Best posts made by TheRippyOne

@comferage said in Ability Ideas?:

@gothix Yes, you should. But in regards to an ability at play, what's the point of using something if there's no way to tell if it's working (against player ofcourse) aside from getting attacked or getting ignored.. I get what your saying about not wanting to have your hand held, I agree with you. But i feel like if I'm going to invest in a ability I kinda wanna know if it's actually working..

Though a crowd of enemies (players) deliberately ignoring me while I traverse their town until I arrive at a place where retreat is impossible to spring a trap sounds pretty awesome..

I do like ambushes XD but that moment of "oh **** I'm caught" is a fun moment, assuming you have a second to appreciate how badly you are boned. and activate your "ftsio" power XD

Alternatively, the moment when you blink, and when you open your eyes again, you can't see yourself for the massed pyrotechnics of 10 mages unloading on your probable corpse, is also quite a thing XD

To address what goes where - I'd put Chili Peppers in Tartaros, and salt. Bitter and harsh by themselves, but in high demand everywhere for their benefits.

Black Pepper in Synesia makes sense...not as hot as Tartaros, and ubiquitous. Cumin, as well?

Arboreus can take cinnamon, and nutmeg - both organic and tree "based"

Isn't chasing the newest engine (and scrapping all game dev there-to-for due to engine incompatibility) what put several games into development hell, dragging out the cycle for years or even decades? Think of Duke Nukem: Forever, among others, along with a raft of never released vaporware?

I am happily able to play PoE, a game released 5 years ago, despite that technical advancement, and I don't see how a game with similar graphical needs, such as this one, will suffer unduly from it.

@dcccxix @iamlejnd Well, yes and no? some skills care about equipment - martial arts skills are mainly for fisticuffs/claws, etc. so they probably won't work (or work poorly) when trying to use them with a big double handed axe in most cases (there may be some skills that don't - just not the majority, as it's been described so far)

conversely, no race is limited to a specific weapon set - an Infernal can use any weapon - they just need to use skills that work with those weapons.

finally, it's been speculated that certain gear will be limited by a character's statistics - heavy heavy plate armor requiring a high strength or constitution is the favored example. However, this is speculation, last I checked, and may or may not make it into the game (or may make it, and be rejected). It may also be that gear may gain a synergy beyond the basic mechanics for certain stats, as a halfway compromise - anyone can wear heavy plate, but if you are under 15 strength/constitution, you'll move 20% slower. that sort of thing.

@jetah while it's true that an auction house can be whatever the devs want, an AH "similar to WoW" is the one originally put forward, and it is what several people are objecting to, specifically in that the WoW AH is not instanced, but is a global market place, requiring no travel to buy or sell the goods.

Similarly, I'm not advocating a 3rd party, but a 2nd party websystem - it isn't some random company, it's us, sharing information, and possibly trying to game a system as part of the guild meta. Supply the right bad data at the proper moment to pull the competition away from a hot tip (And praying the hot tip doesn't turn out to be someone else's scam played on you). Or trade in open honesty to encourage connections and partnerships. I imagine the boards will start as guild specific edifices - various guildies telling the guild master about prices, and the guild master passing them around as needed, or facilitating purchase orders on behalf of other guildies - standard merchant house mayhem. the network grows as different merchant houses make alliances to share this info in turn, leading to a free analysis system which still carries a capitalistic risk of lies. a third party would strive to be "right" - we'd all strive to be "better" - big distinction XD

https://fracturedmmo.com/kickstarter-update-stretch-goals-revealed/ The lich reveal post on the KS, for those who didn't get a chance to see it (bottom of the page)

Edit: I skipped the second page...big mistake XD

I am excited by the idea of getting alternative versions of a spell via the upgrade system. Effectively, giving us 1,200 skills for the price of 400. My cold little munchkin heart is gleeful for the extra degree of control and specialization.

I - any one here remember Secret of Mana? (Seiken Detsu 2?) Standard ARPG for the SNES (now available on steam! but I digress). Anyway, you leveled up you magic by casting spells, and things changed as you leveled them up - the Hail spell dropped bigger ice balls on enemies, for example. Anyway, eventually (with a fair amount of grinding), you got your spells to level 8..and then you hit a hidden random chance, and the spell goes nuclear XD Literally, in the case of 3 spells. Fireballs become Flame Dragons, Earth Slide summons a nightmare mudball that grins at you before demolishing your enemies. The visuals are insane, and at the initial playthrough, entirely unmentioned and unknown. It Blew My Mind, is what it did. Made one heck of an impression.

Of course, these were actually a bad thing - most people figured out that you can stun lock a boss by timing spell casts properly, but the "Super Spells" prevent that due to how they work, which means the bosses could sudden get at you. Even if you liked the damage boost they gave, it wasn't worth it, compared to the ability to keep the boss from potentially one-shotting you (certain SoM bosses Did Not Mess Around XD).

But the sheer unexpected OMG WTF BBQ moment the first time it happens, I can't even explain how awesome it was. I literally leveled up all my spells to 8 just to see what the new rare effects, even though they were worse over all. They rarely disappointed.

I've been told that I can now get that feeling, 800 times. I AM SO UP FOR THIS. OMG You have no idea. Even if I never use anything other than level 1s, I want to see all the neat things that are being planned.

@jetah Actually, a +1 to a stat is pretty huge. I expect that the actual bonus is going to be things like "people interact with you as if your Charisma was 3 points higher" for the tavern/music buff - remember, one of the things that charisma does is affect conversation options - so, before you take/cash in a god quest, you go to the bar to get your pretty on to improve the reward XD

@target all correct, but I wouldn't necessarily say required. For example, since we know that each skill is going to have 3 variations, if you have a skill family that all starts the same, but have different endings, you get a similar result. For example, I'm going to spitball a skill called "Laser"

Laser 1 does exactly what you'd think - straight shot in one direction, very fast, pierces, but it has a slight wind-up, as a balance to it's power. Character poses for .1 seconds, that's their opponent's sign to dodge left or right.

Laser 2 is where this get's interesting - it's a forked beam. does more damage if both hit (only possible at extremely close range), less damage if only 1 hits, doesn't pierce - but it also tags out people who make the normal dodge decision for Laser 1, and has the exact same wind-up timing and pose as Laser 1 - basically it's a trade in power for the utility of snookering an opponent. Aiming is a stone plated pig, but a master gets a viable weapon, and all the others using the much simpler to aim Level 1 keeps the surprise viable the first time you fight someone.

Laser 3, isn't really one, but more of an auto-homing plasma ball for massive damage, with a wind-up of .3 seconds - and it's disrupt-able - you take any damage in the wind-up, you spend the (considerable) mana cost and launch no attack. But it looks, at the start, like the other 2, you just hold the pose longer. Problem - most dodges last .2 seconds - unless your opponent dodged instantly, there is a non-zero chance you'll launch this sucker before they can get a damage ability out to peg you, because we are playing without animation cancels in this scenario, unless the opponent is an archer, and thus have a 0 speed ranged attack. Won't ever be able to pull the move off again in this fight without some serious mucking, but you did just get off a guaranteed hit for massive damage - not a bad nuke. The balance assumes no animation canceling (At least on dodges), and revolves around people being more familiar with the lower levels to perform an effective feint to get the skill out. It's a Batman Gambit move, in essence - you make a play based on what you know the opponent will do, because the previous two levels trained them to do the single worst thing they could against this one, run away.

I'd honestly be a bit worried about fairness, except you can't use more than 1 variation, so you can't chuck Level 3, and then spam level 1 to get back that trained reflex - that's also a balance. You want to use it more often? Build a skill set that let's you stay safe for that duration. And watch out for archers, who can poke with both speed and range, and anyone using a poke-nova (a spell with low damage but massive AoE - something to find you, or at least disrupt you because it hits Everything; At which point your goal is to trick someone into spending their nova and then take advantage of it's cooldown to get your shot off. more skill in playing, less "skill" from in-game "power"). Conversely, your opponent might consider using 1 of the few dodges that are shorter than normal (in both distance and time taken), so they are fast enough to dodge a level 1, don't go far enough to run afoul of the level 2, and comes out of it fast enough to actually close on you if it's actually level 3. Hope your tool kit can handle that! XD

And that would be the point - the ability to craft a viable custom skill set, that plays in a way that the player likes, while at the same time preventing any build from being "the best" build. Having animation cancels to produce feints is one option, but it is far from the only one - what needs to happen, is that the devs need to decide what they want the balance to be - animation cancels encourage faster play, while locked animations require more precise play (because a miss leaves you more vulnerable when you can't get out of it). One isn't better than the other, though I'm sure everyone will have a preference. And you are perfectly right that you don't need to have a cancel on every skill - Might be more interesting if only 1 or 2 schools could do it, for example; assassin comes to mind XD - but I much rather have the decision be a decision, with the devs walking into it with open eyes, rather than the way it seems in most cases, where something went wrong, and they decided to call the bug a feature.

@jetah "we had that" - when? Or, more precisely, which "we?"

we who are waiting for Fractured clearly haven't, in that we haven't played it yet...

much confusion

I had an idea, back on a legendary equipment discussion, that the equipment becomes legendary because of what players have done with it, not what it's made of - you held off an Eclipse raid for 3 hours, and so your shield becomes the Legendary "Guard of Hestron" with a bit of lore on the shield that more or less proclaims the awesomeness of Calburn, Who Held at Demon Broke Pass, and some lore related to the event, suitably written. (main point was that Legendaries didn't degrade, so the lore they represented became permanent)

So, a later "historian" could go find all of Calburn's gear, and put together a story of how this hero lived, based on the legends left on his stuff. Of course, Legendary gear is sought out because it's unbreakable - handy for the 10 hour asteroid raid your guild is doing XD - and rare because you have to do something that impresses the Devs, which, yes, means a certain amount of moderation involved that I don't know if they have the time for, even post-launch, but, it is a thought.

The other idea I'd propose, vis lore, is something I'm stealing from "Yasei no last boss ga arawareta" - in it, players write "Chronicles" - sort of after-action reports on what happened in game, which then are incorporated into the lore. So - you write a Chronicle about the fall of an Empire, and some weeks later, the NPCs will start talking about how "the Empire has fallen, and what does this mean?" There are some basic requirements for writing, and if you write an outright lie, you get banned from writing further ones, and obviously the Devs have to have someone curate and distill a chronicle to implement it in game - cause while I love you all, I wouldn't trust any of you to write a game update directly XD - but as an idea, I really liked it. Figure on everyone starting out as a possible Historian, and then restrict it down to a manageable number by launch - like, a guild has 1 official Historian, rather than everyone in the guild writing, so you don't get 52 accounts of that one time Brezden tripped and fell into the beer barrel XD And maybe anyone can post a Chronicle, but they only get favored as an official one if enough people approve of it, or something, before going to the community manager for uptake?

@ekadzati naw, it was a fun opinion. Now, there is a reason the "abyss" between PvP and PvE exists, quite secondary to a lack of social contract - there is "will" - but more on that in a second.

When in a strictly pvp setting, such as Overwatch, Call of Duty, or Team Fortress2, there is an understood contract, that everyone there wants to attack, and accepts the risk of being attacked. This leads to a fairly harmonious environment, because everyone has similar expectations, trash talk and general toxicity aside XD.

There are 2 groups in the PvE-only camp - the ones who do not desire the risk of harm, and those who do not desire to harm others. Or, more bluntly, those who do not have the will to accept a risk of loss, and those who lack the will to inflict loss on others, or have a will that opposes the injury of others. As the seriousness of potential harm rises, both groups more forcefully retreat from such conflicts, or more aggressively petition for it's removal. While your point on authenticity of the experience is valid, and, more to the point, critical to the development of the genre as a whole, this does not negate the fear either group feels, nor does it invalidate those emotions that serve as it's basis. Your improved capacity to acknowledge and mitigate the circumstance through knowledge is an excellent one - but it's a logical construct, not an emotional one, and thus has only a limited effect on someone's gut reaction to the idea of "at any time, anywhere, your life can be taken" - never mind that it's a digital life, and that it isn't actually accurate - most people can't handle that that is equally true in real life, either, so asking them to accept it as part of a past time, when they didn't explicitly sign-up for that risk, isn't easy.

More to the point, the logical case is suppositional, and demonstratively not entirely true. Yes, implementing intelligent systems to properly express risks is valuable - if it works. It should work, there's no reason why it can't, but it isn't in existence yet, and any human can tell you, we can botch almost anything XD so, while this ideal system is potentially possible, no one can put much faith into that possibility until it's actually realized. Secondly, the natural assumption is that people who want to avoid violence will leave an area that is filled with it, or otherwise make useful changes based on the evidence provided.

but we still have people building houses on flood plains, even after they've been flood out to the point of total loss, repeatedly. Maybe it's an issue of resources - can't move - or pride/stubborness - won't move - or even sentimentality; but people make such illogical decisions all the time, and repeat them even when it's been demonstrated that this wasn't the best solution available.

This also ignores certain meta-aspects. For example, if "everyone" knows that location A is a crime-ridden mess, and Location B is safe, everyone will move to location B - not just the non-criminals, but the criminals, too - after all, can't be a thief if there's no one to steal from. Static formations don't respond to fluid dynamics, and the devs in particular can't resolve an issue that organically arises from player actions, except by doing something extreme...like creating Arboreus, in this case - a place that is fundamentally made to make such actions Very Difficult, but rather forcibly makes that abyss of yours reality, instead of just conceptual. And a fair number of people are quite happy to live on that divide, because that it their will. If you are after a social contract, Arboreus is the equivalent of a grumpy old man saying "we don't want your kind around here, git off our property" while waving a shotgun. Yes, there is an implicit contract, but it's not really what you'd call a "sociable one" XD which I find even funnier, because this divorce is made in the name of being more friendly XD just one of those little ironies XD

(full disclosure, I'm going to be on Arboreus, at least initially XD. don't intend to stay there, but it's going to be home base)

A number of your articles commented on the subject of the difference, and breadth, of potential PvP scenarios, which thankfully we should see at least occasionally in Fractured, and the lack of upward growth answers a lot of the issues mentioned, so, over all, I think Fractured will advance PvP in MMOs by a good margin, but until they have successfully implemented everything, and shown the anti-PvP groups that there is more to it than a random ganker hiding in the bushes, taking joy in their suffering, there won't be a lot of faith in that development. (doesn't mean they shouldn't try - just that the devs ought to expect a lot of ambivalence, uncertainty, and hostility - new things are scary)

@ekadzati You might enjoy Wakfu, then - most areas have various resources, and an ideal level for these resources - "Wakfu" is the in-universe term for "energy in balance" - maintaining Wakfu gives a character certain benefits, while driving nature out of balance and "going to the dark-side" has a similar enhancement in the other direction - so, if maintaining a particular coast's balance improves your water defense, breaking it might enhance your fire offense, and so on (not an actual example from the game, but it's an easy to grasp example). Besides the obvious - over-harvest plants mean no more plants, for example - it could also caused monster mobs to spawn less often, and to act more aggressively, because they are starving. Place too many trees could have an opposite effect - too many mobs, and mobs that ran away, or refused to fight

Not to put too much of a damper on things, but if pre-alpha has been pushed back as far as it has, then it's probable that alpha is also going to be pushed back, too - I'm not saying that they'll miss December, but it is probable to miss December 1st.

I'm suprised the poll didn't read

• Yes
• Of Course
• Aren't they already?
• A more perfect world has never been described
• I want this more than the game

You seem like a smart, capable, and non-despotic liege, so, I'd like to join in, too! The Immortal Sollarium pledges to your township.

The other races are much more complicated.

To start with, they run an 8 point deficit to humans in the best case scenario - humans can do 4 18's, while the non-humans flat out can't (it would cost 108 points, and that's if one of those 4 is the "favored" stat). Using their race powers helps with that problem, to some extent, but you need to be using a build that benefits from it - a blood demon that doesn't do damage can't get buffs, so their racial power goes to waste when they are a pure support/healer, for example (As I understand it, based on what's been written about their powers).

Further, there is the matter of them having variable stat limits. A Hellfire can't put an 18 into Perception, so a decent build might involve 2 18's (including their favored stat), 2 16's, an 8, and a 6, just because the build they are aiming for doesn't really need a dex 18, and they'd rather make sure that they get no penalty in knowledge growth. Conversely, a Hellfire that maxes out their "best" stats (21 Str and Con), might round it out with a 14, 10, 8, and 6, again using the +2 int skill to keep their growth up.

Which is a point in itself. While humans generally can come by a 10 to slot in intelligence (for a non-mage) pretty easily, the non-humans are going to look at that 8(+2) strategy a lot harder, just because that's 2 points they can spend elsewhere at the start, and the +2 can be re-spent later as needed - the economy is different enough that it becomes "a thing."

Of special note are the Shadow and the Erwydan - maxing out their 3 good stats leaves them with no points left - their other 3 stats are all 6's. this locks these characters into being rogue/archers and generalist mages, respectively - they are QUITE good at those roles, but there are really sharp limits in their utility outside of them - neither can take a hit, for example.

Even still, here are some general point distributions.
3 18's (including favored stat), 11, 10, 6 - good focus, but...
2 18's (ifs), 2 16, 1 8, 1 6 -this one probably works better in that regard
2 18's (ifs), 1 15, 1 13, 1 10, 1 8 - decent build, +2 int skill for growth
1 18 (ifs), 4 14, 1 10 - same general idea as the best human jack of all trades
1 18 (ifs), 1 14, 4 13 - the other version of JoaT. both should work "okay"

and here are a couple playing up the 21 favored stat

1 21, 1 18, 1 16, 2 10, 6 - a superior focused build, in my opinion.
1 21, 2 16, 2 10, 8 - not so good, but it gets into that +2 int skill range
1 21, 3 13, 2 12 - Really, only Blood and Erwydan can make this work well - super int spell boosting to make up for mediocre stats everywhere else

OR a 20 in the favored stat (which still get you that bonus to start, so, not bad)

1 20, 1 18, 1 15, 2 10, 8 - probably better than either of the 21 versions, since it puts the character in line with that second bonus and get's you in range for that +2 int skill.

and that's about it, really. the double 21 on the Hellfire example is pretty much the best way to play raising anything other than your favored stat past 18 - it's effectively too expensive to have many variant options. You can get a second 8 if you have a 21 and a 20, instead of 2 21...but there's only 1 stat that benefits from being 8, so...and there isn't a notable benefit to having a 19, as such, so you're better off spending those 4 points elsewhere. If you disagree, let me know!

Anyway, as mentioned, Erwydra and Blood are the best options for going for a spell-boosted jack of all trades, in my opinion, since they naturally get enough intelligence to make up for the notable lower stat spread everywhere else. Shadow might be able to manage it, but pulling an 18 outside of their favored stat is painful enough that the spread won't be good - better to go for a focus build that gets supplemented with spell boosting.

Max'ing the best stats in each race is a build strategy (for everyone other than Chadra and Unouadra; again, 19 scores don't seem to have a point), but it leads to very limited options, in my opinion - Shadow, Erwydra, and Blood all fail to have enough Con if you play to their strengths, and Cheendra and Hellfire, at their "best," belong nowhere else. Fun to play, and unrivaled their roles, but they have trouble being anything "more" than those roles.

in the end, playing to the powers of the species makes for a better build direction, I think, using either the 20 build spread, or the 2 18, 15, 13, 10, 8 to focus on the races nature in some fashion. Chadra, Udodra, Blood, and Shadow have the most "neutral" bonuses, so they'll work better in these spreads for the widest number of options (Hellfire need to be hit to get their bonus, which excludes them from range work, Nheedra are gifted towards melee in a different way). Erwydra could, in theory, play in melee as a rouge, but a lot of it depends on properly using their hart form - a problem if a battle goes to long, or occurs too often; it would take exceptional skill, in my opinion.

@gothix Kralith joins one phase after Jetah. Conflict ensues XD

Welcome to our 2 newest members!

@kralith I think that you have a pretty good point - a pvp'er here for glory is going to be a very happy camper, since execution and tactics are going to be so critical...though hopefully they don't actually camp 9_9 XD I think Fibs has a point too, though - This game's balance does discourage those looking to bully or loot - unlike most games, attacking a new player is actually risky still, while there is very limited loot and xp to acquire, hurting the viability of grouping for a many-on-one hunt to swing the odds. I mean, it will still probably happen - there are sufficient jerks in the world at large XD but not to the degree found in some games. (personally, I like the glory pvp'ers. they generally seem to handle losses gracefully...about 50% of the time XD but, seriously, if someone is dueling for the challenge, I love having them around)