Take another look at the armor system?

Rokiyo

<div class="IPBDescription">For aliens, anyway</div>Currently in NS, anything that heals your health as an alien also heals your armor. Sure, armor ignores a portion of the incoming damage, but it still pretty much directly translates into more health. So why have 2 numbers? Wouldn't it be simpler to have one health value?

the_x5

<!--quoteo(post=1624562:date=May 2 2007, 08:01 PM:name=Revenge)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Revenge @ May 2 2007, 08:01 PM) [snapback]1624562[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Currently in NS, anything that heals your health as an alien also heals your armor. Sure, armor ignores a portion of the incoming damage, but it still pretty much directly translates into more health. So why have 2 numbers? Wouldn't it be simpler to have one health value?
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Armor has worked in the past as part negation, part absorption.

Pehaps it would be good it institute a system of armor types? Different types of armor can reduce different attack values or even ignore certain types of attacks or magnitude of damage values?

You could combine them, yes; or perhaps you could inovate new ways the armor works.

schkorpio

yes it definatley needs to be looked at - for example yes its a much more complicated game, but Dawn of War has about 6 or more different armour types. Each weapon then has a certain damage rating for each armour type - this results in some great battles and everything has a counter/weakpoint.

there might be different weapons in ns2 for all we know, but just for example lets use the ns1 weapons -

LMG - effective against health and thin armour, medium effectivness against thick armour

Pistol - doesn't have enough power to penetrate thick armour, meduim damage against thin armour, does a little bit more damage to health than the lmg

Shotgun - massive damage agaisnt health but not much against thick armour

HMG - tears away thick armour found on onos and fade

Handgrenade - not much damage against thick armour, large damage against thin armour

GL - ........
Flamer - ineffective against thick armour

you get the idea <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />

scaryface

It kinda makes sense. A lightly wounded fade can metabolize and regain armor, which can take more damage, or hp, which can take less damage, but both take the same amount of time. if i was a 50hp/0ap fade, and metabolized for say 10 seconds, i wouldn't heal as much as if i was a 250hp/100ap fade (numbers courtesy of my a**) since for the high hp fade, once the hp fills up, it heals 2 points of damage per metabolize. It's a small difference, but any difference is a difference.

Yeah, i guess it is kind of a relic of half-life's armor system.

Gaidan

Personally i've always viewed armor as a quick fix for balance, meaning it doesn't actually matter once the game starts. smaller numbers tends to mean you have less room for error when it comes to balancing, and since the marines can pump out so many bullets so quickly it just makes more sense to me personally to lower your error rate as much as possible.

StixNStonz

Armor adds more depth to the health system. If it was just HP, it would feel so boring. It adds a slight about of the unknown/unpredictability that adds to the depth of the game, not to mention the fact that it gives the welder an actual combat purpose (and a HUGE one at that, though massively underused in pubs)

Kittamaru

Armor needs to be seriously rethought for aliens... an HA takes only 5% damage to health so long as it has at least 1 point of armor... even an onos armor does no such thing <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />

Rokiyo

<!--quoteo(post=1624848:date=May 4 2007, 02:23 PM:name=StixNStonz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(StixNStonz @ May 4 2007, 02:23 PM) [snapback]1624848[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
not to mention the fact that it gives the welder an actual combat purpose
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Personally I think marine armor is fine specifically because of the way the welder works. We're mainly talking about alien armor here.