New Item Descriptions and 'Mastery'

[EtoilePirate]

<div></div>Mastery is showing inconsistently or not at all for skills and items.  Observe: (Images are large, so they're linked, not displayed) These are random skills from Kella, 43 Assassin: <a href="http://www.etoilepb.com/goodies/kella_skills.jpg" target=_blank>http://www.etoilepb.com/goodies/kella_skills.jpg</a> These are random skills from Pondscum, 37 Shadowknight: <a href="http://www.etoilepb.com/goodies/pond_skills.jpg" target=_blank>http://www.etoilepb.com/goodies/pond_skills.jpg </a> There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to which skills show Mastery or not.  But until I was playing around with Pond's toon today I had no idea that any skills at all, in the game, were still showing mastery, because none of mine do.  Didn't know if it was a bug or anything, heh.  But it'd be nice to get some consistency.  And mastery levels. Thanks! <div></div><p>Message Edited by EtoilePB on <span class=date_text>06-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:28 AM</span>

[Zevk]

I belive according to the new combat system a skill will not get mastered out but it will solo depend weather you have upgraded it or not. so your adept 1 torment will do the same thing at every lvl instead of going up in mitigation redutioin every lvl. it will start at app1 and will only go up if you scribe an app2 app3 app4 adept1 adept3 or master 1 or others.

[EtoilePirate]

<span><blockquote><hr>Zevk wrote:I belive according to the new combat system a skill will not get mastered out but it will solo depend weather you have upgraded it or not. so your adept 1 torment will do the same thing at every lvl instead of going up in mitigation redutioin every lvl. it will start at app1 and will only go up if you scribe an app2 app3 app4 adept1 adept3 or master 1 or others. <div></div><hr></blockquote> But in that event, what earthly point is there to getting skill upgrades every 12-20 levels? And anyway, we don't have the new combat system yet, and if you looked at the picture, mastery is showing for about half of Pondscum's skills but none of mine.</span><div></div>

[Zevk]

<DIV>dont know why it shows on ponds like that but the point of skill upgrade's is for say quick strike at mastery one will do 100 points of damage but really how much is that goign to help if you a 50 assassin trying to kill a 55 mob? so you will still need upgrade to spells for more debuffs and damage effective ness otherwise with quick strike at master 1 you get it around lvl 4 or something but it would need to do aroung 100-300 damage to be used all the way to 50 and that would make people too powerful at low lvls</DIV>

[Oakwood]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> EtoilePB wrote:<BR><SPAN><BR>But in that event, what earthly point is there to getting skill upgrades every 12-20 levels?<BR></SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I think we may be running into a communication problem here because SoE does not use clear terms for different game mechanics.  Let us say that Level refers to a character's adventurer level, and Quality refers the various apprentice/adept/master variations, and that Arts refers to the spells, skills and abilities them selves</P> <P>This is what they described at fan faire:  Under the current system, Arts improve both as you gain levels and as you improve the quality.  Under the new system, arts will improve only based on the quality.  As you gain levels, you gain new arts, and improvements to older arts.  Under the current system, a high quality-low level art is often better than a higher level-lower quality art.  Under the new system, a higher level art will always be better than a lower level art in the same line.</P> <P>Now, I don't know if a master quality art will be equal to the app I of the next higher level art in that line, or if masters will always be obsolete in 10-12 levels, and the same for adept III.  We will have to wait for the actual numbers to see that.  If the higher level app I is always better then the previous master I, that could have pretty severe effects on the value of master's and adept III's of level 50 and lower skills.  On the other hand, that aready happens with rares used for armor and weapons, so it may be no bigie.</P><p>Message Edited by Oakwood on <span class=date_text>07-06-2005</span> <span class=time_text>06:08 PM</span>

[bcbroom]

<P>We saw a breif glimpse of the new system as "part 3" of the combat changes from a while back, just before they were removed for more tweaking.</P> <P>As an example, I (wizard) got a nuke at 37...and it did 600 ish damage when I first got it, which put it on par with my lvl 30 training nuke, and a lvl 35 spell I got from Bloodlines. Each level the damage went up 50pts or so, untill it topped out when the spell conned white (topped out in the 800's I think). When the spell changes were in effect, you got the 'white' con damage as soon as you could got the spell (and int damage on top of that).</P> <P>Under this system, an upgraded spell/ca will do significantly more damage than the art it replaces.</P> <P>The main problem (and I think what got the whole thing pulled) is that caster mobs also use the same spells. There were some mob ice comets hitting in the 6-8k range, so this will be an interesting issue.</P>

[Zevk]

I Started a mage today and notice that he also had a mastery cap on his abilitys while my Berserker did not. what it looks like is that spells have masterys while skills do not. not sure if thats going to change with new combat system or not but if any one knows why that is i would love to find out.

[EtoilePirate]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Zevk wrote:<BR>I Started a mage today and notice that he also had a mastery cap on his abilitys while my Berserker did not. what it looks like is that spells have masterys while skills do not. not sure if thats going to change with new combat system or not but if any one knows why that is i would love to find out. <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Oh!  That makes sense, because the shadowknight is a hybrid class... yeah.  I haven't logged onto my mage or my druid since they changed it around.</P> <P>Doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense, though.  Wonder if they forgot a half, or if spells and skills are going to diverge wildly and stop being parallel?</P>