Gaps in Armor?

[Iscandar]

I've been using the two-handed sword extensively in the Expert Arena and have noticed that on the last 3 opponents, whom are in full plate, appear to have gaps in their armor, or some kind of mechanic to simulate this. I'm not referring to visible gaps like the back of the leg, under the "skirt", or the neck, because those work too, but rather ones that aren't visible.

Using regular swings, I can occasionally cause permanent damage with visible bleeding. The places I've noticed this happening are on the sides of the knee, the armpit, in the elbow crease, and between the eyes. Even the halberdier lady with the abnormal holey visor has bled from helmet hits.

A question to the developers. Are there actually spots that, despite having a low probability of being hit, can cause permanent damage? Or is there a mechanic present that I'm not aware of?

 

[Scarecrow]

There is no artificial mechanic for this Iscandar. Rather visible and logical gaps in the armor, are in fact gaps in the armor. The side/back of knees, armpits, elbow crease etc are perfect examples of this. These areas are not armored, which you can visibly see. Hit locations and armor coverage is an important aspect of the combat system. A helmet without a neck guard will be susceptible to hits in the neck for instance.

Its really cool actually, and the only game I know of that has achieved this kind of realism in medieval combat.

 

[Madoc]

As accurate as the collisions are, they can't purely model the complexity of interactions between a colliding weapon and armour so there is an additional system to model seams, weak spots and collisions that concern a larger area than what is covered by the armour. There are also mechanics like piercing attacks having a higher chance of finding such weak spots. This doesn't mean armour can be pypassed completely, but rather that a blow may only be partially blocked by a piece of armour, and even then, layers of armour under it will still be effective.

In practice, you can think of a sword cut that lands on your arm and is only partially stopped by a pauldron with part of the blade hitting the chain sleeve, with a reduced force from the impact with the pauldron. It's based on collisions but it's not just a binary you hit this bit of armour with these stats or that piece of armour with those stats. Also, armour can be layered.

As a side note, if you see two items that are visually very similar but one has a higher coverage stat it means that it has less weak areas due to construction features or materials. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean exposed areas, but say certain areas don't have the full armour stats or are more susceptible to piercing effects.