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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
The Gods and class influence
ArchivedUser
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I got this inspiration from @Diura in another thread so I thought I would finally flesh it out.......
We were discussing the classes we would possibly like added to AoC and some suggested Necromancer. I thought, well isn't a Necromancer just a Summoner with a specific flavor? So technically the class could already be in game?! What if the gods actually 'flavored' each class?
What this means is, each god will have specific characteristics and if you choose to worship them, that will alter the primary class in a small but special way.
As examples......(I seem to recall hearing/reading somewhere there were going to be 6 gods so that's what I'm going with)
God of Fire - Phoenix symbol, fire affinity, sun, magic, patron to forgers
God of Wind - Ethereal Tiger symbol, wind and lightning affinity, war, combat,
God of Water - Sea Dragon symbol, water and ice affinity, winter, music, patron to sellers
God of Earth - Elephant symbol, earth affinity, defense, wisdom, patron to gatherers
God of Light - Unicorn symbol, light affinity, nature, life, rebirth, patron to makers
God of Dark - Black Snake symbol, darkness affinity, death, underworld, thieves.
Agnostic - Neutral
These may be a bit too "on the nose" but I didn't want to stray too far from convention for simplicity
So to apply that to classes (lets use summoner as an example)
Summoner - Fire (you now summon beings of fire; phoenix, pyro hounds, fire imps etc)
Summoner - Wind (you summon creatures of the air; eagles, wind spirits, )
Summoner - Water/Ice (you summon water/ice creatures; ice elemental, naga, etc)
Summoner - Earth (you summon earth creatures; earth constructs (permanent pets))
Summoner - Light (you summon creatures from nature; Ents and other forest creatures)
Summoner - Dark (you summon the dead; Necromancer (need a body for better summons))
Summoner - Agnostic (you summon a bit of everything)
Applying this to Mage......
Fire - your mix of various elemental spells change to all fire based (offensive)
Wind - spells change to wind/lightning based (avoidance)
Water - spells change to water/ice based (control, DoT)
Earth - spells change to earth/stone based (control, defense)
Light - spells change to nature based (Druid!)
Darkness - spells change to darkness/death (offensive. DoT)
....and it could go on and on. Tanks would probably be inclined to choose earth, Clerics light, Bards water, fighter/melee DPS wind, and so forth.
By doing this we would end up with a grand total of 448 classes! (64 base combos x 6 +1)
This could also apply to other things like crafting. Maybe you feel as a mage that gathering is a bit more important to you that casting fire spells so you choose the Earth God for a small gathering bonus, etc.
You may ask, "why would you NOT pick a god?" Well by aligning yourself with a particular god, you are also opposing one and thus gain a weakness to it (Fire/Water, Earth/Wind, Dark/Light). Being agnostic means while you have no strengths, you also have no weaknesses.
That's the general idea. I know doing this would mean 6x the art/animation assets so I don't know how possible it is but it would give us most of those classes people want
We were discussing the classes we would possibly like added to AoC and some suggested Necromancer. I thought, well isn't a Necromancer just a Summoner with a specific flavor? So technically the class could already be in game?! What if the gods actually 'flavored' each class?
What this means is, each god will have specific characteristics and if you choose to worship them, that will alter the primary class in a small but special way.
As examples......(I seem to recall hearing/reading somewhere there were going to be 6 gods so that's what I'm going with)
God of Fire - Phoenix symbol, fire affinity, sun, magic, patron to forgers
God of Wind - Ethereal Tiger symbol, wind and lightning affinity, war, combat,
God of Water - Sea Dragon symbol, water and ice affinity, winter, music, patron to sellers
God of Earth - Elephant symbol, earth affinity, defense, wisdom, patron to gatherers
God of Light - Unicorn symbol, light affinity, nature, life, rebirth, patron to makers
God of Dark - Black Snake symbol, darkness affinity, death, underworld, thieves.
Agnostic - Neutral
These may be a bit too "on the nose" but I didn't want to stray too far from convention for simplicity
So to apply that to classes (lets use summoner as an example)
Summoner - Fire (you now summon beings of fire; phoenix, pyro hounds, fire imps etc)
Summoner - Wind (you summon creatures of the air; eagles, wind spirits, )
Summoner - Water/Ice (you summon water/ice creatures; ice elemental, naga, etc)
Summoner - Earth (you summon earth creatures; earth constructs (permanent pets))
Summoner - Light (you summon creatures from nature; Ents and other forest creatures)
Summoner - Dark (you summon the dead; Necromancer (need a body for better summons))
Summoner - Agnostic (you summon a bit of everything)
Applying this to Mage......
Fire - your mix of various elemental spells change to all fire based (offensive)
Wind - spells change to wind/lightning based (avoidance)
Water - spells change to water/ice based (control, DoT)
Earth - spells change to earth/stone based (control, defense)
Light - spells change to nature based (Druid!)
Darkness - spells change to darkness/death (offensive. DoT)
....and it could go on and on. Tanks would probably be inclined to choose earth, Clerics light, Bards water, fighter/melee DPS wind, and so forth.
By doing this we would end up with a grand total of 448 classes! (64 base combos x 6 +1)
This could also apply to other things like crafting. Maybe you feel as a mage that gathering is a bit more important to you that casting fire spells so you choose the Earth God for a small gathering bonus, etc.
You may ask, "why would you NOT pick a god?" Well by aligning yourself with a particular god, you are also opposing one and thus gain a weakness to it (Fire/Water, Earth/Wind, Dark/Light). Being agnostic means while you have no strengths, you also have no weaknesses.
That's the general idea. I know doing this would mean 6x the art/animation assets so I don't know how possible it is but it would give us most of those classes people want
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Personally I'd just make the Gods you follow reflected in your clothes, equipment/ weapons choice.
No no, you are completely right and why I mentioned it at the end of my post. That is the one drawback with the idea
And yes, since we will be should able to recognize class and general ability by their gear, you should also be able to see what god they worship. Thje player should however dictate the level of visual aesthetics (so it can be as extreme as everything being 'god' colors, symbol on shield, tabbard, the whole works to maybe an emblem on the sleeve.
So, what, that should add another x1 onto my original estimation
( note .... i do't like the term meta, could break the game )
This part i disagree on.
( i.e. Water Shield, Fire Shield, Wind Shield, Etc ...
In other words ... Not a Literally Shield but imo Magic is Formless, so Elements can utilized in numerous ways - thus not having Magic being " gated " to 1 particular Class
It will probably apply just like secondary augments. So for one skill you'll be able to choose
All speculaisation though xD
Well if they use my idea, yes it definitely would! If you are stalking someone you know is weak to the god you worship then you will have a slight edge. (or at a small disadvantage if you are weak to their god)
I hadn't heard anything about that but then again I don't actively absorb all AoC information like some of you (thank goodness some people are willing to do that
That is true. I believe it was mentioned your race would have some sort of influence on your class but I can't imagine it would be more than a very minor change (whatever it may be)
The specifics I am not 100% on, because I think the association and meaning has to be as deep and specific as possible. More specifically the separation and uniqueness. I would like the colour system to be meshed into the archetypal element system.
Take colour for instance.
You can have Red and Not red or green+blue as Cyan
You can have Green and Not green or red+blue as Magenta
You can have Blue and Not blue or red+green as Yellow
You can have White and Not white or black.
But white is the sum of red, green and blue, but black is the sum of not red, not green and not blue or the absence of primary colour...ie a shadow.
You could think of black, magenta, cyan and yellow as one tetrahedron.
You could think of white, green, red and blue as another tetrahedron.
You could interlock them and create the corners of a cube that sit insides a sphere.
Thus Red vs Cyan, Green vs Magenta, Blue vs Yellow and White vs Black
You can also throw in Physical vs Aetheric or Translucency or Alpha.
Not only are all the colours dualistic and opposite, you have a 360 degree spectrum that unites all of them together through their individuality, with all shades between. So if the 8 of them are the shades of colour; transparency stands apart as something unique. It makes me think real vs imaginary and transient. Thought vs Dream. Anyway if all the shades of colour are on the same level, but all are effected equally by transparency, it makes me think transparency can be used as something that isolates passive from active which is common to all colour (Can black have transparency ?).
In my own mind i model the colours on a sphere with transparency at the core and colour on the surface. With dreams, thought forms and souls at the core and the physical world on the surface. So, the inevitable next step in the sequence is to associate these primal colours with dualistic attributes to define 8 archetype power levels on a distribution system.
You can never be any more than 100% power with a distribution system, but the way that 100% is dispersed among the 8 archetypes will define your nature. How transparent they are could switch you from a passive regen type that stores and recovers power (single or AoE) to an active power type that dissipates and releases power (single or AoE). Burst vs Recover also implies a medium point between which reflects a channel with reduced instant power compared to a burst. One person hitting someone for 100 damage once every 5 seconds (burst) is just as effective as another person doing a 20 damage per second (channel). Yet they are different styles as it were.
My thinking on black and white was that these are channels from which the other colours spring. They are like an energy source from which the others draw power. So they would be something that can burst all aspects of power but in a positive (light) or negative way (dark). How can you define life energy thats positive or negative other than growth vs decay ? Those with a specific primary or secondary colour, would only be able to burst power of that subtype. Those with a specific translucent primary or secondary colour, would only be able to regen power of that subtype.
An alternative view: I guess white and black could be viewed as the product of colours or colours viewed as the seperation of light and dark. In the primary case white and black would be hybrids of a triplet and they would not stand alone.....there would be 6 others. Thats another interesting angle with modern CAD systems using the primary colours to define 3 axes. But here the positive and negative of each axes would be primary or secondary (red/blue/green/magenta/cyan/yellow) and white or black would occupy only two of the 8 spaces between like the 6 other triplet hyrbids.
TL;DR Excellent start. Need more depth.
My only reasoning behind that statement was, since each god has a particular specialty set, your character class might be more in tune is you chose a god that reflected your class abilities.....So in the example I made one of the Earth god's specialties defense so naturally a Tank might be the best match. That doesn't mean other classes won't also get a benefit from worshiping that god or that a tank can't gain tanky abilities from the other gods.
A Cleric for instance that chose the fire god might be able to call down a column of fire on their opponent or heal by scorching the wounds closed? So they would be a bit more offensive minded.
Another example.....what if a cleric chose the death god? Maybe they would be superior at life stealing / transfer instead of straight up healing them?
The possibilities are near endless
I would agree with you but unfortunately I cannot provide more depth. I can only present the framework and hope the Devs like it enough to use it. It is they that will have to tailor the idea to their creation and make it apply in a much more intimate way.
Plus just using this idea would increase the amount of work involved exponentially. I don't know if they would want to go more complex with it (we do want them to finish the game so we can actually play it before we have all wasted away
Would be cool if it just changed little things about your armour if you wanted it to, changing the colour of the plume on your helmet or the colour of your mount's saddle etc.