Ramble on about: Partying, magic, elementals and, secrets

Yordic Meyers here!

I like to think, and I like to babble into the void about things I think about. Right or wrong, insane or stupid. So today I started thinking about monsters in shroud and how beyond super duper bosses there is really no reason to party up and, since I try to avoid the subject of shroud on my stream, I thought I would bring it here so you folks could scream terrible things at me for my opinions on a game that I do thoroughly enjoy as it is.

The idea came to me whilst playing Breath of the Wild in bed last night. I was fighting a massive rock monster and it was taking longer than usual so my mind began to wander. The thought came to me that MAGIC would likely make my life a lot easier. Now in BOTW you don't really have magic and you can't partner up with someone who does BUT in shroud you do and can. So that got me thinking "How would I take on a giant rock monster in shroud?"

Well 'I' would put on my gauntlets of lead and punch it to death because I have LITERALLY ONE GIMMICK AND THAT GIMMICK IS POWER! I'm the guy who punches trolls to death, after all. (there's even a reference to this fact in game) But lets say that I DON'T have all the power my own overinflated ego has brought me at my side and that I am only a week into my tour of duty in New Britannia. I would likely team up with someone who was here for ages and they would beat it up FOR me. This is all well and good but perhaps there should be a better way.

Introducing: Hidden Mechanics!

Now I'm sure this has been brought up dozens of times before as I am not a very interesting or original person. Watch my stream and you'll see me spout off the same nonsense dozens of streamers say on a regular basis, but I am here to ramble. For this example I will continue the rock monster concept and transfer it to something we all know too well: Earth Elementals. It's already a rock monster it just isn't gigantic, but we don't need it to be for this idea (yet).

Earth Elementals are chunks of magic bound into the rocks and dirt of the world and using it as a body. They SHOULD be tough as nails and cost you a tonne of equipment durability for hitting them whilst taking very little damage unless getting pummeled by magic. We can all multi class so we just stack magic into deck and go at it. In this concept we up that defense to the nines and make all the strength and Dex in the world result in no damage or a piddly one. Now our rock monsters are both a real threat and a barricade against random bashers. Beyond that we build them with resistance to most magic types. Make it so they don't ignite, take minimum fire and wind damage, and completely immune to earth magic. They are made of Friggin' rock, try and put a rock on fire, I friggin' dare you.

So now we have our buffed up rock monsters running around the mines, protecting their ore or whatever the heck they do now. most folks won't be able to take them on on their own and suddenly those mines that have them are no longer frequented by people and the economy is in chaos. Crap, I didn't think this out at all, did I? WRONG! I thought this out because dammit that's what I DO.

THIS is where the hidden mechanics come into play. One of my biggest complaints about the game has always been how obscure it was on things, often leading to common bugs going unnoticed for months at a time due to people thinking they are working correctly. The devs LIKE to keep the cards close to their chest. So why not a hidden status buff on these monsters that is causing the issue?

Earthmight would be a unique effect to earth elementals that causes their damage from melee, range and, most magics to be rendered to a zero or a one and increase their damage to weapon durability by a high degree. It would be invisible to all players so nobody would even see it there. The rock monsters would be literally impervious to everything for what appears to be no reason. UNLESS you are an earth mage and have specialization at at least 40 when you will have studied earth enough to notice this buff. But being able to see the buff is one thing, being able to do anything about it is quite another.

Introducing: situational effects!

While faced with this problem you will need a way to get around it. There must be some way to deal with this, we'll just invent some new skills or items to circumven- NO! Stop that! We have all the tools we need to do this without creating ANYTHING new.

While an earth mage would be able to see the ability he wouldn't necessarily know how to undo it. But a water mage WOULD. I propose adding a special debuff to healing rain that causes enemies with earthmight in them to gain a very visible buff called 'softened' which would result in the buff being reversed for a short time. Suddenly earth elementals start taking more normal hits, they start becoming susceptible to lightning spells. They still are immune to fire magic and earth magic but now they also don't do as much damage to equipment on striking. Make this secret buff only proc at water spec 40 and above just like the visibility of earthmight and there you go, a balance reached for specs in both sides of that coin.(Yes I know air is in opposition of earth but shhhh.)

But Yordic, I hear you scream, That is only one problem and one solution to that problem! What's the point? To which I say 'did you just say...Solution?'

INTRODUCING: Acid vials!
Acid vials have been brought up SO OFTEN at telethons as another alchemical tool to make alchemy worth something OTHER than enchanting weapons. In those suggestions it would be used to strip durability from armor to be used in PVP. However I think a more useful application would be to apply a defense debuff that causes weapons striking the target and the armor of the target to take more durability damage. HOWEVER the biggest use of this would likely be to circumvent the Earthmight buff on elementals without having to bring an earth mage to identify it or a water mage to wipe it creating a way for high level alchemists to take the place of one or both of these components. I suggest that the acid vials be craft able only by level 80 and above alchemists and that the acid vials should be craft-able only in a specially designed cask from the brewing system.

Introducing: Glass Lined Casks!
So to round out this post something that people WANT for sure if they are literally me. Casks used for crafting potions En Masse via distillation. Building upon the brewing system we add potion casks for acid vials, greater health, focus, and restoration potions. All of these would require level 80 alchemy and take one week to mature and give a certain amount of vials worth of potions.

Glass lined cask recipe:
1 barrel
5 glass sheets
-or-
1 Barrel
5 vial deco items.

AND BOOM! Now those deco vials we all have hundreds of have a purpose as well!

as for components for the potion batches that you are going to make they should be five times the amount of potion ingredients for roughly 8 times the potions that making them individually would grant. This would make distillation more profitable for sure with the time taken being the cost for the output. This should only be applied to potions UP TO the greater tag, as to fall in line with the 'potions from potions' recipes. Imbued potions would just be too powerful I feel, to get a benefit out of brewing them.

as for the acid recipe...that one kinda has me a little stumped. Sulfurous ash should 100% be a component but beyond that all I can think of is rotten flesh and MAYBE nightshade? Leave your ideas in a reply down below.

BUT YORDIC! What about our earth elementals? Why wouldn't they have the Earthmight ability?
Well if you want to be lazy it's because they are summoned not by the world trying to protect itself, but by some avatar trying his damnedest to mimic something. HOWEVER if you want to have an interesting way to introduce this new change may I offer up this little chestnut:
"Magic in new britannia has encountered a drastic change due to a celestial incident causing earth elementals around the globe to change into sand elementals. Most notably the elementals summoned by avatars. These elementals are just as strong however they appear to be made of sand. The oracle is looking into this problem and will update you when we have more info." Do this in a patch halfway through a release, causing all earth elementals to become sand elementals. Start spawning oracle watchers in mines where earth elementals spawn. Show them saying they are monitoring the earth elementals for changes.

THEN when the next release comes out you BUFF THE EVER-LOVING HELL OUT OF EARTH ELEMENTALS and institute the Earthmight hidden buff. Issue an oracle report that the earth elementals have returned and have become more powerful. Issue a statement saying that it appears to be in response to the over-mining of resources caused by avatars, implicating that even the planet has begun to get tired of our greedy nature of taking everything that isn't nailed down (similar to a note found in the tower of the shuttered eye) which would make our impact on the world that much more visible.

So I hope you enjoyed my ramble in which I attempted to introduce a new wrinkle to gameplay, some more lore to back it up and several ways to solve the problem! Some parts of it may not make sense or perhaps you have ideas that I didn't think of. I hereby open this topic for discussion!

 

I like the idea of using that huge pile of deco vials for something useful.