I think its about time that A-net considered quite seriously while they’re doing these big quaterly updates a MAJOR alteration to underwater combat, and frankly I feel like there is an answer here that could work rather favorably since it gives A-net an easy way to fix the problem, and potentially allows part of the issue to become simpler to balance as time goes on.
My proposal:
Underwater Combat Revamp, Part 1, Overland Weapons
Seperating Spears, Harpoon Guns and Tridents from the rest of the weapon options is just silly and pointless at this point, it feels like trying to deny people the right to customise their character to their standard than offering more options of gameplay and equally forces people to gear up 2 more unnecessary weapons in their inventory.
Theres a simple answer to this:
Remove the underwater weapon slots entirely. The idea would be basically giving players their underwater weapons as overland veriations that have overland versions of their same attacks and essentially operate the same as they already do.
This benefits the game for three reasons:
A) It gives people more weapon customization and choice.
B) It removes the problem of people having to get extra gear to fully augment their character.
C) It also allows a-net to focus “entirely” on engineering underwater versions of weapons abilities.
It also doesnt force us to buy some cheesy expansion to access this content which I think would at least give the players some much needed hope and faith in the a-net development team that not everything is walled behind money.
Part 2: The Underwater Problem
The obvious issue with underwater combat is simply the verticality mixed with the abundance of overland and underwater abilities that just dont mingle together. This essentially can be fixed by doing one small thing to completely remove the issue entirley, inspired by the revenant system.
Simply create a specific set of abilities that can ONLY be used underwater and as time goes on, add new ones via expansions and new content.
Example:
Lets say a thief equips two pistols, our thief uses his typical set of blackpowder attacks and other effects underwater as he might overland replacing AOE abilities with cloud abilities that explode into a lethal cloud highlighted in a noticable red glow to enemies.
As to underwater abilities, simply make a specific set of skills that can “only” be used underwater, this may in some way “remove” some of the customisation players have just as much as giving it to them, because by doing this you essentially replace skill choice with weapon choice, which I think… in the long term, benefits A-nets development team more than the actual skill choice system does.
It allows an easier design where the systems only requirement is adding new underwater weapon attacks to new weapon unlocks (via specializatoins no doubt).
Part 3, the PVE Problem
Things like AOE’s, Cones, these kind of things should simply be replaced with: Automated AOE clouds, or Sprays that shoot in an entire forward arc rather than just infront of you.
As to walls, well that too is an easy solution, just create sphere’s that operate the same way, and can be placed in a specific destination infront of a person.
An example would be the necromancers staff abilities underwater, and how they would operate.
E.g.
Rather than having ground placed AOE attacks, they can target enemies and explode on them into a small cloud, dealing damage and buffing allies inside the cloud.
I really think this system would at least allow “some” gears to turn in favor of making underwater combat fun again, not necessarily all of it, but I think given some effort, this could be a thing.
Thoughts?