Itemization & Stat Distribution

[Frostorm]

So I was wondering...do you guys have a specific approach when it comes to creating weapons/armor for your game? Do you make every equipment slot the same value/weight or do they vary? For example, would a "Body" slot & "Head" slot item offer about the same stats? Or would you make certain slots worth more than others? If going by the latter approach, then how do you distribute the stat weights among various weapon/armor slots?

For my project, I've been thinking of doing something like the following:


The blank cells just mean I won't offer items of that level. I've yet to do much fine-tuning so the chart is super preliminary. But basically, I use a lv50 cap and I've made it so that...

• 2H Weapons grant 1 stat point per iLvl, so lv50 = 50 total stat points
• 1H Weapons grant half as many stats as a 2H Weapon
• Body slot pieces are also worth half of a 2H or equal to a 1H
• All other slots are worth 1/10th of a 2H Weapon

I just wanted to see how/what others have done regarding the itemization.

 

[Drake616]

Yeah usually trying to make things make a bit more sense beyond the basic stats, like having head armor give little protection per say, but offer a good chance to resist stunned states.

 

[Tai_MT]

Yeah, my armor stats vary depending on the piece. It's for practical reasons.

Put simply:

Each piece of armor offers specific weaknesses/strengths against certain elements. Bashing, Slashing, Piercing, Magic, etcetera. To avoid a player "min/maxing" these weaknesses and strengths, each piece of armor offers different stats and such.

From largest to smallest:
Chest, Head, Hands, Feet.

If all 4 pieces gave you resistance to Piercing attacks, you would probably have about 95% resistance. If they all offered the same percentage of resistance, you could easily just equip a bunch of different resistances to cover all bases.

Same thing applies to the stats.

Lighter armor offers more agility. Heavier armor offers more defense. Super Light Armor offers more Magical Defense. If a standard stat spread on a Chest piece is about 5 points, then everything under it has to be worth less. You might be able to get 5 points of defense, but if you "mix and match" you might only get 3 points of Magic Defense out of some shoes. Or, maybe you'd only get 1 point of Agility out of some Gloves. Players "can mix and match", but it isn't as effective as donning all the same type of armor that increases the same 1 or 2 stats you need.

Here's an example of the "extremes" on both ends (baseline values):

Cloth Armor
Head - 3 Magic Defense, 3 Speed, 1 Reflex, 5% Blunt Resist.
Armor - 5 Magic Defense, 2 Speed, 1 Reflex, 10% Blunt Resist.
Feet - 2 Magic Defense, 3 Speed, 2 Reflex, 3% Blunt Resist.
Hands - 2 Magic Defense, 1 Speed, 3 Reflex, 2% Blunt Resist.

Plate Armor
Head - 8 Defense, -4 Speed, -2 Reflex, 25% Magic Weakness, 8% Pierce Weakness, 10% Blunt Resist, 20% Slash Resist.
Armor - 13 Defense, -7 Speed, -5 Reflex, 55% Magic Weakness, 13% Pierce Weakness, 20% Blunt Resist, 40% Slash Resist.
Feet - 6 Defense, -3 Speed, -3 Reflex, 20% Magic Weakness, 6% Pierce Weakness, 8% Blunt Resist, 10% Slash Resist.
Hands - 4 Defense, -2 Speed, -3 Reflex, 15% Magic Weakness, 4% Pierce Weakness, 6% Blunt Resist, 8% Slash Resist.

 

[Aoi Ninami]

For me, the main consideration is that in my low-numbers game, I don't want the player to have four different ways of buffing their defence (six if you include items and skills), as that would make total defence go up way too quickly.

So, I have an "armour" slot for defence, an "off-hand" slot that can take shields but can also be used for equipment that boosts attack or magic (and some characters cannot use shields), an "earrings" slot for things like maxHP and maxMP boosts, and a "pendant" slot for miscellaneous equipment such as protection against states.

 

[Basileus]

Normally I would do something like your chart, where the armor chest piece would give the bulk of the stats and the extra armor pieces like helmets and gauntlets would have lower stats. This gives a little twist to the game's economy where the player has to choose between one big upgrade that they may have to grind a little to afford, or several smaller upgrades that they can afford now without grinding (but it means putting that big stat boost off until after another dungeon).

Lately I've been looking more into the stat distribution used in Tales of Berseria. Instead of everything but the weapon being an armor piece that gives defense, each slot is specialized in a different stat: Weapons give Attack, Accessories (sub-weapons) give Arte Attack (M Atk), Armor gives Defense, Rings give Arte Defense (M Def), and Boots give Focus (Luck). Each new tier of equipment has a higher stat total than the previous tier, but the total stats are split between the slot's main stat and each unique piece's sub-stat. So you might have a blade that gives Attack and Arte Attack, but the next tier blade might give Attack and Arte Defense instead. However, some pieces have the same sub-stat as their main stat so everything would go into just the one stat. This gives some flexibility to builds as players can pick equipment that all boosts a single stat or make strong generalist builds (but will have decent baseline stats either way so they won't be completely lacking something).

I think this might only work because of the upgrading system. Since you can upgrade each piece of equipment up to +10, the player can keep a specific piece relevant by increasing its total stats (although a higher tier piece that is also upgraded will still always give more total stats). Without an upgrade system, I'm not sure there would be enough incentive to keep previous gear that had more preferred sub-stats. The skills on each piece also might be more valuable to a player's build than the raw stats, so a game that doesn't have passive effects on equipment might have more trouble using this style.

 

[LordOfPotatos]

I usually go like this (I only use % increases so equipment scales with you):
Weapons give +40% stats, how that 40% is distributed depends on the weapon.
Armor gives 20%.
Accessories give 10%.
And I may replace a 10% in any piece for some gimmick like healing power +50% or something.

I do it like that because characters are usually very limited in weapon choices (or maybe even limited to 1 weapon that defines the character, like nightmare from soul calibur), but can usually use a bunch of armors and everyone can use every accessory.

So to keep characters distinct I make the limited slot more impactful, and to keep options open I give the weaker slots flexibility.

 

[Willibab]

I have been thinking a lot about this topic. I might have settled but I keep changing stuff all the time so who knows xD

My system is currently a tiered one, based on zones or chapters if you will. Essentially a lot of 50% bonus increments.

Items come in colored rarities much like games like WoW and Divinity Original Sin 2. Each rarity drops in different environments to different degrees.

Spoiler: Color Rarity

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White: You come across these on a regular basis and can buy them from stores. No stats outside of weapon specific bonuses.

Example: Iron Dagger: 4-7 physical damage.

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Green: Has a chance to drop in areas like caves and mini dungeons. Slight improvements from white items.

Example: Poison Dagger: 4-7 physical damage. 15% chance to poison target.

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Tan: Unique items, there is only 1 of each of these. Usually only strong under certain circumstances. Often have a drawback. (Have no ranks).

Example: Rodrick's Lucky Dirk: 1-9 physical damage. Guaranteed to critically hit.

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Blue: Common dungeon boss drops. Usually roughly 50% better then Green items (stats, damage)

Example: Silverite Dagger: 6-10 physical damage. +25% damage versus beasts.

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Purple: Rare dungeon boss drop. Roughly 100% better then Green items (stats, damage)

Example: Edge of Var'kash: Inflicts 8-14 Shadow damage. Each attack inflicts Dark Curse, increasing shadow damage taken by 1%. Stacks 10 times.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Orange: Legendary items, they are also unique and very powerful. Guaranteed to be rank 3.

End game item only.

And since I like a bit of RNG i've added a simply ranking star system. Any item can have 0-3 stars.

Spoiler: Star Ranking System

Each rank increases the damage, stats and effects of an item slightly.

These are examples of items from zone 1. Items in zone 2 will be the same arrangement but much stronger.

White: 6-10
Green: 6-10
Blue: 8-14
Purple: 12-20

So a purple from zone 1 will last for awhile into zone 2, possibly through the whole zone depending on luck.

This is ofc just an simplified example of daggers which have generally low damage output and the damage will be more varied depending on the theme of the item.