[X] My Assistant

is it possible to have somewhere an indication of PXP at level 0 for a certain equip as complementary stat? or PXP at level 10 for maxed items...

is it possible to have somewhere an indication of PXP at level 0 for a certain equip as complementary stat? or PXP at level 10 for maxed items...

OR just a straight up quality value between 0 and 1.4?

Adding a couple of new difficulties (25x, 30x), and/or perks to unlock them (22.5x, 25x, 27.5x, 30x), can do the trick.

OK.

As I understand it, there may be a need for more perks. This may be useful:

Enigma II: The riddlemaster has a higher chance to give you a riddle, when the blessing of the riddlemaster is not active.


This will keep the security function in tact, or even make it stronger, while giving high-level players just a little bit more offensive power because of more frequent blessing. And offensive power we want! (to pay for).

Hi there. Some ideas popped on my mind, so I decided to brainstorm a bit to make something decent to post here.

I didn't take my time to browse the thread more than some pages past, so I apologize if some/all of the ideas presented have already been made/turned down.

Preview

My suggestions are related to the level and difficulty systems, the quality and rate of dropped equipment/items and the overall usefullness of monsters in the aspect of the owners.

Introduction

The HentaiVerse was actually one of the first text based games I started playing and, as I believe it was for most of the people who play it nowadays, when I noticed how addicted to it I was it was already too late. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

From my viewpoint, the main attraction point of the game is the variety of things it offers:

• the max level of 500
• many difficulties to play on
• the monsterlab to create monsters in an evil tamagotchi way, taking care of then in hopes to receive a BoS or a Phazon, or simply because you love it and just desire to see it killing others (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
• the many different playstyles, giving the freedom to the player to change it whenever wished, even if some aren't that great compared to others (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)
• the many different equipments, not tied to any playstyle, like shields only limited to a tank class or rapiers limited to a fencer or something

From a new player perspective, the game seemed flawless to me, but while lurking around threads where the old players hang around, it's easy to see many issues with all the good points I showed, being even more evident now as more people are getting to max level:

• max level doesn't offer any benefit other than being able to soulfuse anything and bragging rights, pretty much taking the fun of leveling up from players, making them feel like all the further obtained XP is going down the drain
• on endgame, anything other than PFUDOR feels like a waste of stamina, also being a cakewalk for many people already, not even needing to use cure, pretty much simply playing a game of whack a monster while watching TV or doing something else
• upgrading monsters doesn't actually give any benefits other than getting better gifts, with them usually being the 3 day timer ones, consisting mostly of the base mats, as high PL monsters don't even get kills usually, depending mostly on players that flee rounds
• some playstyles are far better than others, with the current META being the long standing 1h power and mages(this topic is pretty troublesome to touch, so I will leave it out of my suggestions)
• getting good gear from self drops from actually grinding monsters is pretty rare, not even considering the many existing combinations of tiers, prefixes, types and suffixes, with some people not getting 1 Legendary over a day entirely playing on PFUDOR, or people who get one and feel depressed with the dissapointing drop

To counter most of these issues, my suggestion is simple. Instead of a level cap increase, add a "paragon and torment system" like in Diablo III.

Level

Personaly, I got tired of the MMORPGs available nowadays and came back to HVerse. Most of them have a level cap, with levels not really meaning anything, making it so that when a character reaches max level the only available content becomes pve, pvp, grinding for money or for better equipment.

The HentaiVerse has a very high level cap, but the fact that it still does have one already gives me the feeling that one day I'll eventually lose one of my drives for playing the game, also making me already avoid further training of Adept Learner and even getting the first Hath Perk of 25%+ XP.

With a further "paragon" level system after the 500 cap, even if it's simply opening the way for max level players to get XP again is already good, making them able to further enhance their base stats, but it also opens the door for further development of the whole game, maybe introducing a new ability tree, more desirable hath perks, new arenas/playmodes, new titles or other desired things.

Personally, as I'm already a Godslayer, I would love new titles of Demi-god, Harbinger or other similar stuff gained from new arenas, a new playmode or the like, unlocked after eternaly grinding and following the path of Snowflake.

PROS: doesn't mess with the players already on the 500 level cap, just giving them the opportunity to get experience again and allowing for further base stat enhancement

CONS: the grind becomes endless (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

Difficulty

I have been able to play on PFUDOR recently without any big issues, only having to cure from time to time due to using crappish legendary gear I found on the Bazaar, but the only good thing I feel I receive from it is the additional XP bonus, as the equipment drops don't feel much better than even those from Hell(not counting the amount of superiors, the amount of exqs, mags and legs seems to have only an abismall increase), and the artifacts also seem even rarer to find on higher difficulties somehow.

Other than that, looking just some pages back, I found this:

Monsters need to be stronger in general, the only limiting factor for mages in pfudor gf is the random mp attacks and the amount of hp of certain monsters, this causes many monster types to be irrelevant (see jenga's database on monsters at high plvl).

One of the things I looked for when I was a poor weak noob around the mid 200~s bazaaring my BoS and Phazons was slaughtering monsters on IWBTH when I couldn't even survive with ease in Nintendo, with Battletoads(when it existed) even giving me nightmares.

Now I just do arenas on PFUDOR and IWs on IWBTH because my armor is still a bit of paper, but I'm pretty sure soon I will be like the cool kids, not even having to cure, or look at the monsters i'm facing and decide which one I should kill first because of their notoriety, as they will just get whacked in some turns and I'll eventually find them in a deeper round and whack them in the head again and again, not feeling any difficulty at all from the trials faced, without anythign else to challenge other than my best clear time on a certain arena or a -difficulty-fest.

Introducing new difficulties shouldn't be a problem, with the only issue maybe being what they offer, like exquisites or magnificents as lowest quality tier for equipment, but I don't see any issue with this, as for an endgame player nowadays, you must have at least a set of legendaries or decent mags, which can be easily bought from WTS or even from the Bazaar if there's some patience or simply a need to save money for some goal.

If flooding the market with exqs and mags is troublesome because of the salvaged mats, or better gear earned from the new difficulties is an issue, it could probably be fixed by unlocking new difficulties as the player level increases.

An example would be giving a further difficulty than PFUDOR that doesn't offer anythign new related to equipment like IWBTH and just ups the difficulty and gives better drops, then when a player reaches a certain level(or a certain mark after cap considering my previous idea), more difficulties are unlocked and so on.

For endgame players, adding a further goal at the end of the tunnel, like being able to unlock a difficulty that is sure to drop legendaries for killing schoolgirls after an unimaginable amount of levels beyound the 500 cap seems pretty interesting, making even the idea of doing SG arenas on a difficulty that will give headaches viable, also solving the problems of weak monsters in the process, as players will be risking their lives for better results on higher difficulties, looking for the better equipment that can be obtained from grinding more often even though the game becomes hard again.

This also opens the possibility for further equipment tiers from those difficulties of course. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)

PROS: this gives players the chance to challenge harder things, get better drops, more XP and better rewards overall, giving even more meaning to fully forging end game gear other than aiming for a faster clear speed.

It also makes monsters stronger, not needing to change anything in their base concept, incentivating their owners to invest in more crystal and chaos upgrades, as the chance for better gifts would increase with more players dying around trying their luck on new unlocked difficulties.

CONS: as the previous existing easy, battletoads and another difficulty that I believe existed in the past were scrapped because they where the less played ones, there might be issues that I'm not aware of in adding new difficulties that won't be played on that much.

It shouldn't be that big of an issue though, as there seems to be many "tiers" of endgame players, like the ones who haven't activated the damage perks yet but still play on PFUDOR without any issues, and the ones that are already maxed in damage, having even more than one playable set just for the sake of it, so there shouldn't be any issues in not adding it just because people wouldn't play on these modes.

Final Considerations

Welp, I wrote too much. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

I might have gone on rounds explaining the same thing over and over again, or not explaining or giving enough arguments to support these ideas, but it's mostly due to just wanting to offer an initial concept without having brainstormed it for hours just to have it turned down for a reason as simple as that it would overload the servers and make HV slow, so in case the idea/s is/are viable, I could be even more detailed about the concepts or the like.

I do feel like the level idea is at the very least the one which is the simplest to implement, as it doesn't deal with the economy or anything that would affect the playerbase that much to receive bad feedback.

The difficulties might be more troublesome to deal with, as it would get a lot of stuff involved, but I still thing it's viable and actually needed at the current endgame state.

Anyways, thanks for reading if you did read this text wall at all and hopefully this won't get horribly turned down for a simple issue I didn't think about. >-<

Posting again as it somehow relates to my previous text wall, but these are more separate ideas, without much reasoning behind and simply suggestions from what I recently read on other threads.

Artifact Hath Perk

One Hath perk that still doesn't exist for HVerse is to increase the chance for artifact drops, like the ones for tokens and crystals.

New Playmode

I also suggested a possible new playmode in my previous giant post, but when brainstorming about it, there's Grindfest for getting crystals, Arena for XP, credits and tokens, IW for equipment potencies and ring of blood, which after my first clears, I only do FSM and maybe the first one to try and exchange one Blood Token for a Chaos one.

A new playmode could be what pretty much any RPG has, which is Dungeons.

Ok, there's the arenas, but they are static, with predetermined number of mosters per round and final Boss, which is kind of a dungeon pretty much seem in every game today.

For a randomized dungeon, there's the IW and Grindfest, but the only thing different about it is the random number of mobs per round and increasing monster damage, with the occasional orange or rare red monsters.

A REAL old school dungeon has some stuff none of those modes has:

• traps
• treasure chests
• deadly traps
• locked doors/passages and keys/riddles
• hidden traps
• mini-bosses/bosses with mechanics
• more traps?

The idea of Dungeons has always been risking the player's life for treasure, but the idea has been mostly lost nowadays due to dungeons becoming more of a grinding activity than an adventuring one.

The concept should be simple, random generated paths, where you can go left, front, right or backtrack.

In the aspect of traps, it could be something like a riddlemaster, where if you take the wrong turn, you get in a situation where you need to escape or disable the trap.

For locked passages/doors, there would be the incentive for exploring/backtracking looking for a monster/mini-boss and getting a key, making an offering to proceed or other possibilities any good game master could thing of to create an interesting adventure.

For the treasure inside, Tenb could implement the previous idea about Hath item shop talked about, with the most troublesome and polemic thing of implementing it being of how the HVerse players themselves that don't run H@H or do bounties would get these items other than buying Hath, so having a shop that sells the items upfront but also letting the players able to get these "desirable" items in game should pacify most people who would feel hindered by a pay wall.

It should also make the game more interesting and interactive, as now most endgame players already use scripts to hover monsters(myself included) on the existing playmodes, only paying some attention on final rounds deep into IW or -difficulty-fest, or when dealing with god level bosses that actually require some mechanics to deal with like T&T or the 10 Blood Tokens ring of blood.

Gallery new perks/functions

Other than HVerse, I read about not having enough incentives for old scanlators/translators to continue wanting Hath somewhere, not sure if that's resolved already, but I have a suggestion for at least a new perk for a good functionality.

I would find it extremely useful to have something like a search feature that shows a gallery I haven't read yet with a tag I like, or even have the option to search the galleries I never visited yet by itself, as sometimes old galleries get buried with only general tags, and when searching for something more strict they don't show up.

This should allow people to find more stuff they like that doesn't have newer implemented tags, as well as making people finding recently tagged galleries that are old, but still buried deep among all the other ones, without diving in a list of galleries they have already read in the past trying to uncover a previously never read gem.

+Edit

Found Maximun Joe's suggestions list on the wiki and got a new idea.

Monster Follower

Can create a contract with one monster created by the user from monster lab using soul fragments(price can be the monster's PL).

Monsters bound to the contract can follow the player into battle, but become unavailable to go on fights alone, not bringing any more gifts to the player.

Having the monster's UI for health, mana and SP might be troublesome, so to make it simpler the player gains the benefits of the monster stats(getting +10STR if the monster has 10STR for example).

The plus stats would be already interesting, but the monster can be set to help the player in battle from a number of choices:

• Attack
  
  Can be either something static, like an additional attack per turn similar to an elemental strike in a melee weapon, or more detailed, using the monster's own attacks and depending on it's own status and chaos enchancements (Brutality, Swiftness, Accuracy, Precision and Overpower), using the player's MP and SP to attack, with a 10% decrease in resource cost from the original skills(5% MP for attacks and 10% SP for spirit attack).
  
  
• Defend
  
  Passively increases the player's health pool(10% of Fortitude's chaos upgrades) and actively works similar to the normal Defend skill, consuming 1% Overcharge per turn(10% of Defense cost) and filtering the damage received before it reaches the player, according to the monster's chaos upgrades(10% of value of Defense and Warding) or assisting the player on parrying, resisting or evading the attack (10% of value of Interception, Dissipation and Evasion)
  
  
• Charge
  
  Passively gives the player a certain amount of overcharge per turn(+5% of overcharge or the monster's power level/500, whichever is higher)
  
  *Note: the value of 500 is considering the suggestion of increasing the cap for crystal upgrades to +50/+100 further down, otherwise would be 250, where the current max PL moster of 2250 would give +9% overcharge per turn.
  
  
• Loot
  
  Increases the chance of loot drops according to the monster's scavenging and accuracy, giving an effect similar to grindfest's additional crystal drops.
  
  Accuracy would determine if the monster gets a chance to get a drop from the enemy monsters, even if the player initially got none, toned down to 10% of the monster's chaos upgrades and then scavenging would determine if the monster gets anything in case the initial roll for accuracy is successful.
  
  Basically, this would give a max chaosed monster a 10% chance to roll for an extra drop and 10% chance to get anything.
  
  
• Other uses? (not really much thought into these)
  
  -squire, which allows the player to change equipment to another owned set during battle, giving same problem of focus during the turn the set change takes place(will leave the player unable to Evade/Block/Parry/Resist (-100% penalty). Monsters can still miss though.)
  
  -pack rat, which gives the player additional equipment inventory space, becoming initially available with pack rat trainning, expanding player's inventory by +1000 with max trainning.

In the conditions presented, Attack, Denfend and Charge can be tied to many specific playstyles, even helping the others who faded under the shadow of 1H be extremely competitive again if teamed up with Charge for example, without needing to think about rebalancing or nerfing something.

Contracted monster management

The monster remains listed in the monster lab, possibly changing to a special place on the top for the contracted monster, where it can continue normally being upgraded(possibly also opening more stat enchancement to +50/+100), but costing double the amount of crystals and chaos tokens to further upgrade while bound by the contract.

The contract can be revoked using soul fragments at any time(value equal to monster's PL), but any further crystal upgrades than the normal maximun of +25/+50 would be lost in the process and the monster would have it's morale bar depleted.

Monster's morale and hunger bars would decrease according to number of rounds played, where if the max of 12000 for the bars is considered, a pace of -5 morale and hunger per round should be reasonable, giving the opportunity for a player to complete 1000 rounds of grindfest without the monster bars reaching a yellow state.

Feeding a bound monster food and pills would also require double it's normal amount.

If a monster reaches the yellow bar states, it's effects would be reduced by half, becoming completely exhausted after reachign the red state, not giving any benefits to the player until it's fed and it's morale raised again.

For Hath perks, there could be two extremely expensive ones, costing 25k and 50k, with each one allowing the player to contract one more monster. Perk names can be references to Dragon's Dogma pawns or Pokemon.

This suggestion could help with the sink of soul fragments, as I've read many times of players who have 10k+ left to dust in their inventories, also making their presence in the lottery feel less than a worthless bobby prize for those who don't need them anymore.

+Support to Maximun Joe's cursed equipment idea

The idea for cursed equipment is pretty interesting, but a suggestion to it would instead of requiring the use of the coins, just use soul fragments in Snowflake's shrine, becoming another sink for them.

Adding to that, when cleansing the equipment, there could be options to choose from, like weak, normal and strong cleansing, each having a certain chance to work and each being more effective for certain armor qualities, like a weak cleansing being enough to get rid of a curse on an average equipment, but being useless on a cure of a legendary one.

Other than this, when cleansing an equipment, other than failing to get rid of the curse or getting the normal equipment with the slightly higher rolls, there could exist a very small chance of Snowflake blessing the item, giving it the counterpart positive effect of the previously cursed item(Pride becoming Confidence for exemple, giving an extra action on the turn.)

With this, some new rare items(or even Hath shop items taking into consideration my dungeon idea) could be implemented. One of these could be:

Snowflake's Crystalized Tear
A small tear shed by Snowflake while watching a fallen adventurer fall in battle and curse his destiny. These can be handled in at the Shrine of Snowflake to dissipate a curse on a piece of equipment.

As for getting a blessing on equipment that wasn't previously cursed, another new item can be made, or even figurines can be exchanged in to give one of the blessings, or new blessings can be made to make references to the figurines, like Celestia giving chance to randomly resist a holy attack, Luna a dark one, Trixie giving random magic crits or such.

To finish, equipment names could become too big if the blessings or curses appear on them, so just Cursed/Blessed on the start of the equip name should be the best looking one, with the curse/blessing displayed on the euip window with it's debuff/buff following it.

++Edit II

Player Debuffs

Add debuffs to player from monster attacks, giving same status effects monsters can get from their kinds of attacks(save from Burning/Rippened Soul, which wouldn't have much place in this).

In the case of physical attack effects, only bleed seems reasonable like the others, while penetrated armor would be a bit troublesome and stun would be a nightmare, where the number of monsters with crushing attacks would skyrocket, so something else could be implemented in it's place.

For the player debuffs, it would be meaningless if they lasted just 1 or 2 turns, so either they could get a fixed turn count when procced, or get an initial small number of turns and have them increase instead of stacking to a higher effect every time another monster attack(s) procs the already ongoing status. Additionally, higher difficulty levels could include higher chances for monster attacks to inflict debuffs and/or increase in their durations as well.

New consumables can be made to cure/prevent these debuffs in battle as well, solving the issue of maxed pack rat extra slots that have no use.

Following this, mitigation and equipment proficiency(or possibly new abilities) could reduce the chances of the debuffs proccing, and the idea of the blessings presented above could also be tied to this, with either the figurines or new items giving effects to help avoid the debuffs or become completely immune to them.

This post has been edited by Kinights: Mar 20 2017, 07:45

One of the thing i hate most playing HV is the naming of monsters.

I would like to see much less "copy-past named monsters" like "in memory\memorabilia", "Tempxxx", ShadowcatXYZ", "Mechanoid 5 of 9999" and so on, i understand the purpose of them but is really boring in the long run.

My idea is divided in two.

1) Adding a space in a monster page where you can add a description just for yourself that you can freely edit so you can call the monster "Macross" and ad the description "Mechanoid 1" for a better tracking.

2) You can name monster in a similar way until a max of copy (like Fire Spirit, Wind Spirit, and so on) without having any bad effect but if you make too much monster with Copy-Past names they will get handicaps (you don't even give them a decent name so you don't care enought and this will affect them directly).

The more monster with copy-past name you make the more strong the handicap will become until you get those handicaps:

- 30% Status down in battle
- 50% Increased Morale and Hunger drain rate (applied ater everything else)
- 50% Cut on the Active Chaos Upgrades (for example if you have Double Gift Level 20 (100%) it will drop to 10 (50%).

The malus will be clearly stated on the Main Monster Lab Pages and the monster that exceed the "Copy-Past Name Quota" will be highlighted in some way (a symbol near their name is enough).

This will make players name the monster in a more interesting names.

Obviously after implementing this there will be some time to rename the monster before the downgrade taking effects, let's say a week or two, and the first renaming of any of those monster will be free even if the PL of the monster make it requiring Chaos Tokens.

I don't know how much hard to code is this but i think it will make the battles much more fun.

1) Adding a space in a monster page where you can add a description just for yourself that you can freely edit so you can call the monster "Macross" and ad the description "Mechanoid 1" for a better tracking.

while i agree with you that poor fantasy on naming mobs should be punished somehow - and not only because me and a few other users actually spend a couple of seconds thinking about them, but because some certain trainers actually abused that thing - i guess that would require a certain amount of space on the database...

Well, i dn't think it will be so much, there is no need to let the description to bee long, i think half the name is enough, you still see his class in the monster list.

Well, i dn't think it will be so much, there is no need to let the description to bee long, i think half the name is enough, you still see his class in the monster list.

still a column more on the database which needs to be assigned, multiplied by all the mobs around... maybe it won't be the main reason, but still a reason (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

jokes apart, as i said i'm positive about changing names. but guess it's a lower priority for now.

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Mar 20 2017, 02:39

while i agree with you that poor fantasy on naming mobs should be punished somehow - and not only because me and a few other users actually spend a couple of seconds thinking about them, but because some certain trainers actually abused that thing - i guess that would require a certain amount of space on the database...

I'm sure that me and many other trainers with generic monster names would love to change them.

It takes way too many chaos tokens just for a rename, which could be better spent improving monster stats.
Can't punish something that the system doesn't allow the player to fix.

Here I am again.

I have edited my previous posts to fill in some new/complementing ideas, but I'll make a new post once again, as I'll touch a very heavy and detailed subject that many people have already given their own opinions about:

Melee Fighting Styles Balancing

Welp. Without further ado, here's my two cents.

Summary

Here's the main topics to change with the additions/changes I'll propose down below:

• removal of chained skill necessity to use next skill
• skill damage formula changing to include "skill proficiency"
• normal melee equipment(non power/shade) receives a new "skill proficiency" attribute
• overcharge percentage not gained from "normal" attacks while spirit stance is on
• several changes to the current fighting styles(both nerfs and buffs)
• weapon elemental strikes scaling with magic proficiencies
• weapon elemental strikes having a chance to proc their respective status effects
• drainning weapon suffixes procs(Vampire, Illithid and Banshee) scaling with deprecating proficiency
• bonus fighting styles that don't necessarily need to be added to balance the game, but would still attract people that are into them.

----------------------------------------

Viewing the Current Melee Fighting Styles

First of all before talking about nerfs and buffs, it's necessary to look at the current situation and compare the existing fighting styles to see what the problem with them is.

One-handed

Equipment

-any one-handed weapon teamed with a shield in the off hand slot

-works with both heavy armor and light armor, but teamed better with heavy due to condition for counter-attacks to proc

-no major differences with chosen weapon during low levels and low difficulties

-practically a requirement to use a rapier to deal with monsters' health on higher levels and higher difficulties

-existence of the META rapier of slaughter + force shield + power armor, not giving much freedom for playing with other equipment on endgame, with "niche" styles existing, but not being anywhere as effective as the META


Characteristics

-possibility to remain in a permanent spirit stance

-overwhelming strikes buff

-counter-attack procs that can stun up to three enemies when proficiency >200 and grant a percentage of overcharge only once per turn if procced more than once

-tankiness dependent on supportive buffs, mitigations and block and parry chances
Survivability

-good crowd control, with counter-attacks leaving most enemies stunned during the entire round

-overwhelming strikes giving 10% parry bonus per stack according to wiki, up to 50%(not sure if this is a thing, as the icon in-game doesn't describe this)

-block and parry chances, high mitigation and many layers of supportive buffs make it rare to die in battle from a tough situation
Attacking Power

-high accuracy, almost impossible to miss with overwhelming strikes buff on

-counter-parry given by overwhelming strikes buff

-100% damage bonus from spirit stance usually always present

-decent crit chance and crit damage

-max possible damage obtained on a single turn = spirit stance 100% bonus + overwhelming strikes 75% bonus when having 5 stacks + getting a crit for +65% damage(my own rate as an average player to be fair) + monster having 3 stacks of PA for a total of a lot of damage + max of three counter-attacks(basically a smaller AoE effect than Two-handed splash damage), with this same damage being able to repeat itself every single turn with enough luck.
Skills

-no incentive for class skill usage other than when fighting boss class monsters

-more effective to use overcharge for spirit stance and OFC

-first skill gives an effect that counter-strikes is able to give at a rate three times higher for no overcharge cost

-second skill somewhat decent, but existing mostly to lead to third skill

-final skill used mostly against boss class monsters to save time
Dual Wielding

Equipment

-any combination of two one-handed weapons, being more beneficial to use two different weapons for different weapon procs

-works with both heavy armor and light armor, but teamed better with light armor to get the benefit of more layers of defense(evade and resist)

-no major differences with chosen weapons during low levels and lower difficulties

-some differences with weapon usage on higher levels and higher difficulties, which usually includes having a rapier be one of the weapons, but still has a decent selection of options to play depending on the player(weapon choices for the procs and prefixes and suffixes for extra benefits and playstyles)
Characteristics

-no possibility of remaining in a permanent spirit stance

-no ways to gain overcharge while in spirit stance

-no specific style buff(like overwhelming strikes)

-style focused on dealing as much critical hits as possible

-tier 3 skill causing AoE damage up to 5 targets, dealing massive damage(I actually never DWielded much, so please correct me if the skill isn't as good as it used to be mentioned in the past)

-many layers of protection for the playstyle if using leather armor(evade, resist, parry, mitigations and supportive buffs)
Survivability

-no good class specific way to crowd control(iris strike costs 50% overcharge for an effect that can be obtained from a spell that hits up to three targets instead of only one), able to rely only on deprecating spells if stun procs from clubs(if used) aren't enough to keep mobs at bay

-no style specific buff to aid in survivability, depending only on supportive spells

-many layers of protections, from evade, to parry and resist to the mitigations and supportive buffs, but gets hit harder than heavy armor users when an attacks goes through due to the mitigation differences
Attack Power

-accuracy dependent on main weapon, armor and PABs, but usually not being an issue for endgame players with highly forged gear

-attacks still get parried if the weapon(s) item world potencies don't include overpower for counter-parry small bonus

-no style specific buff to aid in attack power, attack accuracy, parry-chance or counter-parry

-100% damage bonus from spirit stance being related to each player, as some might desire to use their overcharge for Frenzied Blows or OFC, but if not, spirit stance cannot be maintained permanently like usually with One-handed.

-great critical chance and damage, possibly being the style with the highest possible stats, but doesn't have a big difference with other styles, as the rate is added multiplicatively, so the higher it is, the harder to make it higher, with other styles not being too far behind of the class that should be the specific one that depends on crits to be on par with these same fighting styles

-max possible damage obtained on a single turn = spirit stance 100% bonus + getting a crit for +80% damage(considering a pretty good shadowdancer set) + monster having 3 stacks of PA for a total of a lot of damage + use of tier 3 skill Frenzied Blows, dealing AoE Damage to the 5? target limit monsters(according to wiki), which can be used every 10 turns, needing to wait for cooldown for Frenzied blows, with this only considering having somehow obtained enough overcharge percentage to get on spirit stance again and have enough left to chain all three skills for a total of 175% overcharge for the three skills.
Skills

-tier 3 skill Frenzied Blows has an effect decent enough to consider using if the player doesn't have OFC

-if there's the choice for an OFC strike, there's not much incentive for use of any of the skills, as it's only 25% overcharge less to use than having to chain all skills together and hits all targets in the round

-first skill gives an overkill effect that lasts a lot, but doesn't make it any better than the normal blind spell, which can hit 2 more targets for a decent amount of turns as well

-second skill seems a bit more interesting, but I never heard about a poison effect around very often(is this a thing?)

-third skill real cost is 175% of overcharge, as it can't be used apart from chaining the two prior ones, giving an effect completely unrelated to previous two skills and being less useful than an OFC strike
Two-handed

Equipment

-any two-handed weapon

-works with both heavy armor and light armor, but teamed better with light armor to add the most layers of protection available for the fighting style

-no major differences with chosen weapons during low levels and lower difficulties

-best possible weapons to use on higher levels and higher difficulties being the mace to hope for mass stunned monsters or the estoc to try and kill them as fast as possible hoping they all get PA stacks or even proc it at all
Characteristics

-no possibility of remaining in a permanent spirit stance

-no ways to gain overcharge while in spirit stance

-no specific style buff(like overwhelming strikes)

-style focused on dealing AoE damage on mobs, with splash damage resulting in extra 500% damage in total if hitting the max of 7 monsters with proficiency being >100(not including the initial monster)

-tier 1 skill can be used relatively easy for additional damage, with tier 2 and 3 skills allowing a player that uses a longsword or a katana to get procs of stun and PA

-very few layers of protection available, depending mostly on evade if using light armor, or if that fails in a half-decent resist chance, a parry rate depending only on primary attributes from XP and armor and half-decent mitigations as a last resort
Survivability

-no good class specific way to crowd control(only crowd control skill available is Shatter Strike, which has a real cost of 150% of overcharge to be reached, while FUS RO DAH costs only 100%, has the same cooldown and hits all enemies on the round), with only other choice being deprecating spells, using a mace hoping for mass stuns or using FUS RO DAH if available

-no style specific buff to aid in survivability, depending only on supportive spells

-very few layers of protection, with the most decent one being evade, followed by half-decent resist, a really low parry chance(considering that Two-handed even has a 2H Parry ability), and half-decent mitigations from leather armor

-needs to use crowd control spells relatively more than style skills to hold monsters back, only to attack every so often, sometimes even using more mana than mages to fight at a rate many times slower


Attack Power

-accuracy dependent on weapon, armor and PABs, but usually not being an issue for endgame players with highly forged gear

-attacks still get parried if the weapon item world potencies don't include overpower for counter-parry small bonus

-no style specific buff to aid in attack power, attack accuracy, parry-chance or counter-parry

-100% damage bonus from spirit stance being related to each player, as some might desire to use their overcharge for Great Cleave, FUS RO DAH or OFC, but if not, spirit stance cannot be maintained permanently like usually with One-handed.

-splash damage on adjacent mobs, causing max 500% extra damage if hitting 7 monsters, but depends on having the monsters not parry the attack, being effectively just twice the splash damage one-handed can do with a permanent spirit stance and max of 3 counters per turn while having many layers of protection to make up for it.

-critical chance and damage almost on par with one-handed, which has more layers of protection and is able to survive for longer than the style that is supposed to kill mobs fast to make up for the lack of defenses

-max possible damage obtained on a single turn = spirit stance 100% bonus + getting a crit for +??% damage(I don't have a decent 2H set, sorry) + monster having 3 stacks of PA for a total of a lot of damage + use of tier 1 skill Great Cleave, dealing AoE Damage to the 7? target limit monsters(according to wiki), which can be used every 10 turns, needing to wait for cooldown for Great Cleave again (Imperil can more likely be added here as well, but I'll leave it out of this because of the amount of mana needed for other cc spells)


Skills

-the tier 1 skill Great Cleave can be used every 10 turns for 50% overcharge for more damage

-tier 2 skill is decent for players that don't use an estoc, but worthless for estoc users, being just a way to get to the tier 3 skill if desired

-tier 3 skill is decent for players that don't use a mace and don't have access to FUS RO DAH, but worthless for mace users

-with access to FUS RO DAH, the tier 3 skill becomes worthless, having a real cost of 150% overcharge to try to hit at most seven monsters, while Fus RO DAH has the same cooldown, needs 50% less overcharge to use and deals some void damage while stunning all mobs on the round


Niten Ichiryu

Equipment

-specific style which requires the use of a katana and a wakizashi slotted in the Off Hand slot, bypassing the two-handed nature of the katana

-works with both heavy armor and light armor, but teamed better with light armor to add the most layers of protection available for the fighting style


Characteristics

-no possibility of remaining in a permanent spirit stance

-no ways to gain overcharge while in spirit stance

-no specific style buff(like overwhelming strikes)

-style focused on dealing AoE damage on mobs, with splash damage resulting in extra 500% damage in total if hitting the max of 7 monsters with proficiency being >100(not including the initial monster), also benefitting of the off-hand strike chance from dual wielding

-player can't earn weapon proficiencies while using this fighting style


Survivability

-no good class specific way to crowd control, with only choice being deprecating spells or using FUS RO DAH if available

-no style specific buff to aid in survivability, depending only on supportive spells

-very few layers of protection, with the most decent one being evade, followed by half-decent resist, a really low parry chance(considering that Two-handed even has a 2H Parry ability and the style doesn't get the parry bonus from the off-hand weapon like in DW), and half-decent mitigations from leather armor

-needs to use crowd control spells relatively more than the only available skill to hold monsters back, only to attack every so often, sometimes even using more mana than mages to fight at a rate many times slower
Attack Power

-accuracy dependent on weapon, armor and PABs, but usually not being an issue for endgame players with highly forged gear

-attacks still get parried if the weapon item world potencies don't include overpower for counter-parry small bonus

-no style specific buff to aid in attack power, attack accuracy, parry-chance or counter-parry

-100% damage bonus from spirit stance being related to each player, as some might desire to use their overcharge for Skyward Sword, FUS RO DAH or OFC, but if not, spirit stance cannot be maintained permanently like usually with One-handed.

-splash damage on adjacent mobs, causing max 500% extra damage if hitting 7 monsters, but depends on having the monsters not parry the attack, being effectively just twice the splash damage one-handed can do with a permanent spirit stance and max of 3 counters per turn while having many layers of protection to make up for it, also getting only 1 extra hit from the off-hand strike and still not being able to be double the one-handed damage, with total max normal damage obtained in one turn being 680%(initial 100% + 500% splash + 80% off-hand), compared with one-handed that can counter up to 3 times, having 400% total pure damage in a single turn(if elemental strikes are added, the situation might change, but this is the poor state of niten and 2H currently).

-critical chance and damage somewhat on par with one-handed, which has more layers of protection and is able to survive for longer than the style that is supposed to kill mobs fast to make up for the lack of defenses

-max possible damage obtained on a single turn = spirit stance 100% bonus + getting a crit for +??% damage(I don't have a decent niten set, sorry) + monster having 3 stacks of PA for a total of a lot of damage + monsters having 5 stacks of bleeding, which can be used every 10 turns after Skyward Sword is used and getting procs on all monsters, needing to wait for cooldown for it again (Imperil can more likely be added here as well, but I'll leave it out of this because of the amount of mana needed for other cc spells)

Skill

-has a single skill

-skill has quite a good effect, being able to be used every 10 turns when off cooldown if the player has enough overcharge/managed to get enough during the cooldown


Final Consideration

I apologize if I added some wrong arguments, numbers or anything to the comparison above, but I'm pretty sure on what I'll say now:

One-handed is without a doubt is the most viable and effective melee fighting style currently, not lacking anything from survivability to damage, with Dual Wielding following next, only behind it pretty much because of the existence of Overwhelming Strikes and the counter-attacks from blocking and parrying.

Unfortunately Two-Handed and Niten style aren't viable fighting styles nowadays, as you might spend more time ccing monsters than hitting them, or might just be building overcharge for OFC, not even touching the available skills.

Of course there are some available niche "styles" that can include FUS RO DAH or some spells, giving these classes actual gameplay and micro management, but it becomes tiresome fast doing the same style over and over while being less effective than others if you are fighting to grind credits or for other reasons when there's much more effective fighting styles that don't require micro management at all.

The Start

Now, before continuing to compare melee fighting styles between themselves, we need to compare melee vs mages.

Everyone should know that mages are the fastest and most efficient fighting style right now, but why is that?

Other than their greater mana pool, giving more access to cc spells if necessary, there's a very basic reason that many people might not realize:


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Mages use their three skills freely!!!

Which skills? Do you mean spells?

Yep, but if you look again, all three available spells for mages should be pretty similar to the three available skills for each melee class(excluding Niten).

The major difference is in the resource cost, where melee uses overcharge, which is passively gained by attacking, while mages theoretically would require micro managing ether taps, drains, focus or draughts and potions to sustain their mana pool, which is the source of all their spells, but reality nowadays is pretty different.

Endgame mages have unlimited access to draughts, potions and elixirs of all three kinds since the change in consumables, not even needing to touch focus or ether tap other than for nostalgia.

Only stingy mages(like me) actually still do all the micro managing to avoid wasting potions, relying on draughts, ether tap and focus to get mana back, but at that point it's better to go to one-handed if all a player wants is to conserve credits, spending as less as possible.

Getting back on track, melee and mages are very similar in their basics.

-both have a normal attack
-both can defend
-both can trigger spirit stance, but it's more focused for melee
-both can use focus, but it's more focused for mages
-both can use items
-both can use skills

This has been the basis of the system since forever ago, where one could say that mages can use skills freely because they have to manage their mana, where meleers can't because they gain overcharge passively and don't need to use consumables for it, but unfortunately it's very different.

It's not that meleers don't need consumables for skill resources, we do need them, a lot, maybe even more than mages, but consumables for getting overcharge aren't a thing, and they shouldn't be, as they would break the game horribly, making it FUS RO DAH OFC Spirit Verse, where you can perma cast them and eventually attack here or there or cast a spell for fun.

Right now the only melee fighting style that can generate enough overcharge for decent skill usage is one-handed, but no one really uses the three skills other than in an eventual boss fight, or not even then, just to not go through the trouble of possibly interfering with spirit stance, or because OFC or FUS RO DAH are more effective.

Finally, we reach the start of the rebalancing, not just between melee fighting styles, but between meleers and mages to put them on par with each other, getting rid of the long existing META that makes many players give up, as they are forced to play a certain style if they want to be effective instead of being able to be effective and have fun playing what they want at the same time.


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Overall Changes

Here are the general non-specific fighting style changes I believe would give a complete overhaul to melee.

Removal of chained skill necessity to use next skill tier

Simply remove the chain condition, because as of right now, all meleers have a single skill, which you can just choose if you want to interrupt in the middle or not.

Removing this will encourage the usage of more skills for melee players, but of course changes in them are needed, like the abolishment of tiers, some tweaks(buffs/nerfs), to avoid worthless skills left to dust while others get overused on cooldown refresh, as well as making changes to the overcharge gain rate for each fighting style

Normal melee equipment(non power/shade) receives a new "Skill Proficiency" attribute, included in the Skill Damage Formula

One thing which I read recently was related to how normal melee gear is worthless in comparison to phase/power, while normal cotton equipment can still be used for elemental proficiency, so here we go.

It's a new universal attribute for "Skill Proficiency", as there's no real way to separate melee skills in categories between light and heavy equipment, which is included in the skill damage formula, or somehow affects the skill effect.

Overcharge percentage not gained from "normal" attacks while Spirit Stance is on

Having new/changed ways to generate overcharge from all fighting styles while still getting it form simply attacking feels like it would buff melee too much, so unfortunately at least this nerf seems necessary to make things fair, as melee still would get it's resource passively, while mages have to use consumables to restore their mana pool.


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Specific Melee Fighting Style changes

Now here we go.

Yes, it touches One-handed.

One-handed

Buff "Overwhelming Strikes" changed to "Precise Control"

Currently Overwhelming Strikes increases attack damage by 15%, attack accuracy by 50%, parry chance by 10% and also gives plus 20% counter-parry chance per stack.

Accuracy already seems overkill with +250%, but it's complicated multiplicatively math together with the +50% parry chance, but the +75% attack damage and 100%(80%???) counter parry are closer to absolute numbers and are way too overkill for a fighting style that is supposed to be a tank instead of a DPS.

New buff "Precise Control" provides:
+5% attack damage per stack
+15% attack accuracy per stack
+10% parry chance per stack
+20% counter parry-chance per stack

Basically taking title of tanky DPS to a more moderate tank

Counter-attacks happen only when an attack is blocked

Currently counter-attacks can be chained with both blocking and parrying attacks, which is certainly overkill, and sometimes even influences the overcharge gain rate of the style, so I believe it would be best to limit the gain rate to the class specific central point, which in case of one-handed, is blocking.

This change would limit the rate of gained overcharge though, so following it, other changes would be:
-new limit for max counter-attacks procced after a block
-no limit for overcharge gained per turn
-the counter-attack doesn't give a fixed stun effect, but instead inflicts max stacks of the one-handed weapon proc used(max bleed, max PA or simply stun)

For the max number of counter attacks that can be performed per turn, it's just necessary to add two new tiers to the proficiency(one-handed proficiency, not related to "skill proficiency"):
<100 - one counter
100-199 - two counters
200-299 - three counters
300-399 - four counters
>400 - five counters

Following this, if a player blocks and counters 5 monster attacks, he/she would get 5~10% overcharge per counter, with the natural max per turn being 25~50% rate.

Skill Changes

Shield Bash cooldown reduced to 5 turns

-as players that don't use clubs might miss the stunned mobs, using this skill might become a thing, as it becomes accessible at a fast cooldown and rather cheap cost

Vital Strike deals extra damage to stunned, asleep and/or blinded targets, giving max bleed stack and also max PA stack

-just a tweak to an attack that is supposed to destroy a defenseless target

Ability Changes

1H Damage
+20 | +25 | +30

Sorry, but 1H just isn't supposed to be a major DPS class(these additions are higher than 2H btw)

1H Accuracy
+0.15 | +0.3

Goes along with other styles balancing

Dual Wielding

New buff "Battle Flow"

The thing which currently makes one-handed damage far superior overall to the other melee fighting styles is the overwhelming strikes buff, which doesn't even combine with a class that’s supposed to be focusing on defense rather than wrecking everything in it's awake(what 2H should be doing), so all fighting styles should have a proper buff.

"Battle Flow" provides:
+10% attack damage
+10% attack accuracy
+15% attack speed
+15% counter parry

Like "Precise Control", the total percentages add up to 50%(my humble try to make a balance between them), but gives attack speed instead of parry chance, as that's what's DW is aimed towards(giving crit chance/damage would be way too overkill at max stacks).

Off-hand weapon damage reduction by 50%

Instead of the current 80%, a new player would start with 50% damage on their off-hand strikes.

The catch is to increase the damage percentage with skill proficiency(simply DW_prof/10)

If you are a person using two arms to hold weapons and go on battles everyday, it should be obvious that you will learn to use your non-dominant arm to fight for your life until you eventually master it, also giving more t=damage that DW should have.

New functionality for off-hand strikes+parrying

Off-hand strikes work in a new additional way similar to one-handed block counters.

Adds a chance to give an off-hand strike to a parried enemy.

The number of off-hand strike counters that can be performed each turn depends on DW proficiency.
<100 - one counter
100-199 - two counters
200-299 - three counters
300-399 - four counters
>400 - five counters

Additionally, overcharge is gained with each off-hand counter, for the same 5~10% per counter for a max of 25~50% overcharge per turn.

I thought about a counter whenever evading an attack, but it would completely exclude heavy armor DW, so parrying seems reasonable. There's also critical hits, but they are too easy to score in comparison to 1H and DW counters.

Lastly, for high evasion of shade gear, some normal leather can be included like mages 4+1/ 3+2 styles.

Skill Changes

Iris Strike causes Blind and Confuse for 10 turns(scaled with "Skill Proficiency", up to double duration)

-effects affected by Better Blind and Mind Control

-cooldown raised to 10 turns

Backstab deals extra damage to blinded, stunned and/or asleep enemies

-giving a "casual" skill for great usage during battles(like shield bash for 1H tanks), which is one thing that a class that represents leather, like an assassin, would do for days

Frenzied Blows gives weakened and slowed debuff to player for 10 turns after use(reduced with proficiency following "Skill Proficiency"/100)

-simple way to prevent over usage of the skill without any downsides other than the 75% overcharge cost

-quite reasonable thinking about a fighter stamina usage attacking frenzily from 10 to 20 times wrecking him after the skill stops, like any frenzy/berserk state should be.

Ability Changes

DW Damage
+20 | +30 | +40

Quite reasonable, considering currently abilities go as DW > 1H > 2H, which is... weird... so second place at least in the abilities additional damage shouldn't be such a nerf when there's still crit and free skills.

DW Accuracy remains the same +1 | +2

Two-handed

"New" old buff Overwhelming Strikes

As weird as 1H Damage abilities being higher than 2H ones, I believe this is the right place for this buff.

"New" Overwhelming Strikes provides:
+15%attack damage
+5%attack accuracy
+30% counter-parry

Truly showing the meaning of Overwhelming Strikes in my humble opinion.

Overcharge gained with every killed enemy

As much as I thought, there isn't really a good catch on 2H like block or off-hand strike, just murdering everything, so there we go.

No limit to overcharge gained per turn, being whenever an enemy dies, adding 5~10% per kill.

Skill Changes

Rending Blow inflicts weakened and slows debuff on enemies hit(effect scales with better weaken and better slow)

-giving 2H the necessary cc skills, instead of 3 stacks of PA, which would be pretty useless for an estoc user

-combines better with style and name, rending enemies weakened due to a strong hit

Shatter Strike instantly kills any enemy slowed and weakened under 10% health

-should be a fair skill to finish off weakened enemies, with one-handed one being more powerful because of precision, while two-handed just wrecks everything, cleaving for days

Ability Changes

2H Damage
+30 | +40 | +50

Highest DPS with lowest defenses should have highest attack to make up for it

2H Accuracy
+0.05 | +0.1

Point of two-handed isn't mainly accuracy, but to AoE monsters, so accuracy is something that needs to be made up for the focus on AoE on the equipment/attributes

Niten Style

New buff "Ancient Technique"

This should be the fighting style that takes the most time to achieve proficiencies, so it should be rewarded for it and for the core of the style as well

"Ancient Technique" Provides:
+20% attack damage
+15% attack speed
+15% counter-parry

Offers attacks damage and speed to the style which is the fusion of DW + 2H, supporting the hybrid cores, making up for the necessity of a katana + wakizashi combo, which only offers bleeding wounds procs.

Overcharge gained with every off-hand counter and enemy killed

Basically joins both DW and 2H ways of generating overcharge, which should be more than enough to use the single skill, which doesn't give much crowd control, so the style still depends on other spells to make up for damage boost and free flowing overcharge.


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Additional weapon changes to support fighting styles

Elemental strikes damage scaling with magic proficiencies

Following a simple formula of prof/10, effectively doubling strike damage at max prof getting +50% damage

This is to make elemental weapons more competitive with ethereal(as there would be no proficiency to increase ethereal damage) and also stimulate proficiency grinding

Elemental strikes have 10% chance to cause the status effect the element is tied to

A simple 10% base chance, scaling with proficiencies, following prof/10, with max prof effectively doubling chance for a status effect proc

Draining weapon suffixes procs scaling with deprecating proficiency

Currently any legendary weapon that drops with a draining suffix(Vampire, Illithid and Banshee) is already taken as trash.

With a revamp of the fighting styles, giving these weapons a buff can make them popular and effective again, specially for DW, 2H and Niten users


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Bonus Fighting Styles

These ideas don't necessarily need to be added to balance the game, but I'm quite sure they would still attract people that are into them, or bring back people that were turned off when they found out they weren't in the game

Ranger

-available weapons are bows and guns

-bows use iron arrows and guns use iron bullets

-arrows and bullets can be bought on the bazaar

-rare weapon types are magic bow and magic guns

-these use MP as fuel to fire and deal magic damage(giving a niche style to arcanist shade)

-requires new set of abilities and proficiencies

-skills like projectile rain, headshot, knee shot

-fighting style dependent on attack speed above all, with possible buff being "Fire Rate" adding on attack speed mostly per stack

-paper thin defenses, so relies mostly on evasion

-bow can slot dagger/wakizashi on off-hand slot without bonus parry rate

Proper Unarmed

-attacks with own body using unarmed fighting styles

-three different sets, changeable with hand slot

-cloth gives martial artist skills(I'm bad with martial art techniques without looking some up on Google, so I won't even try)

-leather gives street fighting skills(sand throw etc)

-heavy gives MMA/ring fight skills(Lariat etc)

-new set of abilities and proficiency necessary


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Final Notes

I made two other posts previously, so check them if you haven't yet.

I talked about player debuffs previously, so for anyone who saw the debuffs from Frenzied Blows and was wondering what I was talking about, be sure to check that post.

Other than this, please make sure to read everything before saying that I don't know what I'm talking about, that 1H doesn't need any changes or that the numbers and arguments I provided don't have reasoning.

I took quite some time to write all of this, so please at least read everything if you are going to show some constructive critique so I can improve/change/correct anything that I find necessary.

Other than this, wow, hope this doesn't break the thread.


[Screm edit]: just a bit of delimiters

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Mar 22 2017, 12:47

Here I am again.

Other than this, wow, hope this doesn't break the thread.

heh... i'm pretty sure the admin may take advantage of some good hints, and maybe there are a few in your post, but, uh... having organized it is nice and all, but i'd invite you (again) to post a tl;dr summary for each section. it would be useful to catch viewer's attention imo. i added a bit of delimiters according to formatting, please check if i altered the meaning in some way

also:

• 1H: according to wiki, overwhelming strikes boosts parry by a static 10%, adb by a static 15% and counter-parry by a 20% per stack, up to 100%. only thing affected by stacks is counter-parry. possibly the count on max possible damage is a bit wrong. you may want to review the subsequent maths, especially on melee specific changes section. i don't see any reason to add more counters, btw.
• DW: if one uses Iris Strike is for the longer duration and the chance to inflict Backstab. personally i don't find anything wrong to use it against Gods, especially if boosted by Better Blind ability. also, usually with standard Spirit Stance i can clear 2 rounds, so i wouldn't exactly suggest to spam OFC too much. and offhand used to have 50% adb penalty a couple of patches ago, lowering it to 20% was a good move imo.
• i don't think removing OC gain while having spirit stance on will be a good idea. or better, it would be if you want weaken melees even more in comparison to mages.
• i wouldn't go with new fighting styles while the already existing ones aren't balanced yet.
• though the "Elemental strikes have 10% chance to cause the status effect the element is tied to" and "Draining weapon suffixes procs scaling with deprecating proficiency" may not be bad.

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Mar 22 2017, 18:43

Every time you rewrite something instead of trying to balance things by small changes you end up with crap meta and broken mechanics.
So, no, I will never agree on so many changes.

Also I'm pretty sure you have not played melee quite enough if you think that elemental prefixed weapons are so inferior to ethereals one (spoiler: for 1H they are just as good, slightly inferior for other styles because of burden).
Also fuck having to grind mage profs when you are a melee.

Also fuck having to grind mage profs when you are a melee.

which is one of the few things i didn't even comment as well (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

however yep, one can play what he wants, but there's no point into having to have outstanding performance as a melee to play as a mage or vice versa. even if they meet somewhere, it should be on some marginal sectors which still offer some kind of advantage afterall - like Drain processes, with Depr prof still offering a variety of spells that also melee *may* use. but still, i'd use it only as a test rather than the standard.

having organized it is nice and all, but i’d invite you to post a tl;dr summary for each section. it would be useful to catch viewer's attention imo. i added a bit of delimiters according to formatting, please check if i altered the meaning in some way

Thank you very much, and I'm sorry that you had to go through this btw. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

After passing the whole day writing that, when I was getting to the end I just wanted to finish it already, so I didn't do anything else other than fixing typing error in word. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

1H: according to wiki, overwhelming strikes boosts parry by a static 10%, adb by a static 15% and counter-parry by a 20% per stack, up to 100%. only thing affected by stacks is counter-parry. possibly the count on max possible damage is a bit wrong. you may want to review the subsequent maths, especially on melee specific changes section.

Hmm, I guess I messed up badly there then.

I'll fix everythign ASAP.

I'll have to catch up with HV grinding today, so Ill probably fix it by tonight or tomorrow. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

DW: if one uses Iris Strike is for the longer duration and the chance to inflict Backstab. personally i don't find anything wrong to use it against Gods, especially if boosted by Better Blind ability. also, usually with standard Spirit Stance i can clear 2 rounds, so i wouldn't exactly suggest to spam OFC too much. and offhand used to have 50% adb penalty a couple of patches ago, lowering it to 20% was a good move imo.

That's one of the issues I talked about when explaining how there's no incentive to normally use melee skills while fighting.

Most one-handed meleers might use their skills to fight against a God to save some time in battle, but there's no point currently to use them against normal enemies, because it's actually just a big single skill that takes three turns to finish and costs 150% overcharge in total, which feels completely unnecessary against enemies that can die in less than three hits with normal attacks.

For DWers, having Frenzied Blows that causes an AoE might still be interesting for normal fights, but with the 175% total overcharge cost necessary to use it, a player might just resort to OFC if they have it, or simply save their overcharge for spirit stance.

With the introduction of the "Skill Proficiency" attribute, it would incentivize players to equip some common armor pieces to get some boosts in skill usage, being evident in the DW case to raise the turn duration for blind and confused effects from Iris Strike, as well to reduce the penalty from use of Frenzied Blows.

In the aspect of reducing the off-hand ADB penalty, a fresh start player would get a 50% ADB penalty, but when raising DW proficiency, the end result with be no ADB penalty at max level with 500 prof cap.

To achieve the current 80% on their off-hand weapons, meleers would just need to reach lvl 300 and 300 DW prof, which shouldn't be that hard after seeing so many posts of people that power leveled to 200s~300s in a matter of weeks.

I don't think removing OC gain while having spirit stance on will be a good idea. or better, it would be if you want weaken melees even more in comparison to mages.

I'm not a very good mage, so that's why I didn't mess with staffs or try to change anything on cast time or the like, but reading the wiki, the basic information needed to compare both melee and mages is easy to find.

The old core of the two classes is still in the game, being Spirit Stance for meleers and Focus for mages.

The difference is that Spirit adds additional +100% damage while it's on, while focus needs to be constantly used to gain it's effect, giving the increased hit chance and lowering monster's resist chance.

What makes up for it is that melee skills are tied to each other while mages are constant AoE dealers, but with unlimited potions, mages have no resource cost issues anymore, leaving melee behind, even if there's spirit stance to help.

If you could have a constant perma spirit stance in all melee fighting styles with free skills to use, it could instead leave mages a bit behind as they would still need to use cc spells to survive as glass canon DPSers if they can't kill monsters fast enough, while meleers get some free skills with cc effects and an additional 100% constant damage modifier.

Also...

...I don't see any reason to add more counters, btw.

...more counters in one-handed and new counters in DW would first of all give 1H and DW a natural AoE passive effect, not leaving them behind 2H, Niten nor mages, but the core reason is to get a reasonable overcharge rate at any situation and incentivize skill usage for 1H and DW, or allow all styles to keep on a perma spirit stance if desired, while not using or using their respective skills reasonably to save overcharge.

There would still be no incentive to use skills if overcharge wasn't gained frequently, and if it always remains at cap with the buff in the gain rate teamed together with it not going down at all during spirit stance, it will give unlimited access to not just skills on spirit stance, but also OFC and FUS RO DAH would rarely make spirit stance expire.

Meleers would need to choose if they just want a perma spirit stance, with overcharge being refilled constantly, using skills sometimes reasonably to no make overcharge run out, or use all skills freely without spirit stance on, as overcharge would mostly remain at cap all times.

It might be just a confusion when saying that overcharge doesn't regenerate "at all" while on spirit stance.

My proposition is that just normal attacks don't get any rate during spirit stance anymore, depending on counters(or mostly kills for 2H) to refill the rate while spirit stance is on, showing another reason for raising the number of counters as well.

I wouldn't go with new fighting styles while the already existing ones aren't balanced yet.

Just in case, as if the whole melee would get an overhaul and maybe even get almost entirely rewritten somehow, adding some new fighting styles might not be hard.

There's no need for them to be perfect from the get go as well.

While I was reading the 0.82 HV Patch Notes, lots of things changed or were fixed around the same day after the patch went live with the amount of player feedback and bug testing, and later patches still changed things related to the 0.82 patch months later as well.

If rangers were problematic because of arrow and bullet consumption for example, depending on the feedback of players, it could get changes in a later patch after the testing period involved some months already, avoiding feedback from players that just touched the style and never gave it a deep and meaningful run.

though the "Elemental strikes have 10% chance to cause the status effect the element is tied to" and "Draining weapon suffixes procs scaling with deprecating proficiency" may not be bad.

This is mostly to stimulate proficiency grinding, making players that want a damage boost try new fighting styles, and also somehow fixes the current situation of gear, where even if you get a legendary drop, it might simply be bazaar fodder depending on what it is, completely removing the awe and happiness of getting a legendary, making peerless the only thing players actually look forward to, still hoping it doesn't drop with a worthless suffix or something that isn't any use in any of the current METAs.

though the "Elemental strikes have 10% chance to cause the status effect the element is tied to" and "Draining weapon suffixes procs scaling with deprecating proficiency" may not be bad.

Yup.
I liked the suggestion for Unarmed Style as well.
But the rest is really toooo much (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

This post has been edited by End Of All Hope: Mar 22 2017, 20:10

Every time you rewrite something instead of trying to balance things by small changes you end up with crap meta and broken mechanics.
So, no, I will never agree on so many changes.

I can understand that viewpoint, as for the last major patch(which I believe was 0.82, right?), the consumable changes gave everyone a broken mechanic to use, even ruining the whole point of having trained pack rat to the max.

I'm not sure if it has broken the economy too much as I got tired after browsing 1/4 of the patch thread, but just looking at the low price of BoS currently compared to what they used to be in the past, with phazons going for skyrocketing prices and the current META being Mage Verse, it's true that a game changing patch can break the game instead of fixing it.

It can't be just ignored because it might also passively affect the economy, so it's also reasonable to believe many mages or 1Hers might be against such a change, as prices for non META melee gear might rise while mage and 1H gear gets lowered, and no one would want to see their assets lose value, so just the fact that too many changes might create new METAs and broken mechanics shouldn't be a major reason as to why these changes shouldn't take place, as they can be fixed reasonably fast in a ptach some months later, or even on the same day if it's something completely broken.

Also I'm pretty sure you have not played melee quite enough if you think that elemental prefixed weapons are so inferior to ethereals one (spoiler: for 1H they are just as good, slightly inferior for other styles because of burden).

A fully maxed IW ethereal weapon vs a fully maxed elemental one isn't that different, not affecting heavy armor users much, while leather users might prefer ethereals to not mess with evade chance, but both weapons on base level are quite different.

All you need to do is look at the difference in damage between void strike and elemental strike, which might not be much without monsters having any debuff, but shows the difference when hitting a monster with 3 stacks of PA.

The market also easily shows that ethereal weapons are the more sought ones with their prices, with artic followed close by due to the good strike + spike shield combo, with holy and dark followed close by due to average monster resistances and schoolgirls, but all elemental prefixes still have a great price difference for melee weapons compared to ethereal.

This is also a change that can affect the market, putting elemental essentially on par with ethereal, with the first getting bonus damage with proficiency training and status effects procs while the other bypasses monster resistances, but the end result would be mostly a buff to all IW 10 weapons, essentially changing only the weapons at base level.

Also fuck having to grind mage profs when you are a melee.

This is all about what a long time consuming game is all about:
-level grinding
-proficiency grinding
-getting gear upgrades
-looking for new things to do at endgame out of boredom(trying new styles, going after collectibles, speedrunning and/or trying to improve clear times)

None of the options above are forced upon the player.

People who choose to grind staff proficiencies going to a crude Item World at IWBTH or PFUDOR just want proficiency fast, as gaining them would usually be something earned naturally while playing every day doing micro managing with ether taps, but staff proficiency currently falls behind due to mages not using normal attacks in their speedruns.

Grinding magic proficiencies for melee would basically give players the option to go after them if they want some extra damage, which can just be done naturally playing little by little every day or in a matter of days with proficiency grinding.

To each it's own poison.

btw, joe connected. since you're here sir, is there something that you know for sure that cannot be implehemented?

Yeah... I'm not reading all that.