Will there be Skillsystem changes?

@Chris
@Lord British

Will there be more skillsystem/ combat/ mob changes that not only allow to build archetypes like an archer, fighter, specialized mage, but make these choices more viable or
do you stick to what we have and encourage to skill at least all magic if you want to be viable in endgamecontent and pvp?

Atm archetypes are not competetive.
Nor in PvE neither in PvP.

With Archetype i think of.
A pure fighter class, no magic, but potions
An Archer/ Ranger who use no or less Magic.
Specialized Mages like Necromancer, Fire-, Water Mage, Druids...

If one picks some trees to create an Archetype he identifies with, he restricts himself and is not that viable as others who skill every magic and cherrypick skills.

Is it intended and recommended to skill every magic tree?

Just tell us, if this is intended and the way it will work.

Maybe some core Elements and Design decisions arent just for me and i was not aware of it.

Classless means to me to pick some trees and build a characte, an archetype from it, but because there are no limitations people skill almost everything and it also seems not possible to do Endcontent (soloing Bosses) or PvP if you dont do it.
Or is soloing Bosses no Endcontent?

I just want clarification here and decide if the game is for me or not.

Without beeing able to create a viable archetype in this game and be recommended to skill all magic, without some restrictions and limits what is possible, the game just isnt the right one for me,because it's just to time consuming to build up and i loose all identification if there is only on archetype more or less.

I would appreciate very much some official Info what sort of character people are recommended to build.

If it's all about the Avatar = pick a weapon and armor and skill all magic then it's ok to me, just say it or if not what things are planned to adjust the skillsystem so that archetypes with no or few magic are viable.

Thank you.

To all others
Please dont hijack my thread, you can share your opinion on that without to attack me, feel attacked or whatever.

I ask a question or i give feedback and i dont want to have my threads derailed and closed.
Thank you.

 

I made a ranger that specialized in sun and air magic. I went into moon magic because of stealth and life magic because healing. I didn’t go very far into life magic, so I wouldn’t call myself a healer. I did not go into any other schools of magic, not even one little spell.
As for other skills, I went straight up archer, no skill development in anything else except light armour, tactics, a little focus to cut magic cost and the stealthy skill tree (can’t remember what it’s called).

That’s it. I figure I was a kind of spell casting ranger.

I was able to complete the game myself. I only did one thing with a friend (Grannus Colossus) everything else I soloed.

I did all this at adventure level 58 to 60.

I feel that if you go int9 the game with an idea, you can achieve it, you can be anything you want and have fun. I didn’t do any of the extra content, didn’t touch bosses or anything (except Anapa, which I didn’t myself). For the most part I just explored and did the main story.

I’m a very casual player only racking up 400 hours since persistence.

I love this system and thing it’s great. We can be anything we want if we tried. The downfall is you can’t be everything, it’ll take too long. Some people have that time and like being able to do everything, like a completionist and I think that’s fair, but you don’t have to be if you don’t want to.

 

I know a lot of people don't like the tying of magic resists to skill trees. It doesn't force you to develop every magic tree but it hugely penalizes you if you do not. Ward gems on your gear as an alternative can help but not enough to make up the difference, especially now that they are varying the types of spells mobs cast on you (you can't get enough ward gems on you to help with more than really one school of magic).

About Me

For myself, I am ok with going to learn some fire magic as a way of learning how to resist it, so I don't really have an issue with it.

My "normal" build is ranged (currently adding blades) and I don't really use spells in combat other than defensive buffs and occasional heals (I do use Fireflies on bigger mobs/bosses to increase my crits). As far as magic goes, I feel like my character went and got a good basic understanding to know how to defend against the various magic trees. The time investment of getting skills in a particular tree to "defensive attunement" level is pretty small, and it definitely doesn't make you a master of fire, for example. It's like a boy scout who learned how to make a fire in the woods, to me. It doesn't really affect my walking around the world build/playstyle, which is pretty classically ranger.

About Your Topic

I do hope that in the long run they change this, though, for the very simple reason that it bothers so many people. There's no really good reason to bother so many people with this game choice. There are ways to create the same necessary investment in defending yourself without making people feel like their character has to actually go learn death magic...characters whose backstory may make them bitterly opposed to death magic in all its forms. Make defensive trees, and make the investment in time relatively the same. Make it clear that the character is learning death magic defense.

I will say this, if it did bother me and I got the answer that "well it's a classless system" I'd be pretty angry with that response. The two things (having a classless system where you can pick from any trees, and having to develop EVERY tree or suffer the consequences) really have nothing to do with each other. That's not a classless system, it's a single class system, where the class is simply how far into all the trees you are.

Yes, I get that my "make defensive trees" statement has some broad repercussions in terms of game design, but I think it's more doable than the devs probably think - you could make it really, really simple for now with just one tree with skills of "defend X magic" that are passive (call them Fire Ward, etc). I think that would get us all over the hump. Then yes you have to go untie resistance from attunement and tie it to those skills instead.

There are very few people I've run into/guilded with/talked to in game since Persistence who have not asked about this, and a notable number of them walked away in large part because of it. So even though it doesn't deeply bother me it's very clear to me that it's a very big issue.

Also Stundorn just FYI, this topic would probably get much more response under General Discussion than under this board (although your choice to put it here was sensible).

Gonna @Berek and @Chris. My anecdotal estimate is that for 20-30% of the people who come try SotA this particular element is a dealbreaker. And for another healthy percentage, this plus some other things that are being worked on (there's not enough mob variety, quests, etc) creates a dealbreaker relatively early on (adv level 50ish).

 

thanks for this reply and especially to this quote above. I hope they change some things otherwise i will go like my friend is already gone because of this and some other issues tied to this.

 

Ive mentioned this before but if they made the skill bonus much more expeditonal after gm it would help then id rather take the time to focus on something with a larger benefit then lots of small bonuses plus there has been discussion about specialization bonuses like giving up the ability to learn anything in one tree for a bonus in another i think both of these would be easy to implement and would help significantly

 

I don't think we can play the game as say a warrior that doesn't touch magic but can negate a % of damage. I think the character needs to 'experience' magic and not having to learn it, to get their body and mind attuned and resistant to that school.
Maybe....

Make a passive skill in each tree for resistance to that magic...
The passive skill for that resistance is raised when you take damage of that type...given
Elemental and some magic schools would be easy and make sense to raise their respective resist on that schools damage taken. Sun and Moon could be tricky, especially moon...But that could be raised by using skills at night, on a full moon they could raise twice as fast. I think it wouldn't hurt to add a bit of in depth skill raising, something different, especially for schools that might not have many damage abilities. Maybe for other skills as well....

Balance would be needed so someone couldn't negate all damage of that type...or maybe they should be able to but it will be likely one of the most xp costly ones to do...I would make GM, resist 50% of the damage.... no questions on level or in pvp the other players attunement or level., a flat amount..level 200 = 100%.....if someone wants to play for 1578 years so they can have 200 in that one resist...up to them...its hopefully a rpg and sandbox...

 

Pretty sure there will be as Chris already announced them. New skills, resist/attunement will change a lot. Just like the heat system changes.

 

To underline this and my recent 'feedback' i just want to say that i think it is important to many players, also non Roleplayers (but we are all more or less playing a role) to identify with their character.
So, some have no issue to be the Avatar of all Magic additionally to be a fighter with a weapon or an archer, but imho many people want and do build a class of their own from all trees.
And the significant thing imho is:

Sure everybody can do this and nobody is forced to be a Jack of all Trades, but if you dont do it you are punished and not able to partake or just defense yourself in pvp.
That imho should not be the case.

1. Because of loosing identification with your char if you like to play as an Archetype
2. Because of the immense grind to do.
If one want it then they can do it, but it should not be neccessary in anyway to be competetive, because then pvp are only for those who want to level everything.
But i think not everyone wants that, but more likes to build an Archetype out of the classless system.
And it's good to have it classless and let people build whatever they want.
But there need to be restrictions and possibilities to build a competetive archetype / specialist who is viable like the one who skill everything. The Generalist need restrictions, he can more, but nothing good as the specialist.

 

As I said before, I think it would be best to make a resistance skill in each magic tree equal to the amount of exp in that tree. The problem with this is if you add a new skill in the tree you will need to change the exp of that skill, I would not have a problem with this, but maybe others might not like a skill decreasing as new skills enter the game.

 

It's Alpha, therefore we are here, play, give feedback...
And things will change to improve the game for a wider playerbase.

 

It's funny, when I'm adventuring I see a lot of diversity. I always play multiplayer and like to party with those I meet. The last party I was in with random people I met was me (a pure mage), a swordsman, and an archer. Pretty archetypal really. I see people wearing plate, others wearing cloth, and others wearing leather. I see folks using earth, others using death, etc. etc. Really mostly what I see played is pretty unique and pretty specialized. I've even fought beside pole arms specialists and tamers in the the last month. Everybody seems to be having a good time, and nobody is complaining about being under powered. Anyway, just thought I'd report on what I actually see in New Britannia.

 

Dear Avatars, dear @Chris ,

to help players, who wants to play a special role (well, we are in a fantasy role playing game, aren't we? )
it would be nice to have a bonus for not grinding willing people, who wants to take part in the whole game (even PVP, if they like!)

I. Good reasons for more specialization (Ice mage, Death mage, 2hand Fighter, Weapon+Shield, Weapon+Weapon, Ranger, ...)

The actual skill system provides:
20 Skilltrees
active passive total
skills skills skills
146 68 205

7 Combat active passive total
Shield 6 4 10
Light Armor 5 2* 7 *
Heavy Armor 6 3 9
Pole 6 4 10
Sword 6 4 10
Bludgeon 7 4 11
Bow 6 5 11
42 26 68

9 Magic active passive total
Earth 9 2 11
Fire 7 3 10
Air 9 2 11
Water 8 2 10
Sun 8 2 10
Moon 11 2 13
Death 8 3 11
Life 9 3 12
Chaos 9 1* 10
78 20 98

4 Strategy active passive total
Tactics 7 7 14
Subterfuge 11 4 15
Focus 4 6 10
Taming 4 5 9*
26 22 39

(just for information: *lowest amounts!)

SUGGESTION
Each skilltree could receive 2 (or may be more?) points as Bonus, we receive when not using further Skilltrees.
Bonus based on not used skill trees
(Example: 20 skill trees - 3 used skill trees = 17 * 2 Bonus points)

EXAMPLE 1: used skill trees from total 20____
Skill Trees used 3 4 5 6 7 8
Bonus total 34 32 30 28 26 24
Bonus each Skill 1,13 0,80 0,60 0,47 0,37 0,30

Calculating above with average of 10 Skills each Tree!
The bonus could be cut maybe after using more than 8 Skill trees,
it should help players to focus on less Skilltrees!


Another way could be to give
Bonus depending on (not) used skills,
equal, how much skill trees are used.
Skill Bonus may be = 0.2 (or more? ).

EXAMPLE 2: used Skills from total 205 ___
Skills used 30 40 50 60 70 80
Bonus total 35 33 31 29 27 25
Bonus each Skill 1,17 0,83 0,62 0,48 0,39 0,31

The bonus could be cut after using more than 80 Skills,
it should help players to focus on less Skills!

Also helpful would be to let only one tree or 10 skills decay free until 100.
To have a base of granted Masters untouched by death decay ...


II. Fighting against magic enemies.
No sword can hit a ghost ... Or as it was said before "cut a water/air/fire elemental?"
No normal weapon can hurt such enemies. Not only "little" damage. NO damage, to be fair
He can crunch bones, but what about a hardened Skeletons or a Lych? They are built by high magic, I assume ...
So at least a player with a normal weapon should have to use an enchanted one.
Also armor should need to be enchanted to stand against high level magic.

To provide a higher resisting, a specialized fighter shouldn't need to lvl up magic because of high attunement, instead he could use well enchanted armor and weapon, well, potions also. So Alchemy is the magic word ... granting "Fighters" no need of any magic tree to focus on combat and strategy!

 

Archetypes??? Try to deal with my Bludgeon Air Shaman and show me in what part is not competitive

 

It's not helpful to answer my question, I also doubt you have no fire, death, life, sun, moon, earth or water... Skills.
If you think there need no adjustments to be made just make a thread about it how happy you are or just post you don't want adjustments here.
It's accepted , but as you can see I asked a question to Chris and LB.
And comments like this only lead to counter arguments like mine, derailing and closing the thread, what as someone who want to have more players in SotA and support the project cannot be your aim. The aim is finding compromises or everybody will loose.

 

A stunning build!

 

time and time again these threads pop up.. it really infuriates me... all this bluster About being competitive in PVP.. Dhanas moonwhisper ( antraxs GF) Has beaten me, Fzol and other big pvpers, because she worked at it, she didnt complain or whine on the forums About how imbalanced stuff is. Fact is if you want to be competitive you need to work at it and Learn from your mistakes. i agree with the proposal for a Magic resist Sub tree, im all for that. but as a pvp champion i am more than qualified to say certain things in terms of what it takes to be competitive.. no amount of Archtyping etc will change the fundemental basis of Competitive PVP.

 

You're right. But most ppl aren't up for it. Also Arena PVP is not what most expect in a sandbox. I think everyone above lvl 100 surely knows they nerfed us all already by a lot.
However you also know especially in EVL arena there is almost no differences between chars, which speaks volume about how many opportunities the char development offers

That being said I hope they do not make it easy mode neither. But small changes could make character building way more interesting than it is now. You know as good as I, that GMing a skill means nothing anymore at a certain level.

 

I've said this before, but I'm for diverse builds, specialized builds, and everything in between. I've been thinking that a mage who is intelligent, strong, and dexterous that is very learned in water magic and light armor, and maybe dabbled in some other skills for practical reasons, would be a very powerful character, particularly with good execution. If not, it would be reasonable (to me) to make it so!

That said, maybe it would not be archetypal for archetypal characters to not have archetypal weaknesses.

 

At this point , given how little a boost GMing a skill gives, its more for aestetic than anything when GMing something, i like to collect and thats what im doing

 

Sorry but I'm not used to opening thousands of threads for my whim, as @HogwinHD said, many lost their patience, i've nothing personal with you but we cannot bear anymore these kinds of threads that hurt the game, players and developers, spreading false informations around.
We're here to test the game, have fun and give true feedbacks. If you need any help to improve your character and learn how to setup a non-archetype build just ask to who did it before.

In the last months the developers have done a lot of balancing work finally giving the possibility to any class (although the moon and sun are still not full ready) to be competetive in PVM but especially in PVP.
I want to remind everyone that SotA is a game based also on real life skills and not just character's level and build (i started my pvp career at level 65 with good results), as Hospitaller i helped many around to reach good results without changing near anything of their skills selection, thanks to this aspect of the game, i just taught them how to improve their gameplay.

I'm still waiting someone that want to demostrate me the opposite of what i've said, but i never received any invite to test anything.

I still wonder what the value of what you said if none is able to demostrate it.
The only thing that jumps easy to eyes is that players with more experience in game exactly confirm my thesis.

So what's the truth?
SotA combat system is near to balanced
SotA give the chance to compete with no archetypal characters
SotA community helps who cannot reach good results
SotA has not enough players to be fun
SotA has not enough end game contents to keep players interested
SotA doesn't offers enough sandbox elements talking about the pvp department

PS: Me and Dhanas pratice PVP everyday , sometimes we win, sometimes we lose but this still contributes to improve us. Everyone can see the results of that.