Upcoming Removal of Eviscerating Blow and Spirit Temper Options for Affected Players

[Ourodai / Aly A / Matcha]

As a very long in the tooth fighter with more defensive than anyone I can tell you we suck at tanking and need outside support. I had over 260 body, 11 resolutes, 8 mettles, 4 parry/riposte, and 4EBs. Sounds like a beast right?! Not so much. Last event I landed a total of 0 of the 8 EBs I threw, got dropped 5 times with doom, and resolutes as soon as ya blow one you’ll blow em all. I’m switching to rogue to have better damage and more survivability.

Obviously EB wasn’t great but I wanted a bursty tanky guy, which rogues do better than a fighter. 100 body is the same as 200. Taking some more armor, enough hardy to get over 100 body, 3 weapon profs, then go ham on rogue. Dodges are insane and doom blow is way more powerful than EB could dream of being.

I’ll miss the wide eyed healers after my reply to how much body are you down and say 265 lol

As a Rogue I can 100% tell you that the Fighters in Chi could absolutely demolish literally any other equally-leveled class (not saying that the classes should inherently be balanced around PvP potential but its a consideration). There's a reason the highest level players are all Fighters or Fighter blends. If your goal is to just never go down, then yeah Rogue is better, because they're designed to be slippery, whereas if you're a Fighter holding a line you're *going* to go down at some point, but you're also dealing waaaaaaay more damage than I will be while eating way more damage and attention from BBEGs than a rogue would attract

The issue was/is that Fighter does everything Rogue does, but better, with the exception of dodge. Fighters don't have positioning requirements, EB gave you *more damage* than the glass-cannon Rogues are meant to be, and you can benefit from higher armor + WEA building into martial xp. Its fine if you ant to play burst, but from a design perspective fighters are still 100% the best class if you want damage and survivability overall.

Also, 100 body is definitely not the same thing as 200 body lol. The Dooms are probably a monster statting solution around fighters with 200 body never going down, which is, again, proof that fighters warp the game with how much support and how many resources in game are catered to them. If there wasn't so much damage in the game, and if Fighters didn't have double or triple the body + armor on top of literally every other class, the game wouldn't need to bend around their stats.

 

[Ian J]

Agree to disagree I guess. I’m just giving my perspective from playing the class at my chapters, mileage may vary. When I don’t get insta killed by dooms and fight for a while, I normally finish fights at 150 body or higher so with 265 I’m wasting xp on hardy. EBs get resisted all the time, the last 8 I threw didn’t land so from my side I agree EB was not a good skill either.

Lookin forward to being a rogue and not looking back at being a fighter.

 

[Rude]

My main PC is a Rogue and I'm a newer player (~lvl 17ish atm, playing for about a year), and I have a degree in game design to give some level of context as to my input here.

In my mind, there are three different primary "classes" in Alliance, with the ability to purchase skills from other classes, or even multiclass if desired. The removal of EB is a step in the right direction, imo. Fighters are by far the strongest class. They have the most ritual support, can benefit from massive armor and body pools, have built in defensives while also having proficiencies that have zero requirements to purchase outside xp, giving them the largest flat white damage out put in the entire game. On TOP of this, they can multiclass into Rogue or Scholar, gaining access to those class capstones on top of mettle and parry and also having double my body and/or armor.

The removal of EB pushes Fighter into the tank archetype that all of the class's other abilities support, and returning the burst damage to rogues, who until this change (and still are for many reasons) outshined in every way by fighters. I built entirely utility because what's the point in doing flat damage or a 200 assassinate when the lvl 40 fighter has like 5 EBs? The archetype a rogue should fill, in my mind, was already owned by fighters on TOP of them having the same number of defensives and the 2nd most op one in the game (mettle), second only to dodge.

I've had many conversations with people about class identity in the game, and froma design standpoint the change to Taunt 100% is an improvement in solidifying the concept of what a Fighter should be, and also makes the value of various Rogue skills (Assassinate in particular) feel much better. I still have MANY issues with fighter (and how Cel scholars have been one dirty), but I like that the game is shifting to a clearer idea of what each class archetypically should be within the context of this game.

I appreciate your thoughtful explanation within the context of game design; but that does leave me with questions about what type of game media you're comparing Larp to.

I've always thought that the fact that Alliance was designed by folks who probably mainly had tabletop RPGs for their baseline template, will sooner or later clash with current new-players' experience of growing up with MMOs & videogames, because of how different those types of games are. The "Live Action" part of Live Action Role-Play is quite different from things on a screen. They're not at all the same. So, I'm curious about what comparisons you're making in between the lines.

I do fundamentally disagree tho, on the point of it being a good thing that classes are becoming even more pigeonholed. Larping is essentially a long-term intellectual sport; it shouldn't be forcing repetitive engagement if it's aim is to be fun.

Also-- Envying a Fighter's defensives & survivability is like saying "Gee, I wish I did nothing but get hit in the face at point-blank a lot more." Cuz, well ... that's what we do.

Everything a fighter deals with is directly in our faces, or it's incoming fast. Which means; either you have defensives, or you better be blessedly spry and fit enough to do all the dodging and evading with your actual real-life body...and keep it up for the entire weekend. And Rogues DEFINITELY understand that too. Rogues do SO much running. (Which is why I cannot.)

I'm very strongly of the opinion that a Fighter's defensives aren't excessive; they're as necessary as safety equipment is, for the very basic reason of proximity to incoming damage.

If you came to Larp to enjoy pretending to be a character whose profession is to attack & defend & get hit, then the game should have ways to enable real-life people who maybe aren't able to do that in real life, to mimic that sort of unreal physical ability in-game. That's what defensives actually do. They make the excitement of combat accessible.

Larp with any fun combat whatsoever needs Fighters as the baseline vanilla soldiers. They're the best entry-level simplicity for new players to study our VASTLY complicated game from.

So, what I'm saying here, is that I don't feel anything was broken with Fighters in the first place. I think it would be better if cross-classing was less discouraged by built-in higher costs, and players could try more things with the same card right from the beginning. I imagine that would lead to a game with more interesting characters, because your growth wouldn't be railroaded, and starting fresh wouldn't be so painful.

...If I may ask; Why did you choose to be a Rogue in the first place? What drew you in that direction, instead of just being a Fighter?

 

[Ourodai / Aly A / Matcha]

I appreciate your thoughtful explanation within the context of game design; but that does leave me with questions about what type of game media you're comparing Larp to.

I've always thought that the fact that Alliance was designed by folks who probably mainly had tabletop RPGs for their baseline template, will sooner or later clash with current new-players' experience of growing up with MMOs & videogames, because of how different those types of games are. The "Live Action" part of Live Action Role-Play is quite different from things on a screen. They're not at all the same. So, I'm curious about what comparisons you're making in between the lines.

I do fundamentally disagree tho, on the point of it being a good thing that classes are becoming even more pigeonholed. Larping is essentially a long-term intellectual sport; it shouldn't be forcing repetitive engagement if it's aim is to be fun.

Also-- Envying a Fighter's defensives & survivability is like saying "Gee, I wish I did nothing but get hit in the face at point-blank a lot more." Cuz, well ... that's what we do.

Everything a fighter deals with is directly in our faces, or it's incoming fast. Which means; either you have defensives, or you better be blessedly spry and fit enough to do all the dodging and evading with your actual real-life body...and keep it up for the entire weekend. And Rogues DEFINITELY understand that too. Rogues do SO much running. (Which is why I cannot.)

I'm very strongly of the opinion that a Fighter's defensives aren't excessive; they're as necessary as safety equipment is, for the very basic reason of proximity to incoming damage.

If you came to Larp to enjoy pretending to be a character whose profession is to attack & defend & get hit, then the game should have ways to enable real-life people who maybe aren't able to do that in real life, to mimic that sort of unreal physical ability in-game. That's what defensives actually do. They make the excitement of combat accessible.

Larp with any fun combat whatsoever needs Fighters as the baseline vanilla soldiers. They're the best entry-level simplicity for new players to study our VASTLY complicated game from.

So, what I'm saying here, is that I don't feel anything was broken with Fighters in the first place. I think it would be better if cross-classing was less discouraged by built-in higher costs, and players could try more things with the same card right from the beginning. I imagine that would lead to a game with more interesting characters, because your growth wouldn't be railroaded, and starting fresh wouldn't be so painful.

...If I may ask; Why did you choose to be a Rogue in the first place? What drew you in that direction, instead of just being a Fighter?

Alliance isn't my first LARP and I'm drawing from a wellspring of different game design principles and media to color my perspective, including other LARP experiences in addition to everything from TTRPGs to classic video game RPGs. I might be new to Alliance, but I've been in the game industry over ten years, so my comparisons aren't only from that of a screen.

My issue with Fighters isn't the defensives, but rather the fact that they have those defensives PLUS burst damage (or did with EB) PLUS the highest flat white damage in the game PLUS they benefit cumulatively from martial xp spent on hp and armor. This gets into my issues with Rogues and a dissertation on class identity, but it makes no sense that Rogue, as also a melee class (im a florentine), does not also benefit from WEA xp-wise. This cross-connects to an issue I have with weapon skills generally, but if things like WEA are going to contribute to xp, it should imo be class agnostic, especially if we are arguing that Fighter shouldn't be pushed towards a tank/defensive archetype and that we shouldn't force players into specific archetypes. There's an argument it could also be made a weapon skill/blue xp, but that's spiteful and if I had it my way, weapon skills wouldn't exist as imo they don't really make sense or add to the game beyond acting as a newbie tax.

I have no issues with defensives existing, but rather the amount of things Fighters have in their toolkit comparably to the other classes. Another solution that would satisfy my complaint would be to drop the base damage in the game overall and let Fighters have the ability to win battles of attrition, and let Rogue's have the drive-by burst damage. In my mind that's more how I see the archetypes at a very simplified baseline, but as of now Fighters absolutely dominate both of them.

I do agree that the multiclassing has a painfully high tax and it heavily discourages building into unless you're reforging at an already high level. I also do agree that it should remain accessible, as the whole point is to escape reality and that very much can include physical limitations or disabilities, but I disagree with the statement that there's "nothing wrong with Fighters". They are fundamentally unbalanced, even with EB gone. There are a number of ways to ameliorate that from a high concept level, a few of which I have outlined here. I can name exactly 2 pure rogues in my chapter, including myself, but I could throw a dagger into a crowd and hit a fighter or spellsword 99% of the time. There's a reason for that. A lot of it is likely the mobility required, but a lot of it is also the sheer advantage Fighters have in the game and how efficient they are xp-to-power wise.

As for why I personally picked Rogue over Fighter, I enjoy the archetype and the challenge of landing my abilities, and I don't personally like the fantasy offering Fighter has with the things stapled to it as a fantasy archetype. I like to 1-shot things, so I focus my build on coatings and para/sleep over damage for xp efficiency, as if I went for BStabs I wouldn't realistically be able to outdamage Fighters in flat white. There's also the matter of aesthetics, as a Rogue walking into a room in full black leather tickles my brain in a way a fighter in full plate just doesn't.

 

[Droth]

As a Rogue I can 100% tell you that the Fighters in Chi could absolutely demolish literally any other equally-leveled class (not saying that the classes should inherently be balanced around PvP potential but its a consideration). There's a reason the highest level players are all Fighters or Fighter blends. If your goal is to just never go down, then yeah Rogue is better, because they're designed to be slippery, whereas if you're a Fighter holding a line you're *going* to go down at some point, but you're also dealing waaaaaaay more damage than I will be while eating way more damage and attention from BBEGs than a rogue would attract

The issue was/is that Fighter does everything Rogue does, but better, with the exception of dodge. Fighters don't have positioning requirements, EB gave you *more damage* than the glass-cannon Rogues are meant to be, and you can benefit from higher armor + WEA building into martial xp. Its fine if you ant to play burst, but from a design perspective fighters are still 100% the best class if you want damage and survivability overall.

Also, 100 body is definitely not the same thing as 200 body lol. The Dooms are probably a monster statting solution around fighters with 200 body never going down, which is, again, proof that fighters warp the game with how much support and how many resources in game are catered to them. If there wasn't so much damage in the game, and if Fighters didn't have double or triple the body + armor on top of literally every other class, the game wouldn't need to bend around their stats.

As a level 40+ fighter I can tell you this is simply not true. A spell caster of my level would wreck me. A rogue will out defense me and make me waste all of my stuff 9/10 times. I built solely around damage to get to where my character was I need everything I have to survive a weekend plus a healer in my pocket. And then after all that if I don’t keep practicing my actual physical skills I probably will still die. The damage is straight up front and in our faces. I’d say 8 out of 10 of those EBs never hit. Just get thrown away into defensives. I will stand with my comment that this was a bad decision for fighters. It hurt us as a whole.

 

[Droth]

Th

I appreciate your thoughtful explanation within the context of game design; but that does leave me with questions about what type of game media you're comparing Larp to.

I've always thought that the fact that Alliance was designed by folks who probably mainly had tabletop RPGs for their baseline template, will sooner or later clash with current new-players' experience of growing up with MMOs & videogames, because of how different those types of games are. The "Live Action" part of Live Action Role-Play is quite different from things on a screen. They're not at all the same. So, I'm curious about what comparisons you're making in between the lines.

I do fundamentally disagree tho, on the point of it being a good thing that classes are becoming even more pigeonholed. Larping is essentially a long-term intellectual sport; it shouldn't be forcing repetitive engagement if it's aim is to be fun.

Also-- Envying a Fighter's defensives & survivability is like saying "Gee, I wish I did nothing but get hit in the face at point-blank a lot more." Cuz, well ... that's what we do.

Everything a fighter deals with is directly in our faces, or it's incoming fast. Which means; either you have defensives, or you better be blessedly spry and fit enough to do all the dodging and evading with your actual real-life body...and keep it up for the entire weekend. And Rogues DEFINITELY understand that too. Rogues do SO much running. (Which is why I cannot.)

I'm very strongly of the opinion that a Fighter's defensives aren't excessive; they're as necessary as safety equipment is, for the very basic reason of proximity to incoming damage.

If you came to Larp to enjoy pretending to be a character whose profession is to attack & defend & get hit, then the game should have ways to enable real-life people who maybe aren't able to do that in real life, to mimic that sort of unreal physical ability in-game. That's what defensives actually do. They make the excitement of combat accessible.

Larp with any fun combat whatsoever needs Fighters as the baseline vanilla soldiers. They're the best entry-level simplicity for new players to study our VASTLY complicated game from.

So, what I'm saying here, is that I don't feel anything was broken with Fighters in the first place. I think it would be better if cross-classing was less discouraged by built-in higher costs, and players could try more things with the same card right from the beginning. I imagine that would lead to a game with more interesting characters, because your growth wouldn't be railroaded, and starting fresh wouldn't be so painful.

...If I may ask; Why did you choose to be a Rogue in the first place? What drew you in that direction, instead of just being a Fighter?

This is the truth and this is what I hear from 9 out of 10 fellow fighters.

 

[DeSylvia]

Could you elaborate on how you're being dropped so readily? I say this with genuine interest as it is, again, such a WILDLY different experience than our local play area. I speculate that mettles remove almost the entirety of magic effects from sticking, and then you have spell parries for the rest? Based solely on your current picture, you play an elf and thus can resist charm (as one of the non functionally mettle able effects) on top of what's left. Is there a surplus of Arcane or Elemental deliveries for the none mettle able things? Looking for genuine insight into what you got going on out by you.

 

[Rude]

Alliance isn't my first LARP and I'm drawing from a wellspring of different game design principles and media to color my perspective, including other LARP experiences in addition to everything from TTRPGs to classic video game RPGs. I might be new to Alliance, but I've been in the game industry over ten years, so my comparisons aren't only from that of a screen.

My issue with Fighters isn't the defensives, but rather the fact that they have those defensives PLUS burst damage (or did with EB) PLUS the highest flat white damage in the game PLUS they benefit cumulatively from martial xp spent on hp and armor. This gets into my issues with Rogues and a dissertation on class identity, but it makes no sense that Rogue, as also a melee class (im a florentine), does not also benefit from WEA xp-wise. This cross-connects to an issue I have with weapon skills generally, but if things like WEA are going to contribute to xp, it should imo be class agnostic, especially if we are arguing that Fighter shouldn't be pushed towards a tank/defensive archetype and that we shouldn't force players into specific archetypes. There's an argument it could also be made a weapon skill/blue xp, but that's spiteful and if I had it my way, weapon skills wouldn't exist as imo they don't really make sense or add to the game beyond acting as a newbie tax.

I have no issues with defensives existing, but rather the amount of things Fighters have in their toolkit comparably to the other classes. Another solution that would satisfy my complaint would be to drop the base damage in the game overall and let Fighters have the ability to win battles of attrition, and let Rogue's have the drive-by burst damage. In my mind that's more how I see the archetypes at a very simplified baseline, but as of now Fighters absolutely dominate both of them.

I do agree that the multiclassing has a painfully high tax and it heavily discourages building into unless you're reforging at an already high level. I also do agree that it should remain accessible, as the whole point is to escape reality and that very much can include physical limitations or disabilities, but I disagree with the statement that there's "nothing wrong with Fighters". They are fundamentally unbalanced, even with EB gone. There are a number of ways to ameliorate that from a high concept level, a few of which I have outlined here. I can name exactly 2 pure rogues in my chapter, including myself, but I could throw a dagger into a crowd and hit a fighter or spellsword 99% of the time. There's a reason for that. A lot of it is likely the mobility required, but a lot of it is also the sheer advantage Fighters have in the game and how efficient they are xp-to-power wise.

As for why I personally picked Rogue over Fighter, I enjoy the archetype and the challenge of landing my abilities, and I don't personally like the fantasy offering Fighter has with the things stapled to it as a fantasy archetype. I like to 1-shot things, so I focus my build on coatings and para/sleep over damage for xp efficiency, as if I went for BStabs I wouldn't realistically be able to outdamage Fighters in flat white. There's also the matter of aesthetics, as a Rogue walking into a room in full black leather tickles my brain in a way a fighter in full plate just doesn't.

You have Fighters in your local chapter(s) with a preference for guerrilla tactics, huh? That sounds neat! Do they do that IN plate?
Not a single Fighter in my area actually wears plate. Far too cumbersome, & you'd cook yourself alive in summer. The most metal you see is a chainmail shirt.

It sounds a bit like Rogues & Fighters in your area don't work much with each other to create optimal positioning for both types of damage output. In my area, there's a few groups of both Fighters & Rogues that know how to cooperatively halt & flank an enemy line, so that the healers & casters don't get overrun. Usually the Rogues make all the final kills because they can disengage and re-position after every "drive-by". It works very well so long as nobody breaks or gets kited out of formation.

Even just the Rogues by themselves doing constant 'drive-bys' can blender a small cluster of enemies down by taking turns kiting to expose backs.

Interesting question, to help me understand more of what you mean by "class identity":
If you were to swap a Fighter & a Rogue's stats & skills, which one would seem/play weirder (and I think, therefore lose the most "identity")?

 

[Ourodai / Aly A / Matcha]

As a level 40+ fighter I can tell you this is simply not true. A spell caster of my level would wreck me. A rogue will out defense me and make me waste all of my stuff 9/10 times. I built solely around damage to get to where my character was I need everything I have to survive a weekend plus a healer in my pocket. And then after all that if I don’t keep practicing my actual physical skills I probably will still die. The damage is straight up front and in our faces. I’d say 8 out of 10 of those EBs never hit. Just get thrown away into defensives. I will stand with my comment that this was a bad decision for fighters. It hurt us as a whole.

If you built solely damage and no defensives, that would likely be part of the reason you're being dropped so often, no? Genuine question and not trying to be rude. Your experience is wildly different from mine and Fighters 100% dominate the game at every level in every chapter I've been to (3 in total).

Rogue's have more defensives because we have conditional damage and positioning requirements. We're meant to be burst damage, and EB simply existing on top of Slay made any damage I could do as a Rogue 100% irrelevant. I mitigated this by building status effects/ "blow a def or die" with a small bump in white from behind. Fighters having the big damage nuke made zero sense if there is meant to be any consideration at all in what selecting a specific class means. The staff I've talked to seem to agree that this is in line with the concept of what they see as a fighter vs a rogue.

 

[Ourodai / Aly A / Matcha]

You have Fighters in your local chapter(s) with a preference for guerrilla tactics, huh? That sounds neat! Do they do that IN plate?
Not a single Fighter in my area actually wears plate. Far too cumbersome, & you'd cook yourself alive in summer. The most metal you see is a chainmail shirt.

It sounds a bit like Rogues & Fighters in your area don't work much with each other to create optimal positioning for both types of damage output. In my area, there's a few groups of both Fighters & Rogues that know how to cooperatively halt & flank an enemy line, so that the healers & casters don't get overrun. Usually the Rogues make all the final kills because they can disengage and re-position after every "drive-by". It works very well so long as nobody breaks or gets kited out of formation.

Even just the Rogues by themselves doing constant 'drive-bys' can blender a small cluster of enemies down by taking turns kiting to expose backs.

Interesting question, to help me understand more of what you mean by "class identity":
If you were to swap a Fighter & a Rogue's stats & skills, which one would seem/play weirder (and I think, therefore lose the most "identity")?

There's a few that do wear plate,and the Rogue's Triange is a common tactic here, yes. It's not uncommon for a spear fighter to rush by and drop a few 15's into something I was about to drop an assassinate into. My chapter, Chicago, has a *LOT* of very high level players, mostly Fighters or Fighter-Adjacent, and I 100% cannot compete with them at all. even my friend who is only lvl 6 is hitting for 6 normal, and I at 17 just hit 10 *from behind.* Yes, these are conscious build decisions on my part, but even if I did build for pure damage, I would be dropping xp in yellow instead of purple, which is suboptimal xp-wise and would force me to reforge at a later level for maximal damage output.

The culture here is largely the shield wall/meatball, and ducking in and out of that as a lower level rogue is often too risky since most stuff outside the meatball is built specifically for the big 250 body shield fighters to deal with and will drop me in one hit if i dont have a defensive up.

Swapping the two's stats wouldn't... do anything? Like if you're just giving a Fighter a lvl 20 Rogue card then they'd just be a lvl 20 Rogue then, no?

But as for class identity, I mean specifically the fantasy that is promised and provided by the class selection. For example, I chose Rogue over Fighter largely because of the 1-shot potential of status effects and conditions. If I wanted to kill things with damage, I would have gone Fighter, because that would be the most optimal way to build damage due to the xp reduction in profs. I want to be sneaking around the battlefield, then 1-shotting things from behind, making back alley deals, and tracking down a target and eliminating them with precision and finesse. That's the fantasy I see in Rogue. Fighter is more like a footsoldier to me, holding a line in a great battle. Some of this is RP flavor for sure, and realistically I could do some of this as a Fighter, but the experience imo is enhanced by the choosing of the class. If I wanted to play a paladin, I'd be a spellsword. The issue as of now is that, functionally on the battlefield, rogue doesn't give me anything that a Fighter doesn't already do better.

 

[Rude]

Could you elaborate on how you're being dropped so readily? I say this with genuine interest as it is, again, such a WILDLY different experience than our local play area. I speculate that mettles remove almost the entirety of magic effects from sticking, and then you have spell parries for the rest? Based solely on your current picture, you play an elf and thus can resist charm (as one of the non functionally mettle able effects) on top of what's left. Is there a surplus of Arcane or Elemental deliveries for the none mettle able things? Looking for genuine insight into what you got going on out by you.

In my area, very few players I'm aware of have Spell Parries. Tbh, rits & catalysts are very much hoarded by the named guilds.

In regards to things that drop you; Berserk by voice, while standing in the middle of a group with only 30% able to call Resists/Mettles.

Also-- getting steamrolled backwards, while trying to protect refitting or pinned players.

Also also-- monsters swinging sleep, chaos, or 30s - 50s.

Can't remember much of the details in each event. Shtf pretty fast in those encounters.

 

[DeSylvia]

In my area, very few players I'm aware of have Spell Parries. Tbh, rits & catalysts are very much hoarded by the named guilds.

In regards to things that drop you; Berserk by voice, while standing in the middle of a group with only 30% able to call Resists/Mettles.

Also-- getting steamrolled backwards, while trying to protect refitting or pinned players.

Also also-- monsters swinging sleep, chaos, or 30s - 50s.

Can't remember much of the details in each event. Shtf pretty fast in those encounters.

Im sorry to hear that, thats some toxic bs that the WI and CHI area worked very hard to eradicate. Its not a fun time for sure but, unfortunately, it is also a local cultural issue that cant have a rules set based on. I only mentioned it since the game expects you to have a certain value of treasure based on level and thus rituals like spell parry would be "expected" on fighters so to speak.

Beyond that sad situation, the examples you gave would otherwise be rough for anyone but still overall have a fighter in the best shape to deal with it as far as my mental math's go. Voice radius berserk- at least you can mettle. Those carriers and numbers - at least you have the most armor and or body, plus appropriate defenses. Still a bad day for sure though!

 

[Darkcrescent]

Yeah, that's entirely different from our region and I would probably have their same frustration. MN Spell Parry Scrolls go for 5g, Retributions for a little more. Maybe Fortify is 10g and plenty of scroll and MI options dropped that mod groups or the town has access too.

 

[Droth]

Could you elaborate on how you're being dropped so readily? I say this with genuine interest as it is, again, such a WILDLY different experience than our local play area. I speculate that mettles remove almost the entirety of magic effects from sticking, and then you have spell parries for the rest? Based solely on your current picture, you play an elf and thus can resist charm (as one of the non functionally mettle able effects) on top of what's left. Is there a surplus of Arcane or Elemental deliveries for the none mettle able things? Looking for genuine insight into what you got going on out by you.

As I said I built as a damage dealing fighter. I could poor into mettle and hardy but I didn’t because I wanted to deal damage. So I personally have lower body at my level I do have my resists but being on the front line and having to defend against 3 melee opponents a ranged opponent and 1 or more caster can get intense. You have to pick your poison. I wish I had spell parries, I don’t know many that do, that would be amazing. Perhaps there’s just more of that here I play three different chapters and all are different but I run into the same problems at all of them at some points.

 

[Rude]

Swapping the two's stats wouldn't... do anything? Like if you're just giving a Fighter a lvl 20 Rogue card then they'd just be a lvl 20 Rogue then, no?

Okay, I gotcha. Your meani g is basically like, the stereotype of a class.

What I thought it meant, is the skills & in-game mechanics that reflect that characterization.

For example: If both Rogues & Fighters could do the same damage from front & the same boosted damage from behind-- then the distinguishing feature of/between either would be whether or not they prefer to avoid the face-to-face confrontation and just go for the surprise back-damage.

An amount of damage doesn't identify a person; but HOW they deliver it does.

...I suppose you could have a Fighter card for the higher numbers, and just play it selectively like you feel a Rogue would. And you would BE a Rogue in every sense except on paper.

On the flipside-- a Rogue card trying to play like a straightfoward Fighter would just be ineffective from the lower numbers; meaning that the signature feature of a Fighter is just the ability to do damage. Nothing else distinguishes Fighters as a class. Damage is our identity.


So in reality, I figure the classes have restrictions built-in mainly to preserve the stereotype, and that's why the choice to do both or flex somewhere in between just doesn't exist.

But I wonder:
In the hypothetical situation where all cards could be built 'a la cart' for the same xp costs... Would we see more variety of builds, or less variety because there would be an optimized path to most of the significant skills...?

 

[Droth]

I know that I have no interest as playing as a tank or as a rogue I want to be a dps style fighter. That’s what I enjoy and I know there are other fighters who feel the same and even if not to the degree I do think getting rid of EB for a skill like taunt hurt us and our style of game we want to play. I dont think it’s fair to try and push being a tank onto a fighter.

 

[Ourodai / Aly A / Matcha]

Okay, I gotcha. Your meani g is basically like, the stereotype of a class.

What I thought it meant, is the skills & in-game mechanics that reflect that characterization.

For example: If both Rogues & Fighters could do the same damage from front & the same boosted damage from behind-- then the distinguishing feature of/between either would be whether or not they prefer to avoid the face-to-face confrontation and just go for the surprise back-damage.

An amount of damage doesn't identify a person; but HOW they deliver it does.

...I suppose you could have a Fighter card for the higher numbers, and just play it selectively like you feel a Rogue would. And you would BE a Rogue in every sense except on paper.

On the flipside-- a Rogue card trying to play like a straightfoward Fighter would just be ineffective from the lower numbers; meaning that the signature feature of a Fighter is just the ability to do damage. Nothing else distinguishes Fighters as a class. Damage is our identity.


So in reality, I figure the classes have restrictions built-in mainly to preserve the stereotype, and that's why the choice to do both or flex somewhere in between just doesn't exist.

But I wonder:
In the hypothetical situation where all cards could be built 'a la cart' for the same xp costs... Would we see more variety of builds, or less variety because there would be an optimized path to most of the significant skills...?

The archetype, but yes, and a *lot* can live inside a single archetype, but in a game where the Fighter is the default DPS *and* tank, that doesn't leave much space for Rogue to shine as a melee burst damage DPS while also being outstatted on defensives outside dodge.

What I am wanting is a clearer directive for what the game sees as the archetype of each class. If it can be defined at a high level, that philosophy can be pushed through design and help to define the classes at the ground level, and inform how they should play and what abilities they should have.

On this specifically: "An amount of damage doesn't identify a person; but HOW they deliver it does."

The Rogue capstone is literally "you can attack from the front on enemies doing counted actions" (Surprise Attack) which is... underwhelming, to say the least, but functionally fine enough. The issue I have is that, essentially, Rogues are exactly the same as Fighters with defenses in evasion as opposed to an hp/armor pool and cant attack from the front. So, weaker Fighter. What I am wanting is a redefinition from the top down of what each class is meant to deliver as a power fantasy. As of now, rogue most closely aligns with what I want to do as a player, even if it is suboptimal numbers wise; as you said, if I wanted optimal damage, I'd play a fighter. I want the game design to lean more decidedly into the fantasy of that sneaky assassin prowling back alleyways looking for their next target. I also understand this is only one of many archetypes that exist under Rogue in the game.

I think right now Fighters are dealing with something similar as the high burst damage from EB was a nerf objectively to the duelist/skirmisher power fantasy while giving more tools to the tank side of the Fighter identity. Imo, this is good, because it strengthens the Rogue's identity as the burst damage nuke it should be and makes Assassinate feel way less feelsbad while also focusing both Scout's and Fighter's identity, Fighter being more tank-focused and Scout having more of a skirmisher identity with access to Assassinates now, which have become way more valuable as a result.

I still have my issues, but its a step in the right direction for the game as a whole in my eyes

 

[Rude]

Im sorry to hear that, thats some toxic bs that the WI and CHI area worked very hard to eradicate. Its not a fun time for sure but, unfortunately, it is also a local cultural issue that cant have a rules set based on. I only mentioned it since the game expects you to have a certain value of treasure based on level and thus rituals like spell parry would be "expected" on fighters so to speak.

Beyond that sad situation, the examples you gave would otherwise be rough for anyone but still overall have a fighter in the best shape to deal with it as far as my mental math's go. Voice radius berserk- at least you can mettle. Those carriers and numbers - at least you have the most armor and or body, plus appropriate defenses. Still a bad day for sure though!

Yeah, that's entirely different from our region and I would probably have their same frustration. MN Spell Parry Scrolls go for 5g, Retributions for a little more. Maybe Fortify is 10g and plenty of scroll and MI options dropped that mod groups or the town has access too.

It honestly wasn't all that bad, in most of those instances. Very tense/exciting for a bit, but our party comp recovered well. Our healers are amazing, & I know my job; it's to make sure nothing touches them.


Actually; my mistake--
Monsters swinging 50s was at Regionals, last year if I remember right. That doesn't really count as "local".

It was a meat grinder mod. At the time, I had maybe 30 armor & 40-something body, so I could take 2 hits tops, with absolutely no way to refit. I think we did 8 or 9 rounds of "dungeon floors", & I was down in under 30 seconds every round. I wasn't with any of my usual party either; so nobody had your back, there was no form or positioning... The NPCs just swarmed straight at you on an open basketball court. That wasn't any fun for me; it had no flavor.

 

[Rude]

I know that I have no interest as playing as a tank or as a rogue I want to be a dps style fighter. That’s what I enjoy and I know there are other fighters who feel the same and even if not to the degree I do think getting rid of EB for a skill like taunt hurt us and our style of game we want to play. I dont think it’s fair to try and push being a tank onto a fighter.

Taunt doesn't really even help with a tank build, imo. It could be USED as part of a finished one-- but the Taunt itself just gets you dogpiled dead without doing anything supportive to keep you alive.

If Taunt came with say, temp armor/HP, or something like 30 seconds of immunity to anything... Yeah, okay, maybe?

But it's not that.
It's basically a loud fart in a crowded elevator, & then immediate consequences.

 

[Droth]

Taunt doesn't really even help with a tank build, imo. It could be USED as part of a finished one-- but the Taunt itself just gets you dogpiled dead without doing anything supportive to keep you alive.

If Taunt came with say, temp armor/HP, or something like 30 seconds of immunity to anything... Yeah, okay, maybe?

But it's not that.
It's basically a loud fart in a crowded elevator, & then immediate consequences.

I agree also if it didn’t clearly state but not put themselves in danger it would be better as well…that gives free call to just blow off the skill or o man someone was in my way so I couldn’t follow it. It’s not a good skill especially as a replacement for what it’s trying to replace a huge nerf no matter how you look at it.