Skills you have that you'd love to see changed!

Eld

Achimrst said:

Stonefist? Although it was already changed. Maybe I'm missing what it is useful for.

Stonefist is the basic low-level magi/sylvan bashing skill, isn't it?

Sena

Stonefist is a pretty good newbie bashing attack. Far from the worst, at least. It also retains punch's scaling with denizen health.

Naisar said:

Skills should never be made obsolete.  They can be shoved into narrow niches, but when one completely encompasses the other bad design is happening.

I don't understand the reason for this. An ability being completely replaced by a superior ability later seems almost identical to an ability being upgraded at a higher skill level. Are both of those situations bad design? If anything, I prefer the former, because sometimes people will actually want to use a weaker ability.

Synbios

I wanted to make this into a separate thread, but I want to suggest minor cosmetic Drawslash attack message changes based on the stance you are in.

Unstanced: With expert precision, you draw Eternal Mercy from its scabbard and unleash a vicious slash towards a young rat.

Doya: Firmly steadying yourself, you draw Eternal Mercy from its scabbard and launch a heavy slash towards a young rat.

Thyr: With rapid movements, you draw Eternal Mercy from its scabbard and deliver a lightning-fast slash against a young rat.

Mir: With flowing, weaving movements, you draw Eternal Mercy from its scabbard and launch a deliberate slash against a young rat.

Arash: Foregoing any semblance of restraint, you draw Eternal Mercy from its scabbard and loosing a savage slash against a young rat.

Sanya: With supreme focus, you draw Eternal Mercy from its scabbard, unleashing a potent slash against a young rat.

There are appropriate third- and second-person messages, of course.

Blujixapug

Sena said:

I don't understand the reason for this. An ability being completely replaced by a superior ability later seems almost identical to an ability being upgraded at a higher skill level. Are both of those situations bad design? If anything, I prefer the former, because sometimes people will actually want to use a weaker ability.

It serves the same purpose in terms of bashing becoming increasingly more powerful. High-rank Warp/Smite/Bop/Decay/etc being more powerful than low-rank Warp/Smite/Bop/Decay/etc works out the same as mages progressing from Stonefist to Firelash to Staffcast.

It just feels wasteful when an ability becomes obsolete once you've gained another ability, higher up in the skill, that's the same but better. This isn't the case with Elementalism, as Stonefist is, if nothing else, fodder for def-stripping, and Firelash has its own uses. But looking at Metamorphosis, most morphs from the lower half of the skill become totally redundant once you gain higher morphs, as they have all the same powers and more. Very few skills actually suffer from this though.

Achimrst

Kyrra said:

My sylvan used stonefist for hunting for a long time because firelash was so much weaker. It's also another useless def that can be stripped in favour of other things.

If I tell someone stonefist can be used as an attack, I usually get laughed at.

Kyrra

For a sylvan at least, stonefist is still largely better than firelash up until you can thornrend. I think magi can make use of firelash until they can staffcast or whatever.

You're still just punching things to death but there's a huge difference in how fast things die. I really wouldn't want to see stonefist removed. Plus it's useful on guys that don't take a hint

Kaie

Naisar said:

Skills should never be made obsolete.  They can be shoved into narrow niches, but when one completely encompasses the other bad design is happening.

I thought what he was saying was that skills shouldn't find themselves in a state where they have no real usable place in things. Like Justice tarot. Cool idea, never used though because you're never in a situation where you actually stack it with affs and they still attack.

Eld

Sena said:

Stonefist is a pretty good newbie bashing attack. Far from the worst, at least. It also retains punch's scaling with denizen health.

Naisar said:

Skills should never be made obsolete.  They can be shoved into narrow niches, but when one completely encompasses the other bad design is happening.

I don't understand the reason for this. An ability being completely replaced by a superior ability later seems almost identical to an ability being upgraded at a higher skill level. Are both of those situations bad design? If anything, I prefer the former, because sometimes people will actually want to use a weaker ability.

I can see occasionally wanting to use the weaker ability for something, but in general, I prefer the gradual improvement of a single skill over the step-function model of waiting for the next, stronger one. For those classes with the latter model, I think you generally get your final hunting skill (thornrend, staffcast, jaguar maul, whatever) around Fabled in your first class skill, which I think you'll usually be looking at getting around level 70 based on leveling lessons and bound credits, and bashing through the 60s with firelash or hyena claw (?) is pretty damn tedious.

Sena

I do agree that more gradual improvement is better than those huge steps. And because you mentioned it with a (?), metamorphosis also has reflexed claw in wolverine as a sort of intermediate step between hyena and jaguar.

Eld

Sena said:

I do agree that more gradual improvement is better than those huge steps. And because you mentioned it with a (?), metamorphosis also has reflexed claw in wolverine as a sort of intermediate step between hyena and jaguar.

The ? was more because I wasn't sure I was remembering the name of the hyena power correctly and didn't want to go back to the previous page and look it up. Hadn't realized that about wolverine though. 

Yae

It would be a nice 'halfway' if it were an actual halfway point, but.. as it is.
Wildcat (7) ----> Hyena (134) --------------------------> Wolverine (574) -> Jaguar (841).

Hunting with reflexes is particularly draining though! We have Groves to counteract that, pushing on the Metamorphosis side means that the Groves learning is lowered.

Mizik

Fucking Tremolo

Hasar

Agree with @Mizik, let's buff tremolo to break two legs now.

Naisar

I'll explain a bit since some discussion has sprung up around my earlier statement.  

Sena said:

I don't understand the reason for this. An ability being completely replaced by a superior ability later seems almost identical to an ability being upgraded at a higher skill level. Are both of those situations bad design? If anything, I prefer the former, because sometimes people will actually want to use a weaker ability.

In pure function, yes, these are identical.  In fact if you're making this decision in a vacuum, you may as well go with two separate abilities.  But in application there are other factors to consider.  First off, you're using up design space on an ability that will cease to be useful once players attain the more powerful one.  By switching to a scaling ability you've now got some free space you can use for anything you want.  Want more flavor?  Fill your newly-freed design space with habaneros.  Even if you really want to have an early skill be superceded by a late one you should provide narrow use-cases for the weak one to keep it from being obsolete.  Firelash is a decent example of an ability that retains a small amount of utility even after being replaced as a bashing ability.  Furthermore, it's disappointing for players to look at their ab files and discover that some of the stuff there is pointless.  

My argument is not that one scaling ability beats a strong-obsolete pairing (although in many cases this is true), but that one scaling ability and one of whatever the hell you want is better.  And personally, though I do not know how much this opinion is shared by others, I prefer medium-sized skills where every ability sizzles to large ones with a bunch of duds.

Edit: Grammar

Cynlael

Just make it like Teradrim in Aetolia where their entire skillset can be used on mobs, and each actually have advantages and disadvantages, lets the person choose what they wanna use.

Seftin

Can see a lot of holo bomb farming if that happend. Or dragon rain.

Cynlael

Single target abilities only.

Kyrra

There goes Stormstrike for ratting.

Chryenth

*Stormhammer

Let me use Erode on denizens, please.

Xli

AB DRAGONCRAFT DEVOUR to be able to consume denizen corpses

Makarios

This exists, its the consume ability in dragoncraft.

Xli

#fail

Xli said:

AB DRAGONCRAFT DEVOUR to be able to consume denizen corpses

Makarios said:

This exists, its the consume ability in dragoncraft.

I'll get my coat

Phraag

Can I get AB TWOARTS Multislash to also work on denizens? I just run around spamming drawslash all day and it's sorta boring, but I see a monk do like 10 uppercuts a kick and an elbow.

Sylvance

Phraag said:

Can I get AB TWOARTS Multislash to also work on denizens? I just run around spamming drawslash all day and it's sorta boring, but I see a monk do like 10 uppercuts a kick and an elbow.

Only if they have separate crit chance and does bleeding damage.

Simoln

Hi Sumac/Camus, hi Longbow/Darkbow.

Tvistor

I can't do a proper F chord on the guitar and I would like this changed ASAP. Piano seems a bit overpowered atm.

Jovolo

Tvistor said:

I can't do a proper F chord on the guitar and I would like this changed ASAP. Piano seems a bit overpowered atm.

Weak.

Antonius

I'd like to do something with Truth in Devotion, since it just seems to be a copy of Search in Vision. I have absolutely no idea what I'd do with it though, but stylistically it's pretty cool and it would be nice to actually give it more usage.

Blujixapug

Antonius said:

I'd like to do something with Truth in Devotion, since it just seems to be a copy of Search in Vision. I have absolutely no idea what I'd do with it though, but stylistically it's pretty cool and it would be nice to actually give it more usage.

We need a whole influence/persuasion system for non-violent PVE.

Achilles

Remove the balance/action restrictions on aiming.  Its not being used because it prevents spamability.  Would be a boon for Serpents/Knights and gives them a edge back from people buy artie bows.

For warhawk the game doesn't send a message to the falcon owner when their steel talons decay, add that.

Startle has little use in its present form (just not worth using), could make act like a tentacle tattoo/dervish and knock a flying enemy out of the air.