I like the new traits. they do the job without any added confusion

I tend to agree with Alstein - it doesn't make sense that I cannot wear a chain shirt or a piece of plate unless I have some specific training. It would make sense that I suffer from some kind of penalty (most likely initiative, but defense and dodge penalties would also be appropriate) if I don't have some degree of practice or training in using the armor.

Plus, there's an unfortunate lack of good armor that doesn't require those traits after leather and anything else.

I for one like the new rules for units. Both MW Chain and Light plate are quite equal now, although one should definitly choose one of them.

With Masterwork Chain, you can later upgrade basic chain units for MW Chain, and will never touch the "Plate skills" armour in unit design.

With Light Plate, you start with Plate units which will eventually upgrade to heavy plate units. 

What should be done however is adding more armour choices on the leather tier (so you get kick ass leather armour when your tech improves enough), and perhaps giving the "Master Smith" Perk the bonus of being able to buy Decalon like tomes that teach Chain or Plate proficiencies to heroes. Right now, Master Smiths is quite meh, esp. at the doubled perk cost.

I think the current system is massively inferior to the previous encumbrance system to be honest. The previous system was more realistic, more accessible, and more fun.

Now I constantly end up with 20+ items in my inventory that are cool, but that I can't use in my long games. Whereas in FE I had loads of enjoyment out of them, and it was perfectly balanced with the initative penalties.

Furthermore there's now zero reason not to outfit all your units with as much armor as you can. In FE I loved how it was beneficial to outfit archers for example without armor, now I put leather/chainmail/plate on them whenever I can, because why wouldn't I? There's no reason not to, except maybe that it looks terrible on archers, but that's purely aesthetic.

Those traits would be fine if proficiencies for heavier armor would include the lighter ones. My problem for now is that these traits are too restricting in regard of unit upgrades.

Of course, the proficiencies for lighter armor should have some compensation, think of it like that:

plate armor trait - able to wear heavy plate armor (plus chain and leather)

chain armor trait - able to wear chain armor (plus leather) and units also gain +2 dodge for all the hours spent on training in more flexible armor

leather armor trait - able to wear leather  and units also gain +2 dodge and +2 accuracy for all the hours of acrobatic style training in highly flexible armor

maneuverable trait - garnts +4 dodge and +4 accuracy when fighting without armor

Now with those changes I could design early game units with their up to end game update paths in mind. At the moment my early troops have no chance to wear leather early and better armor later on except I sacrifice two of three traits just for later upgrade options. Given that only some of my early units survive until end-game, that's way too much.

Come on guys, there's a reason D&D didn't let mages wear armor. Gameplay decisions. If you add more initiative penalties to armor, it's not worth wearing!

If you want armor, then go warrior or defender and still pick spell traits to cast some spells. Choose Warlock, pick up ring of ash/staff of souls/cloak of stars, you'll barely notice you're not a mage path. 

My problem with the new system is this: Why for example do you need to follow a specific path in the warrior trait tree to be able to wear plate armor? My solution to this is to let warriors automatically be able to wear plate armor when they reach a certain level. The same would apply to those classes that use chain- and/or plate mail.

+1 accept this design decision and move on please.

Agreed. Accept this design decision and add encumbrance back in.

There are two things that I do not like about the new system.

1) You essentially need three troop designs. The previous system was much less cumbersome and flowed much better. It's either that or you lose an attribute slot until you actually do the research. That is very icky.

2) I'd rather the Armor ability be a flat choice on Hero upgrade and not be part of a tree, or just be a short tree.

I suspect there is one common denominators of the recent changes - the AI.

It's capable of using only a subset of the game functions and options, and those it cannot understand or hamper it's effectiveness are being axed. 

Best solution there would be to make armor proficiency a 4th trait slot.  

I agree with you, I hate to lose a trait because of armor (after I spent time researching it). 

Chain mail and plate armor already come with initiative penalties to mimic the old encumbrance system (and adds another disadvantage besides research time and locked trait).

Borg999

reply 4

Quoting joeball123, reply 2I tend to agree with Alstein - it doesn't make sense that I cannot wear a chain shirt or a piece of plate unless I have some specific training. It would make sense that I suffer from some kind of penalty (most likely initiative, but defense and dodge penalties would also be appropriate) if I don't have some degree of practice or training in using the armor.



 

(at least, reading the other responses and adding +1)

In relation to how Spellcasters relate to this, I mentioned this already in another thread.  Increase tactical mana costs for spells 2-3x while wearing heavy armor and 1.5-2x while wearing lighter armor.  Special armors (using crystal, etc). could be created for mages, which would offset these penalties some, at a steeper price of course.

Rolemaster had a great system for this.  Channelers could only wear leathers, Essence users had problems in anything heavier than cloth, and Mentalists has issues with helmets.  RM also had a chance for spell failure, which increased greatly if you were wearing armor that interfered with your magic energy.  We don't have chances of spell failure here (which could in extreme cases cause debilitating injury), but that'd be fun if we did!

Encumberance added to the problems we needed to solve, which in my opinion increased our connection with the various heroes, and added to the immersiveness to the game.  By 'soaking up' a perk slot, Heroes become less legendary, and more like other units, which should not be the goal.  And, again, this is why I have no problem with 2-3 stat points on top of a perk pick every level, so you could allocate a stat point to Strength (increase carrying capacity), or perhaps Maneuvering (a new stat to reduce maneuvering/movement penalties when armored/encumbered).

Heroes in this game need to be MORE legendary, not less.  IMHO of course!

AGAIN, to placate you crybabies that don't like to have too many things to deal with, make this optional in scenario setup.  This way, if you don't want encumberance, don't check the box.  Don't want stat points? Don't check the box.

I love games that give you a bunch of decisions up front r.e. which options you want to play with.  This allows you to tailor the playing experience to your own playing style, rather than having to accept only the specific scenario the designers want to force on you.  For online multiplayer, of course, everyone has to agree to the parameters of the host scenario, but for single player, well, more options good.