Twilight Forums

It has become apparent with recent content that at higher levels that certain classes begin to shine while other appear to lag behind. This thread is for all discussion of these problems and possible solutions.

Please don't post complicated game mechanics and such, save those for the creative ideas thread.

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As I asked for the thread, I'll go ahead and start. Here's a few things I know:

1) Gadgeteers and Naturalists are missing a guaranteed to hit skill. Naturalists get a boost from their attacks, but it's not really enough, and it's very expensive in terms of PP to keep trying.

2) Naturalists can't heal, which gets tough at this high level, or expensive.

3) There's one foe that's nearly completely resistant to psychic damage, and psions are basically stuck without a workaround when they hit that foe. Can combat items cut it in those cases? I had hoped so, but if that's not the case we may need a workaround.

Well, Gadgeteers do have electric net and shock grenade, which I assume are guaranteed hits. They should almost be discounted for this discussion, though, because of the very low damage they do.
All I can think of to suggest for Gadgeteer skills is to have deleveling effects scale if they don't already.
I didn't have much trouble wth Naturalist when I was one, but I also didn't go very high in levels.

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Well, I've got a hat!

The Gadgeteer Delevel skills are effectively useless past like, level 15 or 20. I'd like one pure, scaling damage skill, but I also don't expect to get it, since it doesn't really fit with the class's theme.

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[url=http://pfe.blandsauce.com]
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Psions - As they are using the power of their minds give them a skill that manifests itself as a physical blow against their enemies. Maybe it could be a buff that turns their mental powers into physical manifestations while it is active.

Gonna chip in...

Just some random points, in no order

I agree that naturalists are probably the weakest class. Maybe naturalists could have some sort of passive skill (animal affinity?) that increases the power of their buffs.

Also, I support the scaling idea for naturalist buffs.

Maybe add a skill for naturalists that ups their hit chance.

And a passive skill for gadgeteers that ups their hit chance.

Psions are the most powerful class. They have +xp, extra time, +defense, and they do more damage consistently then any other class. Satan is hitting for 250 at level 53. When I was at level 50, I was hitting for 170ish, and now at 64 I'm hitting for 190ish. The only thing they don't have is a healing skill.

I'm sure I'll think of more things.

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The Lobster Bot is fire resistant, which neuters the Elemental's most powerful attack. And, really, not much sympathy on my end, probably because Gadgeteers are totally screwed there.

Really, the problem isn't just that Psions are the most powerful combat class, it's that between Meditation and Keen Observation, they will eventually fill every slot on every leaderboard except ASX and SUIT. Just look at the XP board. I think 6 or 7 of the players there are Psions. Even with my twinked stats and massive head start, I'll eventually be bumped off completely.


Elementals would be the most powerful (Firestorm + Lifeblood), but they don't have Keen/Meditation, so they'll slip behind Psions. I'd actually say they're reasonably balanced on their own.


Naturalists need some help, yeah. Their Animal Affinity skill is currently useless: less XP, no drops, no chips. I would actually support jacking up the XP for befriending animals. Perhaps 1.5x the normal XP. That way the player could chose between drops or more XP. Some form of healing is probably needed. Or, a weapon that gives, say 4% HP and 4% PP regen. At high enough levels, Trample of the Rhino might eventually pay for itself, especially when you add a Scottish Necklace or Waxing Nostalgic.


Gadgeteers. Poor, poor Gadgeteers. We need serious help at the upper end. Frankly, I don't think the two martial arts skills help much, our improved computer skills just add a step to everyone else, first aid is weak, and our delevels don't work well enough. Martial arts strike me as more to help lower level characters, and they're fine for that. Frankly, Stun Gas makes early levels cake. But, late levels...

First Aid needs to scale. I have over 900 HP. If I'm amazingly lucky and get 20HP each cast, I'm still looking at spending 270PP just to heal. After a certain point, it should scale to level. Perhaps, at level 30, it simply heals 1HP/level. Or 2/level. Or something like that. At 2/level, it would still take me between 8 and 9 castings to fully heal, at 6PP/heal.

Our delevels work for what they are, but once you get to serious monsters, they aren't enough. I'll frequently use 4 shock grenades for greater pit monsters. And since it's not a "combat spell", my Eye doesn't increase damage, and nothing will decrease costs. So, that's 53PP? And, sadly, about that much damage, too.

As you know, Ryme, I've been playing for quite some time and it wasn't until the space station that I ever found a use for electric net. And the only reason I used it is because there's a sonic-resist monster up there. Otherwise? Useless. The net should be replaced with something else, perhaps a passive that increases computer triggering. Or something that will give us a unique edge.

Shock Grenade should scale its damage. At level 68, anything I need to delevel isn't going to be rattled by 13 damage. Hell, double its delevel and remove the damage; that would work too. Or, even better, make it stun for a few rounds.

Finally, a scaling attack is really needed. Personally, I think it would be perfectly fitting for Gadgeteers to have access (at high levels, of course) to an orbiting military satellite. I mean, how awesome would calling down an orbital strike be?

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The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

They do have Knit Bone, which is less efficient than First Aid...

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Sorry to double. Bad mod. Go back to hole!

Anyways...I was just thinking about the Gadgeteer...

Perhaps you could remove certain skills and effectively lower the level on some of the higher end stuff? Like Improved Tinkering and possibly Battle Armor, but eh. I think you could replace Basic Martial Arts with Advanced, assuming that the character knows basic martial arts beforehand.

>.>

<.<

And perhaps Supercomputer could become a sidequest skill for Gadgeteers?

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I think naturalists just need a lunging thrust-smack-esque move that's guaranteed to hit or at least gives a boost to to-hit. I know you don't want TH to be a KoL clone, but there's a reason that skill exists. Because it's necessary for balance. Now I'm sure there are other solutions, but if you can't come up with one, that seems like the best route.

Now, for gadgeteers, why not give them a skill that lowers the enemies dodge chance (if they don't already have one, I've never played a gadgeteer to be honest)?

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Almost all their skills do this, I believe, unfortunately, that requires a ton of pp to lower their level, assuming it's even possible you can do this enough to make it so they're hittable without criticals and won't hit you. Then you've got to beat on them with your weapon, which rarely is enough due to damage scaling to the difference in stats, which is marginal with scalers, all the while getting hit by monster criticals, which are completely uneffected by the deleveling effect of gadgeteer skills.
edit: also, holy crap, post #400. I'm such a spammer.

And what Hamish just said is the fundamental problem. Gadgeteers are plinkers.

I still point back to my battle item idea...the one about Jeff from Earthbound.

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Idea:

A new buff, or even self-buff, that gives a +% to dodging ability (like the smarty pants). Make it scale (slightly) with level. Or, even better, blend that in with Battle Armor.

I could manage robots if their chance of hitting was roughly my own. The problem is when they dish out damage every single round while I hit every 10 or 15 rounds.

In fact, if this dodging ability was made powerful enough, it could potentially make up for not having a scaling attack. Call it wired reflexes, make it level 15, and make it a % per level of dodging an attack (crits would still hit, of course). Hell, make it stupidly expensive even, but it would be worth it.

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The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

To Ryme,

About the Psychic Resist Mob,

From a Psion: It'd be nice if enerbuns stopped attacks like EMP, but as it stands, enerbuns combined with Telekinesis seems to work ok.

Now for the rest....

Elementalists as it stands now are just a step behind Psions, the healing ability is great, and it makes up for the time Psions get. However, the Psions have a VERY wide range of buffs(Dodge, Chips, XP, Damage, Spell Cost) while Elementalists are stuck with a few defensive buffs, cheap as they may be.

Rather than give Naturalists and Gadgeteers an auto-hit skill, we should aim for some variety between classes.

Naturalists could get a much more powerful scaling attack. It should be a hit or miss attack like now, but the damage should make up for it.

Gadgeteers though, that one is tougher to work out. I've got ideas(crafting your own combat items for a specific area, for example), but they're best saved for the ideas thread.


If we want to return balance to the classes, I'm going to use the Elementalist as a base; take Meditation from Psions and they'll be on par with Elementalists. Give a good scaling attack to Naturalists, and they'll be on par with Elementalists.

Gadgeteer balance could take up an entire thread though.

I think finding a way for the gadgeteer to better delevel would make sense for their class, but I've got to be careful that it doesn't turn into the early shock grenade (I think that was the skill?) where you could just spam the delevel button until it's a piece of cake.

What about a PP-intensive, use-once-per-combat skill that made it tremendously more likely you would hit? (You've trapped the opponent in a snare, or something, so they can't dodge.) With maybe at least a little damage reduction for them, too. It encourages plinking, which I realize frustrates some people, but I think it fits the class.

It doesn't have to be too PP intensive if it's only allowed one use per combat, but it'd have to make sense, after all you can use more than one electric net.

I found something that may work.

I like the idea I should say.

Stun Gas used to work like that. Of course, you still couldn't hit...

Something like could work. 86 electric net, shove shock grenade into that slot, and give shock grenade's slot to the new skill.

Basically, I don't mind plinking. What I mind is that 90% of the damage I deal comes from Aegis + Fire Shield + Spines + Water Buffalo. When I can go through five straight combats (with a BLT) without hitting once, it's a little frustration.

I picture my poor hero standing there, looking bored, shooting wildly all over the place while a Rho Master bashes into her shields and body spines. "Um... do I even need to be here?"

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The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

This also confuses/concerns me, because I thought I had the foes dialed in so that they'd both hit and dodge roughly 50% of the time. Depends on which zone you're talking about, though.

Quadrant Delta Delta Delta Force.

I know I'm highly atypical in that zone, though. Still, the only time I hit is on a critical, and the only time they miss is on a fumble. Luckily, I've twinked out my damage reduction...

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The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

I've been thinking about this some, and while I don't have enough knowledge of the mechanics to offer educated suggestions for fixes, here's my thoughts.

1) It's counterintuitive, not to mention dissappointing, to get less powerful against scaling enemies as you level (all other things being equal).

1.1) It's really counterintuitive to discover that the optimal strategy against scaling enemies is to keep your Level and your Stats as low as possible so that your non-scaled bonuses remain more powerful.

As a Gadgeteer (with, currently, the Abaddon's Charm equipped), every time I level the fights against scaling enemies get incrementally harder. Firstly, because my skills become less and less relevant, secondly, because the +10 Fire Damage from the Charm becomes less and less important.

To an extent, this happens to all classes and all Talismans because every stat point you gain makes your enemies equivalently that more powerful; but your own abilities really don't scale to match.

So, as I see it, there's a few possible solutions:

1) There needs to be a way for players to learn how scaling enemies scale so that they can reasonably adapt their strategies to fight them. Perhaps some sort of combat data recorder software they could run...

1.1) The important key here is to know what *doesn't* scale and why. (a.k.a., why is the Corrupt Amulet so bad)

2) Class abilities need to scale. I'm not sure how much or how fast, but they need to remain a valid strategy.

I haven't used any of my combat skills since L10 or so because they're not an efficient use of time/pp. Scaling fights should make me think about whether to use a combat skill, or to save the PP for after the fight for healing. Right now it's no contest.

3) Within a scaling zone, it's good for particular creatures to be easier/harder for certain classes, but it's not good when certain classes are head-and-shoulders above the rest against all enemies in the zone.

(I haven't spent enough time in high-level zones with multiple classes to offer any evidence on this point, it's just a general philosophical statement)

This is typically a task for the game community. I.E. someone should write a guide on the wiki or something. I found out today that balancing my stats as a naturalist made a huge difference against the robots. I'm only level 51 though, so I don't know if this theory holds for all levels, and it's probably not a universal truth for all classes.

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Pupper er poesi!

Having only one way to level from 25+ and not being able to heal is really hugely sucky.

I'm not sure I understand either half of this comment. How many ways to level would one want? Can you provide an example of another way to level? And what's preventing you from healing?

I think he means that there's only one place worth fighting to level. Of course, that's not really true any more. Sky, Delta, Gamma, Pit...

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The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

If "way to level" means "place to adventure" I guess that would have been true, a while back. But the sky's been around for at least a month, maybe more, and with the space station additions, the options just doubled, so it seems like a strange time to lodge a complaint about an issue that I feel like I just addressed. Which is why I'm a bit confused.

Sorry I may have been slightly out of it and pretty ill when posting, I have no idea what this was actually supposed to be relating to >.>

Probably that the places that are "worth" levelling (pit, delta/gamma) hurt, lots and it does as noted cost a lot to heal, there is always the sky but ... well the sky isn't really a limit, it's kinda empty and ... boring.

A mid-way place where things level but aren't overwhemlingly hurty would be nifty.

Just to let everyone know, the sky is being saved for future content. It's most CERTAINLY not complete.

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That's groovy.

The other thing I recalled, the places you can do leveling things (pit/gamma/delta/sky) don't drop chips so that expensive healing is super expensive if you are playing a class that can't heal itself.

Thanks for the clarification, that makes a lot more sense to me than the original comment. I do understand this desire. A couple of the locations in question are actually a bit, shall we say, "adjustable"? I'm going to leave it to the reader to figure out how, but it's possible to affect how tough the foes are.

When you're high level, the line between "completely inconsequential" and "downright painful" is very, very thin, and wildly different depending on your class, your stats, the items in your possession, etc., so it's VERY difficult to design the mid-way zone that's good for anyone, let alone lots of people. But I'll keep working on it.

You'd probably come a long way just by asking for advice on what kind of equipment to wear and which buffs to use. I spent levels 30 to 50 in the pit without restoring after someone gave me some equipment pointers in chat. I'm assuming you're the same class as me since you say you don't have any healing skills, and I heal only about every 20-30 adventures adventuring at Delta-Delta-Delta force. My donation item isn't even what's giving me the edge there.

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Pupper er poesi!

Just wanna repost this from PFE forums, if this is useful to anyone. :


Pit
XP: Based on level
Toughness: Based on level

Delta
XP: Based on Buffed stats
Toughness: Based on Buffed stats?

Sector 7
XP: Based on number of encounters, increases by 3-6 XP/encounter
Toughness: Based on number of encounters and level?

Row v. Wade
XP: ?
Toughness: ?

Sky
XP: Base Stats
Toughness: Base Stats

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I think part of the problem is a lack of variety in OpponentLevel. Right now, character level ranges from 1-50; but the only options for OpponentLevel are [1-12] or [Scaling]. There needs to be places where you can choose to fight enemies of known levels from [13-50].

One option is that it's not necessary that all mid-to-high level zones are scaling; or possibly scale by a step function instead of linear scaling.

Example 1: What if, for example, the Sanitarium were revamped so that it was a Level 30, non-scaling zone?

Example 2: Posit a new piece of equipment, the Dimensional Frequency Resonance Tuner(accessory). If you wear this accessory while adventuring Through the Dimensional Gate, the enemies scale, but the level they scale to is rounded to the nearest 10. (i.e., adventure there at L25 and the enemies are L20; adventure there at L26 and they're L30)

Or possibly even have the dimensional tuner be adjustable, and allow the player to choose the level of their enemies (something like the KoL mind-control device)

This right here is, to a certain extent, possible with some of the current scaling zones and available equipment/skills. Not quite as described, but things are more adjustable than I think most people realize.

Seems like a good idea to me, Ryme.

I think it sounds like it'll be fun (if not challenging).

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I've won the 100k DD bet so many times, I should have the title "Mr. Luck"

For Naturalists:
Could fix their lack of healing by making Starfish Regeneration scale, so at higher levels it's more significant than +2 HP/level.
For something more special...maybe a 'Hunting' skill(needs a better name) that gives them a +item boost, but ONLY for animal-type foes. Basically, when faced with animal foes, Naturalists could tame them for extra exp and no items, or kill them for standard exp and a somewhat increased chance of items.

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Accounts: Kurg is my main, then there's Zap/Zorzos/Kalios who are (mostly)unused multis.

Whoa--that's a thread from the past.

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I've won the 100k DD bet so many times, I should have the title "Mr. Luck"

Oops I hadn't really noticed how old this thread was, sorry. Will try and be more careful in the future.

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Accounts: Kurg is my main, then there's Zap/Zorzos/Kalios who are (mostly)unused multis.

I'm just kidding with you, man.

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I've won the 100k DD bet so many times, I should have the title "Mr. Luck"

It's perfectly appropriate to pick up a topical thread if you have insight.

I'd argue it's far less appropriate to flip out and make fun of it with massive image spam.

Of the two, there's only one I really want a lot of on this forum.... (hint?)

Yes, sir.

T'was just a joke.

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I've won the 100k DD bet so many times, I should have the title "Mr. Luck"