Equipment combos -suggestion

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by AnonymousHero

when have you ever found your third piece of any set in D2 without twinking (&c)?

I had one time when I managed to assemble a particular low-level set ("Arctic Furs" or something?) before the end of Act 2. It gave the "cannot be frozen" ability and I was so psyched to fight Duriel and not have to deal with his stupid freezing aura.

Then I discovered that the freezing aura overcomes the "cannot be frozen" ability. What the hell, Blizzard.

But yeah, aside from that, I played D2 pretty much all through college and I don't think I ever found more than two pieces of a set when it was level-appropriate. But D2 had major drop rate issues; the game was not calibrated for singleplayer.

[Pete Mack]

So Radagast. I'm not really sure why he's in there (or why other "good" creatures are.) But as long as they are, there's an opportunity: if you kill one, you start taking double damage from enemy Orb of Draining. This either persists for the rest of the game, or at least until you kill one or more "evil" uniques.

[fph]

A big drawback of item sets is that they reduce a lot the endgame kit variability, so they make replaying the game more boring and repetitive. I's like the "everyone is using Thorin in the endgame" problem, but three times larger.

[AnonymousHero]

Originally Posted by Derakon

I had one time when I managed to assemble a particular low-level set ("Arctic Furs" or something?) before the end of Act 2. It gave the "cannot be frozen" ability and I was so psyched to fight Duriel and not have to deal with his stupid freezing aura.

Then I discovered that the freezing aura overcomes the "cannot be frozen" ability. What the hell, Blizzard.

Ah, yes. Classic WTF moment, right? I think their design team may have been optimizing for different things, but that was just one of those what-were-they-doing moments. "Aha! You've found a way to make $BOSS less dangerous. Well, F*** you, we'll just make him immune to that!"

Originally Posted by Derakon

But yeah, aside from that, I played D2 pretty much all through college and I don't think I ever found more than two pieces of a set when it was level-appropriate. But D2 had major drop rate issues; the game was not calibrated for singleplayer.

That's true, but I tend to think that calibrating drop rates in the presence of sets gets... difficult.

[Carnivean]

Originally Posted by AnonymousHero

I tend to think that calibrating drop rates in the presence of sets gets... difficult.

Risk/reward: Players have to kill dangerous uniques to get sets, but getting a full set might be worth it? After all, kill Morgoth get Grond and Crown.

[Estie]

There was an item combo in the game not so long ago: when elemental rings used to brand. I liked it very much and dont know why it got removed.

The issue in tome with the Thanc-set wasnt the triple wielding; you could posses a Marillith to get that. But using 3 Thancs had like a 99% chance for at least one of them picking up the dungeon-wrecking flag (or worse). The implementation was: go to great length to get&make use of a set, then have a 1% chance of it actually being useful, a 98% chance of it becoming useless, and a 1% chance of it destroying your career. I played a lot of tome, but naturally never used that set.

As for randart artifact sets:
The simplest way would be to determine a (random) number of sets at the start; then assign random powers that are granted when combinations of set items are equipped. While that isnt likely to be thematic in any way, shape or form, thats a different problem already present in current randarts. If ever those get a thematic upgrade, so would the sets.

[Bowman]

But yeah, aside from that, I played D2 pretty much all through college and I don't think I ever found more than two pieces of a set when it was level-appropriate. But D2 had major drop rate issues; the game was not calibrated for singleplayer.

The other problem aside from rarity was that most of the D2 set items were pretty bad, with or without the set bonus effects. I think I only really used cleglaw's gloves (for ranged builds where the knockback+slow was useful) and tal rasha's mask (for life/mana leech + 15% resists). The full cleglaw's set was actually decent for its level, but as you said, good luck getting all of the parts while they're still relevant.

If there's a way to make it work with randarts, it'd be an interesting thing to try, but I think thing that AnonymousHero's idea about ego syngeries sounds more interesting, since it could give more opportunity for ego items (aside from MoD of extra attacks, lantern of true sight, amulet of trickery, boots of speed/elvenkind, robe of permanence, shield of preservation/elvenkind, and DSM of speed/elvenkin...probably missed a few others but you get the idea) to compete with artifacts for endgame gear.

[Pete Mack]

It was too powerful. Even with weak brand, Glaive of Pain became too powerful, as did big +2 attacks weapons. With Ring of Acid, you could take down Sauron much too easily.

Originally Posted by Estie

There was an item combo in the game not so long ago: when elemental rings used to brand. I liked it very much and dont know why it got removed.

[AnonymousHero]

Originally Posted by Estie

The issue in tome with the Thanc-set wasnt the triple wielding; you could posses a Marillith to get that. But using 3 Thancs had like a 99% chance for at least [...]

AFAIUI it's even worse than that. AFAIR you don't actually get all 3 attacks. (You do get off-hand bonuses.)

There were patches in Furyband to fix this, but I don't think I ever incorporated them into "mainline" T2.

[Estie]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

It was too powerful. Even with weak brand, Glaive of Pain became too powerful, as did big +2 attacks weapons. With Ring of Acid, you could take down Sauron much too easily.

It seems to me that the game designer should pick the mechanic first and then balance around it; not judge ideas based on a given balance. The mechanics make or break a (single player) game, never the balance.

In the past years, Vanilla has undergone a rollercoaster ride through difficulties, vastly more impactful than the branding ring change. It is my impression that the difficulty had little effect on how enjoyable a given version was. And whether the Sauron fight takes 10 or 15 rounds has very little impact compared to some other things that got changed.