Game Settings: Separate setting for Armor durability

[coolAlias]

Having played now up to my first winter, I personally feel like armor is not worth the effort due to how quickly it seems to get worn down even when not really engaging in much combat.

We already have a setting for tool durability. I do not know if applies to armor, but regardless, I think a separate setting for armor would be very nice so we can tweak the two options separately. For example, I'd like beefier armor and standard tools.

[LadyWYT]

It's an interesting idea and I could see it being a thing, but it also seems the kind of thing that fits under the tool durability umbrella already(or should, if it doesn't).

5 hours ago, coolAlias said:

Having played now up to my first winter, I personally feel like armor is not worth the effort due to how quickly it seems to get worn down even when not really engaging in much combat.

I'm curious as to which armor you're using and what you're trying to fight. Early game armors like leather and copper are tier 1, for the most part, and their main benefit is that most of them are fairly easy and cheap to craft, in addition to helping keep you alive. The drawback though is that while they're relatively cheap, they aren't very durable, and getting attacked by higher tier enemies(tier 2 like wolves, bears, and tougher monsters) will shred the armor even faster. Gambeson or bronze lamellar is better, since at tier 2 it will hold up much better in a fight, but it will still struggle a bit against corrupt/nightmare tier monsters. Iron can counter most threats quite well; it'll still take some damage from nightmare level enemies, but can still take quite a lot of punishment before it needs repair(and when it does repairs will be fairly easy to make given that iron deposits are quite large).

[coolAlias]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

It's an interesting idea and I could see it being a thing, but it also seems the kind of thing that fits under the tool durability umbrella already(or should, if it doesn't).

I agree it should if it doesn't, but also if it could be a separate setting, it would be extra groovy for people who want to fine-tune things, ya know?

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm curious as to which armor you're using and what you're trying to fight. Early game armors like leather and copper are tier 1, for the most part, and their main benefit is that most of them are fairly easy and cheap to craft, in addition to helping keep you alive.

See that's part of my problem - they most definitely are NOT cheap to craft, or do not appear that way  to me.

In my first year, I scraped together enough flax for maybe 20 total linen, which I perhaps foolishly used to craft a a few sacks and a windmill. My second crop of flax failed entirely at 7/9 growth stages by the end of October. I planted it near the end of July or the first few days of August at the latest, on soil that had not been used for that nutrient type.

Also, my first batch of leather went toward backpacks and a bellows, and since it costs 40 leather to make the leather armor set, I just went armorless for most of my year and dedicated myself to other projects while I slowly accumulated the supplies.

I finally made some black bear hide armor, which yes, has quite low durability, but it was destroyed after just a day or two in which I wasn't even doing combat, just taking stray hits every now and then from night-time surface monsters.

Lamellar armor is probably the easiest to make, but it requires 19 ingots' worth of metal, which is quite a substantial investment, and copper is still only tier 1 so not really any better than the bear armor other than having triple the durability - even still, that's a lot of resources to spend for a mere 3-6 days of protection during light activity.

During year 2, as soon as I get my first harvest I'll be switching off class recipes and making tailored gambeson armor for sure. It seems like probably the only armor actually worth the amount of effort required.

[PoisonedPawn777]

Wouldn't mind the flexibility of more options. Keep in mind though, any of the resource intensive armors worth making are also easily and cheaply repaired. I really only make improvised when I first drop into the game and then gambeson once my first flax crop matures, then I wait until steel. Always on the lookout for the treasure armors as well.

[coolAlias]

6 minutes ago, PoisonedPawn777 said:

I really only make improvised when I first drop into the game and then gambeson once my first flax crop matures, then I wait until steel.

After checking the different armor recipes and getting a feel for how labor-intensive the various resources are to gather, this was my conclusion as well for the optimal path. I just didn't get enough flax in my first harvest, and apparently I wasn't fast enough to get a second harvest before winter.

It's all good, though. I just turned on keep inventory and let myself get murdered a bunch. Them's the breaks lol.

[coolAlias]

Went through my first translocator and ended up some 5000+ blocks away right next to a giant mountain of limestone and bauxite... so that's pretty rad. Leather won't be nearly so difficult now.

[Broccoli Clock]

6 hours ago, coolAlias said:

See that's part of my problem - they most definitely are NOT cheap to craft, or do not appear that way  to me.

In my first year, I scraped together enough flax for maybe 20 total linen, which I perhaps foolishly used to craft a a few sacks and a windmill. My second crop of flax failed entirely at 7/9 growth stages by the end of October. I planted it near the end of July or the first few days of August at the latest, on soil that had not been used for that nutrient type.

I don't want to be mean, but you are castigating the cost of linen armour yet you managed to use one crop for sails, then failed to manage the second crop. That's a bit of a "you problem" in terms of efficiency rather than a reflection of the cost..

However, for me linen is definitely the go-to for every day armour that allows you to take multiple hits from bowtorns without losing 1/3rd health each time. Linen is also good enough for cave diving, depending on your confidence/ability. It provides the buffs/nerf trade offs, imo, with simple (albeit not unsubstantial) ingredients. Growing is one option with linen, but there is a ton of flax fibre and twine are to be found around the world. Drifters and their ilk will drop fibre regularly, it's small but a fairly consistent supply, where twine is a regular find in the foraging breakable pots found in ruins.

I have iron armour but only use it if I expect large long term fights (like the Archives or spelunking for underground ruins).

In terms of having more granularity with the armour, the devs have expanded it a little with the introduction of bear armour, and it does have granularity as it depends on the type of bear you kill. For example, a polar bear pelt turned into armour provides greater warmth buff (as you'd expect) and also durability but it comes at the higher cost of movement and hunger, compared to other pelts, with things like panda or sun bear being worse. Random trivia .. I've never actually seen a sun bear in the game.

With the bear armour, 2 types of wood, 2 types of linen, two type of basic leather, and 5 differing tiers of metal, where the metal itself can be any one of 5 (6?) metal types you can use, I think it's fair to say there is already a lot of armour variants. From the cheapest wooden being overall poor but will stop you from getting 3 shotted by a random bowtorn.

Although this isn't directly related to the low end of the armours but the new quenching/smelting update it may be possible to tweak the metal armours even more (not sure, I've been waiting for 1.22 to hit stable before I dip into it).

[williams_482]

11 hours ago, coolAlias said:

In my first year, I scraped together enough flax for maybe 20 total linen, which I perhaps foolishly used to craft a a few sacks and a windmill. My second crop of flax failed entirely at 7/9 growth stages by the end of October. I planted it near the end of July or the first few days of August at the latest, on soil that had not been used for that nutrient type.

Are you playing 1.21.6, or one of the 1.22 prereleases? Crop growth speed was absolutely massacred by a bugfix in the new prereleases, so it's now quite difficult to get a second harvest in your first year using medium fertility soil. I'm really hoping they either revert their bugfix or reduce nutrient consumption of all crops by ~20%, because the new growth times are a real bother.

Sacks and windmills are a very normal, reasonable way to spend your first flax harvest. Definitely no need to feel foolish about that. 

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

Although this isn't directly related to the low end of the armours but the new quenching/smelting update it may be possible to tweak the metal armours even more (not sure, I've been waiting for 1.22 to hit stable before I dip into it).

It's limited to weapons and tools only right now. Maybe at some future time we'll be able to temper armor as well. I will note though that armor is supposed to break when it reaches zero durability now, so it's a good idea to keep one's better equipment in good condition.

 

5 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

Growing is one option with linen, but there is a ton of flax fibre and twine are to be found around the world. Drifters and their ilk will drop fibre regularly, it's small but a fairly consistent supply, where twine is a regular find in the foraging breakable pots found in ruins.

There's also the option to buy linen and gambeson from traders. Clothing merchants will sell the gambeson and linen, I think, while Commodities and Survival Goods can sell linen but not gambeson.

 

40 minutes ago, williams_482 said:

Crop growth speed was absolutely massacred by a bugfix in the new prereleases, so it's now quite difficult to get a second harvest in your first year using medium fertility soil. I'm really hoping they either revert their bugfix or reduce nutrient consumption of all crops by ~20%, because the new growth times are a real bother.

There may or may not be balance changes to come on that front, though my guess is that it's not likely to change right now. The best solution I've found is to plant much bigger fields, which is easier to do now that the wild grains spawn in larger clumps. In my current world I have around a stack and a half planted, which is probably still a little on the low side but should be more than enough for a complete small windmill and a little extra leftover for other things.

[coolAlias]

2 hours ago, williams_482 said:

Are you playing 1.21.6, or one of the 1.22 prereleases? Crop growth speed was absolutely massacred by a bugfix in the new prereleases, so it's now quite difficult to get a second harvest in your first year using medium fertility soil. I'm really hoping they either revert their bugfix or reduce nutrient consumption of all crops by ~20%, because the new growth times are a real bother.

Sacks and windmills are a very normal, reasonable way to spend your first flax harvest. Definitely no need to feel foolish about that. 

1.22 rc2. Good to hear it's probably a bug.

6 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

I don't want to be mean, but you are castigating the cost of linen armour yet you managed to use one crop for sails, then failed to manage the second crop. That's a bit of a "you problem" in terms of efficiency rather than a reflection of the cost..

You're not wrong, but also see above - it might be a bug in 1.22 rc2. I feel like I was reasonably efficient with setting up my farm and finding flax, yet crop #2 failed terribly, leaving me with quite a deficit from what I was expecting.

[coolAlias]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I will note though that armor is supposed to break when it reaches zero durability now, so it's a good idea to keep one's better equipment in good condition.

Wait, are you sure? I thought that was either a bug or something they were moving away from. Dang.

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

The best solution I've found is to plant much bigger fields, which is easier to do now that the wild grains spawn in larger clumps. In my current world I have around a stack and a half planted, which is probably still a little on the low side but should be more than enough for a complete small windmill and a little extra leftover for other things.

Yeah, this looks like the way. My farm was around 60 blocks total for all my crops, and I just didn't get enough flax in the ground.

This was my first time harvesting anything other than turnips (start #2, first was in 1.21 for a few in-game months), so I wasn't sure how much to expect.

On another note, my second set of black bear hide armor is lasting a lot longer than the first one, even with taking random hits. Maybe it was a fluke or a bug, or maybe my brain is playing tricks on me. Still, wouldn't hurt to have an extra setting.

[LadyWYT]

13 minutes ago, coolAlias said:

Wait, are you sure? I thought that was either a bug or something they were moving away from. Dang.

I don't know if it was a bug or just something that hadn't been polished yet, but in any case it's supposed to have been changed in 1.22. Prior to 1.22, the armor would reach 0 durability and stop providing protection, but wouldn't actually break so the player could still repair it. 

To be fair, I haven't tested it, but all I expect it to really change is the player will want to make repairs a more regular occurrence rather than wait until the absolute last minute. 

[williams_482]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

To be fair, I haven't tested it, but all I expect it to really change is the player will want to make repairs a more regular occurrence rather than wait until the absolute last minute. 

If they want to encourage timely repairs, it might be better to have a system like clothing where the armor loses effectiveness past a certain durability loss. Although I really don't think that's necessary; there's plenty of incentive to keep your armor repaired under the old system. 

Armor being totally destroyed if it ever runs out of durability is very harsh, I think, and hopefully just a bug. It's a thing that should never happen to a player paying attention and wearing the actually expensive types of armor, but it can conceivably happen due to a combination of forgetfulness and running into much more trouble than expected a long ways from home (such as on a story quest). In such a case having the armor be useless extra weight that you'd have to scramble to find repair material for is more than sufficient punishment. Losing it entirely and needing to make more from scratch just feels cruel. 

[williams_482]

2 hours ago, coolAlias said:

1.22 rc2. Good to hear it's probably a bug.

Uhh, I hope the devs consider current behavior a bug, but it comes from them fixing a long time existing bug which made crops consume less nutrients than they were "supposed" to. It's very possible that this is just how it goes now. 

[coolAlias]

56 minutes ago, williams_482 said:

Uhh, I hope the devs consider current behavior a bug, but it comes from them fixing a long time existing bug which made crops consume less nutrients than they were "supposed" to. It's very possible that this is just how it goes now. 

I hope not. I would prefer to have a smaller field that I can pay extra attention to by watering, improving soils, etc., and a change like this would incentivize me to make the biggest field I could, plant once, and just forget about it until harvest.

Forget fertilzing or anything at that scale, medium fertility soil is so plentiful it'd be more efficient to just stack it on top of the old farmland as needed.