The problem i see with attack runes : Vast dynamic movesets VS Spamming one button

[Azuresh]

I would say you can divide a lot of the runes that give you attacks into two groups

• Utility moves that work well as cool extensions of your moveset. Gap closers, dodge attacks, strike-then-backstep, things that go through shield, things that hit a bit harder than normal moves, gimmicky tricks, and so on.
• Powerful, big moves that can destroy bosses by themselves. This can be huge damage attacks (Lightning Assault or Fire Throw on a greatsword, etc) or a spammable flurry attack (Dashing Stab, Twirl Dash, etc)

Both of these are fun by themselves, in a lot of circumstances / in a vacuum. But once you get past the very early game and have a proper setup going, these two usually just dont mix properly.

• The utility moves can be great, they let you make fun movesets to make your general playstyle more dynamic and interactive, and make you interact more with the movesets of bosses too. But they can feel completely overshadowed by the runes that can pack huge power.
• The big powerful runes feel very satisfying at first, but it quickly gets to a point where you can spam them over and over, and melt everything by pressing one button. Lets call these the “burst runes”

And i wish these two could actually co-exist.

For example : Imagine im doing a build with a greatsword, with a variety of utility moves like Wallbreaker and Evasive Combo. But then i put Fire Throw or Lightning Assault on it (a burst rune). I get to something like Echo Knight and theres simply no incentive to use the utility runes. I can press the burst rune to rip off a huge chunk of his health, over and over and over, often staggering him or at great safety. When going through the normal crucible enemies, i can one shot every single one of them effortlessly by using the overpowered move. And “Just dont use it” doesnt solve the problem, because i genuinely do want to be to have something such as a powerful rune without having it simultaneously invalidate the entire rest of the cool moveset.

The same problem applies if i have a bow Cone Shot, or a dagger with Dashing Stab + focus regen on hit. It gets to a point where these things dont actually synergize with my moveset at all, but rather are isolated overpowered moves that i can press over and over and trivialize the fight.

It definitely feels like relying on these single overpowered burst runes is more encouraged than actually using utility runes to craft a cool, versatile moveset, for a lot of reasons

1. Its far easier and less limiting to accomplish. If you can use a wide variety of cool utility runes, you are automatically more than capable of spamming the OP move over and over.
   In the early game, you straight up cant afford to use utility runes very frequently, some weapons have terrible focus gain, and so on. So the result is that the player just wants to make sure every rune use is a big hit.
   In the lategame, in order to craft a cool moveset, you will have to find quite a few different types of runes for attacks, while experimenting with them to make sure none of them feel mechanically weak/not useful (which is often a problem with some of these more generic runes), and this combined with how you cant unslot runes can make it genuinely be quite an investment to get a large group of runes without making any feel superfluous or overshadowed. But once you have the focus bar and focus gain to do use that, you automatically have the focus required to spam an overpowered move over and over, which is naturally going to be far stronger than just doing a single utility move.

2. Enchanted gear has a limit of two runes, and that helps encourage relying on 1 rune rather than a cool moveset.
   White weapons are pretty cool for the 4 rune slots, but from what i see, people mostly prefer blue/purple gear over white weapons most of the time (often me included). The lack of rune slots makes it so you cant make a vast and dynamic moveset within a single weapon, and instead it encourages to dedicate your one slot for adding a rune towards something that is a major gamechanger by itself.

3. Of course, braindead spam is just more overpowered
   All it takes for you to become overpowered with a good flurry attack rune is being able to get some “gain x% focus on hit”, maybe heal on hit, and then it can just melt everything. A large focus bar and half decent focus gain can let you use something such as Fire Throw a ton of times in a row. You can rip off a massive portion of the health out of River Twins with almost zero investment by just getting yourself the bow with Cone Shot. An one-dimensional playstyle where you constantly do a powerful huge attack that instakills/melts everything is obviously better than a skillful dynamic moveset.

There was a time when the channel for posting clips of the game in the discord was filled with constant echo knight videos. In vast majority of them, if the player was actively using runes, they were usually either spamming a flurry over and over, or ripping off 1/5+ his healthbar with a single high-damage rune attack over and over. Its cool at first, but this quickly gets boring. Neither of these are interesting to play or to watch after the short lived novelty dies out, it doesnt matter what sort of weapon youre using if youre spamming either of the same two types of overpowered moves.

And thats kind of against what NRFTW was supposed to be, according to the devs : Undeliberate spamming of the same nuke move over and over instead of actually engaging with mechanics. It can be fun at first, but it quickly gets boring, and this is meant to be a very long game. It also doesnt really let the game evolve from it, because once you can nuke everything by pressing one button, theres nothing to mechanically improve other than “bigger damage”. Sure, its still better than the state of the average ARPG, but its definitely way better to have a more cool dynamic moveset.

Of course, im not trying to dictate or limit how other people should play, but this is meant to grow into a huge long game, and it would definitely get boring if the entire journey is spent with the repeated use of a single overpowered move. Im pretty sure almost everyone can agree that cool dynamic movesets instead of spam would be a more fun for direction in this game.
And again, “just dont use it” isnt a solution. I shouldnt have to actively hold myself back or refrain from using powerful things i find in order to keep the game fun. Fights and bosses always feel more intense and exciting when i fight them with the full potential of my moveset, instead of actively being careful not to spam something overpowered and ruin it for myself.

.
.

Once again, i dont want the powerful runes to be totally nerfed in damage or potential, after all, these moves are very satisfying at first or during the early game. While a few things are honestly just too ridiculous (ex Lightning Assault’s damage), nerfing the damage of something such as Fire Throw could end up making it feel less satisfying.
I would like the feeling of powerful attacks to be able to coexist with simple runes without completely invalidating them

And above all, i would like to see the game do a better job of encouraging the player to use rune attacks to craft a versatile dynamic moveset with utility moves such as gap closers/gap creators, dodge attacks, jumping attacks to dodge sweeps on the floor, etc, rather than relying on a single isolated move that does not interact with the rest of your moves. I think such games should make the player try to genuinely craft their own playstyle they can be proud of, instead of something one-dimensional that plays identically to the other builds.

The game being more about diverse and dynamic moveset, with lots of tricks that make runes synergize with eachother & with the weapon’s base moveset, would be a much more interesting direction.

[DankMemeGod]

It’s safe to say we’re in agreement. I don’t mind if a player becomes attached to Fireball but a single rune shouldn’t completely dominate other choices. The issue stems from multiple issues:

• “Focus on Damage Dealt”,
• Focus cost,
• Rune damage,
• and Rune stagger power.

These are not the only reasons but they are major reasons. In an ideal world, you would use the other rune slots to fight your enemies and if you manage to stagger them, unleash a powerful Rune during their vulnerable period. There’s no incentive for this playstyle right now.

I agree that limiting Blues and Purples to only two Runes encourages this approach but if they’re given more rune slots, White items may need something compete if they want to continue making every rarity serve a purpose. Whites will still have for Gem slots but it remains to be seen if this can accomplish it well.

[Chemile0n]

i think what would encourage different runes, weapons and playstyles would be to introduce enemy weaknesses, blunt dmg, poise dmg, elemental weakness etc, or if already at place (honestly i can’t really tell) to buff them a little and give us a status effect bar for enemies.

that way we can see how for example plague dmg is built and might just go for one more risky attack to proc the status effect. or after fighting through map A with enemies mostly weak to fire reaching area B where you would need Ice. So you have to be on your toes and use your whole arsenal.

it would also encourage combination of a status effect rune with a melee combo rune.

there is a thread about the elemental things here: So, what are the different properties of elemental attacks? - #14 by Chemile0n

[Azuresh]

I dont really see how enemy weaknesses would really solve the problem of the specific mechanics. the spammy one-dimensional playstyles would pretty excel at dealing a specific type of damage, dealing poise damage, etc. if anything it could end up being part of the problem : you have a weapon for this type of damage, a weapon for the other type of damage… and so on, except all of them focus the same playstyle. I could have a few daggers for spamming a flurry with each elemental weakness, a mace for spamming a flurry of blunt attacks, and so on.

I dont think status effects should be predominantly rock-paper-scissors at all, its a rather boring approach that doesnt actually add anything cool. Its fine to have hardcounters here and there, but it should be predominantly about the actual mechanical strenght of the status effect rather than “this specific enemy has a hardcoded weakness”

My favorite examples of status effects in action games, mmos, rpgs, etc are games where you really just think of the mechanics, moreso whether an enemy is specifically weak to X and Y. If an enemy is weak to a particular damage type or status effect, its because of the actual characteristics of the enemy, their moves, their offense and defense, etc, rather than whatever their specific weakness is.

[Chemile0n]

@Azuresh

If an enemy is weak to a particular damage type or status effect, its because of the actual characteristics of the enemy, their moves, their offense and defense, etc, rather than whatever their specific weakness is.

hmm well thats kind of the same isn’t it. maybe i did not clarify enough or just simplified things too much, to not write a wall of text. i think we mean the same thing here.

lets take an example: the fire bomb mages. they throw fire bombs, and handle them, so they should not be weak to fire. so if you use a fire rune on them it would not be as effective as, lets say use a plague rune, because they are wearing “puffy” cloth armor, that would soak up with plague stuff and poison them faster. get what i mean?

right now you just lightning stomp everything, and it does not matter what type of enemy, what armor they wear, what weather there is etc.

and i think a lot can be done with elements. like for example when you are in an open map and it is raining, fire throw might just be useless, so you have to use another thing in your repertoire, thus preventing players from spamming fire throw.

[RomoloHero]

I have posted quite extensively on this subject and am also in agreement with this.

We currently have Meta Runes, ‘The 1 Rune To Rule Them All’.

To add on what is already mentioned the following elements combined also contribute to the problem:

• Focus being a shared resource.

• Focus-Neutral State exists.

• Runes have no cooldown.

• Runes lack mechanical distinctions or these distinctions are irrelevant due to the absurd damage runes deal.

• Runes can stagger.

These issues combined create a big problem. Add onto that Blue & Purple gear having 2 runes slots. It creates nothing but competition between runes rather than incentivizing multiple runes to deal with multiple situations.

It being limited by Focus removes some of the combat reactivity, especially when PvP is added. Combat doesn’t become a dance of using Runes to react to certain scenarios, instead we use them to override combat. I’d prefer the Soulslike elements of the game to remain relevant.

@Azuresh

I dont really see how enemy weaknesses would really solve the problem of the specific mechanics.

100% agree here.

The issue is the mechanical distinctions of the runes not being rewarded. Damage on runes is too high for it to matter. On top of that the competition between runes with the stuff I mentioned above.

I think one game Wicked can really learn from in terms of Combat and rune usage is V Rising. Reactive combat and rewarding abilities when used at the correct timing.

@Chemile0n

and i think a lot can be done with elements.

I disagree here, the only change you will see is people creating different elemental weapons and just swap when necessary. People will just carry Heat, Lightning, Cold, Plague weapons. It doesn’t solve the issue of rune mechanics not being rewarded enough.

[Azuresh]

@Chemile0n

lets take an example: the fire bomb mages. they throw fire bombs, and handle them, so they should not be weak to fire. so if you use a fire rune on them it would not be as effective as, lets say use a plague rune, because they are wearing “puffy” cloth armor, that would soak up with plague stuff and poison them faster. get what i mean?

What you describe honestly sounds rather boring if it was predominant. It wouldnt really fix the problems i described in the OP, it would just make it so the player is forced to have a few different tools that might still play similary. Instead of having one rune attack that nukes everything with a button, i have a few identical playstyles except in different meme flavors of damage types. Dont get me wrong, its fine to have weakness nad mechanics, but it should either not be dominant, or be focused on actual interactions and mechanics.

The most played game of mine is Spiral Knights (its kinda dead now), and in lategame where it gets actually challenging, it is a perfect example.

The status effects of that game are varied : The different CC effects have genuinely different qualities and their usefulness is dictated by the actual enemy movesets and the environment (are they fast or slow enemies? how are their attacks and movement? What kind of arenas will make this status effect more useful, and what kinds of arenas will turn this status effect into a detriment? etc).
The status effects for dealing damage came in different flavors. One was a generic DoT (Fire), one was more focused on CC and dealt small damage in its staggering ticks, but could affect surrounding entities, meaning major damage if lots were grouped together (Shock). One made the entity take damage when attacking or doing actions, and would affect specific equipment when on the player, with the number of affected equipment depending on their resistance (Curse).
Sure, enemies indeed often had a theme of certain status effects, or resistances to some of them, but that wasnt the main focus. The main thing the player thought of isnt the specific rock-paper-scissors, it was the actual mechanics of the combat. My main interest isnt thinking about what arbitrary weakness or resistance an enemy has, i want to think about their actual moveset and their abilities.

But all that up there is specifically status effects. Unfortunately, the “damage types” of Spiral Knights were the exact opposite of i describe. There were four types of damage, one of which being a “normal” neutral type. Every family of enemy was weak to one type of damage and resistant to another. It was just a bland rock-paper-scissors that, while having some qualities, was mostly just shallow. What everyone did is just use whatever the enemies are weak to and nothing else. Some types of weapons had several versions of different damage types, sometimes it was actually cool because they had different status effects and a mechanical feel, but sometimes it boiled down to “bring X weapon to kill X enemy”.

Not a single person that put thousands of hours into that game (sadly an incomplete one with lots of wasted potential) has fond memories of choosing the correct damage type and fighting beasts with specifically sharp damage. They had fond memories of the actual mechanics of the weapons : Nobody really cared about the fact that their pistol could either be elemental damage or shadow damage with zero real difference. But people remember how the most notable piercing-damage bomb was mechanically very different from the normal-damage bomb, just like the shadow-damage counterpart. People liked how the most popular sword in the game, that came in different status effects, would play a lot differently depending on whether it was the version with fire, shock or ice. People didnt care about slimes being weak to shadow damage, they cared about letting slimes join together into one huge slime and hitting them with a piercing attack that excels at destroying the healthbars of things with large bodies, or a huge projectile charge attack that made them get knocked back and “ride” the projectile all the way to their deaths.

So going back to your example, how does being less able to burn the fire bomb guy actually improve the game and combat? Thematically, it doesnt even make much sense, they are good at handling fire and making bombs but not magically immune to it. It would just be an annoying limitation of being unable to attack them properly with a certain type of weapon, while in early game you often only have one good weapon. But if instead of that, there was an enemy with a body part that could be burned, or their behavior being significantly altered when they were on fire, that would be neat.

[Chemile0n]

@Azuresh

The different CC effects have genuinely different qualities and their usefulness is dictated by the actual enemy movesets and the environment (are they fast or slow enemies? how are their attacks and movement? What kind of arenas will make this status effect more useful, and what kinds of arenas will turn this status effect into a detriment? etc).

i still don’t get how this is different to what I suggested?

@Azuresh

One was a generic DoT (Fire), one was more focused on CC and dealt small damage in its staggering ticks, but could affect surrounding entities, meaning major damage if lots were grouped together (Shock).

well we do have that, it just does not matter much right now, because you can just use the same thing against everything.

@Azuresh

i want to think about their actual moveset, their abilities and the place i am fighting them in.

well, that is what i said too. weather, enemy attacks, enemy weapons etc, and reacting to it appropriately because u can read from the enemy and the situation you are in what will work best.

@Azuresh

So going back to your example, how does being less able to burn the fire bomb guy actually improve the game and combat? Thematically, it doesnt even make much sense, they are good at handling fire and making bombs but not magically immune to it. It would just be an annoying limitation of being unable to attack them properly with a certain type of weapon, while in early game you often only have one good weapon. But if instead of that, there was an enemy with a body part that could be burned, or their behavior being significantly altered when they were on fire, that would be neat.

well i picked the simplest example, so my point gets through. people tend to not read even the best of suggestions, when they have to read a 3000 word asssay.

but since you asked: i think situational or enemy awareness could be encouraged by introducing a more transparent strength and weakness system. as u said, it is super boring to just lightning stomb everything. but what about using lightning stomp in a rain storm, and every enemy that stands in the same “wet spot” gets fried?

Or how about those shielded enemies, that are hard to get through? why not give them more resistance against slash and element, but also more weakness against blunt dmg, shove and kick?

Nobody would just run around with a fire dagger, a lightning rune weapon, 2 hammers and 3 shields. Just because they can’t, its too heavy. People would think about what they pack and what fits their build. Lets say i have a str 2 hand build, so i am covered in the “blunt dmg” department, but my attacks are super slow, so status effect trigger is more out of the equation…

… unless i slot my hammer with (i don’t know) a eartquake rune, that knocks enemies over, so i have a larger attack window to apply poison etc. but that might not work in map X because enemies there live in a poisonous environment, so they are harder to “infect”. but the poison made them also very brittle, making them prone to big bonks on the head, or breaking their legs.

its not just enemy a is weak to b. its all just simplified examples, but in my opinion it would promote variety and diversity, rather than just spamming rune A because it works always and against everything.
and to remove “working every time 100%” you just need some sort of weakness or resistance. otherwise it will keep working for everything and always.

sure, there are more things in play, as u guys said, focus generation, ability cooldown (or rather lack thereof) etc.
but my suggestion does not exclude working on those

EDIT: (even tho nobody reads that assay) a good example for what i mean is monster hunter. for a flying monster you would break its wings or a monster with a poisoned tail would need focus on cutting that off first, while “fishy” monsters are weak to lightning and therefor can get staggered more often using electric weapons etc. on the other hand burning does not work as well in swamps or small bodies of water, because the water douses the flames etc.

and EDIT2: if you handle bombs and fire like the fire mages do, of course u do not get magically resistant (also magic seems to be a thing), but you would at least wear protective clothing. or have you ever seen a blacksmith working with glowing red steel and wearing a polyester puffy dress? he would rather wear thick leather and therefore be way less likely to catch fire, wouldn’t he

[Azuresh]

@Chemile0n

well i picked the simplest example, so my point gets through. people tend to not read even the best of suggestions, when they have to read a 3000 word asssay.

eh, not really. its more because your suggestions were ''this enemy with fire cant burn easily", “this specific type of armor takes more damage to specific type of damage”, and “when raining/on water”. None of these are actually using combat mechanics and interactions, theyre really just arbitrary weaknesses and strenghts. “Fire throw being useless on rain” would just be a silly arbitrary annoyance, its not actually fixing the spam of fire throw being overpowered

@Chemile0n

well we do have that, it just does not matter much right now, because you can just use the same thing against everything.

Arbitrarily restricting the player to a rock-paper-scissors does absolutely nothing to actually evolve the game’s combat mechanics by itself.

How is Fire different from Plague, for example? Only Ice truly feels like a mechanic

Just because they can’t, its too heavy.

Not only the inventory lets you have that, this game doesnt work like the inventory in souls. If you have several weapons slotted, only the ones currently in hand will factor towards your weight.

, but in my opinion it would promote variety and diversity, rather than just spamming rune A because it works always and against everything.
and to remove “working every time 100%” you just need some sort of weakness or resistance. otherwise it will keep working for everything and always.

this idea of variety and diversity would just replace “spam rune 1” with “Spam rune 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4” when it comes to the problem OP describes. Thats not what the game needs.

but that might not work in map X because enemies there live in a poisonous environment, so they are harder to “infect”.

dont get me wrong, this is cool, but once again youre failing to grasp the fact this does absolutely nothing for actual combat mechanics. It doesnt affect the problem in the OP at all really, it has absolutely nothing to do with making the player have a mechanically versatile moveset.

or breaking their legs.

for example, this is better

for a flying monster you would break its wings or a monster with a poisoned tail would need focus on cutting that off first,

yes, this is fundamentally very different and far more interactive than “this enemy is weak to this damage type” or “you cant use this in the rain”

[Chemile0n]

i used my words so that they are simplified and easy to understand. i think people don’t read when points are “overexplained”.

again, they were examples. and i was viewing the problem from a solution point of view, rather than a problem point of view. just different perspectives, thats all.

right now we have, as @RomoloHero said a “meta” that mainly spams 1 rune. and here i surprisingly agree with the “don’t nerf everything” fraction of the community: simply nerfing the dmg of rune 1 or focus gain of affix A does not solve the problem. it solves it for this rune, but not for all of them.

what would help, would be to not make them universal, like they are now. even with an added cooldown for a rune (like ult cooldowns in mmos etc.) this only stretches the problem, but the lightning smash (one day i will look up how its called…) still 1 shots everything, so whats the point of a cooldown?

you can adress that by implementing for example a resistance to lightning, causing that rune to deal less dmg against that enemy. but then, that enemy is a huge 1 hand swinging troll thingy, so u rather use a kick rune like that: x.com
to break their legs.

another thing is, no matter if you or an enemy is lit on fire, it does not matter at all if its raining, or if u even go out of your way to jump in a pond. being lit on fire is just fixed amount of time dmg x taken. using your environment and knowing enemies strengths and weaknesses should matter. its no heal all cure all thing, but it would surely help to make 1 shot everything runes less attractive and at the same time promote map and enemy awareness.

and again, elements is just one example. you can apply that to actual movesets as well. lets say we are using a rogue dual dagger build with stealth skill (once the skill tree hits, maybe…?) so you are focussed on walking slow and backstabbing. but some enemies might just be too big to backstab, but their legs would then be weak to “break” (like in Bloodborne) or a taller but slander enemy might be knocked over with a shove rune attack, while a shorter one, might not react the same way.

my approach would be to adress the enemy and map/environment, and their specific properties, rather than just reducing dmg of rune A and waiting for rune B to be the next 1 shot meta.

[Chemile0n]

@Azuresh

for a flying monster you would break its wings or a monster with a poisoned tail would need focus on cutting that off first,

yes, this is fundamentally very different and far more interactive than “this enemy is weak to this damage type” or “you cant use this in the rain”

also, when u know monster hunter, u know it is not different. it works in exactly that way, monsters with tails are weak to slash dmg at their tails, large bulky monsters are weak to blunt dmg at their head etc. the outcome being a cool move or a wounded enemy does not mean, that behind all that doesn’t lie some sort of weakness or strength system. how else would you implement that if not over rewarding using the right dmg type against the right body part?

[Azuresh]

@Chemile0n

also, when u know monster hunter, u know it is not different. it works in exactly that way, monsters with tails are weak to slash dmg at their tails, large bulky monsters are weak to blunt dmg at their head etc.

the reason the things you describe are good is because of the bigger focus on the actual mechanics and moveset, the specific damage is just an amplifier. Being constantly forced to use specific damage by itself is what would suck

using the right dmg type against the right body part?

the big thing here isnt “using the right damage type on the right body part”, its predominantly about “being able to attack and destroy the body part in the first place”. Same goes for dragons dogma (also by capcom)

rather than just reducing dmg of rune A and waiting for rune B to be the next 1 shot meta.

well, i did explicitly say this in my post up there : I dont just want damage nerfs to solve the problem of spam. Sure, some runes such as Lightning Assault deal ridiculous damage, but thats a separate issue. The spam of one powerful rune over and over should ideally be solved in a way that doesnt make it stop feeling powerful

[Chemile0n]

true! but that also does not really fit in this game imo. we are not fighting huge monsters, where each fight lasts several minutes and attacking body parts matters.

we are fighting through maps with (more or less) map specific mobs until we reach the area boss, much like in the dark souls games for example.

the fundamental issue with the one sided combat is, that 1 thing works against everything. it does not matter if u fight enemy type A or B or if you fight in the rain or in a sewer type map which has lots of poison.

to promote variety, different attack styles and runes to use there has to be some sort of incentive and/or some sort of “wall” that prevents using fire (again an example) against everything.

a lot of current “issues” play a part here. Sorry for all the people who do not want to read a lot of text, but i will try to list what in my personal opinion is part of the issue and how to address is:

1. enchantments:

as said for example here: Enchanting Reworked, Vampire Survivors Inspired Enchanting

or here: I question the choice of random drops - #4 by Chemile0n

there are several issues with hoe enchantments work and benefit different builds:

• enchantments are fully random, no way to influence them. so give us a solution to influence 1 out of 4 affixes by for example using gems to influence the outcome. use x red gems to increase chance to get fire dmg on weapon or health leech on armor. → less items that are instantly re sold and more focussed enchanting towards a specific goal

• some enchantments seem to be favored over others, creating a meta leaning towards one direction: "on Parry" enchantment roll frequency on 2-hand weapons

2. crafting:

as said in many thread about crafting, it is currently too expensive and has no benefit.

so why not:

• give us a skill to influence how good or bad a hand crafted weapon is:
  I question the choice of random drops

• make crafting reasonably expensive. so in essence cheaper. investing 10 silver bars just to get a white weapon that is later enchanted and thrown away because of point 1. is not reasonable.

3. runes

• right now we can not decide which runes we want to remove from a weapon when enchanting it, it always removes the bottom 2. so we have less variety in the outcome

• we can remove runes from weapons and destroy the weapon, but we can not remove the rune and keep the weapon, to slot another rune in it.

4. character attributes: stamina, focus, health etc.

• right now it honestly does not matter if we have skilled HP/stamina etc. with the ridiculous amount of HP or stamina or focus u get back from item affixes, we do not ever need to worry. it is currently calculated as gain x% of total focus on hit (for example). better would be x% of the dmg dealt is converted into focus/hp/stamina (whatever)

5. Resistances, weaknesses, strength:
   all the points from my previous posts

• right now it feels like they do not exist at all, and it does not matter what we use

6. stealth being not as good as it should be

• Stealth needs more love

7. potions are useless

• Improve Markos the potion seller - combined - one thread "to rule them all"

as you can see, the problem is complex, but tweaking each screw just a little, might help. after all i think NRfTW does a LOT of things right. Exploration is fun, bossfights are cool, and even tho we have random loot we can still use a lot of synergies well, promoting different builds.

but in the end no matter how different the builds are they more or less play the same, on that one i agree.

again, sorry for this humongous post. i will get back to a few one liners now, as i used up my weekly word quota lol

[Azuresh]

@Chemile0n

true! but that also does not really fit in this game imo. we are not fighting huge monsters, where each fight lasts several minutes and attacking body parts matters.

well yes, i wasnt saying we need these. It was just an offshoot of the debate of how specific hardcounters wasnt actually the solution to the issue with spamming a move over and over. If the issue is related to one-dimensional playstyles, forcing people to get different flavors of damage wont actually do anything to make the playstyles less one dimensional

you mentioned a lot of relevant problems in your post, but quite honestly most of them dont actually have anything to do with what i, dankmemegod and romolo were refering to. You could make enchantments influenceable and consistent, you could buff crafting, you can make runes remove-able, you can fix the problems of attributes you described, improve stealth and buff potions, and : Sure, some of these may be a cool upgrade to the game, but quite frankly none of these actually change the problem described in the OP. None of that gave me a reason to use my cool utility rune instead of spamming the 500 damage rune.

And then theres the thing about resistances and weaknesses, but what you were arguing in favor, as me and others have already mentioned, felt closer to “force people to have multiple weapons to go around different arbitrary limitations” rather than actually encouraging playstyle variety.

We want to see people running around with a wide variety of moves and tricks in their sword. We dont want to see people running with 5 near-identical swords with the exact same playstyle and a different element type.

[Chemile0n]

well, having the 500dmg rune not deal 500 dmg all the time, but deal dmg dynamically, based on resistance/weakness would change that.

also having a more reasonable focus gain would change that. so rather than filling up 20% of your total max focus with each hit, converting 20% of the dmg dealt into focus, would reduce focus gain, and therefor prevent spamming.

also having more options with crafting and enchantment, might just be enough to encourage using other weapons with different movesets, rather than your 500dmg rune.

and improving stealth builds making them as rewarding as spamming a rune would give another option that is more moveset based.

so yeah, i think these points would change that.

also, on another note, i noticed some other posts similar to your OP. if you could maybe take a look at them as well? so if they fit our discussion here, i could merge them together for more awareness. having everything in one place might help push the topic.

Rune attacks vs Unique weapon movesets

So Wicked has careful soulslike combat featuring a large variety of weapon movesets with basic attack chains, rolling attacks, sprinting attacks, charged attacks and charge attack followups. That’s great, I love it, good job. However: Rune Attacks, the Ash-of-War inspired special abilities which can be swapped onto any weapon, are currently balanced in such a way that the only reason you would ever NOT use a Rune Attack is that you don’t have enough Focus. Not only do they deal much more damag…

Suggestions regarding character controls and weapon movesets

Hello! The combat and movement systems are really good, and the unique rune attacks are truly awesome, but it would be nice to have more depth/control of the character. It is obvious that this game’s combat and movement system is inspired by FromSoftware. So the following suggestions are made in consideration of this; imitation is the highest form of flattery and in this case, testament to FromSoftware combat and movement design. But No Rest for the Wicked has its own thing going for it: a bir…

Add Mechanical Depth to Runes and Not Just Free Damage

This one is a tough suggestion because I don’t know if it’s even possible with the game but the mechanical depth of the game could be greatly increased with runes that act as more than just simple button presses. Even if they’re emulating ARPGs or MMO abilities it’s not uncommon for abilities in those games to have things such as (press M5 again at proper timing to increase size of buff circle or something similar). For example if we theoretically could get a rune for Echo Knight’s triple sword…

[Azuresh]

@Chemile0n

but deal dmg dynamically, based on resistance/weakness would change that.

it would make it so the player eventually ends up spamming similar 500 damage runes depending on what resistance the enemy has. you didnt solve the problem, you just stacked a problem on top of it. Instead of spamming lightning assault, i am spamming (every other element) assault.

[Chemile0n]

well, lets agree to disagree here. having a 500dmg 1 fits all is vastly different to having balanced and dynamic strengths and weaknesses.

so i am still convinced improving on strengths and weaknesses reduces the spam. you have several enemy types on each map with having different environmental factors on each map. so you would not just change 500 lightning dmg to 500 fire dmg because it would not work across the board.

[Azuresh]

so i am still convinced improving on strengths and weaknesses reduces the spam. you have several enemy types on each map with having different environmental factors on each map. so you would not just change 500 lightning dmg to 500 fire dmg because it would not work across the board.

it sounds like making an annoying game where you are actively forced to swap to different damage types to attack different things.
No, none of this will make people stop spamming the same type of rune. You succeeded at making people get 4 different weapons with the exact same type of rune, like RomoloHero said all the way up there.

People will just carry Heat, Lightning, Cold, Plague weapons.

This huge tangential topic pretty much accomplishes nothing to actually change the problem discussed in the OP.

It really doesnt matter if i can craft better weapons, or get specifically the enchants i want. Matter of fact is that, even getting everything i want : If i create my moveset with 1 overpowered and convenient huge damage rune and three cool moveset-extending runes, theres a point where theres simply no incentive to do anything but spam the huge damage rune

Edit : And what about yellow weapons? Do you think its a good idea to make someone’s unique fun yellow with unique affixes and a cool combination of runes get occasionally completely shut down by an arbitrary, high and constant focus on the specific weakness of enemies?

[Chemile0n]

@Chemile0n

also, on another note, i noticed some other posts similar to your OP. if you could maybe take a look at them as well? so if they fit our discussion here, i could merge them together for more awareness. having everything in one place might help push the topic.

So Wicked has careful soulslike combat featuring a large variety of weapon movesets with basic attack chains, rolling attacks, sprinting attacks, charged attacks and charge attack followups. That’s great, I love it, good job. However: Rune Attacks, the Ash-of-War inspired special abilities which can be swapped onto any weapon, are currently balanced in such a way that the only reason you would ever NOT use a Rune Attack is that you don’t have enough Focus. Not only do they deal much more damag…

Hello! The combat and movement systems are really good, and the unique rune attacks are truly awesome, but it would be nice to have more depth/control of the character. It is obvious that this game’s combat and movement system is inspired by FromSoftware. So the following suggestions are made in consideration of this; imitation is the highest form of flattery and in this case, testament to FromSoftware combat and movement design. But No Rest for the Wicked has its own thing going for it: a bir…

This one is a tough suggestion because I don’t know if it’s even possible with the game but the mechanical depth of the game could be greatly increased with runes that act as more than just simple button presses. Even if they’re emulating ARPGs or MMO abilities it’s not uncommon for

so then please have a look at the other topics i listed. maybe those have better ideas than i have. and if its ok for you i would move our discussion and this topic here to one of those threads.

it would surely help to consolidate those topics, so that more solution suggestions are in 1 place.

[Azuresh]

hm, not sure if moving is a good idea, they are moderately different topics too. Sure, theres a lot of complaint about spamming the same rune and comparing it to the base moveset of the weapon, but thats not the only focus of my post. Differently than those, im trying to also bring attention to the attack runes that feel like extensions of the moveset