Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Shroud of the Avatar: On Magic, Combat & Crafting Skills
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
A new thread has been created on the Shroud of the Avatar forums that discusses three topics of keen interest to people: Magic, Combat and Crafting and how they will function within the game. The dev team has laid out the basic framework for each of these systems and how they feel they will best be deployed when SotA goes live.
Stats:
There are 3 Base Stats: Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence that work as you would expect. There are 3 Calculated Stats: Health, Defense, and Focus (aka Mana).
Advancement:
Players gain two kinds of experience (Crafting and Adventuring) based on the kind of activities they are doing. Players level up in either Crafting or Adventuring at certain experience point totals. When players level up they get skill points and increases to their stats. The players can use those skill points to learn skills from a trainer. There are no classes so players can spend skill points on any kind of skill as long as they meet the prerequisites (almost always a preceding skill in a tree).
Skills System:
There are Active Skills (yellow) and Innate Skills (white). Active skills are used by the player during combat to produce a desired effect (fireball, heal, parry, etc.). Innate Skills are on all the time and increase the effects (power, range, etc.) of all skills in the school. Adding skill points to an Innate Skill increases the effect of that innate skill. This has the knock off effect of eliminating the need to pump Active Skills. Adding skill points to Active Skills increases the number of copies of that skill the player has therefore increasing the frequency that skill will appear during combat. There are “hidden” Active Skills that can only be used by doing combos with skills during combat.
Damage Types:
There are 6 damage types (with corresponding resistances)
Physical: Armor provides most protection against. Weapons, Poison, etc.
Magical: Tends to ignore armor. Encompasses magical damage not covered by an elemental type
Electrical: Stuns targets. Lightning, static charges, etc.
Cold: Slows targets. Ice, Snow, etc.
Heat: Does damage over time. Fire, Radiant energy (like the sun), etc.
Chaotic: Impossible to resist
The post then details the schools of magic: Life, Death, Sun, Moon, Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Chaos and combinations of the above.
Physical combat schools include: Blades, Polearms, Bludgeons, and Ranged. Defensive schools: Light Armor, Medium Armor, Heavy Armor, and Shields.
Lastly, Crafting is profiled with emphasis on recipes, gathering, refining, production and gives a hint about different types of crafting including carpentry, tailoring, alchemy, and cooking.
Read this comprehensive post on the Shroud of the Avatar forum.
Comments
Cool stuff. Looking good!
And the best part is-- they managed NOT to mention housing in this update!
Thanks! We're all excited to finally be able to share more in-depth information about other aspects of SotA game design, in addition to all the housing/property information we've shared! We look forward to getting community feedback on our forums regarding our Magic, Combat, and Crafting skills system!
I had hoped it would be a copy of the skill system of Ultima Online where you your skills increase based on what you actually DO. Plus the separation of skills/experience based on combat or crafting garauntees the loss of the non-combative character - Everyone can be a great smith AND a great fighter, with no need to choose.
It's a far cry from the previous speeches about being able to fill a ROLE in a world - Apparently it was more important to appeal to as many people as possible, rather than make choices meaningful.
Don't get me wrong.. I'm a backer and I still look forward to seeing how all this plays out, but I'm a tad disappointed in the decisions made on Advancement.
My thoughts exactly.
Something doesn't make quite sense to me here.
Apparently you can gain skill points in either Crafting or Adventuring based on the kind of activity you are doing, and then put the skill points in the actual skill of your choosing.
So if I understand correctly, under the current system-- I could cook all day to gain skill points in CRAFTING, then level up my Blacksmithing instead.
I can be a master of Blacksmithing by tending to the kitchen all day? Doesn't quite compute for me.
So I agree with others in that I hope the system is designed to level the skill that is actually being used.
Nice piece of information.
If only the elements would interact with each other and the environment. For example, using a water/ice spell on a target to get him "soaked" and then a lightning strike while the enemy is still wet for extra damage. Also using a lightning strike on a person standing in water would trigger an AoE that hits anyone in the water.
That would be a fantastic addition to SotA. Dragon's Dogma (single player) And Divinity: Original Sin (multiplayer Co-op RPG) have those interactive elements and they are great.