Feedback: Proposed Skill Changes that could Impact You

Started by Brokkr, August 11, 2021, 12:22:39 PM

August 18, 2021, 01:57:19 PM #100 Last Edit: August 18, 2021, 01:59:13 PM by Brytta Léofa
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."
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August 18, 2021, 03:07:41 PM #101 Last Edit: August 18, 2021, 07:53:13 PM by Dresan
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.
-Stoa

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.
-Stoa

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.
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August 20, 2021, 04:28:13 PM #111 Last Edit: August 20, 2021, 04:54:14 PM by Dresan
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!
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August 20, 2021, 07:09:25 PM #113 Last Edit: August 20, 2021, 07:13:53 PM by Dresan
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!
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August 21, 2021, 08:35:26 AM #115 Last Edit: August 21, 2021, 08:39:12 AM by Knight of Knives
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

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August 22, 2021, 05:46:48 PM #121 Last Edit: August 22, 2021, 06:13:12 PM by Dresan
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