How about letting players create no-bonus versions of armor and then have armor ‘bonus kits’ that provide a bonus dependent on the level of kit and armor slot? The higher level kits would require higher level versions of the bonusless armor piece (Exceptional/Flawless). This would replicate the way the bonuses are currently calculated, and allow the players to customize the armor sets a little more. Heat protection would remain a property of the armor variant. And if you want to keep some special variations that have specific bonuses (i.e. Silent Legion Armor) then don’t put in bonusless versions of that armor type. The bonus kits would only be applicable to bonusless pieces.
Yeah, it’s one of if not THE most suggested feature. The answer to why it won’t happen is that Funcom prefers people to be able to guess opponents’ build from their armor - I’m not sure why they want that, but that’s the reason.
They then said they’d rather have all builds be viable, which is IMO impossible. Some stats (Encumberance, Survival) are utility-based, and cannot / SHOULD not be combat-viable on the same level that combat-centric stats like Strength and Vitality are.
That’s IMO, of course. There’s some fantastic armor designs in this game, and having most of them effectively be useless is a pity. Example: I am currently remodeling my base. So I spend the vast majority of my time in an encumberance build. Unless I want to be a total gimp when out gathering materials (fighting in encumberance build is bad enough already!), that means there’s only really three options for me, which is one of the default, “vanilla” armors. That makes me a bit sad.
Don’t get me wrong: I respect that they have a vision, even if I disagree with it. All we can do is raise our voices and let them know, and sometimes they’ll listen, and other times not, and that’s as it should be. You can’t do good game design (exclusively) by popular vote, after all.