Future Plans for Class/Skill Balance

Hello, this is the developer in charge of skill and class balancing over at the TOS team.

We have been closely monitoring all the opinions and feedback you guys have been sending in from in-game, the forums and other sources about class balance.

There are a good number of possible class trees that have allowed for some creative builds from players of TOS. As developers, we appreciate all the enthusiasm you’ve shown.

Unfortunately, we also understand that not all of our players are happy with their class trees and builds. Some classes show their true beauty the way we intended them to and are consequently loved by many, but some classes weren’t as lucky and have often been ignored…

We at the dev team feel the need to reduce this ‘class disparity’.

We have implemented five class patches so far. These are the goals we have been aiming to achieve with them:

1.     Each class should have its own characteristics and roles.

2.     Adjustments should be carefully planned to avoid one class dominating its rank or being left out, and to achieve a fairly equal distribution of classes in each rank.

3.     Rather than letting one class become too good to the point of self-reliance, we should devise a plan to encourage different types of classes to work together and develop new play strategies.

The sixth and seventh balance patches we want to implement will be to renovate the classes that have yet to fully show their true potential. For example, classes such as the Cannonneer will be undergoing changes to their AoE range, damage, play convenience and so on. Some classes have already had similar changes implemented in previous patches.

Now, let’s talk about some specifics of the sixth and seventh balance patches we want to implement.

1)     Barbarian
- Our goal is to make Barbarian skills easier to use with other Swordsman skills.
- Upcoming patches will therefore focus on maximizing the potential synergy of Barbarian skills and Swordsman skills.

2)     Rune Caster 
- We plan to continue expanding the list of skills available when in the Rune of Giants state.
- After considering which classes are the most often used in a Rune Caster build, we will examine the skills of those classes and see which ones can be used alongside Rune of Giants without any problems.

3)     Cannonneer
- We find that the Cannonneer is not fully living up to the promise of being the explosive AoE nuker it’s meant to be.
- That is why we intend to lengthen the Cannonneer’s range and improve the tactical use of this class.
- Also, we are figuring out ways to improve its performance by utilizing skills from other classes in the Archer tree.

4)     Monk
- The most urgent problem with the Monk class, we find, is that the skills have too many restrictions.
- Removing these restrictions could have a huge ripple effect, however, so we’re proceeding with caution.
- Generally speaking, though, we want to improve the Monk’s go-to skills by changing certain restrictions and aspects of the skill system.

Aside from the alterations mentioned here, we are still working on other changes to come in future patches.

Moreover, in 2017 we hope to emphasize PvP balance patches to answer the needs of players from all around the world. We’re attentively examining all issues regarding the Team Battle League, Regional GvG and general PvP.

One thing we want to start on is dealing with the skills considered either too OP or make PvP otherwise boring.
The balancing process is never complete, as many seasoned gamers will know, and neither is our quest to improve the Tree of Savior that you and we love.

We cannot thank you enough for all the love and support we have received. Thank you.