Eliatopia Early Game And Classes.
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2022 10:31 pm
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
So I tried submitting this, but instead of ctrl + c what I wrote, I screenshotted what I had, so I didn't get the entirety of it. I'm just going to write a tl;dr with what I experienced with the early game.
The Problem
From starting a new character, it took me 36 minutes to reach the crabs. While this does not sound bad, there are 2 important things we need to note. I was the only person grinding enemies to get there, and I tried playing an "optimal' route.
Me being the only player means I potentially got the most kills I could get, which means I got all of that money + drops for myself. Add in other players, and I will have to compete for enemies, which means less money and drops overall. This makes it difficult to get some of the expensive items that cost around 1.2k-1.5k. These items are way too expensive for what enemies give, even with me being the only player.
This is me, a crazed lunatic in boxers and a purple hat carrying around a sledgehammer. There is a slightly more optimal route to take, but this is generally what you will get. While I could deal 4 damage to crabs, and 11 with rage, I die in 2 hits from them. The only class I can see having a problem is archer, because there next bow costs around 2.3k coins, unless I forgot one somewhere. All of the other classes at least have weapon equivalent or slightly stronger compared to sledgehammer, and do not cost as much.

Boo Price Formula!
I do not think there is going to be a change to the price formula, which I think should be removed entirely, and make prices based off of potential hourly gains from enemies within a certain area, ideally there being multiple players, and whatever a player needs to buy. (Main weapon and the 3 armor pieces)
Aside from removing or adjusting the price formula, the only other options I can think of is to either increase the money/drops from pre crab enemies, or decrease the defense of crabs and increase their health. At least with the latter, players hopefully won't have to spend around 1.5k for a weapon, so they can actually afford armor, plus a slightly weaker weapon. Armadillos are probably also in need of the same treatment (Don't want to know how long it will take to reach them)
The Skill Tree
I think the skill tree is really in need of a rework. It is boring, and it feels like random skills thrown everywhere, rather than there being a set group of skills. To say at the very least, this does exist, however, I think it can be improved upon. What I think the skill tree is missing, are options for the players to choose a specific play style.
For example, with the warrior, it will have the balanced, offensive, and defense paths. Balanced favors similar DPS, health, and defense. Offensive favors high DPS, but less health and defense. Defense favors low DPS, but high health and defense. At least in the case of the warrior currently, it's just balancing out every skill for the best defense/damage output. Having these different paths allows players to choose a role that fits their playstyle, and this helps makes players more unique from each other.
Hopefully in the next few weeks I will make a post detailing most of this. For now, I plan to have warrior, archer, and wizard having 3 different paths with 10 skills for each path. Gunman and whipmaster are going to take a little longer to think of, but I think I have a general idea what to do with them. There's also a little more I want to throw in here, which will hopefully make the game a lot more dynamic.
Edit* Maybe there could be a poll seeing how much of the community would like a revamped skill tree?
Other Info
A bow that Flashlight drew to fit the gap between long bow and red bow. Every other class has something to fill in that gap, so why does archer not have one? Also, something I've noticed with warrior is that every class at the start has some cheap item to buy that gives something towards their offensive stat. Warrior does not seem to have that.

Going back to the early game stuff, it is really bad around the Renegade's store. Made an alt, yaddie yaddie ya, and it takes forever to farm up the opal equipment and anything else in that store. After an hour of farming, I only had half! the amount of money needed to afford just one! piece of equipment. This was also with either 2-3 musket drops that hour (can't remember if I sold one prior to finding the other 2), so now imagine you go an hour without any musket drops. Anyways, this goes back to either the price formula needing a massive change, or enemies dropping more loot.
Yeah, the offensive stat is absolutely useless. Has a use for maybe the first 10 minutes of the game, and after that it does nothing, because it just gets outpaced by armor and weapon growth. Instead of adding it, the new formula should be: weapon damage * armor bonus * (offensive stat / 100 + 1) Basically, at 100 in your offensive stat, you would gain x2 more damage. Although, due to how quickly you level for the first few levels, and considering you get 4 stat points per skill, it could be changed to (offensive stat / 200 + 1), so that way you need 200 in your offensive stat to reach x2 damage.
So I tried submitting this, but instead of ctrl + c what I wrote, I screenshotted what I had, so I didn't get the entirety of it. I'm just going to write a tl;dr with what I experienced with the early game.
The Problem
From starting a new character, it took me 36 minutes to reach the crabs. While this does not sound bad, there are 2 important things we need to note. I was the only person grinding enemies to get there, and I tried playing an "optimal' route.
Me being the only player means I potentially got the most kills I could get, which means I got all of that money + drops for myself. Add in other players, and I will have to compete for enemies, which means less money and drops overall. This makes it difficult to get some of the expensive items that cost around 1.2k-1.5k. These items are way too expensive for what enemies give, even with me being the only player.
This is me, a crazed lunatic in boxers and a purple hat carrying around a sledgehammer. There is a slightly more optimal route to take, but this is generally what you will get. While I could deal 4 damage to crabs, and 11 with rage, I die in 2 hits from them. The only class I can see having a problem is archer, because there next bow costs around 2.3k coins, unless I forgot one somewhere. All of the other classes at least have weapon equivalent or slightly stronger compared to sledgehammer, and do not cost as much.

Boo Price Formula!
I do not think there is going to be a change to the price formula, which I think should be removed entirely, and make prices based off of potential hourly gains from enemies within a certain area, ideally there being multiple players, and whatever a player needs to buy. (Main weapon and the 3 armor pieces)
Aside from removing or adjusting the price formula, the only other options I can think of is to either increase the money/drops from pre crab enemies, or decrease the defense of crabs and increase their health. At least with the latter, players hopefully won't have to spend around 1.5k for a weapon, so they can actually afford armor, plus a slightly weaker weapon. Armadillos are probably also in need of the same treatment (Don't want to know how long it will take to reach them)
The Skill Tree
I think the skill tree is really in need of a rework. It is boring, and it feels like random skills thrown everywhere, rather than there being a set group of skills. To say at the very least, this does exist, however, I think it can be improved upon. What I think the skill tree is missing, are options for the players to choose a specific play style.
For example, with the warrior, it will have the balanced, offensive, and defense paths. Balanced favors similar DPS, health, and defense. Offensive favors high DPS, but less health and defense. Defense favors low DPS, but high health and defense. At least in the case of the warrior currently, it's just balancing out every skill for the best defense/damage output. Having these different paths allows players to choose a role that fits their playstyle, and this helps makes players more unique from each other.
Hopefully in the next few weeks I will make a post detailing most of this. For now, I plan to have warrior, archer, and wizard having 3 different paths with 10 skills for each path. Gunman and whipmaster are going to take a little longer to think of, but I think I have a general idea what to do with them. There's also a little more I want to throw in here, which will hopefully make the game a lot more dynamic.
Edit* Maybe there could be a poll seeing how much of the community would like a revamped skill tree?
Other Info
A bow that Flashlight drew to fit the gap between long bow and red bow. Every other class has something to fill in that gap, so why does archer not have one? Also, something I've noticed with warrior is that every class at the start has some cheap item to buy that gives something towards their offensive stat. Warrior does not seem to have that.

Going back to the early game stuff, it is really bad around the Renegade's store. Made an alt, yaddie yaddie ya, and it takes forever to farm up the opal equipment and anything else in that store. After an hour of farming, I only had half! the amount of money needed to afford just one! piece of equipment. This was also with either 2-3 musket drops that hour (can't remember if I sold one prior to finding the other 2), so now imagine you go an hour without any musket drops. Anyways, this goes back to either the price formula needing a massive change, or enemies dropping more loot.
Yeah, the offensive stat is absolutely useless. Has a use for maybe the first 10 minutes of the game, and after that it does nothing, because it just gets outpaced by armor and weapon growth. Instead of adding it, the new formula should be: weapon damage * armor bonus * (offensive stat / 100 + 1) Basically, at 100 in your offensive stat, you would gain x2 more damage. Although, due to how quickly you level for the first few levels, and considering you get 4 stat points per skill, it could be changed to (offensive stat / 200 + 1), so that way you need 200 in your offensive stat to reach x2 damage.