Why Weapons and Talents system should change!? (Exemple with Pictures)

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Hello Everyone,

Like the title suggest, I think that Weapon and Talent system should be completly redesign sooner in order to remain viable for a long time.

  • The Problem: Overview

First of all, with the blunderbuss, there are 13 weapons. The fact that there are no classes in the game is one of the main features to encourage players to choose how they want to play, thanks to the weapon system that allows you to combine 2 weapons to create your “gameplay”.

Currently, if you combine all the weapons (e.g.: sword + rapier; sword + great axe; sword + life staff…) there are 77 possible combinations. That’s already a lot and it’s great in a way.

Let’s say that in two years time, there will be 20 different weapons. Which would be really good since any MMO should be able to evolve and offer different types of gameplay. At that time, AGS will surely release somes endgame content like arena, more OPR map and others differents kind of contents.

There will be 189 possible combinations and that’s where New World (like all MMOs) will be confronted with a huge Wall that will be very difficult to overcome: “BALANCING”!

Yeah, balancing all kind of combinaisons in order to make the game enjoyable will be nearly impossible.

That’s why I think AGS has tied weapons to stats (Dex, Intell…). This will also not be viable when there are a lot of weapons because players will always try to take a second weapon to overcome the disadvantages of the first one which is the “main” weapon that players use the most regardless the binded stats.

So the weapon system can become the most toxic of all if it is not well balanced. The point is that I like the weapon system, but I think it needs to be changed anyway.

  • Solution Suggested

As I said before, each weapon in New World is a separate “class”. The good thing is that New World allows you to change “class” whenever you want.

I suggest that instead of combining two weapons, why not use one weapon that will define the way we play with more skills (4 to start and expand to 6 or more with future updates), more passives and more ways to be “unique” even if many players use the same weapons.
Each weapon will have its own strengths and weaknesses, which is good.

These weapons should not be linked to stats which implies that the stats system should change a bit too (I will make another topic to explain this).

It’s a big change, for sure, but it will be easier to balance than balancing a combination of weapons.

In order to help the developers, I already made a work to show you what it could look like.
My work was heavily inspired by the Legion weapon system from World of Warcraft but I believe this system is more suited to New World.

In my exemple, each weapons has 4 abilities and 20 passives. you automatically have the 4 abilities and you have to spend 10 talent points over 20. Each weapons has a lot of “path” to help player take the talent THEY WANT.

Exemple:













I just want to know what you think about this idea, whether you like it or not and why?

Thanks for your time and passion.
Your humble servant!

11 Likes
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anyone ?

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this is beautiful, great job!

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It’s good. I mean… really good. I read the whole thing and you bring up some good points about balancing. This will be a problem in the future with the current system.

I agree with all of that. But damn… WHAT A GREAT JOB. You took your time to do it, that’s for sure.

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Well brought up point, nice presentation!

But 20% weapon dmg on burn of musket is too much. I burn some enemies for 450+ per tick right now since it’s the x% of your empowered weapon dmg. 20% would most likely result in 14-16x 1k ticks. And even without the empower beeing added 20% means 360dmg@1.8k weapon dmg per tick, so you end up with less dmg then you can get now.

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I hope the skill group can separate PvE and PVP.
When they weaken GA’s performance in PvP.PVE takes more damage.
When I dodge, I will lose the attack target Because the attack distance is weakened.

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Thanks you for reading all of it and YES! it took me a lot of time.

I’m mainly talk about the system here, not the % of damage and so on. Numbers can easly and rapidly change, but the system himself take much more time.

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bump

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awesome idea

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Wish a dev or a moderator will see this.

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bump

12

Bumping this for the amount of effort this clearly took. Devs, take a look!

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the idea here is that instead of 2 weapons we only equip one at a time and there’s no more weapon swapping?

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Yes, definitely. I think it’s better to have one weapon with a lot more choice and depth than to swap weapons with no depth and create big balancing problems.

1 Like
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Senior Systems Designer reporting in for feedback.

While the fidelity mockups are very nicely done, i cannot approve this suggestion. There is a large amount of issues with the class design in new world, but above all the issues the biggest problems are the lack of identity and depth and the power that comes from the design itself. These are issues nice art / fidelity mockups will not fix.

To give examples of this; a good example of class design is to create resource systems that have interaction with abilities and help provide another layer on top of the base idea of the class. Lets look at a hypothetical arcane concept i already posted about a month or so back.

In the design of this weapon, we’d want to see a base identity of a class, which is largely made up in the abilities and what they do and how they provide a unique gameplay experience. In this case, arcane staff is a mage weapon that provides lots of potential to prevent damage. It does this through mechanics like applying absorbs, or a shield like the shield used to block lasers in starstone.

After this level of class design we have the second level, which is some sort of resource based design concept that expands upon that classes identity to provide a “if you do this, get more optimal output” type of rule. for example, if you heavy attack you generate a stack of arcane power, which functionally works similar to void guantlets “glympse of the void”. you can then use these stacks to provide extra benefit to and ability.

Examples of this area

  • Create a (starstone type) shield that lasts x seconds + x seconds per a charge
  • Create an arcane bolt (similar to fireball) that burns 5% mana per a charge (max of 3 charges)
  • Create an arcane hydra that summons at a place doing attacks that has x damage + x% more per a bolt

What you are suggesting in class design is no more then throwing in a bunch of stats, which brings us to the second point, power.

In class design we want to see the least amount of power but the highest level of depth in mechanics that function and are understandable in a simplistic way. Examples of this can be found in pillar of fires that have a second explosion 2 seconds later for 35% of base damage. This will enable a player to flamestrike a person then launch a fireball into that area to time it with the secondary explosion. In this case we do not need a lot of power to secure kill potential.

Power if you do not understand is +damage, +stats, +etc

Very often, little amounts of power are needed to kill something. Its often through crowd control and anti-healing or execution type of mechanics we can accmplish the feel of power, without the downfalls of it.

Also,

Reducing the abilities when people are asking for more would only harm the class identity.

Lastly,
While your time to create interesting tree’s is impressive, they over all class concept is really just a mockup version of what we did in wow with the heart of azeroth. I am not really impressed with any of it and it does not functionally provide any real incentive for the design team to implement.

Thanks for your effort, however. Aesthetically speaking, it looks good.

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First of all, I am glad you are taking the time to respond to me. I have to say that you raise some interesting points but there are some that bother me a bit.

Nourri:
While the fidelity mockups are very nicely done, i cannot approve this suggestion. There is a large amount of issues with the class design in new world, but above all the issues the biggest problems are the lack of identity and depth and the power that comes from the design itself…

Nourri:
…we’d want to see a base identity of a class, which is largely made up in the abilities and what they do and how they provide a unique gameplay experience…

Agree, there is an issues with weapons identity that must to be address and i don’t think that a weapons swapping system can do that.

Nourri:
What you are suggesting in class design is no more then throwing in a bunch of stats, which brings us to the second point, power.

You have to talk to AGS directly. I just copied THEIR talent and arranged it to have a better way to choose them.
Just to be clear, it is not my job to design an entire weapon from scratch. I don’t get paid to do it.

Nourri:
…Examples of this can be found in pillar of fires that have a second explosion 2 seconds later for 35% of base damage. This will enable a player to flamestrike a person then launch a fireball into that area to time it with the secondary explosion. In this case we do not need a lot of power to secure kill potential…

Nourri:
Reducing the abilities when people are asking for more would only harm the class identity.

This statement proves that you just read what I write but don’t take the time to look at the weapons. Because you will see that I offer at least 4 basic skills for each weapon and some have 5 (with the replacement of “block”). Despite the 6 skills, NW only lets you choose 3. So tell me, where do I reduce the abilities?

Also, each weapon should have talents that improve or add depth to the skills initially offered. This is something I agree with you on.

Nourri:
Senior Systems Designer reporting in for feedback.

Finally, starting by introducing yourself in this way does not guarantee the credibility of your answer, do not use a title to give value to your words.

And yes, Aesthetically speaking, it looks good.

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This is not true at all. The swaping system allows classes to have a more broad set of abilities. For example, Fire ice works well together because ice brings the utility and sustainability that fire does not have. They are unique in that they each are heavily focused in an area, and compliment each other well.

I have never seen the weapon swap system impress me, but some are better than others and ags is on the top of that list, all bugs and issues a side.

You reduced the build options for weapons, which reduces the builds out there and contributes to more “cookie-cutter builds”. This is a product of you reducing the options from 6 to 4. A change which brings no real benefit to the class system, and may actually harm it.

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I like the ideas as far as future proofing goes, but removing block so its only avaliable to a handful of weapons is a bad idea IMO. Blocking is often times the only effective defense players can rely on to avoid damage as their target may be elite and therefore immune to CC or be another player who is just spamming Light Attacks in melee. When you get hit by Gravity Well, you can either dodge if wear light armor, or block with heavy armor.

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The only thing that has kept me interested in this game for this long (since launch) has been the ability to find ways to make unpopular weapon combinations work. If the game were designed to be one weapon at a time, I would have quit a long time ago.

That’s just my thought. But more generally, the 2-weapon system is so ingrained in the core of what this game is and how it plays that I think the work you’ve done for this post was a waste of time. It is not something the devs were ever going to entertain.

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I agree with all of you and have already said that I also like NW’s weapons swapping systems, but my concern is to balance them. That’s why I proposed the idea of having only one. But if the devs can keep an eye on the balance of each combination without hurting the others, that would be great. People already complain about it, even when the game doesn’t offer much content. So imagine in the future…

xquid:
…I think the work you’ve done for this post was a waste of time. It is not something the devs were ever going to entertain.

No, it is not a waste of time. All ideas are malleable, they can be modified or improved. This idea can also work with the current weapons system. Why not? I would like developers to be inspired and come up with their own version to improve the current system. But my point is that they need to look forward and address the problems now before they get out of hand.