After a few of yesterday's posts I thought about a few things and how stuff could change.

Mainly just for armour, I guess just because I feel offering two ultra bonuses in one set of equipment is kind of extreme.
And that's where a lot of imbalance lies, in the sense combat data is retrieved from people who have sets that fit their playstyle and enhance it to a level where monsters don't really have a chance.

While armour should augment your abilities. It shouldn't substitute them.
*cough*Fallen Set*cough*

Having two ultra damage bonuses at no cost, is just insane.

I'm proposing a system that may change the way people approach armour.
It's probably not the best system, but it's just something that I feel could help balance the game and not make armours themselves statistically better than other choices.

And maybe a balance could be found between player and monster ability and prospective player ability that doesn't turn this game into a continuous nerf war.

Set bonuses

I think that the bonuses you see on armour shouldn't be distributed from both pieces in a set.
Having two Ultra Charge Time Reductions on a set is useless once your weapon reaches level 5.

Likewise, having two Ultra Damage Bonuses to Everything using Anything is just too overpowered for what it takes to make the item.

So, lots of higher level stuff would be put into sets. This way you would have to craft the helmet and body together, then wear them and level them and upgrade them to continue receiving the bonus.

There would only be one offered as well, so Trinkets would become more of a viable option instead of what they are now.

Just an example here:

Say you have, the Dragon Scale Mail and Shield, that is two pieces of a three piece set and offers you a High Attack Speed increase for Swords.
Then you have a helmet on, like a Skolver cap, that just wearing the cap will offer you a High Charge Time Reduction bonus, where wearing the full set of either of them would offer the Ultra Bonus.

So you get a good all around ability by experimenting with wearing different sets and items, or you could augment one ability in particular to an Ultra or extreme level.

If Ultra bonuses become less common, monsters don't have to be stupidly difficult since players won't become unstoppable fortresses of destruction wearing five of them at once.

I do think that some items should retain the ability on their own to offer a bonus, just that having set synergy would offer a better bonus, but not effectively DOUBLE the bonus. Some might just have outright bonuses, like Silvermail, which doesn't have any other pieces to it.

Some sets might need the whole set to get the bonus out of. I think that sets with high damage bonuses or other non-niche variants should require a whole set to activate.

Because as a whole the bonuses themselves are kind of ridiculous.
And if with two ultra damage bonuses, two ultra charge time trinkets as well as ultra bonuses from weapons, you can't beat back ANY monster in the game in it's current incarnation, the game could stand to be scaled back quite a bit.

But that's just my two cents on the whole deal.

Bonuses in particular

I think that when people go for a set, just like in the old thread about armour balancing, based on how it appeals to them as a player.
It can be split down into three groups.

Cautious players
Calculative players
and
Capable players

Each group is free to intermingle, but they are the main types of players.

A cautious player who doesn't know what to expect, would go for large health bonuses to use as a blanket defence in unfamiliar areas.
This would allow them to take more hits from all damage types, but rely entirely on health drops in order to survive if things get too rough.
It's a valid strategy, people should be allowed to use it.
They prefer bigger health numbers, on shields and armour, because it flatout means more survival.

Calculative players want to reduce the risk of fighting in a dungeon. Speed is of no concern to them, they want to have the best chance of beating something. They go through, they know what monsters do what in what areas and wear the right stuff. They also have a lot of skill, but prefer to use gear that offers a tactical advantage over monsters rather than a physical bonus to attacks.

Then there are capable players. They wear the gear that augments their playing style. Everything is easy for them because the stuff they're wearing was tailor made for how they play the game. They might be bomb dropping fanatics, blowing up everything in sight without taking a single hit. They want to do everything fast, while looking really cool.

In order to cater to these three groups, more bonuses need to be added.

Incoming Damage Reductions: Reducing the amount of damage you take from a particular type overall, without factoring in armour, or maybe reducing damage from certain enemies. Stuff that people can choose when they're going into a certain gate and know it will have some kind of use.
It could also offer protection from certain damage types, like ranged attacks or bomb attacks, even spikes, as an overall defence from things people find quite irritating in general.

Movement Speed Increases: Something that is invisible, but already in effect with the Vog Cub Set. Movement speed is a bonus power players live for. If they can't clear a stage in under a minute they're doing it wrong. They're essential in this kind of game.

Status Immunities: Obvious stuff here, but since monsters can be immune to statuses, why can't we?
The idea you would need status protection from anything besides fire used to seem laughable, but as more statuses get beefed up, this would be a viable choice for a set. Particularly statuses like Sleep and Curse that last for a long time. Or statuses like Shock that remove your shield usage.
Since shields no longer have anything to do with blocking statuses, this seems like a good move to balance out the game for the more calculative type players.

Increased Shield Regeneration: Something that could come in quite handy, if your shield is prone to getting broken a lot, you would want something like this. It doesn't need to be an enormous bonus or reduction in regeneration time, but anything that makes it safer to block in areas you're unfamiliar with wouldn't go awry with most players.

Vitapod Enhancement: Having lots of health is pretty important. Being able to pick up a vitapod that's +30 and receive bonus HP wouldn't be that bad.
This could also work well as a support bonus for somebody who is capable, being able to heal friends for more health with the standard revive would be handy in a pinch. Especially boss battles.

Reduced Revive Cost: Cutting the cost of reviving somebody in half, would make it a lot less stressful for players to revive their friends. You don't need to a good player to see the advantage to not having to pay as much to revive somebody. If you only have enough hearts left to take one hit, it doesn't really matter, but if you're at full health, using less of your health to bring them back to life would be amazing.

Of course, not all of these bonuses could be titled ULTRA or MODERATE. Mainly because some bonuses should just offer a flat level of improvement in each tier, something which I am going to talk about in a subsequent section.

There are a good number of bonuses I haven't bothered typing up, because I spent a lot of time writing this up already.
I'm also pretty sure that some more out there types of bonuses wouldn't be so bad.
Just an example here.

Bonus scaling by tier

Just like weapons, I think bonuses should scale by tier.

Lots of imbalance is caused by people using bonuses from 5-star gear to blast through stages that aren't meant for people armed to the teeth with ULTRA everything.

Scale them back by tier.
Turn an Ultra Bonus into a Moderate in Tier 2 and a Low bonus in Tier 1.

People with 5-star weapons already have an advantage in higher tiers since their weapons do have better abilities and attack patterns.
They don't need to have those bonuses as well, further breaking the game.

I'm not even sure if this happens already and is just invisible, but it did seem like a prevalent source for imbalance, since a lot of 5-star armours do get bonuses that make Tier 2 monsters wet their pants in fear over.

That's all I have to say for now.
Pretty sure I will be explaining things in subsequent posts in this thread, as usual.
So comment away.