This is simply a change to Sailor Fist’s seawater meter, more specifically how you fill it up.
I tried using sailor fist for a bit, and it was pretty cool. However filling up the seawater meter is quite annoying when you are inland, mainly because you have to hoard a bunch of seawater bottles. The biggest issue with sailor fist is that it’s annoying to keep using. You have to hoard seawater bottles and eat food a bit more often, not really a big deal but a bit annoying for a non-meta fighting style that most people will pass without giving it a chance (idk if it deserves a chance but that’s besides the point). This suggestion basically fixes that.
(anything with an asterisk can be changed for balancing)
Instead of drinking consumable seawater bottles to refill it, you have around 5 infinite seawater bottles* (I will call these quick-bottles). These bottles work exactly the same as regular seawater bottles. You can quickly drink these by pressing LMB while charging and holding the fighting style item; they are not a separate item in your inventory and you can see how many you have while the fighting style item is equipped. The quick-bottles will automatically recharge after 5 minutes if one is empty*, and recharge 4x faster while out of combat. Charging for more than 2 seconds in combat will double the quick-bottle recharge rate, further increasing more if you continue to charge past 2 seconds. Charging while submerged in the sea will heavily increase the recharge rate to maybe 5 seconds per quick-bottle*.
Drinking non infinite seawater bottles takes twice as long and slows you down by 50% during the animation*, this is to discourage hoarding hundreds of bottles as that is the second worst part about sailor fist imo. Drinking inf-bottles will not consume hunger and instead stop your automatic energy regen for a few seconds* (might be too much of a nerf but anything other than hunger), this is the worst part about sailor fist. If there have been too many nerfs to sailor fist, then you can increase the amount of seawater you get from drinking a bottle by a small amount.
I imagine sailor fist as having a gimmick similar to ammunition in a shooter game, where you have to occasionally spend time reloading (refilling seawater meter) to get your power back. Having an infinite amount of seawater bottles is the same as hoarding hundreds, so I see no reason to make players hoard so many. The limited quick-bottles might seem like a nerf but I’ve never used more than 5 in quick succession, so I think having that limit will make it balanced in PVP. The ability to quickly drink one by pressing LMB while charging removes the need to clutter your inventory, which is a mild annoyance.
Basically this suggestion makes sailor fist more convenient without changing any of the PVP balancing (at least I hope it doesn’t). I don’t think this suggestion will nerf sailor fist; I haven’t heard or seen anyone use sailor fist even after the buff so nobody should notice it anyways. However if this is somehow a nerf then you can give sailor fist a minor stat buff or some other buff to compensate.
About the asterisks: I don’t have enough experience in PVP to know if the numbers are balanced. I think drinking seawater bottles should be a moment of vulnerability to compensate for the high stats, so I tried to make it long enough to risk being hit hit but short enough to not be annoying. I also tried to make the quick-bottles easy to recharge outside of fights as the 5 bottle limit is basically just for the duration of a fight but also discouraging people from spamming them.
Honestly just make it so bottles become a uses item and having more bottles stacks on it for more uses. You still open the bottle but you can take as many swigs as necessary before putting it away, and you can also automatically fill them all at once since they count as “one” bottle meaning you have 200 bottles worth in one item and can instantly refill the item
Sailor Fist isn’t even a meta fighting style outside of a few combos AFAIK, making it annoying doesn’t help it’s case.
I don’t think you read the suggestion. My proposal for infinite bottles also does the same thing of letting you recharge seawater when you can’t reach the sea.
This is actually a pretty good compromise. I almost feel stupid for not thinking of this earlier, however having a limit of ~5 bottles in quick succession might stop people from chugging them whenever they feel like it which might be better?
Just adding a mechanic for solely being annoying sounds like pretty bad game design. That really doesn’t help to defend the current system. I know you likely don’t have anything to do with how it works, but just saying.
As for the suggestion, I’m not so sure about this. I haven’t heard much about sailor being not meta actually, but I think this might make it less annoying maybe. Personally I’d just make it so you don’t have to equip the bottle when fighting, though I don’t have any real problems with the current system. Still, sounds interesting.
this suggestion makes sense, as the entire gimmick of sailor style is the main thing that turns people off of using it, having to stack a shitload of seawater bottles and food makes extended periods of combat a pain
if you really don’t get it, try using a sailor fist based build for 20+ hours doing combat
like it’s honestly insane how thermo fist can just punch the air a couple of times, or literally just be used and it gets buffs to damage and speed and arguably a better status effect. Sailor Fist is one of vetex worst ideas in my opinion, and i think making sailor fist just manifest water instead of consuming it is a way better idea. Iron Leg doesn’t have a gimmick to it, it just does bleed damage. Why couldn’t sailor style just soak? It’s not as if boxing has to do anything other than be used to gain knockback on skills either. In the end there isn’t any good ways to make your fist make things wet without it being tedious.
Yea I’m pretty sure at some point in the balance document someone noted how they would prefer the hunger drain to be based on mastery, where amateur gives -20 hunger, while master gives no hunger drain.
I think the people in this thread are both vastly overstating how much the drawback of filling the meter actually matters and underestimating how good sailor’s fist is within the current meta. Having a number of bottles available just by having the fighting style is good, but also doesn’t make any sense for the bottles to just magically get more seawater. Filling them the same as normal would make more sense.