If you could design the weapon system...

[Grady219]

... how would you make it?

Personally, I would make it to where any weapon, given the right amount of effort, could potentially be the strongest weapon. Finding different weapons would only be for pure aesthetic reasons. I would make it to where any weapon could have any of the abilities split up into 3 groups on your weapons. First group would be status effects, second group would be your stat increase, and third group would be the soul you have on your weapon. To add these abilities, you would have to find drops from certain enemies in the game. Instead of using Dudu to increase each of the abilities level, you would gain exp for each of the abilities that you currently have equipped excluding souls. Each ability would cap at 30 and obviously each ability would get better as it increases in level. You would also be able to switch between each weapons' abilities but only when you aren't in a quest.

[Shadowth117]

This is an idea that works a lot better for non MMO style games.It would be neat, but for this type of game I feel like it would reduce incentive to go and hunt anything. Maybe the weapon system isn't the best, but I don't know that that idea is an optimal solution.

Edit: But I like the idea of the thread.

[Z-0]

Go back in time to PSO1.

In short, basically give weapons more utility outside of raw damage. I'm not sure -what- I'd do (considering what this game is like), but something should be done.

[Valkyrie Lovrina]

in short, Have everything work like it did PSPo2/I(Type LV) while giving Weapons more utility like in PSO1(think: Holy Ray on a FOnewearl). while keeping the Skills(Photon Arts) from PSIV/PSU/PSPo2. = better game

[Grady219]

This is an idea that works a lot better for non MMO style games.It would be neat, but for this type of game I feel like it would reduce incentive to go and hunt anything. Maybe the weapon system isn't the best, but I don't know that that idea is an optimal solution.

Edit: But I like the idea of the thread.

True, but with the little incentive to go hunt rares in the game already, it would give you something else to work towards other than just leveling. I've found every single rare I own from just grinding to the level cap.


Go back in time to PSO1.

In short, basically give weapons more utility outside of raw damage. I'm not sure -what- I'd do (considering what this game is like), but something should be done

Maybe give certain weapons special attacks like how photon arts worked in PSZ?

[Rien]

I'd have to completely redesign a good lot of animations, photon arts, and their power. I don't even know if the outcome will balance gameplay. I know I'd definitely start with buffing the melee side of gunslashes quite a bit.

[Xaeris]

I dunno if I'd want to see my idea implemented in this game; it's the sort of thing you'd need to specifically build it around. Still, it's all I've got at the moment, so here goes. A hang up I've had regarding online RPGs is that my possessions don't really feel like "mine." There's the hipster factor of having a hundred copies of the same weapon in existence, sure, but it's not even that really. It's the fact that a weapon has only as much value as its stats. If you acquire something better, than you dump the previous weapon without a second thought like the glorified stat stick it is.

What I'd like to see is a system that makes a weapon an investment of time and effort (but probably mostly time) rather than just a single lucky roll of the dice. Interestingly, PSO2 accomplishes this in a way; even if you obtain a weapon that's potentially better than the one you have, you have to consider the expense of grinding it. Of course, that's hardly satisfactory because lolRNG. Still, it goes get at the idea of what I'm talking about; that your equipment is a product of your sweat and tears and not something to be cast away to get another 50 damage on your Zonde.

How would I go about doing this? Well, I've outlined the abstract above. The rest here is just details really. Try not to mind the particulars too much, seeing as I'm just whipping this up on the spot.

Every weapon would be the sum total of four parts: the photon fuel source, the metal frame of the weapon itself, the wood to serve as the reactor (I figured that trees a primitive kind of photon reactor in PSU, photosynthesis, and what not), and a focusing lens to...fuck, I don't know. Because, that's why. Similar to PSU, but there's no production synthesis involved. Instead, you'd be able to swap out parts to affect the overall stats of the weapon. Think of how you'd change the parts inside your computer for an idea.

Now, let's talk about what each part does, more or less. The frame of each weapon is its core and be responsible for most of that weapon's damage. That piece would have a level and exp, just like your character, and would gain exp just like your character does on enemy kills assuming you have it equipped on its death. That one's pretty straight forward.

The photon source would basically be ammo; easily obtained (most often purchased, to provide a nice meseta sink), voraciously consumed. Sort of like recharging PP at cubes back in PSU, it'd be a material item in your inventory. Load different kinds of photons for different effects. There could even be some rare kinds of photons that supercharge your attacks, balanced by the fact that they're rare drops and something you'd load in only desperate straits.

The lens and reactors would work like rare drops do now. This would be the RNG element of the weapon. Not responsible for damage so much as auxiliary effects like reduced photon consumption and things like that.

Ultimately, the idea is to make it so that a weapon isn't just some stat stick we pick up off the ground, but instead, a project we work on from the moment we start playing to the day we quit. You'd name your weapon(s) yourself and love them like your own children. Like I said, this isn't something you can just dump into a game. But, I would love to see an online Phantasy Star built around it.

[Gardios]

Bear with me, I'll try to think like an MMO designer while trying to fit my own ideas in. So this will sound terrible, but still somewhat reasonable. Also excuse any typos, posting from VITA...

Weapons have an X-ATK value like right now (duh), equip requirements are the same as well (though I'd love to tie it to level, but then I'm invalidating Mags and race choice... I would change those as well if I could, but that's not what this thread is about XD). Weapons can have elements and the value can go up to 50 like right, now. You can add elements to weapons, but only to 1-6 star weapons. The element of 7+ star weapons depend on the weapon (every Burning Sword is fire elemental etc) and it can not be changed, but can still be upgraded to 50. Element grinding works like the current normal grinding, using synthesizers instead of grinders. Items needed to add an element to weapons are available through FUN scratch.

Grinding works differently. First of all, the power imcrease through grinding is linear. At higher levels weapons will he destroyed if the grind is unsuccessful. This feels awful, but since the power increase is linear, players dont feel like shit if the weapon isn't at +10. 1-3 weapons don't break till +7, 4-6 weapons don't break till +6 etc. The power increase depends on stars, all 4 star weapons have the same power bonus at the same upgrade level, but 7 star weapons get a higher power bonus per upgrade level than 4 stars and so on.

With that in place, low star weapons are easy to grind and still powerful, but high star weapons are slightly better power-wise if you sacrifice your first child to Dudu. Even with the existence of 7+ star weapons, 1-6 weapons are still useful since you can get them easily with the element of your choice, but the downside is that you need the right element.

Now, rares. They are stronger than normal weapons when grinding, but what makes them desirable are theirbonus effects. The bonus effect is the same for all weapons of the same type (every Burning Sword has the same effect), but actually creative. No two weapons in the same category have the same bonus effect, so low level rares will not suddenly be trash when jew weapons are introduced. Sure, there will have to be rares with boring stuff like "increase X-DEF by 30", but also effects that can open up new playstyles like "chance to invoke Lv 5 Gifoie when JAing", "increase poison damage by 100%" or "reduce technique charge time depending on Gear charge". You can extract the effect to apply it to another weapon of the same category, either onto another rare (which will lose its own bonus effect) or by creating a new 7+ weapon from nothing where you can influence star rating and X-ATK (which will affect equip requirement obviously) by yourself... but the better it is, the costlier it will get. Applying it to another rare might be cheaper and you have an element on it if he original rare has one, but creating a new weapon is easier since you don't have to hunt down the rare (since 10+ rares are more difficult to buy).

[Narrillnezzurh]

The first thing I'd tackle would definitely be drops.

There's nothing more disheartening for a player than knowing the weapon you want, or maybe need for progression, has literally an astronomically low drop rate, and the only thing such a low drop rate accomplishes, albeit very crudely, is getting the player to run a given boss/mission. A much better way of accomplishing this, while also allowing the player the opportunity to hone their combat skills, would be to tie rare drops to actions during the boss fight. For example, destroying Falz Elder's arms in a particular order or a particular number of times, destroying all the Fang Banther's claws before killing him, destroying every turret on Big Vardha, or player-specific achievements like going the entire fight without taking any damage, etc.

There are so many ways to take this sort of system. You could award the item outright so long as the conditions are fulfilled. You could have each fulfilled condition increase the natural drop rate of the item (a la Falz Elder's arms). You could segregate drops based on which conditions were fulfilled. You could make the conditions publicly known or even announce them before the fight, or you could keep them a secret. That would be a good system, I think, and the RNG element doesn't have to be completely removed.

Or you could do what some other games have opted to do (cough WoW cough) and award points for boss kills which are later used to buy gear outright. I don't really like that idea though. I think it'd be better if clearing normal missions awarded points, and you spent the points before EQs in exchange for drop rate increases or guaranteed drops. The RNG need not be removed in this case either, though it can be.

Item enhancement is subject to the same problem (sort of), and would have very similar solutions. You could simply remove the RNG entirely and have item enhancement act as a meseta sink, or you could create a grinding "mini-game," and have the player play it for each grind. Depending on how well the player does, the success rate for the grind will either go up or down.

I don't have enough experience to comment on gameplay balance, so that's all I've got so far :/

[Aquayoshi]

I know I'd give assault rifles a buff. As they are currently, they feel like fancy looking pea shooters. They sound like it, too- my .22 caliber SIG 522 sounds louder and more menacing than the pathetic little *pewpewpew* those things make. (Mechguns are equally guilty of this.) If they're supposed to shoot bullets, then give them a proper bullet sound like the Yasminkovs have. Otherwise, give them a cool laser sound like the rifles in PSO had, or at least something similar to the current sound, but with more punch to it.

Seeing as how rifles are arguably meant to be fired in manual aim most of the time, give them a small overall buff, and a large extra damage boost when hitting weak points in manual aim (NOT lockon). That way, the damage rifles do would be enough to make them worth using, but you'd still have to have at least some skill to use them effectively. Aimed headshots with Sneak Shooter should be outright lethal to most normal mobs. (It's much more satisfying to pop some heads knowing one shot will do the job.)

If that sounds unbalanced, then just try hitting a weak point on a moving enemy with Sneak Shooter in manual aim. It's not as easy as it sounds, and when you do kill 1 enemy with a single, clean, carefully-aimed headshot, your Force buddy just killed 3 in the same amount of time.

There's also the problem of many PAs and Techs being completely worthless, and the remaining few overpowered. Shifta and Deband don't last long enough, Elder Rebellion and Infinite Fire are the only mechgun PAs worth using, all the Barta techs are useless, etc. These are all fixable things everyone complains about, and I would fix them if I had full control over the combat system.

Lastly, I agree with the general consensus that weapons should be given utility beyond mere stats. I think this can be at least partially fixed under the current system: make the extra latent weapon abilities much, much more powerful, and have every rare start with its ability at level 1 rather than having to grind it to +10 and reset the grind to get it. Abilities that are more original than just boosting a skill from your skill tree should be added. Like, when the Frozen Shooter comes out, its ability when maxed should be 50% chance to freeze the enemy. (That's per bullet, so, on average, every normal attack should apply freeze twice.) It should have decent, but not top-tier R-Atk, relegating it to a utility role.

...I'm going to cry if the Frozen Shooter isn't the epic freezecannon it was in PSO, and I know I will be sorely disappointed. Bitter tears shall descend to floor, but, eh, I guess I'll get over it, won't I?

[Valimer]

I actually like what they did with the current set up, for the most part. What I don't like is that the "rare" weapons are not unique enough ability wise. I feel like each rare weapon should have its own utility or specialty, like in PSO1. Also I'm not a fan of RNG but hey, we need a money sink somewhere right?

But it is cool that you have the option to upgrade and deck out any weapon you want so you don't have to feel like shit for not owning or finding a rare weapon.

[NoiseHERO]

Take out fists' hitstop.

[FLAMINGO CHORD]

1) A system where your weapons would get different skills over time based on what enemies you killed.

example: kill vol dragon 25 times with one weapon, get vol soul.

The weapons ability to absorb enemy skills depends on the number of slots. The game alerts you of the prorgess of a particular skill (if it is over 50%) so you can know what you get from killing what.

You can pay meseta to "reset" your weapon by all skills or one skill, but it should cost a lot.

2) Every weapon should also have a dynamic mode, similar to gunslash.

Sword: 1 handed --> 2 handed. 2 Handed is slower and deals more damage, 1 handed is quicker and allows you to do counters easier, etc. Faster frames.

Gunslash: already exists

Partisan: Increases the reach, but also makes your hitbox specific to far away enemies. So, you cant hit enemies that aren't past a certain range. This would have cooldown / PP cost

Twin Daggers: hold them forwards or backwards. This would make your attacks look different and change the damage given from 90% attack from front to 110 %attack from back, depending on how you're holding.

Double Saber: detach for twin saber.

Rifles: Automatic from burst. You can fire until your clip is empty, but it isn't as accurate and the damage is less. How exactly is this useful? I'm not sure, so maybe it could be that its super accurate but less damage or something. I dunno.

Launchers and everything else, I'm not too sure of.

3) in a game like costume star online 2, there should be more weapon customizables. Like, keychains, or getting glow effects / swing effects, etc. They should cost meseta / be unlockable, obviously. A lot of the game is showing yourself of visually (check out my 10 star rare armor nubs / im in a rappy suit don't bother me), so I think being able to customize your weapons would be cool too.

4) Proficiency CO type things, except that they unlock particular aspects of a weapon PA. Example: Kill rockbear 10 times with sword only, and your Twister Fall will have a larger AOE when you smack the ground. These can only be done once, and will be limited, but they should be hard to get.

5) An ability that lets you switch between two weapons on the fly faster. There should be a downside, obviously. the point being it would allow you to do more combo type stuff.

[BlankM]

Out of every MMO I've played, the original PSO was the only MMO where I've felt huge incentive to collect a variety of rare weapons. Either because they had cool abilities, looked aesthetically pleasing, or were just plain useful. Many things were useful for different purposes which was also nice.

I'm not one for complex synthesis or other obnoxious loot-based mechanics. I really liked how PSO was just "Get a weapon, grind it to max, acquire photon drops." I think PSO2 should be similar, just add more useful potentials and don't make them a pain to level up. But if I were to take a crack at making my own weapon system, it'd probably be a far cry from it.

Of course, if it were up to me weapons would be breakable. It sounds terribly obnoxious, but breakable weapons keeps things fresh. Now for this to work a lot of the weapons would have to be fairly balanced, with their main difference being utility/style of play. And they would have to be obtainable. I would have a system, where you can set a daily hunt. Every day you pick a weapon you have your eye on, and every monster will have a chance of dropping your "Daily Hunt." The more days you "hunt" the same weapon in succession, the higher the chances of it dropping. Some weapons will start lower then others of course.

Now if everyone could just hunt what they want, where is the economy? Well the player dynamic here is that players influence the upgrades of each weapon as they play. Example killing certain monsters, hanging out in certain areas, or playing a certain way all give the equipment different abilities. You can pick and choose where to put your exp into the weapon of course, so its not a tedious choice as to what you should be doing. Even if the weapon breaks, these upgrades remain, and if you sell/trade it the weapon is restored by the new owner regardless of how long its been used. This means there is large incentive to buy and sell weapons since thats the best way to get unique upgraded weapons and maximize your benefits from weapons that have been used up. Also weapons handed down from player to player will be stronger.

And if you don't want all that, you can simply choose a weapon every 2 weeks/a month that is your "Main weapon." This weapon will never break, but once this is done it can't be traded.

[UnLucky]

I'd make grinding guaranteed, with no cap, where each grind level boosts stats by 1%, and costs an extra grinder each time. So to get to +5, you'd have used 15 grinders (1+2+3+4+5), no more no less.

Element grinding would work similarly, costing one synthesizer per element value on the weapon +1. Sacrificial items are not required, but will boost your element by half of what the sacrificed item had +5. Not sacrificing a dupe (synths only) raises your element by +1. Caps at 100.

AC items can be used for a grinderless grind, which basically becomes the only reasonable way to reach ridiculous grind levels. Tradeable, of course. FUN scratch rewards can double the effects of a single grind.

Potentials can be upgraded every 10th grind, costs an extra Sphere each time, but doesn't reduce your grind. So at +50 you can pay 5 Photon Spheres to upgrade your lv4 potential to lv5. You can't skip levels though, so even if your weapon is +100 without a potential yet, you can only pay 1 PS to unlock lv1 (you can, of course, immediately unlock lv2).

High level abilities already on a weapon cannot be lost outright. They can, however, downgrade. And any sacrificial items with abilities that didn't stick are lost along with the item. If you try to affix a Stat IV, should it fail, it will then automatically try to affix a Stat III. If it fails all the way down to Stat I, only then will it be lost. Upgrading an existing affix cannot downgrade more than one level per attempt. Also fuck the slot requirement for sacrificial items.

AC/FUN items can increase your chances of success and reduce (or eliminate) the chance to downgrade.

[jooozek]

i'd bring back the rank system from psp2 for equipping weapons and photon arts and the specials from pso in a form of a wildcard PA

[Kondibon]

i'd bring back the rank system from psp2 for equipping weapons and photon arts and the specials from pso in a form of a wildcard PA

I'd actually be ok with them using a rank system if they made it a bit more complex, where the classes could use weapons not meant for them (thus making a bunch of low * weapons available for multiple classes). They could then do something like combining available rankings when subclassing, though I'm sure more people would complain about not being able to use their favorite rares.

[Ryock]

This is an idea I toyed around with. Mind you, I have only read like.. the first post or two, so forgive me if someone else had a similar idea. Also, I'm not entirely sure if this belongs here, as this deals more with the attacking system of the game rather than the actual weapons themselves(the PAs more specifically).

I would've been a little daring and scrapped the whole PA idea behind weapons. However, there would still be another way of implementing a fun system for melee and gun based classes. It'd be something called a weapon inheritance system. Basically, every single weapon(and I do mean all of them, not just the rare ones) would have an ability, whether it be passive or active. Many abilities would be actives, rather than passives though. These active abilities are the replacements for PAs.

For those of you who played PSO1, it felt good to hunt weapons and armor that had unique and special abilities, didn't it? Despite their lower power, sometimes some weapons had really interesting abilities. Psycho Wand cut TP costs, Heaven Punisher had divine punishment, double saber had TP restoration, the lavis weapons had energy waves come out, etc. Unique and interesting weapons. That's what I'd wanna bring back.

So I'd give every single weapon an ability. So say for example, a hunter's starting sword may have an ability called bash. The system would still be the same with PP, etc. So it would cost PP for him to use his weapon's ability. As he goes on, he may find a stronger sword. This other sword has another ability called Round Swing or something like that. An aoe move. Now he can't use both swords surely. But what he can do, is take advantage of a weapon inheritance system.

What this would entail is that every has an ability, active or passive. Every single weapon is different. Some may have stronger versions of the same ability though. Every weapon could have up to three abilities on it. If you wanted a weapon with more than one ability, you could destroy a pre-existing weapon to transfer the ability to another weapon. So now that hunter who had Round Swing and Bash on two different weapons can transfer Bash or Round Swing to one of the other swords.

So he destroys his weaker sword, and transfers the Bash ability to his stronger blade. Now he has a blade with Round Swing and Bash =D. The way abilities are done in PSO2 would still be done this way. So you could fill up all the slots with just Bash if you like, and move the abilities around on your weapon's palette as you desire.

This would encourage people to hunt specific rares, and rares would be more valuable based on their inherent ability, rather than just their weapon type or raw power. For example, let's take double saber. It's a bit weak, but in PSO2, it has a pretty neat ability to restore more PP with every attack. So with a system like the one I just detailed, you could transfer say... this double saber's ability to a weapon to passively restore more PP while having both Bash and Round Swing on a single weapon. If you wanted to replace one of the abilities, you just simply destroy a weapon to transfer the ability to your already good sword.

To prevent abuse, some abilities could only be transferable to certain weapon types. They may also be bound to some weapons. So for example, the Psycho Wand may have a permanently bound PP cutting ability. This would help some weapons retain their niche and uses, so that everyone isn't always just reaching for the strongest weapon and throwing abilities onto it(in fact... you could just make it so 12+ rarity weapons could not have their abilities transferred).

I think this would be really neat, as it looks neat in my head. A fighter hybrid could be a lot more interesting say if they had a weapon that had a chance of automatically casting Razonde when you melee attack(this spell change would come out on its own though, it wouldn't interrupt your attack to cast it). This would encourage twin dagger users to stay higher in the air, so Razonde goes off every so often. When it would go off, the twin dagger user is already high up in the air, so they're passively damaging the enemies below them while they focus on another monster in the air.

For those of you who have played Ragnarok Online, it'd be similar to a Fireblend, but without the annoying Fire Bolt casting interruption.