Clothing and Armor

[Wanderer]

1. Right now, clothing imo is exactly the opposite of what the mud was said to strive for. Thousands of pieces of equipment that one could choose from w/o sacrificing defence while going for the 'desired' look.

ATM we've got several thousand pieces of equipment but the same Tier system for 'stats' that we intended to avoid. we've got a handful of 'great pieces' two handfuls of 'decent pieces' and a plethora of crap and an even greater amount of 'un-statted'.

This leads people to look absolutely and completely SILLY.

My solution?
1. Make it possible to take a 'a wool shirt' and add stitching, dye, etc. aka
'dye shirt blue' makes a 'a wool shirt' into a 'a blue wool shirt'
'stitch shirt gold' makes a 'a blue wool shirt' into a 'a blue wool shirt bearing gold stitching'

as an addendum, allow for the bleaching of clothing.
'bleach shirt' makes -> 'a wool shirt' from a 'a blue wool shirt'

This would allow people to CREATE the look that they want from the clothes they can find. It would also make the TAILOR clan rather extremely necessary

This would entail a rather massive change to the clothing that we've got.

1. Clothing stats would need to stop being random and whimsical like they are now and being based on logic and realistic values.
1a. Cloth Weight and Type should determine the Constricting qualities of the clothing.
1b. DB should be determined by the weight worn while balancing the need to wear a minimal of equipment.(boots, pants, shirt)
1c. No non-armor equipment should provide parry. The concept of parrying with a silk glove is ...... OUCH!

This would enable a coded way of statting objects and removing the burden from Shawny's Sole shoulders.

The other problem which was created when Belgar redid the Armor.... Going combo is almost impossible at the moment from my experience(perhaps themara the Mudxpert on equipment could give her opinion on this?)

We need a difference in the types of armor above and beyond that of ABSORPTION. Chainmail ABSORBS alot less impact than a giant steel plate. BUT its got its own extremely usefull qualities. 1. Less constrictive than a plate. 2. ABS depends on weapon type, plate are vulnerable to some weapons that chain is impervious too.... 3. weight.... and convenience.

1.Allow weapon types to have benefits/negative aspects when facing certain armor types

2.allow the Armor types to have innate benefits in and of themselves.

The Tailoring part is the hardest part... but its doable.
It would require someone to take a full time job as the Object Imm but I'm sure someone is willing to do that

- Just the thoughts of the Wanderer

[yurai]

This would be a great idea for bandit rp( make someone think that you're selling them something really good, only done 100% ic, to make sure no one complains).

And the object imm would be great, especially for people who want a custom eq(like you give them a desc and they make it , after a while of course)

But a possible bug i'm thinking will come from the tailoring thing is what if a person writes a new name for a cloak and names them 'a shimmering cloak of black silk' (not sure about the name) with exact color and all. Won't there be a chance that that bug will give the cloak that char created the same stats as the real shimmering.

Heavy combo is fairly easy, it's the light combo that is nearly impossible.

Also the tailoring thing should be a skill of the armourers/leather workers ....(this will reduce the need for an imm doing that when they could be working on more important stuff)

[Dakon Navarra]

I like the large variety of clothing and armor available. You can look at someone and know if they are dressed RPish, or just going for "stats". I gave up my armor for clothes because I can't imaging doing bladeforms in full plate. As a member of the Queens Guard, I gave up roughly 8 points of defence to wear the uniform of the Guard. It would be nice if everyone had the same mind-set, although I know that most likely that will not happen. Are their players doing forms in Plate? Yes. Does that fit into a blademasters RP? No.

I guess that what I'm babbling about is the desire to see people wear whatever armor/clothes fit the RP they desire. I would like to see players use the weapons they pictute their chatacter using, rather than an entire mud population of steel banded clubs and raven etched daggers.

All for now .. thx for reading.

[Wanderer]

to Yurai:
the way it stands now... you can't make a 'a shimmering cloak' and I don't think you should be able too w/o some individual quest or achievement.
WoT had silk, no silksheen like Recluse or anything else. if the shirt is silk it should say silk.

And stats WONT be determined by the means I think your minding.
A good question to ask is:Should the Shimmering cloak now, have the stats it does with the type of cloth it was made out of?

to Dakon:
The whole point of the tailoring aspect would be to make it so that people can wear what they WANT and NOT sacrifice combat ability.
I periodically teach martial arts at some of the local schools. Do you think I go around wearing black silk pants with stitching to make my dodging better than when I wear just plain black silk pants or hell, just cotton pants for that matter. Silk lets me move quicker and with less resistance but the feel 'unmans' me (just kidding btw).

There is no reason why you should have to give up any points from switching to a Black cotton shirt to a QG cotton shirt...........

The only reason? Time, circumstance, and illogical and unintended patterns caused the eq system to be given random stats designed to TIER the equipment........

IMO this is NO GOOD.

1. It places the burden of maintenaince on one person.
2. if said person leaves, gets sick, etc then the mud is doomed to undergo a complete rewrite OR an imbalance in the stats
3. With the plethora of equipment, the newbie is doomed to waste thousands of gold trying to figure out what is better than what............
4. absolutely illogical.

[Tank]

I'd think that silk, or any clothing at all should not improve your ability to parry, more realistic would be that you would parry attacks in heavy armor, shouldn't hurt as much as in normal clothes right? Perhaps armor pieces should give parry bonus instead of clothing, bounce off the attacks with the armor.


*grumble*

[yurai]

Parry, in the sense of the word Mirrorsmud uses it, is your ability to use your weapon or whatever to parry hits. And even though it's fairly illogical that you'd parry easier with silken clothes or whatever on, it's the only way it can work with the way MUDs in general are built.

And Tank I disagree with you, it is VERY hard to be fast enough to parry hits with over 50pds of clothing on.

[Neinar]

I myself, even if I would not want to touch this post with a stick will do so this time in lack of better doing.

I have to say about that you actually can, in most places, block hits that come in you, in armor or not. As this goes to the "experienced user in armor is able to fend off attacks in heavier weight" part. It needs, a bit fixing so that you actually can have a /small/ ability to fend off attacks in mirrors also, wearing a bit armor, in name of all holy and good.

[yurai]

I agree, I mean it's very illogical that if I have a lot of experience with both parrying and wearing armor (maxed out parry AND armor), I wouldn't be able to parry at all. I mean shouldn't you guys make it a 1/4 in chances that you'll parry hits if you have maxed out both skills.

[Neinar]

*agrees completely with the Illianer, this time*

[Tular]

*Tosses a rabbit in among the enraged torm*

Once again, my personal thoughts only, and in no means official position. I'm talking about the whole armour and parry thing.
True: it is harder to move a weapon quicker to parry a blow when movement is restricted by heavy armour.

However, its easier again to drop your shoulder so that a normally direct hit that would focus impact energy into one's body spreads its aside and away instead. Yes, your armour takes the hit, and if armour damage was active, it should count, but the blow HAS been deflected away from doing potential injury.

I think what Tank was talking about was the ability to use one's familiarity with one's armour to use it a little as someone would use a shield. Face it, an armoured combatant doesn't exactly just stand still and take it if there is any chance of reducing the effect more.

Second, not all attacks will have any effect against someone that is armoured. You can spend all days sliding a freshly cut page edge across someone's armour, and not see even the faintest hint of a papercut on their flesh afterward. Extreme example, but you get the point. Armour works buy absorbing some of the incoming energy of a blow, minimising its effect and hopefully blocking enough so as to stop injury all together.

Light armour/clothing allows you to move quickly and nimbly, without the pressing burden of carried weight.
Heavy armour sacrifices that freedom of movement so that the wearer can survive a couple of hits that may otherwise cleave them in two, or concentrate more on the greatest threat to their person.

I'm not saying Armour Parry should be a freeby, just that abs could be alot more than the simple hit point multiplier that it is.
If you need something to balance it, just give people a small percent chance to bypass it and hit on those occassions for normal damage.
EVERY defense has its flaws, after all.

*my silver throne's worth*

[belgar]

Part of the problem comes from me. When I rewrote the Armor, I had the mindset of 'armor and clothing' rather than armor types... and clothing(even silk) is technically an armor of sorts.

Shawny atm has full control over the statistics of the clothing while I had redone the armor objects.

When I redid the armor, I(a concensus of me and maxims brainstorming) made abs have 0 pb/db.

In my mind now... although armor weights a ton, it should have at least SOME ability to parry a hit. Our mindset at the time was to remove PB completely from all abs/clothing and leave it solely on the shields/weapons. Considering that I left for quite some time, and that shawny and I aren't terribly in agreement over this subject... you can see where the rift developes.

I can easily say that I have been pondering solutions since the day I finished the armor reformatting... but with more than 5 thousand wearable objects.. it is a bit difficult to ponder the situation unless you've got the mind of einstein and/or have an extreme amount of time on your hands(which I don't anymore )

If the players wish to make this easier
I'm searching for a few things.
1. I need the weights of various clothing.
Any pieces of clothing that are made of a material that MIGHT fit into WOT.
Aka if you've got a cotton shirt in your closet.
Weigh it and describe it.
Is it a light weave or a dense weave?

That sort of information would help me change the current problem of 50#'s of weight from JUST CLOTHING..... to something more realistic like.... 20--30#s.

Me and max have been talking forever about weapon types having differing affects vs certain abs types. using a sai vs chainmail would have some dangerous effects. Using a scimitar... very little unless you were superman

Using an axe/mace vs platemail... BAD. youch. Paper... nothing

Max does think it is a good idea, has plans on putting it into code... but with time restrictions, its likely way in the future.

If any of you take up the challenge to send me clothing weights/descriptions... I'd appreciate it

Also, I'm thinking of starting an RP/mob method of getting your own equipment.

[Valois]

I'd like to see tailors exchange female clothes for male equivalents and vice versa.

[Tular]

Do you know of any tailors now days that do that?

Just curious of the RP premise for having a male to female clothing swap.