Padded armor is best armor. Change my mind.

[CoolJ]

I've been watching all the streamers trying to sneak and run in heavy armor for 4 days. I am almost ready to jump off the roof of Ostrich Hotel.

Cons.
Less armor obviously.
Less effect mitigation.

Pros.
Doesn't make you louder.
Doesn't destroy your stamina regen.
Doesn't slow you down.
Holds more mods because it doesn't require fittings or stealth mods.

[JCrook1028]

I stay in the light armor line, padded to leather to military. Padded is so easy to get into D1 or D2.

[Laz Man]

Maybe the heavy stuff reduces the critical hits better.  Will have to compare.

[madmole]

39 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Maybe the heavy stuff reduces the critical hits better.  Will have to compare.

I'm pretty sure it does. Obviously you can't hit the armor cap in padded.

I will tell you a little secret. Heavy armor is the best, if you get all the perks, install the advanced fittings to reduce maximum movement and stamina penalties, then wear an athletic jacket you will be just as fast as a naked, possibly faster. It takes some time and investment but you will have 85% damage reduction with the best armor and pretty much no movement penalty. At that armor rating who cares about being quiet?

But if you insist on stealth yeah padded is great, leather is better but takes work and perks to get to the quiet level of padded.

Another nice thing is purple padded spawns quite early in the game.

[Gazz]

If you don't get hit a lot padded armor is awesome. 😃

[Tahaan]

1 hour ago, madmole said:

[snip...], then wear an athletic jacket you will be just as fast as a naked, possibly faster. [...snip]

Jacket and running shoes! Wheeeee!!!!!

[Scyris]

2 hours ago, madmole said:

I'm pretty sure it does. Obviously you can't hit the armor cap in padded.

I will tell you a little secret. Heavy armor is the best, if you get all the perks, install the advanced fittings to reduce maximum movement and stamina penalties, then wear an athletic jacket you will be just as fast as a naked, possibly faster. It takes some time and investment but you will have 85% damage reduction with the best armor and pretty much no movement penalty. At that armor rating who cares about being quiet?

But if you insist on stealth yeah padded is great, leather is better but takes work and perks to get to the quiet level of padded.

Another nice thing is purple padded spawns quite early in the game.

Yeah I feel the tier 4/5/6 spawning needs to be toned down as its far to common imo. Thatt is good to know about heavy armor though, you can still sneak with heavy armor, just can't get as close before shooting is all. The problem is when your past primited stuff and your getting t6 pistols etc like water, and you can make a fortune at trader with these even without better barter etc pretty early in the game too. a t4-6 blunderbuss for example sells for 300+ dukes easly, and on day 4 i've been finding them fairly often.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Scyris (see edit history)

[Kirtonos]

8 hours ago, Gazz said:

If you don't get hit a lot padded armor is awesome. 😃

If you are getting hit constantly, you're doing something wrong. 

I was wearing scrap to begin with this alpha. I would still take it off and deal with the inventory encumbrance penalty for carrying it to move faster than if I was wearing it. Finally, I just said screw it and started wearing padded full time. Requires no investment in points, gives OK protection for those rare occasions when buzzard gets the jump on me, and does not slow me down. I honestly do not get hit enough to warrant the mod cost and perk investment that heavy armor currently requires. 

Also, up until this alpha, I was the heavy armor/melee person of the group. Now I'm the padded armor/blunderbuss person. Kinda reminds me of the light armor/sprint/jackhammer build from Planetside. 

I really hope y'all have some sort of data tracking for what perks get picked by players. 

Edited June 30, 2020 by Kirtonos (see edit history)

[Ranzera]

I agree with Madmole. Heavy Armor gets so good when perked (+ a college jacket) that Light Armor is just suboptimal by comparison.

[CoolJ]

Here is the thing. You can spend all the extra points and put the mobility mods in, and you are still losing stamina and slower. You act like you can't wear a college jacket with padded armor, but you can. For PVP though, there are certain considerations. You would want to be able to take at least one hit before you die. In the single player though, I just don't think it is worth it. I'm not the kinda person that is going to let the zombies just wail on me. I eat less, I run faster and farther and my stamina regens way faster. I was able to do four level two quests between two traders today and dig up a treasure map and made 17000 dukes to buy a motorcycle because I didn't see it in his stash until the last day before he changed. We are talking day six. I did all of that on foot and started with almost zero dukes because I have been spending it on stupid stuff like books that aren't even a major benefit to my class.😆  I also bought a grey pistol. Probably wouldn't have been able to do it without that. I was kickin in doors and blasting like it was COD. Managed to only get hit a few times and never got injured.

[RyanX]

Also, looted padded armor is usually equal to the leather armor that you craft at the same level.  Should be fixed though imo.

 

[beHypE]

10 hours ago, CoolJ said:

Here is the thing. You can spend all the extra points and put the mobility mods in, and you are still losing stamina and slower. You act like you can't wear a college jacket with padded armor, but you can. For PVP though, there are certain considerations. You would want to be able to take at least one hit before you die. In the single player though, I just don't think it is worth it. I'm not the kinda person that is going to let the zombies just wail on me. I eat less, I run faster and farther and my stamina regens way faster. I was able to do four level two quests between two traders today and dig up a treasure map and made 17000 dukes to buy a motorcycle because I didn't see it in his stash until the last day before he changed. We are talking day six. I did all of that on foot and started with almost zero dukes because I have been spending it on stupid stuff like books that aren't even a major benefit to my class.😆  I also bought a grey pistol. Probably wouldn't have been able to do it without that. I was kickin in doors and blasting like it was COD. Managed to only get hit a few times and never got injured.

You are probably vastly overrating the amount of time you gained from wearing light vs heavy.

 

Also, you make the assumption that light armor (especially padded) is the best armor because early game it seems to work nicely. That doesn't mean anything for later stages of the game.

[Kirtonos]

1 hour ago, beHypE said:

You are probably vastly overrating the amount of time you gained from wearing light vs heavy.

 

Also, you make the assumption that light armor (especially padded) is the best armor because early game it seems to work nicely. That doesn't mean anything for later stages of the game.

In my experience, early game is the only point when armor matters. After you find better weaponry, learn all the new "traps" for POI's where you're going to get ambushed, and are perked up, the chances of taking a hit are highly decreased. Sure there might be the one zed or buzzard that gets a lucky shot in but that's a handful of times over the course of many hours of "endgame" play. 

Also, given the experiences thus far with food consumption for stamina usage, it certainly gives a bigger edge to padded being the armor of choice for the entire game. It wasn't until I saw the new changes that it made me evaluate to what end I was perking, modding, and suffering through the penalties of heavy armor to come to the realization that I actually don't "need" heavy armor. Again, I used to be pro-heavy armor but I can't deny that the pendulum has swung the other direction. 

[Adam the Waster]

On 6/29/2020 at 11:20 PM, CoolJ said:

I've been watching all the streamers trying to sneak and run in heavy armor for 4 days. I am almost ready to jump off the roof of Ostrich Hotel.

Cons.
Less armor obviously.
Less effect mitigation.

Pros.
Doesn't make you louder.
Doesn't destroy your stamina regen.
Doesn't slow you down.
Holds more mods because it doesn't require fittings or stealth mods.
 

you're missing one other con!

 

 

it does not look good! i love my cloth armor! but the look? Eww

 

it looks so clunky, the Hoodie drives me crazy! it does not look like the other hoodies!, Chest is ok!, gloves are nice but could less "Clunky", legs are fine but could use some knee pads and the boots are fine!

 

 

 

maybe ill draw up a new look for the armors?

 

but yes Cloth is good!   

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Adam the Waster said:

you're missing one other con!

 

 

it does not look good! i love my cloth armor! but the look? Eww

 

it looks so clunky, the Hoodie drives me crazy! it does not look like the other hoodies!, Chest is ok!, gloves are nice but could less "Clunky", legs are fine but could use some knee pads and the boots are fine!

 

 

 

maybe ill draw up a new look for the armors?

 

but yes Cloth is good!   

If there are two survivors, which one will the zombies prefer and attack first?  The brain in the spiffy mouth-wateringly good looking package or the carelessly cloth-wrapped brain?

 

[Ramethzer0]

I LARP and have done battle recreations, and never once did I ever look at a carpet and think to myself 'Wow, that would totally soften zombie punches' until now.

It does a damn good job of softening blows in this game, at least for now.  lol  I think it should contribute more cold resistance tho.

[Kirtonos]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

If there are two survivors, which one will the zombies prefer and attack first?  The brain in the spiffy mouth-wateringly good looking package or the carelessly cloth-wrapped brain?

 

I'm about to share an experience that has stuck with me for 20 years and guided me greatly in my growth as a designer.

Back in the early days of Everquest, I was friends with this paladin who we called Rainbow Brite (which he then went on to take as his surname) because his armor was literally every color of the rainbow. Helm was bright yellow, pants blue, chest silver, boots green, gloves black, and red legs. Just a complete eyesore. This was long before they had class armor quests or people could reliably break Fear to farm paladin gear. 

So I asked him one day why he did this to himself. Why he let people poke fun at him for his mish-mashed armor and his reply was priceless....

"I'd wear a tutu and a neon garbage bucket on my head if it gave me 4 more AC."

That was the day I learned how much some players value function over fashion.

[Roland]

Oh man...I always just throw on whatever I find so I've got the whole spectrum strapped to some part of my body....

[pApA^LeGBa]

Having a mixed armor is pretty much impossible right now. The loot is so strictly levelbased that you basically find the same stuff over and over again. I love the slower progression, but right now we look all the same with the same weapons and same tools. We even found the duster all on the same day...

[Qyzer]

Once I had a college jacket and high performance running shoes, I went to padded armor from scrap armor and even stopped using my minibike.  Only hassle I had was doing a BM on foot running around I ended up with a broken leg from an (un)lucky hit and realized I had no splint to even make it to somewhere to survive and got eaten.  Thinking maybe heavier armor might have made that survivable (if it might have prevented the broken leg), but it was my mistake for not having a good escape plan (like maybe parking a minibike nearby or even just remembering to bring a splint).

 

I imagine once I'm flush with more points (and more mods for heavier armor) I'll end up back with heavy armor (and once I get a motorcycle it won't matter as much) but I'm loving not having to concern myself with anything other than food to get around quick.  Parkour 2 combined and it's just those (un)lucky hits that I am concerned about.

[Roland]

I'm for soft amore.

[pregnable]

Hot necro!

 

Also, heavy armor actually lets you move around the fastest when fighting without a base on horde night, and makes you tanky. 

 

Military is the best light armor, because you can be almost as fast as heavy armor constantly, while also having a free buff similar to coffee on at all times, without drinking it. 

 

Padded armor is actually the worst light armor, but it is good enough.  The others are much better once you find all the required components to take advantage of their buffs. 

[Aldranon]

I'm soft on heavy armor.

 

Playing dead-is-dead you want to avoid being harshly punished for a mistake.  We all make mistakes and as the game progresses, a mistake can get bad.

 

[Jost Amman]

I didn't see anyone mention that if you want heavy armor you're FORCED to spec into STR, while wearing padded is great if you're specializing in a different tree.

That's the main drawback of heavy armor in my view, you either go full strength or you're just wearing a suboptimal armor.

[Urban Blackbear]

I prefer light armor. You can stand and take a beating in heavy but why? The position is too likely to result in a last stand. Light armor lets me survive long enough to run away. Or as I like to call it "reposition away".