Well that would be interessting, have some society to uncover others talent in cost of something... I find it viable for some.
Well that would be interessting, have some society to uncover others talent in cost of something... I find it viable for some.
What am I but an Ant in a universe full of giants ?
Personally, I hope that while some of the ways to test your character will be quite simple trials to go through (drown!) others will be a lot more complicated and involve you going out into the world. The majority shouldn't be something you can easily do in an academy. Instead encouraging you to explore, find things out in the world, and have real experiences.
An academy doesnt need to be a actual place, it can be just a group of people, that help you go throught trials, and have a medium or planeswalker to help you if you die.
What am I but an Ant in a universe full of giants ?
If I were to find out I was a planes walker or a medium I would probably try and set this up. I think having a place like this would be a wonderful place. Anyone would be able to go and try out to see if they have a talent. It would be an ever evolving place as well. As more talents are found and different ways to unlock those talents learned more trials would be added. It would probably start with just the ones we know will be in the game. Waterbreathing for example. This would be easy to test, although almost everyone would end up sprirt walking as almost no one has talents. But, it would be easy to test. I assume magic would be easy to test as well. If shapeshifter follow any of the lore they will probably be weak to silver, so a test would be to be struck with silver and see if it does more special damage or more damage to someone. Testing for medium and planeswalking would probably be as easy as being near someone that dies, which will happen a lot in a place like this. I would think talents like flying would exist too, and this would probably be tested by falling from a great distance and trying to fly. Just thoughts I had. If anyone can think of a talent that will probably be in the game, and how it could be tested post it here. Maybe this will be a thing that will happen in different regions too. Multiple locations testing for talents.
It is the "trials" part I dislike more than having an academy. I want the ways to unlock talents not be obvious, so step by step recreations would be hard to do. My misgivings about the idea is more about how the discovery of talents is designed, rather than players created systems trying to discover them.
Edit: "Testing for medium and planeswalking would probably be as easy as being near someone that dies, which will happen a lot in a place like this."
See this is exactly the kind of thing I hope is NOT the case. Discovering talents should be difficult, interesting, something that encourages game play. Not just passing near a spirit walking player.
I behoove a place life this would actually exist in a world like CoE. If I discover that I'm a shape shifter and silver burns my skin, I would use that to find other shape shifters. Just like other talents. I could easily imagine a group getting together to run people through tests to see if a talent activates.
Which is why I hope unlocking a talent is more difficult than simply "silver burns". That perhaps that is one of the consequences of having it unlocked, but until then you are not affected so simply.
That wouldnt really make sense though. Just because I dont know Im a shapeshifter doesnt mean Im not one. Im not saying that being exposed to silver will unlock that you are a shapeshifter, but it would make me look into that. Talents may be hard to unlock, but as soon as the method of unlocking one is revealed why not use that knowledge to test others?
As for medium and planeswalking being 'easy' to test. Those talents, as they have been described so far, are only used to help spirit walking characters. What else would activate those talents? If my only power is talking to dead people, why wouldnt being around dead people activate it?
I think this is one of those topics where it is all just speculation and opinion until we get more information.
Talents may well be simple to unlock, they may well have clear reproduction steps so they are easy to test on new characters. The academy idea may well work. The developers may use the fact they are rarely assigned to a soul to say it doesn't really matter if they are easy to unlock, because chances are you didn't have one anyway. This means your academy works great.
I was just stating my personal preference that I hope talents are more involved. It may be that the exact steps that unlocked the talent are not that clear, it might be that there are multiple things you have to do and those can happen in any order. Therefore people would be unlocking the same talent at the point when they did different things, making it more difficult to trace the exact way to unlock the talent. That would mean an academy, while still possible, would be more difficult to do.
With regards to plane walkers etc. it maybe you have to encounter a particular obstacle or obstacles within the spirit world, and overcome that obstacles in the correct way. That experience of the astral plane unlocks your ability to guide others through it.
I agree 100% really. I was posing the question more as an 'if this existed' kind of thing. If there was a place that had methods of revealing talents, although with danger, and had a track record of revealing talents, would you use it?
My understanding that not all souls are attuned to talents.For those souls that are that it is random for which ones you are attuned. The idea of going through trials to gain a talent is distasteful to me. It meminds me too muc of the professions unlock grind in Star Wars Galaxies where you had to unlock certain professions before you coud get access to the Jedi Trials. That took away from so much of the game. Then there was a hew and cry to make it simpler which in turn shifted a whole gameplay mechanic which eventually killed the game. I wouldn't want that for CoE.
Talents are randomly assigned to souls. This isnt a place you would go to gain a talent. It would be a place you would go to see if you were assigned a talent. Thats why there is danger. You could go through all the tests, probably dying several times, and never unlock a talent. This would reduce you lifespan for no reason. On the other hand, you could unlock a powerful talent in the process.
Hey Folks!
I wanted to quickly reply to this thread as I think it's created the perfect opportunity to explain a few key facts.
The conclusion from this? It's extremely unlikely you'll discover latent Talents through some kind of trial and error process. It's far more likely that if some charlatan created an academy to determine whether or not others had Talents that they themselves would end up with some kind of Aura Seer Talent, than for participants to actually discover any latent abilities. (Note: This shouldn't encourage you to do the Academy to discover an Aura Seer Talent. It was simply an example of how the Soulborn Engine uses creativity and story events to decide who has Talents).
Excellent! This discussion has been a success! Not that my goal was to uncover previously unknown information, but I'm glad it lead to it. Good to know Caspian! Does this also mean souls don't necessarily start with a hidden talent, assuming you have one, and that the story will decide in game on the fly who gets a talent?
I see talents a bit different, like something personal, that cannot be recreated artificially. Let's take a miner for example. He knows a bit of combat, a bit of cartography, but what he really knows in detail is mining, his whole life is about mining. One night, he goes to sleep and he has a strange dream. A large cave, filled with all sorts of valuable ores, guarded by a giant golem. He knows golems don't exist in real world, but he wants the ore badly. If he somehow gets to the ore, when he wakes up ge gets a talent. He's able to feel all the valuable metal ore veins just by standing near them.
After half of his life spent on in the wilderness, one evening a hunter sees a strange animal... a white deer! He wants to hunt it so bad that he drops everything from inventory and keeps only a bow and a knife, making it easier cross the unfriendly terrain in front of him. To make matters worse, it gets dark. He needs to use all his skills to hunt the deer. Somehow, he manages to kill the rare beast. And the soul of the dead white deer becomes forever linked with his. Now he's able to feel all the animal life around him, from a greater distance.