WH/WE - class philosophy & design
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2020 2:17 pm
So I've written about this a while ago and I've decided to give it another try. Kind of like I was muted for suggesting shadow warrior get a "shadowstep from wow" kind of skill and I see it's implemented fully now, it may eventually happen.
1) First of all a small overall comment on game design - I fully understand & appreciate that RoR, not having the required size of a dev team to adequately adress an MMO of this scope cannot spend too long discussing design/philosophy overall. Even going for just the numbers/skills/tweaks of 24 classes requires a huge full dev team. However I think a video game and especially an MMO needs to be developed by thinking in terms of experience and philosophy - i.e. that the game is fun and interesting to play. I will be writing some of the feel and philosophy of the WH/WE, which could feed into eventual mechanical changes (tweaks, numbers).
2) Secondly I have played RoR from about launch until conqueror came out or so. I have played Live as a WH for a long time. I have, however, only played for a few weeks or so recently on my WH after returning. I'd love to play a little longer before I write anything, but WH seems to be in a very sad state. If I make mistakes or there are better suggestions, I will happily edit/delete my thoughts to have a better thread.
With that in mind, first to quickly give my vision on the class-
1. Class philosophy
So the philosophy of the WH/WE seems fairly simple, correct? Assassin archetype, intended to roam, kill single targets, blow up squishies. Unfortunately this simply does not work in an orvrv setting and is overshadowed in scenario rvr. Stealth was never really done properly - it's adequate to grab a solo kill out in a lake, but woefully bad in providing any real contribution. So what role do they have?
Well, examining other mmos, the rogue archetype will usually assist dps. To do this they will mirror an mdps archetype. But, in other games usually a specialization exists, which removes the mdps survivability in exchange for sheer burst potential. Call it a "suicide bomber" archetype - your job is to go in, blow something up and die or in rare cases escape. On the other hand, their 3rd specc (razor strike/slice, i.e. carnage/confession) was an attempt to give them a mdps style archetype. As I am aware that this is discussed for a working aoe specc I will not focus on this - because I think its an issue of mechanical changes.
2. Mirror differences
The intended differences are quite obvious - WH has ranged abilities, WE has stronger melee. This is just a terrible idea, because you'll always end up with a stronger WE than WH, due to the ranged abilities being undertuned to compensate. To me the mirror differences should reflect the style of the classes - a WH should have an easier time against casters and a WE should have an easier time vs melee/tanks. Unlike other pairings, I think the mirror here overall should be very similar, simply because they have a niche role and it'd be worthless to create two niches where one is already hard.
3. Feel/style/design
So for me the two classes have one of the strongest distinctions of style and "feel" of the entire game. The "jump, dump and jump" sort of style is clear. Added survivability would ruin this. Here's the way I see it:
Jump in - easy, 100% success rate due to stealth. Dump your damage/heavy pressure - 50-60% chance of success of actually killing someone or enough pressure to cause problems. Jump out - small 10% chance that after everything you actually escape and survive. The problem with this is obvious, if you're able to kill things as a WH/WE it spirals out of control, but if you're not the entire feel is completely gone and the class is either worthless or needs to be brought to a mdps. But destroying their identity is also a terrible idea. I believe it's possible to tune it in a way that it can work, without going crazy.
Now onto suggestions:
1. Class philosophy - I believe the "suicide bomber" kind of style is a good one. It's a great tactical option, as seen in arena gameplay, where it will almost never end up overpowered (because in a "winner take all" surviving = instant loss) but will still be viable enough to provide an option. To me this is the intention of both their "backstab" and their "dot specc". The difference being the dot specc is specialized anti-healer (maybe also anti-tank?) and the backstab specc anti-dps. To accomplish this, we'd need the WH/WE able to kill an equally geared person unless stopped by a tank. And TTK would be roughly how long it takes for a frontline tank to be able to go back and assist. I.e. WH/WE is able to capitalize on mistakes and countered on no mistakes. This will mean that WH/WE are less desired in the absolute high-end, but there's their third specc, which is already considered as a consistent aoe damage specc and seems to be paid a lot of attention. Additionally, it gives a tactical option for forcing out mistakes/feinting your own and baiting WH/WE which I think could be a really fun aspect of rvr.
2. Mirror differences - Personally I think the philosophy here would be to strengthen the idea that WH is anti-caster and WE is more anti-physical, with disrupt/parry offering a boost to the WH/WE (like the WH has with vindication, 35% damage after a disrupt and riposte), which would mean they grow dangerous if focused. To do this you'd need to gimp the riposte specc of WH and offer it to the WE, while making the WH specc of anti-caster a bit more consistent. It could go either way, but this is a major style thing - a WH targetting the magus/sorc (he's a witch hunter) while the WE targets the SW/Engi (a high elf, obviously and...well there's some reason they hate engineers, I guess). Both classes in my mind should have exactly mirroring anti-healer speccs, especially due to the fact these are one of the special things they offer to a group. The harder to define difference is that of a WH/WE in the midst of a fight. To me that's always been that the WE grows crazier and crazier with bloodlust, maintaining her pressure and ramping up damage to a point. While the WH will go out, build up to a peak (a higher peak than the WE can) and then drop down. I will admit that I have no idea how this can reach a point where one isn't significantly stronger than the other. I'm hoping someone else will have insight on this.
3. Feel/style/design - nothing to suggest here, beyond staying true to them. WH and WE are two of the coolest classes in War. Let's keep it fun, it's a video game
1) First of all a small overall comment on game design - I fully understand & appreciate that RoR, not having the required size of a dev team to adequately adress an MMO of this scope cannot spend too long discussing design/philosophy overall. Even going for just the numbers/skills/tweaks of 24 classes requires a huge full dev team. However I think a video game and especially an MMO needs to be developed by thinking in terms of experience and philosophy - i.e. that the game is fun and interesting to play. I will be writing some of the feel and philosophy of the WH/WE, which could feed into eventual mechanical changes (tweaks, numbers).
2) Secondly I have played RoR from about launch until conqueror came out or so. I have played Live as a WH for a long time. I have, however, only played for a few weeks or so recently on my WH after returning. I'd love to play a little longer before I write anything, but WH seems to be in a very sad state. If I make mistakes or there are better suggestions, I will happily edit/delete my thoughts to have a better thread.
With that in mind, first to quickly give my vision on the class-
1. Class philosophy
So the philosophy of the WH/WE seems fairly simple, correct? Assassin archetype, intended to roam, kill single targets, blow up squishies. Unfortunately this simply does not work in an orvrv setting and is overshadowed in scenario rvr. Stealth was never really done properly - it's adequate to grab a solo kill out in a lake, but woefully bad in providing any real contribution. So what role do they have?
Well, examining other mmos, the rogue archetype will usually assist dps. To do this they will mirror an mdps archetype. But, in other games usually a specialization exists, which removes the mdps survivability in exchange for sheer burst potential. Call it a "suicide bomber" archetype - your job is to go in, blow something up and die or in rare cases escape. On the other hand, their 3rd specc (razor strike/slice, i.e. carnage/confession) was an attempt to give them a mdps style archetype. As I am aware that this is discussed for a working aoe specc I will not focus on this - because I think its an issue of mechanical changes.
2. Mirror differences
The intended differences are quite obvious - WH has ranged abilities, WE has stronger melee. This is just a terrible idea, because you'll always end up with a stronger WE than WH, due to the ranged abilities being undertuned to compensate. To me the mirror differences should reflect the style of the classes - a WH should have an easier time against casters and a WE should have an easier time vs melee/tanks. Unlike other pairings, I think the mirror here overall should be very similar, simply because they have a niche role and it'd be worthless to create two niches where one is already hard.
3. Feel/style/design
So for me the two classes have one of the strongest distinctions of style and "feel" of the entire game. The "jump, dump and jump" sort of style is clear. Added survivability would ruin this. Here's the way I see it:
Jump in - easy, 100% success rate due to stealth. Dump your damage/heavy pressure - 50-60% chance of success of actually killing someone or enough pressure to cause problems. Jump out - small 10% chance that after everything you actually escape and survive. The problem with this is obvious, if you're able to kill things as a WH/WE it spirals out of control, but if you're not the entire feel is completely gone and the class is either worthless or needs to be brought to a mdps. But destroying their identity is also a terrible idea. I believe it's possible to tune it in a way that it can work, without going crazy.
Now onto suggestions:
1. Class philosophy - I believe the "suicide bomber" kind of style is a good one. It's a great tactical option, as seen in arena gameplay, where it will almost never end up overpowered (because in a "winner take all" surviving = instant loss) but will still be viable enough to provide an option. To me this is the intention of both their "backstab" and their "dot specc". The difference being the dot specc is specialized anti-healer (maybe also anti-tank?) and the backstab specc anti-dps. To accomplish this, we'd need the WH/WE able to kill an equally geared person unless stopped by a tank. And TTK would be roughly how long it takes for a frontline tank to be able to go back and assist. I.e. WH/WE is able to capitalize on mistakes and countered on no mistakes. This will mean that WH/WE are less desired in the absolute high-end, but there's their third specc, which is already considered as a consistent aoe damage specc and seems to be paid a lot of attention. Additionally, it gives a tactical option for forcing out mistakes/feinting your own and baiting WH/WE which I think could be a really fun aspect of rvr.
2. Mirror differences - Personally I think the philosophy here would be to strengthen the idea that WH is anti-caster and WE is more anti-physical, with disrupt/parry offering a boost to the WH/WE (like the WH has with vindication, 35% damage after a disrupt and riposte), which would mean they grow dangerous if focused. To do this you'd need to gimp the riposte specc of WH and offer it to the WE, while making the WH specc of anti-caster a bit more consistent. It could go either way, but this is a major style thing - a WH targetting the magus/sorc (he's a witch hunter) while the WE targets the SW/Engi (a high elf, obviously and...well there's some reason they hate engineers, I guess). Both classes in my mind should have exactly mirroring anti-healer speccs, especially due to the fact these are one of the special things they offer to a group. The harder to define difference is that of a WH/WE in the midst of a fight. To me that's always been that the WE grows crazier and crazier with bloodlust, maintaining her pressure and ramping up damage to a point. While the WH will go out, build up to a peak (a higher peak than the WE can) and then drop down. I will admit that I have no idea how this can reach a point where one isn't significantly stronger than the other. I'm hoping someone else will have insight on this.
3. Feel/style/design - nothing to suggest here, beyond staying true to them. WH and WE are two of the coolest classes in War. Let's keep it fun, it's a video game