Work In Progress Work In Progress: Weapon Mastery

First of all, I'm sorry for it's length...

Secondly here are my suggestions:

I love the idea. Especially of benefiting roles. But I think you need to be very careful when executing it, though, as you may end up causing a massive imbalance in the necessity of roles in larger group content. Which I believe is already an issue. We're already seeing healer and tank numbers reduced in content because they are, as I am often quoted "not needed". In fact, I and my entire league were insulted by a player for forming a group for Paradox with the 2-2-2-2 formula. This is mentality of some players in the game and you need to be careful that you don't negate the need for roles by buffing perks too much.

I believe if you are clever enough with this system, you could restore the 2-2-2-2 formula back to the game without changing anything which already exists. I think the way to do that is to focus on stackable buffs for each role (but limited to a stack of just 2 so it discourages groups made up of 3 controllers or 3 healers or whatever). The buffs, when ran in 4 player content or below are sufficient, but they are better when stacked with another player in 8 man content, thus removing the urge to play with just 1 of each role and the rest as DPS.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

- TANK:
I don't tank, so I don't really know tanking, but effects which are better when 2 tanks are present in a raid should be enforced to encourage a return to 2-2-2-2.

• Solo tank, when using a mastery combo, taunts for a longer duration (say 125% the duration combared to now). Mobs can still break away like they do now.
  • 2 Tanks, when one uses a mastery combo, the taunt pulls all enemies, even bosses which have lept away, to immediately stop attacking the player and return to him. Any new mobs or "loose" mobs are instantly pulled towards that tank. Mobs can not, under any circumstances, break away from this super taunt for at least 75% the duration of a standard tank taunt. Only works with 2 tanks, though.

- HEALER:
I also don't heal, so I don't really know healing, but as with tanks, all buffs should be good on their own, but better with a second healer, thus encouraging a return to 2-2-2-2.

• Solo healers, shields last 1.5 seconds longer and have 125% the strength when activated after a mastery combo.
  • Only with 2 healers, shields last 3 seconds longer and have 200% the strength when activated after a mastery combo by either healer.
• Healers have 125% their restoration stat applied to any healing which is activated after a mastery combo.
  • Only with 2 healers, both healers gain the 125% boost applied to their next healing power, when either one activates it. Also has a "deflection" mechanic in place, which causes a second heal 50% the value of the first heal to occur a second or two after the heal is cast.

- CONTROLLERS

• Power Over Time powers
  • Solo controller receives a 5% increase to his POT when activated after a mastery combo.
    • When 2 controllers are present, any POT move cast after a mastery combo can not be overwritten. This creates 2 POTs if 2 controllers do it but each tick is at 75% the value of a single POT. Can not be stacked any higher (making 3 controllers unnecessary)
• Power Dump powers
  • Restores 125% power to a maximum of 4 players in the group, when activated after a mastery combo.
    • No benefit for multiple controllers as I feel any benefit will encourage controller stacking.
• Debuffs
  • Any debuff applied after a mastery combo will apply a debuff equal to (base debuff percentage + 2%) with an extended duration of 2 seconds.
    • When 2 controllers are present, the debuff produces an equal percentage when activated after a mastery combo, but stacks to a maximum of 2 times ((base debuff percentage x 2) + (2 x 2%)) with an additional 1 second added on to the counter of each debuff if it is applied to an already-debuffed-with-an-identical-debuff enemy.

- ADDITIONAL IDEA

• Power restoration
  • As we all (should) know, weapon attacks restore power and the amount increases as we reach different combo tiers. How about for ALL roles, a single tick of 1% of the players base power is returned to that player upon activating a mastery combo?
    • Controllers receive an additional 1% for taking the time to do the attack, benefiting the return power when the controller is running smaller group content.

Just watched the video and I have to admit it really looks quite fun. I clip because I have to but would really like to do this longer timing based style. I honestly like the look of the long animations more than some toon standing there having a seizure for maximum dps. I may be the minority here from the sounds of it but I think the more casual types will get a real kick out of this.

I do have a question/suggestion though about shapeshift forms. The supercharge ones I could picture not changing they don't really need to. Wolf form is a long term shapeshift, you can be in it as long as you like, and it's only role is damage. Maybe if you would make it like the movement skills currently are (if you bought supersonic in flight you can use supersonic speed and gyro in wolf form) and set it so if you bought the weapon mastery in one tree (or martial arts since it is based on that) it would open up the bonus weapon mastery moves in wolf form as well.

In any case I think this looks like a lot of fun and appreciate you showing us and giving time to brainstorm it with you as opposed to other games that just roll on without concern during planning and polishing.

Implementing new things is fine as long as:
- It's actually something intresting
- If it's not interesting, it at least doesn't impact my experience

The way it works now- none of the channeling powers retain full damage when jump canceled. The maximum speedof the cancel and doing it consistntly is something you learn and train through using the powers, It makes a rotation more complex- more skill based slowing it down serves no purpose, other then limiting the capabilities of a skilled player.

As for the leaving part- I play the game currently because the gameplay is fun and it hooked me. I do not need another MMO to go to should they ruin this one for me, there's a whole big world out there, outside of online gaming.

You and I are playing very different games then it seems.

hi devs , srry for the late msg but i wes thinking about something about the new systen of the weapon .
its sound good and great but there is a littel issue with that on PVP
im not talking only about my self but there is al lot of Great player out there and we all know to press "block"
all this combo are nice and cool but on pvp non of then will work ( on the player )
so iwes thinking about cool idea maybe u will like it..
Example - using ONE HAND WEAPON MEELE ATTACK AND BOW RANGE ATTACK
OR TWO HAND MEELE WITH RANGE RIFLLE ATTACK ....
its can work great without destroy all u talk about on your livestream

Forgive me as I have not seen the video yet, and have not read all of the thread.

I did see that certain weapons combo into others. Does this mean you can't just pick what weapons you want to combo in? Is it pre picked for you?

For example I use hand blasters the chart says it combos into brawling,and bow.

For the type of char I play, those weapons don't really fit. Martial arts and dual pistols do.

Any clarity on this would be great.

- TANK: as the tank finishes off the wm combo the toon executes a single jackhammer like move. The jackhammer, and only the jackhammer is uninterruptible. This move draws all adds within "x" radius towards the tank then pops them up. In a sense, it ends with an aggro pull.
- HEALER: as the healer finishes off the wm combo the toon executes a word of power like move. The word of power, and only the word of power is uninterruptible. This move takes all damage from the combo and divides the amount into equal amounts of health to the rest of the team. For example, the combo does 3200 damage and there is a full raid; each toon would receive 400 health back.
- CONTROLLER: as the troll finishes off the wm combo the toon throws an encasement to adds within "x" radius. The encasements steal power from the trapped and feeds back to the troll. This way the troll can either feed their pets or the group.

Just a late night thought.

Thanks!

Yes. They are pre-picked they said.

ESO seems a yawn fest to me TBH lol

As a person who heals primarily, I really don't feel it necessary to comment on on this too much in depth. I value my clips to be efficient. I value the utility of most weapons and powers to maximize my potential.


So yes, people complain on these forums consistently out of spite, not every complaint falls into that category, but enough that you ultimately shows how scummy our community truly is. Besides the fair majority that have spoken out against clipping have done so primarily in relation to the DPS role and their in ability to cope with the mechanic. To deny that fact is basically ignoring the forums as a whole.

I have never seen a 3 controller group, and when I HEAL or CONTROL, I don't see our group spamming for the sake spamming. Then again that's me, but heaven forbid I say that, because I obviously am just trolling, and not speaking about personal experience in relation to the topic in the question presented to me.



I love what you wrote that I have placed in bold. Made me chuckle.

You have your "opinion" I have mine. I think its terrible at first glance. But like I said in my post I will reserve judgement when it hits.

I won't go into an anti DPS tirade like you. When my concern was related to pacing.

i like the idea of this but one thing has to be included that you guys answered and never brought up. If the only benefit to doing these combos is the extra precision damage and with skill the crit might damage it only helps dps. No healer/tank/troll will use this is PvE. Which defeats the purpose of balance that this is trying to bring. You have....i repeat HAVE to make it so after compleating the weapon master combo in troller stance if the troll hits recharge it is a crit or pot is a crit for all the ticks (that sounds beast) and same for healers and tanks not sure what the best benifit for them would be but you get the idea. There is no way a troll will take the time to complete this combo just to do what an extra 500 - 1000 damage when they would just spam there tap triangle to refill there own bar. If this is not changed this will not work. Period.

Well this feels like teamwork don't it

-TANK: I personally haven't tanked much but i liked someone's suggestion to provide a short immunity either to CC or to counters, depending on what you think is balanced. Also a bonus % of health for a few seconds could be interesting.

-HEALER: Also like the idea of increasing resto for a bit, but I personally think just giving heavily increased crit healing chance and magnitude is worth trying to pull off the combo. Would totally introduce an interesting skill component to healing.

CONTROLLER: Again increased crit chance and magnitude would be worth it and having the same benefits for dps, healer and controller role would make it very clean and easy to understand.

3) could also be a selection of random procs beneficial to the role, could be kind of fun, but a tad more complicated.


also i hope you don't mind me taking the chance to also ask about the clipping modifications, it's not real clear to me why you guys are eliminating the 0 animation clips. They were lots of fun and required plenty of skill to pull of consistently. I understand they had some imbalances like in pvp, but i feel the counter mechanic icons were good enough to solve them. Could you guys please elaborate a bit more on why you feel this is needed?

Add the Weapon Mastery but leave clipping alone.

I'm trying to be unbiased but a lot of people are going to leave the game if clipping and jump canceling isn't an option anymore.

I do agree that clipping won't be removed (people turned from a "jump-cancel will be limited" to "jump-cancel will be removed completely" to "clipping will be removed") however I disagree that DCUO would still be the fastest combat system without clipping (if they would ever remove it but doubt they would kill their strongest key selling point which was never the license). I see you havent played WildStar unlike me and I can assure you it consist of jump-cancelling and some nasty burst moves which are very close to the current DCUO combat system (ofc you have to search them and they are not obvious right in your face but they are confirmed as intended). It's far from a snooze fest like WoW or ESO and much faster than what you call "close to DCUO" as TERA which is way behind DCUO and WildStar (I played all of them apart from WoW but I think we all know how stupid that game is and do agree ^^).

I will pop in for some directly related stuff later in regards to Beast Mastery but that was poking my eye and couldnt resist to response

That's the thing. We cant honestly say that it won't be an option anymore. Because nobody has seen it in action yet. Who knows, with the animation passover.. it could end up a similar time in total. They're not removing clipping totally.

hey Spytle,
I'm really psyched about this development! I primarily play weapon-heavy toons, currently switching armories between Brawling and MA on my main. This mechanic adds the impact that I was previously sacrificing for the sake of skill-based, aesthetically pleasing combat, as opposed to clip-based, number-crunching, high-score-chasing, button-mashing, power-hogging DPSing. I do clip, but use it sparingly rather than constantly. It's awesome that now I can play my toon in the manner I enjoy most and also be putting out some hard-core damage.
I'm so glad that you the Developers are steering the game away from the uniformity and narrow optimization that has previously existed. In the quest for balance between power sets and weapon choices this is a breakthrough that, for me at least, was completely unexpected.
It doesn't surprise me that there is so much negative reaction on this thread. If you gave these people the moon they'd grumble that the sun is bigger and brighter. They make a hobby out of complaining.
To me it seems that recent developments like bases, armories, feat-unlocking, and now weapon mastery, are bringing the game more subtlety and depth, allowing for a more thoughtful and intelligent gaming experience, whilst still catering to those who only want to kill stuff and hit high scores. Genius, really.
Great work.

Hey Van! how's it going?

I'm sure devs will chime in on this, but from what i have understood, they will not eliminate clipping and jump cancelling, just making it a little slower on SOME powers that allowed you to completely make the animation disappear (like many of the HL ones for example).

Weapons clipping will remain the same, it's a few powers that will change, but they will definitely have a notable impact. Hopefully they rethink this or at least give us a more thorough explanation as to why they're doing it. I don't understand atm.

im liking the idea of bow kick launcher>smoke bomb. Thats a tap, hold, hold.I want to see this running 1 tank, 1 heal, 1 troller and 5 dps.



Also, hands off the clipping pls. Thats what makes this games unique. Unless some else tells me there's another mmo that clips animation.

Just adding my view on this as a HL player. It is not a QQ post nor a bash.

Anyway, the Devs say they wish to give an option to everyone, however, as many have already stated, limiting clipping or jump cancelling is really just killing the fun and the intent of it. Some powers heavily rely on jump cancelling for range and having a 1 sec or less/more CD until you can next JC makes the whole experience slow and as a DPS (I am talking as a DPS here) it is losing out on damage.

As HL, everyone knows that our ranged loadouts heavily rely on JC. We simply do not do enough damage with our range attacks alone without a frenzy of JCs. Limiting this would really make the aspect of range for HL quite hard and challenging, in a bad way. I would also argue that with weapon mastery, it makes one wonder how beneficial combo based powers are in this setting. It has been mentioned that weapon mastery gives players who do not play combo powers the ability to compete with the high end combo powers because other powers do not have this mechanic, however, calling that balance is far from it. A lot of people play different powers for their appeal, where HL has combos other powers have PIs or a massive amount of DoTs.

Maybe I am misunderstanding this whole concept, but having weapon combos contend with high end powers is quite unbalanced and IMO removing what makes certain powers unique is a step in the wrong direction. My suggestion is to leave Jump cancelling the way it is, do not touch it, give us who love this the option we always have had without any limits while giving others who do not approve of this another option.

I could rant on how this makes combo powers irrelevant but I see no point, I could rant about giving combo powers PIs that increase damage but there would be no point, we are IMO happy enough with the way our powers work (minus some bugs that will hopefully be fixed) but will be very unhappy if what makes us unique is taken away without being given something in return.

I understand this is a W.I.P and though many have voiced negative feedback, I imagine its because, like myself, have probably misunderstood the concept and feel like this is an attack on the play-style we have been accustomed to as well as the uniqueness of the powers we love.

This as well.

If the changes are such a detriment on my enjoyment then you bet I'm gone. Which ultimately no one should care about. Just stating facts.

From the sounds of it, I better enjoy this time I have left. But once again. Judgement shall be reserved.

Beautiful. Especially the last part.

Thank you for the answer. . I had a feeling it was that way.

I personally don't like that. I am not the biggest role player, but I did pick a look and weapon for my char. It was done for a reason. I do not change my look that much.

It is why I wanted to be able to buy a weapon with marks. I hated being forced to play certain weapons because of random drops.

This is sort of the same thing in a way.

It's a cool idea, but they need to realize many people want more control on who their char is.

I can deal with brawling as a hand blaster player, not ideal, but it's ok. Bow is just plain yuck from a rp aspect for me.