The Chronicles of Spellborn: The Token System Explained

The developers of the upcoming MMORPG The Chronicles of Spellborn wrote us a little guide to how the token system works in their game...

TCoS Token system explained.

In The Chronicles of Spellborn, armour and weapons have no impact on the player's statistics. As a result, players can have their characters look any way they wish without making sacrifices to the character's statistics and attributes. Instead, The Chronicles of Spellborn features a unique system that allows players to imbue powerful 'tokens' into their weapons and certain pieces of jewellery. At higher levels, players can even create their own unique epic items that they can give a unique name and sell to other players. A similar system allows players to upgrade their favourite skills to make their Skill Deck even more powerful. In this article we will take an in depth look at the TCoS token system.

Tokens - Skills
Every 3 levels players receive new skills that they can use in their Skill Deck. These skills grow in power along with the player's growth in levels. Starting at level 10 and continuing every 3 levels, the player receives a number of slots to embed tokens into their skills. Each skill can have a maximum of four slots for tokens. Once a slot has been placed it cannot be removed again. Also, players must place their slots onto skills before they can reach the next level.

While exploring and adventuring in the world of Chronicles of Spellborn, players can create, find or earn skill tokens that can be embedded in the skill slots. Players will always have the option to 'overwrite' an embedded skill token with another skill token, but once a token is placed into a skill slot, it cannot be removed again. There are many different skill tokens available. Some shorten the skill's cooldown period while others increase the damage output of a skill. The system will always check if a token is usable with a certain skill so players cannot accidentally place, for instance, an 'increased damage' skill token into the skill slot of a 'healing' skill. A player has to visit the local forge to embed tokens into the skill slots for a fee.

Tokens - Jewellery
Within the world of The Chronicles of Spellborn players can find rings and necklaces that contain token slots called gem sockets. Gem sockets in jewellery pieces have ranks. There are rumours of rings with two rank 10 gem sockets and even necklaces with up to three level 10 sockets. These ranks correspond to the rank of different stat-enhancing gems that can be placed in the jewellery's sockets. Only gems with the same rank as the available gem socket can be placed. The higher the rank of the gem, the higher the player level required to use the gem.

Level 10 to 19 - ranks 1 and 2.
Level 20 to 29 - ranks 3 and 4.
Level 30 to 39 - ranks 5 and 6.
Level 40 - 49 - ranks 7 and 8.
Level 50 - ranks 9 and 10.

Gems that have been placed in the jewellery's gem sockets at the forge can be removed again by returning to the forge. Depending on the rank of the gem, this can be a quite expensive shop visit. Players that lack the funds can choose to overwrite the gem with another gem if desired.

One example of the stats found in a gem is 'increase maximum health'. Depending on the rank of the gem that the player creates, finds or earns the result will be something similar to the short list below.

Rank 1 - Increase Maximum health by 50.
Rank 5 - Increase maximum health by 250.
Rank 10 - Increase maximum health by 500.

Tokens - Weapons
The broadest variation of the token system can be found on weapons. Starting from level 10, players can buy slots for tokens for their weapons. The local forge will be happy to help cash-carrying players to place slots for tokens ranging from rank 1 to rank 10 on the player's weapon. Each weapon can carry a maximum of 5 slots or 25 token rank points. This allows players to create a weapon with, for instance, five rank 5 slots or two rank 10 slots and one rank 5 slot depending on their needs. Existing slots can always be upgraded to a higher rank, but they can never be downgraded to lower ranks.

Once the token slots have been created at the forge, the player can use the forge to place weapon tokens in the slots. The same level restrictions apply to the usage of weapon tokens as jewellery tokens. The enhancing effects of weapon tokens can vary from increased overall damage to unique particle effects that give the player further options to create their own unique look. This can even extend to an entire guild where all players within a guild would wear the armour of the same colour and have the same particle effect on their weapons. Although the token slots can be upgraded, the tokens for weapons cannot. Like the jewellery gems, they can, however, be removed or overwritten.

Epic weapons
Players will have the opportunity to form their own unique epic weapons. Once a weapon has 25 used token slot rank points, players can choose to fashion a unique epic weapon. When the player is satisfied with their unique epic weapon they can visit the forge to have the token slots locked, give the weapon a unique name and can then even put it up for auction. We are currently testing ideas that will allow players to further upgrade their weapon tokens and token slots, making epic weapons truly powerful and unique. Of course creating an epic weapon requires a lot of adventuring and most players will want to keep wielding their epic weapon themselves, making them truly one-of-a-kind. Closer to the release date of the game we will reveal more details about this exciting feature.