My TS suggestion

[Koriv]

Well, we've all got complaints about the way things were handled, at least one of them, they vary between person to person, but the most common one I'd seen was applications.

While talking with a few people I brought up my view on things, and while I won't get into what my views are, the people around seemed to take interest in an idea I had.

It may not be the best of ideas, but it is at least something others thought was worth considering.

Currently, when you app for a hidden, it's a big amount of work, and when you get denied it leaves a negative impact in your mind (at least for a lot of people)

My idea is simply making it so only races, exalted tiers, and items be application things.

Introduce master tier hiddens directly into the tree. While initially that raises a flag of 'but then everyone will just grab all the hiddens they want and make a hidden build' Perhaps that is true!

Which is why the way I suggest it be, is that prior to 200, you're unable to learn any hiddens. Then, you need to meet the prerequisites, for example, Fairy aura. A light skill, while not neccesarily ALWAYS light, it could be locked behind requiring you to have at least 1 intermediate holy skill (which atm there is only one, so holy ground.) While not a perfect example it lets you see how things /could/ work.

Once you meet the RPL 200 requirement, and posses 'heavy' investment into that tree, you'd be able to delve into the hiddens of said tree, each one requiring different skills to be purchased if the tree is a large one (looking at you water)

Yet still, there is the issue of metabuilds going for certain clusters of hiddens, so along with the RPL requirement of 200, a behind the scenes variable that keeps track of how many hiddens you own could be utilized. Once you purchase a hidden, it would set that variable to 1, noting that you have 1 hidden. Then if you tried to purchase another, you could go 1 of 2 paths.

Path 1, incremental RP costs towards skills, First hidden: 10 rpp, 2nd hidden: 20 rpp, 3rd hidden 30 rpp ect ect

Path 2, RPL requirements. First hidden: RPL 200, 2nd hidden: RPL 215, 3rd hidden: RPL 230.

Then come in the mention of hiddens that are upgrades to current skills, like lions barrage or Tsunami. Those could be addressed by upgrades counting as HALF a hidden point, instead of that hidden var reading 1, it would read 0.5 of course, and you'd not be able to go over 1, but you could buy another 0.5.

Exalted tiers would still be handled as normal, Medic would be handled as normal, but with setting masterwork to be part of the trees themselves, it frees up 1, admin time, a lot of time is actually spent reviewing applications and providing feedback
2, it helps alleviate the thought of 'oh people don't like me/i'm a bad rper/i'm a bad apper/i'm not important' which bog down peoples motivation.

A few hiddens have already been brought in as intermediates of trees, while there are some master level hiddens that are stronger than others, a few of them could be reviewed and tuned or moved to Exalted (Storm magic is a good example of something that would need to be reviewed since it's currently a hidden tree, along with hidden abilities in itself)

I'm sure there will be mention of certain things that would not make sense with this, and I welcome such things being pointed out. Perhaps together we can help formulate a path towards the future of hiddens to make the game more enjoyable and relaxing for everyone.

[Chance]

I'm mostly in favor of doing something similar to this and it's something I've thought about, where I think it'd be cool if each character upon hitting 200RPL gets 1 HT to purchase a 'signature spell' from a tree. Not like they wouldn't be missing out if they still put work into their journals/character to take it further, anyway. So essentially you get that point and you can choose from a number of 'locked' intermediates that you spend the token on as well as the RPP cost (15 or 20), showing that the magic in particular is your character's main focus. 

Examples might be:
- Holy/Occult Cannon
- Bladestorm
- Arc of Devastation
- Stardust Explosion
- Storm AoE
- Vacuum Vortex
etc etc, the more 'polished' attacks. Then a journal reward would typically be something like a buff/aura, or an exalted tier ability.

Might be over complicating things a little and be an unnecessary change, though. Especially when it means that not every single tree would have something. But an extra sense of progression could be a fun drive.

[CurledSpiral]

If you've got a tree that doesn't really have a low-tier hidden to spend the HT on. Could always spend it on a stat boost like back in Spires. Not really a 'flashy' hidden but it does offer something. Then again if its the same resource as from the journals it means if you've got a good journal you're THAT much closer to an exalted hidden.

[Chance]

Can confirm that what I spoke about will be in, where you automatically gain a HT that can be used to purchase a 'public' hidden, such as some of the examples I gave above. Granted, not every tree will have one so we'll likely add a variation of 'hidden' tier combat styles as a substitute if that's the case. It'll add an extra layer of progression and customization to make that milestone feel extra big so I'm pretty excited about that change!

[GrayHood]

Do you really want to make cosmic a public spell tree? It has a lot of lore behind it.

When I played Jovan I was not aware of that lore, just wanted a cosmic aura, because it looks fancy. Just imagine, a goon with arcane celestial magic. When I was directed to that lore and learned a bit of it in-game I found that Cosmic did not fit my character AT ALL.

I believe that Cosmic and Light should stay app-only. Maybe, make Light an independent tree, allowing people to be more creative developing into it.

[Chance]

Cosmic / Light / Shadow will be public, yeah. While cosmic does have a lot of lore behind it, I feel like the vast majority of players are good with that and since it's neutral in alignment there's a lot of leeway in how they roleplay it. So long as they're aware that it's siphoning mana from a star compared to say, Energy, which is raw internal mana, we're good. I wouldn't put it under the same category as Holy / Occult which has higher expectations in terms of character behaviour.

[Jumpy]

Shadow will be public

I can hear Mal cackling somewhere.

[Lammy]

...

Shadow? Public?

Hmmm... will it still have the buy in for illusion/occult?

[Chance]

yea, it's a spec

[Lammy]

yea, it's a spec

I remember that someone said that it was no longer possible to have light + shadow; if both are public, will it cancel out the other so we don't have Marisol 2.0? Just curious.