So with BedWars Season 2 releasing, most of what they did was simply adding new mechanics. The new mechanics are fun and all, but in my opinion, not enough of the main meta has changed. One of the things I hoped Hive would’ve put some time into adjusting for Season 2 is the Armor System. Quite simply, I never liked the Armor System in place for BedWars. This may be a long post, so I’ll split it into different categories to make it easier to read.
Main Problems
Armor Prices
For one, let’s talk about the pricing. I think the price for Chainmail Armor is fine. Being an early game armor set, it works fine as an armor set you can get from your base. Iron Armor being gold seems kind of iffy, especially since iron tools cost diamonds. Seeing that you do need to go out and upgrade your generator to get it, it kind of works as an incentive for gathering gold. So, I can kind of get by it.
But then there’s diamond armor, which costs both 32 diamonds and 4 emeralds. I do not like this. It does push the incentive to max out your generator, yes, but it makes it so you get the most powerful armor in the game by staying at your base. The extra 4 emeralds is pitifully easy to get, as you only need to take 1 trip around the emerald generators to get it. It’s not enough of an incentive for people to actually stay at middle.
Diamond armor was just as overpowered in Treasure Wars, but at least in that you needed to spend an extended amount of time at mid in order to get it. Here, you don’t really need to.
Armor Sets
This is gonna be more of a hot take, but I don’t like how you can get the full set of each armor tier. With Chainmail Armor and Iron Armor, it’s not as much of an issue having the full set. The main issue lies with the Diamond Armor set.
If you’ve played Hive for a long time and have a good understanding of its mechanics, you’ll know that every weapon from a Stone Sword and up deals the same damage (Half a heart) to a player in full Diamond Armor. This makes fights take extra long, and makes the late game quite tedious, ESPECIALLY if the person you’re up against tends to run a lot and has tons of Golden Apples and Ender Pearls.
One way this improved is by the Fall Boots buff, which gives players more of an incentive to lose the extra protection for having significantly reduced pearl and fall damage, but in my opinion, it’s just not enough of fix for the main issue, since most people likely won’t even use them.
How the Armor System should be changed
Armor Sets
The change I would like to be made is to have the helmet from each set be removed, and instead add in a dyed Leather Helmet at a price of 8 Iron.
This adjustment seems rather small, but for the Diamond Armor set, it will make quite a significant difference, since it will fix the issue where every weapon from a Stone Sword and up deals the same damage to players with Diamond Armor. It would still make getting armor feel significant, but it will make late game fights between two Diamond Armor players MUCH less tedious, and make having stronger weapons more useful.
Armor Prices
With the changes to the Armor Sets in mind, I’d still say that 20 Iron for Chainmail Armor is an okay price, but with the extra leather helmet, I would be okay with having it cost 16 Iron. For Iron Armor, I think giving it a price of 16 Diamonds seems fair, since that way, you’d still have an incentive to upgrade your generator to it’s maximum capacity.
As for Diamond Armor, since you’re no longer getting the full set, I think having it cost 16 Emeralds is the way to go. Quite simply, you shouldn’t be able to sit at your base for an extended period of time to get the most powerful gear in the game. You should need to spend an extended period of time at mid to get it. Because even if we take out the Diamond Helmet, it’s still quite a powerful set of Armor.
So in conclusion, to make fights more fair and balanced, this Armor System is due for an update. I think these changes would be a great way to incentivize players to do more than just sit at their base to get armor, and in the case of Diamond Armor, spending more than 2 seconds at mid. Because right now, the current Armor System just does not work well.