Spears, What Weapon Type

[Thels]

Should backrowers be penalized in damage dealt for being backrowers? I don't see my bow-specced rogue doing poor damage, and she always hits, whereas spears can miss as well.

[Miles-McStyles]

I've never seen missile weapons do more damage than swords or axes(assuming all are fully specced).

[stepsongrapes]

I've never seen missile weapons do more damage than swords or axes(assuming all are fully specced).

Missile/throwing get their double up perk very early in their weapon skill. While their single shot may not do be on par for damage as a melee unit, they fire two arrows/shurikens with every shot and tend to attack at a higher rate than melee units. Given that, I'm pretty sure that ranged units have the highest DPS in the game, from mid-game on. That, coupled with the fact that they can start hurting the enemy earlier from range means they usually do the lion's share of damage dealing.

[Miles-McStyles]

DPS is kinda hard to talk about in a game where you dodge and weave around in combat more than you stand and take hits. When straight up fighting an enemy that's in front of you, keeping all attacks from bows/axes on cooldown 100% of the time, I might be inclined to believe that archers "out dps" an axewielder. But when 'picking' away at an enemy, I don't think an archer is keeping his autoattack on cooldown 100% of the time. Granted, this is also true for axe wielders, but the percentage of time an axewielder's AA is on cooldown is simply higher than an archer's.

Also, what can I say, I've never seen an archer hit for 400 the way axewielders(and on rarer occasions monks) can. When unleashing a barrage of attacks, I don't start with the archer, I start with the guy who has the potential to one shot the thing in front of me.

Now I may be wrong with the implied DPS I'm observing from the archers. Even while strafing and picking at enemies/groups of enemies they may be out damaging my swordsmen and axewielders. I don't think they are, but they may be. If that's the case, I ask you this: do you think a more damaging, ranged class is a tad bit "overpowered"? The trade-off is, of course, they get bowled over by a gust of wind but that seems to be the only negative aspect to them(an aspect that seems irrelevent if you can simply avoid incoming damage better).

Which brings me back to the discussion of a potential backrow, armored, melee DPS class.

Should backrowers be penalized in damage dealt for being backrowers?

If said hypothetical class does the same damage as a frontline fighter and has the same armor, there would be no reason to use the fighter anymore. There has to be a tradeoff, otherwise, the game would look unbalanced and silly. When something becomes unbalanced(and stays unbalanced), the game is hard to take seriously.

I implore you to not let anything overpowered stay overpowered simply because "you like archers more cause you always play archers in fantasy games" or any such nonsense like that. As of right now, I think everything is overwhelmingly balanced, with Earth Magic and throwing specced Rogues being underpowered. You don't keep that level of balance by introducing backrow melee fighters who do the same damage and have the same armor as fighters.

[stepsongrapes]

As the game is currently designed, I'd say that ranged is "overpowered", in the sense that it is extremely effective, moreso than the average character build. The never-miss factor is probably the biggest contributor to that, though the volley perk at skill level 32 is also big.

That said, It's a single player game- balance is a really not a critical issue. In the end, you can beat the combat elements of LoG with nearly any party. In fact, most people will end up playing interesting builds at some point, knowing they aren't damage optimized. Additionally, it's a party based game. The fact that a character build may have an extremely high damage output doesn't mean that you will want to stack that up as all four characters.

Frankly, the more important "balance" issue is within a single role- e.g., mace vs. sword skill, earth magic vs. ice magic, etc. "Imbalances" between different roles in a party-based, single player game isn't really a problem. The design in a game of this type is really only lacking when it doesn't give you enough interesting reasons to explore a certain aspect.

[Thels]

Should backrowers be penalized in damage dealt for being backrowers?

If said hypothetical class does the same damage as a frontline fighter and has the same armor, there would be no reason to use the fighter anymore. There has to be a tradeoff, otherwise, the game would look unbalanced and silly. When something becomes unbalanced(and stays unbalanced), the game is hard to take seriously.

I implore you to not let anything overpowered stay overpowered simply because "you like archers more cause you always play archers in fantasy games" or any such nonsense like that. As of right now, I think everything is overwhelmingly balanced, with Earth Magic and throwing specced Rogues being underpowered. You don't keep that level of balance by introducing backrow melee fighters who do the same damage and have the same armor as fighters.

I wasn't thinking that simply because I like ranged more than melee. I was honestly wondering if it should for the purpose of balance.

For example, I think it's fine if a mage does more damage than a melee character, since the mage is a lot squishier. You put the melee up front and the mage in the back. More damage but less survivability sounds good to me.

Of course, if someone is as armored and tough as your frontrowers, he shouldn't be doing more damage than your front rowers. But should he be forced to do less or allowed to do equal damage?

IE, is being a frontrower a perk you can give to two NPCs to allow them to deal more damage? Or should all four slots have the same damage potential? Of course, the frontrowers are still the ones taking the blows, and the backrowers are limited to reach weapons/ranged weapons/magic.