Brainstorming ways to make low level invention sets more relevant

[Ukase]

My father used to tell me, "When in doubt, do nothing". To this day, I'm of a mixed opinion on how good or bad that advice is. Sometimes doing nothing can cost you. 

For now, I think nothing is a good idea with respect to effort to change these sets. 
Do I like the idea of making all sets 10-50? Very much so. The idea they weren't that way from the initial placement is beyond me. Why the original dev team thought we'd be slotting those is unknown to me. But, that's where we are. 

Does having Stink of the Manticore available at level 10 make it a more viable set? Not so much. Most folks aren't going to use that set, outside of the damage proc until level 30 anyway. Well, scratch that - for reasons of your own, many of you don't use sets until 50. I guess if I were blinking and found myself 50 that fast, I wouldn't either. But, since I solo more often than not, it's generally not that fast for me. 

But, making Touch of Death, or Kinetic Combat range from 10-50, that sounds more useful to me. Did the devs really anticipate us doing respecs at levels 35, 40 and 50 to change out these sets? I can't recall unslotters being around. If they were, it was a Free 2 play option, only available in the final year or so. 

I don't like the idea of changing the set bonuses of any set I'm currently using. Would I want to have to do a potential respec because now I want to use 6 slots instead of the 5 I have? Of course not. Even if was for the better of my character. I've trimmed a lot of characters from my stable. Deleted over 50 level 50's in the past few months because they weren't played in the past year. But still, the tedium of even looking at character builds to determine if they'd need to respec or burn unslotters - no thank you. But I'm just one guy. I'm sure I'm not alone in that specific regard, though. 

Others in this thread have come up with interesting options, so perhaps something will come of it. I'm not forward thinking enough to come up with any strong logical reasons as to why or why not. 

[Jacke]

Although I earlier mentioned using 4 DFBs and 2XP to get from L1 to L20, that's not the way I play Toons.

 

I usually have new Toons go Blueside and do Outbreak to get the Isolator Badge.  Then I play the Atlas Park arcs:

• Matthew Habashy
• Sondra Castel
• Aaron Thiery

Done this so many times, it's like an extra to running around getting Atlas Park's Badges and Plaques.  Usually leaves my Toons somewhere L6 to L8.

 

Some Toons I do start Redside (taking Breakout), a rare few Goldside.

 

Back to Blueside scheme.  Then I go to Kings Row for Police Band Missions and the Atlas Park Safeguard.  I've run Completists Toons, so I know the cutoff Levels and will stop XP to do more on a Toon, like more in Kings Row or head to the Hollows, maybe flip Redside.

 

I also rotate all my Toons through the various Day Job locations, as well as getting some more Badges in Pocket D via various actions.  Often a Toon has earned all the Day Job Badges before hitting L10.

 

It's not that hard to push through the early Levels.  There's many different ways.

 

 

[srmalloy]

7 hours ago, Jacke said:

I usually have new Toons go Blueside and do Outbreak to get the Isolator Badge.  Then I play the Atlas Park arcs:

• Matthew Habashy
• Sondra Castel
• Aaron Thiery

I do this as well, except that I'll pick up the Tech and Magic starting missions inside City Hall, then do them at +2 once I've run out Sandra Costel's arc and been introduced to Thiery.

[kelika2]

On 12/18/2024 at 12:30 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

low level invention sets have mostly become irrelevant

start looking at the set bonuses and get used to frankenslotting.  you can get some nice ranged/energy/neg energy defenses at a very low level

[macskull]

I had a thread on this topic last year, I'm sure there are some ideas in there worth exploring. It's not just that the set bonuses are crap, it's that the enhancement values themselves are also crap.

Edited yesterday at 03:33 AM by macskull

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, srmalloy said:

I do this as well, except that I'll pick up the Tech and Magic starting missions inside City Hall, then do them at +2 once I've run out Sandra Costel's arc and been introduced to Thiery.

 

I usually have a Toon talk to all 5 Initial Classic Contacts just to have them available for Inspirations and when I'm working a Completist or someone else who will get all 5 Classic Contacts every 5 levels.

 

You have to watch out, as those 5 Initial Classic Contacts won't always offer missions after L4 or L5.

 

 

[Nerio72]

If anything gets done, be sure to nerf regen.

[Yomo Kimyata]

9 hours ago, macskull said:

 It's not just that the set bonuses are crap, it's that the enhancement values themselves are also crap.

 

I look forward to checking out that thread, thank you!  Like you say above, generally set bonuses are crap and enhancement values are also crap, and that was fine when the slotting alternatives were TOs (remember those?) and DOs.  But introducing SOs at starting levels just destroyed any possibility for diversity.  Now I know that djinni is out of the bottle, and as it stands now, low level invention sets are essentially useless.  They eliminated TOs, maybe they will decide to eliminate low level invention sets?  Hell, maybe they will turn every set into purples?  WHO KNOWS?!?

[tidge]

A couple (more) things:

 

*If* the enhancement set bonuses went down to level 1 (for those "low cap" sets), that would be a small amount of utility. Of course so few players stay at those low levels for very long.

 

*If* the low level enhancement sets (which often have only have 3 or 4 pieces) offered different types of set bonuses for 1, 2, 3 pieces than the higher level sets... maybe folks would be tempted to franken-slot a few more of those.... but when the low-level sets are offering both smaller set bonuses of the exact same type and lower caps on enhancement values themselves, why bother with them?

 

As things stand now, the only sets (so more than 1 piece used) that don't scale up to level 50 that I somewhat regularly use are:

• 2x Steadfast Protection, because I am probably using two of those pieces anyway, and every little bit of Recovery helps.
• 4x Basilisk's Gaze, for Dominators, because they always have more than one Hold and the extra global Recharge is nice for 4 slots, leaving 2 more slots for nuance,
• 4x Cloud Senses, because I'm using the %damage piece, the powers need accuracy, and the set bonuses are IMO superior to those of Siphon Insight for using fewer slots,
• 2x Call to Arms, for MM where I have to put the global piece in a henchmen (as opposed to some other pet power)

[Frozen Burn]

My issue with low level IO sets is not the bonuses... it's the value they enhance the power.  They still enhance a power like DOs.  Just change the values to SO value range - can be slightly under for balance reasons since we get set bonuses.  That would make me use them instead of SOs.

 

I'd still swap them out later for the higher level sets and their bonuses, but at least I'd get SOME use from these sets that I otherwise never touch except for their specials/procs.

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Frozen Burn

[srmalloy]

15 hours ago, Jacke said:

You have to watch out, as those 5 Initial Classic Contacts won't always offer missions after L4 or L5.

They'll generally offer missions up to level 6, and push you to the next contact in the string at that point; I try to avoid the Science contact because I dislike getting sent to face off against Vahz with no effective counter for the zombie barf.