Alright, I have seen sooo many threads on armor, it really needs it's own sub-forum! I am not going to debate nor comment on the appearance of armor, nor leg armor. But here's what I think:

Weapons (melee)

All melee weapons IRL take damage in combat, the first of which is they get dull over time (if in combat over time). They should need periodic sharpening. Swords break sometimes, they should have a tiny chance of breaking each hit. So weapons, particularly melee weapons, should have health bars, and should require a qualified smith to restore their health. And the weapons should have damage reduction as the weapon health goes down (as it gets dull). The idea that one weapon can be used for years without maintenance, and retains it's brand-new damage stat, is a budget-saving cop-out. It's one thing to claim that a magic-enchanted sword keeps sharp magically, but it's quite another to claim all weapons do so.

Even if you assume that weapons are automatically sharpened one night before you sleep at your home, what about before you have a home? You can literally go about Skyrim without a home, using the same weapon, with the same damage, for years, and never stop long enough to sleep. It's a bit too non-realistic, given the other realisms of Skyrim.

Armor

Armor takes damage too over time during combat, whether in melee combat, or other incoming damage. That's why it is naive to think that armor would get stronger over time. Do you really think that the wearer can modify his armor to be better? When this armor has been developed and adjusted for hundreds of years by a dozen generations? No, not enough to counteract the normal wear-and-tear on the items, not by far. So armor should have health bars too, and should also need to be worked on a bit periodically by a qualified smith to restore it's health too. IRL armor plates and pieces were often cut off the armor during battles. The wearer would often go back through the battlefield to find the pieces to be replaced, and sometimes required a blacksmith or tanner to do so.

What's more, the armor rating of any piece of armor should go down after it drops below a certain health level. Smiths should service your armor and weapons for a reasonable fee, or if you have the qualification (perk for that classification), you can do it yourself.


When a piece of armor or weapon health drops to zero, it should either be unusable, or broken (permanently if it is a melee weapon, unless you have a "repair broken melee weapon" perk; and if you have such a perk you should also need the "arcane blacksmith" perk to fix it if it is an enchanted weapon). Skyrim NPC blacksmiths should not have the ability to repair broken melee weapons as described.

The armor cap is bunk

And while I am on the subject, I would also mention that I think the armor cap is bunk as it stands. It's OK to have one, but it's not OK when I can wear a full set of (legendary, enchanted) Elven armor and hit the cap, considering the full set of Ebony, Daedric, or Dragon armor is no better in game defensive terms. What incentive is there to wear Heavy armor then? Yeah, early game only. By the time you can craft a full set of legendary Ebony armor it is not better than the Elven armor that you could craft (approximately, in actual use game defense terms). What's up with that? I'm not saying raise the armor cap, there are other ways to get there: A. Reduce the armor improvement amounts. B. Reduce all armor ratings. C. Increase the armor cap. One or more of these things should be done.


But, the game has made it's GOTY status, made it's money, so none of this will happen (without mods).

I agree about the armor cap.
It's just silly.

You do realize that all of this was removed from earlier games because it was just annoying, right?

I agree completely! I just finished reading The Odyssey. Some say it's the greatest epic poem ever written. You know what I hate about that poem? Osysseus doesn't ever go to the bathroom - not once! I'm to believe he sailed from Troy to Ithaca without ever once taking a wiz, let alone a dump? Please. How can I enjoy this so-called epic poem when it lacks realism?

Please no, I mean it is one thing to have a bit of wear and tear on a weapon and I wouldn't mind if weapons lost a bit of damage over time and needed to be fixed. But, for the love of a God can we not turn this into a game where every 5 minutes you have to run back to town to get a blade sharpened or even worse carry around repair hammers.That was easily the most annoying thing about Oblivion. I think a system where weapons and armour loose upgrades as they get used more (ex. going from legendary to epic) but should never go below base damage or protection would be decent.

I didn't read the entire post (I'm not dismissing it as good or bad, I'm just on some other stuff right now as well, I'm sure I'll come back to it), but I did want to respond to the armor cap.

All in all, I think I do agree with the point you're trying to make - I don't know that Light Armor should ever be able to hit the armor cap like Heavy Armor (just as Heavy Armor I don't believe should ever become "weightless" or give the same benefits of Light Armor).

I will, however, say this - it is more than just early game that Heavy Armor makes a difference over light armor. Not everyone who goes one or the other maxes out the perks in their respective armor skill. I, for example, am using Heavy Armor, but am distributing no perks in anything in Heavy Armor except for Juggernaut. That is the only perk I am investing in.

Thus, Heavy Armor should be all counts give me a higher armor rating than if I were to use Light Armor with only the first perk fully taken. I'm not taking all the extra armor modifiers perks (I don't wear a full suit, I wear hoods instead of helmets), I'm not getting all of the weightless benefits, etc...

It also takes less perk investment for Heavy Armor to reach the level cap, just as it takes less perk investment for Light Armor to become weightless. For someone not fully investing into the skills perk wise, it is definitely a much bigger difference than just early to end game.

I personally never hit the armor cap but they must have put it there for a reason. I mean how high do you need your armor to be before you become an invincible walking wall of destruction. I never use they matching sets and other perks like that just the ones that are at the bottom of the tree and I do just fine.

But as for the weapons I don't think there should be degeneration but when you use the grinding stone there should be extra bleeding damage put in like an enchantment that last for 20-50 hits.

The armor degeneration i think I could do without but if it was something like how I mentioned with weapons it might not be too much of a pain to have in the game

This


And this. It drove me nuts in Oblivion. If I wasn't using a character who used repair, I would only be able to clear one, maybe two dungeons before having to run back to town. I was freaking ecstatic when I saw what they did with smithing in Skyrim. Is it not realistic enough for you? Go play Farcry 2!

I do, however, completely agree with you on the armor cap. I think all three of the options you listed were valid, but if I had to choose I would want it to be A. Seriously, it is freaking ludicrous how much you can improve skills with crafting.

Before the release, it was rumored that there would be a degrading system. You could improve weapons and they would degrade just from the improved stats to the base stat. Sadly, after the release, this was not the case.

I can easily see a character taking around a sharpening stone with them, to be used outside of battle. I was not a fan of the repair hammer, but a single stone would be practical.

EDIT : AR Cap/ I gave up on that mess after my third character. I don't even invest perks in any armor tree anymore.

Actually, that's a fantastic idea. You get that touch of realism without the pain in the ass of being required to run back to town all the time.

This. Good riddance annoying pointless chore.

It wouldn't be bad if It wasn't made like a chore. If it was like the well rested affect where you get a 10% bonus for a while then it went back to a manageable base stat. Then if it wore out you wouldn't be left with a useless piece of armor after the degeneration was all said and done.

In what way was maintaining your equipment pointless? It had a clear and important effect: You inflicted maximum damage, were afforded maximum defense, and had the assurance that you could defend yourself if needed.

It's resource management. No different than lockpicks for cracking safes, potions for restoring health, a magicka pool for casting spells, a stamina pool for power attacks and sprinting, encumbrance limits for carrying loot, money for purchasing goods and services. The vast majority of gameplay centers around the player making various judgement calls on how they manage their resources---what can they spare and what is essential. Would the game be less tedious if you simply had an unlimited supply of these resources? For certain definitions of tedious, yes. But that's hardly a compelling justification. Especially when all you've accomplished is cutting another feature instead of designing it in a way that engenders more compelling gameplay.

I respect your enthusiasm and your thought out ideas but this was in Oblivion and they left it out for a reason, and I say good riddance.

As for the armor cap, Light Armor can hit the cap too, but that's if you're abusing loops or getting every single perk possible and by then you're probably one shotting everything that it doesn't matter.

In the normal game Light Armor and Heavy Armor are balanced great.

Well considering we lost Armorer and gained a fully fleshed out crafting system in its place, I'd say we got a design that engenders more compelling gameplay.

Only if you had to repair your weapon/armor rarely. Sure, I have nothing against realism, but if we have to run back to town in order to repair weapons as often as we must refill our enchanted weapons with soulgems, this will just become annoying.

^this.

it was unneeded busy work, same with the "speed" mechanic that dictated how fast you moved in Morrowind.

Response regarding damage modelling

I didn't play Oblivion, I jumped right over it to Skyrim from Morrowind. I don't remember it well, mostly I remember I hated being constantly interrupted when walking around by those damn little worms - the second worst thing, and most annoying thing, about the game. The worst thing was the lack of fast-travel from just anywhere (allowing you to bypass those worms). It sounds like they carried the maintenance too far in Oblivion, swung the pendulum too far in each direction. There is a happy medium. I was thinking you would loose about 8% of a weapon's damage, or armor points, per three-level dungeon W/a big boss - such as Labrynthian or Bleak Falls Barrow. This means we could choose to repair after each, but could also easily do several dungeons before needing to repair; and still use the same weapons/armor. Heck, I often use multiple weapons anyway, such as one W/soul trap, one W/fire damage, and another W/shock damage. It should be based on a per-hit basis (perhaps worse when blocked), so since using dual one-handed swords is likely to be much more hits than a single two-handed sword, both swords would loose about the same percentage as a single two-handed sword would.

Need to carry a spare weapon?

But since there would be a tiny chance of weapon breakage, a fighter-warrior would want to also carry a spare weapon if he is using a two-handed weapon, or risk the chance of getting another weapon from loot in said dungeon, and live with whatever the strength of that weapon might be. I'm thinking like a 1 in 1000 hit chance of breakage, or even less likely; so it only happens two or three times to a fighter-warrior throughout the entire quest life of the character. It would make ppl think twice about using Chillrend (or other prize unique weapon) for fighting wolves, trolls, and bears. For mages breakage would be unlikely to happen - prob would not affect them - if they mostly stuck to spell-casting.

I didn't take many armor perks to hit the cap

As far as perks go, I just checked my old fighter-warrior save and I see I only took 3 heavy armor perks: Three levels of the basic Juggernaut; then I found I was over the cap W/Ebony armor. Then I took 4 perks of lt armor: 2 levels of "agile defender," "custom fit," and unhindered. Boom, only 1/3 of the lt armor perks used and I hit the armor cap W/Elven armor. I didn't even need the perk that gives you the bonus for all pcs the same type. This means the only thing those other perks would be good for is if you weren't improving the armor to the max W/smithing. I.e. early game. And you can't really get all those armor perks in early game, you need to spend them elsewhere.

Only 1/3

My point regarding the perks is I only used 1/3 of the armor perks before I hit the armor cap W/Elven armor. So again, I say what good is heavy armor, exc for eye-candy? This is the prob with the present armor cap balance in the game. I agree W/sheepdog, "A. Reduce the armor improvement amounts" is the best way to go, that's why it is A and not B, it was in order of preference. But a little of each might work nicely too, with more emphasis on A than C.

Far Cry (2)

@sheepdog, I Loved Far Cry, but they took some of the fun out of it with the sequel. I still liked it, but the first was best. Particularly (in the first) I loved sniping most, and rushing assaults secondly, outdoors. The boat combat was pretty fun too. It was such a shame they took that beautiful green grass, that swayed in the wind, out.

Equipment outright breaking I'm against. It's just kind of irritating when you get down to it.

Equipment degradation I'm totally for though. I've gone on long rants about how it impacts many parts of the game, but the two most important are Balancing and Economy. Glass weapons and armor, for example, should be comparative in base stats to Ebony, maybe slightly higher, but wear out to a much inferior item relatively quickly, and of course, be lighter.

As for the Armor cap... The armor system itself isn't particularly bad, but the unshackled smithing open up too many balancing nightmares. I'd much rather leave smithing as it is, than impose heavy caps on things as Oblivion did, but after so many failures of balance in Elder Scrolls games, both too exploitable (Morrowind) and too restrictive, which damages build options (Oblivion), they'd have managed to find a better middle-ground. I'm not expecting perfect balance, even the most hardcoe competitive online games still have balance issues, but making everything viable without losing relevance is one of the most important aspects of a system with a focus on physical character growth. (Both Vertical, Levels-skills-perks-attributes, and Horizontal, Equipment, reputation, various other in-game assets)

Equipment crafting does not replace equipment degradation. They are two wholly separate entities. Further, any player using armor/weapons falls under the realm of the former, whereas only those who focus on the smithing skill specifically will see a gameplay benefit from the latter.

I always hated when weapons break, so I like the system as is. However, if you really have to have realism in your fantasy game then if your magic weapon/armor breaks from lack of maintenance then you should have to re-enchant it as well. Talk about how much of a pain in the rear that would be. Also a serious drain on resources. So Beth, how about developing a hardcoe mode for people who don't get enough real life in real life.

You realize that you do have to maintain non-constant effect enchantments, right? The request is simply that there be an equipment "health" system similar to the enchantment "health" system.

What the OP is describing is exactly the system we had in Oblivion. All I am saying is that if you want total realism in this magical world to push the premise further. If your magical piece of equipment breaks, then you lose the enchantment on it as well. Sure you could fix it, but then you have to re-enchant it. Constant effect enchantments or not, should not matter. This would be a great system for a hardcoe mode for people who like to suffer in their fantasy games. I am not saying there should not be a system that the OP describes, just not a regular feature of the game. Just like the hardcoe mode of Fallout New Vegas.

And you realize that carrying around encumbering repair hammers to have to repair your gear after every few fights was just tedious and annoying, right?

I've never carried repair hammers in an Elder Scrolls game, so not really.

We've had this discussion about a billion times on this forum. These discussions never move forward because people like you (and with the time you've been on here you should really know better) continuously repeat the same disingenuous arguments. If you have a reason that the concept of equipment degradation (independent of any prior implementations) is a bad idea, then say that. Don't just say, "Well Oblivion had it and it svcked," because by that rationale, TES should have dropped combat after Morrowind.