on my life it’s any move that deletes my entire arsenal
remove fishing and add Morrock as the mc 
Yeah but you can’t tell me ao’s current combat is that good 
Although ngl I’d rather have it turn into a turn based game tbh
I’d honestly take an m1 combat system over whatever the hell the current game’s combat system is
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It’s basically blox fruits rn idk
Blox fruits minus the stunlock combos and somehow 10x laggier
roblox style m1 fighting game with little to no combos, and a focus on throwing out big moves. Issue is that usually makes bosses feel underwhelming, so IDK how you’d change the bosses to that format while keeping them feeling powerful and in the air
tho tbf i kinda like the current system, PVP is unplayable but I like the focus on aerial combat and throwing out huge moves like its nothing. It really does feel like I’m playing as a one piece character.
Aerial-ish combat system. And personally, I don’t think it needs that many changes (mainly because im too biased and un-imaginative to think). I like it for what it is.
If I were making the game’s systems from the bottom up, I’d try and put an emphasis on player choice and tradeoffs, with the game being less gear-based than before and carrying a bigger emphasis on unique selections.
Builds
Rather than having set “builds”, the player would be encouraged to put points into 3-6 “stats” of a selection of 8. These 8 stats would be based on the 4 stats already in the game. The player would be limited to how many points they can put into individual stats, as dependent on their level.
Keep in mind that the player’s basic damage and other “basic stats” like HP and Stamina scale with their level as well as with the new stats.
The Stats
Endurance
Increases the player’s max HP by 2 per point. The player (and all NPCs) would usually get 4 HP per level as well. Yes, I’d also make the game scale less, as I don’t like rapid scaling.
Spirit
Increases the player’s max Energy by 1.5 per point. The player would gain 2 Energy per level in addition.
Casting
Increases the damage of the player’s magical attacks, works at 50% efficiency for imbued weapons.
Wisdom
Required for the player to learn new spells and weapon skills. Players without wisdom investment would learn skills at about 1/3rd the rate as someone who puts 33% of their points into wisdom.
Wisdom would also be the main requirement to learn lost spells. Around 50 would be needed for Javelin, and 80 for Pulsar.
Finesse
Increases damage with Main Weapons, and is required to use high-level main weapons.
Versatility
Increases damage with Secondary Weapons. At 125 Versatility, the player also unlocks a second secondary slot.
Brawn
Increases the player’s damage with Strength weapons and their blocking power. If the player’s brawn is too low compared to the power of an attack, parries will fail to work, and they will only block instead.
Athleticism
Increases the player’s max Stamina by 1 per point. The player also gains 2 stamina per level otherwise.
Athleticism also improves the player’s base movement speed, their jump height, and their dash distance (but not their dodge reflex distance). This would cap off at 50% more of each at 250 of the stat.
Energy and Resource Management
I never much liked how little thought goes into energy management in the game. It’s basically a second stamina bar that almost all players never see the end of once they awaken and start jewelcrafting. The changes to Energy would work with the changes to weapons to make energy management more nuanced.
The biggest change to energy would be this: energy is now recharged in bursts, rather than slowly regenerating. All players and NPCs have a set amount of “Charge Bursts” that they can expend to regain energy. Players start the game with one half Charge Burst, end the Bronze Sea with a full Charge Burst, and finish the game with two and a half Charge Bursts.
Charge Bursts can be activated by the press of a button. Doing so renders the player immobile for about 3 seconds, so it should be used tactically.
Weapons and Stamina
The player starts the game able to imbue their magic into any weapon they find. Doing so gives the weapon a bonus to damage with no penalties besides the fact that the weapon now uses Energy along with stamina. Non-imbued weapon skills will consume no Energy, only requiring cheap stamina to use.
Weapons overall are more energy-efficient than magic when not imbued, but they typically require greater precision, and deal a bit less damage overall. Basically, use weapons for more careful management of your Energy.
Magic
I’d reduce the starting magics back down to Arcane Adventures’ seven. There’d be two reasons behind this: firstly, it’s easier to balance, and secondly, it’d give more room to make magics feel unique. Also—and hear me out—all magics will be completely unusable underwater now, due to the magic energy conflicting with the energy of the sea. Instead, the player has to use weapons or other means. Remember though that all players are basically savants now.
Also, there would no longer be Attack Speed or Size stats. Magics would vary on projectile speed but not the framedata, as I frankly think that’s stupid in concept and will never be balanced.
The Magics
Fire
Damage: x1.0
Projectile Speed: x1.0
Energy Cost: x1.0
Daze Buildup: x1.0
Fire applies Burning as it does today, but the condition is changed. Firstly, fire magic now has a secondary explosion upon impact, which deals no damage, but still inflicts Burning. Secondly, while burning, players regenerate stamina more slowly, and NPCs have a longer cooldown between attacks, representing how the flames burn nearby oxygen.
The idea is to make fire the easiest magic to learn, giving it “larger” hitboxes in the form of the secondary explosion, and encouraging the player to attack often.
Lightning
Damage: x1.15
Projectile Speed: x1.4
Energy Cost: x1.4
Daze Buildup: x1.1
Lightning burns itself out the most quickly of all magics. In exchange, it hits hard and hits fast. I wanted to keep its gimmick in AA without making it too good.
Water
Damage: x0.9
Projectile Speed: x0.9
Energy Cost: x0.8
Daze Buildup: x1.3
While not as powerful as the other magics for the most part, water wears enemies down. Soaked causes enemies to slow, reduces their stamina regeneration (or increases movement CD for NPCs), and it also prevents the Dazed meter from refilling as quickly. Soaked now lasts for about 10 seconds, rather than 5.
Wind
Damage: x0.85
Projectile Speed: x1.2
Energy Cost: x1.0
Daze Buildup: x0.8
Wind would have funni knockback, idk. I’m outta ideas and tired.
Light
Damage: x0.8
Projectile Speed: x1.6
Energy Cost: x0.8
Daze Buildup: x1.3 (Light Attacks) x0.7 (Charged attacks)
Unlike with most magics, if you wanna inflict Dazed with light, you should stick to rapid-fire bursts. Light Magic’s Blinded effect would also apply aim variance to NPCs, with attacks having an additional minimum variance with Blinded to make the effect reliably do something.
Shadow
Damage: x1.05
Projectile Speed: x0.9
Energy Cost: x1.0
Daze Buildup: x0.8 (Light Attacks) x1.1 (Charged Attacks)
The opposite of Light, Shadow hits particularly hard with charged attacks. Its status effect would apply a slight outgoing damage reduction to the target, which would stack similarly to Blinded.
Earth
Damage: x1.3
Projectile Speed: x0.7
Energy Cost: x1.0
Daze Buildup: x1.2
Rock and stone. Earth would have a special property where casting it while grounded causes bits of earth to fly up around the user, giving them Damage Reduction for a moment, along with the attack dealing slightly boosted damage.
Daze
Daze is a gauge that only applies to NPCs, which serves to measure the amount of hits until that NPC is staggered. The Dazed Meter decreases when the NPC is hit by certain attacks akin to a health bar, and will begin to restore when that NPC hasn’t taken damage for some time. An NPC’s Dazed Meter Max is usually around 30, though most bosses have a much higher meter.
The primary way to inflict Dazed is through charged attacks. That is to say, using the already-implemented ‘charge’ system where attacks grow more powerful the longer you hold down the button. Keep in mind that Daze damage usually does not scale. However, individual magics and weapons have different Daze Multipliers, changing the amount of Daze they inflict.
If an NPC is Dazed, they will be stunned for around 4 seconds, and will be unable to attack, move, or activate any unique features. In addition, Dazed NPCs will take tripled damage from the next attack that hits them, which will break them out of their Daze. Bosses will even wait for their phase shift until after the Daze is over.
Example Attacks That Inflict Daze
Blast (uncharged): 3
Blast (full charge): 8
Beam (any charge): 2
Javelin (uncharged): 2 per tick
Javelin (full charge): 3 per tick
Crash (uncharged): 4
Crash (full charge): 10
Smash (any charge): 3, 1.5 per hit if multihit
Rush (uncharged): 3
Rush (full charge): 7
Tempest (uncharged): 2
Tempest (full charge): 5
Dual Crescents (uncharged): 2 per projectile
Dual Crescents (full charge): 3.5 per projectile
Boss Drops
Armor would be completely reworked, and bosses would now only drop one thing besides weapons: their boss token. It drops at a 1/20 chance, though there’s a pity system after killing them 20 times. Each bosses’s boss token would provide a unique effect, and each player can only equip one at a time.
Boss Tokens
Iris
Her token is her Arcanium Bracelet. Having it equipped would decrease the cooldown of all the player’s moves by 0.3 seconds.
Elius
His token is his torn scarf. Having it equipped would increase the distance players would go on a dash by about 25%. It would also increase the player’s dodge reflex distance by the same amount, being the only means of doing so.
Argos
His token is his cape. Having it equipped would cause the player to deal more damage as their HP gets lower, capping off at +30% damage at 1% HP.
Carina
Her token is her bracelet things. Having them equipped would increase the player’s Daze damage dealt by all sources by 20%.
Calvus
His token is his crown. Having it equipped would cause your attacks to spawn a secondary “burst” hitbox, which deals 33% damage and applies a bit of pushback.
Maria
Her token is her flintlocks, one of which broke. Having it equipped would increase your damage depending on your distance (in reference to how most players snipe at her because nobody seems to know that you can literally just stand at the front of the ship to avoid the tentacles). It’d scale to a maximum of +15% damage at 100 studs.
Basically, I’d dumb the game down a bit and make choices and trade-offs matter more than grinding for gear.
Let me say this: the reason I don’t make suggestions to the game is not because I have no ideas—oh no—it’s because I have way too frickin’ many.
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Pretty interesting choices for the combat changes only real problem I have is removing my beloved attack speed
But thinking about it made me realize a lot of skills are pretty fucking big and honestly I think we need a size nerf lol
Maybe I should explain in detail on what I’d want for AO if it turned into a turn based card game lol
remove armors entirely
So would Carina and Cernyx have to be reworked to account for the lack of fighting styles or…?
Nevermind, just read the section regarding moves and dazing
You know, I always found it hilarious that Cernyx mostly uses Earth Magic but his most powerful move is literally a Basic Combat m1.
Giant pillar of earth: 60-80 Damage
A random right hook: 150 Damage
And vetex says magic is superior to strength
Also, most things would now be a bit faster and speedless builds. Personally, my biggest gripe with ATK SZ and SPD is that everything feels too slow / small if you don’t have either, but if you pump either up, they become ridiculous. Vetex’s worst decision for balancing was thinking that either of these could be balanced long-term at all stages of an advancing game.
Actually, it’s not 150. He deals 250 with that punch. Which, for many players when first fighting him, may cause limb loss.
Damn, he would’ve been way more threatening if he just went berserker instead of warlock
Man put all of his points into Strength, but for some reason just decided to use magic anyways.
Forgot to mention this but I’d also like restrictions and stuff like how they do in Hunter x Hunter.
Also I’d make curses playable, it seems like such a missed opportunity.
Honestly I feel like vetex avoids cursed for 2 reasons which is one we already have lost magic and having curses would kinda undermine them and two having curses be usable in game would make the game feel more like blox fruits