Proposal for Ring Slot #2

[lusty imp]

Before you reflexively downvote me here, just hear me out.

A second ring slot, with two simple caveats:
Secondary effects only, stat bonuses ignored.
You cannot equip two of the same ring.

For example, you could wear a ring of suffering in the second slot, but it would only act as a recoil if enabled. You could wear a ring of life in this slot. You could wear a ring of the gods (i), but it would only act like the holy wrench. You could wear a ring of wealth and get the gold pickup+RDT benefit. You could wear a brimstone ring, but it would only have the chance to bypass magic defence. You could wear a lightbearer in this slot, too.

I feel this suggestion would be good for the health of the game because it not only gives more opportunities to consider bringing along existing passive effects that are quite nice and don't see much love because of mutual exclusivity (RoL, RoW), it would also open the possibility for new rings to come into the game without adding to SwitchScape problems.

A downside to this is that, yes, it is a form of power creep, but I feel this is significantly offset by the freedom to have rings that do unique things that aren't dead on arrival because other powerful rings already exist and there's only one slot. In a way it kind of diminishes the amount of power creep caused by lightbearer, but also creates opportunity for more power creep to exist depending on how you look at it.

I really don't think it would be broken to have a second ring slot specifically for rings with passive effects.

As for how to unlock this new equipment slot, or whether or not it should be gated behind a piece of content at all is not something I have any good ideas about.

The only knock-on effect to PvP I can think of is certain builds that carry a recoil as a switch could now equip the recoil on top of their DPS ring, but given the very small incremental damage of recoils, I reckon the danger in that is pretty low.

A second ring slot also allows stat bonus rings to exist in their own category instead of always having to compete with extremely appealing secondary effect rings. This is more of a benefit than I thought at first; when a stat bonus ring doesn't have to compete with the likes of the lightbearer, its bonuses can actually be milder and you'd still see the point in bringing it along.

[proud bluff]

I like the thought of it. As for unlocks, how does a nightmare zone specific quest sound? It would allow the ability for second rings & perhaps having to spend nmz points to learn how to imbue a second ring slot

[lusty imp]

NMZ is bound to be pretty divisive. Unless NMZ gets some kind of overhaul, I'd say it's probably a better fit elsewhere.

Seems like half of the people who play this game love NMZ, the other half hate it

[shell kelp]

this sounds pretty cool honestly, i'm not sure how it'd pan out in reality but it is definitely a creative and unique idea

i imagine it'd make some rings more useful outside of just "i don't have any other ring to use rn"

the only thing i can really think of as a 'no' rn would be that equipment pieces such as rings are typically small boosts, and choosing to have a secondary effect means not having those stat increases

[warm swan]

tbh lightbearer is so much better than any other secondary effect like 98% of the time this would just be straight up power creep for most pvm

which is unfortunate, since i really like the idea of being able to "offhand" a row

[lusty imp]

Yeah... Lightbearer kinda broke the ring meta, unfortunately. Maybe it's one of the rings that's powerful enough to be primary slot only, but it'd be a weird exception to the rule, and at that point things get needlessly convoluted

[coral swan]

makes you wonder if spec bar should be reworked isntead

[spring coral]

This would be a huge change tbh, very significant because RS was always unique in its simple customisation, but this sounds like a good idea. But it could be very overpowered and devalue rings like the Brimstone ring.

[lusty imp]

Hmmm.... How about compound rings? Instead of a second ring slot, you'd have the ability to "compound" the secondary effect of a ring onto another ring? Rings would be separated into two groups, primaries and secondaries. Any sufficiently powerful ring would be considered a primary (DPS rings, lightbearer) and other rings that are less powerful can be considered secondaries (RoW, RoL, RotG(i)). You imbue a primary with a secondary. That way any time a new ring comes into the game, it can be categorized as one or the other based upon how players feel about its power level.

You gain the secondary effect, but forego any stat bonuses (if there are any, most of the underused "secondaries" don't have stat bonuses)

Recoils may be an exception because the ring of suffering already exists

[spring coral]

Or your secondary ring only gives half the original bonuses?

Using a Recoil with a Zerker would be op af.

[lusty imp]

I'm inclined to say no to any stat bonuses on the secondary, it's just too strong in a lot of instances. This suggestion is more intended to give players the opportunity to use secondary effects they miss out on at the high level. I'm kinda rethinking this whole suggestion at the moment, there's probably a better way.

[south hatch]

Tbh this just seems like an unnecessary change to a non existing problem

And can cause even more problems with future ring design as you now risk creating an OP situation

Having a trade off between dps , special attack and utility is fine imo

Just make the tradeoff that works for your play style

[lusty imp]

...did you read what I just said? 😂

[south hatch]

Yeah just summarising my thoughts on the proposal in general

[spring coral]

I think they will add this in the future... like 10 years from now I see this being in the game

[coral swan]

Out of all lets say, out of the box ideas a second ring slot feels the most feasible