WARNING : A lot of these things are my opinions. Please do not be offended if you disagree with what I have to say.
I see an issue with the current economy of armors and the pricing of custom-fitted suits, therefore I suggest looking into this and adjusting the system.
First let me say : It is good that we have access to custom tailored outfits and armors at Webber's Wonders and Poetry & Steel.
The prices for anything above leather armor gets too out of hand though compared to the income from quests and how cheap / expensive randomly found suits of armors are.
A recap of the current system :
These are the prices for each armor category without any additional dye-changes.
[hide]Cloth / Padded Cloth : 73
Leather : 123
Studded Leather : 173
Scale Mail / Chain Shirt : 473
Chain Mail / Breastplate : 573
Banded Mail / Splint Mail : 773
Half Plate : 2029
Full Plate : 3630[/hide]
One can see that the price suddenly skyrockets after Banded / Splint Mail.
For those unaware : These groat investments get you an outfit that is pure vanilla flavor. No skill bonuses, no AC bonus, nothing.
This is where this system really starts kicking into high gear.
[hide]Each armor / outfit can be fitted with one save increase. It can be a +1 against anything.
Then you can also add skill increases. These can either be a +1 or a +2 to any skill you desire and you can have 2 of them on your armor unless it is Half Plate or Full plate. In that case you can only have a single skill increase.
The prices for these enhancements vary greatly. While on a Studded Leather it cost me only a few hundred groats to give my suit +2 to two diplomatic skills it then jumps up to 1.500 groats to put a bonus to a reflex saving throw on it.
For an adequate price of roughly 2.100 groats total this results in a Studded Leather that has :
+2 Bluff
+2 Persuade
+1 Reflex[/hide]
Some might say that it is fair because, sorry if I sound demeaning here to some people, "lol I can farm that much money in a single night".
Yes, that is great for you. But please look at the bigger picture if this is your way of thinking about this.
I can do level 3 to 7 quests and find better armor than that. I can get lucky with an explorable in the sewers, run past some rats that won't aggro on me anymore because my level is too high, kill a single rat matriarch and loot a suit of Studded Leather that is generally speaking way better than the armor previously described for a time investment of roughly five minutes. I can get lucky with what other players found and then sell on the market and buy better armor for a few hundred groats. Sometimes even get it for free if you happen to be lucky and the person that tried selling it got really sick of lugging the armor around all day.
Or you are a human PC (like 90% of the server population), join a Peerage Ward faction and receive a full set (cape, armor, helmet) of any kind you want, with a dozen skill bonuses that depend on what faction you join for a meager investment of 900 to 1000 groats.
That recruitment cost gets especially lucrative for any character that is going to only use heavy armor as the Poetry & Steel prices are ridiculously high for those armor categories and even on the open market a Full Plate will cost you only around a thousand groats by itself.
Further there are other issues with the custom tailored suits and armors. You do a single mistake like forgetting about the neck part? You want to replace a skill or save increase with another? Tough luck, kiddo. You paid for it, now stick with it until you get ridd of it.
WHAT DO I SUGGEST EXACTLY? TL;DR
- Decrease buy-in prices for everything above Chain Mail / Breastplate DRASTICALLY
- Increase buy-in prices below that
- Decrease costs of enhancements DRASTICALLY
- Increase the limit of total possible skill and save increases by 1 each, ramp up the costs depending on how many enhancements already exist on the outfit / armor
- Equalize total amount of possible skill increases across the board, Half Plate and Full Plate should not get ostracized
- Add options to visually and mechanically adjust outfits / armors without having to buy an entirely new one
I think the point of the expense is a cultural one that has existed in all chapters of EFU:
If you want to LOOK GOOD It's going to cost you.
Yes, you can loot some pretty good armor. But most of it comes with drawbacks, or just looks plain awful. Looking good and getting save/skill bonuses without drawbacks is a pretty huge deal on EFU. These denote PCs who are wealthy, or at least capable enough to generate the GP to be a valuable asset to another player pushing plots and whatnot.
It's also a huge discrepancy to encourage people from playing generic 12 dex fullplate fighters for max AC. Other other types have more flavor, so they're cheaper, and more viable to craft and find loot for as a rule.
I could get behind being able to change the bonuses without having to craft an entirely new armor, but the prices are mostly fair if you consider the reasoning and behind them.
This is unlikely to happen. It is cheaper by design to find armor that might not look how you want than to custom build your own armor to your specifications and aesthetics.
Lighter armors also tend to result in lower AC unless you use additional spells (cat's grace, mage armor) than heavier armor, that's why it is cheaper and easier to get lighter armors....as well as the obvious RP reasons of just being easier to make.
Also by design that heavy armors such as fullplate get less bonuses. Fullplate is almost always universally weaker in the bonuses offered compared to lighter armors unless it is a very rare piece of DM loot.