Nurvus
03-23-2009, 02:43 PM
In my view, Slashing, Piercing and Crushing/Bludgeoning are 3 different combat concepts.
Swords, Axes, Daggers and Polearms can Slash.
Swords, Daggers and Polearms can Pierce.
Maces, Staves can Crush.
This is the main ideology, so to speak, since there can be exceptions like Spiked Maces that can Crush and Pierce to a degree, and so forth.
Using comparisons to make myself clear:
Taking WoW's Warrior as an example, Rend (a bleeding cut) would not work with a Mace or Staff.
Slam wouldn't work well with anything other than a Mace, Staff.
Mortal Wound and Deep Wound effects (Arms Talent) would likely not work with Maces or Staves, but Trauma (same tree) would only work with those.
Don't bother going into details, this is a raw concept.
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Essentially, I'd like to see wide skill trees, maybe 6 collumns each, where you have several chained skills that belong to the same concept (slashing vs crushing vs piercing) or weapon type (sword vs axe vs mace vs polearm vs scythe vs dagger vs ...)
Taking WoW's lack of variety within a class as an example, I'll make a comparison:
Mages:
Let's consider Fire as Burning and Explosive effects; Frost as piercing Cold and Freezing effects.
We could then see Burning and Explosive (Infernal), Burning and Cold (Thermal), Explosive and Freezing (Shatter), Cold and Freezing (Glacial) combos.
More than just more skils or less skills, Talent/Skill trees should define gameplay Concepts, and radically so.
Hunters:
* Being able to decide whether they want to focus on fighting from afar, using their pet as "tank", or alongside the pet in melee, being able to learn skills to that effect.
* Being able to use a more bestial combat style in melee.
* Being able to tame a powerful pet (i.e: Bear) or several weaker pets (i.e: Wolf pack).
* Being able to focus on:
- Bows wich I think should have a cast time style, being able to use wichever kind of Arrows (with various effects) you want in any given shot.
Bows should get some contribution from Strength to the damage they do.
- Guns wich I think should fire instantly with cooldown (reload), with penalty to hit if you shoot while moving. Each reload would grant X shots with a certain effect, depending on ammo.
- Crossbows wich would fire instantly like Guns, but with Bow ammo.
In WoW, that would mean a redesign of Beastmastery to accomodate melee and ranged combat orientations separately, and the taming of a variety of pets; Survival to accomodate skills that support the interactive use of Traps while fighting in melee and ranged separately; and Marksmanship to accomodate skills that allow focusing on Gun, Crossbow and Bow separately as well as providing the most pure and vulnerable ranged combat options.
---
So above all I'd like to see each concept in the game explored in fullest, not bleak implementations.
Swords, Axes, Daggers and Polearms can Slash.
Swords, Daggers and Polearms can Pierce.
Maces, Staves can Crush.
This is the main ideology, so to speak, since there can be exceptions like Spiked Maces that can Crush and Pierce to a degree, and so forth.
Using comparisons to make myself clear:
Taking WoW's Warrior as an example, Rend (a bleeding cut) would not work with a Mace or Staff.
Slam wouldn't work well with anything other than a Mace, Staff.
Mortal Wound and Deep Wound effects (Arms Talent) would likely not work with Maces or Staves, but Trauma (same tree) would only work with those.
Don't bother going into details, this is a raw concept.
---
Essentially, I'd like to see wide skill trees, maybe 6 collumns each, where you have several chained skills that belong to the same concept (slashing vs crushing vs piercing) or weapon type (sword vs axe vs mace vs polearm vs scythe vs dagger vs ...)
Taking WoW's lack of variety within a class as an example, I'll make a comparison:
Mages:
Let's consider Fire as Burning and Explosive effects; Frost as piercing Cold and Freezing effects.
We could then see Burning and Explosive (Infernal), Burning and Cold (Thermal), Explosive and Freezing (Shatter), Cold and Freezing (Glacial) combos.
More than just more skils or less skills, Talent/Skill trees should define gameplay Concepts, and radically so.
Hunters:
* Being able to decide whether they want to focus on fighting from afar, using their pet as "tank", or alongside the pet in melee, being able to learn skills to that effect.
* Being able to use a more bestial combat style in melee.
* Being able to tame a powerful pet (i.e: Bear) or several weaker pets (i.e: Wolf pack).
* Being able to focus on:
- Bows wich I think should have a cast time style, being able to use wichever kind of Arrows (with various effects) you want in any given shot.
Bows should get some contribution from Strength to the damage they do.
- Guns wich I think should fire instantly with cooldown (reload), with penalty to hit if you shoot while moving. Each reload would grant X shots with a certain effect, depending on ammo.
- Crossbows wich would fire instantly like Guns, but with Bow ammo.
In WoW, that would mean a redesign of Beastmastery to accomodate melee and ranged combat orientations separately, and the taming of a variety of pets; Survival to accomodate skills that support the interactive use of Traps while fighting in melee and ranged separately; and Marksmanship to accomodate skills that allow focusing on Gun, Crossbow and Bow separately as well as providing the most pure and vulnerable ranged combat options.
---
So above all I'd like to see each concept in the game explored in fullest, not bleak implementations.