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Imbued Weapons Powerset/Framework
kingpin0000
Posts: 69 Arc User
[DISCLAIMER] This is a LONG post. I am not responsible for any stress, fatigue, emotional distraught, and/or disdain brought on by you choosing to read on despite this warning & I will not reply to comments about the length or engage in any hostile exchanges. This is where you scroll down & decide for yourself if the topic seems interesting enough to keep going. I highlighted the more important stuff.
This would basically create a channeler class allowing players the option of creating a variety of close to mid-range mixed damage characters. It would lend itself really well to archetypes in particular. They would be able to have access to melee skills that combine melee damage with elemental/paranormal damage alongside ranged skills of the same element. As of now you can only have that sort of thing as a Devastator AT or FF. Put simply, with this you can have a toon with wind-themed dual blade skills, electricity-charged gauntlets skills, darkness-based scythe skills, ect while adding a level of structure that's currently missing and without taking away from anything else that works.
Ideally, you would start by selecting a power type/base: Fire, Ice, Earth, Wind, Water, Electricity, Darkness, or Celestial. This would count as your energy builder power. The power type you select would determine the type of weapon you use to channel the energy & which skills unlock as you progress. For an example using the order I just listed: Heavy Sword (Fire), Spear/Javelin (Ice), Hammer/Axe (Earth), Dual Blades (Wind), Whip (Water), Gauntlets/Fighting Claws (Electricity), Scythe (Darkness), or Single Sword (Light). (These are just what make sense to me after thinking about what would pair up best. This is just for general concept purposes.) You would only be able to use skills of that chosen power type from under this framework. The rest of the "Imbued Weapons" skills would be locked even for freeform characters unless retconed & another power type is selected. Skills from other frameworks would still be usable for freeforms so you could still have a Wind Dual Sword wielder with lightning arc & Annihilate if you felt inclined. This would just keep a certain degree of structure and control over potential exploits within the framework.
A lot of the signature moves would only require simple renames with some current advantages active by default or a few new ones substituted. Heavy weapon moves already lend themselves to fire specification. Some moves would require a few new animations such as stab, slash, & throw animations for the spear attacks. There would also need to be whip skins or whip visual effects added to new version chain attacks depending on how those moves work. There is also no water element currently so that would need to be added to implement this exactly. Otherwise though this would be able to make use of most of what already exists in game. Examples of some moves that I would see included:
All Power Types:
Inner Focus - Energy builder. Must be maintained. Think dragon ball like ki charge but focusing the energy into the weapon you're holding instead of your whole body. The beginning animation from Brimstone would work great for that. Using the move would leave you vulnerable to attack.
Heavy Sword: [Crushing + Elemental Damage]
Cleave - 25% CF Proc/100% on complete.
Brimstone - Always Fire Patch.
Eruption - Always Magma Burst.
Spear/Javelin: [Piercing + Elemental Damage]
Mutilate - Combo/Left-Right Diagonal Slashes followed by a stab. 25% Bleed Proc/100% on complete.
Stalactite - Ice Javelin Throw dealing high single target damage.
Stalagmites - Stabs the ground & ice spikes skewer enemies from underneath dealing moderate damage to the target and surrounding enemies.
Hammer/Axe: [Crushing + Elemental Damage]
Smash - Cleave with 25% Knockdown Proc/100% on complete.
Earth Splitter - Fissure animation without magma/fire effect/damage.
High Impact - Skullcrusher as a close proximity AoE knockdown with outward rippling earth pillar effect.
Dual Blades [Slashing + Elemental Damage]
Blade Tempest - 25% Stagger Proc/100% on complete.
Eye of the Storm - Blade Beyond the Veil always active, wider range, & repel.
Sword Cyclone - Semi transparent tornado effect around the player while applying knock-to on nearby enemies.
Whip: [Crushing + Elemental Damage]
Waves - Iron Chain with whips & Blade Tempest's Crashing Crescendo advantage always active.
Vortex - Iron Cyclone with Vortex Technique always active & a semi transparent whirlpool effect around the player.
Crashing Wave - A charge up single hit version of vortex with high damage that applies a knock down to nearby enemies. Visually a wall of water rising around the player then crashing down and spreading outward.
Gauntlets/Fighting Claws: [Piercing + Elemental Damage]
Thundering Fists - Righteous Fists animation with 25% Negative Ions Proc/100% on complete.
Thunderbolt Strike - A static charge builds up around you then you disappear & reappear as a bolt of lighting striking your opponent & also knocking them down.
Static Charge - An energy form that applies a stack, up to 8, of supercharge upon landing critical hits. Supercharge stacks increase attack speed while also granting a slight boost to melee damage and a small amount of energy. The stacks don't last long.
Scythe: [Slashing + Paranormal Damage]
Reap - Cleave with 25% Bleed Proc/100% on complete.
Grim Outlook - An energy form that applies a stack, up to 8, of Threatening Gaze upon refreshing or rupturing a bleed. Refreshing or rupturing a bleed on feared opponents applies two stacks of Threatening Gaze. Threatening Gaze stacks increase melee damage and a grant a small amount of energy. The stacks don't last long.
Arc of Ruin - Advantages: Last Rites [2pts] - After a full charge, surviving enemies become feared & also receive a -15% slashing & paranormal defense debuff; Dark Door [2pts] - After a landing fully charged attack, a rift will open for a short time sucking nearby enemies towards it.
Single Sword: [Slashing + Paranormal Damage]
Purge - Slash with 25% Illumination Proc/100% on complete.
Sacrifice - The user sacrifices half of their max health in exchange for a large boost in melee damage as well as a 15% defense buff. The effects disappear if the user's health is over 50% of it's max value.
Offering - A finishing move that does high damage to a target. If the target is illuminated & the move defeats them the user is granted the "Blessed" buff which grants a temporary heal over time. The heal scales off presence.
Ideally it would be simpler to give different element-based advantages to existing melee skills. That way you can for example swap out clinging flames on heavy weapons for negative ions and make a certain Thunder God if you want, but I know the developers want to avoid allowing one-stop shopping on skills. They want to create the possibilities of specific combos between skills to make each one more individually appealing so players hopefully don't all pick the same moves. Moves not being used is wasted time and resources. If you could pick all the most OP moves and make them all fit the same theme you know you would. I know I would at least so it makes sense to me to just wanna add new combo specific stuff and make other moves more functional & appealing. For me personally though, doing something like forcing fire procs on all heavy weapon attacks breaks the best part about CO....options. It contradicts the concept of choosing your own themes & puts a limit to your creativity. That's why I haven't left the powerhouse on any of my 4 FF characters since that update. I don't wanna be stuck with that. I feel like if you're gonna go that route you may as well commit to it. This seems like the logical next step to me. They basically did the gist of this for heavy weapons and fire already. Been almost a year since. Why not take it a few steps forward? This suggestion would just expand on what they're already seemingly looking to do and place it all within the same though more logical/practical confines. Putting Fire themed Heavy Swords or whatever number of different weapon options you want there to be for fire under "Imbued Weapons" would let them keep the new cleave and other fire focused skills, expand on the concept, and if they wanted to go back and include general versions like the previous cleave which was more theme friendly outside of that without having to compromise one route for another. That's just the motivation for me putting this out there. Hope it made sense. Hope it didn't violate any rules or anything either. Never posted on here before.
This would basically create a channeler class allowing players the option of creating a variety of close to mid-range mixed damage characters. It would lend itself really well to archetypes in particular. They would be able to have access to melee skills that combine melee damage with elemental/paranormal damage alongside ranged skills of the same element. As of now you can only have that sort of thing as a Devastator AT or FF. Put simply, with this you can have a toon with wind-themed dual blade skills, electricity-charged gauntlets skills, darkness-based scythe skills, ect while adding a level of structure that's currently missing and without taking away from anything else that works.
Ideally, you would start by selecting a power type/base: Fire, Ice, Earth, Wind, Water, Electricity, Darkness, or Celestial. This would count as your energy builder power. The power type you select would determine the type of weapon you use to channel the energy & which skills unlock as you progress. For an example using the order I just listed: Heavy Sword (Fire), Spear/Javelin (Ice), Hammer/Axe (Earth), Dual Blades (Wind), Whip (Water), Gauntlets/Fighting Claws (Electricity), Scythe (Darkness), or Single Sword (Light). (These are just what make sense to me after thinking about what would pair up best. This is just for general concept purposes.) You would only be able to use skills of that chosen power type from under this framework. The rest of the "Imbued Weapons" skills would be locked even for freeform characters unless retconed & another power type is selected. Skills from other frameworks would still be usable for freeforms so you could still have a Wind Dual Sword wielder with lightning arc & Annihilate if you felt inclined. This would just keep a certain degree of structure and control over potential exploits within the framework.
A lot of the signature moves would only require simple renames with some current advantages active by default or a few new ones substituted. Heavy weapon moves already lend themselves to fire specification. Some moves would require a few new animations such as stab, slash, & throw animations for the spear attacks. There would also need to be whip skins or whip visual effects added to new version chain attacks depending on how those moves work. There is also no water element currently so that would need to be added to implement this exactly. Otherwise though this would be able to make use of most of what already exists in game. Examples of some moves that I would see included:
All Power Types:
Inner Focus - Energy builder. Must be maintained. Think dragon ball like ki charge but focusing the energy into the weapon you're holding instead of your whole body. The beginning animation from Brimstone would work great for that. Using the move would leave you vulnerable to attack.
Heavy Sword: [Crushing + Elemental Damage]
Cleave - 25% CF Proc/100% on complete.
Brimstone - Always Fire Patch.
Eruption - Always Magma Burst.
Spear/Javelin: [Piercing + Elemental Damage]
Mutilate - Combo/Left-Right Diagonal Slashes followed by a stab. 25% Bleed Proc/100% on complete.
Stalactite - Ice Javelin Throw dealing high single target damage.
Stalagmites - Stabs the ground & ice spikes skewer enemies from underneath dealing moderate damage to the target and surrounding enemies.
Hammer/Axe: [Crushing + Elemental Damage]
Smash - Cleave with 25% Knockdown Proc/100% on complete.
Earth Splitter - Fissure animation without magma/fire effect/damage.
High Impact - Skullcrusher as a close proximity AoE knockdown with outward rippling earth pillar effect.
Dual Blades [Slashing + Elemental Damage]
Blade Tempest - 25% Stagger Proc/100% on complete.
Eye of the Storm - Blade Beyond the Veil always active, wider range, & repel.
Sword Cyclone - Semi transparent tornado effect around the player while applying knock-to on nearby enemies.
Whip: [Crushing + Elemental Damage]
Waves - Iron Chain with whips & Blade Tempest's Crashing Crescendo advantage always active.
Vortex - Iron Cyclone with Vortex Technique always active & a semi transparent whirlpool effect around the player.
Crashing Wave - A charge up single hit version of vortex with high damage that applies a knock down to nearby enemies. Visually a wall of water rising around the player then crashing down and spreading outward.
Gauntlets/Fighting Claws: [Piercing + Elemental Damage]
Thundering Fists - Righteous Fists animation with 25% Negative Ions Proc/100% on complete.
Thunderbolt Strike - A static charge builds up around you then you disappear & reappear as a bolt of lighting striking your opponent & also knocking them down.
Static Charge - An energy form that applies a stack, up to 8, of supercharge upon landing critical hits. Supercharge stacks increase attack speed while also granting a slight boost to melee damage and a small amount of energy. The stacks don't last long.
Scythe: [Slashing + Paranormal Damage]
Reap - Cleave with 25% Bleed Proc/100% on complete.
Grim Outlook - An energy form that applies a stack, up to 8, of Threatening Gaze upon refreshing or rupturing a bleed. Refreshing or rupturing a bleed on feared opponents applies two stacks of Threatening Gaze. Threatening Gaze stacks increase melee damage and a grant a small amount of energy. The stacks don't last long.
Arc of Ruin - Advantages: Last Rites [2pts] - After a full charge, surviving enemies become feared & also receive a -15% slashing & paranormal defense debuff; Dark Door [2pts] - After a landing fully charged attack, a rift will open for a short time sucking nearby enemies towards it.
Single Sword: [Slashing + Paranormal Damage]
Purge - Slash with 25% Illumination Proc/100% on complete.
Sacrifice - The user sacrifices half of their max health in exchange for a large boost in melee damage as well as a 15% defense buff. The effects disappear if the user's health is over 50% of it's max value.
Offering - A finishing move that does high damage to a target. If the target is illuminated & the move defeats them the user is granted the "Blessed" buff which grants a temporary heal over time. The heal scales off presence.
Ideally it would be simpler to give different element-based advantages to existing melee skills. That way you can for example swap out clinging flames on heavy weapons for negative ions and make a certain Thunder God if you want, but I know the developers want to avoid allowing one-stop shopping on skills. They want to create the possibilities of specific combos between skills to make each one more individually appealing so players hopefully don't all pick the same moves. Moves not being used is wasted time and resources. If you could pick all the most OP moves and make them all fit the same theme you know you would. I know I would at least so it makes sense to me to just wanna add new combo specific stuff and make other moves more functional & appealing. For me personally though, doing something like forcing fire procs on all heavy weapon attacks breaks the best part about CO....options. It contradicts the concept of choosing your own themes & puts a limit to your creativity. That's why I haven't left the powerhouse on any of my 4 FF characters since that update. I don't wanna be stuck with that. I feel like if you're gonna go that route you may as well commit to it. This seems like the logical next step to me. They basically did the gist of this for heavy weapons and fire already. Been almost a year since. Why not take it a few steps forward? This suggestion would just expand on what they're already seemingly looking to do and place it all within the same though more logical/practical confines. Putting Fire themed Heavy Swords or whatever number of different weapon options you want there to be for fire under "Imbued Weapons" would let them keep the new cleave and other fire focused skills, expand on the concept, and if they wanted to go back and include general versions like the previous cleave which was more theme friendly outside of that without having to compromise one route for another. That's just the motivation for me putting this out there. Hope it made sense. Hope it didn't violate any rules or anything either. Never posted on here before.
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Comments
That would save dev time.
But the down side is that a single power would still have several different animations because claws are not single blades are not dual blades are not unarmed are not whatever and so on.
Not sure that they would want to have one power "hiding" behind so many possible animations.
In the end I still feel that creating cores for this sort of thing is the way to go.
A core that adds fire, electrical, particle, crushing, whatever type of damage to your attacks.
This would go further than any "imbued weapons" set could allow, since someone could have "psychic fire" attacks or add a piercing element to their force attacks or whatever else they wished.
No new animations, no new powers to build, just figure out what amount of damage would be needed to balance these cores with existing options.
And if they wanted to add extra effects (clinging flames, negative ions, fear, etc) then they could do that, too, and it would lead to less direct damage but make the cores more suitable for folks wanting to splash their power set with some crossover powers (a character could use might attacks, splash some fire cores into their gear, and then benefit from the energy unlock for clinging flames for example).
Most of those weapon animations already exist. Axes, scythes, & great swords all use Heavy Weapon animations and just apply weapon skins. Aside from needing new animations for spears/javelins everything else is there to do it how I described. All that would have to happen is that default & specific weapon skins get applied automatically. Whips would work exactly as chains and would likely just need a vfx change if chains are vfx such as how the blade on laser swords is a vfx.
The only other thing that would be happening is that rather that replacing existing vanilla moves new copies would be added under the Imbued Weapons Framework/Powerset which ideally would be a new tab with sub-categories for each power type. Being a framework would just make everything neat and organized. Those copies can be renamed and edited freely without sacrificing other moves that worked well enough as is such as Cleave's original knock only version. Then we can have more options and the devs can still have their bias versions.
Essentially, this is how things would have been if they had given the rockstar archetype it's own category and not tried to mess with all heavy weapons skills to satisfy that one archetype. Instead of fire-based guitars though you get a variety of options without breaking anything else.
As far as your "cores" that's essentially what I mentioned about adding elements and procs as optional advantages on skills. This is unlikely to happen though given the obvious trend with move and archetype development over that last year. They are more inclined to focus on creating themed power-sets than creating possibilities for one-stop shopping versions of moves. Moves that generally satisfy everything function-wise lead to players just cherry picking the strongest & that's bad for business. Also that idea would likely require the creation & stacking of animations which could have strange visual consequences. Adding psychic & fire to a single skill would either have to have a psychic + fire version animation created for each move or rely on stacking totally different and unrelated animations and hoping the timings don't interfere with one another. That is unless you just want it for damage purposes with no change visually which be lame honestly.
It should also be pointed out that the devs are unlikely to want to give multiple damage types to skills or even have them deviate from established damage type presets. It would screw around with damage equations & likely need on the fly adjustments which would likely be more demanding on system resources. All this stuff has to load and be read from RAM real-time. More mid-battle computations equals more lag & sudden crashes if say a bug happens that makes the game misread which core is being used by which skill for even a second. It would take a good bit of not just animating, but programming & testing phases to get "cores" working like you describe.
Imbued Weapons on the other hand satisfy a specific niche. Other that the non-optional use of fire with heavy weapons there are no options for element based melee damage. And applied as a framework it would just be adding new power options to the game & further extending the true foundations of gameplay in CO, archetype use & freeform creation. Honestly, that last point you made just describes the benefits of going freeform. You can already crossover powers & with it apply multiple damage types as well as take advantage of a variety of energy unlocks and secondary effects that archetypes can't normal have access to & it's already built into the game as we speak. There is no real selling point to adding "cores" from a development perspective especially with that many options. That's at minimum more animations, more programming, more formula options needed, & more bugs to work out all for something that doesn't add towards their seemingly current mindset which appears to be "more power options" not "more options for powers". The simple fact is that the game already has "Cores" in the form of "Advantages". They're just much more limited because they're meant to work alongside specific builds and combos which is something that obviously won't be changing. Not trying to be a killjoy. Just an objective opinion to consider. A dev could always chime in and prove both of us wrongs. That's part of not being in the know.