[Game Design] Soliciting skill ideas for some of our character classes

[sir.pinski]

We'd love to keep our fans involved with our development process, so based on a suggestion we're going to turn to you all for some ideas regarding character skills. While we're not yet revealing much about our characters or settings yet, we have decided on most of our character classes and are looking for suggestions from the community for skills. We need both active skills and passive skills. There will be 8 active skills for each character (1 for boost 1, 2 each for boosts 2 - 4, and 1 for boost 5 that is manually-triggered). There will also be 6 - 8 passive skills, with 3 - 4 able to be active at a time. I'm also happy to take general suggestions for status effects, as those can help guide skill design too.

This is just wild brainstorming, and we're not giving a lot of context for our game world yet so some of the ideas may just not work. I also have plans for some of these already, but I'm always open to some interesting and unique ideas. Also, feasibility may rule out some of these, but you're welcome to toss them out there to see what sticks. :) I do need to give a few disclaimers first though:

- We may or may not use any of these suggestions.
- By posting in this public forum, you are giving up all right to and ownership of these ideas and will receive no compensation.
- We will try to provide credit for ideas, but make no guarantees.

With that out of the way, here are some of the 12 character classes that we'd love to get some suggestions for:

- Two-sword whirlwind. Character is best when facing lots of enemies at once, able to deal good group damage.
- Duelist. Has a sword and a whip, focused on DPS, and some harassment, against individual enemies. Good accuracy can yield critical hits.
- Archer. Longest range, emphasis on a combination of speed and crits. May have some status effect arrows too.
- Tribal Healer (nature-focused, not like an evil witch doctor). Would have healing, poison, and other concoctions to toss around.
- Amateur Mage. Magic is not particularly well understood here, so it's more experimenting with weaker magic than true mastery.
- Demolisher. Expert on explosions and destruction.
- Gunner / Inventor. Has a large-bore cannon and the ability to toss out traps. A mid-range character with enough armor to be able to hold on the front lines.
- Knight. Armored tank character, will do good generic damage.
- Guard Herald. Super heavily armored, holds a large shield. And a trumpet.

We're looking forward to seeing what you guys think, and thanks for the help!

[sir.pinski]

Boost 5 will be sort of like a limit break, yes (that definitely was some of the inspiration). It'll recharge automatically over time though (not requiring taking damage or anything), but will have a long recharge and give manual control to the player to trigger (probably through a right-click on the tower). The idea is to give a little more live interaction to battles, especially for longer late-game ones after everything is pretty boosted. Not all Boost 5's would necessarily be manual, but that's the plan at the moment.

There actually will be a spear, I just decided to keep that one secret as he's kinda interesting. :) I like the idea of an axe though...I'll talk with James and see if maybe that would make sense for one of these.

Demolisher: Actually, not the lizard. :)

Gunner / Inventor:

- Stickybomb trap: that sounds like a lot of fun, actually! May not need the debuff on it, just the delayed splash sticky bombs is a pretty great idea.

- Caltrops: a good idea. I have some other skills that would have a similar effect, but if I drop those this would be a great place for it.

Duelist:

- Whiplash. Totally agree, I had one very similar written up called "Whip Trip". :)

Amateur Mage:

- Bees: Interesting summon idea here. I think the mage is probably going to be more elemental-based (though not locked to a single element), but I have a summoning character I haven't mentioned that I might be able to adapt something like this to.

- Phantasmagoria: From a design perspective this sounds like fun. Feasibly it might be difficult. We tried to have a "confuse" in the previous one and the pathing logic caused some weird bugs, to the point that we just started using knock-backs instead. Not sure if we'll be able to work around that this time or not.

- Stalking Storm: Definitely a fun idea. I don't know if we can have logic like that or not, will need to check with Lars. But I'd rather get crazy ideas first and determine feasibility later.

Archer:

- Flarrow: Functionally, would this differ from "Bleed" at all? The concept is fun, but I don't know what the result would be.

- Warning shot: Another fun idea. :) Logic could be challenging here, as right now I don't think characters are aware of other characters' status, but this is again a question for Lars. I do like the idea though!

Something tells me this is going to be a fun exercise, and I think I'm going to get some fantastic ideas out of this as we get more posts. Thanks already though!

[sir.pinski]

Originally posted by Whisperling:

I imagined that Flarrow might be a combination of 'Bleed' and 'Light', except a non-bleed based damage +% debuff (so you could tell the archer to target strong enemies to get them down more easily with it) and the 'Light' aspect would illuminate enemies around the Flarrow'd target. That's assuming you haven't nixed shadowed enemies entirely, of course.

Ah, that makes sense. I'm not sure that we're going to have "dark" enemies yet in this version - they certainly were a source of controversy in DQ1. But we'll probably want something along those lines, so an arrow to combat that definitely maeks sense.

Originally posted by Whisperling:

Stalking storm could be made to function more easily by simply having it vanish when the enemy dies, allowing it to be recast on a new enemy. That or just having it be a regular debuff spell that can be cast on multiple enemies, having a random chance to shock them for damage every second until they die or it fades off.

That may indeed be more feasible. :)

Originally posted by Whisperling:

But considering that the mage is elemental...

Amateur Mage:

- Ice Cage. Temporarily freezes a unit solid in a cage of ice. When the cage bursts, it creates a flurry of snowflakes around it, slowing nearby enemies. A sufficiently powerful strike could maybe shatter/insta-kill an Icecaged enemy, similar to Devour?

- Whirling Wind. Creates a tiny tornado that spirals outwards from the mage, dealing damage to any enemy it passes over.

- Forked Flame. Tosses a fireball at a tile an enemy is on, where it bursts for damage and spreads outwards along the enemy movement path # tiles in both (or all 4, if that's easier?) directions to light them on fire.

- Rocky Road. Temporarily makes all earth tiles within the mage's radius into sharp, spikey tiles, damaging enemies who walk across them

Or, optionally

- Rocky Road. Constructs a rock to hurl at an enemy, where it follows the enemy movement path in reverse. Slams into # enemies along the path and slightly knocks them back before it crumbles.

- Ice Cage: Cool idea, I like these delayed-effect spells as they'll add a bit of unpredictability (and thus favor broader strategic decisions), plus be fun to watch.

- Whirling Wind: Might be difficult due to how we target and move things (typically grid-like), but conceptually is interesting, and might be able to travel straight down a path effectively.

- Forked Flame: I'm inclined to try to keep with game tropes when possible, in which case lightning is the more typical forking/chaining element. We'll probably have some splash-damage fire, though I think that'll likely go to the demolisher or gunner.

- Rocky Road: Good ideas for both of these. Knock-back will probably be done more with the Guard Herald's shield, but the spikey ground could be a really neat effect for our animator.

Originally posted by Whisperling:

Guard Herald:

- Wall of Pain. A buff for all nearby allies, giving them a small damage boost and temporarily buffing them with the "Thorns' effect (or possibly 'Counter', using the character's base damage), making enemies who hit them take damage

- Hold the Line. A buff for all nearby allies, preventing them from dropping unconscious even if their HP hits 0. If they haven't been healed by the time the buff ends, they will KO.

- Taunting Horn. A debuff for a non-boss enemy, putting it at a standstill as it launches into a rage, attacking the Guard Herald or any character within reach until the debuff ends.

- Last Stand. A buff for all nearby allies, giving them a speed and damage boost based on how much % of their HP they are missing.

- Guard Herald: I definitely imagine buffs & debuffs being a good part of him and you've got some good ideas here. "Hold the line" is good, though super specific - we'd probably want something to be more generalized than just anti-death, or something semi-permanent (that works once, and then wears off). Taunting with the trumpet was absolutely the intent of the original design. :)

Originally posted by Whisperling:

Tribal Healer:

- Nature Spirits (assuming you mean the healer is more of a 'Druid' class, otherwise disregard). Grows small shrubs into vacant placeable tiles immediately surrounding the healer, with little HP and small damage in the form of spitting nuts as ranged attacks. Automatically wither after a time, or can be unsummoned to free up the tile.

- Toxic Thorn. Buffs all nearby units with a growth of vines around them, giving them additional armor and the 'Thorns' effect to damage attacking enemies while the spell lasts.

- 'Group Heal' / Dewdrop Mists. I propose that this one function a bit differently. Group Heal was almost redundant in DQ1 in terms of function. If it returns, I'd like to see it function as a regen buff, healing smaller damage gradually over time.

- Purge. Removes debuffs from all nearby allies, removes buffs from all nearby enemies.

- Nature Spirits: Ooh, I like this one a lot. :) Not sure if it'll work in our fiction (I know, I'm being kinda vague, sorry about that :/ ), but I'm almost certain I can find a way to implement something along these lines.

- Toxic Thorn: Nice way to bring in that functionality within a nature-y healer. Cool idea.

- Fair enough on the group heal. ;)

- Purge: Nice generalized effect, I could see that working well.

Again, to be clear, while we won't be able to use most of these, I think we can pull in some of the ideas, and either way this is super useful, so thank you! :D

[Shaderunner]

cool stuff there mon!

[.//slayer]

A lot of amazing ideas there, Whisperling :) Really like the way you toss in those quirky mechanics tricks, that'll allow for some deeper play.

Well, since it's brainstorming, I'll risk sounding like a fool and suggest a couple of things myself:

Tribal Healer:

Cattle pandemonium: summons a wild sheep that moves in the direction opposite to enemy waves. Upon reaching an enemy, bites it with brutal force, making the enemy stop and waste time on a fight. Cannot summon more than X sheep (won't suggest X since it really should be tied in with the average quantity of enemies per your typical wave; also, shouldn't work on boss types and such, that are too big to stall). Disappears when it reaches the end of the screen, then a new one can be summoned.

Duelist:

Maddening fever: coats the whip in special poison that makes enemies lose their mind and go berserk, thus increasing the strength of their attack, but also severely increasing damage taken from all sources. Can only be used in melee range. Going to suggest that it will also enable creatures to attack even if they couldn't do that originally. But that's probably too much work animation-wise, so not sure.

Kabokus' Fury: no one really remembers who Kabokus was, but one thing everyone agrees on, he was one angry son of a gun. Duelist attacks a 3x3 area around him, dealing dozens of unaimed blows in rapid succession. The blows deal splash damage and stun enemies for a fraction of a second, also having a small chance to apply a random status effect. After using the skill, Duelist exhausts himself/herself and suffers penalty to defense (i.e. damage suffered from enemies is slightly increased).

Two-sword whirlwind:

Road to Abyss: (probably best for manual activation) deals devastating damage that is equally divided among X enemies in close vicinity, while also going all in and thus losing 99% of current health. If there are less than X enemies in range, the damage is not split and the resulting effect on each separate enemy will be higher. The idea is to have an option for last-second save or for especially tough enemies that are worth trading a character for.

Composure: (passive skill) for each second spent without using skills, Whirlwind gains +dodge and +attack speed. Each skill usage reduces these bonuses by X, until they reach their original value. So, instead of making them frontline fighters, you can choose to put these warriors in the back and disable all their skills so that they buff themselves up to be ready to face faster enemies and survive the onslaughts of rapid attacks. Naturally, tradeoff being that in case they die, they'll have to build up the bonus again, and no skills already means a great disadvantage.

March: lets you move the character to one of the adjacent squares provided those squares aren't blocked. This should provide an option for moving the character to finish off some random enemies that suddenly got out of his/her attack range, but are left with very low HP. In DF1 that meant that you have to clutch-summon and buff someone in reserve to stop these pests, or to un-summon somebody already on the field. With this skill, the player will have an option to do several more attacks before turning to drastic measures.

Guard Herald:

Unity: pools the health points of all characters in range and divides them equally among all the characters. Very long cooldown. The way I see it, can do you both good and harm, unless you plan it properly. For instance, if there are two characters in range, one of which has 700 out of 1000 hp, the other - 300 out of 500, then they have 1000 in total. After using Unity both of them will be left with (700+300)/2 = 500 health points, thus allowing for crucial saves when you really need them, at the expense of less endangered second-row characters. Naturally, won't do much if all your characters are near death already, or if you weren't careful and used it to heal a mage by sacrificing most of your tanky Knight`s health.

Bulk up: get temporary armour points that will absorb up to X points of incoming damage, but with each taken hit will be reduced in effectiveness. Can't recast the skill if you still have at least 1 point of armour available, and cooldown starts only after you lose all the armour you have.

One for all: transfers X% of remaining Herald's armour to everyone in range, but makes Herald himself lose all of his armour. Long cooldown, can't transfer armour to anyone who already has it from the previous time the skill was used.

Amateur Mage:

Untamed Magic: rapidly shoots a vast amount of magic pellets that travel at long distances (possibly screen-wide) and deal moderate damage, but can only be fired in random directions. Several mages would be able to form a decent barrage of magic bullets, but random nature of the spell should make it more of a fire support skill than anything else.

Happy Transcendence: (passive) upon each received hit, a mage has a small chance of entering the state of transcendence for several seconds. While in this state, he cannot receive any damage after the initial blow that sent him/her to that state, but all the healing received is reduced by X% (depending on the level of the skill). After several seconds the mage returns to normal state, after which the cooldown on passive starts. If this is considered too OP, then I'd also like to suggest making the received damage apply as bleeding over X seconds (the higher the skill level, the more X will be), thus making it easier to outheal the damage while in this state.

Knight:

Extended swordplay: (passive) an enemy that attacked the Knight can't attack any other character except the Knight for X seconds. The passive only activates once every several seconds and then will have to recharge.

[lighting_b]

Well, I think you also should change the names of the classes in order to make them interesting, also I hope when you release the game you change the name Boost 5, if it's like a limit break then its not a Boost.
Also what about giving the option to upgrade classes, after reaching a certain level it grants you the opportunity to change(evolve) a class, it gives more bonuses, example:
After reaching level 20 the Mage(all elements but low level) can become a Sorcerer(fire and lighting), Illusionist( water and wind) or a Wizard(light and dark) this way the player will be able to create different tactics by upgrading them, also don't forget to allow maximum level 99.

About the classes, what is the Two-handed Whirlwind?

Duelist, the way he acts he sounds like a torturer, so what about:

Twin Slash: causes two slashes with 1cm space between and causes bleed

Oil Blade: Coats the sword with flammable oil and hits the enemy and the ground at same time which creates sparks that causes burn.

Joint Whip: Hits the enemy with the whip on articulations that made enemies slower

Archer, the archer of the first game was a powerhouse on its own. so instead of creating a circular range why not create a fan shaped ares to hit?

Breach arrow reaches in the small openings of the armor(armor pierce).

Tribal Healer:

Poison Craft: creates a vial that contains poison, creates an area of poison clouds.

Pollen Mist: Creates a mist of pollen that warp senses(slow senses).

Healing seed: Creates small vines that heals all characters around.

Amateur Mage:

Flare spear: creates a spear of fire that weakens armor and causes damage at same time, also it slowdowns armored enemies

Frost Blade: Creates an small area filled with ice blades on the ground causes damage just by walking on it, doesn't damage enemies that fly

Wind chase: damages an line enemy and reaches till the farthest origin point.

Demolisher, does that means he is a sort of alchemist? or he is like a trap expert?
if this game gameplay is to be similar to previous, then a trap maker is useless, since the standing and attacking characters are traps themselves, so if he is a character that you can summon and order him to create stuffs on the maps them disappears he might be great.

Gunner/Inventor, why don't just call him Engineer? is he to be similar to the dragon class to the previous game, I mean if he uses a tank...

Knight, is he to be similar to the DQ1 knight? if so, what about a larger range to attack?

Guard Herald, I don't know what he is supposed to be, but if he is the sort of tank that stays in front of the enemy, slowing down the enemy and boosting characters stats, he would sound interesting.

[antisocialmunky]

I've aways wanted to see a summoner that summons creeps near it that start going backwards along the path (assuming this game is like the last game) and fighting the enemy creeps. Each skill is a different creep with different aiblities.

[sir.pinski]

Whew - sorry I was out of touch for a little bit, but these are some really creative and interesting ideas! I'll try to give feedback and responses to everyone, but I may not hit every individual idea. I'll also go in post order, so Whisperling's will be split up by post.

== Whisperling ==

Archer:

- Acidic shot: I think I'll likely use this concept, but for the tribal healer, who can throw concoctions around, one of which will surely be acidic. It would be able to do damage over time (like fire) but also act as an armor break. Armor is going to exist, but in a slightly different form. Armor Breaks won't permanently chip away armor, but instead provide temporary reductions in armor effectiveness. And armor won't be able to block 100% of damage, even maxed out.

- Pheremone shot: Agreed that it's a great idea, but we have a summoner who will be doing similar things so it'll probably overlap too much. Definitely fun though. :)

- Birdsong: It's an interesting idea to have something target within the no-target range, but also a little strange, since I'm not sure what the player's motivation to use it would be unless it were incredibly powerful, which could work. The gunner is intended to walk the line between ranged and melee a bit more, but this could be an optional twist for the ranger too.

- Bullseye / Relentless: A piercing arrow certainly is feasible, and I like the momentum-gaining idea, even if it doesn't follow physics particularly well, haha.

Two-Sword Whirlwind:

- Exertion: A great idea for an action RPG where the player has more control, but probably not ideal for AI-based games. The opposite, a "desperation" skill that improves power as she gets weaker (Huskar for any DotA 2 players) may work better. Or it could be the manual super power that a player can initiate.

- Second Wind: I don't yet know exactly what the balance for death will be in the game, but a life save could make a lot of sense for this character.

- Death Spiral: I had already written some skills that got stronger as more enemies got involved, but I do like this approach so I may end up tweaking one of those. Nice idea.

Knight:

- Vengeance: Great skill for semi-permanent (on a battle-by-battle basis) death, but I think we're going to have revival be pretty common so this likely wouldn't scale properly.

- Tally-ho!: I hadn't thought of the knight as a crit character, but having it as a specific skill could work nicely. This would need to be a high cooldown skill, and may be a bit complex to make work properly, but I like it.

- Bladebreaker: I like this one, though would probably move it over to the Guard Herald as a shield-based skill. :) I'm going to lean more towards temporary debuffs in this game I think, so it'll likely just be temporary vs. one time, but still cool.

- Martyr: Yup, that sounds cool.

== Shaderunner ==

I know, right?

== Whisperling ==

Amateur Mage:

- Flamgetongue: Simple but effective. :)

Gunner/Inventor:

- Ricochet: I like the idea of him having a high enough accuracy to be able to bounce a shot off of one into another. This may be a better archer move though, as the gunner is using a gun that may not be all that accurate as it's kinda home-made (in a world that doesn't have very advanced gun technology). It's almost more of cannon, haha.

- BumbleBB Gun: Flying technology may be a bit advanced for our world (not that I gave you that information, sorry), but I do like the idea of creating something semi-automated that could be summoned by the inventor. Of course, a tower summoning an automated turret in a TD does seem slightly redundant, haha.

- Leakypowder trap: Oh man, that's a fun idea. I do have concerns about implementing it and potential weird bugs that could come from it. Would create a nice chain effect by putting someone fire-based much later down the way. The problem is if the gunner himself has a fire attack (which seems likely), in which case he may be accidentally triggering it early. Might mean we put this on someone else (healer, perhaps).

Demolisher:

- Interesting ideas here. This one is not nearly as well-formed in my head yet, so I'm still kinda working out what I want his role to be, and how to avoid overlapping too much with other characters.

Healer:

- Needler: I like the poison-dart approach, not sure about the delivery method yet, but that is likely to be his base attack.

- Concoct: Now that's interesting...random potion throw. Hmm...would that be annoying to a player, or fun? As long as all of them are useful, with a few excellent surprises, that could be super fun. I'll have to think more on that one.

- Rotspore potion: How delightfully evil. :)

Two-Sword Whirlwind:

- Mirror Blades: Interesting idea...I might end up putting this on the guard herald instead.

- Crescent moon: Nice visual effect. :)

- Flutter: The AoE is a little confusing to me - where would that come from? But yes, rapid attacks are gonna be in there.

Guard Herald:

- Demoralizing Fanfare: Interesting idea to tie the effect to the health remaining, I really like that.

== .//slayer ==

Thanks for joining the conversation, I think Whisperling was starting to feel kinda alone, haha. No worries about sounding like a fool - that's half the fun of brainstorming. :) And you do have some legitimately good ideas here, playing around with backstory and the world for the skill descriptions. Thanks for posting!

Tribal Healer:

- Cattle pandemonium: I have to say, I love the (I'm assuming intentional) reference to the sheep from DQ1. I'd like to find a way to work some sheep in here somewhere, but it probably won't be on the healer character. I think I do have an option though. :)

Duelist:

- Maddening fever: Yeah, doing extra attack animations for non-attacking creatures wouldn't really be feasible. The idea is interesting, but perhaps better suited to an action RPG - like one of Whisperling's above suggestions, this sort of trade-off of damage would generally require a tactical mind to assess the situation and use judiciously. I worry that an automated implementation would just have you cursing the "stupid AI" regularly, haha.

- Kabokus' Fury: In terms of the fiction, something along these lines would match better with the dual-bladed character than the duelist, who is more focused on individual targets (think more fencer). I like the reference to a finctional historical character though.

Two-Sword Whirlwind:

- Road to Abyss: The damage splitting is a bit strange and may be hard to convey properly to the player. I do plan on having a powerful, mass-damage manual attack for the character though. Hadn't considered the self-sacrifice aspect...will need to think more on that.

- Composure: Ah, I like the charging when not in battle. I had a variation of that on another character, but having it like this could make a lot of sense. However, this particular character is really targeted at being in the fray and gaining from that situation. I'm going to see if I can find a better owner for this skill because I do like the concept behind it. Perhaps the mage, as a sort of focus/study idea.

- March: There's only so much micro-management that I want in the game and I worry that moving characters like this could be too much. This is in large part an aesthetic / taste decision on my end, I know, but I think I'll probably keep towers pretty stationary. But I'll consider whether or not it might make sense for one character as you suggest.

Guard Herald:

- Unity: A cool skill, but another that really needs manual intervention. That means it could be the ultimate skill for the character, but I'm not sure that I want to use it for that. This could also be one of the equivalents of Azra's spells from DQ1.

- Bulk Up: I think you've been playing a bit of Diablo 3, DotA, Torchlight 2 or other ARPGs, haha. This sort of complex skill is great for those, but probably too subtle to make sense in a tower defense.

- One for All: A good concept, but moving armor around is weird within the fiction and would probably make my writer twitch, haha.

Amateur Mage:

- Untamed Magic: I like the idea of slightly out of control magic, and may embrace that more generally for this character.

- Happy Transcendence: Would this also disable the mage from casting spells while in this state? If so, it could actually be a negative, since it would allow enemies to temporarily knock the mage out of battle pretty easily. If the mage can continue to cast spells, it may indeed be a bit OP. Though the mage is also likely to not be front line and thus less of a target, so this may not be as useful anyway. Hmm...

Knight:

- Extend Swordplay: Interesting idea. Allows the knight to take more of the focus of attacks, which is useful. Most of our enemies admittedly will be more like monsters than humans, so the "swordplay" part may not make as much sense. I think I will end up with a skill along these lines, but perhaps owned by the Guard Herald and his annoying trumpet. ;)

== Whisperling ==

Demolitionist:

- Bottled Rainbow: That would look super funky, I wonder if it would be annoying or cool, haha.

== lightning.b ==

Thanks for the comments. :) The class names are not all finalized. The "Two-Sword Whirlwind" isn't a formal class name, but a description of one of the characters who has a name but not really a formal class. It may end up that we don't really use "classes" at all but rather just the character names, since they are all unique. But this was an easier way to describe everyone, especially because only 2 people have names so far.

Evolving classes is not likely to happen, in large part because there is only one character in each class. Instead, a variation on the skill tree (similar to Diablo 3 skills, if you've played that) will allow customization of the characters, as well as equipment. Branching classes is a cool mechanic, but not well suited for a game with 12 different characters that the player is juggling at once.

Duelist:

He's not really a torturer, he's focused on one-on-one combat. The Oil Blade sounds interesting, a flaming strike would be a cool effect, and certainly distracting against an opponent, so it's make sense for him to use that. I do think a Joint Whip style attack would make sense for him.

Archer:

I do need to make sure the Archer doesn't get over-powered in this game, but I think I can manage that. Fan-shaped areas would be a bit strange for the character though. Why would he be limited to a fan? Would you be able to rotate him? I thik it probably isn't going to make sense for this type of set up, but certainly arc-based targeting is cool in some games (like Stratosphere...anyone remember that one?!). An armor piercing arrow will definitely be included.

Tribal Healer:

Poison vials will definitely be used by the healer (perhaps ironically, haha). The pollen mist is a fun idea, and healing tied to vines may work if we end up with plant control for him. I don't know yet, I'll need to ask James (the writer).

Amateur Mage:

I'm curious, why would the Flare Spear slow down armored enemies? The Frost Blade sounds cool, similar to Whisperling's Rocky Road idea. I think we'll end up doing something like this. The Wind Chase also could be cool if we get that sort of logic built in to projectiles.

Demolisher:

He's a demolitions/explosions expert, probably with some trap experience too. Traps could stack up between waves, and are just a different means of attack even if it is somewhat similar in final effect.

Gunner:

Engineer is a reasonable name too. I didn't meant to imply that he uses a tank though. He has a hand-held "cannon" that he created. It's a fairly low-tech world, so having a gun at all is pretty impressive.

Knight:

Probably simlar to DQ1, yes. I doubt we'll extend his range too much, though we may make the minimum range a little larger.

Guard Herald:

Yeah, he's basically a tank-style character with a big shield and a trumpet. He's a weird and slightly goofy class, but we wanted to try something a bit different. We have a few other fun classes that I didn't reveal because I still want to be able to surprise everyone, haha.

== antisocialmunky ==

I doubt we'll go full-on Kingdom Rush in terms of fighting creeps in-lane, but some of the ideas above should provide some fun analogs. :)

PHEW - that was long...I hope this doesn't break Steam's forums, haha. Thanks so much everyone!

[antisocialmunky]

For the Guard Herald, what if you gave him the ability to soak up damage and release built up damage like bide from Pokemon? Maybe as an AOE attack or something...

I guess if he has a trumpet, you could make him switch between songs or something.

He's basically a tanky bard right? ;)

[lighting_b]

Thanks for the answer Phoenix00017, what I mean't about fan shaped hit area, is because the of how powerful archer on DQ1 was, if you alter the range shape and keep the same stats, this will drop the overall power of the archer.

About the knight range, I meant to rise to the level of the berserk range of DQ1.

The flare spear spear full power is:

Heats the armor and causes heat based damage, the heat also tires the enemy(slowdown) and weaken the armor, once the armor breaks the stats "Heat" disappears, and the armor too.

To the Guard Herald, gives him a large HP pool, don't give him any attack ability, gives him an ability to absord part of the damage of the allies in range takes, also gives him musical abilities to buff the stat of the characters.

To the Two-Sword Whirlwind, give him a larger range than melee characters, and gives abilities that creates wind with the sword, causing damage to small groups of enemies.

[lighting_b]

BTW Phoenix00017 what engine do you use for your game?

[sir.pinski]

== antisocialmunky ==

Intersting idea on a soak-up and attack, I like it. :) And yeah, he's like a tanky bard, but perhaps less musically talented, haha.

== lightning.b ===

Yeah, the fan-shape would help, but I think it wouldn't fit with our design. Thanks though. Having the knight the same as the berserker range would probably make sense. And thanks for explaining the flare spear.

I think we will indeed allow the Guard Herald to have a few basic attacks, but much of it will definitely be buffs and debuffs and such.

The game is being written in Haxe, which is sort of like Flash, but much faster and more powerful performance-wise.