What you could do is well - just use your imagination.
Your encumberance indicator could show flowers, hippos or the american flag, the very issue is what you (we, for the gamers’ voice) want of it throughout the Cataclysm:_Dark_Days_Ahead.
There are set standards for fantasy games with millions of reworks, including the ones withing roguelike ‘subworld’. But the main stigma boils around the default player class, and default equpment he or she uses. So, essentially, “I want to be that sonuvamother when I grow up” and that’s your preferred set. That’s your code bullseye, the rounded-up 100. The only stretch you have to make is the one of class since C_DDA lacks those and encumberance within those, so imagine an archer having to put up with bulky-arse clothing like the ones of a fighter - and there you have it, the “greater-than-100”.
In my own words, the 100 is the maximum extent of your abilities and skills under a predefined set of clothing items
Really, you shouldn’t be obstructed with the sufficient clothing at all, provided you’re an average individual. But let’s take just the opposite for example - a Clown.
->Has a silly hat
->Has some dye and makeup
->Has a long-sleeved shirt, and a sized-down vest
->Has a pair of really bulky gauntlets
->Has a belt, and a silly belt buckle
->Has really, really baggy pants that are built to stay stiff
->Has funny-looking shoes
Now I’m certain he’s a jester class - and jesters are known as acrobats. Why isn’t this poor Joe one, too?
->Has a long-sleeved shirt, and a sized-down vest
->Has a pair of really bulky gauntlets
->Has a belt, and a silly belt buckle
->Has really, really baggy pants that are built to stay stiff
->Has funny-looking shoes
Ok, let’s try and understand what seems to be his problem, and start with the torso. The main issue is encumberance, because he’s wearing a ridiculous child-sized vest over everything and it is a bit obstructive. The second one is of manual dexterity - his gauntlets have both decorative and obstructive purpose - the wrists are bulky, and the hand can’t take on much more than a perfect grip of things, such as a big rope or a bat. His buckle and belt are funny worn above waist and terrible for jumping/ducking. The pants section is worth only for walking and a short dash because the bulkiness stumps every attempt of a good run. The shoes are multiple-oversized but still good for walking (because besides the length it’s the width that really fits); essentially, only for stunts.
Actually - there are three flags here: BULKY, OVERSIZED and UNFITTING. If I try and sum up everything it will look like this:
Head…0
Torso…0/10+15+10+35=60
Arms…60/10+15=21
Hands…21/5+45=49
Legs…60/20+35=38
Feet…38/5+55=63
total=60+21+49+38+63=231
What I did here was simply adding up values and some critical factors. The overall encumberance is 2.3:1 in favor of the Clown character standing opposed to the “perfect” outfit for the class. This however is - the base encumberance. I assumed that every body part has a joint that connects it to the other one. The head could be the only “irrelevant” parameter here but it’s for a reason - it doesn’t suffer from the whole base encumberance instalment, but it adds up simply because of the sheer pressure that the weight of hats/helmets/etc can have on the neck muscles, that are also supported with the spine and upper torso; so you add a tenth of that value (here 0) to the torso. The torso also adds a tenth of its encumberance value to the arms, and the hands receive one fifth of the arms total. The legs suffer from some weight imposing on the lower back and the abdomen, so 1/20 of torso encumberance is added up to the legs enc. value. And finally, both feet have their own encumberance increased by one fifth of legs enc.
This was only a simple example, yet descriptive enough to tell you that this Clown character, even as he’s not wearing any really heavy pieces of clothing he’s got a base encumberance score of 2 and no stacks, mostly because he’s not wearing any layers. These are otherwise crucial, but here simply are not - you have a silly rag for a vest, it barely covers 30% of the torso and the requirement for the actual stacking is 50%. Let’s say you’re wearing:
Torso…Under_Armor, Sweatshirt, Leather_Vest, Rain_Coat
There are 4 layers and the following numbers (just like everywhere in this post) are an approximation, so the Torso score is:
total=20+20/10+30+30/102+40+40/103+45=20+2+30+6+40+12+45=155
This would also add 1 to the overall torso encumberance. So, if you had a total of, say, 340 - your base encumberance would be 3 but since torso is supporting such a heavy burden it has a stack to a total of 4. The formula, however, could be derived from the percentile coverage of the item, whereas the vest that covers something of a 70% total torso in the recurring sum would add up as:
40(the encumberance)*7/10 THEN divided with 10 and multiplied according to the corresponding layer order.
