a collection of ideas about reworking some items that needs it the most.
many of these probably arn’t possible with the game’s current systems, but its cool to think about the many things that could be if the server backend was also rewritten from scratch and not just the client.
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Ray katana: no more piercing
- upon hitting an enemy, a concentrated ray of sunlight performs a coordinated strike at the enemy’s position from a random angle.
- ray of sunlight: beam: damage 200, ignores defense, hits multiple targets, 1 second cooldown
notorious for being the worst event white in the game, it is long due for a buff. this effect plays into the name of the item, and gives it a unique feel compared to any other weapon
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Dirk of cronus: damage 150-200
- when projectiles die, they split into two smaller shots at 90 degree angles each dealing 50% damage.
cdirk has always been a target for complaint, and the problem is that it has too much competition. by giving it a creative quirk, it allows cdirk to break free from the cage between etherite/t14/avarice/stinger and allows it to stand alone as a special item. the effect is somewhat inspired by the way cubes shoot, falling in theme
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Cloak of bloody surprises: +2def, +2atk
- invisible for 5.5 seconds, cooldown 6.5 seconds
- while invisible: upon shooting, break invisibility and gain +25atk for 3 seconds.
every time i equip this item i’m more reluctant to use it than willing. instead of punishing the player with slowness by using it, move the effect to a decision, this also makes the playstyle feel more like a proper rogue, as well as bring some more interesting play to shooting than toggling autofire and forgetting about it
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Gemstone: +80mp, +8 def, +8wis, +8spd
- on ability use: gain a buff that slowly restores 50% of mp used over 5 seconds. cannot stack
gemstone has the right idea, but coming after mad robe it feels a bit lacking in variety, while being, imo, a bit too ‘spammy’ on classes like wizard or fungal tome priest. the proposed change promotes spaced out but frequent ability use instead of burst spam like almost everything else in the game
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Fungal breastplate: +100hp
- heal 50% of damage taken after 5 seconds.
after numerous nerfs fungal breastplate has become not much different from legendary ore. i can’t really imagine how balanced the effect will be, but i think it’s a cool idea tho
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Enforcer:
- reverse the V pattern so they converge at the end, making it very difficult to hit close/mid enemies but possible to hit both shots at the end
the enforcer nerf was highly debated. i think while the nerf was a neccesary balance to make it not always best in slot, the way it’s done just reduced the amount of reason to use it in any circumstance. this will give the weapon a unique pattern no other weapon has.
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tiered quivers:
- on ability use: reduce weapon shot spread by 60% for 2-5 seconds (duration increases with tier)
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tiered traps:
- enemies damaged by the trap take 20% increased damage from your weapon for 3-6 seconds (duration increases with tier)
these changes will give huntress and archer some much needed variety and unique identity, separating their playstyles and indirectly buffing them without changing bows
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poisons:
on ability use: also coats your weapon with poison for 2-5 seconds, making it do more damage against wounded targets (max +50% damage against an enemy at 0% hp) (duration increases with tier)
this gives an actual niche to assassins, and solidifies the class’s identity in the game
there really hasn’t been much variety to increase difficulty without just increasing the base damage of every enemy’s shot to above 200, and their base hp to some obscene amount. here are some ways of adding artificial difficulty instead of just making getting hit more punising:
i think halluncinating is a kinda cool underused debuff, it makes making decisions harder because suddenly you’re not sure which shot is the one doing more damage or applying another status effect, and if you weren’t paying attention you’ll also lose track of which enemies to target.
another way of stripping information can be temporarily blocking HUD. this way player will have to rely on their best guess as to when to nexus. its much better than blind / darkness.
in general, think of how it would feel if you died to something: does it feel like it’s your own fault? was there something obvious that you can do to counter it next time? is the answer to that interesting?
if you died to blind/darkness, what could you have done after the game turns off your screen? it is obviously frustrating.
if you died to a 300 damage shot, the answer is usually a boring ‘just dodge’, except in the case of memorizable shot patterns, like during mbd, dammah knives, leuc counter, or celestial. answering this question is extremely un-fun when the shot came from a massive shotgun by an enemy that moves faster than you. (literally every other minion jumps and shotguns during beisa clear in o3)
this is also why i think phases like mbc’s survival, dammah’s miasma, and king’s patience are not well designed. they just lift the skill floor extremely high for no other reason, and doesn’t really give the player anything rewarding during the experience. instead, phases like bridge sentinel’s swords feel more enjoyable, because the answer to the question posed above is made more interesting by having set patterns. the existence of predictable patterns means learning, which is always more fun, and on top of that, the learning experience not only lower thes skill floor, but also raises the skill ceiling at the same time for players seeking top damage. the twilight archmage fight is a decent example, mixing set patterns and randomness. it just lasts way too long.
not that randomized patterns are always bad, they need to co exist with preset patterns in order to make a more interesting experience, but not with such a high skill floor. these phases should be more fun if the shots that applied status effects did less base damage. this also gives player more decisions to make as to what to prioritize dodging, and it would scale a bit more interestingly with dungeon modifiers.
