Forced archetypes

[CuteAndWhisk]

Hi all,

I am very happy that the fixes and improvements are being constantly implemented, and I appreciate all your hard work. However, I would like to point out that matching certain skills is at the moment most optimal due to the current changes, reducing the flexibility in character creation, leading to forced archetypes.

For example, to maximise the rage skill, I should roll with two-handed weapons. A player who wishes to play a 'rage duelist' - wearing a one-handed weapon only, will be penalised since the build won't be as effective in generating rage.

Similarly, a dual-wielding fighter is forced to go light armour and finesse. Parrying and, let's say medium armour, is simply ineffective on a dual-wield. The additional dmg at the costs of low defences is a bad investment.

Then again, if I wish to parry with a weapon, best to pick two-handed ones, which are already really powerful, especially in PVP and especially now when combined with rage.

(BTW. Could we please stop buffing heavily armoured, raged, two-handed weapon-wielding warriors? I think they are already pretty powerful, considering how much HP they can reach. Please show some love to the rogue types.)

I feel like, to have an effective fighter, I'm being pushed towards heavy-armour, two-handed sword, rage and parrying. My survivability will be high enough to solo every monster I could not take heads-on on my dual-wielding light fighter. And most importantly, I will save a 100% skill cap. Due to the low survivability, the extra damage off-hand could dish-out is wasted during the kiting+healing period - even with finesse+parry (parrying before the changes, which was apparently super high, and now is like half of what was before [btw: 147! animus and 100% skill to reach 15% chance to parry? umm, rly? ).

Please do not forget that some players wish to play a one-handed weapon+empty hand, duel-wields in heavy armour or rage+ one-handed weapon. Such builds would not be optimal due to the implemented changes. There are probably other combinations that eluded me at the moment of writing this post.

(PS: I would like to finish up with - show some love to lightly armoured rogues - I feel like I haven't said that yet;) )

Best wishes,
Cute

[CuteAndWhisk]

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[Kent]

This is a roleplaying server. You do not have to min/max or play a character that is the strongest. You should play your character how your character would be, even if it's a cool concept that isnt neccessarily the strongest in the game. That's how I look at it.

A game where everything is perfectly balanced is an extremely boring game to play.

[Talexis]

Well funny thing is heavy armour isn't the best, it depends on what you are fighting which is why most warriors have more than 1 set of armour. If you are doing pvp, medium armour has a chance of dodging SWM as well as other goodies. Light armour is for fighting mages. I have had my ass handed to me by dual wielding medium armoured players. You can literally make all sorts of combinations of builds, have you tried a light armoured with finesse and parry? So I guess what I am saying here is there really isn't an "optimal" build, it really depends on your playstyle and what your target is. Have you tried the 1 handed builds with shield and parry and evasion?

[CuteAndWhisk]

Please, do not offend me with the 'RP' talk. You do not know my character at all. Thus, let me clarify something for you: my char's background is monsters and heretics hunting, so he needs to be efficient at it. Should I give you the 'RP server' talk because your char wishes to maximise profits and efficiency of your faction?
The rage is so powerful it is absolutely a 'must have' skill if you are planning to be serious about fighting monsters. Min maxing or not.

I would not write this post if I were interested in min-maxing. I would just re-roll and go with the meta. What I am trying to achieve here is to make other builds (mine included), such as those without rage, be also viable. So people do not have to RP 'anger-management issues' (i.e. take skill rage) just so their characters can be good at fighting.

Let's look at this scenario. Why would I waste 100% skill-cap on an off-hand if I can get better results with rage? I'm talking here about significantly large differences. My parrying skill would not be semi-useless and would actually parry something, plus it would cost less animus to get it to work ( as stated before, 147! animus and 100% skill to reach 15% chance to parry, where RP wise - parrying chance should be higher with a dual- wield than with two-hander. I am heavily into HEMA, and I can assure you that it is much easier to parry hits with an offhand dagger or sword than with a longsword). Therefore, my defences would be much higher. So would be my damage. And my HP and HCI.

I really love the RP side of dual-wield - but after recent changes, reduction in parrying and DPS output, dual-wield is lagging behind.

Thanks

[The Broken Sword]

Well said.

Besides, you can pretty much berserk rage after 3 hits. Versus any other stratagem that requires significantly more set up to execute.

[Kent]

Please, do not offend me with the 'RP' talk. You do not know my character at all. Thus, let me clarify something for you: my char's background is monsters and heretics hunting, so he needs to be efficient at it. Should I give you the 'RP server' talk because your char wishes to maximise profits and efficiency of your faction?
The rage is so powerful it is absolutely a 'must have' skill if you are planning to be serious about fighting monsters. Min maxing or not.

I would not write this post if I were interested in min-maxing. I would just re-roll and go with the meta. What I am trying to achieve here is to make other builds (mine included), such as those without rage, be also viable. So people do not have to RP 'anger-management issues' (i.e. take skill rage) just so their characters can be good at fighting.

Oh boy. Lot to unpack here. There is an old adage in the united states that goes something like "Don't judge a book by its cover" with regards to your comment about my character and your presumption about his motivations/background.

There is absolutely not a dang thing that FORCES you to take rage. I play a character who has the capacity to engage effectively in PvP AND PvM, and i do not, nor do i ever intend to take on the rage tree. You seem to be driven by your a need to have your character be the strongest possible person ever. While that may be your characters goals, sometimes life gets in the way of such things.

Here's the real exception I take with this position: You are superimposing mechanics into RP in such a way that portrays it as though you are "FORCED" into an archetype. You ain't forced to do a thing. You chose to play a particular character and it seems you greatly desire to be the strongest fella around (though I am personally of the opinion that a character who wants to be very strong but just isn't quite there is alot more interesting than some sort of super-fighter)

Let's look at this scenario. Why would I waste 100% skill-cap on an off-hand if I can get better results with rage? I'm talking here about significantly large differences. My parrying skill would not be semi-useless and would actually parry something, plus it would cost less animus to get it to work ( as stated before, 147! animus and 100% skill to reach 15% chance to parry, where RP wise - parrying chance should be higher with a dual- wield than with two-hander. I am heavily into HEMA, and I can assure you that it is much easier to parry hits with an offhand dagger or sword than with a longsword). Therefore, my defences would be much higher. So would be my damage. And my HP and HCI.

I really love the RP side of dual-wield - but after recent changes, reduction in parrying and DPS output, dual-wield is lagging behind.

Thanks

Yes, you are right. In any given state of game balance, there is always an optimal build, a strongest build. But because this a roleplay server, we do the things that our character would do, not what is strongest. For example, my character RPly would never wear platemail, but due to the immense power of platemail it would behoove me to use platemail. But I don't, because my character wouldn't.

Again, any game state in which everything is perfectly equal to the next thing is an exceptionally boring game state. Show me any one competitive game that adopts this stance: spoiler alert, there isn't one. DOTA, League of Legends, Starcraft 2, CS:GO, pretty much any competitive game has an evolving meta that is never quite 100% "balanced".

The bottom line here is, I have very little problem with the suggestion that maybe some better tweaking might be needed here, but to put it under the guise of "forced roleplay archetypes" is a little intellectually dishonest. If your character would dual-wield, and the character concept includes that, you should do that. Even if it makes them weak. You must ask yourself if you want to play the character you conceived or the character who is going to be the strongest mechanically. If you sacrifice roleplay for mechanical advantage it is only to your own detriment of enjoyment as a roleplayer.

My two cents, that's all.

[Nightstalker]

If you sacrifice roleplay for mechanical advantage it is only to your own detriment of enjoyment as a roleplayer.

Well spoken, sir. All of it... but would be silly to quote all of it