Progression idea

[Fipmip.7219]

In horizontal mmos like guild wars we have new stat combinations released with each update to help min/max certain builds. In vertical mmos like lost ark and wow the limits on our power are simply raised through some method or another.

I was thinking, what if new weapons were added with each expansion. I'm not talking about new weapon types, but new weapons within those types that had skills attached to them. for example, a hammer called the volcano hammer that has a new 5 skill that smashes the ground and causes fireballs to come out of a fissure. In guild wars case, you could have this skill be shared among every class that can use a hammer, or you could make a new skill for every class.

Imo this type of "progression" for trying to obtain tangible new items that meaningfully effect the way you play the game would feel way more satisfying to chase after. This sort of thing would be great for legendary weapons too with appropriate legendary skills.

Balance wise, it would be unbalancable, but there really isn't a balanced mmo out there. Imo, it wouldn't be functionally different from the way the meta constantly changes with each update currently. In essence, players dont have time to settle before old stuff gets shifted around and new stuff gets added.

This is basically an idea I've been sitting on that I havent seen tried. granted im not much of an MMO expert, but anyway, could be a good idea for GW3.

 

[Gehenna.3625]

So would that hammer have different skills for different classes or is it one size fits all? The reason I ask is two-fold:

1) It'll be much harder to balance if it's one size fits all (meaning all profession use the same skill set)

2) Some classes use weapons ranged whereas others use them in melee range. Would that be a consideration?

 

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

Balance wise, it would be unbalancable, but there really isn't a balanced mmo out there

That's the point where your argument crashed. Hard. Sorry, but no - the balance state of this game being in a questionable state in no way means we should be unbalancing it even harder.

[Dadnir.5038]

9 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

In guild wars case, you could have this skill be shared among every class that can use a hammer, or you could make a new skill for every class.

In Guild wars case you'd need to have warrior as primary or secondary profession to get hammer skills and if you do have this profession then being able to use a hammer is a given.

As for your idea, you're basically describing bundles and Masteries would be the way to unlock those and limit them through the various gamemodes. Just like Path of fire offer a variety of mount with their own skillsets, you could have masteries that offer a variety of "bundles" that are limited in use to specific areas in the game. This way, one can be the cool kid that wreck havock with his volcano hammer in some open world PvE maps without ruining PvE end game balance and competitive modes.

[Fipmip.7219]

13 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

That's the point where your argument crashed. Hard. Sorry, but no - the balance state of this game being in a questionable state in no way means we should be unbalancing it even harder.

there is no "unbalanced even harder" for games with ultra complex skill customization and variety. there is only a plateau of unbalance where one thing is the best at a certain thing and needs to be nerfed while all others need to be buffed. The best you can hope for is multiple "viable" ways of doing something, and there's no reason why my suggestion would make that impossible to happen. In any case, it wouldn't be more unbalanced than many loved games with boundless variety like pokemon, yugiho, mtg, etc.

 

5 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

In Guild wars case you'd need to have warrior as primary or secondary profession to get hammer skills and if you do have this profession then being able to use a hammer is a given.

As for your idea, you're basically describing bundles and Masteries would be the way to unlock those and limit them through the various gamemodes. Just like Path of fire offer a variety of mount with their own skillsets, you could have masteries that offer a variety of "bundles" that are limited in use to specific areas in the game. This way, one can be the cool kid that wreck havock with his volcano hammer in some open world PvE maps without ruining PvE end game balance and competitive modes.

I meant that if there was a weapon that had a new skills, you could either make it so skills 1-5 were all different, but the same among every class that can use a hammer, or just have one to two skills change with that hammer but the skills are different depending on the class using them - those classes being the ones that can use hammers. so for example you pick up the hammer as a guardian and get a new guardian themed volcano skill specific to that hammer, or a warrior and get a new warrior themed volcano skill. alternatively, warrior or guardian pick it up and get the same skills which come with that weapon.

Yes we know bundles give you new skills but i see that as a toy concept. Its entirely another thing to have an item be a part of your gear with its own stats, skills and be obtainable through questing/raiding/exploration. Having a new collection of these items with every expansion would be a great reason to look forward to them. There's still room for specializations in this system, since they offer new passives and utilities. perhaps you could give weapon skills keywords like "smash" and then have passives in those specializations that interact with those keywords, like "20% more AoE with smash skills"

 

Edited April 21 by Fipmip.7219