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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Dev Discussion #74 - Rogue Archetype
Dev Discussions are an opportunity to join in on player discussions about topics that Intrepid Studios want to hear your thoughts on. This is less about asking us questions, and more about us asking YOU the questions! If you do have questions about Ashes of Creation, keep an eye our social media channels for our monthly livestreams, check out the Ashes of Creation community wiki, or try the #questions channel in Discord!
In this thread, we’ll be discussing:
Dev Discussion - Rogue Archetype
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The Development Team wants your thoughts on the new Rogue Archetype! What are your first impressions of the Rogue? Do you have any thoughts or concerns regarding the Rogue? What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of the Rogue so far?
Edit - The team is looking for feedback on the following:
(As you share feedback, please note what level your Rogue is at!)
- General Rogue Feedback - What feels fun, and what doesn’t? Which abilities do you like best, and which abilities do you feel need the most improvement?
- Visual Effects (VFX) and Sound Effects (SFX) - How do you feel about current VFX and SFX for the Rogue archetype? While these are a work in progress, we want to know what you like, and what you don’t.
- Rogue Class Mechanic “Advantage” - How does it feel to generate this resource and spend it to empower abilities?
- Rogue Stealth - How does this feel to use in PvE? How does this feel to use in PvP?
- Dagger Weapon Combos - What do you like about Dagger weapon combos, and what do you feel needs improvement?
Please don't feel limited to the thought-starters above! Feel free to share any thoughts, concerns, or stories regarding gathering with us in this Dev Discussion.
2
Comments
My first impression is quite positive, and it seems to be in a direction I will personally like. I see good mobility, combos that require skill and planning, bleed, spell resets, obviously stealth.
My first thoughts on stealth in PvE:
- The range restriction on the stealth activation feels bad—it should lowered (~5-10m) or even removed if no actor has a line of sight on me—the line of sight factor being particularly important.
- It's unintuitive that stealth is not a permanent toggle. It lasts long enough to "forget" that you have it, and then it goes on cooldown so you can't re-activate. I assume that it's like this in order to plan its usage, but in practice, and due to the range restriction, it's unpractical to use and not very assassin-like.
- In addition to the above two points, the cooldown after de-activation should be removed—there's not much point in it because of the activation restrictions.
- The stealth sound effect is quite loud and I don't think it's very representative of what it is... it doesn't feel like I'm entering stealth
- After some more time playing, I found out a nameplate issue: sometimes, I can see stealthed players when they are within 15-30m of me because their nameplate appears.
The other things I noticed, for now:
- "Throw" hitting two enemies is very unpractical. I would generally use that ability to pull a mob away from a group, otherwise I'd engage with feint or shadow step. The second hit should be an upgrade, not by default.
- Feint's range is slightly too low in my opinion. Also, terrain blocks it in a weird way right now—it should require line of sight to be cast.
- Acrobatic strike's should detect before cast if the back of the target is not accessible, and in this situation do something else (or not be castable). Right now it feels bugged when this happens.
- Acrobatic strike's "off balance" is bugged: targets can turn around instantly, and they usually are turned even before I land. I also think that the character should land facing to the target, instead of facing away, but if "off balance" is fixed that would be less of an issue.
- Poisons being combat abilities that only last 10 seconds don't feel great and add quite the overhead to fights. I'd prefer having to apply a specific poison before a fight (with a cast time), and having it last a few minutes (eg. 20)
- The synergy of Soothing Shadows and Stealth seems abusive. Currently, it's like Soothing Shadows has a 10s cd, and spamming stealth to heal seems like something that shouldn't be a mechanic. Combined with my feedback about stealth above, Soothing Shadows could be a passive that increases health regeneration while stealthed instead of when entering stealth. To nerf it, it could have a maximum HP threshold, though I'm not sure I like that.
Finally, the positives:
- The potential of combos and the skill required to get them right is impressive. It's very appealing.
- Advantage is a fun mechanic.
- The feeling of autoattacks with daggers is very good. Autos are fast and feel impactful.
- The highlighting of spells that will give a stack of Advantage depending on the context is very nice.
- Generally speaking, and this is the most important, the direction of the skills and gameplay feel very appealing and I think it will please the majority of people who play assassin/rogue
The advantage resource seems fun and its sensible for a rogue.
If the rogue could block or dodge would be cool gaining advantage.
I wouldn’t put much emphasis on AoE for the rogue. Instead, maybe have a skill that if he lands a critical hit, he’d get a buff to his critical chance on the next target, as long as it’s a different one. The idea would be chaining criticals while reducing his resistances making him more exposed and way more deadly. Then reduce these effects faster if you’re stacking too many of this skill, and reduce them slowly if your stack is small.
It’d be more fun to make the rogue not just sneaky, but a sneaky character that goes crazy on people when he steps out of the shadows, he could unleash extreme violence. He’d come out to kill or be killed, not to drag out a long fight like a tank and do AoE jumpy stuff.
This way he would be more like John Wick and that's what people wanna be, people wanaa be John Wick.
The red outline you developed helps, but it's still not great. I'm used to Classic WoW where if you're out of combat you can always Stealth, and if you are in combat you need to use a long cd called Vanish. That feels better for me.
Speaking of that, getting out of combat needs to be faster. There's always some annoying delay after the mob dies where you're still in combat, but that's not a Rogue thing.
This post nailed it for me as well. I also think the first poster was spot on. Acrobatic strike is no good because it does not do what it says and you are also facing away from the target. Is it supposed to be a skill to help you get away maybe? Flurry charges do not seem to work consistently like a charge would. The skill goes on cooldown with charges and you can't use it? not sure how it is supposed to work either. Feint feels great if it had Off Balance that worked it would be "Chef's Kiss". I also agree that throw should be single target base. 20s cooldown seems to long for a skill that wants to be dedicated aoe When not much else is dedicated AOE.
If I could have a wish it would be that Stealth would be more LOS dependent. so much great terrain and obstacles but the goblin is to close on the other side of this big rock with his back turned to me...
I think THIS is how a first iteration should be. Even if not all skills / mechanics end up making it in their current form for the "final" Rogue, exploring these is never a waste.
You should definitely apply whatever design methods/workflow you've used to create the rogue to some other archetypes. A few of them are in dire need of more creativity / class fantasy, especially Tank, Ranger and Cleric IMO. They need bolder, more risky design decisions, without any regard for balance, the kind of decisions that can only be made now and not at a later stage of development.
For my main point of feedback: I think the rogue has both too little movement, and too much movement.
Too little relatively to other archetypes, but too much for the kind of tactical combat I enjoy in an MMORPG.
And all of this leads back to my absolute biggest issue with AoC's combat in general: the "Universal Skill System".
I have no problem with dodge and block being a shared mechanic, quite the opposite, it allows designers to create encounters with more freedom because every player has access to these 2 tools.
However, universal dodge and block augments should not exist.
It levels the playing field way too much and takes away 2 very powerful tools to define class fantasies from designers. I was glad when I saw "Dash" in the rogue talent tree, but even though it was a step in the right direction, having a few class specific augments on top of the shared ones just won't be enough.
The shared mechanics for dodging especially are way too impactful. 2 dodge jumps and you are pretty much out of render range in some cases. Every archetype having access to this ON TOP of their own movement skills turns everyone into a ninja. And when everyone is a ninja, nobody is, which is my issue with the relative movement mechanics of the rogue.
I'll keep it short for blocking, because it's off topic here, but it's just kinda the same thing as dodging. Although it's not as impactful across all fights, it definitely takes away from the tank archetype.
Oh and about sprinting.. I just don't know why that even exists in a world where we have mounts already. The speed difference between it and normal running does not warrant its existence for encounter design reasons like blocking and dodging. I think this should be just straight up removed.
Maybe increase the default run speed of characters a bit, maybe distribute some more archetype-specific sprints that are actually impactful (for archetypes that it makes sense for.) The current sprint does not deserve it's own, separate key binding, that's for sure.
IMO, if the Universal Skill System was removed, combat would be better by default, even without distributing parts of the removed augments to the archetypes where they belong.
Comboing different abilities together feels great and responsive.
Comboing abilities with weapon attacks does not feel great. If i have all auto-attack settings disabled and hold LMB for weapon attacks, sometimes doing abilities after weapon combo attacks hit it feels like abilities don't go off when i press them. Feels like some tuning needed.
Don't really like i have to weapon attack once for flurry/thrash to count towards weapon chain. Maybe would feel better if they counted as part of the weapon chain without having to do 1 weapon attack first.
Having range weapon out , pressing melee ability swaps to melee weapon. Some abilities like Throw swap it back to range weapon and make you mess up your rotation.
Do not like the range requirement on death's mark.
Acrobatic Strike feels too slow.
(As you share feedback, please note what level your Rogue is at!)
The direction is very well done, and it makes me proud to finally receive my home class.
First, I believe in time the cd of stealth and its recast function will be worked out. (For whatever reason we have to be at a distance to recast, when we're already in stealth?! yea... not thought out, but i believe the reason was to push the regen ability...but why even need to recast? If we're in stealth, why not just make it a standard passive?) since its a variance of "true stealth" it shouldn't require such restrictions. Being a simple passive isn't going to break the immersion, and its not OP as I've seen people say. We all know, 200+ tics of health every second is nice, but a fighter, mage, or even twink'd druid can blow right through that given the squishy nature of the rogue.
I LOOOOVE the sound Stealth makes though... It hypes me up, and in contrast to a smoke bomb sound, or Wow's rogue, its unique and reminds me of pulling my blades out, heightening my senses, and preparing my mind for the mission to come. I'm a martial Artist of 33 years, and previously fought professionally and even now, hearing that sound makes me grin and think of many fights or matches I've been in. *claps*
Recently did a 1v1 vs a tank with terrain obstacles, and challenges near carphin. The grapple hook, LoS breaks into stealth and variety of ways to disengage/engage, made that fight thrilling and true to what it feels like being an assassin. Even when down in levels, or gear, the skill cap makes it a wonder to play, and truly enjoyable to utilize when you truly get the flow.
amitofu, and godspeed Intrepid
pls make it like this
1.we can use it without any distance limit.
2.it can not be use in combat,but you can use a long CD skill stead of stealth (may be 5min cd) in combat.
3.make 10s cd of stealth if you break it.
i think that would be so cool.
General Rogue Feedback
- Looks amazing! The vibe I get is ninja, utility, and opportunity.
- Combat looks so fun, and I love how the rogue holds daggers, one facing forward the other backwards.
- Class fantasy is familiar to other games like WoW Classic, but unique to Ashes and a great step forward.`
Visual Effects (VFX) and Sound Effects (SFX)
- LOVE THE ANIMATIONS! I truly like all the back-flips, fast movement animations, and weapon attacks. I always wanted to have a rogue that incorporates movement into its combat. More is better here for me
Rogue Class Mechanic “Advantage”
Rogue Stealth - How does this feel to use in PvE? How does this feel to use in PvP?
- I don't like that stealth only lasts 60 seconds. I want to be able to setup ambushes and with stealth lasting only 60 seconds, it will be way more difficult.
- Distance limitation active also feels weird and not fun. Maybe a smaller distance? Not sure how to fix this and also make it balanced.
I play a rogue/ assassin in every mmo I play and have played a lot of different mmos. Some of my favorite PvE thief gameplay was FFXI due to the ability to help the tanks keep aggro with “trick attack” that added a fun interaction where you needed to do dmg behind your tank that kept grinding more engaging. And for PVP I loved ragnarok online thief/rogue/assassin due to the fast pace combat skills as well as a variety in builds.
General Rogue Feedback - so far I love the synergy between skills. It’s fun to play between doing big dmg with a double backstab or putting a big bleed on your target. In my opinion the poison needs the most work. If it’s going to be something that is a short duration it needs to feel more impactful otherwise it should be something applied outside of combat. Overall I think it’s a great design but just like all other classes I just hope for more “skill builds” I don’t like when I feel the same as everyone else. Make the skill trees where you have so go into a certain route to get a skill. Ragnarok online has a really good version of this.
Visual Effects (VFX) and Sound Effects (SFX) - I’m torn on this because I know the more flashy something is the more it becomes a problem in large scale events but on the other hand it does feel nice to use an ability that looks cool as well. I think the compromise could be louder sfx with more body animations with an occasional “big spell” that has a bigger animation.
Rogue Class Mechanic “Advantage” - I like the idea of charging up your skills with advantage and this is a fun engaging play style. The only thing I’d say is for some abilities is it should not just add an effect but change the skill almost completely.
Rogue Stealth - I just see it being a problem in large scale events. You will never be able to stealth and that feels bad.
Dagger Weapon Combos - I just wish it was easier to tell when your weapon combo finishes. Also they feel like you are skating around a little bit. Other than that they feel great to use.
General Rogue Feedback - The abilities and weaving them feels great! I like how you can tweak stuff to your liking, and there's a nice variation in playstyles to be had. It really does feel good. It's fluid. A buddy and I essentially had slight differences in talents, and widely different play styles. It just feels great.
VFX/SFX - I love the hemo proc on lacerate spraying an arc of blood. Looks wicked. Everything else I think looks great, too.
The SFX on Thump being a slap sound and the anination being what it is makes it look like a double handed butt slap when Thumpin on a running mob.
“Advantage” - Feels pretty good, not too easy or hard to generate. Adds a good bit of "skill" to properly execute and build. Could possibly use 1 more way to generate some, as I found myself not really having more than 1 stack super often, but that could just be my playstyle, and the aforementioned required "skill" to generate it.
Stealth - This seems to be the biggest gripe, and it's not really much different for me. The 20m range makes it terribly annoying because ANYTHING not in your party, especially with the mob density in some areas, throws a wrench in it, and makes it painful to find a spot to stealth just to perform a traditional opening. Even had someone follow us around in the desert, mounted, just to keep us from being able to stealth open on mobs while our group was grinding.. That felt extra shitty. We just stopped using it altogether after that.
On top of that it lasts 60s, and to me, I kinda feel rushed to get into a position to open instead of being able to wait for the opportune time for a precise strike. Having advantage last 60s feels fine, imo, it adds plenty of urgency without having to worry about stealth also ending.
With all of that said, I'd like stealth to have no timer, or at the very least quite a bit of a longer one, keep advantage on its timer. With how stealth detection works based off angle and proxy, I don't think it would be too much of an issue. We're already fairly squishy, and have less than half the possible hard/soft CC that rogues could get in WoW.
Dagger Weapon Combos - Haven't played with daggers, been using a 2h sword.
My feedback so far.. Rogue is 7/10, with Stealth being the only thing really holding it back.
General Feedback:
Overall the kit feels really nice. Though a lot the skills are still bugged which I /bugged them when I noticed them.
The most annoying thing i'd say (other the stealth) is having to re-apply poison every 10 to 15 seconds in combat. After having some long grind sessions of constant grinding it just becomes a chore and doesn't feel like good gameplay.
I think it should be changed to have a longer CD but and uptime that matches it while giving us 2 choices of poisons instead of 2 charges. This will allow us to pick a poison and stick with it for say 10 minutes and reapply or swap to the 2nd poison based on the situation.
Some of the bugs I noticed the most:
Acrobatic strike very rarely properly locked rotation on the target.
Feint seemed to bounce of some mobs often instead of getting behind the target. (was not spec'd into agile)
Occasionally Death's mark would not properly heal while still w/in the 30 second window.
Umbral cloak doesn't properly remove bard sleep when used with advantage.
Skills I liked the most while leveling
Soothing shadows
Poisons
Trounce
Double strike
Sap
Ruthless
Shadow cascade
Visual Effects (VFX) and Sound Effects (SFX) - How do you feel about current VFX and SFX for the Rogue archetype? While these are a work in progress, we want to know what you like, and what you don’t.
I liked most of the VFX and SFX. Most my focus was on the combat and testing out all the combos trying to maximize my dps.
Rogue Class Mechanic “Advantage” - How does it feel to generate this resource and spend it to empower abilities?
The advantage mechanic feels great and rewarding. I found myself memorizing all the ways I could gain advantage so I can get 1 more charge in w.e situation I was in. It would be nice to have an added effect showing your charges on your char. I think I notice glowing around the hand(s) based on 1 or 2 charges. Would be nice to have an UI option to show the charges right below our feet as sort of 1 or 2 big red dots based on charges. (or something a bit more creative)
Rogue Stealth -
Feels ok in PVE , was able to sneak around some area I couldn't normally be able to w.o it. The 20 meter requirement can be annoying but I did like that it put a red highlight around what mob or player was causing you not to go stealth. How ever, in some areas, it seemed to be completely by range, even if the mob was a floor higher, on the other side of a wall or just generally LOS.
I do like that fact we can get a re - stealth off in combat. Though it didn't always drop combat and the mobs would still chase. Occasionally, when it did drop combat, the next time you get back into combat that mob will re-argo onto you no matter your distance.
How does this feel to use in PvP? Not so good, I felt like I was never actually stealthed and most the time can be seen or targeted even if I was well over 40 meters away.
Overall the 1 minute stealth timer is meh.
Dagger Weapon Combos - didnt try daggers - used a greatsword the entire time. (main reason was I was able to pre-craft a couple greatswords)