Class survey

[Luk]

Hey everyone,

The team has been discussing class balance lately, and we wanted to get an idea of how players feel about the current classes. Please let us know what you think! And feel free to comment below if you'd like to discuss the issue further. I'll be reading through it.

Thanks!

[Ultimaheart4]

there is not enough reason to play other class's unless your working directly with other people imo. the negatives are not that great, i feel maybe if we had skills/levels and we can choose our benefits or just slow down the growth of other skills over a flat out decrease in things such as ore drops, or damages would be better. like, make it slower to grow in mining or crafting skills, or make it slower to gain farming skill when choosing combat class's or crafting class's. ive never felt i needed combat boosts seeing as combat is also not that interesting as it stands, maybe blackguard is nice for dealing with the hordes of drifters but then they just become nuisances anyways. 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Ultimaheart4
fixing up my wording/adding

[Alcyonaria]

I seem to be in a huge minority for clockmaker being the best class. Even though it has huge benefits with very little downsides.

[allstreets]

I voted for tailor as my favorite class to play, but just thought I should note that it's pretty much exclusively because of the clothes crafting that the tailor can do. Without that, I would probably vote for commoner.

[noxxid3]

Commoner due to it having no buffs nor nerfs. Every other class though imo should be changed slightly or have a bit more added. Playing Solo Commoner is the way to go, and i dont think changing or nerfing commoner is a great idea especially for solo players.

[Andrew Taft]

It's impossible for me to turn down loot increases so Malefactor is the easy pick for best, and not being mauled by wolves from farther than I can see is a nice bonus. By that logic Blackguard should be my least favorite, but I feel like Clockmaker is the worst. While it shares the same penalties as Malefactor, the benefits mostly go towards a specific part of endgame. I find that the start is the hard part and the endgame can be handled with appropriate preparation, so I don't see much point in Clockmaker. It just feels like making yourself weaker for nothing.

[Satras]

Biggest problem currently is, that class-specific recipes are locked for singleplayer-only players.
Best option would be to make class-specific recipes toggleable for singleplayer maps.

[Pestilence]

I only play single player and, frankly, I can't imagine ever wanting to deal with the server food rot situation, so I never choose a class other than commoner.  The game is already challenging enough without any innate debuffs.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Pestilence

[ThreeHeadedDingo]

3 hours ago, Alcyonaria said:

I seem to be in a huge minority for clockmaker being the best class. Even though it has huge benefits with very little downsides.

Ehh. Blackguard already gets a damage boost and it's against everything, in addition to all the other combat related boosts. The tiny 5% additional boost to only mechanical enemies really makes the Clockmaker feel completely pointless, especially since it gets minus damage to everything else. All the other positives the Clockmaker has are kinda just fluff.

Clockmaker needs more theme-appropriate positives, maybe some unique recipes, etc.

[Mirok]

I think it is necessary to improve the clockmaker and add more mechanisms...

[Streetwind]

Malefactor and Blackguard are both good classes, and kind of polar opposites in their direction. Malefactor is the best earlygame class, with its foraging, looting, and wolf avoidance bonuses. If the player wants an easy start, this is the go-to class. However it falls off later when you want to go cave delving, being penalized in health and almost all weapons. By contrast, the Blackguard struggles early-on, with foraging penalties and an increased hunger rate. It is the hardest class to start with. However, if the player survives and stabilizes, the penalties cease to matter, and then the Blackguard can play to its full strengths involving late-game activities like combat and mining and making class-specific gear.

Hunter is a strong class overall. Particularly in multiplayer, where someone else (like a Blackguard) can mine ore and be on the frontlines, resulting in a class that has all the upsides and zero downsides. It might be the strongest class in the game in that particular context. Meanwhile in singleplayer, it is decent all around, not quite as easy as the Malefactor to start with (but not far either), and not quite as strong as the Blackguard in the lategame (but not far either). The ore mining penalty is a thing, but probably overestimated by many players. In singleplayer, you generally have so much ore that 15% less or more simply makes little practical difference. In multiplayer, you just let someone else dig.

Commoner is for the undecided. Its main advantage is that it has no downsides, but it also has no upsides either - and since the upsides generally outweigh the downsides (especially if the player chooses their class according to their preferred playstyle), that leaves the Commoner a substandard choice. It is not bad, strictly speaking, there are no problems with it - but it's just not as good as the other options.

...Except perhaps for Clockmaker. This class has problems. One of its big advantages is a damage bonus to mechanical foes - but one of its downsides is a general damage penalty to everything. So in sum, even against mechanical foes, the Clockmaker is only barely better than the Commoner. But mechanical foes are only a small subset of the dangers in the world. Then, the temporal gear frugality bonus: this should be treated as a ribbon ability instead of a main class feature. I have never, ever run into a shortage of temporal gears. There are very few uses for them, you accrue them passively over time just by keeping your base clean, and whether or not you actually find translocators is a roll of the dice in the first place. I've gone through entire worlds, 100+ hours invested, without finding even a single one. So where does that leave the Clockmaker? It's a class with all the lategame weakness of the Malefactor, but without any of the earlygame advantages. The only thing it has going for it is the 10% movement speed boost. But if you wanted that, you could be playing Hunter instead, and get other actually useful bonuses on top. You can make an argument for one person on a multiplayer server picking up Clockmaker if they are part of a group that intentionally wants to go out and find translocators for the purpose of contructing a fast travel network. One person, on a large server. For everyone else, this class is bad.

As for the Tailor, I cannot comment, as I have yet to play with it. From a first glance, it looks like another class that lives mostly on multiplayer servers and struggles in singleplayer, but that depends on the quality of clothes it can make. So I'll reserve judgement until I know more about it. Still, beware the lessons of the Clockmaker - having a unique class mechanic does not automatically make a good class.

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Streetwind

[LazyRoll]

I wish we could just switch classes/professions easily at least in a singleplayer world. Like maybe investing something into it. Getting permits from the traders via gears or something like that.

[Joseph Fowler]

To be honest I usually just play as a commoner, The classes major advantage is not having any weakness. Also I voted the clock maker as the worst( how original)

I really don't have a lot of problems with the classes, However the clock maker is just too specific. that class has a incredibly niche role.

[f33dback89]

I play almost exclusively in single-player. So Commoner is the way to go!

[evan37]

I keep wanting to play a class but I can't see the positives outweighing the negatives for any of them.  I think it's okay for extra material chance to be a bonus, but losing out on materials shouldn't be a negative.  That is the major deterrant that keeps me from playing any of them.

 

More class specific recipes is a good incentive.  I could see Tailor having a future when the cloth system is built out beyond white plain linen from flax.

Edited August 30, 2021 by evan37
Added suggestion

[junawood]

Since we got the classes, I've always chosen commoner. I don't want any negative effects (though I could counter them with different settings on singleplayer), and don't care for bonuses. It would just annoy me when something was exclusive for one class and it would actually be something I want and then can't do it on singleplayer. So the only thing left is different clothes to start with, and if I really wanted a certain style for some reason, I could just get those clothes from creative mode when I play singleplayer.

It's a bit different when you play multiplayer and are stuck with what you got, but then I'd choose commoner again, because I don't want to specialize, don't need bonuses and don't want any negative effects.

[Op Point Baker]

I play almost exclusively single player. I used to play only commoner because of the lack of disadvantages. When I realized that I always tried to avoid melee combat and would amass ores to ludicrous levels, the downsides to Hunter seem irrelevant to me. In my opinion, the classes outside of Commoner & Hunter have far to many / too strong of disadvantages to be really viable single player. The changes to gameplay with the other classes quickly become less of a challenge and more of a nuisance.

That said, while I have little experience on multiplayer games, the classes do seem to balance each other well enough if the server has a large enough & coherent population to have a good variety classes.

Oddly enough I would suggest creating more of a stark difference between the classes, the tradeoffs more balanced and probably strengthened advantages vs disadvantages. One such example could be to remove the HP changes and instead focus more on armor changes. Say Forlorn have less of a change to their stats when using Llamele or Chain armors but suffer a larger hit from plate armor. Black guard having little to no reductions when using plate armor. Malefactors having the stat reductions from armors go up more drastically as the tier of the armor goes up. Hunters have little to no reductions up to gamison armor but have far more significant reductions from any heavier armor. etc. This could take the disadvantages of a given class from being a hard hit to stats and instead make them a tradeoff in game play. i.e. A Taylor could choose to use plate mail, but would be at a far more significant reduction in stats than a Black Guard would.

[l33tmaan]

For whatever reason, people are TERRIFIED of penalties. Even if they love killing monsters and digging for ore and hate doing all the stupid base-building, I've seen people go with Commoner purely because "WTF +30% HUNGER? WTF, -15% DAMAGE? WTF, -15% ORE?" This is somehow despite the fact that these numbers are too small to really be meaningful. Now I have to hit someone one more time with a sword, or lose a few nuggets from the gigantic ore veins I always find, or eat slightly larger meals.

It's quite baffling. You could have a class whose traits are "+50 HP, +200% damage, +50% walking speed, but +25% hunger rate" and people STILL wouldn't pick it. The Commoner class is both the most worthless class, and the most popular. What a dilemma. 

[egocarib]

Another game I play used to have similar character creation options where each option had significant bonuses and disadvantages.

They revamped those options so that everything has only bonuses now, no disadvantages. It made things a lot more enjoyable, and many of the old options that no one ever chose (due to the penalties) now get chosen frequently and lead to a lot more variety and character enjoyment.

Not sure what makes sense for VS, but I will say I almost always choose Commoner in singleplayer because I don't like the idea of the big disadvantages that come with other classes.

[Drakker]

I'm surprised that the blackguard is rated so low. As others have said before, late game its by far the best class, and I would argue that starting with a blackguard is not that hard, since you can easily kill animals with it and feast on hefty meat stews that will keep you going for a long time. The drop rate penalty applies only to loot vessels, which rarely ever have anything useful in them anyway. My opinion is that the malefactor is the worst class because none of its bonuses matter mid to end game. At least the clockmaker has a useful rebate on TL repairs (though, again, I'd rather kill more drifters with the Blackguard and loot a ton of temporal gears, than struggle to kill monsters and save on temporal gears) and the tailor can make unique stuff (for now).

The best class is either the blackguard, or the hunter (in multiplayer to avoid ore penalty). The blackguard is though, can take a beating and deals good damage up close, but nothing can even come close to the damage output of the hunter when chain throwing bronze spears (or even obsidian spears!). Everything else doesn't matter much, especially if you are a builder. The only thing that really matters is your character durability and the speed at which you can dispatch monsters when you get into battle. The tailor is special in that it can make unique items for now, so its in a different category, where you want at least one on your multiplayer server, and earns a silver medal for this reason.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Drakker

[junawood]

34 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

Even if they love killing monsters and digging for ore and hate doing all the stupid base-building, I've seen people go with Commoner purely because "WTF +30% HUNGER? WTF, -15% DAMAGE? WTF, -15% ORE?"

Love killing monsters at 100% and -15% damage? Yeah... no, thanks. Love digging for ore at 100% and -15% ore? Yeah... no, thanks. Don't enjoy spending a lot of time with food, food, food and +30% hunger? Yeah... no, thanks.

35 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

You could have a class whose traits are "+50 HP, +200% damage, +50% walking speed, but +25% hunger rate" and people STILL wouldn't pick it.

If you don't need +50 HP, and don't need +200% damage, and don't need +50% walking speed, and +25% hunger rate means that you have to spend even more time with food, food, food and you don't enjoy that, then of course you wouldn't pick it. Why the heck would you?

If you have different preferences and choose different options and like it, then that's okay, but don't try to make it seem like other people are weird if their preferences are different than yours and they choose different options than you and like different things than you.

[Bran]

I think ideally all classes should be straight buffs, and commoners should be treated as the "human in DND" class, whereby they just get a small bonus to everything.

 

Nobody should have any downsides, everybody should just be better at one thing.  I've found in multiplayer that specialization happens organically, and everyone just picks commoner anyway because nobody likes getting nerfed.

[Kolyenka]

I almost always do blackguard, though I've tried all of them. For me, it makes combat easier. And I don't like combat, but I feel it's important enough in the game that I don't want to disable it completely by setting all mobs to passive or anything. I like the idea of the hunter class, but I always end up doing melee combat because the arrows are extremely frustrating in their buggy-ness (or at least they were the last time I used them, which admittedly was a while ago now).

Honestly, while I don't mind the class system as it is now, I think it could be improved. Changing character appearance based on class (not just the clothes, but something like body type or height or extra limbs--something not customizable) would probably encourage people to branch out a little more.

Edit: I will say, however, that the penalties aren't actually that bad. Having to eat a little more isn't really a noticeable problem. The cracked vessels dropping less doesn't really mean anything, since it's all randomized anyway, so even with my blackguard sometimes I find 17 brown coal and sometimes I find 2 brown coal. It doesn't affect it in a way that you can really quantify (with the exception of tool vessels, because sometimes they don't drop anything as a blackguard. But like, chances are I was gonna find one flint knife anyway, so I don't really mind).

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by goaliemagics

[Onsdag]

Something that people have touched on is how 'useful' a class is depends in measure upon whether one is playing single player or multiplayer. Here is my opinion on the classes, and how they rate in terms of usefulness. Remember, this is just my opinion based upon my own experiences, which are limited.

Commoner: No negatives, no bonuses. Single player or multiplayer, Commoner is arguably the 'best' class simply because it doesn't suffer any negatives. Sure, it doesn't have any bonuses either, but as can be seen by the poll the vast majority of players still would rather play this class than any other. 'Boring' it may be, but in a game as punishing as this game can be why gimp your character and make the game even harder? No thanks. Furthermore, this class shines in single player games and even multiplayer games where the player often needs to do everything for themselves. Having no negatives means you don't have to put in more work just to accomplish your goals.

Hunter: 6 bonuses, 2 negatives. Bonuses include increased range damage and accuracy, increased animal drops and harvesting speed, 10% increased movement speed, exclusive ranged weapon craftables. Negatives include lower melee damage and ore drop rates. Arguably the other 'best' class in the game simply because its bonuses easily outweigh the negatives. Ranged combat in this game is serviceable at best, so that bonus isn't the greatest, but it's still something, and if you learn to fight well with a bow you don't need melee combat and so you'll never be affected by that negative, or if you do find yourself forced into melee combat -15% translates into only needing to hit them one or two more times. Big deal. Another bonus, the 10% extra animal loot is actually a pretty big deal, especially for multiplayer servers. More meat means more long term food storage and hearty meals to keep everyone well-fed. More animal hides means more pelts and leather, especially useful for crafting the best backpacks in the game, which is again super helpful. More bones means more fertilizer for crops, meaning even more long-term food. More feathers means more arrows for your bow meaning longer sustainability in combat. More fat equals more sealed crocks for long-term storage to get you through the brutally harsh winter months, not to mention the need for fat in mid to late game projects like windmills, etc. I cannot emphasize enough just how massively useful this one bonus alone is and makes this a great class. +25% animal harvest speed is only marginally useful; but even still, faster harvesting means more time you can spend doing other things. Which brings us to the speed buff. 10% movement speed is another extremely useful skill. The faster you move the more tasks you can accomplish in a given day. It also means better exploration in the wilderness, better combat maneuvering, more survivability as you can better run from enemies or run back to base when starving, freezing, etc. The only method of travel in the game right now is by foot, which means the movement speed buff literally affects everything you do for the better all the time. Enough said. Exclusive ranged craftables is meh, but since you'll be using bows and arrows anyways you might as well make use of the skill. The only real negative for the hunter is the -15% ore drop rate, which actually isn't that bad all things considered. Sure, it'll take more time to gather the resources to move into the different ages, but not by much. This malus becomes almost irrelevant when playing on a multiplayer server.

Malefactor: A strange assortment of bonuses and negatives makes this a rather niche and situationally useful class. Admittedly I have never played one, but from the looks of it this class would only be useful on a multiplayer server, and only in the early game when you're trying to collect resources to get your base established. Better foraging only really helps yourself. Increased wild crop drop rate sounds good at first blush, until you realize there's only so many wild plants out there and you need to use them to establish your own farm, and this skill likely doesn't affect cultivated crops so is only really useful early game. The pilferer bonus is questionable. Does it only affect loot gathered from the cracked vessels found at ruins? If so that's not a very useful skill as those vessels generally only have loot that is useful early game. The increased rusty gear drop rate is laughable since you never hardly get those anyways, and they're only useful for trading with merchants, which is again only situationally useful. The chance to collect cracked vessels is laughable too since (sadly) there really is no use for them except to trade with merchants. And being only a 5% chance means you'll never even realistically get them. Again, laughable. The -20% animal seeking range can be nice, but the only animal you ever need to worry about is the wolf/hyena, which can be carefully avoided altogether. The negative lower health points isn't ideal, and can be either crippling or not a big deal depending on server settings and how much health you start out with. This, along with the combat debuffs means you'll probably going to be needing to avoid combat as much as possible. Overall this class doesn't really seem to bring anything to the table other than an early game multiplayer server explorer and collector of loot.

Clockmaker: This is a class that I really wanted to like. Unfortunately it is arguably one of the worst classes in the game. It has 3 bonuses, only one of which is useful, and 3 negatives. They do increased damage to mechanicals, which are only ever found (usually deep) underground. Getting to them and fighting them is difficult (as they swarm in large numbers), and they don't drop anything, which makes this an ultimately useless "bonus." Even worse, all of your negative traits specifically gimp your combat effectiveness - lower health, less ranged and melee combat - and so you don't want to be fighting anything to begin with, so what's the point of doing more damage to mechanicals? Utterly useless "bonus." Another bonus, -1 temporal gear to fix translocators, is pretty much useless too. Firstly translocators are very difficult to find. I've put in well over 100 hours into this game and have only ever found one translocator. This means for all intents and purposes you'll never actually get to benefit from this "bonus," except for maybe once per game if you're lucky. Secondly, temporal gears are fairly easy to obtain (even with the exceptionally low drop rate), so it's not like you'll be hurting to save them up for when you do find the translocators. I haven't gone out of my way to farm temporal gears, or build drifter pits, or anything, but by the time I finally found a translocator I had about 15 gears saved up. Now if translocators were more common, or easier to find, then perhaps this might become a useful skill, but as it stands currently it's pointless. The 10% increased movement speed is the one single useful perk this class has going for it. I've already spoken of it above in the Hunter class, so I won't belabor it anymore here. And since the Hunter has much better perks besides the speed buff, and fewer disadvantages than the Clockmaker, then it is always a better choice to roll a Hunter rather than a Clockmaker.

Blackguard: The blackguard has some decent perks, including quite a bit more HP, increased armor durability and melee damage, and the ability to craft a pretty decent sword once you hit the iron age. And increased mining speed will help you get to the iron age that much faster. However, the blackguard also suffers from some pretty nasty maluses including a whopping -30% hunger rate, less loot from foraging, breaking vessels, and harvesting wild crops. Taken together, this makes the blackguard more of a mid to late game class, while the early game will be significantly more challenging. It's also a better multiplayer class where it can truly shine supported by other players and classes, rather than a single player class. The other negative trait, -15% ranged damage, is irrelevant as you'll be spending your time in close combat where you truly shine. However, for me personally the blackguard is a mid to low tier class. Combat is pretty pointless in the game currently and combat is the only thing this class has going for it. That and I just find it too difficult of a pill to swallow having a constant -30% hunger debuff for the rest of the game. There are much better options available for me and my play style.

Tailor: 2 bonuses and 5 (!) negatives makes the Tailor, in my opinion, the worst class in the game. The only thing the tailor has going for it is the ability to craft clothing. Now, to be fair, clothing is a very important thing to have, especially for the winter months, and the Tailor really is useful in this regard especially in a multiplayer setting. However, you can get by without a tailor by trading with the merchants for cold weather clothing and you can mend your own clothing without the need for a tailor. Otherwise, clothing is purely a cosmetic thing within the game anyways and therefore the ability to craft your own clothing isn't strictly necessary. The other bonus, a 10% increase in armor durability, is meh. Now, the Tailor is tied with the blackguard for the most negative traits at 5, but I believe comes out worse because the maluses are broad spectrum covering many different and important aspects of the game. They have -2 HP, making them weaker and more prone to dying; they have -10% loot from foraging, making it harder to gather food; -10% mining speed, making it more tedious to collect minerals and therefore slower to progress into other ages; -10% animal loot, which is actually a pretty big deal as outlined in the Hunter section as it makes gathering and preserving food, exploration, and advancement through the ages more time consuming and tedious; and -25% animal harvesting speed, which is only marginally detrimental. The only way I'd consider ever playing a Tailor is on a multiplayer server where I have the support of a large community to help overcome all the weaknesses he's been saddled with. And even still I'm not entirely sure it'd be worth it.

Those are my thoughts and opinions on the classes as they currently are implemented in the game. Again though I'd like to reiterate the importance of taking a look at the classes with a single player environment versus a multiplayer environment. I'd like to see changes to the classes to make them interesting and viable in either setting. It's nice and fun to have a unique role within a community, but as currently implemented these roles are enforced by negative character traits - forcing players to rely on each other due to inherent weaknesses, rather than what that class can bring to the table, which more often than not hurts that class in the single player environment. Except the Hunter. the hunter is cool like that. 

[Maelstrom]

I've only played commoner in single player as it didn't make sense to me to select anything other than the jack-of-all-trades option when playing solo (although some comments have encouraged me to explore).  I've logged a max of 100 hours in the game and still playing a learning playthrough (just built my very first windmill about 3 play sessions ago), so I haven't taken the time to explore much yet.  Given my limited experience and the comments in this thread, I'll venture my opinion about classes...

It seems to me that making the commoner the jack-of-all-trades but master of none would be the foundation of the class system.  From this base class specialists would branch off with specialists with advanced skill that the Commoner only has basic skill in accomplishing.  For example, the Commoner could craft wool or fur clothing for winter providing greater thermal protection than the starting clothing offers but the tailor could craft wool AND fur clothing to provide even greater winter time thermal protection.   This top tier clothing could potentially nullify the freezing effects of extended daytime winter exposure but not sufficient to prevent freezing during extended nighttime operations.  Or the Commoner (and non-hunter classes) could craft the crude bow and arrow but only the Hunter could craft the more advanced bow.  Black Guard could likewise craft superior armor not available to the other professions including Commoner. Perhaps Clockmaker can forge the metal gears (not temporal gears) required to repair TLs (also reduce the availability of those gears to traders and rare frequency in dungeon loot tables).

I think this change alone would encourage a more robust population of class use.  Any modifiers in numerical things (like boosting/nerfing various stats) would become less emphasized.