Feedback on Idea Wanted: Rationalization of Existing Mundane Subclasses

[DesertT]

Fine, you assholes.  I won't use bigger font.

It's a rigged game, they want you to hit home runs.

You say this, and I want to believe this, but of late, it certainly does not feel like it.

My suggestion is to poke staff and ask for a chat.  Go have a virtual beer together, clear the air and reset your 'swing' and have them better calibrate their pitches so you can slam more home runs.

I have a couple/few requests trading comments back and forth with staff, so I feel like I am doing this, but as I keep getting denied even for small things...

[cali]

If it hasn't been suggested,  double picks of the same skill should raise the cap.

[Lotion]

If it hasn't been suggested,  double picks of the same skill should raise the cap.

By how much? If stalker gets 90 ride and nomad gets 80 ride do I get a ride cap above 100 with stalker/nomad?

[Krath]

Why not take the average....Ride of 80, ride of 90, your cap is 85.

[wizturbo]

You say this, and I want to believe this, but of late, it certainly does not feel like it.

I have a couple/few requests trading comments back and forth with staff, so I feel like I am doing this, but as I keep getting denied even for small things...

I feel ya man.  I felt the same way when I played a sponsored role, and wish I could go back in time and have asked for a sit down re-calibration talk.

I remember the ONLY time I had a real time conversation with Brokkr was when he set up my Templar.  He even said "this will be the last time we have this kind of talk, any questions?" or something along those lines.  I think that's a bad model.  If you're playing a sponsored role for RL years of time, you should probably be able to have an OOC "how we work together" talk with your staffer.  I think it'd help both parties hit home runs.

[cali]

If it hasn't been suggested,  double picks of the same skill should raise the cap.

By how much? If stalker gets 90 ride and nomad gets 80 ride do I get a ride cap above 100 with stalker/nomad?

Something like:
Master + Master = 100
Master + Advanced = 95
Advanced + Advanced = 90
Advanced + Journey = 85
Journey + Journey= 80

Just so long as the mundane class can get an advantage over the Magick class, as theoretically they spend more time in their mundane skills and the filthy magickers are splitting their focus.

[Lotion]

Why not take the average....Ride of 80, ride of 90, your cap is 85.

this would only lower your cap and punish players for picking subguilds with skill overlap ever higher than they already indirectly are from opportunity cost

[Brokkr]

If it hasn't been suggested,  double picks of the same skill should raise the cap.

For various reasons, this won't happen.  What I did try to do is make it so choosing a subclass would give a bump in starting skill level, in order to give some benefit for overlapping skills, as well as trying to address some concerns raised over the grind.

[Krath]

If it hasn't been suggested,  double picks of the same skill should raise the cap.

For various reasons, this won't happen.  What I did try to do is make it so choosing a subclass would give a bump in starting skill level, in order to give some benefit for overlapping skills, as well as trying to address some concerns raised over the grind.

Well done. <No Sarcasm>

[RheaGhe]

So first off I'm using the spreadsheet mansa posted for this rather than the images.

I've got a few points that I think would add variety of choice to this list and help balance out each category.

Second off, the weapon skill based ones look fine, but I'm dogshit at combat. So fuck if I know.

EXPLORATION CLASSES
1. Outdoorsman should branch Forage to advanced instead of Hunt(Wilderness), leave Hunting the domain of the hunter. Keep outdoorsman more of a general survivalist.
2. Why is Master Chef underneath exploration classes and not crafting? Remove skinning from it(It makes no sense for a chef to butcher it's own meat). And give it Brew up too advanced branching from Cooking. And then place it under Crafting.
3. Wastelander should start with Dsense and branch it to search. Not the other way around. This makes for a more sensible progression, and puts a more useful skill up front and center.
4. Why does wastelander allow wilderness forage but not have forage skill. Possible fix: Replace search for forage. Or add forage, and place search after it instead. As it is wastelander is relatively barren and underpowered from my albeit limited perspective.
5. Remove Wilderness stealth/hunt from Grebber, and add in Hitching 2 mounts. This is a much more effective and useful trait that fits more with what grebbers actually do. This also makes them juicier targets for raiders than they already are. And more obvious targets. Get rid of sling use as well.
6. Similarly I'd replace the hunting on grebber, with Bendune. As it would be important to have to negotiate for claim rights with nomads. Make it more super utility, but largely lacking ways to defend itself.
7. Give mountaineer Forage and maybe skinning, to emphasize the survival aspect of them. Probably at advanced. It's got much less skills than the rest of the Exploration category. This is a class that's focused on being able to survive in distant places in the world like mountains. They need to be able to find food, and strip that food of nutrients. Give it medium movement regeneration as well. Climbing is rough and working at high elevations would likely require them to learn breathing techniques.

THIEVERY
1.Why thief and rogue as separate subclasses? Largely these two are doing the same things. And it feels like an attempt to make halves out of a whole class for them them. Propose cutting the perception skills except for peek. And rolling Thief into Rogue. And lastly Removing sap. Keep whichever name you prefer.
2: Poisoner looks choice. Very solid pick on a more subtly insidious character. I would give them alcohol tolerance, as a just general thematic resistance to poison.

PERCEPTION AND LANGUAGES:
1. Bard should get tool making to advanced and floristry to advanced. They should also get value. Have them give up watch or steal for this. If anything at all. It's another relatively low skill subclass. This would be more representative of the archetype. Maybe potentially give them the ability to selftrain Illustration to master if you really want to incentivize the artsy stuff.
2. Master trader should get Bendune. And so should Linguist. These people have the justification, and bendune needs to be spoken more.
3. That's about all I got. Hopefully I got these potential thoughts and explained them well enough.


Hopefully these aren't too late to be considered.

[mansa]

There's a few things:

a) Brokkr said that they won't put Ride, Climb, Skinning, and Desert Sense together into a subclass.

b) In the current iteration, subclasses are meant to be a secondary job or a hobby, and not the main class.  There are main classes that have all the skills you want - subclasses are currently designed to not function as your primary role.


With that being said:

2. Why is Master Chef underneath exploration classes and not crafting? Remove skinning from it(It makes no sense for a chef to butcher it's own meat). And give it Brew up too advanced branching from Cooking. And then place it under Crafting.

It's an exploration class, based on the skills it has.  It's not a crafting class.

7. Give mountaineer Forage and maybe skinning, to emphasize the survival aspect of them. Probably at advanced. It's got much less skills than the rest of the Exploration category. This is a class that's focused on being able to survive in distant places in the world like mountains. They need to be able to find food, and strip that food of nutrients. Give it medium movement regeneration as well. Climbing is rough and working at high elevations would likely require them to learn breathing techniques.

These suggestions are just replacing a class and turning it into a subclass.  It also goes against one of the rules that Brokkr stated - don't give a subclass all the exploration skills.

5. Remove Wilderness stealth/hunt from Grebber, and add in Hitching 2 mounts. This is a much more effective and useful trait that fits more with what grebbers actually do. This also makes them juicier targets for raiders than they already are. And more obvious targets. Get rid of sling use as well.
6. Similarly I'd replace the hunting on grebber, with Bendune. As it would be important to have to negotiate for claim rights with nomads. Make it more super utility, but largely lacking ways to defend itself.

In my opinion, the Grebber class is someone that can go outside in the wilderness, by themselves, and find things, and return home.   Like a clay hunter, rock hunter, etc.  It's not a trader or a tribal.

3. Wastelander should start with Dsense and branch it to search. Not the other way around. This makes for a more sensible progression, and puts a more useful skill up front and center.
4. Why does wastelander allow wilderness forage but not have forage skill. Possible fix: Replace search for forage. Or add forage, and place search after it instead. As it is wastelander is relatively barren and underpowered from my albeit limited perspective.

The picture has Wastelander branching desert sense from scan.
The benefits of high forage are that you can find rare gems / artifacts easier - I think the playerbase wanted search instead, since it used to be only on city-based thievery classes, and that's why it was added.

1.Why thief and rogue as separate subclasses? Largely these two are doing the same things. And it feels like an attempt to make halves out of a whole class for them them. Propose cutting the perception skills except for peek. And rolling Thief into Rogue. And lastly Removing sap. Keep whichever name you prefer.

Rogue is burglar-lite - basically making a mini version of the old class - hence why it has lockpicking.
Thief is pickpocket-lite - basically making a mini version of the old class - hence why it has sap.

[RheaGhe]

There's a few things:

a) Brokkr said that they won't put Ride, Climb, Skinning, and Desert Sense together into a subclass.

b) In the current iteration, subclasses are meant to be a secondary job or a hobby, and not the main class.  There are main classes that have all the skills you want - subclasses are currently designed to not function as your primary role.


With that being said:

2. Why is Master Chef underneath exploration classes and not crafting? Remove skinning from it(It makes no sense for a chef to butcher it's own meat). And give it Brew up too advanced branching from Cooking. And then place it under Crafting.

It's an exploration class, based on the skills it has.  It's not a crafting class.

7. Give mountaineer Forage and maybe skinning, to emphasize the survival aspect of them. Probably at advanced. It's got much less skills than the rest of the Exploration category. This is a class that's focused on being able to survive in distant places in the world like mountains. They need to be able to find food, and strip that food of nutrients. Give it medium movement regeneration as well. Climbing is rough and working at high elevations would likely require them to learn breathing techniques.

These suggestions are just replacing a class and turning it into a subclass.  It also goes against one of the rules that Brokkr stated - don't give a subclass all the exploration skills.

5. Remove Wilderness stealth/hunt from Grebber, and add in Hitching 2 mounts. This is a much more effective and useful trait that fits more with what grebbers actually do. This also makes them juicier targets for raiders than they already are. And more obvious targets. Get rid of sling use as well.
6. Similarly I'd replace the hunting on grebber, with Bendune. As it would be important to have to negotiate for claim rights with nomads. Make it more super utility, but largely lacking ways to defend itself.

In my opinion, the Grebber class is someone that can go outside in the wilderness, by themselves, and find things, and return home.   Like a clay hunter, rock hunter, etc.  It's not a trader or a tribal.

3. Wastelander should start with Dsense and branch it to search. Not the other way around. This makes for a more sensible progression, and puts a more useful skill up front and center.
4. Why does wastelander allow wilderness forage but not have forage skill. Possible fix: Replace search for forage. Or add forage, and place search after it instead. As it is wastelander is relatively barren and underpowered from my albeit limited perspective.

The picture has Wastelander branching desert sense from scan.
The benefits of high forage are that you can find rare gems / artifacts easier - I think the playerbase wanted search instead, since it used to be only on city-based thievery classes, and that's why it was added.

1.Why thief and rogue as separate subclasses? Largely these two are doing the same things. And it feels like an attempt to make halves out of a whole class for them them. Propose cutting the perception skills except for peek. And rolling Thief into Rogue. And lastly Removing sap. Keep whichever name you prefer.

Rogue is burglar-lite - basically making a mini version of the old class - hence why it has lockpicking.
Thief is pickpocket-lite - basically making a mini version of the old class - hence why it has sap.

Ah that's why it looked familiar. I really don't like the random sap in Thief though... Feel like it's more of a rogue-ish action. And vice versa for lockpicking. I really hate the distinction as well. Between varieties of thief. As it is, it's really hard to even play a side thief without having all the thief skills and all the perception skills. And that would make it a main job if it did that. So I think combining the two and making it very focused on the thieving actions would be a better one.

Branching D-sense from scan is better, I misread the image. Sorry.

Didn't realize that rule against those 4 skills. In that case, rather than skinning, do tool making, and stoneworking, to emphasize the mountaineering aspects of shaping stone for handholds, and making tools to do so.

In my mind the grebber is an example of a claim jumper, a person who travels in search of wealth scavenging what they can. Wandering the wastes looking for valuable things. The dual mounts would let them ride and have a second mount for additional storage. They wouldn't necessarily have hunting skill. I don't think it fits it. Conceptually it's either not useful at all, or potentially too useful. As it is with the things they have in there... A grebber can way too easily tell if an area is occupied before they begin harvesting, they feel like too safe of a choice for easy money. They also feel really broad right now. I think doing a second pass.

I'd remove the sling use, remove search, lower climb to advanced, remove hunt, and add in value(Need to know what rocks are worth picking up/what claims are good to jump), the 2 mounts, and maybe bendune, but that's mostly because it feels like they would be in tribal territory a lot, and a lot of claim jumpers and stakers tended to learn native languages to better attain local details.

As it is, master chef and Grebber compete for a niche that I'm just going to call the $$ niche. And I don't think master chef should be called master chef, given that it's more exploration focused. I think, Cook, or Wanderer, drifter, or something similar would be better. Chef implies a profession and a sole focus on cuisine. And it would give it a better focus and clarity to what it's trying to accomplish.

[Brokkr]

You are forgetting that we are not going to take away skills that stuff currently has, because it would disappear from current character's skillsheets.

[RheaGhe]

You are forgetting that we are not going to take away skills that stuff currently has, because it would disappear from current character's skillsheets.

Ah... That makes any tweaks like this even more hard. Thank you though. Just was trying to find an ideal.

Seriously do think the Master Chef should be called something else.

[strangerdanger]

cast 'mon un nilaz morz inrof' subclass.thread

Necro'ing this thread, as I have gotten back to this.

To recap last episode:

• Make all mundane subclasses 0 Karma.
• In cases of duplicate or near duplicate subclasses, 0 karma subclass survives.
• Surviving subclasses have all the skills that dead extended subclass had.
• Dead extended subclasses don't get deleted, just made inactive in character generation.
• Skills new to surviving 0 karma subclasses typically made branchable, so that players can branch with a failure, rather than needing stuff to add a skill.

What does this look like, in terms of which subclasses would remain?  Like this!



What skills would mundane subclasses get, and to what levels?  Whelp...


      



      



      



      


In addition to what you can see here, intending to try to get the minimum starting level for most subclass skills to a level where they would be above, and thus provide benefit to, any class.  One way would be to look at the highest starting skill level any guild gets a skill at, and add a handful of points and start there.  A different way, which is how I have it set up in my spreadsheets now, would be to start all skills at Journeyman or higher skill level.  This would be in general give starting levels equal to or higher than the first method.

what if delves/elves got something in place of ride? is that something that's a possibility? a lot of these subs get access to higher levels of a skill that is completely useless to these races.

[mansa]

what if delves/elves got something in place of ride? is that something that's a possibility? a lot of these subs get access to higher levels of a skill that is completely useless to these races.

The current system does not allow race specific subclasses branching of a singular subclass.
Using the current system, you would just need to create an additional subclass and let people choose it, and that additional subclass wouldn't have the ride skill.
Look at the proposed changes to Outdoorsman and Hunter subclasses as an example:

Skill	Hunter	Outdoorsman
Archery	Advanced	Advanced
Sneak (Wilderness)	Advanced	Advanced
Hide (Wilderness)		Advanced
Skinning	Master	Advanced
Ride	Advanced
Scan		Master
Hunt (Wilderness)	Master	Advanced
Direction Sense	Advanced	Master
Fletchery	Advanced
Wilderness Quit		x

[Quelan]

A couple new subclass options with climb I am definitely in favor of. Not having climb is rough.

[Halaster]

Brokkr and I further refined the list and here's the changes to his above list.  I thought some of those were too high and the subguilds were going to be too OP, so you can blame me for toning these down a bit.  I'm trying to avoid too much power-creep, and didn't want subguilds getting -that- many skills at master (Crafter being the main exception).

Archer
- bow making will be high advanced and not master
- fletchery will be high advanced and not master

Bard
- listen will be high advanced and not master

Crafter
- value will be high advanced and not master
- toolmaking will be advanced and not master
- forage will be low advanced and not high advanced
- removing club making

Tailor
- dyeing  will be high advanced and not master
- tanning will be high advanced and not master
- toolmaking will be high advanced and not master

Thief
- sleight of hand will be high advanced and not master
- peek will be high advanced and not master

Weaponscrafter
- removing fletchery

Hunter
- skinning will be low master and not high master
- hunt will be high advanced and not master

Jeweler
- value will be high advanced and not master
- feather working will be high advanced and not master

Forester
- skinning will be journeyman instead of advanced
- hunt will be journeyman instead of advanced

Pit-Fighter
- slashing weapons will be low advanced instead of low master

Guard
- guarding will be high advanced and not master
- parry will be high advanced and not master

House Servant
- hide will be low advanced and not high advanced
- pilot will be high advanced and not master
- listen will be high advanced and not master
- cooking will be high advanced and not master

Bounty Hunter
- sap will be low advanced and not low master
- direction sense will be high advanced and not master
- hunt will be high advanced and not master

Caravan Guide
- pilot will be high advanced and not master
- direction sense will be high advanced and not master

Con Artist
- hide will be high advanced and not master
- listen will be high advanced and not master
- haggle will be high advanced and not master

Thug
- bash will be high advanced and not master
- flee will be high advanced and not master

Mercenary
- dual wield will be low advanced and not master

Nomad
- direction sense will be high advanced and not master

Master Chef
- forage will be high advanced and not master

Wastelander
- direction sense will be high advanced and not master

Outlaw
- armor repair will be high advanced and not master

Swordsman
- riposte will be high advanced and not master
- slashing weapons will be low advanced and not master
- two handed will be low advanced and not high advanced

Reaver
- chopping weapons will be low advanced and not master

Poisoner
- cooking will be low advanced and not high advanced
- floristry will be low advanced and not high advanced

Slipknife
- sleight of hand will be high advanced and not master

Grebber
- sling use will be low advanced and not high advanced
- climb will be high advanced and not master

Custom Crafter
- drawing will be high advanced instead of master

Berserker
- chopping weapons will be low advanced and not master

Bruiser
- bludgeoning weapons will be low advanced and not master

Lancer
- piercing weapons will be low advanced and not master

Master Trader
- pilot will be high advanced and not master

Rogue
- climb will be high advanced and not master

Marksman
- archery will be high advanced and not master
- crossbow use will be high advanced and not master
- blowgun use will be high advanced and not master
- sling use will be high advanced and not master

[SpyGuy]

I'm actually glad they've been toned down. Particularly the weapon skills on subclasses.  I like having useful skills but at lower skill levels.  Let's you use them just fine but gives incentives to find someone even more skilled to help.

[Trevalyan]

I actually don't mind the nerfs to Forester, but if so can they get Instrument Making at Advanced? It's not an equality issue, so much as making (mostly) wood instruments should be relatively easy for people who work with wood anyways. Especially if they can master Woodworking, as Foresters can.

[Patuk]

I rather liked the sneaky buff to mundanes that those master skills woulda been. It is a shame to see them go.

[Halaster]

I rather liked the sneaky buff to mundanes that those master skills woulda been. It is a shame to see them go.

They're still fairly significant bufs compared to what they were.

[najdorf]

I think they are bad. People will keep playing mages, because these do not offer enough compensation.
Take Con artist. With previous recommendation, it was almost decent with master hide. Now it's advanced.
"But advanced hide is still okaaaay" right? No, it's not. You get spotted once and your career is over. You cannot build a long term character around it.
Similarly, low advanced sap for bounty hunter. It's almost annoying when people make comments with 0 experience with it. Low advanced sap is worse than having no sap at all. You at least don't attempt something stupid and waste a character at 40 days played. Sap / hide / backstab are kind of skills that without master or high advanced, they are useless.
Similarly, I had concepts built around Marksman, but now skills I want there are advanced. Archery at advanced is only good if you want to solo Rp hunting duskhorns. For PVP it's crap.

These changes were, in my opinion a direct counter to the rising trend of magicker / mundane balance. Especially in an environment where this balance was shifting in magicker side, and people slowly changing game's culture towards normalizing magick.

Who --> 12 players online, 7 of them magickers. Yeah, quit, store, roll a magicker to a) be their buddies b) PVP assault them (cause mundanes cannot, in their ridiculously weak form). Or if you are a masochist, go RP with that ritikki for another 20 more minutes.

[Lotion]

make a max height/weight half-elf stalker with advanced bash on subguild and bash mages from hidden while dual wielding poisoned weapons if you think there are too many mages

[Lotion]

do it on a gemmed elkrosian touched