Suggestion: More connection between skills

[CunningFox]

More connection between the different battle skills so they work together more and gives more importance to what skill you choose as your 2ndary.

IE if you choose fire magic and staff have a buff that gives your staff skills fire damage, hammer/mentalism gives a buff to electricity damage, Druid/archery gives you another poison arrow attack to use.... etc etc

Right now if you choose fire magic as your main skill chances are you would just get gear that boosts your fire magic skills. If you choose to be fire/druid or fire/mentalism it would have little difference between the two other then the name of healing spell you occasionally use. But if you gave fire/druid a buff that changes all cold damage to poison, and fire/mentalism a buff that changed cold to electricity, and any gear that would boost cold damage also boosts poison/electricity damage, you could potentially have 2 completly different elemental users based on what their 2ndary is. This would also make the 2ndary's skills more practical to use since the fire magic gear would then also boost the poison skills of the druid and the electricity skills of mentalism.

It Would be nice to get at least 2-3 bonus skills that relates to the combo you choose. (LOTS of skill combos in the game already I know but even if you start off with 1 buff that ties the skills together for now just to get it into the game and expand on it later)

You could make these skills purchasable from a related NPC and have a minimal skill level of both battle skills to learn the skill, similar to how battle chemistry skills work

 

[Cramit]

I like this idea, it would make it feel like there would be reasons to go certain ways. One issue that worry me about this though:

1. Balancing - Seems like it might be an issue. It will be an issue throughout the game I am sure but making some of the skills have abilities that tie into other skills could make the balancing even harder, especially if certain skills have abilities only for other skills. For instance fire/druid, fire/mentalism all have buffs but fire/archery doesn't. So the questions would be does everyone skill need an ability that allows it to mesh with every other skill or just certain ones?

Otherwise love this idea and completely support it. There was one other thing I was worried about although can't recall it, will mention it later if I can think of it again, lol.

 

[awollsd]

I would like to see this considered but I think the buff's should go for everything and each should also have a bit of debuff within it.

Example: Pure fire magic (no 2nd skills if devs decide to allow that) would get a buff for being pure. it could be something like "generic name" you're devotion to the magics has increased your focus. gain +5 range to all fire magic spells. Healing received from items/spells is reduced by 10%"

while fire/mentalism buff could be something like increase all regeneration abilities by +25%. power cost of abilities gain +20%

but yeah I don't think this is really NEEDED but I do think if done well it could make things a lot more interesting so should be considered

 

[Rucati]

1. Balancing - Seems like it might be an issue. It will be an issue throughout the game I am sure but making some of the skills have abilities that tie into other skills could make the balancing even harder, especially if certain skills have abilities only for other skills. For instance fire/druid, fire/mentalism all have buffs but fire/archery doesn't. So the questions would be does everyone skill need an ability that allows it to mesh with every other skill or just certain ones?

To be fair, balancing is going to be a nightmare regardless of this haha. But I do agree, this would add to the problem. And you raise a good point, in your example it's pretty obvious that fire/archery would be at a disadvantage if that combination doesn't have a benefit. And adding bonuses to every single combination would be a massive undertaking.

I do really like the idea though it would add a lot, and would make it interesting to figure out which combinations add what and which ones fit your individual playstyle.

 

[CunningFox]

Balancing in a mmo game is eternal. Nerf one skill add a new zone with new gear and then another skill becomes OP, it will never end.... ever

A Fire/archery could get a buff that applies the crit rate of archery to fire spells... which would make it more OP then either of the fire/mentalism fire/druid suggestions I made above lol but those were just crude examples to illustrate the general premise.
You would need at least 2 per combo thou, what if you dont want to be a fire/archer but instead an archer/fire, then the you'd want a buff that boosts your archery damage, maybe one that give all archery attacks 50% bonus damage as direct fire damage (again a crude example)

On the other hand some combinations will simply never work together, such as unarmed and staff. So would you bother giving that combination a special skill? Or would this hinder all those kicking staff wielders out there? lol

I like the idea of having pure skill users like the pure fire mage example above. But instead of giving a skill for not having a 2ndary I'd rather have the ability to use both skill bars for that one skill so you can fill up both bars with all the fire skills you desire. If you only want to specialize in 3 damage spells then you can have each of them 2 times with separate cool down timers. This I believe would be more valuable then an additional buff. (getting a little off topic with this thou)

 

[Gorgonzola]

I like the idea but yeah maybe for the long term, that sounds like a "nice to have" at this stage.

It would fit nicely with the Lucky Belts since lucky belts basically represent a named "role". For example The Gladiator, The War Wizard, The Master Exploder...

Perhaps wearing a specific belt, and slaying certain epic bosses wuld reward you with a unique ability corresponding to the belt.. but yeah.. hardly needed atm A Good idea for an expansion in a still rather uncertain future for PG.