Game Mechanics Modifers for Armor

stormconure

Duke Fishron
I've heard the suggestion before: "Armor should be able to acquire modifiers the same way as accessories!" I can't remember exactly who first posted that, but nonetheless I have always supported it, and really wanted it to be put in the game.

However, since then, another idea has come to me: why make armor have the same mods as accessories? Armor should be its own unique game mechanic. This lead me to a conclusion: creating an entirely new type of modifier. The armor modifier. Like accessory mods, there is no such thing as a "bad" armor mod.

Rather than just giving a list of mods that armor can acquire, I have decided to create a list of things that mods can actually do (i.e. Damage for swords). Here is what I have come up with so far:

Defense: This one just happens to be the same as the accessory defense mods, always being a specific number of defense that the bonus gives you. It can range from 1-5 defense (unlike accessories, which can only reach four).

Resistance: though this sounds like defense, it is actually more like the Beetle Armor's Beetle Shield buff, in that rather than taking off a set amount of damage, this actually reduces damage by a percentage. The percentage can range from 3-8% resistance.

Regen Boost: acts a little like the Band of Regneration in that it regenerates a certain amount of HP per second. Can range from 0.25-1.5 HP/sec.

Reflecting: acts like the Thorns Potion and Turtle Armor- it reflects a small amount of damage back on the attacker. Only works on melee attackers. Can range from 2-10% damage reflection.

That's all I can think of for now, but if you have any more ideas for mod mechanics, please tell me! What do you think?
 
Last edited:
No support.

This is one of those suggestions that would be nice if the game was designed with it from the start, but adding it now would throw everything out of balance. Basically, consider how much stronger the player would be if they gave all of their armor the best of a modifier type they can, or just got really lucky. Also apply this to various points in the game.
  • Any low-tier or caster/ranged armor with defense boosts: +15 is a very significant boost
  • Any armor with resistance modifiers: 24% damage reduction
  • Crimson Armor with regen boosts: 3.5 hp/sec on top of Crimson's already high regen
 
Reflection seems kind of useless, but increasing regeneration is something that could be neat... as a new accessory modifier, but maybe not for armor. Simpler is usually better.
 
Reflection seems kind of useless, but increasing regeneration is something that could be neat... as a new accessory modifier, but maybe not for armor. Simpler is usually better.
Ok, should i take out reflection all together? Also i like your idea on the accessory regen attribute... Should i make this about additional accessory boosts intead of armor? I kinda want armor to have mods though...
 
I think that defense should be increased proportionally to base defense: a copper armore with a defense+ mod would hae nearly no change (or maybe 1 point?) while a turtle armor would get +6.
This is a much better idea than "Everything gets a certain amount".

Also, random idea for damage bonuses: they actually buff the armor's base buff.

Example: the molten armor gives +20% in melee (I don't know if it's true.). But with the "Aggressive" reforging( +100% damage buff) it climbs to +40%! However, range and magic are still unaffected.

Oh and for the Spectre armor case, a it's a debuff, maybe thouse should reduce it (by a small amount. Imagine the spectre hood back to it's full wrath...) ?



Final idea: the armor can only be reforged if the 3 pieces are given at once. For and example, no reforging on your titanium armor if you don't have all three pieces. This would, however, cause a problem with sets with multiple possibilities (Pretty much 50% of hardmode...)
Or maybe, you could only wear 1 reforged piece of armor at the time (but then it would be possible to "de-modify" it)... and an -EXTREMELY RARE- accessory allows you to wear 2.
 
No support.

This is one of those suggestions that would be nice if the game was designed with it from the start, but adding it now would throw everything out of balance. Basically, consider how much stronger the player would be if they gave all of their armor the best of a modifier type they can, or just got really lucky. Also apply this to various points in the game.
  • Any low-tier or caster/ranged armor with defense boosts: +15 is a very significant boost
  • Any armor with resistance modifiers: 24% damage reduction
  • Crimson Armor with regen boosts: 3.5 hp/sec on top of Crimson's already high regen
Well, the game originally didn't have any modifiers or combos in the first place, then we got modifiers along with combos as well as enemies being nerfed. Also had 3 accessory slots to begin with..

I could get behind armor modifiers as long as there isn't one best modifier to allow for mixed builds and no "ultimate" armor, but the effects would have to be not too powerful.. like you said, no +15 defense for an earlygame mage.... even though meteor armor and jungle armor have received defense boosts as well as +20 defense from all warding, lol.
 
I oppose this idea. The reason being:

1) Armors could quickly become OP
2) This would make the Band of Regeneration Useless
3) Thorns isn't an effect Armor Should have (neither is regeneration)
4) The bonuses would have to be on an extremely small scale (or just a small one)
5) So uh… yeah
 
Defence is the only real issue I see here. By devoting yourself to defence, you can already become nigh invulnerable.

20 defence makes the Eater of Worlds the eater of pain.
40 defence flat-out makes the Wall of Flesh a piece of cake.
60 defence trivialises the mech bosses considerably.
80 defence (through Turtle armour) causes Plantera and Golem to wet their non-existant undies.

We don't really need a way to get even more defence without a compromise (ideally, making bosses hit harder in some way).
 
Defence is the only real issue I see here. By devoting yourself to defence, you can already become nigh invulnerable.

20 defence makes the Eater of Worlds the eater of pain.
40 defence flat-out makes the Wall of Flesh a piece of cake.
60 defence trivialises the mech bosses considerably.
80 defence (through Turtle armour) causes Plantera and Golem to wet their non-existant undies.

We don't really need a way to get even more defence without a compromise (ideally, making bosses hit harder in some way).
Thanks, this is probably the first time someone responded to this thread with negative feedback that was actually helpful. I still want defense to be a factor, should i just nerf it a lot?
 
Defence is the only real issue I see here. By devoting yourself to defence, you can already become nigh invulnerable.

20 defence makes the Eater of Worlds the eater of pain.
40 defence flat-out makes the Wall of Flesh a piece of cake.
60 defence trivialises the mech bosses considerably.
80 defence (through Turtle armour) causes Plantera and Golem to wet their non-existant undies.

We don't really need a way to get even more defence without a compromise (ideally, making bosses hit harder in some way).
... But you have to reach a massive 140 to make Duke Fishron fear you. And Pumpkings won't stop laughing until 80 too. And do you relally need so much defence against Plantera? Simply circle around and it can't touch you.
P.S. Note that 80 is rather hard to reach. It means turtle shell.
And actually, to reach high waves in PM/FM, you need damage (and therefore menacing, not warding, and turtle scailmail if you are a meleephile)
 
Last edited:
... But you have to reach a massive 140 to make Duke Fishron fear you. And Pumpkings won't stop laughing until 80 too.
P.S. Note that 80 is rather hard to reach. It means turtle shell.

Duke Fishron is a boss that severely punishes people if they don't battle him correctly. And if you are trying to tank him, you certainly aren't going to win. The Pumpkin Moon is possible to tank completely, assuming you have the DPS to take down Pumpkings and Mourning Woods fast enough for their health drops to get you straight back to maximum health. This is more than possible with the Tsunami. Frost Moon is a difficult one, but DPS is usually more important for in-turn more heart pickups and faster advancement through waves (therefore more loot).

80 defence is also quite easy to achieve. I also explicitly stated 'through turtle armour'. Turtle has 65 defence for the whole set (you can get more by dumping a Chloro Melee helm on). Ironskin and Well-fed is ten more defence, then factor in warding accessories. Hallowed Melee has 50 defence. 10 more from simple buffs, 20 from warding accessories, a little more from accessories such as the Moon stone or Obsidian/Ankh shield.

Edit: And lest we forget about the Frozen Turtle shell. Having under 125 health (150 with lifeforce) might cause a bit of panic to some, but that extra 30 defence would make the boss take longer to take down a hundred health than the first four hundred.

And do you relally need so much defence against Plantera? Simply circle around and it can't touch you.

You barely need defence if you are good enough, period. Last week I killed Skeletron Prime with Necro armour. But, achieving close to maximum possible at the stage of progression you are on shouldn't make you be able to kill a boss without moving an inch.
 
Last edited:
I both like and don't like this idea. There are some aspects of it that are cool (mainly just the defense boost), but there are other parts that are massively flawed. First and foremost is reflecting and resistance. The former has the potential to basically obsolete Thorns potions, which is bad, but the latter is even worse. As was already pointed out, the kind of numbers you're proposing can result in damage reductions up to almost a quarter. Combine with an endurance potion for 34%, and add Beetle Armor and your damage resistance makes you almost invincible on top of crazy defense. No.

As for defense, this was already pointed out but I'd like to offer a proposition for this problem- handle defense modifiers in the same way weapon modifiers are handled, and add a PERCENTAGE of the armor's existing defense. For instance, the best one could add 25% to the armor piece's existing defense value. Just to be safe, for low-tier armor with some defense (does not include wood greaves, which don't grant any), it should round up so as to always add at least 1 defense regardless of what tier of defensive modifier.

And then there's regeneration. This has already been pointed out, but I'm going to put lots of extra emphasis on this because it's really important. The Band of Regeneration is already underpowered enough as-is, regen-providing modifiers would make it COMPLETELY OBSOLETE. That is not okay.

Overally, no support unless the above issues are addressed.
 
First and foremost is reflecting and resistance. The former has the potential to basically obsolete Thorns potions

Thorns potion are useless anyway, except maybe early-game where you need those zombies to be knocked back.

As for defense, this was already pointed out but I'd like to offer a proposition for this problem- handle defense modifiers in the same way weapon modifiers are handled, and add a PERCENTAGE of the armor's existing defense. For instance, the best one could add 25% to the armor piece's existing defense value. Just to be safe, for low-tier armor with some defense (does not include wood greaves, which don't grant any), it should round up so as to always add at least 1 defense regardless of what tier of defensive modifier.

One way or another, it's still adding defence without a compromise so bosses don't keep hitting single digits.

And then there's regeneration. This has already been pointed out, but I'm going to put lots of extra emphasis on this because it's really important. The Band of Regeneration is already underpowered enough as-is, regen-providing modifiers would make it COMPLETELY OBSOLETE. That is not okay.

I don't see how. You can use both and get even better regeneration.
 
But yet, why do that when, since your armor provides some passive regen, you can swap that band out with another accessory to boost your DPS?
Because some people just love a ton of regen. There was a time a long time ago when people would equip 5 regen bands. That was when you could have accessory duplicates
 
Back
Top Bottom