really couldn’t have made this shorter huh
tl;dr’s are placed within each section so the post doesn’t suck as much to read
Introduction
With the public Trello being given a plethora of new cards being added, Vetex expresses interest in once again adding Impact Fist into the game; albeit in a way dissimilar to its implementation in Arcane Adventures:
Why was Impact bad in the first place?
I want to better elaborate on my reasoning behind this idea by explaining what exactly went wrong with it back in AA/AR. As someone who was around when Impact Fist was originally implemented, I can say with absolute certainty that it absolutely sucked.
Legacy Impact Fist was unbalanced in the sense that you could charge it by mashing punch or kick for about five minutes, until you eventually had a miniature nuke atomically fused to your R key to instantly cheese whatever poor soul happened to rustle your jimmies. (~3,000 damage at level 200, why god)
It was also unengaging, both to the user and to others. Having to effectively “farm” the meter by basically doing nothing but pressing a button for a few minutes actively took you out of the action, and was equally as unfun to others when the fight just got immediately ended because the other person sacrificed half of their brain cells for a funny “fuck you, die” button.
tl;dr...
legacy impact sucks because:
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spam Q for funny instant win button; not engaging and very boring
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i’m trying to play AO, not cookie clicker.
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getting instantly nuked isn’t fun; punishes you for something entirely out of your control
… So how do we fix it?
Details
As an attempted solution to this, I want to propose the idea of charging Impact’s meter by specifically using it to deal damage to enemies.
Lots of fighting games like Street Fighter or Guilty Gear (i think?) handle Super Meters in a very similar way. You deal damage to the enemy, and your super meter gets filled slowly over time. I thought a simpler application of this method would be best used for a style like Impact Fist, since… that’s what it does. You build the meter for a super move. That’s pretty much how it’s always worked.
The Meter
Charging + other basic functions
Successfully landing basic punches/kicks or normal skills would fill Impact’s meter by varying amounts based on the amount of damage those moves deal.
Normal attacks would be weaker than those from most other fighting styles, as the trello suggests, to make this more of a risk-reward fighting style. For the sake of making this easier to understand, let’s assume Impact Fist’s damage affinity happens to be 0.75 (equivalent to Poison Magic).
Lastly, there would almost definitely need to be some kind of visual effect to show others how full the meter is as well, like in AA.
Spending; "Charged Moves"
As for charged moves (a.k.a. actually spending the meter), this is just the term I’m using–for the sake of simplicity–for Impact’s original function of dumping the entire meter at once for a stronger attack for the sake of simplicity.
The concept of charged attacks could possibly be executed in a few ways, or whatever method Vetex prefers. These are just my ideas:
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Charging any ability for a short time, after which the user’s fist/leg/whatever flashes white and may release the button for a stronger version of the attack
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A checkable box in the skill creation UI to determine whether or not a skill should be considered a “Charge” or not (a.k.a. if the skill requires the meter)
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Ultimate skills automatically spending the meter upon use (this is mostly just an addon to one of the other two because it would probably REALLY suck if meter usage was restricted entirely to ults)
tl;dr
new impact is epic because:
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normal skills are kind of weak bc risk-reward is epic and cool (roughly as strong as poison without a debuff or clouds to make up for it)
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build meter by doing damage w/ impact skills; very engaging and fun way to gain meter
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visual effect shows others how full the user’s meter is, meaning it can more easily be seen coming and isn’t just out of nowhere
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dump meter for da funny big damage :] (this makes up for the low damage affinity)
Rules & Restrictions
I know you almost certainly have a couple concerns regarding an idea like this, and the reason I know that is because dear god, so do I.
Meter Rules
First, how quickly can it build up? In other words; how much damage should I have to deal in order to fill it completely?
Since Impact would normally be weaker than other styles in this case, I’d like for players to still be able to build it up a decent amount in a fight for the reward to be worth the risk, but not so rewarding that you once again have a pocket nuke by the end of the bout.
After some deliberation, I think Impact’s meter scaling should cap off at around… 15 times the user’s level maybe? But the actual damage output of charges would end up being less than that; again, because of the damage affinity. Hear me out on this.
For example, at lvl 90, dealing a total of 337 damage fills the meter about 1/4th of the way, and you’d have to deal 1,350 total to fill it completely. (this value can be displayed above the meter)
And likewise, the damage output is translated pretty directly, aside from deductions due to damage affinity. At these values, a charged attack would only do ~250 and ~1012 damage respectively, which, I mean. It’s still a lot, all things considered.
These new numbers also do not take enchantments, stats or skill type into account, which seems like a pretty good deal on top of coming from an example based at only level 90. Someone who has some kind of strength-based gear or has stats put into melee would do more than that, too. Adding 50 strength turns these into 287 and 1050, for example. (50 x 0.75 = +37.5 damage)
assuming strength calculates the same way power does
… i don’t actually know how strength calculates
If you can only build it in combat, then you’d only really have to fill it up to about 1/6th of the way until you could maybe consider dumping it worthwhile in a hypothetical 1v1 scenario, and by the time it’s filled 60%, they’re likely already dead anyway and you wouldn’t really need to pop it at that point, assuming you’re also utilizing other, better sources of damage over the course of the fight.
Which you should. Impact’s low damage affinity makes it unreliable outside of charged skills.
My point here is that unless you’re either fighting multiple people at once or actively trying to use only Impact Fist and nothing else, I don’t think getting the meter past even 35% is going to be too unreasonably common an occurrence.
The reasoning for which, I will explain now.
Drain/Negative Penalty
In AA, one of the major problems with Impact is that you could save up the meter for whenever a fight happens to occur. Even with drain implemented at the time, it drained pretty slow. So that was still a pretty common strategy among the few people who still decided it was worth the hassle.
I like Guilty Gear.
(the specifics aren't too important since i simplify it anyway, but here it is if you're curious)
(yoinked from Dustloop Wiki)
The solution I’ve thought up, based on this funny little system up here, is simply having it drain while the user is considered not in combat. But like really, really quickly. As in “your entire meter just fucking vanishes from full over the span of 10 seconds” quickly.
Listen, right. I’m aware the Trello mentions being able to release that built up power “whenever they please”, but please. God. Not that freely. The last thing I want is for people to rely on Impact Fist and just walk around with nukes all the time. We all know how that went before, and it was annoying and not fun. Above all else, I want to push the idea of Impact Fist being a very risk/reward oriented fighting style.
If someone is running away from a fight (or isn’t even in a fight at all), they certainly aren’t taking any risks at those moments, and therefore should not be given the reward that comes with said risks.
tl;dr
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can only be filled by landing attacks with impact fist
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meter size = (player level) x 15
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charged damage translates directly with damage built up in meter x0.75 because funny damage affinity, can also be influenced by gear/stats
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not very powerful without charge, mostly meant to be used in between better sources of damage
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meter is better regulated for smaller fights via negative penalty; instant kills in 1v1s is just kind of unnecessary
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negative penalty = meter drains almost instantly when not in combat because free pocket nukes are for losers; no instawin for you, fucker.
Reasoning/Conclusion
Legacy Impact’s meter was bad both in it’s engagement and fun value.
Mashing a button is not engagement, especially if the exact manner of doing so effectively forces you out of combat. Tying meter gain to damage actively promotes usage specifically in combat, and weakening its’ normals means there is an active risk to trying to build meter too quickly, in the sense that you’re basically sacrificing the higher damage of your other tools (be it magic, weapons, etc.) for the potential of a larger reward later.
so tl;dr this is good and actually has a solidified role in combat whereas the original didn’t or something
That’s about it, really.
I don’t know how to conclude this.
