Hey

I wanted to give you a heads-up about upcoming balance changes to how armor works. This is also work in progress, and needs more playtesting. (The armor durability bug is fixed in next snapshot.)

How Armor is Calculated (1.8 and earlier)

The armor values of each item is summed to a total value, ranging from 0 to 20 (full diamond armor). This value is then divided by 25, giving a damage reduction scale from 0 to 80%. In other words, full armor would reduce 10 damage (five hearts) to 2 (one heart).

The Problem

Because the damage reduction is a percentage, it makes it quite complicated for us to create interesting challenges. If something deals 8 points of damage, it's very dangerous for someone without armor, but barely noticeable for someone in full armor. That's why the Guardians deal 8 damage 1 magic damage, so we're sure that you take at least half a heart of damage.

Generally speaking, something that kills you in 3 hits is very dangerous, and something that requires more than 7 hits is quite harmless. Here's a table that shows how damage and armor relates in 1.8:

http://i.imgur.com/BGFxBIz.png

At the top you have total armor value, on the left you have damage, and in the table it says how many hits that are required to deal 20 points of damage (10 hearts). If you add enchantments on top of this it's not surprising people feel diamond armor makes you close to invulnerable.

Armor in 1.9

So, in order to make hard hits feel hard, and to balance armor compared to the somewhat slower attack speed in 1.9, we've come up with a new armor value calcuation.

First, the total armor value is calculated as normal, then it's decreased by 50% of the incoming damage, and then it's divided by 30 instead of 25. So now the protection percentage gets weaker from strong attacks, and the maximum protection is 66% (instead of 80%).

For example, if you have 10 armor and the attack deals 8 damage, the damage will be reduced by (10 - 8 * 0.5) / 30 = 20%, thus dealing 6.4 points of damage (old system would deal 4.8 points of damage).

Here's the table for the new system:

http://i.imgur.com/aRARJSX.png

Enchantments etc

Protection enchantments and Sharpness will also be rebalanced.

Sharpness will add 1.0/1.5/2.0/2.5 damage instead of 1.25/2.50/3.75/5.0.

Protection levels will be linear instead of squared, and sum up to a value that also is divided by 30 instead of 25. This value is regardless of the incoming damage, though.

As I said, everything needs playtesting. It gets even more complicated when we add the Resistance and Strength effects to the mix!

Thanks for listening :)

// Jens