New Fighting Style: Duelist

[WarWolf01]

But it is a fighting style, so of course the attributes given for the skill would only apply IF you are equipped with only one weapon ( the rapier) in one slot and nothing in the other. If you doesn't meet the requirements, the skill would not work. Just like with other skills.

As for the part of it being an "getway " skill: people would only "graduate" for dual wielding because it is still the strongest and most unbalanced fighting style. It clearly out shines the three others. If all four styles were balanced, having they strength and weakness, it wouldn't be like this. You can even say that it starts off weak, but after level 15 you can do very nice builds. And when you get to 30, it is just massive and there is no other style that can compare.

To say the truth, we need a overhaul of the fighting styles. Cause as it is, they are way too much imbalanced, with some being way too strong, and others being way to weak, from the early to the late game...

[DawnPhoenix]

Again, it is OP. Especially in the beginning of the game. Then later on it could be OP if it was implemented in a way that would prevent us from taking away all of this skill's attributes once the player graduates to dual wielding.
If it were implemented correctly in that we can remove the skill's attributes after the players moves on to dual wielding, then the skill becomes a "gateway" skill and thus becomes wasted.
Then we will get complaints (and rightfully so) from all the inexperienced players that didn't know about dual wielding or didn't know they would be locked in.

I am all for people learning to do things the hard way. And why shoot down OP's dream of a Duelist Fighting Style before you even really tried to implement such a thing? Is it a programming difficulty, or personal opinion? And if it is personal opinion, then why make the dude feel small over something that should be welcomed--a discussion about possibilities?

Discussions like these are not your enemies; they are your friends. Ban me if you will, I have stated what I wish to state. And I believe firmly that everyone has a right to share their contributions. I love this game, even if the community here seems quite unwelcoming from my own perspective, and I would hope you can all realize that by shooting down someone's suggestions without finding a constructive way of how it CAN be done, rather than how it CAN'T, you are actually stunting the development of the game.

Perhaps, maybe, just maybe the developers should give it a try, test things out in real-time, and then post a detailed response as to why or how it is overpowered or underpowered and not worth skill points?

And before you mention that you're a developer, I'm aware, but I'm also aware that you're not the only one. Why not give this guy's idea a chance? You lose nothing except time, and you have everything else to gain by trying out new ideas, even if what you gain is simply learning that it doesn't work.

Edit: As he mentioned in the post above mine, and I feel this needed to be added, the current fighting styles are not properly balanced against one another. I get that this takes time and planning, but why get stuck in a rut and not do anything when something can, in fact, be done to balance them, if nothing else? Personally, I'd like to see more benefits out of the Sword and Shield fighting style and specialization, but that's just me.

Just a suggestion--perhaps adding drop items (extraordinary or legendary quality) that would compliment these fighting styles well, even going as far as to add an extra bonus if they detect you have the specialization related to the items, and also adjust the bonuses offered by the fighting styles so that they are more balanced? If you guys aren't going to add any new fighting styles, this would be a close second. Still, adding new and exciting things to the game will draw more players, which you can never have enough of with a 2D single-player mobile game.

[rijackson741]

You lose nothing except time, and you have everything else to gain by trying out new ideas, even if what you gain is simply learning that it doesn't work.

Time would actually be my biggest concern. We are a small dev team that can only work on AT when we can find spare time to do it. So implementing this would almost certainly take away from something else, probably content. We are really concentrating on trying to get more content in the game, especially the major cities. So which do you want?

Aside from that, it seems to me a bit like way of the monk. Some AC, some BC, some crits. I'm not totally against it, but I'm not convinced that it would be time well spent. It opens an interesting can of worms too. If this, why not a skill for fighting only with a shield?

I also do not entirely agree that the skills are unbalanced. Without both levels of dual wield the off-hand weapon is nerfed (a lot!). All the skill gets you is to remove the nerf. Weapon and shield on the other hand, you get the benefit of the weapon and of the shield even with no skill levels. The skill buffs both the weapon and the shield. Similarly for two-handed weapons, which typically do a lot more damage.
I do think we could do with a better selection of shields and two-handed weapons though. Dual wield gives a lot more possible combinations than the other fighting styles. We have improved that in recent versions, but I think it could be revisited.

[Antison]

DawnPhoenix,

I never shot down this idea or said no to this idea. I just simply thought it through to its completion and I think it has a serious potential to cause more harm than good. From game balancing to player confusion to slowing down content creation.

Look, this is not a job for us. It's supposed to be fun. It's not supposed to be like our real jobs.
We don't have 8 hours/day or 40hrs/week to commit to the SDLC processes that you are advocating we do. We have 1 hour here, 15 minutes there...etc.

We are an open sourced project. If someone wants to implement this. Test it. And then hand it off to us for test and review. Then feel free. In fact, we encourage it

[WarWolf01]

Well, it seems I caused some commotion hahahaha.

I do understand that you guys are very time limited. As I said before, I never commented anything, but I have lurked around here for quite some time. It is just that, man, I love this game. If I knew anything about programming O would do everything I could to make it better, and make it achieve its completion goal as soon as possible!
It is just that, as an player and outsider, I view thing's in a way that maybe you guys didn't notice. I do believe that the skill have some potential, as many others skills that I already thought about, and even some that I picked up here an there in the comments. I do believe that this can be postponed to another date, maybe after you guys have dealt with major and more importantly updates.

I also think that the thing with the combat styles can be more easily dealt with a little nerf in some points , and a boost in others. For example : maybe nerf the attributes of the dual wield a little , like, in many other games where it is possible. Instead of giving it full potential on level 30, give it in 45 after picking the mastery of the style. And give less AC to the two handed style but more damage, like a bonus to the direct multipliers of the weapon. After all, we are talking about an kid wielding an two handed sword, I don't believe they will be able to strike twice or more in the spam of the same turn. For the sword and board, you guys could give more BC and maybe even some DR , it would be a trade off for a more defensive style, to do less damage but be able to win a war of attrition. Maybe even create an Retaliation skill, that would reflect a part of the damage taken to the enemy.

Those are some ideas. They are very rough around the edges, but hey, I truly believe that they can be game changers.

This is the thing with this game: as it is worked to it end, we can still see amazing potential!

[Antison]

The " retaliation" skill that you speak of is something that has been brought up in the past and it's something that I am totally on board with. I wanted that skill for about 9 years now.

[DawnPhoenix]

Time would actually be my biggest concern. We are a small dev team that can only work on AT when we can find spare time to do it. So implementing this would almost certainly take away from something else, probably content. We are really concentrating on trying to get more content in the game, especially the major cities. So which do you want?

Aside from that, it seems to me a bit like way of the monk. Some AC, some BC, some crits. I'm not totally against it, but I'm not convinced that it would be time well spent. It opens an interesting can of worms too. If this, why not a skill for fighting only with a shield?

I also do not entirely agree that the skills are unbalanced. Without both levels of dual wield the off-hand weapon is nerfed (a lot!). All the skill gets you is to remove the nerf. Weapon and shield on the other hand, you get the benefit of the weapon and of the shield even with no skill levels. The skill buffs both the weapon and the shield. Similarly for two-handed weapons, which typically do a lot more damage.
I do think we could do with a better selection of shields and two-handed weapons though. Dual wield gives a lot more possible combinations than the other fighting styles. We have improved that in recent versions, but I think it could be revisited.

To be honest, I would like more content in many areas, and the reason I thought it was being shot down wasn't because you were a small dev team with limited time, but just because the suggestion was off-putting or something.

For that misconception, I apologize. However, I find myself with a lot of free time (for now, until I recover from my injuries) and would not be opposed to helping out where I can. The opposite, in fact; I would love to help. Not just with game balance, but also content creation such as quests and their implementation -- I feel like the new areas are going to need a lot of quests when they come out, especially Feygard and Nor City.

I am excellent at creating dialogue options for minor quests and tying those together... such as "If you haven't talked to or brought said item to person A, person B and C will have different dialogue options"... etc. Would this be something you guys need right now?

DawnPhoenix,

I never shot down this idea or said no to this idea. I just simply thought it through to its completion and I think it has a serious potential to cause more harm than good. From game balancing to player confusion to slowing down content creation.

Look, this is not a job for us. It's supposed to be fun. It's not supposed to be like our real jobs.
We don't have 8 hours/day or 40hrs/week to commit to the SDLC processes that you are advocating we do. We have 1 hour here, 15 minutes there...etc.

We are an open sourced project. If someone wants to implement this. Test it. And then hand it off to us for test and review. Then feel free. In fact, we encourage it

Alright, my apologies. I misunderstood your intentions here, and for that I am sorry. I was simply suggesting to give it a go because I felt like he was being shot down without giving it a chance, but it is clear that this isn't the case and I should have read all posts in the thread before replying.

On a side note, though, I would like to ask since you stated that you guys run an open-sourced project. Does that essentially give me permission for this? Because I would love to help. Not just with game balance, but also content creation for quests and the like.

Also, I'm always open to feedback about any of my work, I'm always trying to improve my skills in what I do.

Well, it seems I caused some commotion hahahaha.

I do understand that you guys are very time limited. As I said before, I never commented anything, but I have lurked around here for quite some time. It is just that, man, I love this game. If I knew anything about programming O would do everything I could to make it better, and make it achieve its completion goal as soon as possible!
It is just that, as an player and outsider, I view thing's in a way that maybe you guys didn't notice. I do believe that the skill have some potential, as many others skills that I already thought about, and even some that I picked up here an there in the comments. I do believe that this can be postponed to another date, maybe after you guys have dealt with major and more importantly updates.

I also think that the thing with the combat styles can be more easily dealt with a little nerf in some points , and a boost in others. For example : maybe nerf the attributes of the dual wield a little , like, in many other games where it is possible. Instead of giving it full potential on level 30, give it in 45 after picking the mastery of the style. And give less AC to the two handed style but more damage, like a bonus to the direct multipliers of the weapon. After all, we are talking about an kid wielding an two handed sword, I don't believe they will be able to strike twice or more in the spam of the same turn. For the sword and board, you guys could give more BC and maybe even some DR , it would be a trade off for a more defensive style, to do less damage but be able to win a war of attrition. Maybe even create an Retaliation skill, that would reflect a part of the damage taken to the enemy.

Those are some ideas. They are very rough around the edges, but hey, I truly believe that they can be game changers.

This is the thing with this game: as it is worked to it end, we can still see amazing potential!

Don't feel like you caused any commotion, I was just going out of my way to give suggestions and state my opinions. Even if a bit misinformed on my part. That is not even 1% your fault, the blame for that rests with me.

[rijackson741]

To be honest, I would like more content in many areas, and the reason I thought it was being shot down wasn't because you were a small dev team with limited time, but just because the suggestion was off-putting or something.

For that misconception, I apologize. However, I find myself with a lot of free time (for now, until I recover from my injuries) and would not be opposed to helping out where I can. The opposite, in fact; I would love to help. Not just with game balance, but also content creation such as quests and their implementation -- I feel like the new areas are going to need a lot of quests when they come out, especially Feygard and Nor City.

I am excellent at creating dialogue options for minor quests and tying those together... such as "If you haven't talked to or brought said item to person A, person B and C will have different dialogue options"... etc. Would this be something you guys need right now?

Be careful what you wish for. All I did is fix a couple of annoying bugs, and then there was this huge sucking sound, and I'm on the dev team

Seriously though, quest creation is something we could really use help on. It is the most time consuming part of content creation. It's not just coming up with a good idea, although that is part of it. The background logic behind quests can be quite complex (I'm fighting with that right now in a project I'm working on, although I now know what I have to do to complete the quest). So contributions could be in two forms: either a structured (a key word there; it is easy to suggest something we cannot implement) idea, or the entire quest created in ATCS (https://andorstrail.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4806)

Sorry to hear about the injuries. Hopefully just an anklebiter, rather that rotworms

[DawnPhoenix]

Be careful what you wish for. All I did is fix a couple of annoying bugs, and then there was this huge sucking sound, and I'm on the dev team

Seriously though, quest creation is something we could really use help on. It is the most time consuming part of content creation. It's not just coming up with a good idea, although that is part of it. The background logic behind quests can be quite complex (I'm fighting with that right now in a project I'm working on, although I now know what I have to do to complete the quest). So contributions could be in two forms: either a structured (a key word there; it is easy to suggest something we cannot implement) idea, or the entire quest created in ATCS (https://andorstrail.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4806)

Sorry to hear about the injuries. Hopefully just an anklebiter, rather that rotworms

How exactly do you want your quest lines structured? Is there a specific set of guidelines for it? Or does it just need to be well organized with sets of choices and NPCs/Locations, slightly vague instructions to the player, etc.?

From what I've seen, there are ways to miss out on certain things in Andor's trail if you don't carefully choose your dialogue, which could result in as little as a minor waste of time such as in the

Thieves' Guild Immaculate Kidnapping quest

or as much as missing out on a unique item such as in the

Guynmart Castle end of questline rewards

Do you wish for a quest with several different routes, or just 2-3 main options? I am capable of designing either quite intricately, but my issue is that I need to know what is allowed ahead of time.

As for my injuries, it's more like the Anklebiter caught me napping. In time, it'll be as if nothing happened, but for now, hurts like heck. But of course, with that, there's always Tylenol and Advil. Strong enough to help it a bit, but not too strong that they are addictive.

...

P.S. I can't be part of the development team because, other than while I'm out on injury/sick leave for the next two months (surgery and then recovery gonna happen), I'll be at work for 40+ hours a week. I understand that wasn't an invitation, I'm just saying this because I don't want to be misunderstood. I admire game developers, but my real-world financial problems forced me off that path long ago.

[rijackson741]

What I mean by structured is a little difficult to describe. There are only certain options we have when creating quests, and the quest has to fit into that available structure. For example, we can store a record of what a player has done in quest logs (some of which are not visible to the player), or faction scores. But that is all. Quest updates, removing or adding items, etc. are always tied to a dialogue, although that dialogue could be invisible to the player. There are various other things we can do, such as changing the appearance of a map, but also things we cannot do, such as creating a new skill.

Everyone on the dev team has a full time job. That's why we have very limited time for AT development.