Class and School Breakup September '19

[Alkalin3]

@jerrett That's a not bad idea for another month!

We have the rest of our lives, and I don't want to run out of things to make infographs from. Look how much I've grown in the past few months!

I'm really happy this has caused some discussion. The forums can be a bit dead. So, I love participation at a national level.

 

[Xanian]

I really appreciate the thoughtful examples given for why people like rogue. As stated, I saw what I consider to be a potential problem (the amount of rogues and rogue hybrids compared to the other options), an example of what I believe may be a determining factor in why this is, and a potential solution.

I would really like to hear other ideas on why other people may theorize that rogues seem underrepresented. What other weaknesses are people seeing that may make people disinterested in that class and playstyle?

In other larps I play (and other fantasy games in different media), rogues tend to be fairly popular. Hell, in a specific zombie game I played you couldn't swing your arms around without hitting a couple assassins. While I think the flavor of this game world and the way this game is played surely influences these choices, I can't help but think there may be a greater underlying cause.

 

[Feldor]

Honestly, I think due to the nature of the game, it makes a lot of sense that you have a lot fewer rogues than fighters. If they are close to 1:1, that probably means rogue is way to good. The nature of the genre tends to have a lot of the stories the require a line of fighters for a small rogue group to sneak around or flank with. And while I've played fun non-alliance-larp-like events where the mechanics require rogue-style playing, its absolutely not compelling as a sustained play style in a campaign woods larp. You can't really have epic field battles without front line fighters. (I say, as a scholar with a shield who ends up in the shield wall to often.)

 

[Paladin of Earth]

Just thought I would jump on and point out this is a great example of how it can be far too easy to assign tone that was not meant in an internet discussion. Just always remember tone in forum/facebook/discord/ect conversations can often be misleading or misread since we are missing the majority of ques we normally have during a conversation.

With that said great conversation! Keep it going! Just could not pass up a great example on inferred tone...which in this case corrected itself and kept productive!!

 

[Xanian]

Man, I know that shield scholar life. Solidarity, brother.

 

[MaxIrons]

I've got a full plate Scout that is absolutely going to shift fighter. As an alt from years of NPC work he entered game with like 27 WEA, 3 Profs, 3 Backstab and 1 Blacksmith, he's now up to 13 Blacksmith and I'm working on getting to 20, then going full Fast Refit while searching for Sturdy Armor. 10 second refits for the win. Any effect stops him, but he's absolutely a damage sponge. I'll never forget after the armor doubling ritual standing toe to to with the BBEG getting hit with 5x 30 massive and still walking away.

After that I'll likely just get 2x each of racial resists, and then go prof/backstab/resist/resist in order until the heat death of the universe.

 

[Kitaruen]

I think feldor is right on, its the nature of a game where alot of combat will be line fights or path battles.

I would never expect rogues to be played equally to fighters but do hope for them to be fun for those who do play them.

 

[Tantarus]

I would really like to hear other ideas on why other people may theorize that rogues seem underrepresented. What other weaknesses are people seeing that may make people disinterested in that class and playstyle?

I think it is alot of things, here is a list in no real order.

1) As someone touched on earlier, rogue takes the most real oog skill as well as physical fitness level of any class.

2) It is a high risk class as when you are running around the field you can get dropped and you might not get rescued.

3) Some chapters fight in more formation and line battles, which are not great for rogues.

4) Mods are not great for rogues many times because it is hard to get someones back.

5) Unintentional metagaming by npcs. Meaning that after a while people stop giving you there back cause they know you are a rogue and have wrecked them so many times. Double hookers tend to do this to me the most for some reason. I have had people give up there back to a fighter to not give it up to me, when I have not hit them yet.

6) Rogue's true capstone is dodge, and it is easily made into an item which with the rebuild are pretty common, I am a level 44 rogue and I know most fighters can dodge more times then I can with 1 shots. So until those get used up, rogue is less appealing, imo. Personally I think skill store should not allow dodge, if not completely removed. Think of how the scaling could change if not every pc had access to dodges for no build.

7) Doom blow is underwhelming compared to eviscerate. And many of the rogue skill strikes are not real useful in practice.

 

[Mori]

Are other chapters seeing Rogue archers? I haven't seen any, personally. The lack of the 1.5 multiplier Fighters get from profs on bows and it taking 3 buys of Improved Assassinate/Improved Slay before Assassinate catches up to Slay heavy crossbow damage has thus far seemed to be dealbreakers.

 

[jerrett]

7 valid points

Certainly would agree with a lot of these points as major reasons for the lower % with rogues being played. I think a lot of players would rather call 6s with a shortsword vs 2/6s for the same build investment (fighter vs rogue). I think the tradeoff rogues get of having dodge (which is very powerful) helps to balance some of that out. Some players will want the challenge of being more effective from the back and that being something that very much engages them while others aren't interested in that so it may be a player preference thing.

I think the rogue #s will be self-limiting to an extent, too. More fighters present make having rogues around much better in my opinion.

I do think that the cost of getting up to calling 2s/20s is quite high so stopping at 2s/10s is a quick and easy stop for a lot of people which means that +4 backstab isn't an enormous investment so the fact of viewing a rogue as a long-term high level character might be less appealing to some folks, too. This may also make more people splash over to the other rogue-touching classes though the percentages between rogues doing this and scholar/fighters doing this seem similar.

 

[Mori]

(My hypothesis on Scout is the lack of Improved Slay/Improved Assassinate synergy leaves them with significantly less damage output than either class could get alone, given how important those bursts are being.)

 

[Xanian]

Given that there are underlying game issues which hold rogue back (points 3-5, which I completely agree with), I would consider as another reason on why we may want to consider, as a game, giving them a bit of a nudge. Balancing a game is not easy.

I am going to be keeping an eye out when I go to events to see how things play out, given the information people have said. It is just really hard for me to grasp a core of a melee character swinging minimum base damage. As a scholar with a ton of spells, I found swinging base damage was largely ignored by NPCs and got me jumped, as they knew they could kill me before I did them any significant damage. I can't imagine playing a rogue without profs is much different.

 

[Tantarus]

I can't imagine playing a rogue without profs is much different.

I have 2 profs and 8 backstabs. It is only a few more build over all then 9 backstabs. That said I have considered dropping the profs as the between that and riposte I have 20% of my build in fighter skills so denying me alot of prereq for stealth stuff.

Though I might just buy 4 mettles to help keep my dodges.

I go back and forth, honestly 4 damage is that much different then 2 when compared to the 20s I do from behind. I do think some people are discounting static damage. But I can grind all day with the best of them. And on big bad surround them fights, I dont need to expend an skills while still putting up big numbers. I only have a 25% of my possible waylays atm. Because most things die to 3-5 hits I get on them from behind anyhow.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

5) Unintentional metagaming by npcs. Meaning that after a while people stop giving you their back cause they know you are a rogue and have wrecked them so many times. Double hookers tend to do this to me the most for some reason. I have had people give up their back to a fighter to not give it up to me, when I have not hit them yet.

I don't know if this is a massive contributing factor to overall low numbers, but I do know that it is something that I personally notice a lot while trying to rogue, and make a real effort to not do when NPCing.

 

[Tantarus]

I don't know if this is a massive contributing factor to overall low numbers, but I do know that it is something that I personally notice a lot while trying to rogue, and make a real effort to not do when NPCing.

Fair enough, but it is a major frustration for rogues. So I think in the long run people might move away from the class after having to deal with it so much. It is just starting to set in again for me after class changing for 2.0 :/ It was the reason I moved away from rogue back in the late 90s too. I just kinda learned to accept it as part of the game though, when I made the choice to go back to rogue this year.

 

[Xanian]

I have 2 profs and 8 backstabs. It is only a few more build over all then 9 backstabs. That said I have considered dropping the profs as the between that and riposte I have 20% of my build in fighter skills so denying me alot of prereq for stealth stuff.

Though I might just buy 4 mettles to help keep my dodges.

I go back and forth, honestly 4 damage is that much different then 2 when compared to the 20s I do from behind. I do think some people are discounting static damage. But I can grind all day with the best of them. And on big bad surround them fights, I dont need to expend an skills while still putting up big numbers. I only have a 25% of my possible waylays atm. Because most things die to 3-5 hits I get on them from behind anyhow.

Right, I think that static damage is still something that matters. Maybe I am wrong (wouldn't be the first time). The main point of my change would make it so a rogue at a given level can be balanced close to doing half the damage of a fighter in front, and twice in back (for instance, if a fighter is swinging 10s at a build level, a rogue can get 5s/20s). Little nudges, in the long run that reinforce the narrative of what people see rogues do.

I totally respect if people don't think it is needed, but I think it would allow more people to play and have fun with the class and can make up for some of the environmental/accidental metagaming that hurts their gameplay.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

Are other chapters seeing Rogue archers? I haven't seen any, personally. The lack of the 1.5 multiplier Fighters get from profs on bows and it taking 3 buys of Improved Assassinate/Improved Slay before Assassinate catches up to Slay heavy crossbow damage has thus far seemed to be dealbreakers.

In my experience it is quite common for Rogues (and Adepts!) to grab archery and often default to longbow/shortsword as the most versatile base weapon set. Yeah, the base damage is lower than a Fighter's would be, but the ability to meditate back Assassinates (or United Blow spells!) makes it an easy way to contribute quite a bit when you can't reliably grab someone's back.

 

[Tantarus]

In my experience it is quite common for Rogues (and Adepts!) to grab archery and often default to longbow/shortsword as the most versatile base weapon set. Yeah, the base damage is lower than a Fighter's would be, but the ability to meditate back Assassinates (or United Blow spells!) makes it an easy way to contribute quite a bit when you can't reliably grab someone's back.

So my issue with this is another oog issue. People are bad about taking arrow packets, especially at night. Unless you are facing them. But I like to take shots of opportunity, like a rogue. And I find many times people dont acknowledge or even register hits like that. And yes you can point it out to them, but that takes alot of time, and gets old fast.

I actually use thrown weapons, they only work at like 10 feet but they tend to get taken more. Mostly just so I can throw out my big numbers from the front if needed. Also then I dont need to carry a 3rd boffer item, but just have some thrown weapons in my pouch.

Another oog issue, is recovering arrows at night, blue packets suck to find at night. For the record I use White thrown weapons...

Obv this is just personal preference.

 

[jerrett]

As a scholar with a ton of spells, I found swinging base damage was largely ignored by NPCs and got me jumped, as they knew they could kill me before I did them any significant damage. I can't imagine playing a rogue without profs is much different.

If someone ignores me (as a rogue pc) that's the best possible outcome. If I'm calling base damage and you're distracted by the fighter calling more at your side that's a victory for the rogue. You are correct in not having profs making it much harder to fight things 1v1 (I suspect this is the appeal of a scout). But you have to remember rogue still can access riposte/opportunistic/alchemy at good costs which all allow them to be effective in a 1v1 frontal fight.

Scholar has its own playstyle sub-game, right? You're wildly dangerous from 10 to 20 feet away, less dangerous beyond twenty, and in danger within 10 feet of a foe. Rogues have a similar sub-game of positioning they have to do that just involves angles instead of distance.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

So my issue with this is another oog issue. People are bad about taking arrow packets, especially at night. Unless you are facing them. But I like to take shots of opportunity, like a rogue. And I find many times people dont acknowledge or even register hits like that. And yes you can point it out to them, but that takes alot of time, and gets old fast.

I actually use thrown weapons, they only work at like 10 feet but they tend to get taken more. Mostly just so I can throw out my big numbers from the front if needed. Also then I dont need to carry a 3rd boffer item, but just have some thrown weapons in my pouch.

Another oog issue, is recovering arrows at night, blue packets suck to find at night. For the record I use White thrown weapons...

Obv this is just personal preference.

For sure. I think, actually, that is one of the reasons why Fighter may be more popular than Rogue: it's literally and idiomatically much more straightforward. If your general goal is "Hit monster until it falls down" then Fighter is a much simpler path to that end point. Rogue-style fighting is objectively more complicated, and I think that that probably dissuades a lot of people from going that route.

@Xanian, I feel like I should say that you do probably have a fair point that in comparison to Fighter, Rogue has an Ease Of Use disadvantage. To some extent that is accepted in the design, and there is a conscious decision not to overtune Rogues to compensate because that can cause a pretty toxic game environment. There were absolutely some conversations about making Rogues less feast-or-famine based on the situation, but ultimately the feeling was that they're in a pretty good place. I personally liked the idea of giving Backstab some level of scaling for all melee damage, but honestly there isn't a great way to bring Rogues up to Fighters in that Ease Of Use category that doesn't result in Scout getting scary good. As it is, I think the most surprising number in the break down to me was the very small number of Scouts; personally, I think it's an incredibly strong class that everyone who likes stick-jockery should make a point to try, even if it's just while NPCing. It's not that far behind Fighter in the all-day damage and in fluid fights is well ahead. It was pointed out earlier in this thread that their Slay/Assassinate scaling lags, but good gracious is a Scout hard to kill.