Novyx's Idea Mill (Full Version)

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Novyx -> Novyx's Idea Mill (8/11/2022 0:08:13)

Decided to post various thoughts/ideas I've had for the game here, will mostly be item concepts that I have decided one day to flesh out. Hopefully they can help give ideas to staff on mechanics that can be used, and the equipment generally is also made to fill equipment gaps that exist in the actual game. There are also general game suggestions that'll be listed below, mostly so this post won't be empty while I wait out the 24 hour double post limit.

General Game Suggestions
Have the town fountain heal SP: A lot of people go to Combat Practice or Shower Monster to fill up their SP before going about their business, or aren't bothered to do so because it's annoying. Making this process 1 click hopefully makes it convenient enough to use, and it'll save people without access to Essence Orb a lot more time, since they'd otherwise have to rely on the 25% melee per turn regen alongside maybe a couple of SP regen items like the Dragonlord set.

Have weapon default damage type attempt to match no-drops: For most people this isn't an issue, but Werepyre characters that have even STR/INT and can use melee/magic toggle weapons can be annoyed by those weapons choosing melee when the player is encouraged to use magic to make use of magic's x4/3 bonus on boosts to normal attack damage. Also with RangerPyre becoming a bit of a build, weapons like Alchemical Unity will default to magic instead of ranged because the player has 250 INT, but in Werepyre form the magic weapons will do less damage due to lack of STR. Matching the no-drop type is a good way to detect what weapon type a player intends to use.

Have quests grant bonus EXP for first completion: The staff are very aware that the levelling experience isn't great, and that there isn't really much direction provided to players in the game. A thought for a solution I had was this: have player data record a quest code, something like DLKP02 for Dragonlorn Keep quest 2 (since player data doesn't have much room left, I've heard). Then server-side, there can be a stored list of quests in sequential order that the client can look up to find what the next quest is. Upon completing that next quest, the player is granted bonus EXP, maybe scaling to level, scaling to the quest, both, and the player data is updated to now have DLKP03 as the last completed quest. This assumes that the player has completed every quest beforehand; if starting from scratch, that will be the case, and the player would've had to have gotten bonus EXP on all previous quests to reach their current point, however quests can be added that are further back in the timeline/sequence which players can miss out on the bonus EXP from, and I'm not sure there's a good solution for that besides using even more player data, so players might have to lose out on bonus EXP for those. The benefits of this system would be that it can help improve the levelling experience, give direction to players (i.e. through an in-game quest log that can display the next quest/tell the player where to go), and that most of the work can be handled server-side (looking up how much EXP a quest should give, what quest is next) to save on player data.

Denote when a war cutscene has monster fights: Very minor issue, but it'd be nice if war cutscenes (e.g. the 25%, 50% etc. markers) will have enemies or a mini boss fight. It can be annoying to want to watch the war cutscenes just to be thrown into a fight, especially if you've changed your stats for warring (like 250 STR/CHA/LUK) and your inventory isn't equipped to deal with non-war mobs since you're just using H-Series and such. Indication could just be a monster symbol next to the cutscene button, but I'm not sure if that might be problematic to implement.




Novyx -> RE: Novyx's Idea Mill (8/12/2022 1:23:27)

Preamble: As with any creativity thing, it helps to get the self-serving stuff out of the way first so you feel less of a need to try and make everything else cater toward what you, personally, want.



Eternity's End

Ranged Darkness/Void Spear, +4 BtH lean and 0.2 base lean, no special. MC effect is it can toggle between Darkness and Void damage. Void mode pays 10% melee in HP per turn, reverting to Darkness mode if you don’t have enough HP.

Notes: Not Void as in true Void doing 2x damage, just fake Void similar to what Juvenile Void Dragon does because I really like the purple question mark, but I'd settle with Harm because it's mechanically the same (in most scenarios, at least? Not sure if there are exceptions). I don't expect any item I make here to actually be added in game, but if there were any I could choose it would be this. Would also make a nice gapfiller for spear-using characters and adventurers in particular, as HP upkeep is a bit more convenient for players without Essence Orb, all 4 Harm spears in the game currently are in either the R or UR GGB, and compression options are somewhat lacking. Visually shaped like a glaive, or Obsidian Samurai's Naginata from AQW, with a colour scheme similar to Void Spear of War/Absolix Polearm, especially with the glow in Void mode and the runes that appear on Void Spear of War. Might try and make a rough concept for it some day but I can't draw so it's hard to describe.


Eternity’s Permanence

FO Darkness armour, Magic blocking focus. MC effect grants the player +105 Initiative, and the armour takes +(5/1.4)% increased damage to compress a weapon-based skill, locked to Ranged Darkness and having the Elecomp funnelled into lowering the SP cost. If you are currently holding the weapon from the set in Void mode the skill is locked to Void instead (treated as an imbue, built in and paid for by a decompression bonus), costing an additional 50% Melee x1.1 = 55% melee in SP for being imbued to an element that’s always useful, on top of still paying the weapon’s own upkeep and the skill’s Elecomped SP cost.

Example level 150 stats:
Fire: 67
Water: 75
Wind: 92
Ice: 92
Earth: 67
Energy: 52
Light: 75
Dark: 39

Melee: 49
Ranged: 49
Magic: 52


Notes: Made this ages ago before the initiative changes, so it's a bit more busted now but I still really like initiative (or anything that makes me feel like I'm moving fast, like Celerity). As was the case with the weapon, fake Void not true Void, no random 2x damage I just really like the thematics of it being Void. Kinda abusing the imbue + elecomp interaction here, but the skill currently pays 25+55+10 = 90% melee on top of the turn's 100% melee, while a default Harm skill would pay 120% melee on top of the turn's 100% melee, but factoring the need for another item to utilize this combined with the opportunity cost of not being able to use something like a Doomlight weapon with this weapon-based skill, I'd reason the 30% melee saving vs. a no-frills Harm skill isn't too bad. Visually, something like this would be nice, specifically the grey-blue colouring, not being too bulky or too thin, and the mix of plate and scale mail.


Eternity’s Reflection

Darkness shield, Magic > Melee/Ranged for MRM priority, MC effect is that based on the % of attacks that miss against you from the monster, on your next turn you heal SP based on your damage dealt by weapon attacks, up to 37.5% of damage dealt if you dodged all hits. Specifically, you heal for 5 x 1.125 / 0.15 x (Misses / Attempts), modified by /0.75 for magic attacks and /2 for spells. To prevent this from getting too out of hand, damage dealt past 2 x expected damage heals at a 0.75 clawback. If used with the rest of the set (weapon and armour), the shield also reduces Harm/Void damage taken as a full set bonus.

Example level 150 stats:
Dark: -26

Melee: +13
Ranged: +13
Magic: +16

Harm: 50%
Void: 25%


Notes: Originally made this with almost the exact same effect as the Brightslayer Bulwark, but that got released so I felt the need to change it. SP regen fits the theme of Void Dragons because they also regen SP on dodge, but I made it damage-scaling to make it a bit more interesting than UltraGuardian Shield clone #4. I think expected damage at level 150 is roughly 400, so if you dodge an entire turn the healing will get soft capped at around 300 SP healed, which roughly pays for the Void-locked skill of the armour. While dodge builds may abuse this, they a. already can with things like UltraGuardian technically, and b. tend to not do that much damage on their turns, so the healing drops off a little unless they switch to being offensive for a turn (which can give them dodging issues). I also intend for the heal to only take effect if you keep this shield equipped on the turn you're attacking and attempting to heal, so a dodge build would lose 2 turns of Titan's Fall/whichever other shield they'd rather use. I wish I could have resistance normalization on this, but you're not locked into an element for the healing so what can I do.




Novyx -> RE: Novyx's Idea Mill (8/13/2022 22:57:29)

Preamble: Actually just had the FSB on the armour sitting there for ages, had no idea what to do with the set. Someone offhandedly mentioned wanting a spellcaster-lean anti-shadow armour, so tired me just went with whatever popped into my head.



Chaotic Caduceus

100-proc Magic Light Wand, +5 BtH lean and 1/2 base lean, no true special. Has a flavour effect in that the weapon’s own attacks will attempt to charge you 20% melee in MP for 20% increased damage. Additionally, the player takes -3 MRM to give the wand a click effect, basically the same as the Draw Mana option on tomes, skipping the player’s turn to heal 75% melee in MP. MC effect is that your spells cast while holding the weapon gain damage based on the number of previous spell hits this turn of a different standard element to each other, and to the current spell hit. The boost on the first standard element hit of a spell is 0, then that element is recorded. Further spell hits this turn have their damage increase starting at 9.375%, and increasing if there are more elements used that turn by [9.375 x 0.75^(numElements-1)]%. So: no boost before any recorded standard element spell hit this turn, 9.375% boost to spell damage (of any element) after 1 standard element spell hit, 9.375 + (9.375 x 0.75) = 16.406% boost when numElements is 2, 16.406 + (9.375 x 0.75^2) = 21.6797% boost after 3 elements etc.. For some scale, a spell that hits for 4 standard elements, 1 hit of each will average a spell boost of ~11.87%, and Eye of Chaos will be boosted by roughly 20.63% on average across its hits.

Notes: I have no idea how to justify the spell boost, so I made a spreadsheet to see the average boost on various multi-element things and adjusted until it looked about right. Not even sure if this is possible in the current game engine. The set was supposed to be anti-shadow, so that make it somewhat awkward to have a useful Light weapon vs. shadows. Turning the theme from strictly shadow to just multi-element makes it a bit more useful vs. the intended targets, and gives it an interesting niche of supporting multi-element spells. The flavour effect of paying MP to increase damage isn't really necessary, however wands are very plain so hopefully something like this can make the wand pool at least a little more interesting. The MP regen skill also isn't necessary, but gives the weapon a purpose if the player isn't a fan of multi-element stuff, but still needs to use the weapon for anti-shadow stuff.


Entropic Embodiment

Spellcaster Light armour with Darkness secondary, Melee > Ranged > Magic blocking focus. MC has the armour compress a built-in spell. This spell costs 125% melee in MP (standard spell cost) and hits for all 8 standard elements with 8 hits, in the order of Light, Darkness, Wind, Earth, Ice, Fire, Water, Energy, with damage spread evenly across the 8 and increased by x132/109 due to hitting for every element. If the armour is used with the rest of the set (weapon and shield), your Darkness resistance is reduced by the same amount your Light resistance is reduced by the armour and shield (e.g., at level 150 your Light resistance is reduced by -61 by your armour, and -26 by your shield, resulting in a Light resistance of 13%, so your Darkness resistance will be reduced to match. However, if you have any other items that reduce your Light resistance e.g., an old subtractive misc, the Light resistance reduction from that misc will not apply to your Darkness resistance).

Example level 150 stats:
Fire: 85
Water: 93
Wind: 70
Ice: 85
Earth: 70
Energy: 93
Light: 39
Dark: 51

Melee: 51
Ranged: 47
Magic: 45


Notes: Originally was going to have a Harm hit at the end of the built-in spell for extra synergy with the weapon, but decided it was a little excessive and out of place on a set about the 8 standard elements. Light and Dark hits first mean you don't lose as much of a boost from the weapon vs. shadows, but maybe those hits make the built-in spell still not worthwhile to use vs. shadows. Was also considering making the built-in spell efficient, a nice option but loses it a bit of synergy with the weapon.


Anarchic Aegis

Light shield, Melee > Ranged > Magic for MRM priority, MC reduces the damage you take from non-Light standard-element attacks. Damage reduction is equal to [(1 – (1/EleComp)) / 1.4]%, where EleComp is equal to the EleComp a Light skill would have if one were built into the shield. Logic here is similar to if a player were to use such a Light skill against a non-Light enemy and then having to defend against said non-Light enemy, except instead the player is defending rather than using a skill, so the EleComp goes into defending rather than damage.

Example level 150 stats:
Light: -26

Melee: +16
Ranged: +14
Magic: +11


Notes: Like the wand, the numbers are hard to justify. Not sure if there's any precedent for an effect like this that I can use to base the values on, so I decided on a pile of numbers. Damage reduction at level 150 turns out to be about 26.5%, so it's definitely not worth using over a shield of the correct element. Just a niche effect that helps vs. shadows and any other multi-element enemies that happen to hit with Light, if the player doesn't carry a neutral shield.




Novyx -> RE: Novyx's Idea Mill (8/15/2022 23:59:56)

Miscellaneous weapons



Husk-maker
Ranged Fire trident tagged as a spear for weapon emblem purposes, no BtH lean and 2/3 base lean, no special. MC effect is that the weapon can toggle between 2 modes: The first makes the weapon take a 20% damage penalty to heal 5/4 * 0.2 = 25% of DmgDealt/MobFireRes as HP. To prevent this from getting too out of hand, damage dealt past 2 x expected damage heals at a 0.75 clawback. The second makes the player pay 20% melee in HP per turn to deal 20% increased damage on weapon attacks, similar to a Bloodblade but without affecting spells or having a full set bonus.

Notes: Imbuing this/using weapon-based skills might lead to weird results with the HP heal, but I'm not sure if it's possible to do resistance normalization that detects what element you hit for. More of a theme concept weapon than an interesting mechanic.


Bloodwrought Totem
Darkness Tome, comes with 3 spells and a Draw Mana option:
1) Aggravate Wounds – Overcharged spell, 5 hits, costs normal spell cost and pays an extra 1/3x the MP cost in HP to deal x29/24 damage. Additionally, the spell deals +20% damage to bleeding enemies, or -10% damage otherwise.
2) Bloodlust – Quick-cast skill, usable once per turn and pays (75 x 1.1 = 82.5)% melee in HP to attempt to inflict Spiritual Seed on the enemy (power [75% melee x 0.85 x 0.5], 3 rounds, Darkness element). When the Spiritual Seed pops, if the enemy is currently bleeding the damage dealt is multiplied by [(100/(100-SaveDC))/2] of the bleed, with a minimum of 0.5x and maximum of 2.5x as the modifier. You then heal SP equal to the damage dealt by the Spiritual Seed x1.125. Cannot be cast if there is already another instance of Spiritual Seed on the monster.
3) Hematophagy – Costs normal spell cost to inflict Bleed (power: 1, inflicts with INT/LUK, monster resists with END/LUK, roll is at a +0 bonus) on the monster, and you gain the Hematophage status for 5 monster turns. During this time, you heal HP based on the damage dealt by any bleed on the monster.
4) Draw Mana – You heal 75% melee in MP. LUKy strikes increase this heal by LUK*3/8.
If spells are disabled, then you perform a wand attack of Darkness element instead.

Notes: Made this at some point before Necromancer's update, so it might be a bit insane now. Experimenting with Spiritual Seed and using it as a way to cast a skill, then apply boosts/triggers in post, but Spiritual Seed's x1.01 per turn bonus is still a very weak payoff for potentially delaying a battle and making the player take more damage as a result. The Draw Mana option is also slightly changed; always thought the LUKy strikes on Draw Mana being a small wand hit was kinda pointless, and often lost effectiveness due to being an element you're not wanting to attack with, i.e. Book of Burns hitting for Fire in a battle where I'm using it just for the mana shield.


Mirrormasa
10-proc Melee Ice Sword, +5 BtH lean and a 0.1 base lean. Special is 5 hits of Melee Ice, +7 BtH lean. MC compresses 2 skills, and has the weapon record what element you were last hit with, forgetting which element you had stored if you swap weapons, similar to the Cyclops’ Eye misc. The first skill can only be used if there is no element currently stored, and only once per battle: click the weapon to ready it for parrying, reducing damage taken for 1 turn by (50 x 0.9 / 1.4)% if you have the weapon still equipped. While you have an element stored, clicking the weapon has you pay 100% melee in SP to cast a weapon-type skill of that stored element, standard damage and follows the weapon’s +5 BtH lean.

Notes: Designed to have synergy with freeze pets/guests. You attack the Fire monster with Ice, get hit with Fire, then if you ever land a freeze you reflect their Fire back onto them. Parry skill might be an overbalance, but is there because you're missing an MC turn 1, or if you don't get hit. Another idea I had for the bonus skill was reflecting statuses onto the monster, as the Hexbound shield released today reminds me.


Aquamarine Insight
Ice Tome, comes with 3 spells and a Draw Mana option:
1) Biting Cold – Efficient spell, 3 hits, costs 60% of standard spell cost and deals 75% spell damage.
2) Permafrost – Standard spell, 2 hits, pays 160% melee to attempt a <hits connected> turn Freeze. The monster can resist with a save (inflict with INT/LUK, resist with DEX/LUK, starts as a 50% save but is modified by sqrt[DmgDealt/ExpectedDmg], to a minimum of 40% base save and a maximum of 60%, reached when you deal 0.64x or less vs. the expected damage, and 1.44x or more, respectively).
3) Cryogenic Stasis – Costs normal spell cost to Freeze yourself for one turn (spell cast takes a turn, the freeze lasts until the end of your next turn, then you thaw out and can act the turn after that). This is worth 275% melee, however if you have a pet active at the time of casting you get an extra 20% melee (due to how Freeze interacts with pets/guests), and if you have a guest active you gain an extra 30% melee to work with. 140% melee goes into a 1 turn 100% EleShield. The rest of the spell’s value (135% melee + 20% melee if you had an active pet + 30% melee if you had an active guest, x1.01 due to the turn delay) goes into a HP heal at the end of your frozen turn.
4) Draw Mana – You heal 75% melee in MP. LUKy strikes increase this heal by LUK*3/8.
If spells are disabled, then you perform a wand version of the efficient spell instead.

Notes: If the player could be frozen and pets/guests still attack at full power, that'd be better than the jank compensation in the 3rd spell, but I'm not sure if that's possible. The 2nd spell is another thought I had for damage-scaling status, avoiding some of the ludicrous situations Alchemical Unity creates, but still giving payoff to boosts and such.




Novyx -> RE: Novyx's Idea Mill (8/30/2022 9:33:55)

Miscellaneous armours



Galvanic Autocombatant MK08-W
FO Energy armour, MC effect has the armour gain Battery charges at the start of each turn, with a maximum of 10 stored. These charges do not carry over between battles. The armour starts off dealing -5% damage, but each charge increases damage dealt in the armour by +2%, so with 10 charges after 10 turns attacks in the armour deal +15% damage. Additionally, you can toggle the Overclock drive, paying 11% melee in SP per turn to change the damage increase of charges to 4% each, meaning 10 charges now gives +35% damage.

Example level 150 stats:
Fire: 44
Water: 85
Wind: 62
Ice: 77
Earth: 62
Energy: 39
Light: 44
Dark: 77

Melee: 45
Ranged: 45
Magic: 45


Notes: Made this ages ago to mess around with 10 turn battle assumptions, it's not very useful given H-Series exists. Could be made into a steam power-themed Water armour, but that made more sense with the now-removed skill where you pay 10 charges and a turn to deal 210% melee in EleComp'd damage, which I thought was excessive abuse of the 10 turn model.


Experimental Galvanic Autocombatant MK01-F
FD Energy armour, with the MC compressing 2 skills:
Rage Induction: Spend your turn unleashing dangerous-looking fumes to induce rage in both sides of the fight for the turn, granting your pet +90% LS rate, your guest celerity, and auto-hit to both your pet/guest and the monster. Beastmaster turns are worth 75% melee, and giving the opponent auto-hit is worth 15*1.4 = 21% melee, totalling 96% melee in value. 36% melee is funnelled into the 90% pet LS rate, and 20%/35%** melee is used to cover giving auto-hit to your pet & guest. The remaining 40%/25%** melee is used to give the player a backlash status, reduced due to the monster gaining auto-hit, fashioned as the monster hurting itself in its rage.
Shock Therapy: Quick-cast skill that pays 100% melee in SP to heal [100*0.85*MobEnergyRes*EleComp]% melee in HP, gains EleComp due to using the enemy’s Energy resistance while in an Energy armour, and does not take an always useful penalty for the same reason.

Example level 150 stats:
Fire: 67
Water: 95
Wind: 77
Ice: 86
Earth: 77
Energy: 39
Light: 67
Dark: 86

Melee: 51
Ranged: 51
Magic: 51


Notes: Now that there's a better defined value for pet hypercritical in the form of Optico Statue, this has (some) values which let me see if it's got enough value to play with or not. The differing values, marked by double asterisks (**) may end up being changed by the stat rework once that progresses to fixing CHA, and as such the randomly-tacked on backlash status could be removed in favour of something that makes more sense, like pet celerity if there's enough value left (although that may make the armour a bit too min-maxed).


Dune Whisperer
Spellcaster Wind/Earth armour, MC effect comes in the form of giving the armour two “stances” that can be swapped between once per turn, defaulting to the Duststorm stance on login. This stance has the player take +(10/1.4)% increased damage, and has the following effects:
1) Spells that cost MP and hit either the player or the enemy deal 25% less damage, but refund 50% melee in MP.
2) After you cast a non-quickcast spell, gain 2 rounds of +15 MRM.
The second stance is Sandstone stance, which has the armour lose 6 MRM and grants the following effects:
1) Spells that cost MP and hit either the player or the enemy will attempt to take an extra 40% melee in MP, and if so will deal +20% damage.
2) After you cast a non-quickcast spell, gain 1 round of [1-(0.5/1.4)] = x0.6429 damage taken as an EleShield, no always useful penalty due to being stuck in this armour to keep it.

Example level 150 stats:
Fire: 78
Water: 90
Wind: 40
Ice: 78
Earth: 40
Energy: 90
Light: 64
Dark: 64

Melee: 53
Ranged: 55
Magic: 51


Notes: There's a huge lack of spellcaster lean armours after the recent update to make the lean desirable, so a nice way to try and fill the gaps is to make compression armours for the missing elements. This also helps cover the lack of a spellcaster lean subrace armour, else players would be limited to having 7 elements of spellcaster lean armour at most in active inventory. Unfortunately for me I forgot the Wind Necromancer Cavalry armour existed so this only covers 1 missing element, but it's still nice to have compression, and I'd already stuck to a theme. The MRM-gaining effect of Duststorm stance is split over 2 turns so the armour doesn't become too absurd alongside Big Dictionary. Not sure if it's possible to make spells just cost 50% melee in MP less instead of modifying spells to become efficient via refund, so if that were possible I'd go with that instead.




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