NW is my first MMO RPG, although I’m a lifelong casual gamer and GS609, 450 hours in NW, so I think I’m allowed to have an opinion about gear sets. They don’t work for me.
I alternate between tank, dps, and healer now and then, for the sake of variety. For each role, I carry more than 2 weapons and 5 armor: maybe 4-5 weapons for fun or different circumstances, maybe a few extra armor items to shift the CON-vs-OTHER balance, to amplify certain weapon skills, or wards. I do not have complete sets like Corruption-Ward-for-Tank set. Except I do have a fishing set of 4 armor pieces, nothing else. Maybe I’ll eventually get specific ward sets, or specific dungeon sets, but not soon.
Incomplete sets: Suppose I put my fishing armor in a gear set. When I press “equip”, the fishing gear is worn, but all empty gear set slots (weapons, rune, potions, jewelry) are also equipped, so suddenly those slots are empty on my character, so I’m semi-naked. The only way to avoid this seems to be to drag the fishing stuff over one piece at a time (or to fill the remaining elements of the set with arbitrary stuff).
Overfull sets: As I said, I want to have, e.g., 4 weapons for one “set”. But I can only have 2.
Transferring back: There’s no easy “put me back the way I was” button, unless I equip another complete existing gear set.
Solution: I propose the following steps, which would retain the existing functionality, intent, and spirit of gear sets, while making them way more functional for a wider variety of players.
- Make gear sets limited by weight rather then 1-of-each-item-type.
- Let gear sets function roughly like “labels”; see below for what I mean.
- Let there be an extra gear set that is “base”. An easy approach would be for this base set to remain listed in inventory, but have a label on it (like the padlock label). Alternatively, and better IMO, would be to have an actual extra gear set called “base”.
- When I equip a less-than-one-of-each gear set, the new gear is equipped. Any missing items in the set have no effect…whatever was currently equipped remains equipped.
- Whatever was currently equipped when a new “equip” action happens goes back somewhere. Either it goes back to the gear set where it came from, or a query pops up to ask: Do you want it to go to base, to inventory, or to X, Y, Z gear set? Only applicable options are presented. If it goes to inventory, it keeps its label so that it can be pulled back to the appropriate gear set later.
- Each gear set panel has a “pull” action, which takes all gear with that label, whether in inventory or equipped, and brings it to the gear set slot.
Anybody who wants to use gear sets for your dozen ward sets or whatever, I think my suggestion does not interfere with that. Anybody who wants to tell me I’m using gear slots “incorrectly”, I don’t care: I’m allowed to play differently than you. (Exception: if I’m misunderstanding or not finding existing functionality, it would be good to learn that.)
Keeping a per-panel weight limit on gear set contents prevents evasion of the character’s total weight limit. Adding a “base” gear set, if agreed, doesn’t seriously impinge on AGS’s ability to sell additional gear sets.
AGS, maybe take a look at some of these ideas and consider whether anything like this might make sense when the inevitable “Gear Sets 2.0” comes out. Thanks!