Stanzas...what the huh?

[cosmo365]

Ok, I understand...well very little, about stanzas. Could someone explanerate (in the wordlingliness of Dubya) what they are and how they work? Is it possible to build your own actions based on the the skills you know? I think that this may be one of the coolerest things I have seen in an MMO in a long while, if it is what I think it is.

Celebrity spech stylings have been impersonificated.

[raynes]

The skill system is based on building blocks called stanzas. With each level you gain, you earn skill points that can be used to purchase new building blocks. You can take those building blocks combine them and make unique skills. For each building block their is a cost to using it. So lets say you buy the acid 1 building block, the cost associated with that is a deduction in your sap with each use. The more building blocks, the more a skill costs to use.

Using 2 handed melee skills for examples.

In that skill tree 4 of the common building blocks are:
*Increased Damage - Increases the damage done by an attack
*Bleed - Makes a target bleed heavily, hence loosing damage over time.
*Increased Accuracy - Increases the chance of hitting a target
*Circular Attack - Lets you swing your weapon in a circle hitting multiple targets in one swing.

Now lets say that I decide that I want to go attack some bandits. When you attack NPC bandits in the game, one you hit one, they all come after you, surround you, and try to kill you. Not very pleasant to have 10 npcs gang up on you at once.

No one of those building blocks alone will help me defeat them. However since they are building block, I can combine them. So to really kick butt, I create the following skill combination:

Increased Damage, Circular Attack, & Bleed.

Now when I activate my custom skill and I am surrounded by 10 npcs, my character will swing his sword, hitting a good number of them, making them all start bleeding heavy, and kicking some major butt.

Hope that helps ya some. If not and your on aristople, contact me and I can walk you through it in game.

[cosmo365]

Goodness. It *is* what I thought. This, in and of itself, is something I will *have* to play with tonight when I get home. Very cool and very interesting, indeed.

[olepi]

The whole idea of costs is nice; you have to balance the costs with "credits", like giving up sap, life, range, speed, etc. You can also "over-credit", meaning that you are paying more than it costs. This can make the action work better.

A common skill is healing: you can spend sap, life, cast speed, and range "credits". You could build several different heals, that cost different things. I tend to like to cast as fast as possible, so I never use cast speed credits. Range is interesting, since the closer you get (ie, the higher the range credit), the less it costs in anything else.

There is no "cookie cutter Cleric" in this game. No fixed classes, and everyone's levels and stanzas are all in different states. This tends to weed out some players that don't want to think as much :)

Olepi

[philu]

A common skill is healing: you can spend sap, life, cast speed, and range "credits". You could build several different heals, that cost different things. I tend to like to cast as fast as possible, so I never use cast speed credits. Range is interesting, since the closer you get (ie, the higher the range credit), the less it costs in anything else.


Time credits should really be the last resort when you run out of sap/hp cost and range credits. It's much better to have a short range, fast cast spell, particularly for a healer. After all, a healer is more than likely going to stand fairly close to the rest of the team, so why have a long range spell? ;)

[zanthar]

Looks like your questions have been answered! So welcome to the living planet young homin:)

[olepi]

Time credits should really be the last resort when you run out of sap/hp cost and range credits. It's much better to have a short range, fast cast spell, particularly for a healer. After all, a healer is more than likely going to stand fairly close to the rest of the team, so why have a long range spell? ;)

There is a reason not to get too close though, and range helps. We were fighting Kipees last night, and they can stun. So it stunned the melee fighter, and then turned on me and put a rip in my clothes :) If I was further away, the stunned fighter would have had time to recover and taunt him away again. So range is useful as an aggro management tool.

Olepi

[xythus]

Gotta agree with Olepi myself, i use max range credits for all my heals (with 0 time)

Double spells with max range are plenty long enough anyway :) (42m on my double heal, 80 range credit)

[iwojimmy]

.. and every healer should have a mini heal spell, with max range credits and a little time, but smallest amount of hp/sap use, for saving people from respawning while they cant rezz them properly...

CPR anyone ?

[cosmo365]

Thanks, everyone, for your input. I hafta say, I pulled the trial down as something to waste time while beta testing another game (don't ask...NDA y'know) and was get5ting bored. I may very well test the bare minimum and play this game. I love almost everything about it. Nature based, loverly community, cool concept, interesting world and now a fully customizable skill system?! Be still mine heart. I may even suggest this game to my ex-wife! Nah.

[wardone]

I may even suggest this game to my ex-wife! Nah.



Rofl classic :D