Heres an ALTERNATE solution to teh melee vs mage issue

[The Mark]

Why not put wield requirements on all armor (not just covenant).

I mean, lets look at the facts: magic skill and magic defense are both based on the same attributes, so obviously this is convenient for mages.

Melees are not quite so lucky, because melee def is not based on strength/coord, but quick/coord, so already the melee char is getting stretched out a bit from the start.
But even as such, the solution could be as simple as putting skill reqs on ALL armor. Isnt the classic warrior all armor-clad and ready for battle? And isnt the clasic mage using primarily robes and teh like? Thats probably because a warrior is really strong and able to fight in heavy armors, while a mage uses his brain over his brawn (and therefore has to stick to the lighter stuff).

If this were the case, I would have no problem at all with mages dong as much damage as they like, cause meleers could do as much damage back :P

Besides, if a mage decides to spend the atribute points and skill points necesary in order to able to wear to heavy armor, then all the more power to him, Id say hes earned it!

I also like the "war magic NOT ignoring armor altogether" idea. basically what we have in the game now is:
The people who choose the most powerful offensive skill in the game are ALSO allowed to wear the best armor.
Meanwhile, the people that choose some alternate (read: weaker) offensive skill get rewarded by also having no particular means of defense against war magic (besides life prots, which a mage wil be better at casting anyway).

For any of you flamers out there who will surely try to refute this post: I dont think this is an unfair thing to request, in fact, I think its about the fairest thing we could have (eye for an eye....)

[Mystic-Rogue]

I don't agree with you about war magic not ignoreing armor I think the damage mages do is good as it is, not includeing the sing wand. The problem with melees atm is mages can heal so much faster and for so much more health then a melee can do damage.

[Xanwe]

I agree with this concept of having to have armor checks on all pieces of armor. Restrict mages to armor such as leather or such. Also, what about when you add steel to armor, it ups the wielding req in the same way salvage applied to magical items such as stam gain ups the Arcane requirement?

[Virindi Clown]

You do realize how complicated it would be to change all armor in the game to have "balanced" wield requirements, and how extremely angry probably a majority of people would get over it?

[TheGrim]

go back to DAoC or EQ and leave our armor alone.
the thing that makes AC1 so great is the versatility of all classes,and sqeezing out certain ones now from an ability that all have had from day one isnt right. If you want casters in "cloth" then go to a game that does have it. Ive played most of the mmorpg's out there and i always come back. AC1 is the funnest game. the others are so bogged down with "you can't because of your class" ****. Besides the answer isant armor, its some form of skill based damage tweak.

[Virindi Clown]

Currently the only "you can't because of your class" problem is that you can't expect to do enough damage with an archer or melee to equal a mage. It was close with melees before the weeping nerf.

That is the ONE problem. The only other things you could even really gripe about are animation exploits, but those can't be fixed, so forget them and deal with what you can.

[The Mark]

You hit the nail exactly on the head Xanwe, adding steel would Up the wield req. And it would NOT be some trivial amount, that maginalizes mages only, but rather an amount that corresponds to what the skill should be at your level, ie: only the Uber melees would be able to wear the uber armor, and less apt melees would wear corresponding armor (along with the melee-skilled mages, etc). They tried to do this with covenant armor (execpt that covenant sucks because you cant bane it and its defenses are really that great. So (in a PRACTICAL sense) covenant armor was basically a cosmetic 'gift' that we got handed down, but didnt really resolve any issues because this supposedly "uber" armor that only teh most powerful melees could wear was immediately underminded by tinked armor which apart from having NO restriction, turns out to be BETTER!

And NO Virindi Clown, it wouldnt be very difficult at all to implement it (maybe you should try your hand at some programming my friend :P). When they changed the way damage was calculated, they did it for all existing weapons in the game, and there was no problem there.
All the uber loot-gen MELEE weapons have wield reqs, but for some reason the wands dont...
This alone makes it unfair, its a BIASED restriction. If the Devs want to implement restrictions then they should at least do it in a FAIR manner. But you DO highlight a very important point Virindi Clown, the "whinny-factor" All the people that have been by babied by this unfair system will certainly throw a huge tantrum (which is very predictable) despite teh fatc that mages were able to survive just fine before armor tinkering emerged (its funny how fast you forget things when luck favors you...)

In this respect the Devs alone are at fault, by allowing this unfair system to go on, theyve 'spoiled' the mage players.

If the Devs truly wanted to have some semblance of fairness they would try something of at least similar nature, because it doesnt take a huge IQ to see what Im talking about.

As far as teh practical Implementation..
people will obviously say: So now what? I wont be able to wear my tinked armor with major focus and major war?

This can have a very simple solution as well, simply created a NPC that "refunds" your tink. What the heck am I talking about? here's an example:
You take your 10x tinked armor (check the new wield req and realize that you need it to be lower) So you walk over to the new Armorer in town and give him your armor, he hands it back to you with one tink less along with one bag of corresponding steel (Obviously if it was tinked TEN times the last tink had to be of quality 9+ or 10). Now you look at teh armor, and if the wield req is still too high, hand it back to him again, and the process repeats.
This would not be much different than going to get your GSA repainted (or maybe you think that's too difficult to implement? lol).

Anyway, Im NOT talking about uberizing damage on weapons (because that would obviously throw off PvM interactions). Im not talkign about making this class better, or that class better, all Im asking for is fairness!
Obviously mages need to DO more damage since they spent more credits on teh offensive skill, but why should they ALSO get the priviledge of recieveing less damage, when they dont spend a darn thing on defense????? Seems like it should be teh melees who are the 'idestructable' tanks will all the points they spend on melee def... Isnt THAT worth something????

Devs please respond!

EDIT:

BTW TheGrim, no where in my post have I suggested that mages run around in plain 'cloth'. As I stated, mages did just fine before armor tinkering (wearing very fine armor to boot!), all im saying is that an armor tink should require some kinf of wield req (this couls apply evenly to weapon tinks too). Dont be so melodramatic, its pretty childish...
Anyone with some semblance of logic can easily identify that what Im suggesting is not UNfair, in fact, its very fair!
You are just whining at teh thought that you might actually have to "play" your character and not let some bot-program do all your killing for you while you chat away on the alliance channel...

[Virindi Clown]

I have in fact "tried my hand at some programming."

But really, try balancing this out. Think of all the work that has to be done to give people the right armor range for their level and all that.

Then think of how much you have to rework EVERYTHING in PvP AND PvM to make all the new damages people would be getting hit for balanced.

Do you realize how much work that is? That is so not worth it.

Besides, what does it even matter if a melee could wear higher armor than a mage? You wouldn't need it, because you have melee defense.

Mages already take more damage from melees than archers and melees take from melees. Mages have armor alone, while archers have melee defense, and melees have melee defense and shields.

So you see, it all works out to be the same thing as what you are asking for. Mages take the most damage from melee attacks, archers are in the middle, and melees takes the least.

Once again, this comes back to a roundabout and pointless way to make melees and archers hit harder against mages. UP THEIR DAMAGE ON PVP WEAPONS and you get the same thing without putting much work into it and all the other mess.