Beat the game as every build, these are the balance flaws I see:

[Jack]

Okay, I beat the game with every build and unlocked every achievement including the one for beating the game within 100 days. Having done all three, it's quite clear to me where there are balance issues. In fact I even have a pretty good idea exactly what the problem is and precisely what would help without making it OP.

I wanna talk about three things in particular: The Balance between the builds, the important of the three main stats, and the power/usefulness difference between blocking and dodging. This will be a long post so bear with me if you're actually interested.


First let's talk about the stats:

Strength: For the most part this seems kind of balanced. If you do more damage it's a huge impact and big edge to you so there should be a stamina modifier for increasing it. That does make sense. I don't agree that your accuracy should go down too, but it does. It's a small amount but still. The problem with this skill is that certain abilities have HUGE stamina costs. . .and sometimes you get a new skill that overwrites an old one and it ends up an inferior skill because the energy cost is so much higher that it's actually a worse skill. I'll get into this more later. I also think that energy damage by attacks should be solely based on strength, and NOT innate skill damage. Why? Agility builds should not be able to easily kick down your energy while dodging everything and barely exhausting themselves. That is why they "auto win" vs certain builds/characters.

Agility: Extremely overpowered. Too much importance is placed on this skill. Why? Well, the devs made dodging too good and accuracy for non AGI-skills too low. Again, certain builds suffer more because of this than others. It's the same one that suffers from the STR problem, which again I'll get in to later. - - -Imo agility should not increase accuracy and dodge by as much as it does. Either that or there needs to be REAL counters to dodging and lower accuracy. Will get into this with the builds, two of the three builds have an issue with this. One more than the other.

Stamina: Seems like a balanced stat, though I get the impression it doesn't function properly. You get extra HP and defense from it which is good. Supposedly your energy regeneration is a lot better but I quite frankly don't notice much of a difference between having huge stamina and normal stamina.


Now let's talk about the difference between Block and Dodge, which imo is one of the biggest things that needs to be looked at. Dodge is quite frankly just flat out better than Block. And I mean every dodge > every Block. I just beat the game as Way of Turtle and was struggling to beat Mr. Pimpsman at the end of the game. No matter what combination of skills or what Block I used, he kicked my ♥♥♥. Then what do I do? I switch them out for Dodge instead and switch Meat Shield for Fast Paced (which I just unlocked), and what happens? I easily beat Mr. Pimpsman, then I easily beat the 2nd movie shoot which I couldn't beat, then I easily just cruise through the rest of the game using REGULAR DODGE instead of the intended skills I was supposed to use (Block).

Block has tons of counters and is just flat out weak anyway. It doesn't trigger often enough, and when it does you still take status effects. Why does Dodge trigger more than Block? Dodge = 0 damage taken and avoid staus effects. It should not trigger more often consdiering the fact that it's ♥♥♥♥ing better. Excuse my language there but I find that super illogical. Here's how I would change each Block skill to actually make them competitive with Dodge, because right now they aren't.

Iron Curtain: Increases chance to block, status effects do not trigger when you do block. Energy cost is NOT doubled. Just increase it by 50% instead rather than by 100% over regular Block. I feel like getting Iron Curtain right now is actually a downgrade that I'm forced to take if I want Shining Knight perk which is actually good . ..and pretty much necessary and one of the few bright spots of Way of Turtle. Please make this skill better devs.

Power Block: Make the effect last longer. It's too short. Not sure what else to say about it.

Hard Block: This skill is counter-intuitive. It reflects the enemy's potential damage, but block reduces that damage in the first place. This is also meant to be on a class with high defense. What does that mean? You will only be reflecting tiny amounts of damage. Time to stop making the damage reflected based on your defense and the fact you blocked. Make it like Unstoppable where you take the full %. This skill certainly costs enough energy that it should actually do something.


Now let's talk about the three paths.

Way of the Tiger: We all know this is a very powerful path to choose. Due to the way agility works and the fact that you're piling that stat up really big, this path is a HUGE beneficiary of Dodge and Agility being overpowered/overemphasized with the game's mechanics. Thing is, other than that, it's not that OP. It's pretty much done properly overall. The other two are what needs work. If I were to "fix" anything with this class, I would make it have to get more strength to do significant damage with it's kicks. You can balance this by making the dodges cost less energy based on strength. I do think it's dodges should have a higher initial energy cost however to offset the decrease in energy cost from strength.

Way of the Bear: Honestly this path is really good if you do it right. It's arguably more powerful than Way of the Tiger, but only if you do it a really specific way (I did Boxing Punch, Triple Punch, Exhauster, and Wreck 'Em {no 5th skill slot} with Boxer perk, 16/14/13 stats to end the game. Easily crushed everything. You can get all those skills pretty early in the game too. eventually got Ruthless Aggression perk later). I don't think this path needs a ton of balance, but I do think some of it's "counters" don't work the way they should. Tormenter Strikes and Elblow are supposed to be the main counters to dodging being OP. Well, you still have to hit with them (stupid) and the duration is just too short to get much use out of it. They also cost too much energy. So much that it's more useful to not use them at all than to use them. Yeah. Their energy cost negatively outweighs their benefit. They will usually do little more than make your energy get kicked down to zero even faster.

Way of the Turtle: Where do I even start? This path is terrible and poorly designed. It's littered with flaws. Okay, first off: it has no good attacks period. Both Way of Tiger and Bear get WAY better attacks. Also, for the path that's supposed to be about stamina, it's incredibly easy to lose the "energy war" against any character with balanced stats or high AGI because their attacks are simply more accurate. Turtle gets the least accurate skills and suffers greatly for it because their defense does not make up for it. Turtle misses way too much for it to ever be any good. And that's even with high agility. Barrel Strike allegedy increases your accuracy when your attack gets dodged. . .but that's either total bs or the amount is so tiny and insignificant that it might as well be zero. Whatever amount of accuracy you're supposed to get needs to be increased by a LOT, or the effect needs to stack with every miss and not remove until you land a hit, or BOTH!. If I have 14 agility I shouldn't miss 7x in a row on someone with 12 when that's supposed to be my most accurate attack. Turtle's skills in general all have poor accuracy and VERY poor STR/STM ratios. So they just consume tons of energy and are crap accuracy. That's completely awful.

Like I alluded to earlier, some of the lot of the skills it gets feel like downgrades. Iron Curtain is worse than Block because it only exacerbates it's energy problems. And you have made it so you can't use Block anymore if you get Iron Curtain. Either make Iron Curtain better (suggestion on how to do that is posted earlier here) or stop taking away regular Block so you can use the crappier one to regulate your energy better. Pain Lover's effect is not noticeable at all. Perhaps if you change it's effect to giving you energy whenever you are attacked it would be better. i.e., reduce the amount of energy damage you take from enemy attacks. That's the main reason turtle gets dunked on by the other builds. They just punch/kick your energy to zero and you lose. People are choosing Turtle so that doesn't happen, and yet it's Turtle's biggest flaw. Then again maybe it's by design, that the "Turtle" should be on it's back all the time and be unable to recover once it is. I mean technically that's an accurate description of the path. Make it's energy costs lower or it's regeneration better, along with making it's attacks more accurate. This path absolutely needs buffs. Also, Infinite Energy is worthless because people can still kick your energy down. Controlled Fury is a hell of a lot better. No Rest is also a detriment because you will just get your energy kicked down. Someone starts off with a bunch of attacks and No Rest is now a negative rather than a positive. Bear Strike's effect seems barely noticeable. . . if it's working at all. Truthfully I think the end of this path's skill tree is not even worth getting.

Tbh, I looked over the tree several times last night thinking about where I would stop selecting skills for it and just saying screw it I'm better off putting my SP towards getting Way of the Bear and getting Boxing Punch, Triple Punch, and Boxer so I actually have an accurate and powerful attack for once. Which begs the question, wait, why am I even in the Turtle tree anyway when I can have a much better attack if I went Bear to begin with? Or wait, why don't I just go Tiger? In both cases my options are better.

Yeah.


tl:dr: Dodge is way stronger than Block. Turtle is by far the worst path skill tree and needs some serious redesigning/buffing. Overall I feel like there are a lot of "useless" skills. They're mostly useless because of poor accuracy or way high energy cost, or both. Also, we need an option to not have to put a skill in every skill slot if we got 4-5 and don't want 4-5 skills. Because quite frankly some skills are doing more harm than good due to their energy cost. And I certainly don't want to use multiple different attacks (in most cases), because so few are worth using over the obvious "best ones" in the first place.

Feel free to let me know what you guys agree or disagree with. I know this was very opinionated so I'm sure it rubbed some people the wrong way. Thanks for reading either way though. <3

[zsedan]

Very nice review, I agree 100%.

[Vierik]

I hope devs will analize this blocks chance to proc is really low as tutrle class i was on purpose losing some fights so i took only passive abilitis + the reflect dmg block having more than 200hp and huge armor from stamina fight lasted some time but guess how much dmg i managed to reflect back? 5 freaking FIVE pts of dmg were refected i really hop devs will look into it

The other issue with turle is his paw punch its quite ok with 70 acc however the upgraded barrel strike has only 60 acc making it way worse plus its passive that you will hit again after miss means that against agi fighters you will just throw series of punches miss all and just kill yourself with counters

[theowest]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=602808666

[Vierik]

well thunderbolt (piss poor acc) against counter moves what did you expect? xD ppl forget that this game has some strategy in it

[theowest]

ya.
it worked so well against everyone else I didn't even bother changing it. I think I learned my lesson though.

xD xD xDDDDD

[snow]

i was trying to build Strength as the tutorial guide suggests.

Agi build just rekt me, wasn't able to land any of the skills that lower agility, and even if i did the debuff would just go away very quickly.

So... i decided to get my revenge. Now i'm fighting bear style with 13 (muscle memory) 16 16 and the only non-passive skill on my bar is the basic boxing punch with its high accuracy. I'm killing.


Yea. Agility might be SLIGHTLY OP if i can off-build like this and beat everything.

Suggested fixes: stat modifiers should accumulate over the course of the fight, not just be a fixed change that appears and disappears suddenly.
Strength damage scaling needs to be much higher for how much Energy it makes you eat up to actually use skills.

Or you could simply increase either base or scaling accuracy on all boxing skills. Significantly.


Havn't tried turtle, the way you describe it, it sounds like true self-torture...

[Milky]

I post alot of the discussions board but I usually avoid balance threads because I know I'll end up typing half a book once I got into it, but I think you've nailed most of what I would say.

I hope the devs see this, good post.

[February]

Originally posted by theowest:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=602808666

You didn't have block nor dodge there, what did you expect...

Great post Jackal, this should be their immediate highest priority topic to look at for 1.5 as well as the upcoming DLC.

[theowest]

My expectation was that I would lose. I took that screenshot as more of a joke about how everyone is saying agility is OP.

wtf why did i lose but i had better stats!1 xd

[Jack]

Originally posted by Real Deal:

I agree with most of what you say - the game has balance issues that need further tweaking.

Tiger/Agility is too OP for the reasons given - and not that much fun because of it.

Bear/Strength is too weak and RNG due to the inaccuracies of the hit/miss ratio.

Turtle/stamina is the most balanced but hardest to get going - further down the line it gets much better & I would say is the most fun of all!

Turtle is definitely the worst of the three for the whole game including end game imo. It has the worst attacks by far (worst accuracy and worst power/stamina ratios) and it's defense is actually worse than Tiger's because dodge > block. I would argue it's defense worse than Bear's too because Bear's 'defense" is punching the opponent's energy down so they can't do anything except lose. It has a perk or two worth getting but that it. The other paths offer much better attacks and Tiger offers better defense. There just isn't a point to Turtle except to have a challenge and to test your patience while you pray to RNGsus to let you win.

With doing better with Bear here's some tips, try using only Boxing Punch with Triple Punch early on. Do not get 3rd skill slot until you unlock Exhauster, then get 3rd skill slot and use that with the previous two skills. Get Boxer perk right away too, Avoid all skills except stuff that lets you go straight to the skills and perk I just listed. Ignore everything else completely! Do not get 4th skill slot until you get Wreck 'Em. Then get 4th slot. Never get the 5th slot. You actually don't even need Wreck 'Em but I threw it in there since it's a small help. All you really need is the first three. Make sure you get Die Hard as well just in case RNG screws you, then get the other perks: Berserker and Ruthless Aggression. Once you have all that you can pretty much ignore skill points and just complete the game with a basically guaranteed 100% win ratio.

Keep stats kinda balanced, mostly keep your AGI high. AGI should be at least 12 while you're in Russia. I would suggest something like 13/12/10 at the end of the game. If you overgrind it you can do 13/8/8 before Russia (you may have to use Roy to help train your STR there).

Don't bother buying home gym equipment early game since it's a waste of money. Use your cash on food and energy drinks. Complete bar fights early to get Mickey's energy potions. With that you should have plenty of time to hit 13 STR for the non-stat-decay skill while you wait for Ultimate fights to be available. You might consider throwing some fights to unlock Agility steroids. They help make the movie shoots easier later.

Truthfully I think Bear is better than Tiger when done that way. Try it out, I bet you'll enjoy it. :)

[becephalus]

Bear is fine if you go like 13-10-10, Agility is fine if you go 1-13-4. That is about all that needs ot be said.

[snow]

Originally posted by Azure:

Originally posted by theowest:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=602808666

You didn't have block nor dodge there, what did you expect...

Great post Jackal, this should be their immediate highest priority topic to look at for 1.5 as well as the upcoming DLC.

block and dodge are terrible skills to use with 20 strength. The costs are astronomical and you are already starving for energy. Also, one of the last perks in the bear tree makes you unable to use them.

[Jack]

Originally posted by Real Deal:

Maybe you should check through my recent Turtle guide with gameplay vids - I breezed through it in 114 days and found it quite fun!

I completed my last Turtle run in less than 100 days. I don't need to see a guide or vid. . .I've played all 3 builds and Turtle's simply the worst of the three because it's skills are not as effective. It isn't that the game isn't beatable with it, It's the fact that it's worse than the other two skill trees.

[Jactar]

Originally posted by Jackal:

Turtle is definitely the worst of the three for the whole game including end game imo. It has the worst attacks by far (worst accuracy and worst power/stamina ratios) and it's defense is actually worse than Tiger's because dodge > block. I would argue it's defense worse than Bear's too because Bear's 'defense" is punching the opponent's energy down so they can't do anything except lose. It has a perk or two worth getting but that it. The other paths offer much better attacks and Tiger offers better defense. There just isn't a point to Turtle except to have a challenge and to test your patience while you pray to RNGsus to let you win.

Turtle way have extremely powerful end tier abilities that deny opponent gaining any stamina and that allows you to use skills using minimal stamina. And you can beat everything with turtle using stamina as main stat while bear build only build i have found that works is the one where you have to not use STR at all.

Here is build I used to complete whole game with turtle way and defeat all opponents. In some matches instead of using bear strike I used bear hug or kick denier. But with bear way my boxer with a lot better stats STR 25, AGI 10, STA 9 cant beat even lower tier agi opponents.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/609476836155667169/90F3A8057DFCCA6A0B745CA90B87144853F97941/

Most of the opponents hardly can even damage my turtle build or even drain stamina and in most of matches I end up having 100 stamina and almoust full health left. Only most powerfull agi opponents can take mayby 100 hp but even them end up losing all stamina and dropping. But in Bear way you cant even use your main stat STR or you end up just losing like hell.

[Jack]

Originally posted by Jactar:

Originally posted by Jackal:

Turtle is definitely the worst of the three for the whole game including end game imo. It has the worst attacks by far (worst accuracy and worst power/stamina ratios) and it's defense is actually worse than Tiger's because dodge > block. I would argue it's defense worse than Bear's too because Bear's 'defense" is punching the opponent's energy down so they can't do anything except lose. It has a perk or two worth getting but that it. The other paths offer much better attacks and Tiger offers better defense. There just isn't a point to Turtle except to have a challenge and to test your patience while you pray to RNGsus to let you win.

Turtle way have extremely powerful end tier abilities that deny opponent gaining any stamina and that allows you to use skills using minimal stamina. And you can beat everything with turtle using stamina as main stat while bear build only build i have found that works is the one where you have to not use STR at all.

Here is build I used to complete whole game with turtle way and defeat all opponents. In some matches instead of using bear strike I used bear hug or kick denier. But with bear way my boxer with a lot better stats STR 25, AGI 10, STA 9 cant beat even lower tier agi opponents.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/609476836155667169/90F3A8057DFCCA6A0B745CA90B87144853F97941/

Most of the opponents hardly can even damage my turtle build or even drain stamina and in most of matches I end up having 100 stamina and almoust full health left. Only most powerfull agi opponents can take mayby 100 hp but even them end up losing all stamina and dropping. But in Bear way you cant even use your main stat STR or you end up just losing like hell.

Judging by the stats you have on your builds (25 STR, 19 STM, etc), I'm assuming you're playing your characters for extreme amounts of time. Ofc if you hugely overlevel the skills are going to seem good. . .your stats are winning. Turtle is crap when you're trying to beat the game within a reasonable amount of time which means you aren't spending weeks slowly grinding up stats. Meanwhile you could've easily beaten the game in probably less than half the time with Bear or Tiger while losing less matches. :\

Your Bear is ineffective because you hugely overleveled your STR. 25 is way more than you will ever need. . .and 9 AGI is way too low, especially considering how huge your STR is. You would literally be better offwith 10 less STR and just 3 more AGI. Remember, with every point of stats you get that isn't AGI, your accuracy goes down. So by ignoring AGI and piling your STR, you're actually just making yourself less and less accurate. If you aren't landing your attacks, it doesn't matter how powerful they are.