Skill synergies

Cheynas

Rabby
So, I recently read a similar thread which dealt with this, and other things, and then I 'grinded' (bad pun intended) the idea until I got something to suggest.

How about having the magic skills 'alter' your character in small ways... such as the magic influencing you.
Examples:
You get the bronze rank of all three Ice spells, and you'll have small snowflakes falling around your character... or
You get the bronze rank of all three Earth spells, and you'll have a small patch of grass growing behind you as you walk.

Small visual hints like that to show what kind of magi you are.
It'll give no effect other than visual, but it'd be neat to have.



Of course, that could also be expanded into a weak ranged attack...
You get the silver rank of all three Ice spells, which makes your strikes with a rod (or other MATK weapon) shoot an icicle... or
You get the silver rank of all three Fire spells, which makes your strikes with a rod (or other MATK weapon) give off an ember.

It'll only deal 1/10 (silver) or 1/5 (gold) of the MATK of the weapon, and only travel as far as an uncharged Piercing Dash, at half the speed of an arrow (and deal elemental damage, for purposes of resistances and weaknesses).
And of course, only one can be on screen at the same time, so no maxing attack-speed just to spam out a ranged attack.

Getting silver rank in all three skills of an element, requires you to dedicate 15 levels to that element, so I think it'd give some sort of bonus aside from just a visual upgrade (though that'd be nice too), and it'd make it worthwhile to dedicate to one element instead of mixing and matching.



What are your thoughts on this?
Do you like the visual changes, or the ranged attack, or even both?
Do you hate it all?
Discuss.
 
After reading both the similar post and this one I have found out I quite like the idea(s) in them. I like both ideas stated in here a bunch. The ranged attacks just wow, I like this. I hardly use magic I generally stick to sword skills now, but this would make it much better to use. Visual changes also sound great but I have a question about those. What if you get dedicate 15 levels into two different skills?
 

Cheynas

Rabby
What if you get dedicate 15 levels into two different skills?
By skills, I assume you mean elements.
While I'd love to see them mix together into one animation, if properly done it'll be two separate animations.

To clarify with the example of Ice + Earth:
Mixed: You will leave a trail of snow on the ground, with a few snowdrops growing up through it.
Separate: Snow crystals will fall around your character, and grass will grow where you've walked.

The Separate version requires a bit of planning in what 'area' each element will influence... Body/Area and Feet/Ground in this case... while the Mixed would require a separate animation for each of the combinations. (4 elements gives 6 combinations of two elements, 4 combinations of three elements and 1 combination of four elements, 11 animations in total, in addition to the 4 'basic' animations.)



If you are thinking about the ranged attacks, it will have the same solution as above... either mixed or separate.
Mixed would mean that the projectile you fire will have both elements damage, for calculating resistance/weakness.
Separate would mean that you fire each of the elements projectile in succession, first fire then ice, then fire, then ice, etc...

Separate would then mean that you could have two projectiles on screen at once, one fire one ice.




If you meant skills as actual separate skills, for example 10 levels into two fire skills, and 5 levels into one ice... then you didn't get all the skills of one element, and thus no elemental bonus.

The synergy bonus is just one way to give the choice between:
  • Two skills in one element and one skill in another, that are all equally used.
  • Two skills in one element that's always used, and a third skill that are 'dead weight' to that playstyle.
Example: I'm a fully ranged magi that fights at a range with friends in co-op.
My first two spells were Fireball and Meteor, so I've got two fire spells that work great at range.
Now, should I take the Flamethrower skill to get the Fire Magi visual effect, which would look cool...
... or should I go for the Earth Pillar to get the stun effect... (etc.)

Meaning that if you optimize your playstyle, you won't get the fire effect as your skills will be all over the place... and if you go for the fire magi bonus and stay on that path, you will be rewarded in the end.


Besides, I do love my eyecandy. ;-)
 

Fred

Developer
Staff member
I'm all about eyecandy, so the visual changes to the character I'm all for. It would be a questions of priority since work heavy-purley cosmetical tasks naturally falls to the end of the priority list at the moment, so we can get some new actual content out for you beta testers. But at some point it would be cool to add. I wonder if there's some similar effect we can come up with for the players using onehanded/twohanded skills, would be cool if they also got rewardeded visually in some way.
As for adding a minor ranged attack, it all becomes a question of balance. With all the talk about the bow, adding natural ranged attacks is not a path we're very keen to walk down. I would also much rather reward players who not just focus on one part of the skilltree since that is what we are trying to do with the whole "mix and match"-type skill system we have.
 
I would also much rather reward players who not just focus on one part of the skilltree since that is what we are trying to do with the whole "mix and match"-type skill system we have.
I would be happy for one or both of these ideas. The mix and match sounds a lot better for eye candy- however I kind of wonder how this would work... like what skills would be used for a certain.. combo?
 

Quote

Rabby
(Summary at the bottom)

I like this but specific things towards mages feels very Bias, but then there's the huge issue of "Well what can you really do to a warrior? They already have have special things for every weapon like how the sword you throw in 2h is the actual weapon you're using. Give them a flex aura and call it a night."

But this reminded me of that one thing you mentioned: Wands can get a ranged attack.
Well, while I would think a bullet that only traveled about 3-4 character lengths across would be nice, what about if that could also apply to weapons?

But then, why would this be restricted to skills?
I agree, skills are neat and cool and such and dedicating one self to an element giving you an aura is an interesting concept...

What if it just worked like the Butterfly Aura?

I'm not sure how far you got in arcade mode, but there's an item you can equip on yourself that makes butterflies go around your character. It's a visual effect that flies around your character and stuff with no real purpose, so at that rate why don't we just make the aura's just like that? Click the item, aura set, now you're on fire and your swings do fire damage and your magic weapon shoots short ranged projectiles?

Of course, these items wouldn't have to be easy to acquire. Make multiple elemental enemies drop rare material drops that are used to craft it or something. Like a Yeti's tear and a Kobold's fang and a the glacial core of an elemental and boom you craft that into an aura. That's like finding the Lanturn's cloak, the Rabbit's foot, and the Jumpkins mask or the Slime hat. Those items weren't easy to come by, I'm sure most of us can agree on that.

What I would like to see, so we don't have a limitation to magic users getting an elemental weapon buff, is specialty spells.

If you have 1 bronze point of Skill A B and C you can get this SUPER skill to rank 5 (I think 5? That's how many bronze points it takes before you go to silver I think)
Then when it requires a silver point you'll have to have Skills A B and C have 6 points into each of their skills to even make this skill go any higher.
Basically, in order to put any bronze points into the special skill you need to have 1 bronze point into all the other skills. To get it any silver points the other 3 need to have at least 1 silver point. Same for gold. TL;DR a skill that requires a per-requisite of the other 3 skills to be at Bronze, Silver, Gold and Ultra in order for this skill to be at Bronze, Silver, Gold and Ultra.

and the spell can be really good but costly on mana, and rewards the player for having a specialization in one set of magic.

Examples:
Fire- End of Days: A swarm of large meteors slam into an area with large explosions, the higher the rank the bigger the radius and they'll leave a burning lingering effect.

Ice- Absolute Zero: Kind of like a semi-large Ice-thrower that slows and gains more and more chance to freeze.

Earth- Mass Uproot: Giant entanglement of vines and thorns sit on the ground. Gains range, damage, slowdown and maybe poison.

Lightning- Ball Lightning: As implies, shoots a ball of lightning that moves slowly(or quickly) and pushes enemies with it doing constant damage.



This also doesn't have to be restricted to spells of a certain element either. You could also have combination spells that could either work when an opponent is X and you use Y (Say if there was a tornado spell and you used a fire attack and the tornado set on fire, or say you use lightning on someone you got wet with a water spell if one existed. Bam combo)

or it could also work under this specialization tree.

More Examples: (Note: Anything in ()'s are going to be Pre - Requisites)

Flame Nova (Flamethrower and Wind Slash): Basically just like Ice nova, but burns instead of slows and does more damage.

Gravitational Orbit (Stone Spike and Wind Slash): Causes a Small set of rocks to fly around you for a cost of permanent mana. Damages enemies that touch them.

Tesla's Touch (Flamethrower and Chain Lightning): Your character Flacks a cone of lightning that blows enemies back, and stuns enemies both hit by the shock and by getting hit by other enemies.

Volcanic Burst (Stone Spike and Meteor): Explodes an area, shooting X rocks into random directions that explode.

Tundra Twister (Ice Nova and Wind Slash): Causes a Tornado that slowly drags enemies towards the center, slowing and increasing a chance to freeze once they hit the center.


Then you can start getting Technical:

Tempest Blade (Air slash + Spirit Slash): Creates a wind slash in the direction you're facing that pushes enemies back

Lethal Injection (Shadow Clone + Insect Swarm): A buff that causes your character, for a set time, to also inflict poison damage.

Illusion Blade (Dodging Strike + Ice nova): Puts up a counter stance, and teleports behind the enemy if hit, leaving an ice clone where you were. The ice clone would reflect projectiles and melee damage back to the user, and shatter afterwards.


Hurricane's Eye (Whirlslash + Air slash): Causes your character to constantly spin for a cost of mana over time (Able to move at higher levels, drags enemies in at even higher)

Seismic Crusher (Titan's Throw + Earth Spike): Throws a Boulder at the enemy.

Excessive Force (Heroic Slam + Meteor): Smash the ground with a large Quake that pushes enemies away leaves a lingering molten trail.


This way, with specialty spells, you can then go into a spectrum of whatever you want.
Want to mix and match? Go for it!
Want to specialize? There's a reward for that too!

Granted, it's a lot of work coding all of those spells though, but this is a suggestions forum so... Ta-Da~


Sorry for completely going off topic with this, and suggesting an entirely different idea... again.


Summary (or, in other words, Too long, didn't read.):
Instead of adding auras to specialties, add aura as an item. An aura (butterfly) already exists, might as well work with it.
The specialties, in my opinion, could work more towards skills with pre - requisites.
That way you can have a skill that requires you to have a point into X Y (and maybe Z) in order to be able to be used.
All 3 fire skills = New Fire skill. All 3 Ice = New ice.
Then it can be mixed and matched
This Ice skill + This wind skill = This new skill.
or even:
This 1h or 2h weapon + This magic spell = New skill.
Causing a more in depth specialization for skills and stuff.
 
Last edited:
Also one question about this.

If these were mix-and-match, specific skills, or both; would these combos be shown to players at first, would they have to discover them first, or something different and why?
 

Quote

Rabby
Lets break down the concepts of all of those.

Shown at first: (My preferred)
This allows the player to spec ahead, understanding what skills do and allow an understanding of conjunction spells. Allowing a character at level 1 to min max their skill distribution in order to make their dream skill build.

The Con to this is that if there is no real specialty to these skills. These skill are just there and are "Wow! I want that" but since there's a lot of them it may overwhelm the player and cause them to stagnate under a lack of understanding of the skills. Due to also a lack of easy re-spec for the real game, players can not test these skills before purchasing them, and requiring an investment for a skill you don't like would truly hurt a player experience; however, this could be said for all skills in general.

Discover:
This allows more grinding in the game, and allows stuff like scrolls or tomes to be excavated, dropped, bought or otherwise allowing the player more variation and depth into the video game. Allowing a much longer dive into hours of game-play for completionists, such as myself.

The cons to this are that the player has no initial idea of these combinations, and finding and earning them can become quite bothersome. Your friend got lucky and can use this cool skill combo, whilst you can not because you haven't unlocked it yet because the combo you want is sold/dropped/whatever in an area slightly/much farther into the game. The skills should always be shown, and not hidden, because that would prevent a player from even understanding what can do what, then once they find one they'll end up finding many more but in vein due to limited skill points. Some, most, or maybe all of them to a player may be useless as they do not fit their specific play style, and to fit everyone's play style would require a combo for every skill to another skill. That's way too overbearing, both on the player and on the developers, and shouldn't exist. They should be a special niche, not reward, for those who like a certain skill set. Also, there would be mass confusion as you would see locked skills, but have little to no understanding on where to unlock it. This would cause a large influx of players to look into 'guides' which, to me, feels like it deters from the experience. Also: These skills aren't supposed to be a complete upgrade or something, they're supposed to support a playstyle in various ways:
The ways I imagined them supporting a playstyle

A.) A variation (not just a straight upgrade) of the roles that the other 2 play.
-Whirlslash is made to hit all enemies around you and knock them away, wind slash kind of does this as well. Allow these 2 skills to combine into a skill that does something different, like suction, so it's more dangerous but more powerful.
B.) A supplement of the 2 skills that allows this 3rd skill to be used in an entirely different manner giving way to more variation.
-Heroic slam allows for Close up Damage to one target, Meteor does high damage to a far away target. Thus the new skill could do mid range AoE which allows for more variation in the combo that works with both strategy concepts.
C.) A skill that supports the idea of the skills you already used. Frost nova is made to disrupt and CC while Earth Spike is also (at least how I use it) made to disrupt and CC.
-A Frost Nova + Earth spike spell combo would be used in order to do that same role differently. Maybe a giant pillar of ice shoots from the ground and slows those near it named "Tip of the Iceberg."
because of this you're unlocking a skill that's not going to be better but simply 'for you' which this causes a lock for people building for themselves which just feels so wrong due to this games direction.

Something Different:
I really don't know anything between a Yes or a No, except for a maybe but that doesn't really happen here.
You can't maybe skill lock, unless upon creation you know a set amount of skills, but that would cause a character to reset constantly.
You could make classes in this game, but that pushes away from do whatever you like whenever you like. Mage, Warrior, Hybrid, Lighting 1 sword, Fire 2 sword, Lightning + Earth + 1 Sword, Summoner 2 sword with Berserk so he always has no mana.

The potential was supposed to be endless (kinda) so the only real way to do something 'different' in acquiring this is to limit what a player gets from this, and how many do they get, and that's just a big no-no in my opinion.
 

Schattenphoenix

Green Slime
So, I recently read a similar thread which dealt with this, and other things, and then I 'grinded' (bad pun intended) the idea until I got something to suggest.

How about having the magic skills 'alter' your character in small ways... such as the magic influencing you.
Examples:
You get the bronze rank of all three Ice spells, and you'll have small snowflakes falling around your character... or
You get the bronze rank of all three Earth spells, and you'll have a small patch of grass growing behind you as you walk.

Small visual hints like that to show what kind of magi you are.
It'll give no effect other than visual, but it'd be neat to have.



Of course, that could also be expanded into a weak ranged attack...
You get the silver rank of all three Ice spells, which makes your strikes with a rod (or other MATK weapon) shoot an icicle... or
You get the silver rank of all three Fire spells, which makes your strikes with a rod (or other MATK weapon) give off an ember.

It'll only deal 1/10 (silver) or 1/5 (gold) of the MATK of the weapon, and only travel as far as an uncharged Piercing Dash, at half the speed of an arrow (and deal elemental damage, for purposes of resistances and weaknesses).
And of course, only one can be on screen at the same time, so no maxing attack-speed just to spam out a ranged attack.

Getting silver rank in all three skills of an element, requires you to dedicate 15 levels to that element, so I think it'd give some sort of bonus aside from just a visual upgrade (though that'd be nice too), and it'd make it worthwhile to dedicate to one element instead of mixing and matching.



What are your thoughts on this?
Do you like the visual changes, or the ranged attack, or even both?
Do you hate it all?
Discuss.

I would rather see the total level of skills in one tree to determine the bonus for those skills.
That way it would make sense to specialize.
I find chain lightning and wind blade to be pretty useless but the cloud is nice.
If every skill in this field would grant bonusses to the others, it would be more attractive. Maybe a charge level in one skill grants a bonus to others as well like chain lightning silver / gold granting 1 more missile to wind blade, while the cloud increases its range or whatever.
 
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