Zak asked, so I answered (Feedback on the Class System)

Wicked Feedback
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If you haven’t already, I suggest reading through this forum post [forum.norestforthewicked.com] to get an idea on the Class system and how it’ll work. One of the devs shared a ton of information in the Discord on four classes: Guardian, Assassin, Fencer, and Dragoon (I’ll link the images at the bottom of this post). They’re looking for feedback before they do any kind of PTR. Definitely look through all of them and give any feedback you have. Quote from the devs:

“We’ve been setting up hundreds of traits for the classes and we’re making final selections for everything. I’d love to know what you folks think about some of these.

This stuff is quite insane and it’s obviously gonna be a bit difficult to judge without having played it, but even internally we’re running polls that are just ‘hey, if you see this trait and read its description, how would you feel about it on a scale from 1-5?’

Again, you only have a limited amount of slots for traits and they’re kinda playstyle-defining.
They basically open up playing in certain ways or rewarding you for doing certain actions, etc.

Please keep in mind that this is still very much Work in progress and some of these are pretty overtuned atm just to show internally how these could pay off, etc.

The whole point of these traits is that they’d reward you for playing into the class fantasy.
So guardian is the sword & board class where you’re being rewarded for blocking, using shields, etc. Assassin therefore has traits that make you more efficient sneaking around, etc. etc.”

NOTE: Insight is just the currency you acquire traits with. You gain that from combat - So this just rewards you for killing off enemies in specific ways

Guardian: https://imgur.com/a/Ju0gaXm

Assassin: https://imgur.com/a/JGpJ3r7

Fencer: https://imgur.com/a/vb1Luso

Dragoon: https://imgur.com/a/KEhEv3z

GUARDIAN

First off: which weapons does the class play with, it seems that he is rather focused on shields, i don’t know what skills you might get from them, but i think it would be great to have that info too, so we can take it all into account.

And since we can only slot in 6 traits, there will be a lot of competition.
with how many trait slots does a player start?

because that is fundamental on how valuable a trait has to be at baseline.

Design traits so that they all have a similar baseline of Power, QoL, Mechanics Unlock

something like 5. Focused Strikes just doesnt fly, even without the downsides. all on their own. the skills definitely make thematic sense, BUT since you only can pick 6 in TOTAL, most of them just cant compete and fall flat on their face.

like 6. aegis insight (class exp i suspect). who would pick that when he can unlock probably 40 other skills that grant actual power and not xp on a special kill. leave that xp bonuses to the equipment enchantments.

so if we only have 6 slot, how good does 4. Projectile Ricochet need to be in order for us to actually pick it? would it be on parry or on block? I would actually turn it into “Blocking a projectile deflects it. (Deflected projectiles can only hit enemies)”

so that is now a choice of a “I don’t want to deal with projectiles, because i hate them so much i rather pick this QoL trait over the big power spike”

what you could do is have upgraded traits. meaning at tier 1 you can choose the original parry, and at tier 3 you can upgrate that parry into my version, which is the safer option. (and you have a more meaningful trait whil also reducing the bloat)

With 6 Traits Only, Filler and QoL traits cant compete with useful ones. Trim the fat. 2 good / combined traits per class and tier (Still leaves 192 from which you have to pick ONLY 6)

My suggestion right now is actually, give every tier only 2 traits, but actual good ones..

Combine 1. Aegis Charge and 2 Aegis Guard into one meaningful trait and do the same for 3. and 4. because even combined they will probably not be able to compete with higher tier ones.

and when you look at it through that lens, some traits, like 5. Focused Strikes, 6. Aegis Insight and 12. Steady Force are obvious filler that can be removed.

  1. and 10. can then probably also be combined, but 11. needs something. how about we combine it with the greathshield bonus of 13 and also remove 13 entirely?

the phrasing of 16. Guardian’s Oath is kinda weird, i would actually make it an aura, not a circle, but a trapeze (or third of a circle) that extends backwards from the PC’s shield. or i would place the same shield to the left an right, while blocking, with their own rectangle projecting backwards.

  1. is probably a build defining skill for a lot of players, which is probably intended :wink:

so if we now look at it, we created 8 really good skills, that build on top of each other either by going full party tank or full thorns explode

ONLY the aegis strike explode by itself already requires 3 trait slots (1. Aegis Charge + 2. Vengeful Guard (combined), 7. Aegis Counter, 15. Aegis Blast).

ONLY Party Tank requires 3 traits (3. + 4., 8., 11.+ 13. (partial), 16.)

so if you want to commit to only guardian you can, but it leaves you enough room with 6 trait slots to also use another archetype.

Consider using more Traits, like 8, maybe 9

and even then do 6 trait slots feel like too few, to have 3 synergetic archetypes or 2 with some QoL while still feeling committed i would probably go up to 8, maybe 9 traits, but i don’t know the other classes yet.^^

because 8 is just using the one class you have played from the beginning, 9 is telling hey you could at least try one more.

but even then you can have 3 weapons with 4 skills each and you want us to commit to only maybe not even half of them? hmm…

but yeah this at least is my first impression of classes and traits and the guardian specifically…

@thomasmahler let me be the Hiroshi Minagawa to your Yasumi Matsuno :wink:

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ASSASSIN

the assassin itself is hard to design, because it mainly is about finishing the battle before it starts, which defeats the game’s main purpose^^

but i agree the bleed ONLY feels weird. everything that gets the job done, while you can escape is fine. im also missing posion/sleep darts, smoke bombs, caltrops and traps in general.

so i would make it less about exiting and entering battle which probably becomes annoying, but giving the character more tools get the “positional” advantage you normally only get once, because that is his niche.

so it is also about mechanics that happen on pursuit. (we kinda have squeeze out as many mechanics as possible^^). like you could make the enemy stumble to fall prone while chasing so you can get another sneak attack in while also spreading out the enemies.

but yeah its hard to know how i would adjust the class when i don’t know the weapon skills because i feel like that goes hand in hand. and you guys already have most of those bases covered. but at least i know that what im currently recommending doesnt overlap with the other classes like Viper and Rogue.

but yeah sleep dart for one enemy only (3-5s sleeping while standing) then i would add a smoke bomb for either getting out of the fight or splitting the enemies (enemies in smoke cloud are confused for 3-5s) and then going for the archers or the enemies at the edge of the cloud.

you could also upgrade the trait so you can see inside smoke clouds.

I don’t want to sound tonedeaf about the class page (inlc traits) but it looks to me like the class itself is either a one hit wonder or a complete flop and i want to remedy mainly that.

i think the elephant in the room is also how expensive it is to implement that. probably new animations, enemy ai adjustments etc. its not just numerical values and a fancy animation it’s an entire new game inside of the game.

but yeah as it stands the assassin is kinda the same as the guardian, combine most skills and throw out the filler. the biggest problem is how he plays solo vs in a group. with my suggestions he probably trivializes group play..

2 recommendations apart from that would be:

  1. he needs a skill that can apply mark other than from a backstab.
  2. the assassin doesnt need on kill explosions. i know you like explosions, everybody does but maybe don’t put it everywhere.^^ maybe death sentence kills can be explosions and early on but only to spread mark.
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lol i found a minor point about some of the traits i mentioned before:
Would you pick a Guradian T3 conditional 20% buff that can also be a 20% debuff at the worst possible time or would you pick the Dragoon’s T1 (!!!) 4. Focused Trajectory? (defeating an enemy with an aimed action grants 300% damage to the next aimed Action)^^

but to continue:

FENCER
after looking at the fencer… i get HOW you want to create classes as building blocks that interweave with each other.

But i wouldn’t make him borrow aegis. i would make him require not using a shield. which i would phrase as “weapon parry window is wider” or “weapon parry deals weapon damage”.
you can still parry with two handed weapons or with whatever offhand you have. doesnt even mean that you are forced to parry with a shield when equipped, thought that is currently how the game works. it just means that a FENCER is trained in FENCING.

T1 is missing dodge, consider adding that: “Dodges and weapon parry does xyz”

so right now as i look at it, I’m considering classes as building blocks vs classes as identity.

and i dont see the the fencer with aegis strike. it feels tacked on or a forced synergy that doesnt really respect its class identity. i supposed classes like crusader, sentinel or templar make more sense, regarding that.

so instead of forcing a synergy with guardian, which is slow and bulky i would seek more synergies with dragoon and assassin (contortionist, cutthroat, blademaster, lancer, rogue, maybe even archer, trickster and viper).
they are both also about “piercing the heart” i’d say, the dragoon more in an obliterating fashion, but fencer and assassin are more about pinpoint accuracy while the fencer tries to create his opportuinties through parries and the assassin does it by positioning.

and I hope that knight, templar, crusader or any other class have enough general parry traits to have good enough synergies for fencer and guardian, so i wouldn’t force the fencer/guardian synergy too much and focus more where class identities have overlaps.

interstingly enough, this time i actually see via thread the needle, with the right synergies can actually make it into an end game build, joined with Dragoon’s perfect aim for example. which is a great design, so kudos. :wink:

ofc im now interested in seeing more now, if you can share more weapon skills or more class profiles that would be great^^

it would also be interesting if moon has a map of overlaps/synergies of those classes. so they could put the class identity with its synergies first and maybe find gaps or too many overlaps that could reduce two classes into one or chnage their name/building blocks to spread out the concentration.

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i was thinking something like that, very simplified and melee only chart.
where not only agility could be the synergy, but the weapon focus, as well as pierce,
obviously this is just an guesstimate and only exists to help visualize the synergetic potential

y axis could be aoe vs single target as well. but i have to forbid myself from going on. i’ve already spent at least 4 hours today and i know how well that pays, enough free systems designer work for now :wink: