Lots of Attributes, few gemstones

[Xeros]

What if socketing different items could give the same gemstone different effects based on the type of gear it's placed in? Like a diamond in a weapon doesn't give Armor, it gives +min/max damage, a ruby could do LoH instead of power, and emeralds could give a DoT effect (think poison or bleed). A topaz in capes could give extra gold while amethyst gives extra exp. Shields could get defense stat bonuses like block instead of crit for topaz while boots could get movement speed from sapphire and dodge from ruby or something along those lines. Similar to how socketing in Diablo 2 worked but a little less complex. I think it would be great for tweaking builds and potentially give less commonly used gemstones (I'm looking at you, Amethyst) alternative applications.

[Machiavel]

+1 from my point of view. Maybe not all this but I'm always up for new variables

[narf]

While I can see this generally working and believe it's a good idea, you completely avoided the matter of (crafting) jewellery, consumes and uses the most gems. It also has the biggest impact on your overall stats. Stats on perfect jewellery(4 stats) range from 2 to 3.5 times the ones on gear and generally speaking one perfect piece of jewellery is worth about 3 legendary gear pieces(ignoring gear armor here).
Therefore the way gemstone stats are determined on jewellery would be more important and Ametysts for example would still be underused, if they continue giving (only) Ability Rate in jewellery.

[Xeros]

While I can see this generally working and believe it's a good idea, you completely avoided the matter of (crafting) jewellery, consumes and uses the most gems. It also has the biggest impact on your overall stats. Stats on perfect jewellery(4 stats) range from 2 to 3.5 times the ones on gear and generally speaking one perfect piece of jewellery is worth about 3 legendary gear pieces(ignoring gear armor here).
Therefore the way gemstone stats are determined on jewellery would be more important and Ametysts for example would still be underused, if they continue giving (only) Ability Rate in jewellery.

Well considering everything involved with crafting jewelry I figured leaving that alone would be a good idea. But being able to get say an extra 28.6% movement speed by socketing boots with a brilliant sapphire for example (following the brilliant value to max stat ratio via power or vitality) would be nice but the biggest benefit would come from having them do different things in weapons. You could boost your recovery with rubies for LoH or get an extra, idk 100 (50-150), avg dmg for a brilliant diamond, or even elemental effects since we do have some. Topaz=10% chance of chain lightning based on weapon damage according to gemstone tier, sapphire could freeze, etc. All the foundations are there and while I don't presume to know how they have the game coded I don't think it would be a very large undertaking to be able to add the effects and change properties when gems are socketed in a different location. For solving your jewelry crafting dilemma they could potentially add gemstones like garnet and jet. I personally feel it would be a good way to give us more to play with when it comes to our set up without a massive chunk of work for them.

[Led]

I totally agree with more build diversity and there are unlimited options for the devs if they choose to go down this path in the future. It would be great for multiplayer if everyone was not doing the same thing.

[Estharon]

I've been toying with ideas about gem combinations some time ago.

First draft was a set of armor with each piece having two slots, allowing to combine gems for different effects. Ruby+diamond could emulate reflect, for example, or ruby+emerald life on hit, Diamond+Sapphire could increase evasion, and so on for all 15 possible combinations, with some giving special effects, like a damage shield from diamond+emerald, or e.g. armor penetration for ruby+sapphire. Unsocketing would allow for easy experimenting, if one doesn't want to read the guide that would pop up here within a day or two.

I ditched it when I ran into the very same problem that Narf pointed out: It does nothing for jewelry, when that's where it hurts most to have no appropriate gemstones for a certain stat.

I've been trying to think about a way to implement the creation of other gemstones that is not just a ripoff of the melding cube from diablo 2, but meh, couldn't think of something really original. In terms of practicality it might be the easiest to just have craftable objects that are used the same way as gemstones, one for each jewelry stat that can't be stoned yet. Something like reflecting thornpads, flesh-mending parasites, memory crystals or philosopher's stones (props if you can guess which does what^^). The objects are created from gemstone energy, by fusing two gemstones of different types. Basically the same concept without the armor, but also with full committment to the irreversible crafting process.

Considering the screen Led posted lately, it might even be a new motivation for the collecting type of players, adding 6 more types of quasi gemstones to collect whole stash columns of.

I'm still not really satisfied, because it is just too simple IMO and quite the used trope, but seeing this thread I thought I'd share it.

[Xeros]

I've been toying with ideas about gem combinations some time ago.

First draft was a set of armor with each piece having two slots, allowing to combine gems for different effects. Ruby+diamond could emulate reflect, for example, or ruby+emerald life on hit, Diamond+Sapphire could increase evasion, and so on for all 15 possible combinations, with some giving special effects, like a damage shield from diamond+emerald, or e.g. armor penetration for ruby+sapphire. Unsocketing would allow for easy experimenting, if one doesn't want to read the guide that would pop up here within a day or two.

I ditched it when I ran into the very same problem that Narf pointed out: It does nothing for jewelry, when that's where it hurts most to have no appropriate gemstones for a certain stat.

I've been trying to think about a way to implement the creation of other gemstones that is not just a ripoff of the melding cube from diablo 2, but meh, couldn't think of something really original. In terms of practicality it might be the easiest to just have craftable objects that are used the same way as gemstones, one for each jewelry stat that can't be stoned yet. Something like reflecting thornpads, flesh-mending parasites, memory crystals or philosopher's stones (props if you can guess which does what^^). The objects are created from gemstone energy, by fusing two gemstones of different types. Basically the same concept without the armor, but also with full committment to the irreversible crafting process.

Considering the screen Led posted lately, it might even be a new motivation for the collecting type of players, adding 6 more types of quasi gemstones to collect whole stash columns of.

I'm still not really satisfied, because it is just too simple IMO and quite the used trope, but seeing this thread I thought I'd share it.

Well in addition to the Garnet and Jet I mentioned in response to Narf, there could be other, non gemstone materials, could be like organic drops like a claw or tooth for one example and behave just like gemstones do. Opal, quartz, and plenty of other options to just linearly increase our ability to add stats through socketing gand they wouldn't even need the extra "if > then" lines for applying different properties based on the piece a gemstone is placed in. But it would be cool to have the ability to get elemental properties through weapon socketing.