Skill Tree Progression System
Over the last several months I have been working on a brand new way to progress and grow your character. It has been under wraps because it was so ambitious I wasn't sure if it was going to work out. Well, I am pleased to announce that the new system is fully planned out and even has an online calculator preview tool for you to check out.
Introducing the Aether Story Skill Tree progression system.
As a value added incentive to become one of our Patreon patrons the Skill Tree onlin calculator tool will be only available to those who pledge to us. In the future I will make the online calculator available to everyone. But If you wish to check it out today consider joining our Patreon and helping fund the ongoing development of the game.
Skill Tree progression system
Each class (the Scholar, Warden, and Ranger) has access to a new class Skill Tree. Every time you level you will get a point that you may spend in your class tree. The class tree is split into two parts, one for each spec. For example the Scholar has the Astral side and the Academic side. You may split your points between the two sides as you see fit: put all your points into one side and become a master Astral Scholar, or split between the two and become a well versed Scholar of both disciplines.
Great care was taken in the design to make sure that the skills you learn by being your class impact the way you approach the game, changing your play style. By mixing a strong theme for each class spec and bringing in powerful talents and skills, you should find building your characters to be exciting and looking forward to spending a point each time you level.
All classes and their two spec's skill trees are fully designed and available in the online calculators. Consider joining our Patreon to check it out for yourselves.
Elements
Beyond your classes, the elemental skills are still a core design of the Aether Story experience. They bring universal utility and elemental type bonuses to your character. The elements are: Fire, Earth, Wind, Ice, Lightning and Water. All elements have powerful elemental attacks associated with them, but also each element has a unique utility to benefit your desired role in battle. For example, Earth and Ice help you survive so are great for tank oriented builds, and Wind helps with energy and attack power based builds.
Leveling your elements requires you use them in battle. Through practice you become a master. Each time you level an element you gain a skill point of that element and they too have their own skill trees. You are able to level each element to level 10, and therefore you gain 10 skill points for each.
But if you are really enjoying a specific element you can decide to specialize in it. Through the course of game play you will visit "Elemental Shrines" of the ancients which will give you the power to specialize into three elements. Each time you specialize you can increase the max level of an element by 5 points. Do keep in mind that each element can only have the max level of 20. This does mean you can specialize in the same element twice, or split the specialization upgrades across three elements. The choice is yours.
The Choice is Yours
All of this means you can build your own custom character. Mix and match different class specs and elements to create your own hybrid role and play style.
I look forward to hearing what kind of builds you all are able to create with the new online skill calculators. Be sure to join the Patreon to check it out for yourself.
In the coming months the new skill progression system will be added to the Alpha, in phases, so keep your eyes out for new patches to try out the skills yourself, first hand, in game!
Thanks everyone for your interest and support. See you in the Aether.