Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills

FTFY. Portalarium is Central Soon™ Time.

 

First time talking in public about a game from this pedigree, but I'm a long time Ultima fan and have played several MMOs. Admittedly not UO, although it was the first MMO I ever saw played and I was impressed.

Anyway, I've been seeing a lot of discussion about economy regulation, and that got me thinking. The game economy that has been the most fun for me is EVE Online. In that, players place buy and sell orders which other players can see and decide to carry out. Usually this involves finding orders you want to carry out, moving yourself/goods to the location of the order, and completing the transaction (which doesn't require the direct participation of the person who placed the order). This simple mechanic created a lot of depth that is really quite intriguing.

I bring this up because I think a similar system could be applied by the game developers to regulate the economy in SotA. Rather than have NPCs that will just buy whatever to generate gold for the economy, why not create/generate orders (from the crown or whatever) based on what kind of regulation the game needs? If the game needs more gold and has an abundance of carrots then a bunch of carrot buy orders can be generated to sink carrots and create liquid capitol. Likewise, if the game has too much gold the developers can reduce spawn rates for resource nodes and place a bunch of sell orders for natural resources to leech gold away from the game.

Just a thought!

 

I super agree with this. There just needs to be systems in game that make it easy to cooperate. Something more engaging and practical than just an auction house

 

It's a debated subject even on homebrewing forums.. check post #36 http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?/topic/38812-atfs-direct-laws-on-distillation/page-3 That person had an e-mail dialogue with both the IRS and ATF regarding freezing concentration and as long as it's for home use, and doesn't go above a certain ABV it is legal. That doesn't mean you don't have some local laws preventing it. But it is legal on a federal level. I know in TX they consider it a gray area because of certain laws about concentrating it, but they don't directly address it. Generally even if local authorities knew you were doing it they wouldn't charge you for personal/home use because the law isn't clear.

 

Interesting... before you brought it up, I'd never heard of any local laws that might bother with something like this. I live in California, people do it here all the time. I'm pretty skeptical about anyone actually getting in any trouble with the law from this.

 

I disagree. To me it makes a skill oriented character, and not subject you to classes. So your using water magic... You'd want it to get better, so keep using it and dropping skill points into it. Then you decide to use swords, ok you gain swords. Now if you were using water magic to gain skill points and putting them into swords... I'd be lost? How would you get better at water magic, why even keep using it?
It's like UO character builds, but with a greater variety of useful skills to choose from.
Just my opinion

 

From a magic user's stand point, I would want to learn all or almost all of the schools of magic if I'm a pure mage. Learning 7 or 8 spells isn't much of a magic user.

 

That just leads to a way too narrow focus. It would also mean people would have to go all the way back to the beginning and kill grays (which gain you no skill points).

 

The other issue is how you branch into the new skill trees, unless they allow you to train the first skill once. Then they track how many times you use that skill and with the combat system as it is planned you wont have too much control over that, especially if you only have the 1 skill in it that branch you want to focus on but the rest of your abilities are all elsewhere.. so you gain 10 points in water magic (my main one) for every 1 in my fire magic (my new one). If you could focus on one thing I could see it working. But I also don't like that idea either because then you have a limited range of abilities and like Death-Knell said, go back to killing easy stuff.

 

I don't see the problem in starting at the beginning again if you want to learn something new... Long as you gain using the skill, no matter what your using it against. By that I mean a grey creature or red creature, color/difficulty doesn't matter. It's the uses. Also, have they given creatures a color system, and deemed the lower ones give no skill?
Kinda like life, gotta work your way up to something as your learning it.

Isaiah, I don't see why you couldn't learn every magic school... It's up to them on how much entirely you can learn. Have they put a limit on the amount of skills you can learn currently?

Mishr, I see your point on being off balanced as you learn though... The whole gain 10 here and 1 there. That's a tough work around, unless when you start at the beginning you have multiple spells in your new school, to keep them in the cycle. That might work?

 

It isn't just a limit issue. If it takes 10x the ammount of skill points to become a full mage then becomming a warrior that seems a little bit much don't you think?

 

Because if you have worked you way up in say water magic and your taking on advanced foes you are at a certain level. To say pick up a sword and start over at the beginning you would have to back track and start taking on easy foes again. But typically easy foes give you zero XP, zero XP gives you zero advancement which gives you zero skill points. So starting something new after you mastered something else would be impossible.

Actually life does have parallel skills. For instance in the navy I worked on computer trouble shooting benchs. No operating system maintenance involved and it was completely different then a PC. But after I got out of the navy I was hired by a info systems company got 2 weeks of training and started working the floor. While I was junior to everyone else due to time in the company it wasn't very long before people were coming to me asking questions. Completely different types of computers as these were PCs with Win3.1 & Win95. But sort of like I was a master of water magic and I was learning another form of magic.

 

I see what your saying, but I'm pointing out that it wouldn't be impossible if you gained from using the skill; "I don't see the problem in starting at the beginning again if you want to learn something new... Long as you gain using the skill, no matter what your using it against. By that I mean a grey creature or red creature, color/difficulty doesn't matter.". Yes it would be difficult and maybe boring to start back at the beginning, but maybe while doing so we could explore a new path?
Or as you stated with your navy reference(and thank you for serving), that you advanced quicker than others at something new. You were still new, but since you know something similiar(I'm guessing here) it sped up the learning process. Maybe skills that shared a common aspect could gain quicker if you know the other, like air and water?

 

Well as I understand the system (And I could be wrong) You don't get skill points from using the sword, you get skill points when you advance. Now if they changed it that just using the sword gets you skill points then I would agree with you, even though having to go back and fight grays to me is a waste of my time and NOT fun. But that's just my opinion.

But the big thing I'm waiting for is how the skill system functions. For instance 2 characters with equal skill points, one goes pure chaos mage and the other goes mage/thief. How much of a handicap will the mage/thief be at? Or if someones playing a druid and it requires a combo of earth and life or earth/life/water/air, how far behind will that player be from others at the same skill point level?

 

Why would easy foes give you zero XP? Why not give the same ammount of XP it's just that we need a lot more XP to gain a level making a 1 or 2 XP creature not as valuable. That's how D&D handled it. WoW on the other hand handled it differently.

I see why a creature's xp value might disapear once you attain a high level, but this isn't WoW. Levels aren't exponentially more powerful, but we do get stronger. UO was like that. Creatures that gave you trouble in the early days didn't threaten you in later times, but you weren't exponentially more powerful than you were in those early days of your skills. It's just that you did more damgage and you get hit less often while wielding a weapon skill you mastered. Your health was based on your Strength attribute.

A classless system is totally different than WoW. You can have a bunch of skills spread all over the place and just because you have lots of skill points doesn't make you good. it depends on how you've distributed those skill points. In UO it was based upon the skills you used. This game will be based upon where you place your skill points. So you might not get better with your weapon skills so why should low level creatures have 0 XP when you might not be powerful enough to beat a more powerful creature.

 

I never played WOW. But of all the other MMOs I've played gray out lesser foes to make it less worthwhile to grief lower level players by higher level players.

 

I'm hoping they'll have none of this. If there's a level curve at all, it should be nearly flat. So you don't outlevel an area. The whole game is always relevent and available.

 

I'm only kicking around ideas(possible alternatives) myself. I think what they have in action is the group point system. Which is I believe you've referring to.

I'm hoping if you multi skill, your not handicapped in any major way. Perhaps multi skilling will allow you to trigger the combos they had mentioned, and that could be equal to maxing one skill? Like "fire tornado" needing air magic and fire magic...

 

This. So much this. I hate games where everyone has outleveled an area and there is no reason to go back.

 

Easier to macro train your skills that way, unless mobs don't re-spawn in a hex.

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