Passives & Contextual Skills

Two connected systems built on one rule: whatever grants power also scopes it.

Before this, training a bow raised your Attack for every weapon you then picked up — so specialising cost nothing and levelling everything was the optimal play. Contextual skills fix the scoping; passives give you named, iconed unlocks to hand out.

Everything here sits behind the Contextual Skills feature flag, on by default. With it off, every bonus is unconditional and each linked skill receives the full XP amount, exactly as older worlds behaved. Your authored data is untouched either way.

Where to author it#

Scoping a skill's bonuses#

Each row on a skill's Level Bonuses tab now has an Applies dropdown:

While equipped reads the links you already set under an item's Linked Skills — you do not name a weapon type a second time. On linked actions is the only option that works for a weaponless caster, because there is no equipped item to hang the condition on.

Rows you authored before this shipped have no mode set, and an unset mode reads as Always. Nothing in a live world changes until you edit a row.

Setting up a passive#

1. Go to Database -> Status Effects and switch to the Passives tab.
2. Click + New Passive and give it an ID (locked after saving — everything references it) and a Name.
3. Pick an Applies mode. This is the same three-way choice as skill bonuses, and it is what stops a permanent unlock from buffing the wrong weapon.
4. Fill in any combination of the three payout tabs:
   • Stat Bonuses — flat or percent changes to character stats.
   • Status Effects — effects held open for as long as the passive applies. No duration, no re-cast.
   • World Bonuses — things that have no character stat to live in, like harvest yield.
   • Triggers (on the Effects & Triggers tab) — rules that react while the passive applies: a heal when your health drops, a cooldown reset on a kill. See Triggers.
5. Set Max Stacks if more than one source can grant it (a skill unlock and a ring).
6. Save, then grant it from a skill, an item, a quest, an achievement or an event command.

Fields#

World bonus channels#

Character stats cover combat, but there is no stat for "ore yield". These channels cover the rest:

Both find channels key off the killer, even when the kill is shared: their luck decided the drop, and the reward is then split by contribution as usual.

Held versus applied#

This is the part worth understanding before you author much.

Held means a source is currently granting you the passive. Applied means its contents are actually doing something. They are separate:

• A skill unlock is held forever once earned — the level does not go away.
• A gear passive is held only while that item is worn and unbroken. Any slot works, so rings, capes and shields can carry one.
• Whether a held passive applies is decided by its Applies mode.

So a skill-unlocked passive set to On linked actions is yours permanently, but only pays out when you are actually using the weapon or ability that skill trains. That is how you author "Eagle Eye: +10% crit — Archery only" as a permanent unlock that still cannot buff a sword.

Players only see passives they are currently benefiting from. A held-but-dormant one — an While equipped passive with the matching gear stowed — is left out of the list entirely rather than shown greyed. On linked actions passives stay listed, labelled as such, because they are genuinely earned and working.

Time limits#

Every grant that is stored can carry a duration, so a passive does not have to be forever:

Re-granting a timed passive from the same source refreshes the timer rather than stacking a second copy, so a repeatable quest cannot be farmed into a permanent buff.

Where XP now goes#

Skill XP is split, not duplicated. An action gathers up every skill it trains — the item that sourced it, that item's type, and the ability itself — removes duplicates, and divides the XP evenly between them.

• Fire a bow ability where the bow trains Archery and the ability trains Marksmanship: 50% each.
• If both point at Archery, it dedupes to one skill and Archery gets 100%.
• Linking a third skill splits three ways. The total per action never changes.

Two related fixes come with this:

• Armour abilities now train the armour. The ability bar is built from your equipment — the weapon type fills your basic attack and Q/W, the weapon item fills E, and head/chest/boots each contribute one. XP used to credit whatever weapon you were holding regardless, so a boots ability trained your sword. It now credits the piece that actually granted the ability.
• Armour earns XP from being hit. A piece with no slot ability had no way to gain anything at all. Absorbing damage now trains its linked skills, at half the combat rate.

You can also set Linked Skills on a weapon or armour type now, so "all bows train Archery" is authored once instead of on every bow. Type links and item links are combined, so an individual legendary bow can still add one of its own.

A kill only pays if something is linked. XP reaches a skill through the item you used, that item's type, or the ability — if none of them name a skill, the kill awards nothing at all. The built-in weapon types now ship already linked (melee types train Melee Combat, Bow and Crossbow train Ranged Combat, Staff and Wand train Magic), and fighting bare-handed falls back to whatever the Unarmed type trains. Existing worlds are backfilled once on update, and only where you hadn't set links yourself. If you build your own weapon types, set their Linked Skills or kills with them will pay nothing.

Built-in skills#

Three skills are owned by the engine rather than by you: Farming, Taming and Construction. Tilling soil or taming a boar has no item or ability to hang a skill link on, so the server awards those by name — which means the skill has to exist.

• They are guaranteed present while their feature is on. Delete the row and the server puts

  the definition back on next load, so the Skills editor refuses the delete rather than letting it silently bounce back. They are marked Built-in in the list.

• You can still edit them freely — name, description, icon, level bonuses, passive unlocks.

  Only their existence is enforced, never your content.

• Each is tied to a feature: Taming to Pets, Construction to Housing, Farming to

  Farming. Turn that feature off and the skill stops earning and disappears from the player's Skills panel, along with any passives it unlocks.

• Turning a feature off never destroys progress. The saved levels are kept, so switching it

  back on restores exactly where players were.

Gotchas#

• The XP split is a balance change. Any world that linked several skills to one action was quietly paying each of them in full. Turning the flag on halves those rates. Check your progression pacing after enabling it.
• Percent stat bonuses do not compound. They resolve against base + gear, so two percent passives never multiply each other.
• Broken gear grants nothing — no stats, no passives — the same way it already contributes no stats.
• Deleting a passive does not clear references. Skills, items and quests keep pointing at it and simply grant nothing. Fix the references rather than relying on the delete.
• A skill book must teach something. A tome with neither an ability nor a passive set is rejected on use rather than being consumed for nothing.
• A book is one of the few ways a spell reaches a player at all. Players can only cast abilities they have learned or that their gear grants, so a spell with no starter kit, trainer, book, quest or event behind it is unreachable. A book whose reader is already at the world's Max Learned Abilities is refused and not consumed — they forget one and read it again.
• Passives need a publish. They are authored content, so push them to a live server the same way you publish items or abilities.
• Accessories and capes cannot earn skill XP. They have no action to hang XP on — they carry passives, they do not train skills.