Skill fatigue?

[Own]

I've noticed a problem when looking at videos, and I've been guilty of it myself. People tend to choose a single skill and spam endlessly over anything else. They'll run around, hitting and running with it over trying to combo it with other skills or use their weapons / shields, particularly in arcade.

They'll also just let summons kill everything for them, given the opportunity.

I propose something similar to this, if not this exactly: Skill Fatigue. Every skill starts off at 100% energy, represented with a full blue background to it's icon. Using a skill, or having a skill function, results in a small fatigue of that skill. The higher the charge of that skill, the larger the fatigue - unless it's a summon.

So you cast Fireball. It goes down a few %. You keep casting it, keeps going down. It hits 75%, that skill takes longer to charge and deals less damage. 50%, even longer, even less damage. 25%, again. 0%, it's non-functional. For summons, this would work by fatiguing the skill by some % every time they dealt damage until it hit 0%. This would make summons immediately de-summon, preventing any chance of AFK farming.

So how do you get around it? Take a swipe at an enemy with a weapon, all skills recharge by 1%. Perfect guard an enemy attack, they all recharge by 5%. Maybe certian shields could raise that even higher.

I also propose that plants act as semi-permanent stationary summons, instead of temporary effects - with a limit of how many you can have active dependant on every # of skillpoints you have in the skill, after which point summoning a new one would desummon the oldest one. It could be interesting to give them a healthbar as well, allowing enemies to target them while allowing them to be resummonable, unlike the snowman. I dunno if that would mess up the skill's balance entirely, though.

 

[Teddy]

The system you propose is well thought out in itself, but I personally feel such an approach would only serve to normalize play styles which we don't really want with the game. Not everyone feel comfortable with the high-octane brawl style that you and I prefer, and having a system where you had to engage in melee would synergize poorly with many of the skills, and too well with melee builds. I don't see an inherent, objective problem in players doing hit and run tactics or forgetting to incorporate normal attacks, as long as they are having fun. Sure, I can object to them being "less skilled" than I am and yet they overcome the same obstacles, but at least in Arcade Mode I'll get an S (or actually I'll die) while they get a C (and probably die as well, to be fair).

AFK-farming will be removed next patch by requiring user input at set intervals, or all your summons will enter a passive state and let the Slimes and Rabbys slowly carve through your health bar in peace!

We've had it on the table to have the plants stick around, but we're trying out some other changes for now. There are certain issues with energy to be considered if we were to make them permanent. Namely, they would behave like a toggle skill would but without the energy blocking, and that would need to be addressed somehow! The solution would probably be energy blocking per summoned plant, and integrating summon commands by, for example, pressing the skill button followed by a direction (so skill button + down could be to unsummon all plants to regain the blocked energy). It's a bit difficult to express in text but I think the implementation would be fairly intuitive if we'd need to do it. We have discussed whether or not to implement a similar system for the Frosty Friend, but again, we want to assess the current usage of the skill before doing any major changes!

 

[Own]

Sure, I can object to them being "less skilled" than I am and yet they overcome the same obstacles, but at least in Arcade Mode I'll get an S (or actually I'll die) while they get a C (and probably die as well, to be fair).

I wasn't implying they were 'less skilled', just... most casters I've seen never use their shield unless they absolutely have to (during the perfect blocking section of the Flying Fortress), or forget that they can whap enemies with their rod while MP recharges. The suggestion was mostly a way to incentivie fighting with skill usage, but I guess I can see that some people would want to just spam a single skill over and over while running around and be happy with it.

 

[GarlicJelly]

I was doing the ranged-caster-thing before the Ice Spikes got nerfed (last patch?) in arcade mode and it was very effective. When I play arcade mode I try to reach the top and not score high since you get points anyways. If I wanted big scores I'd rather go with melee since you're always very effective in combat. Being ranged in arcade mode allows the player to be more safe in combat (in general) and I think that that saftey is something a lot of people want when they use fireball or summon skills. Just because you don't press "Z" doesn't mean you're bad or lack skills. I think it's a valid approach to avoiding damage.

 

[Teddy]

I hope the "less skilled" part didn't come across as me actually feeling that way! I think kiting and playing it safe is certainly a valid strategy, and one that I know many people enjoy.

It's like how the Touhou (bullet hell) veterans would say "you use character X and bombs? don't you know you can maximize your score better with this char and never using bombs?", but I just wanted to beat the game in one Continue to see the good ending before learning how the score system even worked. So I totally get using certain builds and strategies in order to progress rather than getting the best score! I think it's good, however, that getting good scores require riskier play.

In the end, it's on us to make challenges that are interesting for all kinds of players, kite or melee based!

I do agree that it becomes a problem if players entirely forget certain mechanics exists at all, like the shield. We have plans of adding a small game section after the exams where we flesh out some of the characters, and at the same time cement some of the foundations (and teach about the guaranteed crit/instant charge effect of perfect guard)!

 

[IHeartPie]

Just an add on suggestion: What if this was implemented in a "hardcore mode" for the story? That would give this game a lot more replayability by encouraging a radically new playstyle. Just an idea :3.

 

[Hobo]

This might work for hardcore, but definitely isn't something for the rest of the game, this is a game I dare say where you play how you want, there's no skill or class boundaries, so why would they want to limit how we play?