Feedback: Proposed Skill Changes that could Impact You

[creeper386]

I am busy AF but will have my app skill picker thing updated by next weekend and post when done.

Thank you!

I'll add thanks to this as well. I don't think I could plan a character without it anymore.

[Jihelu]

Is this the thread where we complain about the skill changes?
This is partly joking.


Why did bard get master scan?

[Greve]

Why did bard get master scan?

Presumably so that 0-karma characters aren't completely second-rate compared to those with extended subclasses. Getting top-tier scan through a subclass is a huge, dramatic change to the game, and if something like that was fully gated behind karma, it would be very harsh to newer players. I'm surprised to see any subclasses get master scan at all, but if that's going to be a thing, the only way that it's fair is if it's an option for everyone. It'll almost be a mandatory pick for any character concept that doesn't get it from its class.

This was probably done to counteract the boost to stealth skills for some classes, but it seems a little excessive. There are now five classes and three subclasses with top-tier scan, and two classes with equivalent skill in hide. It's certainly a strong move against the "stealth meta," but I think it might be a bit heavy-handed. For one thing, it puts Soldier back to square one with regards to the question of "why pick this over Fighter?" I thought giving max scan to Soldier was a fantastic answer to that question, but adding it to several subclasses kind of voids that solution.

From what I can tell, nothing in the game has master-but-not-quite-max scan. That seems like it would have been a more measured way to go for the subclasses. Several classes now have low master hide, but apparently everything that has master scan gets it to the highest possible level. I don't really understand that.

[Pariah]

More people with master scan enables less twinkery of hide and other forms of concealment.

It's sad to say but anything less than master scan won't reveal actual players worth a shit.  Even with master scan I find that it's spotty.

The thing I think that people don't realize with stealth is that after you get over the hump of getting to master, it never gets worse.  Add a few cloaks, few stealth enhancing items, you can turn into a non targetable ghost who can emote from hiding, and be a menace or technically untouchable.

Having ways to detect that is critical.  Lots of the pure fighter type soldier type roles never had a chance in hell of finding the sneakies if they didn't slip up, now they do.  Now stealth isn't going to be an instant win scenario anymore.

[Patuk]

Now stealth isn't going to be an instant win scenario anymore.

This is why templars and AoD die in droves, and the 'rinth is full of immortal and long-lived sneakies.

Oh.. Wait....

[Pariah]

Now stealth isn't going to be an instant win scenario anymore.

This is why templars and AoD die in droves, and the 'rinth is full of immortal and long-lived sneakies.

Oh.. Wait....

Well, we all know templars and aod are overpowered.

It's by design.

[Greve]

The thing I think that people don't realize with stealth is that after you get over the hump of getting to master, it never gets worse.  Add a few cloaks, few stealth enhancing items, you can turn into a non targetable ghost who can emote from hiding, and be a menace or technically untouchable.

I think almost everyone realizes that. It's been one of the main discussion points of code-related topics for years. However, the classes that had their stealth bumped to master were not buffed up to the level of Miscreant and Stalker. They were buffed to the level of ranger, which is the low end of mastery. That level of stealth has never been a problem. It's the classes that get the highest possible cap in hide that can become functionally invisible.

Let's say for the sake of argument, using totally imaginary numbers that we can't get in trouble for hypothesizing, that the highest that skills generally go is 90%, but they say <master> at 80%. In this fabricated example with made-up numbers, Scout, Infiltrator and Pilferer now get 80% in hide (i.e. the 'old ranger' level) while Miscreant and Stalker have 90%. But Scout, Soldier, Wastelander, Rogue and Bard have been given 90% scan, like Miscreant and Stalker already have. In fact, no class or subclass has 80% scan, according to Brokkr's announcement. Everyone who has master scan has 90%. Three out of five classes with master hide have 80% in that. That's a little odd.

These changes are very good overall, but the scan one puzzles me. With subclasses offering 90% scan, it's suddenly not that special to have it on your main class. Soldier remains deep in the shadow of Fighter, Raider and Scout. When Brokkr suggested giving Soldiers max scan, I thought: "awesome, now there's a solid reason to pick this for a law enforcement concept." Then max scan was handed out like candy and that thought vanished immediately. Now you can have it on every mundane PC you ever make. I think it's important that every class has some key combination of skills that makes it the ideal pick for one of the game's core roles, but liberally doling out max scan really goes against that notion. Without that, it would have been the perfect thing to make Soldier appealing. Scout and the subclasses could have done just fine with 80%. Either that or we need city and wilderness scan, which the helpfile incorrectly says there is.

I generally don't think subclasses should give any skills at the highest possible level. It's strange and feels like a band-aid fix to the issue of super-stealth, and it doesn't even really solve that, because even the highest possible level of scan doesn't match up to the highest possible level of hide. It just makes sub-master stealth even more lame.

[Narf]

The thing I think that people don't realize with stealth is that after you get over the hump of getting to master, it never gets worse.  Add a few cloaks, few stealth enhancing items, you can turn into a non targetable ghost who can emote from hiding, and be a menace or technically untouchable.

These changes are very good overall, but the scan one puzzles me. With subclasses offering 90% scan, it's suddenly not that special to have it on your main class. Soldier remains deep in the shadow of Fighter, Raider and Scout. When Brokkr suggested giving Soldiers max scan, I thought: "awesome, now there's a solid reason to pick this for a law enforcement concept." Then max scan was handed out like candy and that thought vanished immediately. Now you can have it on every mundane PC you ever make. I think it's important that every class has some key combination of skills that makes it the ideal pick for one of the game's core roles, but liberally doling out max scan really goes against that notion. Without that, it would have been the perfect thing to make Soldier appealing. Scout and the subclasses could have done just fine with 80%. Either that or we need city and wilderness scan, which the helpfile incorrectly says there is.

Soldiers get SUBDUE SUPREME, which is the real reason to play them. They're better even than the heavy combat classes. They're literally the best in the game with no rivals among playable characters. I'd argue that people probably weren't going to play Soldier for the scan skill, they were going to avoid playing soldier because they didn't have the scan skill (or at least playing soldiers as soldiers anyways). It's a slightly different motivational structure that isn't harmed by handing out scan to other classes/subclasses.

[Pariah]

I totally get where you're coming from.

One of my pet peeves with hide too is that I can see you hiding.  But say I'm just Amos the stalker with no authority.

I call big balls Templar over and I say you're hiding.  The Templar can't see you to target you.

(Or sub soldier etc authority figure) but I could be watching you in hiding.

The only option I have to unhide you is attack you.

[Pariah]

I have also never trained subdue on any character in over twenty years of playing.

Is subdue really even used beyond beyond half giants?

[Narf]

I have also never trained subdue on any character in over twenty years of playing.

Is subdue really even used beyond beyond half giants?

Subdue is extremely useful at accomplishing certain types of tasks. If you play characters that don't do those sorts of tasks, then yeah, you don't need it.

Things I've used it for in the past:
*Emergency carru subddual (my character wasn't skilled enough to fight one, but he was good enough at wrestling to keep it pinned down)
*Frustrating an attempted assasination
*Kidnapping animals out of the wild
*Athletic competitions

I've also had my character subdued by human guards and dragged to jail, which seems to be the primary reason SOLDIER was given subdual to master.

[Greve]

Soldiers get SUBDUE SUPREME, which is the real reason to play them. They're better even than the heavy combat classes. They're literally the best in the game with no rivals among playable characters.

Where does it say that? Unless Brokkr said so on Discord or something, I'm not convinced that that's the case. Judging by the release notes, they simply get subdue to the same level as the other classes that get it at the highest level.

Personally, I've never been that impressed by subdue. If you're playing an actual soldier, people will have nosave subdue on in 99% of cases because it's utter suicide to go without that in any role that has any interaction with the crimecode, and when you're dealing with any dangerous NPC, subdue a really big risk that can very easily get you killed. I've never been comfortable using it on a non-HG character, nor do I ever see anyone else doing it.

[Narf]

It says it under their skill list. They are the only ones in the game with master subdue. Everyone else has advanced or worse.

[Greve]

Oh, yeah. True.

[Dar]

I've had people subdued and dragged into an alleyway before the soldiers could arrive. Where the person was sapped by another elf and the second hit had the highest damage possible description. I forget what was it.  Instant KO by a pair of elves with middling combat prowess. And if it is truly possible to pour vials into peoples mouths when they are subdued. Ouch.


I remember my merchant elf with an AI wisdom in a room with XDs Slinks who had delf ranger stealth.  I still couldn't see the bastard. It was ... Frustrating. 

[Patuk]

Now stealth isn't going to be an instant win scenario anymore.

This is why templars and AoD die in droves, and the 'rinth is full of immortal and long-lived sneakies.

Oh.. Wait....

Well, we all know templars and aod are overpowered.

It's by design.

Sure. And while they are overpowered, stealth being strong too is fine by me. Crying foul reeks of crocodile tears to me.

[Pariah]

Well, we all know templars and aod are overpowered.

It's by design.

Sure. And while they are overpowered, stealth being strong too is fine by me. Crying foul reeks of crocodile tears to me.
[/quote]

Templars are overpowered but guarded by Staff Selection Process and I'm sure folks watching their every move/spell/etc so it's power with balance.

AOD folks take a bit of time and role-play to get to the point of, "I can fuck your life up instantly in town." so sorta a earned perk.

So I tend to find that fine, even though I tend to be on the bad side of all of those instances. (RIP so many characters).

The problem with being a stealth ninja is that there is no gate to get to it.

Just a bit of.

Hide
Hide
Hide
Hide
Hide
Hide
(Hit's master).
say (from the shadows) I am the shadow, you can't kill what you can't see, muahahaha.

So I think that anything that just can be twinked up easily and with no role-play/pc interaction shouldn't be as powerful as stealth is.

But I respect your thoughts to the contrary, just my thoughts on Stealth.  My hope is that with this change we'll see less of that as folks will have higher scan and they won't be so untouchable.

Now if they add a way to pull folks outta hiding without doing SUBDUE SHADOW, KILL SHADOW, I think it would be perfect.

[Patuk]

Templars are overpowered but guarded by Staff Selection Process and I'm sure folks watching their every move/spell/etc so it's power with balance.

I haven't been particularly impressed with what I've seen over the past year or so. Staff definitely doesn't watch or curate their every move.

AOD folks take a bit of time and role-play to get to the point of, "I can fuck your life up instantly in town." so sorta a earned perk.

Not when I played in it, it didn't. Recruits got crimcode on their side from day one. If it's changed, well, good! It's also not a benefit any criminal clan can replicate. Anywhere.

So I think that anything that just can be twinked up easily and with no role-play/pc interaction shouldn't be as powerful as stealth is.

Lots of things can be raised easily without RP or PC interaction. Magic is arguably stronger than any other force, and is infamously raised by canny people off in caves. This isn't a uniquely stealth-related issue.

[Pariah]

Maybe AOD changed but I remember when I was a recruit I had no immunity.

Had to get promoted first.

As for magic, agreed, magic is weird and I haven't really figured it out.

[The Gruffalo]

Recruits in the AoD do not enforce the law, or have crime code immunity (with one minor, scripted exception).

[Greve]

Yeah, last time I played in any law enforcement clan, you didn't have special crimecode privileges until full membership, i.e. private rank. That tends to take an in-game year unless you're given early promotion, which shitbags usually won't get. Recruits are deliberately prohibited from (and generally incapable of) attempting to enforce the law.

By and large, I've found the soldier role to be lacking the oomph it should have ever since the perpetual conflict with Tuluk ended. That was the thing that gave it purpose, and without it, it became an endless treadmill of patrolling uneventful streets and hoping for one or maybe two spars per RL day while anyone with more freedom could raise their skills way faster. Templars being so powerful and eager to get involved in everything meant that criminal roleplay struggles to gain a foothold outside of the actual 'rinth, so the soldiers themselves have rarely had enough opportunities to carry out their actual in-city job. I doubt that being this generous with max scan will help in that regard, but it'll certainly be a blow to the stealth meta that many players loathe, even if it doesn't necessarily do a whole lot about the edge case of the highest stealth level that the code allows.

Stealth skills are very easy to raise, but stealth on its own isn't dangerous. It takes a lot more effort to raise steal or backstab or whatever to the point where you can make some real mischief with it. Given the player density of today's Armageddon, simply being unseen is not of very much use. It was different back in the day, with twice as many players, when information brokering was a legitimate pursuit. There was a time when the tavern back rooms were used for sensitive conversations on a daily basis, but that time has come and gone. Now it's about waiting for the rare opportunity to have a moment of glory, which merely being undetectable doesn't do. There's just not enough going on to really play the spy game.

[Patuk]

Alright, cool. I haven't played a soldier in years and I'm glad that changed!

Also.

By and large, I've found the soldier role to be lacking the oomph it should have ever since the perpetual conflict with Tuluk ended. That was the thing that gave it purpose, and without it, it became an endless treadmill of patrolling uneventful streets and hoping for one or maybe two spars per RL day while anyone with more freedom could raise their skills way faster. Templars being so powerful and eager to get involved in everything meant that criminal roleplay struggles to gain a foothold outside of the actual 'rinth, so the soldiers themselves have rarely had enough opportunities to carry out their actual in-city job. I doubt that being this generous with max scan will help in that regard, but it'll certainly be a blow to the stealth meta that many players loathe, even if it doesn't necessarily do a whole lot about the edge case of the highest stealth level that the code allows.

Something else happened in the timeframe where Tuluk closed: magick became a subclass thing only. Previously, mages had a wide array of spells, but they were also unable to craft, hunt, sneak, fight, or survive all that well. Today, a magickal raider is stronger than his mundane counterpart, a magickal stalker is better than his mundane counterpart, a magickal enforcer is better than his mundane counterpart, and so forth. A templar who wants to get a job done has no OOC reason, at all, to prefer the AoD over gemmed: gemmed are stronger, can't rebel in the way soldiers can take off cloaks and go rogue, and cynically, raise even their mundane skills faster than the poor sods stuck to being recruits in a compound with no PCs around.

I don't envy those people. Genuinely.

[Brytta Léofa]

This looks really good to me. Best of all worlds. Stalker keeps its PvE advantage.

[Pariah]

Alright, cool. I haven't played a soldier in years and I'm glad that changed!

Also.

By and large, I've found the soldier role to be lacking the oomph it should have ever since the perpetual conflict with Tuluk ended. That was the thing that gave it purpose, and without it, it became an endless treadmill of patrolling uneventful streets and hoping for one or maybe two spars per RL day while anyone with more freedom could raise their skills way faster. Templars being so powerful and eager to get involved in everything meant that criminal roleplay struggles to gain a foothold outside of the actual 'rinth, so the soldiers themselves have rarely had enough opportunities to carry out their actual in-city job. I doubt that being this generous with max scan will help in that regard, but it'll certainly be a blow to the stealth meta that many players loathe, even if it doesn't necessarily do a whole lot about the edge case of the highest stealth level that the code allows.

Something else happened in the timeframe where Tuluk closed: magick became a subclass thing only. Previously, mages had a wide array of spells, but they were also unable to craft, hunt, sneak, fight, or survive all that well. Today, a magickal raider is stronger than his mundane counterpart, a magickal stalker is better than his mundane counterpart, a magickal enforcer is better than his mundane counterpart, and so forth. A templar who wants to get a job done has no OOC reason, at all, to prefer the AoD over gemmed: gemmed are stronger, can't rebel in the way soldiers can take off cloaks and go rogue, and cynically, raise even their mundane skills faster than the poor sods stuck to being recruits in a compound with no PCs around.

I don't envy those people. Genuinely.

While I agree with the general feeling I -think- you're trying to portray here.  "Gemmed are more valuable now than mundane to Templars."

I would say on a pure power point, yep, specifically if they are a Krathi or Whiran.

However, that's not themely really and I would hope that they didn't do that.

I have seen during RPTs they will gather all their witches for fighting power, and I guess that makes sense.  Why risk -real- people when you could risk the folks that don't matter, your gemmed slaves?  I've always felt it was sorta unfair to Tuluk not having magick to combat Allanak, but I assume there is shit I have no idea about that might balance that out.

I've never had a chance to play a Templar yet.  Hopefully some day soon, but I would look at the AoD as extremely valuable.  They are my front line troops.  Gemmers can do certain magick things for me, and create me certain items that I would like to have, but they are filthy witches and nobody likes filthy witches, even templars.

Where I view stealth and this move as a positive, because before I felt it was overpowered and there were instances where you literally couldn't find someone (They may still exist, I dunno) no matter what.  I look at it through a lens of mundane to mundane.

If you throw magick into the mix, it will always be superior, it's designed to be superior.  And don't get me wrong, if they said, Hey Pariah, you can play a full blown elementalist from old, I'd fucking LEAP at the opportunity.  But aside from that I do enjoy the change because it's not just, "I cast fireballs", It's I'm a crafter, a merchant, a warrior or a ranger who can cast a fireball when he needs to.  So it did it's job of making magick users a person first and not just a simple tool to point at folks and go "Fireball" that they used to be of old.

They can live out lives in secret if they wish, MUCH easier due to the fact they have supporting skills to leverage, be that money from their crafting, be that weapons skills, be that utility like hide and sneak.

So while I don't think you're wrong that codedly magickers will always be stronger and a "better" character when you look at fighting or utility, they also are held back RP wise with the gem, or killed if discovered to be a rogue in some case, or have their whole world turned upsidedown when that Templar goes, "Put this on, or die, your choice."

But that's why they are gated behind Karma.  It's no different than say I someday get the Karma for a Mul and play a Mul stalker/whatever, I'm going to be better faster than almost every human, if not every human in the same field of play.  Because Muls are superior.

If you're looking for an even playing field, there isn't really one.  Even between mundanes, I've had long lived characters that could kill almost every normal critter you could run into in the wild that are killed by one poisoned arrow, or one of those fireballs I talked about earlier.  It's just how it goes.

[triste]

My guild picker thing should now be updated to reflect these changes: https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/

Included are the skill updates staff announced and a fix for a bug reported by GetKanked (thank you!)

Feel free to report bugs here or in a GDB message to me.