Set Bonuses Vs. Customization

Twenty words.
Thread. Actually. Talks. About. Stat. Customization. And. Not. Just. Visual. Customization. So. Next. Time. Please. Read. Thread. Before. Replying. Thanks.

Hello again, thread. I missed you during your brief absence.

 

in that case, i support mixing. maybe there should be a slight bonus for a set, for example:
noob armor helmet: +5 health
noob armor chestplate: +10 health
noob armor legs: +5 health
noob armor set: +3 health

 

This thread has been mainly to get ideas and spark discussion.

I haven't really decided on a single best solution, so I can't really suggest one over the others.

If any of the devs see this thread, I'm sure they'll think of some really good ideas on their own, so I'm not very motivated.

 

I'll see if I can develop and organize my reply around Item Types a bit more, and post it as a suggestion. Thanks for feedback everyone.

 

I think it'd be neat to have a few branches of clothing that provide bonuses as said before. But how 'bout individual pieces provide a small bonus, and using them in tandem would give you the full bonus. Best of both worlds, basically, right? Realistically, if I wear a pair of jeans and a chestplate of some sort, besides most likely having a lot of trouble moving, that chestplate is gonna give me protection if I get hit by a rock or something. I feel set bonuses don't make any sense whatsoever... Balance, maybe? I dunno, it just seems like it'd be really easy to just make each piece of armor have different bonuses. Maybe casual/vanity clothing could be a legit thing to wear in combat, maybe get a bit more storage room, and more energy than even light armor, but at the cost of extremely low protection. Maybe just have a normal shirt and some light but protective pants of some sort for a good combination.

 

Is it me, or did it just get WoW'y in here?

Jokes aside I think these are really cool ideas

 

I'm a sucker for sets; mixing armor has almost always been a big no-no for me, unless the color palettes were nearly identical.

It's all about that color palette, man.

That said, weren't they planning to have vanity slots on our characters? I can't even remember at this point.

 

Your example made me see things in a different light.
If you had jeans and a chestplate, then you wouldn't be all that protected. Enemies would aim everywhere but the chestplate, unless they have something to pierce through it. Or, for example, if you had a helmet, gloves, greaves and wrist-protections, then the enemies won't give a crap, because your chest is all open and that is where they will focus their attacks. But if you had a chestplate along with the other parts, the defense will rise to approximately 300%, which makes sets make sense a bit.
But in another sense, if you had light armor chestplate and heavy armor everything else, then the chest would be less protected, but protected nonetheless.
Or, if the game developers wanna go hardcore, then they could add something Morrowind had - you can put robes over your armor. That way the enemies would have no idea what are you have protected, unless they have hit there before. Then at first you'd have more defense, but the more you fight, the closer it gets to the real defense you have due to some armor pieces being less effective than others.
When talking about stats, then I never understood how sets could give you bonuses on stats. If some gloves give you more strength, due to them being smithed in a way that would cause your hand less pain and the target more pain, then how could you get even stronger if you wore boots made by the same technique? That makes no sense. Though it would make a bit sense if your punches did get stronger by a boot that would have stronger grip on the ground, but that would mean that the kicks aren't that powerful. Using logic, you would need way more stats and attributes for every piece of armor/clothing and that would be quite bothersome to both the developers and the casual players, who don't bother mix-matching different pieces to get the maximum profit and end up with a bad set, because they didn't calculate how certain properties work against eachother.
Like, for example, a heavy chestplate would make your movement slower and punches a bit slower as well, while a light chestplate would make you an easy target for creatures that height or enemy sharpshooters. Or using full heavy encumbering armor for a flashy gun-shooter, just because it had more defense and didn't count the slowing factor, causing them to be a standing target who isn't as effective in close range.
I could bring hundreds of examples, but I hope that these few made it clear what I was thinking. At some points set bonuses make sense, but at others, they make none.

 

Yes, and they also said we'll be able to customize the colors of the armor using dyes. Yay!

Well, against a human opponent that might makes sense, but you could just keep your guard up and make it really hard to hit the torso. Most martial arts are based entirely around not letting your opponent hit your head or body, and grappling martial arts are designed to exploit that tendency to protect yourself with your arms.

But animals almost always go for the closest limb or the neck.

Vanity slots are already in the game. You can even wear other armor over your armor.

The best part is that you can even look naked while wearing armor.

Realism is lame. The developers should decide based on what makes the game most fun.

 

Yes please. Put this on the front page.

 

Yeah I didn't mean actually affecting the AI, just that if a friend jokingly threw a rock at the chestplate, it'd protect ya. I see what you're saying, but I am still somewhat against set bonuses... If it affects the AI, that's alright in my opinion, but if it's at the point where you get stat bonuses from wearing the set it's weird to me. I don't feel that strongly for either point really, I'm fine either way but I prefer customization.

 

For me, set bonuses don't make sense in a technological world. In a magical world, they would, because, hey, MAGIC. If there were just pieces of it, it could give you the remains of the magical effects, but wearing the full set activates the full effect of the magical enchantment.

 

No kidding.

Heck, in a non-magical world, it doesn't even makes sense for armor pieces to give damage reduction vs all attacks. Like, how does wearing a helmet protect you at all if the attack doesn't hit you in the head? Defense, Health, and even Attack "points" are an invention of videogames intended to simplify the combat mechanics. I wouldn't want to play a game that actually tries to simulate realistic combat too much.

At least in a magical world you can hand wave it or say "a wizard did it".

 

Projected fields, or sheilds, as seen in several sci-fi settings could get you a similar effect to that helmet. Or nanobots that repair your damaged tissue for health regeneration. Cortex stimulators to increase your speed. Maybe they have partial circuitry printed on the helmet, which combined with a similarly partial circuit printed onto a vest via a link, it would add another effect.

EDIT - This was just an explanation of how things could work in a way similar to magic in a world without magic but incredibly high technology.

 

But not all items in Starbound are going to be high-tech, so why bother?

We should just accept that this is a game, and have fun.

I don't have a problem with using science to explain magic-like abilities, but I don't see the point in going to extreme measures to explain things like why the player can jump as high as his own height, run for hours without rest, wield weapons that are larger than his own body, or wear armor on one part of his body to protect the rest of his body. These aren't just magic-like abilities, they're natural elements of the game design itself.

Thanks for giving a few ideas for it, though.

 

I just hope that there is a balance in the quality of the items that are not part of any set so we are not forced to use armor sets at all the time because they are just more powerful than individual armor parts.

 

I agree, and that's especially crucial in a game that's going to offer so many random variations when it comes to gear. While I enjoy working toward and putting together special sets, I don't like the idea of regular drops becoming mostly vendor trash.

 

I'm a symmetry freak so mismatching sets make me crazy but I would prefer to see some customization.

Though I think it will be better with there were set bonuses but not to set but rather through type of armor. Like any armor that raises jump height is stacked with another with the same bonus albeit from different set.

 

All the more reason for set bonuses to be "derived" on the fly based on some common properties, rather than be limited to an enumerated set.

If it would "make sense" to a human that a certain item combo should "work well" with each other, the game would ideally recognize it as well. For example, as mentioned in one of the earlier posts here, it should be a no-brainer that wearing a full hazmat suite should give you greater bonuses than the sum of individual pieces if you only wear one but not the other (because what's the point of wearing half a suit if acid/radiation will just creep up the other half?) However, it should be OK wearing hazmat pants from set A and hazmat helmet from set B, as long as they are reasonably similar - and the more similar they are, the bigger the bonus should be.

An alternative take is to have certain type of bonuses be "percent-reductive". That means that each set would reduce damage taken by a percentage (rather than raw amount), and this percentage reduction would stack additively (rather than multiplied). That means that each item you wear would get your percentage closer and closer to (or even reaching) 100% resistance, at which point you take no damage at all, making wearing a combo of such items much more powerful.

 

How about we have armor set bonuses for full sets, but you can also find mash ups that give set bonuses. That means there is a level of experimentation and trying to find what goes well with others.

Edit: Here's an example.

Space Suit Helmet: Gives the ability to breathe in harsh environments
Hazmat Top: 33% radiation protection
Hazmat Bottoms: 33% radiation protection

Set Bonus: 50% lava protection