Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills

Now I'm slightly puzzled!
I thought I recalled the fact that somebody mentioned in a Hangout we'd earn 'experience' in crafting/adventuring, but would then be forced to spend this with trainers where we would learn the abilities (as could be seen in Adoris). If that's the case, wouldn't it be kind of what you requested here? For example, the authority in a town of watchers might be more prone to use Atenism ('revealing') then Lunaism ('hiding') and that could very well reflect in what can be learned there and by whom.

 

That's ok.

The gist of the message was that many times things are too easy to acquire, hardly any effort involved. I simply stated that it would be nice to have to work for or earn our skills and abilities along the way.

Talking to someone in a different town is a good concept but doesn't influence how we earned the points to talk to them to begin with.

How much effort should go into earning the points and what needs to be accomplished is often what is debated.

In relation to the topic at hand for example. Do we need to earn our spells or are they handed to us. And how are they used or implemented?

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Oh, I guessed that, given Richard and Tracy are working on the story, they would kind of restrict access to said trainers and involve heroic (good or evil alike) deeds. Getting the points is through usage, but apllying them in order to gain the 'skill' is then part of the story and thus 'what makes the Avatar special'.

 

It is a part of it but how quickly and easily skill 'points' are gained has always been a topic of debate. Some say that too much effort is grind work, others feel that the skill is not special if very little effort was put into acquiring the 'points' to begin with. Finding the balance between the two is often difficult.

Sometimes limiting skills to begin with can compensate for the ease with which they were acquired, however some players feel that the skills should be immediately available so that they can engage better in their own preferred play style sooner. This approach makes it easy for everyone to build similar characters without much effort but removes the uniqueness once the optimum build is discovered.

I believe there is balance in diversity. Some areas should be harder and more difficult to obtain and maintain but that in doing so, the reward is such that your avatar can be more (powerful/skilled/etc). As with the topic at hand concerning magic spells.



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The light armor tree has a greater durability skill that compensates, but yes many bludgeons have abrasive and spiky ends. Warhammers usually have a hammer on one end and a spike on the other. In the center of the hammer could be squared off which has corners that can catch cloth and leather.

So think about a blade slicing cloth. Can you imagine the slices? Now imagine a heavy bludgeon with snagging ends. One snag can cause a whole piece of the armor to rip and hang. So abrasive damage would be worse than a perfect tear.

So no point in changing the system. Almost all bludgeons are abrasive and can snag or rip most things armor or cloth. Also blades do actually do more damage against cloth than heavy armor. So they thought this through.

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At least combat and defeating monsters should not get you experience points. This would remove grinding from the game and would also make combat something that you don't do to gain experience points but to solve a quest, defend yourself or help someone.

 

I would like to gain XP from combat. If we don't gain XP from killing monsters then I suppose using the combat skills should give us XP everytime we use them. Although that means you can level up fighting rats.

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You just need things that are better exp for the time spent so people don't generally grind on monsters to level up. Yes, it's an option if you really want to maraud about slaughtering everything and dungeon crawling a lot. But, you would be better of completing a quest that takes you a real life week to complete. (I love long/challenging quests! otherwise it's just a task and should net you only a little more than killing 10 monsters).

On the subject of how we earn skills and level up, currently it is not how it will be, they have said you will have to seek out trainers and you wont be able to train everything at any trainer or area. I expect getting last tier spells/abilities will require adventuring and questing. Reagents and durability and all that will start playing a role. We still have a long ways to go to making combat, skills and leveling(which isn't even in) the level that they have said they want it to be. We still don't even have the affinity system in. Making assumptions on how things are now for how the game will be is a mistake.


I have played games that required memorization and praying for your spells.
1) It's not fun early on when you have few spells.
2) The way to make it fun is to enable memorizing/praying more than once a day, basically anytime you are out of combat and can sit and are not thirsty/hungry.
3) It turns into something that is more strategic and it can be fun, get the right spells in your list for the right encounters.
4) It makes pvp more challenging as a spell caster, if you mem/pray for group monster battle and then a solo warrior appears, chances are you'll lose... advantage warriors.
5) Reagents that are hard to find plus 1 spell cast per day can be a lot of fun for some overpowered effects. I wouldn't mind seeing that, some games have those. Currently none of the skills in the game qualify for this though.

 

I never liked D&D magic, especially the Vancian elements.

I did always like how Ultima did it, except my best memories of this were in earlier Ultimas where you could find new spells that you didn't know about. So for instance, in Ultima V you found out that there was a Create Food spell through gameplay -- it was nowhere in the manual. So there was a sense that you could discover new spells through experimentation. That was something lost when they moved to the spellbook system. In SoTA, I'm assuming that we'll be able to discover new 'magic combos', I guess. Still would have fun to discover spells at the Words of Power level.

In earlier Ultimas btw, you did have to prepare your spells before casting them. You had a [M]ix command. When you went to cast, you'd get a list of the spells you prepared and the number of them you prepared. So it was at least similar to Vancian magic in that regard, though conceptually different. Magic in U5 was never very frustrating to me even though you had the preparation.

 

All spells had reagents in D&D 2nd edition. ALL.

They were either verbal, semantic, material or a combination of the three. This was important because silenced mages couldn't cast ANY verbal component spells, tied up mages couldn't cast any semantic component spells, and most of the spells required one if not both of those to cast. The limitation of casting a spell (slot) once per day combined to make D&D 2nd edition one of the most challenging environments for a mage to survive in.

Again, I'd love to see something like this in SOTA. Even if we could capture the general flavor of this, I'd be really happy.

 

Reagents by definition are physical. Verbal and semantic are not reagents.

Cantrips anyone? Bring them on!

 

Very well, but you can't claim that all spells in D&D didn't require components. Here in SOTA there is only one required component (for some spells) and that's reagents. I'd love to see SOTA require Verbal and Semantic components that were more than automatically applied to your casting animation.

As for Cantrips, they required both verbal and semantic components in D&D and at least in 2nd Edition they too were a 1st level spell. (meaning you could not cast them like a 6 shooter)

 

Yea, it would have been fun, IMO anyway, if you had to combine words of power actively. Don't think there's much hope of that in SoTA; pretty sure they decided against it.

 

At least not in combat. I don't count anything out. This is only episode 1 they are working on. They are building all the foundation right now, but in future releases the foundation will be there.

In kickstarter they said they would release a new episode each year. I wouldn't mind if they take longer than a year and stretch it out longer, but they won't have to rebuild the basics from scratch each episode so they will have time to come up with new stuff along with new lands and continuing the story.

Who knows what things will be like by episode 4 or 5 especially if it is hugely popular.

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Just to clarify, I did not claim that all magic didn't require components just not all required physical reagents. As previous stated, reagents are physical and that is what I was going by.

Yes, you are correct on that. I for one would like to see the words of power "An Corp" to be expanded so not all spells needed a physical reagent or reduced reagent quantity. There is no reason an Fire Arrow spell needs a material (see similar spell in AD&D "Burning Hands"). You will understand why

Same here!

I never understood the need for cantrips and why they were included. Since they are really level 1 spell in my eyes.

I took a few days before I came back to respond. I looked in my AD&D Wizards Handbook 2E and my AD&D Players Handbook 1E (with the wizard cover). I will reverse my decision based on the research (instead from memory) that the majority of spells needs a material component instead of not needed one. Funny how memory is sometimes confused when you have not played something for a long time - and the computerized versions are dumbed down (I am looking at you D&D online games) and don't require the hunting for the physical materials.

 

Mishri said:
You just need things that are better exp for the time spent so people don't generally grind on monsters to level up. Yes, it's an option if you really want to maraud about slaughtering everything and dungeon crawling a lot. But, you would be better of completing a quest that takes you a real life week to complete. (I love long/challenging quests! otherwise it's just a task and should net you only a little more than killing 10 monsters).

I entirely agree with this approach, but that requires a gaming system (underlying mechanics) that incorporates a 'qualitative' as well as a 'quantitative' aspect to experience. (Even if the mechanic is a simple multiplier.)

Such a 'modal' approach would also allow/expand to an encouragement of PvP / PvE differentiation, group/solo differentiation, and specialist/JOAT differentiation. This means that no ONE style of play will be optimal for all the in-game possible branches. Players could still go through a given branch, but will gain less (relative) of a return in experience if they use a non-favored mode. (So you can grind through a PvE conflict or take the 'riskier' societal interaction of a PvP one to get through the Duke's Castle Infiltration [insert own example here].

Also, by enabling differential modes, players may be able to pick which quests they take based on their personal, individual, real-world-context limits. (If I'm only able to game in short bursts this month due to commitments such as filling out income tax forms in April, then I don't pick the "must coordinate with a number of other players PvP-interactive" quest as what my Avatar does.)

Apologies for any typos, grammatical errors, and not getitng the copying function operable. The real world is forcing me to operate with a large input of anti-allergens which degrades my Focus.

 

I like the idea of quests giving an experience point bonus, but not an extraordinary amount so that the only way to advance is to do quests. I would like monsters to also give reasonable amounts of experience (So people can grind monsters "if they want").
Although quests should help advancement so players that have progressed in the storyline are at the right level for the tasks at hand. Nevertheless, I would still like to gain levels after the story is completed, and I don't like daily quests to be the only form of real experience. In World of Warcraft everything hinged upon quests. You couldn't do anything without them really. Like the trailer for SotA says, let's go where there are no roads. If there are no roads then quests aren't mandatory. If they aren't mandatory then we should be able to play the game without completing the story if we want. At least I hope that is possible.

 

I really like the skill path circles.

It reminds me of the FFX sphere grid...

 

That looks pretty, but it is also pretty confusing for a first timer. I would hope they make this game as appealing as possible to newbies. The more intuitive it is the better. These key components like skills and deck building should be as intuitive as possible. We gotta appeal to new players.

The reason I say this is confusing is that the first thing I think when I see all that is WHERE DO I START? How do I progress? What is important?

Maybe, it would be better to see only the bread and butter skills highlighted in the beginning, and then the more potent endgame/high level skills show up as we approach them. *I'm just thinking out loud. I don't know if that would be better or not because I can't visualize it at the moment*

 

Agreed. This was not a 'make it look like this' post. Just how it makes sense to me using the provided circles of skills (THE ORIGINAL POST) and how the inner rings are the foundation and the outer rings are the advanced skills. And as the game grows, more outer rings could be added, building upon the existing foundation. As well as creating more diversity and uniqueness as the character's skills progress different outward spiraling paths.