Fixing elemental weapons

Not only do I agree with Blaine on the topic of how a perquisite of resistance would completely negate much of the use of elemental weapons, due to low level players not having any access to them, and high level players being better off investing in other stats so when they would hit the level they could use elemental they would instead have enough in Dex for a good normal path weapon.

With the design I proposed relatively low level toons could use low upgraded elemental weapons which wouldn't inflict as much damage towards themselves effectively.


@Serious_much on Just having the stat requirements maybe jump 1.5x to 2x the base stats I already talked about that. Although it may keep people from using the zheiwlander or a washing pole, still weapons like clubs, short swords, and other starting weapons would be open to be exploited at low levels. So although you may stop some of the most popular ones to exploit, which might not even be that effective in the first place, we'll just see exploiters forced to use more of the same weapons instead.



Also, like I've said throughout this thread, it's is just a more interesting twist to have throughout the upgrade path options.



EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm not saying anything about the diminishing returns discussion, I think we all understand how it works.

Back on topic maybe they just add a ring. And without the ring you can't use elemental weapons. And they make the ring like Abyss ring. Disappears on NG+ and non-transferable. This way you would have to sacrifice a ring slot to use elementals and would be unable to use them until certain points in the game are reached. Might cut down on all the DWGR use as well, so 2 birds with one stone.

Didn't get time to read everyones posts (gonna go back and do that now) but as an elemental user I purely disagree with this initial post.


Your statement here seems to be you view elemental weapons as over powered and want players penalized for using them. This is ridiculous.

Not only are elemental weapons worse to use in pvp (split AR) but they are very inconvenient at super high SLs where one would benefit from scaling instead. Basically a disadvantage of using them but good for certain bosses.

Now the thing about 300 damage with lightning clubs...lol

You can do 300 damage at level one with a TON of stuff. Pyro gloves, RTSR combos, riposte, channeler buffs from help...

I just dont get why you view this to be unfair when pretty much anything can be argued as unfair if we put it up against someone playing naked using dual fists level one the whole play through.


If you're weak to fire, you're hurt by fire... If you're weak to physical, you are indeed hurt by physical, should this equation equal we should penalize players upgrading their physical weapons to +15 at low levels? Where does it end basically

I say it is fine how it is

@Dragon

Don't know why you got negative rep... But a ring isn't a bad idea. I think it would work better in conjunction with Buggy's idea, though. The ring would have the effect of negating (or just reducing, maybe) the elemental weapon's self-damage. That way you could choose not to wear the ring, and wear armor that reduces the self-damage instead, if you've got the equip weight for it. It would make the weapons more accessible to low level griefers again, but at least they wouldn't be able to use the elemental weapon at the same time as DWGR + Havel's Ring, so no more full-giants + elemental weapon SL1 griefer.

lordgodofhell wrote:Didn't get time to read everyones posts (gonna go back and do that now) but as an elemental user I purely disagree with this initial post.


Your statement here seems to be you view elemental weapons as over powered and want players penalized for using them. This is ridiculous.

Not only are elemental weapons worse to use in pvp (split AR) but they are very inconvenient at super high SLs where one would benefit from scaling instead. Basically a disadvantage of using them but good for certain bosses.

Now the thing about 300 damage with lightning clubs...lol

You can do 300 damage at level one with a TON of stuff. Pyro gloves, RTSR combos, riposte, channeler buffs from help...

I just dont get why you view this to be unfair when pretty much anything can be argued as unfair if we put it up against someone playing naked using dual fists level one the whole play through.


If you're weak to fire, you're hurt by fire... If you're weak to physical, you are indeed hurt by physical, should this equation equal we should penalize players upgrading their physical weapons to +15 at low levels? Where does it end basically

I say it is fine how it is

I know they are weaker around the accepted PVP levels, this idea was proposed more due to the relatively low level players that abuse them.

And you're right, there are plenty of unfair items that can be used by very low level players, like a +5 ascended pyromancy glove, and +15 weapons. This is a fix to only one of the culprits, but I think it is better to find fixes for each one, one at a time rather than throwing our hands up and saying, "there's more than one."

Besides, with the system I presented this actually makes elemental weapons more viable at higher levels due to the fact that you can keep increasing the damage output at the cost of damage dealt to you.

It isn't penalizing them, or making them worse, rather just staying with the idea of a high base AR and running with the idea of being able to increase that indefinitely at a price.


@Dragon
I think a ring, although then player won't be able to use all the slots, wouldn't really help. Then it would just make it frustrating and not worth it to use elemental weapons at a high level where you can get a ton of bonus out of many of the other rings, but at low levels you would just need to give up being super duper armored, but you would still have access to very powerful elemental weapons.

@Blaine
Yeah, I think that makes more sense.

RagingDragon_69 wrote:
We as a community have turned this into a PVP game, it was not designed to be such a thing.

I agree.

If the problem is the balancing issue of weapons that don't scale with combat stats I think I have another, rather simple idea (as long as we're still talking about the next Souls game since this idea would not work for the current lore of Dark Souls). Alright here's me hoping this doesn't just sound dumb:

Elemental Weapons scale with soul level.

The reason I say this doesn't fit with the lore is that they would have to tie the "element" into something regarding it's user's soul power and not an external natural force like lightning. Anyway, they would be really weak at very early levels, but at something like level 30-35 they start scaling with each level, with diminishing returns kicking in somewhere around the 120 mark (120 was the Demon's Souls PvP level, it was the Dark Souls PvP level, I think it's safe to assume it may just be the next PvP level). This would have to take maximum level, 99 in everything, 712, whatever-you-want-to-call-it PvP into account, but I'm sure that could be solved with something like a hardcap on when the damage stops scaling. This would allow you to still have the "endgame weapon that only needs base requirements" thing, but prevents it from being abusable at any level since it would always be set to your character's level.

I dunno, thoughts?

^Another good suggestion. I think Pyro needs to be the same way too.

I like these suggestions. Adding an element of strategy and depth to elementals a la chaos would feel appropriate to the game, and would add more blueblood like options. Everything else is so carefully crafted. I get the whole "disposable from vending machine" use of elementals but lightning specifically always seemed a tad jarring to me.

Reaperfan wrote:If the problem is the balancing issue of weapons that don't scale with combat stats I think I have another, rather simple idea (as long as we're still talking about the next Souls game since this idea would not work for the current lore of Dark Souls). Alright here's me hoping this doesn't just sound dumb:

Elemental Weapons scale with soul level.

The reason I say this doesn't fit with the lore is that they would have to tie the "element" into something regarding it's user's soul power and not an external natural force like lightning. Anyway, they would be really weak at very early levels, but at something like level 30-35 they start scaling with each level, with diminishing returns kicking in somewhere around the 120 mark (120 was the Demon's Souls PvP level, it was the Dark Souls PvP level, I think it's safe to assume it may just be the next PvP level). This would have to take maximum level, 99 in everything, 712, whatever-you-want-to-call-it PvP into account, but I'm sure that could be solved with something like a hardcap on when the damage stops scaling. This would allow you to still have the "endgame weapon that only needs base requirements" thing, but prevents it from being abusable at any level since it would always be set to your character's level.

I dunno, thoughts?

That could work too. I think causing damage back to the players is a bit more exciting, but this is a great fix too.

I would rather have the more complicated system though, because it would really differentiate it from the rest of the paths.

And on a system of it being external power rather than internal power not being canon seems untrue, being that the elemental weapons in the game as is work that exact way. This just embraces that concept and acts like the weapons really are external rather than internally powered.

With the self inflicting damage I wonder if something like that could be offset by HP regen. Unless we are talking about serious HP gouging which may render elementals useless unless they are tweaked to do more overall damage. That could still be an acceptable risk/reward for a griefer though. Although, ultimately, I would expect to always see high AR weaponry available to low lvls for the crowd who enjoys low sl playthroughs.

Emergence wrote:With the self inflicting damage I wonder if something like that could be offset by HP regen. Unless we are talking about serious HP gouging which may render elementals useless unless they are tweaked to do more overall damage. That could still be an acceptable risk/reward for a griefer though. Although, ultimately, I would expect to always see high AR weaponry available to low lvls for the crowd who enjoys low sl playthroughs.

Well low sl playthroughs are just around for the challenge, they aren't actually supposed to be part of the game. You're expected to level up as you move forward, low sl is supposed to be the ultimate challenge. Well accept at this moment with elemental weapons low level runs really aren't all that different from normal runs.

And if you read about what I talked about not capping it off. So you could continue upgrading past +5 lightning or +10 fire, just you get damaging returns in the fact that damage inflicted back on the player grows faster the higher it is upgraded. So although you keep getting more damage, it isn't necessarily better, since it comes with a tough trade off.

I wish this was in the game more and more the more I read all you guys talk about this. XD

My biggest qualms with the "self-damaging" aspect is that it's relatively complicated of a fix (though it is a definite fix) and as Emergence pointed out it would affect how healing in the game works. Self-damaging was fine in Demon's and Dark Souls because it's limited to only a few options, but if you spread it around and make it a commonly accessable thing then the developers are going to have to account for that

With self-damage being a more prevalent aspect of the game, they would have to put in more healing options. If they change the healing systems, then they'll have to change the other defensive systems (mostly armor and dodging) to account for the greater amount of healing available. If the defense mechanisms, they'll have to change offensive mechanisms (weapon movesets and damage types) to account for that. And the chain would continue

The self-damage mechanic might solve the problem of low levels using them, but it opens up a whole briarpatch of other issues that would have to be tweaked. If they attempted to fix these weapons without all this hassle, the fix would have to only affect the weapons' damages themselves without involving new mechanics that change how the weapon itself interacts with the player or the environment.

^You forgot about Resistance. If this stat became prevalent, then they would only have to balance that single stat in order to make it so the self damaging isn't extremely hindering, but you'd have to be a certain SL in order for the self damaging to be reduced the right amount. The other aspects of the game wouldn't be affected.

Low sl runs are intended to be a part of the game, hence the Deprived class which is straight from Miyazaki-san's mouth. Trust me From is very aware and accomodating to people interested in those game elements as well as those into the 712 scene, and do make conscientious design choices to encourage them.

Reaperfan wrote:With self-damage being a more prevalent aspect of the game, they would have to put in more healing options.

I think they should just put in regenerative health.

Spoiler:

@Emergence

Definitely agree about From accommodating challenge run players. Even before doing a speed run, I found it interesting how so many things were conveniently placed here and there so that, planned properly, you could gather everything you needed for a bare-bones run, without straying far off a direct path.

JoeBroski09 wrote:^You forgot about Resistance. If this stat became prevalent, then they would only have to balance that single stat in order to make it so the self damaging isn't extremely hindering, but you'd have to be a certain SL in order for the self damaging to be reduced the right amount. The other aspects of the game wouldn't be affected.

Well if you have to put points into Resistance to counteract the weapon, then doesn't that make resistance a necessary stat to use the weapon? In order for it to be useful, it would have to drastically cut down on the damage returns with only a few points, otherwise it just becomes another level requirement to weild the weapon effectively and eliminating the purpose of having a weapon that you don't invest anything but the bare minimum into.

Unless they made it almost gamebreakingly niche, then I see no reason a person couldn't just forgo the resistance reductions and keep the full self-damage while vit-gouging themselves for the same effect. And if they change resistance so dramatically, how would that affect other types of builds? Just one thing I can think of is that they would have to increase the power of poisoning damage to make up for the fact that more people would be going around with more resistance.

As I said before, in order for them to not have to basically rebalance the game around it, then the changes have to only pertain to the weapons' AR and how they attain it. Anything else that affects other things will have to be accounted for and balanced around.

@Reaperfan Resistance would be a stat that would be apart of a build all about elemental weapons. Much like strength is a stat for a build built all around the DGA. People don't need 58 str to use it, but the extra strength adds damage and helps. Resistance wouldn't be needed either because armor with good fire defense would help as well. Same with any special elemental resistant gloves that Buggy mentioned.

Also, they wouldn't have to change anything about the poison damage since that would be a perk of having your build have resistance. Poison isn't really all that big of a deal right now, anyway.

Every build has at least one specific stat, and at least one specific weapon. A build for elemental weapons would be all about vitality and resistance, just like a build all about Ricard's Rapier and DMB is all about Dex and Faith.

JoeBroski09 wrote:Every build has at least one specific stat, and at least one specific weapon. A build for elemental weapons would be all about vitality and resistance, just like a build all about Ricard's Rapier and DMB is all about Dex and Faith.

Forgive me for sounding nitpicky, but builds only have one stat, never more. A build all about Ricard's Rapier focuses on Dex. A build all about DMB focuses on Faith. A build that uses both is a hybrid build, that trades out maximum benefits of one build for moderate benefits of two builds.

All builds use Vitality, and it is not specific to any one build. Because of this, you are making resistance into a stat that elemental builds would spec into, but the original purpose of elemental weapons was to be able to have endgame level damage with little to no stat investment. Making this change to resistance would basically turn resistance into the stat you spec into to use elemental weapons, when the main advantage of non-scaling weapons is that they shouldn't require you to spec into anything at all.

Logic is fun

@Reaperfan I don't know for sure if elemental weapons were meant to have end game damage with low stat requirements, but I'd imagine not. They were made to have a specific element to them. The reason the scaling is removed is because by nature, elemental should have a high base damage. There should be no reason a stat should increase elemental damage on a weapon.

A build based on pyromancy will most likely have 40-45 dex for faster casting, attunement, vitality, and endurance. The main stats for the specific pyromany would be the dex and attunement, though those stats are not needed to use pyromancy. Elemental would be essentially the same thing. Resistance & specific armor would counteract the damage from the elemental weapon. Vitality would most likely be mixed in there.

The only things that would change with Buggy's idea would be that elemental weapons would have a build, the weapons would be viable at PvP levels, and low SL's wouldn't have an easy way to use these weapons in unfair ways.

All these things that would change are all what Buggy wants to change.

Oh, and my point still stands. A hyrbid build is still a build. Thus, there are builds that are focused on both. I don't know why you had to "correct" me.

JoeBroski09 wrote:@Reaperfan I don't know for sure if elemental weapons were meant to have end game damage with low stat requirements, but I'd imagine not. They were made to have a specific element to them. The reason the scaling is removed is because by nature, elemental should have a high base damage. There should be no reason a stat should increase elemental damage on a weapon.

A build based on pyromancy will most likely have 40-45 dex for faster casting, attunement, vitality, and endurance. The main stats for the specific pyromany would be the dex and attunement, though those stats are not needed to use pyromancy. Elemental would be essentially the same thing. Resistance & specific armor would counteract the damage from the elemental weapon. Vitality would most likely be mixed in there.

The only things that would change with Buggy's idea would be that elemental weapons would have a build, the weapons would be viable at PvP levels, and low SL's wouldn't have an easy way to use these weapons in unfair ways.

All these things that would change are all what Buggy wants to change.

Oh, and my point still stands. A hyrbid build is still a build. Thus, there are builds that are focused on both. I don't know why you had to "correct" me.

I believe you're reversing the development process behind elemental weapons. Typically the game mechanic will be decided upon first, and then a theme will later be applied to make that mechanic make sense in context. Elemental weapons most likely started as "we should make something that scales into endgame without requiring much stat investment so that people who want to make pure tanky builds can spec into more defensive stats can compete without falling completely behind on damage," and not "if we're gonna have fire and lightning damage we should put them on weapons, but since they're natural forces that people don't have control over we'll just make them not scale with stats." And if elemental weapons aren't supposed to scale because they are natural, please explain the Dragonslayer Spear, Chaos weapons, and Demon's Souls Epee Rapier.

Your example with pyromancy is also flawed, since Pyromancy is meant to be to spells what elemental upgrades are to weapons. They are a medium of spellcasting that can scale into the endgame that requires nothing more than the minimum amount of attunement to be able to use the spells. The attunement for pyromancy is the equavalent of Strength for a Zweihander or Dexterity for a Katana, it is the minimum investment stat. A pyromancy build needs attunement, but it does not need Dex. You also state that specific armor would factor into the build in the same way stats would. This is also flawed. The reason FROM does not have stat requirements on armor is because they wanted to allow player freedom in picking what they wore, and shoehorning elemental weapons into wearing specific types of armor would be counterintuitive.

I will say again that I do recognize that Buggy's proposal would end the low-level abuse of non-scaling weapons. However, I also recognize that it is a much more complicated and inefficient method of doing so. I really don't want to sound uppity by promoting my own ideas, but in all honesty, if you were in FROM's shoes and the issue was "low levels are abusing our weapons that don't scale with stats," which sounds like a more efficient fix? Create a whole new mechanic involving these weapons to punish low level players for doing so, or make the weapons scale with your character's level and make it look like an unattractive option for low levels to use?

You missed my first point. I guess I should have simply stated it, as I do tend to rant. I apologize. It was that we should not simply assume the reasons From implemented certain aspects of the game. They simply did, and now there are problems. The fix Buggy proposed fixes said problem, and doesn't create any new ones. It simply adds a new aspect of the game. Whether From would want that or not, we do not know.

The reason I said "by nature" is because across classical RPG standards, an elemental weapon has higher base damage, but using it forces the player to give up something. In this case, it's scaling.

I did not state that there should be stat requirements for armor. I don't know where you got the idea that I did so, but I just believe that in the same way that wearing bleed resistant armor helps against the Lifehunt sythe, element resistant armor would help against an elemental weapon as well. And if the player chose not to use armor to defend against the self-damaging weapon, there is the Resistance stat.

Buggy's fix to the problems he proposed may be more complicated than your own fix, but that seems to be the only "flaw." It also may be a positive, because not only does it fix the problem, it adds a new aspect to the game, especially the use of Resistance.

JoeBroski09 wrote:You missed my first point. I guess I should have simply stated it, as I do tend to rant. I apologize. It was that we should not simply assume the reasons From implemented certain aspects of the game. They simply did, and now there are problems. The fix Buggy proposed fixes said problem, and doesn't create any new ones. It simply adds a new aspect of the game. Whether From would want that or not, we do not know.

The reason I said "by nature" is because across classical RPG standards, an elemental weapon has higher base damage, but using it forces the player to give up something. In this case, it's scaling.

I did not state that there should be stat requirements for armor. I don't know where you got the idea that I did so, but I just believe that in the same way that wearing bleed resistant armor helps against the Lifehunt sythe, element resistant armor would help against an elemental weapon as well. And if the player chose not to use armor to defend against the self-damaging weapon, there is the Resistance stat.

Buggy's fix to the problems he proposed may be more complicated than your own fix, but that seems to be the only "flaw." It also may be a positive, because not only does it fix the problem, it adds a new aspect to the game, especially the use of Resistance.

I apologize if I sounded attacking, I did not mean to. I concede that it is a little silly jumping to conclusions and arguing about the reasonings behind FROM's decisions, since none of us legitimately have a way of knowing what specifically went on. However, from my understanding of how game development works, starting with a mechanic as opposed to a theme simply makes more sense.

I am unfamiliar with the trend of higher base damages across elementals in other RPGs since my other RPG experience is mostly limited to Final Fantasy where elemental is mostly restricted to magic as opposed to weapons, and as a question founded purely out of curiosity I'd be interested to know other examples of this occuring.

As to armor requirements, I merely brought that up as an example to reinforce my idea that FROM seemingly desires the freedom of choice in armor selection more than designating certain builds with certain armors. Mainly in that if FROM had wanted to assign roles to armors, they would have accompanied armors with stat requirements, and the fact that they didn't says something.

I believe that the "armor for your own build" idea is flawed when it expands beyond a niche build. The Lifehunt Scythe works well because it is a unique weapon and as such allows for a changup of armor choice between weapons in a similar class; ie. that because the Lifehunt Scythe has a unique mechanic from other Scythe weapons and provides a different gameplay, it is okay to have specific armor setups for it because the armor becomes a way to enhance that unique experience.

Maybe this is just me being nostalgic, but to me self-damage has always had a similar property. Using the Makoto in Demon's Souls or Power Within promote a more aggressive playstyle since you are on a timer before you kill yourself. Using the Hiltless or Chaos Blade promoted a more precise playstyle, since you have to make sure each hit counts and you don't push your own limits. If this becomes spread across the board, I feel it will stop creating such unique experiences, since what would really be the difference between the Chaos Blade or a Lightning Iaito besides the kind of damage you inflict upon yourself?

And while I appreciate the fact that Buggy's suggestion would create a more varied playstyle, I also believe realism in terms of expectations has it's place. If something is difficult to implement from a development standpoint, then it's unrealistic to expect it to happen. In all honesty, I would be interested to see how the self-damaging aspect would play out, but the odds of it happening are very slim because it would take so much effort to implement properly. If something simple could be done that has a chance of actually happening, I would rather something be done about the situation than whatever I specifically wanted to never end up happening.

Again, apologies if I sounded attacking earlier, we cool still buddy?