Welcome Board Archive - State of the Code Update

Other than a few minor things, I haven't been able to put as much work 
in lately on Legend. That's changing so expect to see some new stuff 
pretty soon.

I figured I'd give you a small update on where we were with a few 
things.

RUNE CASTERS
Rune casting is trudging along toward a finish line of sorts and we 
will be rolling them out in a different fashion than we have before. 
More on that later.

What are rune casters?

Rune casting is the ability to throw down (not literally) actual 
objects (runes) and change the balance of fate. Take something away 
from your opponent to give buffs and benefits to your group. 

They are a spirit/perception-driven build that are group focused 
but can also use their abilities to hold their own as a solo character.

You're not going to be taking down mobs solo like a cause or a create 
mage or someone with ridiculous AC and high parry ability, but enough 
so you can survive. 

Think of them as an alternative to a casting tree (as you won't be 
able to chant). They'll be able to boost the efficacy of any group, 
be it primarily spell-wielders or melee folks.

They'll also be able to craft charms out of their runes to compete 
with the amulets that druids make.

MORE ATTRIBUTES MODIFIERS
We've added melee mitigation, saving throws, gun accuracy, 
concentration, spell damroll, spell critical and mana reduction over 
the last year, but more are on their way, not limited to:

Gun Damage
Stat Caps
Damage Cap
Melee Crit chance
Melee Crit percentage
Weapon speed

MELEE PROWESS SKILLS
These have been in allskills for way too long and for that I 
apologize. After trudging down my initial design path, I'd painted 
myself into a corner.

The initial design, and one that will probably carry forward in some 
fashion, is that each of these skills gives you access to a handful of 
new commands that do various things to your ability to either deal or 
take damage. For example, you could invoke an ability that gave you 
4 rounds of 70% melee mitigation while reducing your damage output to 
50%. On the flip side, you might have an ability to, for 2 rounds, 
hit 100% of your attacks and do 30% more damage at the cost of your 
ac being temporarily '0'. 

The idea was to have timers associated with these.

While some of these design elements will carry through, there's a 
larger problem in that with the exception of only a few of the ideas, 
the disciplines granted by the prowess skills were really only useful 
in groups. Imagine trying to take down the man-eating lion while your 
ac is '0'? You'd get pummeled, hard and fast. Or you might survive, 
but at 50% damage, so will the lion. 

So I'm looking more toward things that will benefit both solo and 
group play and at the same time, make these things a choice -- you 
have your choice between invoking a discipline or using skills, etc. 
That means we need to make them as valuable as skills. And it's hard to 
make an ability compete with tumble. ;) 

The end goal is to get solo melee closer to solo mage in capability 
with some forms of burst damage or ability to take hits a bit better
without losing the efficacy of all build types in groups. The resultant 
problem is, that beyond time (timers, waits, etc), is that by and large 
melee-based abilities do not have a finite resource. We added one to 
Bastion and I've heard nothing but complaints even though the skill 
is invaluable as it is.

So we're looking into solving those problems so the 'prowess' skills 
are on the horizon.

TRADE SKILLS
Further down the line are trade skills. People complain about the 
lack of practices, and, while I'll definitely argue that maybe the 
pokemon theory of skills is a bad idea, there's some relief coming. 

In the (somewhat) distant future, my intention is to remove the 
current repair/mend/forge/etc skills from the game and migrate those 
over to their own resource pool of tradeskills. A more use-based system 
than what's current. Everyone could at least attempt every skill
without spending practices and achieve mastery in one or two and 
competency in a few more.

Think: basically every trade skill system in MMOs. But with Legend's 
unique and (likely) annoying twist. ;) 

It's a ways off. There's a lot of ground work to do to even come 
close to making that a reality. 

As always, feel free to sound off on the discussion board.

Ruf