Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills

While I understand that people griefing noobs by overfarming the starting areas can be irritating, it's also really rare in a well built game. The stronger players will have better stuff to do.

Making it punative, however, is wrong. If the mobs were in need of virtuous killing the first time I visited them, they shouldn't be protected by inexplicable virtue hits should I encounter them again.

A better solution is to make the resources gained by killing them heavily quest related and or low yield. Farming weak starting area mobs should ALWAYS be a waste of time for advanced players, the mystique of going back to that mean goblin that bullied you an hour in to the story will wear off pretty quick when you realize that you cannot get any meaningful benefits from it.

I have seen someone wielding handaxe and dirk, with a buckler. He tumbled underneath my pike and showed me three different kills available to him as he stood up. There should be no "special" disadvantage to what is being dual wielded, if this already debatable activity is included in combat at all.

If someone acquires the skill needed to use a polearm one handed, then for me it logically follows that he should be able to use polearm and shield, or dual wield the polearm with another weapon, yes, even another polearm.

If he gets some reach/damage per second/crit chance type advantage out of this when the day is done, then THAT IS THE BENEFIT OF SPECCING HIS SKILLS THAT WAY. I can only assume that getting dual wield, and polearm skills, and the (totally only being brought into this post as an example, not yes suggested for SOTA, and probably not going to happen) single handed style for polearms would be very costly in terms of skill points, he wouldn't be able to do much beyond look awesome with dual halberd style.

 

How cool would it be to randomly kill a succubus and find a sword you made five years prior! Dig this thought of recycled items!

 

No, just because people don't gain any loot from killing something doesn't mean they didn't get anything out of killing it. I think you missed my "thrill-kill" comment. People get their kicks off in strange ways, either personally for themselves or to deprive others. Make no mistake about it, "no reward" does not equal to "punishment".

Two players are on a quest to kill a mob boss that has some high value gold chalice encrusted with diamonds. One player is equal in level, the other is twice the level of the mob boss. Somehow that chalice doesn't drop from the mob depending on who killed it? Explain how that works again?

I would argue that in a game with an "Oracle" and virtues and "eyes" that are watching you, it would make more sense that the chalice always drops, but your actions now have affected the game around you. Sure, have that chalice. Take it. You earned it, right? It would be far more interesting if that caused a different path later in the game for you. Your actions have consequences to your own personal story arc. If the punishment is "oops, sorry, no loot for you", uhm, no, sorry, that mechanic has been beaten to death in every other game.

And you know what the best part of this is? Perhaps that player (or even the one at equal level) didn't loot that chalice. Ah, another choice the player made. How will that affect that player now? It's a much more interesting and richer experience than simply to remove that item from the loot table. Been there, done that.

I think Richard's off-the-cuff comment about impacting his virtues by killing the chicken in the 6-month video has more meaning to it than just rambling during a tech demo.

 

I don't think there should BE a punishment. If a region has wolves that new players are sent to kill, and I pass through there on my epic character and smear a few dozen wolves with my uber powers, I should be PUNISHED?? By WHOM? There is no logic to that. Why should the game devs, or the Oracle, or anyone else care that *I* killed that particular set of wolves and had far too easy a time doing it, instead of some fresh out of the vat new toon?

If I have a QUEST to kill them, if it's part of the story I am telling myself through SOTA, then I should get every last little bit of the benefit promised. If that happens to be a pithy amount due to my epic-ness, then that's my fault for slumming.

No. I have no intention of trying to explain your fevered misinterpretation of what I said to you.

I seem to recall several dev posts warning us to not "read too much" into RG's comments. If killing chickens causes virtue hits, or I get punished for going off script with random virtue hits, I will count it as a sucky game feature.

 

Sure, you killed some newbie wolves. Did you do that for fun or because you needed the meat or their fur? The game tracks what you did and can make a determination. Wanton killing should be punished. Hunting for a purpose, then no. It would make zero sense if you killed newbie wolves and they like, dropped no fur or meat.

Maybe the devs have a thing for wolves? But if you're wondering about the Oracle, perhaps you should seek her out and enter that affirmation chamber and ask her?

Which I again say is an over-used mechanic. It's boring gameplay.

This game's fabric is made of virtues. So maybe you shouldn't go around killing innocent little chickens?

 

An item is going to be generated anyway in a traditional system. So one one hand you have items recycled, then on the other hand you have new items generated. Same difference.

 

I think the issue with killing the chicken is it's someone else's chicken.. likely laying eggs for them. and some day to be food for them. If it isn't yours killing it is wrong.

 

It could have been some little kid's cherished pet too. And maybe that kid was standing around and saw Lord British whack it to death! The horror

 

Again, why should I have to justify my actions re-killing things that were bad the first time? Did the wolves learn their lesson and become vegetarian wolves? I suspect they, the orcs, goblins, trolls, raiders & brigands, the undead, and all the other baddies will be just as deserving of a beating when I come back to them. Your suggestion that wanton killing should be punished bugs me though. I don't think you are gonna get many takers for a movement to reduce video game violence IN a video game.

So.... you don't have an answer but want me to do the research to come up with your comeback for you?

I'm so sorry that you are bored by your inability to get the reward for a quest without first going through the lengthy process of getting the quest in the first place. You have my pity.

You mean like I do when I want dinner? And how do we determine the innocence of a chicken? Maybe it pecked another chicken in the side of the head over a measly grain of rice just this morning. For all we know, that chicken is the reincarnation of a dastardly villain and it's STILL plotting world domination. How about we don't count CHICKENS when we look into a person's virtue? Unless you plan to answer for the thousands of helpless bacteria you suck into your lungs and kill with every breath? Murder is something that is done to sentient beings.

 

How would you know they're not vegetarian wolves now? Did you ask them or follow them around to see if they weren't? Maybe they were protecting a chicken and you happened to stumble upon them while they were fetching food for it.

Not at all, I want complete freedom in this game, but I also want my actions to have consequences, no matter how minor they may seem to me.

Sure. So what did the Oracle say?

Pity not needed, for I was able to obtain all the quest rewards at the expense of some consequence later should I take them, while you were denied none because of some overused mechanic that magically removed it from the loot table. A mechanic of which protects players from their actions, where as in the virtue based one, all actions have consequences and need no hand holding to protect me from my actions.

 

Really? That's an awesome power! What's your secret super-hero name?
In all seriousness, though, I've always wondered WHO thinks "thanks but I don't need it" is a way of deflecting pity. Does it sound like I am remotely concerned with what you want or think you need? I pity you in the same way I pity burn victims. I look at you and flinch, thinking, wow, that coulda been ME. Glad I got away from that fate.

Tres amusant. But since most of your "reply" now consists of weak jokes, I'm just gonna count that as conceding by someone who lacks the chutzpah to admit it.

This is, I believe, the only valid 'point-like-object' you presented in your entire reply. I kinda comprehend it, but I still completely disagree. There ARE such things as negligible acts, and I don't want to be morally nickle'd and dime'd for every single tiny thing I do wrong. That would actually manage to be WORSE than real life.

 

If the chicken is a reincarnation of a dastardly villain, wouldn't it be better NOT to kill it so it doesn't get reincarnated as something with the ability to wreak havoc?

 

Well, the theory of reincarnation dictates that as long as you are still a bad person, you get serially reincarnated into lesser forms that then suffer through the kind of things that you did to others in previous lives. The dastardly villain will continue to get sucky incarnations until all the jerkiness has been scrubbed out of him, and then he'll start proceeding back up the chain, assuming he's learned his lesson.

All of which is a gross oversimplification, but it all boils down to me being cool with killing chickens in a video game, regardless of what they did in their previous lives.

 

After reading all I can find about skills, and crafting .I'm really confused . Best I can tell, its going to take 3 to 5 skills in crafting to make one item.
That's ok in my book as long as I have the points to do so. Specialization, in everything . LOL good luck. Maybe with years of game play. If you put that much time into the game ,by all means you shouldn't need anyone else to make what ever.
As a side note one class I haven't seen,was a beggar. Don't laugh, I had a GM beggar, made good money from the NPCs.and was fun to play.After all thats what games are about .

 

Sure, nobody said everything would be. The RG quote was only used as an example that your actions can have an impact on virtue and the game responds in kind, without hand holding you or protecting you from your actions. But you never know, perhaps there will be some deviously subversive things in the game that we won't know about until later in the game, even for the most seemingly innocuous act we might be enticed into taking.

Yeah, if you want higher quantity and quality of items and a greater chance at harvesting, refining, or crafting them, sure, you would need to put points in your generalized skills as well as specialized ones. If you want to be a pure crafter, you don't need to put any points in Gathering or Refining. Buy your raw or refined ingredients as you see fit and only spend points on crafting so you can make different kinds of items of increasing quality. But yeah there will be players who will have the time dedicated to become self sufficient. I think most people will end up specializing.

Totally agreed! I too would like to see beggar skills at some point.

 

This thread will be getting saved. Hopefully as there are more developments and actual spell names there will be updates.

 

Great point! That is what some games are about. Not all have to have that level of depth.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

We need barding and music added to this!!!

 

Taming isnt listed anywhere either.

 

I didn't read the entire thread, so excuse me if this has been asked before.

How about non-combat magic? I'm thinking that you could potentially use all sorts of magic in everyday life.

Just a few suggestions:
Life Magic: heal the sick
Death Magic: Ease death
Sun Magic: Help certain plants grow (perhaps trees)
Earth Magic: Optimize conditions for agriculture, help with mining
Air Magic: Ease storms, power windmills
Water Magic: Water the fields during dry periods, provide people with clean water