What's new in ATS?

[dayrinni]

Hello!

I wanted to take the time to make a series of posts that talk about what is new in ATS. This is intended for new and returning players alike.


Code base
The code base of ATS has been completely redone. The old code base was FastROM and written in C. The new one is written in Java from the ground up (complete with custom networking code for optimal performance). This is beneficial because Java allows me to produce code at a faster rate than I could in C. In addition, I designed the entire code base so I have a much better understanding of how it all goes together (so it'll be less bugyy and easier to add too later).

Combat
Combat will remain largely the same, with a few minor twists. In the previous version, Risk was limited to 7 positions. I have extended this out to 100, to allow for more variety of abilities and decision making. This will be play tested to ensure that it works well.

Also, I've put in good code to extend the combat messages for the game - previously, it was hard to add new messages quickly. I've made changes to allow for easy additions of messages.

Overall, combat should be very familiar.

Classes
Like previously, there will be four classes here: Rogue, Cleric, Mage and Fighter. Each class will have expanded systems to make their game play vastly different:

For example, Mages use an elemental charge based system on top of their essence. Each spell builds or costs charge to use - so a fire ball may require 2 charges of fire elemental to cast. Fire bolt may build 1 fire elemental charge.

Clerics, fighters and rogues will each have unique systems that give them their own fun and game play elements.

One of the main issues I had with the old ATS was there just wasn't enough differentiation within the classes themselves. In my mind, I wanted classes to be huge bundles of uniqueness for the players. Yes, they did play largely different from each type (ie: Rogue vs Fighter, etc) and were fun in their own ways, but generally a Fighter and Fighter were the same. I intend to fix the problem (see below).

I may or may not put in the Focus system. I need to think about it some more.


Specializations
This was one of the final projects I undertook for the old version. I wanted to have the players select from Mini-Classes, which would make them unique. The players could make up their own, propose it to me, RP it out and I'd code it in. Sounds great, right? Yeah! The major issue was the time it took to code up new abilities and implement them - the old code base took a long time for that.

I have solved the problem by putting in a specialization system. A specialization is essentially a mini-class - which a few abilities (3-5, maybe more, maybe less). Each player can equip 1-5 specializations, giving them a custom blend of abilities. These specializations can be acquired through role play, finding an item in the wild, doing a quest, or learning one at a trainer. Finally, specializations can be leveled up - so that Cleric who really wants to be specialize in healing can do so!

Now, the beauty of this system is - they can collect specializations and have access to many of them. But they can only equip a subset, which makes the player choose what they need at the moment. This is a really good system because it offers flexibility, customization, rewards exploring and role play, and gives long term progression for all characters. Also, it is very easy for us to make a new specialization.

Ability Editor
One of the projects I really wanted to do was have an ability editor. As I have mentioned previously, it was very hard to make new skills and spells in the game. I have remedied this and have made a full-fledged ability editor! This is great because we can quickly, and easily, make new skills or spells. It will make generating new content even faster. I have even made it so the system supports special and unique hard coded abilities.

Grind
Finally, another issue with ATS, was the grind. Some players liked it, others didn't. It is a fine balance, really. And it will be hard to please everyone. However, with that said, we are going to try to ensure the game isn't AS grindy, but still challenging and effort must be applied to get anywhere. I can't really give specifics right now, except we are aware of it. As with everything, it'll take some testing and experimentation to find what is right.

[dayrinni]

Hello,

I wanted to give an update to some of the new stuff in ATS.

Grind
One of the big issues previously was the grind. The grind consisted of two main issues: Gaining Uses and Gold. We have decided to take the route of lowering the amount of uses significantly, and of course, lessen the need for gold.

How did we do this?

Previously, the majority of the skills required uses and this was on the order of thousands and thousands and thousands. Players had to spend a lot of time gaining better levels in their skills which really took away from the RP of the game.

This time around, we have tied the combat attack and defense ratings mostly to the character level (ie: level 20 equals +20 to attack and defense). Weapon and defensive skills to add to these ratings, and will account most likely 10-20% of a player's capability. This helps to remove the majority of the grind for skills.

Furthermore, we have introduced a new system of skills. This is similar to the previous one but slightly different. Each skill has a limited amount of levels - say 1 to 10. Each can raise up by uses (but generally require MUCH less than before) OR by paying a fee in gold. This cost is pro-rated based on how many uses are present.

This way, players can advance easier since they don't need to spend hours of grinding - they can either purchase the next level or do a bit of training and then get a pro-rated price. In addition, they have less levels to worry about (Some of the later levels in some abilities will require quests to be done).

We've also introduced the concept of Tier Points. These are used to increase the levels of specializations and abilities. Raising specializations gives innate bonuses and unlocks new abilities. The gold cost for these will be generally lower. So gaining access to new abilities will be relatively cheap. Tier points are gained upon leveling up.

There will be plenty of skills to raise and level up skill, but it won't appear as endless as before.

Another aspect we did was lower the amount of experience needed to level up the character. In fact, we have increased the max level to 100 from 50, but kept the overall amount just about the same. In other words, to go from 1 to 100 is the same when compared to the old system to go from 1 to 50. Even though it is the same amount of experience needed, it will allow the player to feel as if they are progressing faster.

Of course, there will be end game progression for those who want it.



The final point is we will be lowering the costs needed to acquire equipment. This will be a significant drop. For example, steel armor will be reduced from around 5,000 to a much better price. And of course, orinsteel will be cut significantly.

Hopefully, these instances will lower the amount of grind, and more fun will be had for all.

Role Play
Our main focus will be on role play after the game opens. We want to spend the majority of time working on fun and exciting quests for the players. Of course, game updates will happen and so on. But where as before, the code was the main point and the RP suffered, I hope to reverse that this time around.

We will also try to run as many quests as possible, to keep the players involved and the world fresh. It should be a fun experience for sure. We'd also like more player focused quests where the actions of the players have impact on the world.

Non-Combat Quests/Stuff to do
I will also focus on non-combat activities such as quests, ways to progress and just fun things to do on the side. Some of these will depend on what the players want, but some others I can do before hand. With that said, I'm always open to suggestions.

Opening
Since I was able to successfully convert the game world from the old game to the new one, this means we can open sooner. I just need to get the code finished - with the ability system fairly much done, it means that a huge piece has been completed. The next huge (and probably last) is the character creation system. This will most likely similar to the old game - we had a good roll up process and I aim to keep it the same.

With that said, I hope that we can open for testing around this summer, on July 1st.

Well, that covers about what I wanted to say for this What's New. Until next time...

[dayrinni]

Here is another update about What's new in ATS.

Character Creation
I've been working on planning this out for some time now. I've been looking at the old process and overall, I like it. We received good feedback about it previously actually. So, we'll be going with almost a carbon copy of before. It'll be improved slightly in some areas. I'm considering adding new features such as Hometown, minor Traits and maybe a couple other small features.

Starting Specializations
Upon roll up, a player will be able to select one of three specializations. Each will have 3 abilities (one low level, one mid level and one high level). This is the first introduction a player will have with specializations. They'll be able to buy the other two at the trainer in town.


Content Creation
As you know, content creation tools has seen a good improvement. Over the coming months, new abilities will start to be made and inserted into the game. Many of these will be the old abilities of ATS. However, with the new types of systems we've implemented, we will be adding new types of abilities. We will always have to continually add new forms of abilities.

In addition, we'll be touching up old areas, adding new ones and so on.

One thing we'd to do is to improve automatic content generation, namely quest generation on the spur of the moment and shifting areas. I've worked up some new systems for these but they haven't been programmed yet. My goal is to work on this during the open testing period so I can get feedback from them.

Website
I've been steadily updating the website over the course of the development period. I've added the old manual on there, as well as many new lore pages.

Our goal is to have more content located on the website as well as use it more. I'll be updating the manual (it needs lots of editing). More RP information will be present as well. Finally, there is a calendar located on the main page. This will list the scheduled major events for the game. Right now, the date for opening testing is listed.

Role-Play
As always RP drives this game. Over the course of open testing I'll implement a bunch of RP related tooling for the players. I want to get feedback.

Some of the old systems we had dealt with putting RP Notes on characters. I think this worked well and will be adding it. Also, I want to implement some sort of automated system that could potentially be turned on to give
players rewards to RP or to spawn RP to happen. These are just ideas I'm toying around with. We want to reward players who do RP since that is what the game's about.



Well that's it for this update.

Until next time...

[dayrinni]

I wanted to give a short update on the Grind. This is a bit more technical towards the end, but you may find it interesting.

As has been said before, we are working on improving the grind. One way is with skill uses. I've mentioned some ways that we are improving the game play. I wanted to talk about it a bit more.

Previously, skills such as weapon and armor skills were very specific on how you gained uses. For example, you needed to be hit or hit a target within a certain level range. We're doing away with these. Players will be able to train these type of skills with any level target, even other players. The reason why this works this time around is because the player's ability is tied more to the level of the character rather than the level of the skill. For example, in the New ATS, you get +1 to attack for each level you have, and then a smaller bonus from your weapon skill. While in the Old ATS, 90% of your attack power was based on your weapon skill level. As you can see, this new way of doing things doesn't cause balance or scripting issues since the power is based in a different place.

In addition, we've just made these passive abilities easier to gain uses with - pretty much whenever the game needs to gain the modifier applied by the ability, it'll give you 1 use. This way, when the game makes many calls for modifiers, you'll gain many uses.

This generally means that abilities that are passive should on average, get more uses than before. While players may be able to gain levels faster this time around, you can't level up the abilities to max (though this depends on the ability) generally via uses. You can only get to NEAR max. We have designed this to work around the following idea:
You can easily level up the ability to near max and be just fine with playing the game. It isn't required to max these abilities. For the players who want to squeeze out the most of their character, they can do so. We'll present them with interesting challenges.

Just so you know, we always have and always will have a a place for different types of gamers: RPers, power gamers, explorers and everyone in between. We will make sure that the power gamers have plenty of things to do at end game and ensure it doesn't upset the balance of RPers.

So hopefully you can see how we're continually spending time making improvements in lowering the grind. I believe in the end (after some play testing/tweaking), we will have a great system.

Thanks!

[dayrinni]

Hello,

I wanted to talk a bit about the classes and balancing. I've made mentions of these in places here or there so I wanted to make a single post that outlines everything.

Classes
As you know, we're trying to solve of the balance issues between the classes. Some of the issues we had last time dealt with Mages being very strong and being very good buffers. This rendered Clerics less useful. Fighters had issues with higher level monsters - since they did not have the tools to either lessen their received damage or deal enough damage to defeat their foes. Finally, rogues were made to be mostly an out-of-combat class with some interesting abilities, which did not pan out due to some bugs and lack of general players. While many things worked well, there was room for improvement.

To remedy this, each class will be more focused on what it performs - mostly through the abilities they receive.

Mages
Mages will finally get their focuses. They will also still get buff/defensive spells but with two very important points: the spells will be less powerful than Clerics and they will be self only.

Rogues
Rogues will get a few more combat based skills, as well as more non-combat abilities, on top of ensuring the bugs that plagued the previous skills will be fixed.
Some examples of new skills they'll be getting will be: poisons (I'm serious this time!) and duel wield (again, I'm serious!).

Fighters
Fighters will have their Style system handle the majority of the higher leveled issues they faced. On top of that, they'll also gain more abilities (through specializations) to handle these tougher monsters.

Clerics
Clerics will receive more gifts, mostly based on the Entity they follow and specializations. They will also pay less gold to raise in devotion. On top of that, the problems with various skills will be fixed (ie: consecration). In addition, they'll simply get more gifts and ways to perform their task. Finally, the Clerics will have the strongest defensive and healing abilities in the game. Defensive buffs be group wide from the get go. Note: The Fighter style Command is a utility style that does give short term offensive and defensive buffs. But these are short enough as not to impede on the Cleric's role.
One key sub-system that we have implemented is the Worship ability. This allows the Cleric to attain player followers to give bonuses back and forth. Finally, we'll be tweaking the amount of favors, gift costs, gift targets and other various things to make them more group friendly.


Overall, these changes should really improve the game and four classes.

Balancing
Balance is something that just needs to be done over time. It is something that cannot be attained from the get-go. Things will never go as planned. Having said that, I'm planning on tweaking and changing as needed through the game. This may involve raising/lowering numbers or adding/subtracting abilities. The idea though, is to ensure that we do it incrementally and not take a knee-jerk reaction.

While it is my policy to try to raise up others rather than nerf a class, that is not always possible to do so or it may make more sense to lower 1 class's ability to bring it more in line.

One policy I like to do is, try to make cool things over boring-but-balanced things. I fully expect that some abilities/etc are completely overpowered or completely underpowered. It's easier to tweak something fun but OP rather than turn a boring but balanced ability into something fun. Also, because of this policy, I like to try and give each class something unique and fun that may be un-balanced (sorta in hopes of achieving balance over all).

Finally, if you have any feedback, please post it up in a constructive manner. Doing so makes it easier for me to understand your post and points. I'm more than willing to work with each and every player to ensure they have a fun and good time playing.


Well that about covers this post! Hopefully you understand more the changes to classes and how balance will be performed.

Thanks for reading and until next time...

[dayrinni]

Hi,

Let's see what else is new for ATS!

Spells
As you know, Magic plays a huge role in Eihydia - it always has and always will. Previously, Mages had access to a few sets of elements: ice, fire, lightning and then some random spells from a couple other elements like Nature, Gravity and so on.

Over the years since ATS has closed we have done a lot of work on figuring this aspect of the game out more. So right now we have a better idea of how things are organized. In ATS, I felt that it was really disorganized and it could never reach it's full potential - there should be full lines of spells for each element and each with their own theme and utility. Because in the end, each Mage should be different and have access to different spells - thusly, they'll have supreme uniqueness! Yeah!

What does this mean for ATS? It means GREAT THINGS!

First off, we'll have roughly 21 spells per element - split up between damage dealing and utility - spread out amongst common to rare spells. These are carefully divided up between Basic spells (that you can choose at roll up and learn for a small fee), to Basic Specializations (again, easily attainable in the shops) extending to Rare Specializations (only attainable from quests, monster drops or exploration) to ultra rare spells (combinations of various elements which can be attained by doing special quests/good RP, NOTE: These do not count against the 21 per element). This means each specialization will have a few spells in it - 2-5 spells. This is good because at level 100 each character has 4 specialization slots. Most likely, a Mage will need Arcane Studies (it raises spell damage and other boosters) so that leaves 3. This will mean that Mages will have to carefully choose and think on what spells they want to use. This is good because each Mage has their own needs and thoughts on how to play. In other words, each Mage will be different based on their explorations and vision the player has. In the end, each Mage will be unique.


You may be wondering why there are only 21 spells per element. Even though the ability editor allows for quick creation of spells, I still need to make them and I don't want to go over board. So 20 is a good number for the 100 levels we have. Also, each spell has 3 or 5 levels associated with it, which can be trained for a small fee, and it'll increase the spell's effectiveness. A side effect of this is:
1. We can make spells a bit more interesting since you'll use them longer.
2. This means because the spell can grow with you, we simply need less spells.
3. We need to make sure the Utility spells are useful at ANY level.


Now, what spells will be present at roll up?
I'm planning on having the Fire and Ice spells completed at roll up. So this will be 42 spells present at the start of the game. I will then start adding different elements, up until we have them all done. This will be a lengthy process because we have like 20 elements. At this moment, I'm going to be doing Lightning after the game opens. Of course, Mages will be able to attain these spells after they are released - the basic ones they can purchase for a small price and then explore to find the other ones.

Overall, I think this system will work nicely and allow for the vision of Mage specialization that we've always wanted in ATS.


Tralisia
Tralisia is undergoing some changes, some of them are really cool. I can't say TOO much here because it's a surprise so I'll just give some background information:
The game will open a few months AFTER Erius was saved from the Abyss. Vanyelar quickly intervened after the events of Derium and the Abyss. It's one thing to hear about rumors of what may be happening across the world and another to actually experience it. So they started investing heavily into the city to build it up. So Tralisia is a bit larger but it has undergone some...interesting changes due to a couple events.
The few month fast forward allows us to change Tralisia and make improvements as well as explain away why certain characters aren't there (not all players are returning and some returning players are playing new characters, which is COMPLETELY ok!!!!!!. You must do what YOU want to do! We aren't forcing anything on anyone here!!).
So there ya have it - we think you'll really like it.


Web Page Manual/Lore
The Manual and Lore pages on the website are going well. The Manual will be ready for launch. The Lore pages will always be undergoing changes and updates. Actinate and I are working on fleshing some aspects of the history out.



Thanks!

Disclaimer: The above was written prior to me having my morning coffee - beware of any typos!!

[dayrinni]

Hello,

I just wanted to do a quick update. We were planning on fast forwarding time 2 years but decided against it. The game takes place a few months after Arch Mage Erius was rescued from the Abyss.

Since then, Vanyelar has taken a stronger interest in Tralisia and funded the construction of the new Political District north west of the center of town.

Great Things are coming our way!!