With many new consumables coming soon and these supposed plans to do something to players' inventories while in combat, I believe there should be a dedicated slot—known as a quickslot—just for consumables such as potions and teas.

On the far right, I edited in an example of a quickslot with the draw arrow on top of it (this slot could be further isolated from the hotbar to show that it is not meant for abilities).

Clicking this arrow could open a list of eligible consumables that are in the player's inventory for selection into the quickslot. Similar to the main hotbar, switching consumables should put the consumable on a ten second cooldown.

I think it is fair to allow players to know the name of a creature they're contemplating fighting by briefly showing their names upon mouseover—similarly to what's been done for the worlds' resources.

If the logic is that "discovery is an integral part of the experience" then resources should have their names removed from being shown upon mouseover until they've been chronicled in the Book of Knowledge and the same could be done for NPCs.

(Copied from #player-suggestions for the developers' convenience.)

@Znirf said in Communication between the worlds:

The possibility to have different race languages is quite impossible to develop in Fractured where cooperation, the karma system and guilds have a core role. For example, a new player won't be able to understand other guild companions unless they share the same race (It will force the creation of single-race guilds). So, language learning would represent a limit and a must to do for the majority of the in-game activities, and we don't want that.

Why not make it something we can learn via the Knowledge System, so Humans can understand Beastmen and Demons, Beastmen can understand Demons and Humans, and Demons can understand Beastmen and Humans?

The idea of only being able to learn the Human's, Demon's, and Beastmen's languages by studying them as we would any other language in reality is very cool and realistic; however, it would create the issues you explained yourself, but what if we could read books about each race that deciphers some of their words until we have full knowledge of what language they speak?

When we fully understand each race's language, their words will show up as whatever language we have set in the settings (we know our chosen race's language by default).

I really think Xzoviac's idea is a brilliant one that could fit into Fractured since, like our own homeworld, Earth is a large planet with many people who speak different languages.

@GamerSeuss I've seen you do this multiple times in other threads, and all it does is flippantly dismiss in a disingenuous manner what other people have been proposing without actually addressing how it would or wouldn't benefit the game according to the topic of the entire discussion.

The only people who should make such assessments are the Developers of the game and of the intended feedback—not fellow players.

but don't inform me on how to respond

Not trying to understand how your words affect others and being defensive about it is disrespectful to those who just want to help better a game. If you can't be considerate, you shouldn't be responding to anyone's feedback and suggestions here.

This is the only response I'm making to this derailment because I'd rather stay on topic.

Issues I've discovered of b.1.0a(?)/ relaunch:

General

• Character will randomly—sometimes periodically—slide backwards or diagonally when moving. (It most likely has to do with "server lines", but I seem to experience this shortly after being knocked back by something like an Earth Elemental.)
  • This can also randomly cause the character to get "stuck" until they turn around or "spin".
• Constant "Invalid Target" and "Target out of sight" prompts when attempting to target enemies or terrain with abilities that should be valid. (Seems to have to do with the terrain/plants, graphical effects, and/or the hitboxes.)
• Brown Bear Heads stack but the other heads do not stack.
• Settings revert back to their defaults after being altered and saved.

Interface

• All tooltips for physical debuffs have "Physical" typo'd as "Phisical" in their tooltips' headers.
• Magical Reflection has "reflects" typo'd as "refelects" in its tooltip.
• Atrophy Wave has "psionic" typo'd as "psyonic" in its tooltip's description.
• All entities in the Book of Knowledge's bestiary still have "CHA" (Charisma) shown as their attributes despite it being replaced by WIS (Wisdom).
• Spine-Breaker Blow has "atrophied" typo'd as "athrophied" in its tooltip's description.
• Aura of Clarity's status icon does not have a circular border like the rest of the status icons despite the duration border circling the center of it. (The other "Aura of" abilities may have this issue as well.)
• Toggled abilities that are automatically cancelled upon swapping abilities still show as toggled and have to be untoggled then toggled again to be used.

Abilities

• Sustained spells' visual effects will occasionally remain despite the ability being dispelled, toggled off, or removed from the hotbar. (This results in the spell's visual effect to be duplicated when casted again.)
  • Sustained spells' visual effects will rarely randomly remain stationary on the ground, like a prop or trap, off-screen. (This occurred for me upon dismounting. Aura of Clarity reactivated twice and left its visual effect on the ground where I dismounted.)
• Barrage isn't crippling enemies for the calculated duration it specifies in its tooltip. (It only cripples any enemy for approximately 0.5s.)
• Deep Freeze's sound effect remains at the area it was cast after its animation ended or was cancelled off-screen. (This seems to occasionally happen with several channeled offensive spells.)
• Aura of Clarity does not have a sound effect for its channeling nor completed cast.
• "Frightened" reduces WIS to 10 and indirectly maximum mana as intended but does not restore unspent mana beyond that threshold when its duration ends. (Not sure if this is intended behavior or not.)
• The "Poison" spell will sometimes incorrectly display how many charges of it are ready. (This may be due to how fast the spell can be consecutively.)

NPCs

• NPCs are still spawning inside of terrain such as trees and rocks.
• Chest-spawned NPCs are spawning inside of their camps that have an additional level (i.e., stairs).
• The Colossal Huskworm's Magic Reflection isn't reflecting any magical damage whatsoever.
• A few NPCs are still getting stuck when attacked with crowd control or when approached—the latter more so for docile NPCs.
• Elder Mountain Troll's Aura of Oppression does not deal damage to players within its range.

(I will be consistently updating this as I discover new bugs and watch for patch notes.)

As of right now, all abilities are set to "Quick/Smart Cast" by default without any range indicators—point your cursor somewhere, press the ability on your hotbar, and it activates right away in the targeted direction (for most of them)... assuming "Invalid Target" and "Target not in sight" don't get in the way.

It would be helpful to have different settings that alter how we can cast abilities:

• Normal Cast. (I.e., prime an ability by pressing its hotkey then click a entity/location to initiate it.)
• Quick/Smart Cast on release. (I.e., same thing as the default except the ability will not activate until its hotkey has been released.)

Knowing the ranges of our abilities via visual indicators would also be really helpful. This could be done several ways:

• Hovering an ability on the hotbars could show how far away it can reach/be cast as a visual radius around the character.
• Normal Cast could show ranges by default once the ability has been primed from having its hotkey pressed.
• Quick Cast w/ Indicator. (I.e., if an ability's hotkey is held down, it could show the range of that ability that moves with the cursor—if applicable.)

Lastly, holding ALT should make it possible to Self-Cast applicable abilities regardless of where the cursor is located, and pressing RMB could cancel primed abilities for "Normal Cast" and "Quick Cast on release".

Example of range indicators.
Example of Normal Cast with range indicators.

(Copied from #player-suggestions for the developers' convenience.)

Right now, martial builds rely too much on INT—WIS to an extent as well—to ensure success because they have to make certain they have enough maximum mana and mana regeneration to use their martial abilities alongside having enough CON to stay alive (which includes fortitude), enough STR/DEX/PER to deal sufficient damage with the appropriate abilities and weapons, enough DEX for attack speed or evasion or lockpicking, enough PER to increase their critical chance and detection, enough WIS for additional maximum mana or willpower, and so on.

Depending on a player's build, many of these attributes can become "dump stats" except INT, and the only attribute that should be reconsidered being a "dump stat" is CON as that attribute is what determines how much a character can endure before they fall—especially in PvP. While I love in-depth options, options, and more options, mana management shouldn't be an issue for martial abilities because they're not magical. You simply swing a melee weapon in a specific fashion that requires only the physical prowess of its wielder, or you fire an arrow in such a way that requires critical thinking and eye-hand coordination from the (cross)bow's wielder.

These abilities should be governed by a resource known as "Stamina" instead of a mystical resource normally used by the manipulators of the elements.

Above, I made a rough edit to the resource bars to show how an additional bar for stamina could look.

Stamina could be governed by both Dexterity (DEX) and Strength (STR). Dexterity could add 100 points of maximum stamina while Strength could add 50 points of maximum stamina. Stamina regeneration could be completely independent from those attributes in a way that it could regenerate faster on its own and much faster out of combat as fixed values—possibly altered by abilities (such as buffs), talents, equipment, and enchantments/imbuements.

If stamina regeneration must be tied to an attribute, the same philosophy could be used for Intelligence and Wisdom as in Strength could affect stamina regeneration like the former does for mana regeneration.

Martial abilities having their own resource would help all builds, that focus more so on melee and ranged (physical) than magic, be able to better consolidate their builds by eliminating their need to spread their Attribute Points so thinly across many they normally wouldn't normally need unless they're trying to become hybrids. If they do wish to become hybrids, they would have better control over doing so as all martial and magical abilities would have their own respective resources.

Earlier this week, @Meiki thought of two wonderful ideas—an independent school of shapeshifting, based on my idea for adding an ability under druidcraft called "Wild Shape", and another school focused on shamanism, and together, I think came under an agreement that those two schools could be flavored to work together under "Shamanism". I wanted to share it here since where we discussed it is unfortunately not able to be viewed by public eyes without a certain Founder's tier.

Shamanism is a religion that is focused on the worship of the soul and spirituality—the spirits of animals, esoteric energies, and nature by extension. These practitioners utilize totems to respectfully harness the powers of these spirits for blessings or curses. They also evoke the spirits of animals for the purposes of divination (including omens).

For this school, I considered combining the principles of shapeshifting and shamanism into one under a school called "shamanism" by allowing the player to call upon the spirits of animals (beasts in Fractured) to temporarily manifest parts of their bodies onto the character's own body as spiritual energy to perform an attack or de/buff. Here are examples of attacks that could be done through shamanistic invocation:

• Alligators in real life can use their tails to defend themselves by whipping it at their assailants. A shaman could invoke the spirit of an alligator to manifest an alligator tail onto their own tailbone that can be used to perform a quick tail whip (cone area-of-effect) or a tailspin before disappearing.
• We don't have many avian creatures, but for the purpose of this example, a shaman could manifest the wings of a "hawk" onto their arms to buffet a target with wind by bringing their arms together before disappearing.
• Bears swipe with their paws to eviscerate their prey with their claws. A shaman could invoke the spirit of a bear to manifest their paws onto their hands to swipe at an enemy for slashing damage.
• Wolves are known for their pact instincts and their tendencies to howl. A shaman could invoke the spirit of a wolf to temporarily increase their own movement speed or to howl which would frighten enemies around them.
  • The spirit of a warg could do the other or give the shaman the ability to do a quick snaring lunge by manifesting their face or teeth onto their own as spiritual energy.
• Mammoths are large, wooly, and very durable. A shaman could call upon the spirit of a mammoth to increase their cold resistance and their maximum health.

There are many other possibilities and the draconic breath spells are already the epitomes of the above examples. They, along with the totems, could be recategorized under the school of shamanism. In addition to the above, shamans could perform ritualistic dances to buff their allies and could summon the spirits of beasts to temporarily assist them in combat—temporarily meaning that they will vanish after a certain amount of time passes.

This school would be able to provide a similar feeling to partially shapeshifting one's body but through the spirits of beast instead briefly manifesting their body parts made of energy onto the shaman's body for a specific purpose of the ability. It has the potential to be a supportive school of magic as well as a suitable alternative to druidcraft.

As a result of the Server War Playtest, Insect Swarm received a heavy nerf that—in my opinion—made it unworthy of being a tier three spell; however, I completely understand why it received that nerf.

Insect Swarm is a terrain-targeted spell that checks for targets valid to the caster at the caster's location of choice. They do not linger if the location doesn't have valid targets, and they cannot be avoided nor targeted themselves, since they are the equivalent of an incurable status effect that periodically afflicts stacks of bleeding for a duration which also means they do not "follow" their targets as flavored by the spell's description.

Due to the fact that they could not be avoided, cleansed, nor targeted, casters utilizing this spell could bleed and confuse all valid targets caught within the area of effect in addition to dealing periodic piercing damage to them for a WIS-scaling duration. To return this spell to being worthy of being among the other tier three spells, Insect Swarm could be made to spawn actual insects (NPCs) that can be avoided and killed by their prey—insects with actual health that can be basic-attacked and hit with abilities/spells.

Insect Swarm could spawn a WIS-scaling number of targetable insects that remain for a duration; alternatively, to a scaling number, it could spawn a fixed number of insects. In addition...

• ...these uncontrollable insects could chase and assail the nearest valid target in accordance with the caster's alignment meaning that they will attack NPCs hostile to the caster but could prefer players hostile to the caster such as evil versus good.
  • The insects could also potentially attack their caster, if too close, but the chance for the insects to not do so could depend on their caster's WIS.
  • If control is desired, these insects could be commanded with a hotkey made specifically to direct followers/pets.
• ...they could inherit certain statistics (health, mana, armor [crushing, piercing, and slashing], or resistances) from their caster.
  • Alternatively, their statistics could be fixed.
• ...they could deal piercing damage (melee) to targets they're able to attack.
  • Their attacks could continue to inflict confusion and stacks of bleeding.
  • With each attack, there could be a chance they will parasitize their targets, making them incubate eggs which will spawn smaller and weaker insects with the same behavior as their progenitors.
    • This could replace their ability to confuse if confusion on hit alongside parasitizing would make this revised spell too strong.

Of course, killing these summoned insects shouldn't reward knowledge points, loot, nor divine rewards.

That's what I was proposing as well—abilities being split across Arboreus, Syndesia, and Tartaros, @Roccandil.

It seems like Jacopo showed interest in splitting a majority of abilities between PvE and PvP though kind of like how Guild Wars 1 and 2 does it. For example, "Word of Power: Kill" is already split between PvE and PvP.

Unarmed deals very subpar damage, and I know it probably doesn't make much sense to be able to punch something like an elemental to death, but it should at least deal dependable damage—not as much damage as weapons made of more durable material that can be enchanted but enough for those who have invested into STR as their main attribute. Whenever their weapons break, they would be able to reliably settle their problems with their fists if they're able to stay close to their enemies, and this would become more reliable for monks when Martial Arts is released.

Since monks and Martial Arts was brought up, I think their weapons should be discussed. While part of this suggestion is about unarmed receiving a buff to its base damage, enough to make it reliable but not as good as weapons, monks don't have any fist-based weapons that they can utilize. There are quite a few out there that suits them, but I'll only list three that seem fitting for Fractured:

Primitive Wraps

• Hand wraps, made from cloth and woven gauze, are commonly used by those participating in combat sports to protect their hands from punching-induced injuries such as friction, sprains, and fractures while assisting the wearer's bones and tissue through compression which allows them to punch with greater force.
  • This could be a monk's primitive (T1) weapon capable of slightly increasing their blunt damage.
    • This could be the first weapon to utilize cloth and bandages.

Bagh nakh (Tiger claw)
Claws

• A fist-loaded weapon, inspired by the claws of tigers hence its name, that originates from Southern Asia. These were designed to be fitted over the knuckles where the claws would rest in the palms of the wearer's hands, but there were variants that could be worn on the knuckles with claws extending over them. They were made with the intent of slashing and ripping away at an adversaries' flesh and muscles. (This weapon is the inspiration for many claw-based weapons commonly seen in video games.)
  • This could be a monk's T2 weapon capable of inflicting slashing damage.
    • This weapon could have an innate bleed chance property.

Cestuses

• These were "battle gloves" traditionally used by the Greeks and Romans for sport (gladiatorial events often held in colosseums). They were made of hardened leather and tended to have metal plates, studs, or spikes fashioned into them to increase their lethality.
  • This weapon could be a monk's T2 weapon capable of increasing their blunt damage.
    • This could be the first weapon to utilize hides and leathers.

Emeici
Emei Daggers
Emei Piercers

• A martial artists' secret weapon originating from China that are still used today in wushu (kung fu). It consists of thin metal rods with sharpened pointed ends that are capable of spinning on detachable rings worn on the middle fingers. These were designed to pierce, to confuse, and to be concealed for the element of surprise.
  • This weapon could be a monk's T2 weapon capable of inflicting piercing damage.
    • The rods' ability to be concealed and spun aren't necessary unless desired to be used for combat animations.

Katars

• These are "push daggers" that originate from Southern Asia. They are designed to be held in the same way one would form their hand into a fist. Due to their alignment and shape, they were used to pierce adversaries by punching with them, hence "push dagger", but are capable of slashing as well. Gloved (gauntlet) and hooded variants were also crafted for additional protection in addition to forked (blade) variants for increased lethality.
  • This weapon could be a monk's T2 weapon capable of inflicting piercing and slashing damage. (Similar to the regular daggers.)
    • May be too much, but if the gloved (gauntlet) or hooded variant is chosen, they could have a low innate block chance.

I haven't decided which could be poisoned and could have "Spell Channeling" as their property, even though I'm leaning more towards the cestuses, the katars, and the wraps for the latter, but I'd rather leave that decision to the developers anyway.

(Also, for clarification, "unarmed" means not wielding any weapons. Despite being fist weapons, the wielder is still considered armed since they are tools being used to inflict additional bodily harm like any other weapon.)

Every now and then, I saw people mention other players attempting to steal the chests from them while they were in the middle of clearing a camp—most successfully doing so, and I recently became a victim of this act. Unless you're on Syndesia, your only option to deter someone from stealing the chest you're spending your effort, time, and resources to obtain is to break one of Fractured's rules by luring NPCs onto the thief.

This shouldn't have to be done to prevent that from happening. While I don't want to completely eliminate the possibility of other players being able to steal chests from each other, even though they should be courteous enough to leave that player be and find their own camp, there should be healthier ways to do achieve this like how players can just attack and kill each other on Syndesia.

For example, there could be a contest that starts as soon as a camp-spawned NPC is attacked:
(Alternatively, to starting as soon as a single player attacks a camp-spawned NPC, it could simply register the player then officially start the contest when another player comes along and attacks a camp-spawned NPC.)

• This could give another player a fair chance to contest the camp's chest instead of trying to challenge a player that's already one or more kills into clearing the camp; although, this could be unfair to the first player.

• The player that kills the most camp-spawned NPCs earns the right to unlock and pillage a chest.
  • The kill counts should be based on damage dealt to prevent a contestant from last-hitting another contestant's target for the purpose of stealing their kill count.
  • If the contest ends in a draw...
    • ...another NPC could be spawned by the camp to break the tie.
      • Damage dealt would matter most here.
    • ...every player that formed a tie with each other could gain access to the chest—first click; first served.
    • ...if possible, the chest could split its rewards and itself into smaller chests for each contestant that formed the tie.
• Players in a party are considered as a single contestant.
  • This means that their damage dealt (when securing a kill) and their kill counts could be counted as their party leader's damage dealt (when securing a kill) and kill counts.
    • This could be elaborated upon if we're able to name our parties in Fractured's future.
• There could be boundaries (radii) around camps that mark the playing area for the contests.
  • If a contestant strays beyond the boundary, they could be warned that they must return lest they risk disqualification.
  • The boundaries could be generously extended for the sake of giving contestants room to kite and not accidentally aggro more than they can handle.
• The statistics for this contest could appear above the chests, or somewhere on the contestants' U.I., that remains until the contest is over or until the contestants leave the playing areas' boundaries.
• This mechanic should not affect those who utilize stealth to unlock and pillage camps' chests unless they or someone else attacks a camp-spawned NPC.

This mechanic would be completely optional for Syndesia since, as explained earlier, players on that planet can simply attack and kill each other for the camps and their rewards; however, this mechanic would provide a more sporting way to challenge someone for a camp without devolving to violence against each other.

Another alternative to this entire suggestion is to simply create impassable boundries around camps' chests, of the same themes as the camps, that falls away when those camps are cleared.

• However, this could still cause a problem with thieves idling or hiding nearby with the intention of waiting until the player clears the camp to dart in and steal its chest.

I don't see the issues with totems being something worth... quitting over, but I don't ever use them, so I guess I don't value them as much as you do; however, I do agree that they need to be fixed because they create too much chaos in parties.

1. They have too much range. They will attack creatures over long distances—way beyond their leash areas—causing more creatures to swarm in and "yo-yo" (come and go due to their threat resetting) until the area is vacated.
2. They get in the way of attacks. They should be considered our allies much like random NPCs that have no affiliation with each other are allied in the sense that they can't harm each other and can buff/heal each other.
3. Lastly, they do have an issue with resetting creatures' threat upon destruction/despawning.

These issues made me hate being in parties with people who heavily rely on them when I needed to form groups for knowledge points, but I tolerated them.

Hopefully they will be adjusted and fixed soon.

While most abilities have apparent enough graphical effects that indicate what type of damage they deal, some aren't so obvious (such as Magic Reflection), and neither are the damage conversions for weapons. The Endgame Changer is coming very soon, and with it, seemingly a bunch of changes to the user interface that was teased to us.

I think damage type icons that prefix or affix the damage numbers would be helpful to include in the Endgame Changer because it would provide the visual quality needed to help many know what type of damage they're dealing and receiving. These are the icons already in the game that could used:

(I couldn't find an icon for pure/true damage, if there is one. An icon for it would have to be created.)

Pretty short and sweet suggestion—not much to explain for this one.

@Xandrathii said in Loot Distribution Systems for Parties:

pitty to hear that, groups i am in we designate a gold looter and then it all gets pooled and evenly split at the end or when someone has to leave. We also tend to split up crafting mats in very "need" before greed ways. If someone uses gear that takes that type of crafting mat to make more they tend to get priority on the stuff... and of course this is all an honor system.

It's good to know that there are some decent people out there, who respect other members of their group enough to ensure that they are attributed what they put forth their time and effort to earn, but they are the minority and always have been the minority—especially in these games of this nature where you greet someone one moment and you see them run up to a camp you're in the middle of clearing the next moment to steal the chest right in front of you.

the hard coded loot system your talking about has been abused too.. people don't get anything because someone is always hitting need when they dont need the items.. or master looter that does not split the loot at the end. I know the competitive nature of the current system is not great but it will not change things for those of us already to polite in a party to gain loot in an even manner..

It has more precautionary measures that the players can use to their advantage to avoid abuse or avaricious behaviors of selfish players:

• Round-robin having the most precautions since it can't be abused in the first place as it the system regulates the loot.
• Need Before Greed having the second most because everyone will see who selected "greed", "need", or "pass", all of the rolls, and rolled the highest/won the item.
• Master Looter having the least because this one relies on trusting in the party leader or whomever is designated as the looter(s).

While people can try to abuse this, they will be noticed and are usually dealt with by the leader of the party, or the members of the party if it is the leader. The fact you brought this up is even more proof of why we need these systems.

I think this is a socially complex problem with no really good solution. Just make sure the people your running with are all likeminded about splitting loot..?

It's a problem that can be more easily resolved with systems in place for regulating loot. If we see someone snatching all of the loot, we will see it logged in the chat and can call them out for it or boot them from the party accordingly for being selfish.

Please keep in mind that your experiences do not invalidate the experiences of the whole. This has been an ongoing problem since the previous tests where many players who formed groups with others—randoms in particular (and this should not be discouraged since MMORPGs are also all about meeting and grouping up with random players)—struggled to get loot.

Those who are closer to corpses, typically those with melee builds or those who have mobility to cover the distance, tend to snatch what they want while the ranged players such as archers, casters, or healers, have to hope there is something left for them or have to repeatedly remind members of their party to share the loot.

This should not have to be repeatedly done hence why be need loot distribution systems, other than Free-For-All, to make grouping up with other random players less of a detrimental disadvantage and a "mini game" of trust.

With the upcoming updates encouraging players to seek each other out to test their mettle against the more challenging content Fractured has to offer—essentially emphasizing the "MMO" in "MMO"RPG, there should be options for distributing loot amongst players in parties.

Here are the most common and staple forms of list distribution:

Need Before Greed

• Whenever certain items or item rarities, typically tweakable in the party interface, prompts appear for every present member of a party to "greed" (lower priority request for the item) or "need" (higher priority request for the item). If a player does not care for the item but would not mind possessing it, they would select "greed". If a player truly desires the item, they will select "need". If a player does not care for nor wants the item, they can "pass".
  • If no one needs the item, everyone within the party who selected "greed" will roll for the item. The highest roller of the greed poll will win the item.
    • If no one selected "need" but one player selected "greed", the one player who selected "greed" will automatically win the item.
  • If there are players who selected "greed" but there are players who selected "need", the greed pool's rolls will be skipped—meaning they automatically loss the roll—to perform a need roll. The highest roller of the need pool will win the item.
    • If there are players who selected "greed" but there is one player who selected "need", the greed pool's rolls will be skipped and the one player who selected "need" will automatically win the item.

Round-robin

• Each player within a party will have a corpse assigned to them with permission to loot everything on it on a turn-basis per kill.

Master Looter

• Only a designated member of a party by the party leader can loot corpses
  • This could also be tweaked to optionally allow more than one player or role, such as "Officer", to loot corpses.

Free-For-All

• This is self-explanatory as loot distribution in Fractured is set to this by default since it is currently the only way to loot.

As the loot distribution system—or the lack thereof—is now, I don't bother with trying group up with others nor loot anything while in a group since human nature tends to unfortunately compel people to think more about themselves than others despite working with those others, who are putting in just as much effort as they are, to ensure success.

As a result of the Server War Playtest, Insect Swarm received a heavy nerf that—in my opinion—made it unworthy of being a tier three spell; however, I completely understand why it received that nerf.

Insect Swarm is a terrain-targeted spell that checks for targets valid to the caster at the caster's location of choice. They do not linger if the location doesn't have valid targets, and they cannot be avoided nor targeted themselves, since they are the equivalent of an incurable status effect that periodically afflicts stacks of bleeding for a duration which also means they do not "follow" their targets as flavored by the spell's description.

Due to the fact that they could not be avoided, cleansed, nor targeted, casters utilizing this spell could bleed and confuse all valid targets caught within the area of effect in addition to dealing periodic piercing damage to them for a WIS-scaling duration. To return this spell to being worthy of being among the other tier three spells, Insect Swarm could be made to spawn actual insects (NPCs) that can be avoided and killed by their prey—insects with actual health that can be basic-attacked and hit with abilities/spells.

Insect Swarm could spawn a WIS-scaling number of targetable insects that remain for a duration; alternatively, to a scaling number, it could spawn a fixed number of insects. In addition...

• ...these uncontrollable insects could chase and assail the nearest valid target in accordance with the caster's alignment meaning that they will attack NPCs hostile to the caster but could prefer players hostile to the caster such as evil versus good.
  • The insects could also potentially attack their caster, if too close, but the chance for the insects to not do so could depend on their caster's WIS.
  • If control is desired, these insects could be commanded with a hotkey made specifically to direct followers/pets.
• ...they could inherit certain statistics (health, mana, armor [crushing, piercing, and slashing], or resistances) from their caster.
  • Alternatively, their statistics could be fixed.
• ...they could deal piercing damage (melee) to targets they're able to attack.
  • Their attacks could continue to inflict confusion and stacks of bleeding.
  • With each attack, there could be a chance they will parasitize their targets, making them incubate eggs which will spawn smaller and weaker insects with the same behavior as their progenitors.
    • This could replace their ability to confuse if confusion on hit alongside parasitizing would make this revised spell too strong.

Of course, killing these summoned insects shouldn't reward knowledge points, loot, nor divine rewards.

Earlier this week, @Meiki thought of two wonderful ideas—an independent school of shapeshifting, based on my idea for adding an ability under druidcraft called "Wild Shape", and another school focused on shamanism, and together, I think came under an agreement that those two schools could be flavored to work together under "Shamanism". I wanted to share it here since where we discussed it is unfortunately not able to be viewed by public eyes without a certain Founder's tier.

Shamanism is a religion that is focused on the worship of the soul and spirituality—the spirits of animals, esoteric energies, and nature by extension. These practitioners utilize totems to respectfully harness the powers of these spirits for blessings or curses. They also evoke the spirits of animals for the purposes of divination (including omens).

For this school, I considered combining the principles of shapeshifting and shamanism into one under a school called "shamanism" by allowing the player to call upon the spirits of animals (beasts in Fractured) to temporarily manifest parts of their bodies onto the character's own body as spiritual energy to perform an attack or de/buff. Here are examples of attacks that could be done through shamanistic invocation:

• Alligators in real life can use their tails to defend themselves by whipping it at their assailants. A shaman could invoke the spirit of an alligator to manifest an alligator tail onto their own tailbone that can be used to perform a quick tail whip (cone area-of-effect) or a tailspin before disappearing.
• We don't have many avian creatures, but for the purpose of this example, a shaman could manifest the wings of a "hawk" onto their arms to buffet a target with wind by bringing their arms together before disappearing.
• Bears swipe with their paws to eviscerate their prey with their claws. A shaman could invoke the spirit of a bear to manifest their paws onto their hands to swipe at an enemy for slashing damage.
• Wolves are known for their pact instincts and their tendencies to howl. A shaman could invoke the spirit of a wolf to temporarily increase their own movement speed or to howl which would frighten enemies around them.
  • The spirit of a warg could do the other or give the shaman the ability to do a quick snaring lunge by manifesting their face or teeth onto their own as spiritual energy.
• Mammoths are large, wooly, and very durable. A shaman could call upon the spirit of a mammoth to increase their cold resistance and their maximum health.

There are many other possibilities and the draconic breath spells are already the epitomes of the above examples. They, along with the totems, could be recategorized under the school of shamanism. In addition to the above, shamans could perform ritualistic dances to buff their allies and could summon the spirits of beasts to temporarily assist them in combat—temporarily meaning that they will vanish after a certain amount of time passes.

This school would be able to provide a similar feeling to partially shapeshifting one's body but through the spirits of beast instead briefly manifesting their body parts made of energy onto the shaman's body for a specific purpose of the ability. It has the potential to be a supportive school of magic as well as a suitable alternative to druidcraft.

There have been a lot of ideas proposed that seem like they would be great solutions, but there are many downsides to those ideas that would cause disruption or additional trouble.

For example...

• Disabling the item deletion feature during combat.
  • This is a great idea, but the issue with it is that it would prevent players from deleting an item that weighs a lot if they are encumbered while in combat. Doing so could potentially save them similarly to how players detach their carts/wagons to regain their movement speed when they're in imminent danger.
• Locking the inventory to prevent it from being accessed during combat.
  • This would prevent players from slotting in a consumable such as bandages, teas, and the upcoming potions (if they can't be used from the inventory).
  • In addition, this would cause the same issue as the first point of the above idea.

There are three solutions I have in mind that could remedy this once and for all:

• Queue items for deletion.
  • This would place each item on... a five- or ten-minute timer for deletion which would still effectively remove them from their inventories during their queues. If the player dies before the items' queues are finished, they are restored to their inventories.
    • This includes death via PvE or suicide with the intention of preventing another player from killing them.
    • The queues could be paused during combat.
• Chronicle inventories.
  • Inventories could be chronicled, or "snapshotted", as soon as combat initiates.
    • If they survive after an appropriate amount of time elapses, the chronicle is erased.
    • If they die, the deleted items could be restored to their inventories as archived.
      • This, of course, excludes consumables that were used in combat. Unless deleted during combat, what remains should drop.
• Items could drop as physical objects similarly to the heavy materials from resource nodes.
  • While this could create a messy situation of players dropping their items all over the place while being chased, they would still be retrievable once combat is finished.
    • A button that can be held/toggled for highlighting nearby corpses, resource nodes, and items on the ground would seriously be needed for this even though it's still needed in general.
  • Of course, the items on the ground should despawn after some time just like the heavy materials do.