Terraforming Updates - June 2013

Shirszae

Sylvance said:

Can't wait for Multiclassing, though from the (admittedly brief) note in the OP it looks unfortunately like MKO's Multiclassing, which isn't Multiclassing.

How does it work there?

Penwize

There isn't a single item on this list I'm not looking forward to.  Can't wait to see how this all pans out!

Jonners

Tecton said:

Will respect house/class limitations, yes! 

ETA: Whether those limitations are the same as they are now remains to be seen.

Great so forestals get screwed again... Do you hate us? (I'm thinking specifically of the Druid house being the ONLY house for Druids once again.)

Triak

Blizzard soontm

Penwize

Jonners said:

Tecton said:

Will respect house/class limitations, yes! 

ETA: Whether those limitations are the same as they are now remains to be seen.

Great so forestals get screwed again... Do you hate us? (I'm thinking specifically of the Druid house being the ONLY house for Druids once again.)

Did you miss the "whether those limitations are the same as they are now remains to be seen" part or did you just ignore it? :P

Jakiro

Shirszae said:

Sylvance said:

Can't wait for Multiclassing, though from the (admittedly brief) note in the OP it looks unfortunately like MKO's Multiclassing, which isn't Multiclassing.

How does it work there?

if I understood the system correctly, it works like a bank. You 'deposit' a class and 'withdraw'. You don't lose lessons when you switch classes but it takes time for you to 'remember' meaning you won't be tri-trans right away. You'd have to wait a bit but if you buy the memory orb artefacts they lessen the wait time depending on the artie level.

edit:

there's also an npc where you do this at so you can't just change from anywhere.

Jonners

Accipiter said:

Wondering if Venoms is considered a tradeskill or not.

Yes, just not the most profitable one.

Learyn

I wouldn't consider venoms a tradeskill since we actually use venoms to bite people with in melee and the only thing there to even make it tradeskillish is milking.

Achimrst

Tecton said:

Concurrently, there's always work happening on the RP side of things, but unlike development, we prefer not to reveal RP events ahead of time.

I just wanted to comment on this by saying. THANK YOU!

Jiraishin

So excited for the emote changes.

Sherazad

Things you'll see "down the road"

• Splitting off some (or all) tradeskills from class skill sets (and adding new class skills/abilities to fill in the voids).

I'm excited about the bolded.

Tecton

Blujixapug said:

Tecton said:

• boring
  
• boring
• An overhaul of the emote system, merging emote and tmote functionality, as we'll as providing the ability to combine emotes with some of the common item interactions.
  

Tecton said:

• Tweaks and changes to some of our conflict systems: Icons, City Destruction, and Pickpocketing.

Do you consider Seafaring and piracy/naval warfare to be a conflict system? It's always struck me that Achaea's seafaring system has a lot of infrastructure in place, and all it lacks is an impetus for competition and conflict - meaning it would require relatively little be added to make it into a major source of PVP conflict. All the mechanics for weapons and ship vs ship battle exist and are more or less balanced, there's just nothing in particular out on the ocean to fight over.

I do consider it a conflict system, yes, I didn't list it under a the "coming soon" changes because upgrades would likely fall under some of the mentioned changes in "down the road".

Tecton

Soludra said:

This is actually pretty exciting! I'm definitely looking forward to seeing some of these roll out.

Since the official client's curing system will be "open and freely modifiable", will ports of it to other clients be allowed?

I don't see why you couldn't modify it for other clients.

Tecton

Cooper said:

On a scale of one week to 'Ships Are Coming Soon(tm)' how long is 'down the road' for multiclassing?

Closer to the latter than the former.

Tecton

Learyn said:

I wouldn't consider venoms a tradeskill since we actually use venoms to bite people with in melee and the only thing there to even make it tradeskillish is milking.

Venom is probably the least clear-cut of the bunch, and would be the only one that really provides any headaches.

Sasiya

This is like... the best thread, ever!

Iocun

Tekura is much more of a tradeskill than venoms, if you define "tradeskill" as "skill that generates gold".

In seriousness though: I think the major problem with venoms is that turning milking into a non-class tradeskill would be weird RP-wise. Something like forging a sword or gathering herbs and brewing potions with them are things you'd expect anybody to be able to learn, but secreting venoms actually requires glands to do so. One might of course argue that in Achaea, all people distantly related to Loki and Ekanel (which might be most Achaeans, even non-humans) have such glands and simply need to learn how to activate them, which is part of becoming a serpent and thus also something non-serpents could learn.

Tecton

Sylvance said:

One thing I do wonder is how the Knight classes will be balanced. Knight is still my worst nightmare to fight as a BM, and that's with just two 'combat' skillsets.  I shudder to think what will happen when they're given a third, though I guess all three skillsets will have to be rebalanced.

They will be rebalanced - something I've considering for knights (and don't hold me to this, it's just an idea), would be to remove most of the melee weapon-based attacks from chivalry (DSL, RAZE, LUNGE, IMPALE, DSB etc), then make the third skill a more weapon-focused skill that may emphasise, say, blunt weapons for Infernals, and two-handed weapons for Paladins, while Runewardens would probably retain the dual sword mechanics.

Sarapis

Penwize said:

There isn't a single item on this list I'm not looking forward to.  Can't wait to see how this all pans out!

That's because he left out the bit about how we feel eagles are OP and so we're going to nerf them all into cute, fluffy, little chickadees. 

Aliath

Meh multiclass, not fond of the idea of it, will just get abused

Azor

My concern with multiclass is that it'll weaken class-based RP, or what's left of it.

Azor

Another thing to mention about multiclass is that it'll complicate strategy and preparations for group combat. Currently you can say with a fair degree of confidence which ranged attacks you're likely to face, etc. I'm sure the Combat Council and coders will hash all this out, though, so perhaps it's not even worth mentioning at this stage...

Vayne

Sounds exciting, though I am concerned what multiclass will mean for single class houses.

Mizik

i'm so -ed

Hayte

Mizik said:

i'm my wallet is so -ed

Hong

Vayne said:

Sounds exciting, though I am concerned what multiclass will mean for single class houses.

I'm sure houses leaders/patrons will sort it out. Could be that they expand to allow other classes that are RP related with rules governing that they trans'd initial class skills first - that way it becomes a graduate program type approach, so that the house members are still considered fundamentally a ___, but are further also able to further advance their knowledge for the benefit of the house/cause. 

Xith

I just plain did not understand what multiclassing was suggesting.

Taking our class system to a new level with Multiclassing: players will be able to retain knowledge of multiple class skill sets, allowing a fluid switch between known classes without starting over at inept skill level.

This suggesting that similar to dforming, I could class switch Shaman and have all my totem knowledge for propping in a raid, but then switch to Magi to use a cataclysm?

Cause I could totally get on board with that.

As long as it's not possible to have Runelore and Crystalism side-by-side. Just see the combat balance getting way wacky with that. So is it the former or latter?

Vayne

Xith said:

I just plain did not understand what multiclassing was suggesting.

Taking our class system to a new level with Multiclassing: players will be able to retain knowledge of multiple class skill sets, allowing a fluid switch between known classes without starting over at inept skill level.

This suggesting that similar to dforming, I could class switch Shaman and have all my totem knowledge for propping in a raid, but then switch to Magi to use a cataclysm?

Cause I could totally get on board with that.

As long as it's not possible to have Runelore and Crystalism side-by-side. Just see the combat balance getting way wacky with that. So is it the former or latter?

I expect it will be similar to going between Dragon and Lesserforms, with some kind of transition time/limit that will keep people from flipping back and forth between various classes.

Hataru

@Vayne I hope that's what its like, personally, or I feel like it'll just return us to the days of dragons with classes which was... fun.

Additionally: I should add I'm pretty excited about most of this. Particularly the separating of tradeskills from classes, while I feel like some tradeskills are clearly more relevant for some classes (forging for knights, enchanting for magi) for those of us who don't participate in trade its sort of just an extra skill just hanging out and I feel like they get used pretty infrequently by the people who don't actually have the patience for them, I'd be stoked to see this reworked so that it is more optional without feel like you're not a 'full' member of your class.

As far as the idea for Knight classes @Tecton I'm on the fence about this idea for a general direction. (Though I understand its just an idea at this point!) On one hand I love the RP aspect of certain classes being more based around different weapon choices (since now its kinda like lulz get rapiers lulz) but I feel like this could create some unevenness in skills like DSB and such (and Vivisect for Infernals as well). I'd be curious to see how it was handled to still make this compatible across this 'type' of class. But I do like the direct of going with a weapons based skill, then chivalry, then the third special skill for each of the three!

Naisar

Sylvance said:

One thing I do wonder is how the Knight classes will be balanced. Knight is still my worst nightmare to fight as a BM, and that's with just two 'combat' skillsets.  I shudder to think what will happen when they're given a third, though I guess all three skillsets will have to be rebalanced.

Don't want to get into it here, but I feel obliged to mention that while it may take you five-plus minutes to prep a good knight, a BM's finisher is so much stronger & easier to achieve that it kind of balances out.

@Tecton I know you probably aren't willing to divulge or don't have any details on the 'Expanded rewards for bashing' yet, but would you be willing to tell us a little about what you're trying to achieve with this? What prompted the decision to work on this?