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Poison system for assassins - suggestions
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I don't have much expertise in stealth classes, but I heard that poison applications are often considered a bit odd to use.
The Issue of reapplication of Poisons is a bit of a thing, so I put some thoughts into it. I want to present you one or two idea about this - feel free to dive into this or avoid it at all:
My two ideas circle around making Envenom a spell line.
I have two ideas about that, that work in completely different ways:
Path 1: the target can be afflicted with more than 1 status at the same time when putting hardpoints into envenom
there are 7 types of poison in the enventom-line - unlocking the first basic poisons, they all share the same shared-timer-group with a 30 second cooldown, so when you active one poison-spell, all the poison-spells you have unlocked get a 30 sec cooldown.
putting more skillpoints into envenom, unlocks different shared-timer-groups for certain poison-types - like on 11 envenom, the strenght-debuff-poison(-spell) gets his own shared-timer-group, so it can be cast independently from other poison-spells, not triggering their cooldown - this can be done with the other poisons too on certain levels, like on 18 speed-decrease, 26 points: disease, ... and on 50 the dot itself (lifebane) - the big downside on that system I see is that skill-levels don't unlock higher poisons any more, only affecting their chance to apply and damage fluctuation/effect strength, just like other spells. Putting more points into Envenom would still provide a reliable tool of options that can be cycled through in combat easily without fiddling around with the inventory. Additionally, longer lasting effects still overlap with the 30 second cooldown window.
Path 2: Envenom-skills become proc-buffs
Having the poison-spells unlocked in the envenom line via skillpoints, makes them a self-buff with a proc-chance. I can think of starting-values like 10% proc-chance on the first versions of the spells, ramping up to 25% on higher spell-versions. This buffs will last 20 minutes, so you don't have to mind that they run out. The catch? For every 10 hard-skillpoints into envenom, you can apply one more poison-self-buff to yourself. so 1 at 1-9 envenom, 2 buffs at 10-19, ... up to 5 poison-buffs on 50 skillpoints into envenom.
This would shift the envenom into a chance based system, but if we have the lvl 1 poison procing with 10% chance, and there are 10 more dots to unlock on every 5th level, and lets say the proc-chance increases by 1% per dot-version, this would be a 20% chance to proc lifebane on hit with the buff active.
Some people like randomness, some hate it, so yeah, a mixed bag for sure for many people, as everything in this post I guess, but it might be worth taking a look into it.
While Version 1 would give way more control, it would also give more restriction what to use, but overall it would make things easier to use with clear rules and a system.
Version 2 would be the random fun of something is happening - also it would make some room to focus more on the fight itself than on inventory management and could produce some unforgettable moments of proc-fun.
Being spells instead of potions in your inventory, the potion-management would also drop.
On the other hand you would only get, what you really invest into - for some this might be a good, but for most assassins probably a bad thing and feel like a nerf dropping from lifebane to lesser lethal venom on level 30 for example.
it would certainly require a lot of feedback and testing before this goes anywhere, but still, here it is, open to discuss.
The Issue of reapplication of Poisons is a bit of a thing, so I put some thoughts into it. I want to present you one or two idea about this - feel free to dive into this or avoid it at all:
My two ideas circle around making Envenom a spell line.
I have two ideas about that, that work in completely different ways:
Path 1: the target can be afflicted with more than 1 status at the same time when putting hardpoints into envenom
there are 7 types of poison in the enventom-line - unlocking the first basic poisons, they all share the same shared-timer-group with a 30 second cooldown, so when you active one poison-spell, all the poison-spells you have unlocked get a 30 sec cooldown.
putting more skillpoints into envenom, unlocks different shared-timer-groups for certain poison-types - like on 11 envenom, the strenght-debuff-poison(-spell) gets his own shared-timer-group, so it can be cast independently from other poison-spells, not triggering their cooldown - this can be done with the other poisons too on certain levels, like on 18 speed-decrease, 26 points: disease, ... and on 50 the dot itself (lifebane) - the big downside on that system I see is that skill-levels don't unlock higher poisons any more, only affecting their chance to apply and damage fluctuation/effect strength, just like other spells. Putting more points into Envenom would still provide a reliable tool of options that can be cycled through in combat easily without fiddling around with the inventory. Additionally, longer lasting effects still overlap with the 30 second cooldown window.
Path 2: Envenom-skills become proc-buffs
Having the poison-spells unlocked in the envenom line via skillpoints, makes them a self-buff with a proc-chance. I can think of starting-values like 10% proc-chance on the first versions of the spells, ramping up to 25% on higher spell-versions. This buffs will last 20 minutes, so you don't have to mind that they run out. The catch? For every 10 hard-skillpoints into envenom, you can apply one more poison-self-buff to yourself. so 1 at 1-9 envenom, 2 buffs at 10-19, ... up to 5 poison-buffs on 50 skillpoints into envenom.
This would shift the envenom into a chance based system, but if we have the lvl 1 poison procing with 10% chance, and there are 10 more dots to unlock on every 5th level, and lets say the proc-chance increases by 1% per dot-version, this would be a 20% chance to proc lifebane on hit with the buff active.
Some people like randomness, some hate it, so yeah, a mixed bag for sure for many people, as everything in this post I guess, but it might be worth taking a look into it.
While Version 1 would give way more control, it would also give more restriction what to use, but overall it would make things easier to use with clear rules and a system.
Version 2 would be the random fun of something is happening - also it would make some room to focus more on the fight itself than on inventory management and could produce some unforgettable moments of proc-fun.
Being spells instead of potions in your inventory, the potion-management would also drop.
On the other hand you would only get, what you really invest into - for some this might be a good, but for most assassins probably a bad thing and feel like a nerf dropping from lifebane to lesser lethal venom on level 30 for example.
it would certainly require a lot of feedback and testing before this goes anywhere, but still, here it is, open to discuss.
Im not a fan of either of the systems, or changing the original behavior of poisons, drag and drop or buy a bag full of weapons to swap, both situations will cripple a core mechanic of an assassin if implemented, seems more like a nerf if anything and they wont buff it to the point its equal or better and that is the control of what to use and when, keep in mind this is coming from someone whos sucks at trying to drag and drop poisons while doing rotation and paying attention, most of the time i just use my initial set of poisons unless i get a stun off or a chance to try it.
Any massive reworks are likely off the table, as it strays too far from the server's vision.
The main issue with manual poison application is that it's not particularly fun. It's tedium that locks you out of movement options. Yet being able to apply it via the quickbar would be too powerful, as even mediocre sins could doubletap Lifebane per swing.
One suggestion I liked was allowing application via the quickbar, but somehow limiting the damage from DoT poison if done this way, e.g. one per round.
It removes some of the tedium, raises the skill floor, but leaves the ceiling intact.
The main issue with manual poison application is that it's not particularly fun. It's tedium that locks you out of movement options. Yet being able to apply it via the quickbar would be too powerful, as even mediocre sins could doubletap Lifebane per swing.
One suggestion I liked was allowing application via the quickbar, but somehow limiting the damage from DoT poison if done this way, e.g. one per round.
It removes some of the tedium, raises the skill floor, but leaves the ceiling intact.