Sacre wrote:Sevenless wrote:Had this sort of idea myself, decided to keep it for my own machinations if they ever fruit. Way I figured out the balance between aesthetics vs information in combat: Clothing "types". Combat shirts vs farmer shirts determine what upgrades can be attached. The items themselves have base stats and difficulty to acquire, therefore giving the information, but the add-ons to the clothing let you customize some little surprises for the enemy.
Basically means farmer clothes could never hide a full powered warrior. In order to get the disguise, some combat prowess would have to be sacrificed.
I had such a restriction in mind myself, but I figured people would probably complain there would then still be some pieces of equipment that are more powerful than others.
If each piece of equipment had two or three proficiencies it was tied to, though, it could work pretty well.
Loftar mentioned at one point that proficiencies are never really going to play much into combat. I'm figuring we'll see other benefits like "When wearing the bearskin trapper shirt, opponents suffer + 5 reel from your attacks". Clothing that is damage increasing, but cumbersome and increases imbalance per move used, that type of thing.
I definitely want there to be tiers of clothing. A fencing shirt made from sea island cloth should be better than fighter's rags made from yellow cotton. But using the whole "base item + upgrades" system gives more complexity at a significantly cheaper art budget. Drawing a little medallion is much easier on the graphics wallet than new character item models.