Before we begin, let’s make sure we are all on the same page: progression on Fractured Online is neither level- nor skill-based, to avoid the usual grind that comes with skill progression in comparable games.
To still provide a sense of progression and long-term achievement, Fractured Online introduces a new experience called the Knowledge System. This game mechanic combines the following rules:
- The core strengths and weaknesses of your character are defined during character creation by setting your attributes. Attributes don’t increase during gameplay, but a free “respec” is provided in case you’ve made a mistake during character creation.
- Aside from equipment progression, your character doesn’t really become stronger over time. Instead, it gets more knowledgeable. This happens in many ways, but one above all: the array of abilities at its disposal becomes larger and larger. This, coupled with the Resting system, allows you to design a ton of situational builds to engage in different scenarios more effectively.
- A minor exception to the rule are Talents, explained later in this journal. Talents don’t create a huge power gap between newcomers and experienced players though, as they are mostly useful to fine-tune your character builds.
Let’s look at the system in more detail now!
KNOWLEDGE POINTS
In Fractured Online, Knowledge Points can be seen as your personal progression “currency”, which you acquire over time while playing the game. Once earned, you can spend them to obtain Talent Points and start learning new abilities.
Unlike the usual “experience points” you can find in most MMORPGs, in Fractured Online grinding (repeating the same action over and over) is not the way you earn Knowledge Points. Their acquisition takes place naturally during your gaming sessions – and the more varied the things you do are, the better!
Let’s have a look at the four main situations that lead to earning Knowledge Points.
- Exploration. A new character in Fractured Online not only has just a basic awareness of combat and magical arts, but is also oblivious of all the points of interest of the world it lives in. This ignorance is reflected in the world map, which is dotted with little questions marks. If you want to become a knowledgeable explorer, you need to travel through every region of the world to document all the locations that are marked as undiscovered. Whenever you do so, you are awarded with Knowledge Points according to the importance of the place you’ve visited.
- Bestiary. The bestiary is a personal diary where you store all the information on the types of creatures you’ve interacted with and/or defeated. New entries in the bestiary only report the most basic information on a creature, such as its name and species. Multiple interactions / kills gradually reveal more detailed data on the creature, including its attributes and abilities. Every time you increase of your knowledge of a creature, you are rewarded with Knowledge Points!
- Resources. As with creatures, your Book of Knowledge contains a section dedicated to your discoveries of natural elements, including plants, trees, and different types of minerals. Obtaining the full knowledge of each resource is rather quick as it doesn’t involve combat, but figuring out where each resource is located is no easy feat!
- Lost Tales. Lost Tales are among the hardest items to obtain in the world of Fractured Online. Fragments of a Lost Tale are only awarded to the players who manage to defeat one of the Legends, mighty world bosses that can be summoned in the remotest locations of each planet. Reading a fragment for the first time consumes it and awards you with a fixed amount of Knowledge Points according to its rarity.
OK, now you know how Knowledge Points are earned. Let’s get into the core of the Knowledge System and find out how they can be spent.
THE TALENT TREE
Unless you’re entirely new to the world of RPGs, you’ve likely had to deal with Talents already in one way or the other. This is what your Talent Tree page looks like in Fractured Online:
At a superficial look, this is not much different from a canonical MMORPG talent system. Whereas in classic MMORPGs you gain a new Talent Point once in a while when leveling up, in Fractured Online you’re free to choose when to obtain one by spending a fixed amount of your Knowledge Points. The Talent Points you have – up to 60 – can then be assigned to the nodes of your Talent Tree. The latter is divided into six branches, each focused on one of the main character attributes, plus 6 “hybrid” branches.
In classic MMORPGs, moreover, I’m sure you’re used to thinking very carefully before allocating a Talent Point, knowing there is no way back – at least not without having to open your (real-life) purse. That’s not the Fractured way. Here, you can re-assign your Talent Points as many times as you want during a Resting phase. Yes, that’s it: just sit down in front of a fire change all your Talents to match the stats and abilities of your Hero, just like you do before a match of your favorite MOBA! You can also handily save pre-defined configurations.
One last remark before closing this paragraph: if you’re afraid Talents create a power wide gap between new and experienced players, you can stop worrying already! Talents are certainly an important complement to a character build, and we’re sure different setups will be widely debated in the competitive crowd. However, they’re just that: complements. The main strengths and weaknesses of your character are established when you create it!
ABILITY LEARNING
Fractured Online’s magical and combat abilities are discovered and learned through a truly unique process.
Our aim when we designed this piece of the Knowledge System was once again to avoid grinding and to make you feel like any ability you learn is a small adventure in itself – always familiar yet never repetitive, always worth following but never creating large power gaps.
STEP #1: DISCOVER
When you open your Character Abilities window for the first time, most of the abilities listed in each School are in an Undiscovered state (greyed out).
By looking at the tooltip of an Undiscovered ability, you can see what creatures in the world know about it (and thus use it in combat). The only thing left to do is for you to find where they reside and hunt them down! Beware though, as most abilities are only associated to a specific family of monsters, which reside in a specific continent of one of the three planets. Just getting there may prove to be a challenge, as explained in this Feature Spotlight!
Each creature typically knowns multiple abilities, which become Ready To Learn at different stages of the progression of the Bestiary entry associated to that creature.
STEP #2: STUDY THE ABILITY
So, you finally have the ability you were looking for as Ready to Learn. Congratulations! To learn it, just click on it and spend the required amount of Knowledge Points.
Below you can see how a spell already learnt to level 1 looks like – the fearsome Death Cricle, from the School of Necromancy!
Please note that learning an ability is not enough to use it. An upcoming Spotlight will share the details on how you can Memorize an ability during a Resting phase so that it can be assigned to your hotbar and used in combat!
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