Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

... tales of great battles, stealthy adversaries and improving your PK skills. Careful though, no whining!
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erulak
Posts: 188
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2017 7:11 pm

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by erulak » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:21 pm

Fermin wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:15 pm
Oh I don't think any are because I don't think there is any reason to...I'm just saying if there was a reason to get high survival for increased movement that the hunters/warriors (especially ABSers) would be the only trollocs who could afford it. Rogues would be cutting something to get 98 survival (maybe multiple things). Essentially the idea is to give a movement buff to trolloc absers because they are the ones that could afford 98 survival.

Another good change was that recent upping on stab landing % based on practices. I dropped some attack to get a higher % stab landing (which is good for absers).
Could swing these pracs on an abs hunter, but I don't you can afford lvl 7 survival along with basic/minimal ranger pracs on a troll warrior on top of 99 weapon/bash without like 160ish pracs.

Ghast
Posts: 98
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2017 10:19 pm

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by Ghast » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:22 pm

I agree that messing with the rogue class doesn't fix the backstab issue. Other classes go stab too.

Here's an idea: why don't we lower the melee damage on short blades way more, but give them way more OB? I'm talking melee damage like 2-4 on a dodger, but basically guaranteed to only hit for 1-2 on abs/combo.

The reasoning is simple: rogues keep stabbing because when they're solo, if they're facing anyone who isn't an abser, the chances of them breaking defense are pretty minimal (keep in mind I'm speaking from a non-master perspective with a non-rare dagger, so zerk with a red stone I'm at 172 ob at the moment). I just stabbed Lisennet to crit and then chased her all over the place, got many attacks in, a lot of them zerk, and didn't break her defense once.

My option at that point is to either try to block her at my mobs (I was in FD, wasn't happening), learn projectiles (can't afford the pracs or I would), or call an additional DSer to try to finish her off, which I did, but she still got away.

TLDR: Make short blades have amazing OB but absolute dung melee damage so we can at least attempt to melee people dead instead of going for the stab all the time.

erulak
Posts: 188
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2017 7:11 pm

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by erulak » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:30 pm

Ghast wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:22 pm
I agree that messing with the rogue class doesn't fix the backstab issue. Other classes go stab too.
Eh. Other classes for the most part = fades and WBs. When stab doesn't do 300+ damage on average (like now or before with master stab damage), you see maybe 1 or 2 of those stabbing. Normal human stabby hunter pracs don't really cater to effective stabbing (at least without much more sacrifice) these days and without clan pracs, you're not really seeing any stabby hunters on DS.

isabel
Posts: 1713
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 5:19 am

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by isabel » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:12 pm

Ghast wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:22 pm
The reasoning is simple: rogues keep stabbing because when they're solo, if they're facing anyone who isn't an abser, the chances of them breaking defense are pretty minimal (keep in mind I'm speaking from a non-master perspective with a non-rare dagger, so zerk with a red stone I'm at 172 ob at the moment). I just stabbed Lisennet to crit and then chased her all over the place, got many attacks in, a lot of them zerk, and didn't break her defense once.
If you are breaking her defence solo, unbashed, then how is she supposed to ever weave you? Even hunters/warriors will not break dodge defence without bash, unless they're some combination of using a rare/master/zerk fade or bonded gaidin.

As a rogue, once she is low, you can create incentive for her to leave her mobs by hitting her there and burning some hp. Alternatively you'd give her a couple of tics to get hp to fight you (if she's worried about more / zone ​mobs breaking her def and is super low).

People stay in fights crit because they think they have a chance of winning. If you're healthy, and you don't want to temporarily hit in a losing situation for you, then obviously there's zero incentive for them to stay. If you want to force the pk where someone is running away low, then that is what the bash/hunter class is for.

Ghast
Posts: 98
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2017 10:19 pm

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by Ghast » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:23 pm

isabel wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:12 pm
If you want to force the pk where someone is running away low, then that is what the bash/hunter class is for.
This is exactly my point. Rogues stab because there's very little chance a rogue can finish a kill solo without stab or the target getting hit by melee. In the Lisennet example, I eventually found myself attempting to stab her again because there was no point trying to do anything else.

Jestin
Posts: 294
Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:15 am

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by Jestin » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:29 pm

How is the fc supposed to kill you solo when you're fleeing around at healthy? :P

ecthus
Posts: 409
Joined: Wed Apr 01, 2015 8:11 pm

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by ecthus » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:34 pm

Ghast wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:22 pm
The reasoning is simple: rogues keep stabbing because when they're solo, if they're facing anyone who isn't an abser, the chances of them breaking defense are pretty minimal (keep in mind I'm speaking from a non-master perspective with a non-rare dagger, so zerk with a red stone I'm at 172 ob at the moment).
I don't think anyone is really complaining about rogues stabbing when solo, it's more like rogues spamming stab when they're not solo. Like in this log, there's 0 reason for you or Sneek to be fleeing off of Aloysius at ancients. You're healthy; he's in abs. It didn't affect your side in this case, but I've been in a lot of PK on DS over the last few months where I get fucked over by trolloc rogues who refuse to spam or buff anything when I'm low in abs. Zang is right that rogues keep going for it because it eventually works - but you gotta ask at what cost, when it kills people on your own side and throws away potential kills you could get from buffing and dealing guaranteed damage.
Fermin wrote:I liked that before I knew I wasn't going to be bashed by combo setups - this allowed pesky rogues to try to get on a specific opponent and buff without big bash fears. The situation now is I'm pretty sure everything can bash me on some % so I'm not interested in anyone getting a bash off once I'm lower hps...this kind of rock paper scissors mechanic with dodge/abs/combo was good and I do think we could revive it.
Please no. We don't need more stand offs when one side just doesn't have a way to hit the other.

Ghast
Posts: 98
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2017 10:19 pm

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by Ghast » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:35 pm

Jestin wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:29 pm
How is the fc supposed to kill you solo when you're fleeing around at healthy? :P
Weaves.

Isabel has a good point though - if we made it so short blades broke defense more, it would screw up weave timers for fcs. I hadn't thought about that side of it.

Kilgore
Posts: 180
Joined: Sun May 24, 2015 3:04 pm

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by Kilgore » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:50 pm

Rogues are in a good place, but they are prevalent because of the majority of issues coming from ABs and strong parry setups.

Combo bashes too well and dodges bashes (or bashed hits) too well because of the OB amplifier from low weight. The majority of LS absers have gone to combo (or combo characters) because it is easier to survive and easier to kill.

Think Langois mentioned it, but if you reduced the weight of abs eq you would amp up the OB without amping up the OB to make it viable to go 2h/1h in combo for even more OB.

Everything in the game should be pointed toward making death happen more frequently and that requires increased damage output. I may be wrong, but if ABs walloped dodge and combo then you would have more ABsers.

Rig mentioned the core of the issue. If you've got a goal on this game, say quest points, it incentivizes setups that will gain you quest points. Every head is worth the same amount. I assume Elysia made that awesome room NW of well in RK where you can gain extra quest points for specific kills. But, we all like kills and loot and so we generally play set-ups that maximize kills and loot. ABs really does require group PK to be stellar and even then on DS you get run over.

Stab damage changes have limited the targets for rogues though. From my experience, you don't need to spam as a hunter or warrior on LS because you rarely get stabbed unless you're the only opponent versus two rogues, who have no other option if they want to kill you.

So what does a stabber get? Scalps and PVE rewards are pretty high. They're a class that's much easier to play solo for rewards than hunters or warriors. It might be a consequence of the player base that we would rather play solo and work with people than aim to play with people. I am a culprit of this as well--I log in to do my own thing and occasionally end up interacting with others through PK. I don't try to help people become better PKers or manage their experiences versus rogues. In this log, for instance, I think you could point to a lot of things that the FC did wrong, before you point out that stab is stupid and dumb to play with.

Stab being good is important when there are 3 FCs in north PK and not enough players to straight-up fight. Stab being worse than it is now would make that situation worse. I don't agree that we should balance specifically around the low player base and neuter stabbers who get the jump on people because it is relatively easy to start a timer in group PK.

It's reasonable to nerf stab for non rogues though. Wolfbrothers, Gaidins, and fades should not be stab. You should not get a bonused character to easy farm whatever you want because it's the easiest way to guarantee it (PVE, eq, scalps).

If we downed parry on combo gear (specifically 1H), downed weight on ABs, would there be more people willing to play their other setups? I think so. I don't mind PKing versus two stabbers. I mind PKing versus two stabbers when there are no other opponents. If these two adjustments did not lead to more diversity in PK then we might look at ways to code adjustments, but ultimately it is important that we consider which adjustments we can make that do not require coding and prioritize those. While we can code adjustments, there is likely a backlog of new additions to the game, and I would hate to sacrifice new adjustments when gear changes can be made in real-time with availability of immortals.

When any of you are ever thinking of suggestions, the easiest suggestions (gear-related, mud-related, mobol-related) should be first before you look to coding adjustments. A class cap, for instance, is theoretically easy, but can be more complicated when it comes to managing compliance. You sabotage the ability to implement what you would like to see if you imagine only through the lens of coding, which by its nature is dynamic, and if you think about implementation through a third party who isn't active. There is a likelihood, for efficiency's sake, that you hold off on putting in code based on availability related to one item. For instance, we do not know the time gap between the coded adjustments to stab after the initial change and the time it took for them to get implemented.

Overwhelmingly though, the problems Aloysius is experiencing and others are pointing out, are problems created by the player base and not solved by immortals. I have had moments where I thought immortal implementation that led to more death would lead to more death and the reality is people don't really want to die, and also really want to end every session with actual profit (EQ, TPs, Scalps, potions). Even if you make it easier to kill people While immortals could make slight adjustments to reduce the effectiveness of stab as a PVE setup and a PK setup, until the playerbase rallies, or individuals try to be the change they want to see (I THINK ALOYSIUS PLAYING ALOYSIUS IS AN EXAMPLE OF THIS AND I'VE SEEN OTHERS CALLED OUT HERE PLAYING CHARACTER TYPES THAT THEY AREN'T KNOWN FOR), any adjustments will only neuter setups and not lead to a better experience. The better experience being more dynamic interactions that don't require the FC in the log in question to spam out of rooms or spam k h.dark when they know they are being targeted.

EDIT: If you changed the title of this post to "Why would anyone want to pk you?" I think that's the core of the issue and the better question. I love PKing against Jestin and Mikhan on any of their alts because someone will die at the end. Have less love PKing against Ghast or Jaxon because if they die it is because of an incredibly lop-sided situation and nothing to do with them dying for taking risks.

Rark
Posts: 251
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 10:54 am

Re: Why would anyone want to pk you guys?

Post by Rark » Fri Oct 15, 2021 2:21 pm

erulak wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:32 am
Doesn't fully determine, but even pkers who are generally fun are less fun on their stabbers just by the nature of the class/setup, so it has a fairly big part to play in my eyes. I mean I'd much rather pk Rhys on one of his hunters/channelers/warriors than I want to chase his rogues around, despite him being one of the more fun players around. I imagine the same would be true if Jestin played a rogue. Same for whoever else is good fun to pew pew. But to each their own.

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