There is currently a proposal Staff is discussing around doing some limited tweaks to the following skill levels. Due to the way our code works, this would impact not only future characters to be created, but existing characters. That is not something we can get around. This way the classes were implemented was quite formulaic, in terms of the way which classes got which starting and max skill levels was determined. In looking at behaviors and major pain points, at some point it was obvious deviating from that formula would be necessary to address those, which is the focus here.
Proposed Changes
- Switch Miscreant Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Infiltrator Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Switch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
- Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Add Scan to Soldier with same maximum skill level as Stalker/Miscreant/Laborer
- Increase Soldier Subdue to same maximum skill level as Jihaen Templar
- 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
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).
My opinion is that when nerfing a class you should nerf by small increments and see if it brings about desired changes (particularly if its retroactive). Given that, I'd limit reducing miscreant skills to one or the other of either steal or stealth, rather than reducing both of them.
Can fences also have max sneak/hide? It's one of the few sneaky skills they have and they are almost useless combat wise without a subguild. It is their sneaky bread and butter.
Please give raiders skin. Raiders should be fleeing in the wastes and if they can navigate in the wilds it stands to reason they'd be able to feed themselves. That or desert forage.
Edit... Oh dang just saw the last note about no skin.
I agree with Narf 100%. I also agree with Bebop about Raiders having skinning, even if it stops at low JM.
I'd like to see infiltrator with the miscreant level hide/sneak, yes. Miscreant is really overshadowing that class right now. Giving scan to soldiers is a great idea. Stalker overshadows scout in the same way.
RE: Soldiers having the same level of subdue as JIhaen templar... yeah soldiers should also get that so they can subdue for long distances. (ie. to the jail)
I wanted to get in early and post a resounding yes. This will do so much to help the themes of the new classes, especially the city sneaks.
The last numbers I saw suggested miscreants are popular among the PC population, so there might be some pushback. Maybe accommodating those players in some way would be worth considering, but I'd hope that wouldn't oppose a beneficial change like this.
Going to go from the bottom up here. Sorta.
Bash and kick, Kick is WAY harder to raise then bash, but bash can be pretty hard for some races to raise. On at least one race it is just this side of impossible to get past even apprentice.
So, I think that yes to all suggestions having to do with those skills on those classes. Though the changes to bash should be smaller then the changes to kick. Bash being the far more powerful skill and being, over all, easier to raise.
Soldier getting scan sounds good to me. Improved subdue makes sense as well.
Stalker/scout stealth switch...Oooh...I do not know. I find that, sure it would be good for scout but it would be a real big hit to stalkers. I mean if the intent is more a major stalker nerf then anything, fine. If it is to bring them in line with some other metric then I would consider improving something else survival related like better parry or shield.
On Miscreant....Now, I am ALL for something being done so that a miscreant with max sneak/hide/steal has a chance to actually get caught. The question is, which skill is doing the most to save them. I lean towards that being Hide. So, making the proposed changes to miscreant stealth I think would be a good first step, But not to make a change to steal...YET.
One step, then the other if need be.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM
Proposed Changes
- Switch Miscreant Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Infiltrator Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Switch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
- Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Add Scan to Soldier with same maximum skill level as Stalker/Miscreant/Laborer
- Increase Soldier Subdue to same maximum skill level as Jihaen Templar
- 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
- Switch Miscreant Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Infiltrator Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
When I played my most recently Miscreant
(65+ days played, Human, in the Guild) I was frequently caught sneaking and hiding at least once a day. I wasn't a super ninja, and I could of immediately been killed if not for my social clout.
My suggestion is:
Bump Infiltrator Sneak/Hide
Bump Stalker Sneak/Hide
Keep Miscreant Sneak/Hide same
Reduce Agility Modifiers to those skills by 15% ~ 25%I feel you may get better results by reducing the agility score multiplier when doing the calculation. This should make high agility elves have a reduction in skill proficiency and at the high end of the skill make the agility bonuses not be overpowering.
- Switch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
I feel that STEAL is one of those skills that people won't use until they are guaranteed to succeed at it, specially at lower levels. I would reduce Miscreant MAX steal by -5% and increase Pilferer to Miscreant's old max skill percentage.
- Add Scan to Soldier with same maximum skill level as Stalker/Miscreant/Laborer
- Increase Soldier Subdue to same maximum skill level as Jihaen Templar
I would put SCAN at -5% of Miscreant/Laborer/Stalker Max.
I'm fine with Subdue being that high.
- Increase starting Kick skill slightly for Fighter/Raider/Enforcer (its actually lower than the formulaic design, somehow)
I would do something different with Kick/Bash as a whole:
I would increase the chance of skill progression by 20% during any failure.
- Decrease Kick skill level required to branch Disarm for Raiders
- Decrease Bash skill level required to branch Disarm for Enforcers
I'm fine with that.
NEW STUFF:
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)
Value :
I think Value is another skill that doesn't give a lot of perks to the players, in terms of advantage over other players.
Labourer - Advanced (low)
Climb :
I think Climb, at lower levels, should be given to a couple classes, as it can be annoying to try and climb out of pits.
Fence - Journeyman
Dune Trader - Journeyman
Poisoning :
I think it's a mistake to not have Pilferer have Poisoning, if Fence has Poisoning
Pilferer - Advanced
Give City Elf Racial - Sleight of Hand which caps @ Advanced
Alright, as a player who's an old player, but a mediocre one when it comes to skill raises outside of crafts and skinning/scanning.
I would say leave stalker alone.
I know I probably lack some type of mechanical knowledge in regard to hide/sneak learning but I hardly ever get it past apprentice, but love the fact I can "try" to get it to max.
Maybe one day I'll learn the Konami code for getting my wilderness sneak/hide raised to max and want to leave that as a possibility.
Can't really speak on the rest as I'm team "stalker".
The reason people play stalker and miscreant is for those hide/sneak. Taking it away would be a huge hit.
Without that, they don't get great weapon stats, or like a lot of crafting. I think they're fine as they are, honestly.
It's also a very human focused change. I think that elves especially choose those classes because of the fact that they cannot ride. The sneaking and hiding is everything, especially since a hit is more like a kiss.
My hot take:
I'm actually content with the trade off of scout having slightly higher combat while stalkers have slightly higher utility skills (sneak, hide, climb, poisoning, etc.)
What I /would/ like to see in place of the sneaky adjustment to bring both of those classes on par with each other is to adjust scout to include some of the other skills it's desert survival counterpart has. Brew being one of them. It would stand to reason that a desert class who can poison has also learned about herbal cures to some extent.
The rest of everything else, I have no opinion on as I'm not familiar with any of those classes.
Quote from: Narf on August 11, 2021, 12:45:07 PM
My opinion is that when nerfing a class you should nerf by small increments and see if it brings about desired changes (particularly if its retroactive). Given that, I'd limit reducing miscreant skills to one or the other of either steal or stealth, rather than reducing both of them.
- An opinion is less useful than an assessment.
- An assessment would probably take into account that it would likely be another couple of years before something similar to this happens again, we will not be making small adjustments every few months. We are messing with current character sheets and that is typically better to do all at once rather than drag out over multiple characters. So it is a no go on rolling this out incrementally.
- Why would you limit it to one or the other? Stating you have an opinion doesn't give us anything that is actionable, it is the reasoning behind it that is worthwhile.
Quote from: Bebop on August 11, 2021, 12:50:18 PM
Can fences also have max sneak? It's one of the few sneaky skills they have and they are almost useless combat wise without a subguild. It is their sneaky bread and butter.
Fences are merchants. Of course they are useless combat wise. They aren't true sneaks either.
Quote from: Bebop on August 11, 2021, 12:50:18 PM
Please give raiders skin. Raiders should be fleeing in the wastes and if they can navigate in the wilds it stands to reason they'd be able to feed themselves. That or desert forage.
Edit... Oh dang just saw the last note about no skin.
They can feed themselves just fine by skinning things and getting meat without the skin skill. Consistently on everything? No. But they are badass warrior types, so killing multiple things is until they can feed themselves isn't typically a problem. Unless you really like mekillot meat.
Quote from: mhartman on August 11, 2021, 01:00:06 PM
RE: Soldiers having the same level of subdue as JIhaen templar... there has long been the idea that the jail should be brought closer to the criminals. I'd consider this high level RP, in game solution first. If not possible, yeah soldiers should also get that so they can subdue for long distances.
I'm actually more concerned with the initial subdue attempt than the ability to hold someone effectively, due to the crim code implications.
Quote from: X-D on August 11, 2021, 01:07:15 PM
Stalker/scout stealth switch...Oooh...I do not know. I find that, sure it would be good for scout but it would be a real big hit to stalkers. I mean if the intent is more a major stalker nerf then anything, fine. If it is to bring them in line with some other metric then I would consider improving something else survival related like better parry or shield.
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.
Quote from: X-D on August 11, 2021, 01:07:15 PM
On Miscreant....Now, I am ALL for something being done so that a miscreant with max sneak/hide/steal has a chance to actually get caught. The question is, which skill is doing the most to save them. I lean towards that being Hide. So, making the proposed changes to miscreant stealth I think would be a good first step, But not to make a change to steal...YET.
One step, then the other if need be.
Note previous comment on not doing this incrementally. Looking at making Infiltrator better at Sneak/Hide in part so that they can function a bit more like old assassins. We've seen more theft stuff and less assassiny kill people stuff. That leaves Miscreant the best at both main theft skills, pick and steal. It makes more sense to move steal to Pilferer because it leaves in place the pick making/pick split and pick is complemented better by things like master climb, which Miscreant has.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 01:39:14 PM
Quote from: Bebop on August 11, 2021, 12:50:18 PM
Can fences also have max sneak? It's one of the few sneaky skills they have and they are almost useless combat wise without a subguild. It is their sneaky bread and butter.
Fences are merchants. Of course they are useless combat wise. They aren't true sneaks either.
Quote from: Bebop on August 11, 2021, 12:50:18 PM
Please give raiders skin. Raiders should be fleeing in the wastes and if they can navigate in the wilds it stands to reason they'd be able to feed themselves. That or desert forage.
Edit... Oh dang just saw the last note about no skin.
They can feed themselves just fine by skinning things and getting meat without the skin skill. Consistently on everything? No. But they are badass warrior types, so killing multiple things is until they can feed themselves isn't typically a problem. Unless you really like mekillot meat.
Wouldn't this just lead to spam killing animals to survive because you can skin even a little and so you're constantly butchering it?
Also IMO fences are both sneaky and merchants. Thats why they have both skills. I don't mind them not having combat. I don't see why they even branch a weapon when it's effectively useless. But it seems weird to give them sneaky skills...almost let them master it and go ope nope. They don't have any offensive skills really do it'd be nice if they just had master sneak and hide as a defensive measure.
Quote from: mansa on August 11, 2021, 01:08:43 PM
When I played my most recently Miscreant (65+ days played, Human, in the Guild) I was frequently caught sneaking and hiding at least once a day. I wasn't a super ninja, and I could of immediately been killed if not for my social clout.
My suggestion is:
Bump Infiltrator Sneak/Hide
Bump Stalker Sneak/Hide
Keep Miscreant Sneak/Hide same
Reduce Agility Modifiers to those skills by 15% ~ 25%
I feel you may get better results by reducing the agility score multiplier when doing the calculation. This should make high agility elves have a reduction in skill proficiency and at the high end of the skill make the agility bonuses not be overpowering.
If you sneak/hide all day long in every room, you are going to get caught.
I didn't mention skill changes because skill changes are not on the table, just adjusting the skill levels at which guilds get them.
Quote from: mansa on August 11, 2021, 01:08:43 PM
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.
Quote from: mansa on August 11, 2021, 01:08:43 PM
Value :
I think Value is another skill that doesn't give a lot of perks to the players, in terms of advantage over other players.
Labourer - Advanced (low)
As noted above, this isn't a wish list for nice to haves. This is about bigger pain points, behavior and class selection. I'm going to consider small and quality of life issues like this off-topic. Especially since I believe you just posted all these in another thread recently.
Quote from: mansa on August 11, 2021, 01:08:43 PM
Climb :
I think Climb, at lower levels, should be given to a couple classes, as it can be annoying to try and climb out of pits.
Fence - Journeyman
Dune Trader - Journeyman
It is sort of meant to be annoying. And potentially deadly, especially when you need to climb out of something more than 1 room down.
Quote from: mansa on August 11, 2021, 01:08:43 PM
Poisoning :
I think it's a mistake to not have Pilferer have Poisoning, if Fence has Poisoning
Pilferer - Advanced
If you look back at the stuff from around when the classes were put in place, you'd see Fence only got poisoning because we couldn't figure out something else for it, and it was lacking. It was a fix specifically for Fence, and in that, its attractiveness vs Pilferer (which this would undo, especially if their Steal is bumped).
Quote from: mansa on August 11, 2021, 01:08:43 PM
Give City Elf Racial - Sleight of Hand which caps @ Advanced
Completely left field and not on topic at all. This isn't a list of your minor wants, the purpose here has been defined. Otherwise its going to be madness. Looking upon Cthulu, not good type of madness.
Quote from: Pariah on August 11, 2021, 01:13:48 PM
I know I probably lack some type of mechanical knowledge in regard to hide/sneak learning but I hardly ever get it past apprentice, but love the fact I can "try" to get it to max.
The most common mistake I see is folks trying to increase their wilderness stealth in a city.
Quote from: Attana on August 11, 2021, 01:27:40 PM
What I /would/ like to see in place of the sneaky adjustment to bring both of those classes on par with each other is to adjust scout to include some of the other skills it's desert survival counterpart has. Brew being one of them. It would stand to reason that a desert class who can poison has also learned about herbal cures to some extent.
The reason there are those omissions is so that they aren't cookie cutter and there are some choice between A and B that need to be made.
Keep Stalker sneak/hide where it is. It's the bread and butter of this class, IMO. I mean, stalking is a very stealthy word.
Still bump Scout stealth, however, it's needed for this class. Not every increase requires an equivelant decrease somewhere else.
Same for Miscreant/Infiltrator.
I like the stalker class, but I would never, ever choose it if the stealth was nerfed.
Mansa made a good point on the agility modifiers for sneak/hide. I've always thought body-size should have a bonus/penalty, but maybe it already does.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM
- Decrease Kick skill level required to branch Disarm for Raiders
- Decrease Bash skill level required to branch Disarm for Enforcers
Great change!
Quote from: Bebop on August 11, 2021, 02:00:13 PM
Wouldn't this just lead to spam killing animals to survive because you can skin even a little and so you're constantly butchering it?
Given the small, innate bonus to skinning they get, no.
Quote from: Bebop on August 11, 2021, 02:00:13 PM
Also IMO fences are both sneaky and merchants. Thats why they have both skills. I don't mind them not having combat. I don't see why they even branch a weapon when it's effectively useless. But it seems weird to give them sneaky skills...almost let them master it and go ope nope. They don't have any offensive skills really do it'd be nice if they just had master sneak and hide as a defensive measure.
They are primarily merchants. With a smattering of sneaky skills. The merchant part and the sneaky part are not on par with one another (that would be more Pilferer). Also, not looking for any sort of overall increase to Stealth across the classes given the inherent issues with it. If once class gets a higher level, a different class gets a lower level.
Quote from: roughneck on August 11, 2021, 02:09:35 PM
Still bump Scout stealth, however, it's needed for this class. Not every increase requires an equivelant decrease somewhere else.
Same for Miscreant/Infiltrator.
There will not be an overall increase in stealth ability. If one class gets better, a different one will get worse.
Quote from: roughneck on August 11, 2021, 02:09:35 PM
I like the stalker class, but I would never, ever choose it if the stealth was nerfed.
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.
Brokkr:
QuoteQuote from: X-D on Today at 01:07:15 PM
Stalker/scout stealth switch...Oooh...I do not know. I find that, sure it would be good for scout but it would be a real big hit to stalkers. I mean if the intent is more a major stalker nerf then anything, fine. If it is to bring them in line with some other metric then I would consider improving something else survival related like better parry or shield.
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.
Why I pointed out if we are trying to bring in line with a different metric. I do not actually disagree with you on this matter at all. I just believe that stalker would be taking a much bigger hit then scout is making gain. Which is why the other suggestion, Stalker ghost ability is its main survival asset. If that is going to be lowered then maybe alternate survival should be added. Maybe give them the other two weapon skills at same level they get now. Nothing huge just a bit to offset. Not something I think would make it any more attractive to mages and even more attractive to craft subs.
QuoteQuote from: X-D on Today at 01:07:15 PM
On Miscreant....Now, I am ALL for something being done so that a miscreant with max sneak/hide/steal has a chance to actually get caught. The question is, which skill is doing the most to save them. I lean towards that being Hide. So, making the proposed changes to miscreant stealth I think would be a good first step, But not to make a change to steal...YET.
One step, then the other if need be.
Note previous comment on not doing this incrementally. Looking at making Infiltrator better at Sneak/Hide in part so that they can function a bit more like old assassins. We've seen more theft stuff and less assassiny kill people stuff. That leaves Miscreant the best at both main theft skills, pick and steal. It makes more sense to move steal to Pilferer because it leaves in place the pick making/pick split and pick is complemented better by things like master climb, which Miscreant has.
Since you explained, I will say on this point I totally agree and am good with it.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 02:15:30 PM
Quote from: roughneck on August 11, 2021, 02:09:35 PM
Still bump Scout stealth, however, it's needed for this class. Not every increase requires an equivelant decrease somewhere else.
Same for Miscreant/Infiltrator.
There will not be an overall increase in stealth ability. If one class gets better, a different one will get worse.
Quote from: roughneck on August 11, 2021, 02:09:35 PM
I like the stalker class, but I would never, ever choose it if the stealth was nerfed.
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.
I get what you're saying. Personally, and maybe it's just my play style, master stealth>all those other skills combined at master. I can work around and create safeguards for the occasional failure in all of the other skills, except for stealth skills in a key moment.
If it does have to be a give/take scenario, I do agree that Scout is a better place for it. That class needs something.
The dreaded master stealth/master backstab combo is a welcome comeback also! Bring it!
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 02:04:19 PM
...
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:
(https://i.imgur.com/FHwZQFL.png)
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:
(https://i.imgur.com/9LqsjDk.png)
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.
Quote from: roughneck on August 11, 2021, 02:26:16 PM
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.
Mansa, I am well aware of all of that. Code changes aren't on the table right now.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 02:36:40 PM
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 :)
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 01:51:16 PM
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.
Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levelsBottom 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.
Quote from: Fernandezj on August 11, 2021, 02:56:36 PM
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 01:51:16 PM
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.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: Pariah on August 11, 2021, 03:32:56 PM
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.
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.
Why not leave stalker alone for stealth, and reduce other skills like Master Brew, poisoning etc?
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 02:04:19 PM
Quote from: mansa on August 11, 2021, 01:08:43 PM
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 02:15:30 PM
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. :o
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.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM
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.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM
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.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
QuoteOpen 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.
(https://i.imgur.com/BJwHrui.png)
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.
Quote from: Brytta Léofa on August 11, 2021, 06:16:11 PM
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Hauwke on August 11, 2021, 07:59:53 PM
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. :(
I played a pretty successful, commercially and skill wise, miscreant in the past 2 IRL years so I think I'm pretty 'in the mindset' of what miscreant does/feels like? (I kicked ass)
'Switch Miscreant Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Infiltrator Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels'
On one hand, this is one of my complaints about Infiltrator when I was thinking of playing one. 'I'm supposed to infiltrate, I can't master hide/sneak like a Miscreant'. So I think Infiltrator benefits from it.
On the other hand, in my head a Miscreant is an absolute ghost in the city. Master climb, Master sneak/hide, master search. In my brain they are indoor ranger.
'Switch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level'
This is probably fine and I like it. Miscreant would still be able to steal everything fun (Give me your fucking mount tickets), but have a harder time with the 'one stone under max steal capacity swords'. It also makes pilferer's...pilfer pockets, more.
In my head I've always viewed Miscreant as less 'The pickpocket burglar combo I've always wanted' and more 'The city ranger I've always wanted', and I think if any skills should be lowered it should be the ones not related to movement. Pick, steal, etc. I'm not sure how staff feels about my take on it though.
What this helps do: It means the people who can steal everything off your body do not have master hide/sneak anymore. Pilferer doesn't have maxed out hide but would get master steal, infiltrator doesn't have steal at all but would have master hide. It helps establish that 'niche' sort of thing.
I think Miscreant/Infiltrator should both have master hide/sneak. Miscreant should lose backstab, lose a bit of their stealing ability, and Pilferer should gain the stealing part.
Unrelated to the discussion at hand but I even think Infiltrator should get master poisoning and Miscreant should only get around advanced but that's a side note.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM
There is currently a proposal Staff is discussing around doing some limited tweaks to the following skill levels. Due to the way our code works, this would impact not only future characters to be created, but existing characters. That is not something we can get around. This way the classes were implemented was quite formulaic, in terms of the way which classes got which starting and max skill levels was determined. In looking at behaviors and major pain points, at some point it was obvious deviating from that formula would be necessary to address those, which is the focus here.
Proposed Changes
- Switch Miscreant Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Infiltrator Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Switch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
- Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Add Scan to Soldier with same maximum skill level as Stalker/Miscreant/Laborer
- Increase Soldier Subdue to same maximum skill level as Jihaen Templar
- 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
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).
What major pain points and behaviors, that you guys see staffside, are these changes potentially addressing?
On my guesses, I think everyone is on board for all of the changes not with miscreants/stalkers. I'm pretty sure my last raider only had jman disarm by the time I mastered all four weapon skills. That shit took ages to branch. The soldier buffs are cool, and means that laborer doesn't just blow it the fuck out in playability terms.
Metawise, master pvp skills with master stealth is, in a way, bringing back the pvp capabilities of rangers and assassins.
I think that's more deadly then any mundane atm. I also don't think that, post stealth nerf, miscreants also need to lose master steal. It'll be risky enough.
People will enjoy playing those roles, and people currently fulfilling that in stalker/miscreant will feel sad. I also think whatever classes get max stealth will always be choice combos with magic. This won't change that.
Consider that city stealth has problems that wilderness stealth doesn't. Maybe under the wilderness tree of classes more then one class can get master stealth. I would like to see only one master city stealth class at a time.
So, one question I want to ask here: what even is miscreant supposed to do after these changes?
Currently, it is a master spy(because master stealth) and a master thief(because master peek/steal). If infiltrator gets the master sneak/hide, miscreant can't do that anymore. If pilferer gets the master steal, it can't be a master thief any more.
So.. What's left? I don't know why I'd want to play a miscreant on characters other than nobles; master scan, forage, and poison wouldn't really justify playing it to me and I don't know what unique stuff remains to justify picking it over infiltrator/pilferer.
Quote from: Patuk on August 11, 2021, 08:27:20 PM
So, one question I want to ask here: what even is miscreant supposed to do after these changes?
Currently, it is a master spy(because master stealth) and a master thief(because master peek/steal). If infiltrator gets the master sneak/hide, miscreant can't do that anymore. If pilferer gets the master steal, it can't be a master thief any more.
So.. What's left? I don't know why I'd want to play a miscreant on characters other than nobles; master scan, forage, and poison wouldn't really justify playing it to me and I don't know what unique stuff remains to justify picking it over infiltrator/pilferer.
City ranger.
Quote from: Jihelu on August 11, 2021, 08:28:23 PM
Quote from: Patuk on August 11, 2021, 08:27:20 PM
So, one question I want to ask here: what even is miscreant supposed to do after these changes?
Currently, it is a master spy(because master stealth) and a master thief(because master peek/steal). If infiltrator gets the master sneak/hide, miscreant can't do that anymore. If pilferer gets the master steal, it can't be a master thief any more.
So.. What's left? I don't know why I'd want to play a miscreant on characters other than nobles; master scan, forage, and poison wouldn't really justify playing it to me and I don't know what unique stuff remains to justify picking it over infiltrator/pilferer.
City ranger.
No, that's infiltrator
I would prob keep miscreant master steal, with the stealth nerf it is enough.
Let's go for it. I'm all about the changes.
Quote from: Patuk on August 11, 2021, 08:29:19 PM
Quote from: Jihelu on August 11, 2021, 08:28:23 PM
Quote from: Patuk on August 11, 2021, 08:27:20 PM
So, one question I want to ask here: what even is miscreant supposed to do after these changes?
Currently, it is a master spy(because master stealth) and a master thief(because master peek/steal). If infiltrator gets the master sneak/hide, miscreant can't do that anymore. If pilferer gets the master steal, it can't be a master thief any more.
So.. What's left? I don't know why I'd want to play a miscreant on characters other than nobles; master scan, forage, and poison wouldn't really justify playing it to me and I don't know what unique stuff remains to justify picking it over infiltrator/pilferer.
City ranger.
No, that's infiltrator
Correction, thats elf infiltrator or scout/cutpurse (if it gets master stealth skills).
Not many people played miscreant for the stealing, they just played it for the stealth,stealing was just something fun that came along for the ride.
Moving forward, when people want to be a thief, they'll just play elf infiltrator or elf miscreant(depending on what other changes happen to peek/sleight of hand). Both will work well until staff begin counting your # of emotes per peek.
Unfortunately if there is one active thief in the city, the bars will continue to be empty and people will continue to hide in the barracks. Ultimately, these changes will probably makes elves the next pain point.
Again I like the idea of max stealth human infiltrator or scout but not sure these changes will resolve the behavior we are seeing against theft or stop people from picking a max stealth wilderness class with their mage subclasses.
Dresan, please, city elves are the hardest to play race the game has and have a lifespan infinitesmally smaller than other sorts do. The idea that they'd need, warrant, or fear a nerf is laughable.
Quote from: Patuk on August 11, 2021, 10:00:51 PM
Dresan, please, city elves are the hardest to play race the game has and have a lifespan infinitesmally smaller than other sorts do. The idea that they'd need, warrant, or fear a nerf is laughable.
Dude, the only reason for these proposed changes to miscreants is because people in the game are too afraid to go to taverns due to the fear of losing the virtual stuff in their packs. :o
Wait until people begin complaining non-stop that elves are out of control and stealing everything not tied down, making the city unplayable.
Mind you, if the staff allowed sparring in taverns, it would be packed with happy people wearing nothing but loincloths and holding sparring weapons all day long. But instead, here we are, proposing to remove the skills that made a popular non-combat class viable. :-\
Quote from: Dresan on August 11, 2021, 10:48:53 PM
Quote from: Patuk on August 11, 2021, 10:00:51 PM
Dresan, please, city elves are the hardest to play race the game has and have a lifespan infinitesmally smaller than other sorts do. The idea that they'd need, warrant, or fear a nerf is laughable.
Dude, the only reason for these proposed changes to miscreants is because people in the game are too afraid to go to taverns due to the fear of losing the virtual stuff in their packs. :o
Wait until people begin complaining non-stop that elves are out of control and stealing everything not tied down, making the city unplayable.
Mind you, if the staff allowed sparring in taverns, it would be packed with happy people wearing nothing but loincloths and holding sparring weapons all day long. But instead, here we are, proposing to remove the skills that made a popular non-combat class viable. :-\
Genuinely baffled by what you think is going to happen compared to now. Elves can already be uncatchable uber-thiefs by playing the miscreant class. You could be one on the old Pickpocket and the Miscreant has better stealth and equivalent steal to the old Pickpocket!
If you move master steal to pilferer, the role of inventory elementalist becomes much more niche. It'll be like the pickpocket of old, only even more niche because it has even worse combat skills. There's no way pickpockets will be /more/ common after this change.
Quote from: hyzhenhok on August 11, 2021, 11:24:11 PM
stuff
You have completely misunderstood what is being said. But thats okay.
Bring on the changes! :-X
Personally, I wouldn't mind horribly if Miscreants were masters of sneak, hide, and steal if they also weren't so damn decent at everything else .
I think it's a good idea to have a guild that's good at theft. And the guild that's good at theft is the guild that can hide/sneak/steal well. What that guild shouldnt be able to do though is decently fight. Or even indecently fight. They should down right suck at fighting. They might be good at picking, or selling stolen stuff off. But they should not be in any way good at fighting.
At the same time, my personal opinion is that the approach is wrong, Brokrr. You're shuffling around who's good at sneaking and who's bad, but that's not where the problem and disbalance lies. The problem lies in the make, or break mechanics of the skill. Either you're detected, or you're not. Either you're immortal due to being out of sight, or you're being smeared into a bloody paste.
I too think Miscreant is overpowered. Not due to their stealth, but to their access to everything. Be it subterfuge, as well as combat. But what I think is the real problem is the mechanics of sneak/hide itself.
Miscreants should be able to steal and get away without being completely ruined by a simple singular failure. But perhaps their stealth should not be good enough to be able to get away without their victim entirely oblivious.
Infiltrators should be stealthy enough to be able to ... infiltrate. But they should not be immediately massacred due to finding themselves inside compounds when their imperfect stealth fails.
What I would advice putting your efforts into Brokrr isn't the shuffling of skill maxes. Though that may need some work as well. But into the mechanics of stealth skills entirely and their success=immortality/failure=death tendencies.
We should be careful lowering bonuses from agility. Because Tek knows, Celves could use every bonus they can get their grabby hands on. Reviewing bonuses to strength though, that is definitely an overdue improvement.
Or, go to a 4 tier system instead of 5 tier.
Combine Stalker & Scout
Combine Miscreant and Infiltrator
Combine Laborer and Soldier
Go with the lesser of the two's combat ability and the greater of the two's stealth, survival and ranged/special attacks.
Quote from: roughneck on August 12, 2021, 06:57:09 AM
Or, go to a 4 tier system instead of 5 tier.
Combine Stalker & Scout
Combine Miscreant and Infiltrator
Combine Laborer and Soldier
Go with the lesser of the two's combat ability and the greater of the two's stealth, survival and ranged/special attacks.
Not a bad idea actually.
I think switching miscreant and stalker stealth with infiltrator/scout makes sense. Light combat classes have been in a bad stop for a long time.
I would also agree that poison, though utility is more combat focused and should be switch between miscreant and infiltrator. It should probably be the same with the wilderness classes, but others have more experience with them so i digress.
I think removing steal from miscreant after nerfing their stealth is overkill and pretty much ruins the class completely as pick alone is not worth it .
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM
There is currently a proposal Staff is discussing around doing some limited tweaks to the following skill levels. Due to the way our code works, this would impact not only future characters to be created, but existing characters. That is not something we can get around. This way the classes were implemented was quite formulaic, in terms of the way which classes got which starting and max skill levels was determined. In looking at behaviors and major pain points, at some point it was obvious deviating from that formula would be necessary to address those, which is the focus here.
Proposed Changes
- Switch Miscreant Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Infiltrator Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Switch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
- Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Add Scan to Soldier with same maximum skill level as Stalker/Miscreant/Laborer
- Increase Soldier Subdue to same maximum skill level as Jihaen Templar
- 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
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).
I am absolutely behind these changes - though I want to ensure that Miscreants get at least steal/peek and hide/sneak at middle-to-high advanced. They don't need to be the absolute best at their jobs but being able to do it with a decent chance of success is important to them as a class. They're the shifty thieves, and without that they lack a niche.
I'm all for Scout/Infil getting better stealth though, especially Infiltrator, but it feels like Miscreant is losing more than Stalker is.
Also an enormous fan of the kick/bash:disarm changes.
I know this is off the table, but I'd also very much like to see Raider get wilderness quit and skinning (even middle jman would be fine, just enough to regularly get meat).
Also, again I realize this isn't on the table but -
Quote from: roughneck on August 12, 2021, 06:57:09 AM
Or, go to a 4 tier system instead of 5 tier.
Combine Stalker & Scout
Combine Miscreant and Infiltrator
Combine Laborer and Soldier
Go with the lesser of the two's combat ability and the greater of the two's stealth, survival and ranged/special attacks.
Is amazing. In fact, go a step further and just make it a 3x3 -- no light mercantile, there's no need for it to exist.
Dresan...
QuoteSwitch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
Nobody said to remove miscreant steal. Well, nobody that matters at least.
GetKanked:
Are you joking on that last bit? I mean, I see plenty of light mercantile.
To several others:
A long time ago I played a dwarf pick pocket, AA agi. Once he maxed steal and hide....Um, He almost never failed. Although, he was caught out a few times hiding (not stealing) because at the time max ranger scan could reliably catch max PP hide.
Just saying...the metric on hide verses scan is a big issue now. I played a stalker. Human, not great stats and once my hide was max, NOBODY saw my PC. And there were still legacy rangers in game. I mean, he could do shit that, yes, it was cool, really, he should not have been able to do.
Oh, and infiltrator backstab and sap is not as powerful as legacy assassin. Them getting higher stealth simply makes them viable for that role.
I over all agree with Brokkr on his analysis...I am just not sure on the steal side of it. I tend to think that double whammy for the class...is not good. Switch the stealth...fine, but I tend to think, leave the steal and if you want to switch something with pilferer...pick something else. Lower hide should make it so that IF a PC notices shit going missing he/she has a chance to deal with it. This fact alone would likely limit the spam stealing that too many miscreants do.
See guys, It is not the theft people have an issue with, It is the spam attempts. I do not mind something getting nicked, I do mind when I get the failed attempts message 6 times, and 9 things are gone and my master scan has no chance at all of picking them up.
And that happens because the player KNOWS they are safe. But with less then master hide, you get a fail, You roll your ass out because you know there actually IS a risk.
Oh, Brokkr.
Have you all ever considered making the guard skill apply negs to the the steal skill? I mean, I have seen way too often when a noble with two guards standing right next to them get totally pocket raped. It is kind of silly. Yes, I know this is somewhat off topic other then the balance part of discussion.
The proposal is that max steal is removed from miscreant and replaced with advance steal from Pilferer.
The point still remains though. It is too much of a nerf to the class since its already losing max sneak/hide and replacing it with a lower level version of it .
Dresan: You did say...
QuoteI think removing steal from miscreant after nerfing their stealth is overkill and pretty much ruins the class completely as pick alone is not worth it .
Only point I was asking to clarify. Remove is not the same word as switch. Otherwise as I said in the post above, I agree that even the nerfing of that skill is IMO a bad idea.
Interesting that we have a mix of opinions, some saying that steal is just "icing on the cake" for most people who pick Miscreant, and others who are saying losing master steal is too significant a nerf to a core ability of the class.
I think the proposed nerf to stealth is being overstated. As has been alluded to, the impact of stat and item bonuses to stealth, plus the changes to the perception game, means that advanced stealth can reach the level of never being spotted for many characters. I think advanced steal + advanced stealth is still plenty strong especially given the inherent stat boosts Miscreant gets.
Some combat + advanced steal + advanced stealth + master perception + getting literally every other urban utility skill at master is still a great package. It's still the only criminal class with master perception skills. It's just no longer the no-brainer, catch-all rogue class; you have to make choices between what you want to be really good at if you want to play a "rogue." That's good.
I know back in the day people were always begging for pickpocket and burglar to be merged into a single class, and miscreant is essentially that class. But miscreant is actually more that that class. Miscreant is insanely good. The upgrade from pickpocket/burglar to miscreant turned out to be totally bonkers compared to anything else that happened in the class redesign. We don't need to treat it with kid gloves.
Quote from: hyzhenhok on August 12, 2021, 01:14:49 PM
Interesting that we have a mix of opinions, some saying that steal is just "icing on the cake" for most people who pick Miscreant, and others who are saying losing master steal is too significant a nerf to a core ability of the class.
I can't speak for everyone, but I will say that when I choose Miscreant it is either with the intent to steal or the intent to sneak well depending on the character concept. Being able to do one or the other would ensure that I continue to pick the class. Having other classes that are better than Miscreants at both of these things ensures that I'll be picking one of those two other classes in all circumstances.
Quote from: Narf on August 12, 2021, 01:18:05 PM
Quote from: hyzhenhok on August 12, 2021, 01:14:49 PM
Interesting that we have a mix of opinions, some saying that steal is just "icing on the cake" for most people who pick Miscreant, and others who are saying losing master steal is too significant a nerf to a core ability of the class.
I can't speak for everyone, but I will say that when I choose Miscreant it is either with the intent to steal or the intent to sneak well depending on the character concept. Being able to do one or the other would ensure that I continue to pick the class. Having other classes that are better than Miscreants at both of these things ensures that I'll be picking one of those two other classes in all circumstances.
And that's probably not a problem! Infiltrator and pilferer are seldom picked right now. So that would seem to be the point of the changes.
Whereas people who just want a general city character and prefer the stealth kit to laborer's "city" kit will still have plenty to love about miscreant that those two classes don't excel in. It uniquely has master urban navigation, master urban perception, and master poisoning, plus advanced in literally every other urban skill, plus moderate combat abilities. Still a great base to add an extended subguild or magicker subguild to. I don't think it will die.
Quote from: hyzhenhok on August 12, 2021, 01:25:26 PM
Quote from: Narf on August 12, 2021, 01:18:05 PM
Quote from: hyzhenhok on August 12, 2021, 01:14:49 PM
Interesting that we have a mix of opinions, some saying that steal is just "icing on the cake" for most people who pick Miscreant, and others who are saying losing master steal is too significant a nerf to a core ability of the class.
I can't speak for everyone, but I will say that when I choose Miscreant it is either with the intent to steal or the intent to sneak well depending on the character concept. Being able to do one or the other would ensure that I continue to pick the class. Having other classes that are better than Miscreants at both of these things ensures that I'll be picking one of those two other classes in all circumstances.
And that's probably not a problem! Infiltrator and pilferer are seldom picked right now. So that would seem to be the point of the changes.
Whereas people who just want a general city character and prefer the stealth kit to laborer's "city" kit will still have plenty to love about miscreant that those two classes don't excel in.
Time will tell. I'd bet money you're wrong on that and that the use of the Miscreant class will drop below either the current pilferer or Infiltrator levels. This'll just be pushing down bubbles in the wallpaper. It doesn't really create a new problem, but it doesn't really solve the old one. You're just moving it around.
You know, I was thinking, and this is a funny thought to me. But Staff have said that the class name does not exactly mean anything to the class.
Yet, the changes proposed for miscreant, pilferer, Infiltrator, Actually do bring the classes more in line with the names.
Pilferer would actually be the best at...Pilfering...Infiltrator would actually be the best at Infiltrating and Miscreant would actually become the generalist ne'er-do-well.
Quote from: X-D on August 12, 2021, 12:11:44 PM
GetKanked:
Are you joking on that last bit? I mean, I see plenty of light mercantile.
No, there's no point in being one realistically. Just make it a 3x3 - you're combat, utility, or crafting in sneaky, wilderness, or city.
Big +1 for swapping Scout and Stalker scan/listen instead of stealth. That seems more appropriate and beneficial for Scout while being less of a hit to Stalker. The rest of the changes are fantastic, IMO.
Quote from: Narf on August 12, 2021, 01:29:51 PM
Time will tell. I'd bet money you're wrong on that and that the use of the Miscreant class will drop below either the current pilferer or Infiltrator levels. This'll just be pushing down bubbles in the wallpaper. It doesn't really create a new problem, but it doesn't really solve the old one. You're just moving it around.
I'd take the bet. Pickpocket was never popular, so I think the number of people going over to pilferer just for master steal will be quite small. Significant numbers will switch to infiltrator for the master stealth, but it won't monopolize city stealth. Its lack of mastery the other city utility skills will be a dealbreaker for many concepts that will prefer to stick with miscreant. Anyway I've beaten this horse enough so I'll leave it at that. :)
Quote from: hyzhenhok on August 12, 2021, 01:54:26 PM
Quote from: Narf on August 12, 2021, 01:29:51 PM
Time will tell. I'd bet money you're wrong on that and that the use of the Miscreant class will drop below either the current pilferer or Infiltrator levels. This'll just be pushing down bubbles in the wallpaper. It doesn't really create a new problem, but it doesn't really solve the old one. You're just moving it around.
I'd take the bet. Pickpocket was never popular, so I think the number of people going over to pilferer just for master steal will be quite small. Significant numbers will switch to infiltrator for the master stealth, but it won't monopolize city stealth. Its lack of mastery the other city utility skills will be a dealbreaker for many concepts that will prefer to stick with miscreant. Anyway I've beaten this horse enough so I'll leave it at that. :)
I also believe what will happen is both miscreant becomes as unpopular as Pilferer.
Thats said, at the end I think its a moot point to argue.
Staff want strong thieves to go away or be forced to live the hard life of the city elf in hopes of encouraging more people to visit taverns again. :-\
Probably more so now that you rob one city state blind and go be a celebrated hero in the other.
We'll just have to see how it works out.
GetKanked:
Alright, now it is no secret that I am a fan of the Specialized balance method over the current generalist balance method. (no, I do not like ANY of the current classes, no secret but maybe some have not read past posts on the subject)
Now, the problem is that current staff seems to like the "I do almost everything OR if I do not I am OVER specialized" Balance method. And that is the framework we are currently in...so, really, much as I agree with you, I do fail to see how it applies to current change suggestions.
Narf:Dresan:
I rather doubt the intent is to push miscreant below the two mentioned but more to bring it even. I think it would.
Since this is not an urgent change it might be worth it to have a system where legacy characters are not affected first maybe please pleaaaase? :) It seems like the kind of thing that would pay off in future if other major changes need to be made too
The major issue with stuff like this it can make characters less viable for what they were envisioned as originally, and so not a great feeling for those affected, it's a two tier thing it seems like:
- If stealing is nerfed, it affects the characters with a focus on stealing
- If stealth is nerfed it affects more the characters that are NOT focused on stealing, for listening etc - and yet even before this I've felt for a while that magic roles just kind of trump the normal ones in usefulness, since they can do the same things without the game-ending consequences that are often present for getting caught (I would maybe look more really to nerfing those and maybe giving some kind of way to detect and chase if doesn't exist already)
- This becomes a split between two different characters, but either change is forcing to pick 1, but for existing characters this is too late so it just gimps them in a way that seems unfair to either focus
Otherwise this would change the abilities of a character but make them less likely to be able to do the IC job/role which is already there for existing characters :(
As people said earlier these roles are definitely a lot more dangerous than people that haven't tried them assume (most characters tend to not last long, for sure!) and the risk/reward in most cases is just not worth it (and I think we want to be encouraging MORE city drama not less, at the moment it's just SO DANGEROUS that most people just seem to pick the Law/easy mode side and there's a real struggle to find players brave enough and willing to face the extreme differential in power!):
- the proliferation of city magic
- proliferation of areas that have guards that will kill if actually get inside, few things worth kamikazing over
- rooms that are NOHIDE (or whatever the flag is called here) but without any way to indicate that OOC or in the room descriptions which are often ambiguous
Are we trying to promote more players in choosing select classes?
I made this up from the rough data that was provided over the years:
(https://i.imgur.com/rSwLmQq.png)
Pilferer and Soldier are both classes that have low selection. I believe these changes would make those classes more popular choices, and have Miscreant be chosen a bit less.
I think the proposed changes to Stalker and Scout wouldn't have much of a difference between players selecting those classes - but I think it would have a change in the habits of these character types.
As the world is dangerous outside the city gates, I think Raider will still be a very popular choice of players, and reducing the requirements for branching disarm might make the players feel better about their class choice -> in terms of having a goal (branching all skills) and progressing to that goal
Quote from: mansa on August 12, 2021, 02:37:32 PM
Are we trying to promote more players in choosing select classes?
I made this up from the rough data that was provided over the years:
(https://i.imgur.com/rSwLmQq.png)
Pilferer and Soldier are both classes that have low selection. I believe these changes would make those classes more popular choices, and have Miscreant be chosen a bit less.
I think the proposed changes to Stalker and Scout wouldn't have much of a difference between players selecting those classes - but I think it would have a change in the habits of these character types.
As the world is dangerous outside the city gates, I think Raider will still be a very popular choice of players, and reducing the requirements for branching disarm might make the players feel better about their class choice -> in terms of having a goal (branching all skills) and progressing to that goal
I think it'd be worth creating another thread talking about why these classes are typically not picked. Like I said, fence doesn't get master sneak/hide then his this janky branching of knife weapons that only goes to journeyman without any other real combat skills. It's weird. There's a few things with the classes that I feel need to be revamped.
I like that we have the new classes but I think there needs to be some tweaks/redos.
I still really like my healer idea:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55158.msg1038874.html#msg1038874
I thought about moving perception to infiltrator rather than stealth, but ultimately if stealth moves to infiltrator, that means in order to get steal you are going to have to use a subclass. Meanwhile (whether steal moves or not), miscreants and pilferers would have great/decent steal, but only have decent stealth, hiding roughly as well as pickpockets used to.
On the other hand, yes, perception or stealth from stalker to scout could make sense, and there isn't necessarily a need driven by other components of the stalker guild for it to be stealth.
It just feels really awful to do this to existing characters since people chose the classes for different reasons on different characters, and so it's fine for some, but for others means less likely to get involved in interesting stuff in the future (and it seems like there's already a serious situation where there's much less players around that are wiling and able to put up with the way the game is already quite weighted against the criminal clans)
If there's any way at all for it to not include old characters since none of it seems urgent to do, it feels like "big game changes" should never affect current characters really (and maybe in future there'd be more stuff this applies to, so would make sense to change the system)
Big +1 to night queen's point, existing characters should not be changed.
If there isn't a way to roll this out while preserving existing character skills, let's consider a full revamp of guilds or even a skill point buy system so that everyone can truly get what they want.
There is no versioning for skills trees, so no, it can't.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 12, 2021, 04:21:08 PM
There is no versioning for skills trees, so no, it can't.
There's a way to do it, it'd create some temporary clutter though.
Create clones of the original classes, named something different but with all the same skills (except for the changes). Keep the existing classes as legacy classes, and eliminate people's ability to choose them. Delete Scout, Miscreant, Pilferer, Infiltrator, and Stalker from the help file and replace them with the clone names.
It'd be the exact same process as the shift from legacy classes.
I think this would make infiltrator ridiculously good at PK.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 12, 2021, 03:36:50 PM
On the other hand, yes, perception or stealth from stalker to scout could make sense, and there isn't necessarily a need driven by other components of the stalker guild for it to be stealth.
Not sure if this has changed but I believe Stalkers have the best chance of getting certain poisons with max skinning skill. They are also the best at applying it with max poison skill. And have the best chance at adminstering it with max stealth skills.
This seems slightly imbalanced to me. I would argue that moving stealth to scout would help alleviate that slightly. Ultimately, moving just perception skills doesn't really make that big of a difference.
Also another reason why poison skill should probably be switched between stalker/scout and miscreant/infiltrator. The people who have the best chance of aquiring (buy/skin/steal) poison and good at making/curing it(brew), shouldn't be the best at using it on others gameplay wise.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 12, 2021, 04:21:08 PM
There is no versioning for skills trees, so no, it can't.
Would it be possible to switch the class of an existing character to one of the classes they're swapping maximums with?
Quote from: mansa on August 12, 2021, 02:37:32 PM
Are we trying to promote more players in choosing select classes?
<snippage>
As the world is dangerous outside the city gates, I think Raider will still be a very popular choice of players, and reducing the requirements for branching disarm might make the players feel better about their class choice -> in terms of having a goal (branching all skills) and progressing to that goal
I have to wonder how many players would choose raider if it had even jman skin, like the oldschool warrior. Playing a ranger analog without skinning seems off to me. Having to use a subguild for either skinning or food forage seems like an overly restrictive setup to me.
Quote from: Halcyon on August 17, 2021, 10:48:39 PM
I have to wonder how many players would choose raider if it had even jman skin, like the oldschool warrior. Playing a ranger analog without skinning seems off to me. Having to use a subguild for either skinning or food forage seems like an overly restrictive setup to me.
Raider is pretty popular already. On top of that I think staff already mentioned it has a higher hidden skin base skill percentage so it should be able to feed itself.
Raider is less of a ranger and more of a warrior that also can ride, climb, charge and go through storms.
Quote from: Narf on August 17, 2021, 04:14:33 PM
Would it be possible to switch the class of an existing character to one of the classes they're swapping maximums with?
Maybe existing Miscreants could request for skillbumps to be restored to avoid concepts being ruined?
I think it reflects a pretty big nerf to highly popular class though, and I'm in the camp of smaller, iterative adjustments to measure impact. I don't really understand why one big adjustment to character sheets would be better.
Quote from: Dresan on August 17, 2021, 11:14:32 PM
Quote from: Halcyon on August 17, 2021, 10:48:39 PM
I have to wonder how many players would choose raider if it had even jman skin, like the oldschool warrior. Playing a ranger analog without skinning seems off to me. Having to use a subguild for either skinning or food forage seems like an overly restrictive setup to me.
Raider is pretty popular already. On top of that I think staff already mentioned it has a higher hidden skin base skill percentage so it should be able to feed itself.
Raider is less of a ranger and more of a warrior that also can ride, climb, charge and go through storms.
Raider is already great, yes. They aren't great at raiding due to a lack of hunt, but they do not need skin at all.
A bit of a derail but I've always been confused on why so many classes/subclasses get low level scan.
Leaving aside how crappy max scan with elven wisdom is it would be nice to see a bit more variety in the perception skills.
Quite frankly if the atocious failure rate of low level sneak/hide were to be removed, it would be much easier to balance scan/listen/widsom against hide/sneak/agility depending on classes and combos allowing counter-play while at the same time even keeping sub-class thief's hide/sneak rather useful against people that have not invested in stat/class/sub-class to counter it.
In addition to the above, this pains me to say because I love stealth and I abuse this feature a lot but scan, hide and sneak need to be seperated into wilderness and city skills that have no interactions with each other. For example, I believe its a problem that stalker(or in the future scout) can have perfect sneak/hide just by taking house servant. It just allows many characters to have higher levels of duo stealth which makes balancing out scan/listen even more complicated.
But again before anything the failure rate of stealth skills need to be addressed, its one thing for you to be spotted or heard because the other person invested in chararacter with higher wisdom/skill to counter you but its totally crap for it to fail completely because of RNG.
I think you are assuming that scan was put on those Classes for PvP purposes.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 18, 2021, 10:53:16 AM
I think you are assuming that scan was put on those Classes for PvP purposes.
Even taking into account NPCs it doesn't change my opinion. That said, I am sure scan is probably more useful in wilderness settings then it was to my city elf.
However, this would be all the more reason to seperate the skills between wilderness and city like listen has been, rather than just having flags or different values.
Again sorry for the derail.
First off, you should never worry about hurting existing PCs with a balance change. Almost none of the current PCs will still be here in six months, but balance changes (ideally) improve the game forever. If anyone's against a change because it nerfs their current PC, fuck 'em. It's like being against student loan forgiveness because you already paid yours off.
QuoteSwitch Miscreant Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Infiltrator Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
While I've always felt that Miscreant needs a nerf, I don't think it's the stealth levels that should be targeted. Especially if the next change down the list is also being considered. I think Infiltrator could be given master stealth without taking anything away from Miscreant. The issue with Miscreant isn't that it's too good at stealth (I mean, it's literally the main stealth class, right?) but rather the wealth of other stuff it gets. Why does it need master hunt, forage, poisoning, etc.? I would keep this class as the top dog of stealth and thieving, but cut down on its frankly ridiculous lineup of mostly-master utility skills. These can then be Robin Hooded out to needier classes. Like why on Earth doesn't
Scout have master hunt?
I do think some changes are in order for stealth in general, but those are not addressed by shuffling the skillcaps around.
QuoteSwitch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
If you take away Miscreant's stealth
and steal, the class is dead. It would still be playable if you nerfed only its steal, but the Pilferer would - even if it got top tier steal - still be a meh class that lacks mastery in all the other skills that go hand in hand with steal. It's not just about the steal skill itself, it's the stealth, it's peek, it's sleight of hand, and arguably even master watch so you can better notice if someone looks at you or starts to watch you. It would be exactly like Infiltrator and Scout are right now: they master their one trademark skill (backstab and archery respectively) but are still unattractive because everything else they have is mediocre.
I think this change would be a net loss as it makes Miscreants crappy without actually making Pilferer an equivalent alternative. The class that focuses on theft needs to have the highest possible sneak/hide and peek as well or you kill the entire master pickpocket playstyle. I'm tempted to say that there shouldn't have been a Pilferer class in the first place, since criminal skills in particular are so dependent on very high skill levels that the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none class design doesn't work for this archetype. That works a
little better for combat-oriented classes where half of the skills are practically impossible to master anyway.
On that note, there's kind of a recurring theme here, isn't there? The classes that are J.O.A.T.-M.O.N. tend to be unpopular. It turns out that having a bunch of skills that cap at advanced just isn't very appealing. With the old guild system, the guilds mastered most of their skills, but there was a much bigger difference in the actual skillsets. Now we have a system with much more overlap in skillsets, where some classes master their important skills and other classes get almost no masteries but advanced in a wider range of skills, and the latter has sort of failed. I'd say that the solution is not to take mastery away from some classes and give it to others, but to simply increase many of the skills of underplayed classes from advanced to master. You can still leave a 5-10% gap between them to keep some classes truly the best at something.
QuoteSwitch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
Pretty much the same goes here as for the above. Doubly so for the Stalker, in fact, because its other master skills are less role-defining compared to the Miscreant. Top stealth is basically the reason to play a Stalker in the first place. Without it, why would you ever choose it over Scout? I would give Scouts and Infiltrators low master stealth without taking it away from other classes. The problem with stealth skills has always been the classes that get it to the highest possible level, not the ones that got it to the ranger/pickpocket level of "just exactly master but not as high as assassin/burglar."
QuoteAdd Scan to Soldier with same maximum skill level as Stalker/Miscreant/Laborer
Absolutely 100% in favor. Soldier should always have had master scan. As it stands, there's almost no reason to play the class over Fighter, and adding master scan would instantaneously make it the go-to choice for law enforcement. Due to the sub-optimal combat skills of the class, and lack of any other gotcha skills (no backstab, steal, poisoning, etc.) there's really no balance concern involved. Giving Soldier scan doesn't turn it into some kind of cheap PKing monster. Do this even if you make none of the other changes you listed. It really sucks that if you want to play a thief-catcher in the current setting, you have to pick a class that otherwise has nothing to do with the militia role. This exact change was suggested once and I cringed at the number of people going "well, why don't you just pick LABORER for your soldier PC?"
QuoteIncrease Soldier Subdue to same maximum skill level as Jihaen Templar
I'm indifferent. Don't really know how high Jihaen Templars get their subdue, and the skill is rarely used outside of arresting people who probably have nosave arrest on anyway. I'd venture to say that the change is probably fine, but not terribly impactful. Never heard of anyone who managed to raise subdue above low advanced anyway.
What I would like to see is a small bump to Soldier's parry and shield use, to reflect the fact that it is thematically more combat-oriented than Infiltrator and Scout. Buff it up to the threshold of master, still lower than the heavy-combat classes but enough to make it feel like the class lives up to its name a little better. This
should be the first choice for players who want to play an actual soldier, but its defenses are just not quite up to par, being apparently equal to scouts and infiltrators. It's very difficult to justify taking anything other than a heavy-combat class in a basically combat-oriented role, especially with the Soldier's lean selection of utility skills. It doesn't even get ride above the innate level that all characters get.
QuoteIncrease starting Kick skill slightly for Fighter/Raider/Enforcer (its actually lower than the formulaic design, somehow)
This won't really make a difference unless you raised them incredibly high, like starting at journeyman or something. These are skills that are essentially useless at lower levels, so it doesn't matter if they start at 5% or 15%. It'll shorten the grind to raise them from 500 hours to 490 hours, with no meaningful impact on anything.
QuoteDecrease Kick skill level required to branch Disarm for Raiders
Decrease Bash skill level required to branch Disarm for Enforcers
Definitely in favor. These skills are brutally hard to raise, and they branch into a very important skill for these two classes. I wish there were none of these "you branch a class-defining skill through a grueling grind that takes longer than most people ever play the same PC" issues in the game. If it's deemed balanced that a class gets a certain skill, it should not be gated behind a prohibitive grind. If it's gated behind a prohibitive grind because it's deemed unbalanced, it should not get the skill. Particularly since you can completely circumvent that grind by taking the right subclass, which renders invalid any notions of needing to gate a skill behind anything. The same goes (to an even higher degree) for things that branch from very high weapon skills, which I wish you'd change.
And I would switch the skillcaps for backstab on Enforcer and Infiltrator, and archery on Raider and Scout. The classes that already master all the game's other combat skills, and get a decent selection of utility stuff on top (unlike Fighter), should not also have the highest possible caps in backstab and archery. I want to see Infiltrator and Scout with pickpocket/ranger-level stealth and the kings of backstab/archery, as compensation for their otherwise very underwhelming skillsets. Middling stealth and not-even-top backstab/archery just isn't good enough. If you're not gonna have good enough stealth skills to rely on them, you might as well go Enforcer and Raider for vastly superior combat skills, and then if you really want poisoning or skinning or whatever, you get it from a subclass.
QuoteSwitch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
Here's a terrible idea: do this, and also switch Pilferer and Miscreant stealth (making Pilferer the stealthiest city class).
I guess this is heading back towards the burglar/pickpocket divide. But it makes sense to me that thieves need more stealth than burglars; they're by definition operating in the same room as the victim and can suffer hefty OOC penalties for getting caught.
Alternately, give Pilferer max steal and the
same stealth as Miscreant. Now you have two interesting options if your prime build goal is "max city stelth."
Quote from: Greve on August 18, 2021, 01:39:35 PM
QuoteDecrease Kick skill level required to branch Disarm for Raiders
Decrease Bash skill level required to branch Disarm for Enforcers
Definitely in favor. These skills are brutally hard to raise, and they branch into a very important skill for these two classes. I wish there were none of these "you branch a class-defining skill through a grueling grind that takes longer than most people ever play the same PC" issues in the game. If it's deemed balanced that a class gets a certain skill, it should not be gated behind a prohibitive grind. If it's gated behind a prohibitive grind because it's deemed unbalanced, it should not get the skill. Particularly since you can completely circumvent that grind by taking the right subclass, which renders invalid any notions of needing to gate a skill behind anything. The same goes (to an even higher degree) for things that branch from very high weapon skills, which I wish you'd change.
I fully agree with this statement.
I believe the philosophy behind the enforcer class was that it was supposed to be for those players who wanted to be a powerhouse with long term investment. Unfortunately I don't believe it plays that way in reality especially with the time commitments/lucky opportunities it takes to achieve it while at the same time also having better options available.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 02:11:09 PM
Also, not looking for any sort of overall increase to Stealth across the classes given the inherent issues with it. If once class gets a higher level, a different class gets a lower level.
Well, the same list of changes does include adding top-tier scan to a class that didn't have the skill at all (which is a very good idea, mind you). I don't think bumping the stealth skills of two classes from mid-advanced to bottom of master would amplify the "stealth meta." Characters with not-the-highest-possible stealth were never the problem, it's the ones that get it so high that nothing short of the highest codedly achievable scan level (i.e. Miscreant/Stalker with high wisdom) has a chance to spot them.
Meanwhile, anything short of master stealth is borderline useless because two of the classes with master scan make up something like 30% of the playerbase, and you can't really depend on stealth anyway if it hard-fails 1/10th of the time. Advanced stealth can just about be used in city streets with the crowd flag, but anywhere else, it's just not something you can risk relying on in any situation where failure leads to bad stuff.
I think the unfortunate reality is that if you remove master stealth from a class that was originally designed around having it, you ruin that class. If the issue is that Miscreant and Stalker are too good overall, there are other ways to chip away at their insanely bountiful skillsets. These classes were given very mediocre combat skills to compensate. If you move the top-tier stealth to classes whose combat potential is closer to that of the old ranger and assassin, I don't think you've solved anything to do with problematic stealth situations. On the contrary. I think Infiltrator and Scout should have ranger-tier stealth, i.e. good enough to use but not potentially undetectable.
The stealth problem stems mainly from the fact that only two classes get master stealth, but get it at the full ultimate cap, which makes it so that anyone interested in stealth picks one of those two classes, so every stealthy PC in the game has the highest hide and sneak that the code permits. It used to be a game where four out of six guilds got master stealth, and literally every desert elf with enough agility got it as an innate racial ability, but most of these characters only got ranger/pickpocket-level stealth. As such, despite so many characters having <master> in hide and sneak, there wasn't really an issue with stealth as a whole because most of them were detectable.
Now, however, we've funneled every serious stealth PC into two classes that get assassin/burglar-level stealth. By adding ranger-level stealth to some classes, I suspect that it'll spread stealth-based characters out across more classes, some of which are very much detectable with top-tier scan. Instead of all stealth-based characters having 90% hide, maybe half of them would only have 80%. As it stands, noone picks Scout and Infiltrator with intentions of making frequent, meaningful use of stealth. Everyone who intends to actually utilize stealth for real picks Miscreant or Stalker, so literally all stealth-based characters are super-ninjas. That's what the problem is.
Y'all are grossly misunderstanding some of these statistics. You need to focus a moment here. Brokkr, Mansa, whoever else:
Before you do any changes, consider how you're evaluating the popularity of classes. You're counting applications. This is NOT useful in this effort.
Just because it seems like there are a lot of applications for XYZ characters doesn't mean they're are a lot of them in game.
EXAMPLE: There seems to be lots of applications for wilderness characters, not because there are lots of wilderness characters, but because wilderness characters seem to die every five seconds! People who like wilderness characters, roll another one.
All things being equal, as the game naturally seeks balance, it would organically result in seemingly higher applications of archetypes that happen die frequently, but lower actual population of those classes.
This might be hard to grasp from staff perspective. Approving miscreant, after miscreant, after miscreant. But how often do you take a snapshot of classes logged on at a given time? Never!
With that said, you need a snap shot of the classes at any given time, peak let's say, and create a rolling average over a term, let's say 2 weeks.
You can't go by applications. You must go by which classes are currently playing.
If you evaluate balance in the way you have... It will cause you to fix problems that don't exist and the root cause is completely missed.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 02:15:30 PM
There will not be an overall increase in stealth ability. If one class gets better, a different one will get worse.
I think an important thing to consider is if the changes have the effect of changing things so that the 30 PCs currently rolling Miscreants would have rolled 10 miscreants, 10 infiltrators, and 10 pilferers, you haven't actually created an "overall increase in stealth ability." IMO if we're serious about wanted to encourage diversity of choices among the criminal classes, making infiltrators and pilferers better at stealth will go a long way, because being able to achieve reliable stealth without an incredible agility stat is a big reason people pick miscreant. Plus, adding scan to soldier
will create an overall increase in perceptive ability, so what's the big deal if there's a little more stealth going around?
Quote from: Greve on August 18, 2021, 01:39:35 PM
QuoteSwitch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
If you take away Miscreant's stealth and steal, the class is dead. It would still be playable if you took away only steal, but the Pilferer would - even if it got top tier steal - still be a meh class that lacks mastery in all the other skills that go hand in hand with steal. It's not just about the steal skill itself, it's the stealth, it's peek, it's sleight of hand, and arguably even master watch so you can better notice if someone looks at you or starts to watch you.
Oh, I missed this. Pilferer absolutely needs master peek, too, for this to work. It already has master sleight of hand.
Stoicreader, I've been looking at "who" since the classes were implemented. While I have the number of total characters created, you are correct in that it gives no context in terms of what people stick with and what they do not stick with, or which classes long lived characters tend to be.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 19, 2021, 10:34:41 AM
Stoicreader, I've been looking at "who" since the classes were implemented.
I love that you guys are being smart about things then! :) I support whatever y'all think is best especially knowing this. Mansa threw me off with his stats gathering diagnosis. This game is good because y'all can diagnose and make decisions that are ultimately out of the silt depth of most players, even the most experienced ones.
Part of the problem with this post, is that players don't fully appreciate or understand what problems you're trying to correct and why, which could be contributing to so much pushback.
Since Brokkr asked specifically for pain points, I thought I'd outline mine for the classes being discussed.
Miscreant
No real pain points in its current state. The class has everything except crafting and really good combat, so if you're playing a city-based character where those two things aren't important to you, miscreant is clearly the best choice by far.
If it loses master steal, the class will still be playable as a general rogue type. It just wouldn't be a good fit for the "professional pickpocket" archetype. While advanced steal can certainly be used, it's not comfortable enough to base a character concept around it. Miscreants would sort of become what the burglar was, and players widely agreed that burglar wasn't good enough. However, since miscreant has a number of skills that burglars didn't get (master scan, poisoning, etc.) it wouldn't be quite as bad.
If it loses master stealth, I frankly think the class becomes shit. Advanced stealth is not good enough to be used for certain things that the miscreant class is clearly designed for, e.g. spying and breaking into high-end places. Advanced stealth is the kind of thing you use to get past an aggressive animal or quickly launch a stealth attack. You can't rely on it if you're supposed to spend any real amount of time around PCs, and you can't depend on it in the 'rinth in particular where there isn't crowd code to boost your stealth checks.
Pilferer
In its current state, this class is pretty bad. It's a crafting class with a bit of criminal flavor drizzled on top, and I don't think there was room for two mercantile rogue classes. It would have been better to merge pilferer and fence and call it the go-to rogue crafter class than try to turn it into something it's not. The class grid has a few cases where it's clear that a class was created just to get the tiers to line up symmetrically, and this is an example of that.
If pilferer is given master steal, I don't think that changes a whole lot. With advanced in all the other skills that go with the thief role, except (presumably low) master sleight of hand, it wouldn't become a viable choice for a "master thief" concept. With this change, there would just not be a class that lends itself sufficiently to that playstyle. Kind of like how nothing's currently quite right for the traditional assassin playstyle. If there are concerns about rampant theft, I would honestly rather see some change to the frequency with which you can steal from people than a gutting of the classes that can do it.
Infiltrator
The pain point here is obviously the sub-optimal stealth. Bumping it up to the old pickpocket's level would go a long way, and since infiltrator's backstab and poisoning are not as strong as the assassin's were, I don't think it would create any balance problems. It still lacks master scan so it's by no means the perfect killer, but it really needs good enough stealth to rely on it in non-crowd rooms. I don't think it needs full-on miscreant stealth, just what pickpockets and rangers had so that you can feel relatively comfortable using it in the 'rinth and in apartments or wherever one might, you know, infiltrate.
Stalker
The pain point is the weak combat skills on a class that is essentially meant for combat. All wilderness classes are, it's not like there's a bunch of social shit going on in the desert, so the saving grace of this class is the fact that it can at least use stealth to consistently avoid the fights that you can't handle with low-advanced combat skills. Without its top-tier stealth, I don't see why one would play a stalker.
Unlike the miscreant, whose lineup of criminal skills are significantly more valuable at master than at advanced, many of the stalker's wilderness utility skills aren't. It really doesn't matter that much whether you have advanced or master in skills like hunt, forage, climb, ride and direction sense. As such, there's only a few skills that stalker has over the scout that truly feel significant. Stealth, scan and poisoning are pretty much it, in that order. If you switch stalker and scout stealth, not only do you make the stalker a bad class, you also turn the scout into a better class than the stalker was before that change.
Scout
If anything, what I want the most for this class is better scan. I also want scout, not raider, to have the best archery, but that's not apparently in consideration so I won't press for it. Scout is in a pretty good place and, as mentioned with the stalker, has a lot of utility skills that are good enough at advanced. While stealth is the exception, I don't think it needs to become the go-to stealth class for wilderness play. It has the better combat skillset to compensate for that, and the class lends itself well to humans who are dependent on a mount which is sort of incompatible with stealth, whereas stalker is better suited for desert elves and rogue mages who can often use their spells to assist with travel. In my book, it makes perfect sense that stalker is the wilderness class you play on foot and thus depend more on stealth. Stalker also has the best stamina regeneration which supports that.
If top-tier stealth is swapped from stalker to scout, you just make it so that the PCs who want to be desert ninjas become better at combat than they were before. It wouldn't hurt to bump the scout's stealth up to the level of the old ranger, but no more than that is necessary. If there's an issue of "why play scout over raider?" then I think this is better solved by giving scouts higher scan (.......and archery!)
Soldier
Definitely the right choice to give this class top-tier scan. It fits right in, and it instantenously fixes the problem of "why pick soldier over fighter?" The pain point for soldier was always that it doesn't really have anything that compels you to choose the soldier class for the soldier role, which is silly. Scan is the absolutely perfect solution. And it needs to be top-tier scan, not the crappy advanced shit that so many classes have. With an additional class that has top-tier scan, I think it's also perfectly fine to give low-master stealth to scout and infiltrator. The only other minor pain point is the fact that soldier combat skills could use a tiny bump, like 5% more in parry and shield use, just so it has a bit of a combat edge over the scout and infiltrator. I think that's a fair tradeoff for its total lack of wilderness utility.
It would also have been nice if soldier got advanced ride, but since the class doesn't exactly lend itself to magick subclasses, you're pretty free to take one of the many subclasses that shore up this shortcoming. It's really, really nice to have solid ride and direction sense in a role that features frequent wilderness patrols, so it's a good thing that you can easily solve that even with 0-karma subclasses. Still, I don't think it would hurt to give soldier advanced ride. If you want direction sense on top, that can be what you spend your subclass on.
Enforcer & Raider
I'm glad to see that the branching issues for these two classes are being discussed. Staff has correctly identified the problem, as well as the fact that enforcer and raider are otherwise just fine and not in need of any direct buffs. Bash and kick take forever to raise and have additional issues with character size, the latter of which is unfortunately not solved by the proposed change. I'm of the opinion that outside of spell trees, there shouldn't be skills that are extremely difficult to branch, and this obviously includes enforcer's backstab and sap. But since that doesn't seem to be in staff's sights, I'll just say that lowering the branching point for disarm is very much a welcome change. The issue still remains that half-giants are practically incapable of raising bash, but maybe we can just say that HGs aren't really meant to learn such refined combat maneuvers as disarm unless they're so devoted to military life that they should probably have picked the fighter class.
I approve of Greve's points, except don't give soldier ride. Plenty of classes get ride, as well as filthy breeds. Keep weapon skills at same level as scout and inf, but give them j/m climb (much like how laborer gets j/m subdue) , which is a skill they could make good use of.
Once miscreant doesn't have master stealth AND only advanced steal nobody will choose it, I agree with that. I would say leave them master steal.
I think it could work well if miscreant got low level master stealth like old pickpockets and infiltrators got full maxed out stealth.
You would have more people picking infiltrators for full stealth and better combat and then only people be thieves or just want good perception, decent brew,etc go with miscreant. It would still be a good choice for aides and city crafters. Poison should be switched between infiltrator and miscreant though, you shouldn't be picking miscreant to be good at killing. Best stealth and best poison would make a solid class that doesn't require the best sap or best backstab or the best combat like enforcer has.
Agian the way low level stealth works (that sadly includes advanced) in regards to failure rate really feels bad, but with code changes off the table, it just is what it is.
Quote from: Dresan on August 20, 2021, 09:57:59 AM
I think it could work well if miscreant got low level master stealth like old pickpockets and infiltrators got full maxed out stealth.
It's been said repeatedly that the caps were raised with the new classes. Example: a master warrior weapon skill of old is just advanced now. I'm starting to feel like 75% of the pushback from players against staff could be just changing descriptors, because nobody really has any certainty about the code except what is shown via description.
Ie, the effortless thing. Ie, people thinking you need master stealth to avoid detection. Ie, people thinking 'advanced' scan is shitty, when low advanced scan pretty much takes care of anyone and any NPC beyond stealthy individuals with master skill and/or eq bonuses.
The caps were raised in some skills not all skills. And the staff is purposely vague about code, as they often are, and doing so has its pros and cons on both sides of the field. :-\
Here what I do know for sure; I played an elf exceptional agility and infiltrator stealth wasn't that great.
It would likely help non-elf miscreants if its stealth were not just switch but boosted to low master, otherwise it'll become as popular as Pilferer.
I played an EG (I think. Maybe exceptional? Definitely not higher) agility elven infiltrator who wore supposedly +hide gear, and I would constantly end up standing in rooms with people that wanted to kill me, or would have if they'd known I was there.
So yeah no argument here that it's all anecdotal as far as code goes!
I guess we disagree on elves.
But you haven't said anything I agree with so far to change my opinions on human miscreants changes or stealth in general. :-\
Not really my intention, to change anyone's mind. I'm all for the changes, I think they'll spread out specializations a bit more and make some of the 'do everything' classes more like the rest of them. Your opinion is yours to do with what you like!
Quote from: mansa on August 11, 2021, 01:08:43 PM
Quote from: Brokkr on August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM
Proposed Changes
- Switch Miscreant Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Infiltrator Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Switch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
- Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Add Scan to Soldier with same maximum skill level as Stalker/Miscreant/Laborer
- Increase Soldier Subdue to same maximum skill level as Jihaen Templar
- 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
- Switch Miscreant Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Infiltrator Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
- Switch Stalker Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels with Scout Sneak and Hide maximum skill levels
When I played my most recently Miscreant (65+ days played, Human, in the Guild) I was frequently caught sneaking and hiding at least once a day. I wasn't a super ninja, and I could of immediately been killed if not for my social clout.
My suggestion is:
Bump Infiltrator Sneak/Hide
Bump Stalker Sneak/Hide
Keep Miscreant Sneak/Hide same
- Switch Miscreant Steal maximum skill level with Pilferer maximum skill level
I feel that STEAL is one of those skills that people won't use until they are guaranteed to succeed at it, specially at lower levels. I would reduce Miscreant MAX steal by -5% and increase Pilferer to Miscreant's old max skill percentage.
NEW STUFF:
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)
I think I agree with Mansa here - the stealth stuff is kind of a threshold. I would give one class low master and one class high master. Possible low master to Scout/Infiltrator (thus bumping them 10 points?) and keeping Miscreant/Stalker where they are. I worry that miscreant/stalker at lower levels makes them way less survivable.
Pilferer absolutely deserves higher steal though.
100% yes for search going to scout and stalker. Love this.
Quote from: LindseyBalboa on August 20, 2021, 03:16:25 PM
Quote from: Dresan on August 20, 2021, 09:57:59 AM
I think it could work well if miscreant got low level master stealth like old pickpockets and infiltrators got full maxed out stealth.
It's been said repeatedly that the caps were raised with the new classes. Example: a master warrior weapon skill of old is just advanced now. I'm starting to feel like 75% of the pushback from players against staff could be just changing descriptors, because nobody really has any certainty about the code except what is shown via description.
Ie, the effortless thing. Ie, people thinking you need master stealth to avoid detection. Ie, people thinking 'advanced' scan is shitty, when low advanced scan pretty much takes care of anyone and any NPC beyond stealthy individuals with master skill and/or eq bonuses.
I'm pretty sure that weapon skills are the
only ones whose caps were increased. Certainly not stealth skills and scan, and low advanced is by no means "good enough" in any real sense. The only characters you have the slightest chance to detect with low advanced scan are the
very worst stealth classes.
Again, low advanced was given to detect goudra and such, not PCs. If you consistently just zero in on PvP, you miss the big picture and your opinions become much less relevant.
I've come late to the thread, and I haven't read every post. I'm not going to talk about the other guild changes apart from Stalker as I only have some minor experience with Miscreant after being a Ranger for a long, long time.
I think stalker needs the higher sneak and hide otherwise to me it becomes a useless choice, and then you just have everyone picking Scout because of the better combat skills. I would be inclined to pick Scout every time then over Stalker for my outdoor hunter type. Stalkers sacrifice two important weapon skills, and have lower caps to some key ones compared to Scout. A more reliable sneak and hide is essential, not just for PVP, but for PVE. Archery has taken a nerf to PVE due to the fact most of the time you can only get off one arrow before a NPC mob rushes you, and they run and chase like crazy. PVP can be brutal with how fast it can be, but NPCs can be even faster, and there's no waiting for them to RP, or linger in a room before covering a distance of 2 squares in seconds. Stalkers are lesser fighters and having that utility as Master Hunters seems appropriate to me. Scout is more for PVP, and Stalker more for PVE?
If there's a concern of so many mages taking Stalker for the master sneak and hide benefits and making them too powerful, your going to make them even more powerful by giving such skills to Scout, which are better fighters. So good fighters, and spells, makes them extra scary.
I think you could have more master sneak and hide guilds, but there needs to be a skill that can search for hidden people, or give a huge bonus to scan, but have a delay.
I do not think that change alone would lower the number of mages taking stalker by much. At best it would simply even the numbers some. Stalker gets too many support skills to ignore. I really think that the change would actually bump Scout as a mundane class to be honest. Almost ranger (not quite) And a support sub.
I think Greve touches on a lot of really good points, going to add my own kind of suggestions here.
Miscreant
I think Miscreant deserves to have the highest stealth. It's the one causing shenanigans in the city, and for good reason: its supposed to. I would support lowering/switching their steal to pilferer, though, so that miscreant has low master or high advanced steal and high master stealth, pilferer getting higher steal lower stealth. Losing steal doesn't neutralize the class, since a lot of folks are playing it for other utility, but losing the stealth caps definitely does. I would also make it have advanced forage, moving master to pilferer.
Pilferer
Pilferer fits in an odd spot. A lot of utility and crafting, but middling in most everything puts it in a problematic pickle. Giving it the top theft improves it a lot for people who are playing thieves. To make the class more enticing as a generalist for sneakies, I think master watch and master forage would give it some good tools.
Infiltrator
Going with Greve here. Needs low-master stealth. I think its totally reasonable to bump it by however many points, making it quite useable but less than the ultra-ghost-literally never found of miscreant. I think infiltrator should also have the higher of the surprise combat skills like backstab, throw, crossbow, blowgun use compared to enforcer, which should rest on its brawling laurels.
Stalker
Stalker is one of the classes that I feel is pretty balanced. You are focused in stealth and utility, you do that way better than anyone else, and it works. I would give this class search, though.
Scout
Pretty much in total agreement with Greve here. Scout getting master scan, a little bit of stealth improvement, some search love puts this class in a pretty great place. I would follow suit and give this class the higher archery cap compared to the frontline raider, as well.
Soldier
Agree here. Master scan to soldier, and improve parry/shield/guarding would give this class a needed edge.
Enforcer & Raider
Making the end game skills slightly more reachable is definitely warranted.
Quote from: Brokkr on August 21, 2021, 02:32:43 PM
If you consistently just zero in on PvP, you miss the big picture and your opinions become much less relevant.
The theme of this game is murder, betrayal, corruption. If there is a focus on the PvP value of skills in this conversation its probaby because dangerous npcs don't often wander into taverns and rob/attack you successfully.
I think raider, scout and stalkers perform well again NPC in wilderness with each having their own strenghts and weaknesses.Same with enforcer/infiltrator/miscreant for rinth/alley environments. That said, people used to play old school warriors and assassin in these environments, and these were classes that arguely had greater strengths but also greater weaknesses to balance then out, both did well. Thus most changes that are being proposed won't impact performance within PvE very much, at least not in a way that will make or break the experience people expect.
Max steath is valued in the game above most things and its for PvP reasons. I believe if you switch miscreant stealth with Pilferer would see a lot more Pilferer combos. Same if you give max stealth to infiltrator, it would instantly become a prime pick over miscreant and enforcer. Do we want to see more infiltrator/mage subs or mul infiltrators in the game? Scary but i'd be okay with it.
As an example(I know this isn't being propsed ::) ), if you leave max stealth on miscreants and remove/give steal to infiltators, i doubt the numbers would hardly change but theft would be greatly reduced to just elven PCs for the most part . The question just becomes do staff have more of a problem with theft related to miscreants or the fact that its stealth makes it a popular pick over the other criminal classes.
Yeah, stealth is mainly a PvP thing for city classes. Not necessarily PKing, but any kind of subterfuge between players. It's not as if there's much interaction between stealth and city NPCs unless you're wanted, so any discussion of stealth concerning classes like miscreant and infiltrator will automatically be based on player vs. player interactions. For wilderness classes, stealth is just as much about avoiding dangerous animals or sneaking up on prey, but for the city classes, stealth is mostly a PvP topic.
Miscreants and Stalkers are the all arounders. Them ALSO being the super-stealth class is, frankly, a bit much in my opinion. I fully support the changes Brokkr proposed. Miscreants/Stalkers getting high advanced stealth will do just fine, as it allows them to traverse their various spheres of influence with near impunity. Scouts and Infiltrators getting Master stealth suits not only their actual focus but gives people a reason to pick them over the absolutely overwhelming number of support skills and other bonuses that Stalker and Miscreant get on top of being the Super Stealth class.
Stealth and Scan are not, nor are they intended to be, balanced around PvP. To do so ignores the vast majority of the world. Infiltrator stealth isn't purely about PvP any more than Scout stealth is. And the bump makes them both a little more robust in terms of functionality, and makes them a little more effective in their sphere sof influence.
However, if you'd like to talk about them being PVP skills - it STILL makes more sense for the higher-level-combat classes of scout/infiltrator to get better stealth as their very intent is to be stronger at combat than the bug-of-tricks classes, without getting the straight up brawling mastery of the top of the line combat classes. No matter which way you look at it, moving Master stealth to Infiltrator/Scout is the correct move in my opinion.
Please give adventurer ranger plant break and give search to scout and stalker.
I think the biggest balance issues are from subguilds. The availability of certain skills (poison, lockpicking, backstab) is clearly very low from subs but so are other ones. I should make a spreadsheet
Quote from: Greve on August 22, 2021, 07:55:24 PM
It's not as if there's much interaction between stealth and city NPCs unless you're wanted
Hmm. This did slip my mind. Current Infiltrator stealth fails, even with all the stealth gear I could find it would fail noticably.
This is not too much of an issue with infiltrator since a well trained one can at least last couple rounds or two with soldiers.
However, miscreant with infiltrator stealth using blowdarts for example might not be lucky enough to make it a roof top.
Quote from: Lotion on August 22, 2021, 11:02:51 PM
Please give adventurer ranger plant break and give search to scout and stalker.
I think the biggest balance issues are from subguilds. The availability of certain skills (poison, lockpicking, backstab) is clearly very low from subs but so are other ones. I should make a spreadsheet
Please make a spreadsheet. I love spreadsheets.
On reading this again, misc and stalker stealth being less than scout and infiltrator is a little silly. I can see myself playing scout and infiltrator forever, with these changes. Maybe just give scout and inf low master sneak and leave misc and stalker where is. Or have stalker etc as the low master and inf/scout as high master. Either way. If you do either of these things I will be satisfied completely. I'm hankering to give soldier a go too.
Due to adding an extra master scan class, I reckon this will all work out.
After some more thought, It does seem like the problem with miscreant is not its stealth (which is what is making it popular) but its theft. The biggest concern with moving max stealth to infiltrators is that you'll basically get mages/muls which are now better at combat, great backstab/sap, can bash AND you can't see them. :o
Therefore, I would recommend the following:
- I think it makes more sense to switch poison and perception skills between infiltrator/miscreant.
- Perhaps some of the miscreant's opportunitistic combat utility skills can be further lowered or just removed like blowgun/thow/sap/backstab/crossbow.
- Finally you can switch miscreant and Pilferer steal too in order to tone down some of the theft.
This takes some of the wind out of the sail of miscreants but leaves that tempting max stealth which will keep it popular despite bad combat/combat utility and reduced theft ability. While at the same time give infiltrator a much needed boost but still not make them a tempting pick with characters that cannot be seen at all wandering around the city by authorities (eg. suspected mages).
As much as I would love to play a infiltrator with max stealth or even low master stealth, deep down I don't believe this is not good for the game. Even low master stealth would make infiltrator an extremely tempting class to take especially compared to the current enforcer (or even enforcer after the proposed changes) with its poor stealth and unrealistic grind expectations.
That said, I know this isn't being proposed but sap/backstab should probably be lowered to low journeyman weapon skill for branching. This is still a decent investment in the character and the game hasn't been broken by people chosing subs like bounty hunter, slipknife or cutpurse. I think it'll be fine if a few more people manage to branch these skills without resorting to subs.
Yep. Was super excited, then realised scouts/inf would be 70% of all combat pcs. Switching the perception is fine too.
I think you overestimate the draw of the top tier combat classes for the sort of role that wants slashing (master). The mages and muls especially aren't looking for better skill with swords realistically, they don't need it, they're looking for the grab bag of various tricks and survivability that comes with stalker/miscreant. Moving the stealth just spreads around the skills a little more smoothly and makes two fairly meh classes into viable choices, while making two top tier classes still amazing all around.
Quote from: GetKanked on August 24, 2021, 01:21:49 PM
stuff
Having read a couple of your posts I believe that you are probably misunderstanding a few things.
In this case I think you underestimate the value of great combat skills and good stealth in term of survivability in this game, regardless of subclass or race.
Again, the short of my post is that I would prefer to keep piss poor combat and max stealth tied to one class.
I don't misunderstand, I disagree. The survivability skills are far more important to a mul or a magicker than 'slightly better combat' is. If you see things differently that's ok, but that has been my experience. A slightly better slashing/piercing/etc. skill isn't as much of a boon as the myriad benefits of the stalker/miscreant class. Moving a single one (stealth) to a different class makes for better balance.
I would also recommend matching the changes with wilderness classes to the city. (ex. switching perception and focus)
But also consider switching skinning skill between stalker and adventurer.
This is with the assumption stalker has high master and aventurer has low master value of the skinning skill.
Problem is Dresan, your suggestions would change nothing, The number of people that pick infiltrator or scout would not go up, The ones taking miscreant and stalker would not go down, the types of subs taking those classes would not change and the other (stated by Brokkr) Reason for the changes is to move Infiltrator a tiny bit closer to assassin and scout to actually be a scout.
Infiltrator or scout getting master poison and scan? Who cares? Totally useless change and I believe you know that.
Now, myself, I do not really think Brokkr's proposed changes will increase the number of mages that take scout and infiltrator. My experience is, depending on the mage type You want either HIGH utility, which stalker and miscreant still would fill, Or you want Master levels of combat brute-ness, which Infiltrator and scout still would not fill.
But it might change the overall demographic some while bringing things more in line with whatever vision he has for those classes.
Quote from: X-D on August 24, 2021, 04:50:31 PM
Infiltrator or scout getting master poison and scan? Who cares? Totally useless change and I believe you know that.
Yes. It is a mostly useless change for infiltrator and miscreant. And misceants and stalker would still remain popular even if steal/skin got switched. Thats good.
However, I am not convinced that infiltrators need miscreant level stealth. Besides, scout numbers are pretty healthy if you ask me. No one seems to be concerned that enforcer numbers are in pretty bad too shape too in comparison to raiders or even fighters for that matter. :-\
If anything, I might agree low master stealth is needed and this alone would improve the numbers of players trying out the infiltrator class without ruining miscreants if staff is so inclined to improve its numbers. But Staff already mentioned not wanting to increase stealth in the game and i think the improvement numbers will come at the cost those who would have chosen enforcer (unless branching grind for enforcers sap/backstab is improved).
Yeah, the whole point is to increase popularity of clearly weaker classes. You are kind of missing the point.
Probably playing a miscreant m8. Or Stalker.
While I don't particularly believe these should be nerfed stealth wise, or we will just have the opposite problem, scouts and especially infiltrator need a boost. Low master stealth would be good enough for me to get into it. I am not too fussy so master scan prob would too. But master scan just creates a real mess of a class and low master stealth gives it viability at...you know...infiltrating.
Or give miscreant and stalker low master and inf/scout high. Works for me. I'm eager to get these changes going.
Quote from: Inks on August 25, 2021, 04:06:36 AM
Probably playing a miscreant m8. Or Stalker.
lol. ::)
I admit I am a bit biased mostly because having twink mul miscreant and mages coming to gank your mundane and the newbies around you is a bad enough experience.
Assuming Brokkr really has no intention of increasing stealth in the game, I rather not have miscreant gimped to the point of irrelevancy or infiltrators becoming the go to class for stealth.
Regardless of what is decided at the end I am curious to see the changes too.
another plea in vain here to avoid changing living characters if at all possible, or giving some sort of bump to living characters that get altered. I wrote and entire app (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=fighter&subguild=touchedwhiran) because I dislike skill overlap so much it physically pains me. If I have overlap as a result of these changes imma fite.
Quote from: X-D on August 24, 2021, 04:50:31 PM
Problem is Dresan, your suggestions would change nothing, The number of people that pick infiltrator or scout would not go up, The ones taking miscreant and stalker would not go down, the types of subs taking those classes would not change and the other (stated by Brokkr) Reason for the changes is to move Infiltrator a tiny bit closer to assassin and scout to actually be a scout.
Infiltrator or scout getting master poison and scan? Who cares? Totally useless change and I believe you know that.
Now, myself, I do not really think Brokkr's proposed changes will increase the number of mages that take scout and infiltrator. My experience is, depending on the mage type You want either HIGH utility, which stalker and miscreant still would fill, Or you want Master levels of combat brute-ness, which Infiltrator and scout still would not fill.
But it might change the overall demographic some while bringing things more in line with whatever vision he has for those classes.
Basically this, X-D actually sees the point of this and sees it clearly in an objective way. Dresan is still misunderstanding the combat power gap between infil/scout and miscreant/stalker - it will not affect how strong muls are against PCs in any meaningful way except in a few fairly specific cases of a highly trained mundane PC vs. a relatively untrained mul/gick. It just removes the 'is the best at literally every trick in the book' from stalker/miscreant and spreads that around, while still leaving stalker/miscreant pretty damn good at stealth.
People act like high advanced is some sort of death sentence, and for what stalkers and miscreants tend to do, it certainly isn't. Especially if you get a decent agi roll. It's just you can't roll a dwarf miscreant and ninja your way through the entire city after setting agi as your dump stat the way you basically can now. It just makes infiltrators and scouts a bit more useful. Both middle classes still get a bazillion skills and a large group of them at master.
Quote from: GetKanked on August 25, 2021, 10:55:14 AM
It just makes infiltrators and scouts a bit more useful. Both middle classes still get a bazillion skills and a large group of them at master.
Just for the record, infiltrator gets more total skills than miscreant as of right now. The skills miscreant has that infiltrator doesn't are brew and haggle. That's it. That's the unique flavor of miscreant if you ignore skill levels.
In exchange you give up half your weapon skills, bash, and subdue.
The primary reason people play miscreant over infilitrator is not the number of skills they get (they get fewer) but the levels that those skills are at.
Quote from: GetKanked on August 25, 2021, 10:55:14 AM
it will not affect how strong muls are against PCs in any meaningful way except in a few fairly specific cases of a highly trained mundane PC vs. a relatively untrained mul/gick.
This is pretty meaningful and important actually. :) Again I think some of your argument don't completely make sense in the context of the point you are trying to make, but thats okay, you keep being you.
I've been thinking about the reason it feels reliable steath is needed but that is for another thread.
as someone else also mentioned, miscreant has too many skills, rather than reducing caps on most effective skills, drop these to advanced:
poisoning, hunt, search, scan, listen and some more.
nerfing the skills which give miscreant its true power will either
a) reduce players playing it, or
b) will give to a rise of city elves (for those that will survive more as Miscreant), which I think is not preferred by staff.
Quote from: Narf on August 25, 2021, 11:15:07 AM
Quote from: GetKanked on August 25, 2021, 10:55:14 AM
It just makes infiltrators and scouts a bit more useful. Both middle classes still get a bazillion skills and a large group of them at master.
Just for the record, infiltrator gets more total skills than miscreant as of right now. The skills miscreant has that infiltrator doesn't are brew and haggle. That's it. That's the unique flavor of miscreant if you ignore skill levels.
In exchange you give up half your weapon skills, bash, and subdue.
The primary reason people play miscreant over infilitrator is not the number of skills they get (they get fewer) but the levels that those skills are at.
that's fair, it's more the level of the skills - they currently have 17 skills they get at Master. Dropping 3 of those to advanced isn't that big a deal, when Infiltrator has 9 they get at Master. There's quite a bit of overlap as you pointed out (and lack of brew is potentially a large shift depending on your role). In either case, Miscreants get far more skills at Master, and the majority of those are quite useful utility skills, especially at master. Infiltrators get mostly 'two-handed' and 'dual wield' type of skills at master. Useful, combat focused, but nowhere near the utility.
Quote from: Dresan on August 25, 2021, 11:17:30 AM
Quote from: GetKanked on August 25, 2021, 10:55:14 AM
it will not affect how strong muls are against PCs in any meaningful way except in a few fairly specific cases of a highly trained mundane PC vs. a relatively untrained mul/gick.
This is pretty meaningful and important actually. :) Again I think some of your argument don't completely make sense in the context of the point you are trying to make, but thats okay, you keep being you.
I've been thinking about the reason it feels reliable steath is needed but that is for another thread.
And you keep being dismissive without putting up any evidence except 'ur wrong but you keep being you lmao' - which is needlessly rude. It's a matter of opinion in some ways, but also you don't seem that familiar with how powerful a mul stalker/miscreant actually is, which is fine, not everyone has played those roles. I suggest, though, that you start engaging with what's said instead of passive aggressive attempts at ad hominems.
Quote from: GetKanked on August 25, 2021, 12:27:02 PM
It's a matter of opinion in some ways, but also you don't seem that familiar with how powerful a mul stalker/miscreant actually is, which is fine, not everyone has played those roles. I suggest, though, that you start engaging with what's said instead of passive aggressive attempts at ad hominems.
I do believe miscreant stealth is more of a concern then stalker steath . Scout already has decent numbers despite not having max stealth or skin. Not to mention Raider/anything is solid. But I digress
I will break it down though. You believe mul/mage miscreants/stalkers are powerful --- I agree with this. Where we disagree what the most important skill a miscreant brings to the table. Its not steal, perception, poison or even brew. Those are nice and useful but not as overly valuable in the current meta as max stealth.
Ultimately, its a difference of opinion and playstyle but the reasons as to why I believe an experienced player rolling mul or really any kind of mage might not care about steal, perception, poison or brew the class brings and would prefer better combat skills and perfect stealth(not to mention all the other lower level goodies infiltrator brings) would probably fall under Find out IC territory.
All mages/mul are supposed to be powerful, so the point is very likely moot. And i feel walking into town with hidden mage buffs stealthed will eventually have a reckoning, just like casting fireball in a city. However, even leaving aside mages/muls its still my just my opinion that mixing better combat of infiltrators and perfect stealth is bad for the game. I understand not all agree. Thats fine. :-\
Hey, yeah I've been cool with us disagreeing the whole time! I find poisoning, steal, scan, pick, climb, hunt, etc., etc., etc. to be important flavor components (and also very valuable skills). The slightly higher combat sort of melts into the background for the most part as a mul (and most mages) except at the absolute lowest and absolute highest levels of skills. Which is why I don't feel it's often the reason someone picks a class when they have race - mul or most gick subguilds.
The difference in combat ability is very large.
It becomes less relevant when playing a mul or most gicks is my point. There are thresholds. Also it's really not THAT large between infil and miscreant or stalker and scout. The end result can be, sure, but at the start it's not that big a gap.
A bit of a derail, but the game should give enforcers another small bone and let it start with throw and then branch crossbow/blowgun(lol).
It really feels that when this class was created staff was afraid of no-karma player playing a warrior with semi-decent stealth and maxed out backstab/sap. So they locked the somewhat better stealth and OHK behind slipknife/cutpurse.
Almost surprised bounty hunter/thug still has sap to help it out with how gated every useful skill is, but with the terrible stealth I figure its pretty balanced .
The problem is in comparision to a spiced out Raider/slipknife or Raider/cutpurse (and maybe infiltrator in the future after changes) the class over all really doesn't look very attractive. Not even mentioning after all murder for hire can be a double edge sword.
Maybe an extended subclass could be created called Master Tuluki bounty hunter with advanced ride, wilderness sneak, wilderness hide, sap, hunt and direction sense. :P
Master Chef should be made a zero karma subguild
Please discuss the proposed changes here, not other changes you want. There are already subjects open for all the other things being talked about. Enforcer is a great and extremely deadly class already, and the throw is not hard to branch at all (i.e it branches pretty low). Also I hate the way you do (lol) after elves and crossbows. I like both these things.
Not being gdb poleese here but I just want whatever changes that are going to happen, happen so I can plan my next pc, hah. There is literally a subject for all the unrelated stuff open on the first page.
Honestly, I don't think the enforcer will be affected much. The big selling point of this class, aside from sap/backstab, is its lineup of all-master combat skills. Infiltrators don't even come close to competing for that. The gap in parry skill alone makes a seriously big difference. Enforcers (and the other heavy combat classes) also have better skillgain chances than the light combat classes which, on top of the higher starting levels, makes you a solid warrior way, way faster than an infiltrator.
The enforcer's crappy stealth is almost kind of irrelevant. There are two "types" of stealth:
1) Evading detection from people who are scanning. It's what you use to spy on people, to shadow people around, to rifle through backpacks in a tavern, etc. Obviously enforcers suck at this, just like raiders, so it's not something that you ever really think about. Playing an enforcer, you're never going to put yourself in a situation where you wonder if that guy can see you.
2) Using the binary hidden state to capitalize on the various bonuses you get from being hidden. I'm trying to be sufficiently vague here, but enforcers can become perfectly adequate at utilizing this aspect of stealth in the right environment. You're not gonna fool anyone with solid scan, but that doesn't matter if all you need is a five-second window of "are you currently hidden? If yes, win!"
But that's because enforcers have the combat skills that allow them to ignore #1. Infiltrators - and certainly miscreants - do not. They need to feel pretty confident that they won't get spotted because they can't make the big dick moves that a skilled enforcer can. Having a savage backstabbin' arm isn't always enough if you can't tussle with a couple of soldiers for fifteen seconds afterwards.
That said, I always felt that it was thematically off-putting that enforcers were the best at sap and backstab. While the skills are fundamentally similar, there are some key differences. I think enforcers should be the best at sap and infiltrators the best at backstab. Sap, for one thing, does not kill you outright, so someone using it will need to be able to hold their own for some time against potential attackers while they finish the job. Backstab is more of an actual killing move, and one that you often want to pair with poisons, for which the enforcer has no aptitude while the infiltrator does. It just seems more right in my book that enforcers are the ones who use sap while infiltrators are the ones who use backstab; but the fact that infiltrators aren't as good at it as assassins were is kind of a bummer. Doubly so when they're also not that good at stealth, scan, poisoning, and frankly almost everything else that comes with the assassin package.
In my experience, backstab is the less effective of the two ambush skills, except for the fact that sap ideally leaves you with an unconscious target who must subsequently be finished off while backstab ideally (but far less often) leaves you with a straight-up dead target. Backstab, even at its highest potential with all the bells and whistles, is by no means a consistent one-hit kill. Fully optimized sap is very much a consistent one-hit knockout, you just have to deal with the fact that the job isn't done yet after you've knocked them out--whether you meant to kill them or merely rob them.
So given that enforcers have the full lineup of warrior-level combat skills and a class-defining gotcha skill in sap, which infiltrators don't even master, and which is often more effective than backstab, I think enforcers are just fine. There's just that one can of worms where you're just about forced to give up your subclass because actually branching sap/backstab is effectively impossible for 98% of characters. That's a discussion we've had a number of times, though, and Brokkr has not been persuaded to see the problem with state of weapon skillgains, so maybe the need to spend your subclass on a skill that your main class technically already gets is simply the price you pay to play an enforcer. This, if anything, is why it's unpopular. It means you can't really play an enforcer/magicker or take any serious wilderness subclass. At the end of the day, sap is a little overpowered anyway and I don't know if it's good for the game to have these OHK skills in the first place.
this is vaguely off topic but people keep saying enforcers have better backstab than infiltrator. both have master.
is this just people guessing, or do people have access to the code somehow, or did staff say this...?
Quote from: LindseyBalboa on August 28, 2021, 08:53:09 PM
this is vaguely off topic but people keep saying enforcers have better backstab than infiltrator. both have master.
is this just people guessing, or do people have access to the code somehow, or did staff say this...?
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,53783.msg1012985/topicseen.html#msg1012985
Quote
Second, as a skill moves away from the competency that is best at it (heavy combat for combat/weapon skills, heavy merchantile for crafting/barting type skills, mixed for survival skills) the maximum goes down (and generally the starting skill level to a certain base level). So lets take piercing weapons, which is a skill that every class can obtain. Heavy combat has the highest maximum skill level, at master, and have a higher starting skill level than any other competency classes have. Light combat has the next highest maximum skill level at advanced, which is less than heavy combat have, and have the same starting skill level as every other class that obtains the skill excluding heavy combat obviously. Mixed has the next highest maximum skill level at advanced, which is less than light combat. Light merchantile has the next highest maximum skill level at journeyman, which is less than mixed. Heavy merchantile has the lowest maximum skill level at journeyman, which is less than light merchantile.
While I agree with most of what Greve says on enforcer. We will not be agreeing on who should get what, It makes far more sense for Sap to be higher on the lower combat class. Backstab is FAR less dependable on the instant down but also is the skill MEANT for killing, While sap is not. And for some of us, the "finish the job part" Just means stealing that pack and keys and getting away.
I completely agree with Greve's commentary on Enforcer - numbers won't be affected at all.
At this point I think there's been a lot of good back and forth, I'm interested to see the changes happen (or not) as staff sees fit. We'll just be retreading the same ground otherwise.
Quote from: LindseyBalboa on August 28, 2021, 08:53:09 PM
this is vaguely off topic but people keep saying enforcers have better backstab than infiltrator. both have master.
is this just people guessing, or do people have access to the code somehow, or did staff say this...?
Brokkr revealed that once--incidentally in a thread suggesting soldiers get master scan, with which most posters disagreed:
Quote from: BrokkrWhen looking at all this, it is useful to remember that raider maxed "master" archery is better than scout maxed "master" archery, and likewise scout "advanced" hide is better than raider "advanced" hide.
While it doesn't specifically mention backstab, the way the classes are designed makes it obvious that the same goes for that skill.
Quote from: Greve on August 28, 2021, 08:11:24 PM
Honestly, I don't think the enforcer will be affected much. The big selling point of this class, aside from sap/backstab, is its lineup of all-master combat skills.
Master sap and backstab are their only selling points when you compare it to a class like raider which also has master level combat skills including charge and archery. The moment you add 1 karma to the mix, enforcers starts to look even worse.
A boosted infiltrator will probably cause the enforcer to become as popular as the infiltrator. And since the current numbers between enforcer and infiltrators are not that far off already ti could be argued its not a big change.
I think the staff went overboarded when they added such a severe grind to backtab/sap which i feel are the only selling point of this class. Again, i know this is just my opinion, because I feel that the other bonuses the class gets in comparison to raider are just noob traps.
QuoteMaster sap and backstab are their only selling points when you compare it to a class like raider which also has master level combat skills including charge and archery. The moment you add 1 karma to the mix, enforcers starts to look even worse.
I don't know about that. The classes are clearly meant for different things. Yes, raider gets the complimentary package of wilderness skills (which mostly just means advanced ride, direction sense and climb; noone's ever going to pick raider for wilderness stealth, and if you care about shit like forage, you can do as you please), but... it doesn't get the "HAHA MANTISHEAD" skills. Is archery good when maxed? Of course it is. We all know. But not as hilariously insane as the two ambush skills, and furthermore, you don't run around inside the city shooting a bow because that's silly. What you
do do inside a city is stealth around and knock fuckers out. That's what the enforcer is for. It's right there on the label. I think we all know by now. As I recently made a dodgy edit in my last post to imply, I think that's way stronger than it ought to be. While you occasionally hear of someone getting shot to shit in the desert, most meaningful play takes place in the cities, even in this day and age.
If anything, enforcers benefit more from karma subclasses than raiders do, if you discount the fact that enforcers almost can't take an elementalist subclass. With a karma subclass, enforcers get to start with backstab and poisoning and possibly - I don't really know - higher stealth caps (through slipknife/cutpurse/whatever?) than the class gets inherently. Meanwhile, the raider, which already has the wilderness basics covered, is more free to take a cheeky magic subclass. But there's no mundane subclass that makes you go "this is my jam!" for the raider, right? There's nothing in there that lets you bypass a stupid branching issue. Raiders start with their gotcha skill: archery. While elementalist subclasses are poweful, you don't necessarily want your character to be one of those.
Enforcers are, if we're being quite honest, meant for the 'rinth and similar environs. Let's be frank here. You play this class if you want to be the big badass who goes around turning the supposed might of the Guild (or its local equivalent) into reality. While you're not prohibited from using the class for other things, that's clearly what it's really meant for. Your city-stealth and almost-forced-to-be-mundane class is not going to sap mounted people in the desert or sell shirts in Luir's. We're talking about a class clearly meant for city play, with a predetermined bent towards the criminal spectrum. This makes sense, design-wise.
QuoteA boosted infiltrator will probably cause the enforcer to become as popular as the infiltrator. And since the current numbers between enforcer and infiltrators are not that far off already ti could be argued its not a big change.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Does "a boosted infiltrator" mean that it gets its stealth skills bumped, as per Brokkr's suggestion, or that it gets the highest possible backstab skill, as I suggested? In case of the former, I suspect that infiltrator will become the class of choice for those who wish to play a city-elf with respectable backstab, and the comparatively few who think that they can dabble in skullduggery with not-really-optimal backstab and no elven agility to skyrocket their stealth. In the latter case, it will become the first choice of anyone who wishes to play the archetypical cutthroat, regardless of race. It won't be any better than the assassin of old, though; and while there were some legendary ones, I think they were sufficiently far between not to worry about. Mainly because it's just really hard to make serious, game-hurting use of the ambush skills if you can't subsequently utilize master parry and whatnot to survive the attempt.
QuoteI think the staff went overboarded when they added such a severe grind to backtab/sap which i feel are the only selling point of this class. Again, i know this is just my opinion, because I feel that the other bonuses the class gets in comparison to raider are just noob traps.
I agree very much with that. It probably comes down to the fact that sap and backstab (but especially sap) are so comically powerful that there was a genuine concern about giving anyone easy access to the ambush skills. I consider it an oversight that you can circumvent the severe grind by simply taking one of several subclasses, some of which don't even require karma, but that is what it is. In a perfect world, there wouldn't be skills that could take someone from perfectly alive and in good health to dead and done in a literal instant, and in that same perfect game, there wouldn't be a command that removes you from combat in the room in a literal instant. It's just one of those things.
In all honesty. Gating anything behind 'grinding' is the wrong way to go. Understandably some artificial task that delays the journey of a character from a harmless mewling to a scary badass is necessary. But grinding as a concept is probably more harmful then beneficial to the game. In my opinion anyway.
I want elves to be significantly boosted personally. Switching miscreant stealth skills severely diminishes human and dwarf effectiveness, while elves can still pull it off due to their agility. I think that's a-okey.
The silly grind is a relic of the fact that combat skillgains are still gated exclusively behind having opponents dodge you, which largely stops happening after a certain point that far precedes the desired level. Staff has never shown a willingness to acknowledge that this is the case.
Elves are fine in a vacuum. They get absurd bonuses to stealth and associated skills. What scuttles the race is the fact that strength matters far too much in combat, so anytime it comes to blows, elven PCs just can't really compete. If your goal is to rob people in the Gaj, the race is fine. Anything more? Bah. If elven combat PCs were worth playing, we'd see more of them. As it stands, we see literally none. This relegates the race to mindless thievery, which most players find unsatisfying. Where are the deadly elves?
There is, almost always, at least an elf in the Byn. And there are, generally, delf and celf combat types regularly. People worry too much about being The Best, when generally 'good enough' is the actual mantra that matters in Armageddon. Yes, you're going to run into someone who [sees through your stealth/ beats you in a fight / has more money than you] or whatever else, but that doesn't mean you're pointless.
But when it happens once every four months, it lends very little substance to the game.
It happens far, far, far mroe often than that.
I am of opinion that elven weakness in a fair fight is a very well known fact. Known to any elf that survived puberty. Which means if your elf is fighting fairly 1 vs 1, he is either significantly outmatching his opponent, or he doesn't deserve to procreate.
Keeping it in the context of the conversation we are having on enforcers.
I think grinding weapon skills in the past worked because you could still learn from newbies or rats, not to mention certain agile critters. All that's changed now, so its not just about the grind, but about being being lucky enough to have opportunities to even get a chance to train. Needing to grind a skill is bad enough, but luck based grinding is even worse.
If you are a rinth based character, that could really be never with turn over rate and available npcs.
The idea that the class needs a subguild to get the class defining skills doesn't make sense and I think it should be looked at to see what could be done to improve the experience. Even if that means switching backstab/sap with infiltrator to better balance the over all classes.
Actually that might work:
- Enforcer switches backstab/sap skill values with infiltrator and the skills become starting skills on enforcer. Perhaps add watch or hunt to enforcers or gains low level poison skill
- Both Backstab/sap become gated behind parry or throw on infiltrators.
- Miscreant switches poison with infiltrator. Perhaps also loses blowgun skill
- Miscreant switches steal with Pilfer
Without touching stealth levels all the classes look a lot better like this, low master backstab on an enforcer with high combat skills is no joke especially with them being starting skills, not to mention the best chance to survive failed attempts. Where as full backstab on infiltrator makes it a tempting choice and brings it a bit closer to old assassin despite a need to train a bit more then the enforcer, while its lower level stealth and combat potential keeps it in check. Meanwhile Miscreant keeps its superior stealth but loses some of its theft potential and some of its deadliness.
This response is slightly outside the scope of this thread, so I might repost elsewhere.
There is a RULE when offering selections to someone: Only do it in "threes"
So you can choose archtype: Criminal, City, or Wilderness
Once you choose that you can pick class:
Merchant, survival, or combat
Having 5 (instead of three) means that in order to make a decision, you get hyper focused on the skills. And in my opinion, that's the wrong place for players to focus. It is best players focus on RP, not skills. By focusing on RP, the players (particularly the new players), get aligned with the spirit of the game: And RP game, not a hack and slash.
Presently, our setup orients the new player into focusing on the wrong things and it causes the experienced player to select subclasses to Meta the skills, and have an advantage code wise, over newer players.
By going from 5 to 3 selections per no class sucks, all of them are bad-ass, and each player will enjoy increased utility and play-ability for their characters. I know you like your options, but suck it up butter cup, this is better for the game.
Combat type: great at combat, okay at survival, bad at craft skills.
Survival type: Okay at combat, good at survival, okay craft skills.
Merchant type: Bat at combat, okay at survival, great at craft skills.
Survival skills are: Sneak, hide, steal, pick, hunt, skin, forage, food grebbing, etc...
Quote from: stoicreader on August 30, 2021, 11:13:48 AM
This response is slightly outside the scope of this thread, so I might repost elsewhere.
Yes, please pose this somewhere else. The entire point of this thread is provide feedback to staff on coded changes to classes.
I've talked a bit about this in the discord, but I don't know if you look over there for this sort of commentary. I don't want to read all seven pages of this, so excuse me if I rehash any points already made, or staff's position on this has diverged and the question has become something else.
I played constantly during the old days of full guilds, and was really disappointed by the change when you all worked together to separate them out into classes. I pay a lot of attention to the skill effects and try to infer what staff are going for when they make changes overall to skill levels or what is allowed within each class.
I'm mostly going to talk about stalker/infiltrator/raider in this case, as I have the most experience with these, and given the game is centered around a post-apocalyptic desert world, and surviving within that desert world, I suspect you will always see the majority of the playerbase playing these three. This is especially always going to be the case where any sorts of mages are concerned, as you already made the mages a subguild, and that means for any survival ability at all, they are forced to play in these without being willing to dedicate many hours each session for play to accommodate the demand of resources.
The change from the old guilds to these classes was a straight across nerf to both 'guilds' that had combat and stealth. Staff wanted to separate out ranger's maximum utility and also fantastic stealth/scan, on top of it's great combat skills. They also, in the process, wanted to separate assassin's high stealth/scan from its high damage dealing potential abilities. This might seem long winded, but it matters because looking at where we were is important as the game's setting has not massively changed, and much of the game is designed around these things.
For the sake of this argument I'm going to ignore any talk of 'starting point' changes of previous guilds/current classes, or the branching points, because neither bothered me in the old days, so they certainly aren't a 'beneficial change' to me now.
Stalker/Miscreant were the two new classes that essentially replaced the wilderness/city stealth-utility function of the old ranger/assassin. You took away two weapon types from the ranger stand-in, or forced players to go infiltrator and drop their stealth/scan. The loss from going miscreant compared to assassin was massive. The world hasn't changed overly much for requirements of a class to survive or do certain things in their given environment, but their skill set has.
Giving Infiltrator/Scout the high sneak is great for combat people. All this change is going to do is send people that way. The majority of your playerbase is playing a wilderness class. It's Armageddon. That's the world you live in, most people are going to play what makes sense ICly. So what happens when you inevitably force people to play scout more by giving them the max stealth? Now, all stalker has is more manipulation skills, and...scan? So few people are going to pick that in comparison to Scout that you'll just have this 'issue' all over again on the other end. Few people will be playing the builds with the needed scan (only stalker essentially) to scan-see the mass of scouts (not willing to deal with the loss of both stealth and combat to get it) that it creates a sort of feedback loop where more people play stealthies and get away with stuff.
If miscreants are an issue, because their combination of high stealth + manipulation, that's going to come down to a few things. Players should accept being stolen from at times. Not constantly, and not indefinitely as it may happen currently, but it can happen. Thieves should have actual danger of being caught even if they're a stupid high agility elf with high skill. There should be timers put in place to how fast you can attempt pick-pocketing. I don't know how you'd do it, but if a guy is sitting close to you and rifling through all of your things over and over, obviously that's bad. Address this on a player basis, not by attempting changes.
If your hope is to bring more people to playing infiltrator/scout instead of miscreant/stalker, while exchanging their stealth skills will do it, it won't fix a thing. It'll make people see even fewer stealth types doing stealthy things. More people will be complaining.
I don't agree with what you're attempting, but if you wanted that 'balance', you could take away maxed stalker/miscreant scan and give those to the one-up combat builds, but you're just going to essentially recreate the same issue. It will be to a lesser extent with the scan-flip though. At that point, the end result is still going to be no one's really playing those classes you nerfed, and you wind up with everyone playing infiltrator/scout.
It's a world thing. And considering some people come to the game to play stealthy fighters, the more you diminish these things, the more you lose them. I think it's better to stop nerfing classes because you don't want everyone playing them, and focus on how to make other classes better without impacting the popular class. Let people gravitate away for good reasons, not negative input.
Skills are not a 'resource' that staff need to be spare with. You have an infinite number in your bag of code. So, instead of 'taking' from anyone, why not just boost some classes or add skills to those that encourage more people to spread? This isn't some grand resource balancing act.
So,
Brokkr came into the Discord channel and made some announcements there.
See:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49825.msg1066051.html#msg1066051
Classes:
Heavy Combat:
Enforcer:
Reduced "proficiency" required to branch from Bash to Disarm
Raider:
Reduced "proficiency" required to branch from Kick to Disarm
Pilferer:
Steal - Master (high)
Hide - Master
Sneak - Master
Miscreant:
Steal - Master (low)
Infiltrator:
Backstab - Master (high)
Sneak - Ranger Cap
Hide - Ranger Cap
Scout:
Search - Master
Scan - Master
Sneak - Master (old Ranger Cap)
Hide - Master (old Ranger Cap)
Soldier:
Subdue - Master
Scan - Master
0 Karma Subclasses:
Bard:
Scan - Master (New Skill Added)
1 Karma Subclasses:
Wastelander:
Scan - Master (New Skill Added)
Search - Advanced (New Skill Added)
Rogue:
Search - Advanced (New Skill Added)
MajorDomo:
Scan - Master (New Skill Added)
I'll clean this up in a bit.
Thank god he didn't nerf stalker.
That was all I was worried about was that stalker was gonna get the nerf hammer.
I'm totally cool with extra stuff being added to subguilds. Some are a bit sparse and more flavor than substance.
I am busy AF but will have my app skill picker thing updated by next weekend and post when done.
A good strategy. Instead of reducing things (stealth), keeping them as is and raising its counter (scan).
Technically it is almost as same, but everyone is happier.
Quote from: triste on September 12, 2021, 09:45:32 PM
I am busy AF but will have my app skill picker thing updated by next weekend and post when done.
Thank you!
Quote from: Halaster on September 13, 2021, 09:03:16 AM
Quote from: triste on September 12, 2021, 09:45:32 PM
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.
Is this the thread where we complain about the skill changes?
This is partly joking.
Why did bard get master scan?
Quote from: Jihelu on September 14, 2021, 02:27:14 AM
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.
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.
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 06:59:21 AM
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....
Quote from: Patuk on September 14, 2021, 07:13:45 AM
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 06:59:21 AM
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.
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 06:59:21 AM
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.
Quote from: Greve on September 14, 2021, 11:42:34 AM
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 06:59:21 AM
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.
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.
I have also never trained subdue on any character in over twenty years of playing.
Is subdue really even used beyond beyond half giants?
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 12:03:01 PM
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.
Quote from: Narf on September 14, 2021, 11:58:31 AM
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.
It says it under their skill list. They are the only ones in the game with master subdue. Everyone else has advanced or worse.
Oh, yeah. True.
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.
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 10:32:55 AM
Quote from: Patuk on September 14, 2021, 07:13:45 AM
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 06:59:21 AM
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.
Quote from: Patuk on September 14, 2021, 01:55:07 PM
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.
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 03:14:17 PM
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.
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 03:14:17 PM
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.
Quote from: Pariah on September 14, 2021, 03:14:17 PM
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.
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.
Recruits in the AoD do not enforce the law, or have crime code immunity (with one minor, scripted exception).
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.
Alright, cool. I haven't played a soldier in years and I'm glad that changed!
Also.
Quote from: Greve on September 14, 2021, 04:23:59 PM
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.
This looks really good to me. Best of all worlds. Stalker keeps its PvE advantage.
Quote from: Patuk on September 14, 2021, 07:55:27 PM
Alright, cool. I haven't played a soldier in years and I'm glad that changed!
Also.
Quote from: Greve on September 14, 2021, 04:23:59 PM
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.
My guild picker thing should now be updated to reflect these changes: https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/ (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker)
Included are the skill updates staff announced (https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49825.msg1066051.html#msg1066051) and a fix for a bug reported by GetKanked (thank you!)
Feel free to report bugs here or in a GDB message to me.
The helpfile for scan says that there's a city and wilderness version of this skill. However, that's clearly not the case. If so many classes and subclasses are to have fully maxed master scan, I think it's important that the skill be divided the way listen is. If not, I think the subclasses' scan should be lowered to the level that pickpockets and assassins had, i.e. the lowest rung of <master>. Giving them all the highest possible level of scan just seems too generous. I'm leery of subclasses having any masteries at all besides crafting skills, and I definitely don't think they should get any skills to the highest possible level. It's gonna be weird when fully half of 'rinth characters from now on are bards.
Quote from: Greve on September 19, 2021, 01:49:09 PM
The helpfile for scan says that there's a city and wilderness version of this skill. However, that's clearly not the case. If so many classes and subclasses are to have fully maxed master scan, I think it's important that the skill be divided the way listen is. If not, I think the subclasses' scan should be lowered to the level that pickpockets and assassins had, i.e. the lowest rung of <master>. I'd say the same should go for Scout, too. Giving them all the highest possible level of scan just seems too generous. I'm leery of subclasses having any masteries at all besides crafting skills, and I definitely don't think they should get any skills to the highest possible level.
I've always felt the wilderness versions are silly.
Specifically listen. I can make a miscreant who can hear through doors in a few days played. But my stalkers can't hear shit being spoken at another table.
I think scan and listen should be one combined skill regardless of where you are.
I don't think I've skilled up listen wild hardly at all, because there just isn't much use for it unless you're the walk outta town sneak/hide everywhere guy.
I think it's supposed to help with detecting hidden things too but I have no idea on that or haven't experienced it.
I'm not a fan of them either, but the helpfile literally says that there's a city and wilderness version of the skill when there isn't.
It does make *some* sense, though, if you imagine that the wilderness versions have to do with listening for animals or spotting predators while the city version is about discerning conversations in a tavern or spotting criminals. Still, it's just awkward gameplay-wise, and wilderness listen is nearly impossible to raise if you're not in a d-elf tribe. But if so many classes and subclasses are to have fully top-tier scan, I do think that there has to be some caveat. It's just too much as it is. Feels like an irrational knee-jerk reaction to boosting the hide skill of two classes by 5%.