Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Abilities progression

    • 520 posts
    November 20, 2019 10:54 AM PST

    Do we know what are the plans for the abilities to stay relevant during a game? Will it be "EQ style" Spell-line, where at certain levels we will get a better version of a spell (of which I'm not a big fan)? Will abilities scale to our level (and stats)? Or perhaps abilities will gain its own exp and levels when used (which I personally love)?

    • 66 posts
    November 20, 2019 11:28 AM PST

    The devs have previously spoken about wanting abilities to evolve along with character progress. A good example might be the rogue's Shadow Walk eventually morphing into Shadow Dwell.

    Shadow Dwell

    Rogues can evolve their Shadow Walk ability into Shadow Dwell, achieving a nearly supernatural degree of stealth which does not require mana to sustain.

    They've also mentioned epic questlines that may impact ability evolution like this.

    Beyond that, the underlying power of abilities will supposedly rely on character skills that will raise as that spell school/ability type/hit type are used. Something like evocation/abjuration/conjuration or blunt, piercing, etc. from EQ. Perhaps similar for defensive skills, like dodge, parry, block - or even passive regeneration skills like meditation. So I'd think there will be a bit of everything that you mention, if not precisely the same.

    • 1428 posts
    November 20, 2019 11:50 AM PST

    downranking will be a thing in pantheon, especially for casters.

     

    spell evolution i'm aok with(since it's directly controlled by devs).

     

    the problem i would have with skills leveling indefinitely means chasing a power curve.  i think eq has some type of sub leveling system for abilities(forget what is was called).

    basically made it exponentally difficult for a new player to jump into the fray depending on how long the game is running for.

     

    it appears pantheon has move to character progression will be emphasis on acclimation.  which is worlds better for new players to jump into.

    for example if a new expansion plops in, new players could just acclimate to revelant climates vs trying to catch up to the skill level that grows and grows.

     

    lots of mmos have to increase exp gains in early level to ensure new players coming into the space can actually contribute(the downsides to increasing level cap).  it's less for maintenance for devs and healthier environment for new players.

    • 1584 posts
    November 21, 2019 1:45 AM PST

    stellarmind said:

    downranking will be a thing in pantheon, especially for casters.

     

    spell evolution i'm aok with(since it's directly controlled by devs).

     

    the problem i would have with skills leveling indefinitely means chasing a power curve.  i think eq has some type of sub leveling system for abilities(forget what is was called).

    basically made it exponentally difficult for a new player to jump into the fray depending on how long the game is running for.

     

    it appears pantheon has move to character progression will be emphasis on acclimation.  which is worlds better for new players to jump into.

    for example if a new expansion plops in, new players could just acclimate to revelant climates vs trying to catch up to the skill level that grows and grows.

     

    lots of mmos have to increase exp gains in early level to ensure new players coming into the space can actually contribute(the downsides to increasing level cap).  it's less for maintenance for devs and healthier environment for new players.

    I agree with this but i think the problem isn't really the abilities always increasing in rank is the problem, it's actually the attributes in mmos always get blown comepletely out of proportion to where trying to have the ability either under preform or  over preform is a small window to get right, but if they keep our statline small than scaling the abilities to our attributes would be a lot easier to guage.  So imho i think once they realize they are making gear that is like giving us 50 to strength or whatever, either shrink the numbers of the gear, and increase the scaling of our skills to fit its desired affect, or something to this nature.