Is Armor Effective enough?

[Alesan]

It highly depends on what armor you're wearing.

Some armor is great.

Some, seemingly identical armor, made out of the same or similar materials, and often described as even more protective, is complete shit. So finding the right armor is often more of a trial and error process.

That definitely sounds like an error in building. I don't like how deceptive some things can be. If it looks protective and describes as protective, it damn well should be protective.

[Dresan]

As others have said, some armors are amazing, others that should be due to cost and material don't seem that great. My biggest grip with armor has always been with their weight. Something that has been mentioned many times by others in the past  as well.

Even leather and sand-cloth armor can be surprisingly heavy. Sleeves regardless of the material, can sometimes weigh more than vest or leggings made out of heavier materials.

[whitt]

Sleeves regardless of the material, can sometimes weigh more than vest or leggings made out of heavier materials.

I wonder if this might not be intentional with the weight being figure for encumberance rather than actual weight.  A good mail hauberk, for example while weighty doesn't drag on you because it's distributed across your shoulders.  Sleeves and Leggings of the same material just... hang.  Feeling much heavier by comparison.  Just a thought.

[In Dreams]

I have no idea how it's supposed to work, but it seems like heavy armor just lets you ignore little nips, but big nasty hits seem barely affected at all.

[bardlyone]

I have no idea how it's supposed to work, but it seems like heavy armor just lets you ignore little nips, but big nasty hits seem barely affected at all.

I think it might be neat if there was something in place so there was a % chance of it ignoring the blow (HP/stunwise, with the larger blows), but knocked you prone. As though it hit you hard enough to knock you on your ass, but your armor still prevented it from injuring you. But since you're prone now... the disadvantages of being knocked prone.

[CodeMaster]

I have no idea how it's supposed to work, but it seems like heavy armor just lets you ignore little nips, but big nasty hits seem barely affected at all.

HP loss isn't the only thing that can happen when you get hit.  It's a completely invisible effect, but it's worth a lot to be able to shake out of being reel locked.

[Synthesis]

I have no idea how it's supposed to work, but it seems like heavy armor just lets you ignore little nips, but big nasty hits seem barely affected at all.

My guess is that each armor is rated to negate either a set amount of damage, or a range of damage.  (It could be set at a percentage of incoming damage, but...that explanation doesn't jive well with my personal experience.)

This set amount seems to be maaaaybe 10hp for really good armors.  Most "regular" stuff might do 6-8.  "Light" stuff 1-5.

So...the usefulness of the armor on a percent-damage-negated basis drops dramatically as a) your opponent's strength increases, b) the quality of your opponent's weapons increases, or c) your opponent starts dropping head and neck bombs.

That is, your horror-shell plate is probably really good against a city-elf wielding chipped daggers, because the most he's ever going to hit you to your body is 1-15 damage, even if you were butt nekkid.  However, that 10 damage reduction isn't terribly useful if a mek bites you to the head for 130hp (unless you happen to have 121+ hp).

[Synthesis]

Anyway, the question of whether it's effective enough kind of depends on the answer to the question..."enough for what?"

I'd say the average real-weapon PVP body-shot is like...15-20hp for human range strength, primary hand, with a nothing-special weapon?

If we assume that, then an armor negating 10 of that incoming damage is giving you an effective 50-66% HP boost, which is pretty huge.  Even a light leather armor negating 4 is giving you 20-25% effective extra HP.

[AdamBlue]

I think heavy armor should be -BUFFED- but also -NERFED-

Buffed: Increase it's strength. Heavy armor should be heavy fucking armor.
Nerfed: It's hot as balls. Make it raise thirst so that every heavily armed warrior gets pretty damn thirsty wearing that stuff after a while, and to pack extra water.
The weight is fine as long as those two changes are made, as the weight/protection ratio is somewhat low, to wearing leather stuff and being able to dodge well > wearing heavy stuff and just taking the hits.

[Delirium]

Make it easier to change in/out of armor first and then you have my axe.