Class Balance: Rogues

[Jeoshua]

In nearly every roguelike, RPG, and other such games that I play I always pick a rogue. Their sneaky, dark side appeals to me, and I am usually extremely good at playing them.

But not here.

Routinely while playing rogues I cannot even get out of the first area. Other classes I do fairly decently at, but I can't get a tenth as far through the game on any regular basis with my normally chosen favorite. Many of my rogue experiments do not get past the end of the first zone. The only experiments that have had any mild amount of success are those who used traps, and then they ONLY used traps and very little else. This says, to me, that there is some balance that needs to be struck with this class.

Ideas:
1) Better starting equipment: The dual daggers are nice, but that sling is just useless. A short bow or crossbow is more classically a roguish implement than a sling. Also a cloak is extremely classic for a rogue: you almost never see a rogue without some kind of cloak. These would add a little more ranged damage and a tiny amount more defense to get started with. Also they might do well with a bit of extra money. And for the amount of times a Sun Infusion has been used effectively on me while in a dungeon by a rogue, that almost certainly needs to be given to the player class from the start... possibly a new item that rogues start with (and other classes can get) that just causes the blindness without lighting the area up.
2) More range: There are more types of rogue than just the trapper type. And while the Rogue starts with the ability to use ranged weapons, he doesn't actually have the skill tree for it. You can't even really buy it from any merchants in the game, and as far as I know can't unlock the actual talent trees for ranged weapons in any real way. If the Ranged Weapons tree were available and unlocked, that would
3) Better autoexplore: When pressing 'z' for autoexplore, the rogue will keep going until a hostile enemy is spotted. This means that if you press 'z', you will run around like an idiot until you are detected, sometimes walking right up the the creature that you're trying to sneak past. I say that it should stop as soon as you see an enemy that could potentially turn hostile if they see you. Basically right now the game seems to detect whether you are targeted, rather than if an enemy is hostile. This might screw with telepathy, but it could possibly be made to work in this fashion only if sneaking.
4) More magic: Honestly aogues are the lowest "magic" class in the game as far as I can tell. Even warriors, classically the least "magical" archetype, outstrip them by half. I don't mean that in the lore sense of Magic in this game world, rather they are the most mundane, normal, utterly unspecial and least interesting class in the game. They have no special meters, no really unique talents. They may as well be named Tourist, except they don't even get the nifty camera that makes enemies go blind, unless you count the Sun Infusion the NPCs seem to get so often, which really seems a bit opposite the archetype if you ask me.
5) Less Traps: With traps almost entirely gone out of the game, it seems quite out of place that this seems to be the only really functional part of the Rogue as it is currently in the game. Not to mention, whenever I see this actually used on me in-game, it's when I am toe-to-toe with a rogue and then all of a sudden they throw a trap at my feet, doing damage. That doesn't seem quite right.

There are certainly other improvements that could be made, hopefully some that could find their way into an addon, or better yet the main game. What do you all think? Is the rogue just this game's Tourist, without any of the nifty toys and extra gold? The challenge class that nobody wants to seriously play? Or does it need a bit of adjustment to bring it up to the level of most of the other classes in the game?

[morganp]

I think what you are experiencing here is representative of the development history; the first few classes made for this game (rogue, archer, warrior, mage, if I remember correctly) were kinda balanced when it came out, but with so many deep and well-constructed classes added later, these first classes needed major reworking to stay as exciting and up-to-date as the new ones. Mage has been continuously maintained, warrior was split (I think?) into berzerker and bulwark, but both the other classic classes, archer and rogue, haven't really had changes to make them work with the other changes as the game's development progressed.

Some of the issues you enumerate are recent attempts at adding some versatility: the shoot talent, and starting equipped with a sling, were added very recently, since so many players complained of the limited options on the rogue. It was posited that giving an archery tree to rogues would be too overpowered; a perma-stealthed archer would be over the top, so they just got the shoot talent and a sling. Traps were beefed up into more a "main feature" because many people felt they should have something that distinguished them more from the other rogue subclasses, that I will stay silent about, as you may not have unlocked them already.

In the scope of the game, the things that really separate the rogue from, say, a bulwark or berzerker, are 1) stealth, 2) traps, 3) (uh... spoilerish category you might not have unlocked yet? from dialog choice in hidden tunnels?) and 4) effective stuns. Other folks have stuns, but on rogues I always get more use out of these than anything. Keeping a boss stun-locked is really great. All of these things are pretty weak at low levels. For example: traps level one lets you set a 3-radius explosion trap directly next to you. One of the best ways to blow yourself up. Low-level stealth, you will be spotted by many enemies. It is a challenging class for many because it has a pretty slow start, it requires a pretty heavy investment to use these special categories well.

As far as the autoexplore mechanic, it should be stopping you when you see an enemy. When stealthed, you have a very small light radius, and what you are experiencing is that you are almost on top of an enemy before you see them. You can change this by investing in... I forget the name, it's the infravision variant, in generic talents (hidden senses?).

There is a rogue with "more magic," quite literally, that is unlocked down the road. Right? Starts locked? It's been so long...

Overall, I think your observations are very valuable for future development; I think many people feel the rogue (and archer for that matter) is lacking something. We, the community, still haven't hit on the exact right formula for keeping the spirit of the class but updating it to be fun and relevant to the current state of the game. In my opinion.

[Jeoshua]

To be clear, I'm not meaning the Metaclass: Rogue. I mean the Rogue itself... which now that I think of it should probably be changed to some other name. You mention that the Warrior class was split into Bulwark and Berzerker... what about splitting Rogue into Thief and Trapper? With the Thief, of course, being the sneaksy theifsy of stealth, shadows, subterfuge, and critical hits, and the trapper being the guy tossing out traps from the shadows, raiding vaults, and disabling opponents? That's another thought.

Yes, I haven't unlocked much stuff, and there is always the option of using various in-game methods of getting more skill trees to be able to unlock, but that's 4 max through a game (5 if Cornac), and the issue I'm seeing is really mostly with the (very) early game and lack of any kind of playstyle diversity. By contrast, you can play an archmage almost any way you wish, with so many skill trees to pick from that you either have to specialize or be totally useless.

The autoexplore thing, no. I've been trying this out in caves and in the wild. There is light there, and unless daylight and being able to see monsters doesn't count as "seeing the enemy" to the engine, there seems to be something off in the calculations. I press 'z' and see monsters running around for 2-3 turns before the game recognizes that they've spotted me, and now I'm in combat. I'm still technically running stealth, so maybe it hasn't totally broken stealth, but that enemy certainly sees me before the game stops autoexploring.

I can appreciate that the Rogue may be one of the last vestiges of the original classes from Moria, but if it's going to be left in it should be made a touch better to compete with the seriously amazing classes there already are in this game. Hadn't I heard that one of the devs favored Rogues? What happened to them? Are they still coding for the game or have they moved on?

[morganp]

Nah, DG loves the Archmage; some speculate it's why that particular class has so many different play styles. Rogues haven't gotten much love because thematically they are a little boring. Everyone's played rogues in every roguelike forever and now we want EXPLOSIONS and TIME TRAVEL! Just a thought.

[Dekar]

If you cant get past the first zone regularly as rogue you either play a Shaloren/Undead(which are still doable but definitly harder for beginners) or you do something really wrong. If you put points into the two stuns, accuracy and dagger damage you can easily keep enemies stunlocked, blocking all their talents and significantly reducing their damage output.

I didnt experience any problems with autoexplore on my last rogue.

Most of the Warrior metaclass skills are pretty plain, but they do their job. Doesnt mean they wont get changed in the future though. As already mentioned, they are the earlier classes that were implemented and didnt get as much as love as archmages.

[SageAcrin]

Rogues have gradually gotten a lot of little subtle playstyle buffs, like poison on sling attacks and the Scoundrel tree. There is definitely some effort going on towards updating them somewhat.

I think part of the problem (If it can be said to be a problem) is that most of the devteam that really likes Rogues kinda likes them on the difficult side, I think. Some class needs to be, to make use of good difficulty range elements of a class system(always nice), and it's a reasonably fitting one to be difficult.

Personally, I approve, and they do have some useful/distinctive tools. But they aren't easy, it's true.

[ohioastro]

Halfling rogues, who are a natural fit, can easily get wiped out by Bill. And they can have trouble closing from range. I think the biggest issues with rogues in the early game are

1) Gear dependence. The initial weapons are very weak; whether you have a good first run or not completely depends on whether any of your opponents drop a good dagger. If not you'll struggle. You can get a bit of coin and hunt in the shops...but, again, luck matters a lot. It would help if the first boss had a guaranteed weapon drop of the type your class can use, or it would help if you started with weapons that weren't the worst possible

2) Weak early scaling for abilities. Stealth is fantastic once it gets going, but a single point gets you little. There is no true "killer" level 1 ability, while most other classes can get pretty strong pretty early by leveling a single power.

It'd be nice if the stealth ability had a higher base and a shallower scaling so that starting rogues could at least occasionally not be seen by everyone. And better starting gear - although this at some level is a generic melee problem.

[Sradac]

You do know you arent "supposed" to go after Bill as soon as you can right? While some classes can do it just fine, many can not. Thats why you get the "ARE YOU SURE?!" prompt.

That said, I normally dont have problems with bill as a rogue, halfling or otherwise as well. Just focus on your stuns as said earlier. You can keep him stunlocked so he does like 10 dmg per turn to you.

[tiger_eye]

1) Gear dependence. The initial weapons are very weak; whether you have a good first run or not completely depends on whether any of your opponents drop a good dagger.

You are not forced to use daggers. Early on, one should use the best weapons that drop regardless of type (including two-handers). Sometimes that means having a sword in the main hand, and a mindstar in the offhand. Low-level gear have requirements (like Str or Wil) that are easy to meet, so, really, wield whatever makes you kill things the fastest, and you can respec to whatever talent mastery makes sense. If you still have difficulty completing the first zone, try going to a town to buy a cheap inscription.

As has been said here and elsewhere, it is okay and even encouraged that different classes have different levels of difficulty (this is a one-player game after all). It is generally believed that Rogues are among the harder classes to get off the ground. However, once they have gotten past the early game, I contend that they can be as powerful as nearly any other class, and an end-game Rogue can be utterly insane. It is a very gratifying progression. I have shown that there are many viable builds for a Rogue. Sure, an Archmage may have more talents to choose from, but the play style for much of them is similar: blast enemies from a distance. Heh, I don't want to take anything away from Archmages, but I'd say Rogues have just as many play styles as Archmages have, and most of the styles are still quite rogue-ish.

Regarding having rogues begin with a cloak: sure. Actually, yes, excellent idea. DarkGod, make it so!

Regarding a ranged-theme rogue: there have been some discussions in the forums. It would be great to see, but the class needs to have unique play styles, and creating a class suitable to include in ToME may be more difficult than you expect (from a design point of view). Once--and if--aura's are added to T-Engine, there's a really cool magical (light/dark) ranged rogue class that has been half-developed. I'd love to see it fully developed

Regarding the auto-explore oddness you've experienced: I'm familiar with it. I think it is most likely a visual artifact of auto-explore resulting in multiple moves between frames being displayed on the screen. I don't know this for sure though. I know where to look, though, so I'll try to solve this riddle at some point.

Oh, and if there are specific changes that would make Rogues more fun for you, it's easy enough to make an addon, and the community it friendly enough to give you support when you have questions

Thanks for the feedback, Jeoshua!

[SageAcrin]

I think Knife Mastery makes people psychologically believe that knives are the optimal choice, even though they're not always(Often, but not always)-they will ultimately sink points into this cost, and therefore want to get rewards from the cost as fast as possible.

Personally, I'd just like to see Knife and Combat Mastery combined. At this point, knives having a separate mastery just feels odd. Mindstars and Staves run off very different combat stats from everything else, and it makes sense given how differently combat functions with them, but Knife Mastery has a role of mostly just holding back people from doing what you suggested.

Also, after that change, Combat Training is four skills unless you have Exotic Weapon Mastery, and who doesn't like symmetry in design?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Knives are used in a completely different fighting style then swords and axes. It makes thematic sense that they be a different skill, requiring a different kind of knowledge. Beyond that, if you merge them, you make weapon mastery and strength stat a requirement for rogues, and that goes completely counter to the way they are ideally built, under normal conditions. Knives don't even USE the strength stat, courtesy of lethality, expecting them to throw points away on strength is less then worthless.

What I'd really like to see is daggers differentiated more. Make daggers more likely to crit then larger one handed weapons, which would stack nicely with the crit from the shadows build that exemplifies what rogue is.

Similarly, I'd like to see some special changes to exotics, to make them more then what they currently are. (And a class that USES exotic, from the start.)

[SageAcrin]

Exotics could use some interesting extra differentiation-I've heard suggestion that Tridents should get staff egos, and that would be interesting.

Knives don't really function differently from the core three weapons, though. They can be used in offhand, sure, but that's the main different, and that's...something that should be handled more in dual weapon/weapon-shield/twohander specific skills, to me. Otherwise, they're just a Str/Dex weapon, whereas Staves are full magic(and have a very distinctive, unique set of staff-only skills) and Mindstars are full Will/Cun(and also have a distinctive set).

Knives have literally one skill relating directly to them, that I can think of-and all it does is change their Strength requirement. It's useful, certainly, but it feels like they're much more like normal weapons than they are a special subtype.

And the logic that they're "used in a completely different style of fighting" falls fairly flat when a sword, axe or mace can easily be used in tandem with a knife, right now. Yes, you can't fill both hands with knives, but that's a weight issue(See that Corrupted Strength is specifically about being made stronger), not a fighting style issue-and dual weapon skills work just fine with two weapons that are not knives.

I will grant, that's true of Mindstars and staves as well-they work with dual weapon and twohander skills when applicable. But again, see the comment about their distinctive, inherently different statistics, and additional skillsets. Knives only have marginally different stats(totally different with a skill, yes, but only with a skill), and no different skillset changes.

Basically, they're an in-betweener. But the most important thing is that they're an in-betweener whose requirement of a special skill is bringing nothing to the game, and holding back some of the weakest classes for no especially good reason.

[HousePet]

Well I think that most weapons could be more differentiated.

I've been thinking it could be interesting to rearrange the combat accuracy and combat mastery talents into combat mastery: requiring strength and improving accuracy and base weapon damage, and a combat finesse: which is dex requirements and improves physical power and crit rate. No reason dagger couldn't be merged into this.

[TheRani]

I'm in favor of a dagger class skill tree for rogues, which requires you to dual-wield daggers. Such as this:

Sneaky Daggers (requires Cunning, starts unlocked for rogues at 1.30, locked for marauders and shadowblades at 1.00)

Level 1: Dagger Throw: Active. You throw your offhand dagger (doing whatever damage you'd normally do with an offhand dagger hit) at one enemy. Range = 4 + Talent rank. Cooldown = 7-Talent rank. Stamina cost 15. If you know Poisons, it'll carry your sustained poisons. During the cooldown, talents that require you to wield something in the offhand (such as dual-strike, sweep, flurry, etc. will not work.

Level 4: Double Throw: Active. Similar to Dagger Throw in terms of range and cooldown, except you throw Both your daggers at an enemy (main hand) and a random enemy adjacent to that enemy (offhand). If no enemy is adjacent, they both attack the targeted enemy. During the cooldown, you are Disarmed. Talents that require a weapon won't work. Stamina cost 25.

Level 8: Concealed Daggers: Passive. You have concealed daggers all over your person. Dagger throw and Double Throw have a 15% X Talent Rank chance to not break stealth. At rank 5, you no longer suffer disarmament penalties from Dagger Throw and Double Throw.

Level 12: Trick Throw: Passive: If an enemy targeted with Dagger Throw is standing on or adjacent to one of your traps, in addition to doing the normal damage from that attack, the dagger has a 15% X Talent Rank chance to trigger the trap. If the enemy is not on or near a trap, you will instead have that chance of stunning the enemy for 1 + Talent Rank turns.

This would be useful to rogues who invest in poisons, stealth, dagger mastery, dual-weapon mastery, and even traps. A little something to handle those mages who teleport around and refuse to step on your traps.

[morganp]

SageAcrin: Personally, I'd just like to see Knife and Combat Mastery combined.

I have to agree here, I think getting to effectively use the sword/knife combo without sinking ten generic points could be a huge boon to some classes, like Temporal Warden and Marauder, that seem like they are intended for this type of play (and are both a little tougher to get off the ground). Right now, however, the big generic point investment to get to 5 in both one-handers and knives is prohibitive. I'd like to see it be a viable option, and it feels like it isn't, at the moment.

In another thread, someone suggested making the combined Weapon Mastery skill dependent on character level, like Combat Accuracy is now, instead of on strength, to avoid penalizing dex-based classes.