That sounds aweful, some classes are already really power heavy, while others can basically ignore power (monks are the big offender). It would increase the disparity between these classes even further. Basically, it would punish classes who have to wait for power regen frequently by weakening them while they were.
Also, part of Lusternia's problems is that actual engagements are incredibly short once you close with your enemy. Too many things stack together too well to shut down long-term combat goals, burst is king. The combat length issue stems from this fact, you really don't want to close with your opponents until you must.
In an open rewrite of the combat system, there could potentially be mechanics like that, but they're probably better tacked onto specific guild abilities as part of making combat more interesting, not as a generic effect of using power. Notably, the current overhaul wouldn't really allow for this kind of interesting submechanic development.
Monks actually use a lot of power for their burst. Nekotai specifically, of course. The tahtetso insta also requires power. Their hemi doesn't, but their cheese is their insta.
I don't know what power was supposed to do, but looking at the current mechanics, the idea that it was originally conceived to be a risk-reward thing is at best a wishful dream. Anyone can see from the way power works that it was (probably) never meant to be a risk-reward mechanic, just a time-limit to certain abilities.
As for whether a risk-reward mechanic will bring interesting strategies to the table or make combat more fun, that's entirely subjective. I am of the opinion that it will not add much of anything to the current system, and will be most out of place in the overhaul (or at least, what little of the overhaul we have seen thus far). The current combat meta is speed/burst. Making the burst have a risk will change... nothing.
There are two ways such a "risk" can be implemented. First, by attacking or endangering vitals. So an example from what Winnae posted would be, say, a nekotai might take 10% of his health as damage if he uses his greenlock. Okay. Big deal. If he manages to lock his opponent, his opponent won't be in any position to take advantage. The second way would be to have the "risk" be one where it will interfere with the burst that uses power in the first place. So a celestine might have his angel hit him after he starts judging, or after landing a successful inquisition... that sounds pretty stupid. See: warrior RNG. Yeah, I'll pass.
That seems problematic. Some classes use a lot of power more for defensive purposes instead of offensive ones, so they wouldn't be getting any offensive boost, just a degrading effectiveness on what they do have.
Plus, more variable effects is not really what Lusternia needs. Knowing what your attack is going to do is pretty important IMO.
I haven't played in awhile but I would hope that such a thing could be balanced to specific abilities if a general system doesn't fit in well.
Related, I always found power drains to be a rather lame affliction. It just meant that your opponent had to wait even longer to do their thing. Now that there are 5 affliction levels, powersink might be interesting with a risk-reward system if each level of powersink punished you for every 2 power you have. So at level 1 you get punished for having more than 8 power, punished for having more than 6 power at level 2 and so-on. I think this would be really cool if using power also had a downside.
If anything I would look at changing power costs a bit. Example:
- Psionics can go the whole fight using no power if desired.
- Bards need to pay for octave everytime you gust basically.
- Warriors on the other hand are expected to burn power regularly
- Guardians/combo guilds use alot of power quickly and then have to wait.
Punishing a guild for the design of using power is bad. Powersink as a note is a mana aff, powersap is the power version. We should try to adjust costs such as making octave cheaper, giving psionics active costs to have a solid offense, etc. As it stands though
1) I dislike the idea of making power use have any penalties or risk. This is something I have an idea for elsewhere, and some of you know this!
2) The current overhaul, it doesnt matter, curing is shot anyway. I am waiting for bards to come out in full before reproposing fixes as its assumd no one reads these while they are coding anyway and as we have seen, we will be ignored mostly until the bards are out. Because apparently it is best to fix the underlying mechanics of one of the worst archetypes first.
Not saying bards are bad, but so far they are riddled with flaws beacuse of the auditory chain and are probably the least unique offensively. They are all carbon copies with a handful of different passives.
Would it be possible to consider some form of combat dummies with the overhaul, that could reside in guildhalls? They would be able to be afflicted, and possibly set to 'fight back' in a dumb manner. Just enough for newbie to get an idea of what their own attack lines look like ect. I know we can just hop into the arena with a partner, but sometimes it is just nice to be able to test a quick few things on your own.
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We make 5 or so affliction types associated with weapons: cut, crush, tear, pierce.
Different weapons have different chances of doing an affliction of each type. An un-powered bone crusher attack would be 70% crush affliction stack and 30% tear affliction stack. Pureblade would be 70% cut, 30% pierce. Blade master would be 50% cut, 50% pierce. Axelord would be 33% cut, crush and tear. And so-on.
When you use power, you always give an extra affliction stack of both types. So most bone crusher attacks are crushes with the occasional tear and when you use power, you always get a crush and a tear.
As for applying health to limbs, IMHO just take it out. It was originally supposed to be a choice between drink health and apply health but artifacts and stat inflation killed that entire dynamic. Just make knights do damage again. In order to give a mechanic similar to the building up of limb damage, the amount of afflictions given per attack could just be boosted. For example, two-handed knights could give 2-3 afflictions per swing, one-handed knights have a chance to give an extra affliction. If you get an extra affliction it's always of a different type than the first affliction, since it wouldn't make sense for one attack to give two crush afflictions but it could logically give both a crush and a tear affliction. Wounding runes would increase the chance of giving an extra affliction.
There could also be a fork in the road for decision making here, such as if you see yourself getting more tear afflictions than usual, you might use power on a certain point in order to stack more tear afflictions and so-on.
Differentiating knight specializations would have to be done through additional affects, such as short blackouts, knockdowns, winding etc which is already largely what differentiates them anyway. If they bring back knight damage then the two-handed knights could also do more health damage.
Comments
I don't know what power was supposed to do, but looking at the current mechanics, the idea that it was originally conceived to be a risk-reward thing is at best a wishful dream. Anyone can see from the way power works that it was (probably) never meant to be a risk-reward mechanic, just a time-limit to certain abilities.
As for whether a risk-reward mechanic will bring interesting strategies to the table or make combat more fun, that's entirely subjective. I am of the opinion that it will not add much of anything to the current system, and will be most out of place in the overhaul (or at least, what little of the overhaul we have seen thus far). The current combat meta is speed/burst. Making the burst have a risk will change... nothing.
There are two ways such a "risk" can be implemented. First, by attacking or endangering vitals. So an example from what Winnae posted would be, say, a nekotai might take 10% of his health as damage if he uses his greenlock. Okay. Big deal. If he manages to lock his opponent, his opponent won't be in any position to take advantage. The second way would be to have the "risk" be one where it will interfere with the burst that uses power in the first place. So a celestine might have his angel hit him after he starts judging, or after landing a successful inquisition... that sounds pretty stupid. See: warrior RNG. Yeah, I'll pass.
Plus, more variable effects is not really what Lusternia needs. Knowing what your attack is going to do is pretty important IMO.
You have received a new honour! Congratulations! On this day, you have shown your willingness to ensure a bug-free Lusternia for everyone to enjoy. The face of Iosai the Anomaly unfolds before you, and within you grows the knowledge that you have earned the elusive and rare honour of membership in Her Order.
Curio Exchange - A website to help with the trading of curio pieces in Lusternia.