Bug 926: (Developer) I am on quest
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Re: Bug 926: (Developer) I am on quest
I don't mean to come across as aggressive or argumentative. You guys are doing a great job resurrecting Vanguard and for no reward other than the satisfaction of doing it. I am very grateful for that. I loved Vanguard in a way I have never felt about a game before or since, and I'm very passionate about it. I watched Sony release the game before it was ready, and then run it into the ground. Yes, Sony fixed some bugs and made VG more playable in some ways, but they also relentlessly made it less challenging, less rewarding, and less fun. Even so, end-stage Vanguard was still probably the best game out there. But it was a pale shadow of what it once was and an abomination compared to what it could have been.
A few final points in reply to Jakkal, in no particular order, and then I'll (mostly) let it drop --
1. Class balance in the post 50 game was a big deal, because the post 50 game was so fubar. Because SOE couldn't or wouldn't put the energy into raising the level cap, they kept compressing more and more stuff into the same level. VG should have got its "Ruins of Kunark" and opened up, but instead got squeezed into oblivion at 55. And I will re-iterate that we are only doing level 1-50 now. When we get to post 50 we should definitely take steps to adjust class balance as necessary. If it really matters during a L55 raid that backstab works from the front, then the highest level backstab could work from the front. That doesn't mean any of the lower level ones would need to, as they aren't relevant to L51+.
2. I solo'd my first rogue most of the way through the 40s up to 50. I solo'd all the swamp armor except the BP and legs. In the swamp and ToT, most 3-dots didn't survive the Ravage stun. It was nice to have bandages, but most of the time I did not need them, even on 4-dots, named or otherwise. Yes, there were some mobs that were hard (things with damage shields like the RI dogs, frex) or impossible, however my rogue was better against most of them than my monk (who was better equipped). In all honesty, of the dozen or so characters I took to level 50 or above, I think my rogue was the best soloer, and he was better in his 40s then he was at lower levels.
3. One of the things I liked best about the original EQ was that player skill mattered, not just character skill. EQ2 reversed that, and for almost any class all you had to do was mash buttons, and you were as good as the next guy. That's the main reason I bolted from EQ2 to the VG beta as soon as I could get in.
From one perspective, it is unfair to bad players that they can't be as good as good players. But I think the solution to that is to have some character classes that are relatively easy to play (i.e. where the gap between the best and the worst is small) and other classes that are harder to play (where the gap is large). VG did that. Rogue was probably the most difficult class to play well. That is one of the things that made Vanguard special, and it is one of the reasons why I'm pretty much not playing anything until Pantheon comes out. Every game I've seen since VG is so homogenized that there is little scope to be good.
4. Your example about mobs bouncing around is precisely what I mean about skill. A DK that turns a mob is an idiot. Tell him not to do that. If another DPS in your group is constantly pulling agro, tell them to stop it or go stand next to the tank. It would be like having cleric heals that don't generate much agro, because clerics might be grouped with bad tanks. The tank is never going to get good if the game covers up his mistakes.
Did you ever play EQ? If not, maybe that's the difference in our perspectives. EQ was a hard game, and the good players had to work with the not-so-good players to improve their play, or you had to find other people to play with. One of my regular toons in EQ was an enchanter, and bad play by other people was responsible for at least 90% of my deaths (and death hurt in EQ). EQ, for all its flaws, had something you could call pursuit of excellence. EQ2 had almost none of it. VG had it, though Sony did their best to squeeze it out over the years.
5. A Rogue's stance was qualitatively different than any other class' stance. No other class had a stance that was an ability. No other class had a stance that was a skill. No other class got knocked out of a stance merely by being hit (they needed to be hit by a special stance-changing attack). I don't it is possible to argue anything about a rogue's stances based on other classes' stances. Rogue stances were different in every way, so much so that I would argue they weren't actually stances; the developers just used the stance mechanics to implement sneak.
Rogue sneak broke while harvesting, so rogues didn't have an unfair advantage as harvesters. Rogue sneak broke on sparklies so rogues didn't have an unfair advantage completing quests. Yes, you can put see-invis mobs all over the place where there are sparklies, but that would fundamentally alter the nature of many areas where groups would routinely use invis to move to a named mob.
Sparklies are only quest completers. To prevent rogues from bypassing content, you would put see invis mobs near the sparklies. This would change the nature of most dungeons. Why not just have sparklies break sneak?
I guess I don't understand why you want sparklies not to break sneak. If it is not to get an unfair advantage or to by pass content (and I presume it is not), why not have sparklies break sneak?
A few final points in reply to Jakkal, in no particular order, and then I'll (mostly) let it drop --
1. Class balance in the post 50 game was a big deal, because the post 50 game was so fubar. Because SOE couldn't or wouldn't put the energy into raising the level cap, they kept compressing more and more stuff into the same level. VG should have got its "Ruins of Kunark" and opened up, but instead got squeezed into oblivion at 55. And I will re-iterate that we are only doing level 1-50 now. When we get to post 50 we should definitely take steps to adjust class balance as necessary. If it really matters during a L55 raid that backstab works from the front, then the highest level backstab could work from the front. That doesn't mean any of the lower level ones would need to, as they aren't relevant to L51+.
2. I solo'd my first rogue most of the way through the 40s up to 50. I solo'd all the swamp armor except the BP and legs. In the swamp and ToT, most 3-dots didn't survive the Ravage stun. It was nice to have bandages, but most of the time I did not need them, even on 4-dots, named or otherwise. Yes, there were some mobs that were hard (things with damage shields like the RI dogs, frex) or impossible, however my rogue was better against most of them than my monk (who was better equipped). In all honesty, of the dozen or so characters I took to level 50 or above, I think my rogue was the best soloer, and he was better in his 40s then he was at lower levels.
3. One of the things I liked best about the original EQ was that player skill mattered, not just character skill. EQ2 reversed that, and for almost any class all you had to do was mash buttons, and you were as good as the next guy. That's the main reason I bolted from EQ2 to the VG beta as soon as I could get in.
From one perspective, it is unfair to bad players that they can't be as good as good players. But I think the solution to that is to have some character classes that are relatively easy to play (i.e. where the gap between the best and the worst is small) and other classes that are harder to play (where the gap is large). VG did that. Rogue was probably the most difficult class to play well. That is one of the things that made Vanguard special, and it is one of the reasons why I'm pretty much not playing anything until Pantheon comes out. Every game I've seen since VG is so homogenized that there is little scope to be good.
4. Your example about mobs bouncing around is precisely what I mean about skill. A DK that turns a mob is an idiot. Tell him not to do that. If another DPS in your group is constantly pulling agro, tell them to stop it or go stand next to the tank. It would be like having cleric heals that don't generate much agro, because clerics might be grouped with bad tanks. The tank is never going to get good if the game covers up his mistakes.
Did you ever play EQ? If not, maybe that's the difference in our perspectives. EQ was a hard game, and the good players had to work with the not-so-good players to improve their play, or you had to find other people to play with. One of my regular toons in EQ was an enchanter, and bad play by other people was responsible for at least 90% of my deaths (and death hurt in EQ). EQ, for all its flaws, had something you could call pursuit of excellence. EQ2 had almost none of it. VG had it, though Sony did their best to squeeze it out over the years.
5. A Rogue's stance was qualitatively different than any other class' stance. No other class had a stance that was an ability. No other class had a stance that was a skill. No other class got knocked out of a stance merely by being hit (they needed to be hit by a special stance-changing attack). I don't it is possible to argue anything about a rogue's stances based on other classes' stances. Rogue stances were different in every way, so much so that I would argue they weren't actually stances; the developers just used the stance mechanics to implement sneak.
Rogue sneak broke while harvesting, so rogues didn't have an unfair advantage as harvesters. Rogue sneak broke on sparklies so rogues didn't have an unfair advantage completing quests. Yes, you can put see-invis mobs all over the place where there are sparklies, but that would fundamentally alter the nature of many areas where groups would routinely use invis to move to a named mob.
Sparklies are only quest completers. To prevent rogues from bypassing content, you would put see invis mobs near the sparklies. This would change the nature of most dungeons. Why not just have sparklies break sneak?
I guess I don't understand why you want sparklies not to break sneak. If it is not to get an unfair advantage or to by pass content (and I presume it is not), why not have sparklies break sneak?
Re: Bug 926: (Developer) I am on quest
[quote="OncaLupe"]The rogue stealth ties directly with their stance as well, so if it gets broken the rogue has much lower DPS and reduced chance to survive. It may not matter much in solo/group dungeons, but at end game it becomes a huge disadvantage to the rogue whenever stealth is broken. It was one of the things I hated about playing my rogue, even mid game.[/quote]
I'm a little confused with this comment. Jakk and I have been talking about whether picking up sparklies should break sneak. If you're doing DPS in a raid, you shouldn't be picking up sparklies. Are you arguing that rogue sneak should never break, even when you pull agro and get hit?
I'm a little confused with this comment. Jakk and I have been talking about whether picking up sparklies should break sneak. If you're doing DPS in a raid, you shouldn't be picking up sparklies. Are you arguing that rogue sneak should never break, even when you pull agro and get hit?
Re: Bug 926: (Developer) I am on quest
This is now working like it did in live closing bug report