Class survey

[Silent Shadow]

People just do not grasp the advantage of the Blackguard.

I like the black guard the most because it is the most suited for exploring the most challenging environments (for me anyway) of the underground and dense forests and is also the most material efficient of all the classes while doing it. Metal is probably the most valuable, but costly, material to produce in the game and you never stop needing it. Metal needs ore to be mined from usually dangerous areas, the most infrastructure built (basic workshop, mines, and a lot more for iron and steel), charcoal or coal in large quantities, and requires active player participation in most of its processes. The black guard has the best traits with regard to the metal industry as black guards can mine faster, most of their weapons and armor last longer, and they are the most suited for the underground where most ores/minerals are mined. Mining faster is a nice bonus to minimize the time spent underground but a bigger advantage a Blackguard has is how efficient he is with metal weapons and armor. Black guards add 10% armor hp and since you can use nearly destroyed chainmail in the creation of full hp plate or scale mail, you get effectively 60 to 420 extra hp depending on the armors used/made (chain mail into scale or plate works best), which works out to quite a few more attacks blocked before breaking, especially with high end armors like plate mail which can knock the incoming damage down a lot.

As far as I am aware, tool durability is only decremented by the number of actions done or blocks/items affected (an exception is the heavy hit function in forging), so each attack with a sword/spear decrements its health by one. Since the Blackguard has a 20% damage buff he can reach some break points for some weapons and save metal with fewer hits.

***I made the following assumptions: Damage values are not rounded up nor is there damage variance or "crits", and drifters have no damage reduction nor armor (that I could find). If not in the in-game handbook, I used what the wiki said. I also have not tested these numbers as I am lazy.***

I did not include Gold, Silver, or meteoric iron due to their rarity and unlikeliness to be used as a weapon, but they have the same damage values as Bismuth Bronze and Steel respectively. You can find the numbers in the in-game handbook.

You can determine three things when looking at these graphs; that Blackguards can kill the weaker drifters faster than a commoner with tin bronze weapons, he can kill the three most dangerous drifters faster than a commoner with any melee weapon, and he since he kills with fewer hits the blackguard's weapons (the ones with reductions) will last longer in his hands than in a Commoner's.

Looking at how long the melee weapons last for a blackguard it gets real good. Against plain drifters, Tin Bronze spears and Tin/Black Bronze swords will last 33.33% longer for a black guard than a commoner (Equivalent Durability Modifier = 1 / (1 - reduction %)). Against deep drifters (another common drifter), the same weapons will last 25% longer for a black guard. Against the more rare and dangerous Drifters (Tainted, Corrupt, Nightmare) Black Bronze, Iron, and Steel weapons will last around 16.7% to 25% longer. It is unfortunate though that steel and iron weapons do not get an durability advantage against the most common drifters.

The Hunter does not reach many breakpoints with spears with only a 10% boost. With most metal spears, he is no better at killing drifters than a commoner, but this is not to say that the hunter is bad, just overrated.

Since thrown spears do roughly 1.5 times as much damage as swords you might think that they would have an advantage in DPS and damage per metal invested against swords, but this is not true for common classes or Hunter thrown spears vs Blackguard swords. They do cost 1 hp per throw and do roughly twice the damage of a sword blow, but swords have roughly 2.25 times the durability of spears, so swords have a higher damage per metal investment ratio. For DPS, I found that I could swing a sword two times faster than accurately throw a spear at a nearby drifter, as I had to aim to get the throwing window small enough to ensure an accurate shot (though someone more experienced than me may be able to do better) which basically means spears did twice the damage but took twice as long per attack compared to swords, for roughly equal DPS (experience with each weapon will probably determine which is best for you).

Hunter does kill a bit faster with arrows, but he gets only a minimal benefit for durability thanks to how bows and arrows break [edit: still true].

While the percent reductions are not good for most of the drifters you will be facing, you have to remember that it is only the bow that loses durability, meaning only sticks and string are used (and easily replaced). Arrows can usually be recovered with good rates [edit: This is only true for missed shots which seem to never break. About a third of shots that hit a creature tend to break, which really cuts down their efficiency for a Hunter to around 8.5+1 drifters per ingot invested. A sword can easily reach over a 100 drifters per ingot invested for a Commoner] and they are also manufactured at 9 arrow heads per ingot and thus are a very metal efficient option [edit: They are the worst option I am aware of. Bows and arrows are "the best" only if number of slots and sustainability (no picking up ammo/spears) are a priority. They really need some love to be worthwhile.] (if rather bottle necked by low feather availability). Bows and arrows do have a bit less DPS than swords (less attack speed) and spears (less damage per shot) for any class though this is usually not an issue for ranged combat.

The underground environment typically has the following characteristics:

• Low light, which means your sight is going to be limited by how far your light projects. Assuming the tunnel or cave you are in is greater than your light radius, you will only be able to effectively shoot the targets illuminated by your light source. This mostly negates thrown spears' and bows' greatest advantage of range. Since you are pretty much limited to melee anyway by space or light, being a Blackguard will be an easier time.
• Restricted maneuverability: it is much harder to kite underground thanks to the inherent vertical features/hazards and small spaces so you are much more likely to be hit and recovering arrows and spears will be much harder. Since blackguards have the most health (+5) and armor that lasts longer, they can survive longer in those situations.
• Limited Inventory: Slots are at a premium when going underground for ores/minerals or equipment like ladders, torches, food, pickaxes, medicine, artifacts, or what have you. A single sword occupies only one slot and performs well with minimal space so a Blackguard makes more sense to use. A Hunter will need to throw two bronze spears to down a drifter and 4-6 for the most dangerous of them, which means you need at least 5 spears to kill one or two drifters by quickly throwing spears at them. It can be done, but since spears do not stack, you have to allot 5 slots on spears or hope you can recover your spears in the confines of the underground. Bows are better than spears for the hunter in this regard, but at the cost of DPS.
• Temporal Instability: Your character's time will be limited by their temporal stability so having to spend less time mining means more extraction or exploring is possible for Blackguards.

Given how easy it is to get food in the game I do not feel the extra hunger of a Blackguard is that bad, even with winters or in the early game. Once you get a farm going and a simple cellar food problems are more or less solved for a Blackguard (it is only wild foods that get the item drop rate malus). If you spend your time huddling in a dirt shelter at night panning then you may run out of food, but I usually keep exploring at night to get a jump on the limited time you have until winter comes anyway (great time to pan then).

Thank you for coming to my Ted-Talk. Sorry for any bad grammar or disjointed arguments my tired eyes missed.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Silent Shadow
said spelling/grammar corrections, fix images, edit stance on bow and arrow metal efficiency

[Onsdag]

13 minutes ago, Silent Shadow said:

People just do not grasp the advantage of the Blackguard.

Respectfully snipped by me.

Thank you for the excellent post detailing the virtues of a Blackguard. It was very well written and thought out. And you're right, the Blackguard is an amazing class... for a very specific playstyle. However, for the vast majority of players the Blackguard simply doesn't suit their playstyle and what they want out of the game.

The Blackguard is really only good at combat, and exploring deep underground where there is a constant threat of combat. But what % of players play the game for either of these reasons?

• As far as combat goes, it isn't exactly interesting or exciting. And the mobs don't exactly drop anything useful, so there is no incentive to go out of your way to hunt them. Furthermore, (Spoiler alert!)
  Spoiler

  according to the lore within the game (at least from what I can make out) the major mobs you are fighting (Drifters) are actual people who have gotten sick through some disease which has mutated them. This may bother people when they realize they are actually killing other humans (or whatever this game calls them, but they're the same species as the player) within the game and will be put off from it. I know I am. Especially when I read lore and journals within the game talking about the potential to reverse and cure these people/drifters. Kinda makes you sick to realize you're killing these people and carving up their dead bodies with a knife to 'harvest' them like an animal, doesn't it? No wonder this is billed as some bizarre-twisted-horror-story-of-a-civilization-game. It's pretty messed up when you allow yourself to think about it.

  So combat for the sake of combat might not appeal to a lot of people. Also, unless you go deep underground, the only hostile mobs you will find on or near the surface are relatively easy to kill, making the Blackguard class a situationally useful class.

• As far as exploration goes, a Blackguard only excels at exploration deep underground. But what is the point of going deep underground? There's ores, gemstones, etc., but those can all be found using a pro pick and mining your own veins closer to the surface, without all of the risk of exploring a cave system. And the mining bonus is rather superfluous. As a commoner, finding and mining a single vein of iron has set me up with enough iron for the rest of the game. I'm already deep in the iron age and still have over 2 stacks of iron bloom ready to be hammered out when needed. All without the risk of plumbing the depths of a Drifter and mechanical infested cave system. You can potentially find ruins or translocators, but I have found those far more often near the surface. Exploring deep cave systems is extremely dangerous with little reward or profit that can't be done through easier and safer means, and is only a very minor part of the gameplay that VS has to offer. 

Most people play VS for other reasons than combat or exploring deep caves. And so, while the Blackguard is indeed a very fine fighter class, it is only really ever a one trick pony that will appeal to gamers with a very specific playstyle, such as yourself. As borne out by the poll, only about 6-7% of the respondents view the Blackguard as the best or their favorite class to play. Which means 93-94% of the respondents feel a different class better suits their playstyle.

[Silent Shadow]

I dunno about playstyles, none of these are really that exclusive that you couldn't make the most of any of them and I have not seen any strategies built around one class. It would seem that people just pick commoner when playing solo because they do not feel any pressure to excel in any one thing or they do not want to deal with a malus.

Blackguard just deals with the hardest part of the game the best in my opinion and he gets the best efficiency out of metal, which while easy to procure, takes the most time to gather and process of any industry. Since Blackguard needs less metal overall compared to the other classes, s/he has more time to do whatever. If you want to build big impressive structures in survival you will probably be spending a lot of time underground getting materials to make it and blackguard is great for that. The extra health makes surviving in forests a lot easier (can you really spot wolves in dense cover before they notice you?) which will be useful no matter what you are doing. Blackguard can excel at a lot of tasks and do fine in the others.

3 hours ago, Onsdag said:

As far as combat goes, it isn't exactly interesting or exciting. And the mobs don't exactly drop anything useful, so there is no incentive to go out of your way to hunt them. Furthermore, (Spoiler alert!)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

That is not entirely true, but close. You can use the temporal gears drifters drop to cut delivery trips in half, you can use the flax they drop in the early game to make yourself some bags for more inventory space, and as for the spoiler, well...

Spoiler

I like to think I am putting them out of their misery, or that they are no longer in there. There may have been hope for a cure but that died with their civilization (I can only remember them saying nothing they did would stop the corruption, let alone reverse it, and we certainly cannot do anything about it) Cutting them up is probably gross, but so is dressing an animal, and they would seem more like a golem now than flesh and bone (never seem to find those in them, but you find it in their lairs/ruins.)

Combat is pretty boring on its own but I would say it is never the main focus of the game (seems everyone assumes I really enjoy it when I talk about it); it serves to make a dangerous place more perilous and it puts some stress on the player's time and resources in a place that is nearly devoid of replacements for either, similar to a horror survival game (I doubt anyone plays those for the sake of combat; monsters are just here to set the mood and give you a reason to invest in equipment and supplies).

As for going underground there are lots of reasons to go deep (60 blocks or more):

• Some resources can only be found in decent amounts if you include the deep depths, the prime examples being cassiterite and salt domes.
• Best place to find artifacts.
• Most ores can also be found at low depths so by going deep you can exploit the Ultra high scarcity found by propick. Many ores can only be found at the bountiful grade in volcanic rocks that exist at the bottom. This is a nice way to spend the winter when you are more prepared as you can go get that high quality ore in the earth's warmth instead of traveling to several shallow mines in the cold.
• The challenge, and it is cool to see a magma chamber for the first few times.

I was surprised to see so few people picked Blackguard and was kinda hoping to hear why people don't care for it. So far only you have really said anything about it but most say they don't see anything being better than commoner.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Silent Shadow
grammar/spelling

[Fredrik Blomquist]

I always plays as commoner, i think Onsdag sums up pretty good my feelings. I avoid all range combat, and black guard would be my second choice. The increase in hunger rate is a mayor downside when you play single player survival though, and i the beginning of the game it would be pretty rough until your settled, so i don't go with that class.

 

 

[junawood]

7 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

I dunno about playstyles

When I start a new world, I choose settings that match how I want to play and I can fine tune it in a way no class can. Changing some things again with choosing classes after I chose settings I love, does not really make a lot of sense in singleplayer. I know what playing commoner means and that's the base line, and if I want more HP or faster mining, then I choose that in the settings menue, not with the classes. If I want more HP, I can get up to 35, so a class with +5 HP only means something if I want 40 HP for some reason. If I want faster mining, then I can choose 125%, 150%, 200% and even 300% tool mining speed, and really don't need a class for that. So I think the classes mostly make sense on multiplayer servers where you can't choose the settings and might have to counter settings you don't like with the right class. But then you have to know the settings of the server before you choose the class and that's normally not the case when you just try out a random server on the list, so I'd choose commoner again.

At the moment I play in a world with mostly exploration mode settings, but I enabled harsh winters, chose "normal" for walk speed (normally "slightly slower" in exploration mode), turned temporal stability on with storms every 30-40 days, chose "never hostile" for creature hostility (and later decided to not kill drifters) and then I ran south and explored a ton and started building a home in a pretty warm region. I absolutely love this relaxed way of playing and building (I don't have to change the building to keep drifters or wolves/hyaenas out) and I could not care less about classes.

And your reasons to go deep, like:

7 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

Some resources can only be found in decent amounts if you include the deep depths, the prime examples being cassiterite and salt domes.

Well, I found salt a couple of times just by walking around and seeing it from the surface, in a cave or even simply a cliff. Just like a lot of other stuff. I have explored a lot of really deep caves, mined down to the mantle, and flew around in creative mode and saw all the interesting hidden underground ruins just a few blocks below the surface, and I really don't think that it get's more interesting the deeper you go.

[Silent Shadow]

While your explanation makes some sense would it not make more sense to pick a different class than commoner for the unique benefits and then use the world creation settings to negate the negatives that come with the class? Things like attack damage or the ability to make unique items are not available from the world creation settings so why not choose those things via classes? I understand why a blackguard may not be picked for a peaceful run but why not the others?

6 hours ago, junawood said:

Well, I found salt a couple of times just by walking around and seeing it from the surface, in a cave or even simply a cliff. Just like a lot of other stuff. I have explored a lot of really deep caves, mined down to the mantle, and flew around in creative mode and saw all the interesting hidden underground ruins just a few blocks below the surface, and I really don't think that it get's more interesting the deeper you go.

I have found salt that way too, but the key words here are "a couple of times." If you are specifically looking for some mineral you are better off searching more vertically in a likely area than to horizontally search for more areas. You will probably find some extra ores and goodies this way too.

[l33tmaan]

Hot take: Classes either shouldn't have unique recipes, or shouldn't affect any statistics whatsoever. Pick one or the other. 
Ideally, classes should have exclusive capabilities other classes cannot replicate. Right now, the Tailor is the only class that can do that, yet it's saddled with so many negatives in exchange that it's very difficult to justify playing it, and making a variety clothes just... isn't too important right now.

[Silent Shadow]

8 hours ago, Fredrik Blomquist said:

I always plays as commoner, i think Onsdag sums up pretty good my feelings. I avoid all range combat, and black guard would be my second choice. The increase in hunger rate is a mayor downside when you play single player survival though, and i the beginning of the game it would be pretty rough until your settled, so i don't go with that class.

Try it sometime, you may find it is not that hard or even easier (the extra health really helps in the early game).

[Maelstrom]

2 hours ago, l33tmaan said:

Hot take: Classes either shouldn't have unique recipes, or shouldn't affect any statistics whatsoever. Pick one or the other. 
Ideally, classes should have exclusive capabilities other classes cannot replicate. Right now, the Tailor is the only class that can do that, yet it's saddled with so many negatives in exchange that it's very difficult to justify playing it, and making a variety clothes just... isn't too important right now.

I think that should be the basis of the different classes but I don't have an issue with a couple stat modifiers as well, as long as they make sense.  Hunter's speed bonus makes sense for instance.

[Sypher Tendervine]

Commoner chads represent.

 

In all seriousness, I feel like people greatly under appreciate how dramatic the Blackguard's drawback and the Hunter's drawback are.

[Silent Shadow]

4 hours ago, Sypher Tendervine said:

In all seriousness, I feel like people greatly under appreciate how dramatic the Blackguard's drawback and the Hunter's drawback are.

I feel the opposite, food is so easy to get in this game that hunger is not an issue unless you are brand new and -15% ore is really not that debilitating for a class optimized for bows & arrows with leather/linen armor (if they even want armor with their ranged build). Their other damage debuffs are not a problem as that is not their focus, nor severe enough that it is not an option for them.

I bet the real reason commoner is so popular is because there is no big reason to be specialized in this game. The path for advancement is the same for every character and the bonus/malus each character gets is not big enough to make any of them objectively better than the rest. If not defaulting to commoner, I would bet that most players select the class for what job they would want to do in multiplayer (if they can get a bonus for it) or if they want to focus on a narrow part of the game in single player such as nomadic exploration or underground exploring/exploitation.

If the Devs want to encourage people to pick different classes then the only way I see that happening is to make the game harder in multiple ways and to extend the magnitude of the class bonuses and maluses to dial back some of those challenges. This would encourage players to stick to an area or playstyle they excel in until they can remedy their shortcomings with technology or better gear but their bonuses would incentivize them to maintain their playstyle to a degree. An example would be to make mining much slower so that players would try to get the best equipment (steel/iron pickaxe or invest into making explosives) so mining could happen quicker or they could select a class well suited for mining that was naturally faster. This miner class would be best at mining early on, and later on his/her speed could be matched but not the efficiency. The problem is that the Devs have kinda shot themselves in the foot with how customizable they made the world settings since most classes' drawbacks can just be negated (although most players said they played with minimal changes in the multiplayer survey).

Items locked to specific classes are fine in my opinion, but they should be shortcuts to or inferior copies of later tools and gear. The hunter's unique bow and arrows is a good example and the tailor is good too since you can get similar clothes from a trader but only after a lot of searching and gears. The problem in multiplayer is that one person can just make enough unique items for everyone, so their unique item should be class locked or there should be group drawbacks inherent in the class, but the only ones I can think of is increased hunger rate (everyone needs food), reduced temperature thresholds (so they might need to live further away from the group or spend more time in doors not collecting resources), and maybe global reduced resource production speed/amounts.

The commoner class should become the default class for learning the game so new players can experience everything without too much trouble, but not really offer any reason to continue playing it once they have mastered the basics. Players seem to favor one aspect of the game or another so I would expect them to naturally choose something to specialize in once the bonuses are worth it. Alternatively, just have everyone start as a commoner and then specialize into another class they want. This would solve the server issue of people not knowing what the server's class makeup is until after they have created their character (and class).

Honestly though, I don't think this game really needs classes. An experience system granting more efficiency might be more suited so what you like/have to do gets easier and that just becomes your "specialization". Just please do not lock stuff behind level requirements, the material requirements already work well for pacing.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Silent Shadow
grammar

[junawood]

14 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

would it not make more sense to pick a different class than commoner for the unique benefits

Short answer: There's no unique benefit that I need or want.

 

14 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

the ability to make unique items

Like I already said, this is rather something that would annoy me in singleplayer (and most likely also on multiplayer servers, because I don't like to specialize or depend on other players that might or might not be online when I play, if we are in the same area of the world at all), if I would not be able to craft something I want or play a part of the game because of classes.

I love that you can customize the settings so much and you can play the game in so many different ways and find the one you absolutely love or even several styles you like for different reasons and try new/weird/extreme challenges in new worlds and people who like completely different things can all enjoy the same game. Classes can be a way to still be able to choose some things even when you play on a multiplayer server where you have no control over the settings, so people who enjoy different things in the game can play together (for example, a class with a lower hunger rate if you play on a server with a higher hunger rate than you enjoy). But please don't force me to choose a class and then be locked out of a part of the game.

[PhotriusPyrelus]

I have only played Commoner. I have not played a whole lot, so I don't feel qualified to answer on the poll, but my n00by first impressions were mostly that a few % differences weren't going to make that big of an impact on the game, so why bother? The most-tempting were the Tailor and the Hunter because of the unique recipes, but I decided to pass on Hunter because I figured I'd be stuck in melee for a long time 'til I could make a bow, and I just didn't (don't) know how useful the clothing and clothing repair would be.

I really like incomparables rather than just plain stat boost or reductions. Stuff like - and I'm not saying any of these are good ideas, just examples of what I mean - "this class can double-jump, but can't climb ladders", "all animals are friendly, but non-animals notice you from double the normal distance"

I'm probably not explaining it well, and probably using the wrong terminology; I heard it in an Extra Creditz many years ago. The idea was instead of giving the player a choice between 10% more damage with X or 10% more damage with Y, or 10% more HP, it would be a choice between, say, double jump and no fall damage. Stuff that adds something new rather than just a marginal improvement on what you can already do. Which is why Tailor and Hunter appealed; they can make things no other class can make.

[Hiraku]

I find the class system pretty inconsequential and uninteresting.

I think it would be more fun if everyone started out the same, with a system that allows you to pick whatever traits / malus you want after gaining enough experience, basically building your own class.

[Fredrik Blomquist]

20 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

Try it sometime, you may find it is not that hard or even easier (the extra health really helps in the early game).

I might do that. To be honest i haven't played that many times this far.

[Silent Shadow]

6 hours ago, junawood said:

Like I already said, this is rather something that would annoy me in singleplayer (and most likely also on multiplayer servers, because I don't like to specialize or depend on other players that might or might not be online when I play, if we are in the same area of the world at all), if I would not be able to craft something I want or play a part of the game because of classes.

I love that you can customize the settings so much and you can play the game in so many different ways and find the one you absolutely love or even several styles you like for different reasons and try new/weird/extreme challenges in new worlds and people who like completely different things can all enjoy the same game. Classes can be a way to still be able to choose some things even when you play on a multiplayer server where you have no control over the settings, so people who enjoy different things in the game can play together (for example, a class with a lower hunger rate if you play on a server with a higher hunger rate than you enjoy). But please don't force me to choose a class and then be locked out of a part of the game.

 

8 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

Items locked to specific classes are fine in my opinion, but they should be shortcuts to or inferior copies of later tools and gear. The hunter's unique bow and arrows is a good example and the tailor is good too since you can get similar clothes from a trader but only after a lot of searching and gears. The problem in multiplayer is that one person can just make enough unique items for everyone, so their unique item should be class locked or there should be group drawbacks inherent in the class, but the only ones I can think of is increased hunger rate (everyone needs food), reduced temperature thresholds (so they might need to live further away from the group or spend more time in doors not collecting resources), and maybe global reduced resource production speed/amounts.

The commoner class should become the default class for learning the game so new players can experience everything without too much trouble, but not really offer any reason to continue playing it once they have mastered the basics. Players seem to favor one aspect of the game or another so I would expect them to naturally choose something to specialize in once the bonuses are worth it. Alternatively, just have everyone start as a commoner and then specialize into another class they want. This would solve the server issue of people not knowing what the server's class makeup is until after they have created their character (and class).

 

[Remuluson2]

Honestly I have a problem of being hardcore puritan when it comes to server settings. I know I might be a bit naive to assume the settings the coders put in place are just enough to be good and challenging experience but I don't like meddling with them. Maybe after another two hundred hours.

I feel like maybe the best course of action is to just flip the debuff on its head and just put the lowest class's damage as the baseline so everyone only gets buffs. The numbers would be inherently the same but it feels much different if you see class have -30% to food consumption rathen than someone else having a big stack of red numbers.

Personally I play as a commoner, sometimes picking malefactor to avoid wolves but then I die thanks to some sudden drop and I go back to commoner again.

[l33tmaan]

But then Commoner would just be a class with a bunch of buffs, luring people to picking it. Just changing people's perception of the numbers won't really help much.

[Silent Shadow]

Some ideas: Note that "starts with x"  refers to the start of the game, respawning does not grant these.

• Commoner -  The learning, jack of all trades class.
  • Bonus: Global 10% work speed bonus
  • Malus: None
  • Starts with full hp clothes, a leather backpack, a bronze mattock (new tool that can break wood, stone, and dirt but at a 50% speed), a bronze hammer, and some food.
• Blackguard - Fighter and miner class.
  • Bonuses: 40% extra melee damage, 5 extra hp, +20% mining speed, two or three bonus inventory slots, halved stat reductions from armor.
  • Maluses: +35% hunger rate, -30% forage/loot drops, -10% ranged aim.
  • Starts with a bronze sword, and leather armor (no helmet).
• Hunter - Ranger class, good for hunting, ranged combat, and exploration.
  • Bonuses: 30% extra ranged damage and aim speed, 10% faster walk speed, 20% better animal harvesting amounts/speed, and can tell the direction he is facing and time till nightfall (Can be replicated with a iron compass or watch selected in the inventory bar).
  • Maluses: +20% Hunger rate. 20% slower mining speed, 20% faster temporal stability loss rate.
  • Starts with a bow, and 16 bronze arrows. No longer is the only one able to make crude bows and arrows.
• Clockmaker - Businessman class that utilizes teleportation the easiest.
  • Bonuses: Halved temporal stability loss rate, 50% extra damage to mechanical enemies, 20% more favorable deals with traders who have 20% more gears to spend. Propick also reveals translocators on the Density Search mode. Can forge machine parts and watches from steel (usually found as loot or bought from traders).
  • Maluses: 2.5 less Hp, 15% less damage to organic enemies.
  • Starts with 5 rusty gears and one temporal gear.
• Malefactor - Scout/forager/treasure hunter class
  • Bonuses: 30% better loot/forage drops (except food, seeds are fine), 20% slower hunger rate, Hostile mobs have a 20% lower detection radius and are highlighted in a color visible through blocks (can be toggled on/off), better panning probabilities, propick reveals ruins in the node search with a much bigger radius.
  • Maluses: 2.5 less health. Stat penalties from armor doubled.
  • Starts with a bronze spear, and two linen sacks.
• Tailor - Clothier and armorer class
  • Bonuses: Armor and clothes are made with 15% more hp, can make clothes (traders sell them too), gets 20% more reeds, flax fibers, and hides from drops and crops. 
  • Maluses: 2.5 less health, 20% faster hunger rate.
  • Starts with full hp clothes, 4 twine, 4 linens, and 25 flax seeds.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Silent Shadow

[junawood]

18 minutes ago, Silent Shadow said:

Commoner -  The learning, jack of all trades class.

• Bonus: Global 10% work speed bonus
• Malus: None
• Starts with full hp clothes, a leather backpack, a bronze mattock (new tool that can break wood, stone, and dirt but at a 50% speed), a bronze hammer, and some food.

 

Why?? That would suck to take goals away by giving you stuff you otherwise would have felt good about when you find/buy/craft it.

[Silent Shadow]

It is a shortcut, not a replacement. You will still have to make more tools, more portable containers, and food. These are not adamantium items that never wear out or a bag of holding. You can see immediately the difference when you are forced to make new stone tools, and more experienced players (who already know the difference) will have the same goal of getting more metal tools anyway.

Plus it is for beginners or people who want a head start.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Silent Shadow

[Silent Shadow]

These are also just ideas, the commoner maybe should not be able to mine ores right off the bat but there is still a lot of the game left for them to do.

[Omega Haxors]

So pretty much what this is saying is that classes are designed for multiplayer, and the current state of multiplayer is not worth playing.

Not surprising that people don't want to play as the classes, because Commoner is the only one you should ever pick in a Singleplayer world.

 

I think a lot more singleplayer individuals would go into specializations if they were something you got into via gameplay, not just a front-loaded choice. Skill trees are popular in games for a reason and it would add an element of character progression plus an organic 'punishment' for dying. Lose a life? Start over. Current build not working? Off the cliff express. Make a list of specializations and give the player the ability to mix and match what up/downsides they want and create their own story. Like I love being a wandering trader so things that buff move speed and health are super useful for the dangerous treks across the wilderness. Really it's a toss-up between Clockmaker's speed and Malefactor's looting, and if I could mix the classes, I would.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Omega Haxors
extra idea

[Silent Shadow]

1 hour ago, Omega Haxors said:

So pretty much what this is saying is that classes are designed for multiplayer, and the current state of multiplayer is not worth playing.

Not surprising that people don't want to play as the classes, because Commoner is the only one you should ever pick in a Singleplayer world.

I am not so sure. I would say it depends on what you want to experience in a single player game. If you are going for a nomadic experience, a hunter or malefactor would be the classes to play. If you want to explore the underground or more dangerous terrain like rugged mountains/hills or dense forest where retreat is not always a good option or even possible, then blackguard or maybe malefactor would be better. If you want to focus on trading and a travel network then clockmaker would be best. If you want to find lore and treasure then malefactor is best. If you want a bit of everything or want to learn most aspects of the game, then commoner is the one to play. Tailor is probably the most multiplayer focused one unless you are going for a cold weather game.

As the game is right now, it is not hard enough to warrant specialization nor are the classes sufficiently specialized to emphasize a certain playstyle with them.

I tried a bit to balance them for multiplayer in addition to single player. The idea being that group benefits would come with group cost; such as with the tailor who can create cold weather clothes for everyone, but needs more food that the group has to provide (namely via the soft limit imposed by limited seeds and thus limited farming, as well as winter, so hunting and foraging must supplement the food supply more.) However, a group that is specialized in its labors should be more efficient anyway and I think that is reflected in the class ideas I threw out. There is definitively room for improvement though.

I think the main reason the Devs went with a class system is for lore reasons and to facilitate a society as players would be more likely to work together instead of doing their own thing.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Silent Shadow

[junawood]

11 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

It is a shortcut, not a replacement. You will still have to make more tools, more portable containers, and food. These are not adamantium items that never wear out or a bag of holding. You can see immediately the difference when you are forced to make new stone tools, and more experienced players (who already know the difference) will have the same goal of getting more metal tools anyway.

Plus it is for beginners or people who want a head start.

 

11 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

These are also just ideas, the commoner maybe should not be able to mine ores right off the bat but there is still a lot of the game left for them to do.

It is a game. You want to play. Playing means doing things and reaching goals and feeling good about it. That's why you craft your tools and gather stuff even if you could just type "/gamemode 2" and get everything from the creative inventory. That's why you start in stone age with nothing (well, with clothes and it might even be a nice option to start without clothes) and then make progress. And that's also why some people struggle to find things to do after they have all the tools and tried everything from pit kilns to steel making, because this game gives you a finite amount of goals, and you have to start creating your own goals, like gathering enough materials to build a castle with a dragon on a tower or a huge farm with nothing but amaranth or whatever, and some people simply are not good at creating their own goals or don't enjoy it that much. So taking things away and saying that "there is still a lot of the game left for them to do" would not really make things better.

And even after all the time I have spend playing this game, it still feels great to start a fresh new world with nothing and find the first flint and gather the first sticks and craft the first knives. So I don't even want to start with free sticks and stones in my inventory (starter kits on multiplayer servers can be a different thing sometimes). And if you are so lucky (and maybe also experienced enough to know where to look for it) to then find metal tools or a linen sack or something like that in one of your first vessels/chests, it feels absolutely awesome and you're really happy! Just starting with the same thing in your inventory on the other hand feels...meh.

14 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

You will still have to make more tools, more portable containers, and food.

"More" does not give you the same feeling as the achievement of the first one. Skipping the achievement of the first one does not add anything to the game, but lowers the experience.

Even if I am able to buy a black bronze pickaxe very early in the game and it feels great, crafting the first one myself a while after that feels less exciting, because I was already able to start doing the things you can do with a bronze pickaxe, no matter how often I will still use one. But then I did have that really nice experience of getting enough gears somehow early in the game and finding a trader who sells what I want and being able to buy it. Just starting the game with a bronze pickaxe in your inventory every time you choose the same class gives you nothing of that.
 

5 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

I would say it depends on what you want to experience in a single player game. If you are going for a nomadic experience, a hunter or malefactor would be the classes to play.

If you want a certain experience of how to deal with a nomadic lifestyle. If you want another experience of living as a nomad, you might choose another class or change the settings in completely different ways.