Meiaquar, at least to new players, builds itself up as this kind of hive of scum and villainy - a place crawling with bandits, gangsters, and mafiosi looking for their next easy score, and the people who do live honest lives are just as shrewd of businesspeople. The outside NPC talks about keeping your head down, about going about avoiding yourself a pair of cement shoes, he talks about the dons less like political leaders and more like mob bosses. So you go into Meiaquar's sewers, hoping to get in a big ol' shootout with a few roughnecks, only to find a grand total of... one bandit.
I feel some basic, level-appropriate bandits in Meiaquar's sewers would help hammer home the "hive of scum and villainy" atmosphere better than undead and sea monsters. Furthermore, it'd provide a source of humanoid mercenaries, which may be of value to people who prefer the aesthetic of having a posse of people instead of snakemen and grindylows.
This is by no means a big issue, in fact it's absolutely miniscule and there are honestly more important things to work on. But it just doesn't make sense to me that a city known for crime has one (1) criminal.
It is time, Ki Awoken enjoyers. I believe Ki Awoken to be too punishing - the benefits are quite big, but the punishment is pretty damning to the point no one uses this (outside of hype moments just for roleplay reasons.) The HP drain starts on the very first turn Ki Awoken is activated and only starts climbing from there. Starting at 5% max HP drain a turn, then doubling. So 5, 10, 20, 40- you get the idea. So that basically lets you use it for the equivalent of 3 turns before you kill yourself.
Personally, I would like this to be hardcapped at 10% max HP drain a turn. Still a lot of drain, but can be manageable and still a risky move. If you went for 5 rounds with it on, that's 50% of your HP gone, so. What say ye?
This post will mainly be talking about power to the people, but also shadow moshes in general. As it stands, they're both pretty rough around the edges for a few reasons. Right now it looks like this.
A parry skill with two unique and powerful mechanics, in that it also applies at reduced parry chance to your allies rather than just yourself and (as far as I can tell) can parry all attacks without much exception rather than just some types of weapons or attacks. Below average mitigation that increases from 35% to the usual solid 50% if the attacker is confused, with one of the better shadow mosh placers in obey your master inflicting confusion, if only for two rounds. Parry chance scales with shadow moshes in 1 range, 25% per for yourself and 15% per for allies, removing a 1 range mosh on each successful parry. On paper, this might just be the strongest parry skill we've ever had. In practice however, it falls short due to missing or lackluster dark bard tools, as well as shadow mosh mechanics that work against you in making this parry work well.
First of all, that lower mitigation that increases to the often used 50% mitigation against confused enemies. Given that your entire team can take advantage of this parry, this seems very reasonable. Unfortunately, dark bard really doesn't have much in the way of confusion. Obey your master is a good shadow mosh placer that can inflict it, though a 2 round duration makes it less than stellar for that purpose. The only other option is getting into it, which again is 2 rounds (3 with volume up) and also won't come into play in most fights. This means you're getting the lower 35% parry most of the time, which is definitely one of the lesser problems but a problem nonetheless.
The main issue with this parry is not so much its own mechanics but the mechanics of shadow moshes. This is a twofold problem. Firstly, the lack of tools dark bard has to create them. Secondly, Their own mechanics being counter productive to what the parry skill wants from them. Your only shadow mosh placing skills are dark stage, the pit and obey your master:
Dark stage as a skill is very strong, but the shadow mosh placement is an issue for the parry. It's very random and not to your advantage at all unless you're at the edge of the stage, and even then you can only have 1 mosh spawning in 1 range of you before they go back to randomness, 2 with specific placement on the 'corner' tiles of the stage with 2 non stage tiles next to them. This essentially caps your parry chance at 25% or 50% with very specific placement in most cases, pretty low for a parry that's usually going to be a 35% reduction.
The pit is just terrible outside of drawing aggro in pve. It makes a lot of shadow moshes at once, but it can't make them in 1 range where you need them and it does nothing but make said moshes, making it a pretty terrible idea when there's an enemy around you. Even as a skill to just throw out there when you have some breathing room and little else to do, it falls pretty low on the priority after the likes of dark stage, crazy riff and likely most options in your second class as well.
Obey your master is actually quite good, making moshes in 1 range of you (depending on where you're aiming it) and possibly inflicting a short confuse as well. My only gripe with it is that aiming it diagonally means no dice on the moshes being in 1 range for the parry.
As for the mechanics of shadow mosh itself, it's a pretty volatile tile that works counter productively to the parry skill. You lose one when triggering the parry, which is a perfectly reasonable way to balance the parry chance scaling to 100% when you're surrounded by moshes, if only that was a position you have any reasonable chance of getting into. They also pop for a little bit of damage when they're walked over, attacked, or when they're in 1 range of an enemy and you play a song, which most of dark bard's skills are. This means that they have very little longevity, making it very difficult to build up enough of them to get good parry chance, let alone maintain it.
My solution to the issues here are to just give all aspects mentioned a little bit of a push, to make the parry skill actually good if you decide to lean into it. It has potential to be very powerful if you do with the right tools, but I find that bard and dark bard don't have much going for them in terms of main class otherwise. Some general ideas are listed here:
Give dark bard one or two more ways to confuse enemies, and/or extend the duration of those confuse inflictions by 1 round.
Make the pit damage enemies in its targeted tiles similarly to obey your master, and/or allow its range to be reduced down to an 8 tile square directly around you. I think this is reasonable enough given that it has a 2 round cooldown and can't completely surround you with 4 moshes while also hitting an enemy in those tiles.
Make dark stage able to spawn moshes on stage as well as around it, though still randomly unless you're at the edge of the stage. If this were to happen though, dear lord please make shadow moshes easier to distinguish on stage tiles.
Decrease the parry chance per shadow mosh, perhaps 10/20 rather than 15/25, but either make it count moshes in 2 range of you or at least directly diagonal tiles, for parry chance and removal of a random mosh on successful parry. This would make obey your master more consistent for setting up parrying, and would also make dark stage more usable with or without the idea above if it also prioritized diagonal tiles from you while at the edge of the stage.
Make shadow moshes not pop when hitting a 1 range enemy when you play a song. They would still pop when being 'attacked', either through being moved into by an enemy or actually attacked, but not popping when they damage 1 range enemies on song use falls more in line with the moshes being the attacker in that situation and gives them slightly more longevity.
I'm not necessarily suggesting that all of these should be implemented at once or exactly as they are here, just spit balling different ideas to tackle the various issues currently holding back power to the people. It's worth remembering that this is a parry skill with the potential to be incredibly powerful, but right now it just doesn't mesh well with dark bard's kit or shadow mosh mechanics.
Harmonization - In the world of TTRPG means everything feels the same. There is no real mechanical differences from classes or abilities you have in your system. 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons is a real godo example of them trying to make every class feel the same. The fighter sword slash deals 1d8 of damage and the wizards fire-spell does 1d8 for an example, same damage, same attack just different flavor.
Sigrogana Legends 2 doesn't have hormonized classes in fact that is where it shines the most. The problem is a lot more complicated then what I am trying to say but i am willing to explore some of the problems which we had. Our current problems is a result of years of failed attempts which we thought we could do better in.
Phase 1 (Pre-Great Reckoning)
Before the Great Reckoning we had a system that was similar to Fir eEmblem growth system where you had an X percentile chance upon leveling up to gain +1 in the stat. If it was over 100% you always gained +! with a chance of +2. There were no soft caps, nothing that coudl slow you down but a lot of skills were auto-hit skills. What this meant is quite straight forwards you simple couldn't evade them. Which was nice meant tanks had a real place, maybe a bit to high of a standing.
We didn't have Apt, Guile or Sanc in this era. Something that I think made the game a little bit nicer since Racial Skills were based primarily off of the race's intended play stle. Hyattr were once of the highest Vit growth races so their racial Fire-breath skill was scaled from having high Vitality. Don't worry it still costed 40 FP to use without all of the fun traits but Channel Magic was also based from a Hyattr's Vit stat instead of needing a new stat called Sanc.
Items were interesting, we didn't use Scaled Weapon Attack. Magic was exclusively Will focused. The biggest upside to this system was the growth system, sure it made some character in some form Over-Powered but you could always Legend Extend to start the stat rerolling to try to get those better stats.
Phase 2 (Great Reckoning)
When the Great Reckoning took place it changed the game up forever. We now had stat point making Legend Extending less of a thing you can do infinitely for the chance of that perfect build but more so for that little bit of maximizing your builds. Elements were added making will less useful for pure mages since now you needed different stats for elements. At lunch we had onyl 3.5 stat points per level not 4.
This was the rise of the dreaded Tank mage, a mage who specialized in Vitality, Defend & Resistance. Since back in this Era magic was still auto-hits. These characters were hated and in this era dodging wasn't seem as viable.
Items also had SWA added with a bunch of different stats. Allowing you to be a Defend Black Knight with a Mythslayer sicne it scaled from defend (90% Defende Scaling). Yet in these two Era auto-hits were everywhere, in every class yet it didn't feel like we needed certain stats to even be viable.
This was the inclusion of the dreaded Sanc stat still I think do this day holds back many races from being their once Phase 1 glory. Like Hyattrs, not you need a completely other stat dumping 40 stats into.
Phase 3 (Great Reckoning 2:Electric Boogaloo)
This Era is the one we are currently in. One where Classes have their identifies but I feel builds themselves do not. We changed item scaling to be either one of three stats. Str, Guile, Wil. This means you now have to force your stat spread into one of those three groups to have decent SWA.
This isn't bad, trying to minimize the customizability of Phase 2: GR. Okay I can see tanks being powerful or maybe heaven forbid the evaders are meta. However this is where the system begins to feel like we are harmonizing it. Not only did we remove the different item scaling only allowing them to live on in small increases, we also stripped the customizable asspect of Sigrogana Legends but removing auto-hits, forcing people to build into Ski.
When nothing can hit and you need to put 55+ Scaked Skill into every build you know the system had a huge flaw. Where Ice is one of the primary elements people should use because of the mandatory Skill dump.
It doesn't feel like the system that changed from Phase 2 to Phase 3 was helpful. Now all we have are mandatory stats to grab and little to customize a character. It is hard to enjoy different characters when they all share this flaw with needing skill, yet more skill then Aptness, Then some Defensive stats. It leaves very little for actual diversity..
I reckon that we give ever class at-least one auto-hit skill. To help balance out this skill/cel meta that Sigrogana LEgends 2 has fallen into. We need something that makes the current meta fun, being forced to build the same stats always in just no fun, especially if my mage feels the same as my archer which feels the same as my monk. There has to be something more we can do with the system or change .
Let's not talk about how unviable str crit builds are with this system.
TL/DR - Skill is way to powerful to keep in rotation compared to other stats, every characters feels same-y with how the stats are laid out. Item scaling reinforces this same-y meta buildiing we got. Sanc does nothing but injure Races, the system needs a overhaul to avoid one stat superiority. As the name of the post, every character stat lay out feels nearly Harmonized.
This is my own take on playing since the game dropped, off and on...It just Phase 3 doesn't feel to me like Sigrogana Legends I grew to love...And the mandatory stats is what I believe is killing it slowly.
Ahem. While the name of the skill doesn't really do any justice to indicate what it would do, I'm basically thinking of a passive-toggle a la Gentle Ember that'd let Base Mage's Elemental Enchantments instead become a set of tiles that'd apply the effect of the enchantment on whoever's in them.
Here's a rough idea of what could a description be :
Primitive Lands (2 ranks) : Toggle. You call forth an elemental's blessing to assist you and your mates on the battlefield, making it so casting Nerhaven, Kraken, Talvyd, Galren and Redgull instead creates a square of special tiles. ( 6X6 could be good enough, maybe ?)
Anyone within your team standing on those tiles is counted as enchanted by the used spell.
1 Rank- Learns Skill
2 Ranks- This skill doesn't take a skill slot.
This isn't really anything more than a passing thought that came through my head- and I just thought it could be a fun little thing for Evoker to have.
Can we have it so when you grab a white spirit from a mass, the game lets you choose which active skill you want to boost? It'd be very convenient since as it stands you have to use a pie of forgetfulness and invest 1 SP in the skills you want the spirits to boost, and if you're in a dungeon you have to walk out and switch your main class to your sub-class to get the ones you want for that. It's a very unnecessary hassle IMO.
I would like to suggest and submit some Icons along to go with it regarding the Korvara Casino.
I would like to add a few more high-cost items to the Casino as additional Money Sink, Items that somehow play around with the idea of luck.
Goal being adding another Money sink, and ICly Cooperating with Meiaquars R&D and the Casino owner, while at the same time having maybe some cool Thematic items to the Casino, outside of the random Replica weapons, that kinda do not reaaaaly fit?
Generally, I do not really care what effects they end up having. Everyone is free to throw Suggestions in here if they want to see something.
I will throw random ideas in for effects that coule be interesting:
Luc based set, similar to Dragon King
every 7th hit progs effect "Place effect here"
plain +3-4 luc stat (kinda boring on its own)
Lucky Shell synergy, maybe small passive building, maybe a +1 Lucky shell build per crit?
Every 7th hit you take you Negate/Evade/forced Glance or something
Maybe a whole set that gains some skills when you wear multipile items centered around building and consuming Lucky shell levels
Maybe something Spellthief related for the cards? Like while Equipped increases Snatch Spell rank +x (meaning it increases stolen spell slots)
50% luc pierce damage on hit which ignores armor (similar to 50% element but just with luc)
Effects that center maybe around Users Luc-Targets Luc=chance for something
I won't put any to detailed ideas out but the only thing I would really like is the guns to be part of a set, having the electical scaling tag and something for easier Luckyshell building (Since its no longer per bullet hit but per attack, you only get 3-6 per attach depending if you Akimbo or not, which is pretty slow building)
Anything else is just a Bonus. I am not trying to get super OP items, but I wanted to make a fully focused Lucky shell gunner and thats a lot more difficult to do without Quickdraw and with how many multi hits/status effect chip damage just eat all your stacks out of nowhere.
Generally I think it be cool to have more fittin equipment for the Casino, and have people ICly work together for something in RP thats actually reflected in game, for what R&D actually does.
P.S.
I just upload my whole DMI file with all the things I played around with, pick whatever you want and use it for whatever you want if at all! Some of them are not exactly Casino related and more general Meiaquar, but I plan on making more icons for that anyway, so might aswell just upload what I already have done.
In particular, I've noticed two skills in the game that tend to drive my game to a grinding halt whenever they proc against multiple enemies in events. I believe this happens because the game needs to calculate and roll for each unit which causes an immense stress for my potato to handle at times.
Those skills are:
Quote:- Divine Shower (6 damage instances + mass Blind infliction. Thankfully it can't be spammed anymore, but when it happens? Ouch.)
- Knight's Intimidation (When it procs, it chugs hardcore and can also re-proc while someone is already feared. If you kill multiple enemies, it rerolls multiple times, causing lag.)
Solutions:
Quote:===
- Divine Shower should only splash an enemy 3 times tops.
- Divine Shower's Blind should either:
>> Be decided before the skill is cast, as a FAI% chance that the skill will auto-inflict Blind.
or
>> Have its Blind removed/reallocated to another skill such as Shine Ray.
===
- Knight's Intimidation should only inflict Fear on enemies in 4~6 range around the defeated target.
or
- Knight's Intimidation should only activate once per round, per Black Knight, to prevent lag.
If anyone else has any grievances that are beyond the two most famous ones, do keep me in the know here. So far I didn't notice lag with anything else, but I could be wrong.