No dawdling, I’ll just get right back to it.
The Perception System: Probably my favorite bit of info about Vanguard out of everything I learned. Perception is a the ability to detect and identify things in the game. It's all pervasive, being arguably the one of the most important stats no matter what sphere you are playing. Perception has ties in the intelligence or mental stats of your character, giving Warriors and meele classes a reason to carefully consider how many points they should leave for stats other than strength. Indeed, because Perception is how you sense reactions and opportunities in Vanguard's combat system, perception could end up being as important to meeles as their physical stats. Early on during E3, I asked John Capozzi what the two most important rogue stats were, and he replied that it was probably dexterity and intelligence. Later I was told that it was instead dexterity and strength. 2 different takes on what is actually important to a class from 2 different devs. John said Intelligence because he probably was stressing the importance of Perception. The other was probably stressing the meele damage aspect of the class.
Perception Outside of Combat: If Perception is so important in combat, it's still just as important outside, and has real application to it's importance. For example, a character who is riding through the forest on their horse at a gallop is obviously missing a lot of detail they wouldn't if they were walking, less than they normally would see. Including threats. If a monster is lying in wait for you, and you're riding by on a horse, you won't see them litterally until they spring their attack, meaning there is no more 20 minute runs through areas on auto-pilot. Or even dodging between mob aggro radii in an open field. If you don't take the time to slow down in a dangerous area, enemies may very well get the drop on you. Mobs have perception too, and some mobs with exceptionally higher perception will see you and be aware of you long before you know they are there. They might sneak up on, or run and grab a few of their buddies before springing their ambush.
Perception is also very important to harvesting classes. It directly ties into their ability to locate and identify harvestable resources. And you are similiarly less able to detect them when you are moving rapidly. Suddenly, you may want to think twice about using speed enchancements to get around, as you will be missing valuable resources. It's also tied into how well you identify resources, so higher level perception characters are finding better items.
But Perception does more still. Perception is a measure of your ability to notice detail, minute or otherwise. You can use your perception to figure out details about NPCs, friendly, neutral or hostile, after you click on them. This information appears as little icons in a box above the NPCs head. People in the adventuring sphere can use it to determine what a mob is thinking, what their intentions are. What their next course of action might be. Who they are paying attention to. What buffs or debuffs are present on the NPC. If they are wounded or what part of their body is wounded. How many hit points they have. Diplomats might use it to determine their current target's state of mind, so they can plan the next possible course of action, the right way to approach them. All of this rides on how much importance you choose to put into your character's perception abilities.
So when you think about Perception, you have to think about it litterally. Perception determines whether or not you can see a secret door hidden behind some bushes, or your ability to detect traps, or magical incantations that work as traps. Whether or not you see that secret switch in the wall. If a mob is casting a spell in the other room, your perception determines whether or not you get a message about it. Messages are sent to your chat window that describe what action the NPC is taking, and your perception is constantly running, checking your surroundings for information to feedback to you the player, beyond what you can normally see.
I watched the demo PC player's perception skill go up several times in a row in just a few seconds, without him having to do anything (it was explained that because the character's had been artificially increased in level, their skill increases were over compensating). Perception, in totality, is attribute, skill and level driven. As I understand it, Perception the attribute is a derivative of Wisdom and Intelligence (just like some 2nd. Edition D&D variants I play).
Perception in Combat: Perception takes 2 forms in combat. Meeles use a skill called Tactical Recognition, while caster use Arcane Recognition.
For meeles, Tactical Recognition determines whether or not they can detect their friend's special actions. Being successful in doing so means that you recognize that you have an opening, and then you can take an action in response, failing means you don't. Tactical Recognition also determines whether or not you can identify what your enemy is doing at any given moment. Being successful means you might have an opportunity to take a defensive or offensive reaction in response. Perception also determines if the player is able to recognize and learn some enemy attacks (will go into that later).
For casters the process is much the same. Arcane Recognition determines if casters can a) detect the spell cast by their comrades, and react to them accordingly. b) determines if they can detect enemy spell casting, and c) recognize the spell and get a chance to counter spell. Because counter spelling is an unique concept all it's own, I'll go into seperately on it's own later.
Adventuring in Action: I saw quite a bit of fighting in the Nusibe Necropolis over the course of E3. The dungeon is set into the side of a sand dune. True to being seamless world, you flawlessly transition into a series of tunnels, the walls lined with heiroglyphs and murals. Rubble is piled in the corners in mounds. The halls are lined one on top of another, and you take a series of switch backs down into the lower halls. As you pass into each area, it's name appears briefly in your UI at the top.
In the private demo, I watched Darrin Mchpherson lead his character into the Necropolis. We had to wait a little while before the group to actually formed up (I guess even in development, pick up groups are slow to form :P), but after they did they launched directly into combat. More on that in just a second, I want to talk a little bit about the dungeon itself. First of all, it's fabulous. The details are cool and they are everywhere. No featureless, soulless dungeon here, it oozes personality just like Guk, or Hate. Threatening messages are the norm once you are on an encounter route. I watched John Capozzi run in from the top level, and he got a little turned around. So he used a dev cheat, and teleported to a new spot in the dungeon. The name of the area appeared in green (as opposed to all the red I had been seeing), and a message came into the text bar saying “You feel safe”. Never got the chance to ask him what that meant exactly, or how it applied, but he then ran out into the large room with the stairsways that we've all seen, where he promptly got pwned by scorpion. Good times. He respawned outside the dungeon, where we'd just been 2 minutes earlier, his dark elf caster falling through the air doing the swimming motion (it was hilarious to watch). Guess development and adventuring kinda go hand in hand.
Combat in action: Aspects of combat movement has been changed or were misinterpreted by me while writing this review. There is no artificial movement reduction when you enter combat. Rather, only when using timer abilities like spell casting or timer based meele actions will you move at a modified speed.[/i]
When you are thinking about combat, you need to remember that the model for adventurer's combat is the same as it is for crafting, harvesting, and diplomacy. It all revolves around 2 key concepts. Action and reaction. Merely starting an automatic attack process and spamming whatever abilities you have will not be enough, as I saw constantly through my look at Vanguard. Dev characters were routinely dying because they were both trying to play the game, and talk to me, rather than actually watching what was happening in the battle.
To succeed you must pay attention to the set of icons that appear above your combat bar, called reactions. These are opportunities above and beyond the normal auto attack and the use of combat abilities. In terms of offensive reactions, many examples I was given worked like this. The Rogue uses a Sneak Attack, which puts the creatures state “off balance”. The Warrior perceives that state on the NPC is off balance, which allows him to use enraging strike, which staggers the NPC. The ranger then recognizes that the creature is both off balanced and dazed, and has a chance to take a reaction, that is based on either of those two states (if they still apply).
In terms of defensive reactions, it goes like this. Warriors (Defensive Fighters) can see when attacks are about to hit a specific target (provided they perceive it), like their defensive target. (Everyone gets to choose two targets, offensive and defensive). Having someone selected as your defensive target allows you to use your perception to see what's happening to the defensive target, and then take reactions accordingly. All reaction abilities or opportunities are color coded so that you can distinguish between them, plus the icon gives an indication what the reaction is. When the warrior detects that the mob is about to attack their defensive target, they can use their defensive reaction (called Rescue) to absorb the damage of the attack instead of having it affect their defensive target. Or, they can use a defensive reaction to possibly mitigate incoming damage against themselves. Offensive Fighters, like the Rogue, use the defensive reaction Intercept to stop attacks going to their defensive target, and negate the damage entirely.
What does this mean in terms of the Combat Stances? When in offensive stance, you'll get some reactions that correspond to the abilities you currently have available. When you're in defensive stance, you'll get defensive reactions that correspond to the abilities you have now instead.
Meele fighters will be able to combine their abilities together into chains that will result in greater damage and the continuous application of effects, or mini-debuffs. Combat Abilities are designated as one of 3 kinds. Openers, Bridges, and Finishers. Openers are stronger than regular attacks, and allow you to use bridges. Bridges can only be used after openers, and are a stronger attack. Finishers end the chain and deliver high amounts of damage.
Casters will be able to combine spells together as they are cast to achieve much greater results, or even wholly new effects. Just like meeles, this revolves around correctly perceiving which spells are being cast, and perceiving that the opportunity is available for you to act.
Some things to remember. Reactions do not come one at a time. They come as they happen. Meaning, you might have 2 defensive reactions, and 3 offensive reactions available to you at one time. It is up to you, the player, to determine what the best course of action is at that time. You may decide to use an offensive reaction instead of rushing to protect your mage. You may decide to save your own skin instead of trying to complete an ability chain. Combat to my eyes seemed a little slow, just slightly languid, but there is a good reason. The human brain needs time to react to this kind of information, and to make decisions.
Darrin McPherson: Combat is slower in our game than in most games. Depending on your weapon, the speed your attacking, that's [you attacking] every 4 to 5 seconds. So you have 3 to 4 seconds to decide what your going to do that round.If you happen to click on one reaction, then move quickly and click another, the second reaction is “queued”, and a small blue box in the bottom center of your screen displays how long til it executes. So I assume that if you queue more than a few reactions together, and try to use an ability, by the time they get the chance to go off, their time for use has already passed. And of course, just to remind you that the mobs you will be fighting run by the same rules. So they are doing things like intercepting your attacks, and running ability chains.
All in all, combat was very hard for me to follow. There was just so much information being thrown at me that it was hard for me to see when reactions were actually taking place. But again I was reminded that these characters were already 25 (in what my brain was already referring to as mid level), and they were chaulk full of abilities and had many reaction opportunities available. Another thing to note is that I mostly watched what was going on in the viewing area as opposed to what was being said in the chat window. The game uses a more descriptive form of the EQ attack lines, so perhaps those line describe the reactions taking place. There were no super exotic animations or over the top spell effects to indicate the player had done a reaction. Damage values were also hard to follow, as the players were already doing in the hundreds of points in the demo.
On the plus side, it was the not the spam fest in the chat window like it was in EQ. Combat is a little slower, due to the fact that there is more to think about, and look at. So chances are, you’ll be able to read and follow things fairly easily, despite the chaos on your screen.
Sigil Fact Sheet
-Success is contingent upon reacting to the actions of your opponent.
-Players will need to seek out items, both crafted and looted, in order to combat their enemies.
-Spell Casters will be able to engage in magical combat with other spell casters.
-Players can cast different spells in concert with one another, creating awesome spell effects that are greater than the sum of their parts.
-Both Spell casters and meele combatants can preform attack chains that enable them to string together an opening, bridge, and powerful finishing ability.
-The Perception System will allow players to learn abilities by watching NPCs.
Crafting in Action: Crafting, like Combat, works along the premise of action/reaction. Here is what I saw. A Qalian female (Smith?) I assume was in a forge room. The dev running the demo selected the forge and began to interact with it. The dev selected the tools he would need and selected his recipe, and then he was off. A bar of 8 icons appeared, all in a line, of different colors. The first icon began to fill up with color as the process started, which I think was melting the ore. As the first action was being taken, action points were being deducted in another window from a total of 200.
Then, to the right of the progress bar, another window appeared that said complication. Below it was another icon that said stoke fire. The dev clicked stoke the fire and more action points were deducted, in addition to the running total of the process working. Then the dev added a second ore after the first action was completed. Through the various stages of crafting, more action points were deduct as the process ran, and as the dev took steps like adding the mold. Complications, mostly needing to stoke the fire, continually arose. Just as we came up on the limit of our action points, the processes was finished, producing grade A ore. A bar below the progress bar indicates the level of quality that your currently producing. While all this is going on, your character is preforming animations that correspond to what their doing. When they are tempering they are pounding the metal with a hammer. When they drop the ore in they actually do it. All in all, crafting look complex and full of potential. A few of the Safehouse Staff thought it even looked a little too involved with the average player. A first I thought so too, but now that I have had the chance to relax and reflect, I think that all the steps and actions have a point and purpose, and will crafting a lot of depth.
The dev told me that, during certain crafting projects, that points could be expended to repeat certain steps of the process, like tempering the ore, or mixing the ore, or smelting the ore, which in turn effects the quality, quantity, and composition of the finished product. For example, you might want to mix in the ore more than once, which might result in producing more finished ore with one run of crafting than would normally happen. But if you fail to finish the process before you run out of action points, you don't produce anything. The level of failure can vary, depending on a lot of factors, like how far through the process you were, or your skill level. I asked if you could use this process to make multiple refined products, like swords, and was told that generally you could not. It was more intended for things like arrows, ore, and refined raw materials.
The dev I watched was doing this crafting as part of a commission for the guild. The guild had provided him with the recipe, the materials to complete the work, and the facilities. Once the dev had completed the task, he got a skill raise andsome experience towards his crafting class. I was told this would be the primary way to gain skill raises, and earn experience in your chosen crafting profession (crafters have levels too). That while you could go ahead and experiment, and get raises that way, they would be fewer and far between than crafting commissions. And it was said that you wouldn't get skill points for repeating tasks, or doing trivial tasks. The other bonus to doing crafting assignments is, people like you for it! The more you do for them, the better the recipes they give you. Do enough and they might even give you access to secret recipes.
Other recipes can only be found through experimentation, meaning it's a good to be well rounded as a crafter, splitting your time between commissions and doing your own work, gathering your own materials. You never get to keep the things you make on commission, so there are no free lunches to take to the auctions to sell.
Another thing about commissions. You're essentially making someone else wealthier, more powerful, often to the detriment and displeasure of others. Commissions are faction-based actions. They make you more popular with some, less popular with others. When you're producing swords for the city guard so they can better fend off the criminals in the city (and you are really impacting that fight with your work, by the way. More on that later, hah!), they like you. The criminals hate you. Better stay out of the bad parts of town Mr. Well-to-do-High-End-Crafter-For-The-Militia.
To do crafting in most cases (if not all cases, not sure about this one) you need crafting stations. Forges, work benchs, sewing looms, what have you. The quality of these crafting stations affect the quality of your work. The forge in the village of Tursh makes pretty decent swords (if there is one there). The King of Targonar's personal forge (if it's there) probably makes some pretty nice swords. So what do you think an ancient, 2000 year old forge of the Gods might turn out? There will be special stations in the world, probably in hostile areas, that crafters will want to work at, requiring that they get the help of adventurers to watch their back while they work their magic.
Crafters will also be responsible for working in groups to construct large items like structures and ships in Vanguard, projects that will require the talents of many different crafters working in conjunction with each other. I did not personally get to witness group crafting, although based on solo crafting, I can bet it was mind bogglingly cool. Check with the other fansites for updates on that.
Sigil Fact Sheet
-Immerses player in the process of crafting through an action point system that raises crafting to a new level of interactivity.
-Execute actions and resolve complications that arise while managing your pool of actions and working your material.
-Crafters will be able to advance to the top levels without the need to adventure.
-Crafters will play an important role in building of player cities and vehicles as groups of crafters get together to construct these items.
-Through the use of the work order system crafters will b able to advance and gain access to secret crafting guilds that hide the secrets to lost recipes.
-Attaining recipes will be done in multiple ways such as experimentation.
-Gain Inspiration and use it it to increase your chances of success or of unlocking other recipes.
Harvesting in Action: I saw less of harvesting than of the other activities like combat and crafting, but here is what I did get out of it. Like combat and crafting, it's about managing your action points (or stamina, or maybe both, can't quite recall), dealing with complications, in the process of harvesting. I watched Jeff Butler take on a tree (and yes, the trees actually fall down), with an axe. The tree's life was displayed much like an opponents, gradually lowering as Jeff hacked away at it.
Resource Crafters get abilities that allow them to better execute their class (like Reaper). Some might get buffs that they apply to the group, some might restore stamina. One thing the devs stressed is that you need to carefully manage your stamina while you are harvesting, because out in the open there are many opportunities for beasties to find you, and if you're dead on your feet when they find you, you're dead. And dead men haul away no trees.
Just like in crafting, complications arise during harvesting. Maybe a knot in the tree that takes extra effort to cut through, or a rock in the way where you're digging out herbs. Or maybe a tree root while you're mining for gold. Like crafting, addressing these complications works against your stamina, but could result in a higher quality product or greater yield. Some complications may have deadly consequences if you choose not to address them.
Harvesters are indeed separate from the actual crafting classes. They have their own attributes, skills, and equipment that separate them from bowyers and fletcher's, alchemists and stone masons.
Resource gatherers will be able to work in groups just like everyone else. Like meeles and casters in combat, they will be able to chain abilities together to produce greater, more efficient results, or do individual ability chains.
To give you an idea how this differs from resource gathering in other games, here's a little Q&A I asked, relating to swtiching spheres and getting resources. Bear in mind that horses are like mobile banks.
Me: You don't need to go into towns or outposts to change your sphere?
JB: Correct.
DM: It's equipment based. As a crafter, you have a set of equipment that you need to use as a crafter because they have attributes, and bonuses, they are your magic tools, your special boots, all those things that add to your crafting attributes and skills. It's why we have seperate skill pools. I can be the guy that harvests, and be item driven. I can be the guy that crafts, and be item driven. I can be the guy that does all 4, and collects a lot of gear.
Me: So let's say I'm an adventurer, and I'm on my horse, and I come across a resource I really want. All I have to do is hop off my horse, grab my crafting gear, throw it on and start harvesting?.
DM: Go for it.
JB: There are actually a couple caveats there. First, are you in harvesting character mode, or adventuring mode. How quickly are you traveling? Are you traveling in a mode that allows you to percieve things? Are you appropriately skilled in recognizing herbs? Sigil Fact Sheet
-Multiple harvesting classes with specific abilities.
-Solo players or groups are able to gather resources cooperatively.
-Wide range of of chain abilities to preform the job of your class.
-Harvesting specificclothing and tools to preform your job.
-Events makes your harvseting sesion more challenging, such as knot in the wood ect..
-Obtaining the resource isn't the final goal. (I'll cop to not quite getting this one.)
A note about crafting, harvesting and diplomacy in action. When an adventurer fails at their primary task, slaying mobs, they usually die. And dying results in losing experience. And so it is the same with the other spheres. Failing to complete a recipe, or to harvest a resource, or schmooze an NPC, results in a loss of experience in your current sphere. But just like adventuring, you will have a chance to "flee the combat", before you fail entirely and lose valuable experience.
Satisfied yet? I didn’t think so. Read Part 3
HERERead the consolidated French version
HEREJustin "Nenjin" Wheeler
Safehouse Staff Writer
