Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills

I had not even thought of that lol

 

So how many skills can an avatar really learn. Like for example, can I learn armor smith, shield, and light magic for the same character? Can I learn light and chao magic? It looks impossible, but what if someone want to make a paladin. Would the healing magic be really weak if I have heavy armor on? THanks. The post looks great.

 

I don't think they've officially decided yet, but your question is one often raised. For a game with one toon, and the "promise" to be able to play how you wish, it would seem some loose limitation. But most people are concerned it will be too restricted.

Myself, I am of the mind if you have the time to play, you should be able to learn whatever you want. I would think that there would have to be some measure of upkeep on skills after a good length of time before they may start to decay, but even then you've already learned them once so IMO relearning should be easier than the original time.

 

They have already stated that the combat skills and the crafting skills will have two separate sets of experience points and levels. So yes you can fully master your crafting skills and master your adventuring skills on the same character. How many skills will we be able to learn? That's not been disclosed, but they have said you can learn many skills but not all skills.

Also they have a third set of experience points and levels for PvP specific skills. So adventuring, PvP, and crafting have completely different skill points.

This system is different than UO in that you gain levels, and the levels give you skill points which you can allocate as you desire. However it is similar in the sense that you can allocate those points in any skills you wish. So the system is still classless since you can focus on a few skill trees and become masters of them or spread your skills wide and be a jack of all trades. That holds true for crafting, adventuring, and PvP (well I don't know much about the PvP skills since they haven't told us what they are yet and why they have them).

 

Thank you very much for the information.

What I wanted was a system that do not punish the profession such as paladin, who wears heavy armor but still have some healing magic. Healing shouldn't be as good as a priest, but should be combat effective. In UO, the only effective "classes" are dex monkey, war mage and tamer. Since SotA wants more combinations of skills, I suggest some exceptions are made against the "heavy armor punish magic use" dogma. Maybe make it more enchantment like or one-time use. So it's very expensive to use magic when wearing heavy armor, but possible. I didn't like the heavy drinking of potions during combat. Just never saw a bunch of knights have the time to dodge and drink potions.

 

Any info on skills that have to do with taming,animal lore and veterinary?

 

I heard them mention a long while back that there might be a healing skill.

FYI in UO there wasn't only three classes in the beginning. My main character back in 2001 and before was a Mace fighter who was also a GM healer (bandages). He was like a paladin, and I played him virtuous as well.

Also Mace fighting was a viable option for PvP back then as well, because they didn't have items that said (Self Repair 5)... maces did about 1-7 points of damage to items each time it hit. My tactic was to break their shields and then switch to my warhammer (that sometime after the renaissance era was released, the warhammer had a percent chance to land a crushing blow on each hit). The warhammer with a crushing blow was a great finisher after blowing up somebody's order shield that's for sure!

In this game they have a similar thing for bludgeoning weapons. All the skills proposed seem to have their strengths and weaknesses. Blades seem to have quick strikes, but are weaker against heavy armor. Bludgeoning do the least damage but can damage weapons and armor. Then there's Polarms which are good against most armor but have trips etc. Then ranged has armor piercing strikes and multishots etc.

Then the style of armor you wear comes with complimentary skills that changes how you maneuver in combat and different effects on focus. So I think it's possible to play a mage and actually use medium armor, although there seems to be some advantage to also using light armor for a mage.

Here check out the current proposal. I really like their skill system.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/magic-combat-and-crafting-skills.3937/

 

I would rather see any other system besides a lvl based system. Just tossing around ideas here
;1. You gain skill by using that skill
2. You loot skill points off of dead corpse or trade item in to vender for points
3. Buy skills from library's or trainer.
4. ......

these are just some ideas I think this would be a better way to gain points other than the constant grind for that next lvl.
What are your suggestions?

 

I'm not commenting on your ideas but rather the whole "grind for that next lvl" part. The original concept was that this game would not be a "grinding" game. So you gain levels as you use your skills, BUT you don't have to keep using the same skill. So there will not be the grind of making 1000 plate gorgets to get your skill from 95.5 to 100.0 GM in smithing.

The point Lord British was trying to drive home was that we should be able to just go about our day crafting or doing what we would normally be doing and when we gain levels we get skill points to put in whatever skills we want. So to me that seems like it won't be as much of a grind as many games in the past were.

 

As far as I can tell, the level numbers in SotA are nothing more than place markers, an indication of arbitrary progress. They do not affect your HP or other stats exponentially, as in other MMOs, but instead serve to let you know the distance of your progress.

 

I think the skills will definitely make us more powerful though, but more like UO did. It wasn't an exponential system, but when you GMed a skill it was like becoming the prime of human capacity.

EDIT: However from what I've seen so far it appears this game was being built to be gear based. They say that this is not the case, but it seems that the accumulation of gear would be more coveted than building skills. I hope it's the complete opposite of that. Make it harder to max out your level, or get max skills, but gearing up a player shouldn't be the primary focus if this is an Ultima Spiritual Successor. Although it's hard to break away from WoW-like mentality.

 

They have stated already that gear would play a bigger role in this game. Personally I think both gear and skills are important, one should not exclude the other.

 

Without any major changes... I really felt like I was playing WoW or Guildwars alpha...

The skill tree... actually pretty much everything makes me feel like I'm in a more sober version of WoW

I took the time to read the skill guides and idea... and I can see a few nice features incoming so I'm waiting and hoping that it wont be guildwars all over again... why do the devs think the goal of most pvpers is to fight constantly in arbitrary battles with minimal consequence on community history (its even being pushed that we have none)?

Either I'm really a freak of nature and theres only a few of us that enjoy real roleplay, or I'm really destined to suffer and hop from game to game to get my 1998 ideas laughed at and ignored... again.

 

lord brit you remember that awsome night in laredo several years back?...............! HI DADDY!!!!!!!

 

In the pic above for the Crafting stuff, I just noticed that the inscription along the bottom is a little inaccurate. I think it is meant to say "attention to detail" but the first N in attention is actually a B so it reads "attebtion to detail". Might want to fix it. The other ones seemed fine.

I like the phrase used for the Magic circle also
"Lunar rifts and forsaken virtues are the costs of colliding moons but there is yet hope for those who seek knowledge in chaos."

 

Did you ever consider that perhaps it was intentional?

 

You mean,
'ibtebtiobal'?

 

I'd love to get a bit of feedback on something that has been bugging me for a while now!

We currently have:

Thaumaturgy vs. Necromancy
Atenism vs. Lunaism
Gaiaism vs. Theurgy
Tempestry vs. Sorcery

Omnipotence and Chaos have no place on the 'magic sigil'.

Blades vs. Bludgeon
Polearms vs. Ranged
Heavy vs. Light Armour
Shield vs. Tactics

Medium Armour no longer exists so, I replaced it with Tactics on the 'combat sigil'.

I'm quite content with the magic sigil, only that I'd add in Omnipotence against Chaos, but I can not get my mind around the combat one!
Wouldn't the opposition of a weapon be an armour instead of another armour? No weapon counters weapons like armour does!

So wouldn't Blades vs. Light Armour (swords tear through cloth, but have issues with plate), Bludgeon vs. Heavy Armour (a warhammer leaves heavy impact on plate, but barely damages cloth), Polearms vs. Medium Armour, Ranged vs. Shield (shields are best suited to avoid taking damage from ranged attacks) and Tactics in the middle be better and more 'logic'?
I'd need feedback on that before I can continue with an suggestion I'm preparing, since that has massive influence (it does not currently, but I consider that a design flaw) and I simply can not make up my mind, been pondering about it for a while.

Thank you in advance!

 

Chaos is in the centre of the sigil.

 

Thanks, I wasn't exactly sure if the 'pyramid eye' was supposed to represent chaos.