Wow, so there are a lot of topics to cover at once haha. Consumables (Potions, Ammo): To change this, the entire game would need to be redesigned. I like Spirited's idea of a crafting system and that could have been a great way for them to healthily develop the game instead of turning it into a gotcha/casino spin. I think the removal of ammo was a great choice for the game. Though, keeping the option for special ammo would have been nice. I enjoyed the unique arrows a lot. It would be interesting to create an AoE effect on single-target attacks, allowing archers to attack the guild war pole directly without having to scatter. - HP: I believe HP worked fine as it was. Giving/taking a 1 shot KO really is part of the feel of the game. A change to damage would allow for pot changes/cool downs, though would turn it into more of a Classic WoW feel for PvP I believe. - Mana / Ammo: I feel that there is a misunderstanding for taos. Fire Taos were a ranged, high damage, class that had a high cost as well. This was meant to be expensive because there is safety in being ranged. If players optimized against taos, with earrings, they had less defense and would get wrekt'd by other physical damage dealers. A mana backsword helped greatly but had to be made, forcing it to be more expensive. A gourd allowed more points in vit but was more expensive. The same goes for water taos having high mana costs for revives and buffs. Taos just were not made to be new player friendly, needing you to have another way to make an income to fund them. Water Tao - Classic With the previous section stating taos were not made to be new player friendly, especially in today's aspects of "I'm going to play a healer class," we can focus on the different types of water taos. Yes, you had the tanky, revive, and buff other play-style. You also had melee water taos, which turned into a menace with either cyclone/superman, and the ability to buff themselves. As 2nd rb came out, this only got worse with having both and reflecting haha. Creating the ability to switch between damage and support would really allow for this class to thrive and feel more alive though. Doing that without needing alternate gear though is the trick. One possible option would be a passive that would reduce damage taken but also damage dealt, activate to swap to increase damage dealt and taken. Damage / One-shot mechanics At first, I enjoyed the idea of a log damage formula. The more I think about it, however, the less I like it. There was a restriction for being able to PK other players under a certain level, back when TC was open PK as well (sorry market accounts after a server maint haha). I think a "Player is too low/high level to be damaged by you," which changes based on the map, would be really healthy. A Gem rework would also be great, as there were so many gems that just fell out. I always enjoyed the idea of elemental damage being added but sadly it didn't go the way I'd like. A skill tree for weapon skills, like SS/FB, would be interesting. Add different types of elemental damage, add crit or increased damage, possibly increased range or width... so many options to consider. Water Devil / Second 2nd Reborn Quest / Generic Bottlenecks Bottlenecking is an interesting feature, as it is viewed almost negatively when it is such a great feature in games too. It can allow you to catch up to where you "should be" before going into the next section of the game. Water Devil would be extremely difficult for a common player just due to the mob difficulty and finding the correct spawn. 2nd reborn took forever but allowed for extra income from drops to be collected, giving gear boosts and meteor stashes a chance to build before the increased experience needed to level during 2nd rb. Unless actual quest chains and lore were added, I don't think these could really have that big sense of "awe" and "accomplishment." Item Composition A unique feature that many games don't have is upgrading the level of your items to the next stage. Taking your 110 armor and met spamming for 120 just isn't a concept most games take. This is a vastly underrated mechanic IMO. Meteors were a great item sink, basically were the backbone of the economy before CPs, and were obtainable by all levels. A unique way to change gear in the game would be to "cap" gear to a certain +. For example, Dragon Armor (level 110 trojan body) can only get to +3 as a normal, 4 unique, 5 elite, 6 super. From there, an end game boss/dungeon could be added to drop something to transform form Super to Legendary, allowing for +7/8.Fully Legendary gear could unlock another end game piece of content that allowed for +9. If you don't want people to hunt 1000s of +1s, which honestly kept the economy healthy since you couldn't just compose a +8 into a +1 originally haha, reduce the # of composition points needed. Instead of 3 +5s to make a plus 6, could lower it to 2 +5s (as an example). The composition system was the only thing to strive for in classic though, along with sockets. Class Promotion(s) I like Spirited's idea for a class tree, it could make it very unique. If left alone, you could lock it behind a quest chain with lore to add a bit more flavor to it. While there were limited skills, Conquer did one thing great: Class identity. I discussed taos a bit but look at warriors and trojans. Two physical damage classes with no overlapping skills. This is not something I expect to find in games today. Too many try to appeal to the idea of every class able to do everything and that can make "what to play" be a blurry line game. Having clear expectations is great, and weapon skills not being class related allowed for a solid class identity with room for playstyle overlap in a healthy way. Catchup mechanics - How late players can play Drop rates being calculated by level difference could be good. For example, mobs at your level would give a 50% bonus to the drop rate. Mobs ~10-20 levels under would give 100%. ~21+ under would drop to ~20%. This would keep spawns open for players based on level, along with forcing accounts to move up over time (kill enough low-level mobs and you'll level up still after all, minmacs if anyone remembers going from 90-100 killing those and giant apes). Having content/bosses for each level that can't be camped by higher levels. Change peace mode to allow for item pick up, even if a player is sitting on it, to prevent the annoyance of low/high-level accounts camping on a drop that isn't theirs. Could also have drops auto loot to inventory depending on what the drop is too. Thriving World I still remember Conquer being the original "season" mode haha. New server every other month, everyone would hop and play, do the same the next server. As servers got older, they would get merged and the season "ended" basically. I remember servers constantly having the max players online, with hundreds of accounts logged into and jumping around. It was almost to the point of having to walk in TC square because of how packed it was haha. A main server with a seasonal server would be great. At the end of the season, all accounts get transferred to the main server. Could give something unique, like increased drops or success rates but wouldn't have to. We all love a fresh start haha. This could also allow new players to avoid the veterans, which helps with the above catch-up mechanics. I just found this community recently and was surprised to see posts/replies from this month. I'm actually working on making a version of conquer with some of the features I mentioned above. I haven't worked on something like this in a while, roughly 10 years now, but am looking forward to getting something creative online for others to enjoy the game. I wasn't really able to find a conquer server that felt right, so hopefully I can make it!
