Goblin Squad Member
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I also would humbly like to ask if someone could make what has been said about Orisons and slots and wand-like charges and power and Stamina more clear, possibly in a graphical way.
Maybe a mockup of the UI, with the different kinds of slots, which goes where, which ones use Power or Stamina, where the charged items go, the Wondrous items and such.
Am I correct in thinking that some slots contain an item/spell that can only be expended once during a fight? Or depending on charges? Or available Power?
If there are one-use spells/items then maybe these will be the ones that a Cleric uses to cure injuries? That way you would not really have to "manage" two bars, but just make a decision at one point during the fight if the injured partymember will survive the fight with the way his injuries are going, or that you use your once-off Injury cure.
Out of combat, a Cleric could then use the spell, then recharge or re-slot it.
Ok, I am still swinging in the air here. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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...And we love square roots over here, so they're pretty sharply curved.
The nice thing about square roots is that once you start thinking of them as exponents, it becomes easy to fine-tune them.
ie. if [x^(0.5)] is just a little bit too steep, try [x^(0.45)]
The general mechanics sound fair: in TT the crit confirmation chance = hit chance, but you only crit on the very highest attack rolls, so linking it to margin of success is good.
QUESTION: Will there be rogue talents allowing inflicting 'injury damage' on sneak attacks? What about assassins?
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Goblin Squad Member
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As for clerics that will choose negative energy, I understand you want healers to be able to heal injuries. Is the opposite true as well? Will negative energy clerics be able to inflict injuries? Or is the plan for negative energy just to be HP based damage during fights and all injury healing ability will be able to be cast by any cleric?
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Goblin Squad Member
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There was alot of discussion about Clerics healing and emphasis on them not standing in the back and instead up in the mix healing and bashing things. That's cool.
What I hope is that the GW team doesn't get blinders on cleric spells and focusing on only the healing aspects. I would hope to see many of the offensive cleric spells in the game as well as the "buffs" and "debuffs" and utilities. Bane, Entropic Shield, Obscuring Mists, Dispel Magic, Flame Strike, etc.
The whole thing was curiously named 'Thunderstrike': I suspect it may be a subtle clue...
I have a concern about early access game time. Is Goblinworks really making you pay for time in early enrollment? They've said that it will be fairly featureless at first and that the major goal is crowd-sourced development. $15/month for playing in an empty sandbox to help the developer is a bit steep.
really liked that injure system and the fact that clerics will not be heal bots in this game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Pandora's
Well, several tiers come with 2-4 months of game time(some are original Kickstarter tiers).
A part of it is paying for the privilege of being there from day 1 and seeing (and helping) the game take form. There are also no wipes of your character though something unforeseen can always happen off course.
However you will also already be accumulating XP(and thus skills) from day 1. Because you pay directly for your characters XP in PFO, you start to add "value" to your character from day 1, even if you only start in the Minimal Viable Product. So you are buying into something tangible from day 1. That is how I see it from a dollar viewpoint. It is not really like a 18-month headstart though, because PFO's powercurve is less steep and characters also develop into more versatility instead of just up, up.
In case of a wipe due to some unforeseen disaster I would assume that you get to re-apply the earned xp on a new character, but that is just me guessing.
The most exiting part is that new features will be added constantly during EE, and you are there to experience it all. Really looking forward to that, and 15 dollars a month is finally worth it again (for me).
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Goblin Squad Member
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What part of that seems like it is too much? The characters aren’t going to be wiped, you get to keep the xp and things you earn. Is it a choice to play early with not everything turned on? Yes but it doesn’t seem too steep of a price if you are interested in the game over a long period of time. Even a casual player would spend 8-10 hours per week, which works out to like .30 or .40 cent an hour for the month. Not many activities I can think of give me 40-50 hours of entertainment for $15 a month.
I would much rather folks interested in playing the game for a long time than a free version or free to play players running around with no vested interest in how the game turns out. Having to pay to play at least will keep those participating vested in the outcome of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have a concern about early access game time. Is Goblinworks really making you pay for time in early enrollment? They've said that it will be fairly featureless at first and that the major goal is crowd-sourced development. $15/month for playing in an empty sandbox to help the developer is a bit steep.
If ever I've seen the perfect 'handle' + avatar.
I believe you can decide to delay spending your time and wait and choose when to join; when more features come online. There's two ways of looking at it:
1. Early: Small sociable community, invest in your characters, participate in crowdforging development direction of PFO, sandbox make your own content.
2. Later: More features and systems aka more content, better production values, more bang for your buck (if assessing your investment risk), more formal and established ways to join the game, more roles to choose from.
One of the things to consider for EE is that there is only subs to limit player numbers, select players and also the MTX option takes a lot of extra work that depends on a more established game. Finally EE will involve bug fixes, rollbacks and the odd randomness. But you do get the reward of playing the game early with a founder population (I personally think this final point is the most valuable aspect). But to discuss the reason for a sub for EE: Goblinworks blogs:
Our vision for a next-gen design relies on the idea that players create content for themselves in their interactions with one another. That enables us to focus on designing systems rather than content. That allows us to speed up the release dramatically. But it also means that we'll have a fairly small space ready for the players to experience, so we'll carefully regulate the initial size and growth rate of the game to achieve a good balance of character diversity and density. It's the opposite of the theme park feedback loop. The better the sandbox systems are at making interaction between players interesting, the fewer players we need in the game to make it fun to play, which means we need less content and can get the game out faster.
The game that we deliver on Day 1 will be small, bit not empty. It will then grow every couple of weeks as new systems and content are rolled out. The prioritization and mechanics of those additions will reflect the input of the community, and so the game will reflect the sum of many contributors' inputs.
The Early Enrollment Development Process
Every few weeks we will be adding more content and systems to the game. Some things are obvious: More hexes, a new monster type, new items, or establishing basic settlement-building functionality. Other things are more subtle, such as adding a more complicated crafting system or more elaborate quests. Some things will be really subtle, such as balancing changes to existing game components or changes to the way the game injects coin or subtracts coin.
The Early Enrollees will be deeply involved with all these changes. Our intention is to make the roadmap very public so that everyone knows what is currently being worked on, in what order, and what the estimated delivery timeframes are. Those priorities will be set partly in conjunction with player input. And there will be a continuous feedback loop with the players to help us fine-tune the many variables of the game, helping to avoid unintended consequences and exploits.
As Early Enrollment unfolds, you'll find more and more "stuff to do" in Pathfinder Online, and the game space itself will get larger and larger as we add more hexes. The kinds of things your character can do will deepen and become a richer experience. And the environment will change, as more and more creatures and resources are added.
[...]
People who join us as early as possible in Early Enrollment are going to have a heck of a ride. They're going to see how a MMO is built from the inside out, and have a direct participatory role in making that happen. Others may choose to wait until more of the game is fleshed out and they can engage in a way closer to their "ideal vision" of how to play... and that's absolutely OK as well. When Pathfinder Online has developed to the point where they feel comfortable "getting on the bus," we'll be ready to welcome them aboard.
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Although I like the idea if injury points as a resource manage mechanic, I'm not sure if I'm keen for spike damage to be dropped for PvE. The visceral feeling of bit hits are what make combat interesting - both in MMOs and on the tabletop.
A long time ago it was mentioned that crits work differently for PVE than PVP. Instead of long term debuffs (now changed to injury points) like in PVP, PVE crits just added extra damage. It was never stated how much extra damage though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Although I like the idea if injury points as a resource manage mechanic, I'm not sure if I'm keen for spike damage to be dropped for PvE. The visceral feeling of bit hits are what make combat interesting - both in MMOs and on the tabletop.A long time ago it was mentioned that crits work differently for PVE than PVP. Instead of long term debuffs (now changed to injury points) like in PVP, PVE crits just added extra damage. It was never stated how much extra damage though.
...
5. If the result of the roll plus the attack bonus equaled or exceeded the target's defense, the attack does full damage and has a chance to be a critical hit. This is a separate randomized calculation that compares the attack's crit rating to the target's crit resistance. A critical hit doesn't do more damage, but instead applies an injury that debilitates the target for some time. NPCs (who wouldn't care about long-term drawbacks) immediately expend injuries for additional damage.
I thought I remembered this meant that when I got a Critical Hit against an NPC I would do extra damage instead of applying an Injury, but when an NPC got a Critical Hit against me it would still apply an Injury. However, re-reading it now, I'm not so sure.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What part of that seems like it is too much? The characters aren’t going to be wiped, you get to keep the xp and things you earn. Is it a choice to play early with not everything turned on? Yes but it doesn’t seem too steep of a price if you are interested in the game over a long period of time. Even a casual player would spend 8-10 hours per week, which works out to like .30 or .40 cent an hour for the month. Not many activities I can think of give me 40-50 hours of entertainment for $15 a month.
I would much rather folks interested in playing the game for a long time than a free version or free to play players running around with no vested interest in how the game turns out. Having to pay to play at least will keep those participating vested in the outcome of the game.
I don't think there is any doubt that there are people who will pay for what is perceived as a head start in a sandbox PvP game they think is going to be successful and Goblinworks has bet the house on it. It's the "marketing study" Ryan prolly won't show us ;)
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It seems like if they didn't have some people saying "this is too much money!" then GW would have an issue. Because after all they don't want every person in there at month 1 of EE, what with the limited launch, so if they can find the nice balance where they can extract the most money while keeping the right number of players they'll be in a happy place.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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The original system for PvE injuries was inspired by the newest Warhammer tabletop RPG, where you had wound cards that had crit results on the back that contained a description of a negative effect and a level. NPCs would generally just take additional wound cards instead of the negative effect, since their lifespan tended to be measured in a round or two anyway. Our plan was to do something similar: each injury would have a point value that would be translated into direct HP damage for the monster.
Under the new system, dropping below the injury threshold is likely to be meaningful to creatures in a way that it wasn't before (since it's one big penalty rather than a bunch of small ones). They'll probably drop under it well toward the end of their life, but if something took you a little while to get down and there are other things to deal with, you might consider leaving it crippled for a moment to focus on other threats rather than taking the time right now to finish it off. And for tough creatures/bosses, getting it down to its crippled state after a long and hard fight may be a really useful time where suddenly the fight swings your way.
But we'll see how it goes in playtesting and assume that we may flip it back to expending it as damage if it's rarely meaningful that you've critted on a creature.
Either way, creature crits against players will build injury, not do extra damage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How serious of a penalty is it for having more injury points than current hit points? I imagine it has to be pretty significant in order for the system to be meaningful and people to actually want to get crit heavy gear.
Edit: Naively, some example penalties:
-10 attack, -10 reflex: really not a huge effect
Lose access to all your keywords: painful
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want my character to be as close to Pathfinder's tabletop Witch class as possible. Witches have the ability to both do damage and heal. I know that in Pathfinder Online there will be no classes, so will I be able to train in both healing (touch based) spells and also long-range DPS spells?
My reasoning for this question stems from confusion from the video: "clerics will be medium armor wearing melee oriented characters" (paraphrased). But, if there are no classes, then who's to say what a Cleric can really do or be? What kinds of things will give me incentive to train my cleric as you described them? Or maybe, a better way to try and word my point: what's stopping me from leveling both cleric spells and wizard spells?
Thanks in advance for the replies!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want my character to be as close to Pathfinder's tabletop Witch class as possible. Witches have the ability to both do damage and heal. I know that in Pathfinder Online there will be no classes, so will I be able to train in both healing (touch based) spells and also long-range DPS spells?
My reasoning for this question stems from confusion from the video: "clerics will be medium armor wearing melee oriented characters" (paraphrased). But, if there are no classes, then who's to say what a Cleric can really do or be? What kinds of things will give me incentive to train my cleric as you described them? Or maybe, a better way to try and word my point: what's stopping me from leveling both cleric spells and wizard spells?
Thanks in advance for the replies!
Think of a "class" as a related set of skills you can train with a common theme. When you slot abilities you get a dedication bonus if you only slot abilities from one "class" (and abilities which are common to several classes and general skills).
So what's to stop you from learning both wizard and cleric spells? Absolutely nothing. You can freely do it. They won't go on the same implement though. You can equip two implements at a time. So one could be a holy symbol and the other a spellbook. You'd lose out on a dedication bonus though.
Since training is time based you won't be the most powerful wizard or cleric if you split training between the classes compared to someone who dedicates themselves to just one. You'd have more versatility at the cost of overall power.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want my character to be as close to Pathfinder's tabletop Witch class as possible. Witches have the ability to both do damage and heal. I know that in Pathfinder Online there will be no classes, so will I be able to train in both healing (touch based) spells and also long-range DPS spells?
My reasoning for this question stems from confusion from the video: "clerics will be medium armor wearing melee oriented characters" (paraphrased). But, if there are no classes, then who's to say what a Cleric can really do or be? What kinds of things will give me incentive to train my cleric as you described them? Or maybe, a better way to try and word my point: what's stopping me from leveling both cleric spells and wizard spells?
Thanks in advance for the replies!
Think of a "class" as a related set of skills you can train with a common theme. When you slot abilities you get a dedication bonus if you only slot abilities from one "class" (and abilities which are common to several classes and general skills).
So what's to stop you from learning both wizard and cleric spells? Absolutely nothing. You can freely do it. They won't go on the same implement though. You can equip two implements at a time. So one could be a holy symbol and the other a spellbook. You'd lose out on a dedication bonus though.
Since training is time based you won't be the most powerful wizard or cleric if you split training between the classes compared to someone who dedicates themselves to just one. You'd have more versatility at the cost of overall power.
Thank you!
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Goblin Squad Member
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T7V is currently making a wiki. The library of something or other. it is going to be a long process cause they only got like two guys
What!? I appreciate the plug, but that's way off. There are 15 users who have contributed to our wiki so far. Most of them are still active on these forums, and I hope they'll continue to contribute - especially once we get a head of steam in Alpha.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@nihimon
Front page, welcoming paragraph:
Welcome to the Library of the Cæruxi. This library is divided into a number of Choruses that serve as categories for information. The Acts of Creation and Destruction, The Searches of Exploration and Contemplation, The Metamorphsoses of Magic and Nature, and the Mysteries. Remember! the wiki is in its infancy with a minimal staff of authors(two of us), many pages are not created, empty, or half written. If you want to help and are not a member of The Seventh Veil, you can apply as a scribe here
That is what I am talking about xD
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Goblin Squad Member
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While the focus on touch based heals makes me very happy I have to say the injury system makes me a bit concerned.
From playtesting, does it feel like a innovative system or does it feel like keeping track of twice as many bars?
I'm also concerned because the change from debuffs to a meter seems to streamline the whole process. While streamlining is in itself not a problem IIRC injures where intended to be a long term effect that would have you stop fighting and deal with it. Now it sounds like dealing with an injury is casting a spell that would increase the health meter or casting a spell to decrease the injury meter.
Papaver I'm not sure I have a clear grasp of your question. Would you expand and perhaps illustrate? Suppose a hypothetical or two?
If ever I've seen the perfect 'handle' + avatar.
I believe you can decide to delay spending your time and wait and choose when to join; when more features come online. There's two ways of looking at it:
1. Early: Small sociable community, invest in your characters, participate in crowdforging development direction of PFO, sandbox make your own content.
2. Later: More features and systems aka more content, better production values, more bang for your buck (if assessing your investment risk), more formal and established ways to join the game, more roles to choose from.One of the things to consider for EE is that there is only subs to limit player numbers, select players and also the MTX option takes a lot of extra work that depends on a more established game. Finally EE will involve bug fixes, rollbacks and the odd randomness. But you do get the reward of playing the game early with a founder population (I personally think this final point is the most valuable aspect). But to discuss the reason for a sub for EE: Goblinworks blogs:
Intentional, I assure you.
If they manage to deliver what they suggest in the quotes you posted, they will likely be fine. They should still be careful of burning out players with subscription costs when relatively little content exists. While it was not a sandbox, The Old Republic hemorrhaged subscriptions when players quickly ran out of stuff to do. However, I am continually amazed by how much money some players will put out to have an advantage, so between power gamers and dedicated crowd-forgers, they may maintain their ideal EE playerbase. I really hope Goblinworks rewards those players by letting them truly affect the game's development.
Unfortunately, I won't have time to play during EE anyway, so money is a moot point personally.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But you do get the reward of playing the game early with a founder population (I personally think this final point is the most valuable aspect).
Well on behalf of several, perhaps many others, Thank you Avena. Please be certain that your sentiment is returned with full heart.
@Nightdrifter - exactly.
Sure, but that doesn't really get to the previous poster's question about Witches, not Wizard/Cleric multiclasses.
In initial releases, niche classes like Witches will certainly not exist, same for Bards or Sorcerors or Monks apparently.
Which is fine and good. But it seems that the plan is for those roles to EVENTUALLY be implemented.
By that time, a good number of characters will have been built "approximating" those role abilities in other ways.
Given that, when those roles are released, can we expect them to be built in a way that is intentionally
"backwards compatable" to the ad-hoc "approximations" characters would have used up to that point?
For example, a character would have trained wizard and cleric stuff. When Witch is released,
would those investments carry over to Witch progression at something CLOSE to the efficiency of a pure Witch build?
Exact equality isn't really the most important thing, since earlier "pseudo Witches" will be ahead by XP/etc anyways,
but it seems that things like Witch implements should be compatable with the Wizard/Cleric spells/abilities that are similar to Witch abilities.
Any Cleric/Wizard features that DON'T map to Witch of course shouldn't be especially compatable with Witch implements/abilities,
but those that are seem like they SHOULD be easy to interface with further Witch ability progression,
as well as not needing you to train Witch abilities which basically just do the same thing as the Cleric/Wizard abilities you already have,
i.e. "Witch Cure 2" would take "Witch Cure 1" OR "Cleric Cure 1" as a pre-req (etc), and I assume the reverse would also apply,
for when future characters start out in Witch but wish to "dip" in Cleric for some e.g. Cure-focused abilities.
Based on tabletop, Witches would get such abilities slower, so they would have higher XP/rank requirements,
but the basic Cure Feat seems like it should fully translate.
Given that PFO is technically a "class-less" system, it seems like this sort of thing would be how it works anyways,
any overlap in abilities between roles would tend to BE the exact same abilities, and thus cross-role compatable.
Implements that tie in to specific abilities largely shouldn't care what role that ability is coming from, etc.
Under the new system, dropping below the injury threshold is likely to be meaningful to creatures in a way that it wasn't before (since it's one big penalty rather than a bunch of small ones). They'll probably drop under it well toward the end of their life, but if something took you a little while to get down and there are other things to deal with, you might consider leaving it crippled for a moment to focus on other threats rather than taking the time right now to finish it off. And for tough creatures/bosses, getting it down to its crippled state after a long and hard fight may be a really useful time where suddenly the fight swings your way.
I would say that from what I've heard, equivalence on the PVP/PVE sides seems the most appropriate. As you say, in most cases of "fresh" (NPC) enemies you will just see the Injury penalties crop up at the end of a fight, in effect front-loading the difficult part of combat... But that actually sounds like a fair dynamic to me, and I don't see why there should be a difference there in PVE compared to PVP.
The idea that you may switch your focus to a different enemy once one enemy is Crippled (? good name for "past Injury threshold" ?) is interesting, and also creates further "long tail" tactical scenarios, such as when more reinforcements with healing DO finally arrive and can heal up those still-alive characters, or if those Crippled characters do have unique abilities that still function well when Crippled and help turn the tide of the battle. (If they're being ignored, a Crippled character could very well take actions that normally aren't done "in combat")
That's also not mentioning the possibility of NPC enemies who AREN'T fresh, who are carrying some injuries around, either baked-in (lower relative Injury threshhold as balance factor and/or simply context appropriateness) or as persistent data from previous encounters. There is also the healing factor, if the NPCs have HP healing mid-fight then they will be reaching the Injury threshold earlier in the fight, and/or the Injuries will be forcing their hand to give up HP healing in favor of Injury healing. If you make Injuries work differently for them, then that dynamic is removed, and they can just leverage HP healing to the max.
It also doesn't seem like a good focus of dev resources to develop an NPC variant on Injury effects, especially when it will have to "interface" with the same array of Crit/Injury optimization mechanics via equipment/ability/etc that PCs (and other NPCs) will be using.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Watched the video. Good stuff, especially since I'll spend a great deal of time clericing.
Making sure I got the full description of the conversation: There will be a "Holy Symbol" which can be slotted with major spells and is the equivalent of a mage's spellbook. These spells are the "signature" spells used by clerics such as restoring health (hit points), healing injuries (removing critical hits), curing diseases and neutralizing poisons.
The "Phylactery" will be filled with minor spells called "orisons" and is used as a weapon in order to expend these minor spells. The cost for using these is "stamina".
"Situational Slots" are filled with utility spells which can be used several times per fight and consume "power" instead of stamina.
Regarding a different word for "phylactery" for clerics, how about these options:
Good aligned clerics might use a "charm, periapt or amulet"
Neutral clerics could wield a "talisman, amulet or lodestone"
Evil clerics could use "juju beads, fetish or totem"
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CEO, Goblinworks
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@Quandry - I will say we're explicitly not going to try and make future development backwards compatible with how people have approximated various classes from the tabletop game.
We just cannot make that kind of commitment. If we open that door, every time we add a new feature that doesn't exactly match people's expectations on how something would or should work, we'll face a tsunami of people wanting respecs, XP refunds, and monetary refunds. It always ends up with bad feelings all around.
If you want to play a class of some kind and that role is not implemented in the game, you should either wait to make that character, or expect that when the role is added (if it is ever added) it will likely not work like you imagined it would. That way you won't have to confront the difference between your expectations and the reality.
Frankly, I think it is likely that crowdforging will move us away from implementing roles outside the core book. We could add generalized features and abilities that many characters could potentially use, or we could make something very specialized that only a few would use. The burden will be on the community to convince a lot of other people to support their niche at the expense of stuff more broadly useable, and that will be a tough pitch.
@Hardin:
I don't see what is especially 'Evil' connotation about juju/fetish/totem, those seem more simply codes for 'primitivism'.
Those terms are broadly used for Neutral and even Good magic in Pathfinder/Golarion.
I don't like the Phylatery term myself,
perhaps better would be Holy Symbol + Prayer Book? (even though it doesn't work like Wizard Spellbooks exactly)
Tring to have terms for each specific alignment doesn't seem ideal, just Deities have distinct flavor within each Alignment,
you can have savage/civilized/etc within all of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos.
Heck, all Dieties have Favored Weapons, so the Favored Weapon could have both divine magical and mundane combat usage, as the pair to the Holy Symbol.
@Quandry - I will say we're explicitly not going to try and make future development backwards compatible with how people have approximated various classes from the tabletop game.
We just cannot make that kind of commitment. If we open that door, every time we add a new feature that doesn't exactly match people's expectations on how something would or should work, we'll face a tsunami of people wanting respecs, XP refunds, and monetary refunds. It always ends up with bad feelings all around.
Sure, and I was even going to write something like "of course, nobody can know exactly what specific abilities will map to a future class role just based on "fluff", so you could never confidently plan to "ensure" 100% compatability", but left it out for space reasons.
I wasn't so much asking about some rock-solid commitment, as about general design considerations... The original questioner, Nevy, was asking about Witches (which I thought MAY eventually be implemented directly even if not for forseeable future), but the same issue exists well within "Core" with Bards who mix Cures with Arcane magic (or even "Celestial Bloodline" Sorcerors with Cures), which seems to me much more likely to be "done" at a certain point, even if not initially. Likewise, Druids have alot of overlap with Clerics and may even worship the same Gods, although there an existing "Nature Cleric" may just approach newly released Druid abilities more like a "Prestige Class" if the basic spellcasting is fully compatable.
The issue of whether"Implements" would work with identical abilities from different Roles*, or identical abilities from different Roles counting towards Feat Pre-Reqs regardless of the new Feat's Role typing** is distinct from a "grander" idea of a multi-class approximation 100% translating to a new class role... 100% translation isn't needed (and people can't truly plan for it anyways unless GW announces ahead of time exactly what abilities will be shared which is absurd), but some level of compatability seem desirable even if everything isn't (the other part just ends being like other multiclass abilities which distinguish you from a full Witch/Bard/etc). ...And that's relevant even for people not trying to "simulate" another class, but just for those mixing Class/Role abilities, e.g. Bard/Cleric, Bard/Wizard, Cleric/CelestialSorceror.
* Of course, "working with" qualifying abilities from a different role doesn't mean the Implements would be the SAME, even if they "intersect" in terms of compatability with certain things. A Cleric Implement would potentially do all sorts of other stuff that a Bard Implement would not do, and vice versa, there may be advanced Cleric Implements that augment Cures a certain way, and likewise for other unique Bard Implements... That isn't affected by whether or not you can use Cleric/Bard Cure with those Implements, or use Cleric/Bard Cure to qualify for the other's Class Role's next tier of Cure.
** Obviously, there may be other pre-reqs such as Role Level/ X # of Role Feats, but if your other Class' Cure can qualify for that part of the pre-req you then don't need to "duplicate" Feats but can spend the Role Level requirement in other Class Abilities, which is kind of a minimum level of 'non-suckiness' for characters that deal with where those two Roles meet.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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The plan right now is that each "role" (class) has a Key Object. Bound to the Key Object are various character abilities that map to the class features of the tabletop classes. You can have two Key Objects equipped, and you can switch between them instantly. So a multi-class Pathfinder Online character is one that has the Key Object for two different roles equipped.
However, that means that you've made a significant tradeoff. While having the Key Object for a role in one set of slots gives you access to that role's feature set, you might want to put something other than a Key Object in the other set of slots. Like a ranged weapon, or a harvesting tool, or a different version of the Key Object for the same role (Maybe you want a sword that has keywords useful against undead in one set of slots, and a sword that has keywords useful against oozes in the other, for example).
The ability to mix & match these Key Objects is how we approximate multiclassing. We can blur those distinctions even further if we make Key Objects that class role boundaries - a Key Object useful to both a Cleric and a Rogue, for example, that isn't as focused as one built for just one role, but creates interesting synergies that might make the item worth using for some characters.
Then you consider the wide range of things like armor, magical items in the ring, head, cloak, boot, and belt slots, and how those objects affect your character and potential provide additional slottable abilities, and you get rapidly into a fractal space where characters can be highly divergent.
What we're not going to try to do is create well-defined role templates out of those combos. Players may do so on their own initiative, but we're not going to be held to them - what you do in terms of how you build out your character is your own choice, it's not a blueprint endorsed by us.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks for the vlog Stephen and Lee. Different presentations always good in my book. The influence and reference to TT definitely inspires the promise of tactical combat that already exists in the TT, so I hope you guys are finding success with this approach, it seems to resonate with the players of the TT (TT games in general) here already, which is perhaps the most important group of players for PFO??
I second the sentiment about the desire for tactical combat, although I've not played TT Pathfinder. I've seen many comments on other message boards with players lamenting the fact that PFO is going with a tab targeting system.
I'm fine with a tab targeting system if it forces a player to choose from different tactics. I would prefer to let die the system where all you do is press hotkeys 1 through 5 over and over in the same sequence, because there is no reason not to use your best skills ad nauseum. However, if you have to make a choice between the costly, high-damage attack or several smaller attacks or a utility skill that may tip the scales of the fight as well, then that's a battle worth fighting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The ability to mix & match these Key Objects is how we approximate multiclassing. We can blur those distinctions even further if we make Key Objects that class role boundaries - a Key Object useful to both a Cleric and a Rogue, for example, that isn't as focused as one built for just one role, but creates interesting synergies that might make the item worth using for some characters.
Thanks for that last bit. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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The plan right now is that each "role" (class) has a Key Object. Bound to the Key Object are various character abilities that map to the class features of the tabletop classes. You can have two Key Objects equipped, and you can switch between them instantly. So a multi-class Pathfinder Online character is one that has the Key Object for two different roles equipped.
However, that means that you've made a significant tradeoff. While having the Key Object for a role in one set of slots gives you access to that role's feature set, you might want to put something other than a Key Object in the other set of slots. Like a ranged weapon, or a harvesting tool, or a different version of the Key Object for the same role (Maybe you want a sword that has keywords useful against undead in one set of slots, and a sword that has keywords useful against oozes in the other, for example).
The ability to mix & match these Key Objects is how we approximate multiclassing. We can blur those distinctions even further if we make Key Objects that class role boundaries - a Key Object useful to both a Cleric and a Rogue, for example, that isn't as focused as one built for just one role, but creates interesting synergies that might make the item worth using for some characters.
Then you consider the wide range of things like armor, magical items in the ring, head, cloak, boot, and belt slots, and how those objects affect your character and potential provide additional slottable abilities, and you get rapidly into a fractal space where characters can be highly divergent.
What we're not going to try to do is create well-defined role templates out of those combos. Players may do so on their own initiative, but we're not going to be held to them - what you do in terms of how you build out your character is your own choice, it's not a blueprint endorsed by us.
Ok, so if someone is slotting a cleric key object and a fighter key object they would get bonuses or be able to use specific fighter and cleric skills. Now if this same person decided they wanted to stealth (for example) and forgot to switch in a rogue key item - could they still do it (albeit at a lower effectiveness)?
Frankly, I think it is likely that crowdforging will move us away from implementing roles outside the core book. We could add generalized features and abilities that many characters could potentially use, or we could make something very specialized that only a few would use. The burden will be on the community to convince a lot of other people to support their niche at the expense of stuff more broadly useable, and that will be a tough pitch.
So...what I'm getting from this is that Mammoth Riders probably won't be added until a month or so past OE. :(
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have a concern about early access game time. Is Goblinworks really making you pay for time in early enrollment? They've said that it will be fairly featureless at first and that the major goal is crowd-sourced development. $15/month for playing in an empty sandbox to help the developer is a bit steep.
My view is that i) if it's fun to play from day one, and/or ii) it looks like it may be more fun at some point then it's worth playing the sub.
We'll see how it goes when EE is released. The vision is worth investing in at the moment.
The other point I think is important - no MMO is static. New content and game mechanics change constantly. Otherwise they get stale and boring. PFO going with MVP/EE simply means you get to play it earlier - if you wish - and/or contribute to production of a game you like.
Complaining that you are paying for a "beta" (EE) product will not make the game come out faster. Just take up your EE option later in the cycle or wait until OE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The original system for PvE injuries was inspired by the newest Warhammer tabletop RPG, where you had wound cards that had crit results on the back that contained a description of a negative effect and a level. NPCs would generally just take additional wound cards instead of the negative effect, since their lifespan tended to be measured in a round or two anyway. Our plan was to do something similar: each injury would have a point value that would be translated into direct HP damage for the monster.
Under the new system, dropping below the injury threshold is likely to be meaningful to creatures in a way that it wasn't before (since it's one big penalty rather than a bunch of small ones). They'll probably drop under it well toward the end of their life, but if something took you a little while to get down and there are other things to deal with, you might consider leaving it crippled for a moment to focus on other threats rather than taking the time right now to finish it off. And for tough creatures/bosses, getting it down to its crippled state after a long and hard fight may be a really useful time where suddenly the fight swings your way.
But we'll see how it goes in playtesting and assume that we may flip it back to expending it as damage if it's rarely meaningful that you've critted on a creature.
Either way, creature crits against players will build injury, not do extra damage.
Part of the problem of monotone damage output (without crits) is that it can make the ebb and flow of combat easy to predict.
Complex decision trees and short windows are what can make combat interesting/meaningful.
Some thing to keep in mind. See how it goes in play testing.
I do like the idea of pushing crippling, but basically this is just type of CC state. People make even potentially build for it - high crit low damage weapon becomes a tool for CC.