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As a follow-up to our first developer diary, which ran a few weeks ago, we sent in a set of questions for the developers to look over for their next developer diary. The SotNW team responded with an onslaught of information, wrapped into their own wit and humor. Please enjoy the article!

TTH: Sword of the New World: Granado Espada offers multi-character control which has been referred to as having a “family”.  What does that mean? What is the difference between having several characters and switching back and forth between them and controlling all of them at once? How does it manifest in gameplay?  

Jon: Sword of the New World allows players to create their own unique families.  Ok, I know we have said that A LOT.  But what does all that mean?  What is a ‘family’? Basically a family is a collection of characters that lets you, the player, create unique and interesting “builds” of teams.  A TEAM is the three characters you take with you when you travel into the new world of Granado Espada.  Because you can control up to three characters at a time and have a total of 36 characters in your family’s quarters to choose from, you have the ability to create your own specific and individual team.  

A family consists of the characters that you collect and/or create.

 In addition to that, your ‘family’ is your persona in game.  In other games you have one character, but in Sword the possibilities are limitless.  Your family can all be known for one thing (mine are known diplomats) or each member of your family can have a different outlook on life.  Either way the choice is yours.  As I always say, your family will live and die by your hands and their reputations are no different.

Phil:  I would like to add that the control scheme is one of the best I have ever used.  You have the ability to control your family using just three keys and a mouse.  The controls scale up and  allow you to gain as much control as you want, down to controlling one character at a time, and using hotkeys to switch between your characters and trigger abilities.  The players that master the hotkeys will do much better in dueling PvP situations.

TTH: How do you build a family?  Is it totally up to you to do any combination of characters that you want or is there direction given to people who do not know how to build a strong family? What is the best combination of classes? What if you build a family and find that you are terribly lacking in a certain area.  Are you stuck?

Phil:  This is one of the great aspects of the game.  Families tend to reflect the play styles of the individual player. If you notice that your family is weak in a certain aspect you can look at other available stances and find out how address the hole, so you will never become “stuck.”  

In our testing we have not found any one set of characters that will be game breaking or too weak.  Some builds definitely have strengths, but I have found that very narrowly focused families also tend to have big weaknesses that need to be monitored to prevent getting wiped.  For example, three Elementalists generate a huge amount of DPS, but at the cost of lower hit points and armor.  You need to be incredibly aware of your surroundings and you end up using a lot of health potions, which costs money.  Is this build stronger then a more balanced group that includes a fighter and a scout?  Yes and no, it is a trade off that tends to reflect the play style of the player.

Jon: To add to what Phil said, stances themselves are fairly give and take.  If you put a Musketeer in the Kneeling Shot Stance, she will do more damage than any of the other stances save one, however, while he may be dealing more damage she cannot move… because she is kneeling.  Also, she attacks MUCH slower than the other stances.  But every hit is deadly.  

TTH:   During the localization of the game I am sure you have had the opportunity to build and play with a family of your own in the game.  What is the makeup of your family? Have you been surprised about how your family has progressed?  

Jon: Personally I like the Musketeer class.  Being the individualist I am, I usually leave town with a Fighter and two Musketeers.  I let my fighter aggro a number of monsters to a central location and use my Musketeers to take them all out at once.  I think a lot of people are afraid to play without a healer but I rarely get into a situation when I need one in solo play and in squad play there is usually at least one person with a healer that can heal my characters as well.  Also, potions are a life saver.  Whenever I get in too deep, I can always just quaff a potion and stay in the fight.  I think the thing that usually shocks me the most with my build is how different each stance is.  Even within the same class.

For example, I have two Musketeers.  One of my Musketeers is leveling his Kneeling Shot Rifle Stance while his counterpart is leveling her Double Pistol Stance.  Their play styles are completely different.  She is rather active and will move around to get her ‘perfect shot’, while he is constantly aiming on the ground, unable to move, but still dealing massive amounts of damage.  All the while my Fighter is holding aggro with his Provoke Class Skill and several of his AoE skills from his Back-Guard Stance.  For me, not having a healer is all about risk.  It’s the exhilaration of beating a monster before they beat me.  That last moment when it looks like the fight is not going to go my way… but I still win… just by luck.

Families are different than the multi-character groups and reflect all the characters you have to your name.

Phil:  Perhaps I am a care bear…  My personal grouping uses a Fighter, Elementalist and a Scout.  Like Jon, I use the Back-Guard stance on my fighter, but I am leveling High-Guard at the same time, I am able to do this as both stances use a shield and a sword and I switch between them as needed.  Sure my bonuses for the stances are not as great as I split my stance leveling across two stances, but I have access to two sets of skills and I have a few more tricks up my sleeve to deal with situations as they occur.

My Elementalist is currently ice speced.  The ice skills, while not doing as much damage as the fire or lightening, allow for a chance to slow the enemies down, and tends to be a little more focused on AoE type spells.  I use the Provoke class skill the Fighter has to gather mobs, but then I unload on them with the Elementalists’ AoE spells.  And yes, I do use a Scout…  

While my Scout primarily heals my family, when I group up I throw two daggers on him and he becomes a wicked little damage dealer. I let the other families’ scouts assume the group healing duties.

Jon: You’re just a chicken, not playing risky…

Phil:  Alright let’s settle this like men and duel!

(After the interview Jon beat Phil 3 out of 5 times with the 5th matching deciding the victor)

TTH:   Finally, how do stances fit into the equation?  Tell us a little bit about how to best utilize each character’s unique stance and how to anticipate the stances needed in battle.

Jon: Taking things a little deeper, each of your characters has their own individual stances.  Your choices with what stance each character is using and which ones you put in your family’s team increases your ability to customize your team even more.  When choosing characters to put on your team you can do almost anything: You can take three damage dealers and cut through monsters before they cut through you,  or you can take 2 healers and a tank and battle your way to glory with your fighter leading the way. You can even make a balanced team - like a tank, a damage dealer and a healer - and play the “Classic build”.  In the classic build, you use your tank to gain agro and take damage while your healer heals him and your wizard deals vicious amounts of damage to all targets in her path.  Any course you choose is never wrong because if you don’t like the class or character you pick, you can just make a new one.  

Phil:  Since I play the “Classic build” are you implying I am old?

Jon: I don’t have to “imply” that…

TTH: Thanks again to Phil and Jon for answering our questions and giving us a behind the scenes look at Sword of the New World: Granado Espada!

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