Author Topic: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion  (Read 218312 times)

bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #630 on: March 20, 2019, 07:56:22 AM »
The Paladin meanwhile I think is OP compared to the other characters. At present she has the same start melee skill as the knight, a different balance, but also the paladin invulnerability aura and double damage to undead which collectively are miles better than the knight's starting 25 shield points. I think her starting melee skill should be dropped to 80 to compensate, and would make her more clearly the defensive "tank" character.

I actually tried lowering the melee skill earlier, but it only made the fights longer and mundane. This is why I even added the damage bonus while the shield is up. Without dash rage attacks every fight would go on and on and on. On the other hand, if you get some rage upgrades or a Violet sword, she's basically unbeatable, so there's no point making the player suffer a long low-damage grind when he's going to win anyway.

Paladin was designed to be the "easy mode" type of hero, for players who have hard time playing with other classes. Yes, there are still players out there who complain that regular game is way too hard for them. Or for kids who play together with their parents. But even for experienced players, it's fun to be able to simply charge into a bunch of enemies knowing that there's nothing they can do to you.  :)

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #631 on: March 20, 2019, 08:12:01 AM »
Mmkay. I still feel she makes the knight feel a bit too redundant. I wonder if she should have some other restriction outside her main area (literally not allowed to use bows, say, or starts with distraction like the barbarian, so you keep the power but lose some tactical options that knight players keep). But yes, point taken generally and she definitely is a slightly easier hero as intended :)
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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #632 on: March 20, 2019, 09:05:22 AM »
I still feel she makes the knight feel a bit too redundant.

Hm, I never thought about that. Yes, I can see it as a problem.

Quote
I wonder if she should have some other restriction outside her main area (literally not allowed to use bows, say, or starts with distraction like the barbarian, so you keep the power but lose some tactical options that knight players keep)

Distraction doesn't really feel like a Paladin thing. Not being able to use bows actually sounds interesting. Although, I fear that this might make the combat too one-dimensional. If you cannot neutralize tough enemies with ice arrows, you have to use the shield all the time. It's nice to be able to break from that pattern occasionally.

Maybe there should be something else. I'm thinking maybe disallow riding mounts or make her more vulnerable to poison?

Or perhaps it would be enough to lower the starting HP to 80 or 60?

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #633 on: March 20, 2019, 09:54:43 AM »
Lowering starting HP makes the paladin a less effective tank, which in party games should IMO be her primary role, so I don't think that'd be a good idea. A paladin not having access to mounts would also seem weird to me, just on aesthetic grounds.

I'm not sure losing bows would make combat so 1-dimensional - she'd still have access to staffs, so she can always use the ice staff or either of the ice-related weapons. I switched to a staff a few times in my last paladin run and I had one or two changes of sword with me for different tactics, I didn't use a bow once and didn't find it limiting. I think the main thing it would count out would be using slow arrows to rob shops on early levels (which makes sense, one of my other thoughts would be just to ban paladins from starting shop robberies, they are paladins after all). So I still think that'd work, and it'd be something quite clearly unique to the character. Short of that, banning throwing weapons would be a lesser form of the same thing that would sort of make sense (in terms of the internal logic I'm basically thinking of paladins being super honourable and disliking sneaky ranged fighting).

Short of that, yeah, increasing poison vulnerability might work. I can think of lots of fun smaller things you could do which would work aesthetically but obviously for this it really needs to be one major thing that the players can get their head around easily.
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #634 on: March 20, 2019, 10:43:07 AM »
I'm not sure losing bows would make combat so 1-dimensional - she'd still have access to staffs, so she can always use the ice staff or either of the ice-related weapons. I switched to a staff a few times in my last paladin run and I had one or two changes of sword with me for different tactics, I didn't use a bow once and didn't find it limiting. I think the main thing it would count out would be using slow arrows to rob shops on early levels (which makes sense, one of my other thoughts would be just to ban paladins from starting shop robberies, they are paladins after all). So I still think that'd work, and it'd be something quite clearly unique to the character. Short of that, banning throwing weapons would be a lesser form of the same thing that would sort of make sense (in terms of the internal logic I'm basically thinking of paladins being super honourable and disliking sneaky ranged fighting).

Pretty good arguments. Now, only to figure out what to do with archery based rooms.

There's one it the forest where you have to shoot the hornets for runestones. I guess I could disable that one, although it's doable with ghost orb, astral projection or teleport staff. But players might get confused with NPC dialogue who asks you to shoot and gives you the bow.

The other is the Alchemist unlock room in the ice level. Paladin won't be able to complete it (except if you happen to run into Redhead warrior on the battlements), so I guess I better remove that one if paladin is playing because NPC dialogue would be confusing again and he gives you the medusa arrow.

There's also the archer unlock room where he gives you a bow to shoot. So it would be somewhat confusing for new players if they get the bow and then cannot shoot.

Since players would be able to obtain paladin early on, I think I should disable all of those when the only hero in the party is paladin.

BTW, I often use arrows to build full rage, and had to use that a couple of times in my successful Endless Arena run with the Paladin. So, blocking bows+arrows would remove that ability.

Can you think of any other instance where archery is required?

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #635 on: March 20, 2019, 10:54:51 AM »
I think that's everything :) I'll let you know if I think of anything else.
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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #636 on: July 06, 2019, 10:17:38 PM »
I'm finally back to 100% of the achievements got - decided to try a game for the first time in ages, and got the ninja achievement - elven shield early plus a really really high powered archer character with the three-arrow bow :)
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #637 on: July 07, 2019, 07:22:54 AM »
I'm finally back to 100% of the achievements got - decided to try a game for the first time in ages, and got the ninja achievement - elven shield early plus a really really high powered archer character with the three-arrow bow :)

Wow, that's puts you way ahead of me actually. I feel like you might be the best SoaW player out there. I had some players ask me if I know anyone who unlocked the barbarian as if that was some impossible thing - and that's ancient history for you. I've still got a bunch of achievements to unlock, but I always mess up the runs by experimenting or risking too much. I guess I should add more content to the game so I have excuse to play the game more.

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #638 on: July 07, 2019, 09:10:04 AM »
If players ask you about achievements, do always feel free to poke them in my/this forum's direction and I'm happy to give any advice I can (so long as I can remember how I did it myself!)  :) I'd like to play more multiplayer sometime - I've tried it a few times, though in many cases it's more like an additional difficulty setting for me because with weaker players the higher levels just turn into a giant escort mission from my perspective :P Maybe sometime later in the summer you & I could do a stream + chat about the game, that could be fun?

And yeah, I had the lower catacombs available on my ninja run and it took a great act of willpower to decide not to explore them! Knowing when not to push your luck is really tricky.
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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #639 on: July 07, 2019, 09:21:28 AM »
Maybe sometime later in the summer you & I could do a stream + chat about the game, that could be fun?

I think that would be awesome. Just let me know whenever you want to do it.

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #640 on: July 07, 2019, 04:26:56 PM »
Great :) Will likely be August, as I'm in Tbilisi for a conference for much/most of the middle of July.
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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #641 on: July 28, 2019, 08:58:12 PM »
Two new skinpacks added :)
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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #642 on: August 31, 2020, 10:40:33 PM »
I think this is the first time I've had two Undead King Salamises following me around in the same game:

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #643 on: September 01, 2020, 07:19:06 AM »
I think this is the first time I've had two Undead King Salamises following me around in the same game

I assume Old Catacombs + regular boss?

That is always fun. In one of the co-op games we played, we had 3 once, thanks to Gamble spell which I found a couple of and also duplicated a couple of times as well, so I just re-rolled until we got it ;)

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Re: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion
« Reply #644 on: September 01, 2020, 09:42:46 AM »
This was regular boss + one from a gamble scroll :) Quite a fun fluke!
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