ok but check transitional armor with surcoat, the coloreds got +5 and the heraldic one got +4, why?
absolutely arbitrary, like almost everything about balance
if you insist we can replace it with the arbitrariness of another balancer
but it will stay arbitrary
it's in the nature of the business
balance really sucks
certainly not my favorite aspect of contributing to crpg
as little as i do, when i propose new items, making a first draft on their stats always causes a headache
at least in the case of heavy armor, it is intuitive that higher-tier armor must get some extra heirloom boni to compensate for the evidently present, additional drawbacks. the arbitrary aspect is where exactly you draw the border between +4 and +5, but the existence of such a border itself is legitimate
if you're interested in the philosophical aspects:
i comfort myself with the fact that despite all the complaints, people still play
fundamental changes tend to go wrong, so i consider balance as something emergent, not something you can redraw from scratch based on your subjective principles you superimpose on others
every balancer who has fundamentally changed the core functions of the game has been driven away by negative feedback or intrinsic frustration
that's why i advocate minor tweaks and basing future stats of new items on already existing old items, even at the risk that those old stats were wrong to begin with, while i am at least by tendency against large-scale changes
people get used to the metagame, and dislike adapting their builds and equipment, especially in response to meta-breaking changes or changes in quick succession
there is nothing wrong with temporary experiments for new balance concepts, but they have to be labelled as such and retain their revocability
but well, i'm drifting off, and certainly, i'm influenced by the announced balance changes raylin has in mind. while i don't know what exactly he is planning to experiment with, i am sincerely hoping he remains cool about whatever happens, long-term oriented and reactive to feedback without however completely discarding his own ideas
