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Developer Diary #4 [3-Forms Weapon - Spirit Arc]

3K View2022-07-01

We meet again, Hunters!

After reading through the suggestions we collected from the previous beta, we've decided to share our thoughts on our weapon development process in today's developer diary entry. Without further ado, let us introduce our latest weapon—the Spirit Arc! .

Believe us, you don't want to miss today's entry!

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1.「Regarding the Spirit Arc」

The Spirit Arc is yet another masterpiece designed and forged by elite Vyderan artisans. The unique hunting method derived from using this weapon has garnered a wide reception among Vyderan hunters.

"If the beast knows no fear, the Spirit Arc will be their worst nightmare." —— Chief Artisan Shika.

The Spirit Arc is comprised of 3 weapon forms. The bow form strikes a delicate balance between speed, power, and precision; the crossbow form offers superior firing rate and mobility by sacrificing raw power; and the ballista form boasts substantial power at the cost of mobility. The Spirit Arc's ability to switch freely between vastly different hunting styles and moves is certainly the bane of all beasts.

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Bow Form:

The Spirit Arc's default weapon form. It is a versatile weapon that allows you to charge up your shots to further improve its strength. While in this form, you can unleash acrobatic combat moves to dance around your target while pelting them with arrows that can inflict a variety of debuffs.

Crossbow Form:

A lightweight weapon form that grants superior mobility and firing rate. It is not an easy weapon to master, as its unique piercing arrows deal higher damage when fired at specific angles. The crossbow also features a rapid fire mode, which lets you fire off 3 shots in quick succession. You may freely toggle between single fire and rapid fire mode.

Ballista Form:

A heavyweight weapon form that sacrifices mobility for extreme firepower. Ballista shots suffer less damage drop-off over long distances, and the ballista form provides you with additional armor to ward off enemy attacks.

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2.「Spirit Arc Moves」

Perfect Release (Bow Form Move)

The potency of your shots is affected by its charge level. The longer you charge, the higher its charge level. When you fire off a charged shot, a portion of your charge level carries over to your next shot. Maximize your damage by unleashing Perfect Release multiple times, as each shot reduces the amount of time required to perform the next charged shot. Perfect Release can also help you dodge certain attacks.

Burst Mode (Bow Form Move)

The Spirit Arc gains energy each time you fire a charged shot, and enters "burst mode" for a short duration when at full energy. While burst mode is active, all fired shots will be at max charge level. You can quickly deal massive damage by unleashing Perfect Release while burst mode is active.

Arrow Switch (Bow Form Move)

Adapt to all battle situations by switching between 3 different types of arrows. The Spirit Arc is loaded with an infinite supply of regular arrows, which grant energy when you hit a target with a basic attack. Load utility arrows to access several powerful effects, such as spread shots that deal AOE damage, or shots that deal continuous damage over time, or even provide buffs for your teammates. You can also consume energy to create energy arrows, which are required to unleash powerful moves.

Rapid Fire (Crossbow Form Move)

While rapid fire mode is active, the Spirit Arc launches 3 arrows in quick succession when you fire a shot. This mode is more effective against a slow and cumbersome target, allowing you to deal massive damage when used in tandem with the crossbow form's piercing arrows.

Energy Shield (Ballista Form Move)

You cannot move, fire, or reload while the Energy Shield is deployed. However, you can consume bow energy to negate incoming attacks. The duration of Defensive Stance decreases when the Spirit Arc is at low energy. Learn to engage or disengage the shield at the right time to lower the energy consumption and create openings to fire or reload.

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3.「Design」

Motivation and Inspiration

As one of the earliest long-range weapons in the world, bows and arrows play an important role in war, competitive sports, movies, and games. We believe bows have the potential to become an indispensable weapon type in Yeager.

The Spirit Arc's design is comprised of several visual elements unique to Yeager, while retaining the elegance and sublimity of a bow. We believe the Spirit Arc can live up to the fantasies our players may have for long-range weapons.

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Spirit Arc Combo

Our ideal Spirit Arc combo is as follows:

Step 1.

Accumulate bow energy by performing basic attacks in Bow Form.

Step 2.

Switch to Crossbow Form, and perform basic attacks to consume bow energy and accumulate crossbow energy.

Step 3.

Switch back to Bow Form and reaccumulate bow energy with basic attacks.

Step 4.

Switch to Ballista Form and consume crossbow energy to deal massive damage and gain utility arrows.

Step 5.

Switch back to Bow Form and load the utility arrows to unleash powerful moves with various game-changing effects, then repeat from step 1 again.

*Once you've obtained enough utility arrows, the combo can be further optimized by shooting utility arrows to gain bow energy, allowing you to enter step 4 within a shorter duration.

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4. 「A Word From the Developers」

What features should the Spirit Arc possess? Will these features enhance our player's gaming experience? These are the two questions we constantly ask ourselves during the development process.

After conducting research on the shooting motion of a bow under realistic settings, we chose to design the Spirit Arc to be a slow-firing weapon with moderately high single target DPS and precision. This led us to the current weapon model that revolves around charge shots and energy accumulation.

As we didn't want the Spirit Arc to feature a repetitive "draw-charge-shoot" combo, we took references from several types of projectile weapons and long-range thermal weapons and incorporated various Vyderan-exclusive visual and design concepts to create a multi-purpose weapon that can be deployed as a bow, crossbow, or even a ballista. The Spirit Arc also features an energy gauge system to encourage switching between all 3 weapon forms. These implementations cumulate into an innovative weapon that adds an exciting twist to your hunt sessions.

We won't deny that the Spirit Arc is a complex weapon that can be tricky to master. That's precisely why we opted to step up our effort to optimize the weapon schools and moves exclusive to this weapon. Our ultimate goal was to provide a variety of builds and equipment setups for our players to experiment with.

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That's all we have for today! We hope you enjoyed the updates we've shared with you so far. As always, we invite you to share your thoughts in the comment area, and let us know what other features you'd like to see! Who knows, you could see your idea come to life in our next update!

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