A rogue and game review (looooong post)

[shadowstepninja]

After 19hrs of gameplay of just rogue (melee) (lvl 9),
there are some things I want to point out.

Stats
STR 2 STAB III
END 1+1 Stealth I
AGI 5 Sneak Attack I
INT 1 Kick I
AWA 1 Evasion I
PER 1 Recovery I
Assassinate I


I'd like to apologize in advance if I seem to be redesigning rogue class.

First Matter:
My idea of rogue is stealth+stab=crit for tons of damage.
However, the cooldown of stealth is way too long to decapitate each monster.
I feel this gameplay is very unsatisfying as I have to wait 25 seconds in between each monster, and 30 seconds for evasion.
I remember when I was level 7, and my stealth was level 1, I hunted minotaurs and they usually had less than 10% chance of hearing me. The sneak attack did 50-75% of their health and i used evasion to reduce the damage and finish the monster.
I feel like the stealth mechanic should be changed, my input would be to:
-Increase the chance of them hearing me for a level 1 stealth.
-Shorten stealth cooldown
-Ability to stealth in combat with a low success rate (increase with skill level). Monsters will start regenerating health after two seconds out of combat. However, in those two seconds, they will attack companion or swing in random directions, and reveal you if they hit you. If you can hit them while stealth, enable crit.

Second Matter:
However, the rogue in this game does not feel squishy enough, with the above mentioned, it feels like it's not risky enough. Rather than agility increasing armor, increasing it's chance to evade skills or parry with a light weapon seems more accurate for a "rogue". I feel like rogue class depends more on luck and dodging is a good way to define that.

Third Matter:
New skill, Dual Wield (daggers).
A point in this skill allows the ability to dual wield.
Activating this skill increases the attack speed by a %, but decreases defenses (dodging) as well.
-With this being said, I'd also like another skill, to hit AOE with dual daggers.
-Therefore, change text: keep stab (with one weapon),
or attack in quick succession with both daggers,
and help ranged rogues (headshot): Ensures critical strike dealing increased crit damage.

Fourth Matter:
All "rogues" use poison. I feel like removing poison dagger drops and store from the game. Instead, rogues can apply a poison coating (with the advanced skill or crafting (sorry I don't know much about your future plans on crafting)) to their (elemental) daggers and lightswords.

Fifth Matter:
Remove kick or move it to the trap. Instead, maybe drop a trap and roll backwards, evading all attacks for 0.75 seconds. Also, instead of just having more traps, make the traps bigger, so rogues can have an AOE skill, and make the monsters bleed!!! Then STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB, feels good.

Sixth Matter:
I'm not a ranged rogue, but i really don't think sprint is a "fun" spell. Perhaps a single target stun, incorporate bleed into ranged rogues, or volley of arrows.

Seventh Matter:
I think you probably have more advanced skills in mind, rather than just two melee and two ranged skills, so I'll leave this open for now. Oh, and remove kick.

Eighth Matter:
I'm not sure if you want to even consider this skill for the theme of your game. Blink behind your enemy and crit them. Activate within the next two seconds to blink back to your original spot, (dodge one attack).

Ninth Matter:
Lower agility trait base damage scaling on light weapons to adjust to more crit opportunities.

TL;DR Make squishy burst melee rogue with more dodging and crit capabilities
Sorry if I sounded like I wanted to reinvent your rogue class.

The only thing i despise about the game in general are traps. I hate how they take 3/4 of my hp, and all the traps seem to be higher level than be so i have like 15% chance of disarming them. Also, they always seem to be around doorways and around chests, which sucks. I wish that monsters can step on them

All in all, great game for cheap price, keep up the good work!
Can't wait for the complete game!

 

[abstractsense]

Good suggestions. I'd like to address a few.

My idea of rogue is stealth+stab=crit for tons of damage.
However, the cooldown of stealth is way too long to decapitate each monster.
I feel this gameplay is very unsatisfying as I have to wait 25 seconds in between each monster, and 30 seconds for evasion.

You need to pick up the higher tiers of skills to get a better idea of how they scale with player levels. Evasion becomes extremely powerful at tier III. Stealth probably should be adjusted to have cooldowns of 30/25/20, to match (the recent changes to) Evasion.

However, the rogue in this game does not feel squishy enough, with the above mentioned, it feels like it's not risky enough. Rather than agility increasing armor, increasing it's chance to evade skills or parry with a light weapon seems more accurate for a "rogue". I feel like rogue class depends more on luck and dodging is a good way to define that.

Rogues are the squishiest of the three classes. There aren't parry/evade mechanics and I don't see them being added (Evasion is an active skill rather than a passive one and works quite well as it is now).

Fourth Matter:
All "rogues" use poison. I feel like removing poison dagger drops and store from the game. Instead, rogues can apply a poison coating (with the advanced skill or crafting (sorry I don't know much about your future plans on crafting)) to their (elemental) daggers and lightswords.

I think this is a realism vs limit game mechanics argument. I see it as two mechanics: "passive" damage from Toxic "element" weapons vs "active" damage from the Poison Master skill/poison coating weapons. Removing Toxic from weapons makes it much more rare.

It could go either way, though, because almost all of the Toxic damage weapons (except the Bluesteel Poisonous Dagger) were added before the Poison Master advanced skill.

Ninth Matter:
Lower agility trait base damage scaling on light weapons to adjust to more crit opportunities.

This would seriously negatively affect the damage output of Rogues. Rogues are supposed to be the biggest damage dealers of the three classes. This change would likely make 2-handed Warriors more damaging than light weapon Rogues.

TL;DR Make squishy burst melee rogue with more dodging and crit capabilities
Sorry if I sounded like I wanted to reinvent your rogue class.

IMHO, that's how they are now. Try fighting some of the more difficult enemies (Mummies, Trolls, or even bosses like the Dragons). You'll see how squishy they are.

The only thing i despise about the game in general are traps. I hate how they take 3/4 of my hp, and all the traps seem to be higher level than be so i have like 15% chance of disarming them. Also, they always seem to be around doorways and around chests, which sucks. I wish that monsters can step on them

There are three strategies for Rogues to deal with traps (not mutually exclusive).

1. Pump Trap Master and trap detection skills. <--- reliability requires a lot of investment away from damage-dealing
2. Push your Companion around and into them <--- most reliable, most annoying
3. Use Evasion <--- least annoying while still being reliable

Basically it seems like you just haven't seen the power of Evasion III.

 

[Don Da Cruz]

I like your idea of traps activating on monsters. It would be nice to be able to kite a strong monster over a trap you have already detected. That could put you at an advantage in hairy situations.

 

[Board Troll]

Balance is important, I play a rogue also, I agree the cooldown for Stab and Stealth could be reduced a bit but doing so would probably cost more than you'd be willing to give up to maintain the balance of the class.

Specialization subclasses might give you some semblance of what you envision in the future, don't give up hope.

You should consider min/max with a rogue. Intelligence and Awareness matters, but strength and personality does not.
For goodness sakes, 1 endurance? Seriously? Raise it.

Agility 4
Endurance 3
Intelligence 2
Awareness 2

Is more appropriate for balance.

I'm happy with the class, overall, it is probably the best class for pure damage with useful dungeon utility. If you're not, try a warrior or a cleric. They're pretty fun too.

 

[shadowstepninja]

Good suggestions. I'd like to address a few.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I know the evasion+trap walking method used to work, but after the evasion update, it sounded like it didn't work the same way it used to work (from the text), but I never tried it out.

I just felt like a level 7 rogue taking on a level 8 minotaur, I took like 10 hits before I died, sounds a bit tanky to me.

And I just felt like the scaling for light weapons should go to crit chance and/or crit damage instead of base damage

 

[abstractsense]

I know the evasion+trap walking method used to work, but after the evasion update, it sounded like it didn't work the same way it used to work (from the text), but I never tried it out.

I just felt like a level 7 rogue taking on a level 8 minotaur, I took like 10 hits before I died, sounds a bit tanky to me.

And I just felt like the scaling for light weapons should go to crit chance and/or crit damage instead of base damage

Minotaurs and trolls are among the tougher enemies for Rogue. Probably not a good idea to benchmark on them.

You can see what your critical ideas would be like by picking up the warrior advanced critical skills and using a Vulcan Dagger, for instance. Try to fight anything above level 10, and you're going to have a problem. Higher armor has more of an effect on Rogues because of their already low base damage.

 

[ArrowsFTW]

I know the evasion+trap walking method used to work, but after the evasion update, it sounded like it didn't work the same way it used to work (from the text), but I never tried it out.

I just felt like a level 7 rogue taking on a level 8 minotaur, I took like 10 hits before I died, sounds a bit tanky to me.

And I just felt like the scaling for light weapons should go to crit chance and/or crit damage instead of base damage

Minotaurs and trolls are among the tougher enemies for Rogue. Probably not a good idea to benchmark on them.

You can see what your critical ideas would be like by picking up the warrior advanced critical skills and using a Vulcan Dagger, for instance. Try to fight anything above level 10, and you're going to have a problem. Higher armor has more of an effect on Rogues because of their already low base damage.

Speaking of rogues, whats the best head gear for them?
I think the trap skill should be upgraded on the next update. If dungeons have OP traps then rogues should have em too.

 

[abstractsense]

Speaking of rogues, whats the best head gear for them?
I think the trap skill should be upgraded on the next update. If dungeons have OP traps then rogues should have em too.

Trollskin Cap for Toxic resistance
or
Tolassian Chain Coif for armor