The notes from that last big patch mentioned:

Reduced a bit more bonuses granted to armor items by Iron and Dust materials.

From when I played a year or so ago, I remember noticing that armor made from strategic resources was generally a lot more expensive than iron/dust armor but had barely any improvement in stats. So I figured: maybe they've finally addressed that!



Let's take a look at some items:



Iron Helm - Tier 2 (12 industry)

+12 life

+4% attack



Titanium Helm - Tier 2 (20 industry, 3 titanium*)

+12 life

+10% defense



Glassteel Helm - Tier 2 (20 industry, 3 glassteel*)

+12 life

+10% life



Iron Helm - Tier 3 (18 industry)

+18 life

+8% attack



*Costs checked in a saved game with 2 titanium/glassteel techs unlocked





So the titanium/glassteel armor (at least in this particular example) is still quite a bit more expensive than it's iron equivalent, and even more expensive than the next tier of iron above it. In exchange for that, it gives a +10% bonus to a stat instead of a +4% bonus (and the flat +life is the same).



Here's the thing: +% to stat bonuses are REALLY BAD--vastly worse than I would intuitively expect.



Look at this:



With minimum equipment, my Drakkenling (at level 6, since this is from the end of my last game) has 49 attack. With that tier 2 iron help that adds +4%, it has...50 attack. The tier 3 helm, which adds +8% attack, bumps that up to 51! (For those keeping score at home, 8% of 49 is 3.92, so even assuming we round down, that's not 8% of the displayed value.)



But wait, it gets much worse! If I take off the helmet and equip a legendary adamantian longspear, his attack is 270. Put that +8% attack helmet back on and...273.



I'm theorizing that the +% stats are being applied to the unit's level 1 base stats, without taking into account equipment, experience, or capacities (and the reason that +8% helm appeared to give +2 in one example and +3 in the other I'm putting down to rounding errors). Though it's also possible they're just bugged; the numbers involved here are so small that it's hard to make any correlations at all.



Switching a Drakkenling from a tier 2 iron helm to a tier 2 titanium helm improves his stats by about +5 defense (and he loses 1 attack).



If you're comparing tier 2 titanium to tier 3 iron (which is arguably more realistic, since iron unlocks automatically at the era boundary, whereas strategic items you have to research and mine a bunch of resources before you can use), you're still gaining the same +5 defense, but you're giving up 2 attack and 6 life (arguably losing more than you gained), and you're still paying a higher industry cost--even if you count the strategic resources (and the science investment) as completely free!



The armor tech is still often worth getting just for the accessories. But even once I have it, there is basically no reason to ever equip the titanium/glassteel armor on anything.



How can this be the result AFTER you nerfed the iron armor? (Nerfed it more than once, judging from the wording of that patch note?)

I have to say I never stopped to check the details of the math, so you might have a good point regarding where those percentages are being applied. I just never liked to play basing my decisions on pure math, probably because I suck at it.



But the way I see it, the advantage of strategic armory has much more to do with opportunity cost than strategic weaponry. This latter is simply essential to determine the level of your military power, while the former is just dictated by timing.



I like to use T2 titanium armor and T3 iron armor as examples. The T2 titanium armor will provide you with the exact same stats as the T3 iron armor (unless something changed lately) for the cost of strategics (more expensive) - which means that if you only plan on fighting after reaching T3, there´s no reason to use it unless you´re Vaulters. However, you can get T2 titanium armors as early as turn 15 while T3 iron armors will only show up after turn 30. 15 turns is more than enough to finish a war. How can you measure the absolute value of Victory, or even of not-Defeat?



There are moments in the game the T2 Glassteel armor can steal initiative back to you, there are moments Palladian Helmets do so, there are moments a full Adamantian set will provide you with just enough defense to meta someone´s favoured unit. They´re situational, much more than strategic weapons, and I think that´s good especially because the Vaulters are the Vaulters. If strategic armory took everyone to a completely new level of power, it would overpower the Vaulters and put even more weight on luck factors.

Yeah, this is one that's been mentioned a few times (natev) but we haven't made a big enough stink, or provided enough suggestions, to get it adjusted. Agree 100% that Strategic material Armor needs to be buffed so that it scales up with weapons.



The lack of armor potency (cost vs. benefit) is a big contributor to the overwhelming strength of Uncommon Weapons (Era 3, Adamantian and Palladian). Once a player can tech to Uncommon weapons, they can cut through units like butter since armor is more expensive AND less effective. Initiative becomes a big factor, as the Empire that can get the first hits in will usually win. Tier 2 Common Weapons (Glassteel) used to be good enough to overwhelm but the Shadows patch adjusted that.



It's important to note that the stats on Armor have not been touched since release. No "nerfs" have happened. That item in the notes relates to accessories (you can validate by comparing to the Wiki values, which haven't been updated since release -> http://endlesslegend.gamepedia.com/Armor). Many of the item values reflect stuff that was relevant in the pre-release combat system (Attack-Defense = Damage), but make no sense now.



This is probably a good topic for the balance section...

If amplitude really has changed mechanics and not reviewed values that affect it at all, then they´re selling us an incomplete game, and selling changes to an incomplete game as if it was the finished thing. It may be true, of course.



This is not my impression, however. In my experience, the player equipped only with strategic weapons and accessories will always lose to the player using strategic weapons+accessories+the right strategic armor. Like I said, I don´t know what´s the relation between the relative benefits (i.e. whether you win easily when equipped with the armors or not) because I don´t think it matters, in any balanced war there will be huge losses on both sides and the only thing that´s important is winning - which has to be expensive.



But maybe I´m just too much into theory-crafting.

BPrado wrote:
If amplitude really has changed mechanics and not reviewed values that affect it at all, then they´re selling us an incomplete game, and selling changes to an incomplete game as if it was the finished thing. It may be true, of course.

I wouldn't be too harsh, but that's kind of what happened. The combat system was completely changed about a month before release and the item values were not fully adjusted to make sense in the system. Only in the last couple of patches have we seen attempts to balance things out.

BPrado wrote:
This is not my impression, however. In my experience, the player equipped only with strategic weapons and accessories will always lose to the player using strategic weapons+accessories+the right strategic armor. Like I said, I don´t know what´s the relation between the relative benefits (i.e. whether you win easily when equipped with the armors or not) because I don´t think it matters, in any balanced war there will be huge losses on both sides and the only thing that´s important is winning - which has to be expensive.

Compare the cost ( + Strategics) and stats of a unit that's fully decked out with current-era Weapon+Armor+Accessories vs. Strategic Weapon+Accessories and Iron Armor. What you'll find (I'll post examples later if you like) is that the Strategic armor adds a lot of cost, but little benefit.

Propbuddha wrote:


Compare the cost ( + Strategics) and stats of a unit that's fully decked out with current-era Weapon+Armor+Accessories vs. Strategic Weapon+Accessories and Iron Armor. What you'll find (I'll post examples later if you like) is that the Strategic armor adds a lot of cost, but little benefit.

I don´t question that. I question if cost/benefit should be a straight arrow up the more equipment you have. I think that´s bad for the structure of the game. I preffer the parabole, I think the last marginal increases in power in each stage of the game should be very expensive since they´re the last. If it was a direct relation, everyone would be by default equipped in the best equipment all the time, because it would make no sense to play otherwise. Since armors are as expensive as they are, they´re a feature you carefully choose for each meta.

BPrado wrote:
I don´t question that. I question if cost/benefit should be a straight arrow up the more equipment you have. I think that´s bad for the structure of the game. I preffer the parabole, I think the last marginal increases in power in each stage of the game should be very expensive since they´re the last. Otherwise, everyone would be by default equipped in the best equipment all the time, because it would make no sense to play otherwise. Since armors are as expensive as they are, they´re a feature you carefully choose for each meta.

If manpower was a limited resource and strategics were unlimited, I'd agree with you. But that's not the case in EL.



The only real limit on how many units you have is and Strategics ( upkeep is insignificant). The and Strategics you don't spend on Armor can be used to build another unit.

Well, you can't just make strategic armor the equal of strategic weapons, because it comes with accessory tech. If strategic armor were to become the equal of strategic weapons, weapons would get ignored.



And even considering an early T2 war, there ought to be enough units that you can easily spend all of your strategics on weapons. If there aren't, you're probably not going to win the war anyways.



The only real use case is when you've researched T2 armor tech for the tomes, then end up with a war on your hands that you have to win NOW, not in 2 turns when you'll have weapons tech-- and, you have more than enough strategics to equip all of your units with accessories. That doesn't happen much.



At T3+, the armor stops being quite as inferior, but that's less due to the strat armors getting good, and more about the slowing gains in dust armors.



But I think by tweaking a couple of different values, you might be able to do something. You could make strategic armors more effective if you changed their cost to be more reliant on some resource other than strategics (so that they weren't in as direct competition with weapons) or if you found a way to make them interestingly conditional choices. I don't have a lot of good ideas on that front

natev wrote:
Well, you can't just make strategic armor the equal of strategic weapons, because it comes with accessory tech. If strategic armor were to become the equal of strategic weapons, weapons would get ignored.

That doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not the tech that's important, as the techs are worthless without the materials to build the stuff they unlock.

BPrado wrote:
They´re situational, much more than strategic weapons, and I think that´s good especially because the Vaulters are the Vaulters. If strategic armory took everyone to a completely new level of power, it would overpower the Vaulters and put even more weight on luck factors.

If giving strategic armor decent stats would really somehow overpower the Vaulters, you could give it low industry cost instead (effectively trading strategic resources for industry). Or you could just nerf Technolover, obviously. But the current state of affairs where you should basically never use it at all (except maybe for Vaulters) is pretty silly; that's almost the same as not even having it in the game.

Propbuddha wrote:
I wouldn't be too harsh, but that's kind of what happened. The combat system was completely changed about a month before release and the item values were not fully adjusted to make sense in the system. Only in the last couple of patches have we seen attempts to balance things out.

That excuse was lame a year ago when I had this conversation the first time around. It's been 14 months and 2 expansions; it's now moved from eyebrow-raising to laughable. If they haven't yet rebalanced items to compensate for their pre-release overhaul of the combat system, then they clearly have no intention of doing so.

Propbuddha wrote:
That doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not the tech that's important, as the techs are worthless without the materials to build the stuff they unlock.

It means that strategic weapons tech would never be researched before strategic armor tech, because strategic armor tech would give superior military options (because armor is then the equal of weapons, and it additionally unlocks accessories) and would also give economic options. And since strategics are tight enough, there would rarely be any incentive to research both.

Mind you, I´m not saying that people who are paid to do it shouldn´t take a close, documented look at these values to find good tweaks; only that I agree with the overall effect of the current values, even if they´re not perfect (which I wouldn´t be able to tell).

Propbuddha wrote:
The only real limit on how many units you have is and Strategics ( upkeep is insignificant).

What about time? I suppose you´re including that under Industry, but that´s not entirely correct because it doesn´t matter if you can build 32 units next turn if the battle that´s taking you out of the game happens now. And if we consider similar levels of industry and ability, everyone is producing roughly the same amount of units with the same strategic weapons (which I consider default on elite units, and thus not a truly relative advantage) and accessories, and saving the same amount of resources for economy. The bet on superior armory at the expense of your economy is, like in any good strategy game, all about timing.

The and Strategics you don't spend on Armor can be used to build another unit.

Unless they can´t, unless you have to march now or halfway through the war your empire plan will be over, or they will have achieved a new technological level or completed a deed, or razed your capital. And like you said, this new unit will be cut through by other unit with the same weaponry just the same. I always thought the general feeling was that qualitative superiority beats quantitative everytime.

Antistone wrote:
If giving strategic armor decent stats would really somehow overpower the Vaulters, you could give it low industry cost instead (effectively trading strategic resources for industry). Or you could just nerf Technolover, obviously. But the current state of affairs where you should basically never use it at all (except maybe for Vaulters) is pretty silly; that's almost the same as not even having it in the game.

I just disagree that´s the current state of affairs. Of course if they were all buffed up, the sensible thing to do would be nerfing the Vaulter, but they´re not my concern. I just think if the benefit from using all special items was perfectly and directly related to their cost, they would be just items. Not having an army with the best possible equipment would always mean defeat. And of course, whoever can extract strategics at double rate would win so much more often.

Researching both reduces item costs; isn't that supposed to be the incentive to research tier 1 titanium/glassteel? (OK, that's only part of the incentive for tier 1 titanium/glassteel; you also get to start equipping marginally earlier (if you're willing to permanently lose some strategics in the process, because retrofits discount for the current cost of your equipment rather than the cost you originally paid for it).)



I'd be OK with strategic armor being weaker than strategic weapons; the key thing is that it has to be better than iron armor.