I've thought all along that more armor should get more glances against weak attacks as a benefit, but cRPG has balanced itself far away from this idea even though it started out like that. Stabs could be tweaked to be more likely to be deflected by heavy armor, by modifying the variables in final damage output however possible. So you need to land solid accurate stabs in the middle of people to get hits, instead of spinning around grazing people in the middle of animations and hitting hard no matter what.
Also so high WPF or PS long cut weapon spammers can't just get full damage wherever they hit in the swing. Require skill in when and where your attacks hit in the animation with your footwork to get real significant damage on attacks, instead of high stats replacing player skill and making crap OP. Spammers, lolstabbers, hiltslashes etc should be glancing off you more often, doubly so if you are in heavy armor, but skilled killstealers or duelists can attack just fine with good timing, using weapons more realistically instead of jedi lolsabers.
I have an idea, what about drastically increasing WPF penalties on armor weight, while making armor way more effective? And keeping how STR/IF/whatever helps reduce armor WPF penalties but maybe making it harsher, to balance high AGI/WM spammers from wearing lots of armor to get best of both worlds. They should be fast, but plating up should bring their offensive power down compared to the people who built their characters for the job of being heavy infantry and tanking hits while doing reduced but sustained damage over a battle.
I don't know no math no good like the actual balance crew dudes so I can't suggest forumulas but this seems like the kind of crap you guys do. I think armor buffed by not only reducing overall damage but having more chance to deflect the cut spammers, pierce stab abusers, or generally poorly aimed attacks. Balance the power levels of high leveled AGI by making them have high WPF that makes their attacks hit harder but in tighter sweetspots to be effective, but not really be cleaving people for all their HP, and balancing out a weight penalty curve for them based on armor gear (with a big look at glove weight/armor value fucking up balance) that isn't so abusable.
Give STR builds less damage but bigger sweetspots if possible when they rely on Powerstrike instead of WPF for their source of damage. So they can just be STR builds in armor and tank hits and hit people back and get noobs bouncing their polearms off their armor, but not having max WPF hyper fast spam swings.
TL;DR
-Strength builds should be able to wear lots of armor, swing slower, glance less, and do weak but consistent damage.
-Agility builds should be wearing less armor in order to experience high WPF and combat deadliness. They have fast swings but higher chances to glance if they don't aim with skill, doing higher damage if played properly or while killing skirmishers, but new challenges for "heavy infantry" styled combat with the big shields spears and swords.
-Balance with goal being Heavy Infantry have slow fights against each other, Light Infantry have fast fights against each other, then the side with more light infantry remaining joins the heavy infantry brawl to turn the tides from the flanks.
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Make it more about using lots of Agility skills to be a Light Infantry player in less armor weight, hybrid ranged weapons being ideal WPF dumps, getting killed real easy, being unsuited for high armor weight, but great for fighting each other, cav, dedicated ranged. Much weaker in blob fighting cuz random swinging big weapons will knock them out fast. Good for support polearms, archer killers, hybrid ranged, shit for heavier armor and easy to die in melee.
Lots of Strength skills make you ideal for using big weapons, wearing lots of armor, having more attacks INCLUDING many ranged attacks bounce off your armor, but they all swing and move slower, less deadly combat against each other, more susceptible to good support players, much longer melee brawls for everyone.
Balancing a build with your playstyle would be much improved I think. Melee would last longer as lots of hits get glanced off and weapons do less damage, and high WPF/Athletics players won't survive as easy but can go run around fast killing shit all round instead and pick off people at the end if they survive. Ranged will do less damage shooting at heavy infantry players cuz of glances and armor soak, but be more vulnerable to while more suited to killing high agi players who are forced to wear lighter armor by the harsh WPF penalties.
Armor and combat lethality and crap is always fun to discuss so say whatever other ideas you might have here too.
