Equipment sets

[OOD Town drunk]

I think it would be interesting if there were pieces of equipment that could be worn in sets, offering bonuses with complete sets, as in diablo. A full set of iron armor may be reflective, offering defense against light. And maybe there is an artifact ring that reacts with an artifact sword and (endless options)

There could be simple ones with simple benefits, and more difficult ones requiring patience and luck.

This maybe extreme enough to be more in the variants category, but it may fit nicely here in v4

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Oangband has equipment sets, IIRC.

[fph]

Traditionally it's been more variant territory. Actually Vanilla has a problem in the opposite direction: with standard artifacts, most endgame kits tend to look all the same. This is why you'll hear people mentioning that there is often a rElec hole in the "standard kits", sometimes, here around on the forum.

It would be better to have more variability in what people actually wear, and having fixed rigid sets does not go in this direction.

[Derakon]

I agree with fph. I'd rather see players have more choices in terms of what they wear instead of fewer. With sets, once you assemble a set of gear there are significant barriers to switching away any given piece of gear in the set, since you lose not just that item's abilities but also the set bonuses.

[Philip]

It depends on the size of the set, the bonuses conferred and the rarity of the items. I've never heard of a set being used in O particularly longterm, or into the endgame. They are largely useless, as the benefits are weak, the set items are weak and rarely are both found early enough. I only use them when both artifacts are the best I have, and that is rare.

[Nick]

At least one of the FA sets is endgame quality, but rare enough to be interesting.

[AnonymousHero]

The reason that sets sort-of work in Diablo is pretty simple: It's a combination of a) muling makes it possible to collect sets pretty effectively, and b) the more parts of a set you wear the more powerful it becomes, i.e. the bonuses increase gradually and roughly exponentially(*).

Even though some of the sets were good, there was almost always some combination of unique/runeword equipment which would outdo it, but it would almost always require insane luck (or extreme bartering effort) to obtain those uniques/runewords.

As much as I liked it and wish it applied to *band, the usefulness of the "set" concept in D2 rests crucially on muling/trading which isn't available in *band. Without that, sets will either be 1) very powerful, but too rare to realistically put together, or 2) will have to be so low-power that they aren't really worth using (to avoid the "no-brainer" situation where everyone will be using them all the time).

(*) This only really applies to some of the exceptional/elite sets like the Tal Rasha or Immortal King sets -- the sets from before LoD were quite underpowered unless you were twinking (power-leveling by giving a low-level character a set). The use of parts of Sigon's set + Raven Claw (unique weapon) + high-level Enchantment by an "accomplice" was a particular favorite of mine for ridiculous power-leveling. Anyway...

[AnonymousHero]

At least one of the FA sets is endgame quality, but rare enough to be interesting.

I'm guessing Vinyamar... If not, which set are you thinking of?

[Nick]

I'm guessing Vinyamar... If not, which set are you thinking of?

Yep, correct.

[JohnCW9]

I think it would be interesting if there were pieces of equipment that could be worn in sets, offering bonuses with complete sets, as in diablo. A full set of iron armor may be reflective, offering defense against light. And maybe there is an artifact ring that reacts with an artifact sword and (endless options)

There could be simple ones with simple benefits, and more difficult ones requiring patience and luck.

This maybe extreme enough to be more in the variants category, but it may fit nicely here in v4

I haven't played v4 but do play TOME variants which has equipment sets and benefits can be such auto-id of items as you "pass" over them. Some of the sets benfit certain classes more than others.