CastIronFabric Posted August 19, 2025 Report Posted August 19, 2025 2 minutes ago, Krougal said: Blank slate survival world. It's just you and what you build. It has its appeal for some I guess. how that would conflict or support any class system idea I have zero idea.
LadyWYT Posted August 19, 2025 Report Posted August 19, 2025 12 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said: I do not even understand that setting. For some reason because one does not want to engage in a story that means they do not want traders or any ruins to loot? I do not get that. 10 minutes ago, Krougal said: Blank slate survival world. It's just you and what you build. It has its appeal for some I guess. I would also assume it's just as it says on the tin--stronger focus on realistic survival. If a pure real world survival experience is what one is looking for, Homo Sapiens mode is the closest it comes without mods.
Toroic Posted August 19, 2025 Report Posted August 19, 2025 I like class systems in terms of encouraging cooperation and coordination, but VS's take on them has a lot of flaws. For starters, some classes are just straight up better than others. Hunter is strong early, late, and vs bosses. Blackguard is weak early, vs bosses, and while they get significant bonuses to heavy armor and melee, I'd argue that performance is worse than hunter or commoner using chain and bows. Their unique gear is nice for iron age, but becomes obsolete later. Tailor used to have the unique niche of making the best clothing, and a strong early-midgame option in tailored gambeson, but recent updates gave alternatives to similarly warm clothing. Tailor and Malefactor both have some bonuses in accumulating rusty gears, which is an interesting playstyle but takes a while to pay off and I'd argue doesn't offset their downsides. Clockmaker is weird. Saving a temporal gear here and there is low impact, and tamed locusts are mostly a gimmick. Combat Overhaul makes a number of changes that help put classes are much more even footing, but in vanilla it's hard not to argue for either commoner or hunter, especially if you turn class recipes off. It also makes melee combat and shields much more useful. In general, I don't think gear that doesn't matter lategame is a good perk for a class. Vanilla ranged combat is much stronger than melee combat at all phases of the game, but especially early on. Xskills provides a cool amount of customization, but also has certain skills as vastly more useful and powerful. The lore value-add from the existing classes feels pretty minimal, and many of them don't play differently despite vastly different perks and penalties. Summary: Commoner: Good spot Hunter: Good spot, and a good example of a class supporting a playstyle for the entire length of a world. Malefactor: Needs an overhaul, perks are overwhelmingly early game focused. Stealth and looting focused gameplay could be a cool niche, but is not supported by perks or gear. Blackguard: Could be in a good spot if plate armor and melee combat weren't both less effective and more resource intensive. The issue isn't with the class but with vanilla combat in VS. Tailor: Needs an overhaul, weak early and then slides into irrelevancy. Clockmaker: Needs an overhaul. Enormous thematic potential to make all sorts of cool automation parts, saving 1 of 3 temporal gears on a translocator is trivial, taming locusts is trivial. This class is perhaps the most disappointing because of how cool it could be, vs how mediocre it is in practice.
LadyWYT Posted August 19, 2025 Report Posted August 19, 2025 26 minutes ago, Toroic said: Hunter is strong early, late, and vs bosses. Blackguard is weak early, vs bosses, and while they get significant bonuses to heavy armor and melee, I'd argue that performance is worse than hunter or commoner using chain and bows. Their unique gear is nice for iron age, but becomes obsolete later. Have to hard disagree here. Hunter is strong in the early game, but will struggle underground and against the first boss, since the first boss is a better fight for melee than ranged due to the location and the attack patterns. Hunter is the strongest pick against the second boss though, and overall Hunter is at its strongest above ground in the wide open spaces, where there is room to maneuver and little place for targets to hide. Blackguard will struggle in the early game, but the extra health can allow you to survive things that might kill other classes. Blackguards are also going to be the strongest pick for the underground, as the health, melee, and mining speed boosts make it much easier to deal with a variety of situations you'll find. Likewise, Blackguard is perhaps the strongest pick for the first boss fight due to the health and melee boost, but ends up being the weakest pick for the second boss fight due to those circumstances favoring ranged over melee. It's also not wise to discount the Blackguard's bonus to moving around in armor--more mobility is a very good thing, and it helps make heavier armors a more viable pick should one choose a heavier armor option. 34 minutes ago, Toroic said: Malefactor: Needs an overhaul, perks are overwhelmingly early game focused. Stealth and looting focused gameplay could be a cool niche, but is not supported by perks or gear. Honestly I think Malefactor is fine. They're the strongest class in the early game, perhaps, but the tradeoff is that they fall off quite hard when it comes to the late game. The foraging boost makes it rather easy for them to acquire gambeson, which is quite strong in terms of armor, quite early in the game. The looting bonus means they'll have plenty of extra rusty gears to purchase various goodies from traders as well. The stealth bonus means they'll have an easier time exploring and foraging without getting jumped by the local wildlife. The main weakness of Malefactor is they're really going to struggle in combat due to the ranged penalty(can't shoot as far), health penalty, and melee penalty. 39 minutes ago, Toroic said: Blackguard: Could be in a good spot if plate armor and melee combat weren't both less effective and more resource intensive. The issue isn't with the class but with vanilla combat in VS. And like I was trying to say before, this hinges on one's preferred playstyle, and the situation in question. Some circumstances Blackguards will struggle, and others they will absolutely dominate. Their strengths scale well into the late game, while their weaknesses become almost a non-issue once you've set up your base and secured your food supply chain. 42 minutes ago, Toroic said: Tailor: Needs an overhaul, weak early and then slides into irrelevancy. Not really. It's meant to be somewhat of a challenge class compared to the others. One could say that tailors are tailor-made for the nuances and finery of civilized life in cities, not roughing it in the wilds. And there's really not much of civilization left anymore, so the odds are stacked against. Ironically, they happen to be one of the stronger picks when it comes to combat, since the only downside they have is a penalty to health. 45 minutes ago, Toroic said: Clockmaker: Needs an overhaul. Enormous thematic potential to make all sorts of cool automation parts, saving 1 of 3 temporal gears on a translocator is trivial, taming locusts is trivial. This class is perhaps the most disappointing because of how cool it could be, vs how mediocre it is in practice. This one I definitely agree on. Clockmaker has some very cool themes going for it, but is currently underwhelming on the execution. I'd wager that once we see more added to late game tech options, Clockmaker will probably get some love as well and be a more exciting pick as a result.
Toroic Posted August 19, 2025 Report Posted August 19, 2025 24 minutes ago, LadyWYT said: Have to hard disagree here. Hunter is strong in the early game, but will struggle underground and against the first boss, since the first boss is a better fight for melee than ranged due to the location and the attack patterns. Hunter is the strongest pick against the second boss though, and overall Hunter is at its strongest above ground in the wide open spaces, where there is room to maneuver and little place for targets to hide. I don't think Hunter struggles underground at all, because their ranged damage bonuses apply to thrown spears as well as arrows. A couple spears make for a high damage pseudo melee option with melee as a fallback in the rare situation a bow isn't great. First boss is also quite easy to take down with ranged attacks too, with people commonly using thrown spears against that boss (which also allows use of a shield). As far as underground, if you're mining you can use light to prevent spawns, and drifter loot is pretty not worth it if you're hunting them specifically. Also, hunter gets a 10% movespeed boost which is great early and also offsets the slowdown from chain armor entirely, making them faster than Blackguard in chain which is cheaper and overall more effective than plate. 24 minutes ago, LadyWYT said: Blackguard will struggle in the early game, but the extra health can allow you to survive things that might kill other classes. Blackguards are also going to be the strongest pick for the underground, as the health, melee, and mining speed boosts make it much easier to deal with a variety of situations you'll find. Likewise, Blackguard is perhaps the strongest pick for the first boss fight due to the health and melee boost, but ends up being the weakest pick for the second boss fight due to those circumstances favoring ranged over melee. It's also not wise to discount the Blackguard's bonus to moving around in armor--more mobility is a very good thing, and it helps make heavier armors a more viable pick should one choose a heavier armor option. The extra health is definitely nice and probably the best part of the blackguard kit in vanilla. I really like blackguard thematically, but it is in practice a challenge class if you actually use the heavier armors (because plate armor is a noob trap due to the slowdown and blocking healing). The first boss is fairly easy to beat in general, so having an advantage against it but weak early and weak against the second boss is a poor tradeoff. Blackguard makes bad armor types less bad, but plate on a blackguard is worse than chain on a blackguard because chain is just that much better. And hunter is faster in chain than a blackguard is. 43 minutes ago, LadyWYT said: Honestly I think Malefactor is fine. They're the strongest class in the early game, perhaps, but the tradeoff is that they fall off quite hard when it comes to the late game. The foraging boost makes it rather easy for them to acquire gambeson, which is quite strong in terms of armor, quite early in the game. The looting bonus means they'll have plenty of extra rusty gears to purchase various goodies from traders as well. The stealth bonus means they'll have an easier time exploring and foraging without getting jumped by the local wildlife. The main weakness of Malefactor is they're really going to struggle in combat due to the ranged penalty(can't shoot as far), health penalty, and melee penalty. With how hunter is also strong in the early game without falling off, I struggle to see a compelling reason to go Malefactor when combat is an unavoidable part of the story. All of Malefactor's benefits become irrelevant lategame while their penalties remain impactful. Which is a shame, because they have cool lore and if there was some stealth-focused armor (perhaps a class craft) that also reduced enemy detection Malefactor could have a unique and awesome playstyle of sneaking past enemies and grabbing loot. They're weak in combat and there's a lot of places where combat is necessary for resources or to progress. 49 minutes ago, LadyWYT said: And like I was trying to say before, this hinges on one's preferred playstyle, and the situation in question. Some circumstances Blackguards will struggle, and others they will absolutely dominate. Their strengths scale well into the late game, while their weaknesses become almost a non-issue once you've set up your base and secured your food supply chain. Their bonus health vs the extra hunger is definitely a good tradeoff for late game when your food production and storage has scaled up as high as you'd ever want. Higher melee damage for lower ranged damage starts off as a bad trade and remains a bad trade into the late game. Without something like Combat Overhaul, the best way to play Blackguard is exactly the same way as Hunter or Commoner except Blackguard needs more food and does less damage. Plate armor being bad isn't a Blackguard problem, because it's bad for Blackguard and also every other class (including commoner). But it does make the "be slowed down less from armor" perk irrelevant. 54 minutes ago, LadyWYT said: Not really. It's meant to be somewhat of a challenge class compared to the others. One could say that tailors are tailor-made for the nuances and finery of civilized life in cities, not roughing it in the wilds. And there's really not much of civilization left anymore, so the odds are stacked against. Ironically, they happen to be one of the stronger picks when it comes to combat, since the only downside they have is a penalty to health. I don't think of Tailor as being a challenge class at all. They have a slightly worse early game than commoner, but then are commoner with some additional cosmetic options later. They used to have the exclusive ability to craft the best cold gear, but with the more recent update there's other ways to reach the equivalent. Tailor has a weak earlygame and then an average mid and late game, but more importantly they're not very interesting in what they bring to the table. Yes, they make good traders due to their additional trade options, but they feel like they have too much in common with commoner in terms of their gameplay loop and noncombat focus. Lore-wise, I think tailor is a strange choice for inclusion amongst the player classes. Why that profession specifically? All the rest (besides commoner) had relevance in combat, technology, or scavenging and tailor seems hyper-specific. If anything, a miner class would have made a lot more sense given the society all these classes were pulled from. 1 hour ago, LadyWYT said: This one I definitely agree on. Clockmaker has some very cool themes going for it, but is currently underwhelming on the execution. I'd wager that once we see more added to late game tech options, Clockmaker will probably get some love as well and be a more exciting pick as a result. I hope so! Clockmaker as a temporal engineer seems to be the theme, and there's some really awesome design space there following in Jonas' footsteps. Lore-wise, it seems like the most relevant class. This is somewhat of a tangent, but I'm surprised forlorn hope isn't an available class for seraphs.
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