Orb Style Poll!

[Bodie]

The Christmas thread made me curious about what you guys think about this topic: What Orb setup should Lunais use?

Currently, Lunais has 2 duplicate Orbs of her equipped Melee orb. Casting spells uses a hidden Spell Orb that is equipped separately. Should this change?

[Charleon]

Don't forget the passive orb which gives the currently equipped melee or spell orb other properties. Depending on if the passive orb alters melee orbs differently, it could produce a, sorry about the expression; "clusterfuck" of different combinations if opting to go for 2 separately equippable melee orbs. Whether this is good or bad: I don't know, but I think the passive orb already enables lots of variety... or is the passive orb still in?

[Jarno]

sorry i dont realy get the poll options: my idea would be to have 1 orb the color of the melee weapon the other as the spell

not sure if thats what you mean with option 2

I think it will add a simpel visual indicator of the currently enquiped spell

[ThatLlamaGirl]

sorry i dont realy get the poll options: my idea would be to have 1 orb the color of the melee weapon the other as the spell

not sure if thats what you mean with option 2

I think it will add a simpel visual indicator of the currently enquiped spell

Hey, sorry if it's confusing! The options are:

1: Keep everything as it is. You equip "one" orb for both orbs that Lunais uses while attacking. You cannot have two different orbs that circle here or behave differently when you press attack. Spell and passive orbs are still equippable and can be different from the melee orb.

2:Allow the player to equip one orb for each orb that Lunais uses to attack. Sort of like a left hand / right hand deal. The first attack would be your first melee orb equipped, then the second attack would be the other orb equipped, then alternating like that. So you could have one regular blue orb and one green blade orb to go bap slash bap slash (very scientific wording here). Spell orbs and passive orbs would still be the same as currently done, and the same as in option 1.

3:Orb mixing as in option 2, but the spell orb would no longer be equippable. Instead, the type of spell you cast would depend on which two orbs you've equipped for left and right hands. For example, though we might not implement it this specific way, if you equipped one fire orb and one blade orb the spell would be flame daggers.

Hope that helps

[Bodie]

Seth: I don't believe it would be much of a clusterduck, as the customization would be up to the player- if they think something is too messy, they can just equip double of the same melee orbs.

So, technically the current system would be still possible for people (like me) who prefer to only have duplicate melee orbs. Throughout playing Order of Ecclesia I never mixed and matched my Arm Glyphs, since I could just switch to different elements with my Glyph Sleeve. Buuuut I've talked to lots of people who said that they did mix and match, so I figure I should see how big of an audience does that

Oh and something I don't mention in the poll: For options 2 and 3 I could likely move Melee Attacks to both the X and Y button (instead of spamming just X) and move the Spell button from the B button to actually X or Y + Up (Castlevania style).

[Vipes]

I think option 2 is a great way to go. I myself will probably end up going dual Lightning orb quite often, but I love customization. Finding YOUR combination of things that suits you the best, is always satisfying. It also feels like one of those things where you play, get to that part, and say "ah, cool. They didn't have to do that" versus something else like someone seeing how she attacks (left right left right) and saying "cool, but, if she attacks like that anyway, why not let us choose what right is and left is?"

Not to mention, I'm sure that when 2 different ones are equipped, they not only are a different color, but attack with their different attacks, and that just looks cool, it looks fun. I can easily picture me (not knowing anything about the game) seeing that in action, and being impressed, and interested in the possibilities.

And about the different button mapping, that does sound like a great idea Bodie, but I do hope that there is a possible option to map both orbs to the same button anyway? Also, what if you only attack with the right orb, does the next attack not come as fast as it would if you did right then left? I think that would be interesting, and add a bit more to the combat.

I do love this idea though, and I hope it goes in smoothly.

[houseton]

I'm the only one who's said option 3 lol
I like having combinations for spell orb like order of Ecclesia. Having Square+Triangle (X+Y) attack would be pretty cool in my eyes instead of just Square (X). Figuring out new magics is always a blast instead of them being handed to you. If you also had some sort of entry, or something that told you what it is (Circle of the Moon) so you didn't have to remember them all, that'd be cool as well.

[cthomlan]

I like the sound of option 3. In Kirby 64 there were only 7 copy abilities (the lowest in the series, I think), but they could be combined to create 35 different abilities. (Fire + Stone created a volcano power, if I recall.) However, if you have 10 orbs, then that's 65 different spell combinations. Have fun with that!

As for buttons... hmm. I kinda like the sound of just pressing X. But then cadence has to be taken into account. With the current setup, I'm assuming the first melee orb is the one used to swing? So if I have the fastest orb equipped and it swings every 3 frames, then my cadence is 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3. Great for button mashing. But if it alternates (as described in option 2), and my second orb has the slowest swing speed at 10 frames, then my cadence is 3-10-3-10-3-10-3-10, which will feel different. (bap, bapbap, bapbap, bapbap, bap) So the "best" setup would be to have two orbs of a similar swing speed, so that the cadence is something like 4-5-4-5-4-5-4-5 instead. (bapbapbapbapbapbapbapbap)

But if you press X to swing left and Y to swing right, then the cadence doesn't alternate anymore, which is nice.

What's not nice is pressing X/Y+Up to cast a spell. In SotN I almost never use subweapons because it's super awkward. (I probably use them most often when attempting a button-combo spell.) In Dawn of Sorrow I discarded almost all of my Bullet souls because I don't press X+Up... the only three I kept are the ones used to get around! For these games, I just use X and B to attack because pressing X+Up while platforming/dodging is super awkward. Since platforms are spaced apart so that you land on them with the full arc of your jump, so if you have to stop holding Left/Right to press Up, then you won't make the jump. But you never need to throw an axe, a dagger, or holy water when you're jumping because: enemies are always in your path instead of the flightpath of your subweapon; most enemies in the platforming sections die in a single basic attack anyways... and the damage from axes, daggers, etc is pathetic compared to your basic attacks, which makes them useless against non-platforming enemies.

Also, if the spell button would be moving from B to X+Up, then what's going to be on B?

[Bodie]

Also, if the spell button would be moving from B to X+Up, then what's going to be on B?

Time Stop would move from Y to B.

[Charleon]

After reading everyone's insights I'd like to change my poll answer from 1 to 2 actually (well, there goes the anonymity!), I think it would mesh really well actually; everytime you picked up a new orb you'd squeal with joy trying out all the new spell orb combinations