Other [New Mechanic] Special Move and Blockbuster CORRUPTION

[SvenZ]

Update: I no longer support this suggestion


Suggestion:

1. A new button will be added to Special Moves and Blockbusters. It will be called "Corrupt".
2. On click, the player will be brought to a menu where they'll be requested to sacrifice 3 Catalysts in order to Corrupt the Special Move or Blockbuster.
3. Each tier of Special/Blockbuster will require the same type of Catalyst as reagent for the corruption. I.e.
a) Bronze Special/Blockbuster require 3 Bronze Catalysts
b) Silver Special/Blockbuster require 3 Silver Catalysts
c) Gold Special/Blockbuster require 3 Gold Catalysts.
4. CORRPUTION MENU
a) The player will be able to choose one of the attributes of the chosen Special/Blockbuster
b) It will have its attribute provide the OPPOSITE effect.
c) The EFFECT of the chosen ability will have increased properties. These properties depend entirely on the ability itself


Example:
1. Let's say we want to corrupt this Empower:



2. You choose the stat you wish to Corrupt, in this case let's choose "Piercing".
3. After completing the "Corruption", Empower will provide "-6%" Piercing instead.
4. The "On HIT" curse effect however will be boosted to provide 10 seconds of Curse instead.

So for the case of Empower, the scaling of the On HIT CURSE will be changed from 5/7/10 to 7/10/15

Reference Empower scaling.


5. Every move will have a different bonus. It's not always going to be a simple value increase, like with the Empower example.


Benefits

1. This will give Catalysts a lot more uses. You don't really need a ton of Catalysts, so a lot of people end up with a big stash which they just sell.
2. Players will have a new way to modify their build. Lower a stat they don't need in order to boost the effectiveness of a Special Move/BB's effect.
3. It will provide ways for players to INTENTIONALLY weaken themselves, in order to complete Story mode missions or events, with their already capped characters.
4. You can corrupt a move to provide negative Critical Rate. That way you can safely pick up the Crit nodes for your character and unlock their Marquee.


Reasons for the proposal

1. I was thinking of ways to broaden the use for Catalysts and was also thinking how annoying it is that you have to go Critless for certain variants.
2. With this change I believe both are to a degree resolved, Catalysts can be used as Reagents, thus also boosting the value of Rift Relics and players will have more freedom for player expression with their builds.

IMPORTANT! All numbers simply an example and are subject to change. Please critique the concept first and the numbers second. If you wish to propose alternative values, please feel free to do so. All feedback is welcome!

 

[Aoskull]

- I think this change will have a big impact on the value of special moves and BB stats. Based on my own experience, element bonus, element penalty, tag cooldown, block proficiency are stats that are useful against some specific variants, but tend to be less used against others. So, if this corruption feature were added... you get it now, right? Many players will sacrifice these stats to corrupt and increase major stats like atk, hp, piercing, crit damage etc. for major attacker/defender, and match environment will broken soon.

- I don't really agree with this suggestion itself, but the idea of using Catalysts as materials is nice!
So, I'd like to introduce my new mechanic suggestion: “ Stats reset” !!

All of the information explained below is just an example. Comment about this suggestion is always welcome!

- Stats reset allows you to reset the level of a gold move that you have already increased in level to 1 and get your coins back! For stats reset, you need new currency, “Reset Skull”. Reset Skull can be bought by 5 gold catalysts.

(Sorry for my bad drawing skill)

- After doing stats reset, the level of move will return to 1 and coins equal to the amount spent to level up will back! In this way, if you create a move with stats that you don't like, you can raise the stats from Lv1 again. Due to this, it is recommended to use it for Lv15 move.

Edit: Coin refund was a bit excessive.

 

[SvenZ]

- I think this change will have a big impact on the value of special moves and BB stats. Based on my own experience, element bonus, element penalty, tag cooldown, block proficiency are stats that are useful against some specific variants, but tend to be less used against others. So, if this corruption feature were added... you get it now, right? Many players will sacrifice these stats to corrupt and increase major stats like atk, hp, piercing, crit damage etc. for major attacker/defender, and match environment will broken soon.

- I don't really agree with this suggestion itself, but the idea of using Catalysts as materials is nice!
So, I'd like to introduce my new mechanic suggestion: “ Stats reset” !!

All of the information explained below is just an example. Comment about this suggestion is always welcome!

- Stats reset allows you to reset the level of a gold move that you have already increased in level to 1 and get your coins back! For stats reset, you need new currency, “Reset Skull”. Reset Skull can be bought by 5 gold catalysts.
View attachment 24483
(Sorry for my bad drawing skill)

- After doing stats reset, the level of move will return to 1 and coins equal to the amount spent to level up will back! In this way, if you create a move with stats that you don't like, you can raise the stats from Lv1 again. Due to this, it is recommended to use it for Lv15 move.

Thank you for your feedback. The idea originally came from the desire to create a system which can reduce your power but give you a boost in another aspect. Namely remove Crit Rating for critless builds and boost smth else. But you are right that it may lead to some absurd builds. I'll rethink how the effects work.



As for your suggestion, I'm neutral on it. I don't think creating a new item (the skull) will be necessary, just use X amount of Catalysts. I get why you're proposing it only for Gold moves(can be useful on Silver, but it's pointless for Bronze), but it doesn't really sit well with me. I get the whole reset to level 1 so you can grind up better rolls, but the fact you're getting your coins back doesn't sit well with me. It defeats the purpose of Re-Rolls for stats in a way. If the point of the suggestion is just to recover your coins, then I'm not a big fan

 

[Aoskull]

Thank you for your feedback. The idea originally came from the desire to create a system which can reduce your power but give you a boost in another aspect. Namely remove Crit Rating for critless builds and boost smth else. But you are right that it may lead to some absurd builds. I'll rethink how the effects work.



As for your suggestion, I'm neutral on it. I don't think creating a new item (the skull) will be necessary, just use X amount of Catalysts. I get why you're proposing it only for Gold moves, but it doesn't really sit well with me. I get the whole reset to level 1 so you can grind up better rolls, but the fact you're getting your coins back doesn't sit well with me. It defeats the purpose of Re-Rolls for stats in a way

Thank you for quick reply!!

- Your feedback was right, the coin refund was a bit excessive. (Btw P&D has a similar specification, but the materials (not coin) for that one also didn't come back.)

- What makes this feature significantly different from reroll is that it allows you to change to a new move without affecting stats itself.
For example, have you ever leveled up an atk, def, and piercing move to level 12 and ended up with 10 def? (I actually experienced that) With the reset function, you can reinvent same move with exactly same stats without having to use a lot of rerolls for new move to make it exactly same stats!

- In fact, the reset function of P&D is not that popular among players, so it is best to think of it as just a bonus.

 

[SvenZ]

Thank you for quick reply!!

- Your feedback was right, the coin refund was a bit excessive. (Btw P&D has a similar specification, but the materials (not coin) for that one also didn't come back.)

- What makes this feature significantly different from reroll is that it allows you to change to a new move without affecting stats itself.
For example, have you ever leveled up an atk, def, and piercing move to level 12 and ended up with 10 def? (I actually experienced that) With the reset function, you can reinvent same move with exactly same stats without having to use a lot of rerolls for new move to make it exactly same stats!

- In fact, the reset function of P&D is not that popular among players, so it is best to think of it as just a bonus.

You can still do that with re-rolls tbh. To use your example, if you re-roll the Attack stat first to something else, then the % attack can show up when you re-roll the defense. I think if Rerolls didn't exist, this would be a good alternative.

In any case, I really encourage new mechanics that one way or another utilize Catalysts. So if you have more, share away

 

[SvenZ]

Suggestion has been updated. Original idea for the bonuses is completely scrapped. This change is more ambitious(as far as needed development time), but is also more interesting imo.

NEW:
1. After Corruption - the chosen stat by you will provide the Opposite value instead.
2. The Special Move/Blockbuster's effect will have improved properties or have a new effect added to them.


I will slowly update the list of effect changes. Designs for how this will look will also be added (hopefully over the weekend)

 

[Dusty00]

Hey I’m only seeing the updated so that looks good. I just sell Catalysts for gold so it’s not really a dead resource imo. If this gets implemented, you’d actually end up with a lack of catalyst so I think it’s probably more helpful for devs to think about an overall resource overhaul in the future. Keys, elemental shards, red tickets… so many dead resources that can’t be converted.

Corruption as a concept goes with the broader design space I’ve had in mind for a while to suggest to Devs: give a strong effect by sacrificing something or counter it with a negative effect.

Rather than using on moves, I’d like to see this on variant SAs and new gold Catalysts. Reason being that moves are already tedious to maintain (I have 1800+ 3/3 moves…) and it’s the most expensive thing to fine tune. This will become so niche for end game players and not very friendly for newer players still trying to learn the game.

I do like the idea of giving negative crit to mitigate that natural 15%, but think that might be better done at a variant level instead of through moves. One idea is through a broader redesign of skill trees where players can select what stats to increase rather than having them at a fix rate to unlock MA. For example, you can choose to increase from choice of: crit rate, tag cool down, or elemental dmg. Another idea is to rework the upper right branch altogether now that energy is removed from story mode - do we really need energy recharge speed?… wasted stat per character that gets unlocked anyways.

I digress and back to the corruption idea of this thread. I think we can design it to be more simple. Here’s an alternative idea:

Corruption is only available when upgrading a move from lv12 and beyond. This will justify the 2m expense going from 12 to 15. Instead of randomly upgrading 1 of 3 stats, you sacrifice 3% of 1 stat to increase one of the other two stats. You can’t do this if a stat is 0% so no negative stats.

 

[SvenZ]

Hey I’m only seeing the updated so that looks good. I just sell Catalysts for gold so it’s not really a dead resource imo. If this gets implemented, you’d actually end up with a lack of catalyst so I think it’s probably more helpful for devs to think about an overall resource overhaul in the future. Keys, elemental shards, red tickets… so many dead resources that can’t be converted.

Corruption as a concept goes with the broader design space I’ve had in mind for a while to suggest to Devs: give a strong effect by sacrificing something or counter it with a negative effect.

Rather than using on moves, I’d like to see this on variant SAs and new gold Catalysts. Reason being that moves are already tedious to maintain (I have 1800+ 3/3 moves…) and it’s the most expensive thing to fine tune. This will become so niche for end game players and not very friendly for newer players still trying to learn the game.

I do like the idea of giving negative crit to mitigate that natural 15%, but think that might be better done at a variant level instead of through moves. One idea is through a broader redesign of skill trees where players can select what stats to increase rather than having them at a fix rate to unlock MA. For example, you can choose to increase from choice of: crit rate, tag cool down, or elemental dmg. Another idea is to rework the upper right branch altogether now that energy is removed from story mode - do we really need energy recharge speed?… wasted stat per character that gets unlocked anyways.

I digress and back to the corruption idea of this thread. I think we can design it to be more simple. Here’s an alternative idea:

Corruption is only available when upgrading a move from lv12 and beyond. This will justify the 2m expense going from 12 to 15. Instead of randomly upgrading 1 of 3 stats, you sacrifice 3% of 1 stat to increase one of the other two stats. You can’t do this if a stat is 0% so no negative stats.

Thank you for the feedback! The more I think about it, the more I'm actually against my proposal.

My goal from the beginning was the provide a way for a Critless build, without having to sacrifice your character's Marquee for it. Likewise with the Catalysts, as you mentioned, you don't really need all that many once you get the core few that you need. I wanted to find another use for them, but I don't think this is the right one.

As you mentioned, I think the best approach would actually be a rework on the Skill Tree itself. Or provide us another way of reducing our stats. I recently started doing the Story mode challenges, and it's frustrating when you overkill the opponent and can't get the achievement...