Visionary Realms just released the May newsletter containing a very large amount of information. Three new classes were unveiled, The Rogue, The Monk and The Ranger. Of particular interest to me is The Ranger. The Ranger will have a Harvesting type of skill called Foraging. For us old Everquest players you will may know this skill well. For those that don't know what The Foraging skill is I will give you a brief explanation. Because your character is so attuned to nature they will be able to look around the area for natural items. These items, depending on the environment you are in could be anything from Berries to Spring water. This makes for a nice addition with the first Class specific skill. This is the official information released in the May newsletter:
Forage
Ranger specific as of today
Survey the surrounding area for a chance of finding natural food, drink or unique ingredients the Ranger can use to create Balms, Tonics and Weapon Coatings.
Examples:
Arrow Coating:
Wild Hyacinth
For X duration, your ranged attacks will apply Y effect on your target.
Weapon Coating:
Brightfire Sap
Apply to the blade of your weapon, causing it to glow as a weak light source for 24 minutes.
Sugarberry Tonic
Grants a bonus to Momentum generation from abilities for X duration.
Moonrose Balm
Increases your natural health regeneration by X% for Y duration.
Poisons/Alchemical
Rogue specific as of today:
Also released in the May newsletter was the second class specific skills which will be for the Rogue class. Most MMO's with the rogue class allow the use of poisons, Pantheon's Rogue's will have an expanded set of skills.
Poison Craft:
Poison Craft is a cornerstone of the Rogue's repertoire. Throughout their career, Rogues will develop an ever-growing proficiency in creating, applying and neutralizing poisons of greater variety and potency.
Alchemical Abilities:
Smoke and Mirrors
Smash a vial at the feet of your enemy, releasing caustic smoke into their eyes and nose, incapacitating them for 24 seconds. Any damage to your target will break the effect.
Flash Bomb
Throw a flash bomb at your feet, immediately ending combat. This ability automatically activates Shadow Walk or Shadow Dwell.
Sleeping Powder
Blow a cloud of sleeping powder into the air. The Rogue and all enemies caught in the cloud will be put to sleep for up to 24 seconds. Any damage will break the effect.
Pressurized Flask
Throw a sealed flask of pressurized air at target location. The flask shatters on impact, creating a loud noise that draws the attention of nearby enemies for a short time.
Unstable Mixture
Throw a vial of hastily combined ingredients at your enemy, causing an unpredictable effect.
eldrun said:Did you post to discuss this or...?
Yes sorry, to many irons on the fire. I am glad to see Class specific tradeskills because it harkens back to the EQ days and helped to make your character unique. I hope to see more class only skills as the game progresses. I feel like the Shaman should have a type of gathering skill, sort of like the Rogue Alchemical Abilities allowing them to make slow potions for example, it would be great when your low on mana. Not as good as your spell but good enough to help the group survive until mana is replenished. Any ideas on more skills for the classes that have been released so far?
Shyin said:eldrun said:Did you post to discuss this or...?
Yes sorry, to many irons on the fire. I am glad to see Class specific tradeskills because it harkens back to the EQ days and helped to make your character unique. I hope to see more class only skills as the game progresses. I feel like the Shaman should have a type of gathering skill, sort of like the Rogue Alchemical Abilities allowing them to make slow potions for example, it would be great when your low on mana. Not as good as your spell but good enough to help the group survive until mana is replenished. Any ideas on more skills for the classes that have been released so far?
Your fine was just confused.
But I agree poison making for rogue was a fun time, I enjoyed alchemy with shaman. Can’t wait to see where things go.
I think it's important to make a distinction between abilities and skills, because currently, the plan is for there to not be any class-specific crafting professions or harvesting skills. Of course that's subject to change, but as it is now, the Ranger's Foraging or Rogue's Trap Making are purely just abilities. The difference is that for Harvesting skills, you need a specific tool type and use it at a particular location with a node. And as you use the skill, it levels up. An ability, on the other hand, can pretty much be used any time as long as you have the mana/energy to "cast" it. It may seem like semantics, but for the sake of a clear discussion, they are two different things. If you haven't already, I suggest you watch my interview with Corey "Ceythos" LeFever, the designer behind Pantheon's crafting system, where speaks he speaks on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qG-RdZBD8
Regardless, I like the examples of things that Rangers can forage - they seem quite useful.
Absolutely correct, these are class specific skills. I've made sure to keep them separate from regular tradeskills. My hope is to see them being able to function alongside regular tradeskills. I watched your video, it was great!
I will use my earlier post to eldrun as an example:
I feel like the Shaman should have a type of gathering skill, sort of like the Rogue Alchemical Abilities allowing them to make slow potions for example, it would be great when your low on mana. Not as good as your spell but good enough to help the group survive until mana is replenished.
Having the ability to harvest items for crafting, such as gathering, when combined with the shaman’s natural skill of gathering would allow him to possibly find and harvest a type of rare item not normally found, to increase the shamans class-based skill. This could be a stronger version of what his base class skill would be. It would work like a cooperative set of skills.
I hope I explained that correctly. I think it would be a great addition to tradeskills and class-based skills. Just my opinion.
In concept, it sounds good to allow individual classes to use class-specific skills to gather thing that are then used by other crafters, but I feel like that might take the economy to a bad place in practice.
Imagine if you ask other players what the best way to make money is, and the answer comes back "start a shaman and gather Fernis root. That's used to make the raid potions and so it sells for a lot".
So I'm ok with class-specific consumables gathered through things like ranger foraging. However, I don't think involving traditional crafting in these would be a great idea. Just my opinion :)
I agree, it should stay class specific for just that class. Nothing that would unbalance tradeskills in any form.
Having the ability to harvest items for crafting, such as gathering, when combined with the shaman’s natural skill of gathering would allow him to possibly find and harvest a type of rare item not normally found, to increase the shamans class-based skill. This could be a stronger version of what his base class skill would be. It would work like a cooperative set of skills.
It would be just a small boost or bonus to his class skill.
The Rogue is another example:
Sleeping Powder
Blow a cloud of sleeping powder into the air. The Rogue and all enemies caught in the cloud will be put to sleep for up to 24 seconds. Any damage will break the effect.
If he chose to pick up the Alchemy tradeskill he could design his powder to boost the time on the sleeping powder to 30 seconds. These are class specific skills that only that class can use. No real way to unbalance tradeskills when only the Rogue can use the Sleeping Powder.