Mage Class Design

[abdulmuhsee]

Lol, I was just about to come back and edit that, as I went back in and had a "projectile life upgrade" equipment on.

You tend to not pay much attention to equipment after you've been playing awhile and coincidentally it was the first blast spell I fired off after the update, which then seemed to be the obvious cause.  :-)

Sorry about that!

[x4000]

Awesome, and no worries at all!

[abdulmuhsee]

Well, I've been trying out the Eradigist and Meteorist alongside their counterparts, and everything really seems about as balanced as possible.  The three-shots appear stronger initially, until you're trying to destroy an annoying Clockwork Pigeon from a distance or a Wall Gator crawling towards you, only to find out it takes more hits than you'd expected.

The three-shots are obviously the stronger choice when trying to destroy a tiny Owl or an incoming Clockwork Avian, and they still do immense damage up close, but I found myself preferring the Tornamancer and Thorncerer for a stronger prime projectile and for being much more efficient in taking down the various henchmen without getting too close and taking unnecessary damage. 

It's also because I've played this game way too much and am probably better at aiming than the average player.  I think I've run through Master Hero now with less than a dozen deaths, which means it might just be time to get creamed on Chosen One (or actually do something more productive with my free time for awhile :-)).

But yeah, the fact that I have to actually debate which class I want to choose now means that the balance must be more finely tuned than before, which gives the game more variety and replay value by extension, which says a lot for a game that already has such high replay value.

[x4000]

Sweeeeet! That's really wonderful news!

And holy smokes that's impressive with less than a dozen deaths on master hero. I'm quite impressed.

I also just want to say thanks for all your help in getting the tier 5 Mage classes the last few miles down the road to balanced. That was your doing, not mine!

[abdulmuhsee]

It's entirely through addiction to the game and not any inherent ability on my part, I assure you :-).

I'm finishing up the game this time as a Thicketmaster, and I think you hit the balance ratio on the head there as well; it doesn't have the same room-clearing abilities as the shattered classes, but it has a unique offensive/defensive balance that plays uniquely with the precision single-shot and the defensive 5-shot perimeter.  Making the slow 5-shot was perfect.

It's no longer underpowered and has just enough strength to give the impression of, "That's right, I'm a Thicketmaster.  Whatcha gonna do about it?"  Most importantly, it plays very differently without necessarily being less powerful than the go-to classes, giving the player more potential customization and play styles without any glaring power variance.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to read through all my posts and implement the changes; it was nice having someone to talk about the game with, and it'll be a lot more fun to replay down the road as well :-)!

Edit: Would just like to say that there is at least one more typo/error, though I doubt it's worth releasing a patch just for that.  The Littorist class says that every single one of its attacks do 35.84 damage, including the charge shot.  And at least Forgician still has the same typo in his crescent spell.  Sometime in the future or when a bigger problem potentially pops up, you might just want to comb through all the spell descriptions and properties to make sure everything is alright there. 

I'm also fairly positive that the "Earth Flinger" enemy that hangs from the ceiling is non-functional and has no attack, but that's a different story for a different day :-).

[x4000]

Sorry for the slow response, I meant to get to this earlier but it's just been very busy.  Definitely more than typos this go-round.  Anyhow, I got your PM and this.  Thanks so much once again, both for all the help and feedback, and the kind words!  In for next version's release:

* Fixed a display issue where the water charge shot on the littorist was showing as the level 1 version of the charge shot rather than the full charged version like other charge shots do.

* Fixed a typo in explosive crescent that had already been fixed in the other crescent spells, but not this one.

* The Earth Elemental Flinger _should_ now attack properly.

* Charge shots were not properly getting their bonuses from secondary spell slot perks.  Fixed.