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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Always have been against the concept of Rogues only being viable in combat when they ambush opponents, and a class that only gets the kill 1/21 times doesn't seem very balanced. If Rogues NEED to get an opener to win a fight, it makes their best counter other rogues, which is not a healthy balance choice.
Rogues SHOULD be able to win against any class, although some classes should be difficult to win against, and some should be easier, for example, Rogues SHOULD generally win fights when they ambush Mages / other ranged DPS, but if the target has no counter play, or no chance to come out on top, it just becomes a boring game of rock paper scissors.
Rogues should not generally outperform fighters at fighting, but if they cannot, then why even give them swords / daggers? A skilled Rogue should be able to beat a fighter with some difficulty.
The reason why rogues are so broken is because they can pick what fights they want, and they can even choose to leave the fight if they want. Why would a Rogue ever choose to pick a losing fight? If you do not have true invisibility, it sort of removes that safety net, especially in the case of Restealth, since a perceptive player will still be able to see you and attack you.
Also, as you get closer to a target as a Rogue, you get easier and easier to spot as a shimmering translucent blob, openers are not guaranteed unless your target is really careless, and Rogues should be able to hold their own even in a botched opener.
A successful opener should not be a guaranteed advantage you are given, but also not the crutch by which the class is defined.
I liked that you didn’t have to be in stealth to be useful. You managed combos, bleeds, and poisons to maximize DPS. I expect that being a Rogue in AoC will be more than stealth also.
1) Have stealth/invisibility not be permanent. I think this is what leads to a lot of abusive play. If not permanent then it actually allows for counter-play.
2) Allow any permanent invisibility to only exist if you remain still. (Movement would break it)
I've played a lot of mmos and I feel stealth is always a problem when it is permanent and you can move freely. If either of these two scenarios I presented exist. The mechanic has enough counter-play for it to exist, be interesting but not abusive.
Of course for those worried about stealth a stealth seeing skill on another class is always useful to help balance. I personally would prefer total invisability as opposed to a shimmer for no longer than 45 seconds .
Anyone who has played stealth before knows the rush that is had when walking in stealth and having a red name in stealth appear next to you passing by. It's a mini game in it's own right.
The thing is, with hard counters, should one class might be the best 1v1 verse MOST classes, but then people will counter it by playing the hard counter class, and then that class may be deemed the strongest as everyone else went for the class that beats MOST classes. I think at the end of the day. Most people in AoC will just play the class they want to play the most.
But back to the rogue's c.
I usually play a rogue type class. I like the idea of high risk and high reward in melee range DPS. Where's a warrior may do similar damage or more as well as be tankier. It's not my preferred playstyle. I know Steven plays DnD so I hope Rogues will get a multiplier to their damage when attacking from behind, but otherwise, be weaker than Warriors. It just feels more rewarding when you pull off combos than just going head to head in a battle.
And it seems Rogues are already have nerfed invisibility. Sure, the first 3-4 weeks, it will seem as invisible as being not there. But seasoned starcraft players will tell you otherwise. And the stealth will be as good as nothing once people get an eye for it.
But it should be fun regardless, as Rogues can be powerhouses with their abilities due to the nature of themselves. They're not ranged. They're not tanky. Which is why rogues tend to be overturned to make up for the bulk of the terrible rogue players. As, again, they're high risk, high reward. Any pro rogue will usually create huge havoc for the more casual player. Rogues are all about outplaying, gaining an advantage where they otherwise wouldn't.
Apart from the invisible skill, they have yet to list any abilities for the rogue, so it will be interesting to see how they will design will come along. Be it poisons, or bleed and what the average TTK will be one we're in-game, not just for the rogue but for the game in general.
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Rogues will have 'op' stealth mechanics due to being squishy, having less survivability and defensive features. This class has always been an ambush class and relies on picking and choosing fights to open on and quickly get out of there before detection.
I understand the frustrations about rogues being able to stealth and have high damage but this comes with defensive sacrifices (depending on the games ofc)
MMORPG classes are generally designed with rock paper scissors in mind, im sure the stealthy classes can be annoying to some degree but I feel there will be mechanics which will prevent them from being 'op'. What is more op, stealth with some damage, cc and low survivability or no stealth, tons of health, armor and healing capabilities along with cc?
Nightblades are not OP. Anybody knows how to counter them can make quick work of them.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
I can totally see you walking around and suddenly everything explodes into a giant fireball around you.
"Huh, i thought the leaf there twitched. Meh."
Never forget guys, that Polymorph is a thing and it is awesome.
Rogues being agile, smooth and at the same time putting out very much damage is their literal strength. Their weakness typically is that if they don't get the opener, they are compromised and lose control of the situation very very quickly.
He never stated that he wants all of them removed.
He simply implied that all of them coming together on one class is a bit much.
Maybe read more carefully next time.
Thing about this topic is that 75% of the discussion here would depend on balancing and the other 25% on the actual class.
Since you can combine your primary with a lot of different secondary classes chances are there will be different rogue types excelling in different areas of the class fantasy.
So a general rogue balancing discussion seems really early to me.
But as a general thought, I never felt like rogues were a strong class overall in any mass pvp game.
Rogues excel in 1vs1 but they usually have barely any aoe, buffs or anything helpful for large scale pvp.
Therefore I assume we will see very little impact on things like sieges and more rogues playing arena stuff or world pvp.
The problem is the combination of burst, cc, and high damage. Burst damage is supposed to come with huge drawbacks, but in WoW it doesn't. Since half the classes in the game just do burst.
I hope they don't do burst damage and do hybrid damage instead. Which is a combination of burst and consistent. Their burst hits are lower than pure burst classes, but they do more damage over a period of time. That way there is more strategy around when you uncloak and in what situations you do. Not a big fan of the near instantly killing someone and then going right back into safe mode with stealth.
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My solution would be more based on a real life assassin where invisibility is not an option, but camouflage is. Which it sounds like AoC is kind of going for. Maybe their armor is like a gilly suit that when set up correctly allows them to blend into the background instead of invisible. And as you level up your camo ability you are able to build a more effective gilly suit.
In any case rogue will be my first alt just to move around the open world and exploration without being ganked.
As i come from WoW, i can tell you for sure, as i also main rogue there too. Feral Druid, Beast Mastery Hunter, Survival Hunter, Arms Warrior, Fury Warrior, sometimes Warlocks, Retribution Paladin are hard counter for rogues, especially in PvP. Yes, people think that rogues are OP, but that is only because, some rogue with endgame gear decided to pop you up while you havent really started the end game gearing yourself.
That could be true but maybe ... just maybe you could look up actual data for a second.
(e.g. https://www.worldofwargraphs.com/pvp-stats/classes)
If you do you can see that among dps classes in pvp rogues are actually the most popular.
In fact they are extremely overrepresented at most ratings.
While this overrepresentation is no direct proof of them being op.
It seems they either get played by a lot more players or the players that play them are generally more successful.
I think that makes them being op more likely than rogues being exactly balanced.
Also I think it isn't exactly coincidence that the first guy to break the 3k rating in wow was in fact ....
....a rogue. RIP Reckful
Yes, if you are fighting a player who outgears you, outlevels you, and/or has a lot more experience than you in PvP then they will wreck you. The idea of someone who can turn invisible and temporarily stun you seems scary but if the classes are balanced properly they will have drawbacks you can take advantage of, such as not being very tough or having little to no self-healing.
A good player can make any class “OP”, but it’s really just them being great players. Rogues are generally the most rewarding for skilled gameplay. Low floor, high ceiling, very steep learning curve.
As for the high rogue population, yes obviously. Edgy thieves have always been popular.
The thing is that there are extremely talented players on basically every class.
Therefore you could assume that it is very likely that there is a point where skill stopps mattering too much because the means of winning cannot be archieved by being more skilled.
At least once a hypothetical ceiling has been reached.
If you go further from this point, you may reallize that one guy getting over 3k while other's don't indicates that the anomaly is not created by skill, but something else in combination with skill.
Since arena is at least 2vs2 it could be the synergy with his mate or strategy, but it could just as well be rougues being a bit stronger than the rest of the bunch.
But simply saying he was more skilled in a playerbase that huge seems kind of unlikely to me.
I don't think he was killing kittens to get to 3k, his opponents must have been skilled as well.
It is just a little thought experiment though.
Like I said, rogues are typically low skill floor and high skill ceiling. It takes more skill to get the most of a rogue than it does to make the most of a fighter, for example.
They can be the worst of the worst, or the best of the best, depending on the skill of the one playing the rogue and the skill of the ones supporting and opposing the rogue.
(And yes that was my fault!)
Alright well since i've played rogue's in quite a few games I'm happy to chime in on the subject.
1) Generally speaking stealth slows the rogue, if unstealthed they should have "highly" mobile speed due to the likely hood their dexterity and or agility skills are substantially higher than most classes. In terms of damage it's the risk/reward trade off that comes with the class since they typically are glass cannons it's like saying a pure damage mage shouldn't be able to do as much damage because "that's not fair".
2) Yes of course they should be able to do this, the point in the rogue is to attack "soft" targets and kill them. Due to their low hit points if they can't lock a target down they generally won't win the fight.
3) While they generally have good CC I'm not sure where the theory it's the best in "the game" which ever that is.
4) So they're tanks, top tier damage, can health themselves and stealth? Why would anyone play anything but rogues.
5) What game are you even referencing? I've never played a rogue that was a realistic concept.
6) "almost guaranteed ability" what abilities are these? Are you referring to their ability to stealth?
7) Rogues should have some escape ability obviously there are balance issues so again I have no idea what game you're drawing these results from.
8) None of my rogues have been able to heal themselves unless it was some form of ranger/rogue or bard/rogue or I had some life steal weapons.
While the class information for rogues in this game is very vague right now what you should keep in mind is that the classes are going to be skill point based so taking all of your concerns into consideration a rogue likely wouldn't be very good at all 8 of them. Maybe they'll be able to tier their stealth up to "mount speed" if they max out the stealth skill, but then they likely won't be "tanks" or "self heal" or these other misconceptions of general rogue play because they won't have enough skill points for it. In games that just let you max out all of the classes abilities may have played differently.
Frankly your write up makes me believe you've never once played a rogue. Rogues are designed to kill 1 person at a time and then escape/vanish to rinse and repeat. Generally if they get CC'd themselves they're dead or if they get too much Pvp aggro because their HP total is low. In most 1v1 scenarios a rogue SHOULD win the fight if they get the open on you. However that is going to be class dependent too. If it's some max HP/Armor warrior the rogue likely is going to look like a fool.
Intrepid has said this is going to be rock/paper/scissors class system designed around team/group composition. What this means is not every character is going to be good in 1v1 scenarios. Some characters are going to die to rogues and some are going to make rogues look dumb.
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Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
OP came from ESO, where the only viable way to play the rogue class is the go full tank and forgo invisibility in the first place. Basically, the rogue class sucks in PvP unless you play it like a drain tank. (And the healer class is the best PvE DPS which really just shows you how poorly designed the class system in that game is in general)
Years ago in ESO there were passives and other movement stacking abilities that let players essentially sprint while stealthed, helped by one passive in the Nightblade toolkit but for the most part every class could make use of it. However movespeed builds have been gutted, not that they were good for anything but gathering and scouting anyway.
No, seriously.
As long as it's:
and not
Stealth nightblades have been quite viable depending on the meta. They definitely are now. A proper non cp stealth build can be really strong. It's just a really challenging playstyle. The only place where you really see the tanky nightblades variants are in competitive duels but nightblades are outclassed by a lot of the other classes so you rarely see them.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
The thing with rogues in wow is that they synergize extremely well with all the other classes, and have a kit designed for pvp, like poisons that do dmg or reduce healing taken, stun, blind and the ability to use Vanish, which puts you in stealth even if u are in combat and has 2 min cd. People play they the most cause theu bring the most utility to arena teams than any other class. As far as dpsing in arena goes, a mage with fire specialization has a pvp talent called Greater Pyroblast, which is a spell that takes 4 seconds to cas but does 30% of the target's max hp in damage, and the rogue doesnt have anything close to that amount of damage done in 1 hit. I hope this brings more light on the matter at hand.