1.22's Clothing Warmth Imbalance

[ifoz]

I've talked about this before in another thread of mine, but I thought I'd make a separate post for discussion about this and how it could potentially be fixed.
I have also put this info on the bug tracker, since it seems a bit strange and unbalanced to me. 

Anyway, clothing balance in 1.22 seems a little all over the place.
It's kind of got me thinking about how the warmth system might be due for an overhaul at some point, perhaps with the future addition of status effects.
There's only so much you can do with the current warmth system, where the difference between +2 and +3 degrees on a clothing item is a big progression point.

One of the main things breaking the balance of warmth in 1.22 is the new grass clothing.
For 8 dry grass per piece, you can craft grass pants and a grass shirt.
Both are worth +2 each, totalling at +6 if you are wearing the grass shirt, grass pants, straw hat and straw sandals.
Considering these are so cheap to make, it seems strange to me their warmth matches that of rawhide, the previous inexpensive clothing option.
As I touched on in another post, I think a decent solution would be reducing this to either +1 or +1.5 per piece instead of +2, and also potentially having their niche be in providing some rain protection despite the lack of warmth.

Speaking of rawhide, the rawhide tunic has been added, a shirt slot item that costs either 4 small pelts or 2 medium/large/huge pelts.
It gives +3 warmth, which surpasses the previous best shirts in the game, Nadiyan fur. The previous +2.5 shirts were difficult to get and required story progression, but now a +3 is only a few hides away.
This one I think could be fixed just by changing it to +2, in line with nearly every other shirt in the game.

The fur-lined vest is also a +3 shirt, though it requires both leather and pelts to craft.
This one I think is okay, since the leather cost means the player will likely have barrels before making it, but I think it is strange to be a shirt slot item.
All other vests in the game are coat slot, which allows you to wear a shirt underneath as you'd expect.
I think this could be fixed by making the fur-lined vest a coat slot item, allowing it to function as an aesthetically different option to the fur coat for the same warmth.
(Seriously, the fur-lined vest looks so awesome, this would be a go-to clothing item for me if I could just wear a shirt underneath it!)

Another smaller thing I noticed was that the new broadbrim hat (which I really like by the way, it's the closest thing we have to a cowboy hat ) only offers +70% rain protection, despite the size of its brim. It is larger than something like the small bamboo cone hat, which offers +85%. I think it could probably stand to be changed to +85%, or even +90%. It is quite large, after all.


One thing I do really like in regards to 1.22 and new clothing warmth is the arctic hunter set. It's a new winter set that can be crafted by any class, and offers some of the best warmth in the game. The shirt is +3.5, the parka is +4, and the pants are +4. However, it requires cinnebar to craft, which can be a difficult resource to find. I think this balances it out nicely, offering a quality winter set lategame for players who don't want to do the story content, or don't want to spend their gears to buy Nadiyan fur.



Anyway, that's what I've noticed of 1.22's clothing warmth values! Let me know what you think about all this, or how you think it could be improved/changed, if you think it should be. 

Edited Wednesday at 12:02 PM by ifoz

[space llama]

a lot of these are rather nice suggestions, i think the right idea is to expand on what is rather then detract, of course some balance changes really need to be done, at least for the grass clothing or clothing in general, like you said perhaps and overhaul to how clothing handles the environment, like protection from wind and such, as somebody how lives in a rather cold country i often find my cloths are socking wet after a heavy snow storm and being out for a wile just has all the snow melt on you or as sweat builds up, so perhaps some cloths being better insulated for that weather then others, more so in a way that goes beyond just how cold you are and how cold the weather is, if that makes any sense. 

but yes i agree clothing needs balance and perhaps more to them to make them interesting, at least the clothing intended for survival situations, but that also brings to mind a change in the weather perhaps clothing for more extreme storms or some such. 

anyway good post op 

[Maelstrom]

14 hours ago, ifoz said:

I think it could probably stand to be changed to +85%, or even +90%. It is quite large, after all.

90% seems like it should be a sombrero.

 

[Zane Mordien]

I haven't really considered all of the clothing, but the grass stuff is a little to easy IMO.