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Last Updated: Mar 15th, 2006 - 17:20:44

The Vanguard Rogue: Straight from the Source

By Nenjin Darkeyes

Feb 3, 2006, 17:25

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The Vanguard Rogue: Straight from the Source

As is our way here at the Safehouse, any time we get the chance to ambush a developer about the status and future of the Rogue class, we take it! Just before the banquet dinner, Fricka and I managed to lure Darrin McPherson (aka Talisker, Master of Classes, and Hater of Coffee) into a side room where we proceeded to tag team him for information. As always, Darrin was a wealth of good info, and artfully painted a picture of how he envisions the Vanguard Rogue, how it's changed over its development, and possibly, what's in store for it in the future.

The Evolution of the Rogue Class

Fricka and I wanted to know how Darrin defined the Rogue class for Vanguard, and how it had grown from its original paper designs into what it is now.

Darrin: It's the same fundamental idea that I had originally, which was, I wanted

Rogues to be stealthy in combat. I wanted stealth to be one of their primary functions...I would say that the original design was that we focused strictly on combat and how that would work with stealth. And then when I actually sat down to design it, I decided that I wanted two more things, more flavor, more utility. So I gave the Rogue the ability to use items that no one else could use, and the ability to get items that he could use to make that equipment, so that he could exist by himself. He doesn't need a crafter [emphasis mine, it's an important distinction. The move is aimed to avoid paralyzing Rogues with expensive crafted components ala Final Fantasy XI, not to make them a soloing machine].

The Rogue that was, and the Rogue that will be

It's hard for an EQ veteran to compare Rogues to anything else, and I'm no exception. I asked Darrin how much non-combat utility we could expect with the Rogue, if it would meet or exceed the utility aspects of the Rogue class of EQ.

Darrin: We're nearly what Everquest had, with the exception of traps and locks. We will have traps and locks. Rogues will be disarming them. So ultimately we will have the same sort of focus if you're comparing it that way. Plus your pick pocketing has a much more clear purpose. In Everquest you pick pocketed because it was fun, and you got stuff, but you could get [In Vanguard] actual usable items. Things that you need to fulfill your role as a Rogue by using those skills.

But...I liked making the monies!

And I asked him if any of these items would be sellable, or if sellable items were included in the range of things you could pick pocket.

Darrin: You'll have a great deal of the utility items that you get, and there will be the ability to get items that you couldn't normally get...We cannot allow this to become a money maker for the Rogue. So we can give you items that you would use, but are generally worthless to everyone else. [And by this he mostly means vendors, but I could see a Rogue selling components to his fellow thieves]

The maybes of Pickpocketing

Darrin mentioned that they were playing with the idea of pilfering from certain mobs that might get you something valuable in terms of coin loot, at the risk of getting annihilated. But he stressed that it's a very delicate line that is easily crossed. As the only class with the ability to do something like this, Rogues would eventually become the richest characters on the server just by playing their class. Darrin repeated that he made no guarantees on something like this going in game, which made me think it's still in the conceptual phases only.

Rogues and their toys

So, Rogues can get items through their abilities and combine these items into equipment. Is crafting just out of the picture then? Is there a tie in between crafting and Rogue equipment? What kind of stuff do these things do anyways?

Darrin: Getting crafted components certainly helps. Because the crafting components could, instead of you having this poison that does X damage, you have that poison that does X damage, but now you have 10 charges of it instead of 2. If a crafter gave you a vial he made, a finely crafted vial, instead of the crude on you could fashion--

Me: So there will be some interplay between the Crafting and Adventuring Sphere.

Darrin: Oh yeah, but it's not required, you don't need to do that. There are some higher level items, very high level things that aren't even introduced on the beta server right now, that give you real powerful abilities like, a speed buff, or the ability to evacuate your group from a dungeon. Those things require rare mob drops and/or crafted items.

Me: Rare mob drops or stolen?

Darrin: Both. So for example there is an ink that you need to use, to craft the highest level versions of the magic scrolls that you can cast. I think that at level 48, you can create this scroll that allows you to evacuate your group, which is a utility function that only casters [used to] have.

Me: [happy dance]

Darrin: We give you magic scrolls, and that allows you to do water breathing. We give you a set amount of spells. You won't get nukes. Scrolls won't allow you to do that. You get poison. Not only that, you get poison that you don't just apply to your blades, you can apply directly to the NPC.

More about the Rogue Crafting / Adventuring / Harvesting Cross over

For clarity's sake, I wanted to know if all of the crafting classes in some way contributed components to Rogue equipment. Darrin said it was only a couple of crafting classes, but that the items these crafting classes made were not hard to make, or very expensive. How this ties in with the “secondary crafting skill sets” that have been talked about, which is a second lesser crafting class in addition to your primary one, Darrin was unsure. However he did say that harvested items could be used to enhance your Rogue toys like crafted components. These would probably need to be refined by the appropriate crafting class in most cases.

Stealthing, Perception, and the Primary Attributes of the Rogue

All classes in Vanguard are able to use stealth. However, Rogues are the only class that can stealth in combat and stealth to the extent of the Everquest Rogue. There is an important distinction Rogues of Vanguard should be aware of between stealth in Vanguard, and stealth in Everquest. In Everquest, a mob had an aggro radius. When a Rogue attempted to sneak past a mob, crossing into its aggro radius (which could be very large) and being detected caused the mob to attack the player. Vanguard NPCs have both an aggro radius, AND a perception radius, and their perception radius is generally larger than their aggro radius. What this means for Rogues is that having your stealth broken does not necessarily mean you've gotten aggro. It means that you've been detected but the mob isn't trying to attack you yet. Of course, this doesn't mean stealthing is a cake walk. In attempting to sneak past many mobs at once, you might enter the aggro radius of 2 mobs undetected, but then you are picked up by a 3rd mob's perception radius, which would break your stealth, causing the other 2 mobs to aggro you.

The mechanic for stealth does not rest on your attributes. Thus, having a higher dexterity or agility does not contribute to your ability to stealth. Both attributes are very important in other ways, but in the context of stealth, they are not. Stealthing gives the Rogue many advantages. While stealthed, if a Rogue targets a mob and gets close them without being detected and without attacking, they begin stalking the mob, gaining increases to the accuracy of their first attack the longer they remained stealthed. Second, all attacks launched from stealth do more damage than if they were used outside of stealth. And to complete the chain of Rogue Stealth Combat...

Darrin: I would prefer that the Rogue be stealthed in combat the entire time. Every one of your attacks, if executed from stealth, will allow you stay stealthed...as long as you don't get aggro, you can remain stealthed.

Since the E3 and subsequent Rogue interviews, there has been some confusion about what attributes and skills are truly important to the Rogue. For example, is perception important for a Rogue? Chew on this. The skill pool for Perception is the same pool you find your stealth abilities in. This pool is assigned a total number of points that can be spent, and it is not enough to max out all skills at the highest levels. So Rogues must choose between Perception skills, and stealth skills. An easy trade off, yes? Maybe not. Rogues specialize in exploiting enemy weakness in combat, sighting vulnerabilities that allow them to strike with devastating effect. The ability to spot those opportunities rests on your Perception skills. And in the case of perception, Intelligence DOES matter. As you can begin to see, Vanguard Rogues will have a wealth of options to choose from in terms of what they want to specialize in.

So what attributes are truly important to a Rogue? Even after having it all explained, it seems like a subjective call. Obviously, Strength adds to your melee damage, and it was what Darrin considered “most” important. Intelligence adds to your ability to spot threats and opportunities. Dexterity and Agility factor into your combat performance and survival. What was once a clear cut choice is now a plethora of options. And Darrin is big on giving people choices about how to play their class rather than shoving every member of a class into the same build.

A Day in the life of a Rogue

Darrin: So let's say you begin combat, you are level 1...You're solo....You can stealth, you can pull up to the mob, and you begin stalking the mob which increases your accuracy. Let's say you don't care about that much, so you don't have to wait for that accuracy mod to increase. You attack the mob. You deal more damage than you would have because you are attacking from stealth. And the stealth attack, if you use the attack called Brutal Thrust, it does a higher modifier, like 30% to 40% extra damage, if you do it from stealth. So now you're fighting but you can't re-stealth because the mob is hitting you and

aggroing you. You can't get rid of that. So now let's say you're in a group. And you're in a group with a warrior who has good aggro management. He attacks first. You begin stealthing. You attack, but now the mob hasn't turned on you, because you did damage but the warrior has the aggro. You can use abilities or items to make that mob distracted. And if you make him distracted, if you make any mob that is aggroed on you at that point distracted, you can re-stealth. And they'll forget you. And then you can begin stalking again, you can attack immediately if you don't care about the damage [accuracy?] modifier you get.

Me: So is that like aggro wipe, or aggro reduction?

Darrin: It's not aggro wipe, it's not even aggro reduction. It's that they don't perceive you anymore, you're not there. It's the same state you were in before you attacked. I was stealthed, they don't know that I'm there. I attack, they know I'm there. I distract them, then I re-stealth, they don't know I'm there again. They would have to have a successful perception check to get you out of stealth.

Me: So in theory, if the mob was facing you, and you distract him, and then went into stealth, and came back out stealth immediately, he would just turn back to you? Because you still have the same value of aggro?

Darrin: If he was on you, and you tried to stealth, you wouldn't be able to. You can't stealth when something is attacking you, ever. So we give you a little item called Flash Powder when you start. Flash Powder is an AE Distract. Meaning that if you're fighting 3 mobs and they are all hitting you, and you use it, you can't stealth, because they are all hitting you. But if you for some reason are attacking 3 mobs, and they are all focused on someone else and not physically attacking you, you can use Flash Powder, and it makes everyone of them distracted. And then you can stealth again. And then you can choose whatever you want you want to do at that point.

A Roguely Mouthful?

I asked that, since Rogues have this intricate system of using stealth and timing of abilities and attacks, Rogue toys, AND opportunistic attacks, if Rogues would get less actual abilities compared to other classes. Because let's face it, that's a lot to have on the plate of one class. Giving the Rogue comparable amounts of clickable abilities to other classes would be very unbalanced, and difficult to manage for the player. Darrin didn't necessarily state that they would get less abilities, but that it was going to take a higher level of class knowledge and skill to fully utilize the capabilities of the Rogue, which in the end all comes back to melee damage output through the use of stealthed attacks and Rogue items.

Darrin: It is more involved, and it will take a higher skill set. And you'll have

Rogues that don't stealth in combat, who aren't doing optimal combat, I guarantee you. And those people should probably be playing Rangers. Or a Monk, you know what I mean? They shouldn't be playing that [Rogue] class. And I'm ok with that, if that class, the shaman, other classes, take more expertise if you want to enjoy playing them, or if you want to play them to their fullest extent, you have to know how to play them. And it will be the same for several of our classes, but we will have classes that can just you know...it's not as complex. The Rogue does not have less stuff, you just have to use it at the right time, and you have to do it correctly.

Me: It's all situational.

Darrin: Right. Well the big situation you're waiting for is stealth. When you're stealthed, then you're waiting for weaknesses. You want to strike when the Iron is Hot [a weakness on the opponent] right? There's a weakness on that NPC, and you attack, and ideally we want you doing a truckload more damage. But at the same time you might get aggro. But it might be worth it to do triple damage.

Me: It's always worth it to do triple damage. :)

Stealthed attacks and Ranged Groups, a pain?

Fricka brought up the situation where your group is using mostly ranged attacks. Darrin said that no matter what, someone ends up tanking the mob, and you can stealth attack if you're not the one tanking. Similarly, if you're facing ranged mobs like casters, you can approach unstealthed, distract the mob (because if he's not nuking you, he's not preventing you from going into stealth after he's been distracted), line yourself up, and then shank the bastard.

I some what seriously and some what jokingly asked about stealthed Ranged Attacks, and Darrin said he didn't see that happening. Or maybe he did. Once I dubbed it Neck Shot, he said “Well, maybe, you never know”. The seed has been planted.

Ranged Combat

Rogues can use bows and thrown items. All melee classes can use some form of ranged attacks, although the Warrior is the only Protective Fighter class that can equip most of the them. Other “plate” classes must use thrown weapons. Ranged Combat has it's own system, which Darrin was a little dodgy on, except to say what it wasn't. Currently Ranged combat in the beta is akin to ranged auto attack according to him, and that it will soon be replaced by something more complex. One aspect of it is that attacking with a Ranged weapon leaves a player defenseless while doing so, meaning any attacks coming at them would hit more often and deal more damage while using ranged weapons.

Rogue Weaponry

Fear not, you won't be stuck with one-handed piercing weapons anymore. Rogue will be able to wield most 1-handed weapons. However, Darrin would prefer Rogues use daggers, not only because they are quick, but because they make use of a special dual wield animation which includes flipping the grip and fighting daggers down style.

Thieves Guilds

A question we've posed to Darrin before. As I understand it, Darrin's responsibilities are mostly in class design, and not in other areas like questing, which is where he sees Thieves Guilds. Mostly like, he said, was that they would integrated into Diplomacy in some form. Team leads do meet, but at this point, they are not to talking about Thieves Guilds.

Woe is Climbing

Darrin: I love climbing.

Fricka: Climbing?

Darrin: I do love climbing.

Fricka: Climbing? :)

Fricka is especially interested in climbing as she does rock climbing for a hobby. I've been rooting for Climbing since ye' elder forum days.

Darrin: I would expect it but not for release. There would be areas that we would want you to climb, and we would put those in the areas so you could climb. But we don't want you climbing everything. It's clunky because the world hasn't been created for climb. Just like it hasn't been created for fly. We'd love it if you guys could fly around, but we'd have to protect areas so you couldn't get to them, and we'd have to make areas where fly was required.

Behold, The Vanguard Rogue!

So in synopsis-

The primary attribute of interest to Rogues is Strength. Important secondary attributes are Dexterity, Agility, and Intelligence.

Rogues will be able to detect and disarm traps, and pick locks.

Pickpocketing and stealing will not provide a way for Rogues to make money constantly.

The Rogue's primary function is to deal damage in combat in conjunction with stealth. There are a variety of benefits to attacking from stealth.

Targeting a mob while not attacking and in stealth allows you to stalk them, giving you accuracy bonuses.

Attacks launched from stealth do more damage, and if the Rogue does not claim aggro, the Rogue will remain in Stealth after the attack.

Rogues with good perception will spot opportunities to exploit an enemy weakness, causing massive damage and effects when attacks are used while the weakness is exposed.

The Rogue will have abilities like Pick pocket and Extract to get items from mobs that only Rogue can make use of, that they can then combine to create tools that will help them fill the role of their class and add utility benefits to groups. This is a Rogue class ability and does not rely on any other crafting class.

Some examples of Rogue Tools are:

Flash Powder, which distracts a mob or group of mobs, allowing a Rogue to slip back into the shadows in combat.

Poisons which can be applied to your weapons or directly to the mob.

Magic scrolls which allow the Rogue to use powerful abilities like Run Speed Increase, Water Breathing, and Group Evacuation Spells.

The best Rogue tools will require rare mob drops and/or stolen items to create, along with the appropriate level of skill.

Basic and easy to get crafting components can be used to enhance the effect and quantity of Rogue crafted tools.

Rogues can use any 1 handed weapon, throwing weapons, and bows. Rogues dual wield.

The best and most effective Rogues will be those who try to stay in Stealth during combat as much as possible, who make effective use of their Rogue tools, and who are able to recognize, identify, and exploit situational weaknesses in their opponents.

Final Thoughts

In talking with Darrin, one thing became abundantly clear. He wants to bring the players options, choices, and different paths to take with his class designs. Nothing irks him more than when he includes a feature to a class IN ADDITION to something that's already there, and players complain that they are having their “choice” limited. Nothing is farther from Darrin's intentions in how he designs classes. He wants to give the player tons of options in how to play, that when all those options are used in conjunction, will separate the truly class-enlightened from the button mashers. The Vanguard Rogue sounds positively stellar to me, a morphed and evolved version of the Everquest Rogue with a larger role and a more complex set of tasks and nuances to master. In the scope of melee classes, the Rogue stands out as having unique systems, options, and abilities that will make them a wanted class in Vanguard groups. So great work Darrin, you've got this Rogue's seal of approval.

Thanks for reading.
Justin "Nenjin" Wheeler
Safehouse Staff Writer

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