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Hammerwatch Discussion / Re: Class Discussion: current and upcomming

« on: March 18, 2014, 06:14:16 AM »

Thanks! Very extensive.

I don't know how much we will change the old classes, however I will comment on some of your thoughts.

I do agree with the Holy Storm not really being something that you use, I rather use all my mana on charge and then hit with the regular sword, it would probably be better if you held down the button while rotating and when you let go it stops. I thought the healing could stay, but only for himself, but the shield idea is kinda cool too.

The flame breath and other skills on the wizard could probably be improved, like adding more meteors and making the flame go through. I always thought it would be cool if the meteors left some fire on the ground though, like a "flame trap" so to say. Seeing it from my own perspective when I play, making the wizard better, would turn medium into easy.

Don't you think increasing the damage of the rangers main attack would make it even more exploitable? I personally think the Flurry is a very potent skill, it's ace vs spawners, minibosses and crowds, much, much better than Holy Storm, deals much more damage too.

Been playing the Warlock far to little to have any comment on his skills, but I think the dagger and the chain lightning are funny to use and combo.


Just to comment on the two future classes too, the rogue is these days called "Thief" because he uses money for some of the skills, he also harvest more money from kills. Has throwing knifes, smoke bombs and has a grapple that stuns and can be used to fast travel.

The priest class isn't even started on yet, but he will not have too much heal, just move it from the paladin and redesign it a bit, other than that, we don't know yet. The thief class was quiet fast for myran to develop and I hope the priest will too!

I like the ideas on wizard and paladin; similar to some other ideas I had, especially concerning the wizard. I still stand that flurry could use improvement or rework. Concerning the Warlock, I've been watching some endgame footage of people playing him, and it would seem that the lightning storm is highly situational; it's good for charging through corridors where enemies are scattered everywhere, but against a large moving hoard, it's more efficient to use the standard lighting strike. An idea concerning it: perhaps the lighting storm could fling out mini-lighting strikes that scaled with the standard ones instead of acting like a telsa coil; just a random thought though.

Now, concerning the Rouge (or thief). I strongly dislike the idea of his skills costing gold and the extra gold income, for many reasons. Granted, I'm the type of person who tries to avoid using consumables whenever possible in games with fixed resources, but I think my points are valid .
1: It would highly discourage the use of such skills. If I knew every time I used a skill, I was that much farther from my next upgrade, I would attempt to not use them except in emergencies. It wouldn't be nearly as fun to use the skills I had earned if I knew there was a permanent cost to each use. I think one of Hammerwatch's stongest points is the concept of shared income (and shared stats with the bonus stat pickups). Even if you are behind the other players skill-wise, or contribute to the team less as a whole, you are still on a level playing field with them because everyone shares in the rewards. This is not the case for the thief. How well you preform directly influences how viable you can be later in the game. Someone playing the thief could easily battle their way into obsoletetion, and be unable to recover.
2: It could be highly exploitable. On the flip-side, some one could on purpose decide to not use their skills all-together and get the benefits of the increased income. I definitely know it's possible, because I often find myself doing it unintentionally; I often just use skills for flair or to see how much I can take on at once; and I don't think that I would have any desire to do that as the thief (referring back to point 1). Therefor, a thief that was skilled in just his basic attacks would easily overshadow the other players; getting every available upgrade ages ahead of his companions, and he wouldn't even need to get the upgrades concerning his skills if that was his play style.
3: Now consider that a player wants to properly play the thief with his skills; not falling behind in point 1, and not hoarding loot like in point 2. The player would need a massive amount of foresight and knowledge. They would need to know: enemy locations and types around the map, and decide whether or not his skills would be efficient ; the costs of all the upgrades they would consider buying, and in what order; and the locations of the loot to gauge how much progress they will make on a given floor, and how much excess he has to use. Not many people would be able to do this, let alone enjoy it. Having to stress over all the details that would influence the thief with his income model would take the fun out of playing him.

Concluding, I strongly suggest that the rogue use a mana system like the other characters. That way his skills are reusable and the player doesn't have to worry about how his skill usage affected him later in the game. I could probably come up with more reasons this is not a good idea (considering that it has been only an hour since I read your message and processed it), but I think this is more than enough to make my point.

Now, regarding the skills by themselves without the cash cost; they sound very interesting; very close to what I was guessing. Dagger was blatantly stated, I imagine that it will be single ranged projectile, or a group; maybe throwing three in a narrow cone in front of him. I expect that the smoke bomb would be used for stealth or diversion in some degree; I'm guessing that enemies in the field of effect will be unable to target any player. I don't this this should be a projectile (if that is being considered), but rather being thrown at the rogues feet; mainly because that feels more awesome. I love the idea of the grappling hook. I was trying to think of a way to give the rogue a dash without it being a knock off of the paladin's; this is a perfect solution. I'd love to see the amazing combos I could pull off with this; grabbing an enemy out of a group and pulling myself across the room and blinding them all with smoke on my arrival to go berserk on their faces. The way it's sounding, this may become one of my favorite classes, if he gets the requested mana pool of course.

I'm excited to hear about the upcoming creation of the Priest; I still like my vision of his skills; group heal, light beam, and summon familiars, to recap. I'm curious as to what his passives will be or what other effects his skills will have.

Also, where would be a good thread in the forum to get a better idea on the upcoming features. I feel a little lost in that regard.

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Hammerwatch Discussion / Class Discussion: current and upcomming

« on: March 04, 2014, 06:15:00 AM »

I've played Hammerwatch for a good while now, and I've gotten a feel for how most of the classes play. That being said, I would like to offer my comments on the current classes, and some balancing issues that need to be addressed. I'll be using the unofficial wiki for specification and for filling in what i don't know. I'll run though them one at a time and each of their skills starting with the standard atacks, the passives, then the active skills; after which I will make some speculations on the two upcoming classes: rogue and priest.

Paladin

SA- The paladin's standard attack is very effective and almost op; the main issue is that it kill's my fingers. In order to get the most out of the sa, you have to spam the attack button at insane speeds. I typically average 8 attacks per second (remember this number.) So after a while my fingers cramp up. I suggest that the attack damage be raised, and the attack speed cap be lowered (or created, I'm actually not sure if I've hit the cap yet.) 20% change on both would probably be enough.

Divine Wrath- Its a bit of an iffy pick up, but is none the less useful.

Shield- this is in my opinion the foundation of the paladin class, being able to absorb ranged attacks at will. I think it would be nice to have some identification how wide you're current shield is; perhaps an arc around the paladin that lights up when blocking an attack.

Charge- Love the ability. Good for charging in and escaping. No change needed.

Healing (into Barrier)- I have mixed feelings about this one. It certainly can be useful, but it makes the paladin feel compelled to carry the team hp wise. It has also been mentioned that the priest may take the party heal from the paladin, so he would have a new skill to use. I thought of a good alternative that follows the paladin's tanky, front line style. I call it, Barrier. The paladin thrusts his sword into the ground, and creates a defensive bubble, about 2.5 tiles in diameter, around him. It is a continuously channeled ability, like healing. While active, the paladin aggro's surrounding mobs and absorbs damage. He pays mana per second to maintain the shield, as well as a ratio of mana per damage received. Barrier could be used to protect team from oncoming ranged attacks, or save   members who are being overwhelmed and surrounded. Upgrades would increase shield size / aggro range, and efficiency (mana per second and damage ratio)

Holy Storm- To put it short, it's not viable (at least in the earlier levels). The sa is much more effective untill you start to max its damage. For instance, i've approximated that the ability hits everything around you at about 4 hits per second. At its first rank it deals 2x sword damage, meaning that its just as effective as your sa atack, so why use it? At 3x damage, it becomes slightly more effective than sa, but is nowhere worth the massive mana cost. At the higher levels of damage and duration, it seemed that it would be very effective, but it's poor starting levels are unsatisfactory. It needs something else to make it viable. My initial though is that while it is active the Paladin could move through and displace enemies. This would let him dive into enemy masses, inflicting large amounts of damage into the interior before escaping. Another idea is to increase the effective range to double your sa, this would let him hit a lot more mobs at once. Also, i don't know if this in its current iteration, but you should gain a 360 degree shield; it makes sense since you're technically facing every direction.

Wizard

SA- nice and powerful, later ranks are satisfying. No change needed

Incineration- Very useful utility, especially for dealing with tanky melee mobs. No change needed.

Frost Shild- This skill is rather finicky to make use of, sheerly due to the %chance component. Since the wizard has the least amount of health getting hit by 1 of the melee mobs is likely to take away between half and a third of your health. This means that you have to be pretty lucky to receive any benefit from it. My suggestion is to make it always activate, lower its initial effectiveness (upgrades would increase %reduction and slow duration)

Flame Breath- This ability in my opinion is no more effective than the sa. Considering it costs mana, it should be much more powerful. I suggest that flame breath should penetrate though enemies. Additionally, it should scale with the sa damage. Makes sense since they are both fire attacks.

Frost Nova- Good overall damage and slow. I actually haven't used this skill very much. But just my looking at its stats, I'd say that it doesn't need a change.

Meteor Storm- Again, haven't used this skill a lot, but looks good on paper. I just add that it also should scale with sa attack damage since it's also a fire spell. Perhaps slightly lowering meteor size and adding an additional meteor to the first level, just to increase the chances that it hits something.

Ranger

SA- My only request is to slightly increase the damage at range, since the ranger is a ranged class, and you can only achieve maximum damage when standing very close to your target. Increasing the distance before the damage starts to fall of by 2 or 3 tiles would be nice.

Dodge- Similar to the wizards frost nova, %chance mechanic makes the skill too variable to make use of, especially since the percentages are so low. The solution I came up with was to make the Ranger always avoid attacks that are in front of him (think a 45 degree knight shield that also negates melee attacks). The limiting factors on this to prevent op'ness (I hereby declare it a word) would be to limit it to when the archer is not attacking, and to make it only doge one attack per second. Thereby, if you're facing two melee attackers, one of them will hit you, and you'll only dodge the first arrow of a swarm of arrows assaulting you. Suddenly not op. Upgrades would increase dodge per second  ratio.

Marksmanship- Ahh, the crits. The staple of the archer. Very useful, no change needed.

Bomb- Very powerful and useful skill. No change needed.

Overgrowth- Useful when surrounded. Altogether a useful utility. No change needed.

Flurry- Like Holly storm, its questionable whether or not this is a viable skill due to sa atacks being more effective at lower levels, especially since it requires the ranger to be surrounded to achieve full efficiency; and the ranger is pretty screwed if surrounded. I came up with a good solution (actually while I was writing this). instead of spinning in a circle and shooting, perhaps he could fire a "flurry" of arrows in a cone in of him, Legolas style. Think a rapid fire arrow shotgun. That would certainly make it more effective than the sa.

Warlock:

SA- No change needed. You have a poisoned dagger that makes dead enemies explode for crying out loud!

Blood Sacrifice- Good sustain mechanic, possibly a little op. No change needed

Soul Sacrifice- Against a large group, this is highly op. The Warlock can continually cast spells with this. It would be much better if it was a chance gain, like blood sacrifice.

Lightning Strike- All around good skill, though a little costy. No change needed.

Life Steal Nova- Again, against groups, highly op. This gives the Warlock waaaay too much sustain. An easy way to somewhat fix this is to make it so that the Warlock only gains health if the enemies are killed during the duration.

Electrical Storm- Extremely powerful ability, only question is if its worth the enormous mana cost. You could cast 7 lightning strikes for the same amount, and I think those 7 strikes are more powerful than the storm, haven't used it enough to accurately tell though.

And now we enter speculations and ideas for the Priest and Rouge. All I know about them is the Future patches post, so mostly ideas.

Priest:
Obviously, the priest will be a healing mage responsible for keeping the team healthy. I imagine he will have a ranged sa like the wizard. The two things mentioned is that the Priest would take over healing from the paladin, and the possibility of a healing/damaging beam. Already its clear that the meta of the Priest is healing, which should be reconsidered because healing is not the most fun thing in the world, but the benefits of the large amounts of sustain the priest would offer would compel someone from the party to play priest and carry the team. Aside from the group heal inherited from the paladin, I don't think he should have any more healing capabilities. However, I do like the idea of a beam attack, and think that perhaps the meta of the Priest should be focused around light/holy magics. Something interesting I came up with up the top of my head is that one of his abilities could summon a familiar to attack enemies. Not sure if that fits with the rest of his yet to be announced kit. But hey, seems cool to me.

Rouge:
When I think of a rouge, I think of a high damage, high mobility, single target attacker, which it seems he will end up being. From the for-mentioned post, the only hinted information is backstabbing and throwing knives, which actually sounds more assassin like; but they also are high damage, high mobility, single target attackers, so I think the two can be interchangeable in this regard. His sa will most likely be a dager, but considering the warlock's got daggers down, perhaps we could give him a more rougelike weapon, like claws or knuckles. His first ability will probably be throwing daggers. Two other abilities I like is the ability to stealth, and a dash attack. not like the paladin's though. More like a dash up and assassinate the first target you hit; also good for mobility.

There you have it. My total spiel. Further comment and tell me if I missed something and give me your own ideas about the two mysterious classes. Over and out.