Hello everyone! As we all know, Team Cherry was forced to discard the idea of Charm Glorification, due to a lack of time to program it in and the difficulty of doing so. Well, I've been thinking for a few weeks on what a good form of Charm Glorification might have been, and I've come up with my own take on what could have been. Note that I'm completely ignoring how inconceivably difficult many of these upgrades would be to implement, since programming is tough and all. I'm just saying 'you know, it'd have been really interesting if...'.
Firstly, we would introduce the idea of a Glorified Notch, cosmetically similar to here, but combined with the God Notch idea here. After you defeat each of the first four pantheons, you would receive a glorified notch, for 4 total glorified notches. In order to glorify a charm, it would have to be able to fit entirely within the glorified notches that have currently been obtained. Further, all of the glorified notches are used when a single charm is equipped to them (except in special circumstances, that being when the charm is free, in which case you can equip two glorified charms! The downside to that being that the three charms that cost 0 notches when equipped to glorified notches essentially have only cosmetic or otherwise combat-useless abilities.) The first glorified charm would add a new slot, but the last three would each replace the first three slots obtained, so that at the end, the Knight would have 4 glorified notches and 8 regular charm notches, and these 4 glorified notches all being used no matter what charm is put inside as a sort of counterbalance to their increased power.
When a charm is glorified, it receives a second effect in addition to its original effect. Generally speaking, there will not be that much synergy between these effects, unless it's a weak charm in which case there will be moderate synergy. If a charm's glorification reworks it, as does Fury of the Fallen or Shaman Stone, then it will override the original version, but it will usually be better in a way that's not just increasing numbers. The goal was for each charm glorification to have a unique niche that is fulfilled neither by an existing charm nor by another glorified charm.
Second, we would want a way to unlock these charms. Now, there's clearly reason to go through the Pantheons, if only to unlock the bosses. So that's probably not a good place to pin this progression to. But to defeat bosses in the Hall of Gods on Radiant difficulty is not something that the game tells you you should do, other than with a small visual change to the statue. Since there's about as many statues as there are charms (44 statues including AR but excluding the Knight and the Eternal Ordeal, and 40 charms with 42 if we include Carefree Melody and Kingsoul as well as Voidheart and Grimmchild), we could set each charm to be glorified upon defeating a specific boss on Radiant difficulty if we added two new charms (see below). That would provide an external reason to defeat the bosses on Radiant, could help with defeating some of the more difficult bosses that way, and could be balanced not only with charm cost (the more Notches a charm costs, the more pantheons must be defeated to be able to glorify it) but also with difficulty of obtaining said charm glorification.
I had tried my best to assign a sensible charm to each of the bosses, and I was even able to succeed for most of them. For the two bosses that really didn't match with anything, I invented a new charm specifically for them. That being said, if you find any weird ones you can't quite figure why I chose them, or can perhaps think of a better matchup, feel free to ask or suggest and I'll give the best answer I can, and take your ideas into consideration.
Thirdly, we would want a reason to unlock these charms. But since there's no restriction to defeating the Pantheons for the charms, except to be able to hold them, the Knight can get some powerful upgrades in the early-to-mid game through challenging certain bosses on Radiant, and can get different upgrades in the mid-to-late game which are not more powerful, but just different. That would provide essentially twice as many charms which could be chosen between, and would even provide some cosmetic changes at end-game for some of the most difficult bosses. (What, you thought defeating Pure Vessel would give you a super-powerful upgrade to the Kingsoul? No, but you can turn yourself into the Pale King by equipping it...)
I propose that we would add these two new charms to the list of charms we have. They would be found wherever Team Cherry thinks would be a good place to put them, with general ideas for location also included. We would need at least these two additional charms because there's only 40 charms (42 if we count Carefree Melody and Grimmchild, and Kingsoul and Void Heart, as separate charms) and there's 44 bosses in the Hall of Gods.
| Charm Name | Effect | Required Radiant Boss | Glorification Effect | Interactions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attunement Ring (cost - 1 notch) (located at the end of a tricky platforming region in Godhome?) | Reduces overcharm damage by 1. | Elder Hu | Desolate Dive/Descending Dark are powered up with a ring surrounding the Knight as it dives, causing a slightly larger hitbox and increased damage. | Shaman Stone - stacks with Attunement Ring damage buff. |
| Jumpmaster (cost - 2 notches) (Located somewhere inside the White Palace?) | Jump is higher and faster. | Winged Nosk | Holding JUMP allows for a glide. | Dashmaster (non-glorified) - grants the ability to dash upward. Sprintmaster (non-glorified) - by dashing and jumping at the same time you can do a long jump. See Kingsoul below. |
And now, on to the complete list of potential effects, and potential new interactions with glorified charms, and a handful of proposed interactions with the non-glorified variants of those charms! There's even a reason not to upgrade to Unbreakable Strength, Heart or Greed in here. I avoided including specific numbers in general so that Team Cherry would have been able to balance better than I can. Where I do include them, they're generally malleable and included only for the sake of example, except where it's a very basic number. (For instance, dealing 7 damage is malleable, but doubling health isn't really.)
| Charm Name | Required Radiant Boss | Effect upon glorification | Interactions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wayward Compass | Gruz Mother | Charm costs 0 notches. Does not prevent other charms from being glorified. | None. |
| Gathering Swarm | Vengefly King | Flies that gather geo become Vengeflies, and deal contact damage to enemies. However, they do not seek out enemies. | Glowing womb - Vengeflies become smaller Furious Vengeflies, exploding for area damage on contact with enemies. However, they cost 1% soul each to summon. (Without soul, regular vengeflies spawn.) Attunement Ring - Vengeflies will seek enemies out slightly. |
| Stalwart Shell | False Knight | Environmental hazards that can be pogoed on (i.e. spikes) will no longer deal damage, although they will reset you to the nearest safe platform. | Hiveblood - bees will fly you out of bottomless chasms (as in the Ascended Markoth fight or certain places in the White palace), and you will not take damage from the fall. However, you will take damage if the pit is not bottomless. |
| Soul Catcher | Soul Warrior | Every hit with the nail spawns an allied Folly that does 7 damage. | Fragile Strength (note - all of these interactions are for the fragile variants ONLY) - Folly deals 1/2 nail damage. Fragile Heart - Folly deals damage twice before dying. Fragile Greed - Folly drops 1 geo on death. |
| Shaman Stone | Paintmaster Sheo | Turns soul attacks into blobs of paint that stick to enemies and deal 1.75x base damage to them over 2 seconds. Abyss Shriek will deal 4 separate lingering damage sources which can overlap on the same enemy. | Flukenest - changes Vengeful Spirit from a yellow blob of paint to a large number of blue blobs of paint that each inflict a separate stack of lingering damage. Absolute Radiance - if she is struck by paint, she'll brighten her light to shine through, causing her hitboxes to be massively increased while paint sticks to her. |
| Soul Eater | Soul Master | Soul attacks that strike an enemy return 2% soul for every enemy they hit. | None new. |
| Dashmaster | Hornet Protector | Midair dashes can be replenished after a double jump. | None new. |
| Sprintmaster | Nosk | After one second of continuous movement, the Knight gains an aura with the appearance of the Sharp Shadow dash pointing in the current direction of motion, and will deal collision damage equal to nail damage (which, if it kills the enemy, does not cause the knight to take damage itself, lose the aura or take knockback). | Sharp Shadow - The player cannot take environmental damage, as from Charged Lumaflies or explosions, while this effect is active. The aura changes color and becomes visually identical to that of Sharp Shadow. |
| Grubsong | Marmu | The Knight's hit sounds are replaced by those of Marmu, and a small cosmetic grub will follow the player. | Carefree Melody - activates even when damage is blocked. |
| Grubberfly's Elegy | The Collector | By using the Dream Nail on an enemy, the Knight may put it in a jar. (This does not work on Wingmoulds, Goams, Garpedes, or Charged Lumaflies.) Doing so causes any enemy that's jarred to take +50% damage from the next hit, but any attack will break the jar. If the enemy was flying, the jar will fall, and if the distance is large enough, the enemy will take damage as the jar breaks on impact. | Dream Wielder - the jar can withstand 1 more hit before destruction. Dreamshield - the jar can withstand 2 more hits before destruction, but the enemy within will not take damage from hits. |
| Fragile/Unbreakable Heart | White Defender | Any lifeblood mask gained from charms becomes a normal mask instead. | Joni's Blessing - Instead of multiplying (base hp + 2) times 1.5, rounding down, to get the final HP count, base hp is multiplied by 2. [That is, at 9 base health, you get 2 extra masks, from 16 = floor(1.5(11)) to 18 = 2(9). At 5 base health, you gain none, as floor(1.5(7)) = 10 = 2(5).] |
| Fragile/Unbreakable Greed | Great Nailsage Sly | Increases nail damage before all modifiers by 1 for every 1000 geo held, up to a limit of 9000 geo and +9 base nail damage (thus making base nail damage 30 when fully upgraded). | Gathering Swarm - flies are much faster and more accurate. Note that if a fragile charm is glorified, and broken, when it is repaired it will cease to be glorifiable until the requisite boss is defeated on Radiant again. |
| Fragile/Unbreakable Strength | Failed Champion | Nail Arts temporarily stun enemies, causing them to stop moving for one second. | Dream Wielder - The stun lasts twice as long, and enemies appear to fall asleep briefly. |
| Spell Twister | Soul Tyrant | Spells are cast 25% quicker and move 25% faster. | Attunement Ring - spells are cast and move at normal speed, but enemies move 20% slower. (That is, effectively, you are moving faster as well, and time is compressed a bit.) |
| Steady Body | Grey Prince Zote (or from defeating some number of Zotes from the Eternal Ordeal, only if Zote was not saved in that file) | Desolate Dive/Descending Dark cause shockwaves when they strike the ground. | Baldur Shell - when falling, the Knight takes on the form of a boulder, and generates shockwaves that are much bigger and do more damage. However, striking an enemy or being hit while healed both deplete the shell's charges, and when it runs out, the shockwaves revert to non-interaction shockwaves, and the dive loses ALL invincibility frames. |
| Heavy Blow | Watcher Knights | Attacks can intercept projectiles. | Fragile/Unbreakable Strength - projectiles are redirected in the direction of swinging. |
| Quick Slash | Xero | When not moving, attack speed cap is slowly reduced, and is reset when you move or change the direction of swinging. | Steady Body - allows you to change the direction of attack without losing the attack speed buff. Nailmaster's Glory - disables nail arts, but allows autoswing of the nail by holding down ATTACK. |
| Longnail | Mantis Lords | Increases vertical range of nail swings, so that they become semicircles. | Mark of Pride - range is boosted in all directions equally. |
| Mark of Pride | Sisters of Battle | Whenever a spell would be cast, the Knight throws its nail in that direction as if it were a boomerang. The nail cannot be swung until it returns, and it deals a large amount of damage per tick. Desolate Dive and Descending Dark have the knight dive while holding the nail in front of it. | Shaman Stone - the nail boomerang deals increased damage and takes on the appearance of the Traitor Lord's boomerangs. During the Dive, the nail glows orange. |
| Fury of the Fallen | Broken Vessel | Damage scales up continuously from 1x damage at full health to 2x damage at 1 health. Instead of a red glow, an orangeish glow, as from the Infection, appears, and strengthens as the Knight loses health. | See Voidheart. |
| Thorns of Agony | Massive Moss Charger | Enemies release a swarm of thorns upon death as well (which can chain!) | Spore Shroom - causes enemies to release spores on death, rather than thorns, causing tick damage. Defender's Crest - causes enemies to explode on death, as well as thorns to be released. Both - causes a lingering cloud after a more powerful explosion. |
| Baldur Shell | God Tamer | The shell does not take damage from attacks that only deal one damage. | Stalwart Shell - focus no longer stops when hit, unless the shell takes damage. |
| Flukenest | Flukemarm | The vengeful spirit/shade soul turns into a Flukemunga, which deals slightly increased damage and moves slower, while otherwise acting as normal. | Shaman Stone - the Flukemunga turns into a smaller, moving Flukemarm that does not release flukefeys and deals increased damage. |
| Defender's Crest | Dung Defender | Howling Wraiths/Abyss Shriek throws out 4 dung balls instead. Each one does 12.5/25 damage. | Shaman Stone - throws out two more dung balls, and does not affect their damage. |
| Glowing Womb | Brooding Mawlek | Spawns hatchlings that can shoot at enemies for 5 damage, which no longer chase enemies. | Defender's Crest - hatchlings generate a stench as well that does half the main one's damage, and shoot dung instead of blobs of infection. Grubsong - Causes hatchlings to have half soul cost and appear as Winged Grubberflies. Both, Grubsong overrides Defender's Crest. |
| Quick Focus | Crystal Guardian | Reduces the chargeup time of the Crystal Dash. | Dashmaster - causes the crystal dash to move the player 15% faster. |
| Deep Focus | Enraged Guardian | When focusing, projectiles that would strike the Knight are instead refracted towards the nearest enemy. | Quick Focus - slightly speeds up projectiles after refraction. |
| Lifeblood Heart | Galien | A lifeblood scythe orbits in the general vicinity of the Knight, dealing damage equal to 1/2 nail damage. | Lifeblood Core, damage is multiplied by 1.25. Unbreakable/Fragile Strength, damage is multiplied by 1.5. |
| Lifeblood Core | No Eyes | When a lifeblood heart is lost, all enemies nearby are blinded and stop attacking for 2 seconds. | None. |
| Joni's Blessing | Gorb | Replaces the sounds made by Salubra when the Knight is resting at a bench with the sounds Gorb makes. | Attunement Ring - causes both to be silent, and no sound to be made when sitting at a bench, and Hallownest to be peaceful once again. |
| Hiveblood | Hive Knight | When you dash towards an enemy, even without shade cloak, you teleport behind them. | Sharp Shadow - Knight stabs at enemy as it teleports for 1x nail damage (affected by Fragile/Unbreakable Strength and Fury of the Fallen, but not Dashmaster). |
| Spore Shroom | Oblobbles | Focusing throws out spore projectiles as well as causing the cloud, as in the Oblobbles' first stage. | Quick Focus - throws out quicker spore projectiles faster, as in the Oblobbles' second stage. Deep Focus - makes the spore projectiles bigger and more damaging, and emits more total. |
| Sharp Shadow | Traitor Lord | Crystal Dash gains the sharp shadow effect, allowing the Knight to pass through enemies and damage them. | Dashmaster - increases Crystal Dash damage by 50%. |
| Shape of Unn | Uumuu | Alternate form is now able to jump and climb walls. | Weaversong - Alternate form can deal small contact damage, and cosmetically looks like a spider. |
| Nailmaster's Glory | Nailmasters Oro and Mato | Nail Arts take less time to execute. | Fragile/Unbreakable Strength (non-glorified) - Nail Arts deal more damage. |
| Weaversong | Hornet Sentinel | Weaverlings leave slowing strands of silk behind them. | Thorns of Agony - the silk strands are laced with thorns and deal 0.25 nail damage to enemies as well as slowing them. |
| Dream Wielder | Lost Kin | Dream Nail deals 1x nail damage, without alerting enemies and through all defenses. | Soul Catcher - 33% damage increase to Dream Nail. Soul Eater - 66% damage increase to Dream Nail. Both - 120% damage increase. |
| Dreamshield | Markoth | Two dreamshields spawn instead of one. When focusing, the extra one moves outward, as in the Markoth fight. | Quick Focus - causes Dreamshields to move and respawn much faster. Deep Focus - Increases dreamshield damage by 100% when focusing, and increases size (stackable additively with Dream Wielder). |
| Carefree Melody | Troupe Master Grimm | Offers opportunity to switch to Grimmchild when equipped to Glorified Notches. Requires glorification of the other to switch back! | None. |
| Grimmchild | Nightmare King Grimm | Offers opportunity to switch to Carefree Melody when equipped to Glorified Notches. Requires glorification of the other to switch back! | None. |
| Kingsoul | Pure Vessel | The Knight takes on the appearance of the Pale King cosmetically. When equipped to Glorified Notches, uses no notches, allows another Glorified Charm to be equipped, and does not regenerate soul. | Jumpmaster - When both Jumpmaster and Kingsoul are glorified, the Monarch Wings become more solid, and the slight dip before activation is removed. |
| Void Heart | Absolute Radiance | Void Heart may be unequipped. When it is equipped to Glorified Notches, one of two choices may be made. Either it can be converted to Kingsoul (and back again), or else it can be equipped as-is, and cause the Knight to appear as the young Hollow Knight cosmetically. | Fury of the Fallen - when both Fury of the Fallen and Void Heart are glorified, the Knight appears as the unbroken Lost Kin cosmetically. |
Let me know what you think in the comments! I'll probably not respond too much, but I'll try my best to say something if you had something to say.
Also, my apologies if the formatting is not particularly legible, I tried my best.
Submitted October 22, 2018 at 06:44PM by flagrant_snowstorm https://ift.tt/2OHYjJE
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