Newbie Spellweaver
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2015
- Messages
- 48
- Reaction score
- 15
I wanted to share this because I'm getting ready to close the project.
To clarify, this project is not related to software development, but entirely in Game Design. The idea is to move from "Gear-based" gameplay to "Skill-based" gameplay. You guys are awesome, I see cool innovative ideas implemented all the time in terms of software and content, but nobody ever touches on the gameplay, which is concerning.
Fiesta requires a little skill as it is. You could definitely lose a pvp battle with equal gear due to slight differences in skill, namely, cool time management. How you time the use of your skills in order to stun lock your opponent or deal more damage faster. But both of those skills are completely overshadowed by gear.
Very small differences in gear can compensate for huge differences in skill, mostly because that doesn't take much skill. It comes down to understanding a sequence that's best for your class or your opponents class and we could talk for hours about the theory behind that and essentially put more thought into it than OnsOnsSoft did because they simply saw WoW do it and did it themselves.
Gear overshadows those skills because you can't avoid damage. No matter how fast you are, if you don't have the defense or HP, you're dead. I wanted to change how damage is done in fiesta. So originally if you were being attacked, you couldn't avoid attacks using your skills, you had to have more defense or more evasion. I wanted to make receiving damage a punishment. It doesn't make much of a punishment if you're a Knight taking all the aggro and you get all your HP healed up by a cleric, so with this design damage isn't something that you want at all because damage is abundant but defense and healing is scarce.
I noticed there was a window for a Gladiator to avoid devastate using dash and cause the attacker to waste his cool time. The sad part is this only works once because dash has a huge cool time. This occurs because Devastate in the shn files has a huge "Swing Time" (1467 ms) and "Hit Time" (967 ms). Swing-time means you have 1467 milliseconds (almost 1.5 seconds) to realize your opponent has casted Devastate before damage and AB states affect you, and hit time means your opponent has to wait 967 milliseconds before he can cast another skill. This means that with Dash, you have been given the tools to avoid receiving damage. And so that means if you neglect to avoid this attack you should be punished. 5-8 seconds of stun is a very fitting punishment. But if you do avoid this attack you've been rewarded with 967 milliseconds to perform a counter attack your opponent can't avoid.
All that is going on in less than 3 seconds. You can understand why 8 seconds of any disable is actually kind of ridiculous. The use of dash relies on an error related to casting distance and requires extreme precision to be done effectively. So I added a new skill for gladiators called "Deflection" and what this skill does is, it gives the Invincible buff for 2 seconds and gives chain casting for 2 seconds, and then cools for 3 seconds. So you can block an attack and counter attack like Cross Counter but not buggy. If you don't time it properly your opponent has that 1 second window, and the swing time to cast it again, to attack you. So you have to be very careful about when you cast it.
And so I thought to add more skills that give an invincibility frame and then stylize it for each class. So for knights I gave them damage reflect. It complements their low damage and isn't OP because they have high defense and probably wont try to take off their gear and put it back on within 2 seconds, maybe, nah.
Mages get "Mana Amber" and "Mana Shield" straight from vindictus. So Mana shield is a long term invincibility frame because you might not be able to avoid damage and cast skills with long cast times every single time. It breaks easy and it has a long cool time to re-activate it. Then Mana Amber which uses an unbreakable invincibility frame; Mana Amber lasts and cools for 2 seconds in which the caster is frozen in ice and can perform no actions. Sort of a trade off, take damage or deal damage. I've found it's a good way to get by when you're waiting on mana shield to cool.
Clerics have some shorter term invincibilities but also one limitless invincible skill. Lasts 2 seconds, cools for 3.
Tricksters have an invincible that lasts for 1 second and cools for 1.5 seconds. it also pushes them slightly forward and gives them 100% critical rate so they can easily counter with a fatal back-attack.
Here the trickster is dodging King Kong Phino's basic attack and you see his foot comes down and the trickster is visually away from the attack. Even though damage will still be received, the invincible status nullifies it. And as KKP deals with the hit time for that attack, the truckster can perform a critical back attack as a great reward for avoiding that attack.
This means that in PVP being avoided can be as deadly as receiving damage. You would have to really strategize what attacks you use when and why knowing that they could be avoided. But because most invincible skills use a form of Cleric's invincible this doesn't account for AB states. This means we can call a skill like Devastate "unblockable". You may be able to avoid the damage, but you will still be stunned. Unblockable skills can be avoided by techniques other than your dodge or block skills, and they punish you for relying on them. It means that you really have to spice up your combat style in order to survive. You can't just use one or two skills to win.
I haven't worked on archers yet, and I'm not sure how to approach them. OnsOnsSoft splits them by AOE and Single target skills which is just bad. There are a lot of tweaks I did to make each class unique and balanced, though I haven't talked about all that. One thing is that only knights use devastate and gladiators use concussive charge, except I have revolutionized concussive charge. It uses properties of Silberk's skill so now it actually charges to the target and deals damage. It can't be dodged like devastate because it's so fast, but the stun only lasts 2 seconds. Hard to tell which one I like better.
This style also means that classes aren't compensating for each others weaknesses the same way. It also means cleric's primary means of support isn't the "Heal" skill. Clerics have to be more strategic to support with healing. It also means clerics have more options. They can support by tanking or dealing damage. It also means that any class can tank a boss with a skilled player behind it. No more Kingdom Quests going down simply because a Knight or a cleric didn't join. Now you have no one to blame but yourself when you lose. It also means that aggro is more fickle. With classes, including knights, dealing more damage, the boss is likely to attack whoever he wants. Knights have some boosts to aggro with Mock and Taunt, but tricksters build massive aggro with their soul skills, and clerics build aggro healing. This means fighters aren't the only ones pressured to build defense. Each class needs to be equally built, maybe fighters end up with more defense than other classes, but everyone puts in the same effort into their character.
In the files the level cap is 70, but that's just so I'd have to make less content than from 1-150. Prestige classes are selected at level 1 and prestige skills are brought down below level 70.
I'm thinking about finishing the project for fun and then giving away the files. I'm not interested in running my own server.
To clarify, this project is not related to software development, but entirely in Game Design. The idea is to move from "Gear-based" gameplay to "Skill-based" gameplay. You guys are awesome, I see cool innovative ideas implemented all the time in terms of software and content, but nobody ever touches on the gameplay, which is concerning.
Fiesta requires a little skill as it is. You could definitely lose a pvp battle with equal gear due to slight differences in skill, namely, cool time management. How you time the use of your skills in order to stun lock your opponent or deal more damage faster. But both of those skills are completely overshadowed by gear.
Very small differences in gear can compensate for huge differences in skill, mostly because that doesn't take much skill. It comes down to understanding a sequence that's best for your class or your opponents class and we could talk for hours about the theory behind that and essentially put more thought into it than OnsOnsSoft did because they simply saw WoW do it and did it themselves.
Gear overshadows those skills because you can't avoid damage. No matter how fast you are, if you don't have the defense or HP, you're dead. I wanted to change how damage is done in fiesta. So originally if you were being attacked, you couldn't avoid attacks using your skills, you had to have more defense or more evasion. I wanted to make receiving damage a punishment. It doesn't make much of a punishment if you're a Knight taking all the aggro and you get all your HP healed up by a cleric, so with this design damage isn't something that you want at all because damage is abundant but defense and healing is scarce.
I noticed there was a window for a Gladiator to avoid devastate using dash and cause the attacker to waste his cool time. The sad part is this only works once because dash has a huge cool time. This occurs because Devastate in the shn files has a huge "Swing Time" (1467 ms) and "Hit Time" (967 ms). Swing-time means you have 1467 milliseconds (almost 1.5 seconds) to realize your opponent has casted Devastate before damage and AB states affect you, and hit time means your opponent has to wait 967 milliseconds before he can cast another skill. This means that with Dash, you have been given the tools to avoid receiving damage. And so that means if you neglect to avoid this attack you should be punished. 5-8 seconds of stun is a very fitting punishment. But if you do avoid this attack you've been rewarded with 967 milliseconds to perform a counter attack your opponent can't avoid.
All that is going on in less than 3 seconds. You can understand why 8 seconds of any disable is actually kind of ridiculous. The use of dash relies on an error related to casting distance and requires extreme precision to be done effectively. So I added a new skill for gladiators called "Deflection" and what this skill does is, it gives the Invincible buff for 2 seconds and gives chain casting for 2 seconds, and then cools for 3 seconds. So you can block an attack and counter attack like Cross Counter but not buggy. If you don't time it properly your opponent has that 1 second window, and the swing time to cast it again, to attack you. So you have to be very careful about when you cast it.
And so I thought to add more skills that give an invincibility frame and then stylize it for each class. So for knights I gave them damage reflect. It complements their low damage and isn't OP because they have high defense and probably wont try to take off their gear and put it back on within 2 seconds, maybe, nah.
Mages get "Mana Amber" and "Mana Shield" straight from vindictus. So Mana shield is a long term invincibility frame because you might not be able to avoid damage and cast skills with long cast times every single time. It breaks easy and it has a long cool time to re-activate it. Then Mana Amber which uses an unbreakable invincibility frame; Mana Amber lasts and cools for 2 seconds in which the caster is frozen in ice and can perform no actions. Sort of a trade off, take damage or deal damage. I've found it's a good way to get by when you're waiting on mana shield to cool.
Clerics have some shorter term invincibilities but also one limitless invincible skill. Lasts 2 seconds, cools for 3.
Tricksters have an invincible that lasts for 1 second and cools for 1.5 seconds. it also pushes them slightly forward and gives them 100% critical rate so they can easily counter with a fatal back-attack.
Here the trickster is dodging King Kong Phino's basic attack and you see his foot comes down and the trickster is visually away from the attack. Even though damage will still be received, the invincible status nullifies it. And as KKP deals with the hit time for that attack, the truckster can perform a critical back attack as a great reward for avoiding that attack.
This means that in PVP being avoided can be as deadly as receiving damage. You would have to really strategize what attacks you use when and why knowing that they could be avoided. But because most invincible skills use a form of Cleric's invincible this doesn't account for AB states. This means we can call a skill like Devastate "unblockable". You may be able to avoid the damage, but you will still be stunned. Unblockable skills can be avoided by techniques other than your dodge or block skills, and they punish you for relying on them. It means that you really have to spice up your combat style in order to survive. You can't just use one or two skills to win.
.jpg "spectra51 - Brand New Gameplay Style Concept - RaGEZONE Forums")
This style also means that classes aren't compensating for each others weaknesses the same way. It also means cleric's primary means of support isn't the "Heal" skill. Clerics have to be more strategic to support with healing. It also means clerics have more options. They can support by tanking or dealing damage. It also means that any class can tank a boss with a skilled player behind it. No more Kingdom Quests going down simply because a Knight or a cleric didn't join. Now you have no one to blame but yourself when you lose. It also means that aggro is more fickle. With classes, including knights, dealing more damage, the boss is likely to attack whoever he wants. Knights have some boosts to aggro with Mock and Taunt, but tricksters build massive aggro with their soul skills, and clerics build aggro healing. This means fighters aren't the only ones pressured to build defense. Each class needs to be equally built, maybe fighters end up with more defense than other classes, but everyone puts in the same effort into their character.
In the files the level cap is 70, but that's just so I'd have to make less content than from 1-150. Prestige classes are selected at level 1 and prestige skills are brought down below level 70.
I'm thinking about finishing the project for fun and then giving away the files. I'm not interested in running my own server.
