POE Needs Set Items, Epic Items and a new category

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minamo99 wrote:

I'd be so happy if people would stop trying to form this vividly into d2 and just see where the devs go with it...

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BrianWeissman wrote:

I'll reiterate a point made by Chris in the past. Basically, we're against the idea of Set items in POE because we feel they constrain build diversity. In order to make them interesting and competitive, we have to make them good. Making them good means that everybody wants to collect them, especially if their set bonuses confer a big advantage. Open Beta is in its infancy, but a few months from now we'd likely see tons of people with 2-4 identical pieces of gear, over and over and over. This isn't ideal for character diversity or for flavor.

The good news is that even though we have no plans to make set items, we're going to be releasing literally HUNDREDS more unique items. POE has very open design where uniques are concerned, so there is no telling what's going to show up. We're also going to be adding mountains of new art to the game, along with cosmetic microtransactions that enhance how armor looks. The end result of this will be tremendous diversity in gear and appearance. Even two characters built around the same fundamental interaction of active and passive skills will have radically different gear. One character might use 3-4 uniques, the other might be pure rares. You get the idea.

As for D2-style Charms, we're unlikely to implement those as well. The idea of balancing inventory space against increased power may sound like a neat tension, but ultimately it becomes an obnoxious obligation. Players feel that they must fill their inventory full of charms to be competitive, and this would run completely counter to our vendor system, which encourages players to head back to town bearing all sorts of specific treasure. Playing in a group and contesting loot with other players is exciting enough without having to constantly worry what you'll do if more than one item drops that you care about. Imagine how you'll feel when you can't grab that Exalted Orb in time because your inventory is completely gummed up with charms.

If you remember back in Diablo 2, there were a few things in play regarding Charms that are very different in POE. For starters, there were very few items in LoD that an endgame player was interested in picking up. This is very different from Path of Exile, where the humblest white item can be extremely valuable. You're also finding diverse currency constantly in Path of Exile. Finally, you have much more limited ability to Portal back to town in POE, especially when you're saving your Portals for boss fights. Without easy and free porting like in D2, a constrained inventory turns into a huge drag on game progress. You might be a little more powerful from your charms on the battlefield, but you're going to be wasting so much time going back and forth to town that the net result will be slower leveling.

That's just a short summary of our current thoughts on these subjects, I really appreciate your feedback.

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KenshiD wrote:

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BrianWeissman wrote:

I'll reiterate a point made by Chris in the past. Basically, we're against the idea of Set items in POE because we feel they constrain build diversity. In order to make them interesting and competitive, we have to make them good. Making them good means that everybody wants to collect them, especially if their set bonuses confer a big advantage. Open Beta is in its infancy, but a few months from now we'd likely see tons of people with 2-4 identical pieces of gear, over and over and over. This isn't ideal for character diversity or for flavor.

The good news is that even though we have no plans to make set items, we're going to be releasing literally HUNDREDS more unique items. POE has very open design where uniques are concerned, so there is no telling what's going to show up. We're also going to be adding mountains of new art to the game, along with cosmetic microtransactions that enhance how armor looks. The end result of this will be tremendous diversity in gear and appearance. Even two characters built around the same fundamental interaction of active and passive skills will have radically different gear. One character might use 3-4 uniques, the other might be pure rares. You get the idea.

As for D2-style Charms, we're unlikely to implement those as well. The idea of balancing inventory space against increased power may sound like a neat tension, but ultimately it becomes an obnoxious obligation. Players feel that they must fill their inventory full of charms to be competitive, and this would run completely counter to our vendor system, which encourages players to head back to town bearing all sorts of specific treasure. Playing in a group and contesting loot with other players is exciting enough without having to constantly worry what you'll do if more than one item drops that you care about. Imagine how you'll feel when you can't grab that Exalted Orb in time because your inventory is completely gummed up with charms.

If you remember back in Diablo 2, there were a few things in play regarding Charms that are very different in POE. For starters, there were very few items in LoD that an endgame player was interested in picking up. This is very different from Path of Exile, where the humblest white item can be extremely valuable. You're also finding diverse currency constantly in Path of Exile. Finally, you have much more limited ability to Portal back to town in POE, especially when you're saving your Portals for boss fights. Without easy and free porting like in D2, a constrained inventory turns into a huge drag on game progress. You might be a little more powerful from your charms on the battlefield, but you're going to be wasting so much time going back and forth to town that the net result will be slower leveling.

That's just a short summary of our current thoughts on these subjects, I really appreciate your feedback.

While I don't agree with OPs statement about more different tiers of items, Set items would be pretty cool though.

To say that they don't work in PoE isn't true I would dare to say.

It's all about how you design them.
Set items could be very niche in one particular build that is very underused.

For example mines and traps are not supported by anything but one small part of the passive tree. A set with like 3 items that work well with traps/mines would make those builds more interesting.
And they don't have to be crazy powerful but very utilizing to the build that is desired.
I know uniques do that already. But having small sets that are not more than 4 pieces would be crazy cool and you could also sell Set Looks in the shop, like glows or new skins like in D2.

I'm definitively all for Set items they just have to be designed in the right way so they don't become a must have but an interesting alternative for unique builds.

Spoiler

I even made some Set items myself on paper just because I love the idea so much.

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BrianWeissman wrote:

I'll reiterate a point made by Chris in the past...

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BrianWeissman wrote:

As for D2-style Charms, we're unlikely to implement those as well. The idea of balancing inventory space against increased power may sound like a neat tension, but ultimately it becomes an obnoxious obligation. Players feel that they must fill their inventory full of charms to be competitive, and this would run completely counter to our vendor system, which encourages players to head back to town bearing all sorts of specific treasure. Playing in a group and contesting loot with other players is exciting enough without having to constantly worry what you'll do if more than one item drops that you care about. Imagine how you'll feel when you can't grab that Exalted Orb in time because your inventory is completely gummed up with charms.