What do you want EP6 to get right?

[Golgotha]

Stances' problem is that they're directly affecting damage multiplier more than anything else, which led to their constant quickfixing so their activation would require as little effort as possible. You end up needing both stances, because you need multiplier in any situation, and if youre not utilizing them, you might as well pick different class, and everyone complains about why you can't get the multiplier somehow in an easier way. Its why you dont want more stances, because you can't imagine them not being so essential that failing to comply with the condition would be an absolute handicap.

If they (or you) wanted more synergy between class stances, you'd need stances to affect less critical game aspect that would alter your performance differently, not amplify it in the same way under different circumstances. It would also need to be universal too to be a viable option to most classes.
Ideally it would also need to provide specific effect regardless of whether you fulfill its conditions or not. Just like stances usually work in other games or something

Which is kinda difficult due to how few mechanics exist in the game.
You HAVE to switch between brave and wise to not lose the huge chunk of damage, which forced developers to reduce difference between them and add things like knuckle S4 that flat out adds extra frontal damage during wise. Its kind of a self-mutilation.

This absurd damage accent and classes being strapped to their weapons leaves you in situation where everyone subs Hu or Fi. And I don't remember them saying that current state of subclassing or stances is a such big problem, because apparently its not a problem if players aren't saying anything.

[Kilich]

Or they quit instead of saying.

[vantpers]

Other than Mother's arm phase is entirely Brave stance (probably because Mother herself is always looking at the middle point of the arena), and that the arms can only be hit one at a time so no multi hands drifting like on Elder, having too many stance switches during action parts is annoying. Just like having to shortcut switch R rings but worse.

[Dark Mits]

snipped to save space

I agree with most everything you say. However worded differently, your first paragraph just says that players want to have the absolute theoretical max multipliers without having to choose anything, and without having to sacrifice anything. That doesn't make an interesting game.

Regarding your 2nd paragraph about class synergy, my proposal above does that. It does not take into account anything that is class specific. All stances are useful for all classes and they are universal. No stance is tied to any weapon (except SU's pet stance) or even weapon type (strike / range / tech). They are tied to the state of the enemy and the battlefield (and your allies for TE's proposed stances).

Your 3rd paragraph actually highlights the issue. Players don't like to have to make choices; they just want to see big numbers without them wanting to play, just spam whatever and see big numbers. This reminds me the discussion in World of Warcraft many years ago, where Fire Mages had a significant part of their damage tied to dealing critical hits, and players with 70% crit chance would actually create threads complaining that they should have 100% crit chance because "our class does not have 70% crit chance, it has 30% chance of blocking us from dealing proper damage."

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Fluidity is very important to an action game. But there are different types of fluidity. My proposal does not hinder a player from being agile, from being able to dodge attacks, from being able to move around the battlefield quickly or from being able to close/increase gaps to an enemy. The only changes are to damage output, which isn't radically different than selecting a different PA/Tech except on a longer scale.

Clunkiness is when a player has to perform a series of actions before they are even able to perform a task, and they have to repeat that a lot of times over a small period of time. Clunkiness, for example, is having to switch a different weapon, accumulate PP over time, and then spam a specific PA to be able to move swiftly around the battlefield. Clunkiness is highlighted if someone is able to accomplish that without effort, while others have to perform this series of actions. Imagine if instead of that, we just had a skill at our disposal that gave us dashing speed at the expense of PP over time. That's how you remove clunkiness.

[Kilich]

I kinda want more skills like tech arts that promote combos, instead of spamming one PA. I think some of the situational potentials do that, including those that require a specific distance, or specific facing/position, because they promote including movement PAs into the dps cycle, but potentials go obsolete with their weapons, skills are permanent.

For example, katana Fi/Br has asagiri and sakura 0 as combo starters, one is for closing in and gear activation, another for getting yourself airborne.
Then they branch out into guren to dodge a frontal attack, hien/tsukimi to keep yourself in the air and deal a lot of hits/deal quick damage to a high weak point, or gekka to land yourself and launch them.
Kanran is an exception, because it promotes spamming, but mobs die very quickly, so I hesitate to say that using the same PA 2-3 times per spawn is spamming,

[Golgotha]

your first paragraph just says that players want to have the absolute theoretical max multipliers without having to choose anything, and without having to sacrifice anything. That doesn't make an interesting game.

Also, whether you pick a stance or not at the moment is not actually a choice, because you're required to use the correct one, with the alternative being more or less failure (which is why they had to give them both same base multiplier).Its Like a difference between rpg game and a rhythm game rather than sacrifice.

So we aren't even at the stage of having less builds due to optimization, as all stances, spare hunter's, only deal with more damage and critical (that no one picks because crit only affects damage and only in one class).

[XrosBlader821]

Imagine if instead of that, we just had a skill at our disposal that gave us dashing speed at the expense of PP over time. That's how you remove clunkiness.

Sega already tried that. Test Players were complaining about motion sickness and a wasted Subpallete slot.
In other words it fixed one issue but created another one and that's how your stance proposal sounds in general. Fo and Te, even Bo players already have subpallette management problems. Dark Blast Elder release turning all left-side stances into passive abilities was a blessing that we had to wait for way too long.

[Kilich]

I thought of a good one. I wish for sega to stop creating content just to abandon it later. There's so much content in the game, but almost none of it is relevant. Or even outright cut from the game like ep 1-3 matterboards.

[Dark Mits]

Sega already tried that. Test Players were complaining about motion sickness and a wasted Subpallete slot.

That... doesn't make sense. Why would dash on-demand (through action) cause motion sickness when dash on-demand (through PA) doesn't? I can understand the issue about Subpallete slot though.

In other words it fixed one issue but created another one and that's how your stance proposal sounds in general. Fo and Te, even Bo players already have subpallette management problems. Dark Blast Elder release turning all left-side stances into passive abilities was a blessing that we had to wait for way too long.

I can't argue against that since I do acknowledge that my "solution" would bring more icons needed to be pressed. But if the issue is subpallette management, then maybe they could:
- remove entirely some cooldowns (which would simplify gameplay and remove choice from player, so that's a no-no)
- allow -mates to be selected through a menu, just like we currently select Dark Blast form (so all -mates would be on a single slot, but it would make it clunkier and slower to select the one we want). This menu can also hold all yellow food buffs (Meat Ration etc), yellow ticket buffs (Triboost, RDR, etc), green food buffs (Jerky etc.) and Telepipe (not for eating though). That way players can have the option to shove them all in 1 slot, or keep them as they are now.
- allow compounds (not the spammable ones) to be on a menu as above, so that they again occupy one slot instead of 3, again at player's choice.
- allow tech weapons to have enough pages to fit all techs on them, and we flip through them instead of just front and back. That way we can have weapons with 9, 12, 15 etc. techs, which would allow for more subpallette space, but it would be significantly slower to find the tech we want on the weapon.


On an entirely different tangent, I'd add to my wishlist the option to select rarity of items that are auto-picked up. Currently we only have for meseta and 13*+. I'd like it to be extended to: (i) 1*+, (ii) 4*+, (iii) 7*+, (iv) 10*+, (v) 13*+, (vi) just meseta, (vii) nothing. Some of us are hoarders and it's annoying to miss out on action because we are stuck picking up items in Free Fields and putting them in the bank. It would also help reduce the time people spend collecting items at the end of an EQ and therefore waste their precious seconds from their Triboost.

Other stuff I'd like the game to get right in EP6:
- Add new daily crafts that include stuff implemented after EP3. I should be able to get Earth Crystals, Omega Crystals and EP6 Crystals at a very slow pace by performing daily crafts.
- Fix Extending to be something useful. At the very worst just make it work like Timed Ability but for weapons.
- Redesign the entire affixing process to be something intuitive that relies on player's pocket, and not this convoluted mess of having to use guides and simulations before trying it for real (and failing at 98%). I can even write an entire essay on how to make it extremely streamlined, easy, and yet require hours upon hours of farming to get similar results for 6s and 7s, but just minutes to get 4s and 5s.
- Fix the issue where the game treats you as disconnected when you are in a loading screen (when you switch blocks, go to your room or team room, go into Franka's Cafe etc. you appear offline to others, and you actually miss chat).
- Balance (ie. buff) Client Order rewards for the NPCs at the Shop Area. Currently it's almost not worth the time to go and pick them manually for COs that are not even 100% certain they'll complete. Or at least make them appear in the recommended list.
- Remove randomness from Campship drinks, even if it means nerfing the best result we can get, or inversely buffing the worst results so that everyone gets the "best". At the very worst just implement more drinks if all bonuses have to exist for "player choice". Going in and out to get the ideal drink is not fun, nor is having to use the "friend" trick to maintain the good buff.

[Sirius-91]

- Fix the issue where the game treats you as disconnected when you are in a loading screen (when you switch blocks, go to your room or team room, go into Franka's Cafe etc. you appear offline to others, and you actually miss chat).

This is part of their netcode. When you swap blocks or change to battle mode or challenge mode shared ships, you are literally being disconnected.