"Sounds great, right? There’s a catch. Soul mates only begin their existence as twins. Each soul lives their own lives and develops an affinity toward light or dark. While their destinies are inexorably intertwined, there’s no guarantee they’ll lie on the same side of the cosmic struggle when they meet.

Most importantly, soul mates whose affinity go in opposite direction become diametrically opposed to one another. To that end, there is only one way to get past such an antagonist – separate their soul from their body and send them back to the Akashic Records."

I wouldn't be worried about that. You can marry your significant other in game. The soulmates functionality doesn't seem to be one based on love like you are implying.

If your soul mate is a guy, you don't have to marry him or love him. You might even have to try and kill him. Though the same can ring true if your soul mate is of the opposite gender.

I think soul mate needs a different term. If it is to possibly be someone of an opposing alignment, or similar gender, opposing whatever; they are not a 'mate' of any type. But we would be aware of eachother on a psychic level. What if we are destined to do battle? What if we're warrior and mage, light and dark, some gigantic battle to end all battles, with entire kingdoms marching behind each one, a gigantic bloody war all for TWO SOUL MATES.

On the friendlier spectrum, perhaps you're two merchants and by being around each other you benefit from the craft bonus, or with your companion's approval you have children with that soulmate to create higher statt-ed hiers?? Two adventurers that go out in the wild together for proximity buffs. There could be tons of benefits to player cooperation.

Posted By AdinX at 7:29 PM - Fri Jan 13 2017

I think soul mate needs a different term. If it is to possibly be someone of an opposing alignment, or similar gender, opposing whatever; they are not a 'mate' of any type. But we would be aware of eachother on a psychic level. What if we are destined to do battle? What if we're warrior and mage, light and dark, some gigantic battle to end all battles, with entire kingdoms marching behind each one, a gigantic bloody war all for TWO SOUL MATES.

On the friendlier spectrum, perhaps you're two merchants and by being around each other you benefit from the craft bonus, or with your companion's approval you have children with that soulmate to create higher statt-ed hiers?? Two adventurers that go out in the wild together for proximity buffs. There could be tons of benefits to player cooperation.

I am not sure what term works better. Soul-linked?

There are soul mates which are predetermined by the engine and then there is soul-binding. The game will have a mechanic for people like us who will be playing with our significant others called soul-binding. The longer you are married to another soul you will start to gain added benefits (since characters age and die; so this mechanic works only if you constantly marry each other in each of your character's lifetime). If I remember correctly these added benefits are similar (but not exactly) to that of the benefits of finding your soul mate.

>Soul mates only begin their existence as twins. Each soul lives their own lives and develops an affinity toward light or dark. While their destinies are inexorably intertwined, there’s no guarantee they’ll lie on the same side of the cosmic struggle when they meet.

Most importantly, soul mates whose affinity go in opposite direction become diametrically opposed to one another. To that end, there is only one way to get past such an antagonist – separate their soul from their body and send them back to the Akashic Records."

This morning at 3am I woke up and could not get back to sleep and for somereason the 'soul mate' aspect of this game helped me pass the time as it was just what I was thinking about; so I was going to come onto the forums today to discuss something I don't understand about it at length but I was happy to see someone had already started chatting about this topic. So instead of writing the essay I was going to write I would like to set it up as a conversation amongst us beginning with 2 questions:

1. This quote says that the souls only begin their existance as twins.... I'm sure this does not literally mean only twins can be 'soul-mates' so what exactly does it mean?

2. I love the whole soul-mate idea and is a great part of this game's 'lore'; however if the souls themselves are what is linked surely seperate the soul from the body does not seperate the souls being bound to one another as the player needs only buy another spark to play the same 'soul' again in a new life....... My question here is: is this correct? are the souls truelly bound to one another past the 'Akashik Records'?

Because if so there is a massive detioration in that one soul can 'permadeath' the other and he can then return with the same and still linked soul. Knowing who killed him, wanting revenge and killing him as 'revenge' for his previous character.... what's more is it would be never ending permadeath and if one player is better that the other, the worse player need only wait until the other has logged off and permadeath the other players OPC.....

(apologies for long post but I promise this is a very very shortened version of what I was going to write)

Every soul comes with some base attributes, as well an affinity for either light or dark. Souls being twins literally means the souls are twins, but not necessarily the bodies they're attached to.

Your actions as a character will impact your soul, so twin souls would start out identical in terms of attributes and affinity, but eventually diverge as their host bodies took differing actions.

I'm not sure on the second part, however. I'd have to read up on how exactly SBS plans to implement the soul mate mechanics.

yeah Q1 just came to me now but Q2 was what I was thinking about as it is how it makes the most sense with the lore but is also the biggest flaw in the idea..

From my understanding soulmates can't detect each other outside of a very close range, and on top of that -from what I've gathered- the indication should be somewhat vague.

Also, Elyria is a HUGE place just going off of pre-alpha footage and screenshots. If you want to hunt somebody down, it's not going to be easy especially if they don't want to be found.

Then again we don't have a game to work with just yet, so anything I come up with is speculative. I'm sure SBS will take some sort of action if enough soul mates get caught up in revenge loops during the beta phases.

The revenge loop in itself takes away the whole story aspect in the first place. I understand it is extremely difficult/rare to come across your 'soul mate' and it could even be impossible (we have 3 souls each and my soul mate could be tied to someone who opts not to play with that soul) and adding to which can only be detected at close range... BUT the second someone does actually die from permadeath from their soul mate... revenge loops will be inevitable and if the souls are still tied together and thus still have permadeath tied to the act..... this is a major problem IMO as it actually encourages griefing and can force a player to give up on his soul...

I think I need to elaborate on what I mean. Say you are a player in a village populated by you and your friends, a stranger rolls through and you two notice you are soul mate. You are opposite inclined (Good vs Evil) and the stranger is Evil. He comes through and sees the chance to increase his SP and make his character stronger so he attacks his SM but loses and dies.

The PC that played the evil char now knows where this soul's SM lives and can return and permadeath him whether attmepting against a PC or an OPC. The player in the village who wants to play with his friends is therefore at a major disadvantage as when he uses another spark he will either have to change village and not play with his friends and hope this does not happen again or he will have to abandon this soul and start all over again so that he can play with his friends again.

This is due to one SM knowing where the other is choosing to play and not vice-versa

(apologise that the character is a male it is just much easier to choose a gender then write he/she or his/her everytime)

Hmm. That specific scenario would be tricky, but I still think it could be solved by the player,

The way I see it, the player getting attacked always has the option to move. Be that to a new county, duchy, kingdom, or even a different continent. Obviously it could be a logistical hassle to organize a journey like that, but that really comes down to the nitty-gritty balance of a game that's at least a year out.

Now moving is probably not so viable for nobles and the like who own land and have duties to their subjects. In this situation the noble could hire mercenary bodyguards, or just order his knights to fill that role. I imagine even the most determined griefer would be put off by a bunch of fully-armored knights ready to send his sorry ass back to the Akashic Records.

Fair, but that still gives an extremely unfair advantage to the travel as essentially in time he cannot lose. It all comes down to one question: does the soul link withstand a permadeath? If so that should be rectified in that through death the link is broken... that's the only solution I can think of that solves the problem fairly

All of this chatter reminds me a little of Fatal Frame 2 where twins were believed to be divine and could keep the gates of the underworld shut... But only if one twin strangles the other to death, causing the other twin to become a guardian spirit butterfly (and, supposedly giving the Remaining twin divine powers)

A scary tradition of human sacrifice that could become a thing.. You never know