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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.
Class/Archetype Character Progression
Bullvinne
Member
So I know you start out as your primary archetype, and at level 25 you select your secondary archetype creating your "Class". I know you can then augment your abilities through your secondary archetype, as well as race and other sources.
But other than secondary archetype choice and augments, has there been any other ways the devs have said that you will be able to grow/change your class? Feats, Talent Trees, Alternate Advancement Points, etc?
I am just wondering if every Spellsword, Shaman, (insert Class here) will be roughly identical as the next, or if the augment system is grand enough to accommodate different play styles inside the same class?
But other than secondary archetype choice and augments, has there been any other ways the devs have said that you will be able to grow/change your class? Feats, Talent Trees, Alternate Advancement Points, etc?
I am just wondering if every Spellsword, Shaman, (insert Class here) will be roughly identical as the next, or if the augment system is grand enough to accommodate different play styles inside the same class?
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You have skill points you use to buy passives, skills, skill upgrades, and augments so there should at least be some variance between classes there.
Weapons have there own progression tree that you will also spend points in (to my knowledge) so there is more variance there on what you build your character around.
Gear is supposed to be extremely customizable. Crafters will be able to adjust stats, passive, and set abilities on the items which will hopefully give you even more options on how you build your character.
That said, all this needs to be balanced for the variety of class builds to be viable and that is a lot easier said then done.
Passive Skill points.
Racial augments.
Racial progression.
Social Org augments.
Religion augments.
Node Type augments.
Cosmetics that change the appearance of skills...
Spellswords can be very different in a variety of ways.
Is there a link to the info on cosmetics that change the appearance of skills?
Augments should do that.
As for cosmetics that do, i believe we have only had one that was given to kickstarter backers as a stretch goal.
All augment considerations aside, you will not be able to unlock (or certainly max out) all of the skills of your class. Builds will differ within your primary archetype even at lv24, before you unlock your secondary.
Back to augment considerations: Augments will also come from your race, or social organizations you choose to join. A Church (or whatever) aligned Nikuan Spellsword will be different from a Thieves Guild Empyrian Spellsword, even if they chose all the same Class skills.
That's the hope, anyway.
Steven is giving us conservative answers right now ... meaning the secondary augment will only add "flavor" to the player's primary archetype.
On the other hand, Intrepid has under-promised and over-delivered on other aspects of the game. Like the environmental and climate changes for each biome (including deserts) based on the seasons.
In the meantime, check out the Classes page from the wiki: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Classes
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Skills
You have: primary skills, weapon specific skills, passive skills etc.
The primary skills are you basic Archetype skills. Those will later be augmented by a skill tree from your secondary archetype.
Example: one of your skills can now be augmented to deal elemental damage. You get to choose the element and further spec into its effects.
Weapon skills:
Players can spec into weapon abilities on their weapon skill tree (also referred to as Combat skills, and Combat tree) based on their preferred weapon classes (weapon types/weapon groups) and the grade of the weapon.
The examples that Steven used a few times are:
Let's say a dagger has some slashing effects that bleed the target or that cripple the target... Every time you attack you have a chance to proc that effect. That effect then can synergize with what your active skills tree has available to it. So let's say your backstab deals 30 additional damage to a bleeding target. If you attack with your main weapon first and the target gets the bleed proc off and you do your backstab skill then you're synergizing your effects. – Steven Sharif
Let's say backstab that you can apply to deals damage to the target and it'll have a conditional modifier on that damage if you're behind the target, and it'll have a conditional modifier deal additional 50 damage if the target is under a bleed effect. So you want to synergize essentially your weapon proc conditions with your active skills so that you're timing your certain active skills appropriately with the status conditions that the target has taken. – Steven Sharif
Weapon progression such as set bonuses may change at what level any proc effects occur. These procs may reduce or reset cooldowns on other skills on the player's hotbar. Using a weapon skill will in general reset the weapon use combo system.
Passive skills are used to augment weapon usage, armor usage, health regeneration, and passive stats.[2]
Passive skills can be levelled up by allocating skill points on the skills UI. Passive skills enable players to work toward mastery of a weapon.
All these passive abilities: mana regen, attack damage, critical hit damage, health regeneration, defense mitigation, maximum health: A lot of different changes from the passive side of things and these are based on what archetype you've chosen.– Steven Sharif
Oh I have been camping on that page lol. I want more substantial class information so baaaaad lol
Do you have a link to the article or video that is in by chance? That is cool if so.
Add to it, the weapon skills and mastery of different weapons for each Spellsword, and you have further variety.
As a potential Spellsword myself, my currently projected main weapon will be.... drum roll please..... look at my signature *wink wink*..... A SPEAR!
And then maybe you choose a sword. And Dygz (who will be playing in this hypothetical scenario) uses a mace. And that guy over there? An ax. etc.
Some of the Q&A or dev discussions Steven had pretty much said that with the augments and skill tree that even in every class there could be variations on gameplay. So yeah each spellsword could play different from the next.
Why? Because these abilities are one animation, no matter what weapon you hold. Same thing with the spinning attack we saw. Equiping daggers or a greatsword (or a spear) wont change the attack animation. The weapons will be attacked to the arms of the character and the body will perform the same movement.
The same can be observed with ESO.
Templars conjured a spear of light
Nightblades conjured a shadowy dagger
Dragonknights conjured a flaming whip
Necromancers conjured a deathly scythe etc etc etc.
The weapons would dissapear, allowing the universal conjured attack animation to be displayed, without the need to show a different motion for different weapons (meaning different combat styles [in terms of gaming: playstyles]).
Eso however provided active abilities tied to weapons. So if you had a greatsword, slotted the greatsword abilities, you could see a difference in a playstyle.
(Due to terrible meta designs in eso everybody felt the same, but it is irrelevant to this topic. I just needed to state it here.)
In AoC we have been told that there wont be active abilities tied to weapons. One reason may be the difficulty of creating so many animations.
We have also been told that all archetypes can equip any gear.
In addition to "Hammer Strike", Fighter also has Active Skills like Rush and probably the spin.
In addition to stat buffs, weapons also have Weapon Skills unique to each weapon.
After re-reading what i quoted, i realize what i quoted isn't as relevant to my response as other stuff you mentioned. You are right that they don't want restrictions on what attacks a weapon can do but weapons will still be part of the animations, at least from what we have seen.
Me too
For these 2 are very bad.
Can't tell if you are making fun of my triple negative or have a reason for not liking ability that use weapons in the animations?
For me, abilities that dont have slightly different animations to accomodate the different weapons/arm stances, is a sign of bad design or bad prioritazation of development focus areas.
Nothing active.
While this is true when it comes to weapon progression, classes that focus on melee have skills that use their melee weapons, just like how ranger is going to have skills that use bows.
A different playstyle is expected to be visually recognizable. Different values on the character stat tab isnt good enough for a videogame.
There is no real difference between a fighter/fighter using the showcased tornade spin ability with daggers and one using a greatsword.
If, for example, the only difference is that if equiped with daggers you have a chance to inflict bleed and if equiped with a greatsword you bypass 3% of the targets armor, people will be dissapointed.