N00b Friendly

I have played a lot of browsergames lately and I find one thin red line going through almost all of them. They're often very hard to understand early on even though browser games often are quite simple when it comes to mechanics. I have seen games that say that their goal is to make their game n00b friendly, but 5-10 minutes in I still have no idea what to do. This is one of my biggest goals with this game, I MUST make it understandable for new users because I really think many games lose their users in the first 5-10 minutes. If you don't know what to do, you log out and never log in again. I know I do.

So the hardest thing with this is to have a system where old users won't get tired to see the same old help text over and over again when they try to do something, but still you need something there for the new users. The easiest way is to have some sort of step by step help but I am not sure that people actually take time to look for that or read through that sort of help. One way could be to have help text appearing if the user is new, lets say 2 days? And on day 3 the help text is gone. Maybe a combination of both?

Either way, it is important for me and something I am going to work hard on.

Last class : Druid

The Druid is a very hard enemy to fight because you never know from round to round how they will fight. They're very unpredictable with their shape shift abilities. They are great group members thanks to their all-round abilities. The group-heal is one of the best in the game but they also have a single target heal and a bark skin buff that helps the whole group to absorb damage. They can shape shift into a wolf and fight more like a rogue or into a bear and become a lot harder to kill almost like a warrior. Some druids prefer to fight with a club and a small shield though and they wear studded armor.

Basic Abilities

Group Heal (1-4 to all in the group),
Heal (1-6 to the friend )
Shape shift: Wolf (+15 weapon skill, +4 damage, +10 initiative, no block, +10 dodge, no range attacks, -1 AF),
Shape shift: Bear (strength +2, AF +3, no block, +5 dodge, +5 parry, no range attacks),
Bark skin (+1 AF to all the members in the group. )

The druid is the 10th and last of my classes in this game. I might add more classes in the future but not now in development because it takes quite a job with programming skills/spells and everything.

Classes: Ranger

The Ranger is deadly both from range and in melee. They do prefer to weaken or sometimes even kill their enemies with their bows before they use their short swords to finish them off. The ranger can call for a loyal pet companion to come fight for them and they have some of natures buffs like thorns that put some nasty extra damage on their arrows or swords.

They know how to fire a rain of arrows to a spot and hit several enemies and they even have a self-heal making them a very tough opponent in one versus one. The ranger is equipped with a longbow, a pair of short swords and studded armor.

The ranger is a good damage dealer for any group and still they can take a few hits. They can take care of themselves thanks to their selfheal and that is always a nice feature for a group. That way, the healers can concentrate on the other groupmembers while the ranger does good damage and keeps himself alive.

Basic Abilities

Self-heal (1-3 wounds to the ranger only),
Snipe (+15 range skill to the ranger only. )
Call for pet (a pet attacks your target for 2 points of damage undefended),
Thorns (+3 damage for rest of round to the ranger only. )
Rain of Arrows (2 wounds damage to all enemies unless they make a successful dodge roll.)

Classes: Shaman

The Shaman is a healer and a caster and uses the magic in fungus to overpower his enemies. He is not the best healer and not the best caster, but a good mix making him a very dangerous opponent on the battlefield. He is using a life drain spell to hurt his enemies from distance and that gives him back health so if the enemies do not close the distance, then they'll find themselves versus an opponent running around with pretty much full health.

The shaman also has some nice area of effect debuffs and damage spells and an absorb shield to a group mate. They can specialize into either being a better support player getting better heals, buffs, debuffs and even a chance to resurrect fallen teammates in battle or into a more damage-dealing shaman with a chance of using their life-drain spells even while attacked.

Basic Skills

Heal (1-5 to the hero with fewest wounds left in the group),
Group-Heal (1-3 to all in the group),
Poison-Cloud (Damages all enemies for 1 wound if they fail resist-roll.),
Absorb Shield (+2 AF and -4 magical damage to a randomly selected friend.)
Poison-Wind (-15 weapon skill and range skill to all enemies in the area. )

Classes: Assassin

The assassins sneak around in the battles looking for the best opportunity to put their deadly daggers in the back of an enemy. They are hard to target thanks to their stealth and quickness and they do extremely high damage combined with poison on their blades. They select one target and does everything they can to take it out in just seconds. The assassin wears leather armor and a pair of daggers.

They can spec down the suffering patch where they focus mostly on poisons, debuffs and crowdcontrol or down in the assassination path where they focus on taking down their targets fast.

Basic Abilities

Aim (+15 on weapon skill that round. )
Soft Spot (+3 damage on next attack that round.),
Crippling Poison (-10 dodge, block & parry for enemy.),
Vanish (+20 detaunt.)
Stun (20% chance to stun opponent for rest of that round)

Classes: Wizard

The Wizard destroys everything with their insane fire magic. They can pump out area of effect damage to whole groups or focus on one enemy and blast them down before they even know what was hitting them. Besides all the damage they have some crowd control and debuffs, but dealing damage is their number one role. No one is deadlier on a battlefield than a wizard, but they're also very fragile and need to keep the enemies away.

When they specialize into the area of effect path they concentrate on taking down more than one enemy at the time and they also get better area of effect debuffs. The area of effect kind of wizard dish out a lot of damage and helps his team to push pressure on the enemy healers. You'll see them in the top of damage in any of the arena scoreboards for sure.

The Wizard is also able to specialize into the single target path and this makes the caster very deadly. He can debuff the enemies resists and then blast them down with hard hitting fireballs. He is also a lot faster to get off his fireballs and with a higher hit chance.

Enemies need to bring down the wizards fast or they'll die. It is as easy as that! But once again, the Wizard is fragile.

I made the wizard just like they are in many games. High damage output, low health and only cloth armor. If a warrior can protect them and a healer keep them up, then a wizard will be the deadliest hero on the battlefield. Magic damage is resistable, but if they fail, then the damage is not absorbed by armor or anything. That is why the wizard is a good class to have on your team.

Basic Abilities

Scorched Earth (damages all enemies for 3 wounds if they fail resist-roll.)
Burn will away(-20 to offensive targets resists.)
Smoke-screen (-20 to range skill to the enemies. )
Fire-cage (30 % of putting offensive target in a fire cage for rest of round so he cannot do anything),
Elemental Buff (+3 damage with spells in that round.)

Classes: Bard

The bard is the perfect group mate. They can heal with their fine songs, crowd control your enemies, slow them down and a buff your whole group. They are support players but know how to hold their own in melee-fights as well. They wear studded armor, a short sword and a small shield while rushing into battle. They enter the battle with a song but often leaves it with their sword bloodied.
If they choose to specialize into the minstrel path they become much better group players and most of their songs become very powerful. The strength and health they gain from the ballads of a music specialized Bard is a lot better and so is the mesmerize song and the initiative debuff song. They can really make a difference on the battlefield.

If they choose to specialize into the Skald path then they become more like fighters with more accurate strikes that does more damage and they can also take damage better and control their targets. Still they have pretty powerful songs to help them achieve their goals.

Basic Abilities

Healing-song (+2 wounds back for the whole clan),
Mesmerize-song (20 % of putting one target to sleep for one round),
War-song (+1 strength to the whole group.),
War-shriek (damages all enemies for 1 wound if they fail resist-roll. )
Slow Down-song (-20 to initiative to all the enemies. ).