Ryzom

... If I come to think about... I think the size matters, lol.
Guess all the big ones are parrying, the small ones are dodging. After all is plain rediculous to imagine a timari dodging. or an arana.
1-st he thinks: "incoming"
2-nd he asks: "what should I do?"
3-rd: "i should dodge this one, if it hits me I'll be hurt"
4-th: starts moving
5-th he thinks: "ooops. I've made a mistake. It HURTS"
6-th he thinks: "next time I'll parry"

Sorry, had gotten on a roll and forgot to comment. Start by saying I lke most of the ideas. You probably know what I thnk about the Lv125 racial thing so I won't go into it again.

I like the things you suggested for Slash/Smash/Pierce. I also like the idea of openings presenting themselves when status is inflicted. I think added coolness were if these openings (some not all) were open to other skill users giving them 'group utility', allowing others to do more damage as well.

As far as the dagger thing, Bleed/IA would be nice. I don't know how much Slow has to do with dagger fighting. Just my opinion, though. The Flurry ability sounds like my Fyros stnace idea, increase damage with each hit. I do really like the combination with the 'hit code' thing for the aims stanzas. Would each successful hit in the 'code' do more damage as well? So hit 5 would be a massive one (massive - harder than the previous)? The 1h/25 general ideas are solid. I'd still like to see them implemented as weapon specific. If they were added alongside weapon specific moves, life would be good.

Shield Bash is a great shield ability in any game. This one would be no exception. I would suggest the timer being related to the shield weight. Like light shields had it on a 30sec/medium 45/heavy minute. Damage equal to Qlv x.5 for light/x1 for medium/x1.5 for heavy. I also like the idea of raising the effective level on the attack, making it harder to dodge/parry. A stun (on a chance, not guaranteed) would give it some nice utility.

The armor skills, while unique might be difficult to implement. How are these triggered? What piece of armor are they based on? Some wear different types of armor in different slots, I'd be interested to know how you'd work that particular skill set.

The aims debuffs now are pretty much how you have them I believe. Except for the chest knockback thing. As I use CC it might work to my detriment and push an enemy out of my reach but still in theirs. I'm biased towards CC , wouldn't want that happening.

All in all good ideas. Keep those wheels turning.

-Bosamba of Infinity-

kashius wrote: I like the things you suggested for Slash/Smash/Pierce. I also like the idea of openings presenting themselves when status is inflicted. I think added coolness were if these openings (some not all) were open to other skill users giving them 'group utility', allowing others to do more damage as well.

Yeah, that's a great idea. If I use "Find Weakness" or "Old Wounds" anyone else in melee with the appropriate weapon should see the openings as well.

The Flurry ability sounds like my Fyros stnace idea, increase damage with each hit. I do really like the combination with the 'hit code' thing for the aims stanzas. Would each successful hit in the 'code' do more damage as well? So hit 5 would be a massive one (massive - harder than the previous)?

Yeah, I think it would be nice if each successful hit did more damage then the last. Maybe the final hit 5, could be equivalent to the damage of a 2H weapon of the same stats.

Shield Bash is a great shield ability in any game. This one would be no exception. I would suggest the timer being related to the shield weight. Like light shields had it on a 30sec/medium 45/heavy minute. Damage equal to Qlv x.5 for light/x1 for medium/x1.5 for heavy.

Yeah, timer would need to be based on shield weight. There's only buckler and heavy shields though, right? Actually, I'd like to see all skills I mentioned with a timer have it affected by your malus penalty, less penalty = shorter timer. Damage could be tricky, would need tob e higher for heavy shields, but I think you can use higher Q bucklers than heavy shields, along the lines of (the old) medium armor. Probably 1x for buckler and 2x for heavy shield would be good though.

I also like the idea of raising the effective level on the attack, making it harder to dodge/parry.

Yeah, I think I mentioned one undodgeable/unparryable skill too, but I think it would fit better with the current system if they just had a very high increase to attack rating. I think Acc Attack is +30 lvls? These skills would be good with like +50 on top of that. No reason a level 50 should have a guaranteed hit on a lvl 250 mob. But a lvl 200 would be about guaranteed a hit on the same mob, attacking at a lvl 280 equivalent.

The armor skills, while unique might be difficult to implement. How are these triggered? What piece of armor are they based on? Some wear different types of armor in different slots, I'd be interested to know how you'd work that particular skill set.

The armor skills were more of a kooky thought than anything. The vision was that they weren't skills at all, but rather just properties of the armor that are always in effect. Kind of turned it into a rock/paper/scissors thing - light beat slash, medium beats pierce, heavy beats smash (in some small way)
I wouldn't be offended if the concept was trashed

The aims debuffs now are pretty much how you have them I believe. Except for the chest knockback thing. As I use CC it might work to my detriment and push an enemy out of my reach but still in theirs. I'm biased towards CC , wouldn't want that happening.

Yeah, as I understand those effects are essentially in game too, except they only happen on criticals, which is so rare to make thme worthless. I figured they could see the most usefulness simply by making them happen whenever you successfully hit the body part (or at least a lot more common, not 100%) but only when you actually used the stanza.
As far as not wanting the knockback, these effects would only happen if you puposely aimed at that body part with a stanza, so just don't use the "chest" stanza. While you would need the aims to complete a Flurry, perhaps they hold all effects until the Flurry is completed. Not only would you have the damage, after 5 coded hits your opponent would probably be slowed, weakened, knockbacked and stunned when you were done (and the knockback would be beyond both your ranges, so you could get a moment of not being hit during your lowered dodge/parry after the Flurry)

And on the "codes" it would also be more interesting and skillful if the code was always random for each opponent and when you started a Flurry the next part you needed to hit floeated up like "dodge" or "parry" opening. But the code stayed the same until that opponent died, so you could have a few chances to get it right.

The alternative is the week after the patch with this is released, there's a page on the Ballistic Mystix site with the codes for all the mob types in the game listed for you.

I don't know, which is better?

I like the idea of stances. And as long as we're pie in the sky...

What if a melee fighter always has to choose a stance, from the beginning? Each stance has a benefit. The first stances may have smaller bonuses than a new group gained at level 125 (but due to the unique nature of the bonuses, they would not be useless like acid/cold/rot).

A skilled player would switch stances as he encountered different enemies and different situations. In PvP, stance would be critical and the added sophistication could make different weapon types viable. A stance that triples critical hit chance, for instance, could make daggers more effective. A stance that adds your armor bonus to your relative parry skill would remove the advantage piercing weapons have.

In fact, skills like ignore armor, bleed, and slow could be stances instead of powers. Since you can only use one stance at any time, the individual stances can be quite powerful (the more emphasis stance has, the more tactical the game becomes). Thus, an ignore armor stance would make every attack ignore enemy armor (but armor-to-parry would effectively counter it). A bleed stance would add bleed damage to every single attack (but an increase damage stance would end the fight before the bleed damage became significant). A slow stance would add slow on every attack (slow would stack but last only a couple seconds - a "fast attack" stance would effectively counter slow). Similarly, a stance might make you immune to status ailments or debuffs (ideal for javings or against players who favor that type of attack). Another stance might allow a damage increase for each successful hit (with a progressive hit penalty, of course). Some stances could be effective combination or support stances. A "taunt stance" could constantly add hate from a monster, effectively holding a mob on the tank.

Okay, in summary, I think adding a stance-based mechanic to fights would be really cool.