What exactly do tiers mean?

[Ratbatboo]

It sometimes appears to related to different metals, but other times it seems to relate to damage, armor value, or possibly durability?

I'm confused, because just as a for-example, this business of the bows. There seems to be a damage multiplier AND a damage tier. Does the one affect the other? If I have a damage multiplier 1.5 Tier 1 bow, and a damage multiplier 1.5 Tier 2 bow, will the latter do more damage? Or is it more durable? Or? (Yes, I'm running some mods which add scads of different weapons.)

 

Oh, I forgot something else that made me question. The Malefactor has 'Nervous' which gives "-1 damage tier to piercing weapons."

So it feels like it must be affecting the damage somehow, but I'm curious to know what that means. If I have a damage 2, tier 1 piercing weapon, will a Malefactor using it do the same damage as a damage 2, tier 2 piercing weapon (due to the effects of Nervous)?

Edited Thursday at 04:06 AM by Ratbatboo

[LadyWYT]

19 hours ago, Ratbatboo said:

It sometimes appears to related to different metals, but other times it seems to relate to damage, armor value, or possibly durability?

This is probably one of the better breakdowns on weapon/armor tiers: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Armor

Basically, the weapon tier needs to match the armor tier in order to be fully effective. A low tier attack against high tier armor is much less effective, if not mitigated entirely. A low tier armor will still provide some protection against a high tier attack, but more damage will be inflicted and the armor will lose durability much faster.

When it comes to fighting monsters/wildlife, I don't think they really have armor, so weapon tier doesn't matter quite as much. However, a higher tier weapon will be much better at killing stronger opponents simply because it does more damage than low tier weapons.

19 hours ago, Ratbatboo said:

Yes, I'm running some mods which add scads of different weapons.

When mods are involved, that's when vanilla rules tend to stop applying, especially in the case of mods like Combat Overhaul which changes quite a lot about vanilla systems. In this case, I'd recommend providing a modlist so that other users know exactly what's being dealt with here.

 

19 hours ago, Ratbatboo said:

Oh, I forgot something else that made me question. The Malefactor has 'Nervous' which gives "-1 damage tier to piercing weapons."

So it feels like it must be affecting the damage somehow, but I'm curious to know what that means. If I have a damage 2, tier 1 piercing weapon, will a Malefactor using it do the same damage as a damage 2, tier 2 piercing weapon (due to the effects of Nervous)?

This is definitely a mod change, as the vanilla Malefactor "Nervous" trait only gives a -15% penalty to melee damage. Based on what you've described here, I would expect the new trait to make a tier 1 piercing weapon cont as a tier 0 piercing weapon when wielded by a Malefactor.

[Ratbatboo]

Thanks LadyWYT, once again you've been quite helpful. It didn't occur to me to look at the armor wiki for something weapon-related, but that's just probably due to my own expectations.

And yes, I'm running Combat Overhaul. A friend who plays listed it as one of the 'must haves' I should try.

[LadyWYT]

10 hours ago, Ratbatboo said:

It didn't occur to me to look at the armor wiki for something weapon-related, but that's just probably due to my own expectations.

And yes, I'm running Combat Overhaul. A friend who plays listed it as one of the 'must haves' I should try.

Gotcha. In that case I'd recommend reading up on all the changes that Combat Overhaul implements and relying less on the wiki. The wiki is quite solid when it comes to most vanilla game concepts, but Combat Overhaul, as I understand it, changes too much about the combat system for the wiki to really be that useful.