So far, it’s been mostly trivial stuff not affecting game mechanics and power creep. Starting here, it becomes more intrusive, yet I believe it can be controlled pretty easily and won’t have too much effect on the balance, while adding cool game mechanics which can be acquired by gaining extra character and weapon masteries levels.
IV. New combat ability tightly coupled with the weapons your character use, let’s call it “Battle Trance”
- Every character acquires it naturally at level 30
- Can only be used on highest difficulty levels (Damnation, Maelstorm mission, Havoc missions; possibly even at Heresy too, with reduced number of charges (explained below))
- To be able to use it during the mission, you need to charge it by killing foes, causing damage, or even taking damage (to much lesser extent) - this is the way to control how often it can be used in a run I mentioned, thus preventing power creep going out of control. If Fatshark decide it’s used too often in the mission, they can adjust the charging cost easily. I would say that probably 2 activations during a mission shouldn’t be that much of a problem. It also further could be controlled by some cap counter, like 2 activations total (some sort of token, or special stim with limited charge your character has implanted) - so you need BOTH charge it and decide how to use it sparingly during the mission. There also could be material costs associated, like you need diamantine to craft additional charges before going on missions
- Once charged, it stays charged for a brief time - but then will decay unless you keep dishing out damage
- When activated, what happens next is HIGHLY based on your loadout and weapon masteries levels you have, and somewhat on your character levels. In general, your character can either start a scripted sequence of combat moves you still can control if you activate Battle trance while wielding a melee weapon - or be put in special mode where he can use BOTH standard ranged attack of their gun and their melee weapon at the same time, if activated when wielding the gun (more details on each are below). This status lasts for about 10 seconds, then ability’s gauge resets to zero and you have to charge it again.
- You still can use your Combat Ability as long as it doesn’t require aiming and is casted immediately
- You can interrupt the Trance anytime by pressing the Trance button again, swapping your weapon ends it as well.
IV-a. Melee Battle Trance
The main theme of this one is that player can create their own sequence of combat moves (“Strikes”) that will be executed automatically when they enter Battle Trance in the designated order. Each weapon type will have their own set of those strikes with their unique animations (can be partly based on the existing ones though), which are unlocked with extra mastery levels (past the current cap). After they are unlocked, they can be repeatedly upgraded each every N extra levels of weapon mastery, making them SLIGHTLY more powerful, up to a certain cap. Each of the “Strikes” will have either Light or Heavy attack, or the Special attack profiles as usual, and will inherit all the starndard weapon properties, including perks and blesses. At the same time, each such Strike also will have extra modifiers of its own making it more powerful than usual attacks with this weapon (the part that can contribute to the power creep).
When in Melee Battle Trance, your character always moves forward on itself (you don’t control them with WASD keys) at significantly higher pace (at Sprint speed, or higher) - while you still control the direction of their movement with the mouse (or the stick on gamepad). It burns stamina as if you’re sprinting - but you have certain amount of Stamina replenished when entering it, so you’ll have at least some action. At specified intervals, or when bumping into an enemy the gauge is displayed which assumes you will be pressing either LMB or RMB when it passes through a narrow marked zone in its center (similar to Data Interrogation mini-game). If you miss the moment once, one of the planned attacks is just skipped, if you miss it twice, Battle Trance ends preemptively. You have only one attempt per each attack, and pretty narrow time frame, so it’s like a rhythm game. Your character is dashing around while your press mouse buttons rhythmically, dishing out some damage.
While in Melee Battle Trance, you also can press Dodge key anytime - this will automatically skip the currently planned attack and your character will make a pirouette in the same direction instead, dodging all attacks. You can use your instant cast no-aim Combat Ability in the same way (substitutes a planned attack) too. In this mode you also have a portion of your toughness and stamina restored at the start of it, and your resistance to stamina damage increased significantly.
The reason both mouse keys are involved is that for each “step” of Melee Battle Trance you can have two attack options - as mentioned, you can customize the full sequence in your loadout before the mission. So, for example, for Step1 one, you can have Strike1 which is a heavy takedown swing at one enemy with your hammer, and Strike2 which is pushback of several enemies in front of you to stagger them and follow up wide swing at them. Pressing LMB at step1 activates Strike1, RMB - Strike2. This allows a lot of adaptability to the current situation you’re dealing with. The top number of the steps you can have in this sequence depends on particular weapon mastery levels and your character’s level. You don’t need to provide attacks for all of the steps, it could be 2 or 3 steps, for example - then the sequence will just loop and keep doing so until your Trance ends
IV-b. Ranged Battle Trance
In this mode, unlike the Melee version, you still fully control your character - but you lose alternate fire mode of your ranged weapon and instead it becomes a melee attack button for the duration of it. Thus you may be able simultaneously to both fire your gun and swing your melee weapon without switching between them (your character is shown as holding both weapons in their hands). This always works as such for both two-handed and one-handed ranged weapons (your character just hold the bigger gun in one hand using somewhat different hold), but for those normally assuming two hands to operate that significantly increases their spread and recoil, thus making them useless beyond very close range. When it comes to melee, you can only wield one-handed weapons in your other hand (knives, light swords or bats etc). If your melee weapon is of heavier type and you enter Ranged Battle Trance, your RMB will instead allow you to do some staggering and CC moves with your ranged weapon itself, regardless of its type (different types have different options). During its activation, this mode allows very rapid switching between melee attacks and firing your ranged weapon, as all animations and transitions are greatly sped up, to provide you smooth Gun Kata-style experience. Reloads still are happening normally with your character quickly temporarily putting away their melee weapon to do it. You also get some increase to your damage output, but only if you keep engaged (it’s granted via stacking short-living bonuses you get for repeatedly attacking with BOTH ranged and melee weapons). You can also still push your foes by holding RMB and clicking LMB (but no blocking).
While increasing mastery levels for your weapons, you’ll be unlocking abilities to combine them during Ranged Battle Trance, and also unlock unique takedown and CC moves you can execute with just your ranged weapon alone. You get your first unique takedown move automatically for each weapon you’ve mastered to the current cap level. Same as with Melee, you can keep upgrading this and other new abilities while advancing your masteries, making them SLIGHTLY more empowered.
Here is an example. For Heavy Laser Pistol you get a “Pistol-whipping” takedown move at mastery cap, which is a heavy stagger/stun attack against a single enemy. The same move is also used for Shredder autopistol and the Revolver - so similar weapon types will share similar moves (but still some unique to them as well). While advancing your corresponding weapon mastery level, you’ll be making it slightly better, with time. But if at the same time you’ll advance your Combat Blade mastery to, say, lv30 (+10 to the current cap), you’ll unlock its new ability of combining it with any “pistol-type” ranged weapon. Same way, you need to advance one of the “pistol-type” masteries to 30lv to unlock combining this particular ranged weapon with any sword for which you’ve unlocked the mirroring perk (hope it makes some sense). By advancing both of the masteries to higher levels, you’ll unlock higher tiers of those “perks” making this particular ranged+melee combination slightly more powerful during your Ranged Trance (increased based damage and/or strength of attack, less delays between melee and ranged attack animations etc). You need to advance both of them to get the increase as the lowest perk level will be used to calculate the bonus (so, for a while, there will always be something to grind for, if you need a sense of goal).
At higher levels you’ll be able to combine your pistol with Dueling Sword (or other one-handed swords) etc. While unlocking those combos, you also will unlock unique take down and CC moves associated with those combos. So for “Pistol-like ranged weapon + Sword-like melee” you’ll get “Duelist Impaler” takedown move, which is a staggering push, with simultaneous stab of the sword and shot to the head of a single target (the headshot is registered automatically to the target of the attack). For any autogun + Combat Blade combo it could be a burst of fire into a single target followed with a quick stab of the knife dealing extra Bleeding damage over time, or a CC option with a burst of fire from your autogun at a group of enemies, with a high suppression bonus to it.
You add those extra moves to special slots associated with your ranged weapon, in a similar way you did it for Melee Battle Trance sequence - with exception that you only can have four chosen for a specific loadout. You activate them by holding RMB, then holding LMB - and then pressing one of the directional (“WASD”) buttons. Activating them, you reduce your trance duration by several seconds immediately - so you need to mix those extra attacks with attacking normally with your ranged and melee weapons, to make it last longer.
While in ranged Trance, melee attacks that would hurt your otherwise will be automatically blocked using either your melee weapon or your gun (if your melee weapon can’t be used in this Trance mode) - regardless of direction they are coming from. But you pay for this with a bunch of seconds taken from the Trance duration as well, thus you’re motivated to not let this happen by using hit and run tactics and dodging.
The main difference from the previous Trance mode is that Melee mode assumes easily-executable quick torrent of empowered attacks while your character’s defense rating is significantly increased (due to increased toughness damage resistance and ability to dodge anytime while moving) - while Range mode assumes you stay in this mode much longer (up to 2 times longer, if you keep engaging) - while receiving less damage and resistance boosts, it’s more about extra utility from having quick access to melee attacks (including those helping with CC). But to stay in this state you still need to constantly dish out damage, as by default its duration is still 10 seconds; inflicting damage, especially with both types of weapons, adds extra seconds of time to the countdown, with 20s being a cap. So it’s a “high burst damage” mode vs “sustained long-term damage with extra utility” mode, in the nutshell.