As you read in the Title, this is more of a talk between me and you.
I'm writing this on the fly so there isn't proper editing, so bear with me.
(Half Lie, I did read through it all once)
This is because I wanted to relax a little since I just had my last Exam for the first half of this period.
As such, because I was a bit full of work left to do, I'll stop writing for a while, though I should come back around the same time as my other Novels around Sunday or Monday.
This will give me time to finish all of the images for the last 10-15 chapters that have been delayed, this includes things like Yumi, and possibly Ermin's sisters.
I'll also leave another link for Discord for those that want to join at the end.
Besides that, let's go to what I wanted to talk.
I wanted to discuss my ideas, the power scaling, and a bit more of what happened so we are all on the same page by the time the next chapter drops.
First, Power Level.
So, I've taken a lot of inspiration from RPGs obviously, so things are like this.
If we exclude everything, the base setup of a Level 100 normal player is all stats at 100, while for the Hardcore players, it's 300.
Though this is 100, and as we know, something happens at that stage, so it's closer to 99 and 295 respectively.
My idea for this is that monsters and creatures from games are always much stronger even when they are on the same level as the player.
Dale right now is Level 28, and his stats are already above 100.
But he is still pretty 'average' within Resko.
How? Let's hypothesize.
And remember to leave your ideas and own hypothesis as you read, don't be afraid to take your time, I will read them all.
I'm here to talk after all.
Since Hardcore characters are the closest to NPCs if not exactly like them, then a Level 80 NPC would have around 190 in the least to all stats.
Remember that a Hardcore player grows like this:
2X Stat gain per Level between Levels 0 to 49 for a total of 100 at Level 50
3X between Levels 50 to 79 for a total of 190 at Level 80
5X between Levels 80 and 100 for a total of 295
So if we were to say that Misgurd is a Level 80 character, then at the minimum, his total stat count would be 190.
It's just that... Unfortunately, its not exactly like that.
If NPCs are like people, then they don't grow strong just like that unless I add some sort of explanation where invisible energy is absorbed by their bodies when they kill a monster...
They have to train to gain their Stats!
So... What makes an NPC special? They do need something to make up for it, right?
Do they really even need some unique factor?...
Monsters can have modifiers and ranks, allowing them to be Bosses and Raid monsters.
What about an NPC? What makes one comparable to a Monster?
It can only be the many years of experience they have.
NPCs also have Classes, although in their own way.
They train and get stronger with the years... They lived their own lives and got their own little adventures.
Of course, there are always exceptions, like that strange rat in the caverns near a Level 5 village that is Level 35, being considered a Raid Boss.
Azimuth is still a game at the end of the day...
And on that note, I decided to make it so that NPCs can grow beyond normally acceptable through actions similar to those of players.
Though the specifics shall be left in the open.
We'll see this better in action in some of the plots and how everything will tie up.
But there is something that I would like to say before we continue.
If a normal player were to attack Misgurd, he would deal fixed damage based on a series of calculations, being similar in execution to how it would be if they attacked Dale.
And as we saw so far, normal player actions are seen in a different way from the NPCs' perspective as compared to Dale's.
They would receive damage, and combat would start if it wasn't already... Under the premise they are even able to land the hit, but for the sake of convenience, we'll assume everything just happens.
However, what would happen after this point differs from NPC to HardCore player.
If a normal player were to attack this hypothetical Misgurd, the latter would be given a series of Buffs to make him fit his role as the Guild head of the Mercenary Branch in Resko.
A true monster.
It's like when you suddenly trigger a Hidden Boss fight...
However, that wouldn't happen if Dale were to attack him as it would just be a fight between two people and not a fight between Player x NPC.
Though we could also say that things would become harder... As the NPC in question may become more 'aware'...
This also ties to the previous idea of monsters becoming stronger as they rise in Level and Quality.
While a Level 80 player may struggle against a Level 80 Boss monster, Dale would probably be able to solo it due the combination of his power scaling.
The more he grows the more of a 'Raid Boss' he becomes.
But that is only base stats. People can grow outside of them.
Dale started with a massive advantage and got several items at the start that made his stat value increase.
The Aspect of Might and now the change in Ratio of his Mana stat.
Over time, with training and more encounters, he will grow stronger and stronger outside of items and Levels.
Another good way of understanding the strength differences of the people in this world is seeing how I set the value of a Legendary Item.
The base strength value to use Caladgold is 300. That is, if you do not have the motivation to make it lighter.
300 is 5 points above 295, the limit of Level 100. This means quite a lot.
In a sense, this means that from my perspective, to be worthy of Legendary, one needs to be past Level 100.
What that means will have to wait...
In the first place, it means that a player would need to be pretty high Level to be able to use it even if they find a lot of items to increase their stats.
And I am talking about a Hardcore player, for a normal player, they would have to be extremely cracked to be able to use it...
After all, their growth limit is 100 strength, to gain 200 more is a bit of a stretch unless they go through something extreme that allows them to change their Stats or even Ratio...
This also brings into question Item scaling.
I was between 2 ideas:
And the first one was a more game-like system where items could have many rarities and a rare Level 90 item would be better than a Legendary Level 10 Item...
But the rarity of each grade won't change, in fact, they could all become rarer...
This might potentially make lifestyle players more valuable as regardless of their Level, if they had a recipe and enough proficiency, they could pump up higher grades of items without much effort.
For a Level 90 player that can barely farm Rare gear, having one smith that can make Unique gear is certainly something to be happy about.
The other idea is that the rarity of items would slowly increase as the player Levels up.
For example, at Level 5 the average of the items would be normal.
And at Level 15 it would be Special.
At Level 30 Slightly Rare and so on.
I did not put a lot of thought into this one though, so the values could be adjusted, and they probably would, otherwise by Level 100 the average would be for everyone to be fully armed in Legendary gear or something close to that, which would still be exaggerated.
And that will never be the case.
Only Mcs would have something like that humph...
It's hard to talk about this so let's go to the other aspects...
Everyone has 10 slots for Skills, and they can grow from 0-Star to ???-Star.
And between each Level, there is a medium that is .5
So between 0 and 1 lies 0.5, and from 1 to 2 lies 1.5, and so on.
And no, this does not mean a player is limited to only learning 10 Skills, this should be developed further and is written somewhere in the future chapters already, I'm sure of that.
But for Dale, he has over 10 Skills in the Green Box, so how come he only has a few in the game?
We don't know, but we can make assumptions.
Perhaps the Game System limits players to 10 Skills so they don't gather too many super Skills and are forced to be more resourceful, we can't really know.
You can still learn martial arts and use them outside of Skills, but then again, imagine the effort... Or perhaps, that is how things are intended...
I have a few more ideas for this, but that will be revealed as we advance.
But in essence, I once had an idea for what the average for a Level should be in regards to the Star rating of Skills, but I scratched that since because of the complexity of the Skills in the world, someone could be Level 80 and have an incredibly strong Skill that is only 0.5-Star.
So in the end, Star Rating does not correspond to Level, though it can still be used as an indication of that obviously.
Lastly, what happened so far?
Roughly one year ago, the closed Beta for Azimuth was released and Dale was chosen among 100 other players due to his dedication to playing the game and exploring its secrets even when there were many other alternatives for it.
After around 3 or so weeks, he hit level 100 and all of that happened, with the green box permanently occupying a portion of his eyesight while the Beta was forcefully closed.
Some people were getting confused about the timeline, the Beta was supposed to last 1 month and 3 weeks, but it ended up only lasting 3 weeks due to this event.
He also learned that he could grow stronger in reality in a similar way he did in-game, so he started to prepare.
He got stronger and stronger until he hit a limit, and trained his Skill until the day of the game's full release came.
At the same time, his interest in the secret behind what happened continued to grow and it peaked when he learned that the Green box had changed when he logged into the game and that his progress in-game affected his real-life body.
As he got stronger in the game, he also got stronger in real life.
He choose the decayed city of Resko as his starting point, the starting point with the highest base Level of 65 (if I am not mistaken) and the place the furthest down South.
Slowly, he grew his reputation and made Resko return back onto the rails of development by recovering the holy Icon and pretty much reactivating the Church.
He cleared out a monster from the depths of the Catacombs and delayed Resko's downfall.
He helped the Alchemist recover her drive and set her on the right path, even though he didn't do much or so he believes.
And now he is slowly increasing his influence on the outside of Resko by hunting and learning the ways of the forest.
His actions have motivated many, and most of the elders are now slowly going back to what they usually were.
Soon enough, even if poor, Resko would be a pretty functional village with an alchemy shop, blacksmith, tailor, mercenary Guild, and more.
He also discovered another Dungeon, so the players will have a lot to do... If they can hunt in there of course.
He still has a lot of things to do though...
The problem with the Church far from the South...
Resolving the food and water crises caused by the desertification of the environment.
Scouting the mines outside of the Village to see what sort of Ores he can recover...
Exploring the ruins of the village and recovering its ancient facilities...
The possible danger deep within the forest.
The monsters lurking deep within Resko.
The players and their ambitions.
The Southern wall and what lies beyond it...
At the center of it all, lies his task of making Resko rise to glory once more.
And more...
There's a lot to do, and a lot to write, so I should have no problem making another volume XD.
I'll hear everything you have to say, be it events you would like to see to possible corrections and suggestions.
I really mean it, tell me what you think... I'm almost begging it at this point lol.
In any case, this was me, Follower of Abadom writing for 40 minutes, see ya all some other time!
Link for Discord!
//discord.gg/zpAgtPBAMK