Ave, Legate! Over on the Expeditions: Samurai Steam page, we've previously posted our first developer diary from that project, taking you behind the scenes of the story writing for the fourth instalment in the series. We now have another dev diary ready, and we thought it might be nice to share it with the Expeditions: Rome community as well.
Over the past few months, there has been a lot of interest in - and speculation about - the character system in Samurai. It's been a lot of fun to read your thoughts and hear what changes or improvements you were hoping to see in Samurai compared to Rome, but we think it's time to give you a little more substantial information about our progression systems.
The Expeditions games have gone through many iterations of progression systems from the very simple resource-management skill system of Conquistador, over the free-form skill system of Viking, to the class-based skill tree of Expeditions: Rome where most abilities came from your equipment.
Our aim with Expeditions: Samurai has been to build on the character systems of Expeditions: Rome while re-introducing skills and attributes from Expeditions: Viking, with the goal of adding more classic CRPG-systems and more clearly moving the game into the CRPG genre.
When creating your character in Expeditions: Samurai, you first choose your main character class from the 4 available player classes, and then you choose your attributes. These serve as a starting point and a direction for your character. Upon levelling up, the character will accrue "Skill Points" and "Perk Points".
Classes, Perks, and Skills
The 4 classes depicted here are the initial classes available to the player. Additionally, each of the 8 companion characters has their own unique main class that fits their identity.
A main class provides a character with one active ability and a set of 8 class perks to purchase. Every main class is also associated with a certain class resource, which grants an additional active ability.
Let's take the Marauder class as an example, which is pictured above: The Marauder is associated with the Focus resource, which they gain every time they deal damage to an enemy. Because they have Focus, they get the ability Mark, which spends a little Focus to mark a specific target so the Marauder will deal more damage against them.
The Marauder's unique ability is Second Wind, which spends Focus to restore some Endurance to the Marauder themselves; and as mentioned, the Marauder gets 8 class perks that can be purchased as they level up and are designed to support their specific play style, eg. by granting further bonuses against a Marked enemy.
A little under half-way through a playthrough, you will get access to "Trained Classes", allowing you to add a 2nd, more specialized class to each of your characters. Like main classes, trained classes come with a unique active ability and another set of 8 class perks.
If you think this menu looks overwhelming, we agree. It is work-in-progress and will be tidied up during Early Access.
In addition to the 8 class perks per class, a large set of Generic Perks are available for purchase by all characters. These include "Proficiency" perks, which unlock more combat abilities when using weapons, helmets, or outfits of the corresponding type. It also includes sets of perks that are unlocked by the skill choices of the character.
Skills are primarily used for skill checks outside of combat: in exploration, dialogue, and in world map events. These checks include things like Authority or Persuasion to get your way in a negotiation, Lockpicking or Breaking to open a door or chest, or Awareness to spot a hidden object or trap.
Equipment Abilities
Like in Expeditions: Rome, equipment is the primary way you define a character's abilities in combat. Weapons provide up to 4 active abilities each, and the character's outfit and hat or helmet provide another 2 abilities. Weapon abilities are most often attacks, while outfit and headwear abilities are more focused on defense and utility. Unlike Expeditions: Rome, an item's abilities are no longer randomized; each type of item comes in a few set varieties with specific ability loadouts. When you pick up an "Ornate Naginata", you will know that it has different abilities than your "Balanced Naginata", but the exact same abilities as any other Ornate Naginata.
Any character can equip any piece of equipment, but apart from the most basic couple of abilities on each weapon, using the abilities of your equipment will require you to invest into the Proficiency perks mentioned above. Thus, any character can wear a heavy set of armor and benefit from its protection, but only those who are trained in its use will be able to activate its ability.
Our goal with designing Expeditions: Samurai has been to ensure that each choice doesn’t feel overwhelming for new players, but over the course of the game will create a vast range of options and leave lots of space for theory-crafting and build-making if desired.
If you've made it all the way through this text, we're sure you have lots of thoughts on the changes we've made from Expeditions: Rome. Why not join our Discord server and jump into the discussions there?
And remember to check out our Dev Diary #1 - Story Writing - on the Expeditions: Samurai Steam page.