Grimrock

I've played a lot of the game in the last 1.5 weeks and, while it was rather great and the overall balance is pretty tight, there are quite a few places that could use extra polish. Don't expect any of these to be implemented, obviously, but hey, why not try to suggest something constructive. So:

a. The traits of the game are extremely skewed in favor of the racial traits. Each race has at least one that is so good that there's no reason to take anything over it and some races (like humans or insectoid) have two. Now, while I don't suggest nerfing the strong racial ones, some of the generic ones could use some buffing:

- Muscular/Agile/Healthy/Strong Mind would be more competetive at the +3 bonus. At least the first two of them - for strong mind and healthy to be worth it, the increased regeneration rates need to be implemented (if that's the plan).
- Aggressive trait needs to be fixed in either description or effect (at the moment it adds +2-4 damage instead of +4 - that's actually 3 damage on the average)
- Aura & Tough could easily be 30 - in the long run, both are barely noticeable.
- Endurance food consumption rate could also be buffed to something like 33 or even 50 %. In the normal party that doesn't matter and even with a farmer that'll save like what, about 15 foodstuffs at best? That's not even a level for the farmer.
- Cold Blooded/Poison Resistant/Daemon ancestor can also be buffed to 50. That's a lot but then, lizardman with endure elements has 50 resists to everything from the start. Compared to that, 50 resist to just one element is barely impressive.

Some of the weak racial traits could also use help:

- Why not transfer the Poison Immunity to the ratling? It'd combo with his disease immunity flavor-wise and it'd balance the racial traits out (each race having 2 instead of lizardmen prospering with 3 and ratlings getting stuck with just 1). And while the lizard with his already godly resists doesn't need it that much, for the rat it'll be a very interesting option.
- The Rage threshold can be easily upped to 50% - sorry, but 10 strength is not huge enough bonus to risk dying from the next hit (instead of gulping the health potion asap). Monsters in the game just hit too hard. I'd take Aggressive any time over Rage as it is safer and, overall, just adds more damage (because it's active all the time and not only occasionally).

b. In terms of classes, the balance is very good with the exception of Wizard. Wizard is useless. The only advantage he has over the Battle Mage at the moment is that, at the endgame level 14, he has 36 more energy but 41 less health and no extra protection/resists/carry weight reduction. Since 36 energy is not even a fireball and extra health&protection is incredibly important for the times you're getting hit with the elemental damage or flanked, what's the point of Wizard? Even as a pure backrow caster, he loses to the Farmer as Farmer gains access to all the good stuff much, much faster. Wizards need some serious help to stay competitive. My propositions are simple - either make them reverse Barbarians (i.e., they gain +3 health/+10 energy and +1 willpower per level - that won't be broken as, by the end of the game, that's only 109 extra energy, just 1 extra meteor strike cast) or make them like Fighters, only with magical items (i.e., 50% increase in charge rate & 25% lesser ability cost). The second option is much better, of course - it opens up a lot of interesting interactions.

One other minor suggestion is that it would be great if Fighters' special attack bonus was also influencing missile & throwing weapons. At the moment, there isn't much variety in the ranged using builds and that would help a lot.

c. Skills. Once again, the current balance is pretty good and most can be used in difference builds, but there's still a couple of stinkers there.

- Firearms, that's very obvious. Everyone talks about how bad they are and yeah, they are very bad. I see a couple of ways here - first, switch the alchemist's bonus from 50% jamming to 50% damage. That's a lot but, given all the problems with these weapons (limited ammo, jamming too much even with the alch's bonus until skill level 5, best weapons being offered too late in the game, hand cannon weighing too much) it's barely enough. And it's sorta annoying that the Alchemist's bonus vanishes if you're maxing out your weapon skill (which you do anyway - no option to go light here because of horrible jams & weapon skill requirements). Second way is to make the firearms skill influence bombs - 20% damage per skill point, maybe? Yeah, that'll make the bombs powerful but, considering the blackmoss is a very limited resource even with the alchemist in party (seems like you'll craft 60 bombs at best and that way you'll have no extra resurrection potions which are also important), that's not a big problem. If 20% is too much, maybe just 10 - still more reason to take firearms. The third way is to give extra accuracy bonus to the skill - 5 accuracy points per level, maybe? I mean, one of the firearms' supposed advantages is that you need neither high strength nor dexterity for them but, because of the weight of hand cannon and the need to hit stuff, you want to have both of them, but if you're building those stats anyways isn't it easier to go missile or throwing? Some extra accuracy would be pretty nice to fix that issue.

- Athletics - while in theory it's good, in practice it just falls behind both armor & dodge. Compare it to its brother Concentration which is not only giving you energy, but is also the best casting school in the game (which, I think, should be reflected in its description). I think that 30 health per point would be fairer amount here.

- Light Weapons - the skill itself is great, but Sickle Sword & the Serpent Sword could use some loving - they're pretty much the end-game swords for the skill yet Sickle is Weaker than the Sabre and Serpent only barely outdamages the punch dagger (and, with the really high dexterity, might even fall behind). Their cooldowns are just too long. The Venomfang Pick could also be flashier - it has a very harsh requirement for its special attack and, well, the attack itself is nothing special. It's very useful if you metagame and rush it early, very good against those golems (but even there, just the basic attacks, not the special), but apart from that it's pretty useless.

- Missile Weapons - a fine school, but Crossbow could use some loving. You're getting hyped for it through the game, finding all the bolts and waiting for the opportunity to use them, but when it come it's ugh....

- Earth Magic - I was extremely surprised to see the poison cloud effect getting nerfed in the first patch. This school only has 3 spells, they're good against some early foes (wargs & turtles), but not that impressive against non-vulnerable foes and half of the enemies in the game are plainly immune to poison. Earth shield is nice, but it doesn't really fix the snake problem, for example - it's not their poison that's really dangerous, it's their crippling attacks. So I'm not sure why the nerf, the school could actually use some extra damage. And, well, a minor nitpick, but the rune combination for the Poison Bolt makes no sense - different elemental runes only get combined only if their skills are actually needed to cast the spell. I.e., for the meteor strike you need air & fire so both runes are present. For the Ice Spikes you need earth & water - both are there. However, the Poison Bolt involves air & water runes and they have nothing to do with the spell. Can't it just be something like 1256?

Agreed with your suggestions for the traits that need fixing. Not sure about every solution, in the end the developers should have the best idea on what is balanced.
Ratlings having poison immunity makes a lot of sense.

I personally don't like rage. My suggested solution is to double or triple attack speed for a limited time. This would make it useful throughout the game while still being consistent with the idea of a raging minotaur.

Agreed with wizard being underpowered. I would like some sort of increase in spellpower (perhaps being related to amount of willpower), or perhaps an equivalent to the battle mage trait except an increase in power rather than protection when a staff/orb is equiped.


I also agree on your comments about skills.
Overall they should be more dramatic or game-changing.

One thing I dislike about the skill system are the traits. Most of them are fine, but some skills give traits that favor certain play styles. Like accuracy giving the ability to strike from the back row, that is great for a rogue or something, but not for a frontline fighter that simply wants to be more accurate. Same thing with criticals (bonus to backstab), light weapons (ability to dual wield). It's not the worst thing ever, but its silly to have useless traits like that.
The inherent "problem" I guess is that most skills provide different playstyles which is one of the reasons this is a great game.
So I hope they have a more in-depth skill system in the next game, something like a split in every skill, giving you specialization in a certain aspect.

Our poison cloud spell didn't get nerfed, the damage our characters take while in a poison cloud got nerfed. That or the duration of the poison.

Give the wizard a 20% to double cast any spell.

Change firearms to give +5% chance to recover ammo and +10% chance not to misfire ( stacking to 100% on an alchemist so the alchemist bonus is always useful) for each rank

Get rid of the lizards +25 to all resist passive, having 25% on all elements to begin with is already to powerful - maybe replace it with the ability to heal broken limbs by eating ( some lizards can regrow limbs and tails)

buff all the non racial passives a bit.

Also if you get 5/5 in light and 5/5 in heavy id let you dual wield heavy weapons but thats just me ;p

I would love if the Human Race started with the Skilled Trait, instead of getting a passive 10% exp bonus, other races already start with higher attributes and lower attributes in certain areas, but it allows them to fill other roles much better, I know Humans are all about being able to adapt and all, but let´s face it, the other races have much better starting stats and better racial traits than the human does.

The extra % experience trait is lackluster, the skilled trait use is very debatable, but I dont see a whole lot of people using humans in the first place and using them doesnt give you that "adaptability" that you would expect, they are not meant to be great, they are meant to adapt really well to every class, and by giving them the skilled as a human starting ability, they would be what they are supposed to be.

While I have not done extensive testing with it, I believe that increased energy and health regeneration may exist for willpower and vitality respectively, but are just not very effective. Unfortunately, I only tested a difference of about 7 willpower, but over a period of time surpassing 2 minutes, there was only a few seconds difference between the two in generating 100 mana. In all intents and purposes I would not have noticed such a miniscule difference if I had not pulled out a stopwatch. I would suggest testing this for yourself, but even if I screwed up testing somehow, regen is so slow I came to the realization that there was a better option anyway.

On that point...

Some time try putting more than one alchemist in your party and split herbs between them -- you'll see what I'm talking about. The issue with adding damage to the alchemist for firearms is that the alchemist is already an extremely strong class. The -50% jamming bonus that alchemists receive is relatively pointless, since if someone really wants firearms, they're probably going to max the skill anyhow.

An idea might be to change the Concentration level 3 talent to something a but more universally good. Instead of increased regeneration while resting (I don't think I ever did this once, even on hard mode), make it a constant Energy regeneration that scales either off Willpower or maximum Energy.

It might also help with the feeling that Wizard is underpowered at the moment - If they benefit more from 'spellcaster traits' like Concentration than Battle Mages, people would be more eager to play them.