Armor Class Status Icon

[Ravious Pretagata]

On another thread there is a debate on how there is really no in-game mention of the armor cap. Here is my suggestion to give a normal player notice of the cap.

A status effect pops up on your bar saying something to the effect of: "Your armor is as strong as it can be, and cannot go any higher with subsequent skill additions."

Examples
(1) I use Armor of Earth and get +60 AL. The status effect pops up.
(2) I use Watch Yourself for +20AL. Nothing happens. Then while the shout is still up I use Armor of Earth for +60AL. The status effect pops up.

Pretty self-explanatory, but helpful.

[mmorpg man]

this could be like when you have minions which says like 60% to full armour so you know how much defence you get when you use a defence buff skill

/signed

[nkuvu]

I can see the point of this, but I think it may start to make the interface rather cluttered.

I'm also not sure I'm clear on the cap itself. This is the way I understand it: If you have two different armor boosts, one or the other may take effect. For example, say you have a W/Me. Set Tactics to 12 and Inspiration Magic to 12. Use "Watch Yourself!" and Elemental Resistance. "Watch Yourself!" gives you +21 armor. Elemental Resistance gives you +40 armor versus elemental, but -14 versus physical.

So from what I understand, any elemental damage will be calculated using the +40 armor. Physical damage will be +7 armor (+21 -14). Non-physical, non-elemental damage (holy or dark damage (monk or necromancer weapons, respectively, obviously not speaking of armor ignoring damage)) will be +21 armor.

Now if that's all correct... how do you put that information into a status icon without fourteen paragraphs of explanation? "Your armor is as strong as it can be for elemental damage. Your armor is not as strong as it can be for physical damage. Your armor is not as strong as it can be for non-elemental, non-physical damage." Bleh.

I do like the idea of the game being self-documenting, but there are a number of things that just aren't explained anywhere in game. Regen/degen caps (plus or minus ten), weapon/shield requirements and what happens if you don't meet the req, what happens when you "stack" conditions of the same kind (reapplying poison, for example), and so on and so forth.

So I like the idea, but not sure how it would be able to be implemented cleanly in the game.

[mmorpg man]

you would have 2 icons, 1 for physical damage and 1 or elemental damage. the only problem will come with the inspiration mantras where it might get a bit cluttered

[Beta Sprite]

Maybe you could have an icon that, when you hover over it, says this:

"Your armor has the following effects from skills(multiple skills do not stack over 25 bonus armor):
-X armor vs. physical damage.
+Y armor vs. earth damage.
+Z armor vs. cold damage.
etc., etc."

[Capella]

I like Beta Sprite's idea of being able to mouse over an icon that shows what exactly it is.

Or there could just be one icon for physical that has -10 and one for elemental that says +20 or whatever.

[nkuvu]

I could see that working, Beta Sprite. Although I'd probably drop it down to the three different damage types -- physical, elemental, and other (holy, dark, chaos... I think that's it).

Kind of side track...
I'm also wondering if this would be a good addition to the armor pane in the inventory panel, rather than a status icon. Because then you could have an overall list of your armor level, based on pieces of armor. So you could see armor bonuses when you hover over a piece of armor in inventory, and also have a global armor level.

But this may be getting too complicated, and having a status icon for the temporary changes due to skills may be a better approach.

Added note:
Hmm. Dropping it down to only three damage types may be too simplistic. Mantra of Frost, for example, obviously does nothing for damage from fire. So just lumping it into "elemental" wouldn't be very clear or accurate.

So damage types...
Physical
Fire
Water
Earth
Lightning
Holy
Dark
Chaos

... that seems like a lot in one status indicator, but maybe not.