Revamp the spirit weapon system (2024)

That sort of thinking Hard isn't ever conducive to competant or intelligent game design; you have to consider the worth of a system to "X" niche of players as well as "Y" and "Z" niches.

- First, the NA servers yield FAR LESS experience from feeding the spirit weapons. Nexon KR really should stop assuming their american players are any less human than KR players and realize "Maybe" we think grinding is undesirable by and large in NA. (Just like anywhere else.)

- Second, as mentioned there's really no incentive versus a R7 weapon since by the time you're level 10K+ those are blatantly superior.

- Third, the special attack takes a while to build up, and it's weaker than my smash. (Read that twice). In the gaming industry these are known as CHARGE OVER TIME attacks, this is essentially your "Super attack" from games like Marvel Vs Capcom. Now imagine you had a character with a Super attack that was worse than pressing Heavy attack (smash) once. Yeah, that doesn't work. But please defer to #4 to better understand balancing super attacks in a game with tons of high damage attacks.

- Fourth, Idealistically they'd let you pick between "Critical, Breaking (blue dmg+piercing), Channeling (Enables wand/rod type usage for the spirit weapon, make it universal even.), Harmonic (Permits bard skills), etc... This could be expanded further to make it so a spirit weapon had the 'potential' to be a super damaging Pure-type weapon (A sword that just does swording) or even a weapon that fits that player "Perfectly" (A more moderate weapon that just allows many trees used via it.)
[People often forget that POWER BALANCING for games isn't always about raw-damage or Kills Per Minute, it falls more to flexibility, play-style, efficiency, and team empowerment, if you deal 4K less per smash than your friend, but provide a 60% damage boost to the party, party healing, and can utilize alchemy from your cylinder the flexibility awarded will often times provide more powerful end-builds than those without; a summarized version of this is simply say ing a BDK is the best weapon for a newbie while a 75-125 sword that permitted any tree would be a true 'end game weapon' and be far stronger if maximized.]

- Fifth, these weapons are only repairable via NX items essentially, so unless you picked some hideous weapon for your Ego weapon that we all know you wouldn't pick, chances are you either need a endangered or unique weapon to fix it, or pay NX. This is a flawed system when magic crafting/blacksmithing at R1 could be permitted the ability to 'free repair 1-5 points' per day or even a recipe for a 1-4 point one from rare minerals + spirit liquer. And they could permit "100% Prof weapons of the SAME WEAPON TYPE." <--- another ideal/easy solution.

- Sixth, These weapons are not blessable, so even if it hits 100 dura in reality its more like your normal weapon having say... 25-30. That's maybe 4-5 AAHM runs.

- Seventh, Do these even HAVE penetration? any? I don't recall if we can reforge or enchant them, i'm going to assume 'no' -- if so fix that immediatly.

- Eighth, lets assume we want to be creative with this system versus traditional; we could permit ANY NUMBER of elusive effects that could make them incredible; Minor life steal (10% damage stolen, caps at returning 75-100?), Mana steal, Stamina steal, Midas-Touch (Enemies slain drop 50% more gold), Guiding Spirit (Awards 30% more EXP to party while wielded* Note: People leveling faster isn't a real issue, since lots of people exploit.), Sweeping (Increased AoE Radius, Increased Splash Dmg %), etc.. etc... the skies really the limit with what they could do here.

Make it so your Spirit Weapon can get various Stat EXP through combat, alongside the normal Feeding EXP.

But set a daily cap to either all EXP, or just Combat EXP, sort of like there's a limit to renown.

.... I don't know what sort of limits would be balanced for that...
A cap of a flat amount of exp per day? A cap of a certain % of that stat level's exp per day?
Then again, that's just one thought on just the GROWTH aspect.

I'm sure the actual stats/boosts/effects of the spirit weapons need to be changed and rebalanced to be made more viable, when compared to other weapons.

But other weapons can already get so strong, that if egos were revamped to be made preferable to those, they'd probably have to be capable of dealing even more damage than them, or something.
But then everyone would just be using their ego weapons for everything, and why would they want to use anything else if it was weaker?

Hmm...
I just want Spirit Weapons to be good enough that I'd actually want to use them, and also to be worth the effort it takes to raise and maintain one.

Oh but the Awakening Skills could have a quickfix in making them deal damage based on your character's strength.
Not this fixed damage stuff.
It was semi-impressive back when everyone was weaker and doing a few thousand damage was awesome, but nowadays...

I'm not sure if resurrecting this post is breaking any forum rules, so I'm sorry in advance.
After recently getting back into the game, I acquired a liberty saber and didn't know whether or not to make it a Spirit Weapon or upgrade it.
If the only way to repair it is via buying NX or finding another saber, I agree about the update because it definitely swayed my decision in the matter.

Aeolys wrote: »

Spirits are in a dire need of a revamp. Didn't the KR devs say something about a revamp some time ago?
A few things need to be addressed in a revamp.
1) Weapon stat growth needs to be scaled up to at least match current normal upgraded weapons.
2) Wand spirit weapons need to get a Magic Attack stat growth. Currently Strength and Intelligence just increases physical attack and balance.
3) Experience growth rate needs to be increased and/or exp required to decrease. Mabi's character exp and explorer exp growth curve was reduced over the past years to ease leveling up but Spirit weapon growth stayed the same all these years. We are essentially using the growth chart of a MMORPG of the 2000s, ie: the grindy era of MMORPGs. The only way to grow a spirit weapon at a reasonable rate is to feed it large gems. A 5cm gem exp gain already starts to give minuscule experience after level 20.
4) Spirit awakening needs a damage boost. Even the rank 1 (level 50 social level) damage output (fixed 2000-4000 for swords) is pitiful in the battles of today. The range also needs to be improved since it depends on the weapon's splash radius, which is tiny for many weapons outside a two handed weapon.

As someone who has a social approaching level 50 spirit weapon, I kinda want the experience gain to remain as is and everyone else suffer through the same ordeal as myself and every other person with high spirit weapon.
I can agree with everything else though.

Iyasenu wrote: »

I just want Spirit Weapons to be good enough that I'd actually want to use them

With the release of weapon erg, I don't think spirit weapons will ever be able to out-damage regular weapons. Spirit weapons need an alternate role. I believe they should become

and companionship. The entire ego and spirit weapon system can be revamped as such:

1. Spirit weapons take up no space. They materialize and dematerialize with a press of a keybind. They will replace your current weapon when materializing, unless you have no room to store your current weapon at which point they will just complain about your messy inventory and not appear.

2. Spirit weapons do not lose durability, but they can get angry if you mistreat or misuse them. They will refuse to materialize if they are very angry or too weak. I haven't worked out the specifics of how spirit weapon mood or 'health' would work. Any suggestions? At this point, since we're talking about a total revamp, we are not limited or bound to the existing spirit weapon mechanics. Let your imagine run free.

3. They cannot be reforged, enchanted, or be given weapon upgrades. They can be blessed, sanctified, poisoned, elementally enchanted, or any other temporary effect, but it will only last until the weapon is dematerialized and serves more of a roleplay/relationship function. For example, low level spirit weapons can't handle being poisoned and will get hurt and angry, but high level spirit weapons can tolerate many applications of poison before they let you know they've had enough.

4. High level spirit weapons get utility benefits: Wand spirit weapons at high levels can chaincast any of the three bolts. Bow spirit weapons can eventually fire without arrows, but the shots will be at the strength of regular arrows. High level cylinder spirit weapons use less crystals per alchemy use, eventually needing none. Also, they can use hydra transmutation without a guard cylinder at the cost of damage to themselves, so hopefully that function will be used sparingly. As for axe/blunt/sword spirit weapons, maybe you guys can come up with some good utility functions at higher levels.

5. Spirit weapon dialogue will be constructed like mad libs so it will be more unique to each player. Examples: "The [blessed fluted short sword] you fed me [last week] was [decent]." or "[Hahaha], look at what [nearby player name] is wearing. How [ridiculous]!" vs "[Wow], look at what [nearby player name] is wearing. How [stylish]!" These comments will generally appear as speech bubbles, like a partner. You can of course talk to them like an NPC at any time. They will not spam you about wanting to talk.

Say hello to the next generation of spirit weapon.

Actually it's a dan pose :P