Armor System Still Terrible

[Mayhem]

After playing more following the loadouts patch, where the devs believe to have fixed the game's imbalanced armor system, I've reached a conclusion: their changes did nothing.

At higher difficulties, many generic enemy attacks (e.g. Awakened king blunderbuss enemies) still one shot you on singleplayer, even with regular heavy armor and max vitality. This makes medium armor sets useless. It makes light armor sets nearly useless (though better than heavy) since, though they have much better dodges, one slip up means you're dead in one hit from anything.

On multiplayer (and this is especially a problem for multiplayer), the damage rampup is even more nonsensical, with a clear intent that players must die and must be revived, instead of being able to play mostly well, eat a hit every once and a while, and heal themselves.

We see the intent -- they removed the passives from armor sets the first game had and moved them to archetypes. In theory this was to make your character more customizable, but you're still mostly walled into using the ultra heavy Leto's armors with the (now Dull) Steel Ring, as anything short of that means being one shot.

The scaling is scuffed. Ultra heavy tank builds are still superior to everything, as they have been since release. So really: would people rather just have set bonuses to armor? Would people rather they fix the multiplayer scaling to ramp up number of enemies and enemy health instead of enemy damage, which ruins player hits-per-death breakpoints? Would people rather they fix enemy and boss damage scaling to not 1 shot on armors short of ultralights?

I'm curious what the community opinion here is since the armor change a month ago.

[Grimzy]

Originally posted by Mayhem:

After playing more following the loadouts patch, where the devs believe to have fixed the game's imbalanced armor system, I've reached a conclusion: their changes did nothing.

At higher difficulties, many generic enemy attacks (e.g. Awakened king blunderbuss enemies) still one shot you on singleplayer, even with regular heavy armor and max vitality. This makes medium armor sets useless. It makes light armor sets nearly useless (though better than heavy) since, though they have much better dodges, one slip up means you're dead in one hit from anything.

On multiplayer (and this is especially a problem for multiplayer), the damage rampup is even more nonsensical, with a clear intent that players must die and must be revived, instead of being able to play mostly well, eat a hit every once and a while, and heal themselves.

We see the intent -- they removed the passives from armor sets the first game had and moved them to archetypes. In theory this was to make your character more customizable, but you're still mostly walled into using the ultra heavy Leto's armors with the (now Dull) Steel Ring, as anything short of that means being one shot.

The scaling is scuffed. Ultra heavy tank builds are still superior to everything, as they have been since release. So really: would people rather just have set bonuses to armor? Would people rather they fix the multiplayer scaling to ramp up number of enemies and enemy health instead of enemy damage, which ruins player hits-per-death breakpoints? Would people rather they fix enemy and boss damage scaling to not 1 shot on armors short of ultralights?

I'm curious what the community opinion here is since the armor change a month ago.

Have you ever thought that the main point of the game is to not get hit? Shocking isnt it?
Armor is not meant for you to be able to faceroll everything and the changes devs did did not impact heavy armor nearly at all. It brought light / medium armor a bit more in tune and thats about it.
That being said, you can perfectly fine beat the game even on highest difficulty without heavy armor, there are also many other ways to mitigate the damage you take much better than using heavy armor.

While ultra heavy tank builds to have some merit, there are much much MUCH better builds than that.

[Mayhem]

There really aren't better builds, hence BSR nerf, buffs to armor rating at all levels beyond high, none of the new mutators buffing face tank builds. Stacking to 1/5 damage taken (or higher with summons) just is the strongest thing you can do.

"the main point of the game is to not get hit" is nonsense, with little exception you need to memorize boss attacks by failure runs until you remember the triggers: Annihilation's side sweep doesn't trigger on the normal audio queue for any of his other attacks. Blunderbusses have no animation to when they fire -- they just release bullets and have a post attack reload. There are a huge and growing number of random modifiers that you can't realistically keep perfect track of (cubes, lightning combo'd with boss projectiles like fey knight ghost attacks, etc.).

You get hit. It happens. I've done the apocalypse thing many times -- you get hit. If you're not speccing at all for it, min health, max dodge, etc. then it makes sense that you die. If you're wearing heavy armor, it makes 0 sense to still get one shot, otherwise why would you not run lighter gear where you at least have a better dodge. Again, especially on multiplayer where the hits-to-die suddenly changes, and you need to ramp up your armor to 80% DR or otherwise plan to die and get revived.

There's a reason Dark Souls, the progenitor of this genre, doesn't generally have 1 hit attacks. Players spec up to vitality soft cap 10/10 times in that game too, just as players in remnant max vitality 10/10 times (especially with raised trait point caps). But even with that, every zone has generic enemies that one shot you on Apocalypse with anything short of ultraheavy. Bosses, obviously, all have one shot hits through regular, non-ultra heavy armor builds.

[Cilutan]

I have seen so many complaints on the armor system lately and I just don't see why. Yes, many things one hit you on apoc difficulty (it is the hardest difficulty, it is supposed to be ridiculously hard) even with ultra heavy armor and max HP.

I have finished apoc with tanky builds where I don't need to care much about dodging besides certain attacks that I know will be one-shots, and it felt fine. I have also finished the game on apoc with light builds focused primarily on DPS and taken down apoc annihilation in 2 minutes.

To summarize; sure, you can build tanky and survive heavier hits, but you will also have to survive for longer in boss fights due to the build focus being survival over damage. Or you can build for damage and perfect dodge for 1-2 minutes because one hit WILL kill you.

It's a matter of build choice and playstyle, not viability.

[LittleEtherKitty]

Originally posted by Mayhem:

There really aren't better builds, hence BSR nerf, buffs to armor rating at all levels beyond high, none of the new mutators buffing face tank builds. Stacking to 1/5 damage taken (or higher with summons) just is the strongest thing you can do.

"the main point of the game is to not get hit" is nonsense, with little exception you need to memorize boss attacks by failure runs until you remember the triggers: Annihilation's side sweep doesn't trigger on the normal audio queue for any of his other attacks. Blunderbusses have no animation to when they fire -- they just release bullets and have a post attack reload. There are a huge and growing number of random modifiers that you can't realistically keep perfect track of (cubes, lightning combo'd with boss projectiles like fey knight ghost attacks, etc.).

You get hit. It happens. I've done the apocalypse thing many times -- you get hit. If you're not speccing at all for it, min health, max dodge, etc. then it makes sense that you die. If you're wearing heavy armor, it makes 0 sense to still get one shot, otherwise why would you not run lighter gear where you at least have a better dodge. Again, especially on multiplayer where the hits-to-die suddenly changes, and you need to ramp up your armor to 80% DR or otherwise plan to die and get revived.

There's a reason Dark Souls, the progenitor of this genre, doesn't generally have 1 hit attacks. Players spec up to vitality soft cap 10/10 times in that game too, just as players in remnant max vitality 10/10 times (especially with raised trait point caps). But even with that, every zone has generic enemies that one shot you on Apocalypse with anything short of ultraheavy. Bosses, obviously, all have one shot hits through regular, non-ultra heavy armor builds.

It's a shotgun, it's weakness is range. If you don't want to get one shot, don't get up in their face. Bosses are meant to try your skill/builds, either get good with a low armor build or get carried with a high armor build. As for one-shotting anyone who doesn't have ultra on, I literally took an under-leveled person into apoc, and they were taking at least 1 hit from the general mobs at medium armor, I think. I'd have to go confirm. An under leveled, ungeared player was actually able to compete on apoc, if they moved slowly. Bosses were a no go for them, though.

[Flip_Light]

Originally posted by Cilutan:

I have seen so many complaints on the armor system lately and I just don't see why. Yes, many things one hit you on apoc difficulty (it is the hardest difficulty, it is supposed to be ridiculously hard) even with ultra heavy armor and max HP.

I have finished apoc with tanky builds where I don't need to care much about dodging besides certain attacks that I know will be one-shots, and it felt fine. I have also finished the game on apoc with light builds focused primarily on DPS and taken down apoc annihilation in 2 minutes.

To summarize; sure, you can build tanky and survive heavier hits, but you will also have to survive for longer in boss fights due to the build focus being survival over damage. Or you can build for damage and perfect dodge for 1-2 minutes because one hit WILL kill you.

It's a matter of build choice and playstyle, not viability.

I've done almost all of apoc multiplayer with health scaling and most bosses one shotting everyone and still don't think people are telling the truth in regards to the one shots.

We have one guy who runs heavy armor all the time and he has noticeably more survivability then the rest of us. He's able to make SO many mistakes that we just can't.

Likewise, even with medium armor, I am RARELY getting one shot even with the multilpayer damage increase - there are obviously exceptions such as certain boss gimmicks and attacks.

This is all on apoc as well.

[Imnuktam]

The game is not and should not be balanced around Apoc difficulty. Tired of people turning games (not just this one) up to max difficulty and then complaining about the difficulty saying something in it isnt balanced.

With the right build even on apoc you will not be getting one shotted aside from a few bosses and special OHK attacks. My DR is around 72% with 246 armor or something around there and one shots simply dont happen to me outside of specific bosses/specials.

Could make an argument that my armor and dr is almost necessary but there is the option to go with lighter armor and count on your dodge skills with a higher and easier to hit evade window. That works well for some people but I personally prefer a smaller evade window that is more forgiving if you miss it.

[LittleEtherKitty]

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

The game is not and should not be balanced around Apoc difficulty. Tired of people turning games (not just this one) up to max difficulty and then complaining about the difficulty saying something in it isnt balanced.

With the right build even on apoc you will not be getting one shotted aside from a few bosses and special OHK attacks. My DR is around 72% with 246 armor or something around there and one shots simply dont happen to me outside of specific bosses/specials.

Could make an argument that my armor and dr is almost necessary but there is the option to go with lighter armor and count on your dodge skills with a higher and easier to hit evade window. That works well for some people but I personally prefer a smaller evade window that is more forgiving if you miss it.

The game should be balanced around all difficulties, just to different extents. Apoc balance requires you to level up your skills, pretty much every other difficulty can be skill or build, but apoc needs both.

[Velmoria]

Originally posted by Mayhem:

At higher difficulties, many generic enemy attacks (e.g. Awakened king blunderbuss enemies) still one shot you on singleplayer, even with regular heavy armor and max vitality.

Naaah, I wore bruiser armor set and that blunderbuss hit 1/3 of my 178 health at Apocalypse from like 5 meters distance and I definitely know how to not hug enemy that about to shot a close range specialty gun. My DR related equipment was only Guardian Ring.

[Saint Olaf]

Originally posted by Mayhem:

After playing more following the loadouts patch, where the devs believe to have fixed the game's imbalanced armor system, I've reached a conclusion: their changes did nothing.

At higher difficulties, many generic enemy attacks (e.g. Awakened king blunderbuss enemies) still one shot you on singleplayer, even with regular heavy armor and max vitality. This makes medium armor sets useless. It makes light armor sets nearly useless (though better than heavy) since, though they have much better dodges, one slip up means you're dead in one hit from anything.

On multiplayer (and this is especially a problem for multiplayer), the damage rampup is even more nonsensical, with a clear intent that players must die and must be revived, instead of being able to play mostly well, eat a hit every once and a while, and heal themselves.

We see the intent -- they removed the passives from armor sets the first game had and moved them to archetypes. In theory this was to make your character more customizable, but you're still mostly walled into using the ultra heavy Leto's armors with the (now Dull) Steel Ring, as anything short of that means being one shot.

The scaling is scuffed. Ultra heavy tank builds are still superior to everything, as they have been since release. So really: would people rather just have set bonuses to armor? Would people rather they fix the multiplayer scaling to ramp up number of enemies and enemy health instead of enemy damage, which ruins player hits-per-death breakpoints? Would people rather they fix enemy and boss damage scaling to not 1 shot on armors short of ultralights?

I'm curious what the community opinion here is since the armor change a month ago.

you dont need armor... not supposed to get hit

[Sigs]

The armor system's problems are compounded by the level scaling. When you upgrade your weapons and level your archetypes, you make enemies have more HP and *hit you harder*.

You can't scale your health. Armor only mitigates so much. Enemy damage scales faster, and keeps scaling beyond a reasonable point.

The entire game's system is borked.

[Naewyng]

Originally posted by Mayhem:

There really aren't better builds, hence BSR nerf, buffs to armor rating at all levels beyond high, none of the new mutators buffing face tank builds. Stacking to 1/5 damage taken (or higher with summons) just is the strongest thing you can do.

"the main point of the game is to not get hit" is nonsense, with little exception you need to memorize boss attacks by failure runs until you remember the triggers: Annihilation's side sweep doesn't trigger on the normal audio queue for any of his other attacks. Blunderbusses have no animation to when they fire -- they just release bullets and have a post attack reload. There are a huge and growing number of random modifiers that you can't realistically keep perfect track of (cubes, lightning combo'd with boss projectiles like fey knight ghost attacks, etc.).

You get hit. It happens. I've done the apocalypse thing many times -- you get hit. If you're not speccing at all for it, min health, max dodge, etc. then it makes sense that you die. If you're wearing heavy armor, it makes 0 sense to still get one shot, otherwise why would you not run lighter gear where you at least have a better dodge. Again, especially on multiplayer where the hits-to-die suddenly changes, and you need to ramp up your armor to 80% DR or otherwise plan to die and get revived.

There's a reason Dark Souls, the progenitor of this genre, doesn't generally have 1 hit attacks. Players spec up to vitality soft cap 10/10 times in that game too, just as players in remnant max vitality 10/10 times (especially with raised trait point caps). But even with that, every zone has generic enemies that one shot you on Apocalypse with anything short of ultraheavy. Bosses, obviously, all have one shot hits through regular, non-ultra heavy armor builds.

The blunderbuss only 1shots you if you get blunderbusted at close range. It also has a very loud tell before it shoots.

Annihilation's attacks all have sound cues and are synced to them, idk what you're talking about.

It is possible to account for, or react to all the enemy mutators, I mean you're not a robot that can only do 3 things and gets fked if something unexpected happens, are you?

Dark souls doesn't have 1shots? Are you high?

[Atma]

Having good armor isn't supposed to negate mechanics. The shotgun enemies will one-shot you up close, it's literally the only thing they are good at.

Telegraphed attacks that hit hard still need to be dodged, although there are still some builds out there that can safely ignore a few of even these one-shot hits. I've seen guys tank 2-3 blunderbuss shots, but you need to build for it and you'd be giving up a lot of damage.

[Kiwachu]

I think you may be forgetting that the dodge ability is affected (quite a bit) by the weight of your armor. The best 'armor' is not getting hit, but even then there are multiple abilities/items/whatever that include damage reduction and allow people to take a hit.

[Leown]

i mean the armor is 50 50 for me.

Light has its uses its minimal armor but your going to dodge more often and basically live attacks that just graze you slightly.

Medium is going to be able to dodge some and take a few lights attacks maybe a medium now and again.

Heavy less dodging more damage absorption all around.

so on and so forth for Ultra heavy and anything built around DR or Dodging.

i'll be honest i wish they had some sort of mutator slot system or at least the Archetype specific gear give Major bonuses to using them on the same archtype and then a minor/medium buff to other archtypes/archtype in question being the secondary.

But even then the armor serves its purpose. Even on the hardest difficulty. Your just expected to dodge more or not depending on what you wear and what you build for.

[deadshooter]

oof...

Looks like people don't understand, what is the problem with armor in the game.

It's not about difficulty. It's about using the same set of armor everywhere or to not use armor at all.

At the moment there are three general approaches to armor from players

1. Most common - use best armor with armor concoction and fortify trait to achieve 60+% overall damage reduction. Trinket slots are used for the DPS build. With this approach player will survive one hit from the apoc boss, but will die after second one. In order to achieve this DR you need to use Leto MK1-2 - there is no other option

2. Daredevil one - do not use armor at all, use daredevil's charm and DPS concoction. Used for the no-hit runs.

3. Tank build - buff armor to the max, buff health to the max, put DR/bulwark trinkets to achieve 80% DR with 175+(?) health. Someone brought a vid with this build in other discussion - that build can catch every Anni punch and just live. But the armor used in this one - it's again Leto 1-2.

If you gonna use any other armor at apoc - you won't survive a single hit and most regular mobs would kill a player in like 2 hits.

So... at the end of the day players are using Leto sets or don't use armor at all. Obvious question - why every other armor set even exist in the game? Purely for cosmetic reasons?

Also, first approach to armor leaves the annoying feeling that armor don't even feels like real protection - because it can't hold just two hits in a row.