Going Forward: Battle Disciplines for Guardian, Agent, and Servile?

[Genernumlover]

I'm a fan of the combat classes, particularly the Guardian and the Servile. With that in mind, I believe that melee combat was overpowered in the first two games and it was better balanced in the later Geneforge games. But now, in the remakes, most combat skills are pretty mediocre for the main character. A Shaper is much more powerful due to the new creation skills. Battle Creations can generally outperform melee characters and ranged creations can exceed most batons. Going forward, with the more powerful creation types still to come, and stun, slow, poison, and acid being present on most of the endgame enemies, the partially combat classes are going to continue to struggle to keep up with Shapers and Lifecrafters.

 

I think Jeff should bring Avernum's Battle Disciplines into the Geneforge world for all classes that rely partially on combat skills. It will liven up the gameplay from "Shoot it, fireball it, or walk up to it and whack it" to a more strategic approach with weapon-based ranged and melee combat, and it would allow Guardians, Agents, Warriors, Shock Troopers, and Serviles to compete with Shapers and Lifecrafters without nerfing the creation skills or returning to the overpowered melee combat of Geneforge 1 and 2.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Genernumlover

[alhoon]

But you can be a melee guardian AND have creations. Just a bit less powerful creations. 

[Archaeolagent]

17 hours ago, Genernumlover said:

I'm a fan of the combat classes, particularly the Guardian and the Servile. With that in mind, I believe that melee combat was overpowered in the first two games and it was better balanced in the later Geneforge games. But now, in the remakes, most combat skills are pretty mediocre for the main character. A Shaper is much more powerful due to the new creation skills.

 

The mechanics behind creations and creation levels were so incredibly strong in G1-3 that Shapers blew every other class out of the water completely.  This is definitely not something new in the remakes.

 

In OG1, Agents didn't have most of their good spells yet, and while Guardians had good damage output, they completely lacked Parry, leaving them quite vulnerable -- especially since enemy melee damage was also very high (d8 vs later d4-5).  Guardians were especially challenging to play on higher difficulty settings.

 

In OG2, Guardians were very strong because Parry was borderline broken, but Shapers were still incredibly strong, and still put out more DPS than Guardians.

[Mechalibur]

I think Jeff has actually mentioned on the Steam forums at some point that there were some essence-based melee and missile techniques planned for the G2 remake.

[Genernumlover]

Good, Guardians and Agents need some special combat abilities going forward. Not only for balance and gameplay reasons, but because it makes sense, in terms of lore, for them to have those abilities. I'm glad that Jeff is on this issue.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Genernumlover

[Randomizer]

Jeff made the game for Shapers and wanted any player class to use Shaping of creations.

 

Guardians are still tough enough even on torment difficulty to get through the game. You can play both the original and current version without even needing a sword, by just punching creations with a fist in melee. So it's more of player tactics making the difference.

 

Agents were always overpowered, although Jeff eliminated some exploits from the original version.

[alhoon]

Agents were overpowered? Huh... can you explain please? I struggle playing an agent. I often abandon the effort after a couple of zones.

[Randomizer]

Agents get to use spells for range attacks so they don't need to hunt for ammunition and can do area effect attacks to deal with swarms.  They have lower costs for training in buffing spells to keep them having extra damage, defense, and action s. They have lower cost to gain levels in daze and chamr, spells to reduce attacks from the enemy.

 

In the original game they could more easily exploit moving in and out of attack range in the round to deal damage and avoid it

[Archaeolagent]

Agents were by far the most challenging class to play in OG1.  Seriously, go back and remind yourself of all the limitations we've forgotten about: a sharply limited spell list (12 spells) that included no crowd control whatsoever, and no daze spell whatsoever; and an inventory sharply limited by Strength, an otherwise useless stat for a firebolt-slinging agent.  Exploiting enemy AI limitations was something they were forced into -- not a bonus.

[Mechalibur]

Agents are pretty good in Mutagen, by my estimation after playing each class on Torment. When you account for the Tombs bonuses, they actually end up with equal or greater points in every stat/skill compared to the Shaper other than Essence Mastery, which Shaper wins by 1 point. They also have a 1.3x hp multiplier which also makes them less prone to random deaths than a Shaper would be in the early game. It's also a bit hard for Shapers to capitalize on their strengths in the early game due to control level limiting how strong they can make their creations.

 

By late game, a Shaper is probably better than an Agent due to the lowered costs of shaping skills giving them a much more formidable army. But by that point, you've got the game breaking dominate and airshock spells that can win you most encounters (and you always have the trusty searer for bosses), so I didn't really find it too much of a struggle.

 

Regardless, I'm pretty happy to hear a battle discipline-esque system may be coming to the next game. Hopefully it's tied to skills in the melee tree so Guardians (and to a lesser extent, Agents) are naturally the best at them. It'll also be nice for Shock Troopers down the line since their medium skills in combat skills were kind of hard to take advantage of in 4/5.

[alhoon]

23 hours ago, Randomizer said:

Agents get to use spells for range attacks so they don't need to hunt for ammunition and can do area effect attacks to deal with swarms.  They have lower costs for training in buffing spells to keep them having extra damage, defense, and action s. They have lower cost to gain levels in daze and chamr, spells to reduce attacks from the enemy.

 

In the original game they could more easily exploit moving in and out of attack range in the round to deal damage and avoid it

 

 

And fewer and much weaker creations. So... 

[Lorn]

So I'm wondering. If I want to do a non shaping class, the best choice is agent? I had thought the stats were the same was the same for all classes, what changed was simply the cost of the attributes you were weaker in. But it seems it may be wrong and that for example, the health formula varies?

Also I wonder how much of what is said below applies:
https://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/5121-agent-vs-guardian/

In the case you read this post, Aoslare, would it be possible for you to make such a comparison for Mutagen and Infestation?
 

Edited May 6 by Lorn

[alhoon]

31 minutes ago, Lorn said:

So I'm wondering. If I want to do a pure melee, the best choice is Guardian? I had thought the stats were the same was the same for all classes, what changed was simply the cost of the attributes you were weaker in. But it seems it may be wrong?

 

Please define "Pure Melee". 
Do you mean "Melee, Creations and magic, just not missile" ? 
Do you mean "Melee and Magic, Solo" ? 
Do you mean "Melee only, solo" ? 

 

For melee-only, solo, then I would strongly think that the cost break on the only skills you would buy, would make the Guardian a much better choice. While Melee / Evasion / Quick action work the same, having access to them cheaper is a pure gain, IMO. 

Edited May 6 by alhoon

[Randomizer]

Guardians have a cheaper cost for shaping creations which is the major way to make them more powerful. Also you will find that the PC does less fighting and more healing and buffing in combat, so the PC's attack is less useful.

[alhoon]

5 hours ago, Randomizer said:

Guardians have a cheaper cost for shaping creations which is the major way to make them more powerful. Also you will find that the PC does less fighting and more healing and buffing in combat, so the PC's attack is less useful.

But that is the Shaper's way of playing. Shape-Major, Magic secondary for boosting. 

[Lorn]

11 hours ago, Randomizer said:

Guardians have a cheaper cost for shaping creations which is the major way to make them more powerful. Also you will find that the PC does less fighting and more healing and buffing in combat, so the PC's attack is less useful.

 

11 hours ago, alhoon said:

 

Please define "Pure Melee". 
Do you mean "Melee, Creations and magic, just not missile" ? 
Do you mean "Melee and Magic, Solo" ? 
Do you mean "Melee only, solo" ? 

 

For melee-only, solo, then I would strongly think that the cost break on the only skills you would buy, would make the Guardian a much better choice. While Melee / Evasion / Quick action work the same, having access to them cheaper is a pure gain, IMO. 

I'm interested to understand what role are agent and guardian for. I'm not interested in shaping.

I would like to understand what is best for

- "Melee, missile and magic", solo ? 
- "Melee and Magic, Solo" ? 
- "Melee only, solo" ? 
- "Missile and magic", solo

 

 

[Archaeolagent]

pick one.

 

 trying to be good at more than 1 of those 3 will just mean you can do 2 things less well.

 

agent for battle magic, guardian for melee or missile.

[Lorn]

39 minutes ago, Aoslare said:

pick one.

 

 trying to be good at more than 1 of those 3 will just mean you can do 2 things less well.

 

agent for battle magic, guardian for melee or missile.

issue with guardian is that I'm pretty sure that by being an agent and using dominate on sholai you are going to feel way better than playing a guardian solo. Wrong ?

[Archaeolagent]

This reads almost like you are quoting straight out of Matt P's FAQ for original Geneforge 1.  You've been doing this a lot.

 

I can only repeat:

- this FAQ is not for Mutagen

- this FAQ is a good source for finding out where things are, but when it comes to strategy advice, it is extremely hit or miss, with a few fairly bad recommendations in the mix

 

In Mutagen, unlike OG1, the only difference in how successfully an Agent or Guardian can use Dominate is the extra skill point cost of reaching Mental Magic 3.  In OG1, increasing skill further had a huge impact on success rate.  In Mutagen, it doesn't.  So you could absolutely play a melee or missile Guardian who has some points invested into magic and uses Dominate.  This might be simpler for an Agent, but there are still advantages and disadvantages to physical attacks, so the Agent will not be flat-out better in every possible situation.

[Lorn]

No I haven't read Matt guide when it comes to that stuff. I'm just experimenting a lot given that I've finished the game by using "retrain" command and putting points into stuff.

Okay, so it doesn't impact the success.

 

Another case of bad information, given that it tells you "Gives you 8%/point bonus to the effects of these spells". I would count getting dominated as an effect of the spell, while it seems it isn't. Cool to know. 
 

[Archaeolagent]

Yeah, those tooltips are frustratingly ambiguous.  Jeff is updating some of them in v1.02 of Infestation, probably including that one.

 

Extra spell skill (of whatever sort) does the following things:

- increases direct damage/healing done by the spell

- increases the duration of status effects caused by the spell

 

It does not increase the odds of successfully landing a status effect, and it does not increase the power of a successfully placed status effect.

[Lorn]

I'll wait for version 1.02 then. Hopefully, some of the new tooltips will be ported to mutagen :P