Set Bonuses Vs. Customization

You know how there will be all these armor sets, like a hazmat suit and guard uniforms and all this other awesomeness? Well, each of these will usually have a set bonus that gives you a little something extra if you happen to wear matching legs, body, and head pieces. This might be a bonus to defense, energy, defense, resistance, mobility, you name it. It has been specifically mentioned that armor bonuses will be a major factor in deciding whether to focus on ranged or melee attacks, focusing on energy or defense respectively, for example.

However, there will also be procedural generated armor pieces that we can find while exploring dungeons and the like. If these aren't already found in complete sets each time you run into them, then wearing even one piece will necessarily eliminate any set bonuses you might want to have. That's a pretty hefty price to pay, potentially, especially since common consensus is that customization is a big draw in gaming.

I think it might be nice if Chucklefish decided to do something to ensure that mixing and matching procedural generated pieces and incomplete sets was still viable instead of forcing players to pick a set if they want to have optimal effectiveness. There are probably a lot of ways to do this, and I really want to hear some ideas from everyone else here, but here's just a few to get the ball rolling.

• Make the set bonuses less major, and/or slightly strengthen procedural pieces to make up the difference.
• Each procedural piece could have a specific "type", like melee, ranged, mobility, etc... and three pieces of the same type grant a set bonus based on that type.
• Have lots of special effects that would commonly be found on procedural pieces but only rarely on premade sets, like adding additional jumps on a leg piece, regenerating energy on impact for a chest piece, generating light or increasing sight range for a head piece, etc.
• Mixing and matching armor pieces from the same tier or made from the same material give a unique bonus based on that tier or material.
• Set bonuses can be achieved with only matching parts of the same set, even without the full set. For example, even without the helmet you could still get a smaller bonus by matching the chest and leg pieces.
• Some combination of the above methods.

There are also benefits to focusing more on matching sets instead of mixing them up. For example, matching sets almost always look better than mixed sets. It also makes it a little easier to balance PvP because the players have fewer choices to optimize with and that makes it a little harder to break the system that the developers intended. Sometimes players actually prefer to have fewer options because it makes it easier to make choices quickly and dive into the gameplay instead of spending more time in menus and weighing options.

 

Another possible way is to have armour or equipment that is matching with equipment other than its own category. For example, a piece of armour may be matching with a certain gadget, and using them in tandem would give its own little bonus to make up for the lost set bonus. This would hopefully allow for more variety even if matching sets was something that was required for the game's balance.

 

An idea of mine is lets say a mix and match-able guard set. For example get on a guard suit (and hat) and you get a little bonus. Add a riot hat and riot amour on top of that and you get the riot guard bonus. Would be cool to see implemented.

 

Like a chest piece that enhanced the damage of a particular type of gun?

Or more like a piece of armor that multiplied the effects of a certain tech chip?

Both seem like good ideas. I'd love some more examples.

 

All sorts of fun combinations. I'm just going to let my imagination talk now

A wing set that glows when you have a Novakid's trademark hat? Shotgun that fires harpoon pellets when you wear a deep-sea diving chestpiece? A water walking tech giving you the ability to slip and slide across lava if you wear muddy shoes? They all sound pretty wacky and fun to work with.

 

I agree with Nababoo, that sounds really fun to mess with.

 

Just to throw out a suggestion, if there is any system akin to the "cosmetic equipment slots" in place, it might be effective to make it so that a character could derive a full-set bonus from those slots OR from their main equipment slot (though only one at a time, maybe). For instance, if a full set of Avian gear lets one fly, but you don't like the stats on the gear otherwise, you could equip the pieces as cosmetic items and derive the set bonus from it while still "using" your main gear. Conversely, if you like the look of other, procedural gear, you could wear THAT as cosmetic gear while using the Avian set as your main equipment and tell the game to derive the set bonus from your main slots.

Assuming, of course, that anything can be worn purely cosmetically in the first place.

 

When I think of armor 'sets', I can't help but think of World of Warcraft's tier armors. You can activate the bonus' from these tier armors by wearing either 2 or 4 pieces within a set (5 in total, usually, with the first bonus at 2 and the next at 4). This still allows for one piece to be different, and if you have substantially better gear then you can still at least benefit from having two pieces of a set if you like.

I don't really know how this will work in Starbound... whether it's an entire set that activates the bonus, or just two pieces that work together, or whatever have you (there's a head, chest, legs, and back slot, right?). I'm gunna go ahead and assume you'll need a full set here (not counting the back slot since it seems more like an 'extra' slot for fancy things like capes and jetpacks). We have vanity slots, so I'm not worried about not liking the look of a set, but I do see your point of having customization options... however, there's a few things to consider that might balance it out (based on what little we know):

1 - How difficult will it be to find set pieces? We know that some (if not all) sets can be crafted. How easy will it be to come by the blueprints for these pieces? 2 - If they're infrequent enough, then the generated armors will be great fill-ins until we're able to find and complete our sets. 3 - Tech may also be able to cover certain bases in regards to armor bonus', allowing us to wear other pieces. But we don't know much about tech yet... so this is only an assumption.

I personally like having sets, and sets will likely provide various bonus' depending on our needs for a situation (ex. warmth, flight, oxygen, etc). The in-between armors we find COULD be interesting, but... there's just something so clean about a 'set' to me.

Bottom line though we don't really know enough details yet, so it's hard for me to say what's better. I prefer sets though, if we're just talking opinions. As I said, as long as I can wear vanity items over them I don't much care.

 

Maybe for whatever bonuses the armor give you, you get a slight bonus bonus for wearing armor with matching bonuses?

Such as, torso armor gives you +5% energy regen, helmet gives you 2% energy regen and 2% health regen, and legs give you 5% health regen. Since they share bonuses, they give extra for each piece of armor with the same bonus... so you have 7% energy regen, plus 2% for having 2 parts of armor with that bonus for a total of 9% energy and 9% health...

I dunno, just a little idea I thought of.

 

could have category armor. for (rough) instance, you could have armor with a preset title of "guard" for the sake of argument. You find "Secure strapped -guard- armor." And it looks like a security guard helmet. "Roughshod -guard- helmet." Looks like a swat hat, but has "guard" as its armor category. "Avian -guard- pants" Looks like an avian racial armor but contains the word guard. All three pieces contain the same title, so you get a minor boost. Like a +1.5% total armor value. then you find another piece of armor. "Secure avian guard chest piece" this one has both guard, and avian. so you retain the 1.5% boost to armor value. But it possesses the "Avian" title as well. So you have two of those, each one adding + .5 to total speed. So now you have both +1.5% total armor value as a set bonus as well as a plus 1 to speed.

See what I'm saying? With procedural armor it would be easy to assign set bonuses. But we also have a "Cosmetics" or costume slot, don't we?

 

Hm... Yeah, it might be cool the get a bonus as long as you have 2/3 of the set. I presume the back slot doesn't count as part of the set because they seem to have more unique purposes than that, but I could be wrong. Some of the mock-ups do seem to suggest otherwise.

There is a sense of uniformity to wearing a complete set which is very nice, but it doesn't feel very fun to match most other players on the server. It's not very expressive, but I suppose you can always use vanity slots. I'm thinking of way back when Terraria had almost every player wearing Molten armor, then with 1.1 update everyone wore Hallowed even though there were different headpieces. While 1.2 added three totally different sets, one for each class, it still felt like every melee character looked super similar even when they used dyes (unless they covered it up with vanity items).

Also, if you have the ability to get extra jumps from a leg piece, for example, you might be able to save one of your tech chip slots for something else. This flexibility allow you to not only look unique, but also create a unique build that no other player on the server uses even though you both use the same style (like melee or whatever). I don't want to reach endgame or go into a PvP arena and notice that everyone uses the same standard equipment for that strategy.

Maybe in the end, procedural generated armor pieces will mostly end up being use in vanity slots, but I'd love to see both mixing pieces and matching sets as viable options.

 

Not to try and throw realism into a science fiction game, but having a specially crafted set of armor be better than some random pieces with good stats just makes a lot of sense.

I think would be a better solution would be to let people make their own sets of armor. Basically you would enter the stats/abilities the armor would have, and assuming its a valid combination it would tell you what resources it would take to craft it. Then after you give the resources, it'd spit out a procedurally generated sprite with the stats you specified.

 

I just had an interesting thought with respect to mix-and-matching armor...

This stems off a problem that used to exist in WoW in its early days, related to the mix-and-match armor that was rather common, especially when one was levelling or otherwise gearing up - players called it 'clown gear' because of the hideous colour clashes that could occur when you had nine visible pieces of armour on.

What if a certain piece of gear (for example the chestpiece or helmet) could determine the colour scheme of everything you wore? Ideally it'd be optional and the player would have the option of choosing which piece was the 'master' for determining what colour their kit was going to be.

I realize none of this has anything to do with set bonuses, but for me cosmetics is a big portion of choosing what to have a character wear, too. This would allow you to recolour some gear, in case you happen to like the model but not the colour scheme it came in.

 

Actually, Hellgate: London used this method as well. You could select a master gear which would color the entirety of your armor. and had a dye slot. (Just one) Which could be the "Master" color for the armor as well. It worked great, until you had to change that piece for the sake of better stats. Because then it was a pain in the arse to find another decently colored armor.

 

Hehe. I never knew that, Hellgate London bombed big time and I never really got a good look at it before it stopped being relevant.

 

It did, sadly. It deserved a lot more than it got. There's a F2P mmo out of it. But they've changed everything. It no longer feels like hellgate. Which upsets me greatly. The game was a "Love it or hate it" and I -loved- it. *Shrug* C'est la vie...

 

I think that items should have inherent Item Types, which each provide profile stats, and it is these shared types which should stack for many kinds of bonuses, rather than the item or item set itself. Sets themselves should determine the item visual appearance, source of discovery, and required crafting material types. But the actual bonus stacking should be done indirectly via the item's effects.

Effect-based bonus stacking:

Here are four items from two different imaginary sets (the Titanium Set and the Volcanic Set).

For simplicity, let's imagine that:

• Each set consists only of two items - Chest Plate and Leg Armor)
• The Titanum Set's profile stats are Blunt defense and Piercing defense
• The Volcanic Set's profile stats are Blunt defense and Electric defense.
• Both sets' "full set bonus" gives you an extra +5 defense to each of the set's profile stats.
• All stats stack additively with no caps or multipler ratios.

Let's assume the items have the following profile stats:

Titanium Chest Plate
+10 Blunt defense
+10 Piercing defense

Titanium Leg Armor
+5 Blunt defense
+5 Piercing defense

Volcanic Chest Plate
+10 Blunt defense
+10 Electric defense

Volcanic Leg Armor
+5 Blunt defense
+5 Piercing defense

Now let's analyze some set bonus examples:

Example 1: (Titanum Chest Place + Titanium Leg Armor)

Suppose you are wearing both items of the same set (let's say, the Titanum Set). The total stats would be straightforward (set bonuses in green):

+10 Blunt defense (Titanium Chest Plate)
+10 Piercing defense (Titanium Chest Plate)
+5 Blunt defense (Titanium Leg Armor)
+5 Piercing defense (Titanium Leg Armor)
+5 Blunt defense (Titanium Set bonus)
+5 Piercing defense (Titanium Set bonus)
= Total: 20 Blunt defense, 20 piercing defense)

So far everything is clear, this is normal set bonus behavior found in many games.

Example 2: (Titanium Chest Plate + Volcanic Leg Armor)

But let's assume you are wearing items from two different sets (let's say, the Titanium Chest Plate and the Volcanic Leg Armor). In a normal game where bonuses are only given for a full set, your total stats would be:

+10 Blunt defense (Titanium Chest Plate)
+10 Piercing defense (Titanium Chest Plate)
+5 Blunt defense (Volcanic Leg Armor)
+5 Electric defense (Volcanic Leg Armor)
= Total: 15 Blunt defense, 10 Piercing defense, 5 Electric defense)

In the above example, you would get no set bonuses because you are not wearing the same set.

Introducing Item Types:

What I propose is to calculate bonuses not based on the set, but based on the effects of the Item Type. The more items you wear which share a common type, the bigger the stacking bonus. An armor piece may belong to multiple types. For example:

Titanium Chest Plate
[Heavy Armor, Metallic]
+10 Blunt defense
+10 Piercing defense

Titanium Leg Armor
[Heavy Armor, Metallic]
+5 Blunt defense
+5 Piercing defense

Volcanic Chest Plate
[Heavy Armor, Rock]
+10 Blunt defense
+10 Electric defense

Volcanic Leg Armor
[Heavy Armor, Rock]
+5 Blunt defense
+5 Piercing defense

Then, when you hover your mouse over each of the types, you get the following tooltip:

Heavy Armor: +5 Blunt Defense set bonus (when hovering over [Heavy Armor])
Metallic Armor: +5 Piercing Defense set bonus (when hovering over [Metallic Armor])
Rock Armor: +5 Electric Defense set bonus (when hovering over [Rock Armor])

Since both Titanum Set and Volcanic Set are of type "Heavy Armor", they would both get the Blunt defense bonuses, but only the Titanum Set set would get Piercing defense because it is of "Metallic" type, and only Volcanic Set would get Electric defense becasue it is of "Rock" type.

Under this system, Example 1 above would behave as originally, but Example 2 would be revised:

Example 2 (REVISED): (Titanium Chest Plate + Volcanic Leg Armor)

+10 Blunt defense (Titanium Chest Plate)
+10 Piercing defense (Titanium Chest Plate)
+5 Blunt defense (Volcanic Leg Armor)
+5 Electric defense (Volcanic Leg Armor)
+5 Blunt defense (bonus based on shared [Heavy Armor] item type, despite the items being from different sets):
= Total: 20 Blunt defense, 10 Piercing defense, 5 Electric defense)

As you see since both sets share a common type which confers Blunt defense, the set bonus for only that stat has stacked, even though the sets are different. But the stats which have nothing to do with each other (namely, Piercing defense vs. Electric defense) did not stack across sets.

What does this mean?

This means that the more similar two sets are to each other, the more their bonuses would cross-apply. Wearing a completely different set mix (e.g. light cloth chest armor with heavy plate legs) would likely give no set bonuses, and justly so. But wearing two different kinds of armor generally slanted the same way would increasingly give you benefits that usually would require exactly the same set.

This has two major implications based on your game's progression:

• Early in the game, this allows you to mix-and-match item types based on what you happened to find. You no longer need to fully miss out on a set bonus once you progress past the set's original level and find a great item, which you otherwise wouldn't wear because it "breaks the set". This will give you more flexibility during progression, and more choices exploring different gear.

• Late in the game, once you are at full level and starting to go after hard end-game bosses, Item Types will allow you to tailor to a specific strategy. For example, let's say you are going after a Giant Electric Eel boss, which predominantly does Electric damage. You'd then focus on gathering items which give electric defense bonuses, such as the e.g. [Rock Armor], but otherwise would be fine with either [Light Armor] or [Heavy Armor], so you'd mix and match items/sets of both armor weight types, as long as they are [Rock Armor]. Conversely, if you are fighting a Flying Fist Smasher boss which predominantly does Blunt damage, you'd only care that you wear a [Heavy Armor] type giving Blunt defense, and avoid [Light Armor], but you'd be fine wearing either [Metallic Armor] or [Rock Armor] because you don't need either Electric or Piercing defense. This means more varied and interesting build choices when fighting bosses, rather than just always choosing the same old set over and over.

This also gives a chance for randomly generated items to have "set" stacking, even though they were randomly generated and thus not part of any proper "set". If you put together several randomly generated items with several types of stats being aligned, you'd get some set bonuses - the more similar the item stats to each other, the more "set" bonuses you'd get. Since random item generation is a huge part of Starbound, it'd be unfair to deny these items set bonuses compared to pre-scripted items.

Exceptions:

There can still be proper set-based bonuses if the bonus is unique in behavior rather than a simple stat bonus. For example, a Stealth set which makes you invisible and give an active ability to turn on and off, would require the whole set to work. So my suggestion doesn't invalidate the idea of unique sets giving unique abilities.

 

My idea, which I came up with after reading this thread, would be multi-faceted "sets.'

For example; we've almost all played games where "Paladins have to wear Holy armor" basically. If you wanted to be a tank, here was your one option. Or two options. I don't think Starbound should be like that. We already know items will have effects and stuff. But I predict it'll be a bit like Borderlands style.

In Borderlands, guns were generated procedurally, but had a bit of a guideline. Barrels, stocks, etc. My idea is a bit...different. It might be hard to grasp what I'm trying to convey, because I didn't spend as long thinking about it as I normally do for my ideas.

But what if what determines inherent bonuses in the game had a name? For example..."Stalwart Silver Helm of Vitality"

Stalwart: Chance to resist knockback.
Silver Helm: Silver tier stats.
Vitality: +HP bonus

Stalwart being a prefix, Vitality being a suffix, and Silver being the actual item. Now, imagine if a "set bonus" could be achieved if you mix and matched matching suffixes, prefixes, and tiers? Allow me to explain more...I hate playing games where a tank is duty bound to use this type of armor, or will heavily lose effectiveness as a tank. What I propose is for stacking effects, rather than items.

Having multiple "Stalwart" pieces would increase chance to resist knockback. Multiple Silver armor, of any prefix / suffix, would offer a small stat bonus that focuses on the stats that base silver armor has. Multiple "Vitality" suffixes stacked would give a larger HP boost. Granted, it wouldn't have to have prefixes / suffixes in the name, but they'd exist as a possible inherent bonus that would be given a codename indev. So when you hover over your item's stats, you might see "Stalwart, +10% knockback resistance." Stack with more stalwart gear, bonus gets bigger. 10% with 1 piece, 21% with 2, 33% with 3, 45% with 4, or whatever.

This would allow people to somewhat weigh in on inherent bonuses benefitting them more than simply "next tier armor automatically nullifies previous tier armor." It also might allow people to better customize their playstyle without feeling like they're being pigeonholed into using certain armor in order to maximize effectiveness. Is it complicated? A bit, yeah, but I think it might help out with the whole "Get dragon armor, throw out all platinum armor" syndrome. The last thing I'd like to see is everyone wearing the same exact end game armor with the same exact stats just because it's the "best." I'd very much like a multi-faceted set system.

I mean, in the above example, it's entirely possible to just get 4 pieces of "Stalwart Silver ______ of Vitality." But it's also not mandatory. People can mix and match by Prefix, Tier, Set, and Suffix. And then upgrade components, or other things.

My main fear in this game is funneling players into using the same gear just because it's "better" and "statistically efficient." When an item, character, or spell becomes so much better than others, that's all players use.

So to clarify, looking at the poll, I think my idea falls a bit between both of them. Set bonuses are nice, but they shouldn't be the penultimate defining quality of armor. It shouldn't be anything hugely major.

 

A combination of the two seems fun; some random pieces, some sets with bonuses. It gives some good variety in the game, especially with really interesting (and/or unusual) set bonuses.

And it especially makes sense in some cases, like you should expect to have to wear a full space suit or hazmat suit (for example) to get the full effect, plus it's nice to avoid the "clown effect" that's been mentioned with mix and match armour. But other times it's nice to be able to use what you want to get the bonuses you prefer, as long as it looks alright. I suppose there are ways to get around the "clown effect" though, and I assume for Starbound that will be vanity slots, so that might not end up being a problem anyway.

Forced to make the choice though.. Well, since my roots are in D&D, i'd have to go with mix and match (since set bonuses aren't something that really exist in D&D). I like to be able to go with what's best for the character, even if stuff is made from totally different things (again, as long as it doesn't look ridiculous and makes sense).

 

Why not both be able to mix them but if you have a complete set it would be a lot more powerful for it's supposed purpose?

Like hazmat pants, chest armor, and hazmat mask for example: 60% radioactive resistance + 40% armor
Then if you had the whole hazmat suit equipped: 100% radioactive resistance