Dev Feelings Toward Metal Armor

[Credinus 17]

I've read/heard multiple sources suggesting that metal armor will be changed due to them being in a bit of an unsatisfactory place. I'd certainly welcome the change, given how many resources a suit of metal armor uses up compared to how quickly they break (and for that matter, how comparatively little protection they provide). I made a little test arena with a single skeleton to test various metal armors against it to get an idea of how good or bad the armor is, at least for tier 0 metal. Obviously, tier 0 metal shouldn't be expected to perform significantly better than leather, but overall it still isn't worth the resources. I counted how many arrows it took to destroy the set of armor, but I'm not going to post it since I know that sort of information isn't something the devs want being broadcasted; suffice to say, though, that full set of zinc armor would definitely not last very long in a cave crawl (though it would last longer than leather armor, at least). However, it didn't seem to reduce damage by much more than leather armor, if at all (hard to tell without seeing actual numbers and assuming that total armor durability has an effect on the protection value). Simply not good enough for 22 ingots (not to mention all the running back and forth making all the sheets and unfinished pieces).

So, my question to the devs.. If you guys aren't 100% satisfied with metal armor and plan to make changes, which of these do you think needs the most attention?

-Durability of metal armor

-Protection rating of metal armor

-Amount of resources required to make metal armor

For me, I feel that durability is the area that really needs changed. I like the amount of work and resources required to put together the metal armor, and I don't feel that they really need to make you a walking shield of damage absorption; for me, I think they just need to reduce damage by roughly the same amount of leather armor, but last a whole heck of a lot longer (even tier 0 metal ought to last as long as maybe 4ish sets of leather armor).

[Sting_Auer 59]

I think that armor should be something that makes you "top dog" but shouldn't be something that's unbeatable for a defender.

Make armor a life-saving wonder-gear, but make it bend to the will of a well-designed fort.

And yes, durability for armor should be quite high, and should give less protection as it gets more damaged. On the flipside, let players repair armor for less metal than it takes to make a new set.

[Credinus 17]

And yes, durability for armor should be quite high, and should give less protection as it gets more damaged. On the flipside, let players repair armor for less metal than it takes to make a new set.

I would love to see a revamped repair system for the armor as well. For instance, instead of the vanilla style of plopping two damaged pieces of the same type in the crafting grid to repair (actually, I haven't tested to see if that works on TFC metal armor or not, just assuming it does), make it so that you can bang a new sheet/double sheet of metal onto damaged armor to restore, say, 25% of the durability. That's be pretty awesome.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

Durability is the issue for the most part