Scott Rouse blog - Rogue ability

[Green Knight]

I don't know about mmu1, but for me, it isn't the part about serving as a meatshield for other classes that bothers me. It's the part where the tank class also has to be completely impotent offensively. In City of Heroes, for instance, they've got the Tankers who do just that. They soak up damage, force opponents to attack them, etc. But I'm always amazed at just how mediocre their damage is in comparison to everyone else. I'm supposed to be a Superman type here. I've got Super Strength, and yet pretty much everyone else is inflicting more damage than me. Not just more damage, but a LOT more damage. I could've just stood there and made mean faces, for all the difference I seemed to be making with my attacks. That's my concern, anyway. That "Defenders" will end up being walking Tower Shields for other characters, like they are in MMO's. Great in protecting the rest of the team, but complete gimps when it comes to hurting the enemy.

 

[Zimri]

Not "gamers," "gamer."

And, for whatever it's worth, if you're grinding on monsters in WoW, you're doing it wrong. Quests are the big source of XP in WoW. You had to grind killing monsters in EverQuest (oh, the hours I spent kiting wyverns in Cobalt Scar ...).

Tongue firmly planted in cheek [sarcasm on]

You're playing WoW wrong and having badwrongfun the way you play. EVERYONE knows you grind the mobs that give rep until they stop giving rep (usually at honored) THEN you do the quests. Otherwise you are left with running heroic instances for rep (for those reps that have heroic instances) Sheesh Dusty way to newb it up [/sarcasm off]

 

[Fifth Element]

I don't know about mmu1, but for me, it isn't the part about serving as a meatshield for other classes that bothers me. It's the part where the tank class also has to be completely impotent offensively. In City of Heroes, for instance, they've got the Tankers who do just that. They soak up damage, force opponents to attack them, etc. But I'm always amazed at just how mediocre their damage is in comparison to everyone else. I'm supposed to be a Superman type here. I've got Super Strength, and yet pretty much everyone else is inflicting more damage than me. Not just more damage, but a LOT more damage. I could've just stood there and made mean faces, for all the difference I seemed to be making with my attacks. That's my concern, anyway. That "Defenders" will end up being walking Tower Shields for other characters, like they are in MMO's. Great in protecting the rest of the team, but complete gimps when it comes to hurting the enemy.

That's valid, but it seems unlikely that's the direction they're going, given the emphasis on making sure all characters have something cool to do every round. I doubt the designers consider taking damage to qualify as "something cool".

 

[WhatGravitas]

At least you didn't deny the WoW part.

Okay... that's a totally serious question, because I really can't tell: Are you sarcastic or not?

I know my last post was probably a bit snarky, but this is a honest question (without containing any snark) - could please answer it?

Cheers, LT.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Okay... that's a totally serious question, because I really can't tell: Are you sarcastic or not?

I know my last post was probably a bit snarky, but this is a honest question (without containing any snark) - could please answer it?

Cheers, LT.

If this is directed at me then there is no WoWism in my post (I canceled my WoW account in May 2006) so what I meant was:

Tank = Bad ass fighter type with lots of AC to take damage and dish it out

Grind = My rogue was about to be put through a hobo meat grinder and made into dinner as at one point I had 4 around me and no place to go. Plus i learned today the hobos were all 4-5 AC too high for our encounter.

 

[Klaus]

If this is directed at me then there is no WoWism in my post (I canceled my WoW account in May 2006) so what I meant was:

Tank = Bad ass fighter type with lots of AC to take damage and dish it out

Grind = My rogue was about to be put through a hobo meat grinder and made into dinner as at one point I had 4 around me and no place to go. Plus i learned today the hobos were all 4-5 AC too high for our encounter.

Those hobos are a pain, aren't they? Always hogging the best spots in the freight trains...



With all this talk of hobos, I was wondering if the "Starter Town" in the DMG will be Hoboken...

 

[Kunimatyu]

My rogue was about to be put through a hobo meat grinder and made into dinner as at one point I had 4 around me and no place to go. Plus i learned today the hobos were all 4-5 AC too high for our encounter.

You heard it here first -- hobos are in the 4e MM!

 

[mmu1]

I don't know about mmu1, but for me, it isn't the part about serving as a meatshield for other classes that bothers me. It's the part where the tank class also has to be completely impotent offensively. In City of Heroes, for instance, they've got the Tankers who do just that. They soak up damage, force opponents to attack them, etc. But I'm always amazed at just how mediocre their damage is in comparison to everyone else. I'm supposed to be a Superman type here. I've got Super Strength, and yet pretty much everyone else is inflicting more damage than me. Not just more damage, but a LOT more damage. I could've just stood there and made mean faces, for all the difference I seemed to be making with my attacks. That's my concern, anyway. That "Defenders" will end up being walking Tower Shields for other characters, like they are in MMO's. Great in protecting the rest of the team, but complete gimps when it comes to hurting the enemy.

What I said was:

"It's all a matter of degree, and balance. There's a big difference between being the one who faces the most dangerous enemies because you're the toughest and can hit real hard, and being a damage magnet whose ability to dish out damage is completely secondary."

So yes, that's definitely the issue I have, and it's why hearing about a "Defender" class role gives me a facial tic.

 

[Gentlegamer]

But really, succeeding is fun, but failing isn't quite so much. And when failing involves trying to move in a roguish manner, and possibly getting a beatdown for it, it hardly seems worth trying over a more cautious approach. And if you're playing a rogue, how is that more fun?

If you're a rogue and the prospect of a beatdown frightens you, stay out of melee. Same goes for wizards. Combat is the forte of the Fighter class (including Paladins, Barbarians, Rangers, etc.).

It seems that 4D&D is being built on the premise of tactical combat being hardwired into the game especially the balance of class utility to a degree even greater than that of 3e. This is not good, in my opinion.

 

[Reynard]

If this is directed at me then there is no WoWism in my post (I canceled my WoW account in May 2006) so what I meant was:

Tank = Bad ass fighter type with lots of AC to take damage and dish it out

Grind = My rogue was about to be put through a hobo meat grinder and made into dinner as at one point I had 4 around me and no place to go. Plus i learned today the hobos were all 4-5 AC too high for our encounter.

First of all, I apologize to Scott for being an ass. I also apologize for misremembering -- it is Dave Noonan that is always going on about WoW in his blogs, not Scott. In other words, when I said "please stop" I meant it in an extended context, not just an immediate one for the post.

Secondly, thanks for clarifying.

Third, on the actual issue of MMORPG-speak and WoW-isms: yes, there's lots of jargon from gaming in general that croses back and forth, but MMORPGs and WoW in particular have taken ahold of a certain kind of gamer-speak and made it their own. It is extremely difficult to divorce the connotation from the context and the jargon. Am I a little more sensitive about it that I should be? Yeah, but I'll tell you why:

The qualities that make D&D such an endearing game are not transferrable to CRPGs or MMOs, and people have been trying since pretty much D&D appeared. All those kids at MIT creating the internet? Gamers. (see Dungeons and Dreamers) More importantly, the realities of live, person to person tabletop play are such that trying to emulate the much more popular and lucrative cousin of the video game is not only doomed to failure, but actually harms the game and makes it less fun. Trying to get closer to hitting the same market and making the same dollars as MMOs and the like will only bring into focus the differences between the game, driving away the dedicated table top player while at the same time illustrating to te MMO player that it ain't going to work.

It has been said that work on 4E has been going on for 2 years. if you look back at the releases over those 2 years, it is readily apparent. It starts with Complete Arcane. This wasn't when the 4e work started, but when the seed was planted. WotC did something very different with Complete Arcane -- it created the Warlock, the first "at will" D&D caster. And as much as there has been and continues to be controversy over the class specifics, the concept must have taken hold. That was 2004. 2005 was likely spent thinking about how that one little change, that very "video game" change, has created such a stir and what to do about, and with that.

By 2006, a lot of those ideas were ready for production. Book of Nine Swords and Tome of Magic both provided experimental ideas intended to change the game, "feelers" for 4e, as it were. Some ideas stuck, others didn't. Player's Handbook II, althougha great book with a great number of cool ideas, was like an MMO supplement: more "at will" casters, an actual, honest to goodness D&D tank, "respec" quests -- the whole nine yards. Since, the second round of Complete books have pushed this playstyle and set of assumptions -- which are far from the original set of assumptions of the game -- more and more.

Now, some people don't think this is bad. In fact, they think it is good. That's great. But, it is a simple fact based upon all the evidence that WotC is both using the "video game" and "MMO" play model as a template for the future of D&D, and that in doing so they are sacrificing the former, successful-for-30-years model.

So, it is easy to get one's hackles up and jump up and down on someone when they suggest 4E is going to be "video-gamey", because one thinks that carries a negative connotation with it, or it is just more fun to defend WotC and the D&D brand no matter what it will become. But that doesn't mean the statement isn't true, and it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with those of us that don't want our tabletop RPG, with all those design elements that make it far and away superior and more fun than CRPGs or MMOs, to lose its distinctive quality in the vain hope of getting people to transfer their $10-$20/month habit to D&D.