Right. You’re right. There needs to be drawbacks. I should have included those.
In regards to either of the weapon swap systems I proposed (notably the concept of Harmonic Resonance’ Swapping), the ‘drawbacks’ is the easy part! Developers of ARPGs are real professionals when it comes to nerfs/drawbacks. You popped the question, though, so let’s get into it
Resource Management Strain: While a swap might grant a temporary benefit like a free spell or empowered hit, the act of swapping itself could consume a significant chunk of your primary resource (mana, energy, rage, etc.). This would force players to carefully consider when and if the short-term gain is worth the immediate resource cost, especially in prolonged engagements.
Stat Specialization Dilution: To truly capitalize on mode-specific skills and passive interactions tied to weapon types, players might feel compelled to invest in a broader range of stats. For instance, a Rogue switching between bow and daggers might need to balance Dexterity (for bow damage and accuracy) with Strength or Finesse (for melee prowess). This could lead to characters feeling less potent in either specific role compared to a more heavily specialized build that doesn’t rely on swapping.
Cooldown Overlap or Conflicts: Skills tied to different weapon sets might have independent cooldowns. However, frequently swapping could lead to situations where you want to use a key skill from your previous weapon set, but it’s still on cooldown. Alternatively, certain powerful buffs or procs gained from swapping might have internal cooldowns that limit how often you can effectively utilize the swap for those benefits.
Gear Optimization Complexity: While encouraging deeper build crafting is a goal, the need to optimize gear for two distinct weapon sets and potentially different stat priorities could become significantly more complex. Players might need to acquire and manage two sets of weapons and potentially even armor pieces with different affixes to maximize the potential of their swapping playstyle. This could increase the gear grind and make gearing feel more cumbersome.
Momentary Vulnerability: The act of weapon swapping itself could introduce a brief moment of vulnerability where the player is unable to attack, cast, or use other abilities. This “swap delay” would need to be carefully balanced – too short and it’s negligible, too long and it becomes a significant risk in fast-paced combat, requiring careful timing and prediction.
Passive/Buff Uptime Management: Passives or buffs that only activate upon swapping might have limited durations. Players would need to constantly manage the uptime of those effects by swapping frequently, potentially disrupting their natural combat flow or rotations. Missing a swap window could lead to a significant drop in damage or utility.
Now you see? This is what I was talking about when I said players will be dealing the same damage, etc. as they are now with their current build setups (as if weapon swapping [or ‘Harmonic Resonance’ Swapping] still never even existed) and… well, if they ‘miss out’ on dealing extra damage from extra effects then they miss out. Simple as that! It’s not a game-breaking thing where players would not be able to ‘complete’ current end-game content they’re engaged in now.
Skill Slot Pressure: While the initial suggestion includes separate Skills per weapon set, the total number of active Skills a player can readily access might still be limited. Players would need to make tough choices about which Skills to slot for each weapon set, potentially leaving out valuable abilities that don’t fit neatly into either “mode.”
Those trade-offs aim to ensure that while weapon swapping becomes a more dynamic and rewarding mechanic, it doesn’t become an automatic “must-do” for all builds or trivialize other aspects of character development and combat strategy.
The key would be finding the right balance where the benefits of swapping are significant enough to be enticing, but the associated costs and complexities are meaningful enough to encourage thoughtful decision-making.
Mana is not an issue in endgame builds, so this is not a tradeoff at all.
Going with Rouge example, there is not a single Rouge skill that uses other stats than Dexterity, so in this case this would not apply. For other classes, maybe, but I’m playing Rouge primarily so I cannot say for sure. (Although I’m pretty sure Sentinel uses Strength and Attunement.)
Endgame builds would have optimized rotations so the cooldowns never overlap (look at Guild Wars 2 for example, where weapon swaps are mandatory in endgame).
This tracks.
The entire point of a skill rotation with weapon swaps is to manage those buffs (again, look at Guild Wars 2 for example), so that is not really a tradeoff.
I’m entirely against the idea of having different skills for different weapons, as the game is currently. There are not that many skills to choose from, and we need to select what we take over something else. For Rouge example, you can either take Smoke Bomb to give yourself Haste and apply Blind on enemies, or take Decoy to make enemies stop focusing on you. Being able to just switch to another “skillbar” to use the one or the other defeats the purpose of having to choose one of them.
So… I have done my fair share of brainstorming here on my part. What would you propose for ‘better/actual’ drawbacks in such a system vs. just giving up on the idea entirely?
Mind you, what I have drawn up here is a mere blueprint for a new type of weapon swap mechanic (Harmonic Resonance Swapping) as I explained it in full detail.
I am also very new to Last Epoch (not even a week in thus far) so if I misspoke on a particular thing/intricacy, that is my bad.
P.S. I miss playing Guild Wars. Such a good game in its prime. Takes me back.
I would propose not implementing it at all, or at least not in the current state of the game. There are much more important things to do, such as removing snapshotting, reworking old masteries (we got Sentinel this patch, and rumors are that Acolyte is next), finishing up (currently experimental) WASD movement.
Maybe somewhere in the future, when (if) we get (a lot) more skills for each class/mastery it would make sense, but for now, I personally, don’t think it does.
I definitely agree with WASD Movement changes. I am hoping for a hybrid Mouse/Keyboard WASD option where the ‘S’ key makes your character take a step back vs. turning all the way around and running in the other direction.
Then the devs can make it where weapon swapping (no matter how good the implementation and idea is) isn’t allowed at all for Ladder Characters that are created for Ladder climbing. Problem solved on that.
Meanwhile, the rest of us players can enjoy new mechanics/things throughout LE’s continued development.
Developers of ARPGs are real professionals when it comes to nerfs/drawbacks. You popped the question, though, so let’s get into it 