Cloth and Leather feel pointless

Wicked Feedback
1

Against regular mobs, sure, its fine. But when you are doing a crucible after going through the 6-7 stages just to get 1 tapped (2 if youre lucky) against the Echo Knight it starts to wear on you a bit.

Even when I dodge his initial attack, and try to get some hits in, his stomps stunlock me whether its due to stagger, or poise, or knockback, or whatever, and Im pretty much dead at that point. I cant even stay alive long enough to learn his moves, and then I have to start back all over again, doing the gauntlet run of stages, just to get back to this point and get 1 tapped again. And those plague shots are so deadly Im practically dead once if they hit me, despite having fully upgraded tier 3 leather armor.

Almost every single build, or “meta” set Ive seen is just plate armor, and people finding out how to use plate armor in a way that makes it move at medium speed by getting weight reduction effects, using weight reduction gems, or increasing equipment load. Using anything less feels practically useless.

5 Likes
2

That’s right, currently cloth and leather armor aren’t very useful. It seems like the development team has only created a basic framework for armor attributes and hasn’t implemented distinctions like in other games, where cloth armor might boost intelligence and leather armor might boost agility.

Based on the current experience, these types of armor are only used early on when there are no other options. In the mid to late game, once players have a better understanding of the equipment, they rarely use cloth and leather armor.

2 Likes
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Yea, right now it is not worth it.

I think one has to separate this topic into the weight stat and the item types themselves.
For the stat the benefits are on the heavy side.

  • easier to get more defense
  • pushing only works with heavy armour
  • dodge roll is not that much better for light vs medium
  • with the stat and gems it is cheap to adjust the weight scale

For the armour classes cloth, leather, mesh, plate
The light armours need some distinct selling point.
Right now they are only lighter and as disadvantage much worse in their stats.
One way to solve that could be that the lower end gets another defensive mechanism, other than armour. That could be something like “magic shield”, elemental resistance, or some other advantage like more enchantment slots.

I personally would like the attribute to disappear at all. I dont think it adds something.

1 Like
4

Fully agreed, I made an in depth post about this subject here:

It includes a poll, some math and a recommendation.

This was the conclusion:

Based upon the data from the poll:

  • Out of the 45 people who voted, 71% thinks Plate is either overpowered or stronger when compared to Cloth
  • Out of the 42 people who voted, 74% wear, primarily, either Plate or Mesh armor.
  • When comparing Plate to Cloth the data does NOT resemble a Normal Distribution but is Skewed to the Right instead.
  • When comparing the Armor Type Primarily Worn the data does NOT resemble a Uniform Distribution but is Skewed to the Right instead.

We can conclude that there is too much incentive to wear plate over cloth.

Solution
Add an additional Stat to armor that incentivizes: Cloth > Leather > Mesh > Plate, to counter the current favoritism of Plate > Mesh > Leather > Cloth.

2 Likes
5

I also feel that plate armor is the superior choice atm. I have not played much with light load yet, but it seems light dodge goes slightly further and runspeed is inceased. Other than that I did not notice anything.

Cloth and leather armor would be the obvlous choice for light weight builds, however those feel weaker and cannot contest tanky characters with full plate gear.
Maybe improved stamina economy, cheaper dodge moves or increased stamina regeneration could make light weight attractive. Unfortunatrly, right now stamina is plentiful available.

On the other hand, it does not require a high investment in order to use full plate and a heavy weapon. Equip load stat offers a lot for one point; while increased equip load enchantment in combination with weigt reduction have very high positive impact. Same as equip load curse, which makes an item with its avatage 40% malus unuseable.

6

In other games Cloth has better magic resistance.
Something thats exclusive to Ring slots in Wicked.

At the end of the day, plate is to cheap. Light roll to weak compared to normal roll.

Wish it was more:
Cloth Armor > Light
Leather > Light or Normal
Net > Normal or Heavy
Plate > Heavy

Maybe make Poise Value your Weigth Value the heavy weigth class is an Option. So you have a Tanky Gameplay. Less Weigth Enchants doenst help and reduce Poise.

7

Yep especially when the roll doesn’t feel like that much worse in the amount of iframes vs light/medium. With how tanky plate is I think the solution really is just to give light dodge the full amount of iframes and reduce that iframe amount as you get heavier & heavier

9

Personally, I think a big issue right now is that there are a lot of weapons and items meant to feel unique, but at the same time they contradict themselves because everything in the game is so randomized that most things dont really feel like they have an identity outside of maybe move speed, move set, and how they look cosmetically.

As it goes with armor, the armor weights mostly affect the dodging, but it feels very minor. The difference between fast and medium is that medium is a dodge roll, while fast is a swift sprint. Neither of which feel helpful in some cases. Maybe its an issue of technical bugs, but there are times where Im facing one of the regular mob knights and they will do that summon flame move where you are standing, and Ill be dodge rolling the entire time and still get hit by it as if the move is just fixed on my character and not the spot where I was at. Same thing with the Echo Knight, in that for some reason Ill still be in mid dodge, but his moves still register a hit on me whether its his charge or his stomp. I still get hit mid animation, absolutely no invincibility frames, and it feels like…I moved out the way, but I still got hit…whats the point? It feels better, but against certain mobs it doesnt really do much. Again, unless those are technical bugs Im experiencing.

As it stands right now, I feel like a better way to adjust the differences between each armor type would be to first cement the invincibility frames in the dodge roll and sprint. Since the armors arent exactly great for taking damage, at least make it more viable for me to get out the way. Also just have them inherently allow me to move faster, or reduce stamina drain when Im moving around.

Also, with armor and weapons in general, give them some actual identity in their enchantments. Yes, staying as white allows you to customize them more, but enchanting should probably be bringing out the most of that weapon and/or armor. Right now it just seems like every single aspect of everything is completely random, and anything can have anything. Let the scythes have a higher chance of gaining “gain HP on damage dealt or kill”, let the theives garbs have “chance to gain copper on kill”, etc. Just make it so that each item actually feels like it has a unique identity about it. Right now theres a limited amount of stuff and they all are SUPPOSED to feel unique. But all the stats and effects on them from damage, to even weight, stamina cost, and focus gain is sometimes randomized on the same item, everything feels so random its like whats the point if anything can be everything.

11

One of the issues for me is that you can find a weapon that is visually pleasing but you dislike the moveset. Whereas another weapon has a great moveset but doesn’t match your roleplay fantasy.

In that light, I wouldn’t want affixes to be stuck to certain types of armor as they would further constrain build variety. Playstyles should not be locked behind certain armor types or incentivized further with armor X.

It’s EA so I imagine enchanting isn’t implemented fully yet. Currently there is too much randomization with too little customization.

I’d much rather have them add a stat to armor that decreases in potency as you equip heavier armors. Heavier armor focus more on defensive values whilst increasing weight. The current balancing seems to be around equip load.

For T2 Plate Armor:

  • 9/87 attribute points to have a Heavy Load.
  • 25/87 attribute points to have a Normal Load.
  • 17/87 attribute points and 4 feathers to have a Normal Load.
  • 55/87 attribute points to have a Light Load.
  • 41/87 attribute points and 4 feathers to have a Light Load.

It would be nice if lighter armors then have a bigger focus on a singular offensive stat. Maybe ‘Effective Focus Gain’, lighter armor has the highest effectivity and the heavier the armor the less focus you gain. This is just an example, but it would make thematic sense to have lighter armor incentivize offense over defense; and the opposite for heavier armors.

In other words, there has to be another clear incentive of cloth > plate.

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Yes, and that should be a second, independent defensive mechanism.
The weight-dodge/speed relation is fine imho. Just on the gear side, cloth is simply underpowered, and therefore useless.

Some options that i could see working: (X is some stat similar to armour)

  • additional to the gameplay evasion, a stat wise evasion. Maybe not rng, because that easily leads to oneshot deaths (see evasion in PoE). But something defined like: the first hit in (1000/X) seconds is avoided with a chance of 100%(light weight), 50%(medium), 0%(heavy).
  • native elemental resistances
  • a magic shield that blocks elemental attacks

What i can also see helping would be if one could re-/deflect arrows/projectiles (think of witcher). And to make it a counterside of the heavy weight pushing foes around, only allow it with light weight.

13

The Evasion Chance is hidden mechanic contra the gameplay principle.

Elemental resistance sounds nice but at the end of the day casters are rare most of the elemental damage is a combination with physical damage aka Weapon Buffs.

I think maybe:

Weigth = Poise Value
-Weigth Enchant = lesser Poise

Weigth % over 66 = evade roll cost more
weigth between 66-33%= normal evade cost
Weigth % under 33% = cheaper evade roll, less Stamina usage for Attacks.

Means Light Armor user can utility the cheaper roll in more damage or more rolls without spending extra points in Stamina

So you can play “Tanky” Class with heigth Poise
Can play a more Safe Char when invest in Weigth+Enchants but utility the normal roll.
Can play a lighter setup and have more points for damage.

14

Can you elaborate? Please.

15

The formula is based on the principle of a clear Action = Reaction system. A all X Seconds autoevade is against this principle. You can have Stats, alot of Buffs etc. … but it must be clear fix or % values not procc based.

And it has big abuse potential as offensive stat when you ignore the third hit with autoevade had has a double or 3 times bigger damage window.

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So you kind of have a active reaction… you act in a way that only the third one hits… sounds quite active to me. And that would be exactly how i imagine to use that… Note that you have significant less physical armour in this scenario and would die if you make a mistake.

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i mean your idea like:

additional to the gameplay evasion, a stat wise evasion. Maybe not rng, because that easily leads to oneshot deaths (see evasion in PoE). But something defined like: the first hit in (1000/X) seconds is avoided with a chance of 100%(light weight), 50%(medium), 0%(heavy).

The dash from the light roll have more iframes than the normal roll but better is maybe a faster transition to an attack. it feels like that Dash and normal roll has the same recovery time to counter attack.

That means a good player is not rewarded for using a Light roll because the good player can make the evade with the normal roll too. So when you have cloth or Leather maybe the solution is a more fluid transition to the offense.

18

The problem is that it is related to the weight class, not the armor piece.
You can take plate armour and reduce the weight class to light. Then you have both.

You need some specific advantage on the cloth side. And that should be something defensive, because it is still some armour in the end.

Also, the dash can never make such a drastic difference that it outweights the straight foward armour stacking. If so, it would be either useless, or overpowered.

1 Like
19

Armor is simply a vehicle for DMG negation for attribute Points.
Attribute Points, a light armor user can use in another Stat.

Give different armor classes different bonus sounds nice but ity a very complex beast and wicked is more of the easier side of the Souls spectrum. Different pyhsical dmg negation values like Slash, pierce etc. are very complex.

Whats more important is a scaling from level 1. Its rather useless to make better armor always heavier to give the same dmg negation. You need a system for Level 1 up to 100 and not a Diablo like progression. Every 10 Level bigger Plate Armor with bigger weigth iis boring.

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I agree partially…
I dont think that weight is something that should scale with level. It should be constant for the given armour classes, and the weight from all equipped items should get summed up resulting in a final weight rating. However, imho, this should not be affected by attribute points.
That should be idependend from the “level” of the item.

However… this is an arpg and there must be power progression. And this includes progression of items. So “every 10 lvl a bigger plate armour” is a crucial gameplay element.

And in practice… my caster has much more points in weight reduction than my melee tank… so it kind of works the opposite of how it should.

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That actually makes a lot of sense. It also explains why I still get hit sometimes with the bigger enemies even when Im still in the midst of my dodging animation.

All in all, Idk if theres a solid 1:1 solution to everything depending on what the devs have planned for the future. But as of right now in its current state, bosses like the Echo Knight can take you down way too quickly if your armor value isnt high. Having even a full set of tier 3 leather wont cut it. You need to at least mix it with a combination of mesh or hopefully plate, if you can manage to reduce the weight enough. It doesnt help that their reaction time is insanely quick compared to other bosses. There are a very few moments of breathing room, but unless you are dousing him with element effects like cold or elec to slow him down, or stop him, when your stagger damage alone isnt cutting it, your windows of opportunity are slim.

22

Man i farm echo knight in Plate and heavy load with shield, just blocking and fat rolling his stomping but still got knocked by some attacks.
Oh well thats how plate is for best armor and little movement.

In cloth you should blink and in leather fast dodge, you cant expect to have little less armor in cloth or leather in comparison to steel plate.
Cloth or leather it is still just outfit no defense against weapons blow.
Like in wow cloth mage take just little more damage in comparison to retribution paladin in plate which is stupid, same rogue vs warrior or pala.