Gathered Feedback: Viability of Cloth materials

spoletta

Welcome to the another feedback discussion thread!.

Usual introduction and disclaimer:

Each of these threads is related to a specific feedback/idea that the game's GM and Mods have collected in DIscord or in game and that has been forwarded to the developers. The aim of these threads is to discuss this feedback, to better understand how much interest the community shows toward it, if it has any critics or alternative ideas. So let us know what you think about it! Even just a +1 or -1 to the thread will be enough to understand how many players are for it or against it.

Note: The fact that a feedback is presented in this thread does not mean that it will be implemented, it could be refused by devs for mutiple reasons (technical feasibility, excessive effort, against the game's vision...), but the amount of support that a feedback receives will surely be a factor.

Today's Topic

Today's topic starts from the feedback expressed in this thread https://forum.fracturedmmo.com/topic/15409/the-evil-of-cotton-balls
and wants to create a discussion around the various materials that our crafting system features. In particular, which ones are lacking a niche of use and which ones instead are too good and overshadow other choices.

We will discuss this over multiple threads, one for each category. Today we start from Linen materials for Light armors.

Just to remind everyone which are the current effects of those materials and how they are procured, I will give a summary here:

Linen weave: Found pretty much everywhere, it increases the physical armor by 40 but also increases the armor encumbrance by 10.
Cotton cloth: Obtained from the city crops, increases heat insulation by 10
Spider silk: Obtained from all types of spiders, it increases heat and cold insulation by 10 and physical armor by 60
Primal Weave: Obtained from the sproutlings on Myr (and probably on Terra too) it increases energy damage by 15% and magical resistance by 80.
Mammoth wool cloth: Obtained from the Mammoths of Aerhen, it increases shock resistance by 180, health by 200, crush armor by 180, and cold insulation by 20. It reduces heat insulation by 15.
Ghastly spider silk: Obtained from the most dangerous kind of spiders, the ones in the deserts of Myr, it increases acid resistance by 100, magical armor by 40, cold insulation by 15 and heat insulation by 10.
Rabbit wool cloth: Obtained in small quantities from rabbits all over Syndesia. Increases luck by 150, magical armor by 40, cold insulation by 15 but reduces heat insulation by 10.
Winterspine weave: Grows in the cold areas of Aerhen and it provides a 20% magical damage reflection, 260 cold resistance and 40 physical armor, but also increases by armor encumbrance by 10.

Given this list and your experience, what would you change?

OlivePit

Linen is used for rope, cloth, bandages, and wagons. It is plentiful on Myr but relatively scarce on Aerhen. If you ever get 50 at once outside of the starting area you are probably going to use it for the other purposes (bandages probably), not clothing. Otherwise it is fine.

Cotton is only farmable, thus gated by cities and crop rotations. Once we get vegetables and leafy greens I fully expect to never see a cotton field again. This is mainly due to its uselessness and pathetic stats. Other than the volcano on Aerhen there is no place where you would need the heat insulation, and even there you are probably running fire protection to avoid the stacks. Considering the dificulty to get it, uselessness of the product, and very limited uses it has, it is no wonder that most just throw it away as they harvest it. It only had a niche value when it gave +1 perception per armor piece... but those days are long gone and probably for the best.

Spider silk is the every mans go to. It is balanced for cold and heat, it has better armor and no encumbrance. This is your default material which everything else compares against.

Primal Weave improves energy damage and resistance to same. This is great for the... 2... mage damage spells that do that, or the ...2... charisma spells that use it, or the ...6?... utility spells which do some energy damage as a side bennefit to the main point of debuffing the targets. If you somehow make an AA build that is viable it may be nice for that mage favorite -mage staff-. It is still very niche and overshadowed by alternatives like:

Mammoth wool. This is one of the top 3 materials. It gives HP. It gives HP. It gives HP. there is also the nice synergy of increasing cold insulation and reducing heat which is opposite of scholars armor and results in a nice neutral, but higher net, insulation level for both. The shock and crush resist is also nice vs some mobs and some specific pvp builds.

Ghastly spider silk is an odd ball... if you -really- want one material for the widest range of enviroments i guess you could use this... but it has nothing much to reccomend it otherwise (unless Arborious uses lots more acid damage as we saw in the video, but even then you are likely to just use acid protection spell instead to avoid stacks). It is also a powerful enchanting reagent and probably better used there.

Rabbit wool cloth is a joke. Luck does very little now with most things resisted by fortitude not willpower and even then it being a scalar thing instead of a save-to-ignore thing. It is the consolation prize for killing a rabbit and getting no feet.

winterspine weave is a top 3 contender due to the pvp aspects with its damage reflection, cold resistance, and armor. The encumbrance is a slight downer, but is still a viable option.

TLDR:
Start with spider silk, graduate to mammoth wool, dabble in winterspine weave. Ignore the rest as useless. Cotton needs more uses, luck needs to be meaningful, and need more reason to use armor insulation instead of flat protection abilities when entering hostile enviroments. (see rant about how stack decay should be tied to elemental resistance instead of a seperate thing, which would then make armor material resistances and insulation more relevant)

All cloth armor materials are still pathetic in variety and utility when compared with the options available for leather and metals.
Yes this is for a good reason- namely the leathers and metals take more time and investment to obtain.
In alpha this was balanced -some- by giving cloth armors 3 enchantment slots instead of 2 -AND- assassins' armor was made from leather but still a light armor. So back then the light armor user had a better selection of options.
I would like to see cloth armor options increase in cost (time, resources, etc...) but also increase in effect or variety so that people have meaningful choices. Right now it certainly feels like we do not; winterspine or mammoth, flip a coin then choose mammoth for the hp.

StormBug

@OlivePit While I don't play any characters that use cloth armor, I do love spider silk armor for farming. Lightweight and weather balanced it is great for harvesting.

Thanks for the great post!