Jump to content

Better progression curve for duelists throughout the game


Recommended Posts

I'd like to propose an idea to make the progression of shadow duelists throughout the game smoother, I find the current equipment system quite weird and unintuitive for players who would like to try playing maxwell for the first time, moreover weapons and armors are not permanent and can break in the middle of a fight, so we can find ourselves in the unfortunate situation where duelists would suffer an abrupt loss of damage if the player did not anticipate more equipment or if unexpected enemies come to join the fight (hounds, seasonal bosses, shadow creatures for example). However, the stats improvements proposed in the last hotfix seem to be correct and I don't want to modify them but rather to distribute them more equitably to better match the player's progression. So my idea is the following: Change the duelist boost criteria to something more evenly distributed.

The following proposal is only an example of what could be these criteria:

Spoiler

I propose that each defeated boss give a small boost of stats to the duelists, we currently count 19 bosses. (counting the treeguards, The lord of the fruit flies and the spider queen) Given their large number, their difficulty levels covering all levels of the game and the fact that few characters gain advantages from killing bosses, this would make it a perfect criterion to give a progression curve to the character, rather than a cap with the equipment (getting all T2) and a final upgrade at the end of the game with the fuelweaver (which is considered the final boss) this boost is really only useful for the end of the game and the celestial champion. From a lore perspective we could justify this by the fact that Maxwell when he was on the throne did not need to fight seriously, his powers were greatly increased. Once back to being a survivor like any other he needs to regain his powers to survive, a short animation of maxwell absorbing the power out of the boss in the codex, or, if not possible, a line of dialogue to indicate that his duelists have gained power (this would only happen once per boss, redoing it would not give any extra boost) why not give a bigger boost for each boss that has a link with the nightmare fuel? like the Ancient Fuelweaver, the Ancient Guardian, the Shadow Pieces and the twins (they are summoned with nightmare fuel).

What do you think about this proposal, don't hesitate to give me feedback on it.

TLDR : modify the criteria for the stats boost currently given by the equipment. One possibility would be to beat the bosses for smaller boosts, but more numerous and less spaced in the game. Allowing us to keep the minimum and maximum stats that we currently have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Something arbitrary and untrackable like bosses defeated is a huge downgrade. Now you join the world and get free powerful duelists for others' accomplishments, or if it's you specifically killing them you can't upgrade them because others killed them and they need to respawn. Wearing better combat items making you better at combat makes sense and is intuitive, giving a single character an invisible and arbitrary RPG level up system is not, especially considering people can't even agree on what a boss is. It's also extremely videogamey and has no basis in the world, unlike the current implementation where it makes sense that using more magic items makes your magic more powerful.

Just bring more equipment. Your gear breaking and leaving you defenseless should be a much bigger concern than your duelists dealing slightly less damage, anyways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The main idea of this topic was to find a good way to create a real progression curve, I gave the example of the fights to illustrate that it is possible in theory to set up such a system divided into tiers (like what we have now) but with many more steps so that the power of the duelists match with the player's progression, rather than having shadows too strong at the beginning of the game, or too weak at the end. Indeed some fights don't always happen as usual for the reasons I mentioned. I hadn't taken into account the public servers as I play most of the time with friends, the respawn times for the bosses aren't that long from memory? maybe Maxwell could have a different dialogue depending on the number of bosses eliminated?

Anyway, thanks for your constructive feedback :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Cyber_Joueur said:

I hadn't taken into account the public servers as I play most of the time with friends, the respawn times for the bosses aren't that long from memory?

Just under 3 hours. That's longer than most people stay on public servers. I think having a more gradual and achievement based progression instead of the equipment based one is a fun idea for a mod, but it doesn't fit the base game very well.

Even without any shadow gear the Duelists are still rather strong. They're nearly free, have pretty good durability, decent damage, take some aggro off you, and you can have up to 6. While a single Duelist dealing 20 per hit isn't that much against stronger enemies, 6 of them end up dealing 120 per group attack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Just under 3 hours. That's longer than most people stay on public servers. I think having a more gradual and achievement based progression instead of the equipment based one is a fun idea for a mod, but it doesn't fit the base game very well.

That's why I included the spider queen, the treeguards and the lord of fruit flies, they are quite easy to beat and common at the very beginning of the game and it's very unlikely that all the trees in the map and caves have been cut down, same for the spider nests, and if that's the case, it won't be possible to build the night armor and dark sword either

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Just under 3 hours. That's longer than most people stay on public servers. I think having a more gradual and achievement based progression instead of the equipment based one is a fun idea for a mod, but it doesn't fit the base game very well.

Even without any shadow gear the Duelists are still rather strong. They're nearly free, have pretty good durability, decent damage, take some aggro off you, and you can have up to 6. While a single Duelist dealing 20 per hit isn't that much against stronger enemies, 6 of them end up dealing 120 per group attack.

Duelists don't draw aggro anymore though,  the second they shadowdodge the enemies all target maxwell, other then that they're anazing compared to before as crazed butt stabbers while maxwell tanks or kites

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Joey9Baka said:

Duelists don't draw aggro anymore though,  the second they shadowdodge the enemies all target maxwell, other then that they're anazing compared to before as crazed butt stabbers while maxwell tanks or kites

They do draw aggro, especially when you have a lot of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Please be aware that the content of this thread may be outdated and no longer applicable.

×
  • Create New...