[UPDATED!]The problem(s) with ST items and my ideas to fix them

#1

I’m making a separate post because a comment of mine on this issue got a lot of attention:

Basically, Special Themed items are a broken system, and are quite inconsistent. Let me get into the inconsistencies I do not like about, and then offer some ideas which will enhance the concept of ST items in ROTMG.

I will be updating this post regularly, including all the ideas you guys share with me!

1. Some ST items are tradeable, while some are not.

ST items were made soulbound to circumvent the already huge RWT environment. All ST sets introduced after the Dragon Tamer set were made soulbound, so players would have to grind for all four pieces of the set themselves. Here are the problems with this:

  • The ST items are and were always extremely hard to acquire. In my experience, they have the same droprates as white bags (1:100 if you really needed a numerical value). Therefore, the chances of finding four different pieces of an ST set are pretty low. This wouldn’t be a problem if the sets were actually good, because then the grind would be worth it. However, the ST sets are terrible when all four pieces are equipped, and I will get into this soon.

  • ST items being soulbound makes it feel like they’re just another white bag. I definitely don’t think that this was Kabam’s intentions when implementing ST items into the game. ST items are supposed to be slightly underpowered pieces which make a very powerful set.

My Solution: Make all ST items either all soulbound or all tradeable. I don’t see any real downsides to making all ST items soulbound. Maybe the biggest problem with that is that it will be even harder to find all 4 pieces of a set, but that is a problem that should be solved separately.

On the other hand, making all ST items tradeable would be great for the overall concept of special themed sets. However, of course, there is the issue of duping, RWT, etc. This is a dilemma because some players believe that we should do what’s best for the game, rather than adjusting our standards to avoid the cheaters. “You never negotiate with terrorists,” they say.

2. Some pieces of each set are amazing compared to most ST pieces which are garbage.

  • This is one of the biggest issues with ST items. Some items, such as the symbiotic ripper, are incredibly useful, whereas most of the rings and other pieces of each set are absolute garbage. This makes for very unreliable gameplay.
  • When you find a ST item, you are either extremely happy or very bummed out, as the quality of each item in all ST sets are quite inconsistent. This is lazy item design at it’s core

My solution: Balance all ST items so that they make the entire set worth equipping, instead of the current trend where players just use one OP item with other normal gear.

3.Some ST sets can actually work when all pieces are equipped, while most do not.

Out of the 13 sets released so far, very few are even worth having the full set for. In theory, equipping a full Special Themed set should not be overpowered, but offer an alternate, but viable type of gameplay. I feel like the sets are terribly unbalanced. In fact, I think that the reward for having all for ST pieces should not be additional stats. This seems incredibly out of place, and stats are also hard to balance, because there is a very fine line between making a set strong and making a set overpowered.

My solution: see below :slightly_smiling_face:

Introducing Passives

A passive ability is a trait the character gains when all four parts of an ST set is equipped. This ability helps to add a unique feel to each set, and will help make ST items stand out in general.

I have done some quick brainstorming on some ideas for each of the Sets already in-game. Tell me what you think! All numbers are subject to change.

Oryx’s Battle Attires Passive: Boiling Blood

If your character loses 30% of their HP in 1 second, gain healing and beserk on self for 3 seconds (10 second cooldown).

This ability makes perfect sense with the set, as we all know Oryx to be an enraged God who becomes more dangerous the lower he is. I think that any other buffs would make the knight more unkillable and overpowered than he already is, so I settled with healing and berserk. This ability only triggers once per dungeon, so it cannot be abused.

Swoll Paladin Passive: Divine Charm

The first enemy your character lands the killing blow on transforms into a friendly fairy of the same HP, acting as a decoy for 20 seconds. (Once every 30 seconds).

This is a pretty fun ability, and the fact that the Swoll Paladin has one of the prettiest sets, it’d make sense that he’d be charming. The fact that the fairy has the same HP as the enemy killed makes for some pretty interesting gameplay where paladins play passively until they find a strong enough enemy to charm.

Priest of Geb Passive: Invigorating Spirits

Whenever your character cures any debuffs, they gain +3 attack on self for 5 seconds for each debuff cured (max +30 attack).

Not only does this encourage the priest to help his party, it also provides a solution to the abysmal DPS of the wand of Geb. Note: Some of my ideas are meant to work with the current ST items, while some ideas work better with more balanced sets.

Skuld 2 The Reghostening Passive: Ghastly Composure

Enemies cannot see your character if they are 5 or more tiles away from it.

I’m pretty proud of this idea. If the ST cloak was reworked to not give invisibility, while giving another stat like more DPS, this would be a great new style of gameplay for the rogue. This works well because the rogue still keeps his invisibility trait, but he is only endangered when attacking. This would introduce a completely new way to play the rogue and would help the ST set stand out.

**Twilight Archmage Passive: Undecided

This is one of the concepts I’m still thinking of. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Phylactery Mystic Passive: IDK yet

I barely play any mystic so I’m also in search of an ability that would help the set and bears some resemblance to the phylactery.

Dragon Tamer Passive: Searing Blows

Landing 4 consecutive shots on a single enemy knocks them out, causing them to be dazed for 4 seconds.

This ability is because of the ST sword, which has an extremely low firerate. This makes it an actual challenge sometimes to activate the ability, especially for moving enemies. However, pulling it off is very beneficial for you and your teammates.

Swarming Huntress Passive: Sweet Trail

Your character leaves a path of honey that lasts for 5 seconds wherever she goes, giving healing to all characters standing on it.

This idea is very much up for debate but I think it could work well. The ST set turns the huntress into a crowd-controlling, slowing, character. This ability would make her a better leader and would look pretty cool too.

Lost Golem Passive: IDK yet

For every 1 minute spent in a dungeon, your decoys last and daze for 0.2 seconds longer. Capped at +5 seconds.

This is still up for debate, however I think the idea incorporates the idea of a lost wanderer, and also help a lot during long dungeons.

Hollow King Necromancer Passive: Soul Bank

Your character collects the souls of enemies it kills, giving it +5 permanent HP per enemy (to a maximum of +80 HP). Souls are lost per dungeon.

This skull makes perfect sense as a King often collects taxes and assets from his servants. In the same way, a Hollow King collects souls from enemies.
This skull helps to give some sustainability as the ST skull does not have a health boost which the Necromancer needs. It also encourages clearing and requires a lot of enemies killed to get the full HP boost.

Horrific Sorcerer Passive: Monstrous Rampage

When your character does not have enough MP for a spell, casting your ability will cost 100 HP instead and inflict sick on self for 1 second (cannot be used when below 100 HP).

I really adore this idea. The concept of self-pain has not been explored enough in ROTMG. This passive relate perfectly to the set as a horrific creation would do anything it could to cause damage, even at the cost of it’s own health.
This passive expands on the ST archetype of dealing insane damage, as the scepter does a lot of damage but stuns and hexes yourself. Not only would this passive open up a new playstyle for the sorcerer, it would also work well with the 75 vit that the sorcerer has (which is quite useless right now).

Flesh Collector Passive: Carnal Tendencies

In each dungeon, your character has a 10% chance to strip an enemy of their flesh when killed. Doing so will add +1 to all your stats (+5 life/mana). Caps at +10 to all stats (+50 HP/MP).

This is a funky way to rack up a lot of crazy stats, which the assassin is known for (seriously, it has +75 dex and spd, and +60 wis and attack. Assassins are loaded). In addition, this passive fits in with the ability of the assassin to clear a lot of small enemies, and this can get the passive stacked up faster.

Akuma Slayer Passive: IDK yet

I’ll admit that I’m pretty unfamiliar with the Samurai, but I’d love some great ideas for this passive.

Please tell me if you agree with the problems of ST items! I’d also love your criticism and input on improving my ideas.

JoshBros' Hoard: Quest Chests (over 150), ST Chests (Over 20), and Epic Quest Chests (Over 50)
Helm of the Lost Raider
Make All ST Sets Tradeable
[Spoilers] No More Unnamed Players. ST Set Bonus Changes and some more
#2

While I’m not against the idea of this, I personally think, along with a lot of other players, that the current system is fine. I’m cool with all of DECA’s STs being soulbound and Kabam’s not being soulbound.
Maybe this can be a thing once the Unity port comes out if trading becomes more complex

It’s natural to have swapouts, thats basically all i can really say. I mean sure, the rings, mainly the Kabam rings are all ass, but that’s just Kabam things :thinking:

Sure, I can agree with this. A majority of DECA’s ST sets and the mystic set are pretty cool IMO.
Although you just left click and WASD xd

Before anyone else says it, imma put the obligatory “its too complex for rotmg!1!!!”
I feel that we should just rework some ST sets instead of adding passives, but I’ll look at it anyways

Since when the fuck does knight drop below 50% HP with the highest def and HP out of any class
I mean sure the armor and shield dont give as much defense, but theres a reason why your able to run stupid shit like ST warrior armor on knight and be perfectly fine

Isn’t it that he gets more “dangerous” the more drunk he is :thinking:
I guess O1 is an example but that phase is relatively easy smh

So like
a shitty attack close pet that can die
the cooldown is effectively 10 seconds, seeing that the pet is alive for 20 seconds
The thing about this is that most higher tier enemies have HP scaling into the thousands, and most of the damage for enemies are barely piercing the 120 damage meter, making your mini attack close pet basically immortal until it despawns

how the fuck do you use your ability 10 times within 5 seconds when its like 120 MP
If the cooldown resets every time you use it, that’s giving people with a divine an extra edge thats actually unfair

The ST Rogue dagger is like 3.8~ tiles tho
how the fuck are you supposed to hit shit
also people standing behind me still have enemies shoot me wtf
also

image

Maybe twilight mage could have something like uhhhhhhh an extra 15 armor piercing damage on hit or something
Phylactery could be something like if you fall below x amount of hp you get something since according to wikipedia</small a phylactery is a “An object used by a lich to contain its soul and protect it from death, common in fantasy games”

oMg oGmUr uSeLeSs
Its a cool idea but i dunno if matches the “Dragon Tamer” idea

If its like a white drake trail, that’d be cool but I feel like it would be a little op
Maybe just make it like your shots can occasionally slow or something cuz honey is sticky

its a lost golem
meaning
its lost
reveal more shit on the minimap
ez

genuinely a cool idea, im not against it and id love to see it if it actually became a thing

self pain is pretty kinky if your into masochism but that would probably be better if it was bleeding for x amount of seconds

how the fuck is this supposed to be coded in
also
put this on literally any boss and have permanent curse and damage ticking on it :thinking:
i mean its a cool idea and all, but probably not what we’re looking for. maybe like mana regen or damaging whenever you hit your poison, since the poison inflicts curse i dunno

something like add more shots to the waki if you do something idk

cool ideas, probably need a little refurbishing
aight imma sleep

#3

Thanks for the input! Some ideas of mine need a clarification and an explanation, which I’ll try to tell you now:

Of course it’s natural to have swapouts, but my main intention is that ST sets will be very useful for certain types of gameplay. Right now they don’t really feel like unique pieces of a set. If you’re using an ST dagger as a swapout item here and there, is it really any different than a white bag dagger?

The HP drop is literally the point. I think that knights will start to intentionally take a lot of damage just for the Berserk buff. Not only does this go against the concept of a heavy, unkillable knight, but it also introduces scenarios where you must decide if you take damage or not. Honestly, it’ll be a refreshing aspect to people who like to play more skillfully.

ST items are extremely hard to get a full set of. That’s why my ideas are complex. The point is that by the time you’ve managed to get a full set, you’re experienced enough to be able to understand how each passive works. Passives aren’t for new players, they’re for people exploring end-game content.

First of all, I think the decoy aspect is more important than the attack aspect. Instead of a paladin being the meat shield himself, he uses another fairy to be a meat shield. Also, with killing enemies with more HP, they’d be better shields.
Second of all, when I say killing I mean landing the final blow. This means that it will be much harder for a paladin to get a fairy when there’s a lot of other players in the dungeon. Sometimes they’ll have to go kill an easy enemy themselves to get the fairy. I love the decision making that’s involved in this.

The attack is stacked for any player healed by the priest, not just yourself. Therefore healing larger groups will help you get your +30 attack cap.

The point is to go wherever you have to go without being detected, but when it comes the time to fight, your enemies can finally see you. Also, rogue is a pretty solo-ish class. Projectiles due to other players won’t be that large of an issue, IMO.

In the lore of the dragon tamer, it was a soul of a man combined with the soul of a dragon. So I think that the fiery breath of the dragon-man made sense.

The set already has enough slowing in it, it would make the set too redundant if I added more slowing.

I didn’t like the idea of bleeding because I wanted to have an instant drawback for using the ability on HP. When you inflict bleeding, it’s also hard to know how low your character goes.

I also see that you have recommended some ideas, I will definitely look at them too!

#4

Once you kill an enemy with a spellbomb your attacks become armor piercing for 10 seconds

#5

You can heal yourself 50 hp for each 7 consecutive shots you land, in the same way the phylactery bearers heal the litch over time…

#6

Every 6th decoy explodes, dealing 300 armor breaking damage in total of the shots…

#7

Your wakizashi causes armor broken for every 10 consecutive landed shots

#8

can you make it so that everything is in one post instead of being in 4 different one sentence posts :thinking:

#9

Sorry I thought there would be only one undedcided one xd

#10

well buddy we have a lot to talk about

alright i really like these ideas, makes st sets kinda fun
do you think its necessary to change stats of the set or just to implement these changes?

#11

:thinking: ST Mystery Boxes ! Weeee

#12

Pretty useless. Rendering distance is like 12-ish tiles so you are only getting a 4 tile buff.

#13

I’m just going to talk about one issue you talked about and your solution… Some parts are SB while others are not. You’re solution was to either make them all soulbound or make the all tradeable. The issue with this is… well… there’s a thing called an economy. Currently, a massive part of this economy is dependent on STs and just straight out removing them would mess around with that economy. On the other hand, making all the STs unsoulbound would also fuck with the economy the same way.

Edit: never mind, forgot the economy was already fucked by weekly events

#14

Also, my own reply to some of the passive ideas.
Boiling Blood: way too situational. I guess it makes sense but why 50% of their health in 1.5 seconds. This basically means that the knight has to purpose sacrifice 50% of his health and even then, it only offers him a small buff once per dungeon, or once per realm if you’re not running a dungeon. In the few times this ability would activate, the knight would probably nexus anyway. I would instead suggest something more along the lines of If your character loses 20% of the hp in1.5 seconds, gain healing on self for 5 seconds and beserk on self for 2 seconds (not limited but 10 second cooldown). Basically, a much more viable passive that offers a considerably smaller buff which can however be reused.

Divine Charm: Sorry if you already mentioned this, but… isn’t this just slightly broken (plus hard to code)? Just switch to the set when you see and oppurtunity to take a big boss, and boom… Time to bring sentinel to clear second room Can always come back for the chest after sentinel insta kills all the mages and statues. Another use would be to use it to bring the demon from cult back to battle against malus. It’s too situational for most uses but It’s simply TOO powerful. I would suggest a different approach for this one.

Invigorating Spirits: The wording is a bit ambiguous. When you character cured any debuffs, “they” (plural) gain +3 atk. In this case, they refers to the only plural object in the sentence, which would mean that the debuffs gain +3 atk… So, what I don’t understand is are you giving the +3 atk for every person that gets debuffs removed or just you? Additionally, do you get +3 atk per debuff removed or just a total of +3 atk if any debuff is removed? Overall, I think the best solution would be the +3 atk per debuff to only yourself or the the total of +3 atk to all people who had debuffs removed.

Ghastly Composure: Firstly, the effect would only be obtained if you have the full set on right? So the max range is slightly under 4. I actually like this idea but I agree that it would only really work if the standard invisibility part of the classic cloak is also removed.

Twilight Archmage: The basis of the twilight archmage set is probably around dps, and of course, the archmage. The archmage’s main ability, other then shooting out massive high dps shots, it to create portals, flaming birds, and other dangerous things. I believe that the twilight archmage should be, Once charachter wearing this set deals x damage,spawn a twilight portal on yourself where a twilight portal would be similar to a fire portal in dps and range but would only be able to target enemies. It would not be able to move and would not act as a decoy, only lasting for 5 seconds. The idea is that although it has high dps, it is spawned incredibly close to you so you would have to be either close to your enemie or be able to drag it to you.

Phylactery Mystic: New conflict is almost directly superior to poor old phylactery. I would think that a taking damage idea similar to boiling blood would work really well on the ST mystic set

Weilding Flame: Just kinda sucks… Really doesn’t benefit yourself and doesn’t really benefit your team much either. Maybe daze instead of armor broken for 5 consecutive shots. Would make it better for you and your teammates

Sweet Trail: WHY IS HER PASSIVE SO OP!!!

Lost Golem: Who knows. never had the full set :frowning:

Soul Bank: Cool idea.

Monstrous Rampage: Might just be me, but I would suggest adding an artificial cooldown when using hp because it’s a lot easier for one to heal hp then mp (maxed divine hp healing pets heal 90 while mp only heal 45). Basically, for people with incredibly strong pets, this is too op without a big fat extra 1.5 second cooldown that wouldn’t occur while using MP

Living Bile: Marble Colossus Solo… Hideout Solo… Ot Solo… Nest Solo without even being in room… Kinda just a bit way too OP, ecspecially for single boss end game dungeons (Shatters solo, 101)

Akuma Slayer: I’ve played one samourai in my life and have 0 parts of the set so no help from me :stuck_out_tongue:

#15

Could it be named Forbidden Exploitation? Because being an archmage would grant you access to a lot of information on spells, runes, etc. Maybe the Twilight Archmage has secret knowledge of how to find enemies’ weak points?

I like the idea!

#16

Seems to easy to proc, and +50 hp is barely more than a pet heal. Seems like a weak passive overall, but I like the idea. It also relates to the phylactery, which is definitely cool.

#17

I was hesitant to add a damaging decoy effect because there are already prisms which damage enemies. I’m looking for brand new ideas. Nice concept though.

#18

Seems balanced, but not too interesting or unique for my taste.

#19

It’s definitely necessary to change the stats because most of my ideas require for the ST sets to be balanced. There’s also the problem that I mentioned with the ST items being too RNG-based and underpowered when fully equipped.

#20

Well like I said all numbers are subject to change. I just wanted to play with the rogue’s trademark ability of invisibility. The range could definitely be lowered to a 4-5 tile radius. In fact, I’ll change it right now. Thanks for pointing it out!