POE2 Style Gauge theorycraft (version 3)

To start, my perspective is that the reason that all high-end play in POE2 (and POE1) tends towards speed-clearing is:

If a player's reward yield for going through a given Area is completely unaffected by HOW one engages in combat... then players will thus tend towards fast kills and high damage to end fights quickly.

There is no "tangible" incentive to do more than the bare minimum in combat.
Therefore, the most popular "guiding star" for builds in the game is to get character stats + damage numbers really high, to stay as far ahead of the game's difficulty curve as possible.

So in this unexplored design space, a system could be set up where combat itself makes an impact on a player's reward yield.
I'll brainstorm and map out such a system.

The general principle behind this system is that "doing more" during combat increases your reward yield in some way.
For those who prefer to end fights quickly and stay far ahead of the difficulty curve, the reward yield will be the same as usual.
The "floor" of your reward yield stays at its usual level, but the "ceiling" can be raised via engaging with this system.

There's already a strong example of a game series that rewards doing more during combat with increases to your reward yield, even when you have powerful skills that can cheese fights:
The Devil May Cry (DMC) games and their combat scoring systems; they reward scoring well with more currency drops to spend on unlocking new Skills and extending your Life/DT bars.
POE2 is already trending in an action game direction with its combat, so it's only appropriate to look to the DMC games for inspiration.

Thus, this system sets up a new "guiding star" for builds, creating a new challenge with how you adjust your character's stats and equipment.
The challenge comes from letting the game's difficulty curve catch up with you to a degree you're comfortable with, so that you're better poised to "do more" during combat and thus "get more" out of it.

With its potential to shake up the meta, this would absolutely need its own League first.

DMC's "Stylish" combat scoring system in a nutshell:
- Landing hits with the different skills on your weapons (or dodging hits with a standard dodge roll or "Trickster" dodges) builds up your "Style Rank" gauge.
- Spamming one skill repeatedly is disincentivized by using "repetition penalties"; these cut off style point gain on a given "component" of a given skill, until its "repetition penalty" time period has passed (it lasts about 6 seconds).
- There's a constant time decay on the Style Rank gauge, to disincentivize taking too long to perform any action, which incentivizes aggressive play.
- Getting Hit and taking damage from enemies + environmental hazards will knock you down a few ranks.
- Your current Style Rank is used to determine the quantity of Red Orbs + other pickups dropped by a monster upon its death.

The Ranks (lowest first):
E (not shown); D; C; B; A; S; SS; SSS

I'll use the term "Skill Components" a lot, so here's my explanation for it.
The description for a given Skill/Support Gem may have sub-sections focusing on different "components" to the Skill, giving each one its own stats.
Examples:
- Rolling Slam's two slams
- The multiple different strikes with each button press of Tempest Flurry or Wolf-Rend or Primal Strikes or Ice Strike
- Staggering Palm's actual Hit + the projectiles that come from the granted buff
- The Small Meteors + Large Meteors of "Walking Calamity" for Bear form.

Every Skill has at minimum one Skill Component.
Some Support Gems provide a "Skill Component" to the equipped Skill - e.g. Armor Explosion, Elemental Discharge, Impending Doom, Bone Shrapnel, Fan the Flames, Xibaqua’s Rending.

Each Skill Component has its own "base Style Point value".
Skill components that deal DOT would gain Style at some specified rate of "style per second", whilst it's spending time dealing some amount of DOT to at least one target.

These "base Style Point values" on the components of player Skills/Supports stay constant regardless of Gem level, character level, etc.
These values do not scale with anything, and they cannot be directly modified/"rigged" to your benefit/detriment.
This has the benefit of making testing and tweaking these "base Style Point values" a lot simpler.

The general sort of guidelines for setting style point values for Skill Components would go like this:
- Skills that are relatively fast to execute and/or deal low base damage - functioning like "jabs", would have lower base Style point values.
- Skill components that deal out multiple Hits within a given usage (e.g. "Sustained Skills") – or function like combo strings with different animations from repeated button presses - would give each individual Hit a relatively low base Style point value, to incentivize landing all of those Hits on valid targets.
- "Weightier" Skills would overall have higher base Style point values.


For added measure, there would be diminishing returns applied to the Style Gain you'd get from one instance of a Skill Component when it damage multiple targets.
This is to prevent pack size - which gets cranked up as high as practical in high-level play - from rigging your style gain too much, while still providing a reward for hitting multiple targets.
This can include:
- multiple enemies being hit by the same Skill Component instance (e.g. Slams or anything with a good amount of AOE size)
- multiple enemies getting hit by one specific swing from a Strike animation that deals multiple different swings
- multiple enemies taking damage simultaneously from a Skill Component that deals DOT (e.g. Tornado, Incinerate)

The "base Style Point value" on a given Skill component does two things:
- Contribute to the buildup of your Style Rank gauge
- Build up Style Points on enemies you're fighting, to be converted to Style Rank currencies for your inventory upon killing those enemies (more details on that later).

Some Skill Components will explictly NOT contribute to the buildup of your Style Rank gauge, such as:
- Minion auto-attacks
- Player versions of Monster Modifiers that you take via Behead, Headhunter, Ritual Sacrifice, and so on.
- Skills that are socketed into Meta Skills that require being equipped with Skills in order to do anything.
- e.g. Ancestral Warrior Totem, Spell Totem, Mortar Cannon, Mirage Deadeye, all "Cast on X" skills, all "Invocation" skills

These can nonetheless build up Style Points on enemies, and also be subjected to repetition penalties to cut off or reduce style point gain.
Especially important to keep in mind for Meta skills, because the repetition penalty of one Skill Component applies to all instances of it.

The same letter grades could be used, but they can also be "grouped" together based on Rarity, like so:
Normal Ranks: E (no rank), D, C
Magic Ranks: B, A
Rare Ranks: S, SS
Unique Rank: SSS
These "rarity groups" are relevant for rewards, which I'll explain later.

The Ranks may each be of different lengths, in terms of how many points you need to climb up to the next Rank.

I also want to detail how DMC3 + DMC5 handle transitioning between Style Ranks, as references.

DMC3's penalty for getting hit is too harsh for POE2.
DMC5's penalty can be rendered irrelevant by getting your stats high enough so that you never get light-stunned.
So POE2 needs its own penalty system.

The Style Rank gauge has a constant time decay, to disincentivize taking too long to gain Style.

Dying will instantly set your Style Rank gauge all the way to the bottom of the lowest Style Rank.
In an Area that DOESN'T create a new Instance with new enemies when you respawn into it... the Style Points + "Style Point Limits" (more on this later) already built up on Monsters can stay.
Having to build your Style Rank back up from the bottom is enough of a punishment, and you don't get a new assortment of fresh enemies to fight and reap Style from.

Your Style Rank gauge can be deducted from, by components from Monsters skills + anything else in the environment that can Hit you or deal DOT to you.
Monster skills and environmental hazards can have "base Style Point values" (assigned with guidelines similar to what I'd outlined in the previous section), which are used to make deductions from your Style Rank gauge.
This includes additional "Skills" granted to Monsters via modifiers - Azmerian Wisps, Magic/Rare modifiers, Abyssal modifiers, Delirium modifiers, etc.

Taking DOT from something you can physically move out of will apply its own decay to your Style Rank gauge, on top of the usual time decay.
DOT-dealing Debuffs/Ailments that get stuck on your character, especially those that can be extended via Temporal Chains, will NOT affect your Style Rank gauge.

Once again, these "base Style Point values" stay the same regardless of Area level, Monster level, damage received, etc.
It is impossible for these values to be directly modified/"rigged" to your benefit/detriment.
Like with player Skills, this has the benefit of making testing and tweaking "base Style Point values" on components of Monster skills + environmental hazards a lot simpler.

The "base Style Point values" on Monster Skills are also important for something later.

ADDITIONAL NOTE
Should the deductions get harsher + time decay get faster when your Style Rank is high?
It wouldn't make sense to do that without ALSO providing character buffs when your Style Rank is high, which is what DMC3 does.
E.g. increased Action Speed similar to Onslaught, additional Strike Range.
Though buffs granted this way can make the character feel more difficult to control, since the Style Rank gauge could potentially change rank a lot during combat.

I think it would be more stable (both for character control, and server-side calculations) to NOT do those sorts of things.

- A Skill Component's repetition penalty cuts off its Style gain after it has gained Style once, or "enough times", in order to disincentivize spamming it.
- A Skill Component's repetition penalty engages as soon as the Skill Component successfully gains Style, if it's not engaged already.
- After some number of seconds has passed since the repetition penalty for the Skill Component was engaged, the repetition penalty is disengaged and that Skill Component can gain Style again.
- In the DMC games, a repetition penalty usually lasts 5 to 6 seconds, though sometimes it can be sustained (more on that later).

This NEVER outright blocks off Skills from being used.
Of all the ways a combat scoring system could "guide" one's approach to combat, this method is the least "railroad-y" approach.
Temporarily cutting off point gain for just one of your options still leaves you the rest of your options to use for point gain.
Even then, something that can't gain points right now can still be used for setting up other things that CAN gain points.

The repetition penalties can work well even on builds that increase Skill/Attack/Cast Speed as much as possible.
Higher action speeds can make you bump into the repetition penalties of your Skills sooner + more often.

The number of "full Style Gain" Hits that a given Skill Component is allowed to have, before its point gain is set to zero for the rest of the repetition penalty's period (or some sort of reduction is applied).
Some Skill Components would allow only 1 Hit to gain Style at full value, but for Skills that are meant to be repeated a few times, its components can have this variable set to a value greater than 1.

Components on "Sustained Skills" (skills that cause a large number of hits over a period of time) would definitely allow for multiple full Style Gain hits.
This also works for Skills that are meant to be used manually + repeatedly a few times.

To write out the variables for this:
"a" = the base style point value of a given Skill Component
"b" = the number of full style gain hits allowed for the Skill Component, before style gain is cut off; serves as the "threshold".
"x" = the number of Hits on at least one valid target that the Skill Component has landed so far
"f(a, b, x)" = the function to get how much Style should be gained from a newly landed Hit

f(a, b, x) =
if x > b: 0
else: a

Pretty simple formula, but sometimes simple is best.

For some Skill Component, it makes more sense to give them a gradual reduction in style gain.

Basing the falloff on exponential decay, the function (and the additional variable for it) may look like this:
"h" = the "loop size" of Hits for each iteration of the style gain fall-off.
g(a, b, h, x) =
if x > b: 0
else: floor(a / [2 ^ (x / h)])

- (x / h) may be rounded down to keep it an integer, which makes the function "stepped" instead of a continuous curve.
- At first, "b" could be "h * log2(a)", so the style gain cut-off is at around the point where the style gain would be 0 anyway. But "b" could technically be any value, if style gain should be cut off earlier.

The specific Skill Components this could be best for:
Those of Skills with a duration that's extendable in some way
- Flicker Strike
- Bear Rampage
- Wyvern Flame Breath
Those that can run "in parallel" to other actions you're performing
- Totems, "Hailstorm Rounds" on Crossbows
- Volcano's projectiles; you have the first batch of projectiles from the initial eruption, and the Volcano can shoot out more projectiles if you slam near it.
- Moon Beams from "Lunar Blessing" on Wolf form
- The different sized Meteors from "Walking Calamity" on Bear form
- Molten Fissure Aftershocks

"Repetition Debt" is a way to cause the spamming of a given Skill Component to sustain its repetition penalty for a longer period of time.

Any Skill Component can handle repetition debt in different ways.
To reference variables "b" and "x" again...

1. No repetition debt
No matter how large x gets compared to b, when the repetition penalty's period is over, x is immediately reset to 0.
Thus it's allowed to gain Style at full value again.
Generally, Skill Components that allow only one full style gain hit would use this.

Minion auto-attacks would use no repetition debt, since those are fully out of your control.

2. Somewhat forgiving repetition debt
After x gets larger than b... when the repetition penalty's period is over, x is reduced by b (x = x - b), not reset to 0.
In this case, if x is less than b after this subtraction, x is then clamped down to 0.

3. Harsh repetition debt
After x gets larger than b... when the repetition penalty's period is over, x is reduced by b (x = x - b), not reset to 0.
If x is less than b after this subtraction, x is not further changed.

E.g.
For b = 10 and x = 20, x gets reduced to 10
Thus this Skill Componenent can gain Style at full value off of only one more Hit, before its style gain gets cut off again.

4. Harsh repetition debt 02, for "gradual style fall-off"
After x gets larger than h... when the repetition penalty's period is over, x is reduced by h (x = x - h), not reset to 0.

E.g.
For b = 40, h = 5, and x = 20, x gets reduced to 15
The repetition penalty period for this may be quicker than the usual duration, so that this more gradual restoration can happen faster.

This would apply only to SOME Skill Components that allow for more than one Hit to gain Style at full value.
Since this focuses on Hits, this will not be used on DOT-dealing Skill Components.

After such a Skill Component (we'll label it "A") has gained Style, you have to - within the Component's "considered consecutive time period" - deal another Style-gaining Hit, using ANY of your available Skill Components (including "A"), so that "A" can continue gaining Style when you next use it.
Otherwise, the style gain for "A" is cut off early.

If you're not quick enough, that Skill Component's style gain is immediately cut off for the rest of its repetition penalty period.

In practice, this incentivizes committing to repeated use of a Skill until it either stops gaining Style, or you're in a better position to use other Skills.
If the component's value for this parameter is lenient enough, it's possible to interweave Hits dealt by other "Hitting" Skill components, so as to keep the style gain for the component from being cut off early.

It's akin to how in the DMC games, when you're far away from an enemy and you want to get closer... repeated gun fire is used to keep your Style Rank gauge "afloat" at its current position, as you get close enough for your other Skills to reach.

How would this work with "gradual fall-off for style gain"?
IF that should ALSO be gradual instead of cutting off style gain all at once...
The best way to do that is use an interval to repeatedly increase "x" by "h", then stop the interval when "x" > "b".

For DOT-dealing Skill Components, those have a different definition of variables "b" and "x".
"b" = the number of seconds the Skill Component can deal DOT for, before style gain gets cut off
"h" = the "loop size" of time spent dealing DOT, for each iteration of the style gain fall-off.
"x" = the number of seconds the Skill Component has spent dealing DOT to at least one valid target

"f(a, b, x)" and "g(a, b, h, x)" would be identical as usual.

DOT-dealing Skill Components can also use the "gradual style falloff" tool discussed earlier.

The disengaging of the repetition penalty for a DOT-dealing Skill Component would work the same way it does for Hits.
Reducing "x" (x = x - b, or x = x - h), OR just resetting it back to 0 if the Skill Component should have no repetition debt.

For reference, a Skill with the "Sustained" tag causes a large number of Hits over a period of time (though some DOT-dealing Skills have this tag, such as Incinerate).

Sustained + Channeling Skills could be given their own gradual fall-off.

Sustained + Channeling Skills that deal their Hits WHILE being Channeled can have a "style gain effectiveness" multiplier, starting at x1 and decreasing down to x0.
The decrease to "style gain effectiveness" engages when the total time spent channeling going past some threshold.
The decrease may be linear, and the "slope" of this decrease can be specified for each individual such Skill.

The restoring of "style gain effectiveness" would work similarly to hwo it's done with individual skill components, using what I'd call "channeling debt".

The "style gain effectiveness" for this type of Skill applies to ALL its contained Skill Components, on top of the other repetition penalties / gradual style fall-off / repetition debt that these individual Skill Components have.

This "style gain effectiveness" is specifically for Sustained + Channeling skills that deal damage WHILE being channeled.
Thus, to list a few exceptions, Bonestorm and Volcano and skills that use "Perfect Timing" would NOT have this, because they don't deal any Hits until AFTER channeling is stopped, by releasing the Skill button.

"Active Block" skills that can be channeled forever (Raise Shield, Buckler Parry, Resonating Shield) can be used to block deductions to your Style Rank gauge from Monster Hits or environmental hazard Hits.
Active Block by itself does NOT give you Style Points.

The "style gain effectiveness" multiplier would be used on these skills, to cause these deductions to gradually "break through" your Active Block.
Your Style Rank Gauge is fully protected at first, but then Hits from Monsters and environmental hazards can deduct small bits from your gauge.
When the "style gain effectiveness" multiplier hits x0, Hits from Monsters and environmental hazards deduct their fulls amounts as if they're not being Active-Blocked.

Side-note, Resonating Shield would already have "style gain effectiveness" since it deals hits while being channeled.

As for Shield Charge, I'd say it would NOT use a "style gain effectiveness" on its Active Block, because:
- It has a preset movement pattern that requires manual steering
- Its duration is finite, with no way to extend it beyond holding down the button to get one more step in before it finishes.

(More on Shield Charge later in the "Skill Cases" post)

There may be concerns about there not being enough Bind slots for gamepad or for mouse + keyboard, for players to comfortably engage with the system.
For reference, Gamepad in POE2 has a total of 22 bind slots if you use "Skill Set Swap", or 12 if you don’t use Skill Set Swap.

One simple solution is to give Mouse + Keyboard a way to hard-swap Bind Slot Sets with a toggle (holding down "CTRL" doesn't count).
This would increase the total number of Bind Slots from 13 to 26.

POE1 already does this, though it's tied to Weapon Set.
POE2 could implement this WITHOUT tying the Bind Slot sets to Weapon Sets... or maybe it should.
After all, since Skill slots are not directly bound to your equipment anymore, switching around your Skills is super easy anyway.

Random Block, tied to your Block Chance stat, will not prevent/mitigate Style deduction from enemy Hits.

Random Block gives you a way to stay in the fight and stay aggressive.
Thus you’re in a better position to make up for your Style Rank Gauge getting chunks taken out of it.

This focuses purely on Hits, as DOT does not use Accuracy/Evasion at all (which means that DOT can never "miss").

The player’s Evasion stat should continue functioning as a layer of defense, but as with Random Block, it will not prevent/mitigate Style deduction from enemy Hits.
Same reason as with Random Block; taking no damage lets you stay in the fight and stay aggressive, so you're better poised to make back what was deducted from your Style Rank gauge.

As for your own Accuracy vs enemies’ Evasion...
My solution is to apply a global bonus so your Hits "Always Hit" - i.e. always pass the check of your Accuracy VS enemy Evasion.
Your Accuracy by itself will do nothing, BUT it can still be useful for any stat bonuses that scale off of it.
- "Falcon Dive" (increased Attack Speed) on the Passive Tree.
- "Critical Strike" (additional Critical Hit chance) and "Penetrate" (added Physical damage) on the Amazon ascendancy.

Putting aside getting REALLY creative with your build, your Hits are guaranteed to deal SOME amount of damage to your targets.

Critical Damage Bonus can be a problem because you don’t want to accidentally deal more damage than desired when focusing on climbing up the Style Ranks.
The simplest option is to apply "Critical Hits deal no Extra Damage", to both your own Hits and to Hits from enemies.

This allows other effects that are caused by Critical Hits to still work.
E.g. "Elemental Expression", "Concussive Spells" Support, "Volatility" Support, the "Crumbling Maul" implicit modifier, "The Smiling Knight", "Voll’s Protector", the Frenzy Charge bonus from Sniper’s Mark, and so on and so on.

These currencies are non-tradeable - much like Gold, and are divided up into the different Ranks of the Style Rank Gauge.
I'll name them "Style Rank currencies".

The items you can buy from this Vendor are also divided based on those Style Ranks.
My "grouping" of the different Style Ranks based on Rarity also comes into play here.
E.g.
- "Magic" equipment + mid-tier items showing up in the B-rank tab at minimum
- "Rare" equipment + high-tier items showing up in the S-rank tab at minimum
- "Unique" equipment + Ancient Augments showing up in the SSS-rank tab only

A Style Rank currency may be spent ONLY on the items in the corresponding Style Rank shelf/tab of the Vendor.
You can convert your Style Rank currencies downward, but not upward.
All Style Rank currencies can be converted to Gold.

For the sake of limiting exactly what you can purchase using the Style Rank currencies, the Style Point exchange Vendor(s) has a different assortment of items in each Act Town, scoped to the drops you'd normally get within that specific Act.
This vendor may also use other mechanisms that other Vendors have to refresh their stock automatically, or give you a way to re-roll their stock.

I'll also use this term a lot: "Style Point Sum", the sum of the Style Points of different Ranks you built up on a Monster.

A given Monster has a "Style Point Limit", which starts out at 0, but can be raised in certain ways.
It serves as a "cap"/"limit" on the quantities of Style Rank currencies you can ACTUALLY get out of the Monster on kill.

- A Monster builds up its "Style Point Limit" by PERFORMING its own actions + using actions granted by its modifiers, using the "base style point values" of those actions.
- The Monster's actions do not need to actually hit you or deal damage to you to raise its Style Point Limit; they simply need to be performed.
- Some actions provide an instant increase (e.g. projectiles being fired that hit you OR miss you), while those with longer animations may gradually increase the monster's Style Point Limit over the animation's duration.
- This means that if a longer action is interrupted, the increase to the Style Point Limit gets cut short.
- This is akin to how your own Skills GRADUALLY deplete your Mana over the course of the Skill's animation, instead of spending the full amount at the start of said animation.

The final Style Rank currencies you gain from killing a monster would be calculated based on comparing the values between its "Style Point Limit", and your "Style Point Sum" on it.

There's two approaches I can think of.

Some Unique Monsters - the ones that function like proper boss fights, perform a "phase change".
These "phase changes" change the Unique Monster's moveset / arena in some irreversible way, or transform it into a new Monster with new moves, a new name, and full health.
Count Geonor has two: transforming into "Geonor the Putrid Wolf"; and his Sky Beams inflicting Corrupting Blood on Hit.

These "phase changes" and any other "happens only once" actions can be used for this "unique" reward system.

Whenever such an action is performed by the Unique Monster, the Style Points that are built up on it are "reserved".
This means that the Style Points built up on the Unique Monster so far are checked against the Style Point Limit + converted into a "Rank-marched batch" of Style Rank currencies.
These currencies are not immediately obtained upon killing the Unique; they're used for something else first, and THEN however much remains, you take into your inventory.

For added measure, the Unique Monster's "style point limit" and the style points built up on it are both reset to zero, so you can build up another batch of style points.

A given batch of Style Rank currencies is "Rank-marked" by calculating the "average Style Rank" of the batch's Style Rank currencies.

After the Unique Monster is beaten/killed (i.e. the loot/drops come out of the Unique Monster), a button appears on the defeated Unique.
Clicking on it opens a shop interface similar to the Style Points exchange vendor. You can use the "Rank-marked batches" of Style Point currencies that are reserved on this Unique Monster, to purchase more rewards from it.

The count of Rank-marked "reserved" batches of Style Rank currencies on the Unique Monster is used to determine how many rewards you can purchase from this defeated Unique Monster.
When going through each "Rank-marked" batch of Style Rank currencies:
- The batches are sorted by the Ranks they're marked with, highest first.
- You may purchase a reward using ONLY the currencies in the current batch.
- The "average Style Rank" determines the highest-rank "shelf" you're allowed access to, for the current batch.
- Options such as converting Style Rank currencies to Gold, or converting Style Rank currencies downward, are available here too, much like in the regular Vendor.
If you don't want to spend any more currencies in the current batch, all the leftover currencies are added to your Inventory, and you go to the next batch until they're all done.

This can also be provided for Pinnacle Bosses/Encounters, to include drops exclusive to those encounters.

Ritual would be influenced by considering the Style Points built up on ONLY the specific Monsters that are spawned by the Ritual encounter(s) in the Area.

One idea that calculates the boost to gained Tribute on the basis of each individual Monster spawned by a Ritual encounter is...
The Style Points that the player builds up on a monster spawned by the current Ritual Encounter + reduced via its "Style Point Limit" are used in a function that:
- calculates an increase proportional to the final sum of the Style Rank currencies that would be obtained from this Monster.
- modifies this increase with a multiplier based on the "average Rank" of this set of Style Points.
And then the Ritual Tribute gained from that Monster is increased by this bonus.

Delirium provides a list of cumulative rewards (categorized by type) that grows as you kill Monsters while in the Delirium fog.
Factoring in "Monster Style Point Limit" may be used to influence "progress" made towards acquiring the current reward - e.g. when you kill a Monster and the "Style Point Sum" on it is REALLY close to its Style Point Limit, you make more progress for the current reward (excess progress may carry over to whatever the next reward is).
But if the "Style Point Sum" and "Style Point Limit" are too far apart, killing the monster just gives you the usual amount of reward progress you'd normally get.

The "average Style Rank" of the Style Points can be used to determine the "rarity"/tier of the reward, starting at "base-level" (i.e. appropriate for the Area Level you're in) and going higher from there.

Your current Style Rank could also affect the tiers of Liquid Emotions + quantities of Simulacrum Splinters you get.
While that is more akin to the scrapped idea of using the Style Rank Gauge to control IIR + stack sizes, it's more sensible to use that for specific Leagues, compared to doing it throughout the entire Campaign.
As long as we don't "lower the floor" with regards to what rewards you can get from these Leagues, it should be fine.

For a given Area Instance, show the following rubric for gauging overall Style performance:
- How many Style Points you gained within each of the Style Ranks, from E to SSS. The "average Style Rank" can be shown alongside this.
- How many enemies you killed in the area.
It should not provide any "final letter grade" based on these; show the bigger picture provided by these two "grading axes".
This essentially functions as your "high score" for that Area.

How to increase your high score?
Since the high score has two dimensions, the value to compare results for a given Area must also be "2-dimensional".
It would be: the "average Style Rank" of the obtained Style Points X the count of enemies killed.

Map-marked Uniques and "mini-boss" Rares may also have "Style Rank distribution of obtained Style Points" shown, on the Act Map.
Uniques can show multiple Style Ranks as per the design of that system, and they'd be in the specific order they were obtained.

It does create a new sort of challenge for repeat playthroughs, seeing what ways you can improve your Style score in the earlier Campaign levels.
Still, if you’re not in the mood to go back to the early Areas on your current character to try to boost your score there, then you can just progress forward to Endgame and focus on the Style Score results in Endgame maps/encounters + Pinnacle bosses

The "Style Rank currencies" system is elegant enough that it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to make it work for Party Play.

In online Party Play, the different players in the Party each get their own Style Rank Gauge.
Each player builds up their own Style Points on a given Monster.
The Style Points of each player are each compared to the Monster's Style Point Limit, the final Style Rank Currencies to give to each player are calculated, and automatically added to the players' inventories.

And for the "Unique Monsters reward system" idea, each player has their own instance of the reward vendor from the defeated Unique Monster.

So any conundrum of how it should be dealt with for "loot allocation" is fully avoided.

Area / Boss Style rank results on the Act Map would still be scoped to ONLY those of the player viewing the Act Map.

What about Couch Co-op using two characters from the same user account?
- The two characters SHARE one Style Rank Gauge.
- Both characters contribute to its buildup, AND to its deductions.
- If one of the two characters gets hurt, the Style Rank Gauge is deducted from by the appropriate amount; both players getting hurt would cause two deductions in quick succession.

What if some players have characters who are meant to stay in the low-level Areas forever and never progress farther in Campaign, to keep doing high-Style runs of those Areas to build up lots of Style Point currencies and buy items to sell via Trading?
It COULD be done by getting all the way to the end so as to get the Style Points Vendor to start selling powerful items, then deliberately downgrading your characters by de-allocating all Passive Points, getting rid of all equipment, and then sticking to the low-level areas to farm points and be able to still get those powerful items; not to personally use them, but to trade them away.

If that's a concern, I DID bring up the idea of setting up one Style Points Exchange Vendor in the different Act Towns.
Much like the usual town Vendors, a town's Style Points Vendor carries ONLY the items of the appropriate level in a given Act.
Thus the rewards you could get from Act 1 are weak overall compared to what you could get in later Acts, or Endgame.

Plus, there's the idea of letting you purchase additional rewards from Unique Monsters after defeating them; that works as a way to keep certain rewards contained to those Unique Monsters (e.g. Pinnacle Encounter loot).
So you do need to build your character in a way to get good style scores against those Unique Monsters, if you want to have a chance to get those rewards via this system. It's another sort of target farming.

I'm committing to the idea of never lowering the "floor" of overall loots/drops yield, which is why the reward yield of my system revolves around building up currencies and spending them to buy items.
If you fully ignore this system, every item is about obtainable the same way you'd normally obtain it, so trade prices should in theory NOT go up higher on average.

It raises the "ceiling" of loot/drop yield by giving you a more action-game-ish way to access relatively powerful items.
Would that cause more powerful drops to be lower in average trade price?
Even if the first people to acquire those items set the prices high in the beginning... this alternative way to get the items may result in trade prices going down via more people getting them.
There would thus be a greater proportion of people selling those items for lower prices.

It'll be a lot to explore.

The Dodge Roll could have two components to it:
1. Executing a "near-miss" with it, measured similarly to how Lingering Illusion + Void Illusion simulate "near-miss" dodging. The base style point value of this would be fixed, and NOT be proportional to the specific Monster skill being "near-missed".
2. Granting additional Style based on how many things you successfully "Avoid" during its animation; the base style point value for this would be relatively small, and for added measure, there'd be diminishing returns based on number of Hits avoided.

The Dodge Roll's components each have their own repetition penalty, as usual.

The Style gauge's decay could also be paused for the duration of the dodge roll's animation, since you can't do anything until its animation is over, similar to what DMC3 does with gaining Style off of side-rolling / Trickster dodges, though DMC3 is also a bit more generous since it seems being really close to an enemy (even if it's doing nothing at the moment) is enough to gain Style from the usage of that Dodge skill.

The Style Gain for the "near-miss" component of the Dodge Roll may also be based on the timing of that "near-miss".
E.g. Dodge-rolling at the last possible second to avoid a Hit gives you the greatest Style gain from that component.

"Bulwark" Keystone
That modifies the Dodge Roll, trading away its ability to Avoid Damage and replacing it with taking 30% less Damage from Hits.
The benefit is that the damage reduction applies to types of Hits that the Dodge Roll cannot Avoid – e.g. Slams.
Considering it lets Hits make contact with you, this Keystone would allow enemy Hits to deduct Style from you, at full value for consistency’s sake.

The "near-miss" component of the Dodge Roll can still apply, but you lose the additional style gained from "Avoiding" Hits during the Dodge Roll's animation.
And you may end up with a net loss in Style since you're getting actually Hit by Monsters.

Blink
Blink replaces your Dodge Roll with an instant teleport, so it has no animation that must play out before you can do anything else.
Thus, Blink won't pause the time decay at all and it lacks the "gain additional Style for each Hit Avoided during the animation" component that the Dodge Roll has.
It may also provide a lower max Style gain, since you can cram more Style-gaining actions into the combat encounter anyway.

Black Powder Blitz, from the "Shankgonne" Unique boots
This replaces your dodge-roll with a "rocket jump", so it’s an offensive tool.
It would not have a "near miss" Style gain component to it.
The Style Gain from Black Powder Blitz would depend purely on hitting enemies with the rocket jump explosion.

For one given usage of Shield Charge, an increase to its components' style point gain can be provided, proportional to how long the Skill was channeled for during that usage prior to colliding with a valid target.

Considering Shield Charge has a finite duration and must be steered manually, Hits blocked by the Shield Charge’s Active Block do not need to be given any "reduced Style Gain Effectiveness" or "excessive channeling penalty", like what "Raise Shield" and "Resonating Shield" have.

Shield Charge's style gain bonus would be based on time spent channeling, not distance travelled, since distance travelled can be indirectly increased with Movement Speed.
This Skill's time spent channeling can be extended slightly, via holding down its button to keep channeling it, but it's only for one more "step" before the Skill stops itself; holding down the button longer simply performs Shield Charge again.

A few Skills extend Total Attack Time based on distance traveled. Molten Crash (up to +0.3), and Leap Slam (up to +0.5).
These could each have an appropriate additional amount of Style gain from the Hit based on distance traveled, up to a cap (much like the Total Attack Time distance-based extension).

Rake and Shield Charge deal more damage based on distance traveled, but their Total Attack Times are not extended by distance traveled.
Rake would NOT provide a Style gain boost based on distance traveled, because it always "pulls" you towards your target.

E.g.
· Incinerate does not use Mana; it instead uses Fuel that you build up via spending Mana on other Skills. It has a maximum duration of 5 seconds, and you cannot gain Fuel while using it.
· Flicker Strike has a finite number of Strikes based on how many Power Changes it consumes prior to activating it, and you cannot gain Power Charges while using it.
· Rampage and Flame Breath can be extended based on how much Rage you have prior to activating them, and you can't gain Rage while using them.

Extending the duration is part of the point, so during one given usage of such a Skill, all of its Hits can gain Style points. The repetition penalty would be raised after the Skill has landed at least one Hit during usage AND the usage ends, either naturally or cut short via a dodge roll or a Skill that explicitly can interrupt other Skills.
From there, the penalty would apply to all Hits of subsequent usages whilst the penalty is raised.

The base Style point values of an individual Hit from this specific Skills - or the "style per second" rate for DOT-dealing skills of this type - may be relatively small, to be useful more for slowing down your Style Rank gauge's decay or keeping it afloat within a given Rank.

As additional layers, we may also incorporate a finite number of "full Style Gain Hits" and/or that "style gain effectiveness" multiplier that decays based on total Channeling time, though the thresholds for these would be pretty high up.
And also "harsh repetition debts" could be used as one more layer.

It makes more sense for this category of Skill to use a gradual fall-off to Style Gain, instead of totally cutting it off as soon as you go past that threshold.

To look at the DMC games as reference...
"Strafing-fire" ranged weapon skills would usually have a low base Style point value, but also allow multiple "full Style Gain" Hits with the gunshots. "Harsh repetition debts" are also used to disincentivize spamming them, because you would end up sustaining the repetition penalty of that Skill Component for even longer.
Their main purpose in DMC is to keep your Style Rank gauge "afloat" at its current level, as you get closer to an enemy to use other attacks.

Though DMC's design is about mixing melee + ranged together, whilst POE2 allows a character to go all-in on ranged combat (Spells, Bows, Crossbows).

So style point values can be adjusted with POE2's prefered way of doing things in mind.

With regards to things like Additional Projectiles, or Forking/Splitting/Piercing/Chaining...
The simplest idea is that those will essentially "front-load" the Style Gain from the projectile Hits since you're dealing more Hits within a shorter time frame.
The repetition penalties will cause Style Gain for the projectile "Skill Component" to be cut off or reduced sooner, and it proportionally takes longer before its repetition penalty period is finished.

Totems are officially considered NOT Minions, for reference.

First we'll look at "Meta" Totem skills - e.g. Ancestral Warrior Totem, Spell Totem, and Mortar Cannon.
These cannot do anything on their own; you must socket other Skills into these, for them to use.
The Skills socketed into these Meta Totem skilsls do NOT contribute to your Style Rank buildup.
They CAN nonetheless build up style points on Monsters that they damage, and the repetition penalties apply as usual.

As for the other Totems skills...
I say they should have low base style point values.
The usage of gradual style gain falloff may work for this, for added measure.

Using one TYPE of Totem would keep your Style Rank gauge "afloat" in its current Rank, whether by slowing the gauge's descent, or keeping it about "level".
Using multiple different types of totems could help you reach the next rank, provided they land a good amount of Hits on living targets.

Crossbow Skills can each more easily find an appropriate amount of "full Style Gain" hits allowed, based on their base clip sizes.

The feel for the Style Gain of Crossbow Ammo skills would no doubt need to be balanced around Last Lament, since that Unique Crossbow can bypass Reloading.
To note a funny coincidence, all ranged weapons in DMC do not require reloading.

Though in theory, it should be convenient to test, given that Style Gain is NOT affected by exact damage dealt.

Shotgun-fire/"Merging" Crossbow Shots
Shotgun-fire skills such as Fragmentation Rounds or Permafrost Rounds may allow a few Style-gaining Hits before cutting off Style gain (3 shots that each land at least one Hit), even if the default clip size is 1 bolt.
Increased Style Gain would be provided based on how many of the individual fragments in the shotgun blast hit a valid target.

Shotgun-fire Crossbow Skills have the "Merging" tag, where if multiple fragments from a shotgun-fire bolt hit the same target at the same time, they're "merged" together to deal one Hit with combined damage.
The Style gain should be increased accordingly, to avoid a net loss in Style that would come from TECHNICALLY landing fewer Hits.

Curses
Successfully landing Curses on enemies won’t provide Style gain, but special Skill components that rely on Curses can gain Style and have repetition penalties as per usual.
e.g. "Hexblast", "Doedre’s Undoing", "Hayoxi’s Fulmination", "Impending Doom.

Marks
Applying a Mark by itself does not provide Style Gain, but special Skill components related to Marks can gain Style and have repetition penalties as per usual.
e.g. the blood explosion from activating Bloodhound’s Mark, the Shockwave from activating an applied Mark by using Wolf form’s Cross Slash.

I think Skills that have Stages do NOT necessarily need to provide more Style Gain directly based on the number of Stages.

Many of them provide extra effects based on how many Stages they have, and those can set up more Style Gain - e.g. Supercharged Slam creating more Aftershocks with more Stages, Volcano's initial eruption shooting out more projectiles, Flameblast getting larger and thus it can Hit more enemies simultaneously, and so on.

Most of the Herald skills have some component that does its thing when the Herald's on-kill conditions are met (the only Herald that doesn’t have a proper "Skill Component" is Herald of Plague; it just propagates Poison from a killed enemy to nearby enemies).

Each Herald component has its own repetition penalty to keep each one in check.

A Strike that is Ancestrally Boosted will target up to two additional different targets, showing two "clones" of yourself performing the Strike on designated targets. Even if you don’t hit anything with your own Strike, these Ancestral Boost copies will still appear and Hit their designated targets.
Considering that these Ancestral Boost copies will always Hit their target, the best course of action would be that these Ancestral Boost copies of the supported Strike and its components will count towards the repetition penalties for those components as well, so it may "front-load" your Style Gain for that particular Skill component and thus it spends proportionally more time unable to gain Style. That or for Skill components that allow only one full Style gain Hit before cutting that off, the Ancestral Boost copies would grant no Style, or less Style if making use of gradual fall-off.

E.g. In the case of a strike whose Hit provides two Full Style Gain hits before the style gain is cut off, you land your Hit, and then the two Ancestral Boost copies land their own copies of that Hit. You gain Style off of only two of those three landed Hits.

Whirling Assault CAN be supported with Ancestral Call, but its behavior is different.
In order for the Ancestral Call effect to actually happen, you MUST land the first Hit of the Whirling Assault, which causes the full attack animation to be used by the Ancestral Boost copies on the appropriate nearby targets, or just one copy hitting the same target. Otherwise, the Ancestral Call effect does not occur and you have to wait for the Ancestral Boost to recharge before you can take another shot at that.
This is different from other cases where even if your own Strike misses, the Ancestral copies will each hit its target.

These particular Skills build up ammo passively, and using the Skills fires all the shots.
In both cases, it’d be most practical to apply a number of full Style Gain Hits to the impacts, like with most other projectile Skills.

Freezing Salvo stores up to 10 additional shots max and accumulates 1 shot per 0.75 seconds - these values can’t be modified.
All the shots are fired at once and strike the general targeted area in rapid succession, in a way that you're stuck in the firing animation until pretty much all the shots hit the ground.
This one can be held to repeatedly fire salvo shots, but you’d be firing only one shot per usage.

Hailstorm Rounds fires all its shots at once, which rain down within the targeted area – the shots start in the center and gradually spread out, which happens sooner for firings with a low amount of Bolts, and can store a large number of Bolts to make it last longer.
Notably, while a firing of Hailstorm Rounds is active, you can run around and use other Skills.
And more than one of those from you can be active at a time, technically.
This one would need "gradual style falloff", definitely.

Skills triggered by Cast on X Skills CAN build up Style Points on enemies, BUT cannot contribute to building up your Style Rank.
The repetition penalties of the socketed Skills are engaged as well.

Skills triggered by Invocations CAN build up Style Points on enemies, BUT cannot contribute to building up your Style Rank.
The repetition penalties of the socketed Skills are engaged as well.

"Ritual Cadence" is interesting because it spreads out the usages of the Invocation's triggered Skills over a long period of time.
Because of the "considered consecutive time period" on some Skill Components - as part of their repetition penalty systems, you WOULD need to weave your manually used Skills in between the Hits landed by those triggered Skills, in order to maximize the Style Gain you're getting out of a "Ritual Cadence" Invocation.

Examples: Armor Explosion, Electromagnetism, Elemental Discharge, "Doom Blast" from Impending Doom, Doedre’s Undoing, Hayoxi’s Fulmination, Xibaqua’s Rending, Bone Shrapnel, Coursing Current, Static Shocks, Fiery Death, Bursting Plague, Deadly Resolve.
Each of these elements would have their own repetition penalty as Skill components – their own number of "full Style gain" Hits allowed, and so on.

If these Skill Components are spawned from Skills triggered/used by Meta skills, they DO gain Style for the purpose of building it up on enemies, but they don't contribute towards your Style Rank gauge, and they have repetition penalties as usual.

Molten Fissure Aftershocks would definitely have their own repetition penalty and base Style Gain value, independent of the Skills causing the Aftershocks.
The repetition penalty would be shared across all Molten Fissures globally, but this is where the "full Style gain Hits" + "gradual style fall-off" tools would work well.

Those repetition penalty tools would work for Ice Fragments as well. The repetition penalty would be shared across all instances of Ice Fragments.

Ice Crystal Shatterings share a global repetition penalty, but we should also consider that they need to have enough damage dealt in order to shatter them, or using Freeze-consuming Skills in order to shatter them instantly + deal more Damage, and their Life can be adjusted.
Ice Crystal Shatterings would need some additional thought.

Minion Command Skills would grant Style + provide Style Rank buildup, no question.

Skills that Minions use themselves without your manual input can build up Style Points on enemies, but cannot contribute to your Style Rank buildup.
They would also have repetition penalties as usual, probably with no repetition debt since those particular components are out of your control.

The special Djinn minions from the "Disciple of Varashta" ascendancy are a standout example, since they don’t roam the field, and have no auto-attacks.

These are different from the Aftershocks that travel along Molten Fissures.
These "standard Aftershocks" function as "repeats" of the Hits that trigger said Aftershocks.

Simplest first idea is to have the Aftershock be considered an additional Hit from the attack that caused it.
So it would have the style point value of the Attack that caused the aftershock, though this does also mean that repetition penalties of the Skill Component may also nullify/reduce the Aftershock's style gain.