It would also be too close (design-wise) to regular crafting, as they’ve mentioned before.
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What Lich Skill?
Mike said on stream that Lich was getting some love and would get a new skill. He has since said that those Lich changes won’t make it in time for Season 2, so we’ll only get them in Season 3.
I believe only Rogue is getting a new skill in 1.2
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Rogue definitely needs them. They’re the ones further behind in this matter.
Shaman, Paladin and Lich are all missing one skill, but Rogues are missing 1 general skill, 1 general passive tree skill, 1 for Bladedancer and another for Marksman.
And then mage has 1 extra general skill, so it could also be argued that the other 4 classes are also missing one more.
So I hope Rogue is getting more than 1 new skill in Season 2 because they have a lot to catch up.
I might be wrong but I believe Mike always talked about in Singular. So I expect only one skill.
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Well, that is a bit disappointing, but better than nothing.
? I’m reading this as; they don’t want sockets because that’s too close to what crafting is already. Yes?
If that’s true I find it kind of funny, because LP is like sockets on PCP + Steroids. HAHA, socket a gem?! How about socket a whole other item!!! HAHA!!!
I just love game developer logic.
Edit: I admit I have no good ideas for set items, only PTSD from D3 set items, which I do not want any game dev to ever go back to. Which is a shame because D3, apart from the sets constraining build diversity became a pretty good game.
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Yup, pretty much. As much as I like the idea of set items it feels like they’re too hard to balance.
While it isn’t very original, I like sets that have excess pieces so you can mix/match to get the set bonuses and have the item types that best fit your build.
There could be a set that is 3 pieces. SuperSet Helm, SuperSet Armor, SuperSet 1h Axe, SuperSet 2h Axe, etc. So you pick the helm, the armor, and whichever weapon fits your build and you get the full set bonuses.
I really like the idea of sets and always have. There is an extra bit of satisfaction for people that like completing collections. It just seems a hard thing to balance when the end goal should be a mix of different gear rarities to be optimal.
Maybe the balance should be focused on less and just place restrictions/regulation on it. No set is larger than 3 to complete and no character can have more than one set. Can’t wear items from more than one set.
I still feel like there should have been a general intent on what an item category should be. In M:tG, there is the color wheel and each color has it’s specialties.
Unique items should have been items that change builds or enable builds by fundamentally changing a skill Herald of the Scurry, adds skill triggers Life’s Journey, etc.
Set items should be those that buff builds. Like a set that buffs companions for Beastmaster. A set that buffs shapeshifting builds for Druid. A set that buffs Smite builds. These sets would obviously buff the primary skills most often used for the build, but also buff common secondary skills that those builds use or buff some of the weaknesses the builds typically have.
The problem with the actual set is that their journey it’s to short, and so can’t be to much powerful from the start, because their start point and end point are the same, they need to find o other gimmick for the set as the LP and WW, the affix unlocked with more pieces of the same set it’s not enough.
An idea is that maybe they can drop with different symbols, that correspond at different pool of affixes that can roll on the item, affixes that can be revealed when you equip that complete set for the first time, maybe this mechanic can be attached to a new dungeon.
For example, a set composed by a sword and a ring, the sword have dropped with the a fire symbol, the ring with a shield symbol, when you equip both, maybe as said with a mechanics with a new dungeon, the affixes covered by these symbols are revealed from a small pool related of that symbol, and at that point you can mix and match different part of the same set that you have already revealed in the same way to find the best combination that you need for the build.
Just an idea, the things that can be done are endless, it’s matter of find the best one.
I’ve been thinking a bit about set affixes. It’s a funny idea, right? Basically a green item is an item that drops with a set affix. The conversation then is, 1) how powerful are the set parts of the affix that aren’t enabled until you have multiple items with the same set affix and 2) does EHG allow slamming a set item into an LP unique (basically converting the LP unique into a set item unique).
I genuinely love the crazy amount of power creep that implies, but I pretty much already kind of hate the LP system as it is. And massive power creep is just a horrible idea, no matter how much fun it is at the time.
I guess there is also a 3) does EHG allow for both prefixes and suffixes with the same set name? In rare cases this might result in a single item giving credit for two of a set.
Other than the massive power creep of 2 and 3, I think it kind of addresses both the “set items suck!” and “set items are the only items worth having” issues. The set affixes themselves can be modest in power because you get them on an exalted item anyway (which can be good or not). They don’t have to be great, they can safely be super weird without being over or under powered.
And if they really want to make a powerful set, they can, they just make the affix more rare.
Mike said on stream this friday, when I asked him about sets, that “Sets themselves won’t change that much, what will change is how they interact with other gear” or something similar like that.
He also didn’t comfirm if set changes will make it to Season 2.
It is really cool to read the guesses of what it is going to be. I have seen someone get it 99% right somewhere, I think it was on Reddit. It was before any CTs saw it so I don’t think it was a leak.
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That.
This is, in my opinion, the one and only reason to have sets in any game: they are fun to collect.
Which means the first step of any rework MUST be: remove the horrible CoF rank giving the entire set in one drop. It completely defeats the purpose of sets.
Apart from the collection aspect, I think they are a dreadful concept, because they drastically reduce the build choices and the pleasure of slowly improving your gear, as they provide a clear BiS item in most slots. Diablo 3 was utterly ruined (to me) when they introduced their seasons and the “must have” sets completely defining your character.
So, for “What set items will look like in the future”, my personal favourite option would be to just get rid of them. But it probably isn’t a very popular stance.
I wouldn’t go so far. They make balancing a lot harder I guess, but it’s doable. Take a look at Grim Dawn. Sets have been a part of the game since forever and there tons of top tier builds that either use no sets, only certain parts of the sets or the whole thing.
The game also has a nice way to complete the sets. Because there are so many the drop chances in GD for a certain set piece can become quite low. You tend to have a lot of duplicate pieces.
These pieces you can either sell, break down in rare crafting materials or convert. When you convert them you need one of the rarest crafting materials and then you transform a single piece of a non-target farmable set to another piece of said set. No guarantee it hits the piece you need, but a good way to reduce the rng drastically.
I would not mind a similiar implementation for CoF. Instead of a full set drop perk you get access to an NPC that takes favour to reroll a set piece.
Of course this only makes sense when the sets are actually decent.
Whole concept of this transmute thing works good because of total number of GD’s sets (80+ lvl 94 leg sets, crazy)
Also this system elevates duplicate part drop from “I’ll save best of this two… canned for months” to “Random God, I pray for a missing part” 
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Yeah, I agree. I really like it. You also can’t spam it because the material required for does not drop that often, but since you can more or less target farm it, it’s always a worthwile time investment to pray to RNGesus. 
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I mean if we took this line here, Id 1000% rather them be deleted.
Items have 0 purpose to exist if you dont use them. And if they are too hard to get, and are weak, they shouldnt exist.
Soooo… I only collected set items so far to have them collected. Given the state the set items are in right now and keeping EHGs history of buffing underpowered stuff in mind I guess the set changes will not be that big to make a fuzz about.