Firstly, I want to say thank you for provided such a well rounded explanation on your views. You are in no aspect of the word a "Newbie" player by the educated and well rounded tone of your thoughts. I respect that.
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Your ending comment, you have a good mindset and great ability to express your feelings logically and reasonably. (Instead of just saying I want it in the game I want it!!!) You are in no account a noob in my eyes and should be more confident in your thoughts and ideas. I opened this thread the hear ALL opinions regarding this touchy topic and I want to thank you for being brave and bold enough to fearlessly say what you think! Just one note... Please indent your thoughts >.< Reading a scary wall of un-dented texted was very hard and I fear I missed some of what you were saying... My apologizes.
Thanks for the support! Also TLDR stands for "Too Long Didn't Read" Basically serving as summary for the main points, as I somewhat knew the large blob of text would turn off people, so it's there to provide a short bullet point form for people.
As for the blade, I also forgot to place the idea that in my assumption of making the blade available as loot, the blade would be either requiring the Raven Cove quests, a problem stemming from the fact that I did not ever really obtain the Legendary weapons and as such, after reading about the Raven's Cove requirement, forgot it excluded HOP and Lost Sword. Also, I think chronologically it should include HOP as HOP was technically found as a result of Jolly Roger raising the Spanish dead and that occurred after the events of Raven Cove so it should make sense as the idea of El Patron's weapons was introduced in that quest as and such should remain as the primary prerequisite.
Also, perhaps due to my wall of text before, you did not state your opinion on the idea that I agreed with that someone else posted being that HOP could either be a combination of the 3 Legendary blades which would reason why it is more powerful than any individual one, or being the opposite idea, reducing the skills' levels and weakening the attack slightly, making it the, as I said before "Jack of all, Master of none" being that it's designed to be a strong blade but lacks the specialized power of each of the individual blades that it also draws the same abilities from. Kinda like HOP is a splitting path for the different weapons' abilities? It's an idea that would need some examining and tweaking but it could work.
Of course the final solution is to make the blade have it's own unique abilities, which would require new coding but it could be done. The Fire immunity could be still be useful, maybe extending it to Cursed Fire and Bloodfire, making HOP not a competitor to Barracuda and Abyss by similar abilities, but creating it as the COUNTER to them, providing reductions to their well known and mighty skills.
Another idea is perhaps something along the lines of a DoT, like setting the enemy on fire with each swing instead of Bloodfire, and maybe adding some effects like the fire is cursed and saps Voodoo as well or that the flames hinder the healing process by sealing wounds closed/cursing the wounds so voodoo can't properly heal them, resulting in healing being weaker on an affected target.
Also, the idea of "Blood Boiling" like anger, perhaps the blade can increase the speed/attacking speed of the user, making them pumped up, or conversely make the enemy "angry" by boiling their blood and making it so there is a higher chance for the HOP user to parry the enemy affected, or that they take increased damage from skill moves like Sweep and Bladestorm being that they lack the foresight to counter advanced combat moves and are blinded by rage. Could even be named like the "Spanish/Spirit's Wrath/Revenge" Being that the Spanish were raised from the dead by Jolly Roger to find the blade and that their spirits curse the blade, so they cause rage in either the user/target of attack, whichever skill is implemented.
Alternatively HOP could also retain it's power, not as the most damaging weapon, but perhaps by changing it's still to that of which buffs CC skills, like stunning or slowing making it a powerful weapon not for power but it has better utility in a fight. This would create a unique weapon that still competes on the same level but in a different way.
Perhaps placing a cursed/debuffed state on the enemy that increases damage done to them by a certain amount would be a useful skill as well. While not nearing the damage boost of Bloodfire, the cursed state could make it so, say, the more different people who attack an enemy (or maybe number of people in a crew? If the other cause seems to hard to code), it boosts the damage increases more, so as an example:
1 Person: 5%
2 People :7.5%
3 People: 9%
4 People: 11%
5 People: 12%
6 People: 14%
7 People: 16%
8 People: 18%
9 People: 20%
10 People: 21%
11 People: 23%
12 People 25%
Numbers may not be balanced as I haven't found anything about the actual number boost the Bloodfire gives and I assume most enemies will be dead before more than 3-4 people will attack once, so this would mainly be for assaulting bosses or maybe PvP if 4v4s are you're thing and you can coordinate with your team to kill 1 person at a time. Also as a given the curse debuff that adds damage would NOT be stackable as 12 people with HOP against a boss would decimate it and any player in PvP. It should be noted that I feel this would not be necessarily overpowered as it requires a group effort/coordination which would help to foster community. Though this would require the "Different people hitting the same enemy" for the skill as I fear that the crew method would cause people to group up in crews up to 12 (the max I believe) and just go solo farm on their own. If the crew method is implemented, it should be crew in the same areas or some other tweak to allow for prevention of the passive's abuse. Also for naming (because I love naming cool new abilities) maybe "Curse/Power of the Pirates"? Being that HOP is supposedly one of the most powerful weapons unearthed and the Pirates, banded together to protect the weapon. It fits the idea of the Pirates as a whole being a group that fights for their own kind and protecting them.
Also it would be cool for a quest to be involved specifically for HOP, maybe an invasion of Padres that maybe needs a crew together for it, and something like either taking the blade and sailing away with it as Jolly Roger's ships come at you, maybe have multiple crews do it in an event style? Like it being an event that occur once per day should enough people group up and prepare? Or have a queue for it so people can sign up while they're online saying they're willing to join if one should start? Allotting maybe an hour before hand so people would need be called on an hour before the event starts.
This is a lot though, so maybe something simpler like say, bring up old memories/events of the storyline, challenge Jolly Roger to a game of poker? Beat him like Jack Sparrow did?
So yeah just some notes and ideas, maybe it could be useful for the devs or other people who may come up with other ideas. Thanks again Charles for the support!!! Also Charles I had to shorten the Quote to fit as the post had over 10,000 words so I hit the limit XD, sorry.