Ryzom

Oh since we're shooting the moon anyway, I say we should get some random Special Death animation, sorta like Fatality in Mortal Kombat, if yah know wut I mean, or critical death in Fallout and Baulder's Gate.

At random, have the killing blow be a special death animation. Instead of a Timmies groaning and die the same way every time, have them get their head chopped off, or the melee with the final death blow mount the timmies and drive his weapon through its shoulder, or if a Kitin, slide under the claws and stab up through the stomach, etc, or Ocyx, wrestle the thing to the ground and drive a blade through it's chin.

Incidentally, I love the way the Kipesta die right now

vinnyq wrote:Oh since we're shooting the moon anyway, I say we should get some random Special Death animation, sorta like Fatality in Mortal Kombat, if yah know wut I mean, or critical death in Fallout and Baulder's Gate.

At random, have the killing blow be a special death animation. Instead of a Timmies groaning and die the same way every time, have them get their head chopped off, or the melee with the final death blow mount the timmies and drive his weapon through its shoulder, or if a Kitin, slide under the claws and stab up through the stomach, etc, or Ocyx, wrestle the thing to the ground and drive a blade through it's chin.

Incidentally, I love the way the Kipesta die right now

Remember this game is rated for 12+, so although some of these suggestions are good they may not be implentable for that reason (heads being chopped off, etc)

micrix wrote:I like it that melee is a 4 button thing

The only thing is that melee doesnt have anything new at 125. I would give the melees a little fire, poison, shockwave and electric damage at 125, 165, ... similar to the elemental mages.

Yup have it as a stanza (so its lvl dependant) that activates the special properties of the racial weapons , so you get burn/elec/shock/poison damage when its used with the correct weapon (maybe half the effect if used with normal or the wrong type of race weapon) , i think they shouldve done this instead of Nerfing mages (expect heal(health) which realy did need adjusting)

EDIT- Include the Range race weapons in the above too , lol and give us race amps while youre at it too that effect the race spells in a similar way (ie lower the effect if used with the wrong type) -weeeee abit of diversity

I dont want to hijack the thread into a Mage Nerf one , but id prefer to see Melee and Range have an increase in options/power rather than Mages lose options/power. More options and a reward for higher lvls = teh win , Nerfing for balance and a reduction in options to the basic skills you started with = Boredom and losing players

The first real boost for Mages comes at lvl 100 with Double casts , surely it doesnt take too much imagination to give Melee and Range Double Strike/Shot stanzas at the same lvl to retain balance and give those branchs a reward for achieving higher lvls as well .

With an increase in lvl life should get harder and players should be pushed towards teaming more this is after all an MMO but at the same time there should be points throughout the lvling process that reward players for getting there and empower them with extra abilitys/rewards for their effort

Melee should not have abilities copy pasted over from magic. If I'm doing fire/poison/elec/shock as a mage, why would I play melee to do a significantly weaker version of that? Same with double cast/strikes. Why just copy exactly what magic users do at equivalent level instead of having something unique to melee? Besides if you did that melee wouldn't really become anymore interesting than it is now. All melees would do is double click the Electric Damage Double Hit and watch the numbers fly.

Melee doesn't necessarily need to be more powerful, just needs more options (Expecially CC). 3 'moves' is seriously pitiful. It would be a bit different if it was 3 per weapon, but they are all the same with only 'move' varying by damage type. Boring. This games system has a lot of potential as far as being able to tailor your actions to your liking. Too bad there isn't a point to making more than a few for normal grind sessions. In 125+ levels of melee fighting, I haven't really 'done' much of anything but watch.

While possibly out of balance, what I'm proposing are weapon specific moves that can be used strategically and be (hopefully) more fun. I like to be involved in battles, not just hit auto attack and watch. If you had attacks that would coordinate well with other skill users attacks and involved timing/teamwork, wouldn't that be more fun?

Maybe I'm the odd man out here, but I like to look forward to getting things as I advance. To me "Increase Damage 9" isn't really all that exciting. After level 50 in melee you get nothing new and I feel that is a huge problem. Again, maybe I'm the only one who sees a problem with this...not to worry as you'll not hear my rantings for too much longer.

-Bosamba of Infinity-

Ah, this post has been brewing a while. Forgive me if I mention something others have (probably influenced me, hehe) or if I ignore something that applies....


General Melee-
Regional skills at lvl 125. Can be just adding elemental damage to the hit, but would be more interesting if was effects: Fire burn that decreases targets damage ability, poison slows their attack rate for the duration and causes slight DoT, electric stuns for a moment, shockwave causes madness for a moment. Make them very effective, but on a timer (can't have people using it as a basic attack and straining the healers) But make the timer malus/penalty dependent. So someone in medium armor can use it more often then someone in heavy, and someone in light even more.

The elemental weapons need to do something besides look good. Maybe like a 1% chance to cause the above mentioned things on strike, or better yet increased effectiveness when using one of the above with a matching weapon. Could at the same time make a portion of the damage (25%?) into elemental damage of the appropriate type. Same max possible as regular weapons, just delivered different. If the bonus is too much no one would ever want to use the non-elemental weapons.

Edit: I see someone mentioned having regional weapons that were extra effective at their regional spell but not as good as the others. That would be perfect for melee weapons. Someone coming at you with a burning axe is going to have an awesome fire attack but the others not so hot. But someone coming at you with a Zorai sword can do them all equally well.

Melee needs an AoE taunt that pulls everything in a radius of the user, but on a long timer. Don't give it until say lvl 150 and increase the radius at 200 and 250.



Slashing-
Boost bleed a little. I'd like to see a system where once the target is bleeding, occasionally an opening of some sort will show like a dodge or parry, and if you successfully hit with a special "Old Wounds" skill in that opening (time window would be shorter than "after dodge/parry"), it renews the timer on any bleeds that are currently going. That way by good timing, you can stack them a lot longer (if your attacks land)

New skill "Duel." Extra effective taunt skill. Credit usage on your melee attacks are reduced to 25% for the duration. Both yours and targets damaged are increased for the duration. On a timer.

Piercing-
New skill. "Find weakness" Using it has a chance to find a weakness in the opponents armor. Once successful, fur a duration afterwards you'll see new openings pop up like dodge/parry. Can use a regular attack in those openings and it will ignore armor without using an IA brick in the attack. Saves you stamina.

New skill "Skewer" Thrust the weapon into the opponent and hold it there for decent DoT. But neither you or the opponent can move from that spot for the duration, you're stuck together. On a timer.

Smashing-
Boost slow. I can't even notice it now, I hear it debated whether it's working or not. Maybe just set it to stack if you do it successivley, going up to a max of the target attacking at half rate.

Introduce a new skill, "immobilize". If successful, target is crippled and can't move for a short period of time. On a timer. Melee can cripple it's target and then run after an add or use it to try to escape a fight they can't win


Daggers-
Can use all 3 attacks slow, bleed, ignore armor. Imagine you do all three with it- stab, slash, and bash with the pommel. (base armor reduction on pierce still)

Add a new skill of "Flurry" where each successive successful hit increases in damage. Adds a bonus to your ability to hit and to your dodge for the duration, while decreasing stamina cost of each successive attack. Can break any time by switching to another attack. Dodge/parry decreased below normal for a short period (based on how long your flurry was) afterwards. On a timer.

Edit: It would be nice if instead of having the increased chance to hit, it relied more on hitting certain body parts in the correct order. Every type of mob in the game would have like a 5 part code that needed to be learned. Once you know a code, just repeat hitting the 5 parts in the right order and do a long Flurry

Shield-
Users would be good to have a shield bash attack. On a timer. Maybe chance to stun. Damage based on level of the skill and if it's a buckler or large shield. (i.e. no need to make a damage stat on shield crafting) Either can't be dodged or parried or make it very difficult to, like add 50 levels to th effective attack level.

Also, "shielding" doesn't need a timer, let it be active continuously as suggested earlier.

2h - General-
New skills, "impale/crush/cleave" depending on your branch. Mega damage attack (300% on top of inc damage?) but takes twice as long to recover from. Decreases your effective dodge/parry during use. On a timer.


1H General-
New skills "Counter/redirect/block" (slash/pierce/smash) Increases your effective parry (more at higher levels) modifier while in use, but can not be used with increase damage or any other special melee stanzas except accuratte attack. Forfeit damage so you can avoid more hits.

Stamina usage on 1H and CC should be decreased. Simple way would be a negative penalty modifier on 1H weapons (not able to drop it below zero though) but there's probably a better way.


Dual Wield-
New skill , "distract" Allows you to feint with the dagger and get a guaranteed hit with the sword (undodgeable) in the same action. On a timer.


Armor
Light- "Duel" skill duration used against wearer is cut in half. Also reduces Bleeding damage to 50% or cuts the timer in half. It's cloth, absorbs the blood and helps it clot faster?

Medium- Ignore Armor and Skewer attacks on it have an added chance to miss completely. 20%?. (seeing as they can just not use IA and only have 25% damage absorption) I see IA as sliding into chinks in the armor.Can think of MA of being made up of strategically placed extra hard panels, if the IA hits on a panel it won't penetrate but instead slide off to the side harmlessly

Heavy- Either 50% immune (duration reduction probably better than chance to hit) to "immobilize" , "slow" or both. Heavy is heavy, it'll absorb the shock of a big blunt thwack and minimize the effects of your body being crushed.

Aim Stanzas
Either keep the credit costs the same and make the following happen frequently, or decrease the cost and make them infrequent.. or 50/50 hehe
(only when these stanzas are used, the following don't happen if you hit that body part naturally)

Legs- Target incurs slow movement if hit
Arms- Target damage output is slightly reduced if hit
Chest- Knockback,targets is pushed away from you if hit
Head- Cancels its current or next action if hit (very short stun)

Well theyre not Mage abilities theyre Race abilities its just that Mages are the only ones to benifit from them atm , you wouldnt be casting youd be inflicting damage ontop of your normal weapon damage similar to bleed (without the dot).

IMO you need the doubles to maintain balance across the branchs (and give a reward for getting to that lvl) sure it will just take over from your basic stanza in most instances but atleast its a change brought about from progessing your skills.

I dont think you will be able to break away from the double click sit back n watch routine unless they take away that function but atleast you have Critical n Dodge to play with much better than mages just clicking one button repeatedly.

It would be nice if Aim-At worked better - if you could use Aim at Head for example the opponent dodges and you thrust the killing blow into thier chest whilst they are off balance. Aim at would need to be done in sequence to make fight realy interesting but that could get very complex and hard to work out what needed doing without some type of guide -maybe an exposed body part or the associated Aim at stanza could pulse red or something after a critical ?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for rewards for attaining higher levels in fighting. Hence my suggestions for actual moves given at 50/100/150/200/250 and racial stances available at 125. I think melee/magic should be completely separated in their skills/functions. Too much in this game is reliant strictly on how much damage you do per hit instead of adding utility skills or build up/combo attacks.

What I think is one of the major problems is that a person using a 2h Mace fights no different than a person using a 1h Pike. Also there is no coordination between their attacks. Giving weapons moves that differ and have utility beyond damage will make each weapon useful and each group you're in function differently. If moves are added that are opponent condition dependant (if bleeding/stunned/etc) then you get to actively think about each hit and what you can do with it. Dynamic gameplay is way more fun than click and watch...At least to me. (Positional attacks would be cool (backstab and the like) but those are used in many MMOs and this one aims to be different...tryed to keep with that in presenting ideas.)

The whole idea of this type of gameplay is best demonstrated in FFXI where each Job has different weapon skills that can be chained together to form skill chains. Depending on the order/timing of each members skill you get a skill chain that does added damage and a mage can Magic Burst it to finish it and do added magic damage. While such a system would not work in this game (nor would I want it to) the concept of players actually coordinating attacks to defeat foes, in my opnion, is a good one (props to SE).

As far as the 125 racial thing magic users have their elemental thing. Leave that to them. Magic and the elements are their areas of expertise. Melee combatants deal in the ways of beatings, why not give each race something that a) has to do with beating things up b) has something to do with the race's background. Maybe my stances idea -

Zorai - Zorai fighter's attacks, if successful, steal 5% of the damage they deal in HP. / Fyros - Fyros fighter's attacks do +10 - 100 damage each successful hit (dependant on weapon speed). / Tryker - Tryker attacks use no stamina/HP and attack speed is doubled. / Matis - Matis fighters attacks cannot miss and grant +1% - 5% protection factor to armor/shield (Weapon speed dependant).

is too far fetched, but something in that direction I think unique/powerful enough to keep melee's in the game at that level. The timer's would keep them from being retardedly unbalanced PvP.

As far as the racial weapons go, I think something like a 5% chance for each to proc some element associated debuff is a good idea. Combinations of weapon type, weapon's race and player race would allow for some very effective/deadly fighters. You would have to take into consideration everything about your character in how you chose to fight. Adding further dynamics to fighting.

-Bosamba of Infinity-

Auww, I was hoping for comments on my suggestions, hehe

Guess my essay was too long for people to get all the way through

sehracii wrote:Auww, I was hoping for comments on my suggestions, hehe

Guess my essay was too long for people to get all the way through

was not THAT long but I can't see what I can add more. you covered pretty much all the bases here.
one comment... "New skill , "distract" Allows you to feint with the dagger and get a guaranteed hit with the sword (undodgeable) in the same action. On a timer." it can be parry-able tou I allways get pissed off when kitins were parrying my hits. I wonder how they are parry... with the claws?

Haha, yeah, That one would be best un-parry-able too

I think I've seen all sorts of mobs parry, like bodoc too. Must be pushing your weapon away with their horns