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Post by beuns on Oct 25, 2013 4:52:56 GMT -5
I must admit that nightmare is...a nightmare  |
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Post by fallen on Oct 25, 2013 12:10:14 GMT -5
Rogue - Primarily scouting and lockpicking with a secondary focus on ranged damage dealing. Kitted out with light armor and a good bow. Wizard - Primarily ranged, single target damage dealing with a secondary focus on AoE. Kitted out with magic attack boosting... things. Outlander - Primarily a melee damage dealer, secondary focus on tanking. Kitted out with a big 'ole Axe or Sword, 2-hander preferred. Medium armor. Cleric - Primarily a tank, secondary focus on buffing. Kitted out with the heaviest armor and shield money can buy. 1 handed hammer nice, but low priority. Sorry ... just catching up on this thread, so I will have a few spotty responses here. Thanks all for the great feedback! The intention is that each character has a variety of builds. You'll find that as you level, you won't be able to raise every talent high, and you are going to end up choosing between 3-5 to put your focus. So, a wizard who focuses on single target damage is unlikely to be able to spend enough advantage points to be a AoE monster. A cleric who maximizes her healing and buffing ability will not be able to pack the biggest punch in combat, but a cleric could maximize her buffing and melee abilities instead and leave her healing low (and visit the potion store often!) This variety will be exacerbated as we roll in the extra characters (Thief, Sorcerer, Paladin, Dueler) who will bring a new play-style to the above-listed archetypes. Then you start to mix and match ... and, well sounds like fun to me  |
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Post by fallen on Oct 25, 2013 12:16:48 GMT -5
evmaker : you got a point here. Still, from what I read here, Myshana's tears seems a bit overpowered so (IMO as always) by making it a bit more costly (as it would cost more AP to cast it in combat and it would be less effective in its healing) it would prevent PCs from being always at full health. Of course, on brutal it would be a LOT more painful but...that's what brutal is for, isn't it ? We will definitely do some tweaking of Myshana's Tears for the next phase of alpha. Also, we are working our way through pushing the Skill values into the skills, so you'll see your Lore skill having a bigger effect. EDIT: Lore, not Conjuring, sorry. |
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Post by fallen on Oct 25, 2013 12:18:16 GMT -5
Just to throw my thoughts : I made a lot of use of stone skin as I really want my outlander to be a tank. Especially important in higher difficulties. I find my ratio of curse / buff vs. attack increasing as I raise difficulties. On lower difficulties, I can hack my way through most challenges. When it comes to Brutal or Nightmare, Choking Ash, Pureflame Shield, Stone Skin, and Ethereal Anguish get much more play. |
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Post by fallen on Oct 25, 2013 12:20:20 GMT -5
Not really a right way or wrong way, simply effective and ineffective strategies. One of my favorite things about Final Fantasy Tactics A2 was that you can pretty much use nearly every single character class and field multiple squad combinations and use different strategies within a single playthrough. It was more interesting to me to try a different strategy, even if it feels uncomfortable, in order to expand my own skills as a player. A game that can generate a lot of heated discussion about what is the "best" way, means to me, is flexible and has a lot of fans. Hopefully, that's how it will turn out with HoS. - we are on the same page on this one! We started with just 4 characters to get the focus on the core game balance and to try to avoid too much early conversation about which character to pick for which slot. Plus, I have a ton more art to do Each character slot (warrior, stealth, magic, healer) will eventually have 3 characters to pick (Rogue, Thief, Assassin) and each character is intended to have 2-3 optimal play style variations. |
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Post by reubenjohn on Oct 25, 2013 12:20:48 GMT -5
I'm finally getting some more time to play. I wanted to try a play through on a harder difficulty before chiming in.
My favorite talents were Myshana's Tears, Choking Ash and Savage Sweep.
On my first play through (normal) I found myself leveling Myshana's Tears on the cleric and a damage talent on everyone else. On Nightmare, the self buffs and curses were where I spent the few points I got.
I haven't tried the higher level talents. The ones that were just more meh talents were the disarming/lock picking talents on the rogue. It's an important skill set but I didn't run into anything that demanded a higher skill level and I didn't actually figure out how to find traps without stepping on them, so neither skill seemed worth putting points into. I also didn't use melee much on the rogue so didn't put points in there either.
*edit* I forgot about farsight... It's a mixed talent for me. I find the ability useful when I am in combat and need to find the ranged enemys shooting at me. I tried to use it for scouting out of combat, but enemies just seem to appear when you hit a trigger area or are at least too far away to be found with the farsight ability.
I haven't found any talent combos that seem off. The curse/buff combos seemed a necessity on Nightmare but not needed on normal.
I think having access to a spell to remove enemy buffs might be good. I'm guessing the rat things are self buffing when they cast the green sparkly bit.
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Post by hosh on Oct 25, 2013 14:19:18 GMT -5
I find the ability useful when I am in combat and need to find the ranged enemys shooting at me. Ahh. Interesting. I will have to try this. Incidentally, will Farsight have an effect on perceiving cloaked / stealthed monsters? |
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Post by johndramey on Oct 25, 2013 19:37:30 GMT -5
Sorry ... just catching up on this thread, so I will have a few spotty responses here. Thanks all for the great feedback! The intention is that each character has a variety of builds. You'll find that as you level, you won't be able to raise every talent high, and you are going to end up choosing between 3-5 to put your focus. So, a wizard who focuses on single target damage is unlikely to be able to spend enough advantage points to be a AoE monster. A cleric who maximizes her healing and buffing ability will not be able to pack the biggest punch in combat, but a cleric could maximize her buffing and melee abilities instead and leave her healing low (and visit the potion store often!) This variety will be exacerbated as we roll in the extra characters (Thief, Sorcerer, Paladin, Dueler) who will bring a new play-style to the above-listed archetypes. Then you start to mix and match ... and, well sounds like fun to me Awesome, that's a great thing to hear. I figured that you guys were starting with just a single character per slot, a "pre-gen" team basically, so we could focus on the balance. I have to say that the balance seems pretty prime right now, nothing is really out of whack. hosh - we are on the same page on this one! We started with just 4 characters to get the focus on the core game balance and to try to avoid too much early conversation about which character to pick for which slot. Plus, I have a ton more art to do Each character slot (warrior, stealth, magic, healer) will eventually have 3 characters to pick (Rogue, Thief, Assassin) and each character is intended to have 2-3 optimal play style variations. Wait a minute, seriously? I seem to remember we missed the three character per slot stretch goal? Or, are you guys just being super awesome (as usual) and giving us more than was promised? Either way, really cool. I'm actually really liking the flexibility we have at the moment. All of the different stats and skills are not perfectly explained and working at the moment, but what we have works very well and seems to be quite nice. |
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Post by fallen on Oct 25, 2013 20:31:19 GMT -5
johndramey - thanks, we have worked really hard to get the balancing right out of the gate for the Alpha team, and it seems like its working! And yes, we are planning to be "super awesome (as usual)" 
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2013 21:55:16 GMT -5
johndramey - thanks, we have worked really hard to get the balancing right out of the gate for the Alpha team, and it seems like its working! And yes, we are planning to be "super awesome (as usual)"  |
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Post by johndramey on Oct 25, 2013 23:03:26 GMT -5
Man, I absolutely cannot wait. I've only been this excited about a game once before, the release of Fallout 2. For you guys to equal Fallout 2 is, in my world, a huge accomplishment.
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Post by beuns on Oct 26, 2013 1:14:11 GMT -5
Man, I absolutely cannot wait. I've only been this excited about a game once before, the release of Fallout 2. For you guys to equal Fallout 2 is, in my world, a huge accomplishment. Man, I loved this game (one of the best to me after Baldur's Gate (1&2 of course) ) and I'm backing you up : I'm as amazed with this game that I was with fallout/BG |
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