Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Crafter's Roundtable: Item Set Bonuses

    • 1785 posts
    June 26, 2018 7:30 AM PDT

    Hey everyone! As a new feature at Pantheon Crafters, every week, we're going to start at least one (sometimes more) roundtable discussions to find out what all of you, the Pantheon community, think of certain aspects or ideas.  We're calling these discussions Crafter's Roundtables.  The goal for these discussions is really just to see where we're at as a community, so we hope you'll take time to share your opinions!

    So, I've recently been playing a game that makes liberal use of item set bonuses, which isn't something I've been exposed to in a while. This got me to thinking: For Pantheon, would item set bonuses be a good thing or a bad thing? If the game has them, should they be relatively common or should they be rare? Should they be available on crafted items, once a certain level of mastery is reached? If so, how should they work?

    Would love to hear everyone's thoughts!  And if this sort of conversation is interesting to you, we encourage you to come join us at Pantheon Crafters for more like this :)


    This post was edited by Nephele at June 26, 2018 7:31 AM PDT
    • 60 posts
    June 26, 2018 8:38 AM PDT

    The devs mentioned they plan on some gear having set bonuses.  I think its important that set gear, especially set gear from raid and group content, not be 'worthless' before the set is acheived.

    It would be bad for the community if people are contesting/bidding/winning loot that they are 'banking' and may never use until the full set is achieved.

    Diablo3 isnt the same type of game, its not an mmo and majority a solo/'me first' game.. Diablo 3 system wouldnt work because once you have one set, you bank additional sets until you complete them or need them for specific occasions.  This is ok in a diablo type game in which loot drops are not shared.  Your not hording loot from anyone else in d3.  In a game with shared loot, like the classic mmo Pantheon wishes to be, sets have the potential to cause conflict.

    With that said, this issue is mostly avoided with crafted gear... perhaps only crafted gear should have set bonuses?? (so long as the crafted reagents are not from raid content??)


    This post was edited by Defector at June 26, 2018 8:39 AM PDT
    • 20 posts
    June 26, 2018 9:07 AM PDT

    I remember one of the HUGE issues in EQ 1 (which I guess really didn't hurt gameplay so much, but still!) was that there just wasn't any noobie gear for the longest time.

     

    They "solved" this with the defiant gear - ugh. Hate this system.  The level 1 noobie gear now has better stats than Plane of Hate drops, etc. Stupid. Fun to run around as a super powered noob, I guess.

     

     

    Anyway - my thoughts!

     

    1) Make crafted gear readily available to noobies. For instance, I'd love to be able to find a player who could craft my wizard some raw silk noobie gear (or whatever). Just make a little set bonus for these - maybe + 1 int for each new piece (or whatever the stats are going to be.)

      This would make crafted gear desirable enough that people actually want it, without making it super overpowered. It would also encourage people to buy the whole set ($$$ for crafters :)   )

     

    2) I think set bonuses should be relatively common, so that items that DO have them aren't the be-all-and-end-all of items. 

     

    3) Set bonuses also allow for creative gameplay from players. You really like ice magic? Equip the ice set! I'd rather have a game where equipment choice is a CHOICE, not a neccessity. Except in certain situations, of course. A fire breathing dragon requires fire resistance! 

     

    4) I think that player crafted gear should be really good stuff. A lot of games have terrible trash that is worse than drops, with only the VERY TOP tier of equipment worth anything at all. What's the point of crafting? So you can slave way forever making garbage, and then make one set of armor and that's it? Boring!

     

     

    ***Random idea: food makers could have "set bonuses" as well - like certain wines pairing well with certain cheeses. Silly, perhaps - fun? Absolutely :)

    • 168 posts
    June 26, 2018 4:42 PM PDT

    I am all for item set bonuses but not too common. Yes, they should be on crafted items as well as dropped loot. I might even go out and say that they should only be present on crafted gear. If crafted gear can get created at RNG determined quality levels such as was present in DAoC, then all you need to do is create a MP (perfect quality) item which has the ability to slot an item bonus. Anything other than perfect quality does not have the ability to slot an item set bonus. It is easy to say the only thing you need to do is craft an MP but for those that played DAoC, they know you could spend hundreds of hours just crafting 1 piece of gear until you got that MasterPiece.

  • June 26, 2018 6:07 PM PDT

    Yes! (with caveats).

    It adds a bit of depth to strategically choosing the best gear which sounds el-neato. But I would recommend keeping set bonuses relatively minor, with extraordinarily long cooldowns, be only situationally effective, or even purely cosmetic (fancy visual) in nature.

    Overall, part of the adventure, but not the goal. Feel free to elaborate, or even change my mind.

     

     

    • 1785 posts
    June 27, 2018 7:14 AM PDT

    Lyaelan said:

     

    ***Random idea: food makers could have "set bonuses" as well - like certain wines pairing well with certain cheeses. Silly, perhaps - fun? Absolutely :)

    LOL.  Love it.  That's super original :)

    • 432 posts
    June 27, 2018 10:58 AM PDT

    I think that set bonuses are an excellent idea because they trigger in everybody the collector instinct .

    You get randomly 2 pieces that you were not really after and suddenly you notice that if you have a full set, you will get a set bonus . And now you have a whole program for questing, adventuring and crafting to get all the other pieces that would not be there if the set bonus didn't exist . It is definitely a big added value to the enjoyment of the game . Sometimes the bonus doesn't even have to be stats but a change of the visuals . You go after the Truehart plate which looks like a plate . But when you have a full set, it starts to look like a shining armor with golden inlays . I liked for example the Armor of Ra set for pallys in EQ because it was plenty of questing and adventuring to get a full set . As for clickies effects (if they are in game) they should be for me exclusively part of full sets and never of some single piece what increases farther the desirability of collecting a full set .

    The problem I had with this in Lotro where there were several set bonuses possible was that it was badly designed . For example you got an improvement in some stats as set bonus but if you exchanged 1 piece for another you'd get a much better stat result than the set bonus and therefore people were rarely or never using full sets nor caring about getting them.


    This post was edited by Deadshade at June 27, 2018 11:02 AM PDT
    • 768 posts
    June 28, 2018 1:54 PM PDT

    Lyaelan said:

     

    ***Random idea: food makers could have "set bonuses" as well - like certain wines pairing well with certain cheeses. Silly, perhaps - fun? Absolutely :)

     

    I'ld like to go in depth a bit more there. How about provisioners, be that brewers or chefs... upgrade their goods by experimenting with adding spices/herbs or other ingredients.  And indeed discover such bonuses. For example; eating a lvl 10 brown loaf gives you +5 STA and +5 STR. The chef experiments with ingredients such as trials with raisins or sugar. On a succesful experiment he discovers a raisin brown loaf that gives + 7 STA and + 7 STR. From now on the chef has one main recipe being brown loaf and subrecipes being raisin brown loaf and other new derivatives. 

    Or perhaps a simpler version: food and drinks orginating from the same region in Terminus gives a certain buff that would be beneficial in that region. (frostbitten bread and iced ale would grant you a +5 frost mitigation). This would allow for unique recipes to discover and tradeskillers would have their ingame value increased by being able to provide such specific bonuses. Come to think of it, this could also work for other trades.

    When it comes to recipes; yes it is handy and easy to kill and loot a recipe. Spread the word and farm the npc's. It might be more fun to experiment and harvest rare resources in the world (nature or traveling npc's instead of foes or bosses). If one would come across a traveling merchant, he might sell a certain composite which can be dismantled/salvaged into something specific depending on the class of the tradeskiller who's doing the salvaging. This in turn could lead to unlocking a Set of craftable items. Of course different molds/composites would be sold by different npc's spread across the world. These npc's might only appear when certain situation/events in the world are occuring. 

    Since this is the crafting section, my focus is to make this Set thing as best of an experience for the tradeskillers, not per se for the adventurers. For me it makes sense that adventurers could find Set recipes or Set gear from a boss Frost Giant that might have a Frost mitigation cloak for example or the secret Frost mitigation recipe of his tribe hidden in the chest he's sitting on.

    I'm a nut for finding and completing sets of gear or furniture myself. So I'm all for it. But keep it within Lore boundaries and keep it logic with some sense of uniqueness. A Set is something worth putting your time in and strudding with it when you have. 

    For those thinking; what could a scribe/scholar be of use when it comes to sets... well he might be able to desipher/interpret looted recipes or experimental scribblings of a tailor and transform them into a decent scribable recipe for that certain tradeskiller. They could be the go to guy when a tradeskiller has succesfully constructed an item that a scribe might help them with... (or something in those lines of story)


    This post was edited by Barin999 at June 28, 2018 1:56 PM PDT
    • 1120 posts
    June 29, 2018 6:34 AM PDT

    I think set bonuses are important.   They will make gear upgrading a more in depth process.  And make older content more important. 

    Should I break this set bonus for a few extra stats?!