How bad do you think a global nerf on armor would be?

[Yuuko]

Say we took armor down a notch.  Generally it would be a 10% decrease in armor protection across the board - with granularity for some armors like cookie cap that is already a low defense option probably doesn't need its defense further reduced etc.

This is as an alternative to "we're adding planar to nerf pre-existing armor for end-game"

I've said it before but my opinion is (spoilers so you can vote without my influence)

Spoiler

I feel if armor protects too much to maintain risk in the "end game" then it is too strong all throughout the game.  If 95% protection is too much for zombie Bearger then it is too much for AFW, CC, etc.

imo it makes sense that 95% can be too much, high percent reduction like this gets out of control quickly.  Going from 0 to 80% is effectively 5x base health, and going to 95% is 20x base health...  If we even tried to add 2% more to this it would be ~33x base health...  see how quick it gets out of control?

These are big leaps in effective health that mean any monster needs to also scale dramatically to make 95% reduction feel risky at all.  Rather we could simply reduce these values so an alchemy tier armor can give 70% instead (~3x effective health) and the top tier would be up to 85% (6x effective health) giving us a more narrow spread between armors, allowing things to be "less risky" but not "ignorable" at the top end.

 

[lenship2]

grass armor is already super good early game, and that only has 60% reduction

i think itd be overall beneficial, but i doubt people would openly accept it

[chirsg]

I go into fights unarmored sometimes because of the wigfrid damage boost. I don't want a safety net taken away when things go awry. You choose how you play. You don't like the damage scaling? Don't use armor. Naturally, nerfing all armor buffs bone armor. Unless you want that to instead defend against 99% damage instead of 100%.

 

I don't know. This facet of the game isn't broken I don't think.

 

Focus needs to be placed on what makes this game less engaging when playing alone. I don't think armor is what tips the scales against general engagement in the end game. 

If anything, I'd want faster progression. End game is more fun than the early to me and early has been a severe slog lately.

[grm9]

17 hours ago, lenship2 said:

grass armor is already super good early game, and that only has 65% reduction

i think itd be overall beneficial, but i doubt people would openly accept it

it's 60% and almost no one crafts it

about the post itself, idk i wouldn't care about the change much because both armor and healing are already easy to get in large amounts and armor will last even longer if it absorbs less damage, since durability damage taken is equal to the amount of absorbed damage, e.g. doubling the durability of armor that had 90% absorption and would have 80% abs if it'd get decreased by 10% 

[Yuuko]

19 minutes ago, chirsg said:

I go into fights unarmored sometimes because of the wigfrid damage boost. I don't want a safety net taken away when things go awry. You choose how you play.

Should a player have a choice for so much defense though?  Its one thing to say "I am willing to risk fighting unarmored" but should you really be able to gain 20x effective health?

This is kinda the basis for planar damage from enemies piercing existing armors.  "We can't scale them up higher so we nerfed armor FOR THESE MOBS."  Well people are generally liking the new content, and I haven't seen much negative sentiment for player's receiving more damage even when wearing planar armor...  so is it something that should actually just be retrofitted to the entire game to maintain risk?  Or is it okay to have risk be largely mitigated in all other cases and only brought back for this one arc?

I don't want to get too bogged down in conversation here though b/c I'd rather see unaffected pole results.  I just put this up for clarification.

19 minutes ago, chirsg said:

Naturally, nerfing all armor buffs bone armor. Unless you want that to instead defend against 99% damage instead of 100%.

Granularity.  I think in the case of Bone Armor which has a very unique mechanic balancing would be done through adjusting the cool down - lengthening it to increase the risky 0% reduction window, or possibly making it a per-character cd instead of a per-item cd etc.

[Maxil20]

I’m not too sure myself, especially since DST already nerfed armor twice, both with armor stacking and reducing the durability.  I think it is alright at the moment.
 

A bit of an oddball fact for your time, but apparently Klei did try to nerf armor absorption way in the early days of DST, while allowing you to still armor stack for higher absorption. It seemed to be very unpopular, however, so it was reverted in exchange for the armor durability itself being weaker and removing the ability to stack armors. Link to that update post.

 

[Juny Pear]

My take on this is that it's a giant double edged sword.

I'm definitely not a fan of the design philosophy behind planar damage and if armor was overall reduced, it would probably make for more nuanced progression when it comes to keeping challenging encounters difficult. With the least protective armour still providing 60% damage reduction, raw damage numbers are left playing catch up. You can pretty quickly get to a point of relative safety and that's for the most part where combat stays, and if the values were to be lowered, difficulty will be maintained for longer throughout the game, with better armours feeling more impactful.

But at the same time, this would also create a new issue, as well as amplify a problem we already see a bunch.
If every armour value gets lowered for the sake of making new items shine more, then instead of making one point of progression a sudden difficulty spike, you now instead raise the entire curve, and in doing so make every single situation in the game more punishing, while the super duper endgame items are still just the overall best option. While I would prefer that personally over the planar mechanics, I still wouldn't be too big of a fan of this, partially because the mechanics that have existed for a long time within the game are just made worse globally with next to no compensation for it, like armour stacking.
Plus, a lot of damage in this game already relies to a large degree on dealing a large burst of damage quickly if you want any chance at the player dying. Most bosses deal around 100 damage per hit, which will not only take a good chunk out of your health bar per hit, but a good amount of durability as well. Now if the armour values are lowered, sure they'll lose less durability, but that chunk of health lost will be heftier. Which isn't too big a deal if you're like me and are basically a walking wiki on the game, but will be absolutely devastating to pretty much the rest of the playerbase. A lot of deaths in this game are either due to not knowing what's coming, being caught offguard or because you didn't pay for a second while your healthbar basically melts, and i feel that lower protection would cause these things to happen more often and way faster.

But this isn't to say that there are absolutely no ways in which the bar could be raised for endgame content without nerfing armour. In some ways we already saw this in fights like the nightmare werepig and the shadow thralls. In terms of raw damage numbers, these encounters are not super challenging in any way. But where they get engaging and difficult (to a certain degree) is in the things they actually do. In my eyes the thing that most fights were really missing in terms of "difficulty" is less so the actual damage they pump out and moreso attack patterns having been essentially the exact same thing. Up until these fights were added, id argue that most fights would boil down to learning the one kite pattern (usually somewhere between 3 to 5 hits inbetween dodges) and bring the item(s) that deals with the gimmick that would otherwise make the fight either impossible, or take unreasonably long amounts of time, often even with multiple people. 
Compared this to reacting to the werepig's lunges or the shadow thralls' attack patterns that change depending on which one you kill first and I think it's understandable why I'd get flattened to a pancake by the werepig any day of the week over the mob that walks towards you in a straight line from the same angle every time but now deals 25 damage through your footballhat instead of 20.
And hell this is only viewing the whole thing from one angle, don't get me started on the many items we got in the game that are barely any different from each other vs. the cool new items that could already stand on their own without planar mechanics.

TL;DR: Imo the armour values themselves are all pretty much fine enough, I think the actual things that held back "difficulty" and unique situations so far was just factors surrounding the mechanic, rather than the mechanic itself.

[flamboyant wolf]

I personally think that planar mechanics for armor specifically(not talking about weapons) are a pretty elegant solution to the problem, though I could see how this could maybe be a good change, but idk. I feel like it can go either way. 

[Mike23Ua]

Hahaha … No. Instead I would prefer that there be certain mobs or enchanted versions of existing mobs that completely ignore armor.

Such as for example: my first experience with Deadly Brightshades before discovering it had its very own armor to protect against it.

I think DST when it comes to Brightshades a few easy to kill & dodge mobs and maybe even some bosses, should deal enough damage to insta kill any character (& not just Maxwell)

The trade off would be that they’d have to actually be EASY to dodge and kite, because if you gave this type of buff to a common Pigmen I’d die and Delete this game forever due to it being more annoying than it would be fun.

clockwork bishops & MacTusk are two really big reasons why armor needs to not be Nerfed..

[Arcwell]

I strongly disagree with the idea of a 10% (or any percent) flat nerf to all armor because it would disproportionately harm armors with higher damage absorption.
Here is the impact on health values a 10% nerf would have:

• Night Armor (95% -> 85%) = you receive 3x as much damage as before
• Thulecite crown (90% -> 80%) = you receive 2x as much damage as before
• Football helmet (80% -> 70%) = you receive 1.5x as much damage as before
• Grass suit (60% -> 50%) = you receive 1.25x as much damage as before

For comparison, here's what changing armors looks like currently:

• Switching from Night armor (95%) to Thulecite crown (90%) = you receive 2x as much damage
• Switching from Thulecite crown (90%) to Football helmet (80%) = you receive 2x as much damage
• Switching from Football helmet (80%) to Grass suit (60%) = you receive 2x as much damage

And here's what changing armors would look like if there was a flat 10% nerf across the board:

• Switching from Night armor (85%) to Thulecite crown (80%) = you receive 1.33x as much damage
• Switching from Thulecite crown (80%) to Football helmet (70%) = you receive 1.5x as much damage
• Switching from Football helmet (70%) to Grass Suit (50%) = you receive 1.66x as much damage

In my opinion, the current 2x differences in health are great because they balance the armor's other features. Night armor has insane damage absorption but has durability issues and sanity penalties. Thulecite crown has good damage absorption and forcefield, but requires ruins materials. Football helmet has okay damage absorption and basically only requires you to hammer a pig house. Grass suit has bad damage absorption and requires you to hold space for a few seconds. If you change the damage absorption tiers so that they have less impact changing between armors, the higher-tier armors suddenly look much less worthwhile because their downsides don't reflect the new damage absorption values.

[arubaro]

this will only make rushing stuff grindier and make noobs life a bigger nightmare

i also i don't like what this implies. If they nerf armor is to have room for better armor so we enter in every "uninspired sandbox with rpg progression"

[maroonamanita]

This is such a weird little topic. Because at a surface level I'm like all for it. Armor is really strong in this game. The game goes from a incredibly dangerous you can die at anytime simulator to with a single football helmet. The only thing that is killing an experienced player is a stunlocking or getting caught out. This kinda sucks and for a lot of armor losing 5-10% of the damage reduction would be nice. For tanking you would need to bring less armor as less durability is being taken off with a single hit, but you would need to heal more. This is also makes healing way more important. 

For more specific use cases. The 2 best survivors in the game get nerfed. Wanda and Maxwell will have more significant downsides, having low health would almost even been a worthwhile downside and may be even worth giving the "frail" survivors even worse armor. (Maxwell, Old Wanda, and maybe Wes and Wickerbottom)
100 dmg --> 5 dmg with night armor --->15 with a 10% nerf ----> 25 with an extra 10% frail nerf. 
75(deerclops and dragonfly) dmg -->  3.75 dmg with night armor --->11.25 with a 10% nerf ----> 18.75 with an extra 10% frail nerf. 

This would after 2 hits from deerclops (or dragonfly) put Maxwell at 52.5- 37.50 hp (same with wes) 
For Wanda at old age she has an effective health of 37.5. 1 hit will bring her to 26.25-18.75 hp . 2 hits will bring her to 15-0 hp. This would make her an actual glass cannon.

This is with the weakest seasonal boss and raid boss. I think this would give them real downsides but also have some buffs to some survivors. Webber, Wortox, Woddie and Warly. Webber and Wortox just have more then 150 health and this would be cool in the less armor meta, and Wurt can use the merm king to be stronger (Wx can use circuits but unless they gain more slots this is actually a minor nerf to them) . Woodie would have the moose form and i would want that to keep the 90% armor as he cant heal i know it probably also be changed but he already cant just tank everything without jelly beans and he just got good pleas let him keep it. Warly has garlic spice and that would be even more useful. Wigfrid and Wolfgang also like the new meta but tanking and fighting is their whole thing thats ok for them. 
 

Beefalos would get even stronger. They got that bug removed and beefalos have become a force to be feared by the constant. They also have a high dps from animation canceling. I personally hate animation canceling but its here to stay I guess and this would probably push beefalos even more to the front. Bone armor would also be even better. Idk what to do about that. I guess nerf it? make it a survivor cooldown instead of a cooldown per armor and maybe make it like 7.5 seconds. 

Now this would make the game harder for new players, but also by the time they are starting to fight bosses and run away this would will be a nerf for them but it would be more ok for them. By then they will figure out the crock pot enough to make like pierogi or dragonpie or worse come to worse healing salve. I think people figure out food before they figure out armor and weapons so i think it will be ok. 

Overall i think this would be a good change. I mean maxwell and wanda would still be very strong at the top tiers of play, but that tier they are not getting hit often if at all. For that you would need to make forced damage or just accept some players are going to be so good that you can't beat them. (btw i still think Maxwell should be nerfed like if you cut the boosts to his shadow fighters in half like kept the base damage and cut the boosts he would be way more fun and balanced to play.)

[Brago-sama]

Im not gonna argue for it, but if it did happen, i wouldnt complain. A change of scenery is always refreshing

Would be weird seeing grass suit become competitive tho lol

[BezKa]

Imo, a whole gigantic re-balance update should be in order sometime soon- mostly just stat changes, adding/removing stun to mobs if needed, reconsidering various effect thresholds, implementing more settings for things, ingredients for crafts, ranges of effects and tools, all hopefully in order to make things fair which should entail both nerfs and buffs. (I wanted to make a whole fake update poster to suggest this type of update when the Wilson rework came out.)

At least I thought it was, if not for the rotten skill trees that will rock any balance achieved any time a new one is released. Idk if waiting until those are done as well will matter at all.

[Yuuko]

3 hours ago, arubaro said:

this will only make rushing stuff grindier and make noobs life a bigger nightmare

i also i don't like what this implies. If they nerf armor is to have room for better armor so we enter in every "uninspired sandbox with rpg progression"

This isn't to open up design space for stronger armors - rather its to remove the planar requirement added to "end game" content to make it more risky by forcing your resists lower.

[Antynomity]

I myself would rebalance armour and mob damage, so the early experience doesn't change too too much so there's not as much outcry if such a change was released.

This would also make unarmoured play less unsafe? I guess? Which I think is a positive because we have too many unfair death cases in this game, imo, there's only so many worlds a new player will be willing to remake before uninstalling.

[Antynomity]

5 hours ago, arubaro said:

snip

It wouldn't. You'd craft less armor while cooking/crafting more healing.

[Masked Koopa]

This is a topic people clearly have insightful, nuanced takes on, but to be honest I think it is mostly futile. I think it is probably beyond Klei's capabilities to pull this off well not to mention not something they are all that interested in.

[Frosty_Mentos]

Armor like anything else is a resource. Takes inventory space and preparations to have plenty of just like food. Though food spoils and has either positive and negative traits for being easy to get or has only positives but takes longer to make it making it you either risk it to beat those bosses and deal with shadows and be delayed or take more time to prepare and have less delays fighting them. 

No reason to nerf armor for how it is, rift content on the other hand is very different subject now considering planar defense and all sorts of possibilities of enemies they could design to make it more balanced and intriguing experience.

[arubaro]

11 hours ago, Shosuko said:

This isn't to open up design space for stronger armors - rather its to remove the planar requirement added to "end game" content to make it more risky by forcing your resists lower.

so your solution to remove something that won't be remove is to make a nerf, something that the community loves, to every armor, which affects early game, instead of increasing late game enemies' damage? makes sense

9 hours ago, Antynomity said:

It wouldn't. You'd craft less armor while cooking/crafting more healing.

crafting armor is less tedious than grinding food, specially in early 

[Antynomity]

2 minutes ago, arubaro said:

crafting armor is less tedious than grinding food, specially in early 

That's subjective to everyone's playstyle.

[Antynomity]

5 hours ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

No reason to nerf armor for how it is, rift content on the other hand is very different subject now considering planar defense and all sorts of possibilities of enemies they could design to make it more balanced and intriguing experience.

That's funny because that's exactly what planar does, just in an arbitrary way, it nerfs old armours specifically for new enemies and gives you a solution of worse armor for anything else but those new enemies defense wise. Lol.

[MondayNight]

I fail to see why game "needs" such a nerf. Aside having beginners and especially mid-tiers gamers die more - why would you want that? To discourage casuals from transitioning to recurrent players?! I doubt this would impact advanced experienced players in any meaningful way aside annoyance of having a nerf just for $hit&giggles. How does such a nerf make game more fun and engaging?

For most people dying = failure = discouragement of engaging further if too often it occurs.

[Cheggf]

20 hours ago, grm9 said:

it's 60% and almost no one crafts it

Almost no one crafts it because most people avoid combat until they already have alchemy engines, and by the time you have alchemy engines you can make helmets of pig skin and suits of log (both of which offer superior protection for comparable if not less cost), so the grass suit has become pretty worthless. But it requires no science to craft, so it's great for people who are getting into fights before science. 

34 minutes ago, MostMerryTomcat said:

I fail to see why game "needs" such a nerf.

Klei doesn't fail to see it, they want to do it but they're scared to go through with it. Instead they keep trying other things:

[MondayNight]

4 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Klei doesn't fail to see it, they want to do it but they're scared to go through with it. Instead they keep trying other things:

That's a slip-up, not an indication of intention for anything.

Look what happened with "Super Earthquake" Boulders and Acid Rain aggressiveness after community general reaction - they got hard nerfed.