User talk:Aquadrizzt/Sandbox/A Balance Patch

Consider chants and echoes

As their reality counterparts: chants get more powerful with more people participating, its effect stacking depending on how many party members have it currently active. Per example, a party member copies the chant if they meet an initial trigger, such as a spellcaster-specific chant that can be copied by casting an offense-oriented spell on a foe. It could be something like "for every 3 party members chanting, the entire party gains +1 energy regeneration" or something. Echoes would simply reapply when they are activated again or an effect is triggered (short recharge times, or easy triggers). Per example; "every time a party member under the effect of <Echo> uses a shout, <Echo> renews." I dunno, I cba to write my own suggestions, lol. - Infinite - talk 20:59, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Correct me if my understanding is wrong.

1. Paragon starts Aria of Restoration.
2. Whenever a party member in earshot casts a spell, they also begin maintaining Aria of Restoration (unless they are already maintaining another chant?).
3. The effects of Aria of Restoration scale with how many party members currently have it active (e.g. you gain 25 Health per party member chanting this whenever you cast a spell).

Thematically, I like it, but IDK if GW1's user interface could support something like this; there is a certain amount of micromanagement that I feel will be unintuitive. It also means that you really couldn't stack Paragons (e.g. because you only have 8 people who can chant and effects scale quadratically with people chanting, everyone in the party should just chant the optimal chant for that mission), which I don't think is something Paragon needs right now anyway. I'll give it some more thought though. Aqua (talk) 22:50, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

That is the gist of it, yeah. Of course restrictions would apply like only one active chant can be chanted by a party member at a time; a chant would not be copied if the trigger isn't met before a certain time (e.g. if you are affected by Aria of Restoration and you don't cast a spell within five to ten seconds, it just runs out on you and you won't get a chance to chant along until it is used again (or perhaps if an echo is used/reactivated); too many different chants would cause a discordance and cancel the oldest chant (a maximum of two or three unique chants can be chanted in the party at once). I dunno, it seemed like something that would translate to GW quite well in my mind.

Do I need the benefits of a healing chant right now, or is damage better for me? Oh, I'm being briefly affected by an energy gain/restoration chant and I think I'm going to switch to that chant for now so I need to use my [specific] skill type to start chanting to get on board with that effect until my needs change.

I don't know how OP or underwhelming the actual chanting would be, especially with imbagons being the only PvE option for Paragons without massive amounts of mercenary slots on an account, and only specific niche uses in PvP that are of a bygone era now. This way you would at least create a more versatile gameplay mechanic that introduces a new level of teamwork Paragons seem to promote already.

To follow your example;

1. Paragon starts Aria of Restoration.
2. The first time each party member in earshot casts a spell within (say) 8 seconds, that party member is healed for N health and they also begin chanting Aria of Restoration, replacing any previously active chant they were chanting.
3. If a spell was not cast within the 8 seconds, Aria of Restoration ends on that party member and they will not chant along.
4. The effects of Aria of Restoration scale with how many party members currently have it active (e.g. you gain Y Health per party member chanting this whenever you cast a spell).

We have precedent for cumulative skill effects across multiple allies in Factions (Urn of Saint Viktor, iirc). Plus if you keep the chanting itself an indefinite duration (so not the trigger prior to chanting, just the actual chanting), it's cast and forget. If too few party members are actively chanting, the chant could also end up being useless, e.g. certain chants require at least two active chanters to provide any benefits at all.

Anyway, feel free to take from it as you see fit, I am always reading these suggestions and concepts all over the wiki and until I write my own, I'm curious to see what people have come up with and how they evolve their process. :] - Infinite - talk 09:40, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Hmm okay I think I understand what you had in mind. I still think there's a bit of an issue where this kind of design basically limits you to one of each "type" (Aria, Song, etc.) of Chant per team, because if Paragon1 casts Aria of Restoration, a few people cast a spell and start chanting, and then Paragon2 casts Aria of NotRestoration, then suddenly characters who want to keep chanting Aria of Restoration can't cast spells for 8 seconds. I guess that isn't the worst thing that could happen, but I do feel like it limits the amount of Chants a Paragon could run, which in turn means that they'll only ever run the single best one for their comp and no others.

Compare that to my version, wherein Paragon1 can chant Aria of Restoration and Paragon2 can chant Aria of NotRestoration and their team can benefit from both. Aqua (talk) 11:31, 6 May 2020 (UTC)