Well there is a 99% chance you are gonna have to cross magic off your list of options so I wouldn't plan around being able to do anything related to that.

Posted By Apaukolypse at 11:11 AM - Sun Apr 23 2017

Well there is a 99% chance you are gonna have to cross magic off your list of options so I wouldn't plan around being able to do anything related to that.

What my fellow Elyrian means is that magic is labeled as a Talent, (Talent list isn't fully made yet), and magic is labeled as a Talent. Only 5% of the player base gets a talent, so magic is going to be extremely rare.

Talents are for the most part going to be randomly distributed, except where the story requires them (I read this as dev intervention if things get stagnant). There will be artifacts and secrets liberally strewn through the world, but the odds of actually acquiring talents are so low that I wouldn't plan anything around them.

That being said: Adventure is one of the four main character archetypes that will be in use for base soul skills. A number of the low-tier packages provide mounts and pack animals. I would recommend Founder or Pioneer as your entry tier, and doing some reading on the design journals to see if you want to go higher in the long run. You won't necessarily need any of the pledge perks from them off the bat, but they'll help you get started.

Beyond that, you'll want to look at the souls on your account at launch carefully before deciding which one you want to start your first life with, to make sure its skillset most complements your intended playstyle.

I believe it was stated that talents are not revealed to you right away but tied to personal story. So if someone is able to have a talent but they never activate the trigger, it will never really manifest. Talents will also be granted to characters that are "in the best position to advance the story" according to the wiki.

Posted By Wolfguarde at 2:19 PM - Sun Apr 23 2017

Talents are for the most part going to be randomly distributed, except where the story requires them (I read this as dev intervention if things get stagnant). There will be artifacts and secrets liberally strewn through the world, but the odds of actually acquiring talents are so low that I wouldn't plan anything around them.

I hope we get more clarification on this, or perhaps some reconsideration if the decision is already made. Making talents rare is good because then talents become things that make a character special. But if talents are so rare that few if anyone ever notices them, then what's really the point of them? What's the point of coding a system that barely gets utilized? The game is not going to exist forever.

One of my biggest frustrations with MMOs is that everything tends to become cookie cutter. You come up with the same builds, go after the same gear, etc. With talents, CoE has an opportunity to inject uniqueness into [many/most] characters from the start (because it's totally random). Provided the talent list is substantial enough with a big enough tree, this could prove to be one of the MOST INTERESTING elements of the game.

Posted By COECipher at 08:53 AM - Mon Apr 24 2017

I hope we get more clarification on this, or perhaps some reconsideration if the decision is already made. Making talents rare is good because then talents become things that make a character special. But if talents are so rare that few if anyone ever notices them, then what's really the point of them? What's the point of coding a system that barely gets utilized? The game is not going to exist forever.

I feel that it's too early yet to worry about this. Given that the main purpose of CoE is telling the story, I am willing to wait and see, on the assumption that SBS will find a way to ensure people who get hidden Talents have story hooks to guide them along, without being too blatant about it.

Also, for me personally, my character having a Talent or not doesn't really matter. I'd be just as happy finding out some other character in my town/county has some weird thing going on, and roleplaying around the impact of that on the rest of us.

The talents and mastery systems in Elyria combined with the varied game world really do leave you free to forge whatever character you wish. Magic and such talents are exceedingly rare, but working within the framework of known skills, an example:

You might develop your mapmaking skills and fighting skills, making your character a skilled mercenary. Starting a local hire service at a town and growing your employees, you soon establish a reputation for reliability, taking contracts throughout the region. As a part time alchemist, tracker and healer you gather and map rare supplies on your adventures, returning to your outpost only to recover and relay tales of your adventures. Your Brudvir kin thrive in a boreal forest on the edge of ice capped mountains, a setting that brings back fond memories of childhood tales by the campfire of a place called "Skyrim"... lol

Posted By Oracle at 12:11 PM - Mon Apr 24 2017

Starting a local hire service at a town and growing your employees, you soon establish a reputation for reliability, taking contracts throughout the region.

I hear a lot of people talking in these terms. I guess there are folks who really want a game that simulates "a job". I want something I can't really (or easily) find in the real world - like adventure.

I also typically go for a 'witch hunter' kind of build in some RPG's, a mixture of bow skills and light magic use.

As magic is rare in CoE, I will just be mixing my character up with ranger skills in stead. I am sure those of us who normally opt for some magic in our character builds will find other interesting areas to focus on.

Posted By COECipher at 01:53 AM - Tue Apr 25 2017

Posted By Wolfguarde at 2:19 PM - Sun Apr 23 2017

Talents are for the most part going to be randomly distributed, except where the story requires them (I read this as dev intervention if things get stagnant). There will be artifacts and secrets liberally strewn through the world, but the odds of actually acquiring talents are so low that I wouldn't plan anything around them.

I hope we get more clarification on this, or perhaps some reconsideration if the decision is already made. Making talents rare is good because then talents become things that make a character special. But if talents are so rare that few if anyone ever notices them, then what's really the point of them? What's the point of coding a system that barely gets utilized? The game is not going to exist forever.

One of my biggest frustrations with MMOs is that everything tends to become cookie cutter. You come up with the same builds, go after the same gear, etc. With talents, CoE has an opportunity to inject uniqueness into [many/most] characters from the start (because it's totally random). Provided the talent list is substantial enough with a big enough tree, this could prove to be one of the MOST INTERESTING elements of the game.

Well, as I see it, the difficulty of activating talents ensures that players wanting them will explore unusual play styles and game paths to try to uncover them on their characters. You'll see a whole game subculture in CoE built up around sharing information trying to unlock talents.

But perhaps more importantly, it places talents as a hidden bonus that you might encounter playing how you want to play, as opposed to the central goal of your play experience. Discovering one will either enhance or change your game experience in a unique way - and you'll never know if you're going to get it or not. Hell, I'm pretty sure one of the triggers being considered to activate a talent is dying.

The cookie cutter argument... in my opinion, yes and no. It forces people to use all the same tools, yes. But with a large number of combat styles and the (possible) potential for the environment to factor into combat in a dynamic way, the stagnation that plagues other MMOs shouldn't be an issue. At the very least, players will have a multitude of combat styles to choose their moves from in order to customise their way of fighting; at most, if SbS takes the route of insane complexity and depth of mechanics, we'll have the ability to alter the environment and make use of objects mid-manouvre, adding a variety of options to combat that literally does not exist yet in a MMO.

Make no mistake, talents will be very interesting content. But talents aren't meant to be the focus of the game. If they are, everyone without one gets shafted - and if all else fails, some cheesy developer will look at the demand for it in CoE and make a clone game that gives everyone access to unusual abilities with almost identical content otherwise.