Hi there,
We've got a lot to talk about this week!

This week we went back to two questions asked by Goofball during the summer. Goofball wants to know:

Q: To what degree am I able to trade offensive for support-abilities? 
A: In order to hybridize between a combatant and a support healer, characters will have to make a decision how many Abilities compatible with their currently equipped armor and weapon they want to "trade in" for access to support abilities from several specializations, one of which is First Aid. Healers will have access to less powerful combat abilities which makes them unable to hold their own on the front line, but will unlock access to healing abilities allowing them to recover pools of resources such as Shield, Stamina and Energy, remove negative effects, boost other player's integral recharging capabilities and much more. Extreme cases of specialized healers can trade up to half of their offensive abilities for access to the full range of healing abilities. That is a significant trade that will make them capable warriors only when facing few or weaker characters compared to his own.
 
Q. Is there any limitations on self-healing? This is more important if logistics and offensive abilities can be combined I guess.
There are two ways to recover your character's Shield. The passive healing is Regeneration, which is only available in Exploration Mode, or outside of battle. Outside of combat in Exploration Mode, a character will be able to regenerate quickly enough to not waste time between battles (no annoying sitting down to rest used in other MMOs), but in Exploration Mode a character is also vulnerable to sudden attacks due to his armor's protective forces switching into a recovery mode.  Players will have to think twice before switching to Exploration Mode in a battle that is not over yet, making it risky to run away only to recover your Shield with enemies still chasing your character. Active healing is through consumable items and healing abilities that can heal the character or his allies. In Exploration Mode players can use consumable items that boost his Regeneration. While in Battle Mode, Regeneration is turned off to channel energy to the weapon systems of character's armor, but healing abilities become available. Healing abilities may look similar to consumables, but they allow the character to not just heal himself, but also his allies.

 

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Notable news from last week:
Our first Earthrise Fun Fact made its debut!
"More than 40 real live creatures were modeled and animated for Earthrise during the first year."
The developers go on to tell us that the idea was that the world is recovering from the third world war and as we all know there should be some link between the present and the past. However, fighting with tigers and bears seemed very boring and so all those creatures were expelled from the game- you will not see them anywhere.

Around the end of the week, we hit 400 on our Facebook fans! This was an exciting moment, but we're not ready to stop there. Let's hit 500. Or 5000!

Things you can look forward to this week and in the near future
Tomorrow: Another Community Consensus topic! We're leaving the current one open, but now we want to hear some thoughts about the resources and the economy... what do we mean by that? You'll have to tune in tomorrow to find out.

On Wednesday, we've got another Earthrise Fun Fact for you, and because we just can't limit ourselves to 140 characters, you'll find some followup at the end of next Monday's QOTW. Come follow us on Twitter to get the exclusive Fun Fact before it appears in the forums! If you're using Twitter already, feel free to use the tag #earthrise or (#er_mmo) on your Earthrise related posts so people can search for them easily!

Thursday, our Periodic Poll Center topic closes, but we'll probably have something new to buzz about at that point. As always, topics in the Community Consensus and Poll Center are not to be confused with official announcements or promises upon the part of the development team (and like QOTW, some features are subject to change and be fine-tuned before release). We are listening very carefully to what you're saying in reply to our polls, and even what you're not saying! Your voice is important to us as we all work towards making the game great, so thank you for your thoughts.

We're going to be visiting with MMORPG soon with a new screenshot or two. Have you started putting the pieces together from all the zones we've released so far and forming a map in your head? We'd love to hear about it.

Also coming up... more soundtrack previews. 

And this weekend? Get out and have some fun! I plan to, and so should you. See you next week!
~m

It is only shield regeneration, which will be frozen during combat, power and stamina regeneration will be active. The light armor has faster regeneration rates of stamina and power. Movement speed is not affected.

Ahhh, excellent!

One last concern if you have time to clear it up, can status effects like stuns prevent a character from switching from exploration mode to battle mode?

Agreed.  I'd rather have the two modes hybridized in some way than manual alternation.  Seems very unintuitive.

Hmm, I wonder why this is. Are the armor requirements for healing abilities completely different from the armor requirements for powerful combat abilities?



Wait, where did I miss it says exploration mode gives stamina benefits?


Indeed. I'm sure people are tired of hearing another TR anecdote but its system worked well - succesfully hitting or being shot put your shields into a combat regen mode (almost as good as out of combat regen for light armor and practically non-existant for heavy armor).

The advantage of the ER system is we have the option to manually toggle between the two modes whenever we want. But, the moritorium on consumables or healing abilities depending on which stance you are in seems cumbersome. At face value it doesn't seem like anything more than a mechanic to force support players into battlemode and assualt players into exploration mode.

It sounds like being in exploration mode during battle is a bad idea for anyone. The shields recover, but can be taken down easily.

Can you be more specific? Why does that sound totally wrong? In almost every game (game period, not just MMO's), your health does not recover passively while in combat.

It sounds to me like they're simply designing exploration mode to be a travel mode to let players get to their destination quicker. It seems to me as if exploration mode is simply a mode set up to make life outside of combat less tedious. Of course it also doubles to make the unwary the unwary traveler a target if they're using it in areas they shouldn't.

I wonder if they're going to put any arbitrary restrictions on how often you can swap in and out of the modes or whether it will be visible as to which mode a player is in through the UI.

I meant that if healing abilities, like regen boosts, could be used in exploration mode, support players (ie. those not attacking) might be able to their shield regen boosts and their natural shield regen of lighter armor to regenerate their shields beyond the incoming dps rendering them niegh invulnerable.

Similarly Assualt troops, who have low regen to start with wouldn't pop out of battle mode and would just consume shield boosters.

So they made such that healing abilities only work in battle mode and consumables on in exploration mode. It seems like it could simply be an awkward way to fix two possible exploits to the battlemode / exploration mode system.


They boost if you use a boost ability - most likely analoguous to activating a shield repper in EVE. There is simply no passive regen, so you won't see passive shield tanking setups.


It would seem that in ER, power is transfered to the shields via shield boosting abilities. You just have to equip one or two to your ability bar.

It would seem that players will go for a lower shield buffer + high recharge for either maximum dps (spamming special abilities that cosume a lot of power / stam - i.e. the glass cannon) or for support purposes (the healer / active tank).


Nothing about exploration mode makes it seem faster or less tedious. Ostiak said there is no difference in movement speed between the two modes.

If your shields are already at max strength, nothing indicates it would be unadvisable to travel in battle mode. After each battle you survive, I would suggest switching to exploration mode to regen your shields, and then back to battle stance. It would minimize the likelihood of someone nailing you with that first surprise alpha strike.