A6.0 Feedback: PLAYER ARMOR & BOOSTERS

Pretty much all of the factors in armor are not clear, we don't know how a posite or negative value affects the player. We need more especific details for all of those

 

+1

 

+1

I've been playing A6 beta/alpha whatever... It's the only version I've ever played.... I like the idea of boosters, I like the idea, of more farming for items, is bigger and bigger bossters.

Right now... the only one I can see that matters at all... Is the EVA, so I can mine in space. The others... so weak.... I don't care about them at all.

 

I agree with the others it is vary difficult to understand what all the values mean and how they affect anything. There needs to be much more detail on what each of those numbers mean. Even something like armor that most people understand it is not clear how much of a difference the armor value makes, does adding an armor booster reduce the damage you take by 0.5% or by 10% for example one case it is useless the other case very useful but we have no good way to judge.

For the boosters I will say I feel the radiation one might need a slight boost. I took medium armor and put in 2 rad boosters and 1 eva, and i had 14 radiation resistance but going near the warp crystals on Akau Moon was 14.7 radiation so it was still in the red even with 2 radiation boosters while just trying to collect warp material. The EVA was required because otherwise it was too cold to collect them.

Lastly not sure if it should be under this post or the dynamic weather I think having something explain that showers help with radiation would be helpful.

 

Temperature boosters also seem worthless right now they only added 5 temperature to my medium armor, even with nothing but those it doesn't help on a cold or hot planet, but at least EVA works great for a cold planet.

 

The Armor Boosters need to be more effective and then to be much more rare than they are currently. Looting on Akua often yields far more Boosters than I'll ever use. The Boosters' limited effectiveness can be demonstrated by the fact that light armor with a temperature Booster can have you seeing a red, though non-fatal, temperature warning under some conditions at sea level on Akua.

 

I used the Heavy armor with all 4 Armor boosters to get inside the Abandoned Mine in Akua. You can reach a pair of turrets from the other end of the hallway, but barely breathing, you only have time to plant explosives and take cover.
But then inside, the aliens just shred you, not being able to be inmune against parasites or wounds is a bit of a letdown (even with all that armor!)
You think you are a walking tank, and that might be true for the mobility in general, but the protection is still way too low. Wearing the highest possible protection combination needs a buff on the armor level, expecially if you can barely move

 

+1 Heavy armor need some tweaks.
Boosters are funny but it needs some tweaks too : some are useful, some doesn't seem to be for now. I use a lot of EVA, Radiation and Multi boost, but can't say that i felt the necessity to use the others.

 

I did this two days before with medium armor and 1 armor booster. Setting was many easy enemies. It was doable, but barely and only in 6 consecutive attempts.

 

Pretty same experience : Abandoned Mine with medium Armor and Eva/rad boosters that i forgot to dismount. Without any Armor booster it was soooo hard, i wasn't feeling like i was wearing an armor...

 

I'd like to see stacking boosters... to up the quality further. Armor boost I -> III

ETc..

 

Played around a little more with armor, and there does not really seem to ever be a reason to not wear heavy armor, or to wear light armor once you have found better. Each armor update gives more booster slots making it almost always best to have the heaviest armor, it has higher temp and radiation resistance.

As an example in Medium armor with 2 radiation boots and an eva i still had to worry about radiation from warp crystals on the moon, in heavy armor i can ignore them without a single radiation boots in.

My suggestion would be to give the lower tier armors the same 4 boost slots but maybe limit what type of boost go into what armor, or how many of each type can go into what armor. For example light armor can get as many mobility boost as it wants, but only one eva boost, heavy armor can have as many eva or radiation boost as it wants. It would need more fleshing out with every booster and maybe even additional boosters that dont exist now. Maybe a jetpack boost. Some of the boost like mobility might need buffs too.

Heat, there needs to be better ways to protect against heat, the best we have right now is the insulation boost which adds 5 heat protection, where for cold we can slap 1 eva boost and get 130 cold protection it is not at all balanced. The eva boost need to give much less cold resistance or only cold resistance in open space or the heat boosters need more temperature variance maybe both. My suggestion would be to give the eva boost draw backs that as even harder on armor, and make the insulation boost add 20-50 to both temperature without that armor draw back. It would be more balanced where EVA was only for working in space. This combined with a fix so that armor means something would help balance them. The Multi boost currently feel the most balanced though if the insulation gets bumped up they should maybe have a temp increase of 5 instead of 2.

I would also suggest giving the armor locker a larger inventory to hold boosters and armor. I think i said it before but we need an on screen icon/debuff for when our armor durability is out, and we need to know how the 0 durability affects the armor, I am not even sure if it does as you still get the temp/radiation buffs. My suggest would be giving the hud warning, increasing the durability of every armor slightly and then making the armor have no affect at 0 durability, no jet pack, no temp, no rad, no drone.

 

I hope we get the ability to craft all items including armor and boosters.

The server I play on had all the POIs and civilian structures raided and re-cored within a couple hours. Players want to ransack those structures and claim them, like in the SP game.

We still have not resolved the issue of the dead server. Day 1 after the wipe and it is impossible to play the game normally and find the items needed to progress.

I don't expect new players to go through 100 deaths and respawns, 100 sketchy backpack recoveries like I did.

 

The Dev team does seem to be in a pickle when it comes to giving us tools create functional economies in MP mode. My personal opinion is that POIs should not be the sole source of anything, especially stuff that is required for game progress. I feel that epic weapons, weapon upgrade kits and boosters from POIs are not conducive to player economies.

 

1. Armors should show which boosters are currently active without having to equip the armor.
The tooltip could simply contain the names of the boosters, or better yet show the additional stats in brackets next to the original stats.

2. An other nice feature would be custom names for armors. (e.g. equip 4 EVA boosters and call it "EVA Armor")

3. A better visual of which effects are positive/negative (e.g. is a low or a high food value good?)

 

@Skavn Well said, same little things bug me too.

Well 3rd thing is bit bigger than little IMHO - I've been complaining about it ever since armours were first introduced in experimental Its hard to care about the armour stats because they seem so random, they are not explained in a any way and you have nothing to compare them with. Is negative or positive good? Is 1.06 god or bad stat? What is Power Factor? etc.

 

They did try to fix this with the re-spawning POI's it has worked well on my MP server at least on Akau, it is possible your server didn't reset completely with 6.0 to get them or is modified in some way. I did notice that Akau Moon none of the bases are protected and all of them can be cored, not sure if that means they only got to Akau and other planets wont re-spawn the poi either. Before the respawning POI's I would have agreed completely.

I would also like the HUD to display my armors current temperature rating and radiation rating. Sure i get the cold or hot or red rad symbol, but I have that rad symbol when my radiation resistance is 14 in a 14.6 rad zone or my resistance is 4 in a 14.6 rad zone, one means i have to get out of there a lot faster than the other.

 

I did it (abandoned mine) with one armor booster and 2 multi's in a medium. Difficulty Setting was medium. Was not easy, had to heal a lot, but I died only once to a <new> trap near the core. Did not attempt the lower area until i had t2 sniper rifle (from titan wrecks) for the nightmares. and assassins.

 

After playing a bit with the new armor and booster system my initial estimation feels confirmed to me. There is little to no reason to not use the heavy armor in all situations. There is little to no reason to not use multi-boosters in all slots unless external effects force you to swap in some counter measures.

Overall the system feels excessively boring, because there is no choice for the player. Most boosters (jump boost, mobility boost, any many more) are so weak, that using them makes little difference. Environmental factors are a simple, brain-dead "plug in the right booster" mini-game, that feels neither challenging nor rewarding. If decisions have no noticeable effect or are dead-obvious, then there is no decision.

If I would have to redesign the system with low impact, I would probably go as follows:
- 2 armor types, one craftable, one from POIs with (slightly) better stats.
- All armors have 3 slots. Base stats on armors (negative and positive) are low.
- Boosters significantly modify a singular aspect of the armor, with low or no negatice side-effects. I.E. armor booster with 200 armor and slightly reduced movement. Environmental booster that insulates 80 heat, 200 cold, 15 radiation. The effect of a single booster should be so high, that adding a second of the same type does not feel necessary, but still provides a valuable bonus if you want to min/max.
- No multi-boost, because that is always the best choice in all situations and therefore destroys the concept of having a choice.

This way you get the base armor and can actually modify it based on your preferences. Are you the tanky type? Plug in 2 armor boosters and an insulation. You walk a little slower but otherwise no negative effects, BUT you do not have the other booster effects, because you spent your slots on becoming resilient. Like to get mobile? Plug in 200% jetpack time boost, 30% run speed and stamina drain reduction. Like to be a survivalist? Go with insulation, 50% hunger reduction 100% oxygen amount boost with integrated refilling in oxygen-rich atmosphere. And if you want to min-max, then have several armors ready and switch before every mission.