New classes maybe?

[Lulu Richards]

Ive been playing vintage story for a few months now (since may of 2025 i believe) and i wont lie...im not a huge fan of the class selection. 

Im also a solo player so the classes dont seem to be a good choice for me. (Thats my opinion on my own worlds not a fact!)

But i was thinking about it theres a couple types of classes i think would be good for some new ones.

And yes i know there are mods that edit classes i have yet to try any but i just think these would be nice for base game. (I have not seen everything for the newest version yet so forgive me if anything is in the 1.21 version!)

A forager or poison expert class: ok hear me out, there is tons of mushrooms in vintage story. Most seem to have an alternative version that is poison and reduces health. We could have a class that negates that effect or adds recipies that class can cook to remove the effect. 

Explorer or archeologist class: so exploring is a lot of work in vintage story and we do get lots of ruins and other things. Perhaps this class can craft a compass to point to ruins? Maybe we can have a bonus to the loot we get from cracked vessels and from ruins chests.

A bargain or merchants class: Ok this one is a big maybe idea. I dont know how balanced the game would be but, perhaps a class that can bargain with traders? Or just give a discount when shopping with traders. there could be exclusive items only this class could trade. The only other thing i could think for this one is that you could get an expanded list of things to sell for gears.

Carpenter class: This ones a little simpler. Perhaps tbis class can get bonuses when crafting certain types of things. Like when making stairs, doors , roofs etc. (This one was a last second thing i thought of writing this but i feel like itd be nice)

I did not search through the suggestions to see if these had been suggested already Forgive me if someone did! but its just an idea for the devs, Or if anyone adds them to a mod tell me please ill try it out! 

 

Mini note, sorry for my bad grammar and spelling i edited what i saw. 

[Shoom]

Carpenter could get an extra plank when sawing logs, maybe an extra piece of firewood as well when chopping wood, maybe some increased woodworking tool durability as well.

Side note, would be cool to have a mechanic for chopping wood, maybe you need a chopping stump, sort of like an anvil, you put a log on it and split it with an axe, get 2 slabs, put a slab on it and you get 2 firewood for each slab.

[Bruno Willis]

Welcome! I also haven't tried any of the class altering mods, so this comes purely from enjoying the base game:

7 hours ago, Lulu Richards said:

A forager or poison expert class: ok hear me out, there is tons of mushrooms in vintage story. Most seem to have an alternative version that is poison and reduces health. We could have a class that negates that effect or adds recipies that class can cook to remove the effect. 

Explorer or archeologist class: so exploring is a lot of work in vintage story and we do get lots of ruins and other things. Perhaps this class can craft a compass to point to ruins? Maybe we can have a bonus to the loot we get from cracked vessels and from ruins chests.

I feel like the malefactor already ticks of some of this forager class. Maybe adding some exclusive poison recipes to that class would make it more exciting, rather than adding a whole new class?

On explorer, I think it's important to avoid making any class inherently and obviously better at exploring, since that's such an interesting part of the game which everyone should feel comfortable doing, using the variety of playstyles already out there. Also, malefactor already has a way to get extra loot from cracked vessels, in a way. 

I do think a merchant class of some sort would be very interesting though - I don't have any strong ideas about how it might be done, or whether it would disrupt the lore.

I'd love to see a blacksmith class, who gets alternative, challenging smithing recipes, to make 2 knives or 2 chisels out of a single ingot for example. Actually, I think I just want those to be the normal smithing recipes. No more waste!

Saying all that, this seems like a very contentious topic, with some people wanting the system to have more classes and differences and some wanting no classes at all, which suggests that the current system sits pretty nicely in the middle. 

8 hours ago, Lulu Richards said:

i wont lie...im not a huge fan of the class selection. 

Im also a solo player so the classes dont seem to be a good choice for me. (Thats my opinion on my own worlds not a fact!)

Also, if you didn't know, you can totally turn off class specific recipes when making a new world (check the multiplayer tab on customized world gen). I believe you can do that through commands for an existing world too, as well as change classes (I'm sorry, I don't know what commands you'd use though).

[LadyWYT]

First off, welcome to the forums!

9 hours ago, Lulu Richards said:

A forager or poison expert class: ok hear me out, there is tons of mushrooms in vintage story. Most seem to have an alternative version that is poison and reduces health. We could have a class that negates that effect or adds recipies that class can cook to remove the effect. 

Malefactor already holds the spot of the forager class due to its inherent foraging bonus--it gets extra mushrooms, berries, and drops from wild crops. As for poisons and other herbal effects...that would be prime territory for an alchemist class, but the game needs an herbalism system first.

 

9 hours ago, Lulu Richards said:

Explorer or archeologist class: so exploring is a lot of work in vintage story and we do get lots of ruins and other things. Perhaps this class can craft a compass to point to ruins? Maybe we can have a bonus to the loot we get from cracked vessels and from ruins chests.

This is already covered by Malefactor, Hunter, and Clockmaker, predominantly. Hunter and Clockmaker both have an inherent speed advantage, so they could cover ground more quickly than other classes. Clockmaker in particular can repair translocators more efficiently, which means they can take advantage of that technology much sooner and more easily than other classes. Malefactor has a bonus to cracked vessel looting, as well as has an easier time of avoiding the notice of enemies, which makes it a good class for exploring as well. It's also worth noting that according to the lore, Malefactors specifically were assigned to scavenge the surface for anything of use prior to the cataclysm.

I do like the compass idea, though I think it would work much better as a Clockmaker gadget for locating translocators. That would round out the class a bit better, as well as allow it to capitalize more on translocator travel as well.

9 hours ago, Lulu Richards said:

A bargain or merchants class: Ok this one is a big maybe idea. I dont know how balanced the game would be but, perhaps a class that can bargain with traders? Or just give a discount when shopping with traders. there could be exclusive items only this class could trade. The only other thing i could think for this one is that you could get an expanded list of things to sell for gears.

This would be a prime upgrade for the Tailor class. Tailor already has more options of goods to sell, given that some saleable clothing is exclusive to Tailor. Since it's the class with the most civilized manners and likely the most business sense, it would make sense that Tailors would easily befriend traders and utilize their business savvy to cut some better deals.

 

9 hours ago, Lulu Richards said:

Carpenter class: This ones a little simpler. Perhaps tbis class can get bonuses when crafting certain types of things. Like when making stairs, doors , roofs etc. (This one was a last second thing i thought of writing this but i feel like itd be nice)

No. Purely because this is just asking to break the game via exploits. It sounds nice in theory to be able to craft more stairs for the same amount of material as standard, however...you can deconstruct stairs and slabs and other things back into planks. In which case, all you'd have to do is make something like purpleheart stairs, turn them into even more planks, craft more stairs, turn back into even more planks...etc. 

 

9 hours ago, Lulu Richards said:

Im also a solo player so the classes dont seem to be a good choice for me. (Thats my opinion on my own worlds not a fact!)

Turning off class-exclusive recipes will allow you to craft and use any class item on any class; you can also change this setting after creating a world. Very useful for singleplayer instances. The one exception is the tuning spear; it can be crafted by any class with the rule disabled, but the item's locust-taming ability is tied specifically to the Clockmaker class.

[Gorrgren Shaw]

more classes options in general would be nice.

[Feynt]

I've been enjoying Vintage Story with my friends as a newcomer, and one of them enjoyed being a Blackguard for the damage output, but absolutely hated feeling useless at everything else related to exploration while also being a huge burden on our food supply. He said he wouldn't mind a miner or lumberjack class which had a lesser melee bonus without such an outrageous hunger penalty.

Honestly those don't sound like bad class ideas:

• Miner - Give it the same Hardy buff as Blackguard, "Strongarm" for a +15% to melee and +10% ranged distance, a +10% or +20% bonus to mining resource gains, perhaps better tool efficiency, a unique feature for the propick that lets you determine a direction (but not a distance) when doing node searching for the nearest ore (not necessarily the most abundant if there are multiple), and then Nearsighted and Heavy Handed.
• Lumberjack - Same deal, but +10% or +20% for log gains and stick drop rates when felling trees instead of mining, +1 firewood per log chopped, and a class recipe to turn firewood into sticks with a knife.

[Slam]

8 hours ago, Feynt said:

• Miner - Give it the same Hardy buff as Blackguard, "Strongarm" for a +15% to melee and +10% ranged distance, a +10% or +20% bonus to mining resource gains, perhaps better tool efficiency, a unique feature for the propick that lets you determine a direction (but not a distance) when doing node searching for the nearest ore (not necessarily the most abundant if there are multiple), and then Nearsighted and Heavy Handed.
• Lumberjack - Same deal, but +10% or +20% for log gains and stick drop rates when felling trees instead of mining, +1 firewood per log chopped, and a class recipe to turn firewood into sticks with a knife.

Idk, mining and chopping tree are activity’s you only do every once in a while, so having a class purely fill might be more useless. The black guard having mining advantages is fine though, because you know where all the spooky mean guys are? In the caves.

 

8 hours ago, Feynt said:

but absolutely hated feeling useless at everything else related to exploration while also being a huge burden on our food supply.

Black guard has felt like the heavy downsides big upsides guy, with other character usually sacrificing a bit a health/damage for not big upsides, allowing you to still allowing for different play styles. However unlike other downsides, increased hunger doesn’t hinder your ability to do other things, and with an elk or a boat, the increased hunger is a minor inconvenience, and with an elk (or two inventory slots) you can store meals, which stops all hunger drain for 30 seconds per 100 saturation, so with 6 meals of 1100 sat (average meat dish), that 33 minutes traveling (pot of meals), which does not include time getting hungry enough to eat all that, so we can assume an entire day of travel on foot is a pot full of meals, which honestly, ain’t cheap, but proberly much better then slamming pies and bread.

[Feynt]

31 minutes ago, Slam said:

Idk, mining and chopping tree are activity’s you only do every once in a while, so having a class purely fill might be more useless.

I mean... Tailor exists. They're objectively bad at everything involved with exploration besides just walking around, they're frail, and their bonuses are specific to a task that involves staying in the base. At least they aren't inferior fighters, but I feel like that's a low bar to step over. My proposed classes are at least more capable melee fighters than the baseline. Miners aren't fighters, but they're strong too. Lumberjacks as well, but they have to worry about wildlife sneaking up on them from the brush. +15% isn't much of a bonus, certainly not as much as a Blackguard, but it means 1-2 less hits on wolves with a spear or falx (as opposed to 2-3 less for a Blackguard). Since there aren't any other classes with any melee leanings, it rounds out the cast a little.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

54 minutes ago, Feynt said:

Since there aren't any other classes with any melee leanings, it rounds out the cast a little.

I think the major gripe here is less that and more that regardless of what class you play unless you're the base mom, chopping wood and doing some mining is going to be a shared task that everyone pitches in. So while Tailor is a VERY niche class that seems pretty useless at the moment, having a miner and lumberjack class wouldn't have much benefit over just playing blackguard and getting a better melee bonus...

And the reason I say that is because if you're already deep into the rocks enough that you're picking the miner class, then your proposed feature for the propick is going to be redundant. A skilled miner (player) can triangulate ores pretty well already. The firewood to sticks recipe for Lumberjack doesn't feel useful on paper since you can just break all the branchy leaf blocks before chopping a tree and get just as many sticks for a little more effort.

Idk the concept is there, but I don't see those classes being more useful over the base classes we have now... especially since mods like XSkills exist and allow you to customize your own class just by...doing things.

[Slam]

1 hour ago, Feynt said:

My proposed classes are at least more capable melee fighters than the baseline. Miners aren't fighters, but they're strong too. Lumberjacks as well, but they have to worry about wildlife sneaking up on them from the brush. +15% isn't much of a bonus, certainly not as much as a Blackguard, but it means 1-2 less hits on wolves with a spear or falx (as opposed to 2-3 less for a Blackguard). Since there aren't any other classes with any melee leanings, it rounds out the cast a little.

So, a lighter black guard, with a bit of malefactor. Black guard are ment for caving, which is more dangous, and thus with his upsides is able to deal with, and be in and out of there faster, because 10% more ore, or mining faster doesn’t matter if your  prospecting asides making the suffering less. A lighter black guard would just be worse than that, and the lower detection range wouldn’t matter since you gotta check every area anyway.
I feel like if there was a miner class, it’d focus more strip mining, rather then the caving, with better prospecting nearby node range, better mining speed on stone and quarts, slower sanity drain, and improved bomb. Idk about downsides, I fear they’d just be similar to the black guard.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Slam said:

So, a lighter black guard, with a bit of malefactor. Black guard are ment for caving, which is more dangous, and thus with his upsides is able to deal with, and be in and out of there faster, because 10% more ore, or mining faster doesn’t matter if your  prospecting asides making the suffering less. A lighter black guard would just be worse than that, and the lower detection range wouldn’t matter since you gotta check every area anyway.
I feel like if there was a miner class, it’d focus more strip mining, rather then the caving, with better prospecting nearby node range, better mining speed on stone and quarts, slower sanity drain, and improved bomb. Idk about downsides, I fear they’d just be similar to the black guard.

I think the miner class should have a much faster mining speed than blackguard. The are specialized workers afterall. The blackguards were better at mining, but mostly as a side effect of being more brutish than the other classes. I would trade melee damage for base mining speed and add a trait In The Groove - An additional 1% mining speed for every block broken within the last 10 seconds. Caps at +10% mining speed. Also a higher hunger rate just to keep people from picking miner as a lighter blackguard. Also a 10% chance not to lose durability on the mining implement when breaking a block.

Similarly the Lumberjack should have a 15% higher wood chopping speed with a 10% lower durability loss on axes when chopping or splitting wood. Again a higher hunger rate and improved melee damage to round out the "I chose this because blackguard but not as hungry" folks. No "In the Groove" trait but instead add Efficient Woodsman - When chopping a tree, every leaf block produces its normal drops as if it had been harvested with shears. This should increase the sticks and seeds drops and give people a reason for choosing Lumberjack over other classes.

[LadyWYT]

The main issue I see with class ideas such as lumberjack, miner, farmer, and the like, is that all of those easily fall under the Commoner umbrella. Pretty much anyone could fill those roles without any prior training. All the other classes aside from Commoner have jobs that require specific training to do, for example:

Hunter: It takes a lot of practice to be good at archery, as well as a lot of skill to track prey and butcher it in the most efficient way possible. As a result, hunters are master marksmen(which is useful for more than just hunting wild animals) and have a bonus to animal drops, but aren't equipped to handle melee fights or mining work very well. 

Malefactor: Slipping around unseen and knowing where to check for loot requires a lot of specialized skill as well, and their stealth and resourcefulness makes up for their lack of fighting talent. The extra loot could be chalked up to luck, however, given that malefactors lead harsh lives they're likely become adept at making the most of what they find and will check locations that others might not think to look. 

Clockmaker: What more can be said other than machinery is complicated.

Blackguard: Trained specifically for close-quarters combat. It also takes special knowledge to make and maintain quality weapons and armor.

Tailor: Making quality clothing is an art form, and one that requires specialized knowledge. This particular class is also a bit of an outlier, since it has several penalties with no real bonus to survival skills. As a result, it's mostly a challenge class, and the flavor text describing it says as much. The Tailor is suited for a comfortable life in a bustling city, and not a rugged life in the wilderness.

4 hours ago, Slam said:

Black guard has felt like the heavy downsides big upsides guy

It pretty much is, though I would note that the downsides apply mostly to the early game and fall off sharply toward the late game, while the advantages are rather strong in the early game and only get stronger as the game progresses. The penalty to foraging and penalty to ranged damage make it harder to acquire food early, and the increased hunger drain means Blackguard will need more food than other classes. However, foraged foods aren't very hard to find, and wildlife such as boar allow you to walk right up and start a fight in melee(and are easy enough to finish off with a single spear once they try to run). The extra hitpoints can allow a Blackguard to survive situations that would kill other classes. Otherwise, food stops being a concern once farms and livestock are established, leaving only the ranged penalty as a "drawback". Given that most things can be handled easily enough in melee, and killed with a single shot if they're wounded enough to flee, I wouldn't really call it much of a drawback.

 

5 hours ago, Slam said:

Idk, mining and chopping tree are activity’s you only do every once in a while, so having a class purely fill might be more useless.

Pretty much my thoughts as well. Just a bonus to lumber or mining alone isn't enough to make a class(outside of specific multiplayer scenarios), and I don't really see any other benefits to give lumberjacks or miners without too much overlap with classes that already exist. 

 

1 hour ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

I think the miner class should have a much faster mining speed than blackguard. The are specialized workers afterall. The blackguards were better at mining, but mostly as a side effect of being more brutish than the other classes. I would trade melee damage for base mining speed and add a trait In The Groove - An additional 1% mining speed for every block broken within the last 10 seconds. Caps at +10% mining speed. Also a higher hunger rate just to keep people from picking miner as a lighter blackguard. Also a 10% chance not to lose durability on the mining implement when breaking a block.

I think I would be okay with this, as it makes Miner something more than "dollar store Blackguard". It still feels pretty lackluster overall though, outside of multiplayer scenarios where there need to be players specifically focused on mining. The other issue I see here is that if there's going to be a class specifically focused on mining, then Blackguard should lose its mining speed boost and have a benefit more related to combat instead.

 

1 hour ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Similarly the Lumberjack should have a 15% higher wood chopping speed with a 10% lower durability loss on axes when chopping or splitting wood. Again a higher hunger rate and improved melee damage to round out the "I chose this because blackguard but not as hungry" folks. No "In the Groove" trait but instead add Efficient Woodsman - When chopping a tree, every leaf block produces its normal drops as if it had been harvested with shears. This should increase the sticks and seeds drops and give people a reason for choosing Lumberjack over other classes.

Yeah this one I'll vote no on, simply because with the melee bonus it comes across as a bargain bin Blackguard. The increased seed drop would be incredibly useful, especially for trees like purpleheart(it might actually be broken in that case). The stick drops...not so much; it's easy enough to forge a pair of shears, and sticks lose much of their usefulness later in the game. The bonus to chopping speed is pretty lackluster since chop speed isn't really a problem later in the game. The lower durability loss when splitting wood is okay, but it's most useful for filling big charcoal pits...which isn't necessary if one has access to coal.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

12 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Yeah this one I'll vote no on, simply because with the melee bonus it comes across as a bargain bin Blackguard.

The idea was to give it the same melee bonus as miner, but I guess I didn't articulate that very well.

[MKMoose]

19 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

I think the miner class should have a much faster mining speed than blackguard. The are specialized workers afterall. The blackguards were better at mining, but mostly as a side effect of being more brutish than the other classes. I would trade melee damage for base mining speed and add a trait In The Groove - An additional 1% mining speed for every block broken within the last 10 seconds. Caps at +10% mining speed. Also a higher hunger rate just to keep people from picking miner as a lighter blackguard. Also a 10% chance not to lose durability on the mining implement when breaking a block.

Similarly the Lumberjack should have a 15% higher wood chopping speed with a 10% lower durability loss on axes when chopping or splitting wood. Again a higher hunger rate and improved melee damage to round out the "I chose this because blackguard but not as hungry" folks. No "In the Groove" trait but instead add Efficient Woodsman - When chopping a tree, every leaf block produces its normal drops as if it had been harvested with shears. This should increase the sticks and seeds drops and give people a reason for choosing Lumberjack over other classes.

A common problem with many class systems across different games is that by specializing into one activity, they make everything else comparatively inefficient, which leads to small parts of the game feeling better for specific classes and suboptimal for the rest. I feel like it may be better to avoid classes like miner or lumberjack (and especially farmer, which I've seen suggested elsewhere) simply because people would then have a perfect reason to delegate all class-favored tasks to those classes only, and the inefficiencies may sting if the player has to deal with them as another class.

I can't help but notice a lack of debuffs and tradeoffs (which, granted, probably wasn't the primary focus). For both of them you've only explicitly mentioned hunger, and I think at least one negative trait for each should be significantly different from the blackguard. I'll mention that again below.

And last point, I would be strongly agaisnt full leaf block drops when chopping down trees - increased, sure, but I think at most ~4x, and even that could be much.

 

4 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Just a bonus to lumber or mining alone isn't enough to make a class(outside of specific multiplayer scenarios), and I don't really see any other benefits to give lumberjacks or miners without too much overlap with classes that already exist. 

These two could be renamed to something like a forester/woodward (maintains forests more than just chops trees) and a collier (mines and supplies coal, may produce charcoal), opening the gates for more traits and exclusive items related to forestry and item transport, among other things.

The forester could have some bonuses related to planting trees (incl. fruit trees) and perhaps other plants, alongside other stuff including that melee damage buff, but may take a hit to sprint speed as well as possibly maximum satiety, ore drop rate or ranged effectiveness. They could also get some interesting traits if we ever get multi-stage tree growth, maybe alongside coppicing and stuff, which could allow the player to put more effort into trees to make them more tailored to specific end goals (firewood, boards, sticks, decorative).

The collier could have 4 extra inventory slots on top of mining-related buffs and potentially increased maximum satiety, and should probably have some specific penalties to farming, fruit picking, fishing or animal husbandry. They may do something cool with carts, minecarts or other item transport methods as well.

I'll also point out that currently all classes (besides the commoner) have some class-exclusive items, so I think it would make a lot of sense to get something for new classes as well.

 

14 hours ago, Feynt said:

a unique feature for the propick that lets you determine a direction (but not a distance) when doing node searching for the nearest ore (not necessarily the most abundant if there are multiple)

New players already often need quite a while to get the hang of prospecting. Slightly easier or more detailed readings for either of the existing modes could be nice, like by reducing the number of samples necessary to take a reading to two or adding information about rock types, but a new mode would add an arguably unnecessary layer of complexity.

[ArgentLuna]

The base set of classes does a good job of covering a nice wide scope and thus the realm of more classes does fall firmly in should stay in mods to get the wanted specifics. 

[Tabbot95]

Dairy Farmer: gets 1.5 buckets worth of milk from milkable animals provided they're domesticated, has bonuses relating to cheese making.

Thresher: bonuses regarding speed of threshing, yields, etc.

 

[CABLES]

The only base classes that really need work imo are Tailor and Clockmaker, imo. I personally dislike Malefactor, but I understand why it exists as it does.

Tailor is bad at everything in exchange for being able to craft DripTM and the best light armor in the game (not a good trade). Clockmaker needs fleshing out, I think, but that's a problem for a different post.

To amend this, I propose the following: Remove Tailor and replace it with a new class, tentatively called the Diplomat.
 

Diplomat

Words were all you had. Order didn't require violence. Only lies.

Diplomats are experienced traders, roving far in search of a deal. Their affinity for finery leaves them ill-prepared for some harships of nature.

Wanderer (+10% walk speed, +15% faster while mounted or sailing)

Well-vested (Exclusive craftable sewing kit and tailored gambeson armor)

Haggler (20% better prices)

Civil (-10% loot from foraging)

Weak (-2 health points, -10% mining speed)

Kind (-10% animal loot, -25% harvesting speed)

The point of this is to allow a class an angle of resource gathering that other classes don't really focus on: Trade. Sure, Malefactor gets bonus rusty gear drops, but as a dedicated exploration class, its utility falls off quickly once you're into the bronze age or further. Diplomat would allow for long-distance trading as an activity to be more useful to a group of players in multiplayer, and its utility remains constant throughout the ages thanks to bonus movement speed and being able to traverse long distances faster without relying on the randomness of translocators. Additionally, Diplomat would still get access to sewing kits and tailored gambeson armor -- someone who spends most of their time on the road would likely retain the know-how of maintaining clothing and flexible, lightweight armor. (Also, the rest of Tailor's class-exclusive clothing would simply be made not class-exclusive. Now everyone can have reindeer herder coats!)

[CABLES]

On 12/12/2025 at 5:32 PM, MKMoose said:

A common problem with many class systems across different games is that by specializing into one activity, they make everything else comparatively inefficient, which leads to small parts of the game feeling better for specific classes and suboptimal for the rest. I feel like it may be better to avoid classes like miner or lumberjack (and especially farmer, which I've seen suggested elsewhere) simply because people would then have a perfect reason to delegate all class-favored tasks to those classes only, and the inefficiencies may sting if the player has to deal with them as another class.

THANK YOU!! See, this is something that really rubs me the wrong way when people talk about class rebalances: Nobody seems to understand that each class ought to be good at more than one thing!

Blackguard is my favorite example of this, especially when people throw out the idea of "the mining class": Blackguard is the mining class. It just happens to also be the melee combat class, because what's the most likely environment in which you'll engage in melee combat? Mining deep underground, where you can't leverage a ranged advantage like you can on the surface! In this same vein, Hunter isn't just "the hunting class," it's the ranged combat class, because ranged attacks are often the best way to hunt efficiently.

This is the same reason why there isn't a dedicated "farming class" or "smithing class," because every player is expected to have to engage with smithing and farming to progress throughout the game. It makes more sense from an engagement perspective to give classes a wide range of areas in which they can be useful instead of pigeonholing them into very specific activities. Does it sound fun to pick the Wood Chopping Class and spend your entire save file chopping wood?

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, CABLES said:

To amend this, I propose the following: Remove Tailor and replace it with a new class, tentatively called the Diplomat.

Gotta disagree here. Tailor is fine, and meant to be a challenge class when it comes to survival. Ironically, it's one of the better classes to pick for combat due to the armor bonus, and otherwise having no penalty to melee or range.

 

2 hours ago, CABLES said:

Diplomat

Words were all you had. Order didn't require violence. Only lies.

Diplomats are experienced traders, roving far in search of a deal. Their affinity for finery leaves them ill-prepared for some harships of nature.

Wanderer (+10% walk speed, +15% faster while mounted or sailing)

Well-vested (Exclusive craftable sewing kit and tailored gambeson armor)

Haggler (20% better prices)

Civil (-10% loot from foraging)

Weak (-2 health points, -10% mining speed)

Kind (-10% animal loot, -25% harvesting speed)

Sewing and haggling don't really fit the theme of a diplomat though. Diplomats are good talkers and do make deals, yes, but they act as representatives for specific kingdoms or leaders, and aren't geared so much towards trade specifically. That's not to say they couldn't shift focus to trade deals specifically, but that's more in line with a merchant and not a diplomat.

In regards to clothing...if a diplomat needs clothing, or clothing repairs, they're going to be visiting a tailor, not doing the work themselves.

[Heart_Afire]

In regards to the diplomat thing, I think it may actually fit to give the Tailor a boost to trading, though. After all, a Tailor would have had to source raw materials and tools, plus haggle with Customers. Might be interesting to make them the Trade class as well.

[LadyWYT]

21 minutes ago, Heart_Afire said:

In regards to the diplomat thing, I think it may actually fit to give the Tailor a boost to trading, though. After all, a Tailor would have had to source raw materials and tools, plus haggle with Customers. Might be interesting to make them the Trade class as well.

Possibly, but I think I would be more inclined to give them some sort of later game bonus related to weaving textiles, once weaving and textile industry is added to the game. In that case, it ends up a class that scales similar to Blackguard; fairly weak in the early game, but much stronger once established.

[CABLES]

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Gotta disagree here. Tailor is fine, and meant to be a challenge class when it comes to survival. Ironically, it's one of the better classes to pick for combat due to the armor bonus, and otherwise having no penalty to melee or range.

I see what you mean. I just wish there was something else there for Tailor in general. Its existing utility is questionable given that the temperature system isn't as fleshed out as it could be (i.e. no penalties for hyperthermia yet), so clothing repair isn't something that's as useful as it really ought to be. Sure, tailored gambeson is amazing, but if the class is relegated to The Tailored Gambeson Class, I struggle to think why one would pick Tailor over Blackguard or Hunter for any reason except not having to specialize into melee/ranged. Having to repair armor less frequently is nice but not a need-to-have perk. I also disagree with the idea that Tailor already has utility as a trade class by making and selling clothing -- flax is so game-warpingly necessary for long-term progression that spending a limited supply in the early game for minimal ROI on gears makes less sense than picking Malefactor for the bonus gear drop rate and/or panning a ton of bony soil for gems to sell to artisan traders.

As far as buffs to the class in the current state of the game, without totally axing it and replacing it with a new one, here are some thoughts:

• Bonus to healing effectiveness (Tailor is good with a needle and thread, should translate well to stitching up wounds)
• Bonus to trade value (To augment Tailor's utility re: making expensive clothing)
• Exclusive way to upgrade existing clothing and/or armor (Gamboised reinforcement, sewing-in of additional metal scales for an armor bonus, temp resist bonus for clothing, etc)
• Exclusive cheaper recipes for armor which include textiles or leather (Has the extra effect of potentially making brigandine more useful by making it less expensive)

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Gotta disagree here. Tailor is fine, and meant to be a challenge class when it comes to survival.

Double disagree -- the real challenge class is Commoner.

[MKMoose]

31 minutes ago, CABLES said:

16 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Gotta disagree here. Tailor is fine, and meant to be a challenge class when it comes to survival.

Double disagree -- the real challenge class is Commoner.

Double that and give it to the next person. Commoner has no particular strengths, but they aren't a challenge class, kind of by definition. They are the baseline and a good starting point for the new or indecisive player. If need be, we could lean into that further by giving the commoner slightly reduced hunger rate or slightly improved cold resistance.

 

18 hours ago, CABLES said:

To amend this, I propose the following: Remove Tailor and replace it with a new class, tentatively called the Diplomat.

I could get behind a diplomat as a new class, separate from the tailor, with the caveat that an excessive number of classes could be detrimental in the long term. It could fill a neat niche where few other classes could fit, focused on unconventional utility and interaction with NPCs. Could also be a vassal, a merchant, a guildsman, a courier, or anything of the sort, with potentially different traits that would make sense for each.

 

31 minutes ago, CABLES said:

As far as buffs to the class in the current state of the game, without totally axing it and replacing it with a new one, here are some thoughts:

• Bonus to healing effectiveness (Tailor is good with a needle and thread, should translate well to stitching up wounds)
• Bonus to trade value (To augment Tailor's utility re: making expensive clothing)
• Exclusive way to upgrade existing clothing and/or armor (Gamboised reinforcement, sewing-in of additional metal scales for an armor bonus, temp resist bonus for clothing, etc)
• Exclusive cheaper recipes for armor which include textiles or leather (Has the extra effect of potentially making brigandine more useful by making it less expensive)

The tailor is in a bit of a limbo until we get more developed weaving and sewing mechanics (if we ever get them, but at least weaving is on the roadmap).

Before that, I feel like they really don't need much to be entirely viable, even if slightly suboptimal. Not that the suggestions are bad, bur I have to mention a few potential issues with the proposed changes:

• increased healing effectiveness goes against the tailor's reduced health; a recipe for better bandages at similar cost could be nice, though,
• increased trade value, when not implemented carefully, could make the tailor into the "can you run to the trader and buy/sell this for me" class; I wouldn't mind to see some clothes be made more profitable to craft and sell, though,
• upgrading armor could have quite large benefits, making the tailor into the server's armorer; relatively large systems also probably shouldn't be locked behind a class (tailor already has by far the most significant class-exclusive items).

[LadyWYT]

In addition to weaving bonuses, I think giving Tailor some extra fancy, extra flamboyant unique clothing to craft might help give them a better niche, if an odd one. Like, landsknecht levels of fancy clothes, or possibly even some fancier versions of other class attire. As it stands currently, pretty much everything can be bought from traders or found in ruins, so aside from the tailored gambeson there's nothing really unique for Tailor to craft.

How is it useful in a singleplayer game? It's not really, unless the player just wants the flavor of being a Tailor, since the player can just as easily turn off class exclusive recipes. In a multiplayer setting though, Tailor would definitely stand out a little more, as those players can produce things that players will likely want but otherwise have no way to obtain(assuming that class exclusives are turned off for classes to retain more identity).

[CABLES]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

In addition to weaving bonuses, I think giving Tailor some extra fancy, extra flamboyant unique clothing to craft might help give them a better niche, if an odd one.

Maybe with the updated weaving system there'd be a way to "chisel" clothing items? Fully customizable clothing would give Tailor more of an identity, especially in multiplayer where other players could pay handsomely for exquistite drip.