Which slot is chosen when using radial menu to equip ring ?

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

This is an old question that I haven't asked as it only comes up once in a while, but that still mystifies (and annoys) me after all these years.

 

Assume that the PC has two rings equipped to his ring slots and a third in main inventory. When the player right clicks on the ring in inventory and chooses "Equip" from the radial menu, that ring is usually swapped for the ring in the lower of the two ring slots. I haven't kept track, but I would guess that it happens that way for me over 98% of the time. That's perfect game behavior in response to a player command - it's predictable and I know that when I right-click equip a ring, I will then have that new ring equipped in the lower slot, along with the ring in the upper ring slot, losing whatever benefit from equipping the ring formerly in the lower ring slot. But, once in a great while, the right-click-equipped ring will replace the one in the upper ring slot. Argh! Half of my toons are casters and swapping out that top ring means that they just lost spells because I had an casting-ability-increasing or bonus-spell-slot-granting ring in that upper slot. Moreover, I might not even realize it has happened because I often use the radial menu to equip gear when I have a container open and cannot see my equipment slots.

 

So, my question is: How does the game choose the slot into which a new ring is equipped when the toon already has two rings equipped? Clearly it is not totally random, because it equips to the lower slot the vast majority of the time. But, sometimes it chooses the upper slot and I would like to know if there is some predictable mechanism at work here.

 

BTW, I have a suspicion that the answer

   Spoiler
   

has something to do with "first-time" behavior. In other words, the first time a player tries this in a new game or after a re-load or re-log, the game doesn't always check whether there is already a ring in the upper slot and puts the new ring there as it would the first time a ring is equipped when the toon has no rings equipped. After the first time, the ring always equips to the lower slot, assuming that both slots are full. I am not saying that's the exact mechanism, just that I wouldn't be surprised if it's something like that. This is the sort of thing (chosing which slot) that might be taking place on the client side.

But, I am curious if anyone has noodled out the exact process.

 

And, of course, I already know that any uncertainty can be eliminated by actually dropping the new ring onto the desired slot. I would be interested in a workaround that eliminates the rare upper-slot behavior from the right-click-equip method, but I am more interested in knowing what's really going on than in workarounds at the moment.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               My suspicion would lie in the Last Disturbed item. That is if you equip item A first and item B second, item B would be replaced. I never looked into the ring scenario, but this is the case for ammunition, when one round expires the game will look at the last disturbed set of ammunition (of the same type) to fill the now empty slot.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

Cool. Very good to know that ammunition works that way.

 

But, I don't think that rings work that way, or at least that's only part of whatever is going on. I just tested it. My toon had two rings equipped. I dropped a new ring unto the upper ring slot. Then, I right-click-equipped a ring and the game chose the lower ring slot. I dropped another ring onto the upper slot again and then right-click-equipped four other rings. They all went to the lower slot. Somehow, the lower slot is the preferred slot most of the time for right-click equips, even when the upper slot was the last slot to have a new ring dropped into it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

All I can tell is that using ring from quickslot puts him into first slot. Always, thats why most players on this epic loot server has one main ring they dont change and one they can change by situation.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

Thanks for the info. I seldom quickslot rings, so I had not realized that.

 

BTW, that's unfortunate behavior that equipping from a quickslot does the opposite thing as right-click-equipping.