Thoughts on New Classes

[Cind]

What are your thoughts on the new classes now that we've had them for a while and you've probably had a few?

I'm curious about which two classes you consider the least helpful and which two the most. There are a lot so I think we can pick a couple.

I've tried most of the ones that start with crafting without the need for a subguild to have crafting in it... I wasn't completely happy with Fence, mostly because other players were really certain I was going to start stealing from them (when I was having thinks about stealing -for- them) and they would tell me this by every single person I ever met putting their hands on their weapons, or otherwise emoting that they had weapons, the first time we met.

Yeah, no. Have your soap opera drama all you like, but for me, immersion is king.

(Fence does, however, either start with steal or eventually branches it, is a fairly easy class to guild sniff, and I think most people who take this one do end up being naughty.)

Fence forage is great. And I remember someone who played their Fence like a boss, too.

I was really happy with Craftsperson and Artisan, maybe a little less with Dune Trader. I wasn't sure about the reasons for a couple of the ways Dune Trader branches. Isn't armor repair really hard to skill up? How many people are walking around in hacked-up armor that they need fixed? Maybe I am playing the wrong guys.

I'm still looking for a reason to become a Laborer, and there's always a reason to be a Scout. But, I'm a little surprised that Scout and whatever are the heaviest combat classes do not get knifemaking.

Everyone plays differently, though, and I bet you there are people who have caught onto Miscreant and have not let go since.

If you are hoping for a class that's the perfect fit for a House crafter, I would go Artisan. Every single craft skill in the game besides poisonmaking is either available right away, or attainable after one crafting skill-up, including brew, which is always in demand in the Houses. It also obviously says that you get cavilish; if you need to speak privately to someone in the House, especially one of your leaders or an animated npc, that's the language to have. This is if you just have being a House crafter in mind, and not like part of the Assassin's Guild of Huge Misfits by night or something like that.

[Cind]

Wait, artisan doesn't get brew.

(oh my god)

[Derain]

Adventurer I had a really good run with you can travel and get enough combat to take on Carru and Spiders eventually also pretty good utility and the forage and craft skills are enough to keep yourself employed.

[Nao]

My Pilferer was surprisingly fun to play. They make decent criminals and crafters. You can even steal your crafting materials from apartments! It does not look like a great class on paper, but I think it's underrated. I would play one again, I just don't want to play any mercantile class if I can't both mastercraft and have a real subguild.

[boog]

Infiltrator has me curious as to which stat it gives a bonus to when you roll. Because I rolled a young infiltrator and got uh, average agility, and that just didn't seem to make sense at all to me. It also seems to just sort of be generic -- it really doesn't shine with anything special.

Just go with miscreant. Seriously.

[roughneck]

The Raider/Enforcer/Fighter are clear wins over the warrior legacy class. Very much needed and really cool classes. They are more fun to play than the Warrior legacy.

Stalker/Scout/Miscreant/Infiltrator are good classes, but lack the thematic mystique of ranger/assassin. I don't think anyone is having more fun playing a Stalker than playing a Ranger.

The goal should be fun maximization.

[th3kaiser]

Stalkers and Rangers are so incredibly similar. I've not had less fun playing one than a legacy ranger. I think you lose two skills from ranger and then get others added. And some of the skill maxes are a bit different. It feels like it evens out. You want to be a desert ninja? Stalker is your go-to. It's actually a blast. I much prefer stalker over scout, which is a bit meh.

[Cerelum]

Stalkers and Rangers are so incredibly similar. I've not had less fun playing one than a legacy ranger. I think you lose two skills from ranger and then get others added. And some of the skill maxes are a bit different. It feels like it evens out. You want to be a desert ninja? Stalker is your go-to. It's actually a blast. I much prefer stalker over scout, which is a bit meh.

I don't understand how folks become desert ninjas when you're not a desert elf as you have a mount that doesn't sneak.

Unless you just go balls to the wall and walk out the gate and do all your sneaking and shit.

Only type of outdoor ninja I ever made was a desert elf because they have no mounts to worry about.

[Dresan]

Can't  speak too much on merchantile classes but both fence and dune trader look great to me.

I remember when my merchant was introducing himself as a dune trader and he was being made fun of for wanting to go around selling sand dunes by some people. Haha. Fuck you. 

Enforcer needs watch and poison at least to justify branching requirements.
Miscreant should be renamed to infiltrator.
Infiltrator should be renamed something as cool as assassin.
Infiltrator needs something too. Perhaps advanced Disarm branching from bash or a new reworked trap skill.
Soldiers are the worst class in my opinion. Needs to drop all crafting skills. Give them advanced ride, direction sense and climb because soldiers-calvary would be trained in this stuff. Basically old warrior-grebber combo. Allowing them to avoid needing one of the riding subguild and taking something else.

[roughneck]

Stalkers and Rangers are so incredibly similar. I've not had less fun playing one than a legacy ranger. I think you lose two skills from ranger and then get others added. And some of the skill maxes are a bit different. It feels like it evens out. You want to be a desert ninja? Stalker is your go-to. It's actually a blast. I much prefer stalker over scout, which is a bit meh.

I don't understand how folks become desert ninjas when you're not a desert elf as you have a mount that doesn't sneak.

Unless you just go balls to the wall and walk out the gate and do all your sneaking and shit.

Only type of outdoor ninja I ever made was a desert elf because they have no mounts to worry about.

Delves can't hide while resting. Non-elves hide while their mount rests. It's a real vulnerability.

[th3kaiser]

Or just walk around. It's really not that bad. The ability to be completely unseen makes it pretty viable. Mounts are just annoying and not as mandatory as everyone makes out.

I've only played the three combat-oriented wilderness classes. They seem pretty good. It's likely all I'll be playing from now on.

Edit: Also, if you add all those things to soldier, then they're just a wilderness class. Please no. And poison is crazy powerful, I just don't see where enforcers need it. Maybe drop down the branch level for backstab if it's actually at mid-advanced now. But zero additional combat power plz.

[John]

Stalkers and Rangers are so incredibly similar. I've not had less fun playing one than a legacy ranger. I think you lose two skills from ranger and then get others added. And some of the skill maxes are a bit different. It feels like it evens out. You want to be a desert ninja? Stalker is your go-to. It's actually a blast. I much prefer stalker over scout, which is a bit meh.

I don't understand how folks become desert ninjas when you're not a desert elf as you have a mount that doesn't sneak.

Unless you just go balls to the wall and walk out the gate and do all your sneaking and shit.

Only type of outdoor ninja I ever made was a desert elf because they have no mounts to worry about.

Good regen is phenomenal and I could see an experienced player surviving long term without a mount

[Jihelu]

My C-Elf was a desert ninja, no mount or elf run required

[Dresan]

I dont think adding those things make the class a wilderness class. I think direction sense is fine, night time patrols, no advanced ride but give advanced scan, and climb especially given climbing in allanak. Basically too many crafting skills for a light combat class. 

Not going into more details on enforcer because i just did in the archery-stalker thread but in their current state they do or yes lower bsckstab-sap requirement.

[Veselka]

Infiltrator has me curious as to which stat it gives a bonus to when you roll. Because I rolled a young infiltrator and got uh, average agility, and that just didn't seem to make sense at all to me. It also seems to just sort of be generic -- it really doesn't shine with anything special.

Just go with miscreant. Seriously.

IIRC, Brokkr said they did away with stat bonuses from which class you pick, or reduced them.

[Eyeball]

Anyone who chooses the Adventurer class and tries to be a hunter might feel somewhat underwhelmed. Upon discovering that they can't spy out certain creatures when they hide, for example.

[Feco]

While substantially less important, I'd like to add that the class names are great.

I wanna always pick Dune Trader just because of the name.  It just sounds super badass.

[Brokkr]

Infiltrator has me curious as to which stat it gives a bonus to when you roll. Because I rolled a young infiltrator and got uh, average agility, and that just didn't seem to make sense at all to me. It also seems to just sort of be generic -- it really doesn't shine with anything special.

Just go with miscreant. Seriously.

IIRC, Brokkr said they did away with stat bonuses from which class you pick, or reduced them.

I think I said we talked about putting what the stat bonuses are in the class helpfiles but decided not to.  Every class has a stat bonus of some kind.

[Veselka]

Infiltrator has me curious as to which stat it gives a bonus to when you roll. Because I rolled a young infiltrator and got uh, average agility, and that just didn't seem to make sense at all to me. It also seems to just sort of be generic -- it really doesn't shine with anything special.

Just go with miscreant. Seriously.

IIRC, Brokkr said they did away with stat bonuses from which class you pick, or reduced them.

I think I said we talked about putting what the stat bonuses are in the class helpfiles but decided not to.  Every class has a stat bonus of some kind.

Cool, thanks for the clarification!

[Dresan]

One last thing I wanted to mention: There is still a big discrepancy between the city classes and the wilderness classes.

You take scout/stalker and give them any of the city sub-guilds and compare that to the options infiltrators/miscreants have for wilderness and it doesn't come close. Rough rider for 2 karma doesn't even have direction sense.

Now this would still be fine until you factor in that the best resources still come from the wilderness. Deadly poison and herbs are abundant in the wilderness. Both scout and stalker have the ability to collect these things while its not as easy for infiltrator or miscreant without perhaps 2 karma for outdoorsman and even then its lacking.

This is why I could see infiltrator having gotten brew or even disarm and still be balanced to scout's offensive and resource gathering/crafting skill set.

I am really hoping brewing and city forage begins to address this and will narrow the gap, allowing the two city classes access/create more of the resources they need around the city in places like sewers and such.

[roughneck]

One last thing I wanted to mention: There is still a big discrepancy between the city classes and the wilderness classes.

You take scout/stalker and give them any of the city sub-guilds and compare that to the options infiltrators/miscreants have for wilderness and it doesn't come close. Rough rider for 2 karma doesn't even have direction sense.

Now this would still be fine until you factor in that the best resources still come from the wilderness. Deadly poison and herbs are abundant in the wilderness. Both scout and stalker have the ability to collect these things while its not as easy for infiltrator or miscreant without perhaps 2 karma for outdoorsman and even then its lacking.

This is why I could see infiltrator having gotten brew or even disarm and still be balanced to scout's offensive and resource gathering/crafting skill set.

I am really hoping brewing and city forage begins to address this and will narrow the gap, allowing the two city classes access/create more of the resources they need around the city in places like sewers and such.

Stalkers and scouts gather poisons so that miscreants can steal them.  If your method of acquiring poison as a miscreant is to go into the wilderness, then you're doing it wrong.

[Dresan]

Sure, Scouts/stalkers can gather and use on demand, and miscreants need to wait until someone playing these classes decides to come around so they can take their poisons.

Also infiltrators just need to wait around for a scout and stalker to be willing to sell to them.

Or even better wait for the scout and stalker to kindly leave their valuable poisons on their apartment shelves for the infiltrator to come steal.

Haha. Perfect. Problem solved. Thanks 

[Veselka]

Rough rider for sure should get direction sense! 

[Kryos]

The caveat to hopefully make sure it is clear I'm not trying to just dump on the changes:  the new class system is absolutely better than the guilds that came before it.  They are an improvement, and in many ways, they are nuanced well.  I bump into a fairly wide range of classes in game(although there is a distinct bias in the competencies with only my small N value to observe off of).  In short:  the new classes system made the game more fun!

That being said, there are some obviously tailored trade offs that can't be covered except with ESG and with the karma and stat system working as it does at the moment I consider that very unfortunate.  There's some bias in this statement as particular combinations I want to use are not actually doable at all.  Stats, skills, race, status, and wealth are not independent systems, they all impact one another and at the end of the day impact player fun.

As an example that I am responsible for and felt poorly about, I asked staff to let me play X race, Z class in Y clan as a spec app.  They graciously allowed me to, but the thing that came out of chargen was below the halfway point in all its stat rolls (as the better of two).  I knew, being the type of player I am, I would never actually get behind this character and really embrace it because of these silly words in the score command output.  I asked to have X stored after being crestfallen, unable to even get started.  I felt like an ingrate and absolutely was a bad player because RNJesus did not bless(or even spare) me that day.  In the current system, that would mean I flushed months of karma down the drain(and I still would have, because I still would have had no motivation to play X).

This woe could be avoided if wealth, status, classes, stats, and race were combined into a holistic bundle balanced by karma, allowing the player to chose their strengths and weaknesses based on their karma bid.  Even better if it was not classes, but skills and their caps.  As it is, I believe the mix of inability to make certain types of characters(at all), or only with karma, and then doubling down on the stat roll system in addition is not resulting in more positives than negatives.  Especially when karma is spent.  If that is too harsh, than at least, it could be improved upon still.

This is a bit of beating a dead horse for me, so I will leave it at that.

[Dresan]

I too think the classes system made the game more fun. Especially the changes to stealth and scan between the classes, stealth takes some investment now in one way or another. 

My biggest gripe between city/wilderness classes is something that has existed in bigger disparity between assassin and rangers, however again my hope is that as allanak grows and evolves with its rooftops/sewers that city based characters with the right investment in skills will be able to enjoy some form of resources that have previously always required mastering skinning and archery or worse OOC knowledge of some remote place off in the wilds that doesn't make sense for city character to visit. 

While the classes were designed so that one class can't do everything like ranger used to, I don't think city based classes should be as dependent on wilderness classes logging as their only means of acquiring the better tools of their trade