Why are you devs so in love with set bonuses?

[Certon]

You seem to be doing all you can to make them relevant. We didn't like them.

So, now you're going to make everything worse so that people will use set bonuses to make up for the loss?

Cookie cutter characters. Bad idea.

I am so disappointed in you.

[Arkat]

You seem to be doing all you can to make them relevant. We didn't like them.

Speak for yourself. I like them.

Sure, some sets seem to be almost mandatory for certain playstyles, but they also offer some good gear slotting challenges for the non-set slots.

It's even rougher, but still possible, when trying to slot multiple sets.

I do like the idea of increasing the number of items to get the new set bonuses from 3 pieces to 5 pieces.

[Stravix]

Speak for yourself. I like them.

Sure, some sets seem to be almost mandatory for certain playstyles, but they also offer some good gear slotting challenges for the non-set slots.

It's even rougher, but still possible, when trying to slot multiple sets.

I do like the idea of increasing the number of items to get the new set bonuses from 3 pieces to 5 pieces.

Yup, incremental sets have been good, or, at least sets with more pieces than the smallest bonus.

That way you can build it in fun ways.

[droid327]

I don't think it'snecessarily deleterious to the game to have a degree of prescription to gearing - the Tetris can get even more pronounced when it's just a total free for all. Having an artifact and a set as your "givens" has allowed for more creative freedom to fill in around them.

I just wish the set augments weren't so gated behind raid mechanics, because that would give another degree of freedom to gearing.

[Memnir]

Why are you devs so in love with set bonuses?

Because it's been an oft requested aspect of loot by a persistent part of the player base. I'd say that for every one player who hates set bonuses, there is another player who is quite pleased to see them.


As with all things: YMMV.

[WiseFreelancer]

I like set bonuses in general. I think much of the gripes in recent times have been about the lack of choice in set bonuses, but the big squish and the smaller sets this update change that considerably.

And I really don't see a bait and switch on set bonus power - none of the power in new set bonuses is new, its all available in previous ones. So the new sets wont change the overall balance of power with the squish?

[Gniewomir]

It's pretty simple. First major sets update was ravenloft and they did it to make sure they'll be able to sell raven to more players. Then Sharn appeared and if there would be no better sets in sharn, then some people would find raven competitive and wouldn't buy pay for sharn asap. At this point it's vicious circle: with so many sets around it would be hard to sell pack/expansions without any set bonuses, so ssg is forced by their previous actions to add new ones, cause either they add new set or they make new items more powerful than old ones (old ones with set bonuses included) and it would create another vicious circle: power creep one.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

We didn't like them.

"WE are the borg. Resistance is futile. We'll drag you in even if you have a different opinion than we have."

[Kelledren]

I think for every person who hates set bonuses there are 20 players that love them. The problem was that Sharn set bonuses were the best for only 3 pieces, thus pretty much mandatory. With the gear and set bonuses being balanced out, for the first time you will have some choices between expansions… along with mini sets from raid.

As far as s/s/s legendary gear I have not seen anything that would challenge Fey, Sharn, or RL gear or really be worth upgrading, but the epic gear has me pretty excited. Looking forward to having set bonuses for my ETRs available at lev 20 now.

I am concerned there were some posts saying sets are having effects completely removed (SA from Sulo), but I hope they get rebalanced with another ability instead of just a hole were the old ability used to be.

[Aelonwy]

I like sets however I prefer the more open ended ones such as Adherent of the Mists or Seasons of the Feywild where you get to choose X number of pieces from a collection of items and the more you have the better bonus you get. But I prefer lots of flexibility, as opposed to having certain slots locked down. On the other hand that still limits you to choosing from a particular list of gear.

[Stravix]

I like sets however I prefer the more open ended ones such as Adherent of the Mists or Seasons of the Feywild where you get to choose X number of pieces from a collection of items and the more you have the better bonus you get. But I prefer lots of flexibility, as opposed to having certain slots locked down. On the other hand that still limits you to choosing from a particular list of gear.

Yup, I second this one.

Flexible sets are good, purely static ones are lazy and make builds more cookie cutter.

[Certon]

"WE are the borg. Resistance is futile. We'll drag you in even if you have a different opinion than we have."

Absolutely NOT. You can have bad taste if you want. I'm not here to tell you what to like. =D

[Valerianus]

I like sets however I prefer the more open ended ones such as Adherent of the Mists or Seasons of the Feywild where you get to choose X number of pieces from a collection of items and the more you have the better bonus you get. But I prefer lots of flexibility, as opposed to having certain slots locked down. On the other hand that still limits you to choosing from a particular list of gear.

this


flexibility, or some compromise of it, is good, welcome, fun, engaging.

the rest is just yet another ill-conceived idea to push ddo towards trinity.

[Tyrande]

this


flexibility, or some compromise of it, is good, welcome, fun, engaging.

the rest is just yet another ill-conceived idea to push ddo towards trinity.

As for me personally, I like the flexibility on the slots of the Legendary Slavers <x> sets.

[Dendrix]

I simply love the heroic Feywild set, I think it is fantastically great, the more items your wearing the better it is.

[Chai]

Its a terrible design decision that hinders the ability to design any other gear that does not belong in a bonus set which occupies one of the same slots of an already established set, which is obviously done to incentivize farming remaining gear to complete a set.

We need to establish if farming is the goal in DDO. They explain to us that farming the same quests for XP is bad and design the game deter that, but then design the game in favor of farming the same ONE QUEST for that last piece of gear needed to complete a set. Which is it? Is farming bad, or nah?

[Aelonwy]

Its a terrible design decision that hinders the ability to design any other gear that does not belong in a bonus set which occupies one of the same slots of an already established set, which is obviously done to incentivize farming remaining gear to complete a set.

We need to establish if farming is the goal in DDO. They explain to us that farming the same quests for XP is bad and design the game deter that, but then design the game in favor of farming the same ONE QUEST for that last piece of gear needed to complete a set. Which is it? Is farming bad, or nah?

I'm of the firm opinion that the the whole grinding the same quests for XP causes burnout so we are making XP changes to incentivize running a wider variety of quests was lip-service. I think too many players were grinding dailies to level in epics and not purchasing a wider variety of quest packs and XP potions was the larger issue. Keep in mind they are basically in the business of SELLING XP, its in the XP potions, the daily dice that people buy on HC, the ottos boxes, the XP tomes, its in the 500+ MILLION xp needed to acquire ALL the lives, the exponential XP requirements for each point of reaper. Whether we face up to it or not they are in the business of selling grind and farming is part and parcel of it.

Concrete example: Many of the "dailies" that they claimed were causing burnout were also quests that dropped Tokens of the Twelve, you will still have to run a limited subset of quests to boredom to acquire Tokens for reincarnation but that "burnout" is completely ignored. I know, I've brought it up many times and the only dev to comment was Cordovan saying they have absolutely no intention of adding more Token quests. So which is it? Does burnout matter or not? The answer is it was an excuse to make it more difficult to level from just a few great epic quests and they don't give a flying fig if you get tired of farming tokens (or anything else for that matter)... we are supposed to get tired of farming tokens... they want us to get tired of farming tokens so we'll purchase the massively over-priced one-time use hearts. At 1.5K points that's what? 20$ if neither are on sale. You can buy an entire game for that price.

Same goes for any particular piece of gear someone so desperately wants. If they get bored enough running that quest on multiple characters to ransack maybe they'll be incentivized to spend some cash on AS to reroll the chest. Please don't do this, ever, they've shown not only a willingness but an eagerness to sell us packs with seemingly great gear and make us pay extra to acquire it swiftly than turn-around and nerf it into the ground with zero remorse or offer of reimbursement. Don't buy packs for access to gear, don't use AS for rerolls. As long as they are profiting from grind/farm mitigation gimmicks we can expect them to add more grinds to the game so that we are then incentivized to purchase our way out of the grind.

[Carpone]

Bring on more set bonuses, including 3pc augment sets (Cunning Impact, Perfect Silence, etc).

[erethizon]

Because it's been an oft requested aspect of loot by a persistent part of the player base. I'd say that for every one player who hates set bonuses, there is another player who is quite pleased to see them.


As with all things: YMMV.

People like to see an increase in power. If set bonuses are the only way to get extra power then people are going to like seeing them. But not because they like set bonuses. They would much prefer that extra power just be a part of the gear without the set bonus, but if we have to jump through a set bonus hoop to get the power we will take it.

[DRoark]

Set bonuses are OK, I'm just not enamored of 5-7 piece set Jenga shuffling. Three-piece sets should have
been the standard, that way the "3-augment" BS they tried to implement would have stood a chance.