Feedback: Proposed Skill Changes that could Impact You

[mansa]

...

I didn't mention skill changes because skill changes are not on the table, just adjusting the skill levels at which guilds get them.

In regards to stealth, I think one of the biggest complaints about it won't be fixed by adjusting the skill levels they can cap at - well, if you don't take into account racial stat bonuses.

Here's what I mean by agility modifiers, in this chart I just made up:

As you can tell, Elf with High Agility and High Stealth items puts the class well above the stealth detection threshold.  Even Elf without high agility and high stealth items still goes above that cap at the very end of the spectrum.

If the agility modifier for elves on stealth is changed, it would look something like this:

Where it would still be within the range of stealth detection at the low end of the skills, but at the high end it doesn't have a glaring big advantage.


If you reduce the skill proficiency in certain classes, because of the racial bonuses, it will make those classes for those races fail a lot more frequently.  Those poor dwarven miscreants will never be able to hide, even at master.

[Brokkr]

If it does have to be a give/take scenario

In the context of the current way stealth works, and importantly, interacts with the stealth detecting abilities....yeah, we can't really have everyone be masters of stealth.

[Brokkr]

Mansa, I am well aware of all of that.  Code changes aren't on the table right now.

[mansa]

Mansa, I am well aware of all of that.  Code changes aren't on the table right now.

Cool.  I'm glad we're on the same page

[Fernandezj]

Stalkers have everything, and Scouts don't have anything that differentiates them from Stalkers in the Wilderness.  Scouts work ok for fighting, but the Stalkers are superior in all the Wilderness type activities.  Much like Miscreant/Infiltrator, this breaks that up.

Code Select Expand

Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels

Bottom line up front: Adding mastery of stealth to master archers/blow-gunners is too big a buff to Scouts and takes a core concept away from stalkers. Changes should instead be looked at in perception or manipulation.

Explanation: IMO, thematically, Scouts should be the better Finder/Killer and Stalkers are better Hider/Harasser. This fits with the current ability of Scouts in combat: Mastery of all ranged skills, added combat utility with kick, can use all weapons. So that's already a huge distinction. Giving them added stealth supremacy is a large buff. Personally I think the combination of stealth mastery and master blowgun use/archery is TOO MUCH. A master hide/sneak master blowgun would be devastating.

Ultimately, a scout, to me, should be able to scout efficiently (i.e. climb to hard to reach places for a better vantage, spot hidden things and people, find hidden places [but search is off the table], ride far and wide in their scouting endeavors). More a military-ish outrider. This would imply +climb, +scan, +listen, +ride. Master skinning doesn't fit here (-skinning), they are more accustomed to fighting people than animals, so they'd have a limited knowledge of butchering kills. This is represented further by their combat prowess, implying more city-inclined than outdoors.

On the other hand, a stalker should be able to hunt people + animals with efficiency. I think their kit fits this, but they do fill too many utility archetypes. Tablet-maker, medic, storm-navigator, butcher, wilderness assassin. I think perception reductions would be the easiest to balance.

Those are my thoughts.

[Gentleboy]

Stalkers have everything, and Scouts don't have anything that differentiates them from Stalkers in the Wilderness.  Scouts work ok for fighting, but the Stalkers are superior in all the Wilderness type activities.  Much like Miscreant/Infiltrator, this breaks that up.

Code Select Expand

Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels

Bottom line up front: Adding mastery of stealth to master archers/blow-gunners is too big a buff to Scouts and takes a core concept away from stalkers. Changes should instead be looked at in perception or manipulation.

Explanation: IMO, thematically, Scouts should be the better Finder/Killer and Stalkers are better Hider/Harasser. This fits with the current ability of Scouts in combat: Mastery of all ranged skills, added combat utility with kick, can use all weapons. So that's already a huge distinction. Giving them added stealth supremacy is a large buff. Personally I think the combination of stealth mastery and master blowgun use/archery is TOO MUCH. A master hide/sneak master blowgun would be devastating.

Ultimately, a scout, to me, should be able to scout efficiently (i.e. climb to hard to reach places for a better vantage, spot hidden things and people, find hidden places [but search is off the table], ride far and wide in their scouting endeavors). More a military-ish outrider. This would imply +climb, +scan, +listen, +ride. Master skinning doesn't fit here (-skinning), they are more accustomed to fighting people than animals, so they'd have a limited knowledge of butchering kills. This is represented further by their combat prowess, implying more city-inclined than outdoors.

On the other hand, a stalker should be able to hunt people + animals with efficiency. I think their kit fits this, but they do fill too many utility archetypes. Tablet-maker, medic, storm-navigator, butcher, wilderness assassin. I think perception reductions would be the easiest to balance.

Those are my thoughts.

You are one of the most well-spoken players and I always love your forum posts. Thank you for this.

[Pariah]

While I haven't really succeeded in maxing out stealth on my stalkers, I have got to master scan quite a bit.

The problem with stealth I think is that when I play my master scan stalkers I can see damn near everything.  So stealth probably doesn't matter all that much I feel due to the way scanning works.

So the question to me in this conversation is are we trying to make stalkers less invisible to non master scanners? Is that overall goal of the possible solution?

Are you trying to balance a trend? Something people are abusing like the mentioned stalker/any mage combo?

I love stalker and don't think it should really be changed much except to maybe add more crafting for downtime and for the special app mage/stalker combos.

Again I have no pony in the race really because outside of mages who can get around without worrying about losing a mount I have trouble finding reasons to sneak around outside of stopping the fucking jozhal from running away.  Because if you go sneaking out the gates on foot for "practice" your difficulty level raises from easy to Ironman mode.

[SpyGuy]

I'd personally prefer scout to trade for better scan/listen caps than to switch hide/sneak.

I greatly support making light combat classes the best at something.

[lostinspace]

So the question to me in this conversation is are we trying to make stalkers less invisible to non master scanners? Is that overall goal of the possible solution?

Are you trying to balance a trend? Something people are abusing like the mentioned stalker/any mage combo?

+1 knowing the goals of the changes helps me judge them. Everything listed looked fine to me, but if one of the goals is fewer stalker/mages a sneak/hide nerf isn't going to discourage me from preferring that combo. Things like master climb, easy branching of brew, and the ease with which they produce food/water/components solo has always been what drew me to the class for my magicker.

[triste]

My post lunch and post lunch beer brainfarts here:
- it's not on the table, but yes to more classes getting skinning like Bebop said. I skinned a raccoon when I was 8 and I was born in a city/ghetto, everyone can skin. I understand I am also psycho which grants +1 to skinning, so back to Bebop's point... Raiders getting minimal skin is a HELL YES.
- yes to city elves and elven appearing half elves getting more skills
- all other tweaks I don't care about because at this point we should consider a skill point buy system. I know the Armageddon codebase was tied to a legacy of static class/guild files but we can go beyond that. Just look at all the contradictory feedback you have to sift through, staff! It would be 100% addressed by skill point buy.
- I will update my dumb https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/ tool to address any changes but secretly I am praying for the death of my guild picker with a skill point buy system.

[Krath]

Why not leave stalker alone for stealth, and reduce other skills like Master Brew, poisoning etc?

[betweenford]

Search :
I think Search is an underused feature, and in my opinion, having the ability to spot it doesn't give a huge advantage to the players.
Scout - Journeyman (high)
Stalker - Advanced (low)

It is limited because currently Search isn't necessary, once you know keywords.  If that changed, might consider this.  But while it is a situation that you only need to successfully find something once and you can use that knowledge on all subsequent characters, this is going to remain somewhat more limited.

Sure, it isn't necessary once you know keywords, but by keeping the system as it is and not giving stalkers/scouts search skill, you also monopolize the use of "hidden areas" in the wilderness to......... people who took an adventurer/city-guild/grebber-subguild, and then exploit those areas regardless. Okay cool, a stalker opens the "crack" in the hidden cave and discovers it, tells his friends.  Weird how that cave in this uber-remote section of the game world really only particularly open to wilderness characters cannot be explored beyond the surface level in any other way than the search skill - with literally zero other hints it could otherwise exist in any fashion.  This isn't dnd where I need a rogue in my party to find hidden trapdoors in a desert, its bad game design for explorer-style characters.

Especially if you chose desert elf. In which case you only have 2 options to even obtain the skill outside of specapp. You can't even make the attempt. Cool. Epic.

[Dresan]

I am okay with these changes but probably not for the reason staff is hoping for, excellent hide/sneak and better combat skills, yes please, sap/bash/blungeon works better than steal.

Overall, these changes would make Miscreants and to a lesser extent stalkers as popular as soldiers classes must be right now. At the same time I doubt it would resolve the lingering pain points completely with steal. The reason is because peek and sleight of hand are no where near reliable enough at master and are not effected by stats. You might as well roll scout/cutpurse and have the better fighting skills to run away when caught or spotted due to peek/steal failing. Most people will eventually know who the thief is anyways, and good thieves imo don't shit where they eat. This means that in the future the best way to steal from someone will just be to knock them out and strip them before riding off into the sunset and with two city states this will be much more possible now.

These changes also do not address the elephant in the room: scan.  (I wrote this before i read that code changes were off the table so apologies in advance, feel free to ignore)

Unfortunately, its all or nothing against sneak/hide, its currently more often then not its just nothing and not really worth having unless you want to see those hidden npcs. On the other hand, if it works too well it would consistantly devestate the PCs hiding.

The effects of scan should work in the following way:

1. You are not spotted. Perform actions against someone at an advantage.
2. You are spotted but cannot be identified with look. They notice get a message you think you notice something through the corner of your eye. They don't see a shadow they can interact with or watch you. You are able to assess them to notice them are almost looking and scanning towards your direction.  You can perform actions against the person with slight disadvantage.
3. You are spotted but cannot be identified with look. They can see a shadow in the room and can interact with it. You can assess them to notice that it seems like they are looking in their direction.  You will perform actions against the perform from stealth with some disadvantage.  (thief subclass vs high advance scan)
4. You are spotted and can be seen with look.  (thief subclass vs master scan)

Additionally:
-Hide/sneak failure should be removed, making even thief sub-guild and beginner sneak/hide useful.
-Watching someone hiding should not allow you to look at them and get their mdesc unless you pop them out of hiding.
-Someone scanning should be obvious so if you asses them so you should see that they are trying to look in your direction. 

In short, a number of the time it would fall on number two, they can't screw you over, but you can't screw them over either. This would make scan much more useful to prevent people from harrassing you with hide/sneak. But not to the point where it devestates the player who is hiding.  Listen has the same problems as scan and needs a bit of a rework in the same way but thats another thread.

Maybe my idea needs more work, but until the game fixes the interaction between stealth and perception skills, the skills will be stuck between either useless or godmode.

[Patuk]

Enforcers! Someone think of the poor enforcers! If the point to branch stuff from kick etc will be lowered, please also make it easier for enforcers to branch sap and backstab. I'd really appreciate that.

Aside from that..

.. Why is miscreant getting a heavier nerf than stalker is?

I'd like to keep the classes in similar tiers.. Well, similar. If miscreant is to receive a double nerf, it seems fair that stalker gets nerfed as much.

[Dresan]

It would still be the best at skinning.  And hunting.  And climbing.  And foraging.  And scanning.  It just wouldn't be a ghost.  And -insanely- attractive to mages.

You will just have mages become scouts without losing too much imo, heck even gaining so much more if you ask me. Master skinning is really useful in one senerio. Foraging and climbing, meh scout is good enough. Scanning and hunting, lol, scout is good enough again.

Some opinions might differ of course but basically max stealth is even worth it when you had to take a class with really crappy combat.

I sincerely believe only reason people were stealing more rather than killing was because of all the ganking/murdering threads out there. Even when i was rolling a strong thief I couldn't help think to myself, well just stealing their coins or stuff from their pack not like i'm ganking aide number #1201, coins are so plentiful anyways, that shouldn't upset anyone. heh.

But we want to make stealing less common and make ganking easier from shadows? lol, okay. I'm sure no one will be mad at that.  Again i really like this change, I like to play elves so this is an awesome buff, one that just might actually make me want to play humans again too. Its just that I find this to be an rather interesting approach to nerfing stealling in the game.  

[hyzhenhok]

Changes are great, which isn't surprising to hear me say given that they're similar to changes I've proposed. Swapping pilferer/miscreant steal is a really, really good idea.

My only comment: I somewhat agree with others who have said it's not clear stalker deserves to have sneak/hide nerfed as much as miscreant does. Combat skills are more relevant in the wilderness than in the city, so stalker's mediocre combat skills are much more noticeable and relevant than miscreant's. The change also infringes on the stalker's skill-bundle archetype more than it does the miscreant's.

I would suggest swapping stalker/scout scan/listen instead. This has the same effect of splitting master stealth and master perception onto different classes, sensibly reinforces the skill-bundle archetypes (scouts are the masters of spotting threats, stalkers are the masters of approaching unseen), and gives scout a slight buff without nerfing stalker quite as badly.

[Brytta Léofa]

Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels

I think this is an improvement, but I would favor switching scan levels instead of sneak/hide levels.

Scout definitely needs more oomph; I wind up going heavier (Raider) or stealthier (Stalker). With this change I would probably pick Scout over Stalker for muh mages, which would make them stronger combatants...this is cool, but is it good?

Switching sneak/hide makes the more combat-fragile class (Stalker) more vulnerable to being found in both PvP and PvE. If you switch scan instead, Stalker is more vulnerable in PvP but not in PvE (because mostly NPCs' scan ain't changin').

Increased scan would be a nice plum for Scout and make them a more plausible alternative to Raider.

Add Scan to Soldier with same maximum skill level as Stalker/Miscreant/Laborer
Increase Soldier Subdue to same maximum skill level as Jihaen Templar

Yes. I've considered Soldier before and passed it up because of the total lack of stealth-savvy.

Increase starting Kick skill slightly for Fighter/Raider/Enforcer (its actually lower than the formulaic design, somehow)
Decrease Kick skill level required to branch Disarm for Raiders
Decrease Bash skill level required to branch Disarm for Enforcers

Sweet Tektolnes, please and thank you. Anecdotes:
- My fairly skilled 18-day raider never got kick to master nor branched disarm, and brah I trained that shit hard.
- I have apped a Raider/Pit-Fighter to avoid the kick->disarm branch and would do it again. (Pit-Fighter gives no skills that raider doesn't eventually get.)

Skipping over the sneaky city options since I haven't played that side in a while.

[Spider]

Definitely a +1 to switch the scan/listen values of scout and stalker instead of the stealth values.  The weaker combat class leans more on stealth skills, and the perception change to scout would make them considerably more desirable than they currently stand.

[strangerdanger]

Anything that creates a more even distribution of played classes is great. This begins to address some of the more meta ideas of "must have" skills and makes the choice of master hide vs whatever other utility skills more dynamic.

Fully support.

Also I think I could fully branch out a sorc before hitting master kick. This could use some adjustment for sure. Really anywhere would be a great place to start.

[Inks]

I approve of all of Brokkr's proposed changes. And finally soldier will be a great soldier too, amazing balancing you guys!

Clearly a lot of thought went into this! Big kudos from me.

[Fernandezj]

I'm still very curious what the proposal is addressing. If the notion is that Stalkers are the attractive option for mages (as was stated) at disproportionate levels, I don't think its a good practice to just nerf stalkers. That seems to be a highly inelegant way to dance around the issue of some Mage-Stalker synergy meta. I'd much rather see that be addressed in some other way that doesn't nerf mundane players trying their best.

From the class snapshot previously posted from last year, there were 21 miscreants, 18 stalkers and 15 scouts. So it doesn't seem to be scouts are played THAT much less than stalkers, unless like 75% of the stalkers were also mages (or something).  And in fact, all three are already three of the top five most popular classes (the top-5 being Raider, Miscreant, Stalker, Scout, and Fighter)

Open to looking at other things, but really focused on bigger pain points, behavior and class selection type changes, rather than quality of life changes (e.g. adding skinning to Raider or Artisan).

The biggest pain point from a numbers standpoint, would seemingly be that no one is really attracted to the city roles. As of that snapshot, 50% of people were playing an "outdoors"-kit, with the other 50% split between city and crime. This could be because of a shift to more wilderness based play, but the numbers are just really sad for some classes. And while switching stealths around might solve some underlying magicker problem, I don't think it will tip people into the woefully underplayed Soldiers or Laborers.

[Hauwke]

I'd like to bring attention to the issue of infiltrator will now be more or less the assassin of old, which to my understanding, a goal of the class change was to seperate max stealth and one shot abilities.

Would it not make more sense to simply remove the godlevels of steal and stuff miscreant has while leaving it at the stealth levels it has? Much like stalker, it's main source of defense is sneak/hide and poisons.

[Dresan]

Increase starting Kick skill slightly for Fighter/Raider/Enforcer (its actually lower than the formulaic design, somehow)
Decrease Kick skill level required to branch Disarm for Raiders
Decrease Bash skill level required to branch Disarm for Enforcers

Sweet Tektolnes, please and thank you. Anecdotes:
- My fairly skilled 18-day raider never got kick to master nor branched disarm, and brah I trained that shit hard.
- I have apped a Raider/Pit-Fighter to avoid the kick->disarm branch and would do it again. (Pit-Fighter gives no skills that raider doesn't eventually get.)

Skipping over the sneaky city options since I haven't played that side in a while.

If infiltrator is getting master stealth perhaps throwing the enforcer an additional bone and making sap/backstab a bit easier to  branch wouldn't be a bad idea.

[Inks]

Enforcer is stronk enuff. Changes good.

Even if you didn't nerf miscreant or stalker the increased stealth of scout and inflliltrator will do a lot.But I approve of all these changes.

[Dresan]

I'd like to bring attention to the issue of infiltrator will now be more or less the assassin of old, which to my understanding, a goal of the class change was to seperate max stealth and one shot abilities.

Infiltrator has lower backstab and sap skill percentages then enforcer(who have crap stealth).

While it doesn't seem like much on paper, the skills are just low enough to prevent them from truely being reliable one shotting abilities all the time. Even old assassin backstab wasn't always a sure thing, this goes double for infiltrator.