Aspects of the Unified Moon
This thread serves as a general discussion topic for the new aspect system. What do you like? What don't you like (be constructive, please)?
Please file bug reports in-game for anything that is broken or not working as expected. Otherwise, feel free to post here!
Please file bug reports in-game for anything that is broken or not working as expected. Otherwise, feel free to post here!
ANNOUNCE NEWS #3896
Date: 10/20/2019 at 0:22
From: Dec
To : Everyone
Subj: Aspect Changes
Changes to the aspect system have gone live!
Please read HELP ASPECTS for detailed information, but the highlights are:
- All aspects are now aspects of the unified moon and may gain access to any of the fifteen original aspect skills
- With the unified moon, access to the Moon Forge has opened. GAZE FORGE to travel to it.
- At the Moon Forge you may choose an elemental AFFINITY. Having an elemental affinity allows you to travel to the four elemental planes
- Elemental planes mirror places on the prime material plane, but damage is considerably different based on the plane and your affinity
- Aspects can build STRONGHOLDS on their chosen plane and fortify it against invasion
- Aspect powers use and drain SPIRIT, which you gather by gaining experience or converting lessons
- Monoliths still exist, but now they focus on the affinity of the holder
- Players may choose which of the fifteen skills to power, but higher level skills cost more monoliths to power (1 to 5)
- Each affinity is automatically given the equivalent power of two monoliths. For example, if fire controls 1 monolith, fire affinity players have the equivalent of 3 monolith points to choose powers from
- Previously purchased permanent monoliths and monolith powers have been converted into vast amounts of spirit
Happy Plane Hopping!
- Dec
Penned by my hand on the 1st of Artificium, in the year 205 AM.
Like what we're doing? Why not take a second to vote? Vote for Imperian at http://www.imperian.com/vote
0
Comments
Is there a disadvantage to everyone just picking the same affinity to get all the powers? Is being a contrarian interesting? Otherwise, much like with sects, I think over time you'll see everyone gravitating to one side because it's clearly stronger.
Like a daydream.. or a fever
> So, what was the idea behind the change?
The actual implementation and mechanics behind everything that isn't the monoliths and aspect powers was an idea that Dec put together and I really like it a lot - strongholds that you can defend/attack are a really interesting give-and-take that players can start to get into (at the expense of time and upkeep)
Hopefully that answers the question!
I want to avoid any (or at least significant) mechanical PVE or PVP bonuses, though, for a few reasons.
First, I want to avoid introducing anything new that undermines the attempt to remove needing to balance the aspects separately - that's part of why we unified powers to begin with.
Second, I want to avoid MECHANICALLY causing everyone to pick one affinity due to even perceived advantage of a single affinity.
So that doesn't leave a lot of options top of mind. It's something I'm going to keep trying to brainstorm and I welcome ideas, though
I think you'd just need a slight malus based on percent membership size or something to fix it. If 75% of the Aspects are one affinity, spirit could either generate slightly slower or powers could cost slightly more for that team. You could also tie resurrection in with affinity and give the less popular groups a slightly faster resurrection timer (based on their elemental plane being able to rekindle their spirit faster). We will just need a slight mechanical advantage for picking the weaker affinity, in exchange for it being easier to hold and maintain powers as the stronger affinity.
Fake double post: Any chance we murder the Sect system and replace it with something like this? If you're looking to replace boring mechanics that no one care about, Sects would be a great second choice.
Like a daydream.. or a fever
Like a daydream.. or a fever
There is nothing preventing anyone from being X element aspect over Z element aspect.
Spirit itself is still being worked on (at least as far as the help scrolls go for providing more information on what costs what and such I do believe) It was also stated that they are unsure if they are going to put the spirit costs into a help scroll or not. (I believe anyway? I could be remembering wrong but I don't really feel like scrolling through the Imperian discord to find out for sure @Eoghan would know however since I do believe he is the one who said it.)
I'm just going to put this here for people who are confused about how the powers now work though @Eoghan please correct me if I'm wrong in understanding how the new power system works, because I don't want to provide people with the wrong information.
Regeneration: Level 1
Liferoom: Level 2
Clearsight: Level 3
Vision: Level 4
Resurrect: Level 5
Old Change Aspect Powers:
Mimicry: Level 1
Changeroom: Level 2
Changerace: Level 3
Modulation: Level 4
Warp: Level 5
Old Terror Aspect Powers:
Immune: Level 1
Terrorroom: Level 2
Terrify: Level 3
Inhume: Level 4
Absorb: Level 5
Monoliths of your Type == Effect One
monolith == one level one power (terror immune, regeneration, mimicry)
Two monoliths == one level two power (gaze rooms) or two level one powers
Three monoliths == one level three power (clearsight, terrify, reincarnate) or any combination of one level 2 and one level 1, or three level 1 powers.
ETC for 4+ monoliths
(Thanks to @Lachlan for providing that information when Aspect changes happened since he is the one who did the work to figure it out)
Regarding planar lore
Prior to the attunement with the Moonforge, mortals had no way to access the Planes. They could only travel naturally between the Physical Realm and the Spirit Realm (which contains the Underworld). Now, Aspects that are attuned to the Moonforge are able to use it to follow the threads between the Moonforge and the Elemental Planes. These are the same threads that Eloweth used to allow Elemancy and Healing to exist (though for Elemancy, the elements were further modified due to the Broken Diachaim formed in The Breaking. The elemental power used by those with the Healing skillset also came from the Moonforge, but was purified by the Antimagick Divine for use by clerics).
The Moonforge is the only known Forge (with a big F) to have been created by someone other than Avasyu. The Forge of the Physical Realm created by Avasyu is the Core. There is also a Forge in the Spiritual Plane placed there by Avasyu for use by Thanatos. It is currently unknown whether a Forge exists in the Demonic Realm, but Demon Rifts are unnatural breaks through the Diachaim, and allow limited travel without using a Forge. They are, thus, inherently dangerous and considered by many to be "evil" (for whatever Evil means in a world that isn't black and white)
Regarding planar travel
When you enter an elemental plane, you land in a random area within that plane. This could be a given bashing area, it could be a stronghold. There's nothing linking the different areas (right now; we're considering adding something but are undecided).
Regarding why you would choose one over another: Right now the largest thing is the elemental attunement and bonuses/maluses based on which plane you're on. Ideally this would mean people spread across different types so that they weren't all fighting for one set of bashing areas. In practice this isn't the case and we need to add more reason to differentiate. This is something we're planning to do, as soon as we decide what that thing is.
For powers:
Each power costs a certain number of monoliths to have active. This is cumulative. The number of monoliths a given power takes is based on its order in the HELP LIFE POWERS, HELP TERROR POWERS and HELP CHANGE POWERS scrolls. For example, liferoom requires "feeling" two monoliths. If you want both liferoom and changeroom, you need to "feel" four monoliths. Just for being an aspect, you "feel" the power of two monoliths - this is one of the powers granted by being an Aspect of the Combined Moons, and is as close as you can get in the new system to having permanent monoliths.
Monoliths
As far as gaining and keeping monoliths goes: right now there aren't enough to go around. With the majority of players choosing Fire, this means that effectively no one else has powers. Both of these things are issues that we want to solve.
One of the things that we've planned from the beginning is the introduction of additional monoliths. We're going to do this, but we didn't want to do it when the system rolled out so that people could get a feel for things first and (in our ideal vision) fight over the monoliths that already exist first. We'll roll out more monoliths soon.
Regarding the bashing
The planes introduce a ton of "new" bashing areas and Doubloon areas. This is, among other things, an attempt to make the limited bashing available in the game easier on lower level players. These aren't end-game bashing areas per se, but they ARE only reachable by Aspects.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm a they, not a he.
Penned by my hand on the 13th of Letum, in the year 206 AM.
Edit: I get that the change only recently took effect, however I'm trying to look at where this -could- go and how this change could effect things as they are.