A Humble Explanation
Ah, imbuements… one of the most well recognised form of awakening your powers.
They look good, don’t they? Yet, they aren’t perfect. Their visuals are… standardised into a shape that doesn’t fit irregular weapons, and don’t even get me started on solid imbuements - they are my very bane.
Therein lies the problem: Imbuements are standardised to a singular shape per weapon type, and have little to no variation in their application.
Weapons shaped differently from others end up looking off, like the notorious storm scimitars[1]. Can you imagine what an imbued triasta would be like? Terrible! I dare not even think about it yet.
That isn’t all, weapon types with great differences in their shape also end up not getting any visuals in the first place. While this only applies to bows, it’s miserable for us! Just imagine what we’re missing out on…[2]
Lastly, solid imbuements… their lack of mesh variety renders them hideous! Whether it be on weapons or fists, their very existence is a sin against any and all solid magic users! Look at those massacred claws[3], this trident that stopped being one[4], and those uncanny arms[5]! Are you not revolted are their sight!?
Besides that, there is actually a fourth issue: Guns. Guns don’t get any imbuement visual either, not because of their wildly varying shape, unlike bows, but because the current system does not allow them to have any good looking imbuements!
That is why this suggestion is coming into being, to solve this problem that renders beauty unavailable to some, at the cost of… slightly increasing the workload of our beloved developers.
The Annoying Solution
So what needs to be done in order to solve a lack of variety in this system?
Well, truth be told, I don’t know. Why that is understandable however, as I do not know of the inner workings of the game. I however can make guesses as to how it works, and suggest changes and modifications to it that way.
Keep in mind that across this suggestion, I will be referring to both fighting styles and weapons as “weapons” in order to make it more easily readable.
N°1: Reworking the imbuement preset system
From what it looks like, imbuements are somehow pulled either from a list of presets based on the weapon’s type, or from the weapon’s built-in particle emitters (which is also based on its type).
To begin fixing our shape problem, weapons need to stop basing their particles off weapon type as that is too broad of a classification. This implies the creation of a hidden weapon property so that more presets are available for use, preventing some cases of inaccurate imbuement visuals.
N°2: Increasing the amount of parts/attachments used to generate particles
The last step to fixing our shape problem is to allow more shapes to be created by simply having more parts per weapon. Gone should be the days of bows only using one part to generate particles in the shape of a curve, and gone should be the days of curved swords having straight imbuements.
If we’re feeling daring, we can even use this to solve the solid imbuement crisis without having to make more meshes, though it’d be more expensive to one’s performance.
N°3: More solid imbuement meshes
Likely the best way to solve the one problem that are solid imbuements. It essentially is the above solution, but cheaper! Yes, depending on how solid meshes are used in the current system, it could spell much more work to do, but surely that’s not the case, right guys? Please tell me I’m right…
Self-explanatory, and quite fast as long as you have an idea of what each imbuement should look like. This would beautify the solid chunks of magic that otherwise ruin our beautiful imbuements.
A Hopeful Conclusion
As I’ve demonstrated, it doesn’t seem like the ugly imbuement problem is impossible to fix. And if I’ve guessed right on how it worked, it looks even more plausible than it otherwise would be.
So what do you say? Would you like these changes to be made to the current imbuement system, or do you think that it’s too much work for something like it? Would it be possible for there to be more optimal solutions? Do you think that this way of making a suggestion is strange?
There’s a lot of questions that I’d like to ask to everyone, too many even, but there is no good in asking them without marching forth to a better future. After all, this is simply a suggestion, a bold and audacious one, but one that needed to be made either way.
With all of that said, have a good one, and thank you for reading.
- Where can I get new eyes at? (terrible)
- You need to do better. (bad)
- It was something (indifferent)
- I liked it. (good)
- I cannot see the clouds with how high this summit is. (umamazing)
