Rust-proof bronze armor (give bronze more love)

[Bruno Willis]

Do you think the bronze age and bronze armor needs more love? 

In reality, bronze is very resistant to corrosion especially compared to iron and steel. Iron and steel armor and tools and could be nerfed by having the rust-world and low stability damage them (rusting them), while bronze tools and armor would be resistant. Maybe that would make bronze feel like a more legitimate choice, until players are well into the iron age? 

[LadyWYT]

45 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

Do you think the bronze age and bronze armor needs more love? 

Not really, it feels well-balanced as is.

 

46 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

In reality, bronze is very resistant to corrosion especially compared to iron and steel. Iron and steel armor and tools and could be nerfed by having the rust-world and low stability damage them (rusting them), while bronze tools and armor would be resistant.

While that might make bronze a little stronger in the short term, think about what that does to long term balance. Tier 2 equipment like bronze is the minimum recommended level for completing chapter one, however, tier 3 equipment is the general recommended level for chapter 2, I do believe. As the story progresses, I only expect equipment requirements to become more stringent, with the last chapters requiring steel or possibly something even better(Jonas tech?) to complete them. Aside from the story content, strong temporal storms require better equipment in order to survive and hunt the special monster spawns.

I will also note that the player isn't meant to remain in the bronze age, and bronze armor itself is already outclassed in the tier 2 category by gambeson. All that a change like this really accomplishes is punishing the player for making progress by making them weaker in the late game.

53 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

Maybe that would make bronze feel like a more legitimate choice, until players are well into the iron age? 

Honestly, I think the likely issue here is just...becoming more experienced at the game. When one first starts out in Vintage Story, the world is a scary place and it's very tough to survive. The early game armor feels like a massive safety blanket, and the first sets of copper and bronze tools/weapons/armor feel amazing. Naturally, bronze gets outclasses by iron and steel, but new players will struggle a while to get there and thus be using bronze for a while. However, as a player becomes more experienced with the game, they become less reliant on early game armors, since they've acquired enough skill to not need such in order to survive. Likewise, as the player becomes more skilled, they're able to make progress much faster and thus able to skip most of copper and bronze and go straight for iron thanks to their skills. That doesn't make bronze or copper gear any less useful overall, but how useful such gear is to the player depends heavily on the player's preferred playstyle: fast progress, or slow and steady.

 

1 hour ago, Bruno Willis said:

Do you think the bronze age and bronze armor needs more love? 

I'll do a rare double quote on the same bit here--I think a better route for extending the amount of time a player potentially spends in the earlier portions of the game...is simply to give them more options of things to do early in the game, rather than smack late game equipment with the nerf bat in order to make early gear appear stronger. I'm talking add gameplay loops like herbalism, or weaving, or woodworking, or fishing, or even flesh out some of the gameplay we already have further(watermills to go with windmills, more complex creature behavior to make hunting more interesting, etc). The idea isn't to force the player to complete extra steps to get to iron, but rather to provide multiple ways for the player to get distracted and thus spend longer at lower tech levels than they might otherwise.

[Bruno Willis]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I'll do a rare double quote on the same bit here--I think a better route for extending the amount of time a player potentially spends in the earlier portions of the game...is simply to give them more options of things to do early in the game, rather than smack late game equipment with the nerf bat in order to make early gear appear stronger. I'm talking add gameplay loops like herbalism, or weaving, or woodworking, or fishing, or even flesh out some of the gameplay we already have further(watermills to go with windmills, more complex creature behavior to make hunting more interesting, etc). The idea isn't to force the player to complete extra steps to get to iron, but rather to provide multiple ways for the player to get distracted and thus spend longer at lower tech levels than they might otherwise.

I think you've hit the core of it here. Yes, absolutely. I think stone-age gameplay works so well because making flint tools never feels like a waisted resource, and making things like gardens and pottery just sets you up for later. The bronze age equivalent is barrels and leather and boats, which are all good, but it would be nice to see more.

Thanks for the in-depth response