So everybody's been talking about the new PVP that's being tested, talking about what gear has been good, what status effects are most popular, and so on, and it got me thinking, if we're just fighting other knights the creature type bonuses aren't really going to do anything. This will cause weapons and armor with creature type bonuses (CIV, Wild Hunting Blade, Virulisk and dragon scale sets, etc) to become even less popular than they are now (not very) and further cheapen the value of creature bonus UVs.
An interesting and, I believe, cool way to add a little more balance to the gear used in PVP would be to assign creature types to the armor/shields (for now I'm leaving helmets out because it would be too confusing to figure out how creature effects would work on players using a helmet and armor of different creature types, shields still work though because their type would only count when shielding) used by players. This already makes sense from a story point of view as all of the armor is crafted from mats dropped by creatures. Some of the types would be obvious: Beast=Wolver line, Barbarous Thorn shield, chroma set, etc. Undead=Skelly set Slime=jelly set. Some of the types would be slightly less obvious, for example cobalt set could be construct, or bomber set could be gremlin.
There is the problem of some sets not quite fitting any creature type (I have no idea where owlite would go for example), but these could either be assigned based on which creature type their weaknesses/resistances match or some sets could be neutral.
This is probably too ambitious of an idea to actually get used but it's a fun concept. I think it would help to balance out the gear selection and add a new level of strategy to the PVP after the PVP goes public and becomes more common and competitive.
What do you guys think? What types would you assign to which gear? Would this affect your choice of gear in PVP at all?
I suspect that trying to make everything simultaneously balanced for both normal play and PvP is a lost cause, but this is a good idea. Especially since most equipment is ALREADY associated with a creature type, by virtue of the materials used to craft it (most materials are obviously tied to a particular creature type or status theme that drops them), so assigning the type should be trivial in most cases. For example, items crated with Beast Scales will usually be [Beast], items made with Scrap Metal will tend to be [Construct], etc.
This may even boost the popularity of less common armors on the grounds that opponents will be less likely to pick weapons targeting them, which would be all to the good.
Both armor and helmet should definitely be taken into account, though--just give half the usual bonus if one applies and the full bonus if both do.