Game Feature Suggestions - ID: 1027
FORUM: Feature Requests
This topic was started by AudreyTheAmazing on 24/01/2013, 06:37:55
I finished the game probably somewhere around 40 hours of gameplay. I'm around 50 hours now and wandering around the inferno just for some minor grinding. For some background, I played the original Bard's Tale trilogy thanks to my nerdy parents back in the late 80s and early 90s. I've been a hardcore RPG gamer most of my life, including playing a MUD for 12 years. That said, here are some game/feature suggestions:
- while the challenge remains solid throughout the early and mid-game, you eventually reach a point where all monsters are a joke. The late-game challenge was far too easy. The hidden bandit camp had some really tough groups that popped up, requiring strategy, planning, and grinding to beat. By the time you reach The Inferno, groups are way too easy, even with their specialty skills. Basically, just about every attack missed, magic was deadly when it hit, but even that became a rarity, and large groups were non-existent. I think the largest group of a single monster type in the inferno was 10, whereas previous areas easily had 30+.
- to rectify the situation, perhaps a difficulty toggle would help? Like, increasing the average number of monsters within a group for random encounters.
- Archmages are extremely overpowered, partially because the number of harmonic splinter and gem drops is too high. Turning magic into a limited resource that should be conserved would help solve this. One suggestion to fix this would be to trade out the number of harmonic gems for an item that increases a random spell's skill level by several percentage points. This way, you're still getting something useful and potentially lowering the cost of spells over a long period of time while increasing the value of magic points.
- late-game thieves are useless to have in the party because they dish out relatively little damage, their critical hit is unreliable even at 99%, they have relatively little use beyond picking a few locks, and they have too many support skills that others already have, making them redundant. My suggestion would be to take away their critical hit skill and give them a backstab skill that has a chance to do 5x normal damage (or however much it would take to outstrip a warrior's normal damage output) while in hiding. A successful backstab would bring them out of hiding, so they'd have to go back into the shadows on their next turn. This would make them useful for fighting bosses because of their high single-hit damage output. Identify should be replaced by perhaps a treasure-hunter skill that increases the chance for rarer items to be found if items are found at all.
- for more late-game playability, I would suggest random encounters with mini-bosses unique to specific areas. These battles would be tougher and take longer to fight, but they could be fled from and, upon defeat, give the potential for a rare item not dropped by any other monsters in the area
- one of the main complaints was the leveling system. People claimed to roll and reload over and over again to get desirable hp gains and stat increases. My suggestion would be to increase the likelihood of rolling a desirable gain consistent with the class of the character. For me, I didn't feel like wasting my time with the roll-and-reload method, so I just took what I got. I ended up with a bard who inexplicably gained intelligence nearly every level, going from 9 int to 25 int over the course of her gains.
- spells were annoying after awhile. I didn't mind that I could use different spells for different situations, but digging through the lists became a headache. A suggestion would be to make the lists a collapsible accordion for user-friendly interface
- spellcasters are way too powerful as-is. The over-reliance of having several within the party makes for too easy of an end-game. My suggestion would be to limit the schools of magic you can learn to 3, with Archmage always being the third. So, you can make a conjurer/sorcerer/Archmage to fill one slot and a magician/wizard/Archmage to fill the other. This scales back some of their overpoweredness and reduces carbon-copy all-powerful demi-god occurrence.
- paladin also becomes less useful in the late-game. I'd suggest adding a skill that would allow him/her to take the damage a fellow party member with less than 25% health would receive so long as no status condition prevents them from doing so (i.e. like being stunned).
- hesitation should fail every now and then, or some creatures should be immune to it. Too many bosses/groups were way too easy because of this spell never failing
- monks are pretty much useless late-game because of low hp and being out-classed by the hunter's critical skill. I have three skill suggestions to improve them: trance - to reduce or negate damage they would have otherwise received from an attack or spell, fists of fury - attacks all monsters within the 10' range, stunning fist - allows them to paralyze with a hit
I'm sure I'll think up some more things, but overall, I really loved this game. Thanks!
I like the idea of being able to hide spells your caster never uses. An easy way to accomplish this might be to just make the recently used spell list 8 or 10 slots instead of the 5 it is currently.
I know I for one would definitely like to see a playthrough 2 available where you start with all characters from your first playthrough and have higher level monsters. Maybe just start the game over with an additional 50 levels put on the monsters to increase the difficulty and experience. That way the earliest level you would want to beat the first playthrough was 50-55 and you could play again til max level.
I would second more balanced classes. I liked the bard, paladin, and rogue a lot but other classes simply made them I obsolete unless you really wanted songs, auras, or lock picking. I know I enjoy rogues simply because I've always played one and they bring me back memories and are fun, but when they do little damage and have little versatility it makes me less likely to pick them up.
Also, I'm not sure if this is already in the game or not, but monster weaknesses and resistances would be cool. Like skeletons should recieve more damage from blunt weapons than swords like in Diablo. I see a lot of weapons that are basically the same except for their price and name. In the first area there is an axe and a sword that are the same except for the price and description. Am I missing something or does that change further in the game?
