Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-36885248-20180911145144

A lot of players in TOS complain about "good" and "evil" gear being unbalanced all the time.

How I see it there are two opposed concepts that have to be taken into consideration:

1. Lore: dwarven or uruk-hai armour shall never have the same stats as tauredain or dunlending armour

2. Gameplay: in my opinion a player of a specific faction should be able to wear their factions gear, so he represents the faction more lore-wise and role-play wise, without any penalty over choosing said faction over another. Thus, players that chose a faction with weaker gear should have some kind of incentive to still use their faction gear, to avoid what is now the case: most players from weaker gear factions use gear from other factions, sometimes even from their enemies sides, to have the same chances in a pvp fight or have better protection and attack against NPCs in general

Suggestion 1

Make 2 different stats for armour and weapons: one, lore and unbalanced for NPCs (weak dunlending armour and strong uruk-hai armour), and one balanced for players (for the same armour). They don't have to be exact the same, but more similar than the NPCs stats. The unbalanced NPCs in armour stats can still be balanced with for example giving weaker factions special bonuses like poison arrows and daggers, which ignore strong armour, maybe even morgul arrows, and giving them draughts which they drink more often than NPCs with stronger armour and weapos.

Suggestion 2

Make a champion / uruk /chieftain / hero armour for each faction, which might be or not player exclusive (not worn by NPCs, or only worn by captains, lords and chieftains of said faction), which all have the same stats. And also chieftain weapons (for example tauredain could have a special obsidian blade sword which is hard to get but has the same stats as the current dwarven sword. Arnorian and black numenorian relic armours could also work as champion gear for rangers, who only have leather-level armour and umbar players, who don't have dwarve-tier armour). This champion armour and weapons can try to be a bit lore, but doesn't necessarily have to be, but it should be similar hard to obtain (for example no champion gear should be able to be crafted with leather or bronze, or only iron, but for example could combine iron with gold and gems ;) 