Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III 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.
Comments
For the rogue, I like the idea of the combat loop being about closing the gap, getting into a tactically advantageous position, applying offensive pressure, then getting out asap.
By the looks and sound of what I saw it seems like:
- stealth is your main gap closer, and you use this to get into a tactical position to set up for offensive pressure
- you want to get in to apply burst damage like crits or applying DOTs, then get out asap
- you use your mobility, snares, and traps to retreat or to re-orient your positioning if you get stuck in a bad position. This would also serve to support your stealth usage by creating opportunities for it.
In theory I like the idea of this because even though both the rogue and the fighter both want to close the gap and can make use of high mobility and snares, the rogue feels different since the stealth is your key gap closer, and since you want to get in and out asap as rogue, rather than lingering in the enemy's face for too long. This is also nice because the idea of gameplay centering around a combination of high mobility and tactical cc usage is a key aspect of fun combat, and you can still engage with that experience when trying to get away from enemies or re-orient your postioning, similar to the ranger in that regard.
- I like that there are abilities that let you use movement to cross-up the enemy and that you are encouraged to do so for things like backstabs, which makes it fun to constantly manage that distance of trying to set up for a cross up movement option, and to constantly consider your orientation and position in relation to the enemy.
- I like that there are traps and snares that you can use in a tight space at close quarters (like smokes/caltrops), which serve as tools to allow you to tactically retreat, and that your movement is an important part of getting away from the enemy.
Overall the rogue should feel methodical, tactical, fluid, mobile, resourceful, versatile, capable, mysterious, sneaky, and like a predator.
Combat:
I think my main criticisms are just some generic combat stuff that probably hasn't been fully fleshed out yet anyway, such as the need for more evasion/defensives, as well as wanting more of a benefit to using movement, in order to more reliably counter offensive skills and projectiles. I would also like to see more push/pull type interactions in regards to individual skills, as well as just the general feel of combat being more of a push/pull back and forth feel from a tactical perspective and more of a "death by a thousand cuts" feel to combat, rather than just blowing up the enemy instantly. Overall combat feels very "automated" and it just seems very tab heavy right now and i'm hoping to see a shift more toward the action side for a true hybrid system.
Utility:
Im really looking forward to how you plan on developing the mobility based utility skills. I love that you are willing to go in the direction of high mobility utility skills as seen with grapple hook. Im looking forward to seeing how it gets fleshed out from a gameplay feel perspective as well as seeing more utility skills and features get expanded on.
I enjoy the animations. As for the stats and theme from other games (RPG's) with these weapons types and the Rogue fantasy daggers usually have high crit and attack speed rating which IMO matches the idea of them being lighter weight more precise attack weapons unlike say a 2 Handed Great Sword.
I dont know how this relates to current stats ATM in Ashes but hearing another poster (L25 Solo Rogue) state that a Longbow and Great sword is the best dps combo for a Rogues ATM does not sound great to me for my idea of playing a Rogue.
Seeing complaints from others about both the camera of Acrobatic Strike and that it doesn't turn your character to face the enemy I think others might not be aware Acrobatic Strike is controllable mid-jump.
If you don't turn, you'll be out of melee range facing away from the target. However, if you control your camera/character to keep facing the target, you'll land in melee range on the opposite side.
IMO isn't a super high skill ceiling to do, and gives nice alternative functionality without spending a skillpoint.
Stealth.... such an absurdly overpowered mechanic for PvP. Ashes wouldn't be a real MMORPG had it not allowed griefing, I guess.
But, I take issue with what is called "stealth" in the genre. That is not stealth, that is invisibility. And it should be associated to another archetype: the ghost or the phantom.
Now, I go into the plane of the dead... (poooff!!!) Now, I am going to roam the Earth! And, you can't see me! unless I pass close to you where you feel the chills!!!! buaaahhhahahahahah!!!
The Archetype overall feels really fun. i hope that all archetype will get this much of design effort to feel fun in their own way.
Most of the skills feel fine. feint is sluggish and the camera rotation is a bit of an issue. when i constantly used it a got some motion sickness.
Advantage feels fitting. low skillfloor high skillseeling. i want that for all archetypes
i only had very little pvp (lvl10 rogue) for pve it needs to ignore friendly npcs and all mounts for the stealth distance.
I think the attack animations are okay. weapon combo finisher didnt feel better than the rest. the general weapon skilltree needs more love i the future. for all fast weapons: they dont feel that great in comparison to their counterparts (short, longbow etc) statsticks are meta from what i gathered. a slight buff or change could make more weapons feel useful. i was wondering if casting and attack speed could maybe influence cooldowns by a small margin. but maybe thats already too much and a little more stats to lessen the gap would already be enough.
Excited for the summoner to come
The only 1v1 viable "fair" fight is the class vs itself as in Rogue vs Rogue etc if you want to duel with other players.
I hope that PvP gripes do not kill the fun and design philosophy of playing the Rogue or any other class.
Padded Toolbelt:
- I think it is good for Grapple (I've taken and use it just for Grapple, I hate popping over a ledge face first into a mob)
- Could be good for Poisons if they weren't such a short duration in-combat buff (and an extra charge is much better)
- Open for griefing and abuse on Throw, Sleep Darts, Caltrops, and Smoke Bomb; with little legitimate use
I think Padded Toolbelt should be moved to a dedicated Grapple upgrade and, Poisons should be useable from Stealth without a skill. This change would have the side effect of allowing Grapple to have both 2 charges, and be used while stealthed which would mostly satisfy my desire for a Grapple cooldown upgrade.My point is not about balance. My point is invisibility is an annoying mechanic for everybody else but the ghost itself.
I don't have PvP gripes either. I have had a lot of fun in other games griefing people with overpowered mechanics. It was intended to be a constructive comment. Because, although Intrepid doesn't care about 1v1, I am pretty sure they do care about mechanics that annoy a bunch of their players but a few.
Yes I agree that invisibility can be overpowered if there are no counters to it that actually work. Especially for squishy classes such as mages and some healers. They need spells to detect invis, I thought they had this already? Does it actually work?
Having said that certain archetypes such as Rogues should be designed for taking out healers/mages as priority targets but the Rogues should be less effective vs "soldier" types classes such as Tank, Fighter, there should be a rock paper scissors thing here with general Archetypes. This is what I found fun in PvP in other MMORPGS I have played.
Main worry I have is that PvP changes to classes can often severely effect the fun and viability of classes in PvE.
Back to the rogue
Other than the obvious issue with the 20yrd range for stealth that plenty of people will complain about want to address other issues.
The worst thing is that you can use damaging abilities in stealth without removing it. applying poisons and then using throw, rinse and repeat. not fun to do, not fun to play against. they get too close, sleep dart with 5 sec extra duration due to the sleep dart passive. Then you wait the 20sec for all these to come off cd and do it again.
I think the grapple just provides too much movement, having multiple abilities that close the gap and multiple dodge rolls is plenty, The grapple allows 3D movement that can not be replicated by any class except flying mounts. If i rogue grapples up a cliff, they get away, only counter play would be to hit them in that timeframe, but CC can counter that. so if a rogue plays correctly, only another rogue will be its counter.. not exactly rock, paper, scissors when they brought a gun.
The rogue has too much healing. The healing passive when you go in stealth would be fine if you couldnt go back into stealth mid combat. added to the sap that also heals and bleed rogue is absolutely nuts. apply poisons, bleed, hemo, and sap. and then restealth for almost your entire hp.
To people who want stealth to be permanent, i dont agree, plenty of games have limited duration stealth and it only takes like 2 brain cells to look at the duration timer rather than relying on it being permanent. if you want it to be permanent then they should add a mechanic that the timer stops counting down when you are stationary and dont move. This would give you permanent stealth when you sit to eat or when you want to afk but still keeps the nice game of cat and mouse for trying to find the rogue.
Overall the rogue feels amazing, it just has TOO much going for it. It was too well designed. They have crazy cc, crazy dmg, crazy healing, plenty of gap closers, good defensives, and unmatched ability to get away with stealth and grapple.
First thoughts and impressions:
This is just like Vanilla World of Warcraft without much of anything at all to distinguish it. A bit disappointing. I had higher hopes when it was taking additional time and the Roadmap said Stealth System. I wanted something with a bit more counterplay and skill between the hider and potential spotter.
Activation:
I wish the activation restriction was a bit friendlier. I don't like needing to have one eye glued to the ability bar to see if it is enabled or not as I shuffle around to find the sweet spot between mobs I can enter/refresh stealth. When fighting in a group at High Hold I wanted to stealth between pulls to gain advantage and other stealth effects, but almost never could as ungrouped people or mobs on the other side of the wall would block me.
As a weird (and I would side negative/unwanted) side effect of the activation restriction, it can be somewhat used to detect if another hidden Rogue is in the area, since it won't let you activate stealth even if no entity is visible.
I assume the purpose of the restriction is to prevent stealth from being easily used in combat.
With the above assumptions, my desired alternative out-of-combat activation restriction mechanic would be to have an Activation Delay instead of a cooldown. You would be able to freely try and stealth at any time, but it would first set you into a 5 second 'Entering Stealth' mode (Fade into Shadows sounds like a cool name for it to me btw)
- While 'Entering Stealth', any damage interrupts the effect
- Give an increased agro component so mobs in group PvE will interrupt rogues stealthing mid-combat
- Give a shadowy graphic so it is visible stealth is starting to other players
- Begins tracking detection as if the player was already stealthed, so the player doesn't just disappear from anyone that otherwise would have detected them in stealth (some interaction with my further opinions on PvP detection here)
I think it is more fun/user friendly because I could use stealth any time I want, eyes on the game and not the UI. Could also use it in crowded situations. It makes the enemy make the "We're fighting, no you can't do that" determination instead of some arbitrary rules.Detection:
In PvE its fine for the most part. I can move around undetected without issues, which is what is needed. A bit basic, and not really what I'd call a Stealth System. Simply pass behind mobs and don't get too close to the front.
If the interaction of the 1 minute duration + the distance activation restriction is considered a method/component of detection, I'm not a fan of that. "Did you refresh stealth in an uncrowded area recently enough?" doesn't feel like good stealth gameplay.
For PvP I have some more opinions about how detection and targeting should work and dislikes about how things currently are
An example of base detection rules that would satisfy those opinions/preferences
That would be the basics, could optionally make it more complex and more of a true Stealth System by having skills/gear which adjusts the detection times/cone angles/distances. Could give a way for Rogues to see the detection areas of enemies, and see 'Suspicion' as they become detected. Could make actions/movement/sprinting on the part of the Rogue decrease the time or distance it takes to detect the Rogue
Duration:
I'm not going to cry about it if it is left at 1 minute, but I think with the duration much longer than the cooldown the duration might as well be permanent.
Let me rephrase
OUTRAGEOUSLY overpowered in 1v1 and small scale (~8v8) scenarios. This is a class with almost zero weaknesses or counters
But one thing I will say is stealth needs to be true stealth. A shimmer camo mechanic will leave stealth non-viable in an active pvp fight. Whether through just common sense keeping an eye out or just reducing video settings to spot it easier, it drastically lowers stealth viability to the point that it becomes irrelevant in pvp engagements outside of just opening up on someone unaware. Make it true stealth and just reduce its mobility or apply the shimmer/camo effect to moving faster/dodging in stealth. The minimal distance to stealth is fine, but it should only apply to hostile NPCs/Players, not to non-hostile players, non-hostile guards, and no mount should prevent stealth regardless of hostility due to it not ever fighting.
I think it should be TRUE stealth since it would only be 3 seconds rather than the proximity one.
Additionally: mage arcane eye doesn't work atm, needs fix. AoEs don't seem to work against rogue reliably when in stealth. Tab-target also seems to have issues finding rogues even when no longer stealthed.
General Rogue Feedback:
What feels fun, and what doesn’t?
It's fun and it's possible to differentiate between a skilled player and another player who just presses a few keys on the keyboard.
There are some movement and positioning bugs when using some skills and this is very frustrating, and ok, fine, we hope this will be fixed.
Which abilities do you like best, and which abilities do you feel need the most improvement?
The Ruthless and Doublestrike skills are so fun that it makes me wish there was a modifier in the animation of the reused skill to visually know that one of these two skills was applied there. There could be a color modifier or an additional lighting effect.
Kick is often an ace up your sleeve. Great.
Feint and Acrobatic Strike are excellent and very effective.
I believe that the Shadow Step skill is missing something. I have often taken points from it, but I would like to use it more often. Most of the times I have taken points from Shadow Step it was due to the inaccuracy when using the backstab in sequence. It might be interesting to add a skill adjacent to the Shadow Step to apply a buff or lock the target.
This repositioning skill requires changing the game camera. Most of the time the camera position is inaccurate and makes it difficult to understand whether or not I am behind the opponent's back.
Shadow Cascade feels buggy to me sometimes and that makes me not want to use this skill. But this skill is really cool.
Adrenaline didn't make me feel adrenalized. I think we need to rethink this skill. One suggestion: this skill should increase movement speed and reduce the cooldown of some skills and apply double mana consumption.
Visual Effects (VFX) and Sound Effects (SFX):
It is visually possible to understand which skill was used by observing the direction of the dagger's movement during the skill's performance, and this is great. The animation for most of the skills is excellent! Especially Lacerate applying hemorrhage.
The Thrash skill is the only one that definitely needs a more characteristic animation so that the player can know whether it is the first or third use of the skill.
Rogue Class Mechanic “Advantage”:
I liked managing my Advantage points. This seemed like a good way to understand when to use my skills or not. However, I often get lost if I have 1 or 2 Advantages (or none at all), I would like to have something visual (on the character) that is more evident when I gain one and when I spend an Advantage.
Rogue Stealth:
Stealth PVE/PVP. I believe it would be better to have three different distances: for mobs, for players with the pvp flag active and for non-pvp players. When in a group pvp it is very difficult to find a space far from all these targets. The shortest distance is for mobs and the longest distance is for pvp players.
I would like to be able to activate my poison while in stealth.
The movement in stealth is excellent, I would like a more characteristic animation when entering and exiting stealth. Playing WOW or L2, the stealth/hide animation gave me the impression of entering the shadows and that this increases the power of my skills.
Dagger Weapon:
Playing with daggers is fun and visually satisfying, but playing with a greatsword is actually more powerful, that doesn't seem right to me, it's strange to imagine performing a backstab with a two-handed greatsword. Rogue Skills should have a bonus for performing with daggers.
The engagement combo I fell naturally into was very fun. I enjoyed properly achieving backstabs and properly combo'ing lacerate. Acrobatic Strike is an amazing skill. Feint felt nearly pointless besides a filler and that might just be due to the mob interaction.
Advantage felt nearly pointless outside of using it for the initial backstab that you did anyways without thinking.
The engagement combo I enjoyed.
Stealth > Back Stab > Reset > Back Stab > Trip > Thrash into Flurry x 3 for bleed > Acrobatic Strike > Back Stab > Lacerate for bleed combo effect.
While the engagement combo is very fun. I felt there wasn't enough interactions of skills between each of them. This feels more like a fighter engagement than a rogue engagement. After the combo ended. I felt like I was just sitting there waiting for cooldowns.
Rogue feels like Sub Rogue from WoW in shadowlands. You pop your burst rotation then you have down time then you repeat. I would much prefer if rogue followed more in line with Assassination or Outlaw where you always have a button to press but the order/combo matters.
The combos should matter more than the big button presses. With dual daggers and rogue I should always feel like I have something I can do. I don't like downtime on rogue.
VFX/Sound was very good.
Daggers were cool but the combo feels like it takes to long to make use of between skills. The combo just existed after the burst rotation. But why use daggers when greatsword is superior?
Why not make daggers unique where they can attack and keep chaining combo between skills? If they were slightly weaker but always got combos I feel like that would suit them better to make them an optional choice over greatsword.
Stealth felt awful to use near non enemies. A horse doesn't allow you to stealth? Is being able to use stealth while in smokescreen a potential option? That would also make it feel better.
--Advantage system is a good system in lieu of the typical rogue combo point system. Feint needs a bit of work as sometimes when you feint into a mob you go flying many yards away. Grappling hook is a bit clunky and feels slow compared to most other Rogue abilities. All in all the class feels very good to play and is very rewarding when you combo everything correctly. Could use a damage nerf on the maximum backstab damage instead of 300% could be around 225%.
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.
--The sound effects on Rogue are VERY distinct and I think you guys did a great job on them. THUMP is my new favorite sound in the game.
Rogue Class Mechanic “Advantage” - How does it feel to generate this resource and spend it to empower abilities?
--As stated above the advantage system feels very good in lieu of the normal combo point system most rogue classes get.
Rogue Stealth - How does this feel to use in PvE? How does this feel to use in PvP?
--20m range is a bit much, lowering this would be great. Rough to use in PVE in popular grinding spots. Not bad in PVP but could benefit from a shorter range to stealth out.
Dagger Weapon Combos - What do you like about Dagger weapon combos, and what do you feel needs improvement?
--Most of the abilities feel good. Backstab probably needs a nerf on max damage from 300% down to 225%. This would make the class require more skill to play instead of a quick shadowstep > backstab > backstab. Doesnt feel very rewarding killing people like that.
Stealth is great in general but it is hard to use efficiently if i can't use it when any mobs are close by.
I love the Arch Type in every game and AOC took a good shot at it so far, but what really dampens my immersion is when a dual wielding class uses "one" weapon that counts for both hands.
I would really appreciate the possibility to buy, craft or loot different Daggers and equip them each to one hand, instead of having the same dagger twice conviniently every time.
Maybe it's just the current implemention, to make it easier to accsess for your team and the players in the alpha phase, I just wanted to this out there.
Advantage is an enjoyable mechanic that makes the rouge more unique as an arch type, but doesn't feel rewarding to me at the moment, maybe because im still only level 6. It's just not responsive enough for me to even notice when it gets added to a skill.
Stealth:
Umbral Cloak/Smoke Bomb:
Soothing Shadows:
Auto Attack Changes: Step in right direction, but not quite there. I put these more in bug report territory than just feedback.
The improvements to Shadow Step and Feint were noticeable, but they are still both a bit janky.
Fell out of the world a couple times with Shadow Step, though it did seem better behaved activating against enemies on slopes.
Fewer launches with Feint, though definitely not solved. Seems to be enemy model and movement/animation dependent. Against Minotaurs it would not infrequently place me in a position the Minotaur would not hit me at, but it also wouldn't move to where it could hit me.
○ [ Feint ]
ability on the moving target, sometimes it will fly you away,the final location is not accurate as well.
please check this ability on the moving target as well as The target on the rocky slope.you will find
out what's going on. also can check the video below
https://tv.sohu.com/v/dXMvNDM2OTY0OTY1LzYzNDY5MTg2Ny5zaHRtbA==.html
○ [ Death's mark ]
○ [ dagger design issue ]
attribute looks like useless,please make good balance of this two weapons.i prefer dagger for
rogue.It feels really strange and uncomfortable for me as a rogue player to be forced to use a two-
handed greatsword as my weapon just because of the attribute reasons. Just imagine how odd it
would be for a rogue stealthily getting ready to launch a backstab while holding a two-handed
greatsword. This also goes against the characteristics of the rogue class, which is supposed to be
flexible and stealthy.
I suggest that the weapon design should return to the nature of each class. For example, mages
should use staves, warriors can use either one-handed swords or two-handed swords, and rogues
should use daggers or two one-handed swords. I believe this kind of setting would be more
reasonable. Another advantage of such a design is that during group PvE, there will be less conflict
and competition for equipment requirements, allowing players to enjoy the game more.
I've also seen two-handed swords that are suitable for spellcasters. In my opinion, this is really
strange and doesn't seem to fit in well either. Please readjust the attribute characteristics of the
weapons. Thank you so much.
○ [ camera issue ]
○ [ weapon-switching ]
What I can add on my own behalf is that this class is absolutely useless in some aspects:
1. He is useless in PVE, except for one-time targets. Better to take one more mage for AOE farming.
2. He is useless in mass pvp. He will simply die from massive damage and will not be able to do enough damage, especially with such a problematic stealth. The same mage or warrior will be able to stay alive longer and do more damage. The difficulty of going invisible in large-scale pvp adds to the problem. And the combat entry into invisibility has a long cooldown.
And everything would be great, but these are the two main aspects of this game. So where will it be needed? I know that the main aspects of the endgame of this game will be PVE and mass/group PvP.
I want the classes to be balanced for this and be equally useful.
I believe that every class should be in demand in all activities and have equal opportunities for farming and self-class development.
PvE, I think we need to think about this. All classes always have mass abilities for farming a large q-ty of mobs or fast range\aoe exp farming, but usually, the rogue does not have such an opportunity and PvE farming, as well as character leveling, is usually much harder for Rogue than for other classes, which is very unfair. Therefore, I request to consider some options for leveling balancing so that the rogue can level up/farm as comfortably and quickly as other classes.
I've encountered similar situations in other games where it was always more advantageous to have an mage or a ranger / fighter in the group as a DPS role.
Here are some examples:
✓In mass PvP or sieges with more than 20 players, rogues who approach too closely will be instantly targeted and killed. Even if they're invisible, they'll die without reaching their target because they'll be detected by AOE skills. Even if enemy don’t see him and open up behind of the enemies group - he will be killed instantly, and good luck if he can take at least someone with him.
✓In raid boss battles, rogues need to be near the boss to deal damage, but they'll also die from the boss's AOE abilities. While there's a tank to aggro the boss, it's more beneficial for a group to have a ranged mage/archer at a safe distance to deal damage to the boss, avoiding the need to heal a rogue frequently due to their weak defense and susceptibility to mass skills.
✓In PvE farming, groups usually gather and use AOE skills, making rogues useless in such a party. The other classes will kill a group of mobs faster, while the rogue runs to the target and hits them one by one without AOE skills.
✓And also how it could be in future AOC's sea activities, such as ship-to-ship combat and attacking sea raid bosses, rogues are also useless. They can't swim to an enemy ship without being killed or exposed by AoE skills if they try to hide on an enemy ship's deck. It's the same situation with sea raid bosses as with regular raid bosses.
Regarding PvE, it's true that assassins aren't designed for AoE PvE farming. However, rogues should have the same ease and speed in PvE as other classes. It wouldn't be fair if all classes took two hours to level up one lvl, but the rogue took six.
I'd like to write a few suggestions to make the Rogue class more useful and in demand for group activities:
->Make stealth useful. Especially in the archetype of rogue + rogue, it should be as invisible as possible and use stealth multiple times, even if it has less defense. (This is a general opinion).
If there are simple ways to find the Rogue in hide, simple programs may appear to track it (some software, etc). Unscrupulous players, unfortunately, also exist.
->Stealth could be made multi-level. For example, depending on the number of enemies within a radius of 100 meters, (rogue is hiding in their shadows) stealth would change its properties (passive ability, sixth sense?).
For example:
-If there are 5+ enemies - detection becomes more difficult.
-If there are 8
enemies - detection is impossible and the stealth charge is added/reduced the cooldown of use.
-If there are more than 16+ enemies - mass attacks do not reveal the rogue from stealth.
-If there are more than 24+ enemies - the rogue becomes immune to mass attacks, and the number of stealth uses increases without cooldown or with a minor cooldown (q-ty of charges?).
This would allow the rogue (assassin) to participate in large-scale PvP activities without affecting the balance in small groups. I hope this will not be the only resort - jump into a fight with little hope to kill someone before you died from AoE dmg in the next few seconds, and without chances to return alive.
->Increased damage if the damage is dealt to one target for some time period without damaging to other targets. If a rogue constantly deals damage to only one target without switching targets (raid boss), the damage multiplier for attacks from behind would increase, and evasion/defense against all types of attacks from that target would also increase. This could bring life to the rogue in raid boss encounters. The rogue would deal competitive damage and have survivability in raid bosses, making it worthwhile to bring them into a group. Additionally, this would fit the concept of the "assassin who follows their prey without changing targets."
This would give them an advantage in raid boss encounters and make them a worthwhile addition to a group.
->Add the possibility to reorient towards RDD when adding a second archetype and augmentation.
For example, if Ranger is a balanced archer, then Predator (Rogue+Ranger) could be a glass cannon archer or an bow-styled assassin, that focused on damage. This would allow the Rogue to participate in such a spec in mass PvP, raid bosses, and sea content.
These abilities will not affect balance in small groups or solo farming, but it will allow to be in demand in mass PvP and raid bosses.
These are just my thoughts, and I hope they can inspire and give developers ideas for some improvement.
Overall the Rogue seems ok, fun and dynamic.
Playing it I had various feelings.
I will start listing the cons
Cons:
- Early phase and low lvl definitely more boring than other classes. Having tried them all, I found the initial stages much more dynamic and “distinctive”
- Unnecessarily complex: I am a lover of difficult classes and articulate mechanics, but the AoC rogue seems forcibly complex to me. The mechanics of how you gain Advantage are poorly handled in PvP situations where dynamism is high and characters move around a lot.
The feeling is one of not having total control over our class. If we want to gain advantage we have to meet very “tight” pre-requisites in a PvP context.
This is compounded by the fact that very often Advantage is forced to be wasted. If after complying with the pre-requisites to gain Advantage, and you are ready to start your DPS rotation, you have to, for example, kick a mage's cast, or silence it, you are forced to use spells that consume advantage, even if not necessary.
In that case, what is the point of having an AoE kick? Why should I consume Advantage to use a spell that can normally be cast without, only to have the same skill but Aoe? In a 1v1 fight?
This mechanics unfortunately causes a feeling of poor control over one's class, and the almost “randomness” of the fight.
- Stealth: The 20m mechanic is very inconvenient especially in Mass PvP settings, or heavily populated grind areas. There are times when in a dungeon it is impossible to use Stealth (and thus also gain Advantage) because there are too many people around.
-Smokebomb: I would steal the logic of WoW's Smokebomb. As long as you are inside it is impossible to be targeted by people from outside, and you are vulnerable from AoE skills
The 25% Evasion Buff I would put on a skill of its own with high cooldown that increases evasion and/or magic resist
- Skill Tree: compared to other classes, I find that the rogue has very little choice of builds. Once you get to Cap Lvl, the usable skills are those without much customization possibilities. This obviously creates monotony
PRO:
- Lots of mobility. Undoubtedly in fights it is super fun to move around, jump behind targets and get out unscathed.
- Uselessness in PvE. Yes, I put it in the Pros, because I believe in and support role-playing. Every class need to excel at something, and it is fair in my opinion, that a class like a rogue, with similar kit, excels in PvP and has more problems in PvE
(not specific to rogue, but presents itself most strongly in rogue gameplay)
This is a multifaceted issue, but to lay it out briefly: In a PVP setting, there is (almost) no scenario where it is advantageous to perform melee combo attacks instead of ranged combo attacks. Even if you are in melee range, it is almost always better to keep your ranged weapon active.
There are a number of contributing factors to this, but each factor is so impactful that even if 1 or 2 factors were removed, it would still be optimal to use your ranged weapon.
Contributing Factors:
Netcode and Movement
Enemy player movement looks and works great when all they are doing is running around in mostly straight lines. However, in a PVP setting, enemy player movement becomes jerky, exaggerated, and difficult to follow from a second-to-second basis. Enemy players will frequently teleport short distances when they dodge or use a movement ability. There is a frequent lack of parity between the enemy’s actual location, and the location as shown on my screen. This lack of parity is significantly above-and-beyond what one would expect to be caused by ping between the server and the two clients.
As an example: If an enemy bard flourishes away from me, and then immediately 180’s flourishes back towards me, this will often show on my screen as: the bard flourished away, and then teleported back on top of me. The enemy character will still show the flourish animation, but their location on my screen will effectively teleport.
So if I’m using a melee weapon in the above example with the bard, if I chase after the flourish by dodging (to try to stay in melee range to continue attacking), what I will frequently see is: bard flourishes away, I dodge to follow, the bard teleports off my screen. I receive no visual indicator that the bard flourished back in the direction I came from.
This causes big issues for using a melee weapon - you need to be on top of the enemy to hit them, BUT you cannot follow them too quickly, or you risk committing in a direction that they have already changed from. You must sit there and wait until their actual movement direction has resolved, before you try to gap close again. However, if you had your ranged weapon active, you could have just been using ranged combo attacks on them the whole time, because their exact location is not important.
This lack of parity between true location and displayed location is independent of server status, location, relative ping, connection quality, etc. I constantly see this jerky movement in youtube videos, in streams, when watching friends play, even in the monthly dev update streams. It's a consistent issue across the board.
Dodging and Projectile Travel Time
Say I am standing next to an enemy and as I start a combo attack against them, they immediately dodge away.
If I’m attacking with a melee weapon, the combo attack misses (due to the enemy dodging away).
If I’m attacking with a ranged weapon, often what will happen is that the attack will hit and damage the enemy after they finish their dodge. This is caused by the ranged combo attack being a projectile - it has some travel time, and since dodging causes a player character to move so quickly, the projectile will chase them through their dodge and end up hitting them after the dodge completes.
Lack of Advantages in Weapon Skill Trees for Melee Weapons
Melee weapons do not have stronger skill trees than ranged weapons do. They don’t gain more damage, have stronger debuffs, stronger buffs, or really have any actual advantage they might leverage over ranged weapons, except for: no self-slowdown when swinging a melee weapon, and melee weapon cleave damage. Cleave damage is not relevant with enough frequency in PVP to help. The lack of self-slowdown is the only real advantage gained from swinging a melee weapon.
Importance of Finishers
Simply put, executing weapon combo finishers is very important, and ranged weapons have an obvious advantage to this. If you only have a small window of time to hit a target in melee range, using a ranged weapon means that after the enemy has left your melee range, you are still able to execute your combo finishers. Melee weapons cannot, and their finishers are not stronger to make up for this disparity.
The Significance of Each Contributing Factor
The ‘Netcode and Movement’ issue trumps all the other contributing factors I’ve mentioned. If the other 3 contributing factors were resolved, but the perceived movement remained as it is now, it would still be better to always use a ranged weapon.
If ‘Netcode and Movement’ was addressed, and melee weapon finishers were made 50% stronger, it would still always be better to use a ranged weapon.
If ‘Netcode and Movement’ was addressed, AND melee weapon finishers were made 50% stronger, AND melee combo attacks were changed to be undodgeable and to always connect to your target, it would still always be better to use a ranged weapon, because of the importance of executing the combo finishers.
###Shadowstep###
Please let us separately keybind shadowstepping to an allied target vs an enemy target. If we have both an ally and an enemy targeted, the only way to step to an ally is to untarget everyone, then retarget your ally.
###Advantage Visuals and Dagger/Bow (Emyrean Race)###
While your character is in combat, the way you hold daggers is very similar to how you hold a longbow when you aren’t currently auto attacking. Having the daggers held down by your sides would do a lot to make these two more distinct.
Having the daggers at your hips would also help with seeing the glowing hands caused by having advantage stacks. As it is currently, your character’s left hand will actually be obscured from the player’s view while the daggers are active, meaning you can’t reliably use the glowing hands to track advantage.
This could be a race-specific issue.
Overall the current VFX/SFX are good, given that its still a WIP. I have one main gripes, and that is that there is no visual feedback on your character to indicate if you have an active poison or not - the only way to tell is to look at your buff bar, or look at the spell’s cooldown (and remember that it lasts 10 seconds). I think some visual indicator similar to the glowing hands from Advantage would be a good idea.
(See comment in above section about the Advantage glow)
Building advantage feels like its in a good spot. Gaining it through stealthing, and via Guile, feels fun and interactive.
What doesn’t feel fun is the fact that you are forced to spend your advantage. If I just want to single target kick, or apply Dazed without the full silence from Thump, I don’t have the option to do that; I must spend advantage if I have it. This feels like it limits my combat options a lot, and makes Thump in particular feel very inflexible; the situation must be exactly right for me to use Thump, or I’m putting myself at a huge disadvantage (usually caused by Thump consuming my last Advantage, meaning I no longer have the 30 stam dodge).
Stealth feels really nice to use, but it has a few notable issues at the moment, as well as two MASSIVE issues in PVP:
The extended weapon combo (and extended deadly weapon combo) have an extreme amount of animation lock. Meaning, if you start the extended combo, you are prevented from doing anything (other than dodging) for over 1 full second.
With daggers, ostensibly the fastest weapons in the game, I think this duration is extreme. To be honest, I think weapon combo attacks should never be animation locking you.
To put it into perspective, I’ve found that daggers are more fluid and effective overall if you never put points into the extended combo. Even though you miss out on all the goodies at the top of the tree, the increase in your ability to react in combat easily offsets the loss of the extended combos.
(not to mention, if you exclude the extended combo procs like Heartseeker, daggers will actually do the same DPS with or without the extended finishers. AND that is with the Deadly finisher currently bugged and only doing half of its intended damage)
Now the weapon choices for rogue is a different topic I will briefly mention in the end. Disregard the weapons for the first bit
Rogue PvP Review – Post-TTK & Skill Rework 🗡️🗡️
I will give an honest take on rogue in and the state its in after the TTK changes and skill reworks the archetype has had, since most of the comments on here are outdated.
This post focuses on Rogue purely from a PvP perspective after the latest TTK changes and skill adjustments. I've mained high-skill ceiling classes across 8+ MMOs and have played Rogue since it released. So I want to make sure the rogue class is perfect- now that I will be posting youtube content regarding the class 👀
Jumping to the pros and cons...
Pros: ✅
- High skill ceiling, rewarding mastery
- Versatile playstyles and supportive potential
- Poisons offer matchup utility
- Unique stamina management (30-stam dodge)
- Dual CC breaks
- Great mobility & tree design
- Fun to play
Cons: ❌
- Buggy and unreliable movement skills (rubberbanding dodgesq, trips missing)
- Situational with poor AoE engage and weak tracking of "advantage"
- Stealth visibility bugs and inconsistent mechanics
- Some long CDs and underwhelming slows
- Rotations can feel slow and unrewarding
- Easily hit out of stealth
Fixes TLDR: 💡
- Skills need fine tuning
- The dodge rubberbanding is super annoying and unreliable.
- Add a passive to stealth that generates advantage every 10 seconds while in stealth
- Make adrenaline usable in stealth without being spotted
- Stealth is bugged and makes character super visible
- Add audio cues for advantage stacks and consumption
- Replace Cold Embrace with Explosive Embrace that explodes to surrounding enemies when target dies.
- Add attack speed damage scalings on skills to make daggers viable
Rogues Key points
Rogue feel:
The reason why so many are playing rogues is because of the stealth mechanic, advantage stacks and movement options. It feels much different from every other archetype and allows for more freedom and control. Although the archetype isnt meant for everyone in PVP. In order to play rogue in most guilds, you must prove your worth.
The thing is. Rogues are infact OP in 1v1's. Especially when played in good hands. Although the class is unable to oneshot geared players. You have to decide between double backstabbing or double thumping a player to win the fight. Since you can't tell how much max hp/mp a player has before engaging a fight. It is hard to decide which poison option to apply and win the fight. You have to take a gamble on that enemy and reset after losing the 50/50.
Rogue issues
The biggest con atm is the movement skills being clunky and rubber banding issues. This causes trips to miss more often than not. Since youre playing a melee archetype, having enemies bunny hopping into their team after your opener, makes them hard to catch without slows.
Rogue rewards
The most rewarding moments of rogue are when your backstab crits or your shadow cascade kills and death mark resets. Other than that, playing rogue is like a game of chess in high tiers of PVP. Most animations dont feel rewarding to land. Since rogues cant win ranged fights that well, the goal of a rogue is to stack poisons on as many targets as possible for your team to increase damage and then engage when enemies panic.
Rogue advantage
As of now, the advantage mechanic is very intuitive and makes the class pop. Although there need to be some audio feedback that lets you know when you generate advantage and consume advantage. Some generators seem awkward to use- Having shadowstep be a cc break, and also award advantage when used over 15m makes no sense.
Stealthing twice (20 second reset) to gain 2 stacks of advantage is pointless. Same goes for using stealth to refresh advantage timer. An easy fix would be to make rogues generate advantage every 10 seconds while in stealth.
Rogue stealth
Stealth in AOC is indeed very different from most MMO's and really captures the D&D feel of a rogue. I do enjoy it, although having to stealth inside closed spaces is almost impossible. To fix this make it so if you have recently damaged a player while flagged, you should be able to reenter stealth, despite being surrounded by mobs. Rogue nameplates are also bugged and visible from certain angles, even behind targets, same goes for 5+ enchanted weapons, certain cloaks, boots and gloves. Im sure you know this though.
Rogues Skill Tree
Red means the skill has an issue.
Green means it all works as intended.
Ill go over the red ones quickly.
Rogues Weapons
Sadly, rogues also suffer from the Greatsword/Longbow curse.
The damage scaling isnt right and doesnt allow for daggers to be used. To fix this, simply make it so skill damage also scale with attack speed. Also the weapon skill tree of the daggers are super weak in comparison.
Rogue Meta Predictions
If you have made it this far, im going to spill the tea. Rogues after the recent TTK changed now benefit a lot from HP stacking. This is because the base dmg is already decent and rogues can stealth 3x in smokebombs. thats 6x in soothing shadows which heals max hp + sap. So the future of meta rogues will consist of rogues with 7-8k max health that can self sustain and stay alive in largescale with armor stacking and while being annoying af with 60% evasion chance + 80% from Umbral Cloak, 2 sleeps and aoe trips. You're basically what a fighter was supposed to be, with stealth. People will never expect it. Though that playstyle is kind of lame, its only used due to the fact that rogues cant 1 shot targets in largescale without getting clipped first.
Cant wait to see what the rogue + ranger is gonna feel like. Ranged attacks on a rogue will be so good.
Thats all from me ❤️
Most of the good I wanted to say has already been said many times, so I will focus on the things I think would be good to iterate on. The advantage system is not what I expected and feels a little bit too simple and clunky. Keeping track of it is difficult and making use of it doesn't feel very satisfying. In PvE group going into stealth mid fight is usually not viable and most of advantage building and use is through stealth which makes sense but it feels like rogue is actually weaker when playing in a group. Also the 1/2 point system doesn't allow for nuance in balancing, you have to either have advantage on a skill or you don't. You can of course sometimes play with numbers on the strength of advantage used but not always. This binary system will make rogue hard to balance in the future.
Stealth is another important part of the rogue and I think you have done a great job making higher and lower enemies proportionally aware of rogue in stealth. There are some bugs regarding aggro and enemies bolting to you from a mile away while you are in stealth but you are probably already aware of those. I hate to be a wow andy but I loved how stealth worked there. Enemies becoming alert when they notice your presence gives you just enough time to back off if you are fast enough and feels great and allows you to get better at dodging mobs while in stealth. This gives stealth a much more satisfying skill expression. Also a distraction skill would help immersion and role playing greatly.
Daggers are something that I feel goes with a rogue like butter goes with bread and as it is now there is no reason to ever use daggers on rogue. This I hope will be changed in the future and some skills will require daggers. As it is now, the difference between weapons is mostly in its weapon combo, weapon skill tree and stats. Even though I would love to play with daggers I chose a greatsword just because of the huge difference in power. Also pretty much all skills in rogues kit scale with physical power. If there were skills that scale with attack speed for example it would be a great way to make dagger use more viable.
Overall playing rogue solo feels great, you can explore dungeons on your own if your level is close enough to the mobs and you are aware of your surrounding, gathering in stealth is great. As it is now, I feels like rogue is meant as a class for solo players and there isn't much incentive for them to group up and not a lot of incentive to have them in a group unless you need single target damage.