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Mage Class Design

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abdulmuhsee:
So after getting the tier 5 mage spells for the third time, I can't help but notice that most of them are essentially unusable if you want to stand a chance.

I was excited to finally get the "Beastmaster" class, only to find out the primary attack does a measly 35 damage, with the boomerang utility of it being mostly irrelevant; the secondary charge attack is only a somewhat useful utility to get past blocks, and the special is the single-direction whip, which doesn't cut it at this point in the game since it doesn't reach far enough.  Even the ammo spell is redundant, letting me jump again, since you're supposed to have the triple jump anyways.  It's also strange how Cindermaster and Boltlord can transform into an animal, but Beastmaster cannot.

Especially at tier 5, every class needs at least one consistent, useful, high-damage attack, or it may as well not exist.  The only really useful classes at tier 5 are the shrapnel-producing ones, namely Glacician, Cindermaster, and Mesalord.  Especially Glacician, with "Heave Glacier" doing twice as much damage and being twice as big as "Heave Magma" and the stone one.  Not only are they high-damage and consistent, but multi-directional, thus doubling as utility.

Things like Thicketmaster, with nothing but two straight-shot spells (and the ground-pound utility which I haven't found particularly useful), can't possibly compete with screen-filling shrapnel.  Boltlord is only useful in transforming into a Bat to bypass the citadels and nothing else.  Giving Thicketmaster the bouncing arc utility spell to complement the straight-shot or Beastmaster a slider in his main slot instead of the insanely low-damage boomerang would go a long ways towards making these classes at least somewhat attractive options.

I'm willing to bet that not a single person has used these underpowered classes to beat the game, unless playing on low difficulty I suppose.  Just my two cents.

x4000:
Interestingly, I've never heard this generalized opinion before.  We had a long (something like 3.5 months) beta for the game, and loads and loads of people commented on loads and loads of balance issues, which we tweaked and tuned as we went.  This spell and that spell were too powerful or not enough, etc.  Most of it focused on enemies, but still.

We did have a number of players playing on Master Hero, but I'm not sure how many playing higher than that.  Although I think we had at least one guy playing on the highest one, but I recall that he "went for the throat" early, basically, as his way of surviving to the end.  For myself I mostly play on Hero, and have not found it out of balance.

The power of those spells is per-shrapnel-piece, by the way.  So all those "shattered" spells are super useful in general.  Either you are hitting near an enemy and doing loads of damage from it exploding and hitting them multiple times, or you are hitting an enemy partially from cover because of that ability, or whatnot.  It kind of varies based on the spell in question, and the players' playstyle.

Anyway, I hear what you're saying, but it's interesting because that just hasn't been brought up in that way before.

abdulmuhsee:
As long as you get at least one shrapnel class, it's not a balance issue since you can just choose that class.  It just takes away from character customization when there are only one or two viable options instead of five to choose between.

However, if one were to get, say, Thicketmaster, Boltlord, Beastmaster, Radiantist, and Hydrologist at level 5, then you might have an insanely difficult time beating the game on the highest difficulties.  I can almost guarantee that if you took a survey of those who played the beta on Master Hero or Chosen One of what class they used to beat the game, it would always be Glacician, Cindermaster, or Mesalord without exception (unless there's another shrapnel class I haven't seen).

Classes without shrapnel need decent utilities to back up their straight-shots or short-reaching shotgun patterns, but only get redundant, non-complementary, or generally useless spells in their other two slots, which does not make up for their main spell being inferior.  Homing missiles or bouncing arcs, IMO, are essential for classes that don't have reach or spread to their other attacks.  If I can't hit my opponent with my primary straight-shot spell, then why on earth would a secondary and/or special straight-shot spell help me out? 

I'm super into this game right now and absolutely love it, so I'm not just complaining for no reason; I'm pretty confident these classes need a makeover to be useful, and it would be way more fun unlocking the spell caches if there was the mystery of which classes I would get and which I would choose instead of knowing I would be limited to whichever I got of the useful ones.

Heck, I'm willing to bet hard cash that anyone who ventured into Demonaica's Lair as a Beastmaster would agree with me since there's just no way (Beastmaster has three spells that can only shoot a single projectile in a straight line!  Thicketmaster is essentially just as bad off).  Customizing your character while leveling up is really what sets this above other action platformers, so it's more about the deflation of finding out you don't have as many options as you could have otherwise had.

x4000:
Interestingly, the one that was considered most OP in the beta was Boltlord because of the bat thing.

In terms of the rest of what you are saying, I can't really disagree or agree since I don't play on that difficulty.

Completely redesigning the later classes with all-new spells isn't really in the cards at the moment, unfortunately.  I love this game too (and play it regularly with my son, who is almost 3), but between this and Valley 1 we've lost about $200k making them (aka, not made any money but instead lost that amount).  Because of that, we're kind of having to climb out of that hole by focusing on other games that found more popularity in the market.  We're of course still doing support and maintenance on these games, but in terms of what amounts to major content additions that's pretty much out.

If you have suggestions for how various spells might be improved to alter the balance of these classes in a way you'd like, then that's a different story: let me know what you'd like to see, and we can probably make it happen.  It's a matter of stat adjustment on these, though, not wholesale replacement of spells.

Hope that makes sense...

abdulmuhsee:

--- Quote from: x4000 on June 14, 2013, 04:47:13 pm ---Completely redesigning the later classes with all-new spells isn't really in the cards at the moment, unfortunately.  I love this game too (and play it regularly with my son, who is almost 3), but between this and Valley 1 we've lost about $200k making them (aka, not made any money but instead lost that amount).
--- End quote ---

I totally understand; I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak with you about it at all, since this is the first game I've actually wanted to keep playing in recent years.  I'm happy to have my feedback considered at all.


--- Quote ---If you have suggestions for how various spells might be improved to alter the balance of these classes in a way you'd like, then that's a different story: let me know what you'd like to see, and we can probably make it happen.  It's a matter of stat adjustment on these, though, not wholesale replacement of spells.
--- End quote ---

So basically, adjustments to damage-per-projectile, speed or cooldown time are easy fixes, but, say, giving Beastmaster the dinosaur transformation and Cindermaster the extra jump for flavor's sake would mean replacing spells entirely.  Do I understand that right?

I'd be happy to look at the different classes and see how the inferior ones could be nudged up to somewhat compete with the dominant classes if, say, damage or speed are a quick fix.

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