Talior lacks class identity a plea from the heart

[runnybabbit]

So I've long time been a fan of the tailor. Most of my singleplayer time has been spent with Tailor. I love the theming of during a survival civilization rebuilding situation, people skilled in clothing would be notably crucial. I like the cool clothes and gamberson is my beloved.

 

However, there are complaints and I get them. I've seen a few suggestions for a rebalance, with people pointing out Talior has too many debuffs for the advantages, especially in singleplayer... and yeah, it's probably true.

That said, I don't believe that is the issue at heart. Plenty of the classes have rough debuffs, and people have no problem playing around them. Yeah sure, maybe the advantages are a little better but Blackguard and Malefactor's drawbacks are much more punishing... and it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue.

I believe this to really be a matter of class identity. Playing tailor just feels too much like playing commoner. It's not that tailored armor and nice clothes aren't necessarily strong enough, it's that they don't lead to unique gameplay. In other words, they don't leave a comprehensive framework of limitations and advantages to make choices within, except maybe what to put the first few harvests of flax towards. 

 

My proposal would be to give Tailor a very small buff that a handwave-y lore reason could be contrived for. The point of this slight buff would only be to give the player an option for a slightly more defined playstyle in certain situations.

 

To this end, since we have a time to apply healing items now, I would suggeat a buff to healing item *application*. Not actual regen, but the time it takes to apply a poltice or something. The justification for this is tailors are good at working with fabric and getting between folds I guess.

The point is, this would leave put Tailor in a position where the player has a very slightly increased survivability if they do not engage in a intense fight, favoring running away or potentially using wits to draw the fight out. This also means Tailor can act as a quick medic to high-armored friends, further backing their 'muliplayer support' potential role.

Even if this is not the right tweak, I suspect it's still fundamentally a class identity problem, which means it's a opportunity to adress it in a cool way that gives more depth to the game. But what do people think? Is Tailor tailor-ey enough? Does the class already come out better in multiplayer and I've missed the point?

 

EDIT: Whoops clicked post before I had finished typing

EDIT EDIT: typos  

Edited December 29, 2025 by runnybabbit

[7embre]

...thats actually an interesting addition. Wonder what's gonna change with status effect system. Tailor gang, rise up!

[ifoz]

Tailor's lack of identity is definitely in part to do with the fact they are a living crafting station.
If tailor's craftables were instead gated behind a special bench that you had to make, none of the actual gameplay would change at all, and that's a problem since those craftables define the entire class.

It also doesn't help tailor that any class can repair clothing using linen sheets (let me be clear, I am not saying this is bad. It makes total sense and being unable to repair clothes would be a pretty bad game design decision imo). There is also a set of clothing (Nadiyan fur) obtainable lategame by any class that rivals (and sometimes surpasses) tailor's reindeer herder clothes in terms of warmth, aside from the shoes specifically. This means tailor's place in the wider progression is quite midgame at the moment. Reindeer herder clothes before you get Nadiyan fur, and tailored gambeson before you get steel chain. They're somewhat useful in that phase of the game, but then fall out of use once players are more advanced than that.

The final nail in tailor's coffin is that they can only craft a handful of truly exclusive clothes (most of the clothing in this game can only be found in ruins), and clothing not really being that important for survival anyway. With the way clothing currently works, you are usually incentivised to just wear the warmest possible clothing you have at all times, never change it, never wash it, never dry it, and then just repair it or find/trade/craft more next winter. Even if it was the dead of winter, a dirt box or a campfire can warm you up without the need for any clothing at all. Rain protection got added recently, but even that doesn't matter due to the aforementioned dirt box or campfire to warm up strategy.

-----

If it was up to me, clothing that gets wet (via rain or water) should be given a 'soaked' debuff. This would make you gradually colder, and unable to warm up at campfires or inside insulated rooms. You'd have to remove the clothing and set it to dry (in the sun or by a fire) and then switch to a backup outfit. There would also be a temperature threshold that if the outside temperature dropped below, you would not be able to stay 100% warm near a fire or insulated room if you had absolutely no clothing on. Kind of just spitballing here, but I feel like this would go a long way to making clothing a much more impactful element of the survival experience. 

Edited December 29, 2025 by ifoz

[Bruno Willis]

35 minutes ago, ifoz said:

If it was up to me, clothing that gets wet (via rain or water) should be given a 'soaked' debuff. This would make you gradually colder, and unable to warm up at campfires or inside insulated rooms. You'd have to remove the clothing and set it to dry (in the sun or by a fire) and then switch to a backup outfit. There would also be a temperature threshold that if the outside temperature dropped below, you would not be able to stay 100% warm near a fire or insulated room if you had absolutely no clothing on. Kind of just spitballing here, but I feel like this would go a long way to making clothing a much more impactful element of the survival experience. 

I think this is a good point: the game doesn't feel very uncompromising when it comes to weather exposure, which makes clothing less impactful than it is in reality. I think giving textile production and weaving the complexity it deserves could also help the tailor. 

Perhaps also being able to add pockets to clothing would help give them more of an identity? Extra slots of storage stitched into the lining of their clothes.

[ifoz]

3 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

I think this is a good point: the game doesn't feel very uncompromising when it comes to weather exposure, which makes clothing less impactful than it is in reality. I think giving textile production and weaving the complexity it deserves could also help the tailor. 

The only time I've ever been close to freezing outside of the winter months was one of the first days of May in a wilderness survival world, during the rain (wilderness mode makes it easier for you to freeze).
I think that kind of stands for itself in showing how unimpactful clothing is in survival situations where good/warm/dry clothing should really be a concern. 

It could also be fun if clothing became more impactful to see more primitive clothing, and more options against the rain. Making a raincoat from dried grass, or waxing your clothes to help waterproof them.
Also maybe having clothing that is high condition impact prices with traders? As long as all your clothes (and you are at least wearing a shirt/pants/shoes) are above 70%, traders could offer you a slight discount for looking presentable.

Maybe that could even be one of tailor's perks in an emergent sense, with clothing being easier to maintain, they could have more of a focus on trading and selling clothes for a profit.
(That's another problem with tailor - an example of how bad the prices are against them, a tailor player could spend some 9 linen worth of flax to make a pair of nomad pants, and the max price they could sell them for is a whopping 3 gears).

Edited December 29, 2025 by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

10 hours ago, runnybabbit said:

To this end, since we have a time to apply healing items now, I would suggeat a buff to healing item *application*. Not actual regen, but the time it takes to apply a poltice or something. The justification for this is tailors are good at working with fabric and getting between folds I guess.

Possibly, but this is something better suited for an herbalist, monk, barber-surgeon, or other class focused primarily on medical supplies. Knowing how to turn fabric into fine clothing isn't quite the same as knowing how to efficiently bandage wounds either.

Personally, I think a buff to trading would be a better fit, since while Tailors aren't suited to surviving in the wilderness, their refined manners would definitely help them secure better prices.

7 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Perhaps also being able to add pockets to clothing would help give them more of an identity? Extra slots of storage stitched into the lining of their clothes.

I like this idea too, though I would take it a step further and suggest that perhaps Tailors could also stitch fur linings into certain clothing items to make them warmer as well. That gives them some more valuable survival utility(especially in multiplayer), while still remaining true to the class's limits. You could probably even include a "cobbler's kit" as a special craftable as well, that can be used on footwear to boost the durability or boost the player's walk speed while the footwear is in good condition.

 

4 hours ago, ifoz said:

The only time I've ever been close to freezing outside of the winter months was one of the first days of May in a wilderness survival world, during the rain (wilderness mode makes it easier for you to freeze).
I think that kind of stands for itself in showing how unimpactful clothing is in survival situations where good/warm/dry clothing should really be a concern. 

I know if you crank up the temperature tolerance, it starts being more of a concern since your character will start getting cold at temperatures below 60 F(around 16 C). Blackguard has the roughest time, since the only clothing they have to actually keep them warm at the start is their shirt, pants, and shoes.

 

4 hours ago, ifoz said:

Also maybe having clothing that is high condition impact prices with traders? As long as all your clothes (and you are at least wearing a shirt/pants/shoes) are above 70%, traders could offer you a slight discount for looking presentable.

If nothing else, the NPC dialogue could change depending on what the player is wearing. Fancy clothes that are in good condition will result in more compliments, while dressing like a beggar will result in more dismissive remarks and may potentially cause some NPCs(like luxury merchants) to refuse to trade with you at all. Dressing like a scoundrel or brute(Rotwalker, Malefactor, or Blackguard attire) could easily result in NPCs being suspicious of the player's intentions and thus treating them more cautiously.

 

9 hours ago, 7embre said:

Wonder what's gonna change with status effect system.

I suspect that the status effect system will change quite a lot of what players currently take for granted. It's one thing to jump off a cliff and sacrifice some health for a quick, convenient way down, but it's quite another if you could break a leg in the process and need to wait a few days for the injury to heal.

 

10 hours ago, runnybabbit said:

Even if this is not the right tweak, I suspect it's still fundamentally a class identity problem, which means it's a opportunity to adress it in a cool way that gives more depth to the game. But what do people think? Is Tailor tailor-ey enough? Does the class already come out better in multiplayer and I've missed the point?

Overall, I think it's fine if Tailor remains at a disadvantage when it comes to pure survival--it is meant to be more of a challenge class, after all. It's also nice to have a class option where you become a "fish out of water", so to speak. It shouldn't struggle more than it does as the class needs to be enjoyable to play, but I don't think it should really be at the same level as other classes when it comes to survival buffs as then it loses its identity.

Regarding multiplayer, I've heard it said that Tailor is the class everyone wants as a friend, but no one wants to play. I'm not sure how true that is, but I suspect it depends a lot on the server rules. 

[Bruno Willis]

39 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

If nothing else, the NPC dialogue could change depending on what the player is wearing. Fancy clothes that are in good condition will result in more compliments, while dressing like a beggar will result in more dismissive remarks and may potentially cause some NPCs(like luxury merchants) to refuse to trade with you at all. Dressing like a scoundrel or brute(Rotwalker, Malefactor, or Blackguard attire) could easily result in NPCs being suspicious of the player's intentions and thus treating them more cautiously.

This would be a great direction to go: it'd give all classes stronger identity, make clothing so much more interesting (than any game I've played, come to think of it), and make tailors the go-to trader, which seems fitting.

Imagine how fun it'd be as a malefactor if the traders just straight up refuse to show their wares, until you can loot some less dodgy clothes, or how fun it'd be as a tailor if everyone's fawning over your perfect condition noble robes. 

[runnybabbit]

8 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

This would be a great direction to go: it'd give all classes stronger identity, make clothing so much more interesting (than any game I've played, come to think of it), and make tailors the go-to trader, which seems fitting.

I agree this seems like the ideal. The purpose of the original suggestion was to offer a small tweak that had gameplay implications but would not require any system redesigns. I'm not sure how easy it is to mod classes currently, but I would be interested to see if anyone has done something like this and how it turned out.

 

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Knowing how to turn fabric into fine clothing isn't quite the same as knowing how to efficiently bandage wounds either.

Yeah, I said it's a bit hand-wavey. I had no clue it was feasible a healing class was going to be added. I thought it backed the 'support role' and very slight 'homesteading class' niche. 

 

[ifoz]

9 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Imagine how fun it'd be as a malefactor if the traders just straight up refuse to show their wares, until you can loot some less dodgy clothes, or how fun it'd be as a tailor if everyone's fawning over your perfect condition noble robes. 

Instead of having trader interest tied to entire sets, I'd love if it was a piece-by-piece basis like how Kingdom Come: Deliverance does it.
The Malefactor tunic for example looks quite nice, same for the trousers. Their stained shirt and mask however would likely drag down the trader appeal. 

While I haven't played KCD1 yet, I picked up the sequel recently and have been really enjoying it. The way clothes work there is that each piece has a 'charisma' stat, and the more expensive or flashy that piece is, the higher the charisma. Higher charisma means people will generally be more receptive to what you have to say, and merchants will likely give you lower prices. It works the same in reverse, if you dress like a beggar, nobody is going to take you seriously.

Maybe to simplify this for VS, only certain raggedy clothes could have negative charisma impact. Most would do nothing for you, and then flashier ones would increase your charisma. Dependant on the trader, this might increase the prices too, since you look wealthy and they think you would have a few extra gears to spend!  

The ideal for talking to traders would be an outfit in good condition and fancy enough to suggest you are well-off, but not so fancy that they think you're pompous or rich and easy to take advantage of for some bonus cash.

--------

As some examples for clothes that would negatively impact charisma, I'd say:
The entire rotwalker set, malefactor shirt, malefactor mask, sheep skull mask, cat mask, tattered peasant gown, peasant shirt, the entire rotten king set aside from the crown, blackguard shirt, barber surgeon apron (it has bloodstains!), Nadiyan barber gloves (same reason), tattered linen shirt, tattered crimson tunic.

Some that could positively impact charisma without looking overly fancy:
Lackey hat and shirt, squire boots and hood, the entire forlorn hope set, jailor tunic, pants, hat and boots, the entire merchant set, crimson ornate linen tunic, malefactor tunic, tailor jacket, the nomad set, spice merchant's coat, the minstrel set.

And some clothes that would be so fine that traders would try and take advantage of your wealth:
The entire noble set, gem-encrusted fur hat, gold waist chain, fancy royal collar and belt, golden coronet, crown, miaguan, rotten king crown, byzantine crown, the entire prince set.

Edited December 30, 2025 by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

You could probably also vary NPC reactions a bit, in that sketchier NPCs would react more favorably to attire like the Malefactor gear or Rotwalker set.

19 minutes ago, ifoz said:

barber surgeon apron (it has bloodstains!), Nadiyan barber gloves (same reason)

I mean...now I want a laundry mechanic where clothing can get dirty and bloodstained, depending on what you've been doing. If you don't launder your clothes every so often, they'll not only negatively impact your charisma, but they'll increase your chances of getting detected by wildlife and monsters. Or possibly decrease your chances of getting detected by monsters, given that blood can have a pungent metallic scent and the monsters are described to have strange metallic scents themselves. 

In that case, Tailor could have a bonus to laundering clothing, perhaps doing the task much faster than other classes.

1 hour ago, runnybabbit said:

I had no clue it was feasible a healing class was going to be added.

I don't know if the devs will add one or not, but it seems plausible given that none of the current classes have a bonus to healing, and there are at least a few options that would befit a healer. I would expect herbalism and status effects to be added first though, as the current healing system is too basic to warrant a proper healer class.

 

1 hour ago, runnybabbit said:

I'm not sure how easy it is to mod classes currently, but I would be interested to see if anyone has done something like this and how it turned out.

Having toyed a bit with it myself, it's relatively easy to do, but it also depends on what exactly you're trying to accomplish with the class. Tweaking vanilla classes tends to be easier than building a class from scratch, but given the sheer number of custom class mods that exist on the database I would say that building a class from scratch isn't the most complicated thing either.

The real trick though, in my opinion, is balancing the class properly against the other options available. If the class is too strong then it becomes the default pick for everyone, even if they don't really enjoy the class. Too weak, and players will avoid picking the class because it has nothing to offer. Likewise, if the class has too much overlap with other classes, it can easily fall to the wayside simply because the other classes end up doing the same tasks but more efficiently.

[ifoz]

18 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I mean...now I want a laundry mechanic where clothing can get dirty and bloodstained, depending on what you've been doing. If you don't launder your clothes every so often, they'll not only negatively impact your charisma, but they'll increase your chances of getting detected by wildlife and monsters.

I'd like that too. Considering we already have the damage overlay system with armour, I imagine that the base for a dirt/blood overlay system is already there.
It'd also give that bath/laundry building in Nadiya a use other than spawning a bunch of fish upon generation. 

Edited December 30, 2025 by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

6 minutes ago, ifoz said:

It'd also give that bath/laundry building in Nadiya a use other than spawning a bunch of fish upon generation. 

I mean...I love my fishies, but I don't want to smell like them! 

[ifoz]

58 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I mean...I love my fishies, but I don't want to smell like them! 

I kid you not, when I first visited the place I was so confused as to why they had what seemed to be an indoor fish farm / aquarium set up in town.
Only later did I realise it was not meant to contain fish. 

[QueenGeeBee]

Im surprised to see so many people talking about an idea i also had.

I really do think they should give tailors a mercantile trait that discounts trader prices and increases how much traders pay to buy from you. 

Tailors to me just really seem unappealing to play, entirely because most of what they offer is unique crafts. I dont like classes playstyles being dictated just by what they craft, so anything to move away from it and give them abilities that everyone can do, but they uniquely do better is how i want things to be balanced.

Everyone can still buy and sell to traders, but making tailors better at it is like how hunters are better at ranged combat, or how blackguards are better at wearing armor and fighting. The idea of playing the trader market, buying, selling, and producing goods to sell specifically makes it sound fun to be a group's merchant.

 

I also love the idea of making clothing even more in depth with mechanics. Personally id love it if tailoring got even half the detail that smithing has, but something as simple as clothing needing be washed of blood and grime every once in awhile seems neat too, and clean/fancy clothes improving trader interactions is really fun. While people are prioritizing better armors and weapons, tailors could prioritize better looking outfits to get even better deals