Operation 'No Generic Non-Shop Gear'

[Own]

There's a lot of gear in SoG to find, outside of the shops. Unfortunately most of it only gives stats and there's no real reason to be intrigued by that, especially in arcade mode where the only difference between most gear is a little bit more or less DEF. Let's make things interesting!

Barrel Shield: Fragile. Being a part of something broken, it doesn't heal like it used to. The barrel shield doesn't regenerate it's health, meaning it steadily declines until broken.

Carrot Sword: Beastmaster. Increased damage against beasts (Rabbits, Boars, Peckos, Monkeys)

Laser Sword: Forceful. Crits have a 1% chance to insta-kill any normal enemy under 50% HP with basic attacks.

Red Laser Sword: Lethal. Insta-kills any normal enemy under 5% HP hit with a basic attack by this.

Green Slime Hammer: Boing. Enemies are knocked back with basic attacks. / Smashballs greatly increased in bounciness?

Smashlight: Basic attacks ignite enemies on fire.

Winter's Bite: Bonus crit damage vs chilled or frozen enemies.

Big Eggshell: Hardboiled. Total defense is increased by 100%, until you first take damage. Then defense returns to normal for the next 10 seconds.

Big Fish: Hooked. Enemies attacked by you aggro to you.

Chicken Hat: Chicken. Gain an extra.few frames of invincibility after taking damage.

Frostling Hood: Toasty. 50% chance to resist Chill/Freeze when it would otherwise be inflicted.

Pope Hat: Saintly. Support skills cost 10% less EP.

Rabby Ushanka: Rabbyrage. While in Rage, gain an extra 10% AtkSpd.

Royal Crown: Blueblood. 5% of damage taken is dealt to EP, if any is available.

Tin Can: Rusty. Gain # to all stats when in critical HP.

Warm Hat; Cozy. 10% chance to resist all debuffs each time they are attempted to be inflicted.

Witch Hat: Cursed. Spells randomly cost between -5 and +5 more EP.

Spinsect Hat: Dizzy. Increases duration of Whirlwind.

There's plenty of others, of course... but I'll stop there. Equipment should be something you get excited about more than just a few DEF points, same with unique weapons!

 

[The G-Meister]

While I certainly think this would be interesting, I'd be afraid that some of these would put me off using certain bits of gear which I'd otherwise go out of my way to find - mainly the suggestions you made which have significant sidegrades (as in, an important change in how the thing works without really making it more powerful) instead of insignificant upgrades (things that do something only under a specific set of conditions, but don't give an overall change in how the thing might be used). Have some examples:

Spinsect hat: Great. Despite being a buff to a skill I rarely use, it's still a buff, and it doesn't affect the amount of DEF the thing gives.

Pope hat: Even better. Support skills I do use, and it's still an upgrade, like above. Might even make me use the thing.

Witch hat: Biiiiig no from me. That thing gives you a heck tonne of +MATK for the early game, and throwing off my EP like that would be devastating, especially with cheap skills which I often use. Even if it was a +/- 5% it's still a no thank you.

Green Slime Hammer: Another no thanks. I rarely, if at all like knockback on weapons, because if I wanna melee something, I want to melee it dead. Knockback takes that away from me.

Royal Crown: I'm a big EP user. Even assuming this thing is balanced such that the proportion of EP taken stays the same despite your health increasing later in the game, I'd much prefer putting something else on to buff my relative power that shoving a portion of my health off onto EP.

Barrel Shield: For the amount of time I spend farming these things in the early game, I'd like to keep it intact. Its the best shield for straight shield health up until Toy Factory, and I'd like it intact up until then.

What I think I'm trying to get at is the fact that by doing this, items are being separated with another category. Currently it is just "buffs to stats I use" and "outclassed buffs to stats I use or buffs to stats I don't use". The three new classes are "special effects that fit my playstyle", "special effects that don't affect my playstyle" and "special effects that harm my playstyle". And by adding special effects that harm people's playstyles, you reduce the pool of gear they can use, want to use and enjoy using.

So yeah, less things that have a significant potential to get in the way.

[Edit]: Knowing how much you prefer Arcade over Story, I could see the Barrel Shield being a lot more throwaway, so I get where you're coming from. But we need to consider both modes here

 

[Own]

Barrel Shield: For the amount of time I spend farming these things in the early game, I'd like to keep it intact. Its the best shield for straight shield health up until Toy Factory, and I'd like it intact up until then.

I was suggesting it only regen it's HP once broken. Not that the item is deleted.