armor would net you a full tier upgrade!

This is what I think armor should look like in d4, please build upon with crafting, affixes, absorb, etc…

3 Likes
19

Zrtzst

The problem with your idea is the same with %damage reduction. Hegemonizes combats/spells. Reduction should be flat value. Absorb the same percentage of damage, doesn’t matter if is a kitchen knife or a warhammer, a 9mm hollow point or a 14.5x114mm API, a fire bolt or a mini sun, etc is silly IMO.

20

I feel since its legendary armor its meant to look a little flashy. I’m personally happy with it but i get where you’re coming from.
I also think a lot of people just like what looks good not necessarily realistic tho, its still kind of a fantasy world/game after all. Hopefully they’ll have some of the style youre looking for!