suggestions

I have been playing bots on and off since the days where Gamefaqs.com had a top3 clan (and a shared bot for newbies) and I have been wondering.... Since all the gear is just copied from Diablo why have unique weapons been incorporated?

It would be fairly simple really; you could make them slightly weaker than weapons of the same level but have them add stats. Some can be +/- the usual 4 stats but others like “Shieldguard†could be a sword that adds 5-10% block but does 20% less damage than other weapons of similar stat requirements. And like shields, you would only be able to wear one of them.

Funny enough I remember floR trying out either unique weapons or shields back in bots2. For some reason he decided to not allow them. If we had unique weapons and/or shields then freaking in this game would likely get out of control. If you could get an extra +10 to +20 str/dex or more then it would just end up making higher grade freaked bots.

Unique armours make sense to a degree (some are OP, some aren't) since they normally have a defense loss for the sake of +stats, but since they've been used to mostly upgrade armours/weapons past their durability limit (freaked bots tend to have a lot higher durability loss), their use is somewhat OP already. Like getting full kevlars for a blaster bot that should only have 390 str etc. If bots took a durability hit when they got attacked or had the old "this bot can't be attacked" or something similar then this game would be a lot different. Then maybe I can see the use of more unique items. But not in the "buy armours and then dump to prevent durability loss" current state. Or maybe they'd be useful in a PvE mode.

Would be different programming but it could be used to add other features to the game instead of + stats but possible buffs or instant proc damage that can trigger a % chance on attack/hit. Just thoughts to shake it up after all these years.

(Although the trophies and boosts have been a very nice addition)

I have the same recollection as Zal about unique weapons in bots2. I recall that they existed for a time and then got pulled for...whatever reason. I started playing bots2 in 2002 and I think they were before my time, so I don't have any first-hand knowledge.

That said, I'm not against the idea of unique weapons in bots4 with special abilities. I've also thought for awhile about items similar to "magic" items in D2 where the, say, defense stat has a 0-20% bonus (disclaimer: I have given this example approximately 3.2 seconds of thought). There are a lot of interesting ways this sort of system could interact with PvE-related ways of acquiring items, trading between players, and so on.

All of this needs to be given a lot more thought though and there's a lot more "basic" stuff that I intend to do before anything as drastic as what's hinted at in this post, so no promises for now.