Talents are not tied to souls, they are tied to your individual lives. So if you start off as a potential magic user in your first life, and become a powerful wizard, after you die you start a new life and may end up with no talent, or a talent with becoming a a master scribe. They did this so that people who get some amazing talent in one life don't end up super powered forever.

And there is no way to see what kind of talent you have until you trigger whatever special event in game that allows your talent to be revealed.

I understand that talents are not tied to your soul, but since there tied to the body you possess then shouldn't there be at least a chance to pass them down to the next generation, so if you are lucky enough to unlock some magical abilities, or if your really good at combat, you would be able to pass that down to the next generation, and if both parents have the ability then the likely hood would go up. I hope they give it a thought cause it would give more meaning to a bloodline in the game other than just a name.

Posted By Heatmiser at 11:06 AM - Mon Mar 27 2017

I understand that talents are not tied to your soul, but since there tied to the body you possess then shouldn't there be at least a chance to pass them down to the next generation, so if you are lucky enough to unlock some magical abilities, or if your really good at combat, you would be able to pass that down to the next generation, and if both parents have the ability then the likely hood would go up. I hope they give it a thought cause it would give more meaning to a bloodline in the game other than just a name.

I haven't seen them say one way or another as to hereditary talents;. but it is certainly possible from a realistic stand point.

Posted By Blankwindow at 12:19 PM - Mon Mar 27 2017

Posted By Heatmiser at 11:06 AM - Mon Mar 27 2017

I understand that talents are not tied to your soul, but since there tied to the body you possess then shouldn't there be at least a chance to pass them down to the next generation, so if you are lucky enough to unlock some magical abilities, or if your really good at combat, you would be able to pass that down to the next generation, and if both parents have the ability then the likely hood would go up. I hope they give it a thought cause it would give more meaning to a bloodline in the game other than just a name.

I haven't seen them say one way or another as to hereditary talents;. but it is certainly possible from a realistic stand point.

Hereditary talents seem unlikely to me for the same reason they are not tied to souls: it makes it too easy for one person to get the same talent over and over, and for that talent to be a major factor in your gameplay for the duration of the ten year story. Also, Caspian has hinted that talents won't necessarily be an advantage. They will single you out, but the implication is that there is some major cost or drawback that comes along with them. They may be very difficult to control, they may cause major problems for other players (imagine if your talent was that storms would follow you, you could bring rain to a city in drought but also cause floods if you stayed too long), or attract the attention of dangerous creatures or supernatural entities. A specific talent may be as much of a burden as an opportunity to affect the world.

i would like to see talents passed down through bloodlines or tribes, for example a desert tribe being more likely to have a pyrokinetic fire magic talent as it would fit with the RP of the geographical region and tribe history. though it would still be rare and unpredictable as intended, the legends that could be formed by the Chosen of some tribes rising from obscurity to become the pointed blade that could lead rebellion or cut through armies. could be quiet interesting.

also this gives people a chance to pick a tribe that would be more likely to have the sort of talents they are looking to witness in game. i doubt it would be stated directly, though maybe though some of the tribes backstory we could find out what talents were told of in folk lore and history(hopefully becoming available to us before land selection).

as a mayor i wont be hunting for a talent myself but i can see why the desire is there, and it would be nice for a player to be able to have a little say in what talents might become theirs, though most will likely be random, tribe specific talents would be an interesting addition and could also serve to boost player numbers in tribes that are seldom picked and generally not popular choices. cough Deserts cough.

Characters in Chronicles of Elyria will have three major components. First is their soul (including skill ramps and bonuses from major achievements in past lives), their body (which will be effected by their bloodline and tribe, and have some skills inherited from their parents), and their personal destiny (a role that will be offered to them repeatedly over the course of the game, based on the alignment of the stars on their birthday). I am almost certain that talents will be tied to the personal destiny.

In the thread "Should magic be a talent", Moonlynx was speculating on how talents might work and commented "if there is a sudden increase in talented individuals showing up, it could herald a huge story arc about to explode. The talents could be related to the story arc." Caspian replied "This is essentially already how Talents work. They are given by the needs of the story. As we've said before, Talents are a story-building tool, not a character-building tool. There's no way to "earn" a Talent and players definitely shouldn't count on a Talent."

There will be plenty of things passed down through bloodlines. Do not expect talents to be one of them.

Posted By Heatmiser at 12:06 PM - Mon Mar 27 2017

I understand that talents are not tied to your soul, but since there tied to the body you possess then shouldn't there be at least a chance to pass them down to the next generation, so if you are lucky enough to unlock some magical abilities, or if your really good at combat, you would be able to pass that down to the next generation, and if both parents have the ability then the likely hood would go up. I hope they give it a thought cause it would give more meaning to a bloodline in the game other than just a name.

people could and would abuse this if so. It'd be like breeding dogs or horses, breed characters to farm more souls just like it, and even make money off of it by selling an heir to other players and whatnot. I honestly think it should be random and stay random. like someone said before, to prevent abuse of people staying in power and keeping things one sided, it should be random.

if any talents were to cause a pvp benefit AND it were able to be replicated to others as opposed to truly random, this would create a META that pvpers would need in order to have the best possible pvp account. It needs to stay random if it has pvp benefits in any way!

You will start with 3 souls and if you want more/different souls you can purchase a soul pack from the online store. There will be no way to know if a soul has a talent before it is unlocked. Yes I know that talents are now tied to a character not a actual soul but if you are playing a alt you can see that a current soul/spark has an unlocked talent for that character's life.

Where we don't know much if anything about talents I hope they don't give direct talents. Instead they enhance a skill or ability you already have, more of a passive bonus. Also there should be a negative associated with talents as well. I see so many talking about the bonuses you get from a talent hardly see mentioned the negative aspects of a talent and how they will effect your character.

And like most of you, I can't get the information fast enough. I guess we will just have to wait for more information and it can't get here soon enough.

Posted By Jasta85 at 3:24 PM - Mon Mar 27 2017

Talents are not tied to souls, they are tied to your individual lives. So if you start off as a potential magic user in your first life, and become a powerful wizard, after you die you start a new life and may end up with no talent, or a talent with becoming a a master scribe. They did this so that people who get some amazing talent in one life don't end up super powered forever.

And there is no way to see what kind of talent you have until you trigger whatever special event in game that allows your talent to be revealed.

Didn't they say that when you unlock a talent its not at its ideal point so you have to use more than just one life time to master it? I.e its bound to your soul.

Edit: Nvm. I didn't know.

Posted By flake155 at 5:39 PM - Wed Apr 12 2017

"....some, but not all the souls in CoE, will have latent abilities known as Talents. These are, for lack of a better way of describing them, supernatural abilities which have been granted to a soul to fulfill some destiny."

"Once activated, a Talent follows a soul from life to life, with no need to re-activate it. As well, a Talent generally doesn’t manifest in its most powerful form the first time. Repeated use, completing specific quests or rituals, or just being reborn can cause a Talent to develop into a more powerful version of itself."

I'm sorry, was there a revision? It was my understanding that talents were very much tied to souls, did they change this in a Q&A or something?

The wiki page on talents lists a Q&A between Caspian and Bicycle Walrus from DM21 Gaming as the source for this change. It's on page 16 of this transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lrdQMrJdCZaQHwcJb2x88wiUStOMJ0_BQ5HtpenivvA/edit

Here's the quote: "initially we wanted it so talents are attached to the soul and if you had a talent you had it generation after generation and I had a design meeting a couple of weeks back with some designer friends of mine, they’re not part of the company they’re talented designers and we met all day one day, and that was one of those topics we kept coming back to iterating on and we just found that the system worked so much better if talents are not bound to the soul. But they’re instead randomly given to you at character creation time."