Equipment combos -suggestion

[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.

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]

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]

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.

[PowerWyrm]

TomeNET gives a luck boost IIRC if you equip two or more randarts with the same name.