Mechanism change and balance of Geneforge series

[Hume]

 

• Armor

  In the original Geneforge, armor reduce damage by amount, not by percentage. This amplifies the differences of difficulties. For exampe, if your opponent with a damage of 100 attacks you, while your armor can obsorb 50. On normal, you will take 50. On torment, it will do twice damage, which is 200, your armor still obsorb the same 50, and you will take 150, which is three times that of normal. the armor of NPCs, including creations are negligible.

   

  Since GF3, armor is percentage based. High level creations have quite decent armor and resistences.

   

  Consequeces: Torment difficulty is easier because armor retain its importance on higher difficulties. Higher tier creations are much more desirable since GF3, because their much greater survivability.

   

• Melee damage dice

  In GF1 and GF2, melee damage is D8 (the tooltip of GF1 says D7, but someone said the script says otherwise), which is better than most magic damage. Remember that melee has quick action skill, making them more deadly. In later GFs, this is reduced to D4 or D5.

   

  Consequences: melee damage are weaker in GF3-GF5 than the first two. This makes relatively weak battle creations in GF1 and GF2 ridiculous in GF3 and GF4 - they do not only have worse range, but also worse damage as well.

   

• AP system

  In the first three GFs, it take 5 skill points to attack or other major actions. You can't attack with less than 5, and you can attack three times if you have 15 AP. In GF4 and GF5, an attack takes 9 or all the remaining AP.

   

  Consequences: This is probably good news for melee fighters, as they can move a longer distance and attack. But for others.

   

• Level

  You finish GF1 around level 20, while over 40 in GF2 to GF5. One level in GF1 weighs twice as much as in its sequals. This weakens shaping skills greatly. Though your creations get as much bonus levels from your shaping skills and shaping familarity, they only means half as much by GF1 standard. In GF1, newly created bottom tier creations can be around level 20, which is good enough for the final battle. In later GFs, they are mere cannon fodder.

   

  Consequences: Shaping is greatly nerfed for dedicated shaper. On the other hand, others will find shaping more useful, if they want little investment in shaping skills.

   

• Haste

  For a quite long time, haste remains the most important spell in the GF series. Haste is a must-have. Beating the game without ever hasting yourself on normal is more difficult than beating the game on torment. Jeff finally decided to nerf it in GF5.

   

  Consequences: GF5 is a lot more difficult than the other 4.

• Parry

  Parry will not be made to this list, if it has not broken in GF2. GF1 has no parry. Then cames GF2, in which parry is in fact three skills: parry, deflect and reposte. Each capped at 50%, and one skill investment in parry increase the chance of all three by 5%. That sounds outrageous, doesn't it?

   

 

 

GF1:

Shaper: most powerful class. Invest 20 points in magic shaping. Shape an army, haste them and sweep the floor. Torment is a walk in the park.

Agents: In GF1, mental spells aren't good, but at least you can hit and run.

Guardian: you kill everything real fast. The bad news is, at least on torment, you are killed as fast. Because you have to engage in melee, you often have no choice but get yourself crowded by enemies.

 

GF2:

Guardian: because the power of parry, guardian rocks. They have good defence as well as good offence. Just be careful parry does not work on all your foes.

Shaper: Once you can shape drayks, its about time to absorb your earlier creations. When you have excess essence with an army of drayks, replace some with gazers.

 

GF3:

Agents: like the guardian, the agent benefits a lot from the new armor system. She is much tougher. Unlike the guardian, her skils are not nerfed. In fact, because she can do many different types of damage, she is the best at overcoming armor and resistance of foes. Also mental spells becomes quite effective since GF3. If you want to play a powerful agent, GF3 is your best choice.

 

GF4:

Servile: magic is a better supplymentary skill than shaping. So a servile is better than the guardian/warrior. Because the new AP system benefits melee fighters, servile is the most powerful solo class in this game.

[Randomizer]

GF1 - Missile guardian doesn't have to move up to attack, but can still die quickly.

In general haste to move away after the attack allows for so many different ways to break the game with terrain.

[Nim]

6 skillpoints per level in GF1, 5 from GF2 on

[Hume]

3 out of 4 battle skills do not work for missle guardian. Does he do anything better than the agent?

[Randomizer]

Missile guardian doesn't fair as well as the agent because an agent can cast haste instead of using speed pods to get extra movement to get away from a foe and doesn't get a multi-target spell.