Familiar with good. A sound skeptical premise. I agree.HousePet wrote:I wanted to try something a bit different just to be sure we aren't confusing familiarity with 'good'.
Its interesting that people will say a class is above average and then say that half of the stuff it has is not worth taking. (and very weird that people say you are ruining the class if you take out Rampage, a locked category with one three goodish talents.)
A class that only has two great categories (one of them locked), a broken resource and some dubious generic talents sounds like something that needs an overhaul to me.
But anyway, the final product will be a hybrid between the reworked version and the original.
As for "above average," well... yes. I think it is, but that speaks to how poor so many of the other classes are in my opinion but also to a variable that you've maybe not considered... Cursed is the closest thing to a "bump" class in the game. It's simple to play and that's a nice change-up.
Not every class needs to be complicated... it's nice to have one that isn't.
Also, I think Rampage is an excellent 5-5-5-0 categories. Fears is also a pretty great category and is only limited by undead immunity to it. Still, it's pretty good and were it not for the virtue of the other categories, I'd use it all the time. I think Curse has far more great skills than people seem to think, such as Harass Prey (a crazy-underrated skill in my opinion). I also happen to like the Unnatural Form category...
My point is this: if the goal of Cursed is to be simple, intuitive, and dare I say dumb class, then I think it has largely succeeded. By game's end, it's a bloody murder-machine. The start is punishing but still... it does what it appears designed to do. Few other classes manage that.
In terms of design, Summoner and Cursed are the "simplest" classes to play but also the most elegant in their design, two points that are probably causal. They're the "boring" classes but the game needs a few of those.
Far, far, far too many of the classes in this game are needlessly complicated, muddled even. A class should be as complex as it needs to be and no more or less. Too often, things are complicated for seemingly no purpose.
Entire mechanics in this game are incoherent. Entire classes are bloated messes (Necro is still the most guilty).
The premise of class design has to be this: how do you want it to play?
That's the question Housepet. How do you want the Cursed to play? If you change the way it plays then there's no other class in the game that plays that way. If you change it, how do you change? Does it become like "x" class? Is that necessary?
Are you changing Cursed to make it play MORE like it was seemingly intended or are you just fiddling for fun, a bit of trial and error fun? Obviously, you do what you want but I think the premise is a solid guide.
That's my problem with the Necro... it's best builds just play like a crappy Archmage instead of the much more interesting hybrid-summoner. That's just poor design.
Then you have the Anorithil, which, does the same thing: plays like a really, really clumsy Archmage.
I don't aim to be nothing but critical but I read all of these posts and discussions and then I see designs and solutions... everyone is fumbling around trying to figure out how to fix the problem but few seem to agree on what the problem IS.
Some of you seem to want every class to play the same, micromanagement-intensive way. Sometimes that's fun but other times, playing something different would be nice. That's why there's an insane and madness difficulty level... for people who want the game to be an even longer, harder slog.
So I ask again, HOW do you want Cursed to play? Once you know that, designing to that end is not particularly complicated. Based on what I've seen, I don't think you've answered that question completely yet.
As an add-on, it doesn't matter what I think of the end-result because it's not replacing anything but consider whether it's ultimately worth rebuilding Cursed or simply designing a new class.