General Suggestions for the Forge (based off the beta)

[Battal]

Me and a group of friends recently finished up playing The Forge's beta.  We played a total of 4 rounds, and got as far as the phase with 2 Boarillas (which is apparently the final wave, but we never fought Boarrior.)  That said, here are my general thoughts and suggestions on The Forge as a whole.

Player Control

One thing I was really hoping to see in Forge was an improved base combat system.  I personally felt vanilla DS's combat was a bit lackluster, but since it's a survival game I let it slide.  I was a bit disappointed to see essentially no changes were made, which leads directly into my first and most important suggestion: ADD DODGING.  Seriously, if anything is taken from this thread, it should be that.  Currently there is a lot of seemingly unavoidable damage sources in Forge; the boarilla's punch and jump attack, that poison from the scorpion enemies, the utterly cancerous Beyblade move from the turtanks, and more.  A sort of dodge move, with or without I-frames, would both immediately solve this issue and also give the combat more of a skill-based edge.  Instead of just taking the hits and running to a healer, good enough players could avoid damage altogether.  It broadens your strategies; particularly skilled teams could go in with no rangers or healers, and focus on dealing and dodging damage. 

My second main issue revolves around the player's special abilities.  These seem extremely unbalanced; the slam attacks of the hammer have a huge cooldown while only dealing twice the damage of the player's default attack, whereas Lucy can be spammed with practically no cooldown.  These are just number adjustments, though.  Maybe have the special attacks deal higher damage, have a larger AoE, or keep them as is with a faster cooldown.

Enemies

I actually think most of the enemies in Forge are really well designed, and with the aforementioned dodge would be extremely fun to fight.  The main issue is their incredibly tanky health bars.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn most of them have more HP than the base game bosses.  The top offenders here are the scorpions and the Turtanks.  I'd estimate their phases took all 6 of us whaling on them around 10 minutes to finally beat.  It's not that it's incredibly difficult - just boring and tedious.  Again, though, this is a simple number change.

I hope this feedback is useful, and helps make Forge better.  If you have any comments on these suggestions, go ahead and leave them.

 

[MenaAthena]

Excuse me while I use this thread to give my own general thoughts and suggestions because I'm too awkward to make my own kthx

I only got to play yesterday, the last day of the beta, and I pretty much just stuck with Willow except for one game where I used Wolfgang because Willow was taken, but I still rather enjoyed it and have some general thoughts on where things can go from here.

First off, it saddens me that my poor Webby boy is pretty much obsolete in this current stage. Pretty much everyone I've talked to told me that Willow functioned better as a DPS role and Webber wasn't great for anything otherwise. Every character should bring something to the table that makes them worth playing, so you can play whoever you want without feeling like you're dragging down the team. Maybe have him attract more aggro from all Boar type enemies so he could function as a runner, or even a tank? Have the ability to shoot down a web that slows enemies but not the players? I don't know, I'm just sad I can't really justify playing as him right now.

The Grand Forge Boarior's shock wave attack thingy sucks. Once you're hit by the first shock wave, the stun lock guaranties you'll be hit by the second. It's probably what I've died to the most, tied with scorpion acid. I also don't feel like it's telegraphed enough to be able to get out of the way of it in time, but maybe I just suck, I dunno. A dodge ability of some sort as suggested by the OP would probably go a long way to managing this.

More variety in the items would be nice. If Willow and Wickerbottom are on the same team, they're going to end up fighting over the fire staff. Willow wants it because, come on, fire, and Wicker wants it because she can't do much damage otherwise. More staffs, more books, more melee weapons, more choice so people can change up strategies and players don't have to fight too much over weapons and gear they want/need. If you're worried about the battle field becoming too cluttered with drops, you might could make it so that what drops depends on the characters being played.

More modes would be nice too. The same waves to the same boss is going to get tired eventually. Endless waves and protect the checkpoint are kind of staples of this genera, so they will most likely be added at some point, but just different versions of the current mode that are longer or shorter with different bosses and configurations of enemies would be nice. Related to this, being able to play with fewer people than six would be nice in my opinion. I know the whole point of this game is cooperation, but I had trouble scraping together enough people to play with at one time from people I knew. We tried a game with just four of us once, and we didn't even get past the War Pig waves. Having it so that the difficulty scaled with the number of players with a floor of three players so that two really skilled players miiight be able to do it, but you couldn't just cheese it for experience points all by your lonesome seems fair to me.

Finally, add some kind of party system. Being able to group together with friends so you all enter the same server at the same time instead of one of you finding and empty server, inviting the rest through Steam, and praying the slots don't fill before you all get there would make things much easier.

I know most of these things are likely to be addressed and changed by the time Forge exits beta and comes out fully, but I figured they were worth saying anyway. I also apologize if a lot or all of these things have been said before by other people. Again, I enjoyed this new game mode and can't wait for it to come back, more fleshed out and complete, so I can play it again.

[minespatch]

7 hours ago, MenaAthena said:

If Willow and Wickerbottom are on the same team, they're going to end up fighting over the fire staff. Willow wants it because, come on, fire, and Wicker wants it because she can't do much damage otherwise. More staffs, more books, more melee weapons, more choice so people can change up strategies and players don't have to fight too much over weapons and gear they want/need.

THIS

Bless this paragraph.

[SourNVitriol]

10 hours ago, MenaAthena said:

First off, it saddens me that my poor Webby boy is pretty much obsolete in this current stage.

 

Think about it; when is Webber MOST powerful in base game? It's when there's more than 1 of them/there's a lot of spiders backing him up.

 

Its weird that we players are allowed to pick more than 1 of a character, but almost none of us do it/think it's not a legit strat/it's just a "fun/silly" strat.

 

Running 3-4 webbers is insane, and guarantees a 20-25 minute match with a coordinated team due to the large dps (6*3*4 =72 EVERY 3 SECONDS) , and the sheer amount of smol spiders make it so that even the boarior dies super quick after the pit pig wave during boarior fight. Not only that, the spiders tend to focus on the same enemy even after you've attacked something else sometimes (idk why the AI works like this), so you essentially have someone else knocking out another enemy.

 

The only thing you'd need then is a typical res and tank character (a third spellcaster if you don't feel like deviating too much).

10 hours ago, MenaAthena said:

The Grand Forge Boarior's shock wave attack thingy sucks. Once you're hit by the first shock wave, the stun lock guaranties you'll be hit by the second.

Tell yer tanks to cancel it with their Forge Hammer Smash/Wigfrid Pyre Poke/Molten Dart Special/Woodie Axe; they shouldn't spam it willy nilly Granted tho, the timing is strict, but it is doable (That attack still sucks tho, I agree a lot. Can't even kite it when he starts running at you in last phase). I've played with a lvl 8 Wolfgang who did it so well, it became a standard with me and my friend's playthroughs.

 

[HamBatter]

On 23/10/2017 at 7:49 PM, Battal said:

ADD DODGING.  Seriously, if anything is taken from this thread, it should be that.  Currently there is a lot of seemingly unavoidable damage sources in Forge; the boarilla's punch and jump attack, that poison from the scorpion enemies, the utterly cancerous Beyblade move from the turtanks

The ones you've listed have ways to dodge them. Characters can also use specials to interrupt attacks.

On 23/10/2017 at 7:49 PM, Battal said:

My second main issue revolves around the player's special abilities.  These seem extremely unbalanced; the slam attacks of the hammer have a huge cooldown while only dealing twice the damage of the player's default attack, whereas Lucy can be spammed with practically no cooldown.

Lucy is single-target while hammers can hit multiple. You're also losing out on dps from faster melee speed if all you do is throw Lucy.

[RancorSnp]

18 hours ago, MenaAthena said:

First off, it saddens me that my poor Webby boy is pretty much obsolete in this current stage. Pretty much everyone I've talked to told me that Willow functioned better as a DPS role and Webber wasn't great for anything otherwise.

Tha's just people being ignorant. Willow does NOT have more DPS than Webber.

What's more as you mentioned Willow also can't use Fire staff if Wickerbotton is on the team because it's less efficient.

This isn't a problem though, as there are sufficient item drops for 2 dps characters in one team even if Willow can't go for magic damage.

"But doesn't the second molten dart only drop at like last wave?"  - it does, but it doesn't matter because Barrage darts have MORE dps than molten darts, which are only useful for their block penetration - unnecessary in good team composition.

[Lumina]

40 minutes ago, RancorSnp said:

Tha's just people being ignorant. Willow does NOT have more DPS than Webber.

But with the molten dart she does better damage than Webber, no ? Since she has a fire bonus ?

[RancorSnp]

6 minutes ago, Lumina said:

But with the molten dart she does better damage than Webber, no ? Since she has a fire bonus ?

No, spiders deal almost 3 times as much damage as Willow's molten dart increased damage over ever spiders attack cycle.

[Pink_Infatuation]

dodging the turtles is not hard at all. the only time you should be getting hit by them is if: 

1) you're standing in the healing circle and whoever was being chased by it lured it into the circle, in which case shame on them and also it goes to sleep once it passes through

2) you didn't focus one but kept doing inconsistent damage to all of them and now there's 6 tortanks doing the koopa shell thing and you're poorly coordinated because you're supposed to focus targets better than that

if you're getting chased, just walk in circles. it's super easy to dodge as long as there aren't more than 1 or 2. it also helps to have a bernie, because they just go in a straight line across him and that's easy to dodge.

 

As for the health bars, i'd have to agree that there is a fine line between people who say "waah make this easier" and "this is just tedious and boring at this point" and most people seem to be on the latter side. Every enemy feels fine to kill except for the turtle tanks in my opinion, possibly also the scorpions. 

Webber is weak, trying to justify him existing is futile. If the only strat that works with him is "put 6 in one team" then he's not a balanced/healthy character. Wilson can fit in any teamcomp, Wickerbottom can fit in most team comps, Webber only fits in one specific teamcomp that's only for cheesing and if you're a 6 man premade. 

[Spaartan]

11 hours ago, Pink_Infatuation said:

Webber is weak, trying to justify him existing is futile. If the only strat that works with him is "put 6 in one team" then he's not a balanced/healthy character. Wilson can fit in any teamcomp, Wickerbottom can fit in most team comps, Webber only fits in one specific teamcomp that's only for cheesing and if you're a 6 man premade. 

2

How has nobody touched the topic that a group of Wendys are op? (specifically 4 wendy, 1 tank and 1 wilson)

[Pink_Infatuation]

5 hours ago, Spaartan said:

How has nobody touched the topic that a group of Wendys are op? (specifically 4 wendy, 1 tank and 1 wilson)

wendy is fairly strong. she basically has a bernie with half the HP that actually works because shes aggros enemies where bernie just kinda stands there while things kill you

 

if they fixed bernie and made him actually attract aggro when needed then willow would be just as broken, if not more since bernie's so ridiculously tanky. Bernie could take many, many hits from boarrior where abigail takes 2 or 3.

but yeah as of right now it's true she's quite a bit unbalanced but so is the whole concept of having multiple people so *shrug*

[Zeklo]

On 11/1/2017 at 11:38 AM, Pink_Infatuation said:

wendy is fairly strong. she basically has a bernie with half the HP that actually works because shes aggros enemies where bernie just kinda stands there while things kill you

 

if they fixed bernie and made him actually attract aggro when needed then willow would be just as broken, if not more since bernie's so ridiculously tanky. Bernie could take many, many hits from boarrior where abigail takes 2 or 3.

but yeah as of right now it's true she's quite a bit unbalanced but so is the whole concept of having multiple people so *shrug*

You gotta work more for Bernie to work. You need to get them in the line of fire, or get hit—one obviously better than the other. Then they'll start dancing and mobs will aggro onto them. Once they are, they rarely switch aggro. Since they're slow though, you need to position yourself accordingly.

[Pink_Infatuation]

Just now, Zeklo said:

You gotta work more for Bernie to work. You need to get them in the line of fire, or get hit—one obviously better than the other. Then they'll start dancing and mobs will aggro onto them. Once they are, they rarely switch aggro. Since they're slow though, you need to position yourself accordingly.

yeah, it's just hard to do that in the heat of things. Even so, i've watched my friend willow main run circles around him while 3 scorpions chase her and he just walked slowly towards her and nothing happened. I think his ai is a tiny bit buggy, or perhaps the enemies ai ignores him too often.

[Zeklo]

Just now, Pink_Infatuation said:

yeah, it's just hard to do that in the heat of things. Even so, i've watched my friend willow main run circles around him while 3 scorpions chase her and he just walked slowly towards her and nothing happened. I think his ai is a tiny bit buggy, or perhaps the enemies ai ignores him too often.

No no no, what I mean is enemies won't target him when he's not dancing—and he only starts dancing once their Willow has been hit, or they themselves have been hit. Meaning you either need to take damage, or forcibly cause them to take damage.

Going in circles won't help. If a Scorpeon shoots poison at you, and it hits Bernie then it'll trigger the dance.

[Pink_Infatuation]

41 minutes ago, Zeklo said:

No no no, what I mean is enemies won't target him when he's not dancing—and he only starts dancing once their Willow has been hit, or they themselves have been hit. Meaning you either need to take damage, or forcibly cause them to take damage.

Going in circles won't help. If a Scorpeon shoots poison at you, and it hits Bernie then it'll trigger the dance.

ahhhh, okay. That makes sense.

I've still seen him dancing and not getting hit by things.

but that does clear up a lot, thank you.

(maybe i'm just very salty about bernie not helping sometimes :P)

[Zeklo]

45 minutes ago, Pink_Infatuation said:

ahhhh, okay. That makes sense.

I've still seen him dancing and not getting hit by things.

but that does clear up a lot, thank you.

(maybe i'm just very salty about bernie not helping sometimes :P)

Not gonna disagree though. It does seem unreliable, and a bit finicky as well.