In our last post about the White Mage skill tree completion and the removal of Minor mage skill upgrades, we discussed balancing the Mage skill tree total SP cost with the Physical skill tree total SP cost. We found that even the removal of the Minor upgrades still left the total SP cost of the Mage skill tree approximately twice as high as that of the Physical skill trees. The simplest way to interpret this is that the physical classes need approximately double the number of skills.
This interpretation was reinforced after play testing the Knight and Hunter prologues in which we found that they didn’t offer as much choice in skills at low levels at we would have liked. This was especially true for the Hunter class who learned Scan at Level 1 and Venomous Strike at Level 3 in the original Hunter skill tree. Although the skill upgrades offered additional variety, they didn’t come at a low enough level to make for a meaningful choice.
Our decision for how to deal with the Physical class skill trees is to compress the skill trees so that two skills are available at each skill tier (e.g. 2 skills at Level 1, 2 skills at Level 3, etc.). At each skill tier, players will have a choice between an offensive or defensive skill (although some skills blur this boundary). We believe that this will significantly improve the ability for players to make meaningful choices regarding their party build throughout the game. With enough SP, a player can learn both skills, but the choice of what to learn first and what to upgrade first will affect the party’s strengths and weaknesses.
So far we’ve only completed this revamp for the Knight and Hunter. Co-developer Chris will be working through all the other physical classes and creating new skills.
Note: This is hot off the presses so we haven’t yet had a chance to create the skill icons for all the new skills (Exhaustion and after in the screenshot above).
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