A lot of gear isn't very interesting, when it should be.

[Own]

Usually in RPGs you have a few tiers of equipment.

Shop Goods: Where you go if all you care about is making your numbers bigger. That ancient sword in the secret passage within the sewers that inflicts curses on the enemies it hits? The rare whip dropped by ember pixies that sets enemies on fire? Well beyond this tier. No one expects anything of shop goods beyond making their stats higher.

Common Drops/Easy Chests / Easy Craftables: Slightly better than Shop Goods in terms of stat-ups. Mainly used to toss a bone to the people who can't be bothered to go to the shops.

Rare Drops / Hard Chests / Rare Crafts / Quest Rewards: Where goods that actually matter go. Neat effects that are actually worth your while and genuinely exciting to find. Picking these up are supposed to make you think if you they could change the way you fight even slightly. They don't even necessarily need a special effect, just adding a bonus or detrimental stat onto something unusual is interesting enough.

So you have a distinction between stat sticks (+DEF/+ATK) and cool toys.

Let's take a look a few.



This is arguably the rarest item in the game. It's in an area many players don't know exists, is easy to overlook and even if noticed, isn't easily figured out.

It's a stat stick.

You see a slight jump in your MATK number and that's about it as far as excitement goes. Even a tiny special effect could make this actually interesting to obtain.

Special Effect: Increased EP regen when Blinded.



Similarly, this is a difficult to obtain puzzle item many people haven't gotten without cheesing it in multiplayer. It's arguably worse than every Season Temple hat.

Special Effect: Non-summon spells cost % less EP when Blinded.

We've got a pretty cool mushroom set going that synergizes well with the Shroomie card.



This is a chest people beat their heads over trying to figure out. In the end it's just a cosmetic. A cool looking cosmetic, but I've always been in favor of this at least having something that helps with the Winter fight slapped on it.

Special Effect: Reduces Slow debuff speed by 75%.



This is by far the most disappointing craft in the entire game despite being one of the coolest looking. Getting the materials for it takes ages, and when you make it you have a hat with stats so disappointingly poor it may as well have been cosmetic so you're not left asking "Who was this made for?" There is no 'toy' factor to this when it should have had something attached ages ago.

Special Effect: When at 100% EP, your next skill/spell gains much more ATKSpeed.
or Perfect guards with Crystal Shield inflict a random debuff. (Burn/Freeze/Slow/Stasis/Stun/etc)
or When at 100% health, your attacks do +% damage.
or literally anything please.



A really aesthetically cool obscure chest / high purchase item that does nothing. The attack bonus is small enough to be insignificant. Why would you not keep using the Ruby Rod?

Special Effect: Physical attacks knock (non-boss/non-heavyweight) enemies away. (With a force comparable to Heroic Slam, Smash or Frosty Friend Slam.)



Patient zero in Grindea for rewards that bring only sadness. A quest reward that isn't worth the time it takes for you to get it, because by the time you turn it in you'll have enough gold for two of any ring or amulet you want.

Special Effect: Gain a bonus when standing in sticky substances.
or Bonus damage vs all Slimy enemies.
or A decent bonus to all stats, but... (Small % chance upon taking damage to be encased in a slime cube.) (It's a fun, weird toy! Something someone might put on for more than 5 seconds before looking at the accessory shop.)

tl;dr



Please spark joy.

 

[XxX_MLG Noob_XxX]

I think I agree that a lot of weapons could be more interesting. As for the special effects, not sure I agree with most. But I'll just let others determine them and generate opinions later. I'm not as creative with that stuff.

I don't think mage weapons should ever get knockback or attack bonuses unless they're hybrid, though. I think it's okay to have a few "stat sticks" if the stats are sufficiently large enough. Significantly higher damage is a reward in itself; it just gets old when it's spammed.

Also, somehow you forgot the Smashlight? A craftable? And that's like the easiest special effect ability to think of: Burn on hit.

 

[Faangzzz]

I kind of disagree. SoG has a fair bit of both vertical and horizontal progression. Items with special effects are the horizontal progression, and items with none but high stats are vertical progression. The more horizontal progression you have, the more options you have for buildcraft and skill synergy- but not every item needs to have a special effect to give the player those options. If anything, it'd be overwhelming. It'd also be difficult to design around and balance. The items that have special effects are handpicked because the dev team thought those effects were interesting and would create more player options. If every item theoretically needed a special effect, then they'd probably only release the items that currently have special effects because those items with effects are the only ideas they thought would work well in implementation. It's more likely that we'd just end up with less item variety than the same number of items as we have now but with more special effects.

Also in regards to horizontal progression, I DO think there needs to be endgame craftables that serve as upgraded versions of early special effect items (such as the ice amulet or bee sword), since imo those effects are cool and more folks'd build around them if the stats matched their level.

 

[XxX_MLG Noob_XxX]

Ignore that previous comment. I mixed up my posts I was responding to. lol.

 

[XxX_MLG Noob_XxX]

In response to this one though, I don't think things have gotten to a point where abilities would be overwhelming. I definitely agree that the overwhelming point should be avoided. But things like the Smashlight could def get cool stuff. I think there's a solid balance between what you said Faang and what Own's getting at; I probably lean more towards what you're saying on the spectrum though Faang.

 

[Own]

... but not every item needs to have a special effect to give the player those options. If anything, it'd be overwhelming. ... If every item theoretically needed a special effect, then they'd probably only release the items

Yeah, if every item had a special effect that would be kind of awful. People would be a little overwhelmed by all those extra texts.

Which is why my post was prefaced with "There are several tiers of items. The rarest items, or items that require effort to get, are rather pointless beyond a small number upgrade."

Feels like you didn't really read my post and just answered the title. I want to diminish the feeling of "Wow! This is useless!" or "I spent an hour getting this, and if I hadn't I'd be an hour ahead in the story and more powerful than what this forgettable stat stick gave me." Which is exactly how I felt when I got the mushroom staff, the mushroom hat and the spinsect hat. Ideally you want people to be curious and excited about things they spent time and effort into obtaining.

 

[Faangzzz]

I read your post! It's just that I don't mind the stat sticks, really. I do understand seeing an item with nothing special other than stats and feeling 'oh. that's it?' But I also don't think it's unreasonable for rare rewards to just boost my stats, so long as it's more than anything else I'd had at that point.

 

[Own]

Here's a list of hypothetical Special Effects that aren't gamebreaking, but at least make gear seem interesting. In a "Wow, look what my new item does!" sort of way.

- When a non-boss enemy is under 10% HP, criticals are lethal. (Ideally Red Laser Sword)
- When an enemy is under 25% HP, criticals deal double damage.
- After you receive damage from an enemy, your next physical attack vs it deals double damage.
- 2% chance to instantly kill any non-boss enemy frozen solid on physical attack.
- Upon taking damage, small % chance to be encased in a slime cube. ('Cursed' gear, gear that gives better stats in exchange for a penalty, are always a fun risk/reward mechanic.)
- ^ ..., small % chance to be slowed.
- ^ ..., small % chance to catch on fire.
- ^ ..., small % chance to drain to 0 EP.
- Upon shield break, the enemy that breaks this shield receives a brief tick of Stasis.
- Greater knockback on physical attacks.
- At 100% EP, your wand projectiles deal more damage.
- At (100% HP? Critical HP?) your physical attacks launch a wave projectile that uses ATK instead of MATK.
- After taking a hit on your shield, gain 5% crit for the next few seconds. (Does not stack.)
- Enemies within # levels of you drop Golden Eggs on death, which can be used on any pet stat for a small amount of EXP or sold for a small amount of gold. (Chicken Hat.)
- Increased EP regen in spore clouds.
- 5% chance to survive an attack that would otherwise kill you, reduced to 1 HP. Does not stack with Lady Luck. (Nat 20 saving throw!)

 

[Faangzzz]

Oo I really like some of these! Particuarly the following:
- Greater knockback on physical attacks.
- At 100% EP, your wand projectiles deal more damage. (maybe splashing too for 1h wands?)
- When an enemy is under 25% HP, criticals deal double damage. (Except probably not double damage. The way damage calculations normally works in games like these, it'd make your damage scale out of control really quick, and could potentially instakill some bosses at 25% health. Increasing your Crit Damage stat by around 20% against those enemies would still be a really big boost imo)

Also Cursed weapons are cool if done right. I've been really enjoying the blindfold. Maybe something that 'burns' a portion of your EP bar in exchange for a temporary matk/atk boost when you use a skill, making that part of the bar require twice as much ep regen to recover? Braazlet is also a really cool magic item, and getting an effect that lets you survive at 0 hp for a short time would be very on-theme(Maybe taking from your ep bar depending on how much damage you take? It could open up some interesting Berserker builds)

Also items that do other esoteric stuff to your stats, like lowering your crit chance into the negatives, causing your attacks to receive a negative multiplier if the item's primary mechanic isn't fulfilled.

Edit: wait fuck not a negative multiplier, a less than 1 multiplier.

 

[thzfunnymzn]

I kind of disagree. SoG has a fair bit of both vertical and horizontal progression.

I don't have Grindea memorized, nor have I mass analyzed all the weapons, their availability, the progression of weapon selection, the mechanics they offer, their synergies with builds, etc, etc.

But I can say, from what I remember, that this is false. There was no notable horizontal progression. All further equipment was just making you better at what you could all ready do, or it was aesthetic.

Mind you, Grindea's an action RPG (positioning and battlefield matter), with a freeform build system, with plenty of interesting enemy encounter design, AND it doesn't wear kiddy gloves. Therefore, despite I having also mentioned this when I commented on my runs some time ago, Grindea all ready has the tools it needs to effectively challenge even good players. Therefore, it doesn't strictly NEED horizontal progression in equipment in order to provide good flavor or interesting challenge to the game. Its core mechanics can more than provide that. If there's a lack of playstyle variety, then the first issue to address would be the imperfections in the freeform build system.

Though IF it is something the devs are interested in, the first spitball I'd make is horizontal progression that keys into Grindea being, well, an action RPG. So, differing options for movement (small or large scale, mundane or magical, friend or foe), positioning, agility, angling of attacks, attack range / AoE, summoning, changing battlefield contours, etc, etc. IIRC, Grindea doesn't have too many options for varying your own movement, but since that's core to Grindea gameplay, it stands to reason that that might be something to look into. There's also reason to have said options not come purely from skills: namely, that it means the developer can more effectively control when a player gets said option.

... Or I could've just given the devs the idea that "building your movement options" needs to be just as big a thing as your attack skill options. Who knows!!

 

[The G-Meister]

Movement really is important in SoG, and the addition of Blink helped that sooooo much, to the extent that it's practically mandatory on any build in the late game. I pick it up and soon as I can, as even spending the EP on it is worth it. But yeah, more movement options would be sick, I'd just wander what else might have to be redesigned if a new base movement mechanic is implemented. That widens up literally everything that has been developed already.

 

[thzfunnymzn]

I didn't use Blink at ALL in Tai Ming, so it's hardly mandatory. Actually didn't want to use it, because I was concerned that having to carefully select a position to move to would make it useless in the heat of combat. Now, Snowman, on the other hand, I HAD to grab, in order for my 2H guy to defeat the Mimic.

Branched off the discussion of movement options into another thread.