An Update to Guns and Personas: In it for the Long Game

Hello, all! I think it's time we addressed a few more other, longstanding issues with the way this site has handled combat, specifically the Persona/Shadow Weapon/True Form, and the Sidearm. These are at this point old systems that could use some tweaking to make some options more viable, and ultimately keeps everyone invested and relevant throughout the conquest to liberate Paris.


Introducing: Magazine Size, Reloading, and Reserves Capacity.

The main balancing pivot that these weapons are hinging on is the Ammunition System. Ammunition costs money, and that makes gun use have a tangible cost in the long game. That's still staying. How I intend to balance the guns are with three mechanics tied to ammo. Magazine Size, Reloads and a Reserves Capacity. Magazine Size denotes how many shots you can fire from your weapon without needing to Reload. You have to spend a turn reloading if you intend to fire it again after having run out of ammo in a single magazine (This action can be done in or between fights). Your Reserves is how much ammunition your character can carry with them at any given time. Each Side-Arm class uses the same Magazine Purchasable at Devah, though your Weapon Type Denotes how much you can carry. Note that this is me trying to streamline the process without adding a crazy amount of ammunition types (As there will be more of them, and having 3 variations of each type of ammunition is excessive, and downright too much). How many bullets each gun can carry will be addressed below.

So there are three weapon-types, yes? Well, with the way systems were handled back in the day, players were heavily incentivized to run the Revolver-Style (Here on out called a Precision Style) Side-arm. Revolvers were reliable because they suffered no accuracy penalties, and on top of that, had the most efficient ammo economy, making them the go to choice for basically everyone, just because of their sheer viability, leaving the other two types unused, and forgotten about. This I want to change. The Spreadshot (Shotgun) style and the Machine-gun Style Side-arms were both TERRIBLE in their ammo economy, as a single shot consumed way more ammunition than necessary. So in today's update, I'm buffing Automatic fire (Previously Spreadshot) and Burst Fire (Previously Machine Gun) side-arms. The Weapon changes are noted below

Precision Style
Precision Style Side-arms are no different than just hitting an enemy with a soulbound, and seeing as they consume ammo, they should do a little more, to increase their viability. When using a Precision Style Side-arm, you get an automatic +10% to your critical hit chance, as it doesn't really do anything else to warrant the use of money, and being precision weaponry (Marksman Rifles, Hand Guns, Lever Action Rifles and so on), you're likely to aim with them towards critical spots on the body to do more damage. You can carry a maximum of 54 bullets with you at any given time, with a Magazine Capacity of 6.

Automatic-Fire Style

Automatic-Fire Style arms are the AoE-Variant Side-arm that focuses more on crowd control. These things will chug through ammo very quickly, but you're hitting more enemies as a direct result of just spewing more lead out there. As such, for each enemy still alive that you shoot, you lose 1 bullet in the magazine. I'm also buffing their accuracy from 70% to 80% because they already have the drawback of being heavy on the ammo. Automatic-Fire Style Side-arms (SMGs, Assault Rifles, Machine Pistols, Light Machine Guns and so on fall under this category) have a magazine capacity of 30 Bullets, with a Maximum Reserves Capacity of 90 Rounds.

Burst-Fire Style

Burst-Fire style Sidearms were in a terrible place back in the day of Endymion when they were first introduced. Not only did they have a minuscule 30% accuracy, but they also burned through your ammunition for no reason, because that accuracy was downright insulting. So Burst-fire weapons are getting a rather sizable buff to make them more of a lucrative option. They no longer suffer from the 30% reduction from being Burst-Fire weapons, and instead are only affected by the double-hit penalty. All Burst-fire weapons consume 2 bullets per trigger-pull, and remain single-target, hitting twice with 70% accuracy. They have 12 bullets in each magazine, and a maximum reserves capacity of 36 in total.

Boosting Reserves Size

Not to spoil anything, but once Devah's shop opens up, there will be a new Chest Piece added which bolsters how much ammunition you can carry with you. It'll increase the amount of magazines a character can hold at any given time by +2. So a Precision Based weapon can carry 12 more rounds, while a Burst-fire weapon can carry 24 more, and the Automatic-fire weapons have an increase of 60 rounds.

Keep in mind that these updates are subject to change in the future in case any outliers are found.

Now, lets turn our attention to our Personas.

In It For The Long Game

Alright, here's the REAL meat and potatoes of this update, and ultimately the change that I feel New Arcana needs the most. So for those of you who are still rather new to the site, the original design idea was for all non-Initial persona classes to get a bigger boost in the beginning, only to peeter out later on as Persona Users quickly overtook their peers as they got their Primes and Ultimates. While I intend to keep the Ultimate Persona as this behemoth of a power-up, I want to even out the Playing field for all the other classes. Why? Because all the late-to-end game stuff is balanced around the Persona user, making the other classes much less desirable to play in the long run. This puts newer players, in their first plot, into this feel-bad situation, and I don't want them to feel like they're missing out on all the action because they're simply not strong enough. Having an Ultimate Persona is such an anomaly that I feel bringing everyone up to that level is unnecessary... Though a Prime is Much more achievable.

As a Result, moving forward, ALL CLASSES will have a Secondary Stage to their Supernatural Evolution (And an upgraded Class Ability. Yes, that includes the Forgotten, Retuo. I see you.) While these upgrades are not ready to see the light of day, I'm making some changes to the way we distribute our stats moving forward.

All Classes now recieve 12 points to all stats at Rank-up (, except HP and SP. They get +24 instead.) + 12 points to Distribute. For the First 3 Ranks that you don't really have to unlock (Ranks 1-3), you gain Half of a normal rank, per rank (so 6 in all Combat Stats, sans HP and SP which gets +12 and + 6 Distributables per rank). This is to even out the class balance a little bit, and so players can play together irrespecitve of class without making enemies way too strong for some to handle. Yes, Persona Users will lag a little behind in terms of Skill Level, but... If you guys want, I can update that, to even out the classes. It's all for the sake of making everyone feel like they have a part to play even when the story is reaching its final moments. As for the Class Ability Upgrade to the Forgotten... You'll just have to get it for yourself. I'm not gonna spoil anything. That'd be rude.

And that's it for this (Hopefully) last patchnote for a while. I know it's a hefty read, but it'll be worth it. Trust me.