Item sets in The Elder Scrolls Online are pretty important if you want to reach your maximum potential in the game, but the creation of these sets is a closely guarded secret. While one might think that posting an in-house interview with combat designer Nadav Pechthold would shine a light on these secrets, it cleverly lays a trap with one sentence designed specifically to trigger a reaction in people who think too much about words: “In many cases, item sets are comprised of five pieces, but we also have sets that require both fewer and more than that to complete.” Not only does that sentence not mean anything (“these sets are five items or they aren’t”) but that’s not how you use the word “comprised!” That’s not what “comprised” means!
Then again, we just repeatedly typed “The Edler Scrolls Online” while working on this post, so maybe it’s just that kind of day. And if you’re not apt to be led down obscure linguistic rabbit holes, there’s plenty of good information here as Pechthold talks about how the team first looks at the content which is going to need sets while looking at the mechanical makeup of that content. If you’re fighting a lot of monsters of one type, getting bonuses against that type is a no-brainer. He also goes into the ways that the team tests sets with placeholder assets currently in the game, looking to existing sets with broadly similar effects as a foundation for the new design. Check out the full interview for a rundown of the process in action.
