Spirit Peco (Knight Sprites Suggestion)

[Richart]

I've played Knights many times in the past, though HeRO has been my first experience with a Lord Knight in a low-rate server, and I don't regret it yet.

Unfortunately, there has been a single, glaring issue with my life as a Lord Knight: Customization, and more specifically, palette customization.

The Lord Knight has a beautiful sprite, it's one of my favorites, and with some colors it can match a variety of headgears and wings with wonderful results; however, this is cruelly obscured by the Peco Peco, which grants both of the Swordsman's advanced classes a crucial bonus to base speed and size damage percentages.

This is only worsened by HeRO's selection of character dyes, which while appreciable at over 100 separate color schemes, is unfortunately ill-suited to the mounted classes. Many color schemes that work well with Knights and Crusaders find themselves either disgustingly mis-shaded, eye-stingingly arranged, or outright missing in their own right and leaving you wearing a saddled black blob.

However, in a decade of private servers, I have seen a solution to this problem. Asking you to hand-fix dozens upon dozens of Knight, Crusader, Lord Knight and Paladin sprites is a time sink at best and a slog of misspent resources at worst, so instead, why not allow players to use whichever of the mounted or unmounted sprite sets they preferred?

With this idea in mind, I introduce The Spirit Peco, an idea from a long-dead midrate server I played on countless years ago.


The Spirit Peco was a short quest that rewarded the Swordsman advanced classes with an emblem, that when used would grant an unmounted Swordsman advanced class the "Riding" effect until they died, at which point it could freely be reused. The key difference, however, was that even though they were considered 'mounted' for all game purposes, they continued to use the unmounted knight sprites.

This allowed players on that server to have control over their mounted classes aesthetics without the hassle of painstakingly adjusting their wide arrange of palettes or introducing custom mounts. Notably, however, this emblem came with the restriction that it could not be used during WoE, forcing mounted players to always have the silhouette of their mounted or unmounted skillset, which would allow them to be accurately identified and targeted in GvG.

The quest itself was a small, simple affair; players simply had to locate an NPC in the deserts of Morroc, who was the ghost of a Knight (And who took on the appearance of a notable server member, a donator I believe) who asked the prospective mountless players to collect 250 Peco Peco Feathers and pay 20,000z to receive the Emblem.

Summary
-Introduce an Item or NPC that allows mounted classes to be considered "Riding" without altering their sprite.
-Disable this effect in WoE.
-Possibly include a brief quest to access this effect.

Thank you for taking the time to look over my suggestion, I hope it's deemed worthwhile and easily implementable.

[sheam]

I agree with your idea, and I love it.

How does it alter the game?

In Woe/BG, yes we'll want to know if you're on a Peco. It means you can carry 1k more weight in items (usually pots), you deal 100% damage to players with spears, and you're moving faster. You've pointed this out well, and I'd like to add:

Riding a peco is a visual indicator of these advantages.

How easily can it be implemented?

I love the quest backstory concept for this, though have you considered it as a skill?

How would you feel about it being a platinum skill with an on / off switch? (Similar to setting Auto-Beserk.)



If you could make this a skill -and- offer some visual indication that you're riding a peco, you could still allow this in WoE/BG.

Great job Richart. I eagerly await your feedback!

[Richart]

I'm glad you're so amiable to the idea as I've presented it.

How would you feel about it being a platinum skill with an on / off switch? (Similar to setting Auto-Beserk.)

This would be perfectly acceptable, I'm sure its previous incarnation as an item was simply for ease of implementation.

If you could make this a skill -and- offer some visual indication that you're riding a peco, you could still allow this in WoE/BG.

There are several ways to go about this, I suppose, but a normal 'buff' effect is the simplest and most apparent.
I've seen a 'feathers' aura/effect before (I can't remember if it's associated with anything official, even post-renewal), which caused small, partially translucent feathers to rain down around the player, intensifying and trailing behind them when they moved.

A visual effect such as this, with further indication while they moved, would prove a fairly clear tell that the player is "Mountless" without obscuring their aesthetic when coupled with their enhanced move speed, while also complimenting the purpose and theme of the effect.

If you have any suggestions for visual effects that would work well, that wouldn't easily be confused with other buffs/debuffs, then I'd be happy to hear them!

[Aaronock]

I think you can actually change your grf folder so that all mounted riders appear as unmounted.

But, I'm also a fan of costume class stuff like this, and see no issue with the opportunity to get such an item somehow someway. If something like this were to be implemented, I'd actually like to see things go a step further and that every class is awarded with a set of costumes like the following:

Blacksmith: Gets Merchant+Blacksmith+Whitesmith outfits and only that class can wear it.

or

Soul Linker: Gets TK outfit.

Honestly, I'm not a scripting sort, so no idea how easy it would be to implement such a feature.

[Summerstream]

It's certainly a good idea, or at least one that I like~ I wouldn't mind such a toggle for a Paladin myself, honestly. Half the time I'm afking on my Paladin with a super summer suit on, or a wedding dress, just so I don't have to drop my mount to sit. It could be something like the Summer/Winter/Wedding dresses. At least, that's the easy implementation I see.

...As for the issue about the dyes.... Erm... Let's just say my paladin uses a guild pallet so I don't have to worry about it. We really do need someone willing to fix the pallets in test and dev.

Also, thumbs up for having one of the most thoroughly thought out suggestions in a long time.

[GM-Rahice]

I'll bring this up and see what can be decided, we'll post a formal note on it after that.

When I read this and saw Spirit Peco, I first thought of an undead Peco with the Bio Dungeon aura, but then I read on and saw it was an invisible peco. I'd imagine they wouldn't be floating in mid-air and that they would be walking (just in peco-speed)?

[Richart]

I'd imagine they wouldn't be floating in mid-air and that they would be walking (just in peco-speed)?

Yes, the intention of this suggestion is to allow players to use their unmounted sprite sheet while preserving their mounted benefits; possibly with the later-mentioned, non-intrusive, visual indicator.

Thank you for your interest in my suggestion!

[GM-Rahice]

Just wanted to be sure, thank you for the clarification.

[The Legendary Joe]

When I read this and saw Spirit Peco, I first thought of an undead Peco with the Bio Dungeon aura,

Sounds like a ToH/halloween mob. Maybe Thanksgiving? All that turkey wants revenge from the afterlife~