Tree of Savior Forum

0cd skills and QoL

Gameplay Feedback General Feedback
#1

We are over a year in now and some changes we’ve received gives me the confidence that IMC is now “able” to give QoL changes to 0cd skills. These won’t be suggestions to balance between classes but rather suggestions to change the mechanical aspect of “playing”.

To start off, let’s define 0cd skills. 0cd skills are skills that have 0cd. Currently, all of these skills have a relatively “instant” animation. They also require a key press per use.

The quality of life issue that I would like addressed is the “key press per use”.
Here is a list of 0cd skills that will be affected should IMC agree:
(swordsman)

  • [thrust]
  • [attaque composee]
  • [flanconnade]

(archer)

  • [oblique shot]
  • [heavy shot]
  • [stone shot]
  • [critical shot]
  • [split arrow]
  • [bodkin point]
  • [barbed arrow]
  • [crossfire]

(cleric)

  • [double punch]

! Now there are some 0cd skills that cant be treated the same way as those listed above:

  • [spear throw] is ground targeted so it can’t be automated this way
  • [effigy] has “no targeting” and simply hits anything with a curse on it. If it can be done it would be much appreciated.

I would like to propose the following change apply to 0cd skills to address this:

  • Change 0cd skills into a buff that augments the auto attack.

My reasoning for this is as follows:

  1. Auto attack does not require a key press per auto attack but instead only requires holding down the the key (in mouse mode this is done by left clicking a target)
  2. ToS already has skills that augment auto attacks so I believe “it can be done” ([running shot] from quarrel shooter, [last rites] and [aspergillum] from chaplain)
  3. A schwarzer reiter skill was modified by IMC to perform in the suggested manner already. [limacon] started out as a 0cd skill that caused an attack and moved the player in a direction. It was changed into a buff that augmented the off hand attack with a pistol to perform the old skill attack when holding down the off hand attack.
  4. A cannoneer stance was introduced to allow auto attacking with an off hand. Cannons are off hands that do not have an off hand attack. The skill [bazooka] allows the player to auto attack with the cannon instead of their crossbow.

Calling on staff for approval: @STAFF_Max @STAFF_Letitia

kTOS General Thread v2.0
#2

What if someone wants to use, say, both Split Arrow and Stone Shot (stunning upto 3 targets)?
How would having both the 'buff’s up affect the auto-attack?
Will the buffs have downtime?

I guess the main point is I’m putting up is how would different ‘buffs’ affect each other, and how would it justify the current SP usage of said skills?

You forgot two skills: Flanconnade and Attaque Composee.

In the Swordsman case, the attack animations themselves are significantly different. How would having both buffs up affect these, then?
Considering also that one may want to alternate the use between these two skills, so having one buff canceling the other would be undesirable, unless of course the buff itself is also 0 CD.

#3

@Cleodora ty for reading thru and pointing out flaws and holes in my reasoning. I would appreciate too if you can find a way to provide this QoL I am seeking for 0cd skills if only in our heads.

added

Personally, I would rather “they try it and see” since this would simply be a form of natural synergy. [stone shot]'s stun only applies to its target +1 bounce while [split arrow] bounces onto 2 target. You would basically hit up to 4 targets (possibly stunning 2). How ever I am not privy to how IMC ultimately decides things (like how they translated [limacon] into a buff) this is just my guess. That is why this is just a suggestion and why I mention my reason for wanting it (my issue with “key press per use”).

They could go with the same reasoning for the cost of the new [limacon] vs the old iteration of the skill.

They could also go with flat or % sp drain while the buff is active just like how having the summon out for sorcs and werewolf form for druids.

My point is IMC has mechanics in use that can be applied here.

I would go with what they did with [aspergillum] in that there is “another line of attack” that “carries” [aspersion] into the auto attack. If you have both buffs for [flanconnade] and [attaque composee] your auto attack would have 3 lines: 1 for your basic auto attack, 1 for [flanconnade], 1 for [attaque composee]. You can argue “too OP” but it can be balanced with sp costs stacking with 2 of these buffs up (but that is an issue of balance which I am not going into).

Another approach is going with “stances” like [kneeling shot] and [bazooka] (both of which are 0cd themselves) where you can not mechanically go into both stances at the same time.

Again, my point is IMC has mechanics in use that can be applied here.

#4

What about a simple “keep the button pressed to recast it asap” for 0 cd skills?
Obviously that would only work where applicable (it wouldn’t work properly with spear throw, for example).

#5

@Don_Falce ty for noticing my plea for QoL in 0cd skills.

I would have suggested that if there were an instance of such a mechanic already existing. To my knowledge, that is not the case. The closest thing we currently have is the channeling mechanic. The problem is channeling is easily interrupted by anything while auto attacking is not.

If there is such a mechanic already available, I would like to be informed about it so I can try it out. Is there a non channeling skill that allows holding the hotkey down for the continued use of a skill?

#6

Your idea is pretty interesting, but I feel like it should only apply to skills that more or less wind up ‘replacing’ your autoattack. For example: Double Punch, Composee, Crit Shot from the older non-dex meta days, Barbed Arrow.

Problem being: a few of the skills listed have situational uses, that might make combat clunky/clunkier if turned into a buff.
(Stone Shot, Heavy Shot; Barbed Arrow here too because while it might as well replace the AA alongside Magic Arrow spamming, it’s still somewhat situational).

I think a much easier alternative would be to rework the end-skill delay, so it could be held down and spammed similar to an autoattack.

…And maybe change hotkey editting to be per-character, so you could edit these skills to Z ( or whatever you use for autoattacks), and the change wouldn’t affect your other character’s control schemes.

#7

Right now there aren’t such mechanics existing, for what i know. I guess they could recycle some of the code from the autoattack, though.
Even if they had to put some work on it, though, i think it would be the better choice. It’s not like changing them to buffs wouldn’t be without issues either, after all.
If they ended up in the second row they would likely end up heavily cluttering the interface or, if put in the first row, impact heavily in the balancing of the classes, due of the buff limits. Dunno how that would work with buff-sharing skills, also. They probably would have to put some more work on it either way, i guess.

#8

@Tankhime ty for pointing out how this should mostly affect pseudo auto attacks. Though that is my intent as well, I can not find a reason not to include the other 0cd skills mechanically aside from [spear throw] and [effigy] so I gave a blanket coverage to all 0cd skills except those 2.

That will be an issue I leave to IMC’s discretion after seeing what they did with [limacon]. The community has generally made it know which skills they use in place of AA anyway. IMC can act on that.

The emphasis of this is thread is to use existing mechanics to aleviate QoL regarding the current iteration of 0cd skills. Using something IMC already has is easier than creating something new. Unless IMC already has this in the works, this is something new.

#9

If the DEX to atk speed change goes live, does that mean I have to press these 0cd skills faster?