Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Firstly, have you noted how beautiful the Nature nodes are? They are really lovely little pieces of art popping up here and there in the landscape. Judging from these, there are great hope an expectations when the design crew get the time to do pure beautifications in this game.
if you haven't noted, you have to take a stroll in the countryside and stop staring on the minimap when you run about.
And I found an area with water (when I was teleported) that was very nice, the aquatic wolves included, nice touch than :-)
There are rumours about an Emerald spire also, but haven't been able to check myself yet.
Some thoughts on the latest patch.
The addition of a little extra materials and a bit of difficulty on the plus-receipts was a nice touch and IMO necessary for making low level stuff an excuse to exist (even if only as a sign of poverty and/or lack of training).
Teleports/desync/whatever (not the cruel rollback of yesterday) seems a bit less frequent, but really has to go away totally. It really sours the already disgruntled player mobs.
And now to the visions (or hallucinated ravings)
The issue of the Rogue, this role need a bit of love beyond the skirmish role it has. The other three roles have some distinct colour, even if I think there may be need of a tad bit more differentiation between Clerics and Wizards. Rouges of now is just a little brother of the Fighter. The problem, I think, is that there is no real objectives for the Rogue to be ... well, roguish with, and all of them feels to be a long time in future.
The only thing right now, that I can say, would give me an taste of the future use of these bastards, would be the ability to pickpocket all these people hanging around in the woods. What do I mean by that.... Well ... say that there was an "Attack" that could be initiated from pretty close range that gives a chance to get a nerfed drop from that.
Perhaps restricted to only Humanoids and perhaps restricted to things below a certain encumbrance threshold.
With such a system, it would make the Rogues to be able to something no other could do and having some exciting fun, waiting for chest, traps and doors to appear in game.
on that note I think the mobs should have their perception upped a bit, or their range of initiation of aggro-action or whatever. Slaloming between groups in sprint mode may have some beauty ... buuut ...
Especially the wolves I have a feeling should react a bit earlier than the disco-Goblins being busy having their fun.
Of course this should be combined with a encumbrance and a different armour penalty to sneak ...
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I feel like this is the solution to role imbalances.
If you stick a rogue in melee it needs to put out a huge amount of damage to hold it's own. Sure they can lay the hurt on targets with flat footed but fighters can lay the hurt on targets with opportunity.
Light armor characters need some savage damage to balance out their fragility. Stam buffs from light armor is the answer.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I have to agree about Rogues not having a real purpose. There is nothing that they can do, that a Fighter can not do better.
I believe that Light Armor has to have key words that are specific to Rogue abilities and they defensive abilities have to be the equivalent to that of the Physical Damage resistance that Heavy Armor grants.
Generic Example (and I don't have the actual numbers in front of me):
If a heavy armor gives a Physical Attack resistance of 24, then an equal quality light armor should give a Reflex based resistance of nearly that amount (18?).
Stealth should only work when wearing Cloth or Light Armor.
Short Bow should have a functioning "Run and Shoot" feat.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Right now from what I've heard they are trying to balance light armors with more non-physical resistance AKA they are making lightly armored characters more resistant to spells. I've argued at length in another topic how physical resistance is far more important and that's not a good balance factor.
Beyond that I don't feel like most wizards and sorcerers want to play characters that play like tanks vs. spells and shred like a wet napkin if they get hit by physical damage.
I think many light armor users want to be playing a glass cannon, and if a light armor user wants to be a bit more defensive they should have to slot feats that make them play that way. I know for one if I felt the aggressive benefits or playing a lightly armored rogue paid off against the lack of survivability I would switch to a lighter armor ASAP. But why would I switch to rogue for the tiny stealth bonus when clerics can heal themselves, hit themselves with speed buffing / freedom orizons, have hold person and some great damage expendables, and get to use heavier armor at no penalty that is really meaningful to me?
Makes no sense to me. Stealth is good but not THAT good. Especially weighed against great benefits like movement speed buffs and roots.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I agree with what you say in link you provided, Andius. Light armour shouldn't just be balanced with improved spell, energy and such resistance. Actually I find that notion quite .... lacking.
But that only solves the problem partly, because down the lane there will be other roles that will have lighter armour, and some defining abilities ... and POP! the Rogue is someone else's little brother that sits in the corner and don't get to play with the other little bulls.
So what I'm after is some kind of signifier ability that is not combat oriented.
Much as I really want to see Turn Undead of a sort or another in the cleric role to differ that one from the Wizards and their spells (I'm aware of the Healing machine difference).
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I haven't gotten much chance to screw around with expendables but I guess there is a lot more cross over there. As far as cantrips vs. orizons go that's actually one stone I won't hurl at GW.
They are very different. Clerics offer a wide array of support and only have one damage orizon that isn't a complete waste of space and training (Touch of Darkness) while Wizards get a good array of very nice damage spells with a large variety of modifiers such as area of effect, range, different damage types, included debuffs, etc.
That a whole different issue entirely. I feel like if they are going to give clerics all those damage spells they should make them not entirely freaking useless. On that front I think clerics should be heavier on single target, DoT, and debuff effects. I'd keep the primaries pretty cheap and keep their power level lower to reflect that. But at this point you may be better off standing there and casting nothing while your stam recharges than casting any damage orizon other than ToD. If you make Damage over Time what it is in most games which is a fairly heavy amount of damage for the resource cost, but something you have the chance to get rid of before it takes it's full toll, then cleric orizons would certainly be worth their stam cost.
The rogue's Sneak Attack damage bonus is also lacking. I get the same damage bonus (if not more) by using my Axe Specialization feature as the rogue may get from sneak attack.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
It is nice the Clerics and the Wizziz have a different feels!
I would rather have a more limited Sneak Attack that is a tad more powerful, than one that works on everyone.
Also here is a question, is there a special keyword on the cleric stuff, like Holy or Blessed or something? if it is I see a potential equivalent of Turn Undead that is implemented that way instead.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
There are keywords that are intended to bypass resistance, but currently those are Cold Iron and Silvered on physical weapons, and I think there are Axiomatic, Chaotic, Holy, and Unholy on caster weapons. Putting keywords on role features that apply to weapon attacks might be hard from a programming point.
I don't think the ability for resistance to be reduced by keywords on the attack is in yet.