Sidequest's November update is a big one and with that we're introducing levels for all classes. Each class you have will get its own experience bar and will get to level all the way up to 60! There are new abilities, talent points, and the most important part of all: this isn't something you should expect to complete right away.
A Level Cap
Sidequest is very much what we're calling an alpha state right now and it has been great to see that everyone understands the entire game is being iterated on live.
So for November, level 20 is going to be the cap. Much like how professions right now are capped at level 100 (to be increased down the line), character levels are being intentionally capped so that over the coming months everyone can work towards things at a healthy pace and not everyone is at endgame when there isn't a proper endgame in place yet.
Yes, there will be an endgame.
Part of today's reveal here for Mages is going to showcase talents that are available past level 20. Everything is in development and subject to change over our many releases that are coming. The goal is to achieve some form of balance between all the classes, which is definitely easier said than done. By collecting data at the lower levels and how people are playing, I'm hoping this will help make for an awesome end game.
There will never be a leveling reset. This isn't like we're playing on a beta or alpha server, this is the real deal. Though, I might open up a beta of Sidequest in the future to help with testing for folks who want to assist with testing certain things out before they come to live, probably once we get some more players.
How Talent Trees Work
You earn one point per class level, starting at level 2. Each row of the tree opens once you have put enough points into the rows above it, so the deeper talents arrive at levels 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40 and 50.
Most talents have one to three ranks.
Some come in pairs where you can only take one side.
A few talents build on an ability you unlocked earlier and need it first.
The tree holds 82 ranks in total, but only 72 can be held at once because of the pairs. With 59 points at level 60, you will not be able to obtain every single talent and that is by design. Close to it, but not all of them. I do eventually want to add even more talents so that everyone gets to make more build-defining and interesting choices, but this is our baseline for now. In reality we're likely going to add additional trees to support different styles of play, but for now, 1 tree for each class.
Resetting Your Talent Tree
Your first talent reset is free. After that it costs 5 Gold per class level. Resetting again within a week doubles the price, up to 8 times, and the price comes back down each week you don't reset. The design goal is that you lock into a tree and commit hard to that style of gameplay. Being able to switch things around very freely should be a very intentional decision and not one you make on the fly multiple times a day just because it makes fighting against a particular monster easier for 10 minutes here or 20 minutes there.
The Emberward Tree
Mages talent tree is called Emberward. Now I know there are going to be a ton of questions, and I'm intentionally not going to be answering very many of them because as I've said on realm threads, I want Sidequest to be about discovery. I want people to find new things and to have to theorycraft. These things add longevity to games and it means we can sneak in a new monster here and a new potion recipe drop there and it keeps things feeling fresh.
Fire: Stack Burning on everything and keep it going. Wildfire, Scorched Earth, Smoulder and Emberheart cover the field in burns, and Flashpoint, Firestorm and Sunflare cash them in.
Frost: Chill, slow and lock enemies down so they barely get a turn. Hard Frost, Ice Splinters, Absolute Zero and Eternal Winter set up Thermal Shock and Brittle Ice for huge follow-ups.
Wards: Shields that fight back. Searing Ward burns attackers, Kindred Flames and Ward Echo reward you when a shield breaks, and Wardmaster makes Ember Ward the bestest of friendos.
Below is our first public showcase of what talent trees look like - and choosing your abilities.
So, that's a lot of stuff to take in! Let's take a look at some of these rows. Keep in mind that descriptions are currently generated by our system for the most part and aren't nicely written. This is a temporary thing and will get resolved with time. It's just how our system works: talents add modifiers on top of things!
Row 1
The first talent row is available immediately upon hitting level 2. For Mages, there are four different talents you can choose from, with one of them being a choice.
Let's look at the choice first, since it's the left most talent. Right away we get to choose a way to augment our precious Fireball spell, turning you into Mage who applies a Burn or a Chill.
Wildfire - Fireball also: 0.15x damage each turn for 2 turns on every other enemy. Fireball also: Burning for 2 turns on every other enemy.
Cold Flame - Fireball also: Chilled for 1 turn. Fireball also: Delays the next turn by 10% of a turn.
You're going to see many options like this in Sidequest where you're going to be applying new tags to your core kit, changing how they behave at a core level. This kind of a change gives everyone different ways of playing classes. When combined with interesting effects from Trinkets and REDACTED, there isn't going to be just one way to play Mage or any class.
Maybe you want to bring along that weird Mage who decided to go heavily into Frost because those chills would be very useful even if they don't do the most damage.
We also have the Kindled Ward talent, which has two ranks.
Ember Ward also: 10% damage dealt for 2 turns.
Ember Ward also: 20% damage dealt for 2 turns.
What is Ember Ward?
Row 2
Oh you thought you were going to get to see everything today? Mwuhaha!
We have another choice node on Row 2 which unlocks an entirely new ability. This row is accessed once you have placed a minimum of 3 points into the first row.
Quicken (Ability) - +40% Haste for 4 turns.
Flashpoint (Ability) - Deals 0.9x damage (+60% vs Burning) (uses up Burning). 15% mana - 3 turn cooldown - Targets one enemy.
Do note that our abilities right now are also quite raw and I'm hoping to finalize our numbers on tooltips for the November release but, essentially, if you were to take Flashpoint as a talent, this is an ability you can cast which by default does less damage than your Fireball, but when hit against an enemy that is burning does a large chunk of damage to them. The downside though is Burning will be removed from that entity.
This kind of consumption of debuffs is going to add an entire new layer to combat inside of sidequest.
We also have a talent called Thermal Shock which has 3 different ranks. For Mages who want to live in the times of winter, this will make your Fireball and Skyfall spells, which are both Fire spells, use up Chilled debuffs in order to deal an additional 15% damage. Cool!
Row 4
Let's skip a row and see what's waiting for us towards the end of our Level 20 journey.
Warding Circle is yet another ability that Mages have access to from their talent tree, and this one isn't a choice between two abilities, you can just pick it up.
This gives Mages damage prevention and the ability cleanse themselves of a nasty debuff in lieu of a healer. Not necessary if you want to go full blown glass cannon, but it's a solid choice for safety out there.
Another talent in this row is Clarity, which increases the damage you deal for 2 turns by up to 30% when you use Still Mind - which is a bit like Warding Circle in that you can remove a harmful effect from yourself but this also replenishes your mana by 30%.
Talent Calculator?
I fully expect in the future to add a tool to the site to allow people to share talent builds with others and allow these to be imported directly to characters. That's something we'll get to when the full trees are available to play around with.
That's it for our Emberward talent tree preview. Things could always change before the update launches next month for the new November season here on Out of Games but I wouldn't expect too many things to change.
Each class is going to play different from one another, and there is definitely going to be good reasons to play different classes from other players. Warrior's are getting a Vanguard tree, Archers have Thornwatch, and the Assassin trains in the way of the Veilblade.
So, are you excited for November yet?
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