Pardon our dust - Patch Preview, Stats and Slots
Feb 5, 2018 14:50:27 GMT
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Post by Amon on Feb 5, 2018 14:50:27 GMT
Hey guys! Remember when we said we were gonna update more, and that there was gonna be a change to the skill trees?
Me too.
Turns out, we ended up doing more than just changes to the skill trees; we ended up doing changes to the skill system as a whole. So, in order to get you guys ready for the change, get ready for a wall of text as we're going to give you a sneak peak of the newest systems: Stats and Active Skills.
Stats have been touched upon in the past, back when Lodan first started out, but never went anywhere. A staple of many RPG’s, Stats are being implemented to help give a somewhat visual, more concrete way of comparing one character to another.
There are a total of 7 different stats:
Health - A representation of how easy it is to bring one down.
Stamina - A representation of how long one can keep up certain tasks (like running).
Strength - A representation of how strong one is.
Agility - Combines Speed and Dexterity. A representation of how fast one is and how successful one is in performing certain moves such as parkour landing or catching items.
Intelligence - Combines intelligence and wisdom. A representation of how successful one is in determining truths and perceiving lies.
Willpower - The token Charisma. A representation of how successful one is in resisting the will of another. The main stat when determining resistances and effectiveness of Deceit and other magics.
Skill - The main determining stat for how successful one is in their respective skill (Tech or Magic).
Each stat will be on a sliding scale, with 5 being the default value. As such, Players are given 35 points to distribute between the 7 stats.
Note that in order to increase one stat, one or more stats will need to be lowered to compensate, with a value of 1 being the minimum and a value of 10 being the maximum.
Keep in mind, these are not true representations of a Player character; a Player can RP as being the smartest person, but if their Intelligence stat is lower than another character’s, then they should not be able to detect that character’s lie. As such, this is a way of determining who would win in a head to head contest, be it of strength, agility, intelligence, etc. That isn’t to say that Players cannot overcome the disadvantage; rather, they would need to find a more creative way to get around this weakness.
Also be aware: it is okay to RP contrary to what a character's stats are, provided that participants are all in agreement. However, stats will be heavily enforced during official events and missions.
The other system is dubbed Active Skills. As of right now, anyone can simply buy and use all of the skills at their disposal with total impunity (within certain restrictions). However, there is an issue of how untouchable someone becomes after maxing out a certain number of skills. Hence, the proposition of Active Skills
Players will now choose six of their skills to become their “Active Skills” while their remaining skills are put in a more “dormant” state (more on that in a bit). For a visual guide, take a look at the diagram below:
[__] [__] [__] [ ]
[__] [__] [__] [_____]
Each of the smaller bracket/boxes (from hereon, referred to as Slots) each can hold a single skill (i.e. cryomancy, gating, unarmed combat, clockwork robotics, etc.), while the large box (from hereon, referred to as the Pool) contains the rest of the skills they have learned.
Each Slot, regardless of skill type, will abide by the following (familiar) restrictions (from hereon, referred to as Uses):
That being said, “Uses” will have a different meaning depending on the skill type. Different bonuses are also applied depending on whether a Player wants to specialize in a single type of skill (Magic, Tech, or Combat).
At first glance, having access to only six skills at a time seems limiting. However, there is still an incentive to learning every skill possible: Augments. While there are Augments that improve specific skills or a set of skills as a whole, there were also Augments that allowed Players to effectively combine their skills; these Augments in particular will become more valuable, as they will grant Players access to the skills in their Pool as passives, enhancing their Active Skills; it is also possible for two or more Active Skills to Augment each other. Different skill types will handle these Augment combinations differently.
There will be ways to easily swap skills from the Slot to the Pool and vice versa, but more on that later.
And that will be it for the preview. Hopefully I didn't confuse you guys. There will be dedicated guides for each of these new systems that will go into more detail.
Keep in mind that this is a preview and thus not implemented yet; we are aware that this is a dramatic change compared to what the site is used to and thus we wanted to give you a preview of what to expect, as well as give you guys some time to digest the idea and consider how you want to build your characters.
Since these new systems drive how skills work from now on, all three Skill Trees (Magic, Tech, and Combat) all had to receive some overhauls as to how they work, hence why it's taking us a while.
Good news: you won't have to wait all that much longer. We're making the final adjustments to the Skill Trees, and all that should be left are the tweaks to earning EMP and the costs for each skill.
And I shall leave you with that for now (don't wanna overwhelm you guys too much). If there are any questions during this whirlwind of change, feel free to drop me a PM (despite my seeming absence, I am an active lurker here).
Catch ya next time!
- Amon
Me too.
Turns out, we ended up doing more than just changes to the skill trees; we ended up doing changes to the skill system as a whole. So, in order to get you guys ready for the change, get ready for a wall of text as we're going to give you a sneak peak of the newest systems: Stats and Active Skills.
Stats have been touched upon in the past, back when Lodan first started out, but never went anywhere. A staple of many RPG’s, Stats are being implemented to help give a somewhat visual, more concrete way of comparing one character to another.
There are a total of 7 different stats:
Health - A representation of how easy it is to bring one down.
Stamina - A representation of how long one can keep up certain tasks (like running).
Strength - A representation of how strong one is.
Agility - Combines Speed and Dexterity. A representation of how fast one is and how successful one is in performing certain moves such as parkour landing or catching items.
Intelligence - Combines intelligence and wisdom. A representation of how successful one is in determining truths and perceiving lies.
Willpower - The token Charisma. A representation of how successful one is in resisting the will of another. The main stat when determining resistances and effectiveness of Deceit and other magics.
Skill - The main determining stat for how successful one is in their respective skill (Tech or Magic).
Each stat will be on a sliding scale, with 5 being the default value. As such, Players are given 35 points to distribute between the 7 stats.
Note that in order to increase one stat, one or more stats will need to be lowered to compensate, with a value of 1 being the minimum and a value of 10 being the maximum.
Keep in mind, these are not true representations of a Player character; a Player can RP as being the smartest person, but if their Intelligence stat is lower than another character’s, then they should not be able to detect that character’s lie. As such, this is a way of determining who would win in a head to head contest, be it of strength, agility, intelligence, etc. That isn’t to say that Players cannot overcome the disadvantage; rather, they would need to find a more creative way to get around this weakness.
Also be aware: it is okay to RP contrary to what a character's stats are, provided that participants are all in agreement. However, stats will be heavily enforced during official events and missions.
The other system is dubbed Active Skills. As of right now, anyone can simply buy and use all of the skills at their disposal with total impunity (within certain restrictions). However, there is an issue of how untouchable someone becomes after maxing out a certain number of skills. Hence, the proposition of Active Skills
Players will now choose six of their skills to become their “Active Skills” while their remaining skills are put in a more “dormant” state (more on that in a bit). For a visual guide, take a look at the diagram below:
[__] [__] [__] [ ]
[__] [__] [__] [_____]
Each of the smaller bracket/boxes (from hereon, referred to as Slots) each can hold a single skill (i.e. cryomancy, gating, unarmed combat, clockwork robotics, etc.), while the large box (from hereon, referred to as the Pool) contains the rest of the skills they have learned.
Each Slot, regardless of skill type, will abide by the following (familiar) restrictions (from hereon, referred to as Uses):
Skill Rank | Uses |
I | 1 |
II | 2 |
III | 3 |
IV | 4 |
V | 5 |
That being said, “Uses” will have a different meaning depending on the skill type. Different bonuses are also applied depending on whether a Player wants to specialize in a single type of skill (Magic, Tech, or Combat).
At first glance, having access to only six skills at a time seems limiting. However, there is still an incentive to learning every skill possible: Augments. While there are Augments that improve specific skills or a set of skills as a whole, there were also Augments that allowed Players to effectively combine their skills; these Augments in particular will become more valuable, as they will grant Players access to the skills in their Pool as passives, enhancing their Active Skills; it is also possible for two or more Active Skills to Augment each other. Different skill types will handle these Augment combinations differently.
There will be ways to easily swap skills from the Slot to the Pool and vice versa, but more on that later.
And that will be it for the preview. Hopefully I didn't confuse you guys. There will be dedicated guides for each of these new systems that will go into more detail.
Keep in mind that this is a preview and thus not implemented yet; we are aware that this is a dramatic change compared to what the site is used to and thus we wanted to give you a preview of what to expect, as well as give you guys some time to digest the idea and consider how you want to build your characters.
Since these new systems drive how skills work from now on, all three Skill Trees (Magic, Tech, and Combat) all had to receive some overhauls as to how they work, hence why it's taking us a while.
Good news: you won't have to wait all that much longer. We're making the final adjustments to the Skill Trees, and all that should be left are the tweaks to earning EMP and the costs for each skill.
And I shall leave you with that for now (don't wanna overwhelm you guys too much). If there are any questions during this whirlwind of change, feel free to drop me a PM (despite my seeming absence, I am an active lurker here).
Catch ya next time!
- Amon