So, I'm curious as to what types of gear bonuses people like in a game.

 

I, personally, am fond of the way Dungeons and Dragons Online does it. There are TONS of different types of bonuses, some completely unique to certain items. (I mean TONS.) The bonuses individually can be pretty large--30% increase to damage for a single bonus, for instance--but they have strict stacking rules so there's a hard limit on how high you can get those bonuses. (That, and special items that DO stack are at a premium.) The benefits from the magic on the gear are usually way, way more important than the item of gear itself--especially since, say, non-magical gloves don't do ANYTHING in DDO.

 

I won't say this is the best system, but I'm curious about how people prefer it. Would you like to have fewer types of bonuses, without the unique (and sometimes bizarre or OP if you put them with other specific items) bonuses, or a huge, mega, crazy long list? Would you like to have big bonuses that (mostly) don't stack, or little ones that do? (Big bonuses that stack tend to get REALLY ABSURD, and little bonuses that don't stack are like, WHY.) Would you rather have the vast majority of the benefit of the item come from the basic underlying item, or from the magic on that item? Granted, this mostly applies to weapons and armor.

While I appreciate phat loot, I really do not want the game to be burdened by excessive itemization and then become gear-based. I get enough of that in MMOs--where, sure, you can trait/whatever your toon a certain way, but ultimately the gear you wear multiplies your power and you can't participate in content comfortably without all that stuff that dropped from whatever boss in that other instance blah blah.

 

There were rare pieces of high-quality loot in the old IE games but the paper dolls were fairly limited. TNO had, what, a few tattoo slots and a weapon slot, an eyeball slot, and a ring slot or two. BG had boots, 'main body', 2 rings, necklace, cape, head, weapon. D&D effects being +# or something on each piece--I'm not sure I want to see that. If the item mechanics in PE are more fluid than D&D, we could see some great creativity and individuality in the stuff we get and wear, whether or not there's a limited form of crafting (or basically have someone else do it for us, like a smith or enchanter). I find numerical bonuses a bit boring, but that would be the easiest to implement. I haven't played DDO, but from your description, I would hate for EVERYTHING to be magical to be useful. MMO mechanics really do not belong in a SP, either.

 

Practically speaking, I'm waiting to hear from Obsidian what they have in mind as a base structure for that gear itemization. Personally, I secretly hope that all the gear is mundane but useful at base level with ability to continuously upgrade your favorite pieces (like enchanting a family heirloom piece or attaching that awesome gem you got from killing the boss gronk). And most importantly, all of that should be reasonably attached to the 'soul' idea since that underlies PE.

With itemization where most things don't stack, then we would also need an advanced UI to figure out what we have and what we have too much of in a more comprehensive manner than looking over every single piece over and over again.

 

Trying to figure out if an item would be better than what you already have can already be a troublesome affair. Having to consider stacking is even more troublesome if there's no fast and easy way to see all your current bonuses.

 

The middle option; many or few different kinds of bonuses, would entirely depend on the system. We obviously don't want too many or make it too complicated to the point where we have lots of bonuses we don't really understand or have the slightest ability to compare to other types of bonuses.

Example:

Comparing the usefulness of +HP to +Mana is usually easy, but comparing +'weapon speed' to +'weapon damage' will need those factors and connected calculations to be visible in the interface.

I want enchantment and abiltiies to be well-crafted. Not just a flat + bonus. That can work on some items.

 

Make an ability that works like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB7i5ZIoy-4 (11:15 onward)

 

and then we can talk

Trying to figure out if an item would be better than what you already have can already be a troublesome affair. Having to consider stacking is even more troublesome if there's no fast and easy way to see all your current bonuses.

 

Actually, having large bonuses that don't stack make this a lot easier. Are you wearing a strength item? Yes. What's the plus on it? +6. Well, this one is +7. Will I do more damage if I take off the +6 item and put on the +7 item? Yes. It's a very simple comparison.

 

Or, you can have something like this: All right, I have 4 items that add to strength. One is +2, one is +1, this one is +3, this one is +18%. Here's a new item that has +2 strength on it, but I'll have to take off this other item I have which is +7% crit. Will I do more damage overall with this setup or that setup?

 

In DDO the stacking bonuses are generally both small and obvious. So, worst-case-scenario, you'll have a +8 strength item, a +1 exceptional strength item, and a +3 insightful strength item. It's REALLY straighforward, the only difficulty is finding places where you can slot all 3 of those bonuses when you also want +threat generation and heavy fortification and +intimidate and deathblock and +dex and +con and +hp and +resistance and +armor and . . . you get the idea. But figuring out WHICH bonuses you have is really easy.

Trying to figure out if an item would be better than what you already have can already be a troublesome affair. Having to consider stacking is even more troublesome if there's no fast and easy way to see all your current bonuses.

 

Actually, having large bonuses that don't stack make this a lot easier. Are you wearing a strength item? Yes. What's the plus on it? +6. Well, this one is +7. Will I do more damage if I take off the +6 item and put on the +7 item? Yes. It's a very simple comparison.

That works OKish under the presumption that most items only add one or two bonuses.

With a wide spread and lots of bonuses comparing gets slower if you have to do everything manually.

 

(...) But figuring out WHICH bonuses you have is really easy.

Easy as in anyonone can do it; yes. But easy as in quick to do and easy to read, still requires proper UI elements.

In most newer UIs you can get popups of all the items on your screen, but you will also have a lot of useless information (in regards to doing the task we're talking about) along with it and you have to manually cross-reference things.

The K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid!) method for itemization is my favorite.

Make bonuses unique and easily understandable.

No stacking bonuses.

Very limited number of bonuses on any 1 item.

Most items should have built in advantages/disadvantages before any magic is applied.

yadda yadda yadda...

It would be nice to have a magic item system that makes some economic sense. D&D doesn't really. Why would a small town merchant in a high level campaign ever be selling a +5 longsword of dancing, for example? None of the locals should ever be able to afford it, and if the merchant did manage to sell it off (without being robbed), he should be able to retire.