Skills/Spellbook

ArchivedUser

Now I sat through a few Q/A sessions. Specifically the May 19, 2017 Livestream - Featuring Aggelos

There is one thing I wanted to draw some attention to, now I know it would probably be a huge undertaking however.

At about 43 minutes and 35ish seconds Steven mentioned and I quote.
"We don't want you encumbered with 50 spells to choose from especially spells were used back at level 10 and you never touch again."

Now in the interest of furthering the genre of MMO. Instead of making these level 10 spells that we will never touch again worthless as is implied here slightly...
Would it be at all possible/viable to make these spells upgradable? IE: (For simplicity sake I'll make up a spell) An Ice Spear spell. Say you get this at level 10 RANK 1 and it does 10 points of damage and slows for 1.5 seconds. Now instead of simply dismissing the spell since you received it at level 10 and your level 50 now making it worthless. What if you have a skill/spell point system per character level.

So let's say you saved up a bunch of points due to the assumption that most of the skills between level 10 and 50 are lack luster and you conveniently have points to spare.

Take the level 10 Ice spear and sink some points into it. Ice Spear level 10 RANK 2. Deals 25 damage and slows 2 seconds.
Upgrade... upgrade... so on so forth... Cap out ranks at 15 or something. <ul> Or just don't cap out ranks at all. </ul> I can see quite a bit of depth in the combat system if players aren't limited ball and chain to specific skills at high levels and end-game content. This would support far more player creativity and players would spend more time crunching numbers and thinking about their character.

What's more is this opens up room for you guys to be creative as well. Say you take that Ice Spear skill and you have upgraded it 24 times. When you rank it up the 25th time you devs might throw in a little bonus for skill progression such as the however many second slow turning into a 3 second freeze. Or maybe it will automatically be a critical strike. Or change it up that every third time you use the skill it sends an additional Ice Spear right behind it, potentially dealing double damage.

There are so many ways I can come up with personally to improve upon the depth of what's already created, downside is I don't have the knowledge to put any of them into action.
From everything I have seen so far about Ashes of Creation, I personally feel like it is finally a MMO that is so very very close to hitting the mark that I place as the ideal MMO. I can't say how much I want you guys to succeed. It's been something I've been waiting for, for well over 10 years for something to come so close to my ideal. Every other MMO I have played so far just leaves me empty after a year of playing or after a patch that was implemented due to demand ruins the whole game.

I wish you all success and luck. If not for job and monetary complications you can be sure I'd be saving up and dropping for that $10,000 pledge. So I can actually work with you guys no matter how small a part it would be. You guys are probably the first that I have felt wants their game to be everything that it possibly can be. Not to mean other companies don't care for their product but the effort/life you guys are putting into Ashes of Creation makes me feel as though the other companies just can't match up.

Good Luck guys.

ArchivedUser

I also really really like the general game concept so far, but their combat system and its amount of spells we would be abel to use make me worry - so much that i prob would have backed the kickstarter for ~500 but instead possibly wont play the game at all.
Its because they mentioned in another stream 5/3/2017 minute ~19-19:30 that they not only disagree with 50 but also with 30.
They said they would just 'maybe' add a second row to the action bar which actualy has a size of 10.
Taking into account that one will put a hello emote, mount, some consumables or even a quest item bound to that bar leaves the player with idk 8-15 actual abilitys which is way too less for deep combat gameplay in my opinion, theres enough mobas and phone games out there :(
So lets hope they might reconsider their envisioned combat during the process of game design, i really want this game to success aswell D:

Your idea to limitless upgrade certain skills in sacrifice to the strength of others sounds great btw. This way i can imagine awesome combos with other players, even in symbiosis with the same class but totaly diffrent points set on builds, that enabels the game to potentialy break the overall problem with everyone using the exact same build.

However i have the feeling noone involved will read this anyway (how could they there are way too many posts to read them all) so rip us and our ideas.

Atleast we can dream :')

ArchivedUser

Should spells even have a level.
Should it not be the players skill level the determines spell efficiency ?
And should that skill level be global or skill specific ?

Anyway, we hardly know anything about combat yet to draw any real conclusions.

ArchivedUser

My main hope is that there is a large enough array of options spell wise for your class without it being bogged down. Somewhere in between GW2's like 5 -8 or so abilities depending on your weapon set - and EQ's several different levels of spells.. some named differently than others resulting in a horribly mangled and disjointed spellbook.

ArchivedUser

In the end i dont think it matters if the strength of a skill is decided by a visible skill lvl or if its just hidden and bound to the players lvl getting stronger automaticaly as it is in all mmo games.
Semaarius idea would change that a bit as it gives u more choices to manifest your individuality.

When i dream about my 'perfect mmo' id like to see no character lvl but leveling skills individualy by using them a lot of times, with exponential effort but limitless ability to improve.
Also to get the first skill lvl of a kind would need u to travel a giantic world and find a hidden monastery or something similar. :P

ArchivedUser

I dont have the feeling a game with 5-8 active abilitys will be what the target audience wants to see. Its targeted at the ppl who dont want to see the dumbed down experience and mechanics anymore. When i think back, the Shitstorm for WoW when going from ~45 spells in mop to ~35 in wod was giantic.
When u create a game with 5-8 abilitys to use at a time, you target the young moba games generation. But they already have loads of mobas theyre happy with, i cant see that working well.

ArchivedUser

For me its more a question for bringing the appropriate tools for the job.
I may have a workshop full of unique tools for various things,
doesnt mean I will or should bring all of them with me every day.

Plus there is a vertical progression aspect.
A new player needing to learn 10s of skills to be on a par with everyone or
everyone being limited to a subset of all skills so that the new players can be a level playing field ASAP.

Thats what a lmited toolbar gives you.
It forces you to make a choice and thus makes everyone unique.
It also ensures everyone is competitive regardless of play time.

ArchivedUser

ESO did something similar to this. Each skill line has 5 skills. Abilities unlock as it is leveled uo and they can all be used well for the most part.

ArchivedUser

We haven't Seen really combat! and spells I think levels or Ranks should be in the game WOW did In Vanilla

also I believe their will be a talent system to increase the power of your Spell! Also you will be able to choose a 2nd class so it will add a flavor to your current spell so example

Fighter/mage - Lets say the fight has a charge ability since you picked mage you can augment that spell and had a new flavor so instead of running to your target you can teleport to your opponent and deal damage etc.. .

Hope this helps!

ArchivedUser

I like the idea of master vs jack of all skill. That too is my dream game. If i could code and make a 8bit rpg, thats the exact system i would implement.

ArchivedUser

<blockquote><div class="d4p-bbp-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/skillsspellbook/#post-28590">Uao wrote:</a></div>Atleast we can dream :’)</blockquote>

I actually had an issue posting this initially on the forums. So I flat out sent it directly to them using a support ticket explaining the situation and my original post. So in theory they did read it. But whether they did or not I guess we shall see. Hopefully I added enough TAGS to grab peoples attention lol.

ArchivedUser

<blockquote><div class="d4p-bbp-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/skillsspellbook/#post-28788">Uao wrote:</a></div>When i dream about my ‘perfect mmo’ id like to see no character lvl but leveling skills individualy by using them a lot of times, with exponential effort but limitless ability to improve.</blockquote>

That actually sounds promising lol. If there were no level restrictions and simply the only things that can be leveled are your skills/Spells. That would add quite a bit of depth. Now the only downside is PERSONALLY I think I would still prefer having a level system. Just for the fact that without one Ashes might fall into that Rut that all other MMOs have. For simplicity sake all BASE stats are given automatically upon leveling up. I've been so tired of all these new MMOs that come out and when I level up I can't distribute any stat points. I love the idea behind a Strength, Intelligence, Agility, Constitution, Wisdom, Luck, system. Now what I want to see is a mixture of both based on the class you pick to play. Example being if you chose to play as a magic user by default you would gain 5 intelligence, 3 Wisdom and 2 Constitution per level. And then you get another 10 stat points for you personally to distribute. And each stat does the following.
Higher strength gives ofc more damage physically and a greater carrying capacity. Intelligence ofc is more damage magically and a slight mana or energy pool increase. Agility increases dodge chances and overall evasion. Constitution is obvious, grants health and small amounts of physical defense. Wisdom grants the Mana/energy pool in much greater quantities and small amounts of magic defense. And last but not least Luck, granting Critical Strike Chance & Critical Strike Damage based on how much you have and how much your enemies has is key. Example being Let's say 100% critical strike chance requires you to have a luck score of 400. Now take a character with 400 luck vs someone with 500 luck. Normally you would deal lets say 2000 damage with a certain skill, but since your enemy has a higher luck than you, you end up doing only 1750.

This adds depth and complexity to the stat system. I know of a few mmos that run something similar to this and I haven't the foggiest on how the math works but at the very least I know its perfectly possible to accomplish.

ArchivedUser

You know what instead of constantly backing up my idea here. A HUGE portion of my inspiration to this belongs with the book series

Alterworld

It's a phenomenal series and a lot of the authors are just top notch.

ArchivedUser

@Semaarius

I am so glad I came across this Thread :3
I posted this:

https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/crafting-abilities/

a few weeks ago. it seems to go "Hand-in-Hand" with you initial post.

Great Minds do alike, eh ? ^

ArchivedUser

the question is how to reach the developers and convince them about this idea? question threads are way too spammed to ever get this to someones attention^^ and livestream questions in twich need to be very short and wont get attention for same reason :/

ArchivedUser

@Uao

While that may be true, there is a such thing as Paraphrasing. But would take time Re-organizing Sentence Structure.

On a more important note, you mentioned how ...
" <em>you would rather not have Character Level have no indication as to what the Ability Level</em> " , right?

Devs will have to releasing some in-game footage of Combat at some point - giving us an idea as to what they've been planning so far.

<strong>I personally feel as though that " Ability Level " should increase based on Missions/Quests that specifically entices the Ability's Attributes. </strong><ul>
<em>

However, it was mentioned that ... The Hybrid Tab-Targeting-&-Action Combat was still in development. So since it this Topic & Combat-Style goes "hand-in-hand" ... i suppose the ideas .... "might" have to be postponed :'(.

ArchivedUser

@Eragale
paraphrasing doesnt help much when theres noone to read ur text right?

When i said "id like to see no character lvl but leveling skills individualy by using them a lot of times" i meant if u have a skill, lets say frostnova rank 1 and u use this skill 10 times it will improve to frostnova rank 2 then u use it another 20 times to get frostnova rank 3... improving the skill effect every time it lvls up a little bit. And all this completly unrelated to ur characters level or level of other skills.
Ofc the attack would need to hit someone for it to count, so u dont see ppl attacking the air all day to get stronger :D

I wish they would have shown at least 1 attack which works using the combat system theyre planning to do before kickstarter ends, to give ppl an assumption if theyre going to play the game or not, because good combat mechanic is way more important than all the fancy stuff theyve been talking about.

Combining talent trees with specific quests sounds great too. So u would need to make a quest which is somehow connected to a certain skill and get a new option in ur talent tree for the affected skill. That way u can even build ur individual talent tree!

I doubt they will change their system once its done so now is the best and only time to bring up great ideas!
Changing their overall plan is in my interest too as id love to see true action combat with >40 skills instead of tab targeting with <15 skills x'D

ArchivedUser

I would prefer EQ's method of increasing the skill for the school of magic being used rather than the individual spells.
If Frost Nova is an Evocation skill, then my Evocation should increase every time I use Frost Nova.
And then I can "purchase" various levels of Frost Nova as I'm training with an adept.

Increasing Evocation effects cooldowns and over all Mana.
Such that at lower levels of Evocation I can only cast one Lev 10 Frost Nova every 30 seconds, but at higher levels of Evocation I can cast five Lev 10 Frost Novas in 30 seconds. Or one Lev 50 Frost Nova every 30 seconds.


<blockquote>Semaarius wrote:
Instead of making these level 10 spells that we will never touch again worthless as is implied here slightly…
Would it be at all possible/viable to make these spells upgradable? IE: (For simplicity sake I’ll make up a spell) An Ice Spear spell. Say you get this at level 10 RANK 1 and it does 10 points of damage and slows for 1.5 seconds. Now instead of simply dismissing the spell since you received it at level 10 and your level 50 now making it worthless. What if you have a skill/spell point system per character level.

So let’s say you saved up a bunch of points due to the assumption that most of the skills between level 10 and 50 are lack luster and you conveniently have points to spare.

Take the level 10 Ice spear and sink some points into it. Ice Spear level 10 RANK 2. Deals 25 damage and slows 2 seconds.
Upgrade… upgrade… so on so forth… Cap out ranks at 15 or something. </blockquote>
It definitely depends on the fantasy tropes and novels that are the foundation of your spell-casting system.

Typically, when playing EQ (and I think WoW, too) we end up with upgraded versions of low level abilities.
We have a Lev 10 version of Ice Spear and a Lev 50 version of Ice Spear - we probably have 5 versions of Ice Spear.
I would expect each of those versions to at least have 5 different costs for Mana depletion and hopefully, the cooldowns would be different, too.
Especially helpful if I want to focus on destroying a horde of trash mobs rather than focus on defeating the boss.
It might be better to cast the Lev 10 Ice Spear a bunch of times quickly, rather than be stuck only able to cast one Lev 50 Ice Spear slowly.
There may be times when I want to have seven Lev 20 abilities on my hotbar mostly to deal with the trash and one Lev 50 for an occasional strike at the boss. Especially if I'm a healer or mage trying to minimize my own threat.

I think when I played WoW, it was typical for me to have two levels of of the same Root on my hotbar.

Just because you're a high enough level/master to cast a Major Ice Spear shouldn't mean you've lost the ability to finesse a Minor Ice Spear when you feel the need to show some restraint.

ArchivedUser

@Uao,

Ah, well in that case. There's a misunderstanding. Because i was, essentially, was agreeing with you xD.
An ability that's entirely separate of the character level. And having its own ... " <em>Mastery Exp</em> " .

This idea + @Semaarius 's idea + My "<em> Crafting Ability</em> " idea = Legendary Xp
( any other ideas to fuel this would be Epic :3 )

ArchivedUser

@Dygz i cant see a real advantage of keeping ur weaker abilitys after upgrading them, even if u hit minions they usualy still have so much hp that u need 1-5 lvl related attacks to kill them. It would also give an bloated feeling to the game if need to use multiple variations of the same attack, like devs are too lazy to make varios attacks...

@Eragale Ye combining all this would be awesome.

Since the devs want to implement spells that create walls, i have a funny idea for this too: Imagine a interface which would let u draw a line or something (maybe even in 3D) and sync this to a wall ability... when u use the ability it creates the wall in a path of the previously drawn line
That way u could choose the usage of that skill without choosing any talent points. U could make a circle to imprison a enemy/hiding a wounded ally, make stairs to get to an higher area, blocking the way to both sides etc.. :D

ArchivedUser

even if the 'wall' ability in the mage video looks totaly bad, like its a energy wall straight out of a game thats all about future
+ the mobs did just walk through anyway xD but well thats pre alpha..^^