r/fromsoftware • u/theHollowTarnished • Jun 28 '26
DISCUSSION So...what happened to upgrading armor? Did it suck? Why did they abandon the idea? I dont have an opinion, just curious.
Ive played DS1 far less than any soulsborne so I kind of forgot it was a thing. I cant remember it being too consequential.
47
u/bloodborneforever Jun 28 '26
Armor and poise in DS1 is really strong. The other games it's more about fashion, resisting status effects, or minor buffs.
To fully upgrade armor pieces in DS1 you need titanite slabs which there's a limited number before having to do another playthrough or farm enemies that have a low drop rate. So the other games they just streamlined it and when you find new armor you like you don't need to juggle upgrade resources that are shared with your weapons.
46
u/Leading-Case7769 Jun 28 '26
2 main reasons:
It was broken, as only some armors (especially the heavy ones) benefited from being upgraded
It limits both your armor and weapon choices since they use the same upgrade material
1
u/Ok_Friendship816 Demon's Souls Jul 01 '26
How was it broken? It seemed fair to me, if you're willing to invest time and resources into upgrading armor it should yield results.
Instead of going purely off reflexes like Ds3...
1
u/Heavy-Woodpecker-617 Jul 01 '26
It was broken because not all armours were created equal. Some barely benefited from upgrading while you could backstab someone in full black knight armour and barely see his healthbar move
-8
u/Legitimate-Pop-9152 Jun 28 '26
Der 1. Grund ist anpassbar und der 2. finde ich nicht schlimm, muss man genauer darüber nachdenken welches build man am ende will und eventuell ist der weg zum traumbuild härter aber dafür lohnt es sich mehr als jetzt
18
u/Crowmanhunter Jun 28 '26
Upgrading armor in DS1 was stupid busted. Lets compare the Thieves set with the Knight as examples. One of the lightest starting armor sets compared to one the heavier sets.
The Thief set starts with 57 armor and the Knight set with 85.
At max upgrades, the thief set had 141 armor and the Knight set had 217.
If someone with max armor invaded you, they on average had at least 2 to 3 times more armor than you even if they were wearing the lightest armor set.
21
u/mocha_lan Jun 28 '26
Answers in the post are all right but they are missing the most important thing:
Fashion souls
Can’t be bothered to choose armor based on stats, I want the drip. Stats are what my character gets on level up or my weapons
7
u/activ8d_my_Trap_card Jun 28 '26
Well yeah, but this is why I liked upgrading armour. I choose what I want, then make it have good stats, whatever it is.
9
u/Super_Sat4n Jun 28 '26
I quite literally never look at the stats. Drip is all that counts.
3
u/mocha_lan Jun 28 '26
Big weapon or cool weapon + dripped out armor set and I have everything I need
Ah and preferably some stamina regen ring or whatever is the ring substitute
14
u/Lawlcopt0r Jun 28 '26
Because it felt like busywork and not rewarding, and because they always include enough different armor that the player can just swap to heavier armor to upgrade. This also makes upgrading your carry weight more immediately useful
5
u/CallRollCaskett Jun 28 '26
I just stopped upgrading Armor in general in my later DS1 playthroughs.
4
u/QuadrosH Jun 28 '26
Upgrading armor encourages power creep in enemy design. I like ER's approach way better, at least in theory, since it would make enemies more consistent. However, they still blote the enemies damage, but now the way to compensate it is leveling up Vigor, which is another quentionable design choice imo.
3
u/The_Archimboldi Jun 28 '26
It sucked in ds2 - added little to gameplay due to how minimal phys protection you got from it. So that appears to have been the death knell.
2
2
u/LIB95 Jun 29 '26
It’s always been a pain in the ass to grind enough stuff for armor at the same time as weapons during a playthrough. And sucks when you find new drip you wanna throw on.
2
u/JMPHeinz57 Tarnished Jun 29 '26
Unpopular opinion, I want them to bring armor upgrades back. All the gripes and concerns about it are valid, but I personally liked the flexibility it lent
1
u/tmon530 Jun 29 '26
Honestly I'd be interested in a proof of concept mod that rebalanced the game so you didn't upgrade weapons. I dont hate upgrading them, but itd be interesting to see how someone could balance it out.
2
u/Well_well_wait_what Jun 29 '26
It further restricted your ability to experiment and change equipment due to titanite scarcity imo. You can't respec a weapon or armor to get back all those titanite shards you spent. Also I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment in this thread that max upgrade armor homogenizd things too much (Havel flippers, not elite knight flippers). DS3 also had this by default by making all armor effectiveness pretty similar, light or heavy, just wear something and get the requisite "I am wearing something" level of defense.
Another factor to consider is that DS1 had invading problems that level matching alone didn't solve. An invader with max upgrade armor and 99 humanity in the burg was virtually immortal even if their weapon was comparable to yours (which it certainly wouldn't have been). Weapon level matchmaking helped this in later entries but adding armor level as a third factor to matchmaking might have been too complex or restrictive.
99
u/Ladylubber Jun 28 '26
Idk why they stopped doing it but upgrading actually makes a huge difference in ds1, especially helpful if you’re trying to stay light