Change the Marauder unlock

[bricks]

There already are unlock hints, though they may be a bit more poetic and vague than needed.

[Rectifier]

I contend that, despite everyone's whining about the difficulty, earning the unlock encourages you to become better at a difficult and fragile class, and in turn greatly increase your skill in playing with other classes and in turn your chances at getting a winner. Isn't that the point of learning the game in the first place? Why take that encouragement away?

[NEHZ]

The many classes with their many skill trees allow a lot of choises in how you play the game. This particular unlock not only forces you to play a specific class (which I can live with), it forces you to play the class in a specific way. (which takes away some of the fun playing that class)
The unlock isn't reached by dealing x total damage from stealth over the course of several games, or x total damage dealt by daggers or by a rogue over the course of one game, or even x damage dealt in a single fight or a against a single enemy. It's x damage dealt by a single strike. Flurry doesn't work. Increasing your attack speed doesn't work. Hit and run and hit doesn't work. From all the unlocks this one is the most restrictive. Even the rather specific way of unlocking the temporal mage doesn't force you to spend your talent points in a certain way.

This game allows for a lot of choise. The unlockables sometimes restrict some of your choises, forcing you to make different ones from those you normally take. But other than this one they still allow you to choose to a certain extend. Having an additional class such as the marauder increases your choises. But to unlock it you are restricted a whole lot.

note: this post is based on my assumption that the damage required can only be reached by getting a critical hit from stealth, with daggers, dual weapon mastery and that stealth crit maxed. (and some others that I don't remember, it's been a while since tried to unlock the class and I got tired of playing rogues. Might have lasted longer if it was possible to unlock with any Rogue subclass)

[Grey]

The ways to get the unlock are illogical and gamey. From stealth with high crit is one. Sling with +phys and whirlwind is another. Stacking poisons is also a popular choice. They're all a bit silly and rather un-rogue-like. People making characters just for an unlock is stupid.

Of course I brought it on myself by suggesting the unlock in the first place. Which is why I've made this thread now to suggest I was wrong before and it should be changed :P

[Rectifier]

Restrictions cause creative solutions to a problem. Did anyone realize that using Whirlwind from stealth was such an effective way to deal burst damage *before* this unlock was added?

[tiger_eye]

Perhaps a reasonable alternate unlock would be to do 1500 damage in one strike with any character.

[jotwebe]

Restrictions cause creative solutions to a problem. Did anyone realize that using Whirlwind from stealth was such an effective way to deal burst damage *before* this unlock was added?

I for one didn't. That's because I always got the message about breaking stealth when using talents from stealth (mostly came up with Luck of the Little Folk) and sort of assumed that you'd loose shadowstrike.

It didn't teach me that it did though, either. I did it through whirlwind * phys bonus sling * dagger of massacre * maxed dual fighting * maxed knife mastery * thalore bonus damage talent. And that's because I read about the general method.

So I'd say it encourages solutions getting communicated and fosters reliance on spoilers. For me, nethack is a horrible example where this can ultimately lead to (it's not nethack that's horrible though, just the amount of difference being thoroughly spoilered makes).

It's also worth noting that creative builds come up naturally all of their own - see the game-breaking thread for examples...

[Rectifier]

Perhaps a reasonable alternate unlock would be to do 1500 damage in one strike with any character.

+1

[MisiuPysiu]

I just did the unlock stacking poisons. Spidric poision also helps here (the artifact wand).
Marauder is one of the most funny classes to play. Mobility plus high defense is fun:)