Introduction
It is I once again, Dracula, here to give you my ideas on ways to improve and expand my favorite weapon type in the game, firearms! Spent some time actually watching videos and reading up on how firearms are implemented into video games and fantasy media and I’ve got some ideas that should all flow together pretty well! I have a LOT of ideas here so prepare for many paragraphs. Somebody get me a benzo, the boogeyman’s (Cazal) trying to @#$& with me and he doesn’t know that I’m strapped.
Visual Improvements
Starting off with the relatively simple stuff, I have some ideas to improve the visuals of firearms which I will just neatly lay out here:
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Firearm rounds should be made more visible, appearing by default like they’re tracer rounds glowing brightly and leaving behind a wispy trail of smoke that expands and fades away quickly.
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If imbued with something additional visual effects could appear around the bullet and change the color of the trail naturally like they do now, just with improved effects.
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Guns would now emit wispy smoke from the barrel shortly after being fired.
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Especially large and/or powerful guns like say colossal rifles could even let off sparks when firing from the sheer heat and kinetic energy of the round being amplified by magic energy, the barrels even glowing if fired repeatedly.
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Bullet holes would be added to the game, the size and appearance depending on the tier of the skill and the type of weapon. Regular pistols would have a fairly small max size for bullet holes compared to say a colossal marksman rifle which at the highest tier could basically leave craters if they don’t outright break the surface they hit.
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The speed of certain skills at high enough tiers and/or the range stat can now alter the visuals of bullets in flight, creating a wind barrier in front of your projectiles and even breaking the wind barrier resulting in a small sonic boom if fast enough.
Crude as hell mock up of what I’m yapping about:
Gameplay Changes
To improve the feel of firearms and give them a little more identity from bows I’m proposing that every firearm in the game have the ability to aim. To do so you have to be shift-locked or in first person and hold right click, your vision zooming in on what you’re looking at.
Notably when the player aims, non-hitscan projectiles that you fire whether they be from skills or m1s would gain a slight amount of homing in exchange for your field of vision effectively narrowing making it difficult to react to what’s around you, allowing for the player to more reliably hit long shots or attacks with many projectiles.
Edit: Change all projectile weapon m1s to use actual projectiles and not fake ones that are actually hit scan, because like, why would you do that? Ranged weapons need to have variable projectile travel speeds in order to actually feel different and allow for things like homing or projectiles with unique flight paths or mechanics to function at all and be added to the game.
Other than that I’d love for the devs to actually fix the bug that prevents any and all damage from being dealt from around 130 meters away thank you. It doesn’t even take that much range stat to achieve those kinds of ranges on hits so the range stat is effectively pointless past about 100. That bug is the single biggest threat to all range builds in the game, it NEEDS to be addressed.
Weapon Types
We’ve got 3 firearm weapon types in the game right now which to me this is honestly too little as there’s so many niches that could be filled by firearms that the current three just can’t do. Colossal rifles, the strength weapon variant of rifles could be blunderbusses and other similar guns, trading range for more projectiles and damage overall fired in bursts with some intense kick that requires a good amount of strength to handle. My reasoning for changing them to be closer range is that the first new weapon type I’m proposing will be more focused on long range combat while rifles will fit the niche of medium range and just being general purpose all-rounders with their stats.
As for pistols and multi pistols having strength weapons I’m not sure. Maybe real chunky and heavy pistols akin to bolters from Warhammer, granted with a design that actually matches Arcane Odyssey and its tech levels. There is a certain appeal to having truly impractically heavy duty pistols. Anyways here’s some proper new weapon types!
Weapon Types
This is a lot of text so I thought I'd convenience you by letting you minimize this if you want.
Marksman Rifles/Colossal Marksman Rifles: These rifles would have longer barrels typically and always come with a scope on the top, often trading size and reload speed for more range and projectile speed. Also shut up gun nerds, I know marksman rifles are a real type of gun the name sounds less modern and more fitting for the game than sniper rifles. Notably with these rifles they have a much larger aiming magnification and even scope UI, possibly even providing a range readout in meters for what the player is looking at. Skills for this weapon type would be focused around ensuring your shot always hits its mark, providing homing, material penetration, or possibly even aim-guided control of attacks to achieve this. The colossal variant of these weapons would hone in further on the idea of long range material penetration, these being effectively anti-tank rifles. Massive guns with horrifyingly large rounds built to effectively be one shot wonders if you’ve got the skill to land a hit with them. They’d have chunky clanking noises when reloading and be the weapon type most suited to satisfying people’s itch to one shot from an island over of any weapon, if they’ve got the build for it.
Hand Cannons/Cannons: These weapons would be portable cannons the player carries around with hand cannons being smaller though still requiring two hands to carry around, while the full cannons are strength weapons that are actually just ship cannons the player is hauling around with them. These weapons uniquely have especially slow moving projectiles that have a lot of bullet drop, resulting in the player having to arc their shots. In addition to this these weapons are innately capable of dealing damage to ships, just like cannon fist, with these weapons having their ship damage even further amplified if imbued with cannon fist. Unique weapon variants of this in the future could potentially even effectively be fantasy grenade launchers thanks to the bullet drop gameplay mechanic. This weapon type’s skills are generally focused on AoE and size, with speed and range being the main sacrifices. Because of the heft of these weapons, some skills could also just have you hitting your opponent with the weapon itself, or apply huge amounts of knockback given the weight of the projectiles.
Automatic Rifles/Gatling Guns: These weapons, which I imagine we’d only get around the time the Thorne Empire is added to the game, would of course be focused on speed and DPS above all else. They wouldn’t have a ton of range or size at all, but with some accuracy could spit out lead at dizzying rates. Obviously I’m not advocating for full on M4s or AK47s to be added to the game but automatic guns have been around since 1861. Skills with these weapons would almost always be multi-hit and scale very well with dexterity, leaving the player immobile a lot of the time in order to shred whatever they’re aiming at, potentially even possessing a suppressive fire type of status effect that slows down opponents and/or messes with their vision/accuracy. Skills for this weapon type would very often be constant ones like surge or ray. The strength variant of these weapons would be gatling guns, weapons with ramping fire rates and huge magazine sizes that basically require the player to stand still at almost all times in exchange for becoming a living breathing bullet hell.
Skills
Below I’m going to just list out some fun sounding skills for each weapon type that could be added to the game to create way more content for firearms. Because right now the only rare skill for guns is Gun Draw: Power Shot, which is just a disappointing lower range version of Piercing Shot for multi pistols.
Same deal here, except this one is even longer. Hope you like essays.
Pistols
Hat-Trick: The player moves extremely quickly to load and fire three consecutive shots, each capable of ricocheting once off the environment in order to change direction towards the nearest opponent. This skill is unaffected by the system that prevents attacks from hitting through walls naturally and could be used to bank shots around corners.
Coin Flip: You know I had to do it. The player flicks a drachma into the air, this ability having three charges before going on cooldown. If the player shoots any of these coins with an m1 or another skill, the attack if not already hit scan becomes hit scan and strikes the nearest opponent. If flicking 2 or 3 coins then 1 or 2 additional copies of the attack are fired off albeit with reduced damage at different targets if any are in range or all on one target if only one is, with 3 coins effectively resulting in the attack having effectively 50% more damage overall if all hits land. This skill can be used in tandem with other firearms albeit with further damage reduction if they aren’t pistols or multi pistols.
Multi Pistols
Juggle: The player begins juggling their pistols, each time the pistol reaching its crest in the air firing off a projectile in a random direction. Each of these projectiles is capable of ricocheting towards an opponent albeit with slight inaccuracy and a small chance of hitting the user of the skill. However, this skill is extremely chaotic especially in small spaces, as well as just frankly funny which has its own value.
Iron Blossom: The player begins spinning, firing off many shots in a circle around them effectively having the AoE of a shockwave explosion but being multi-hit and dealing a good amount of damage when any projectile lands. To be clear you have to actually hit with a projectile to deal damage but you’re firing tons of them. Pretty situational but if used up close could absolutely shred groups of enemies. Yes I stole this idea from Overwatch.
Rifles
Flip Shot: A mobility and offensive move where the player dashes forward to build momentum and then jumps up high in an arc, flipping upside down to fire off a shot where they’re aiming, this ability having 2 charges and slightly more horizontal mobility than sword step in exchange for less vertical mobility.
Busted Cap: Rather than focusing on trying to kill their opponent the player instead opts to debilitate them, firing off a round in an opponent’s knee cap or whatever knee cap equivalent they have severely hindering their movement for a period of time so they’re easier to hit and applying bleed.
Colossal Rifles
Cannonade: The player loads many projectiles into their weapon at once and fires, creating a massive, practically unavoidable curtain of projectiles that expands out in a cone. Making this have good performance would require some workarounds, definitely don’t want every projectile out of seemingly around a hundred to actually be 3D models. Basically just a guaranteed hit if within range and aiming vaguely at your opponent.
Recoil: The player aims their weapon and fires without any projectiles loaded, resulting in a ton of recoil that launches the player in the opposite direction of where they’re aiming, dealing a relatively small amount of damage in the direction they fire in a cone. This ability would get two charges and effectively be a freely aimable means of launching oneself any direction you like if you get good at it.
Marksman Rifles
Shell Crack: The player focuses a lot of magic energy into the very tip of their projectile and makes it rapidly spin, having swirling effects as it flies through the air. This projectile would have quite a lot of built in pierce, designed to break through the strongest defenses and even abilities like spirit wall, nichtaplia, or barrier, instantly dispelling/destroying them on contact.
Guided Round: The player wraps the round of their rifle in their magic energy with the intent to be able to freely control it, the round moving slower through the air and having increased damage and significantly increased range as its trajectory changes to aim towards wherever the player points their cursor. The longer the projectile is airborne the higher its damage becomes although the player loses the ability to control it near the end of its range. This projectile can also penetrate terrain to a limited degree before being destroyed.
Colossal Marksman Rifles
Dense Payload: The player loads the round of their weapon with as much tightly packed magic energy as possible, drastically increasing its density. When fired the projectile will have a noticeably large aura around it and slower projectile speed, as well as a small amount of bullet drop. Wherever the projectile lands will create an explosion, effectively giving the player a long range placed explosion and will inflict knockback, a significant amount of knockback in fact if it directly impacts an opponent. This could potentially have the size and knockback of the attack slightly scale with how far the round falls in its flight, so if aimed straight up or from a high vantage point it could be quite dangerous.
Hunter’s Bane: The player enters a crouched stance and aims their weapon while charging, a UI overlay appearing over all opponents within range. This skill will only fire off if the player properly locks onto a target. If the player hovers their mouse over a target the UI overlay will begin to narrow similar to how homing rocket launchers work in other games, indicating the player is locked on by finishing its animation and changing color. At this point releasing the skill will fire what is effectively a very fast though not hit scan projectile with extremely strong homing and range, though unlike guided round you can’t manually guide it and it doesn’t get bonus damage for air time. Even if the target goes behind a wall the round will simply punch straight through like the cannon spell.
Hand Cannons
Lob: Instead of firing directly at a target the player aims upwards, lobbing a shot in an arc towards wherever they were aiming, effectively being a longer ranged placed explosion with a smaller explosion radius, more damage, and a delay between releasing the skill and the projectile landing. This skill would have fairly low cooldown though and good range compared to other skills for this weapon type though so it’s a handy skill against grounded targets.
Bouncing Shot: This skill involves the user wrapping their projectile in a shell of magic energy with repulsive properties, allowing for it to bounce off of surfaces creating small but pretty good damage explosions wherever it lands. The range stat would allow for it to bounce more times before coming to a stop. These bounces however do not have any homing like ricochets do, unless the user was aiming when firing the skill in which case it’d have a very small amount. Fun for trick shots or airing out narrow corridors.
Cannons
Overkill: A grab skill in which the player slams into their opponent straight into the ground, stands on top of them, then fires a shot point blank into their face. This grab does hefty damage but also damages the user as well with the point blank shot. Just extremely brutal.
Merry Way: Another grab in which the player grabs onto their opponent and instead of loading a cannonball into their cannon, they instead load their enemy. After a delay they fire their opponent out of the cannon, slamming them into whatever surface they aimed at and causing a stun effect. Yes the range stat will affect the range of the launch, fear cannons on sky islands you have been warned.
Automatic Rifles
Salvo: A delayed attack move similar to spirit barrage in which the player fires off many projectiles and stores their momentum temporarily while aiming them towards their nearest opponent. These projectiles will only fire towards where the user is aiming after their duration ends or the user uses the skill a second time. Effectively a smaller harder to hit but higher damage spirit barrage you have to manually aim that lets you control when the effect ends unless you wait too long.
Run & Gun: A constant mobility and offensive skill where the player begins sprinting along the ground with increased speed, constantly firing in waves and rapidly reloading towards wherever they’re aiming, very quickly draining energy as they go. A fantastic chase down, disengagement, or evasive tool in the gun enjoyer’s arsenal.
Gatling Guns
Lead Rain: A constant skill where the player begins dumping their magic energy into their weapon, creating hundreds of weaker duplicate bullets of pure magic energy that split off from the physical bullets, effectively doubling their output of projectiles resulting in so many flying through the air that it looks like rain. This skill would be extremely slow to turn while firing and is easily stopped by walls but would have unparalleled levels of constant, oppressive damage and would be unparryable though still blockable due to the sheer amount of projectiles. About the only being fast enough to parry this would be Hermes.
Joyride: A primarily mobility focused skill where the player mounts their gatling gun and points it backwards, imbuing it with magic energy focused on ramping up the recoil of their gun. This is effectively the same as spirit flight or flight, but with the added benefit of looking super cool and maybe being able to deal a tiny bit of damage if you catch someone with a stray bullet shooting out behind you.
Conclusion
Even if only half of these ideas gets used at all the game will be left off with way more variety in the play styles that gun users can experience and would make the projectile options for warriors and weapon hybrid builds way more interesting! Hopefully at the very least the gameplay changes and visual improvements are added to the game.
Obviously a lot of the weapons present here are advanced enough that we’d only likely see them at higher levels but it’s exciting to think about. Anyway let me know what you all think below and feel free to toss around ideas for skills or unique firearms you’d like to see in the game in the future!
Also here’s a few polls for feedback:
- Pistols
- Multi Pistols
- Rifles
- Colossal Rifles
- Marksman Rifles
- Colossal Marksman Rifles
- Hand Cannons
- Cannons
- Automatic Rifles
- Gatling Guns
- Hat-Trick [Pistols]
- Coin Flip [Pistols]
- Juggle [Multi Pistols]
- Iron Blossom [Multi Pistols]
- Flip Shot [Rifles]
- Busted Cap [Rifles]
- Cannonade [Colossal Rifles]
- Recoil [Colossal Rifles]
- Shell Crack [Marksman Rifles]
- Guided Round [Marksman Rifles]
- Dense Payload [Colossal Marksman Rifles]
- Hunter’s Bane [Colossal Marksman Rifles]
- Lob [Hand Cannons]
- Bouncing Shot [Hand Cannons]
- Overkill [Cannons]
- Merry Way [Cannons]
- Salvo [Automatic Rifles]
- Run & Gun [Automatic Rifles]
- Lead Rain [Gatling Guns]
- Joyride [Gatling Guns]
