My opinion on the current state of the enemy armor and armor penetration mechanic.

[Wilson]

Some feedback regarding armor and ammunition types, based on gameplay and the description from the beta 2 update:

 "Armored Enemies: Most monsters have an Armored variant. All projectiles have a chance to pierce the armor depending on their velocity and bullet construction. When armor is not pierced no damage is afflicted. Most calibers received an Armor Piercing ammo variant. Also armored foes can be shot in critical zones to ignore armor completely." 

I must say, i like the addition of armor and the ammo types. However, i think the way they are implemented right now could have some improvements.

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First problem i have with the armor is that the visuals of the armor don't show the actual way the armor covers the enemy.

For example, the mimics don't have a visually armored head(if you don't count the shadowy helmet shape), so as a player you might assume that it is the weak point and can be shot to bypass the armor.
But it turns out that these uncovered parts still count as armor and give you sparks when you attempt to shoot them with a low ap weapon.
I think these parts should either be visually covered with armor or become a weak/unarmored point. Otherwise it feels like the visuals of the game are giving players false information.

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The second problem is the randomness of armor penetration.

I feel like adding rng to real time shooter type of combat, especially in a game that is not considered an rpg, is something that should be avoided whenever possible.

IMHO, the combat part of the game should be purely skill based on the player's side. Accuracy, positioning, awareness, preparation, knowledge of your and enemy's equipment.

It feels good to kill an enemy and think: "Wow, i managed to hit him in the head from so far away!"
Now compare that to: "I keep hitting him in the head, but there is no damage! All of the effort i put into carefully aiming my gun is for nothing!"
Spending a lot of effort into aiming and hitting your enemy just to see the sparks indicating that you dealt no damage feels like getting punished for no reason.

Hitting an enemy and dealing even a small amount of damage still feels like making progress.
You can use your knowledge during combat and think "I him him two times, he should die if i manage to get a couple more shots on him."
Now imagine that with an rng mechanic: "I hit him two times, one of the shots got negated by rng. Who knows how many more times i will have to hit him until he dies."

And with the guns that have a really low penetration chance this can be a difference between killing an enemy with a couple of shots and emptying the whole mag into an rng bullet sponge.

You should be able to think "There are 6 enemies in this room. I have 3 mags of ammo. This should be enough to take care of them."
With rng this turns into "There are 6 enemies in this room. I have 3 mags of ammo. I might kill them all in 1 mag, or i might waste all 3 mags on the first enemy and die."

It's not fun to get all your knowledge and efforts screwed over by a couple of dice that did not roll the way you needed.

Rng should be used for parts like loot, enemy and anomaly placement. It should give players different challenges and rewards, give each player their own story, increase replayability.
Make situations like "Huh, there are a lot of [insert enemy type] here now. Let's think of the best way to deal with them using my current equipment."
Don't make situations like "What the hell, i emptied my whole mag into his head and he did not give a single crap!"

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What can be done instead of the rng system?

You could try altering the damage itself based on armor and ammo type, like it's done in some of the other good games that use ammo type mechanics.

So, normal ammo should deal full damage to unarmored targets and less damage to armored targets, and ap ammo should deal full damage to armored targets and deal less damage to unarmored targets.
You could also go to an extreme and add expansive rounds, turning ammo types into ammo against unarmored targets(HP), ammo against armored targets(AP) and the middle ground that's average against both types(FMJ).

This is not 100% realistic, because in some cases HP can have better penetration than FMJ due to lighter weight. But i don't think it should matter.
From the gameplay perspective, having 3 easily distinguishable ammo types would be more fun and easier to understand for the player.

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I think that, with these changes, proper planning and preparation will feel more rewarding, while still making sure that the unprepared players wouldn't have a chance to get completely screwed by rng.

Make armor mechanic a challenge and increased difficulty instead of turning it into a gear check.

That's all.
Note that this is just my personal opinion, and, since combat is a pretty huge part of the game, opinions of other players might also matter a lot.

[D Scriptus]

Well thought out, I agree with most of this but I don't understand enough of the current state of in game guns (or real guns for that matter) to compare rounds. These were issues I was having mainly before I got my Val. Now it's mostly shoot once, then repeat if necessary.

I can identify with the experience of shooting a mimic point blank in the head with controlled two hand gripped shots from my OC-33 with AP, full mag emptied, while my health did pretty much the same.

I agree, bullets should always hurt things.
Would it be fair to say, IRL the type of gun should influence accuracy, and maybe if velocity is a factor damage?
While the type of bullet should basically do the same damage regardless of which gun shot it?

[Wilson]

Originally posted by D Scriptus:

Would it be fair to say, IRL the type of gun should influence accuracy, and maybe if velocity is a factor damage?
While the type of bullet should basically do the same damage regardless of which gun shot it?

I don't have full knowledge of the way weapon stats are done right now either, but i think that the system you have described here is pretty much the way it should be. I don't see any problem with it.

[insta†.Nefer]

about mimics:
the standard ones give sparks too when you shoot the head
the helmet does count as armor and it will guard one shot
which i always found weird decission tbh
the entitys within the radius seem to be copys of existing lifeforms so it is a lifeform as a whole with a skin applied to it
even with the helmet visible on mimics i think it dosnt should be working like one
the entitys dosnt wear stuff since they are lifeforms who look like something

now with the new armor system - which i love since it gives alot more depth to the gameplay -
i feel like the mimics helmet should be what is just is: a part of the body
a armored helmet could still be a thing here it would make sense since the player tends to attack weak spots so the radius adapts to this by providing protection to its lifeforms

[[ITR]Vector]

Thanks for in depth commentary! Currently there is a bug that prevents unarmored weak spots from working. So once its fixed mimic will die from head shots like they should and other entities also.
As for switching armor to damage reduction from block chance - actually it is meant to give value to higher tier weapons. As in 1.0 you can complete the game with PM only without even being that good. Also without damage numbers or hp bars this kind of rpg approach lacks any kind of visual feedback and is more like good old "lets buff hp" bullet sponges

[Wilson]

Thanks for your reply.

I see your point.

My main pet peeve in the current version is how often i end up face to face with an armored mimic and have to spend a lot of ammunition to kill them even with good ap weapons. It just doesn't feel good to have to reload so often when your enemy is standing just a couple of meters away from you and shooting you in the face.

But i suppose that if mimics will have weak spots that will allow me to quickly punish them for getting so close to my face, this will stop being as big of an issue.
I might need to wait for the changes to give further feedback on this, but at this moment i'm quite content with the way this game is going.

Thank you for your work.

[D Scriptus]

What are you using on the armoured mimics? With a Val using AP ammo I'm getting good results with double tapping at all ranges.
About to try with the Tiger if I get enough spare $.

[Wilson]

I used m4a1 with ap ammo. I must say my results aren't that bad either. The problem happens only about 25% of the time. It's just annoying enough to be a lot more memorable than the easy kills.

[D Scriptus]

I think I know what you mean, sometimes they need to get shot a few more than twice and it can be frustrating, and weird - does their armour regenerate? Or maybe they turn or move around so you can't shoot the same spot twice?
I'm going to start using grenades for those occasions.