EPTOccasionally I get to thinking about 12sky. I played it every day it was running, and it my first MMO love. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be my only one. Kinda prompted by lackluster guild wars 2 combat, I thought I'd reminisce on what made this game special, and give anyone curious an insight into an old MMO that is essentially unrecognizable by today's standards. This might turn out long. Ok, not might, this will definitely turn out long.
There were a couple qualities that made the game have the highest player retention I've ever seen in a game, and I'll go through how it promoted them properly.
Just as a note, player levels went from 1 to 145, where anyone lower than 113 didn't matter at all, and you got progressively more useful as you leveled further than that.
And there were 3 factions. Fujin, Jinong, and Guanyin. I'll also say, the teamwork section is the least unique aspect of the game, others have done it, but it was also the most important so I put it first. The 2nd and 3rd have the most unique (controversial?) aspects.
1. Teamwork
In a faction based game, it's unsurprising that it would encourage teamwork. The war between the factions was called the Holy Stone War, and the goal was to capture an opposing factions stone.
A. A reason to fight.
If your stone was lost to another faction, there were serious consequences for your faction. Everyone in your faction would suffer a 20% reduction in PvE damage, which in turn would translate into a slower exp gain for everyone, and a slower growth in wealth as boss farming would go slower as well. Losing your stone hurt, and people who might only care about themselves would still turn up to help defend, it was in their best interest to. Even players too weak to help in the fight would be hurt by a loss of the stone, so you'd sometimes see them turn out just to be a distraction. The bonus for holding another factions stone was a 10% increase in PvE damage btw, so having your stone held meant that faction was now getting stronger 30% faster than yours.
There was a secondary effect of losing your stone. Players lower than level 70 were by default untouchable by another faction, they couldn't be damaged, so they could still train even when there was a huge battle going on in the map. Losing your stone meant everyone in your faction, down to level 1, could be killed. Imagine wanting to try out this cool 12 sky game, logging in, and instantly be hit for 100,000 damage by some asshole of another faction because yours lost their stone. Killed on spawn. Nothing to prevent it. That's the kind of game 12sky was. Losing your stone was basically an embarrassment for your faction, and you'd do all you could to prevent it.
B. People to rally around.
In 12sky we had faction leaders, democratically elected people in each faction with special powers and bonuses. Faction leaders could broadcast messages to the entire faction, allowing for organized war efforts, and easier communication of important issues to everyone who would need to hear. Faction leaders also had a significant bankroll. It was common to see a faction leader promise in his campaign to use it to fund events and help lower levels, and you had to trust them to carry it out.
They'd do things like buy and give out experience potions, hold events like hide and seek where first to find him would get a prize/money, and a variety of other things. It really helped to elect someone who was there for your faction, not in it for themselves. And, probably contrary to real life, it was extremely rare to have an unfit leader elected. Fighting with people for months really lets you be informed in who's the type of person you'd want in the position.
And, ofc, there were other people to rally around, such as wargod holders (more on that later), people known to be exceptionally good in pvp, or just people in general who are always in the fight, and willing to organize.
C. Faction Events
There were a few non-pvp related events, one of which I'll touch on. It was called the 9-Tier Pagoda, and would open 3 times a week. The goal of the location was to beat all 9 floors, surprise. Each floor would have a different challenge, and would increase in difficulty as it went along. I'll give floor 6 as an example.
On floor 6 people couldn't heal themselves. This is a major problem when the boss you have to beat hit for 35,000 damage, ~5,000 of which was unblockable. Each individual monster also hit for ~5,000 unblockable. A typical level 113, the lowest level that could enter, would have 10k hp. Too low to do anything but pray you don't get hit, because you can't heal and you'd be fucked. A typical lvl 145 would have 20,000 to 30,000. 6 hits and they're dead. And there are a hundred monsters to clear as well of a boss, none of which you can heal yourself through.
This was basically the first test of a factions true teamwork. High levels would have to be way out in front to draw agro on monsters so they don't wipe the low levels, and low levels would have to stick close to heal anyone who got hit. One person healing another would heal ~200 per second btw, compared to only one monster dealing 2,500 dps. Let's just say things could turn bad fast.
Fighting the boss required a tank. Near max hp, which extremely few had, and required 30+ people healing that person for them to have a chance to survive. Fun stuff.
Beating the entire pagoda would result in a huge reward for all survivors. Did I mention dieing once resulted in getting kicked from the area, and that the entire thing was usually 2-3 hours long? The ultimate test of teamwork, It was only beat 3 times in the entire history of the game. (to my knowledge). Twice by Devotion Fujin, and once by Serenity Guanyin.
So yes, teamwork was heavily encouraged, but the next section is the real reason this game was special/extremely different from normal MMOs
2. Everyone is not equal.
It means like it sounds. People in this game aren't created equal, and definitely aren't equal at almost any point in the game.
A. Faction Differences
Being a Jinong would result in a wildly different character, with different strengths and weaknesses, than a Fujin. Jins were the 'brawn', they had the highest base HP growth, and their stats were more effective. One jin strength point would give 5.6 damage, while a fujin strength point would give 3.2. Combine that over 1000's of stat points that are fully allocatable, and you can see a Jin can end up with a much, much higher damage. Period. Fujin could never hit as high as a Jin that pumped strength.
Fair? Not really. 12sky wasn't a fair game.
But each faction also had different equipment strengths. A max level Jin spear would, for example, have 729 base damage. A fujin katana would have over 2000. Fujin relied on their equipment, and having high base equipment stats meant a fujin could pump HP and still hit like a train. Or they could pump dex, and a Jin would probably never hit them, their gloves would give such low hit chance.
Also, skill damage %'s were different for each faction, with Jins hitting the highest and Fujin hitting the lowest (but also the fastest).
B. Wargods.
I'll outline the skill system in 12sky first, for perspective. There were generally 3 types of skills, single hit, multihit, and aoe. A single hit would hit once, and would have a chance to "deadly", which would double the hits damage. The main way to kill people would be to deadly them. A multihit would hit 3-4 times, with no chance to deadly, but because of multiple hits had a higher damage output over time. The aoe would hit everything within weapon-reach of you once, for no chance to deadly and ~2/3 the damage of the single hit.
Single hit - 369% damage
Multihit - 1,233% over 4 hits.
AOE - 229% damage.
A wargod is likely something that almost never happens in other games. It isn't fair. It is overpowered to the extreme. Aptly named, a wargod would make you a god of war. Found purely through pvp (not entirely true but I won't get into it) it was an extremely rare drop. The entire Jinong faction on one server found... only one wargod. Over a 2 and 1/2 year period. Hundreds of Jins, pvping all day, all night, find just one of these. Just try to imagine something similarly rare in other games.
A wargod was an AOE. But not just any. A wargod hit harder than a single hit. (429%) It had a larger aoe radius than a normal aoe. And it could deadly. It was the ultimate skill. If you had one, you were instantly stronger than everyone in the game. No one could hit as high as you, no one could do as much damage in a fight. You were a god. Fair? One of the most unfair things ever to be in an MMO.
A player with a wargod was one to rally around. If someone with a wargod was in a fight, you can bet your ass everyone else in your faction wants to be there as well. If everyone can protect the wargod player, your faction will roflstomp through the others. Their damage output is enormous. A wargod was the ultimate symbol of power. I will say that I was extremely close to having a wargod, not once, but twice. It slipped through my fingers both times. But that's a story for another day.
C. Upgrades.
There were other reasons someone could just straight up be better than you. First and foremost were elixers. Elixers were permanent increases to your characters stats. Say a max level has a base of 10k hp. A max player with capped hp elixers (400 of them, at 20 hp each) would have a base 18k hp. They were exactly as powerful as they look. There were also elixers for strength and dexterity. A player with capped elixers was just straight up better than one without any. Even after 2 and 1/2 years of play, there were still ways to get stronger. A large investment of time will just result in you being better than someone else.
Compare that to guild wars 2. Also 3 way faction pvp, but everyone is equal. Everyone is the same level, same power, etc. That's so incredibly undynamic. In 12sky some people sucked. Some were amazing. Just based on the time they'd put in the game.
There was also something called the Wargod Cape. Awarded only to the winner of the yearly tournament, one person the server would get it. This cape was also just straight up better than any other. In fact, it was better than every other cape put together. Wearing this, you were just better than those without. Not nearly as extreme as a wargod, it gave them a distinct edge. Since it was one per year, only 2 per server existed. (actually potentially 4, i believe there might have been 1 per faction given in the second year, hard to remember)
There were also elite versions of equipment. Over the 2 and 1/2 years, I'd guess between 1 and 7 of each equipment type were found. To spread between thousands of players. Higher stats, higher skill bonuses, unique particle effects, elites would again make you better. The one elite I managed to get I treasured. <3
On a side note, I'll clarify that a person would have ~1400 stat points, where you could put anywhere. And your choices actually mattered. If you pumped a ton of HP, you might be extremely hard to kill. But you'll miss a lot, and hit low when you hit. If you pumped dex, people are gonna be cursing you out they'll be missing so often. You don't even have to worry about hitting them, you always will, you just gotta go for the deadlies, while they have to hit you and deadly you. Full strength? A jin could one hit other players, through their shield, even if they had high hp. Would take luck, but it could happen.
3. "Luck" and "Spam" based combat.
Imagine hp potions. These potions heal 90% of your max hp per use. They have no cooldown. They're cheap as dirt. This obviously translates into massive spamming of them. PvP would generally involve slamming the hp pot key as fast as you could while you tried to live long enough to do some damage. Indirectly this also encourages teamwork. If your single hit couldn't deadly for enough damage to wipe out their entire hp pool, you couldn't kill them alone. Ever. Or if they had low enough hp, but just sat there spamming their Heavenly Shield skill (protects for 150% of your base hp) every 2 seconds, they'd just never die. You'd need help.
I outlined the different skills above, none of which have cooldowns. Here's a typical combat scenario. You see someone. You recognize his guild tag, he stole a boss from you one time. That asshole. So you go to fight him. You lead up with a multihit to bring down his shield, and he does the same to you. You miss a couple times and it stays up, while yours is going to fall, so you re-do your shield and follow with a quick single hit to finish his off. You know he'll try and put his shield back up again, so you charge up (next hit does double damage) and swing in with another single right before his shield goes up. You deadly hit, for double damage, and that asshole is dead. Yay. You sit on his face to show him who's boss.
You can kinda see combat is fairly luck based. You generally need to deadly someone with a shield down in 1v1 to kill anyone. You need to hit your swings. You need to not kill yourself on his "10% chance they kill themselves lulz" skill. Have to hope someone else doesn't jump in the fight and kill you as well. But ultimately it was extremely satisfying. Because of the deadly system, a person of a lower level, with enough luck, could hit, and deadly, a high level opponent who's shield has been dropped. Or they could knock down their shield for another to finish him off.
If you had 2+ people on you, you'd probably spam your shield and run away. If you saw someone have their shield knocked down, you'd want to go and try and deadly them to finish em off.
Generally battles centered around capturing stones and formations. This is a great example of a battle for a formation. The holder has to stay on it for 5 minutes without dieing to capture it. Fujin own it in the video, while Jinongs are trying to capture it. Some guan make some attempts but fail. The jin wargod is on the formation as well, which is why everyone is hesitant to get near, and I'm in there aoeing as well. ^^
+ Show Spoiler +
12sky was all about getting close to your faction mates, helping them improve to help out better. It was about holding grudges on people in the other faction, and doing your best to annoy the shit outta that person. (well maybe that was just me, lol) It was about continually progressing to improve your chances in a fight. You get to know almost literally everyone else in your faction, hundreds of acquaintances/friends, and a lot of people in other factions.
Unfortunately, due to computer issues, I lost every single screenshot and video I had of the game. And the forums were taken down so I can't retrieve any I had put there. This is the only video I can find with me in it. It's during our tournament in the second year of the game. I'm 2Much2Handle. And yes, I didn't do so great. ^^
I could literally go on all day about this, and I missed a lot of unique things. I had trouble sleeping last night because I couldn't stop thinking about this game, so hopefully this will get it off my mind for a few months again. xD If you want an idea of how addictive/amazing this game was, there is STILL a group of people who are actively working on a copy of Twelve Sky, remaking it from the ground up, just so we can play the damn thing again.
If anyone actually read it all, I hope you enjoyed it. And don't even think about trying 12 sky 2, it's shit. And the company is shit as well.
