Light armor includes: Hide, Leather, Elven, Glass and Dragon.

Heavy armor includes: Iron, Steel, Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric and Dragon.

Previous ES games always had an equal number of 'types'.

There is however a Smithing perk on the Light Armor branch of the skill tree that comes between Elven and Glass that states "Can create Scaled and Plate armor at forges, and improve them twice as much". The Scale doesn't refer to Dragonscale because that is clearly the the top perk for both branches. Does anyone know if Scale and a sort of Light Plate are armor types for Light Armor?

I believe dragon is only light armor.

IDK, all I know is that the Smithing Tree is a total Cluster [censored].

It's not, it comes in both Light and Heavy variants.

my interpretation is that there is both light and heavy dragon armor, and that plat and scale fall under "advanced armor" which are light armors.

Saw "Imperial Armor" in the demo. I assume that while there are only a limited group of materials to use, there is also a wide variety of designs. (as you can see as you look through all of the screens and videos)

Storm

I see no way that plate would be a light armor. Plate is traditionally considered heavy. Scale is that awkward place that would have been considered medium. So it's extra confusing to me. They're not even a material, they're a type.

The one thing that could answer it all is if it allows you to make variants. Scale versions of the heavy armor that count as light. Plate versions of the light armor that count as heavy. But that's a completely uninformed guess.

Or not even "count as," just ones that give an armor boost over the regular versions. Maybe you'll be able to make Elven Armor, then Elven Scale. And Glass Armor, then Glass Scale. Dwarven Armor and Dwarven Plate. This would be a good bonus for light wearers who get the advanced armors in their light armor smithing path, but heavy armor wearers would need to spend two extra perks to get to it.

yeah there are many more armors. the theif armor, dark brotherhood armor, stormcloaks, imperial . all the uniques.

I hope so, i got really upset after Morrowind, seeing as how Oblivion had like 15 different sets. and Morrowind had like 30. not to mention things like nordic bone and newtscale

Guess what there s 0 medium armor in the game its even worst...

Too few armors, i hope modders will kick in.

Morrowind had tons of variation so you could create cool mismatched looks to suit your character.

There's also Scale in there somewhere for light armor

edit: Kinda makes sense seeing as the heavy armor skill tree has a couple more perks than light armor. I honestly think the game is desgined to force you to put more skill levels and more perks into a heavy figheter, whereas a character with light armor needs less skill levels and less perks to get the most out of it, thus freeing up those perks for other things.

So, in the end, heavy armor will be a bit better overall than light, but light armor smithers and wearers will have more skill levels and more perks in other areas and be more diversified.

I figure all of those armor types will be available without smithing, with smithing just allowing you to make it sooner, but what about dragon armor? Will it be obtainable without smithing? Does anybody know?

I don't know for certain, but I consider it doubtful.

Plate as in plate mail, is a type not a material. You could have playe mail in a material that is light, say glass or Elven. If you make it out of iron, steel, orchiish, daedric or ebony it's going to be heavy.

This.

I'm pretty annoyed with the Smithing tree in general, it should have followed the same pattern as the Alchemy and Enchanting trees.

Oh you can bet they will. Mods are why I go PC (that and I didn't grow up with a controller in my hand).

The classification of "heavy" or "light" is often less concerned with the weight of the material than the make. Which contributes to the weight through amount of material used. Like steel can both be steel plate and chain mail. Though I don't know that chain mail is in this game. If it is, it explains steel being the starting perk.

Elven and Glass were certainly solid in Oblivion, as with plate armor. But they were nowhere near as bulky.

What annoys me the most of all is that I only want to be able to smith/vary my light armour, but I have to either go the cicuitous route (getting 100 in the skill, then taking dragon smithing THEN daedric smithing) or taking all the heavy armour smithing perks to get to daedric- just to be able to smith weapons.

Weapons are not classified as light or heavy, and therefore we should be able to smith them depending on our skill, not on perks. This really upsets me.

And just to upset you further, I'm pretty sure you can't go backwards from Dragonbone Smithing to get the Daedric Smithing perk, you would have to get the other heavy armour perks first.

But yeah, I agree with you. Everything should be craftable based on your skill, with the perks providing bonuses to crafting in the same way that the alchemy and enchanting perks do.

The perks are set by material first, not light/heavy second. If you want, they could have just had it be one straight line and you'd have to take all the perks anyway.

At least the way it is, you can get 3 weapon materials easy. If you want more, it costs more.

No, you could have armour based by perk, and weapons based by skill level, meaning no perks are required to smith weapons. Seems a lot more logical considering there aren't 2 weapon categories that would require different perks.

No, there aren't 2 weapon categories that require different perks. But the perks aren't defined by category, they're simply pathed that way.

If they're going to limit armor by perk, they're definitely going to limit weapons too.

That's unfortunate. http://img.elderscrolls.net/news/gi-nov-08.jpg and I'm so jealous. That looks so much better than the leather armor I pictured my assassin wearing, although I don't know if the armor in question is the heavy or light variant. The perks system is really crushing my hopes and dreams.

Maybe thats only the generic armor, there could be multiply types of faction armor or unique sets of armor.

Hence why I said (and I'll repeat it for you,) separate the armours by light and heavy and have your two branches for armour perks, and let anyone smith any weapon based on their skill. Would be a much better system for light armour users.