skills
Latest
First Impressions: Flyff
Flyff is a play-for-free 3D MMO with that anime style that today's youth hungers for. In my quest to devour all MMOs in existence, I took it upon myself to give Flyff a shot. Akela: He plays weird stuff so you don't have to.Here's the immediate take-away: Even though their tagline is 'Fly for fun', it's not immediately clear how the flying will occur. A lot of their advertising features great-looking airships, people soaring through the air on their own, fabulous critters wafting along, etc. In my initial hour, though, Flyff gameplay followed the standard, whacking things with a sword until they dropped loot like so many naughty piñatas.%Gallery-10430%
Identifying with your class
Relmstein has an interesting post up about how players develop their identities with the classes they play, and while he marks it as players connecting with the various classes they choose, I actually see more of an effect on me, the player-- when I play with my Shaman in World of Warcraft, I'm more measured, careful, and helpful, and when I play my Rogue, I tend to do a lot more ganking, cheap tricks, and sneaky stuff. My Shaman would never run up to a flag in Arathi Basin without support, because that's his thing-- he supports others with totems and helps groups. But my Rogue loves sneaking off to a flag by himself, hopefully with a clothie there that he can sap or gank.In exactly this way, classes can help the playerbase form communities and connections of their own-- you start to identify with and support those of the same class around you. Players specialize in one class, and grow more and more familiar with and attached to it. A straightforward skill system (like that in EVE Online) doesn't have that-- you still have races, but no one identifies with the traditional class roles. Miners may stick together, but when everyone can mine, that doesn't mean as much.And new games can learn from this, too-- we've already seen some great class ideas come out of Warhammer, and there's no doubt that if those are implemented as well as they appear to be, we'll see players stepping up to identify with the roles in that game as well.
Petopia ready for 2.3
Everybody's favorite pet database/hunter resource Petopia has been made ready for 2.3 a day early (and it's because Mania is going to take an AFK-- I hope it's for something relaxing, because she deserves it!). The closest thing we have to a changelist is a running tally of 2.3 news over on Mania's blog, but there are definitely new pets (including this hot obsidian raptor above), skill updates, and lots of other new information in the database.I'm especially excited because I've purposely left my BE hunter at about level 29 since all these 2.3 changes were announced, so his eyes are the ones I'm going to be seeing patch 2.3, the new Dustwallow Marsh, and all the updated pre-60 instances through. Petopia is a great guide for all Hunters, but I'm especially excited to use it for myself.
Behind the Curtain: A look at skills
In their current state, skills in MMOs could be improved. Tell me exactly what kind of 'skill' is involved in clicking a button a few times until the game decides that you're able to make something better? What if your character's skills were a direct result of how good you were at actually performing the task in question? What if an action's level of success was dependent on how well you actually carried out the action and not on how often you had clicked a button?The effects of a system like this would be most apparent in crafting; imagine a game where, in the crafting interface, you had direct control over the creative process, a system where the quality of the item varied according to the level of skill employed by the player during the creative process, and not on how many times you had clicked a button to make the item in the past. The beauty of a system like this is that players who naturally excel in a certain skill would be rewarded for it, regardless of the amount of time spent grinding their skill level up, but at the same time, players who simply created the same item again and again would get better anyway, because after all, practice makes perfect.
PTR Notes: Aimed Shot changed again
A few hours ago, Eyonix posted on the WoW forums regarding another change to the Hunter skill Aimed Shot in patch 2.3. The ability, which has already gained a healing debuff akin to Mortal Strike, will now also have a reduced cast time. The shot will now take a flat 3 seconds to perform, which is a half a second drop from its previous time of 3.5 seconds. In addition, Eyonix also mentioned that the developers are monitoring the ability's effectiveness and may further reduce the cast time after 2.3 goes live.As is often the case on the WoW forums, there is a rather large outcry over this change, the latest in a series of buffs to hunters. In discussing and defending the change, Eyonix suggests that the developers are trying to make this skill more appealing to the class in addition to helping them be more viable in PvP overall. What are your thoughts on the subject?
Sticks and stones...
Yesterday a player on the WoW forums pointed out that the Warrior skill Demoralizing Shout would be interesting to see in action. According to Undamian's interpretation, essentially, the skill involves insulting your opponents to throw them off balance in combat. Taunt, Challenging Shout, Piercing Howl and Intimidating Shout could also be viewed in a like manner. Unlike similar skills in other classes, warriors aren't considered magic users, so they must have an extensive vocabulary and a lot of creativity in order to affect their foes with mere words and body language.The original poster's idea, of course, led to a slew of suggestions as to what it is that warrior's actually say when they use these abilities. Community Manager Nethaera even proffered a suggestion, and as the thread progressed, other skills, such as Commanding and Battle Shout were included. Some players even posted catch phrases that they have bound to their abilities in game via macros. What do you imagine your character would say when using these skills? Please keep it clean.
An in-depth look at Issue 11 power sets in CoX
Floyd "Castle" Grubb sat down recently and recorded a video explanation of the upcoming power sets available in Issue 11: A Stitch in Time for City of Heroes/City of Villains. Since the video is only available as a download, we'll give you the complete rundown here on Massively of what we can expect from the two new power sets being added into the game. The first thing Castle mentioned was the fact that these power sets were added to the game because they were what the players asked for most. When asked, the players most requested Willpower for a defensive power set, and dual blades for an offensive set.
Founding an old MMO on new ideas
Rock Paper Shotgun has posted an interesting thought experiment: what if you took two of the world's biggest MMOs, EVE Online and World of Warcraft, and combined their best features into some kind of super, Frankenstein, monster MMO? I'm actually really interested in this, because I've been playing WoW for a long time, and have only recently come around to playing EVE. So what would World of EVECraft look like?First of all, I completely agree with RPS-- the best new MMO feature in both games is EVE's skill system. Instead of killing X rats (rats both in the old standby MMO monsters, and in EVE's jargon for "Pirates") to level, you simply level. That's it. Choose a level, wait a certain amount of time (from a few minutes to a few days), and at the end of that time, even if you've logged out in between, you get that level. It is the perfect system for MMOs, because it really does make your character persistent-- they're leveling even when you're not.And as RPS points out, it does away with the basic idea of "levels" anyway-- no longer must you wait until your friend reaches your level to join you, and no longer does a foe simply become insurmountable based on a number. The skilling idea also helps in PvP as well-- no matter what your skills are or how good you are, you'll get better over time.So what can we take from World of Warcraft?
Breakfast Topic: Unexpected uses
One of the things I like about WoW is finding new, unusual ways to use old skills. For instance, I recently observed a bear druid using Feral Faerie Fire on critters. When I asked him why, he responded that it keeps him in combat, preventing rage decay. It's a very clever tactic, and one I'll be using once I get my druid high enough for it (then again, I'll probably be in cat form most of the time by then). Another classic off-schedule use is Detect Magic as a marker ("attack this mob" or whatever), though that's largely been eclipsed by raid markers. And speaking of raid markers, they're quite useful even when solo, since you can see them through walls.What are you favorite unusual uses for skills or features?
Obviously, You Missed Something
I had to smack my forehead last night when I realized that my level 55 warrior was still carrying around nothing bigger than 10 slot bags. It seems so obvious that I'd have upgraded those by now, but inbetween all of the PVPing, questing, instance running, and grinding, it just plain slipped my mind. Herewith, five things that seem really obvious to remember, but a lot of players end up missing.1. Upgrade that equipment! My forgetfulness is your gain. Bags are important to upgrade (because even if it costs you all your gold, you'll make it back quickly with the extra carrying capacity), but it helps to check all of your equipment every time you ding. A guildie of mine had to laugh when he hit level 46 on his hunter-- he realized he was still wearing a leather chestplate, despite having trained to wear mail six levels ago.2. Train those skills. It's happened to all of us. You ding, head back to the trainer to train up, and you find that there's a ton of new skills sitting there for you. You forgot to train last time! Blizzard should have a little optional icon on the UI when there's a new skill for you to go get (or maybe this is a job for a plugin...).3. Professions, too. Professions have even more skills and recipes to train up than the regular levels, so it seems like people forget them all the time. And for some reason, when I'm looking for herbs or mining, I always forget to turn the little tracking marker on after I die (Gatherer helps out a little with this one).4. Repair, repair, repair! There's nothing worse than heading into an instance after LFG for half an hour, only to wipe once and have your gear turn yellow (or, even worse, red). By now, I'm repairing every single time I land from a griffon ride. Every time I enter a new town, the blacksmith is the first person I talk to.5. LRN2PLAY. Of course, this is what all those hardcore players will tell us forgetful types, but this time, they're actually right: studying up on a class's strengths, weaknesses, skills and abilities will make things much, much easier. If you're a priest, don't use Shield-- use Renew, and less mana. If you're a Shaman, use Rockbiter (until you get Windfury, at least). If you're a Warrior, make sure to keep Battle Shout up 24/7.Of course, all this stuff will seem obvious-- until you realize you've forgotten something. But in this game, as in everything, the devil is in the details.
Breakfast Topic: Moments of regret
Whether playing WoW while intoxicated, tired or simply under the weather, we all make mistakes. We vendor items we didn't mean to vendor, we destroy quest items thinking they're trash; it happens to everyone, sooner or later.One of my least favourite things to do is accidental disenchantment. It sounds hard - after all, you have to click on the Disenchant skill, then an item you're probably wearing - but after disenchanting several items in a row and then deciding to enchant a worn item, it's all too easy to click Disenchant by mistake. This happened to me, yesterday, for the second time; I disenchanted my tier 0.5 bracers rather than giving them a stamina enchant.Should this happen to you, don't worry -- it's not the end of the world. You can get the item restored, though the European GM I spoke to warned me that this process was only available once per account. Knowing that I'll be getting some better gear very soon, I decided not to choose this option, but since the tier 0.5 quests are non-repeatable I'm stuck in tier 0 for the time being. I'm happy it was only the bracers, which are blue, and not any of my epic items -- I'd have a hard time deciding whether epics today were more or less valuable than epics I might get tomorrow.Have you ever danced the disenchant tango? Had any other moments of regret? All I've learnt from this story is to install a "safe disenchanter" addon, and to be doubly careful when playing late at night.
Improving secondary skills (and enchanting)
The fishing and cooking guide posted earlier is really useful, although the Horde focus means that Alliance players may have to follow a slightly different route. As it happens, I've recently taken advantage of the war effort quests to improve my skills in fishing, cooking, first aid and also my primary profession, enchanting. Here are a few sites I found useful in my quest for self-improvement, to add to the earlier guide:OverallWorldOfWar.net has a great overview of all the tradeskills, including useful information such as trainer locations. Optimising your skills so you spend the least amount of money possible to maximise them is not a trivial task, so good luck!CookingI'd basically neglected cooking since my earlier levels, so I used this "skill up in 2 hours" guide from Allakhazam, bemusing baby Night Elves asI ran around Darkshore slaughtering crabs and then the Wetlands slaughtering Bluegill murlocs. Farming for raptor meat in STV, I then used the Roast Raptor recipe at skill 175 to get my skill well over 200, as well as the Rainbow Fin Albacore recipe (at lower levels) and the Spotted Yellowtail recipe.FishingDraznar's Fishing FAQ was reasonably useful, and I used the AutoLoot tip (shift and right click your fishing pole) as well as the FishingBuddy tool. As many guides pointed out, levelling fishing is time-consuming but works well in conjunction with cooking, as you can train in recipes to cook the fish. By far the most useful part of the guide was the PDF reference which lists the most common fish for an area, and the corresponding recipes. First AidThere's not really much to say about First Aid, apart from that it's a terribly useful skill to have. If you learn it early, and use the cloth you find to make bandages, your skill should be about 250-300 by your mid forties (if not earlier). Obtaining the book for Expert Level involves a trip to the Arathi Highlands or Dustwallow Marsh (Alliance or Horde respectively) and it's easier to buy it from the Auction House, even with the markup.To get to Artisan level (225-300), you will get a Trauma quest from your trainer, sending you to Hammerfall (Horde) or Theramore Isle (Alliance) for a special Triage mission. Further bandages (including runecloth) can be learnt here -- take enough materials to get to 260 and then make runecloth bandages for your guildmates' AQ turn-ins to get up to 300.EnchantingThe tactic I used for most of my enchanting training before really focusing on it was "if money's not a problem, disenchant soulbound quest rewards and hoard the materials". This worked for a few levels, but not spectacularly. Giving out low-level enchants for free to newbies is one way to avoid the grind of giving your bracers 3 stamina again and again, but most people are surprisingly suspicious of getting something for nothing, so you may well be staring at your own items a lot. This is the guide I used for most of my skilling up, and it seems to work nicely, although you do reach the stage where you may prefer to sell higher-level enchants rather than "grind" your way to 300/300. It really depends if you have money to burn.
