Class concepts: Dealer vs Scout

[Bobbity]

Hi, guys. I'm here to ask for your in-depth answers on what a dealer is both on and off the field. Also, what is a dealer in contrast to a scout? How do they differ? How should they differ?

 

So: combat-wise and in terms of farming and crafting, what is the concept of a dealer and the concept of a scout?

When I think Dealer, I think 'screw the rules, I have money'. Winning with the power of pure capitalism, exploitation and piracy.

I think:

• machines, an army of machines
• guns - lots of guns
• cannons
• crafting armor in a cave from a box of scraps

When I think guns and cannons, I also think

• unrelenting bombardment of heavy artillery
• unparalleled precision in sniping.
• defensive structures, fortresses

 

My concept of a scout involves the following:

• Stealth
• Long-ranged attack
• Infrequent attacks
• Trick shots
• unparalleled precision in sniping
• Very strong normal attack and skill attack power
• Can charge attacks for greater damage
• Hard to lock down / slippery
• cool, calm and collected

 

So, there's an inevitable overlap that troubles me. Don't scouts also focus on critical precision of their sniping? Isn't every Scout a Legolas-wannabe? Also, do scouts get to learn fletching skills? If not, are we really going to leave ALL the crafting to the dealers? Considering how easy it is to craft arrows, I feel this needlessly removes an empowering ability from a class that has no good earlygame AOEs (no Rain of Arrows or Tornado Shot skills).

I feel like we should double-down on the aspects of capitalism, crafting things other than equippable weapons, heavy artillery, mass-production and mass-deployment for Dealers and go hard on Sniping for Scouts. Yes, it'll mean removing Sniping from Dealers  but I feel like we can make up for this in other ways later. I'll make a suggestion based on this idea once I check the feedback for this post. 

 

This question was prompted by the unreasonably large overlap between the classes as well as @Rebus's ammo suggestion. I feel it's unhealthy for unrelated classes to be so similar. Let me know what you think in the comments section. Also, check out my socials for merch and click the bell icon to stay up to date on my latest content.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Bobbity
Total reformat

[RoseOnPlayer]

My concept of Dealer vs Scout

• Artillery vs Mobility - Dealers should have longer weapon range than Scouts, as Scout class is a mobile class and can kite easily. While Dealer should lack the mobility but should be able to pin down enemies before they approach.
• Burst attacks vs Barrage of attacks - Dealers should be heavy hitters, should deal stronger critical damage but slower, compared to Scouts that should be able to shoot barrage of arrows (faster attack speed). How would they differ in terms of critical? Dealers should deal stronger critical damage while Scouts should do frequent critical hits (including critical bashes or inability to move when bashed).
• True damage dealer (DPS carry) vs Picky damage dealer (assassin) - Scouts come from the class Hawker which are assassins. Meaning, scouts should be preferred when eliminating squishy backlines such as Mage, Cleric, Bourgeois, Artisans. While Dealers should have defense penetrating passives to kill frontlines such as Champion, Knight, Assassins, Scouts (should be able to kill Scouts because of their high hit rate).
• Difference in summons - Artisans should also be able to summon such as artillery summons that cannot move. They should be able to summon defensive summons, much like Bonfires but instead of healing, provides defense or shield to nearby allies. While Bourgeois should maintain their high class summons, both melee (defensive, tank) and ranged (DPS, carry) mercenaries, and should summon Knight Terror (typical defensive splash heavy damage dealer). Scout's Hawk should instead apply a debuff against enemies that helps him in dealing damage such as defense down and dodge down. Scouts should also be able to summon invisible traps as they are hunters.

[DoubleRose]

I stand by all the points I've made scattered across various threads, so a long ranged attack and mobility spell on scouts, various ammo and temporary boosts on dealers.

Dealers are all about money and opportunity costs. If they throw their money at the right tool for a specific fight without a proper reaction from their enemy, they win. If they hop in a castle gear and get kited by a scout, they lose.

On that note, I'd like to see a family of three or so buffs for dealers that share a (long) cooldown and perhaps even a coinciding self-debuff. Need extra oomph? Use jury-rigging! Want more summons on the field? Initial public offering!

Although this is somewhat reiterating everyone else's points, dealers really should have something like a super charged cannon or artillery summon. It spawns and charges up for a decent amount of time (while still vulnerable to being attacked) and then is a huge threat in a specific area.

In terms of scouts, what is the identity of the xbow scout? Same as the scout, or more of a generalist that trades range for attack and defense? Xbow scouts get flat + percentage defense penetration. If scouts are meant to be about picking off a vulnerable target, shouldn't they just have flat penetration? If they are meant to be a generalist, then they're currently fine and I don't see a problem with having a jack-of-all-trades subclass.

[Bobbity]

I still want more perspectives on this (for a decent sample size alone, if not for purposes of information) but this already seems very well-rounded.

 

Thoughts for now: 

I definitely vibe with the idea of defensive play (defensive aggression? O_o ) for dealers. Well, it's obvious; dealers don't have any real mobility skills besides Canoneer's Panic right now, whereas Scouts are full-on high-ms, combat steroided, stealthy and evasive. That and the notion of technological improvement naturally lends itself to the idea of longer range of attack, defensive structures and artillery summons / pseudo-summon constructs. 

I dislike how summons are right now since they're very linear: input skill point, spend mana (and zulie?), activate. I'd rather we have some pseudocrafting process where heavy artillery cannons or defensive 'structures' are being constructed on-site. Like the supercharged cannon @DoubleRose mentioned (a railgun?). Preferably, this process should be interruptible through stunning or killing the crafter. If not, that it be a lengthy process of either crafting from mats or assembly on-site. At the same time, the construct could be damaged and require repair. This could be one opportunity for the power of money to shine through. Of course, this isn't a mechanic we have in the game right now, but one I hope could be implemented eventually. In the meantime, I reckon we could fake this. 'Bonfire'-like constructs as mentioned before with powerful range-delimited defensive auras.  Shield emitters linked to a shield core; every piece crafted and assembled on-site - once on-line they provide massive, renewable but exhaustible damage prevention. Or something, I dunno. 

Regarding Bourg summons; they don't seem hardcore enough to me right now. I feel like they need comprehensive revision. Am I the only one that feels they're lackluster?

 

Dealer efficacy for clan wars requires reliable info to counter their specific enemy. That stands in direct conflict with the idea of freely available skill resets, though. I think I've mentioned before how paying somebody to be a mole in an enemy clan could be a workable strat, but only if the info is timeous, reliable and actionable.

 

I laughed at the idea of an IPO. It made me think of share price tickers/chyrons and offering paid internships to poor lowbies. Then the lowbies show up for work and find out they signed up for a clan war. "Right, here's your armor, here's your sword, go go GO!" "B-but this is wood-" "There are lots of people who'd kill for this job, kid, NOW GO!" At the same time, I feel that people would complain about the advantage rich clans would bring into what 'should be' a fair PvP match. O_o Fair? 

 

The xbow scout could derive their attack bonuses more from their weapons than their skill tree. That, or the skill tree would require a lot more investment to achieve full penetration with flat numbers. 

 

 

Right, let's hear from some more people while I chew on this cud.

[Bobbity]

Some of you might know I've suggested landmines for Dealers (proximity mines and remote-detonated mines) and that I'm not the first or only one to do so. You're likely also aware that Scouts had traps that worked decently in PvP. Once again, there's a conceptual overlap, except this time between something that used to exist and another thing that does not (except on one pserver out there; it's currently used as a Bourg level 200 PvP skill).

How do we resolve this?

[DoubleRose]

2 minutes ago, Bobbity said:

Some of you might know I've suggested landmines for Dealers (proximity mines and remote-detonated mines) and that I'm not the first or only one to do so. You're likely also aware that Scouts had traps that worked decently in PvP. Once again, there's a conceptual overlap, except this time between something that used to exist and another thing that does not (except on one pserver out there; it's currently used as a Bourg level 200 PvP skill).

How do we resolve this?

Landmines would be damaged based, whereas traps would be information based. Landmines hit hard and can be a remotely activated aoes. Traps could do things like destealth a target, slow or root them, and also flash info on the scout's screen. The enemy changes color on the mini map and an arrow would point to their location. It could also flash info such as their class, or it could show a brief split screen of the area where the trap activated. 

[RoseOnPlayer]

1 hour ago, Bobbity said:

Some of you might know I've suggested landmines for Dealers (proximity mines and remote-detonated mines) and that I'm not the first or only one to do so. You're likely also aware that Scouts had traps that worked decently in PvP. Once again, there's a conceptual overlap, except this time between something that used to exist and another thing that does not (except on one pserver out there; it's currently used as a Bourg level 200 PvP skill).

How do we resolve this?

I'd rather have the Artisans know these Land Mine skills. Artisans should be indirect damage dealers like Land Mine, Grenade, Auto-attacking immobile machine gun or rail gun, etc. Let's not make Artisans purely for crafting. They should still have combat abilities. 

Launcher Bourgs are fine as physical counterpart to Mages and with stronger crits, while Gun Bourgs are fine as heavy attackers with slight ASPD and crits.

[Bobbity]

I've always wanted some sort of sentry ward craftable by artis but I now feel this is thematically more appropriate to Scouts. In fact, we could either overload or change the Hawk pet skill so it could be invisible in an area to give vision (most likely with a passive True Sight skill). At the same time, Dealer True Sight skills are lackluster. Bourgs have a roaming, unpredictable Eye. I can't recall whether artisans even have a skill for True Sight. Even if they do, it's likely at best on par with mages, clerics and such. That leaves them very vulnerable to being popped by a raider or scout. Sure, once you've established a defensive position you can place some mines, sentry turrets and such, but before then, what do? 

[Vaztuz]

    Since Artisans are mostly crafters where they use their skill points for crafting abilities, and most of the things I read here often say things about using grenades, land mines and such, then why not just just have Artisan dedicated items that scales depending on what they are crafting? Something like, if an Artisan has Gun Crafting skills, they should be able to craft grenades that scales up depending on the level of that specific crafting skill. For example, if total Gun Crafting skill is level 5, then item grade grenade is level 5, if the crafting skill level is 10, then so should the item grade of Grenades; the higher the item grade the higher the damage. Then, for defensive items, an AOE Barrier similar to cleric's flames but, for them to craft and use that item, they should have Heavy Armor Crafting, then for M-Def version of the AOE Barrier, they should have light armor crafting skills instead. I think with this, there would be different variations of Artisans when it comes to combat; defensive, offensive, support, crowd control.

   What I'm trying to say is that, Artisans should have an 'item counterpart' of some of Bourg skills. Something like that.

   Some items in my mind, most of them has been mentioned here, then Flare or Proximity Mine for stealth detection, Flash Grenade for Blind, Silence or Slow. Instead of summons, deployable guns or cannons where you can just leave it there and run away. Deployable AOE Def or M-Def sentry similar to salamander flames or bonfire where anyone within the range has slightly increased def or m-def. Then all of this items are tied to the crafting skills they have and they can only use it if they have that crafting skills.

   Now to avoid exploiting this, aside from the item being tied to a skill for them to be used, item weight could also be used for restriction. Something like, the higher the item grade the heavier it gets. Maybe?   

[Bobbity]

Item weight's a good restriction, especially for heavy artillery. Of course, since all these are crafted items, whether consumable (like the monster capsules), pseudo-consumable (like the jet pack on Orlo) or equipment, we're working with mats being another natural restriction. 

Grenades should currently be Alchemy products if I'm not mistaken (Alchemy - Magic Item). That means they're currently independent of other skills. Having a nice scaling bonus to their yield and effect based on other skills would be interesting and pretty nice but the benefit of their current independence is we can craft different types of grenades for the same skill points. I feel like we'd have to pay dearly for such a bonus; maybe it'd end up like the weapons and armor crafting section of the skill tree with hard choices and payment in skill points. Well, I hope that doesn't happen, this idea needs exploring. (Unrelated: acid grenades really should drop DEF and/or deal a Damage over Time  and/or slow ms.)

 

Someone mentioned a few years back that Artis are basically Visitors with guns, and they need more in terms of protection and such. There were some suggestions of skills and craftable items for defence and damage mitigation. I don't know how far we want to go to blur the lines between artis and bourgs though. 

I'll think some more about this. Good stuff, you guys.

[RoseOnPlayer]

I wouldn't really like Artisans to be too dependent on their crafted items. Remember, crafted items are consumables. Consumables and crafting materials are limited. That will make Artisan in a very bad or costly position combat-wise.

BUT, it is still a cool concept nonetheless. As a solution, these items should be character-bound (so that it will be exclusive for the crafter himself and not for other classes), cheap to produce (mostly NPC-sold materials), and produces in bulk (eg. crates of 100 or 999 quantity).

Edited October 5, 2022 by RoseOnPlayer

[Bobbity]

Not *ALL* consumable items are actually fully consumable, viz. the jet pack quest-consumable from the Orlean NPC Kreinto in Muris. Of course, that's a bit of silliness and we should probably have a separate window for stuff like that (probably not the PAT window). But tbh, the idea that money makes the world go round for artis (and dealers in general) sounds lovely. It's make-or-break. No arti could possibly farm that much by him/herself, either, so they tend to form part of clans or chambers of commerce, employ newbies for mats etc.

The items don't need to be char-bound or locked; they could simply require an arti to deploy.

[RoseOnPlayer]

2 hours ago, Bobbity said:

The items don't need to be char-bound or locked; they could simply require an arti to deploy.

The reason for it being character-bound is for exclusivity of capability to Artisans. It's their UNIQUE way of combat. You wouldn't want a Raider using your grenades against you in duels, arena, or war?

Edited October 5, 2022 by RoseOnPlayer

[Vaztuz]

2 hours ago, RoseOnPlayer said:

The reason for it being character-bound is for exclusivity of capability to Artisans. It's their UNIQUE way of combat. You wouldn't want a Raider using your grenades against you in duels, arena, or war?

   That's why one of the restriction I mentioned for the item is to be tied to a certain Artisan crafting skill. Think of it as a requirement to use. For example, to use grenades, the character has to have the right level of Alchemy and Gun Smith crafting, or for a DPS poison grenade the Artisan should have Alchemy and Magic Weapon crafting for it to be used, now for the requirement of an M-Def AOE sentry, the Artisan should have Lite Armor crafting skills for the item to be used. With this, the items can be sold but only Artisans can use it.

   With this method, there would be a lot of variations of Artisans. For example, most max CON crafters would have all weapon crafting, PAT, gems and alchemy and most max SEN crafters would probably be have armor and back item crafts. Now if you used this as a basis, you can think of it that max con crafters would probably be the 'offensive' type artisans because of the different types of grenades or other offensive items they can used because it's tied with certain weapons that they can craft, then most max SEN crafters would be the 'defensive' type of Artisans because it's tied with the armors they can craft. There's also a possibility that there are Artisans that are alt characters that support their main characters... let's say, someone created an artisan so their Sword Champ could get better gears. Then that means they have heavy armor craft and sword craft skills, then that would mean that their artisans would have a somewhat balanced build where they have a DEF sentry and a type of grenade tied with sword crafting. Actually this is what I did to my max SEN crafter, converting it to a dedicated crafter to a dual wielder that I was trying to level. Also, to be honest, I think having a max SEN crafter is somewhat pointless. Even if you have max CON crafter and putting the rest to SEN, then having all the max SEN gears, you can still get max stats. Although not as often as max SEN but, the difference on how often you get max stat is not that much.

[Bobbity]

The following descriptions apply for the basic concussion grenade and the lvl 200 arti hammer, respectively:

Concussion Grenade
Type: Magic Item
Quality: 25
Job: Dealer
Weight: 2

A grenade designed with explosives that will cause your target to be stunned momentarily.
Attack Power: (625)

 

Crafting Block Hammer
Attack Power: 5
Accuracy: 6
Attack Speed: Slow -3
Attack Distance: 0M
Durability: 10/ 10
Type: One-Hand Weapon
[Concentration 260]
[Job Class: Artisan]
[Requires: Level 200]
Weight: 25
A large hammer enchanted with powers of famous Artisans.

 

The game does support class-restricted items, it just doesn't restrict often enough for us to remember that. A raider could buy as many of my turrets as he wants, it's free zulie as long as he doesn't know an artisan that can deploy those turrets. They might even have stats requirements, so he could be even worse off. I could even password-protect them!

Anyway, back to the topic. The notion of skills scaling based on other skills does work in concept, I think. @Vaztuz You should consider posting that as a suggestion and see who else vibes with it. The devil's in the details, as usual.

I feel like we're solid on the idea of some sort of sentry/surveillance function on Scouts, generally the go-to for PvP teams. To avoid a rigid PvP meta we should probably get something vaguely similar on another class (maybe some sort of bound spirit for clerics or the ability to ping/update the entire minimap at the cost of no mana or movespeed/ability to move for 30 seconds.) It definitely makes slightly more sense to give a PvP-oriented utility skill to scouts than turning artis into the jack of all trades at best, crafting slave of all at worst, slaving away crafting sentry wards. Allowable overlap between artis, clerics and scouts in this regard:

• artis have (relatively) freely deployable stationary sentry functions (but maybe needs a Dealer/Arti to deploy them? Makes it an issue of safety.) Sentries have stealth.
• scouts have 1 (up to 3?) relatively mobile sentries in the form of Hawks. Same surveillance range, more or less, but both scouts and hawks have stealth.
• clerics have an infrequent god's-eye view at the cost of mobility / ability to use magic, displaying all hostile units on the mini-map for t duration. All clerics will have an indicator blink for the duration of the God's Sight skill / the skill icon itself will light up / something else. A required passive for this skill could grant additional passive stealth detection within a varying range. A stand-off between clerics and assassins, providing unique value.

 

Edited October 6, 2022 by Bobbity
Added stuff on the cleric's god's-eye view

[RoseOnPlayer]

9 hours ago, Bobbity said:

The game does support class-restricted items, it just doesn't restrict often enough for us to remember that. A raider could buy as many of my turrets as he wants, it's free zulie as long as he doesn't know an artisan that can deploy those turrets. They might even have stats requirements, so he could be even worse off. I could even password-protect them!

The game REALLY DOES support class-restricted items, popularly known as armor equipments. Although class-restricted consumable is really rare.

But indeed, class restriction is a better way to make those grenades etc exclusive to Artisan/Dealer than having it character-bound.

Edited October 6, 2022 by RoseOnPlayer

[Bobbity]

lol, no offense intended. I thought I wasn't getting my point across that class restriction is the go-to and norm for stuff like this. 

Actually, things like codes and encryption could be a valuable revenue stream for artis: the higher your CON, the faster the decryption process. Is it concordant with ROSE's steampunk + medieval theme? Maybe, we haven't seen Karkia yet. So far, we only know a little bit. Pure CON newbie artisans coming up could make bank by focusing on encryption/decryption and alchemy. That's a very big divide from scouts, totally doesn't focus on combat potential at all.

[Heatfist]

One of the above comments about a Dealer/Artisan basically being a Visitor with a gun is too true, which popped an idea in my head for Dealers going for Artisan second job. 

Since Bourgs already have most of the gun combat and Mercenaries big damage and greed to win mechanics, it would be nice to have Artisan’s have a combat gameplay more related to the crafting aspect. The above mentioned turrets, mines, grenades, etc are all great ideas. What would really make a Dealer/Artisan stand out imo would be if they were able to purchase vehicle combat skills from level 50 onwards. 

Since Artisans can craft Carts and Castle Gear I feel like it would be appropriate for them to also be able to learn Cart Combat skills and Castle Gear Combat skills of various kinds depending on which kinds of weapon addons they build for their vehicles. This could open up a Mech-Combat Artisan build. Where they would be focused mainly on Cart/Caste Gear crafting which they could also utilizes to strengthen their own combat aspects for themselves.

For example at level 50 after learning Cart driving and getting their Cart they can purchase the Cart Canon Schematic, Cart Bumper Spikes Schematics (to be able to craft Cart weaponry) and the ranged and melee cart combat skill masteries (to be able to use skills while driving their vehicle). When the Dealer sits in their Cart with the attached Cart weaponry they would get increased Attack Power, Movement Speed, Defense, and HP. Damage dealt to the dealer would hurt their HP as normal and also cause durability damage to their vehicle (so they would need to repair and maintain it as well). With the Melee abilities the dealer can drive into enemies to deal damage and with the ranged they could shoot while driving around. The same concept would then be applied for later levels for Castle Gear related crafts and combat. The above mentioned mines and grenades could also work with the Cart/Castle Gear combat mechanics too. 

The Mech-Combat Artisan wouldn’t need to spend too many skill points in all the various vehicle combat skills/crafts either. They could specialize in one form of vehicle and combat style and place other points into other crafting needs or whatever to allow for further skill variety and class identity. 

 

 

[Bobbity]

We need to explore mech combat more. At the very least, we can have some MarioKart arenas or start using Dolphin Island more!

 

I've thought of whether Dealers should really give up Sniping for some time now and I still can't make up my mind. 

[RoseOnPlayer]

17 hours ago, Bobbity said:

I've thought of whether Dealers should really give up Sniping for some time now and I still can't make up my mind. 

They still need it.

Maybe you'd want something like this too?

Edited October 18, 2022 by RoseOnPlayer

[Bobbity]

There's way too much happening in that diagram for me to parse quickly.  I'll be back!

[RoseOnPlayer]

55 minutes ago, Bobbity said:

There's way too much happening in that diagram for me to parse quickly.  I'll be back!

lmfao. There are no lines/arrows there yet (idk how to, lol). But the idea is to give the Artisan 3 core groups of skills:
1: Crafting (advance, supporting with crafted items, weapons, equips, pots, and indirect battle capabilities with crafted grenades, landmines, etc)
2: Summons (immobile summons, supporting with crowd controls and powerups, and indirect battle capabilities with attacking summons)
3: Gun/Launcher skills (direct battle capabilities).

Proposal is somehow complete; I can send you a copy as they have descriptions when you hover each skill.

Edited October 18, 2022 by RoseOnPlayer

[Bobbity]

*nods* yes, please.

[Ashura]

On 10/18/2022 at 7:44 AM, RoseOnPlayer said:

They still need it.

Maybe you'd want something like this too?

Impressive!!!!!