Rangers OP or Just Right? Split from RAT

[KawaiiBear]

But the idea that people are picking ranger "because ranger quit" is just laudable.

It really is the only reason I ever play them. These days extended subguilds cover 90% of skills that your main guild doesn't already have. If I wanted ranger quit without being a ranger? Nope. Shit out of luck.

Can't really argue for the realism of it either. Okay, they might be survival experts compared to merchants, and this is reflected by their skills, but being able to stump mages that can explode heads by thinking about it doesn't make sense.

Quit OOC is hardly a replacement for it. It's good once and you still have to use one of those dreaded quit wilderness rooms which if not already being used by some sorcerer are regularly being checked by desert elves.

[BadSkeelz]

The only balance issue I see is with mounted combat. Give warriors the ability to pull an opponent off their mount, and don't make mounted combat such a huge advantage for rangers.

Giving bash this utility, or a separate skill that branches off bash makes sense to me.

Or, at least give bash a defensive utility against charge, where the higher the skill levels give you a chance of dodging a charging mount.

The rangy ranger riding the polka-dotted war beetle tries to charge you, but you punch the beetle in the face and and knock THEM down!

A polka-dotted war beetle curls up on the ground.

The rangy ranger falls to the ground.

[Refugee]

Huh.  I never thought of attacking the mount...

[Armaddict]

Nerf attacking mounts.

[whitt]

Huh.  I never thought of attacking the mount...

That's ok.  Neither did any other aggro mob.

[Delirium]

There are actually aggro mobs that will attack your mount - I wish it was a way more common occurrence.

[BadSkeelz]

Is my log where me and my trust beetle fight off a mob of [redacted] together going to be too much find-out-IC?

Man, what if bash COULD be used while mounted, and could knock another rider off? A little niche but the possibilities...

[hopeandsorrow]

On at lest two occasions I got wtfpwned because they attacked my mount before my pc.

A mount rider isn't as scary people think, especially when you've got numbers.

One those situations was insanely fatal to that PC.

[hyzhenhok]

I for one find ride quite ridiculous at higher levels. I mean I have noticed in game that some people actually fight better while mounted because they somehow do basically a fuck ton more damage. Could just be me but that is definately how it seems. I mean sure people can learn to fight better while mounted sure. But not to the degree of: Lol my big ass sword bounced cos I was on foot. To lol I one shot a scrab on its leg with my sword cos I was mounted


Rant over.

Mounted combat is historically pretty powerful.  Look at the Mongols or cavalry units in any medieval army.  That being said, warriors can and do get good at mounted combat.

Historically, pre-stirrup, shock cavalry were extremely rare. Where they did exist, they were still primarily armed with ranged weapons and charging into melee with a mass of infantry was very rare and only done when you had a huge formation of cavalry to work with.

I'm fine with master riders in Zalanthas being highly mobile and being able to fight while mounted without penalty. But any actual advantage being mounted brings to combat should be 100% mobility and nothing else.

If you make sure that's the case, you get rid of the need to take away one of the ranger's relative strengths by giving warriors high ride skill.

[BadSkeelz]

Shock cavalry = cavalry who charge in to enemy ranks. They were rare pre-stirrup because charging with a lance into a foot schlub risked you being lifted right back out of your saddle. Stirrups provided the means for the rider to A) stay in the saddle and B) transfer the weight and energy of the charging mount to the lance. However, Charge in Arm isn't the same as a real-life cavalry charge. You're explicitly running them over with your mount (who are much heavier and durable than horses, generally) instead of charging them with a lance.

Being mounted also provides a height advantage (in RL and in Arm) which translates to more damage dealt. So I disagree that the sole benefit of riding should be restricted to mobility.

Incidentally, do we know for sure whether stirrups do or do not exist in Zalanthas? I've always found the game a little ambiguous on the matter.

[Malken]

There's also the fact that historically, cavalry in real life did not used to charge atop massive insect-like dinosaurs beasts. Big difference between a horse and a inix.

[Ender]

If you make sure that's the case, you get rid of the need to take away one of the ranger's relative strengths by giving warriors high ride skill.

I don't understand how rangers will be negatively effected by this?  Giving warriors better ride gives them the ability to actually be better cavalrymen, riding their giant lizards and beetles into battle, which is awesome.

Warriors should absolutely have the potential to get as good at ride as rangers.  No need to nerf anything.

[BadSkeelz]

If you make sure that's the case, you get rid of the need to take away one of the ranger's relative strengths by giving warriors high ride skill.

I don't understand how rangers will be negatively effected by this?  Giving warriors better ride gives them the ability to actually be better cavalrymen, riding their giant lizards and beetles into battle, which is awesome.

Warriors should absolutely have the potential to get as good at ride as rangers.  No need to nerf anything.

Maybe if we could split up the Ride skill. Right now it governs everything you can do with a mount (except breed them).

A Ranger should be better at being able to ride through rugged terrain and tame mounts. If there is a penalty to ranged combat while mounted (I don't think there is, just saying if there was), then rangers could be better at that. They'd also be decent (at the least) at mounted melee combat.

A Warrior should be the best (or at least as good as a ranger) at mounted melee combat.

[Ender]

If you make sure that's the case, you get rid of the need to take away one of the ranger's relative strengths by giving warriors high ride skill.

I don't understand how rangers will be negatively effected by this?  Giving warriors better ride gives them the ability to actually be better cavalrymen, riding their giant lizards and beetles into battle, which is awesome.

Warriors should absolutely have the potential to get as good at ride as rangers.  No need to nerf anything.

Maybe if we could split up the Ride skill. Right now it governs everything you can do with a mount (except breed them).

A Ranger should be better at being able to ride through rugged terrain and tame mounts. If there is a penalty to ranged combat while mounted (I don't think there is, just saying if there was), then rangers could be better at that. They'd also be decent (at the least) at mounted melee combat.

A Warrior should be the best (or at least as good as a ranger) at mounted melee combat.

Meh, I don't see a need to complicate things further with more skills when we already have one that handles everything we need it to.

[nauta]

City ride vs. wilderness ride! 

[BadSkeelz]

Sure. But there's something to be said for retaining the specialization and uniqueness of the Guilds. The Ride Skill handles a lot of things (riding, mounted combat, mount taming, mount leading). I don't know if, as the Skill is currently constructed, we could make it so that Warriors were the equal to Rangers in one of those things (mounted combat) without also being the equal and everything else. I don't really think they should be equal in everything, but that's a debatable point.

City ride vs. wilderness ride!  

snerk

Well, actually...

[Bushranger]

City ride vs. wilderness ride! 

Isn't City Ride the skill for Aides, whores and f-mes?

[Ender]

Sure. But there's something to be said for retaining the specialization and uniqueness of the Guilds. The Ride Skill handles a lot of things (riding, mounted combat, mount taming, mount leading). I don't know if, as the Skill is currently constructed, we could make it so that Warriors were the equal to Rangers in one of those things (mounted combat) without also being the equal and everything else. I don't really think they should be equal in everything, but that's a debatable point.

I would be fine with taming being it's own skill that branches off of ride.  One of the big issues with ride though is at a certain level it becomes seemingly impossible to fail making reaching master level of ride out of reach without failing taming of animals.  I'm not even sure if failing to tame an animal even counts as a ride failure as it pertains to getting better at the ride skill?

[Riev]

I always just took animals on bounding runs around the harshest terrains I could find, to get higher ride skill.

Then one day, at Advanced, I fell off and probably got attacked by a kryl or something.

[Patuk]

I am this close to going all history nerd rage over the cavalry thing, you guys. Stahp D:

[Malken]

STIRRUPS ARE FOR PUSSIES!

- Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours

[Armaddict]

I don't understand how rangers will be negatively effected by this?  Giving warriors better ride gives them the ability to actually be better cavalrymen, riding their giant lizards and beetles into battle, which is awesome.

Because the original part that this part of the discussion came as a response to was not just allowing warriors to ride better, it was giving them charge as well, just by virtue of being a warrior, whereas the response was that where rangers are designed to be dependent on their mounts, warriors are not.

There have been numerous accessions to letting warriors get the mounted bonuses and hands free riding.  The specialization in mounted combat, on the other hand, should not go with it.

[MeTekillot]

Warrior/mercenary gets no-hand ride, which is kinda weird.

[Armaddict]

Warrior/mercenary gets no-hand ride, which is kinda weird.

Anything/mercenary gets no-hands ride.  They have a lifted ride skill as the subguild information states.

[Patuk]

STIRRUPS ARE FOR PUSSIES!

- Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours

You mean having horses at all, right?

There is a remove kebab joke in here somewhere, I feel. Maybe remove dried strip of meat works?