Ryzom

Unregistered wrote:Thanx, Shazzy, that was very helpful in understanding how to create actions. Very useful to know you can delete older ones and replace them as you gain more experience and have more access to stanzas.

I like the fact you can have different tool bars with appropriate actions on them so that you could have one for crafting, one for PvE, another for PvP, and yet another for Kitin invasions, etc.

I've downloaded the manual and there are skill trees for magic and fighting, but harvesting and crafting skill trees aren't present - though I can pretty much guess what they are from the descriptions of those activities. No defense skill tree either - different armor weights, parry, block, dodge?

From my understanding, there was a Defense skill tree back in the very early beta days. They threw it out and went with a different system that relied more on the player's decisions towards armor and stanza creation (Attack after dodge/parry, etc.). I don't mind how it works now - it actually gives the player more freedom.

What I don't see is how many skill points it takes to get to each level of mastery (guessing 250 to max out any one branch from the descriptions), nor do I see what you get at any level. For instance, I might decide I don't need the skills at the end of the mace branch right now, but I do need some sword skills instead.

Each time you 'level' you go up 1 skill level for that tree. Each Skill Level you earn gives you 10 Skill points that you can use towards buying new skills. The neat thing is that just because you're using your Skill Points for Mace, doesn't mean you can't go back and earn skill points in sword, because you can.

For example, I'm a dual dagger user, however I wanted to level up my 2h melee up some. So I equipped my 2h sword and instead of continuing with my close combat melee/dual daggers at Lv. 88, I level up my 2H sword which began at Lv. 51. That probably sounds confusing so I'll try and get a Screenshot of what I'm talking about.

One other thing I don't see is how many XP one must have to get the next set of skill points. It seems that you get 10 skill points each time you advance. I guess this is pretty easy at first simply b/c it's good game theory to make it so, and gets progressively harder (takes longer). However, as the reward is always the same (10 skill points) one would hope that "progressively harder" part levels out at some point - say 250/500 or so - so that one can actually make hybrid characters. Has anyone developed a table or graph that shows how much XP it takes to get 250 skill points, how much more to get 500, 1000, etc.?

Honestly, it hasn't bothered me yet. The rate at which I gain experience is so consistent, there's no reason for me to even glance at my exp bar. I leveled 15 levels in Close Combat in one night. Sure there's more exp to earn each level, but when you're hitting the max amount of exp per mob, it doesn't even phase you =P Of course, this could change with Chapter 1's patch.

If I understand this right, skill points are also used to increase stats. Everyone, except possibly crafters (unless kiln explosions are common place), will need to increase hit points to keep from dying every 5 minutes so that means putting some skill points into strength (to increase HP) and some smaller amount into metabolism (to increase recovery rate). Fighters, and maybe others as well, also need stamina so that means points into constitution and balance. Likewise for other professions.

Do these stats do anything other than increase the amount of time one can pursue a given activity w/o resting? In other words, does strength also increase damage output? Does intelligence cause magic to hit more often? Does a high focus stat cause you to fail less often when crafting?

Yes to all of the above, and then some. Not only does STR and such allow you to face greater foes, it also raises your tolerance for higher quality armor and weapons. Your strength increases the level of mob you can fight AND allows you to access greater quality armor/weapons with less penalty. I believe Intelligence also factors in the success rate of your spells and its intensity. Focus is more important for harvesters than crafters. Each tick of extracting, a portion of focus is taken away. Focus and Dexterity help you harvest longer and also preserve the stability of the ground better.

After reading the manual and some of the better posts I'm impressed by the novel and flexible approach to character advancment and ability to make your own fighting & other actions. The only show stopper for me would be a geometric XP treadmill. As a casual player (10 hours a week), I don't fancy spending two weeks to get 10 skill points and then a month to get the next 10 and so on.

The experience grind is far from painful. Given a good team and prime hunting, you get yourself SEVERAL levels within a couple hours. I come out with 80 skill points every 2 hours or so. It's just a matter of finding a good guild that likes to hunt a lot. I team up with some of my guildmates who are of Lv. 150 and up and they're still getting a good amount of SP each night.

870 actually, since you start at lvl 1 in everything.