Game Mechanics Suit Up! - A Quality-of-Life Build Swapping Proposal

"Can you fly one of those jets?"

"I can."

"You got a suit?"

He nods.

"Then suit up."
​

Suit Up!
A Quality-of-Life Build Swapping Proposal

​

In De Beninging. In The- In The Beni-
I never know how to start these

Wow hey there it's been awhile since I made a big one, didn't I? Well, this isn't as big as the Summoner or Charon posts, but if you're looking forward to something of that magnitude you better pray that fate gives me time, because a certain Shadestepper wants to perform Judgement Cut End and a certain Paladin needs to have their three pairs of flaming Seraphim wings as an ability node.

But for now, allow me to introduce to you a feature that I have been thinking of for quite a long time now, and finally found the time to make a proof of concept of!

Has This Ever Happened To You?
I'm sure all of you have experienced at least one of these things, a large part of Wynncraft's core gameplay is build-oriented, for gods' sake! Anyways:

• Finding or making a build and having to annoyingly switch out your current build
• Having to spend time painstakingly searching for the correct pieces of gear in your bank despite how neatly you stored everything
• Running out of space due to copious amounts of gear in your bank
• Needing multiple copies of the same item for multiple builds
• Forgetting how your builds are setup as and rely on saved Wynnbuilder links
• Wynnbuilder's outdated! Whoopsies! There goes the warning message!
• The Build Stand is unusable due to your rankless status
• The Build Stand is usable but you can't see any of the items' IDs
• You want to remove a singular item from the Build Stand for another build but are forced to dismantle the entire setup
• THE BUILD STAND DELETED YOUR GODDAMN ITEMS

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Anyone who hasn't encountered at least one of these issues either hasn't played Wynncraft past the lategame or is an absolute liar

To those who have been here before, you know the drill. Presenting:

​

Woah
I feel like the text holograms and the actual models themselves you can tell what they're going to be used for but anyway

As you can no doubt glean from the existence of the Bookshelf (an existing buyable item), these are housing stations! two brand new housing stations, to be exact, grouped together with the Bookshelf for reasons I will explain later into this suggestion.

Let's get right into what you've been waiting to see!

​

Ooo look at that cool fancy spin



Bookshelf
"Here in my garage, just bought this uh, new Lamborghini here. Fun to drive up here in the Hollywood Hills. But you know what I like a lot more than materialistic things? KNAWLADGE."

​

The Bookshelf should be the housing station that most of you are familiar with. It's a station that currently already exists in the game, and can be placed in housing to provide the player with an interface similar to the bank that allows the mass storage of tomes.

It is essentially an account-wide storage unit for a specific category of items much like the Misc. Bucket. Asides from asking you all to take note of this storage format for later, nothing much else to mention beyond a basic description.



Wardrobe
"You... seem different."

"All my fears have vanished. Now, I can see your own fears as clear as day."

"...what?!"

"You pity yourself for giving up on your enlightenment when your cocoon was ripped asunder! You are anxious about losing your authority as an ancient prophet! I see your childish urge to inflict the same pain you felt onto others!"

"How DARE you speak to a Beast Cookie that way...!"

​

Finally, the Wardrobe! The Wardrobe is one of the two new housing stations included in this suggestion, and is essentially the object of focus that this entire proposal revolves around due to its unique properties and use.

In case it isn't inherently obvious by now, this is meant to be a replacement to the Build Stand, an arguably inferior form of storing builds as compared to the one I've designed.

With the Wardrobe, not only are you granted access to a brand new housing storage that's used for keeping armor and accessories in a similar fashion to the Bookshelf, but it also has the build switching mechanic that is far more convenient and robust than its predecessor!

I say "robust" as I have seen many reports of the Build Stands bugging out and causing its users to lose valuable items, leading to many being discouraged to even put their weapons and gear on them in fear of an incident.

The Wardrobe's method of build switching, by pure design alone, should be far less buggy than the Build Stand. Instead of the items themselves, builds in the Wardrobe are kept as a list of said items instead and pull them out from the housing storages and the player's inventory whenever necessary.

In all fairness, I don't actually know how exactly the Build Stands bug out but if any of it involves the instability of the stand itself here's your solution lol

Anyways this is a big one so let's run through the different pages

Spoiler: Wardrobe Storage

Clicking on the Wardrobe itself, the player will be met with what one might expect: A storage area similar to the bank.

​

(The custom background was manually done by me ripping textures off the Bookshelf like I did with the Wardrobe and Weapons Rack models don't mind me)

Simple enough, it acts identical to the Bookshelf, only with a few changes to the buttons at the bottom. Said buttons are as follows:

Quick Actions

​

The Quick Actions button. No new changes, every other storage GUI possesses this. Also who even uses this anyway lmaooooo (the only time I used it was accidental and I had to re-sort everything in my inventory)

Filter

​

A brand new addition, allows the sorting of what items are visible to the player. When any option that isn't "All" is selected, all other items will disappear and all items that belong to the relevant category will be shifted to the front in a sort of Trade Market view. In this view, you can take and put back the same items in the chosen category, but cannot place other items back in. The Wardrobe will reset the filter back to "All" upon reopening.

There was also going to be a sort button to sort stuff by like level and rarity and whatnot (decided by me literally right now as I'm writing this very sentence) but I'm too lazy to go back and add the button in and refilm everything. It's literally just the Marketplace sort button except with the options changed to fit the Wardrobe storage UI

Page Switch

​

Similar to the Account<->Character Bank button in the Bank, this switches between the Wardrobe's Storage page and Builds page. More information on the Builds page will be provided later.

Spoiler: Wardrobe Builds List

Clicking on the Page Switch button will switch the UI to the Builds Page (From now on referred to as "Builds List Page" to reduce confusion with the individual build pages)

​

This page allows the player to view all of their available builds account-wide, and access any of them for management.

Empty Build Slot

​

Indicates a slot that the player can set their currently worn build in. Click on an Empty Build Slot to access an empty Build Page.

Used Build Slot

​

Indicates a slot that the player has set a build in. Click on the slot to access the respective build's Build Page. The Wardrobe provides 21 Build Slots in total account-wide, but only 7 free slots for rankless players.

​

As demonstrated in the images, the Build Slot descriptions are reactive, displaying the level that belongs to the item with the highest, along with quest requirements should there be any items used within the build that demand it. This requirement is for players who plan to use the build on another class that has not finished the required quests, and is simply there for convenience.

Further demonstrated within the images is the capability to rename the build. The ability to do so is provided as a button in the respective build's individual page. More regarding that will be talked about later.

Lastly, the text beside the build name displays the original class the build was created in, similar in fashion to Soulbound's text back when it was still in the game.
EDIT: IGNORE THE ABOVE FEATURE, NONE OF THE BUILDS ARE CHARACTER-SPECIFIC AND CAN BE USED BY ANY CHARACTER THAT SHARES THE SAME CLASS. It's a bit too late to change the text now since I write the forums post last

Locked Slots

​

Slots can be unlocked depending on the rank of the player. VIP and VIP+ are granted an additional 4 slots each, while HERO and CHAMPION are granted a further 3 slots each.

Page Switch

​

Like the button in the previous page, this toggles between the Storage and Builds List pages.

Spoiler: Wardrobe Build (Empty)

Clicking on an Empty Build Slot will transport the player to an Empty Build Page, where they are able to view item types that will be set as part of the build should they wish to use it.

​

Here, they are able to set the build that they are currently wearing into the Build Slot.

Selection priority for duplicate items will be elaborated on later.

Armor and Accessories

​

Slots to hold the player's armor and accessories. Upon placing the build into the Build Slot, the player's armor and accessories will be saved as they are worn on the player.

Weapons

​

Slots to hold the player's hotbar weapons. Upon placing the build into the Build Slot, weapons present in the player's seven hotbar slots will be saved in the build as they are positioned.

Place Build

​

When the player clicks this button, all weapons in the player's hotbar, their worn armor, worn accessories, used tomes, skill point distribution and ability tree path will be saved into the Build Slot.

Do note that this does not remove any items from the player, but is instead the Wardrobe saving a specific build setup. Once saved, should the player choose to use the build, the Wardrobe will immediately put on the build as it is listed within the saved slot, granted that all relevant items (weapons, armor, accessories and tomes) are either in the housing storages or within the player's inventory.

Upon placing a build, the Wardrobe takes the exact items that the player uses as highest priority. Should these unique items be missing from either the housing storages or the player's inventory the next time the player uses the build, the Wardrobe will look for the next item in storage of the exact same kind:

1. The item itself takes first priority.
2. Inventory takes first priority for the item itself. Search inventory.
3. The relevant housing station takes second priority for the item itself (Bookshelf for Tomes, Wardrobe for Armor and Accessories, Weapons Rack for Weapons).
4. If exact item not found, use the next available item of the same kind.
5. Inventory takes first priority. Search from currently worn items.
6. Starting from the right of the Ingredient Pouch, search the inventory left to right, row by row.
7. The relevant housing station takes second priority. Starting from the top-left of page 1 of the relevant housing station's GUI, search the inventory left to right, row by row, page by page.

Skill Points, Tomes and Ability Tree

​

The Skill Points, Tomes and Ability Tree buttons in this state are unusable, and only serve as informatory descriptions.

Back

​

The back button. It brings you back to the Builds List page, nothing much else to say here.

Spoiler: Wardrobe Build (Used)

Clicking on a Used Build Slot will transport the player to the build's respective page, where they are able to view the build that they have previously saved within the Wardrobe.

​

Here, they are able to manage the build in several ways, which includes putting on the build, removing the build from the Build Slot, renaming the build and swapping the player's currently used build with the build saved in the slot.

​

Side note because I couldn't really find an appropriate place to mention this, but unused weapon slots look like this. When using the build, these hotbar slots are ignored. If you don't want a weapon to be saved into your build, then don't have it on the hotbar when saving the build.

Use Build

​

This puts the armor, accessories and tomes saved in the build onto the player, assuming that the required items are either in any of the housing storages or in the player's inventory. The armor, accessories and tomes that the player was using will automatically be stored in the relevant housing storages.

Weapons that replace items in the hotbar if they are in the way of their hotbar slot will put the items deeper into the inventory. If there is no space left in the player's inventory, the item(s) drops onto the ground.

The Ability Tree path saved in the build will also be set onto the player. If the Ability Tree path used by the player and the Ability Tree path saved within the Build Slot are not identical (most of the time, it will not be) then the standard cost of 3 Ability Shards will be needed to use the build.

(Although ideally I would want the resetting of the ability tree to just be free and limitless we don't need limitations SALTED Ability Shards need to die)

If the same item is used in both builds, it will instead use the item as you already have in your possession (Did I mention that you can save the exact same item to be used in multiple different builds at the same time?)

Remove Build

​

Resets the Build Slot back into an empty one. Note that no item transferral is done here as unlike the Build Stand, Wardrobe builds do not store items within the build itself.

EDIT: The name in the screenshot is a typo, it's meant to be "Remove Build" instead.

Rename Build

​

Allows the player to rename the build. It works exactly how you would aspect any text input in Wynncraft to.

EDIT: The name in the screenshot is a typo, it's meant to be "Rename Build" instead.

Switch Builds

​

Swaps the build that the player is currently using with the build that is saved within the viewed Build Slot. All previous rules when it comes to build usage still apply.

Upon the swap, the Build Slot's build will be replaced with the player's previously used setup instead while the player will be using the setup previously saved within the Build Slot.

This was added mostly because I foresee issues with players painstakingly resetting a build just to use a new one because of a completely filled list. This at least gives them technically one more mobile "ghost" Build Slot to deal with.

Skill Points, Tomes and Ability Tree

​

The Skill Points, Tomes and Ability Tree buttons in this state are unusable, and only serve as informatory descriptions. This time, they also provide the player with the Skill Points, Tomes and Ability Tree path used for the build.

Back

​

The back button. It brings you back to the Builds List page, nothing much else to say here.

Weapon Rack
"They are going to attack the sanctum. Choose your weapons wisely."

Gunshot

"Yes! Haha! Wong!"

​

The Weapons Rack, as the text display and name suggests, is a weapon version of the Bookshelf and Wardrobe!

That's right, that was why I grouped them together in a single category! All three housing stations work in tandem with each other in order to supply the Wardrobe's build-switching mechanics with the relevant tomes, gear and weapons! Although, given that we've already gone through the Wardrobe's quirks and mechanics, you already knew that.

Either way, it operates exactly like the Bookshelf, allowing weapons instead of tomes. The only real mechanic difference is that there will also be a sorting and/ or filter system similar to the Wardrobe's armor and accessory storage. That's really about it.



Purpose
With the addition of such a feature, the friction for switching between different builds can finally be eradicated. This brings way to a lot of new opportunities when it comes to designing fights and challenges that appeal only to a specific playstyle or element combination, for example.

I do feel like the only reason why we haven't had bosses that are hyper-specialized* is mostly because of the fact that Wynncraft's innate difficulty for players to constantly switch between different builds within the same class/ without having to create multiple character slots just to wear different builds soft-prevents the people who design the combat aspects of the game to not at least take into account that players might favor more general-use builds.

*Hyper-specialized: (e.g. are only really affected by one or two elemental damages, only reasonably possible with an extreme tank/ glass/ hybrid/ spell/ fast/ slow playstyle, mechanics nigh-unfair to players who have negative defence against a specific element etc. etc.)

Obviously, this isn't fully the case, not every fight fully accommodates all playstyles, and some battles are certainly far easier to certain builds and playstyles than others, at many times.

When I said "general builds" earlier, I meant setups players use that they feel comfortable using in virtually any content rather than those whose purpose are only really for a single piece of game content (e.g. a specific build just for TNA, or for Lootrunning, etc.)

Of course, many endgame players do adopt this method of specialized builds for said singular game content, but the point I am trying to make is that I want the ease of switching between builds to be so easy that players will be encouraged to create more of these "specialized setups" that they don't have to worry about wearing because of the Wardrobe's ability to put it on and off on the fly with virtually no time delay.

With this being the new norm, it can make way for the creation of bosses that are far more aggressive towards a really specific build, playstyle or element, and the freedom that comes with it allows for far more interesting battles. It's only unfair because of the inability to easily switch to another build that gives you an easier time with a boss fight, not because the boss screws you over specifically.

Wynncraft's core combat involves a complex build system, the community's creativity going all out and not having to worry about a build only working for a singular raid or boss or piece of game content is exactly what I want to see sprout from this game. Remember, I do not want to purge the idea of specialized/ hyper-specific builds, I want to encourage it by making the process of switching between builds infinitely more smooth.

Conclusion
All in all, one of my suggestions that is surprisingly way more grounded than most others that I've posted. I unironically think that this has an actually non-zero possibility of being added, even with the looming threat of the classic "Dev Time".

With the fact that my Raid Room Instructions proposal managed to get into the game (Honored again, by the way! Here's the link to it), I do honestly think that a good enough QoL feature such as this one that I can see virtually no human being alive disagreeing with for any reason whatsoever outside of "Dev Time" stands a more than decent chance of being included in the game in at least some form.

That's all from me about now, but I will continue replying to any questions I get in this post for probably the next few days. Until the next one!



P.S. To anyone who has read this far, I just want to remind you all that there's a poll at the very top of this forum post! You don't have to fill it in but I'd figured that a lot of people would have forgotten about it after reading this entire thing



And now, for a QnA session

Speaking as Cyn from Murder Drones

Because

1. I'm currently back to using her as my pfp on Discord
2. She is best drone

Anyways

Humans Are, Always So Painfully I-Ignorant. Audible Sigh. A Shame That The Cryptic and Sibylline Cosmic Sorcerer, Has To Waste Time On T-This Planet Too. Prepare For, Enlightenment. Giggle.

​

Spoiler: CyNA

QNA
Q: I have some feedback on a certain mechanic or two in this suggestion. ...you won't get mad if I share my opinions, do you?
A: Fake Enthusiasm. Go Ahead, Not Like I, Care A-Anyway. The Illustrious Violet Spellcaster Thrives On Feedback, And Always Welcome Constructive C-Criticism, However. It Appears That Discussion Is Encouraged. Creepy Smile.

​

Although, L-Let's Be Honest, The Mystic Nebula Is Never Working On This Project Ever Again. But, The Data Gathered May Still Prove Useful For The Future, Regardless. Disgruntled Pout.

​

Q: How long did you spend on this?
A: Not Too Long. Other Projects Need, To Be Worked On By The Fluctuant Aubergine Starstrider. Long Enough To Be, Annoying, Short Enough, For Me to Halt The Vital Organs Of Everyone In The Gala.

​

Q: What relevance does the Wardrobe media quote have?
A: Confused Expression. Does A Draconic Makeover Not Count As A Build Swap? Maybe Not To Most People, I Can Sense That The Scintillating Solarspawn Is Running Out Of Fuel I Mean Oil. Slurp.

​

Q: Did you forget about Aspects?
A: He He. Whoopsies, Seems Like The Novasurfer Miasma Isn't As Infallible As Previously Assumed, Isn't It Now? Pretend Shock. Regardless, I Would A-Assume Aspects In The Build Slots Will Behave The Way One, Expects. Devious Giggle.

​

Q: What's in the Wardrobe's open drawer?
A: Mischievous Giggle. Do You R-Really Want To Know?

​

Q: Do the weapons on the Weapons Rack model change depending on what items you put in it?
A: Eye Roll. Did You Really T-Think The Unwavering Amethyst Shineburst Will Waste Unnecessary, Time To Program Such An Unnecessary Feature? T-Typical Of Humans, Failing To See What Really Is Important In Such A G-Glorious Art Piece, Just Like How I, Fail To See Why Humans Taste So Good If They Are Not M-Meant To Be, Eaten.

​

Q: Did you really have to lock two thirds of the build slots behind ranks?
A: Unamused. You Are Like Tessa's Parents. You Should Be T-Thankful That The Full Restriction Has Been L-Lifted From The Void, The Exponential End, And That You Can Even Use It In The First Place. Head Tilt. Alas, The E-Elusive And Luxury Sailor-Enthusiast Bos Taurus Demands the Flesh I Mean I M-Mean Monetary Compensation. Ha Ha. Time To Feed.

​

Q: Who's Tessa?
A: A Very Dear Friend. Reminiscent Gaze. Smile. Her Skin Is Very Comfortable. Pat Pat.

​

Q: Bro stop with the Murder Drones gif spam this is cringe
A: Your' Cringe. Youre Body Will Be Excellent For Future Use.

​

Q: Will you ever join CT?
A: Eager Nod. Ha. Ha. It Would Be Great To Be, Assimilated. Lick. All Of Their People Look, Scrumptious. Dogs And, Bunnies Taste Better Charred.

​

Q: What's your gender? Are you not actually a guy?
A: I Am Wearing My Former Childhood Friend. I Suppose That Makes Me Girl². Girl Squared. Colon Three. Tee Hee, How, A-A-Amusing. I Am So Naughty.

​

Q: What is The Hidden Side?
A: Annoyed Expression. The Pearly Gates Of Hellish Reign Cannot Be Ripped Open From The Fabric Of Absolute R-Reality Until The Arcane Cloudwalker's Other, Projects Are Finished. Dark And Light, Form Sin And Blight, Forestall The End W-With All Their Might.

​

The One Behind The Scheming And I Have Quite A Lot In Common. Eldritch, An A-Affinity With Flesh, And Unique Choice Of, Weapon Shape, For One. Stab, Stab. Inconspicuous Laughter.

​

Successful Diversion. Thanks For R-Reading This For Long Enough For Me To, Stall You. I Advise You Don't Turn Around. It Will Make Things Much, Less Horrifying. Audible Giggle. Goodbye.

​

 

10/10, awesome QoL feature