Set Bonuses Vs. Customization

This is what I was saying above, but you definitely put more effort into it and explained it much better. Kudos!

 

The main reason I'm against set items in general is you run into the issue of having a set bonus that's so good, you're unwilling to change your armor. The stats on new armor you find may be better than those on your set pieces, but if the set pieces have an amazing bonus, why would you bother upgrading? I just want to avoid the issue of feeling locked-in to a specific set because the bonus is too powerful.

I think your idea of having matching stats that give bonuses is a really good one. It would reward you for mixing and matching similar gear, but would preclude you from feeling as if you can't upgrade because you'd lose the nice bonus you have.

 

Here's my idea I came up with by reading your posts.
Now, I don't even know if there are procedurally generated armors neither if those are generated in sets, but whatever. Let me ask help to color wheels google image search:


What I mean? Let's say when an armor piece generates it gets different factors .
So the wheel would have defense and energy on the "extremities" and neutral buffs at the center. When two armor pieces are worn together, if they have factors close on the wheel, those factors get bonuses.
There may be strong or weak factors depending on how much buff they give. If an armor set has all pieces with the same strong factor it gets relevant buffs, like say an armor centered on movement could get 50% less energy cost from mobility techs and mods and so on.
Speaking of mods. I was thinking of something like mods add factors to the armor, but that's just a plain power up and all mods have downsides. So here's what I was thinking: mods may strengthen a factor and weaken others.
This way you get an intuitive system based on color and icons and is not that much broken.
Think of the possibilities.

edit: deleted the most misleading "already" ever

 

To add to your first paragraph, then often in games(like WoW), I've had to store way too many armor almost-sets, simply because if I got their full set, it would be better, but if I had that 1 piece missing, they wouldn't be as good as the one I was wearing.

 

They need to come up with individual pieces that are not part of any set, that are powerful enough on their own to compensate the fact that you dont have any set bonuses, and also when you are fully equipped, and as long as each piece belongs to the same tier, you would get 33% of each set bonus from each item if they are part of a set.

Health Helmet
Health Chest Armor
Health Boots
Give 60hp bonus with full set

Damage Helmet
Damage Chest Armor
Damage Boots
12% Increased Damage with full set

Movement Helmet
Movement Chest Armor
Movement Boots
Give 15% increased Movement Speed


If you are wearing
Health Helmet
Damage Chest Armor
Movement Boots
If they are part of the same tier, they give 20 Hp, 4% Increased Damage, 5% Movement Speed, this could be slightly diminished by 10-20%.

 

Hoarding gear for ages because set bonuses made having single pieces pointless really annoyed the crap out of me, too. :/

 

I just want to be able to rename weapons. After all, weapons are named for the great things they accomplish with their wielders. Not from the get go though, maybe finding an item to let you rename it.

 

Read the first post guys.

 

I did read the first post. People like you need to stop assuming because all I said was that I wanted to be able to rename weapons. That's all I want and need, the point I was getting across. I don't mind anything else, I'm just supporting being able to rename weapons.

 

How's that got anything to do with set bonuses?

 

I never said it was. I'm saying I only support being able to rename weapons. I don't have to agree with the entire first post.

 

Use Torchlight 2 as a model. If you wear a piece of set armor, you get a small bonus from the set. The more pieces you have, the bigger the bonus.
Example:
1 Armor Piece: 2% more damage
2 Armor Pieces: 6% more damage
3 Armor Pieces: 8% more damage
Full Set: 10% more damage, immunity to lava

 

The advantage of this system (you both described the same idea) is that it rewards players for sticking to a theme and discourages them from trying to be good at everything at once, but also allows them to mix and match with a little more flexibility. It's a very good compromise, I think. My only criticism is that procedural generated armors might have access to effects/abilities not found on typical sets of armor at all, and likely aren't made out of specific ores. It's hard to say for sure without knowing how procedural generated armors are actually different from the typical set, so that may or may not be an issue.

If I understand you correctly, you're describing the status quo-- the way things are already done in many other games.

If each piece of the set provides 20% radioactive resistance, then all three pieces would equal 60% resistance and then provide a bonus 40% to reach 100%. However, each piece has fairly low defense, so replacing the helmet with something very bulky in defense stats might result in roughly 40% higher defense, but would cost 60% of your radioactive resistance. This would all be without any changes to the norm.

However, it seems like you might be saying that you'd actually get a 40% bonus to armor just for mixing and matching, which is applied to the total defense of each piece you are wearing even though they are not a set. I'm not entirely sure.

This is exactly what I don't like. The way the capstone is so much more useful than the earlier bonuses. That immunity to lava seems way more attractive than small damage boosts, so who would give that up just to wear another helmet or whatever that only gives a tiny benefit? Now, if the earlier bonuses were larger and the later bonuses were smaller, you'd still get increasing specialization and effectiveness by matching but mixing would still be viable.

For example, maybe it should be more like this:
1 piece = you don't get a bonus if you don't match, just the basic benefits of that piece.
2 pieces = +15% melee damage (+15% increase over having only one piece)
3 pieces = +25% melee damage (+10% increase over having two pieces)
4 pieces = +30% melee damage (+5% increase over having three pieces)

Basically you'd have diminishing returns for matching, but you also become more and more specialized. In virtually any game, being good at lots of things means you aren't very good at any of them, and the obvious optimization is to go 100% for one strategy. However, it would be nice if hybrid strategies was still a viable option that could compete with pure strategies.

While it makes sense to only have 100% protection vs. lava or radiation or whatever if you have the whole set, it heavily limits your options for mixing pieces for obvious reasons. I don't want to have only one viable armor configuration when I'm going down to a highly radioactive planet.

 

My thoughts

 

And still, it would only work with pre-made armor sets. Unless the generator goes like "Melee damage set" and generates the same-ish benefits for different pieces.

 

This is kinda what I'm saying:

Hazmat Mask
50% Radioactive Resistance
Hazmat Top
25% Radioactive Resistance
Hazmat Bottom
25% Radioactive Resistance

When you have the complete set equipped it would give you 100% Radioactive Resistance. Meaning you would take no radioactive damage. But if you mixed it up to something like this:

Hazmat Mask
50% Radioactive Resistance
Bulletproof Vest
25% Armor
Hazmat Bottom
25% Radioactive Resistance

Then you would have only 75% Radioactive Resistance, so you would take 25% radioactive damage per tick/hit. But in exchange for that you would have 25% more armor.

I think it would also be cool if you could add different stats to different equipment and weapons, so you wouldn't have to only have Radioactive Resistance on your hazmat suit, it could have more stuff, like elemental resistance, armor, knockback, energy, etc.

Edit:
Whoops, forgot to mention that, there could be equipment with higher armor than 25%, so in place of 25% it could be like 50% or lower etc, depends on the equipment basically. So you mix and match how you like basically, that was my point.

 

I updated my original reply with a section about Armor Types which makes these set bonuses more explicit. All items would have one or more types - both set and non-set items. Armor types would be based on the inherent properties/nature of the item, and you could have several types describing the various aspects of the item, such as its composition or weight (e.g. Heavy Armor vs Light Armor, and Rock Armor vs Metallic Armor).

Stats and stat bonuses would be derived from the item types.

 

You should post this in suggestions! I feel like it would get some proper attention there now that the polls are clearly showing that people agree with you.

 

i want to be able to look cool without being able to be one hit killed, that was pretty much my problem with skyrim

 

Two words.
Vanity. Clothing.

Goodbye, thread.