Credits to @arericarnau for the idea. Writing is done myself.
The Injury mechanic is kinda rare but actually interesting. As of right now, we encounter Injury only 2 times, which happens after General Argos’ and King Calvus’ fights. This Injury mechanic should be expanded much further rather than being a rare thing after some bosses.
Injury mechanic: Overall
Injuries would occur after taking several hits of something, which would reduce your maximum HP, change your appearance and alter your stats. This helps to deal with durable enemies easier and makes all the players be more carefree as taking a lot of damage could end up turning the tables in the fights. Each kind of an attack should have it’s own type of an Injury, for example, weapons having one type, Spirit weapons - another, fighting styles and Magics - Their own.
Injuries: Weapons
This kind of Injury already exists, which is Limb Loss, however it doesn’t do much. The only thing that Limb Loss changes is that you have limited actions since mostly you won’t be able to do something like fishing.
Now, when getting a Limb Loss you lose 20% of your maximum HP (aka only 80% HP available now until you recover). Now you also have a chance to lose your legs instead of arms while getting limb loss. Losing your legs will reduce your movement speed by 50%, reduce the T-Jump height by 60% and your dashes speed and distance by 70%.
Losing your arms would reduce your attack speed and attack size by 25% and you also won’t be able to use stuff which require to use the lost arm.
You can get multiple limb losses, which would debuff you further. If you lose both arms, you won’t be able to cast or use anything which uses hands (The big majority of items), and if you lose both legs, you will be able to crawl only, which is 10% of your original movement speed, wont be able to perform T-Jump and dashes, and of course, jumps.
There’s also another variation for a Limb Loss which isnt a limb loss at all.
When you get hit by a Bladed weapon and getting a lot of damage at once, there’s a chance for you to get an eye scar, which would PERMANENTLY (Unless you use a high quality healing potion) give you a Blinding status effect which would darken your screen a bit. Losing both eyes will end up you having no vision at all.
Injury: Fighting Styles
This one is complicated.
Injuries on Fighting Styles would be one of the weakest ones, but they would still have an impact on the gameplay. If dealt a lot of damage at once, the targeted enemy would get a “Stunned” status effect which is basically the same as you’ve been hit hard into your head. You lose almost every kind of a movement speed and have a blurred vision for a long time. The more time passed, the less strong those effects would be. Of course this Injury takes up some maximum health, however, only 5% for each Injury like this. This injury stacks.
There are multiple fighting styles with different status effects, but most of them have the same Injury type, except for Thermo Fist. If hit and dealt alot of damage at once while having enough Heat meter to inflict Searing, the victims would get a new kind of an Injury which would take the same 5% of max HP, however instead of being Stunned this status effect resembles Deep Burns. This is also a stronger DoT effect of Seared and it also slows your character down by 25% (Implying that with Deep Burns on your skin makes it painful to move).
Injury: Spirit Weapons
Spirit Weapons, unlike any other kind of a combat way would deal Mental Injuries.
Those Injuries do not take your maximum health, HOWEVER they reduce all your gear stats by 1% each Injury like this. The amount of damage for this kind of an Injury is also reduced. The status effect for the stat reducing is “Overwhelmed”.
Injuries: Magic
The most interesting part.
Now, every single Magic would have different Injuries because they imitate different elements, but we can split them all up to the groups:
Solid Magics:
Those usually inflict Bleeding, so it’s obvious for them to have the same Injury effect as Weapons do.
Heat Magics:
Those magics would usually inflict very deep burns to the target, making it an even stronger DoT and being a nuisance in overall. Plasma Magic has stronger DoT variation of this Injury, Explosion doesn’t have DoT but makes it deal a lot of damage at once and burst out, Ash Magic lacks damage but compensates it with a more durable status effect. This takes up 10% of the maximum health per Injury.
Cold Magics:
These magics would usually inflict a stronger version of Freezing. Let’s call it “Frostbite”.
Frostbite status effect GREATLY reduces movement speed and damages the targets for each ability they cast or when they are doing something like dashing.
Blinding Magics:
Those Magics would be different.
Instead of dealing a lot of damage at once to trigger the injury, they would only need to reach the max stack of their status effect. For example, Light magic needs to deal all the 5 ticks of Blinded, and then strike again, which would create another status effect (Which Light synergizes with) which is a very durable Blinding effect, blurring and darkening your screen for a very long time but not blinding you completely.
Shadow Magic would need to deal Drained and then inflict at least 20% damage of the enemy’s HP to create a “Withered” status effect that is a DoT and Blinding AND Slowness effect at the same time. Reduces the speed by 15%, creates swirling shadow effects on your screen and deals 0.5% of the damage per second for a very long time. (It would probably deal 60% In total. )
Sand and Snow has the same thing as Light but instead they add up Sandy and Snowy effects.
Those Injuries deal the least maximum damage leech out of all magics but compensate it with good additional status effects.
Reason:
As mentioned already, it should make the Injury system better and make PvP and PvE more accurate and more carefree.