Which is the best designed class and which one is the worst?

[wanna 14]

Curious what people's thoughts are about the design of the classes in the game. This isn't about their balance (numbers can be tweaked) but rather their design, how their class package works.

Edited November 24, 2020 by wanna

[vinixD 383]

Best design: Brawler

Worst design: Assassin

[- D E A T H S T R O K E - 1,760]

Best: Brawler, multiple unique skills&mechanics, best visual effects so far

Worst:Fs, multiple indentical skills, poor visual effects and leak of unique mechanics

[wanna 14]

2 minutes ago, - D E A T H S T R O K E - said:

Best: Brawler, multiple unique skills&mechanics, best visual effects so far

Worst:Fs, multiple indentical skills, poor visual effects and leak of unique mechanics

 

I haven't tried brawler yet, but do you use a lot of different skills? Looked at the build discussions and it didn't look particularly engaging.

6 minutes ago, vinixD said:

Best design: Brawler

Worst design: Assassin

 

Why Assassin?

[- D E A T H S T R O K E - 1,760]

14 minutes ago, wanna said:

 

I haven't tried brawler yet, but do you use a lot of different skills? Looked at the build discussions and it didn't look particularly engaging.

For AoE PvE, she has only 2 skills, but for PvP, she is definitely a beast.

-cage skill

-charged attack

-3 hits nuke with extra Ar

-counter attack skill with guaranted block

- her own version of pike's dodge

-debuff which penetrates block

-passive which increases crit damage when blocking hits

- dmg reduction&extra block buffs

-Still need to check which spammable skill is the best, but so far she has 2 good ones on T3.

Edit:- pushback skill and nuke that have perfect synergy with the cage skill.

-dash skills.

 

Edited November 24, 2020 by - D E A T H S T R O K E -

[vinixD 383]

2 hours ago, wanna said:

 

Why Assassin?

Assassin is bland , basically a bad version of pikeman with fighter(roar) and priestess(holy mind) stitched together that does not blend well. She literally dont provide anything new, except for the spam of DoT skills, that is not exclusive of her.

Edited November 24, 2020 by vinixD

[Merenda 694]

I love how Mech works here. It would be my answer, but luckily we have Brawler, a unique and versatile kit. Oh, and I guess we all here love combos!

 

About the worse... Definitely Assassin, is there any possibility of rework? Assassin has a sensational aesthetic, but the worse kit T_T

Edited November 24, 2020 by Merenda

[DarkLink64 921]

Brawler doesnt count. It was developed in 2020, meanwhile most of the cast were developed in 1999.

Best:
1. Pikeman - The most unique, yet bizarre design. It was clearly designed as a Lancer Knight, then, the koreans watched Naruto and transformed him in a Ninja-Reaper.
His gameplay strenghts and weakness are very well defined. It deals a lot of damage, but deals damage in multiple, different ways. The most combo based, cooldown reliant class, without a doubt.
2. Shaman - Another unique, bizarre design. Clearly a Necromancer, but with a non-sense weapon on his back (that has no reason to be there). 

His gameplay steals some of the best aspects of other class. Shaman tanks a lot, has a strong 1v1 and AoE damage, slow enemies down, stun, pull them away and lure monsters. This class has everything.
3. Mechanician - Something I never saw again in any other game. I mean, classess focused on many weapons are common, but none of them was a Mechanic, designed to fix stuff, but actually uses Hammers as a primary weapon as a reference to blacksmiths, Claws and Shields, Bows and Dory Spears (Javelin). Yet, he was supposed to be the main tank of the game.
Gameplay wise, Mechanician is kinda lackluster. He can use a variety of stances (be it the set of gears, power, tank or auto), but each of them is very, very repetitive without variation. Pulling enemies and sharing allies damage is a very well tought mechanic for a tanker.

Worst:
1. Magician - Thematically nothing is wrong with Magician. However execution was a disaster. The original Design of Magician was a cluster**** of a mess. Magician was primary a tanker, that dealt only weak AoE damage with lots of buffs and supportive skills that didnt made any kind of difference, but just annoy people. First, he was supposed to not rely on anyone, on early days, mana potions was a commoditie and he was designed to use his health as mana source. Then, he got so many buffs where, half of it are useless nor provide any meaningfull, unique gameplay experience. Zenith has no use, because the game itself has a very poorly designed, half baked elemental system. His Elemental Sword is... Very, very very lackluster. On top of that, his Fairy buff is just a tiny pixel on screen that gives him a lot of magic power for no reason. The most unique buff of Magician is his Energy Shield, but, due to it's unique nature, provides just annoyance to players. His enchant elemental weapon is just a little dmg buff, the elements itselfs are all poorly designed, and useless since it only works on default attacks.

Magician is a class so hard to balance, there werent a single year that Magician could be considered balanced or good. The reason is just his generic, lazy half-baked design.

2. Priestess - Same as Magician. Thematically perfect, but the game evolved in a way that Priestess is just a useless class on itself, and her primary supportive design is also useless. A class super focused on heal, on a game that lets you insta-heal your HP to 100% in half a second with pots, is obviously going to fail. All her good supportive skills are super accessible, being just an afk mule buff. Not allowing healing skills to be used offensively towards undeads and demons is a huge letdown.

Priestess , just like Magician, should have been deleted and redesigned from scratch. 


3. Knight - Thematically perfect, same way of Magicians and Priestess. To be honest, Morions had the best thematic design, but, the devs sure rushed the **** out of Morion classes. Knight is a bit unique and bizarre, just like my best picks. Knight is usually someone who is a noble warrior, a higher rank within a kingdom or a military force. However, our Knight is still a noble warrior, but, towards the game church and deities. He is supposed to be a saint warrior, and, well, the approppriate name would be a Paladin, not Knight. Also Knight is supposed to be a hybrid of Melee and Magic class, kinda half Magician and half Mechanician, but well, they also missed this point. Also Knight is clearly focused on Undead only, but, none of his Aoe Magic (hybrid nature of magician) has any kind of boost towards undead, but random types, and his 1v1 side (hybrid nature of mechanic) deals damage to undead. Knight, historically in games, are meant to be the most tanker of the cast, usually the front line with heavy shields. In our case, a blacksmith working as a mechanic does this job, and Knight was one of the most fragile class ever released. His defensive design was very poorly thought.

Being my main class I have a lot to say!

His kit is super generic, with so many repetitive designs, copy pasted mechanics of other class.

His biggest design flaw:

He has too many Linear AoE Attacks, and NONE OF THEM ARE ACTUALLY GOOD.

First, Sword Blast is a fodder skill since release. Stupid flat formula, never had any actual impact. It's visual has a dynamic speed based on distance (bug or intended, no one knows), but area is fixed. 
I kina feel Sword Blast is a reference to, my favorite game Franchise: Zelda. When Link has full health, he shoots out magic beam from his sword. Boost on normals and mutant. That super doesnt make sense. Out of all his generic aoe, this one looks the best one to be a boosted skill towards undead.

Then, Piercing is another weird skill. The original design: It was a skill that checked your main targed defense, block and evade. So, if Piercing Miss, it wouldn't deal any damage. It it hit, it dealt damage to the target and dealt the linear aoe damage.

HOW THE **** A SKILL NAMED PIERCING HAD THIS STUPID MECHANIC ATTACHED TO IT? Not only a copy-paste from Perforation, but Perforation actually perforated the targets and dealt extra damage while doing it (critical), but Piercing was super weak, and the name Piercing itself implies piercing armor, piercing body, ignoring target defense but... It was an aoe that could miss by defense, block and evasion. So dissapointing! Boost on mutant, that doesnt make sense. I had expectations on Piercing, it could be Knight main skills, crushing enemie armors, reducing their abs, block or def, knocking then back, anything... But a linear aoe that could fail with super lame damage.

Sword of Justice, we all tought it could break the floor and wipe everyone away, but it just slams the sword on the ground with a super lame, very poorly made visual effect that doesnt impress anyone. Had delay, weaker than Brandish damage, also tiny area. The worst - boost towards no one.

Being a so focused twards Undeads, the supposed unique mechanic would be summoning undeads as pets or collecting souls and reviving them as a necomancer. But instead, we have to actually try to enchant undeads, where the chances are super low. And when enchanting the undead, instead of turning them back to live, as humans, no, they keep as slow, ******ed undeads. Instead of just allowing Knights to summon Valento or transform into Valento itself, no, we have to keep spamming a enchant to make some slow zombies to fight for us. Wartale killed even more the fun by limiting just 1 undead per time. Lame.

To be honest, there is just one thing cool, well designed on Knights - his original C hair, his headgear and armors. Everything else is just crap.

4- Atalanta. Atalanta has a cool concept but with so many useless, repetitive, simple and generic skills. I write more about her later.



 

Edited November 25, 2020 by DarkLink64

[vinixD 383]

Please , continue @DarkLink64

 

Imo atalanta design in really messy , she meant to be a "javazon" magic variation to archer , but mixed with valkyries and the possibility to mess with enemy souls(and maybe players too), but something got lost on the way.

Alanta should be more bulky being able to go directly to the fight instead of relying on a summon, just like archer.

 

While this , archer is probably one of the best game design in terms of backgroung , being nature focused and dealing with animals, sun , phoenix, wind.. 

Edited November 25, 2020 by vinixD

[Merenda 694]

15 minutes ago, vinixD said:

Please , continue darklink.

 

Imo atalanta design in really messy , she meant to be a "javazon" magic variation to archer , but mixed with valkyries and the possibility to mess with enemy souls(and maybe players too), but something got lost on the way.

Alanta should be more bulky being able to go directly to the fight instead of relying on a summon, just like archer.

 

While this , archer is probably one of the best game design in terms of backgroung , being nature focused and dealing with animals, sun , phoenix, wind.. 

 

The aesthetic concept of Atalanta by itself is already something strange. She has the largest range in the game, it doesn't make much sense for her to use a shield.

 

I always thought about mechanics for this class where it varies from tanker/bruiser (maybe something based on constant healing?) to DPS, something similar to Metal Armor & Maximize.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Merenda

[DarkLink64 921]

10 hours ago, vinixD said:

Please , continue @DarkLink64

 

Imo atalanta design in really messy , she meant to be a "javazon" magic variation to archer , but mixed with valkyries and the possibility to mess with enemy souls(and maybe players too), but something got lost on the way.

Alanta should be more bulky being able to go directly to the fight instead of relying on a summon, just like archer.

 

While this , archer is probably one of the best game design in terms of backgroung , being nature focused and dealing with animals, sun , phoenix, wind.. 

It was very clear to me that they had intentions of making Knight and Atalanta hybrid characters. 

Knight was supposed to be a Swordsman that is also a Wizard, and I also belive Atalanta was supposed to be a Hoplite that also uses magic, but on more nature-related ways (copy of Archer).

 

Atalanta design is also part of the unique, yet bizarre. She is clearly a Hoplite - the most effective unit of greek military force. Spears are the most successfull, cheap and easy to learn weapon of history. Not only it is so good on it's own, but you can also throw it kill enemies, or hunt for food. Hoplites is the best combination of all classic military force, a light spear with shields. Hoplites are also well known for throwing their spears, and then resuming fight with offhand swords. But since She is, unfortunately, from Morion, the koreans had to throw some kind of magic on her. Perhaps some dev was new on Nordic stuff and then made a lot of references about it on Atalanta.

Thing got super weird when they decided to make Throwing the spear her primary design aspect. Throwing your spear was some kind of a finisher move for a Hoplite, or when the spear itself broke. The spear going back to the hand of Atalanta is a bad design and they tried to get away with some magic excuses.

Throwing a spear by hand is super cool, but, it is a limited action. You can just throw it ONCE.

A quick resume on Atalanta design: She throws spears at target and thats it.  I mean, im not kidding. Most of time skills recicles animations or even uses the default attack animation, and the difference between skills are, some might change the color of the spear, others change the color of the particle effect on impact. That's all. None of them were unique, nor dealth high damage dealers, nor provided any good mechanic or side effect. The ones that did, sucked so much that it didnt made any kind of relevance. 

Her MOST UNIQUE SKILLS are Shield skills, but it's is, again, super generic, use same animation, one deals stun, other suck lifes of the target, that originally, you couldn't use on Undeads, and didnt worked past 80% of target life. And that's it. No more Shield skills, and the ones she have, are all offensive, none boost her defense or survivability.

THE WORST - Atalanta only got a decent throwing skill on her Tier 4. While Vengeance was the saving grace, it is also super bland - it is just spear throwing, but fast and consistently. They even recicled Perforation with Storm Javeling once more, but it was also super lame compared to Perforation itself. At least Storm always pierced and dealt aoe linear damage, Piercing didnt. What a joke.



Atalanta, togheter with Priestess and Magicians, should have been redone years ago. Morions was a desperate move to keep the game fresh on the time of its release, but there isnt a single Morion class, outside of Shaman that is more than a decade younger, that didnt had copy pasted skills and ****ty design.

I envision Atalanta being a true Hoplite. To me, should have a true hybrid gameplay. Atalanta performance and effects are dynamic, based on distance from target and difference between on foot and riding. Her skills varying on damage, effect and animation based on the distance, weapon and if its on foot or riding.

When at melee range, using Sword + Shield to deal higher damage and critical, with 1v1 skills dealing aoe damage as a side effect. When slight away from Sword range, she uses her Javelin as a melee weapon, with most piercing attacks that causes debuffs on target, and when far away, she nows become fully ranged, as aways, but dealing less damage compared to other modes.

Her shield should be used as a second weapon on all melee attacks, dealing damage based on its defensive stats.

Then, when riding, she becomes super tanky and fast, but her skills become inacessible or weaker, but applying new crowd control effects, like knock back, stuns, slows, disarms, etc.

I wish Wartale made her Tier 5 a Gaebulg reference, not random Poison damage. (that is super random on her design as well, since when she is related to poison?)
Gaebulg IS THE DEFINITIVE SPEAR THROWING skill of all time.

 

Edited November 25, 2020 by DarkLink64

[wanna 14]

@DarkLink64 I appreciate you going in on these discussions a lot. It's interesting to hear what someone more experienced in the game has to say.

 

About mech: I'm glad you brought him up. I think he's up there with the better designs but with a poor execution (boring game play as you pointed out). The fact that you have 3 distinct playstyles gives a lot of variety on paper but could use a lot more support from skills.

 

About mage: I remember the agony days... I think it was an interesting concept for sure (kinda like lifetap in WoW) but in a game based on potions (and pservers multiplying potion drops) that just didn't work anymore. To be honest I think the issues with mage are more due to how other parts of the game are implemented. The issue with Zenith isn't the skill itself but how resistances work. The issues with elemental damage buffs is how it only applies to autos. It's true they have so many buffs that it feels bloated and redundant. I'd love to see skills interact with each other more with a simple elemental system ie fire makes you weak to water which makes you weak to lighting so you have to have some kind of rotation

 

Priestess: really great point about how any healing skills are redundant in a game designed with spammable potions.

 

Knight: I'm not sure I can agree with your point about how they have been represented historically in games. Maybe the name is the issue and calling it a paladin would've worked better (as you said). I actually think the heavy focus on undead is a big downside as it keeps the class back a lot. It really limits designing new maps because the second there's no undead, the class loses a lot of it's potency.

 

Atlanta: I don't agree with your hoplite take on the class. Saying the spear can only be thrown once, is like applying logic and realism in a fantasy world with magic. I do agree she was intended to be a hybrid (why else use a shield). I see her more as a mid range brawler. Do some ranged hits to weaken the enemy then move into melee to finish. The sad part is how they did nothing with her shields. Maybe in a more modern version of the game (had it not come out in 2001) they could've made it work using stances as it would require two animations sets (one for range, one melee as you'd hold the spear differently for each).

 

 

[DarkLink64 921]

6 hours ago, wanna said:

@DarkLink64

 

Atlanta: I don't agree with your hoplite take on the class. Saying the spear can only be thrown once, is like applying logic and realism in a fantasy world with magic. I do agree she was intended to be a hybrid (why else use a shield). I see her more as a mid range brawler. Do some ranged hits to weaken the enemy then move into melee to finish. The sad part is how they did nothing with her shields. Maybe in a more modern version of the game (had it not come out in 2001) they could've made it work using stances as it would require two animations sets (one for range, one melee as you'd hold the spear differently for each).

 

 

I think you didn't get my point on spear throwing. There is no problem on skills where you throw your spear often, but there is a problem when the class default attack / skills throws spears at every half second and the spear just pop back out of nowhere on your hand. It doesnt make any kind of sense, nor the game give any actual dept on how and why this happens, it's just "magic".

The way the game presents this to players is just awful. Much of her animations clearly depicts Atalanta PHYSICALLY throwing spears AS IF she has lots of physical strenght and phyical spears at her disposal, like if spears are some kind of ammunition, not like she is casting some kind of magic nor wielding a magical spear.

Which makes me raise the question - if Atalanta spear is filled with Magic (that makes it teleport back), why Atalanta itself throws spears in a physical manner, by hand? You see, there is a clear design contradiction here. Casting magic out of Spears is awesome, but using magic to just explain a physically thrown spear to be magically back at your hand, isn't.

I play a different game and my main, favorite class tree is based on spears and the root class is Hoplite. It's primary trait is a super offensive melee class with some tanking capacity due to shields being always present, but as a Hoplite, there is a spear throwing skill and shield throwing skill, and when you throw it, you feel that it was actually physically thrown, you feel the heavy impact when the spear/shield lands on the target/ground, it depicts a lot of force/impact and, it has some cooldown, so, throwing the spear/shield feels great and unique, just like real Hoplites. Then, the final class, Dragoon, makes the spear tree become more focused on 2 hand spears (Atalantas should be allowed to use Scythes) and then working more as a mid-range class, with skills that extends the Spear Range at full screen range, can jump at full screen range, and, has the actual GaeBulg skill and my god, when you land, it does feel like a meteor crushing the Earth in the form of a Spear throw. All ranged mechanics feels physically possible and giving such a great visual feedback, it feels awesome.


 

Edited November 25, 2020 by DarkLink64

[BigFoot 375]

 

Shaman, is the best role design for me, suit in any case.

Hunting ok with pet, great nuker with aoe skill, speed buff and absorb buff. Pvp very good with debuff, stun and shock damage skill.

[DarkLink64 921]

7 hours ago, wanna said:

Knight: I'm not sure I can agree with your point about how they have been represented historically in games.

I think we can't talk about RPG games without talking about Square and Enix. On final fantasy / dragon quest games, Knights always were the class with highest HP, highest defense, high or highest physical damage, but then, lowest MP, didn't had any healing/support, weak or none area attacks, none magic defense and prone to crowd control or debuffs. The class main role was being in front line to protect Black Mages, White Mages and Archers/Assassins.

Most of games that came later kinda followed this trait, Ragnarok, being the direct competitor to PT, Knight has this very same trait - to this day Lord  Knights have the highest HP, can deny almost all physical attacks, is only outclassed by Assassin Cross on 1v1 physical damage. But as soon a Warlock or Alchemist gets near an LK, it was permanently frost/stunned untill death or had it's weapon and gears melted down by Acid Demonstration, making frontline LKs a sitting duck.

PT, like i've said, released Knight as one of the most fragile character of the cast, with low HP but high MP, useless defensive skills that worked only against undeads, and very far away from the top damage dealers. On that day, Pikemans were top damage dealers, had much higher HP, making him also the best tanker due to simply having Vague and Spear block. Knight was a joke/meme character, because Magicians, who is historically the most fragile class of all RPG games (be it board games or video games) was a much better tanker because of Energy Shield.

Reason I've mained Knight ever since 2007 is because, despite being a **** class to begin with, he reminds me to Link the most (Sword and Shield), his name is actually "Knight" (I always plays as Knights and/or Lancers in RPG games) and was a weak character to begin with. Playing with the strongest class kinda has no point, gives no challenge and you're just one among thousand others that plays the class because, well, it's the strongest.

I would definitely mained Pike if it wasn't so broken back then, to the point PT was meant to be PikeTale. Pikemans suits the role of a Lancer Knight, with Ninja-esque features mixed in.

Who doesn't like Ninjas?

Edited November 25, 2020 by DarkLink64

[wanna 14]

2 hours ago, DarkLink64 said:

think you didn't get my point on spear throwing. There is no problem on skills where you throw your spear often, but there is a problem when the class default attack / skills throws spears at every half second and the spear just pop back out of nowhere on your hand. It doesnt make any kind of sense, nor the game give any actual dept on how and why this happens, it's just "magic".

 

I do get it. In my opinion it's similar to archers having an unlimited amount of arrows, and no quiver. It's just more egregious because of how big the spear is. To the point where it can break your suspension of disbelief (it does for you).

Maybe a way to make it work would've been to have the class use shield+melee but have spears attached to the back with a charge system where you can only throw 3 spears in quick succession (the charges acting as if you'd pick it back up). But that also can't work with the tech in the game most likely. I do think a lot of things are held back because of how limited the game is.

 

I think I get your point that Knight's design got lost along the way and missed the mark. Where you get this poor hybrid with an overfocus on undead but at the same time it's not exactly working.

[DarkLink64 921]

I think there is a clear difference on how Archer vs Atalanta is perceived to the audience.

Archer doesn't have anything that links her to a strong physical concept. She doesn't display lots of physical strenght nor inertia building when pulling strings. To Be honest, I think there isn't a clear or detailed animation of pulling bow strings. The one Animation I can think of pulling strings is Bomb Shot, yet, Bomb shot is a unique skill altogheter that doesn't sell pure physical strenght.

Also, all her skill projectiles are very dinstinct, with varying degree of visual effects. This sells the idea that, Archer could be firing Magical/Energy projectiles, not just physical arrows. So, not having a visible quiver doesn't make a difference. Then, her animations displays more of Archer aiming before shooting.


Atalanta Instead sells pure physical force on her animations, since, there is a clear focus on displaying her body moving/weaving/gathering inertia to throw the spear with her own hands.

Edited November 25, 2020 by DarkLink64

[BigFoot 375]

4 hours ago, DarkLink64 said:

The way the game presents this to players is just awful. Much of her animations clearly depicts Atalanta PHYSICALLY throwing spears AS IF she has lots of physical strenght and phyical spears at her disposal, like if spears are some kind of ammunition, not like she is casting some kind of magic nor wielding a magical spear.

Atalanta has a very tiny string attached to the spear. She get the spear back too fast for the naked eyes so you guys didn't see that.

Trust me, i saw that string once ? she hide it, you have to look closer.

[DarkLink64 921]

34 minutes ago, BigFoot said:

Atalanta has a very tiny string attached to the spear. She get the spear back too fast for the naked eyes so you guys didn't see that.

Trust me, i saw that string once ? she hide it, you have to look closer.

Now EVERYTHING makes sense!

[DarkLink64 921]

On 11/25/2020 at 11:11 AM, wanna said:

But that also can't work with the tech in the game most likely. I do think a lot of things are held back because of how limited the game is.

I'm sure Wartale doesn't have any kind of tech limitation. I mean, some stuff on a graphical level is still impossible, but not because of the game itself, but because of DirectX 9. Once the game is updated to DX11/12 or (my dream, **** Microsoft and platform exclusivity) gets ported to OpenGL/Vulkan, then, technically, it can do whatever the shiz you see on modern games.


The real limitation on Wartale isn't the tech under the hood of the client, but, the team lack of manpower. It doesnt matter how good the devs are, there are some kind of work that simply demand many people to get it done.

Also, a non-technical limitation is the core focus of Wartale as a server. I believe the goal of the server is inovate but at same time, keep the classic aspect and feel of the game. That's why, to this very day, both the HUD and most of the GUI of Wartale is the very same from the ones used on Age of Renaissance client of PT.

Edited November 26, 2020 by DarkLink64