The Desolation Weekly (06/27/21)

Subject: The Desolation Weekly (06/27/21) Sat Jun 26, 2021 8:06 pm

This week, The Veil Unfurled...

Hello, one and all! It's been a bit, and I've been slipping up a bit, but I'm trying my best to balance my real life, the issues that plague it, my friends and this site. It's a lot to juggle, and I'm sorry if things aren't progressing as smoothly as some of you would've liked. I appreciate the patience. After this post goes live, I'll be finishing off a few threads, to lighten my workload somewhat. But don't worry. I'm in this to finish it.

Things haven't really progressed much since last week, but we are finally getting some movement on the NC side of things, and Retuo, Cherry, Autumn and Helanna are finally getting close to their final destination, so soon we should be getting some more story progression on the Vagrant side of things in the Highrise, kicking off the Plot's very first story arc.

The Main topics I wanted to bring forth today are three things: The Lore Section of the site (which just got its first major entry. If you haven't read it yet, you can do so here), A future overhaul of the Tactical Support Sub-class, and bring up some potential changes in regards to Equipment, Melee Weapons and the Dexerity stat as a whole. The latter of which was something I initially wanted to introduce with In Search of Salvation, given its heavy survival theme. Depending your feedback, I could very well bring this new system to light, as a way to have your character grow alongside your Persona. This change would also be a pretty major one in terms of the site's systems. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's first talk L O R E.

The Lore Tab:

In case you haven't paid much attention to things outside of the roleplay, there's now a "Worldbuilding" Section of the site, where the DM and the players can add bits of information about people, places, wildlife and so on as a way to flesh out and enrichen the world of the Paris Desolation. My goal with adding this was to give the community a place to flesh out their own characters and their stories without bloating the History tab. This is also a prime place to add in your own NPCs, where I can read about them, and potentially give them a role to play in your character's story arc as a DM. That's always been something I like to focus on, trying to make each journey feel special and personal to the players that partake in them. If you give me the tools for that, either in Social Threads, Lore-tabs or what have you, I'll use those tools somewhere down the line. That's the magic of a Story-led Roleplaying experience comes from, right? For characters to have their moments, which you can talk about with your friends in the future. I hope to see this new part of the site put to good use.

Of course I have a place to play there too, as its in there where the lore-pages from the various lorebooks can be found and read once discovered in Roleplay. Give places, characters and events context which are difficult to give within the confines of a Roleplaying space. That and I really like seeing you people scurry about and throw ideas around as to what's going on in these, judging by the reaction from the first page, Two Shapes. I'm excited to see you uncover more of the history I have hidden within the Paris Desolation. It's there, for those of you eager to find it.

Going Tactical:

Alright, I just wanted to put this on black and white. I have some changes planned for the Tactical Support "Subclass" choice, making it more obvious of a path you can choose, increase it's viability on other classes (Like NC's, Forgotten and Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons), and make all of it much less "Word of Mouth-y" so to speak, like a lot of this site's systems actually are. While these changes aren't ready to shipped for quite a while, there is going to be a new set of Umbral Skills specifically tied to Tactical Supports (and they can only be picked by tactical supports too). So let me just give you an outline as to what is changing:

Tactical Supports will recieve a new way to rank up, as most rank up requirements are combat related.
The scanning abilities are being changed, with only one available to Non-Tactical Support Characters, that being the "Combat Scan". Combat Scan does what the normal Analysis Skill does already at tier 2. Tactical Supports get this skill at Tier 1, under the "Tactical Scan" Name. Full Analysis remains the same, but is made unavailable to Non-Tactical Support users.
Old Tactical Skills that are redundant will be replaced by new ones. Growth could potentially be removed with the new Rank-up requirements added to certain skills.

Tools of the Trade

Finally, lets talk a mechanic which I left on the cutting room floor when making In Search of Salvation. Given how Dexterity has been causing a lot of problems balance-wise (Being too strong in the early-game, while being too weak if not built around in the late-game), this might be a change worth bringing to the table. This would change up the entire way we look at our weapons specifically. Instead of tying Dexterity Damage to a Raw stat and Tier-system, like the other skills, my original vision for In Search of Salvation was to bring forth weapons with their own stats. It isn't quite as complicated as you'd think. All you do is add a Hit-rate for your weapon and a damage value. That's it. The benefits to such a system is that weapons as they are can be individually tuned to do more specific things, just like how weapons worked for the Main Character in Persona 3. Weapons would come in different classes, just like the guns, with different accuracy ratings, and damage values at certain levels. The further in you get in the game, the better your gear gets. Makes sense, right? Now this is a system that is again, still very much a work in progress, that's been iced for a solid, year or so, but if you'd like to see this part of the site get a bit more depth to it, sound off. Lets use Les Matthews Demon Weapon Shaiga as an example of what a weapon could look like with this new system.

Shaiga
Legendary Demon Weapon
Weapon Class: 1h Sword (Light)
Damage type: Slash
Attack: 130 (Aka, each attack with the weapon deals this much damage)
Accuracy: 90 (1/10 Chance to Miss)
Special Effect: Burns enemies on critical hits. When burned enemies die, your next fire skill deals 20% extra damage.

So with this new system, when attacking with your Weapon, you rely on your weapon's stats for the damage and accuracy of your attacks. Luck still provides accuracy bonuses/penalties if its higher or lower than that your target. Some weapons also have special effects, as you can see with Shaiga Above. These are typically attributed to Legendary Quality weapons, like Maxed Out Shadow/Demon Weapons, or notable weapons you've found in the wild. But this is a system I'll only implement if you'd like it. And the transition wouldn't happen for several weeks, if not months, as it's quite a big change. Let me know what you think though. Sound off with your feedback.

Until next week, stay safe out there in the Desolation... things are about to change.

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