Rangers OP or Just Right? Split from RAT

[Malken]

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?

Yeah, it's a poorly executed Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman joke

[hyzhenhok]

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.

I wouldn't take the echoes at face value. The image of massive Zalanthan mounts executing a "charge" by just ramming into soldiers and bowling them over with impunity, the soldiers apparently having no recourse, seems more vaudeville than anything else. As big and tough as beetles and inix are, I don't think they'd be willing to impale themselves on a pike or spear in order to literally run over enemy soldiers any more than horses are.

Anyway, you have real-world elephants to serve as your model if you think that's a better baseline than horses--but the mounted combat code probably needs to be seriously revamped if you actually want that to be the model.

Either way, there should be countermeasures available against mounted soldiers. Going into combat mounted should not necessarily be a dominant strategy. Frankly, it should be a matter of principle the late medieval European heavily armored knight does not have an equivalent in Armageddon. We should rip it out and kill it dead, not bend over backwards trying to justify why it exists where it shouldn't.

[Refugee]

Pretty sure I've seen stirrups in-game in some descritions.  I remember it because I was wondering for a long time about whether I should use stirrups in my emotes and then I saw it.

[BadSkeelz]

I wouldn't take the echoes at face value. The image of massive Zalanthan mounts executing a "charge" by just ramming into soldiers and bowling them over with impunity, the soldiers apparently having no recourse, seems more vaudeville than anything else. As big and tough as beetles and inix are, I don't think they'd be willing to impale themselves on a pike or spear in order to literally run over enemy soldiers any more than horses are.

I wish I could not take magick echoes at face value either, but I have to respect them anyway and roleplay around them.

Also pikes are too hard to branch so neither City-state has managed to filed pike formations yet.

[BadSkeelz]

Less facetiously, mounted combat in Zalanthas is not about cavalry formations charging infantry. It is overwhelming small units of cavalrymen being ambushed by (or ambushing) small numbers of foes. Mounted combat rates your ability to maneuver in that melee (with abrupt charges and tramples), stay in your saddle, and deliver damage.

Right now, Rangers the best at fighting in these mounted skirmishes. By rights, it should be warriors.

[Refugee]

Nah, I did a search through all the logs of all my PCs and all I see are lots of different people emoting about stirrups.

[Refugee]

I agree that a well-trained ranger should never be able to take a well-trained warrior in any kind of equal-standing, close-proximity combat. 

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Nah, I did a search through all the logs of all my PCs and all I see are lots of different people emoting about stirrups.

[Armaddict]

I agree that a well-trained ranger should never be able to take a well-trained warrior in any kind of equal-standing, close-proximity combat. 

Do we have an actual test of this occurring?

Test server, put a mounted warrior of this skill with comparable other-skills next to a mounted ranger of this skill with comparable other-skills, and have them duke it out, and prove that one outright slaughters the other to the degree that's being referenced?  I'd accept that as the need.

[roughneck]

The more I think about it, the more it really doesn't add up. If I'm a warrior who's devoted my life to close combat on the sands of Zalanthas, and who's life depends developing the skills and tactics to handle what I can expect to to encounter, the first time I see my ranger buddy charge and trample someone, using his inix and his few hours of ride training I am going to:
a) Develop a tactic for evading mounts, disabling mounts, or dismounting riders
b) Learn how to do it myself

On a separate point, the other thing I don't like about charge is that it's a skill, more than others, that is more about which player hits 'enter' on their keyboard fastest, rather than a reflection of skill.

As an anecdote for the discussion, around five years or more ago I played a 10 day human ranger that successfully solo hunted bahamets because of the coded advantages ride and certain mounts give you in combat.

[Is Friday]

Ranger is one of the few classes that I can enjoy from a coded standpoint because it's functional. I don't think ranger is OP, I think the other classes just suck a lotta balls.

[Delirium]

Ranger is one of the few classes that I can enjoy from a coded standpoint because it's functional. I don't think ranger is OP, I think the other classes just suck a lotta balls.

[roughneck]

The biggest thing I don't understand is why a ranger, a ZERO karma class gets unlimited access to wilderness quit, but a non-ranger mul, or a nilazi, or a psionicist has to find a quit room.

If you have that kind of karma and you can't find a quit room, then you have bigger problems.

Ranger is one of the few classes that I can enjoy from a coded standpoint because it's functional. I don't think ranger is OP, I think the other classes just suck a lotta balls.

Agreed. It's the same reason I play rangers more than anything else. You never get bored, you really don't need anybody to help you, and you can handle pretty well any threat in the game one way or another.

[Ender]

Agreed. It's the same reason I play rangers more than anything else. You never get bored, you really don't need anybody to help you, and you can handle pretty well any threat in the game one way or another.

Rangers have a great balance of functionality.  They have craft skills for downtime, they have mobility skills that allows them to explore, they have a wide array of combat skills that allows for the player to put thought in how they'll go about approaching combat.  

They're all together a really well rounded class that provides a great mix of fun right out of the box and a lot of skill progression to keep the player interested in improving them.

This is what is lacking from warriors.  Warriors as a base class are lacking skills that help fill out downtime.  Honestly they should get skills like armor repair and bandage making, and I would argue that they should have weapon crafting skills branch from weapon skills themselves.

[LauraMars]

I split off some of that quit room/ability to quit chatter. It's marginally related to rangers, but it seems like a decent topic to discuss on its own, so why not. New one is here.

[whitt]

moved.

[Molten Heart]

I love rangers, they are just right. Maybe other guilds could use more oompfh?

[Fujikoma]

OMFG, rangers are, hands down, the class, well, if you can suffer through skilling one up appropriately. Starting with parry is just amazing. You'd probably see fewer breeds IG if warriors could max ride. as it is breed/ranger is doable, but isn't an optimal combination in terms of status and stats. Still, great PCs have been breed/rangers, I think giving warriors master ride and maybe a little fucking direction sense would go a long way, in the long run, to adjust and change up things so that breeds would be fewer in number and warriors would actually not suck at being warriors. But they start with parry, yeah, that's a huge boost, they can kick or bash, PROVIDED YOUR OPPONENT ISN'T MOUNTED. They can disarm, but big deal, it's why I'm covered in sheaths, have fun with that dagger, fuckwit. That said, I think classes like Assassin, burgler, pickpocket could use some love too, and they've gotten some, but thinking of an assassin as a "city ranger" is just flat out wrong. They start with poisoning, but not brew, that's a recipe for suicide. Their weapon skills suck in comparison, but, they are very damn good at what they do. I just don't understand why rangers are so badass, and other classes are so totally focused.

[Saellyn]

You still have to take time to draw that weapon from the sheath, and there's a delay equipping it.

Long enough of a delay that your friendly warrior can easily disarm that weapon, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one...

And if he's skilled enough, he's also railing your shit in while he's disarming you. Good luck with that. That's why people don't generally fight people they're positive are warriors up close.

[Armaddict]

I'm curious if any of this is worth a sort of cavalry subguild.

[Hauwke]

Well I doubt it would help fix anything. Other than the whole warrior = shit ride

I mean what would you give them? Buffed ride and thats it?

[Armaddict]

I dunno.  Increased ride.  Charge.  Trample.  Maybe increased direction sense?

[Delirium]

Master ride skill, master charge and trample, and either direction sense or piercing weapons. That's my stab at it.

[BadSkeelz]

Well I doubt it would help fix anything. Other than the whole warrior = shit ride

I mean what would you give them? Buffed ride and thats it?

2hand ride, trample, and charge
armor repair
branch a weapon-crafting skill from weapon skills (maybe at Jman or advanced)
perhaps branch scan

[Asmoth]

Not that I've ever lived long enough to master ANY class.

I honesty feel that if you can keep a character alive the YEARS it takes to master a class, you shouldn't be glass ceiling-ed into no advancement.

It's almost like, Congrats, you're awesome at this particular skillset, but you're too stupid to put an arrow together heh.