Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills

So you mean have a global view of all your skills at once, and also have a tree by tree view?

 

No, no, no.

It was more about the building upon skills. As the original post discusses. And how some of them are interconnected. It just reminded me of the above image, in how the skills linked between the different paths.

 

It is really cool

 

Path of Exile uses that system. It looks intimidating at first glance, but because of how the skills are connected, it's not much different from a WoW-esque talent system, except for the fact that schools of skills are interconnected. It really only works in a game where players pick a starting class because there needs to be a mechanism for deciding where players start in the web. then, progression is limited to adjacent skills.

It's a very cool system in that it allows casual gamers to just pick a skill school (class) and stick with it while allowing number crunchers the complexity to work out their perfect min/maxing build within a quriky set of limitations. It's fundamentally different than what SotA is doing, though, because all your skills have to "connect".

It would be cool to see the skill trees using a radial layout, though. The tree view looks kind of tired and bland.

 

Magic/combat = musical instruments to battle with?

 

Every army needs a drummer or a horn blower, or something like that. They can inspire their soldiers. Buffs or debuffs, seem reasonable. We should at least see something like that.

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Well someone playing an instrument poorly out of key, would force players to cover their ears... thus rendering their in-game avatar 'stunned'

"Battle Bard... no one ever said they had to be good musicians."

 

I feel very confused. By reading the first post if I understood properly there are no combat skills in sota, just spells and combat abilities. Therefore, no sword, archery, macefighting, etc, but also no spellbooks, no inscription, no scrolls..

I find the first post extremely "easy game style", unrealistic and pushing towards repetition. Basically I could keep killing the same spider over and over (with different weapons as there are no combat skills) and then raise my carpentry skill.

I really do hope in a complete change of direction, implementing a more realistic skill system closer to UO, where the use of a sword will increase your sword skill only, maybe at a certain percentage you'd able use specific abilities.
Also imho I would eliminate the whole magic abilities thing, and make spellbooks with craftable skills.

My 2 cent, thank you.

 

In UO, skill gains are frequently tied to increasingly difficult tasks - not merely repetition. If I want to become a grand master tamer, I can't just hang out in the barnyard and tame 100,000 chickens. I have to tame increasingly challenging creatures as my skill gains level out. While there's not an immediate analogue that comes to mind for combat skills, you can see where I'm going with this. Going into the gem mines and beating up on a few Kobolds may get you a some initial skill points, but you should have to fight more challenging creatures in PvM to achieve further gains. It gets a little trickier in PvP - players don't have skill ratings showing - but picking off newbies in default cloth outfits shouldn't get you anything.
I'm still getting used to tree based skills, so until I've had some more time in R11 to get a better handle on them - especially the magery - I'm not going to judge. We tend to like what we're used to - and I'm used to the way things work in UO (warts and all).
Which brings me to a point from earlier in this thread - multiple avatars. Royal Artisans get an extra slot and Ancestors get a third slot - so it is quite likely that many players will have 2 or 3 avatars. As far as I am aware you can only play 1 at a time, but there's no reason that the UO model of specialization can't flourish here. I have every intention of creating a skilled crafting avatar, a mage/tamer, and if I can get any good at it some flavor of melee fighter (since I'm already damn old in RL, I may actually expire before that happens ).
When the mood takes me I will gather resources, create high level items for myself and others, and take pride in putting my mark on them. Another time I may want to take on another personna and explore a different aspect of the game. It is after all a game ... a game that we should participate in and enjoy each in our own way as long as we don't deliberately impact another player's ability to enjoy their experience.
That doesn't mean you can't have a fully challenging PvP system, it just means that you should have the right to opt out of it so you can get what you want out of the game.
I've now retreated to under my desk, so let the brickbats fly.

 

The reason I personally don't like getting XP only for killing level appropriate monsters and tasks is that it forces you to play in specific level appropriate locations. I don't want to be stuck in one area. I want to be able to travel anywhere. Also levels aren't exponentially more powerful.

I hope SotA is more like D&D. If a kobold is 50XP let it always be 50. However a dragon might be more like 3000.

If a person wants to spend their life fighting kobolds why should I care? Yet since levels aren't exponentially more powerful we ahould still gain XP from everything.

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Which raises a couple of points
If all I ever want to do is fight Kobolds, why would I even care about getting higher level skills?
And, by forcing you to do more complex tasks in order to attain higher level skills, you're also going to learn more about the game, how to take on increasingly difficult challenges, and how to use those higher level skills, and in the end, have more fun in spite of yourself. (Eat your spinach ... it's good for you)
So if you have no aspirations beyond conquering the Gem Mines, that's fine - but you shouldn't expect to spend 3 months being the best you can be in the mines and then go out and have success against a lich.
Again, just my opinion

 

So what

I don't care why you want better skills. I might want better skills for PvP others might want better skills for killing dragons, and yet some person might just have fun maxing out his or her skills.

One thing that I do think would be a problem is to remove XP gains from kobolds after some time. If levels were exponentially more powerful then yes, but since they aren't then we need to always be careful.

Chances are a level 50 or higher person should be able to kill kobolds really easily, but unlike WoW nobody will be able to beat 1000 kobolds in one fight. The high level person is just a character with good equipment with Olympian ability (not godlike). If I face 50 kobolds amd survive I want my small 50XP per kobold.

Either way kobolds would have a low XP yield compared to more powerful creatures. Leveling up with weaker creatures doesn't really help you level faster. It is still combat experience though.

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Why not "normalize" the content when you are in PvE - monsters scale to your level in every part of the world and when flagged for PvP - you gain experience in "level appropriate zones"

My reasoning is that it would provided a more lifelike feel for the PvE - and promote conflict in PvP (and ideally between approximately similar level individuals)

You also normalize xp - the major difference is mob drop ... so if all you want to do is level for example you can kill bunnies for 5 xp, if you want a harder challenge and want to make a little cash kill for deer 7 xp and deer hind (assuming you have your skinning knife) and if you want a rare drop you kill rare monster for 9 xp

The idea for me is simply to distinguish primarily through item drop not xp gained

The difficulty would be

Normal - 5 xp
Experienced - 7 xp
Strategic - 9 xp

( for one there should be no "easy" mob ... even a chicken should be able to take out your toe )

 

If they do level appropriate PvP that's just broken by design. Let players be players. In UO you either had the skills or not, but there was no forced segregation.

Let those who spec well do well. Let the more skilled do well. Levels aren't exponentially more powerful. I assume there will be some matching based on level, but I hope it isn't a huge factor. If all level 80 people are stuck with level 80 people that just plain sucks. Then the old UO PvPers that are upset about this game being different, then they will be totally justified complaining about this system and I will agree with them.

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Just like PvP... level appropriate monsters is not a good mechanic for sure.

You level up to get more powerful and then you keep fighting stronger and stronger stuff... Why level at all because everything levels with you... Get what I'm saying? If PvPers and monsters are matched to your level, you never really progress. Everything is just as strong. I hope they never ever do this.

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Its not an issue of segregation - its more about have people to battle with / thats just me ... why would that be an issue for the old UO PvPers?

-edit added

I'll let the dev's worry about the UO, Ultima Series people - all i'm saying it makes sense for the game I think they are trying to make but who knows ... only they know what will work and what won't according to their game design

 

It is an issue of segregation. It is exactly an issue of segregation.

The reason I mention UO was because they got PvP right. SotA has consensual PvP and I think that is a good idea.

I believe modern mechanics are a must, but matching levels is kind of synthetic though. Why always make it an even fight?

As a 2x GM in UO I could hang with 4x or greater PvPers. This game doesn't have exponentially more powerful levels... Let the spec and the skill of the players be put to the test, but let people of different levels encounter one another.

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That would not stop you, even if you were a lower level in this game - I'm not going to argue whether UO got it right or not - the only aspect of UO PvP I know is what I've heard in these forums (good and bad)

If things are even - it boils down to skill and strategy - if there is an uneven power dynamic from start its not really a fight is it? At least not for me - but being higher level would not preclude you from ganking a lower level - you would just not get any benefit (gamewise)

as for broken game design ... not really, if they design it as intended and works as intended its not broken but people liking it thats another story

well, if I'm continually getting taken out by higher levels I want to get 3x the reward if I get lucky and take one out

 

Just a bit of historical input. In the "old" UO, everywhere outside the city limits was a PvP zone. For the most part, the higher level PvPers hung out in dungeons and places where better equipped or loot encumbered travelers could be found. The lame ones ran around terrorizing newbies for the fun of it. There was no insurance, if you died with the key to your house on you it would probably be stripped bare by the time you got rezzed, got your spare key and headed home.
While you were building your skills you learned not to carry anything you didn't want to lose. Kinda like real life. (Yes, I know we could have permadeath too, but that's not going to fly for the general population here)
One of the things I thought was good in UO was that your skill gains slowed down and eventually stopped if you kept making or fighting or taming low level objects or opponents. You still got to collect loot and resources, but eventually the skill gain would stop completely and you'd need to do something more challenging to continue growing as an avatar.
Now in all fairness, not many people (other than scripters) sign up to kill 100,00 mice on the way to greater glory, but even they set up algorithms to move up the food chain as skill gains leveled off and stopped. And I would expect the same to be true here. Someone could corner the market on deer hides and spider silk and become a wealthy merchant - but I don't think they should be able to get to level 50 doing it.

 

You said the higher level PvPers hung out in dungeons where loot encumbered travelers were...

This is a common misunderstanding. People seem to think PK and PvP are synonymous. Also I could PvP inside town legally in UO against order guild people because I was a member of a chaos guild. I use to hunt order people and PKs when I was a member of our chaos guild.

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