Early Access: Blade & Soul Training System

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Journalist

For those outside of the loop, Blade & Soul is NCSoft's next big blockbuster. The game seems to be going in the direction of half 3D Fighter, Half Fantasy Martial Arts MMORPG, with some of the most spectacular animations and graphics seen in the history of online gaming. Today I will be going over one of the features for character customization, the "Training System."

For those familiar with WoW, Forsaken World, or any other modern MMORPG, you will easily pick up and comprehend the ins and outs of the Training System. However, for those that have only dabbled in casual MMORPGs, I will describe this system from the basics.

The Training System is an evolved form of a skill tree. It shows a layout of all of your skills and passives in an organized form. Once you reach level 15, you will gain your first training point that can be spent in the training system to give you customization over your basic skills, as well as access to normally unknown powers and passives.

This is not to be confused with a skill tree that allows you to choose which powers you obtain as you level, but is a separate system entirely that allows you to customize the skills you wish to learn for your class. By introducing this system, the possibilities start leaning towards the infinite side and as you may have different skill sets and different specialties among those skills than another player of the same class and race as you! In PvP this becomes incredibly important since you will be able to stray outside the norm and use the element of surprise to overcome opponents that are more used to cookie cutter builds for your class.

While other games that have implemented this system went with more of a strengthening focus, Blade & Soul is using the Training System to provide Utility rather than flat x amount of bonus damage. For instance say you are playing a Kung-Fu Master. Your basic skill, leap stomp, has a 12 second cool-down after use. However, if you spend a point in mastering leap stomp, you can gain the ability to instantly refresh its cool-down upon the use of Force Punch.

For those worried about having to be a front runner in deciding your build among so many options, worry not. NCSoft is implementing a refund program, in which you spend your currency to reset all your training. The amount of currency required will depend on how many total points you have to reset.

As you can see in this image, the training system is organized in a clean and clear manner. Your active skills are in the single image column on the far left, and their related training attributes available are present in the wider right columns. It seems there will be some trainings that are prerequisites for later trainings, so much strategy will be involved in planning out an effective build that works for you.

As this game nears closer to its eventual release, more and more signs seem to point that it is more than just eye candy. Though information is scarce, OnRPG will continue to watch out for game details and bring them here.