Swimming and Diving
The best place to start would be getting things to swim and dive. Floating was shown to be a possibility thanks to coconuts. When in the surface of the water, players would float around and swim along the surface. This would allow movement in the water to feel more natural. As for the controls, this is how they would work.:
Swimming Controls:
WASD or Arrow Keys: Swim
C: Attack
V: Dive
Space: Swim to the Surface
E: Pick up items
, and .: Consumable hotkeys
I chose V as the diving button since V had been the choice of button for sitting down, making V the perfect "down" button. The space bar, however, is used for jumping, making it the perfect button for surfacing from the water. Everything else would seem fairly standard.
Along with these things, since it wouldn't make any sense at all to be underwater forever, I'll also introduce another mechanic...
Drowning!:
Yep! I'm gonna make players drown if they're underwater for too long! It would be preferable to give players some breathing room. 45 seconds should be doable at the start. That'll give players enough leeway to consider going to the surface. Once the 45 seconds are up, players start drowning, losing 2 HP per second (or 1 HP every half second). This would make HP more useful as you would need it to survive in the water. Of course, if I can be so bold, I would recommend allowing players to have 4 stat points per level instead of 3 to balance drowning out..! I just wanna end the chaos that would ensue from this before it even begins..!
Oh, by the way, food is half as effective underwater as on the surface and on land because they'll get soggy underwater. Good luck not drowning while your food's all soggy.
Skills
To allow water to feel different from land in terms of combat, I'll change things up with skills. For this, All Active Skills from before won't be usable underwater. Yep, no Power Smash, no Storm Cloud, no Homing Arrows, no Grenades, whatever. Do not be alarmed, however. In exchange for this, I'll provide a new set of skills for the classes. For now, I'll provide one passive underwater skill and one active underwater skill for each class. That way, players won't feel completely crippled when underwater, but at the same time, this will prevent land skills like Homing Arrow and Storm Cloud from being used underwater. This would encourage players to actually go underwater and fight all that swims in the water. Passive skills like Lifeless Crush, Loot Thief, and Money Power will remain unaffected, however. I'll go over each class one bit at a time.
As for how each class will attack, Warriors, Mages, Archers, and the recently-approved Whipmaster will have to swat monsters with their weapons. Gunmen, however, can shoot foes, but thanks to water's being denser than air, their bullets will slow down more dramatically, drastically reducing their range. Gunmen will also suffer a damage reduction down to 30% of their base damage; this would allow other classes to keep up with gunmen underwater.
Warrior
Deep Sea Diver:
Skill Levels: 3
Passive Skill
Base Underwater Damage: 122.22%
Underwater Damage Increase per Level: 22.22%
Description: The warrior's superior strength allows their attacks to flow more freely underwater, thus increasing their power.
I've opted to help warriors along by increasing the damage they deal passively underwater. This would allow them to catch up with other classes altogether.
Riptide:
Skill Levels: 5
Base MP Cost: 2
Base Underwater Movement Speed: 120%
Base Damage: 122%
Underwater Movement Speed Increase per Level: 20%
Damage Increase per Level: 12%
Description: The warrior swiftly jets through the water in order to pierce his foes. Press B to use while underwater.
Yeah, riptiding from Minecraft is one skill that would work with warriors.
Mage
Neptune's Aide
Skill Levels: 3
Passive Skill
Base Underwater Defense: 110%
Underwater Defense Increase per Level: 10%
Description: With Neptune by their side, mages gain more powerful defenses underwater.
Mages are forced to get physical, so I decided, why not make it so they have more defense underwater than on land?
Toaster Bath
Skill Levels: 4
Base MP Cost: 2
Base Damage: 140%
Electric Damage: 5%
Base Range: 6 feet
Damage Increase per Level: 20%
Electric Damage Increase per Level: 5%
Range Increase per Level: 1 foot
Description: The mage fires off a single electrical bolt from his staff, giving foes that feeling you get when you throw a toaster into the bathtub.
I mean it works, right?
Archer
Swift Swim
Skill Levels: 3
Passive Skill
Base Underwater Movement Speed: 110%
Underwater Movement Speed Increase per Level: 10%
Description: Light as a feather, the archer swiftly moves around in the water.
Hey, they're gonna be escaping a lot, so let's give them some help by giving them a movement speed advantage underwater.
Aether Whack
Skill Levels: 3
Base MP Cost: 3
Base Damage: 125%
Base Aether Damage: 10%
Damage Increase per Skill Level: 25%
Aether Damage Increase per Skill Level: 10%
Description: The archer's bow gains an ethereal glow, allowing him to inflict aether damage. Aether works like fire that doesn't get put out underwater.
Yeah, I made a new element that would serve as the underwater replacement for fire since fire gets put out underwater. Conversely, aether would get put out when it's used in air. You cannot enchant a fire weapon with an Aether Rune and vice versa.
Gunman
Harpoon Master
Skill Levels: 3
Passive Skill
Base Damage: 40%
Damage Increase per Skill Level: 10%
Description: The gunman's harpooning skills increases along with his damage.
I didn't want to completely cripple gunmen, so I gave them a passive skill that helps them mitigate their damage reduction.
Sea Mine
Skill Levels: 4
MP Cost: 4
Base Damage: 250% (unaffected by underwater gunman debuff and grenade debuff)
Damage Increase per Skill Level: 50%
Description: The gunman puts sea mines in the water, which are far more effective in the water than grenades as a result.
I plan on reducing underwater damage for Grenades all the way down to 25% of their original damage. To make up for it, I gave gunmen the ability to place sea mines in the water. These sea mines would wait four seconds before lighting up green when activated. Once they're activated, one single touch from either a monster or a PVP player will make the mine BLOW THEM TO SMITHEREENS! Mines would only explode when touch; they can stay in the water forever if they' never get touched. This would mean the gunman would have to lure monsters into mines, thus encouraging strategic mine placements. To avoid lag, no more than 10 mines can be placed in the map among all players at any given time. Placing any more mines would make the game remove an already-active sea mine.
Whipmaster
Underwater Service
Skill Levels: 4
Passive Skill
Base Underwater Consumable Effect: 55%
Underwater Consumable Effect Increase per Skill Level: 5%
Description: Perfect service allows a whipmaster's food to be less soggy underwater, making them more effective underwater.
Yeah, I made the Whipmaster's passive making food less soggy. Why not?
Captivation Bubble
Skill Levels: 4
Skill Cost: 3 MP
Base Damage: 110%
Base Range: 8 feet
Damage Increase per Skill Level: 13.33%
Range Increase per Skill Level: 2 feet
Description: The whipmaster cracks his whip in the water, firing off a gnarly captivation bubble at his opponents.
I mean a whip cracking in the water successfully would replicate a mantis shrimp's captivation bubble, so this skill works on paper.
Effects of Land Skills Going into the Water
As a means of encouraging players to fight underwater, I had to come up with some mitigations for land skills that go into the water. Here's what I got.:
Homing Arrow: Homing shots that go into the water will fizzle out and disappear the instant they go into the water, rendering them harmless to underwater mobs.
Grenade: Grenades that blow up underwater will do 25% of the damage they would normally do since the explosion will get dampened out by the water.
Storm Cloud: I would work the same way to underwater creatures as land creatures because, quite frankly, I'm sure a storm wouldn't give a rat's butt about water.
Every Active Warrior Skill: No changes
Underwater-Themed Items
I've made some underwater-themed equipment to allow me to come up with the most aesthetically-pleasing drop lists for underwater monsters. Believe me, you'll be needing these for all the underwater stuff, plus the Aether Rune.
Aether Rune
This is an Aether Rune:
As fire cannot work underwater, I made an Aether Rune to serve as an underwater counterpart to the Fire Rune. Fire would just go out unless it was ethereal, so I made the Aether element to serve as "underwater fire." Aether weapons cannot be enchanted with fire runes and vice versa.
All water-based monsters will drop aether runes, but I will make exceptions for a few land creatures. I'll set things up like this until I can come up with more water mobs.:
Stage 1 Aether Rune: Crab, Dumtilian, Red-Leaf Dragon
Stage 2 Aether Rune: Red-Leaf Dragon, Great Frog
Stage 3 Aether Rune: Moonchyllus (boss)
Stage 4 Aether Rune: Moonchyllus (boss)
Underwater Mobs
Before making underwater mobs, I would recommend making one more Sewer area first. That would allow players to make more use out of whatever water mob will appear in the sewers.
Speaking of underwater mobs, I had come up with an underwater mob, and it's one for Red Leaf Hills Creek: the Red-Leafed Dragon.:
This guy is based on the Leafy Sea Dragon. It had maple-leaf caudal fins running down its back, hence its name. As for its stuff, here's what I got.:
Name: Red-Leafed Dragon
HP: 200
Defense: 20
Power: 45
Aether Power: 36
EXP: 47
Description: The Red-Leafed Dragon is a fierce underwater creature. True to its namesake, the Dragon breathes a special lavendarish fire called "Aether," which is waterproof, but easily gets put out by air. Its Aether Breath burns foes despite being underwater. While it normally eats fish, the Red-Leafed Dragon may opportunistically eat a drowned Rafflesia, which can feed a small group of Red-Leafed Dragons. Interestingly, during the mating season, male Red-Leafed Dragons would engage in fencing matches, none of which were ever deadly, implying that Red-Leafed Dragons have a sense of honor in them.
Drops: Apple, Fencing Shoes, Epee, Fencing Pants, Fencing Suit, Fencing Mask, Diving Goggles, Hockey Stick, Trident, Stage 1 Aether Rune, Stage 2 Aether Rune.
Beyond that, I'm trying to cool down a bit, so there's that.
