Slashdot Mirror
Rogues Get Some Respect
GamerGod is running an article taking a look at the role of the Rogue in Dungeons and Dragons Online. In their estimation, the Rogue class finally gets to do its thing in an online game. From the article: "What rogue would be worth his salt if he didn't have any traps to disarm or locks to open? What truly sets D&DO apart from the competition is the need to find and disarm various traps, snares, and pitfalls. Again, the game's set-up and design makes this an invaluable part of game play. No regeneration of spell points results in limited heals, and no regeneration of hit points makes getting blasted with a trap actually MEAN something." Been playing the preorder Beta this weekend, and it does a surprisingly good job of recreating the PnP experience. Review upon release.
But the more pressing question is: will people everywhere learn how to spell "rogue" and stop saying "rouge"?
I thought we were talking about a game.
I wasn't looking at playing another MMORPG for a long time, probably checking out Star Trek Online in a couple of years, but the work Turbine is putting into the Rogue class is making me have second thoughts. I've never been very attracted to playing a rogue in RPGs, but it looks like they're giving rogues a lot of freedom. If they do that with all the classes and make them all as seemingly interesting to play, I might give the game a go. Fancy posting some first impressions, Zonk?
The problem I have with this is it may make rogues TOO required. If you can skip the traps entirely but it make the dungeon take longer (read: the long way around) I don't have a problem with it. Otherwise you risk everyone rolling rogue because they are so needed.
Hallelujah! I think we just found the first MMORPG I'll ever play!
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
"What truly sets D&DO apart from the competition is the need to find and disarm various traps, snares, and pitfalls."
It's been done in Phantasy Star Online, if I remember correctly.
There are a lot of routine tasks that outside third parties made applications to help with. I'm not talking about gold farming, but more like efficient self-spell casting. For every thirty minutes to hour of play in AC, you had to spend approximately 5 or more minutes 'buffing' yourself with spells - at least, when done efficiently with the third party app, the buffing was done very efficiently. Doing it manually could take up to twice as long and could also require you to waste spell slots on your casting bar. When the app was buffing you, you could take that as an opportunity to chat with your party - doing it manually? no chatting.
So every month Turbine would BREAK this app with their update. Finally the developer got tired of fixing it every month and quit. This also blew other apps for quickly sizing up what treasure is valuable (Turbine would often dump 200+ pieces of treasure in front of you and expect you to take 1 minute to sort through all of it - 95% trash - before it decomposed on you).
If I ever was going to go back to AC, the lack of Decal (and Turbine's decision not just not to incorporate these applications into the game but to permanently break the third party apps) means I definitly can't go back and I am not alone.
In their estimation, the Rogue class finally gets to do its thing in an online game.
Apparently, leading the pack in terms of damage output isn't enough anymore.
Still, traps can be fun little additions that generally get neglected in MMOGs, and you generally wouldn't expect the fighter to take the delicate approach, at least not in a D&D game.
I searched their site for any indication of system requirements. Evidently they don't think it's important to indicate what platforms their game runs on...I had to go to Amazon to find out. PC-only, Mac users out of luck.
In Nexus, Rogues are the most overplayed class for completely different reasons.
First of all, it sounds cool, especially when you go and read in the description: "The magical fighter, unmatched in single combat."
Rogues do the most damage to a single target, knocking it down twice to three times as fast as a Warrior can. This is balanced by Warriors being capable of hitting in all four directions, and being able to actually take quite a few hits.
Rogues don't get hit much. When they do, it hurts a LOT, but usually they just don't.
Interestingly, Warriors are the ones who can detect traps, and there are a lot of them. However, traps are flawed in that most of the time, you can simply beat your way out of a trap. In fact, since most traps are ambushes, where a player gets surrounded by creatures, and Rogues have an "ambush" spell which teleports them to the opposite side of a creature, Rogues simply don't care about traps.
No, the time you want to detect traps is not to avoid them -- useless, because they can't be disarmed and only the Warrior can see them -- it's when you want to spring them, intentionally, to get a particular creature to spawn, or to get lots of creatures to spawn. For instance, the fastest way to collect Ambers is to take a Warrior into the Mythic Rabbit cave, have him (or her) find ambushes and spring them, and immediately slaughter the four creatures which spawn to surround them -- remember, Warriors have a four-way attack.
And the reason you want a Rogue in your group is to take care of single creatures, and because they aren't much of a burden -- lower max HP means it's easier to die, but it's also much easier to keep the Rogue healed, especially because if they get in trouble, they can jump out of the combat and wait for a heal. But you also want a Warrior, because they're easier to keep alive, even if it takes more mana to keep them healed, and they utimately end up dealing more wholesale damage. They also, typically, are the ones with the Taunt spell.
A full group works like this: a Poet and a Mage are up on a ledge which has only one way in, and the Poet has summoned a pet to block that way. Creatures won't aggro the pet, so it's effectively a wall, so your warrior doesn't have to taunt things away from the casters -- which is good, because Mages are at least as vulnerable as Rogues. Your Warrior is down in the pit, with a massive crowd of Mythic Rat Sentries attacking them. While there are subtler skills to being a Warrior, most of your time is spent simply holding spacebar (attack) and watching your health, so that you can use a Yellow Scroll to teleport you home if your Poet is about to let you die. The Poet and Mage usually cooperate on keeping everyone's Armor, Sanctuary, and Valor buffs on -- anything else is path-specific and entirely up to the fighters. The Mage's main job is to paralyze all creatures in the area -- which wears off after awhile. The Poet's job is to Scourge all the creatures, which doubles or triples the amount of damage dealt to them, and to keep everyone healed. And the rogue is running around the outside of the mob attacking the warrior (or not attacking, since they're all paralyzed), contributing damage and killing the weak rats (who run away) or any that get too close to the casters (since the pet won't last forever).
You can form a combination of just about any number of just about any of these, and it'll be effective. The MOST effective is a group of all four classes, but you can get away withoout a Poet if your Mage is good enough (they have their own heal spell). Rogues are nice to have around, and they're best for taking on a boss, but they're no substitute for a Warrior taking on a huge mob. Then too, Warriors can get surrounded, Rogues can't, and while the boss isn't dangerous at all, it's slower.
To me, that's good balance. A skilled player of any class is valuable enough in a unique enough way to feel worthwhile. I like the idea of TFA,
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Just a 10' pole to find traps. I always wondered how people carried those in the tabletop game (especially the halflings).
Turning something that's defective with the game (too many traps; no way to deal with them except using a rogue) into a "feature" with spin. That's about what I'd expect from them really.
Oh, and expect all the sociopathic assholes (and griefers) to play rogues. Then they can inflict maximum pain on everyone else but know they'll always get party invites (since you have to have a party) because every party MUST have a rogue.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
Make sure you play DDO to level 2 or 3 before you give up any of your money. The combat system is awful. Spellcasting is almost pointless, because the game is so melee focused. You can sometimes literally circle strafe a mob and never take any damage while still dealing damage and occasionally getting +2 to hit for facing the mob's back. Not to mention the buggy collision detection.
Later you run into one of the games other problems. Eventually you can no longer solo most dungeons. Plus you run out of quests before you reach the next level, meaning you have to repeat dungeons you've already completed. So instead of grinding mobs out in a field for a few minutes, you have to do an entire dungeon which generally takes a minimum of 30 minutes (not counting time spent to get a party together), for an ever decreasing amount of XP.
And finally, one of the hallmarks of a great DnD campaign, an overarching story line that peels away as you complete quests, does not exist in any form in this game. Almost all the quests might as well be standalone and completely random for how much they relate to each other.
Also, while multiclassing may be a nice feature, without prestige classes (and a max level of 10) it's rather pointless. 3.5 multiclassing was basically balanced around having prestige classes, as multiclassing base classes generally hurts your character.