I'm playing this game, and it's so odd.>you can be an assassin who needs a full melee combo to do 1 spell's worth of damage>your mechanic is poison, which does no damage (reduces enemy armor at least)>half your tree is dedicated to poison damage (it's 0)>the other half is dedicated to combo points, which you earn by spamming your middling auto attack>so you can use your "ultimate" realistically, since it takes a year to charge (it charges by spending combo points)>you also have some middling skills that scale with a stat that's not your main stat, so they're shit>have a node that makes a poison pool that does no damageOR>you can be a warrior>that does kind of mid but better than rogue damage with one handed weapons (can't block or parry magic btw)>or who absolutely mogs and stunlocks the game with 2-handers>you also have passive healing from making enemies bleedOR>you can be a caster and have a bunch of different spells that explode enemies>bunch of talent synergies like being a lightning mage who gets mana back from attacking, who primes enemies with nature spells then blows them up>but then you have half your skill tree based on the Root status, which bosses are immune to>a fire mage who gets empowered from enemies burning near you + who does naturally high damage>have gish stats to also be a meleechad>a chaos mage built around spending all your mana to do more damage, and refilling it by attacking enemies to make them drop mana shards>btw the caster ultimate charges really fast and does damage in a big AOEIt's like there's multiple people designing different systems, I find that this happens in indie titles a lot. Especially with "this ability is useless wtf" types like poison, the poison pool and the root thing I mentioned, it's like the skills are made before making the combat system.Anyways I'm just ranting, talk about Mandragora if you've played it. Respec'd my rogue into a chaos mage.
>>738490691I think it's worse when the game does the fractional modifier bullshit>+2% chance to deal 1.2x more damage at night
>>738490691i want to play as a rogue it sounds kino / hard mode
bro typed a whole ass essay to say he's shit at indie games lmao
>>738490992Don't get me wrong, I've had no trouble with rogue so far, but now that I unlocked respeccing I've just realized that... my damage is kind of ass?
>>738490691But is the game fun?
>>738490870>I think it's worse when the game does the fractional modifier bullshitRogue has something like this actuallyIt's 9% chance on attacking to have a ghost blade hit the enemy with you (it scales with Power but you're a Dex user. ???)It's this weird baffling shit that confuses me.>>738491093Yeah it's a pretty fun metroidvania, I'm liking it.
Like, look at it. Bosses have 5K hpHow does stuff like this get made? It's so strange.
>why is this game designed by a handful of semi amateurs without a professional QA system or other serious dev practices unbalanced?
>>738490691I'm with you. I played the entire game two-handed and the fact that the game openly told me to piss rocks when it came to casting spells, blocking, or really doing anything other than clocking idiots with a stick undermined the giant skill tree and fiddly inventory system.
>>738491093It'd be a great 15 hour game but they added in a whole bunch of piddly sidequests, crafting, and loot systems that damn near double the length. Instead of getting a new sword from a chest you'll get a blueprint for a sword, and you can take it to the smith and he'll get some XP, but he needs to be level 12 to make it and you need some enemy drop that the bestiary (only available from an NPC at the hub) will only tell you about when you've killed enough of them that you probably have the amount of shit you need anyways.
>>738490691So there is a category of games called "indie". You think they have worse balance issues than other games. And as evidence you offer this one particular game. And you are asking us why that balance issue exists in indies specifically? But you are also just ranting (aka whining loudly to strangers online because of something that happened in your electronic toy) and the question is just a thinly guarded way to mask your brat behavior.Did I get that right?
>>738490691I've seen plenty of early access indie games that start out well balanced but get fucked when the dev/devs start listening to vocal minorities in their communities and making changes to appease these faggots (and often they are never satisfied).
>>738490691Balance is for fags.
>>738490691bump
>>738490691I'm gonna agree here targeting Indie here isn't really the issuehonestly you could say virtually all single player RPGS or singleplayer games in general have some sort of serious balance issue, where at least some options are just "worst shit ever you're never going to fucking pick" and others are way better.I think the most recent example was playing Pragmata, one of your equipment slots are "defense items" This slot can hold great things like a hologram with infinite HP that pulls full enemy aggro for a set duration, or a shield barrier you can throw down and be invincible when you stand in... or if you are a fucking moron you can equip these "defense drones" that float around and spam the most pitiful amount of damage... keep in mind you have to actively engage enemies with hacking in this game to do any real damage so these can't ACTUALLY defend you from enemies you aren't focused on and even then they could probably barely do half the HP on a basic enemy if all the shots hit before they ran out.This case was so egregious it really left me with the burning question:>who the fuck gets paid to come with the designs for the worst useless worthless gear ever? Who actually takes pride in this shit and is excited to put it in the game?and this is an AAA game we are talking about.
>>738496689The drones in Pragmata can be useful. Not for the damage, they distract the enemies and when facing a single boss they can be more effective than the hologram (and last longer too).
>>738496140Ok now that the thread won't be dead I can reply. I finished Mandragora rather recently as you can see from the pic.I started as a Tree mage because it looked different and at the end as a tree mage(mainly) multiclassed with almost all classes beside warriorI didn't like how they made basic stuff a nuisance to useYour basic attack with a weapon is a skill that occupies one of your 6 available skill slots :^)Your heavy attack is a skillYour shield parry is a skillSo realistically most people can only have 5 skills as the basic attack is mandatory for combatAs for your point regarding balance, it happens. That's all there is to say. Balancing shit that can interact with other shit is not easyFun game though, the story is a bit cringey but I don't mind
Playing it now too as a two hander melee.Honestly it doesn't feel as good as you say, virtually every fight is just attack once, dodge and then attack and repeat.And the damage on bleed is just painfully shit most of the time, even when you get the crit ability for it.My major issue though is just how underwhelming and confused the skill tree is.The game probably should have had a completely open tree where you choose elements for certain skills based on your build.Story sucks too, really getting tired of the whole "evil thing actually good" stories because they play out the exact same way every time, if the tag along bitch isn't evil and double crosses us I'll be sorely dissapointed.
>>738497267>The game probably should have had a completely open tree where you choose elements for certain skills based on your build.Bleed lowers enemy physical resistance so it makes you do more damage plus it heals you passively with one of the nodes, two-handing lets you do a lot of damage per button press is why it's so good.
>>738491093As a metroidvania? The movement is very basic and you only get a double jump and glide plus a grappling hook, and none of them feel great.The exploration isn't great but also isn't complete shit, still you can easily stop paying attention because the environment and how you navigate it isn't particularly fun.As a soulslike it's fine I guess, too long to say it's worth your time though
>>738491971I really don't get that shit, I mean one of the more popular two hander archetypes IS a caster type.
>>738497639Fuck if I know. I'm playing Tainted Grail now and while it doesn't let me cast spells while holding a two-handed weapon, it is very open to me summoning a bunch of dipshits then wading with a claymore into a fight I just turned into a 6v1.
>>738497267In the midgame there's an ability for greatswords that lets you spend adrenaline for a quick stab and then dump all your adrenaline for a followup swipe that does absurd damage. That was some of the most fun I had with the game.
>>738496689I'd argue ballance can be bad as long as it's still fun, staring at this games skill tree is just a constant experience of going "oh that sounds nice,wait no it's useless".Even multiclassing feels off because of how limited the point economy is.
>>738497717>>738497639They obviously did this to limit how strong the player can get, you either commit to swordfighting or spellcasting>>738497813Most powerful skills are in the middle of the tree
>>738497374True and that has been the core of my build, it's just that feels really basic compared to what a more open system would allow.I feel like I invested tons of points for what is essentially a starter build in any basic arpg
>>738497797Yeah stab and execute or something like that, does a ridiculous amount of damage and I swear attacks that follow the stab up crit more often.
Is there some way to increase the view size? the game feels very claustrophobic compared to most others of its kind.
>>738497813In this particular game I played twohander in one slot and greatshield in the otherI did pull a couple other things off other trees but I uninstalled the game a long time ago so I can't really say what I had done.It has a lot of polish to it but it is definitely an inferior product. I honestly think the problems start a lot sooner than trying out different options and finding out the options are unbalanced....my point was really just, why do so many games have shit that both isn't fun and also sucks? It makes sense if it's one or the other but why just absolute trash that no one will ever like or use? I can at least see the combo thing being fun even if it's suboptimal, or maybe better in a game with tighter controls.
>>738490691Game feels weirdly similar to no rest for the wicked.
never heard of it
>>738498450Think it might be a sunk cost thing, they only have so much time to work things out and making an rpg system always involves the ball ache of figuring out how to distinguish and ballance class types.
>>738490691balancing isn't easy. takes a lot of number crunching and repeated playtesting. honestly probably one of the hardest parts of game dev, even experienced devs rarely get balancing right
>>738498571Right? I found out about it a year after it's been out
