Shop suits of armor for more inexperienced players.

I had this idea from Light remark about items in shops being useless. Which they aren't, but their use regarding armor is a bit limited.

We could have stuff like red dragon sets being sold in shops. Armor sets, but not equal to existing ones. Perhaps even thematic.

This is not very different from the mithril golems idea or the chimera armor idea, a single location with a quick set. But changed to shops and gated by gold.

For example Off Col could sell a suit of L30 silver armor. And all pieces would be 11/12/11/6 AC and +2 hitroll. For the modicum price of 30 000 gold coins a piece.

Then Malebrim would sell a set of L50 barbarian fur armor. With 10/10/10/10 AC and +2/+1 hit/damroll and +1 STR. For only 50k gold a piece.

These would be basic sets, that while good for PvE lack spell defenses for PvP.

This would be great for newbies, like Mike, who doesn't know where to find gear or how to dress.

We could also have a set for mages, with +hp +mana instead of hit/dam.

Like a suit of white robes L30 armor with 8/8/8/16 AC with +1 hitroll and +5 hp and +10 mana.

And a set of golden robes L50 armor with 10/10/10/10 AC and +15 hp + 30 mana + 1 Dex. At 50K a piece.

The huge gold price would make this an objective for newer players who now have a goal.

Would also enable smurf players better.

The sets would be the crusader set.

• helm
• face
• torso
• arms
• gloves
• legs
• boots

A small part of the idea is to differentiate the weapons needed to kill a mage from a melee.Magic vs melee and physical vs mages.

And that hitroll is important for mages at low level, while irrelevant at high levels. If the AC values are to great you could just lower them and lower the item level.

It could be very interesting. I could see Mike running around trying to make gold and exploring new way to earn it just to get the full set

Would be a couple of hour of entertainment until he reached his goal. Would probably make veterans take more time on the race to 50.

Probably best to make the suits anti-adventurer, as i dislike vets grinding safe out of pk.

Currently items I propose:

L30 melee set   11/12/11/6 AC +2 hitroll for 30K gold.

L50 melee set   10/10/10/10 AC +2 hitroll +1 damroll  +1 STR

L30 mage set    8/8/8/16 AC  +1 hitroll  +5 hp +10 mana.

L50 mage set   10/10/10/10 AC +15 hp + 30 mana + 1 Dex

Thats +14 hitroll for 7 pieces of L30 melee set, +14 hitroll + 7 damroll + 7 STR for L50 melee set.

L30 mage set is +7 hitroll + 35 hp and + 70 mana and L50 mage set + 105 HP + 210 mana and + 7 DEX.

The +7 STR and +DEX may look a bit extreme, but it's all in the same stat. Sure it will negate a -6 STR weaken but but there are no saves in the armor. The DEX is nice for BMG's and allows some integration of other EQ that reduces dex.

The 210 mana looks like much, but most vets would trade it for extra HP which has a direct impact on PK. But for a newbie, those extra mana will be very useful. Regarding the HP, 105 is nice for newbie mages, but vets can find the better dedicated HP gear.

The 16 magic AC in the L30 mage set is very interesting, specially if you are a giant since it covers you and you have hitroll to spare, but cuts your offensiveness. Perhaps Magick is right and it's to much. Just

These numbers are just my vision of things and references. Different people would use different numbers. We shouldn't focus to much on the numbers.

But on the idea that these sets should allow you to play extensively at L50/L30 in PvE.

Interestingly enough it even allows a moderate Invoker to it.

It's power isn't in the individual pieces as you can easily find better rare pieces, but in the power of having a full set of seven decent pieces.

I think the core problem of stores not having good stuff is that stores reset every shift. If they didn't, I'd be able to go buy all that chimera armor other people sold to farm gold but maybe I didn't know where it was. 

What if instead of building a bunch of new armor, we built a special store that has no original items, but eschews the shift dynamic through some fancy code I hope Erelei could figure out? 

Instead of gold reseting on shift, its like 20k/hour (real, not tick) or some flat amount, and then on shift...the items don't go away? Instead, items unsold for 1 week are destroyed. To farm gold, players will sell red dragon suits, chimera armor, titanium bracers, etc, and then inexperienced players can buy it from the store because it will usually have them in stock. The inventory of the store would change day to day which would encourage people to check it out. Anything you collect while adventuring, you go sell there to farm gold, and if someone else wants it they can buy it.

I'm assuming a decent bit of custom code would have to be written to build a store that could handle hundreds of items, maybe pagination, etc or something like that, but it might be less time than building all of the armor from scratch and would drive interraction from the players. I am sure even experienced players would occasionally see an item for sell they've never used/picked up.