Hardened Leather

[iliketurtles]

Where is it? I've managed to scrape together about 6 pounds worth of the stuff in my last run of Teron. You might recognize that number as being half as much as any 1 piece of reinforced leather armor recipe requires.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting on a 70 pound pile of leftover iron ingots, and the dozens of pounds of bronze I had, I crafted up to vendor off long ago (once iron started pouring in).

Metal armor gets into its second tier relatively quickly, and before long you're being absolutely showered with the stuff. I think I counted maybe four drops total that decomposed into hardened leather. To be fair, maybe two of those drops had an affixed bonus, but I would have made better with 4 Crafting, given the chance.

So, I guess the question is: What gives? Is custom reinforced leather considered imbalanced for Teron (because Iron makes a pretty subastantial difference, and, again, I am swimming in that sh1t Scrooge McDuck style...)? Is the scarcity by design, or just a kink in itemization/crafting? Is there any chance this might be addressed (if not simply "working as intended")?

If this isn't a design decision, and re-itemization is too much of a chore, then perhaps just tweak the reinforced leather recipes to require, say, double the amount of regular leather instead of hardened? Or add a recipe to create a hardened leather panel from 2-4 pieces of leather?

Leather is plentiful in Teron, but it would still be a bit of a chore to gather 24-48 pounds of the stuff to form one piece of armor, but it would probably be on par with scraping together that crucial first several pounds of iron.

[Elhoim]

Maadoran blacksmith has a lot of them. Since leather has only two tiers, the second is fully presented in Maadoran (as Steel is for metals).

[Nukenin]

All I can offer is that you hang on to the studded drops (and reinforced?) as they are the ones that decompose into hardened leather, and wait until you have higher crafting before tearing them apart, as you will recover more hardened leather at higher crafting.

I think the challenge is trying to craft armor requiring hardened leather before leaving Teron. By the time you reach Maadoran, yeah, the blacksmith will have what you need.

[iliketurtles]

Sorry, I meant "Hardened Leather". Amended the title to reflect that.

I guess it's not a big deal, but I was really looking forward to finally piecing together that reinforced leather piece I had been saving up for, expecting to complete it in time to help make those brutal final fights at the end of the first act a bit more managable, and it just doesn't exist. It's just iron, iron, and more iron.

It was one of the few let-downs I have experienced with the game so far, which is what had me wondering whether it was a design decision to limit the ability to create reinforced armor in the first act due to balance concerns, or if perhaps there was some slight oversight that could possibly be smoothed over at some future point with in a quality-of-life/polish pass.

[GunofBrixton]

Given that metal have 5 tiers, and leather has two, why would you get end game materials in the starting town? Maadoran comes quickly after you learn Teron down pat. :)

[iliketurtles]

The sense I get is that, while it may be viable in the end-game, I don't equate prematurely hitting a dead end in the second tier with being "end-game"- just the end of the line. Meteoric is end-game. Seems like what you'd wear to hold you over until you can make lightened blue steel or better, so mid-game then?

From that perspective, I don't really see why it belongs out of reach in Act One (considering it is immediately available for crafting the second you hit Maadoran) while Iron is comically over-represented. I mean, seriously, where are these wasteland scrub turds finding all this iron lying around? The embarassment of iron on display in Aemolas village alone would make a 12th century king blush.

Maybe the issue is that the armor progression curve just ramps up too quickly? It's a short game, and ending with anything greater that steel doesn't really give any tier below that much time to breathe.

Perhaps that's why cloth decomposition exists, yet there is nothing to do with cloth swatches?
There must have been a plan initially to do something with it if they bothered to code it. Padded armor? Reinforced silks? Layered silk was the kevlar of the ancient world!

Sturdy, light cloth armor might have served well as an alternative to stiff, heavy leathers, but why bother with either when even a common vagabond can start the game in a suit of bronze armor fit for a general or prince?

Maybe steel should have been the ultimate prize. Steel was a big deal for a very long time, and was worth its weight in gold. The perfection of steel production took centuries, and the industrialization of steel production was world-altering, whereas, in this game, uncovering the means to produce steel (or potentially far better) on an industrial scale is an optional side-mission in Act One, and has all the lasting impact and import of a dry fart. :/

I mean, it is what it is, and it's fine enough. I still love it. I'd be interested to know what the devs original intention for armor progression was (and how it tied in with their world building), and how it must have evolved over the years that the game was in production.