Your thoughts on the bottleneck to spiritism?

[Rithavian]

I get that some schools of magic should be locked behind difficult tasks. I'm all for that actually. But spiritism itself isn't that great and on today's Q&A, Henrik confirmed they will not allow us to travel to the ether world via priest similar to what was done in MO1. The school is more of a support school than anything else.

Even with many people having access to the skill due to how it was in all spellbooks up until a somewhat recent patch, you rarely see a spiritist. After launch, I fear it will be quite difficult for the few players that actually want to be spiritists to get their hands on ether world portal due to it requiring 2 trolls heads (not so bad) and a drop from the minotaur king (kinda rough.)

Obviously the dungeon will be contested. Battles will be fought over most dungeons I'm sure. This will be the biggest obstacle I suspect.

It'd probably be fine if spiritism was as strong as ecumenical or as strong as necro is presumed to be, but it's one of only 2 schools of magic in the game and is really just a support school, not meant to be your main school. I even hear that necro will not require spirits in MO2, further reducing its usefulness.

Does it really warrant such a bottleneck where so many more useful and more often picked skills do not? What are your thoughts?

 

[Tzone]

They need to allow mages to die at priest and keep their boxes and then rez with them at the priest. Like in mo1

 

[KermyWormy]

I think it is very dumb. Like you said, some magic it makes sense to make difficult to obtain, but that should be the highest tier stuff, which imo should not just be difficult to obtain, but use costly reagents in-line with their power, but again, only the stuff that is at the pinnacle....there is no diversity in Magic right now, and there won't be a satisfactory amount for a very long time.

With physical combat you have a wide range of different weapons you can try, not to mention different materials to make them from to find the exact playstyle you like, and all you have to do to explore those different routes is pick one up and play with it. That's good gameplay. Magic predominately limits you to this one narrow school, and if you don't like it, you have to invest a lot of time and resources possibly just to try something else, but you have to invest before you try it out when you might not even like the way it plays.

I haven't messed with this iteration of Spiritism, but If you can't do the basic gameplay loop unique to a spiritist without this silly Boss and dungeon path...it's a mistake, if the excuse is the uses and misuses of portals themselves as some would complain about in the old game with good reason, then change the functionality of that so that you can then make the broader aspects unique to the school open and available for people to check it out and see if they like it.

 

[Darthus]

I get that some schools of magic should be locked behind difficult tasks. I'm all for that actually. But spiritism itself isn't that great and on today's Q&A, Henrik confirmed they will not allow us to travel to the ether world via priest similar to what was done in MO1. The school is more of a support school than anything else.

Even with many people having access to the skill due to how it was in all spellbooks up until a somewhat recent patch, you rarely see a spiritist. After launch, I fear it will be quite difficult for the few players that actually want to be spiritists to get their hands on ether world portal due to it requiring 2 trolls heads (not so bad) and a drop from the minotaur king (kinda rough.)

Obviously the dungeon will be contested. Battles will be fought over most dungeons I'm sure. This will be the biggest obstacle I suspect.

It'd probably be fine if spiritism was as strong as ecumenical or as strong as necro is presumed to be, but it's one of only 2 schools of magic in the game and is really just a support school, not meant to be your main school. I even hear that necro will not require spirits in MO2, further reducing its usefulness.

Does it really warrant such a bottleneck where so many more useful and more often picked skills do not? What are your thoughts?

I play spiritism right now in the beta, though hadn't realized Ether Portal was locked behind content.

I think it's largely fine, because ether portal travel is even within spiritism a specialization. You could train spiritism just to have mental projectile (the lazer beam) and resurrection and be a very useful addition to a team. Or I could see a general magery build crossing with some spiritism to have those two things.

If you want to go into ether portal lore, you are wanting to specialize in the etherworld gameplay, which honestly is highly specialized. It also means the people can actually summon/fight spirits is a dedicated subset, such that selling full spirit boxes will be a more viable business and thus make it more desirable/lucrative.

Essentially Spirtism is two schools, one that is support/functional, with rez and an attack, and a more specialized school that involves traversing the spirit world and will require more specialization and dedication.

 

[Darthus]

I haven't messed with this iteration of Spiritism, but If you can't do the basic gameplay loop unique to a spiritist without this silly Boss and dungeon path...it's a mistake,

You can, it's called Rez (which actually doesn't even require spirits to use right now) and mental projectile, which is an amazing supplementary long range spell for a mage, but will require you to get spirit boxes, which relies on more specialized spirtists with Ether portal/lore.

 

[Rorry]

Rez does require spirits because you have to cast trans awareness first. Another big problem with spiritism is that the mental projectile scrolls are too rare.

 

[Rithavian]

They need to allow mages to die at priest and keep their boxes and then rez with them at the priest. Like in mo1

Unfortunately, Henrik stated in todays stream that this is a no go. Ether portal is all we get.

I play spiritism right now in the beta, though hadn't realized Ether Portal was locked behind content.

I think it's largely fine, because ether portal travel is even within spiritism a specialization. You could train spiritism just to have mental projectile (the lazer beam) and resurrection and be a very useful addition to a team. Or I could see a general magery build crossing with some spiritism to have those two things.

If you want to go into ether portal lore, you are wanting to specialize in the etherworld gameplay, which honestly is highly specialized. It also means the people can actually summon/fight spirits is a dedicated subset, such that selling full spirit boxes will be a more viable business and thus make it more desirable/lucrative.

Essentially Spirtism is two schools, one that is support/functional, with rez and an attack, and a more specialized school that involves traversing the spirit world and will require more specialization and dedication.

My problem with this currently is that, after launch, there will be no one selling spirit boxes. The only spirits you will have are the 5 you get from buying a spirit box for 2g at the magic vendor. Etherworld portal will require you to get 2 trolls heads and a drop from the minotaur king. There is only one minotaur king, with a fairly long respawn time. Ontop of the probable pvp battles to get into or out of the dungeon, possibly even on the way back to town as well. These are some rather large obstacles. If you wanted to buy full spirit boxes, you will be waiting quite a while until enough players get ether portal that they can start selling them. The first few will be collecting spirits just for their own guildies/friends until they can also get their own ether portal. Spiritism will, for sure, be an absolute slog.

 

[KermyWormy]

You can, it's called Rez (which actually doesn't even require spirits to use right now) and mental projectile, which is an amazing supplementary long range spell for a mage, but will require you to get spirit boxes, which relies on more specialized spirtists with Ether portal/lore.

I don't think you're making a good defense of your point. Rez is not "the" gameplay loop of a spiritist, it is a gameplay necessity which lore-wise fits that school best for sure, but it was in game long before the "spiritism" patch, which initially in MO1 was when they put in all the mechanics of the etherworld, gathering spirits from the ether, and the portals etc ....that's the aspect gameplay-wise that is unique to them and why people would be interested in the class primarily.

 

[SegaPhoenix]

As someone who plans to main a spiritist on launch, I'm torn about it. It's going to be months to maybe even a year depending on how things work out before I get portal skills and scrolls. I want so badly to explore the ether world and find the spiritist bosses and discover new easter eggs and stuff.

Spiritism is extremely powerful though and underrated in my opinion. The ability to scout from the ether world, resurrect, portal and cover distance quickly is probably worth the effort and best balanced by a tough acquisition.

I kinda wish they would have kept the old functionality of allowing us to enter with a spirit box via the priest. I think that was a good compromise.

 

[Rithavian]

As someone who plans to main a spiritist on launch, I'm torn about it. It's going to be months to maybe even a year depending on how things work out before I get portal skills and scrolls. I want so badly to explore the ether world and find the spiritist bosses and discover new easter eggs and stuff.

Spiritism is extremely powerful though and underrated in my opinion. The ability to scout from the ether world, resurrect, portal and cover distance quickly is probably worth the effort and best balanced by a tough acquisition.

I kinda wish they would have kept the old functionality of allowing us to enter with a spirit box via the priest. I think that was a good compromise.

I agree. I'm a casual player so it'll be quite a while before I can get ether world portal due to requiring a specific item that drops from only 1 mob that respawns slowly and will be contested 24/7 for the first few weeks at minimum. Barring any strokes of luck ofcourse.

I was really heart broken when Henrik stated they would not have the priest sending you to ether world. It cost a large amount of spirits to return to the living world didn't it? That seems like a very fair trade to make the skill usable.

 

[Xunila]

It took me almost a year in MO1 and 5000 gold as payment to get the portal scroll. Difficult to see a reason for a magic school with very rare spells at release time of MO2.

 

[ArcaneConsular]

I think players and devs just like stuff to be difficult and confusing to learn tbh. Makes them feel cool. Which I get. But I wish they'd do it in other ways than doing it on entire skill branches

 

[Rithavian]

I think players and devs just like stuff to be difficult and confusing to learn tbh. Makes them feel cool. Which I get. But I wish they'd do it in other ways than doing it on entire skill branches

I think I'd be happier if they made some of the higher tier spiritism spells require difficult tasks to obtain them, rather than making the one spell that makes the entire spiritism skill usable hard to obtain.

Without ether portal, what can you do? Mental projectile and resurrect is about it. And you'll be buying spirit boxes to do even that much.

 

[Evelyn]

I think it's too forbidding for newer players and the process is poorly designed. But it affects me very little so whatever I guess.

 

[Napkin]

Like once you became a spiritist, you'd be more crippled than the mega builds are, and may be barried to experience such shits except group runs. In my opinion, It's really brutal to play a specialized support class that would limit your playstyles and even, it doesn't allow you to create more than one character on one account. Very brutal.

 

[Apsalar]

Spiritism is none existent for new players at the moment as it require a huge amount of money or killing all in game bosses to get ether portal. This shouldnt be like that, we should still have possibility to enter ether world via priest like in MO1 at the cost of 50% of our spirits.

 

[Shadowmist]

I agree 100% with OP here. I've put in 250h into the beta and my main goal was to try spiritism but was extremely dissapointed to find it locked behind content which was VERY hard to achieve as a solo player. I'm all for having some part of it bound to killing difficult bosses and maybe requiring someone like me to buy it instead of doing it myself, but what I don't understand is why it is the ether portal lore that is the hidden one. It's the ONE skill that makes pretty much all other spells (apart from rez and projectile) actually DO anything. Why make the bread and butter ability to actually enter the ether world the one you can't get? It's the whole point of the magic school.

 

[Apsalar]

I agree 100% with OP here. I've put in 250h into the beta and my main goal was to try spiritism but was extremely dissapointed to find it locked behind content which was VERY hard to achieve as a solo player. I'm all for having some part of it bound to killing difficult bosses and maybe requiring someone like me to buy it instead of doing it myself, but what I don't understand is why it is the ether portal lore that is the hidden one. It's the ONE skill that makes pretty much all other spells (apart from rez and projectile) actually DO anything. Why make the bread and butter ability to actually enter the ether world the one you can't get? It's the whole point of the magic school.

You can get it. I sell those for 1k gold. Sold out tho.

 

[Shadowmist]

You can get it. I sell those for 1k gold. Sold out tho.

Even if I could buy it, 1k gold is an insane amount to acquire as a solo player, that's besides the point.

My point was that the entire thing of going into the etherworld shouldn't be the one that's locked behind a giant threshold. Let players work for it, sure, but let them start actually feeling like a spiritist and enter the etherworld sooner and have other spells locked behind difficult content.

Even if I suck at it without the proper skill books, I should at least be able to perform basic spiritism and collect spirits without spending 2-3k gold.

 

[Rhias]

In MO1 you were able to pick up spirit boxes that someone dropped due to death in normal world, am I wrong?
Does the same thing work in MO2?