Mr. Roguish
Banned
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So there are currently inconsistent references to both of these that heavily implies an almost to the degree along the lines of Siamese twins. • When making a new character you are asked to choose between 3 character types; fighter, mage, and rogue. These are clearly in reference to the starting 3 classes, yet you don't start the game with said class, this decision really just effects the aesthetics of your no-drop armor. This would suggest something more than just the in game literal classes. • There is an actual in game class called "Rogue" • For the basis of the early game it makes sense the way that it is built and I will reference what Mr. Uber said in his post kind of detailing out the expectations and et cetera of the tiers of class, but for the functionality of rogues: quote:
Tier 1- Should be providing a base line understanding of the general mechanics of the game as well as providing small application and strategy for that playstyle / Example: Rogue- Focuses on DEX stat and its application (boosting MRM, guests and statuses that nerf accuracy, DoT statuses) This would make sense that the focus would be of DEX, as fighter covers STR and it's impact on melee damage, and mage focusing on INT and it's impact on magic damage. However this consequently makes Rogue essentially the introduction of what fundamentally is ranger. Even worse, a good few of the skills within the Rogue class has a heavy insinuation of a ranger (i.e: weapon finesse; your attacks are converted to ranged / weapon throw; essentially the effect of a 100% proc weapon / dagger vengeance; aesthetically the equivalent of 100% proc non-bow/gun weapons / potion power shot; literally a bow). Despite this there isn't a titled Ranger class (outside of Luna Neko which is a mechanical correlation more than lore-wise) • Due to a lot of the colloquial points of consideration in which people have standardized the "well-defined archetypes" as Master Cray has suggested; due to the mechanics of the game, the primary source that defines the build outside of the "smaller subsets or build-agnostic strategies" is the primary stat and weapon type of most benefit with the aforementioned stat choice (figher/warrior=STR / mage=INT / ranger=DEX) AND input and output of damage. Therefore the emphasis of DEX and a matching weapon choice virtually automatically means ranger unless you explicitly go out of your way to have a less simplistic and more complex build. To quote Master Cray: quote:
These are all of the established, mechanical archetypes, before getting into anomalous niches or the narrower scope of playstyles. Warrior: Typically offensive, melee damage. STR and DEX are essential stats for damage and accuracy. Dealing full damage with weapon attacks allows for good sustained damage independent of fight duration, but falls behind on immediate burst damage. Mage (Offensive): Magic damage. INT and DEX are essential stats for damage and accuracy respectively. INT provides MP as an additional resource for spells (Baseline 200% melee) and other effects, but sacrificing 25% of weapon damage for this means that it sharply drops off in long fights. Hybrid: Typically offensive, any damage type. Traditionally uses no secondary stats in order to use STR, DEX, and INT, effectively making it so that only two stats are usually active in any given action in exchange for a broader variety of tactics and equipment. Lower performance, higher adaptability. Hybrid (Werepyre): Offensive, melee or magic damage. Werepyre logic requires STR and INT for its damage and accuracy, with LUK as a third stat. Because DEX is universally required for accuracy outside of this, this higher-performance hybrid has very low baseline accuracy outside of armors with werepyre stats. (Note: This is its own identity issue for another discussion) Mage (Defensive): Magic damage. INT and DEX are essential stats for damage and accuracy. Focused on 100% proc Magic weapons, this mage has a resource-efficient standard attack after spellcasting. They sacrifice the higher performance of a Spellcaster lean, but take reduced incoming damage instead of extra damage for their trouble. Ranger (Defensive): Ranged damage. DEX is essential stats for damage and accuracy, but STR contributes as well. Focused on 100% proc Ranged weapons, this ranger has a resource-efficient standard attack. hey sacrifice the higher performance of an offensive lean, but take reduced incoming damage instead of extra damage for their trouble. Ranger (Offensive): Ranged damage. STR and DEX are essential stats for damage and accuracy. Dealing full damage with weapon attacks allows for good sustained damage independent of fight duration, but falls behind on immediate burst damage. Slightly lower damage due to accuracy leans on spears. Variants: LUK - Initiative and lucky strikes make LUK the predominant tertiary stat. CHA - Used for beast variants of the aforementioned builds. Anybody can do this, but it's optimal done for defensive builds, as pet damage is unaffected by your lean. END - ...It exists. It's sometimes used for extra health during lower levels before being phased out, if one is willing to spend a lot of time retraining. I have been pioneering the rogue archetype since....2006. As such, I've gone through multiple iterations of it's mechanics and if I were to use colloquial phrases and titles that people have come to define stuff of the current meta it would be a: "Annihilator inverse beastmaster mage dodge build"; as complicated as that sounds it was built off of a few principles that resulted in the referenced build: • Dodge build- Dodge lol, rogues shouldn't be tanking hits and I would prefer they were actually squishy as then it actually matters to be strategic instead of doing mental gymnastics without actual real consequences. • Inverse Mage- Intelligence instead of strength makes more sense (to me). A rogue ought to be smart instead of a theoretical beef head. A well placed dagger over swinging a sword really hard but you're a rogue, you don't drop meteors and the like on people (contrary to Madara), but you might have some stuff to help accomplish certain things, make you more effective, or handicap your enemy. Your fighting style should be intricate since you have to make up for the fact that you can't just get by just brainlessly swinging your sword until monster dead. • Inverse beastmaster- You're not a conventional beastmaster bringing Goggs onto the battle field. Pets shouldn't be a main/major source of damage while you sit back and hit as hard as a monster from Bludrut Keep. • Annihilator- Sacrifice tankiness for powerful burst damage. As one can infer from all of this, this is riddled with smaller subsets, therefore if this were to be stripped down to the core, it would be a mage (offensive); but the established description doesn't quite cut it. To quote Valencia: "To be a good Rogue, you need to have high DEX, a good bit of INT and CHA, and a hefty dose of LUK on your side." (any of these sound familiar?) So using the provided quote and description of the archetypes as a template, I would reference rogue as: Rogue: Typically offensive, magic damage. INT and DEX are essential stats for damage and accuracy respectively with LUK as a third stat. Focused on dodging; because INT provides MP as an additional resource for spells to provide broader variety of tactics and equipment and other effects they sacrifice the higher performance. Lower performance, higher adaptability and take increased incoming damage due to the overall reduction of incoming damage from dodging for their trouble. Sacrificing sustained damage and defense means that effectiveness sharply drops off in extremely long fights. As one could probably tell, there was a little bit of everything in there with a sprinkle of something unique that the others didn't (dodge). Would that make this the ultimate Hybrid? I don't think so. So what am I getting at? Well first, as Master Cray mentioned: quote:
...we're aware of the ranger identity crisis, and it can't be solved from the item side. I still suggest spear rewards periodically, as there will need to be some amount of recent spears when the problem is addressed, but armors can't cater to an identity that has realistically disappeared until such a time as the stat revamp provides a chance to properly define it. Offensive rangers have very little that is exclusive to them because there is no line between them and warriors right now. We're aware of this problem, and it's as painful for us as it is for you, but it'll take a major stat update to give a satisfying solution before items can properly cater to this archetype again. ...defensive rangers are barely distinct from defensive mages. In fact, the greater variety of bows than wands is one of the few things propping them up, alongside the fact that they make the ideal beastmasters due to being far less concerned about allocating two stats for higher performance with their weapon attacks. More egregiously, though, offensive rangers are built identically to warriors and have ever so slightly lower damage. They have no identity of their own beside the damage type. This isn't something that armors can solve, and in fact makes it range from harder to pointless armor specifically for offensive ranger mechanics that stand out from warriors. It can be done, of course, but they'll be the same build using a different damage stat. Second, a rogue, based on statements consistent with lore, the main stats do not fall in line with a warrior therefore cannot subsequently be equivalent to an offensive ranger. As for a defensive ranger.... Based on the list provided for each of the mechanical archetypes, these account for how damage is received, either increased, decreased, or neutral; this doesn't account for "no damage". The way that this is different instead of just going based on that damage one "would" take, is that the overall damage potential is different as full offense builds finish enemies quicker. If a fully offensive lean does 1.56* more damage than fully defensive, then using the 10 turn model as a base; if a fully defensive build took 10 turns a fully offensive build would theoretically (assuming all turns were used for pure offense) only take 6-7 turns. If the full defense build took 10 damage per each of their turns and the full offense took 14-17 per each of their turns, and that is a distinguishable enough difference to warrant the concept for a different build archetype, then why wouldn't something even more different of 100 damage on none of the turns except the 5th out of 7 turns? Its defensive in the amount of time that took to "accumulate" said damage yet offensive in the immediate damage taken on contact. With all these considered, it is my question that in the endeavors to revamp the DEX stat, and fix the identity for Rangers, if there will be any attempt to separate these concepts between Rogue and Ranger? What do the dev's define as a rogue? Do we feel the need to shoehorn it into something extremely similar to how the other were presented or are we going to resign to kinda just letting it be this multi-faceted archetype? Even Valencia tells you when you ask her what a rogue is:"A rogue is someone who looks of for themselves first and foremost. Whether you're a treasure hunter like me, a thief, a pirate, or a mercenary.... us Rogues live on the edge of society." I understand that, if we had all the answers, the problem would probably already be fixed. I'm just trying to get some insight on the thoughts surrounding this.
< Message edited by Mr. Roguish -- 11/7/2021 22:22:02 >
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