Developer Post - Weapon Mastery

Jens Andersen & Mark Halash posts taken from:

https://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/work-in-progress-weapon-mastery.193243/

Hello everyone,

I am so happy to finally reveal some details about our new system coming with DLC 10 – Amazon Fury. It’s called Weapon Mastery, and it is really exciting!

Weapon Mastery is a new feature that allows you to spend skill points in a weapon tree and unlock new weapon mastery combos for that weapon. Once you have done this, your character will be able to flow from one weapon to the other in a combo. All you have to do is spend the points in the necessary trees, master the combo, and you are pulling off new hybrid weapon combos in combat.

Our goal with the system was multi-faceted: First, for a long time, many of you have been asking to be able to make characters with a multi-weapon theme. We wanted to let you take inspiration from characters like Deathstroke, Huntress, or Arsenal, and realize that in DCUO with your own hero or villain. This system is going to let you do just that.

Second, we wanted to give you a more robust way to use your skill points. Players with lots of skill points really spec in other weapons simply to get the passive buffs found in the central column of the skill trees. Weapon Mastery makes your character more dynamic and powerful in a very meaningful and active way. In short, the game becomes more fun in the moment to moment, not hidden behind some wall of stats.

Third, we wanted to have a system that added something fun and challenging to the combat in the game. The name is Weapon Mastery for a reason. It takes skill to master the new combos and their many uses.

We also wanted to make sure this system was something that you would be able to enjoy no matter what your current character concept was (power/weapon/movement combination). In short, we wanted it to layer on top and add to your character, not force you to change it.

Fourth, we wanted to do something that would give another option to people that didn't like the clipping mechanics.

Prior to weapon mastery, clipping was the only real way to get your scorecard numbers “competitive.” But many of you don’t want to clip. You like seeing the beautiful animations of your weapon and character in action. Weapon Mastery encourages timing and playing through all the animations to maximize the damage output.

As a side benefit, it also brings the non clippy superpowers on par with the clippy ones through the use of weapon mastery (you can’t clip and benefit from weapon mastery at the same time, it is either or).

And last, we wanted something that would look and feel bad-*** to play. This shaped our decisions on how we put the weapon combinations together. How things blended and what weapons worked well with other weapon combos were a big influence on the system. DCUO looks great in combat and we wanted to make sure Weapon Mastery continued that tradition.

Before I turn it over to Tunso to give you some details on the nuts and bolts, let me go into a few reasons why weapon master isn't one of the following:

Q - Why can’t I just load out two weapons and switch between them? A - Because it is kind of boring. Plus, you could always do this anyway, and now with armories in the mix, it is even easier. Also, it doesn't make skill points more relevant or offer new ways to spec a character. A weapon would still be a weapon, how you equipped it wasn't going to be bring much to the table.

Q – Why don’t you allow me to wield two existing weapons of my choice simultaneously? A - Because this just isn't feasible with our system. Shield and one handed are held in the same hand. So to implement a sword and shield we would simply be making a set of new weapon animations. You can imagine the amount of work and memory that would go into trying to support a system like that. It simply isn't sustainable.

Without further ado, keep reading for the details from Tunso:

Hi everyone, I'm Mark Halash (aka Tunso) the Lead Systems Designer on DCUO. Jens covered the basics, so I'll go into some depth about Weapon Mastery and how it works.

Standard disclaimer: Specific numbers and other details may change based on testing and feedback!

Earning a Single Weapon Mastery Unlocking mastery for a weapon requires spending a minimum number of skill points in that weapon tree. Currently when you spend 20 skill points in a single weapon tree, a new box in the upper right hand corner of that tree becomes purchasable. This is the Weapon Mastery box.

Buying this box earns you mastery in that weapon. This does a number of things. Firstly, certain attacks will begin causing more damage. And beyond this damage increase, these attacks will cause even more damage if they are not clipped before the attack hits your target. But the most important detail about these attacks is that they will become links allowing you to use cross-over attacks from other weapons you have mastered! More on that later.

There are also improved passive effects while wielding a mastered weapon. Whether the weapon is ranged or melee, you will gain enhanced Movement Resistance and Weapon Critical Attack Damage. Finally you gain access to a new row of stat boxes. These new stat boxes are tuned to last you through tiers 6 and 7 so you'll find them tasty for some time to come. But read on to learn about even better ways to spend your skill points than plain old stat boxes!

Multiple Mastery The real fun begins when you gain mastery in more than one weapon. Each weapon has synergy with two other weapons. For example, Brawling has synergy with Two-Handed and Martial Arts. If you've mastered one or the other (or both!) of those you will be able to purchase cross-weapon combos from the Brawling tree that will allow you to chain Brawling attacks into specific Two-Handed or Martial Arts attacks! You do NOT actually need to have a Two-Handed and Martial Arts weapon to use the Brawling cross-weapon attacks. We figured that would be annoying.

Multiple Mastery is like gaining a totally new weapon attack style! We've tried filling any holes a weapon may have had in terms of gameplay options. You may have never considered using a Two Handed weapon before. Your opinion may change once it has great ranged AOE options and new devastating melee attacks that aren't as predictable and vulnerable as multiple holds in a row.

The damage potential of cross-weapon combos is tuned to compete with top-end combo-based power sets such as Celestial, Light, and Rage. These attacks have a progress bar so if you clip them too early you lose out. But don't get me wrong. Your super powers are a vitally important part of this equation!

Rather than clipping these attacks fast as you can, you'll want to time your super powers and launch them right at the moment of impact for a devastating one-two punch! During that brief window your Ability Critical Chance is tripled. Yes, this means you can achieve a 100% chance to crit your super power IF you hit the timing window correctly! Not only that, but your Ability Critical Damage may also dramatically increase. This varies based on the length of the combo, but you could see your super powers critting for over quadruple damage in some cases. Of course, this assumes your unleashing your super powers with correct timing!

Odds, Ends, and Housekeeping There are a number of housekeeping issues we're addressing in order to bring you Weapon Mastery. We've done some re-arranging of the stat boxes in the weapon trees to ensure that every tree has percentage based crit boxes. This goes for damage, healing, and power healing critical stats. Skill points are about to become tight commodities again and we didn't want weapons that lacked percentage based boxes to become “bad” by default. Another side effect of this is that there is 2% more crit chance and 12% more crit damage available in the skill trees overall.

Early in DCUO's development, we set some design parameters about how animations should be timed. These unfortunately fell to the wayside in a few cases. Incorrect timing results in balance issues. In the case of powers and consumable items, long animations are bad as that makes them worse for clipping. For weapons, long animations are awesome as you'll just clip them with powers anyway, so the long animation time just means higher damage without any real penalty.

So with those facts in mind, we'll be doing a pass on all animation timings. We'll be looking at power animations and trying to bring these closer to the 1 to 1.2 second range. We'll also be enforcing a minimum animation time when jump-canceling so that powers with duration remain in the same acceptable range as other powers. We'll also look at weapon animations and adjust any remaining outliers, although most of these have already been taken care of already.

Finally, ranged Charge Up Attacks are being removed from the game. Just like when you weaponize a barrel or a box, Charge Up Attacks require a hand-shake from the server before they actually fire. Unlike most other attacks, this requirement introduces a lag hitch that varies based on your connection speed. They don't feel great to use and their unpredictability runs counter to the design goals of weapon mastery. So you'll see Charge Up Attacks replaced by regular “hold” attacks that don't require charging.

Jens Anderson hopes that weapon mastery will help narrow the damage gap between all powers, so players can all have a chance to become top in the damage meter.