Armor: Final Solution?

When it comes to armor, the two biggest suggestions floating around this forum and other forums are armor storage ideas and the smart armor system. I think I’ve come up with an effective way to combine the two, while keeping balance and the economy in mind as well.

The Plan:
When you go to an armor crafter, instead of crafting armor pieces that take up an inventory slot, you “unlock” that armor piece for your character. To equip the armor, I propose a pop out window much like the dye preview window. To get to the “Armor Window”, you simply double click an armor slot (i.e. chest piece, leg piece, etc.) and a window will appear with an armor preview on the right and 3 drop down boxes on the left.

The topmost drop down box will be the “skin” of the armor. You could choose between any chest piece you have “unlocked” for your character (Sunspear, Istani, Ancient, Canthan, Obsidian, etc). When you click the skin dropdown menu, the topmost skins in the list will be the most expensive ones and bottommost in the list will be your starter armors. Most of the time, characters will want to use their most expensive armor, so putting it at the top makes sense. No one wants to scroll through an entire list of low AL armor you craft along the way, just to get to the armor they really want to wear. By the same token, low AL armor MUST stay on the list because who knows when some brilliant person will come up with another build that takes advantage of low AL (i.e. Spirit Bonder)? Also, for headgear, all special holiday item unlocks would be listed here! Again, saving inventory space.

Once you pick a skin, the other 2 drop down menus become active. The 2nd drop down menu would be for any runes you have applied to this skin on this armor slot. This is an important detail I think. If you have Istani chest armor unlocked and you’ve applied a minor Command rune and minor Motivation rune to it in the past, if you all of the sudden unlock Sunspear chest armor, you won’t have access to the Motivation and Command runes on the Sunspear skin unless you buy new ones and apply them to the new armor skin. The reasoning behind this is that it makes the least impact on the economy. Right now we currently have to buy new runes for each set of armor we craft. If we only had to buy runes once for all armor skins, the price of runes would just plummet.

The 3rd drop down menu would be for Insignias. It would work in exactly the same way as runes do. You have to buy insignias for each armor piece and skin.

To apply runes, insignias and dyes to armors, you have to be wearing them since they no longer reside in your inventory, but on a drop down menu.

Pros:
- It seems that the template system in place only allows you to switch menu driven character attributes like skills, stats and profession. By switching the armor over to this menu driven interface, perhaps templates could expand to include armor sets as well. This would be a huge time saver, especially for PvPers and anyone who likes to micromanage their armor down to the very last detail with attunement runes, insignias, etc.

- Since armor would be stored as an unlock for your character, it would take up less space on ANet’s servers than many of the armor closet ideas proposed.

- As pointed out in the Smart Armor thread, there are so many ways for characters to micro manage their armor these days that the current system is too static. On my monk, I run 3 builds in PvE. A full heal build with Healing Prayers, Divine Favor and Inspiration. A hybrid build with Healing Prayers, Protection Prayers and Divine Favor and a protection build with Protection Prayers and Divine Favor. In the past, I simply had one piece of headgear with a Superior Healing Prayers rune and one with a Superior Protection Prayers rune. Then for my other 4 armor pieces I put in a minor divine favor, minor healing prayers, minor protection prayers and Superior vigor. This allowed me the greatest flexibility because if I was using my Superior Protection Prayer head gear, I would still have the minor healing rune and vice versa. Now however, there are other useful runes I want to use on a per build basis (Attunement and Vitae), but this would either require me to craft many more pieces of armor which take up a ton of inventory space or buy new runes every time I switch my build. With all the emphasis on easy build switching (templates and profession drop down box), why carry on this dated, inflexible armor system?

Effects on the Economy:

- This system is almost exactly the same as the current armor system from an economic stand point. You still have to buy runes for each piece of armor you craft (unlock). You still have to buy insignias for each piece. You still have to dye each piece individually. The only thing this eliminates is having to buy the same rune over and over again because you keep switching runes in your current armor as your builds change. And honestly, how many people do this often enough to affect rune prices? Most people just buy the runes that are useful to the build they run most often and deal with it. This also eliminates having to recraft armor in case someone deletes, sells or salvages it, but again, how many people actually do that?

As a plus for the economy, this would once again make armor a HUGE money sink. I’m guessing I’m not alone in saying “I can afford to buy more armor and would like to, but I have no where to put it”. With the restrictions of space and time switching armors gone, we are free to craft (unlock) all the armor skins we want!

So, what do you guys think?

Yeah sadly Anet seems to enjoy hearing players crying for more storage space...

Yeah, but most requests for storage space are requests that require ANet to use up a lot more storage space. Seems like a system of unlocks wouldn't use up as much storage space to me. But then again, I have no idea what goes on on the back end of the servers.

Sounds like a good idea. Would definitely save money and storage. If they even put that in the game, I'd be one happy elementalist, because I could collect all the elementalist armors and switch them at any time without taking up storage.. =)

would be so awesome..

anet neets to hire people from here

/sgined.

i wanna wear my little starter armor again
i feel nostalgic today.

/signed.

This is a great way to combo two nice ideas!

Well, since PvP can't have low armor sets, only remove tem completely, the armor chosing solution is not the best, unless you let them choose too.

/signed

attn anet: can I have an answer as to if this will happen or not please?

I see your point. Not sure there's ever a reason to take a lower AL armor for PvP, but I'm sure it can be worked into the system that in PvP environments, you have to use max (or your highest) AL armor. It must be possible to do this since they have PvE only skills and restrict armor swapping in PvP. Just an extension of those limitations.

/signed

I think this is a good idea. I like the idea of 'unlocking' which was what ANet had done with secondary professions.

/signage to the MAX!!

Awesome idea.

Especially since the implementation of the armor system in PVP characters, THIS KIND OF THING ALREADY EXISTS! It wouldnt be "too hard".

Now all we need is the PVE version

we can make it so that if you have a "farming" armor set, that has low AL, you can choose to keep it in inventory.

Only armors you "store" will be "recraftable" via a menu.

I would love to see this happen - I would definitely craft a few more sets of armor...

and wow, I may actually be able to get rid of one of my mules! :P

How would this deal with non-inscribable armors? My ranger has Luxon druid's armor, my warrior has Kurzick Sentinel's armor (and had kurzick knights boots/gladiator's everything else before the change to knight's armor.) Would you just change every armor set over to the inscriptions system? What about people who only HAVE Prophecies or Factions, wouldn't it hurt them to have to buy a new set of armor each time they wanted a new inscription, while characters who crafted Elonan armor could just swap inscriptions for a skin, saving lots of money in the process?

Not sure of that's clear. If I wanted a set ot Sunspear max armor, and I wanted it in both Knights and Gladiator's flavore, I could buy one set, and then one set of inscriptions for each piece. If I wanted 15k kurzick armor with the same mods, I'd have to buy a full set of 15k kurziock knights armor, AND a full set of 15k Kurzick gladiator's armor?

Also: how would you handle salvaging? If I have armor with a sup vigor rune on it, salvage it, and break the armor, is it no longer unlocked? Or would you make the new armor templates similar to hero armor, unbreakable (and watch what THAT does to rune prices...)

I like the idea. Love it, actually, as it would free up a LOT of space, make armor much easier to work with, AND possibly allow armor-templating. How can the things i just mentioned be fixed (salvaging is my big question)

a great idea but

wouldn't this take away the idea of armour being an item? armour just seems to melt into the background when games do things like the above mentioned. i think its important in an rpg to have a physical (physical within the game since games arn't real lol) item that represents your weapon/armour rather than it being a word on a list.

i do think its a great idea but i have similar view with this and extra storage, is it fair high end players should be able to "horde" every item in the game? especially in a game which promotes itself as being newbie friendly

/not signed but i recognise its a brilliant idea

I don't mind having one set of cool armor and like 4 different hats with different runes on. Why don't you all try that?

This type of change would be considered a core change. Much like how the skills list, profession change box, etc. changed for all chapters, so too would the armor system. This would involve changing all of the old armor over to the inscription system. So if you have Kurzick's Knight armor now, in the new system, you would have Kurzick armor skin unlocked and Knight's inscriptions for each piece of your Kurzick skins.

As far as salvaging goes, there would no longer be any salvaging. It would negate the whole idea if you could apply a rune to one skin, salvage it and apply it to another. Same with inscriptions.

The downside of this is once you apply a rune, it's stuck there. Under our current armor system though, it's quite risky to salvage a rune from an armor anyway. Sure you get the rune, but you might destroy the armor. The only time this doesn't come into play is when you are upgrading from a lower AL armor and don't care if the armor is destroyed or not. Under my system, you'd have to settle for using cheaper runes on your low AL armor because you won't be able to reuse them.

I hate to generalize, but most people that can afford multiple sets of max armor and decide to spend their money on that, are likely able to afford to pay for runes for each set of armor. For the newer (or poorer) players, they can just craft one set of armor and apply their runes and not worry about it...just like they do now. And this system will give the poorer players A LOT more freedom within their 1 set of armor. Now they have to craft several extra pieces of armor to be as flexible as they might want to be.

Under the proposed system, armor would still be an item in the game, we're just changing how you interact with it. You still craft it the same way you do now. Still dye it, rune it, and inscribe it just like you do now. It will just no longer take up physical space in your inventory.

As far as hording goes...does it really hurt new players that richer players have several sets of armor? New players have access to fairly cheap max level armor that is every bit as good as what the richest player could buy. As I've mentioned a couple times, I think this system helps new players because it drastically reduces the amount of money they need to spend to be completely flexible with their builds. No more having to buy extra armor pieces to hold a certain rune for build X.

/signed

this would save me so much time and space

1- oh ok were going to a "cold damage area"
2- trying to remember which mule has my characters vs cold armor
3- looking in mules trying to find it
4- ahh as usual storage full. swap items, put armor inside
5- where did i put that axe again?....

/signed

What a great idea! I truly hope they do implement something like this.

/signed

Love this great idea!

/signed

Superb idea, I do have three sets of armour on some characters, and would have more if this was introduced...

Although, I can see one flaw that hasn't been mentioned: you said about also showing all armour you have had previously, including armour you started the game with, but I seriously doubt ANet have all our old deleted armours recorded anywhere... Simplest way around this would be to forget about old deleted armour at the start, and just start recording them from then on.

True, but you would still have the option of going back to the early areas in Cantha and Elona to pick up low level armor. Pre-sear Tyrian armor would be the only set you couldn't reproduce with existing characters. (but you could get the max AL version in Cantha)

/signed

I give huge kudos. This is a great idea and system.

I have to admit I'm looking at this from just the warrior perspective, but...

I think that having to worry about storage space for extra suits of armor adds a lot - through opportunity cost in storage space - to the high cost of armor. I see this as a good thing. Throughout human history (and even today) armor is often a warrior's single most expensive piece of gear.

Now, true, I've complained in other threads about high insignia prices, but that's only because of fairness issues with the three differing armor systems in the three campaigns. Perhaps it can be argued though that the higher cost of Elonian armor reflects the ability to change its attributes later rather than buying a whole new set.

And staying with the topic of insignias, the idea of unlocking armors rather than owning actual armor pieces makes the insignia system and armor attributes in general less important. Many people, especially rich players not on their first characters, will just automatically unlock a set of every type they could ever forsee needing, rather than having to carefully consider their decision to buy and carry a couple of sets most likley to be of use.

For something relatively unimportant like festival hats, it makes sense, but I imagine it would have a pretty big effect on gameplay if you apply something like this to armor.

nice idea but.. well i think that all armors just need to be inscribable (all cantha,tyria,fissure, etc).

and insignias need to have static prices from merchant or something, just away from rune trader (they not runes right?)

Throughout human history, those able to afford armor and weapons have also been able to afford enough room to store such items

This proposal doesn't make the insignia system and armor attributes less important, it makes them more flexible and as a result, I would say more important!

Take for example your typical elementalist. You only feel like crafting one set of armor, so you craft Primeval armor. Now, how shall I go about putting insignias in here? Well, I could take additional armor vs fire or vs cold, etc. but those are too situational, so I guess I'll just take +health which is useful always. However, if I am in the Domain of Pain mission, with all the dryders, boy would I love to have the +armor vs fire armor.

Under the current system, you would either have to buy insignias just for this mission, then rebuy survivor insignias to go back to your usual armor. Or you could craft an entire other set of armor just to mod it up with armor vs fire insignias. Both of these methods are extremely expensive and the latter takes away a lot of storage space. Most people just go with what they have and accept being a little less effective. Why should we have to make such compromises when every other change lately has been to promote flexibility?

Under my proposed system, you would have to buy 5 +armor vs fire insignias, apply them to your Primeval armor skin, do the mission, then using the drop down menu, switch back to your +health armor. Now you can freely switch between +health or +armor vs fire on that skin. Nice and simple. Notice the flexibility to switch freely between insignia sets would add more value to all the situational insignias that go unused now.

Ranger is another good example. If I am a bunny thumper or beast master, I'd love to have the +armor while pet is alive insignias. If I'm shooting arrows from the back, +energy is probably what I would rather have.

Under this system, all armors do become inscribable.

As far as insignias go, that's a completely different subject. However ANet decides we should acquire insignias, it doesn't affect how they would be used in this armor system on a per skin, per piece basis. I think the current system is fine though. Insignias are just as important to armor as runes are, so why not sell them along with the runes at the rune trader?

/signed

This would really help with the storage problem, and be a good way of storing armor for us who collect armor sets.

Something like this needs to be done. IMO as long as the money sink exists, we don't need to waste so much space for even one spare armor set/helmet and this suggestion would help.

Even if they let PvE characters use "j" (so long as the things you can make are armors you've bought, runes/insignias you've applied to them, and dye combos you've used to color them), something's got to be done.

/SIGNED

AWESOME IDEA.


Well for example, if a person had enough to BUY his obsidian armor with all the crafting material needed, That armor is unlocked, then if he wants to wear his luxon 15k, he can just switch over and wear his luxon, and does not have to KEEP the obsidian in inventory or storage.

Anet, DO THIS OR ELSE, LOL.

/SIGNED

AWESOME IDEA.


Well for example, if a person had enough to BUY his obsidian armor with all the crafting material needed, That armor is unlocked, then if he wants to wear his luxon 15k, he can just switch over and wear his luxon, and does not have to KEEP the obsidian in inventory or storage.

Anet, DO THIS OR ELSE, LOL.

How would you unlock armour in PvE and for secound though what if you wanted to change a set of armour in a missioon or what ever it is you are doing?This isn't a bad idea just needs some more thought or would you propose faction system like they have in PvP and get faction from quests and missions with a little gold for salvage kits could call it Dwaynas Faction.

/signed

I would just keep buying armor if this was around, It would be a mega money sink. And age, you cannot change armor in a mission currently, so it would stay that way.

/Signed

It would benefit both sides of the storage issue. Any idea to streamline the current system to make it cost efficient always gets my vote.

It wouldn't be a faction system like PvP, you actually have to BUY the armor ONCE using the OLD system of buying armors from crafters, which requires the same amount of material and cash, and afterwards it would be forever unlocked on your CHARACTER OR ACCOUNT for that matter.

THAT WOULD BE AWESOME
already signed but it never hurts...

/SIGNED

It'd totally fix the old vs. new armor problems! All armors would be "Insignia-ed" technically! AWESOME! No more ascalon fow boots! I'd only have to buy one FoW helm! I'd only have to buy one helm period and unlock the +1 to whatever mod! YESSSSSS!

/signed

/signed

Great idea.

You would unlock armor just like you craft it now. Go to an armor NPC with the materials and click craft. Instead of putting an armor piece in your inventory, it becomes selectable on your armor drop down menu.

The armor window would remain usable in PvE missions, but not in PvP. You are allowed to switch armor in PvE still, so there shouldn't be an issue. Imagine being able to even switch armor on a per mob basis just like you do weapons.

With this clarification, completely 100% /SIGNED

I'd suggest that the AL can be any AL you have previously unlocked for that armor- if you bought shing jea armor at the monastery, then again in kaineng center, you could use either AL value, except in PvP- for PvP, all armor should default to max AL even if you don't have the max AL set unlocked for that skin- just automatic once you enter a PvP area.