Advice wanted for my RPG
Problem: Mages still level up extremely quickly, and it's mostly because once they have access to spells that can hit multiple enemies at once, they gain all of that EXP from the damage they deal very fast.
I've already increased the EXP curve for how fast they level, making it a little slower. I've already reduced the amount of damage that those all-enemy spells do. It's seemingly not enough, though, because Mages still start off on the weaker side and then absolutely shoot up around level 20.
So, I'm considering several options at the moment:
1) Further increase the EXP curve for mages. This will fix their progression in the early-mid game, but might make them much weaker in the end game and would require a lot of tuning that I don't fully have resources for (not enough people testing, nobody doing rigorous testing).
2) Level gate spells. Currently, all spells in the game (including all weapons and armors) do not have level gates and can be obtained at any point. This kind of goes with the philosophy of the openness of the game, but if it is breaking balance perhaps it is a good thing to put a bit of a clamp on it.
3) Increase the price of spells. Currently, the general layout from the single target spells is like this: 19/61/122/379. The all-enemy spell is 513. If I increase the price of all spells universally by a certain percentage, and/or increase the all-enemy spell by a larger amount, it could help prevent players from obtaining these massive spells too early.
4) Increase the SP needed for spells. I have noticed that Mages, once they hit a certain point, will very rarely run out of SP (due to some recovery upon level up) unless they're using something like Restore to recover the SP of other party members. Increasing the amount of SP needed for spells could help since they would have to be more considerate about using the all-target spells.
@beardalaxy I made adjustments to reduce the amount of SP or mana allowed for mage characters, there's needs to be a limit, can't have a mage solo the whole game 😆
@lnx yeah, that would essentially be the same as increasing the SP requirement for spells. i actually had to increase the amount of MP they have so that they would be usable at the earlier levels. getting a mage out of that early slump is a bit of a struggle, but once you do they take off like crazy and that's the part i'm trying to reign in a little bit.
i think i'll start with an extremely small increase to the exp curve, and then increase the SP requirement for spells by about 10%. that'll make it so that early-game mages can still make it work (since that's ALL they have at their disposal). then i'll increase the all-enemy ones by more, maybe 50% seems a lot better. currently they require less SP than the best single-target spells, which i thought would be fine since they do less single-target damage, but they do so much more overall damage.
that's not even getting into the all-enemy spells that can cause status effects, either. lightning, with the chance to paralyze, can be absolutely devastating.
i guess there is the caveat that mages are going to be better for mobbing but not for bossing, but that doesn't really matter as much when you get your mages to such a high level that they just blast through bosses anyway.
@beardalaxy that's sounds about right. I guess it's also depend on the world mechanics. I believe status effects are very beneficial to both the enemies and players. I put in a lot of elemental properties into my game cause besides the status effects and buffs, I want the weapons to also possess some attributes, but getting back to the mages. I've given them some basic attacks as well in case their mana depletes, this way they are of some use even when their mana is gone, I did the same thing with healers cause if they don't attack, they end up being dead weight for a party.
@lnx the mages still actually work pretty well as battle mages. you can equip spears to them and they have a lot of HP and defense against magical attacks, which is what the more dangerous enemies tend to use. they can still use spells while wielding a spear too, it's just that they won't be as good. they don't get access to physical skills. i know some games like to give access to a lot of different types of skills to every class, but the mage in my game is its own beast entirely whereas the other three classes have a bit more overlap but no access to magic whatsoever (unless through an item).
now that i think about it, since the healing spells go off of magic defense instead of magic attack, you could make a pretty good battle cleric if you wanted to.
that is all to say that the option for physical offense is definitely there, but if you want higher damage output then using spells is way more necessary.
@lnx all 4 of my classes (adventurer, rogue, warrior, mage) have a basic Attack option. it goes off of the attacker's ATK stat and the targets's physical defense, which can be affected by any number of things but mostly weapons and armor.
Rogues, Warriors, and Adventurers have 4 skill slots. You can buy skills in shops and swap them out at any time outside of battle. Most of them are based on physical attack as well, but the Rogue does have a spell that will analyze an enemy's stats.
Mages have 6 skill slots, because they have way more of them to choose from and 4 felt a bit too cramped for them. All of their skills go off of their magic stats.
In addition to the above, the luck stat is always taken into account, so the more lucky your character is the more damage they will deal and that gets applied after everything else. Rogues are the most lucky and warriors are the least.
@beardalaxy I can definitely agree, mages using skills is much better suited for their class. I have some AoE attacks setup as well but that's only after a few levels have gone by. How does your attacking work out, I've been thinking of either having my characters have 4 skills to choose from or one base attack and 2 skills to choose. The exception is that my characters can only change out their skills when located in a town and I do want to get some base skills that can be leveled up at a cost so it instead of a skill being upgraded into a new skills, the old skill will be upgraded to enhance its stats plus a possible new stat.