Fashion over function: AR values of material type

While part of me enjoys some aspect of different material types providing different AR values, I just don't think the middle ground (where we are now) is ideal. I like green leather armor, and I know there are dye tubs but there's no spined or horned hues on the tubs. I like black chainmail and sometimes blue or green but I'm not going to wear shit AR just for personal appearance.

I like the concept of all the magical bonuses that came in, around AoS, but I don't think there's a good fit for that here without making things really messy.

What I propose is that all armor be normalized regardless of material type. Leather, horned, spined and barbed could all produce the same exact AR level, opening up the market for those products so folks can choose their style without suffering a penalty in AR value for it. Same goes for metal armors where if you want the best (crafted) you need valorite. This basically kills the bottom end of crafted armor and completely shafts the fashion aspect (which we all know is very significant in UO).


TL: DR = Convert material AR values to Second Age style where AR is based solely on the item type and crafting quality level.

I don't get it, you want leather, horned, spined and barbed to produce to same AR (so leather type isn't important at all), while valorite to provide most AR amongst metals (but metal type is important)? How is this proposition consistent?

Why not just add the spined, barbed and horned hues in the leather dye? Isn't that far easier and less combat dynamic changing?

No, you're reading that wrong. Peak AR is only on Barbed leather and Valorite ore. I propose that regardless of material type, you get the same AR values. In the Second Age era and prior, any crafted metal armor was identical in function and only varied in color based on ore type. Value of more rare material types still held true for sales but the world wasn't constrained by the need to always wear blue if you want the best AR value in metal crafted armor or always wear black if you want the best in leather.

I'm saying that all ore types should provide the same functional end result product, and only have different hues for style, not AR values.
Same for leather types, wherein all four leather types would provide the same end result product but have a different hue only.

Blaise -1 your ideas are never good.

There's something here. The people who don't wear valorite/barbed are usually ones who don't know better. Furthermore valorite ingots are pretty much the least valuable due to their limited use in BoDs, and spined is more valuable than barbed due its use in BoDs.

Also I want AR deed for masks, because I rock a leather cap as 14% of the time your head takes a whack, I would like to wear my vanity masks and not sacrifice my survivability.

Getting trammier and trammier as the thread moves on. Let's just make glacial leather armor that's blessed and 100 AR

I have really never wandered down the crafting path so my knowledge is very limited on the subject, but I wonder if the type of metal a weapon is made of has any effect on it's damage output? I'm not referring to the runic hammers as far as hues and damage modifiers, but simply a regular smith hammer and the different hued ingots being used.

If the damage output is the same regardless of which type of ingots you're using for plain exceptional weapons then perhaps the AR needs to be the same as well.

On the same note if the AR is different for various metals then the damage output needs to be different as well IMO or simply have runic armor be an option, it would only make sense if you can make runic weapons. Then all metals could have the same damage output and AR regardless of what metal is being used unless a runic hammer and the corresponding ingots are used at which point the damage or AR modifiers are applied.

No coloured ingots without the use of a runic hammer don't impact weapon dmg.

Then the system doesn't make sense, Valorite using a regular smith hammer will make armor with an increased AR but it doesn't make the weapon do any more damage? I understand this is a fantasy game but things like that really defy common sense as if it ever applied to a fantasy RPG before

I disagree with several of your suggestions, but enjoy your thread.
You mentioned "Second Age", this server is beyond that era. I know not everything here is exactly from the renaissance era, but pretty dern close.

I also understand folks liking certain time frames better than others., Mine is before second age. the early, early days of UO, I like to say "when grizzly bears were red"

Interesting thread, thanks for posting it.



Westra/Marjo

Governess of WispFelt

how about instead of breaking a/r as it stands just add a reward to BOD's - metal dye tubs - can dye valarite armor into any of the other armor hues and add the other base colors of leather (spined, etc) to a leather dye tub.

No need to break the fact that some armor is more rare and some leather is "harder" to get. But if you want to "downgrade" looks, i can agree that should be an option.

It's called Alt+H. H stands for Head. I have a macro on any mask wearing character that also wears a helm and that key combination toggles them. Thanks for your valuable input, mathemagician.

Unknown_Hero, this has nothing to do with Trammel and is in fact a reversion to an earlier time in the game well before it. This provides literally nothing remotely close to Trammel. It simply makes material type mean nothing and thus opens the market for variety in armor style that used to exist in this game. Let's just make a glacial ball-gag that makes you shut up until you know what the hell you're talking about.

Westra, this has nothing to do with a preference of era for me. This simply has to do with crafted item variety for actual players. No one makes shadow chainmail suits for anything but BODs because the AR is garbage. In the prior era you paid a premium for the color because of the difficulty of getting that color, not because you had to for the best AR. People will still farm/sell barbed because it's still cheaper than using a leather dye tub, if all hide types provided the same AR. Also, yes, if the thread I created probably well over a year ago about paint sets/metal dye tubs were a reality it would negate the desire for this, a bit. I like shadow ore, verite and valorite but I can't have my variety without shitting on my protection.

I like this idea.

FASHION FOR LIFE.

Also: Gold armor is the best!!

Wouldn't it be sick if you could smelt down 100 platinum into like 1 plat ingot? ... PLAT ARMOR YAY! lol

Platinum platemail with 1000% magic resist/reflect and +500 strength, but only after strength is relevant to damage again.

Also, won't it be fun to hunt down dexxers in shadow armor to smelt it for bods? lol

while mining the last couple of days, and being ignored by several grizzlies, I did a Hmm because I remembered they used to attack. ah, the really old good old days.

Dragon skin and cow skin, hmmm does a cow have the same ar rating as a dragon?

Dragon scale armour instead? Make it meddable!!!

Dem scales!

Ps Foxes and Badgers where are the Foxes and Badgers in Sosaria? Garriott really dropped a bollock there!

I'm pretty sure 99-2000 when I started, all metals produced the exact same AR rating, you wore the Colors you wanted for looks only. Valorite maybe as a status symbol, I preferred Shadow and Golden myself. Leather was just Leather and we used Leather Tubs to make color choices.
Your Account had to be 2 Years old?? to use a Leather Tub...

If I remember right, Spined, Horned, and Barbed only showed up after the horrible Publishes adding in Luck and some Phy resist with Spined (Blue Leather), Horned (Red Leather) was a medium stat resist higher in fire resist, and Barbed (Green Leather) was a more balanced higher resist. Dragon Scale Armor also came in at this time, each color had its high resist element, like Red scales were high Fire resist, Green high Poison, etc.
Scales dropped when a Dragon/Serpent were skinned along with the Leather, Dragons dropped Red/Yellow Scales, Swamp Dragons(stupid 6 legged ridable Pickles) dropped Green Scales, Shadow Wyrms dropped Black Scales, Serpentine Dragons dropped White Scales, Sea Serpents dropped Blue Scales.... blah.... blah... the Armor looked cool, all but the damn close Helm original/changed later.

Anyways, if Era Accurate is the theme......I think it was the same AR, I don't mind change for the better, but my opinion is we would be wearing crafted Armor and using crafted weapons if it was for the better...

It's not a bad idea.