Skills: Song of the Word Rework

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SignedName
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Skills: Song of the Word Rework

Post by SignedName »

It never made much sense for Song of the Word to be a child skill of Word of Recall, and I think it makes more sense for it to be a child of Archon's entry skill, Divine Vengeance. With Divine Vengeance's ability to summon words, Song of the Word could also be redesigned around this mechanic.

The idea is this: Change the cost of SotW to 1+1 AP per active Word and 7+1 MP per active Word. SoTW cannot be used unless a Word is active, and its damage calculation would be based on the amount of them you have active- per-target damage would be Level/3+5 for each active Word*, and total damage would be Level*5+Level*number of active Words. Instead of blocking Song of the Word from being used, Rapturous Chant now gets rid of the cost for activating Words, reducing duration by 1 minute for each Word activated.
*Incarnation of Vengeance would give +1 per-target damage per active Word.

The reduced power of base Song of the Word would justify reducing its cost to 30 CP, with the 60 CP investment of Celestial Chorus bringing its power levels back up.
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Goliath
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Re: Skills: Song of the Word Rework

Post by Goliath »

SignedName wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 3:46 am It never made much sense for Song of the Word to be a child skill of Word of Recall, and I think it makes more sense for it to be a child of Archon's entry skill, Divine Vengeance. With Divine Vengeance's ability to summon words, Song of the Word could also be redesigned around this mechanic.

The idea is this: Change the cost of SotW to 1+1 AP per active Word and 7+1 MP per active Word. SoTW cannot be used unless a Word is active, and its damage calculation would be based on the amount of them you have active- per-target damage would be Level/3+5 for each active Word*, and total damage would be Level*5+Level*number of active Words. Instead of blocking Song of the Word from being used, Rapturous Chant now gets rid of the cost for activating Words, reducing duration by 1 minute for each Word activated.
*Incarnation of Vengeance would give +1 per-target damage per active Word.

The reduced power of base Song of the Word would justify reducing its cost to 30 CP, with the 60 CP investment of Celestial Chorus bringing its power levels back up.
As a Spell/Song Archon player, I really love the idea of making SotW better integrated with the rest of the kit, and would love to see some exploration on the idea.

This implementation, however, fails on the following points:
- It forces an awkward build to unlock Chorus + all words
- It kills the flexibility of AoE/single target switching by forcing the Archon to activate all words to sing and deactivate them to sinfle target DPS
- The gameplay changes it provides to SotW is "more clicks", which is bad
A Parrot with a Blade - Melee/Touchcaster Holy Champion || GrayScimitar - Heavy Sword Tlac IB || RustyWire - Gunwiz
SignedName
Posts: 210
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2021 3:11 am

Re: Skills: Song of the Word Rework

Post by SignedName »

Goliath wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 8:18 amAs a Spell/Song Archon player, I really love the idea of making SotW better integrated with the rest of the kit, and would love to see some exploration on the idea.

This implementation, however, fails on the following points:
- It forces an awkward build to unlock Chorus + all words
- It kills the flexibility of AoE/single target switching by forcing the Archon to activate all words to sing and deactivate them to sinfle target DPS
- The gameplay changes it provides to SotW is "more clicks", which is bad
How about this as another idea, then? Song is a child of Divine Vengeance, it costs the same AP/MP as currently, but now only does [Lvl] Per-target Damage. Having a Word active increases per-target damage by 5 (back to the original baseline), but expends the Word. Extra Words from Celestial Chorus do not increase damage*, but provide a "store" of Words to be used- each use of Song only expends a single Word, starting with the latest activated.
*except when Incarnation of Vengeance gets applied to Song, adding +2 per-target damage per word, up to +5, in addition to the +2 passive damage due to Song being a Holy attack.

I think that would address the issues you have with "clicks", since Words would no longer be a hard requirement, simply a boost, as well as non-intrusively making Chorus a desirable skill without being strictly necessary- especially, if, as you said, you want to switch between Song and single-target attacks, as now you can use less useful Words as a buffer to boost Song, without significantly hampering single combat abilities.
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Goliath
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Re: Skills: Song of the Word Rework

Post by Goliath »

SignedName wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 11:39 am
Goliath wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 8:18 amAs a Spell/Song Archon player, I really love the idea of making SotW better integrated with the rest of the kit, and would love to see some exploration on the idea.

This implementation, however, fails on the following points:
- It forces an awkward build to unlock Chorus + all words
- It kills the flexibility of AoE/single target switching by forcing the Archon to activate all words to sing and deactivate them to sinfle target DPS
- The gameplay changes it provides to SotW is "more clicks", which is bad
How about this as another idea, then? Song is a child of Divine Vengeance, it costs the same AP/MP as currently, but now only does [Lvl] Per-target Damage. Having a Word active increases per-target damage by 5 (back to the original baseline), but expends the Word. Extra Words from Celestial Chorus do not increase damage*, but provide a "store" of Words to be used- each use of Song only expends a single Word, starting with the latest activated.
*except when Incarnation of Vengeance gets applied to Song, adding +2 per-target damage per word, up to +5, in addition to the +2 passive damage due to Song being a Holy attack.

I think that would address the issues you have with "clicks", since Words would no longer be a hard requirement, simply a boost, as well as non-intrusively making Chorus a desirable skill without being strictly necessary- especially, if, as you said, you want to switch between Song and single-target attacks, as now you can use less useful Words as a buffer to boost Song, without significantly hampering single combat abilities.
I really like how this is trying to make "Song of the Word" into "Song of the Word".
But your answer to "What is the song of each word like?" is "+7 damage per target", which is fairly disappointing.

Mechanically speaking, I'd rather not consume the words equipped, but rather keep them up, so that you can keep and use whichever you actually like.
Flavor-wise, though, this is just great.
A Parrot with a Blade - Melee/Touchcaster Holy Champion || GrayScimitar - Heavy Sword Tlac IB || RustyWire - Gunwiz
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