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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.
Customizations for spells and effects
RydenEden
Member
So I have to say I love what I'm seeing from ashes of creation and the ability to customize your own experience how one person starting to have a complete different experience from a person starting 6 months from now as also the classes. I personally think it would be really cool like a mage respells with fireballs you know the beams if they have the ability to customize the color of the spells where you can code in a hue pallet where they could change it from green blue purple and all types of forms to add uniqueness to the spells what doesn't change anything damage wise but just cosmetically it would be really cool to see three people doing fireballs and three different colors red blue and purple because it customizes it to them just a thought
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Comments
Quite honestly, I'd be happy with any of that.
In relation to the argument of spell effect color needing to match the spell damage type - that ship sailed when Intrepid said players can equip armor and weapon cosmetics that do not match the armor or weapon type that is being used.
If a warrior can charge at me appearing to be using a sword and shield, but is in fact using a two handed axe, then I don't see any valid argument in a mage casting a blue colored spell that is dealing fire damage.
Numerical damage will still be represented by numbers.
Bu,t it seems very likely that Augment Schools will have specific colors.
And one of the ways we will be able to tell which Schools we should stack will be by color.
If I see a Hallowed Ground that is Purple, I know I should try to hit the enemies beneath it with Shadow effects. If I see that Castigation is blue, I know I should try to hit that target with Frost effects.
But, we shall have to see how the devs actually implicate which Schools are in effect.
It's possible it won't be color-coded. If not, that will allow players customizing effects by color to be more open.
That'd be cool too - have you heard anything heading that direction?
Man you are talking about mobs... if your facing mobs they are obviously going to have standard colors. I am talking about your individual character... i mean take the beam mage attack... i can change the color to make it look like a SPECIAL BEAM CANNON by piccolo from DBZ. like if you cant tell the difference beteween a fireball flying at you and lightning coming coming out of my finger tips... cause the fireball is blue and the lightning is orange or green.. from the shape of it.. IDK man.. I feel your just reaching homie. cause in pvp I highly doubt people are going to be weak to elemental attacks based on there attacks.. they will be weak on elemental attacks based on the armor there wearing.. for instance.. I have a fire body armor.. which has great DP but i get double damage done to me on water damage... but resistance on earth and a chance to regain hp from a fire attack.
I said nothing about being weak to elemental attacks.
No, see, this might actually matter.
Let's assume that an Archwizard can add a second element to their Prismatic Beam. It does ... Light damage I guess, but then also additional Fire damage.
And then we assume that in order to indicate to other players that it is doing Fire damage, the beam is now red-orange.
Then it might be a problem to just let people 'change the color of their beam'.
I want Castigation whip to be black when I use it to blind people (please please be a thing), but this isn't just for me. It also tells the person, quickly, and even in a relatively large fight, where that blind effect on themselves came from, so they can decide tactics.
There could be good reasons for this, given the Augment schools. That's what Dygz meant.
And crushing damage should be represented by a weapon that deals crushing damage, not slashing or piercing.
If Intrepid are happy to take money in order to allow players to obfuscate their armor and weapon types, they should be equally as happy to take money to allow players to obfuscate their spell types.
I would prefer it if they didnt allow for either of these, but if thwy allow for one, they have no non-hypocritical reason to not allow for both.
And if Intrepid see it as a way to make more money on cosmetics, you better believe that is what they will do.
Say for instance, I am a Ranger that has a Charge bolt ability as my primary active skill and I've chosen Mage as my secondary and applied the elemental to it. I now have a Frost Charge Bolt, and if I fire that frostbolt and hit a target, they may be freezing for a period of time as a debuff and that might slow their speed. If a wizard applies a nuke on a target and that nuke is a frost-based nuke, those two stacking elements might then either further snare (slow the target) or paralyze and freeze the target.
---Steven
I expect the visuals that we see will actually indicate specific, tangible effects. I doubt we will have orange Frost, red Frost and green Frost and those colors mean nothing. I expect if I change the color of my Castigation or Judgement, it will be indicating they are augmented with a specific effect. My Castigation is red because it also does Flame damage or Judgement is blue because it also does Frost damage.
My expectation is that we won't be able to customize a Charge Bolt with the appearance of a Frost Charge Bolt unless it has a Frost augment on it.
Hence: "Seems likely to be somewhat limited/restricted since different colors will probably indicate different damage/healing effects.."
So I agree with your points but also can easily make a fix that will allow you to customize all your Sipells and effects in any color you want to make your character special..
And I'm all the magic and ability games.. we have seen green blue white flames based on the wizard and there personality and fighter abilities as well.. I mean the galick gun and Kamehameha is literally the same attack just different color.. so I can see this being very plausible and very easy to code for an everywhere l experienced development team
Seems likely that we will already be customizing the appearances of our Active Skills by applying augments.
Each Secondary Archetype has 4 Schools of augments. Plus, we have racial, religious, node, social org and naval augments.
If augments don't customize the appearances of or Active Skills, sure, we will probably have greater freedom to customize in the manner you suggest. But, it's most likely that augments will customize the appearances of our Active Skills in a manner that somewhat restricts our options do so more directly (precluding a Fireball that deals the same damage despite a variety of colors we can customize).
The game will already have this, due to cosmetics not being restricted in any way.
When a player in plate armor and holding what appears to be a two handed hammer starts firing arrows at you, the argument of player confusion vs cosmetic sales has already been lost.
For now they are adamantly against p2w so I choose to believe that they will adhere to that.
“Backer only skill FX
All Kickstarter backers will receive a skill effects (FX) set.[65]
Includes unique colors and additional effects for certain skills. For example: A mage with her fireball skill may fire off a ball of searing white flames as opposed to the traditional colors of that skill.”
To use the example they used, if a fireball is always just a fireball no matter what augments are on it, and it never deals different damage, a change in color/fx shouldn’t be problematic balance wise(as long as you can always tell it’s a fireball).
If that fireball was able to be a different damage type tho, and you could skin it to mask the damage type then it would definitely become a balance issue and start moving towards p2w, since everyone will want to skin that ability to have that edge.
A Fireball is not always a Fireball no matter what augments are on it. Augments significantly change the properties of a Fireball.
If a white Fireball is always a non-augmented Fireball with just a cosmetic color on it, that works fine.
"Let's say your summon traditionally was some type of bear or bear cat, you could apply an elemental augment and now it could be a transparent flaming bio-luminescent cat; and its damage would be fire based. So, that's how we want to influence the active skills with how augments apply; and that's how it would apply with Summoners."
--- Steven