Devlog #8 - Ruining My Game

Hello Skill Points,

Quick update this week as a lot of my focus has been on improving the underlying basic attack system to make abilities and talents combo together more easily moving forward (which doesn't make for the most interesting devlog). Having said that, there are a few developments I'm sure you'll be interested in hearing about.

Finishing Up the Warrior

After a few weeks of iteration it's almost time to move to the balance phase for the Warrior. I've been very surprised with how powerful he's felt throughout this whole process. When I first imagined a melee class in Talented I thought the lower range would make them extremely hard to play but it turns out that having piercing built into your kit almost entirely makes up for it.

Here are a few new Talents I've added to the Warrior this week:

The old Block stat has been reworked into Parry. The Warrior will start with a 5% chance to Parry attacks that can be increased further with these talents, helping him survive in melee combat.

And with that Parry, certain talents will give you offensive bonuses.

A very powerful but very situational Talent, Stone Skin will slow down the damage received on higher mastery levels or from elite enemies.

Let's Talk About That Title

Perhaps the most controversial change I have planned for this update...

Damage Up is now a Rare Talent! 

Wait, wait, wait, hear me out! 

Trust me, I'm as surprised as you are. Littering a skill tree with damage is usually a win-win because more damage tends to feel good.

In Talented however, combat is usually made up of a large number of low health enemies, so damage mostly comes down to a series of 'Can I one-shot this enemy?' questions. While this can be fun once or twice, having to do this for every damage talent gets old fast.. and even worse, if a damage will not allow you to one-shot a new enemy you often have to try and avoid wasting points on damage which feels awful.

This is also another dimension for class diversity. The Wizard (and other classes in future) will not have access to the damage up talent. Further cementing their reliance on abilities or other strategies for dealing with enemies.

We we'll see how this change feels moving forward. Nothing is forever!