[Feedback] Classes

[DFuxa]

I figured I've played enough that I can start giving some specific feedback. I'll start with the classes as I see them now.

For a tl;dr though - Improve classes that don't have any skills that help out specifically in combat. Specifically help out Scholars, Trappers,



Blacksmith - The blacksmith is a fairly solid character, and likely a prime choice for newbies to play with. That's saying something because the class is definetely a One Trick Pony - but it has a fairly solid trick that enables the Blacksmith to stave off damage. This couples well with them taunting the enemy and absorbing a lot of the incoming damage.

I definetely have to note that this is a very specialized class. You are going to be going Sword and Board with these guys, and you are going to be building them for defending the rest of your party. Picking up more Armor or Resistance will help in doing this.

The stats for the Blacksmith is also pretty decent - they have good Strength and Vitality, but also Talent; making them great for bashing through Doors or perhaps disarming Traps or Chaos Generators. The other stats are heavily lacking.

*****

If I was to suggest something to change, I'd 'maybe' buff up Awareness a little. I like the idea of a 'slow' hulking class that is dumb as rocks, so other stats are okay. It could also get another skill but it would have to be fairly minor.

Hunter - Another fairly solid character, the Hunter has a variety of skills. Hunters make for awesome runners, as they can sneak through enemies easier then other classes and can sometimes get a little bit of extra movement as well. On top of this, in combat they have Call Shots - which heavily lets them get off damage when you need it.

Much like the Blacksmith, the Hunter is also a specialized class. Bows are what you are going to be taking. You'll likely also have some decent Evasion on the Hunter; so building up the Evasion further is also something to look into doing.

Stat wise, Hunters are Quick and Aware. Their Vitality and Talent isn't terrible, but likely you'll want some other character to deal with checks for those. Strength and Intelligence are terrible, but that's fine.

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Perhaps Trap Evasion could play into traps more. Just the hunter getting by doesn't really help out that much for the rest of the party.

Scholar - And..... Scholars..... Yea......

Scholars are perhaps the first class that I consider to be 'somewhat' lacking. In the skill department they can pick up additional Focus; which is nice if you want to use the Focus to get through things.

Scholars are the first class that don't really have a specific specialization going for them. Since none of their skills are weapon focused, you can give them whatever weapon you wish; though of course, unless you give them a weapon that corresponds with one of their stats, they will be missing alot.

Stat wise, Scholars have 1 decent stat, Intelligence. That makes them decent casters, I guess. They also have a little bit of Awareness, Quickness, and Talent; none of which is completely stellar, but you get extra focus so doing a check or two now and again is something you can do. Strength and Vitality are completely hopeless on their class.

*****

Okay, so, this is a class I would recommend improving. Specifically, improve their skills; their stats could also be improved but they aren't necessarily 'that' terrible if the Scholar gets some decent skills. I think someone said something about Magic Resistance penetration; maybe the Scholar could sometimes do that on Perfect rolls? Another idea might be to give them a sort of 'Called Spell' ability, similar to the Called Shots on Hunter, and let them get perfect rolls.

Going in another direction, maybe the Scholar could be a supportive class. Maybe building on the idea of replenishing Focus, they can replenish the Focus not only for themselves, but their party mates as well - perhaps simlar to how Minstrel works in giving experience out. This would go well for those wanting to play a support class, but not wanting to play a Herbalist.

Minstrel - Mediocre, but not terrible. Minstrels are a support class for your party, improving your other characters odds of getting better rolls and boosting the experience of your characters when they end their turn. These are pretty decent skills for the most part, though the inspire only works if it is close to your other characters.

Much like the Scholar, the Minstrel isn't specialized. Much like the scholar though, you probably wouldn't want to use weapons with stats you are less thne stellar in for accuracy concerns.

Minstrels are good in one stat, Talent. They are performers after all. Outside of Talent, they have 'decent' values in Intelligence, Awareness, and Quickness. Strength and Vitality aren't that great, similar to scholars.

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So, unlike Scholars, I think the Minstrel is fairly decent, but if I was to improve something it would be the stats. They don't necessarily need to be super awesome Jack of all Trade characters, but perhaps boosting up Intelligence, Awareness, and Quickness to values by 2 or so could be an idea.



Herbalist - Easily the first character you should unlock, the Herbalist is hands down an extremely powerful class for its ability to heal party members in combat and collect herbs upon ending their turn. That might not sound like much, but due to how this game works, it helps to have a Herbalist around.

In terms of specialization, the Herbalist is another class that has none, and you can give them whatever type of weaponn you want. Unlike other classes of this nature, they might have a little choice in what you give them as a weapon.

You see, Herbalists are best in Intelligence, but their Awareness isn't tha far behind them in it. This is partly due to their top stat being lower then the usually 78 other classes start with. Quickness is okay on Herbalist - nothing great though. Other stats are less them great.

*****

In a way, this is a class that I would suggest looking into nerfing. Specfically, I'd nerf Intelligence down to something like 72 or 70; which would make weapon choosing a bit interesting for the class. And try to add some sort of counter to their godlike ability to heal in combat, it is making the Herbalist too powerful.

Trapper - Conceptually, this would be a class that could be interesting. Right now though, I'm not sure what they are specifically suppose to aim to do. Sure they can ambush foes easier or disarm traps, but those are small potato skills. I'm not exactly sure what Counter Attack is suppose to do - there isn't any information on it in Help (someone said it was suppose to prevent Ambushes on the World Map but there is no way to confirm this).

Trappers aren't a specialized class, and their highest stats are fairly close to each other, which should give them some ability to use more then one weapon.

Stat wise, the Trapper looks like your typical Rogue. Highly aware, quick and nimble, and very talented. None of their other talents are that great but Rogue's don't rely on brute force or necessarily knowing things so that's okay.

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I would recommend adding information into the Help for what Counter Attack does. I'd also maybe add in another skill or two - specifically ones to help them out when actually in combat. Maybe they could potentially get a check at the start of combat to get a first strike on enemies as an idea? Outside of that, perhaps they could get a rogue-ish ability to get extra critical hits on enemies.

Busker - I'm not exactly sure what to say in regards to the Busker. They are a debuffer class which is extremely useful due to how powerful enemies are at rolling, and they can flee rom enemies easier then other classes. They can also get money if they stay close to towns or carnivals.

There is no real specialiation with Buskers. Much like Trappers there stats are fairly close to each other, making multiple builds easier for them to pursue.

Stat wise the Busker comes off similar to that of the Blacksmith - less Vitality, reversed Talent and Strength stats, and nothing worth mentioning for the other ones.

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I think Buskers are fairly 'decent as is', though maybe their stats could be made a bit more different from Blacksmiths. Maybe drop their Vitality down and boost up their Quickness.

Woodcutter - This looks like a class that should be appealing, but unfortuantely it isn't at the moment. Because of how combat rolls work, it is very hard to get perfect rolls for Justice; and Justice doesn't always trigger. Elite Door Bash is somewhat 'meh' as ell.

This 'is' technically a specialized class, but unless you have the stats for it, you are going to have a very hard time benefiting from Two Handed Weapons until the later stages of the game.

Stat wise the Woodcutter is a highly aware Blacksmith with no Talent. Not much more to say; other stats are more or less meh and not worth noting.

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Really, making Two Handed Weapon attacks more notably with the Woodcutter would be nice. Maybe give them improved rolls when using Two Handed Weapons might be an idea to look into?

[Abaddon1]

Originally posted by DFuxa:

(someone said it was suppose to prevent Ambushes on the World Map but there is no way to confirm this).

Its not quite preventing ambushes on the world map but either always or has a chance (I haven't paid enough attention) to convert what would have been an enemy ambush into a normal encounter.

[Beatrix]

I like all the classes so far. My only wish would be for a blank slate class that could make use of any equipment drops. Not be overly strong but a jack of all trades sort. Kinda how Dark Souls has the deprived which are incredibly weak but could go any direction.

[Taklu]

I would have to disagree with the herbalist being all that usefull. I'm probably the only one that will say this, but after playing for awhile Party heal is really not that usefull. I don't even bother with herbs I would much rather use the services in town.

As for Scholar I see the appeal in it I would really like to try to include him in a party, but I only have room for one Int focused character. That spot currently is for Ministrel Their ability top give others a extra success is great early game and they start with the most gold yet. I have gotten to the end area twice thanks to a good start with the Ministrel. Scholars would greatly improve if they get some kind of basic magic pierce I wouldn't want it to be the same skill style as the hunter though. I would like to see the Ministrel get a 72 or 74 for Int though.

Blacksmiths aren't all that good late game. You really want to go with Heavy hitting weapons and Two-handers far surpass the supply for good weapons over Sword and board. I would deffinetly add another skill to him like Expert Taunt and have him start with a Silver Skull. I think it's a good idea to have him be Str only character. There needs to be something to make him more usefull late game though.

Woodcutter can be pretty nasty paired with a ministrel, a good choice for making him Str and Aware. I would like to see some stronger Aware weapons though I found myself leaning Str for him even though I wanted to make build him up Aware.

Buskers are no dought my favorite class though. The only thing I have to say is that I feel like the Talent weapons are lacking in power. Int is the go to for magic damage, so it's much more usefull to build him Str. I would like to see the Busker start with a bit (not that much) gold and get some better late game Talent weapons.

Hunters are lacking to me because I don't like the appeal of evasion being the go to stat to win the game I feel that this fact needs to be reworked. It makes absolutly no since that peasants magicly become dodgy kings and the old heroes weren't. I see the apeal for hunters, but I just don't like them. I would probably improve their fortitude and introduce more rogue style blades that rely one fortitude. You have some early game I haven't seen any late game though. Their damage comparison would probably be equivelant to the Talent weapons. These weapons also could be the only ones you can dual wield with and make their damage significantly lower. I would have these weapons do debuff damage like lower def,speed,acc of enemies some causing bleed and poison and others improving your evasion rating. This would give a lot more appeal to Hunters for me.

As for Int builds way too squishy in my opinion. I ended up just putting a basic chest piece on them and having the rest be +Int gear. Int builds are some heavy hitters though. Utilize the weapons that have the alternative attacks that deal significantly more damage in exchange for lower accuracy.

More and more I think about it the more usefull the Ministrel is. I don't think their ability applies to them though sadly. Ministrel and Busker will always be in my party. I'm just on the fence on who I want to build as Aware, Talent isn't really on option for me because I find that they lack in the damage late game.

Oh and I forgot about Trappers. I really wanted to like Trappers over Hunters, but I can't they just aren't usefull, period. They could definetly use some better stats and skills. They don't have any use late game and there is only the mines that you need to worry about Traps. I have never seen traps outside of the starting mines and the last OPTIONAL dungeon before the tower and that one is a Int trap. Show the Trapper some love and improve his Awareness and give him a Skill like chance for him to go first in fights. I would also improve his Fortitude solely for my suggestion for more rogue style weapons that use Fortitude. Or even make these weapons require Speed checks instead that's actually even better.

[DFuxa]

Are you upgrading the pipes on your characters? You get a substantial amount of healing with fully upgraded pipes; and if you by the Godsbeard early you'll have a lot in the long run.

[Taklu]

Originally posted by DFuxa:

Are you upgrading the pipes on your characters? You get a substantial amount of healing with fully upgraded pipes; and if you by the Godsbeard early you'll have a lot in the long run.

Yeah that's pretty much what I do. What I mean is actually I don't really use them enough to warrent the gather ability as later on you do get a significant amount of money if your always doing quests and fighting. Pro tip the plants drop herbs.

Party Heal would be much better if it could be used in dungeons outside of combat. I would reduce the Int to 74 though and reduce starting gold by 2 or even 4.

Before going adding on to your critic, even though I already did, I will point out that there is more to balancing the charcters than tweaking the stats and skills. Things like starting gear and wealth have to be accounted for because you have to keep in mind how difficult will this be early game for the character. I would say the starting gear should reflect the starting wealth primarly and skills and stats should focus on late game balancing.

I'm going to now go into criticing the current stats. Not saying they aren't balanced on the contrary I find them quite apropriate, just have some minor problems.

First of all I would like to point out the sums of the stats just in a random order and not even going to point fingers at who they belong to.
384, 380, two 378s, and four 372s
I think it should be easy to point out the problem here. Sure some stats it wont even matter because you wont be using them, but there is a bit too much consistancy and inconsistancy. I don't mind innconsistancy due to well dump stats, but keep it consistant either all different numbers relatively close to each or just all the same sum.

Now to call out names and suprisingly the number one with 384 is the Hunter which only utilizes 2, well 3 if you count fortitude, stats. This is fine for inconsistancy differences. Looking from how would a Hunters stats look like I would say it's a bit odd though. Hunters have quite a bit of Intelligence in my opinion and dexterist doesn't really count to strength. Swap Int and Str and things would be how I imagine for a hunter, maybe lower the difference from Talent and Intelligence some more though.

Scholar is the one with 380, and this one you would imagine would be primarily Intelligence. The Scholar also has usable Talent as well ( I would bump talent to 72 though). It actually seems that Scholar is attempted all arounder in some way with 66 Awareness. Why? I would just lower that and things would look a proper scholar to me. I say this because Awareness could have more to do with Dexterity than being alert.

I'll start with Minstrel for 378 This would have better place being a all arounder in my opinion. Lower 72 Awareness and decent 74 Intelligence. Other than that seems pretty good spread Talent could be put to 76 to balance the bumps in other stats

Busker is the other 378. I actually like the spread of the Busker no real complants, maybe increase the speed to 62.

Now the first 372, the one I'm most confused about the Blacksmith. I mean what is Fortitude really used for other than some random events? If it doesn't have an influence on the characters health and HP increase every level then why? I would even go as far as it should influence how much health you gain from a camp. Fortitude is this guys primary stat and there is no gear other than real early game weapons that reflect this stat. Talk about a real dump stat. I would defintly increase this guys Awareness to a decent amount maybe just 68... unless Awareness reflects the characters evasion and then your in a cunundrum. I don't want his evasion to go up just his versatility. Probably just flip Strength and Fortitude and buff his speed a tiny smidge.

The Woodcutter is an good example a nice spread of stats. He has versatility to go Strength or Awareness. I had this problem with how important I think speed is I honestly don't think there should be such a large spread for Speed highest speed should actually be 80 and lowest like 66 or 64. These speeds in the 50s make me cry on the inside.

The Herbalist I actually would say could get their stats reduced even more imo. I mean all they do is pick herbs in the field and treat people right? Their intelligence could do with being 74, their Awareness could be put at 72. Everything else makes sense.

Finally the one I want to love more the Trapper. This guy needs some love. His stats actually make sense if you ask me. He is low because of his dump stats Strength and Intelligence. Honestly all I can say is if you add rogue style weapons this is your guy. If they are going to be speed buff this guys speed.

I can add more about the frequency of how the numbers show up as well there needs to be more varience in the numbers being used in my opinion. This kind of stuff doesn't affect gameplay all too much I feel, but it just looks better on paper. Numbers can be reused here and there, but if you can see a patern even looking at just one characters stats it needs to be tweeked.

[DFuxa]

Originally posted by Taklu:

I mean what is Fortitude really used for other than some random events?

Taunt uses that stat. Combined with the Steadfast ability, the Blacksmith is all about tanking for your party.

However, I wouldn't be against their being more Shield type abilities to make use of. Maybe we could have a Shield Bash option where the Blacksmith checks that vitality of his to damage the enemy with his shield and perhaps interrupt or stun an enemy. Perhaps he could also do a sort of 'Final Fantasy' Paladin type of guard, where he will step in to defend his party mates?

Originally posted by Taklu:

Finally the one I want to love more the Trapper. This guy needs some love. His stats actually make sense if you ask me. He is low because of his dump stats Strength and Intelligence. Honestly all I can say is if you add rogue style weapons this is your guy. If they are going to be speed buff this guys speed.

Even if they got some rogue style weapons to use, they certainly still need to have a new skill or two I think.

[Taklu]

Originally posted by DFuxa:

Taunt uses that stat. Combined with the Steadfast ability, the Blacksmith is all about tanking for your party.

forgot xD

Originally posted by DFuxa:

Even if they got some rogue style weapons to use, they certainly still need to have a new skill or two I think.

I think they can get away with using speed, but would probably need to rework some classes later.

[Ryokishine]

Herbalist is easily the most busted class in the game, and I'm sorry to say, but the intelligence they get is the best way to run them. Pretty much the best way to run this class is giving it a weapon that has Party Rush. All you do is ask "Does my party need a heal or not?" If yes, Party Heal. If no, use Party Rush (use 1-2 focus to guarantee success, and feed all + max focus buffs to your herbalist). Later on you can give it a piercing intelligence weapon (some sort of tome or staff) and it becomes useful to do damage with your herbalist if you've been stacking intelligence and + mag dmg.

Running an herbalist means that you will be rushing the Herbalist's Pipe to level 2 (approx 100g investment) literally ASAP and doing early quests to give you gold so that you can afford to purchase all of the Godsbeard at each town early as the price increases substantially over the course of the game. Sometime within getting your first 1000g of the game your Herbalist's pipe should be fully upgraded.

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IMPORTANT: Using Party Heal to heal your party heals the party for the amount of your Herbalist's Pipe only. This means that you DO NOT have to upgrade the pipes of your other party members for them to receive the increased healing of the Godsbeard used via Party Heal.

This means that you effectively get full party heals (+47 HP) for 100g investment very early on into the game. I cannot stress how useful this is.

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Late in the game you should get your other pipes to level 2/3 so that they can heal themselves of triple poison using only one Panax.

[Sotnik]

To me, it is not so interesting to play a class with abilities based on RNG. I enjoyed playing as the Monk, but the other characters are just sets of stats to me.