So I was reading back over the thread pertaining to Paladin identity, glyphs, and soul system potential rewrite to coincide with our guild skill.

Just curious as to where we stand with Paladin guild development over all?

Thanks

You know those Thieves have this non-magic deal with them too, so you know just in-case that's the type of frequency or bandwidth your looking for. Not that these Paladins don't need some of their own energy, pep, and material.

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"I think anything that forces you to do something no sane adventurer would do just in order to train is ridiculous."
DR-SOCHARIS

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Victory Over Lyras, on the 397th year and 156 days since the Victory of Lanival the Redeemer.

Agreed. Sadly, my alt Paladin is shelved for now until I have some new stuff to look forward to. I really feel for you Paladin main folks. Thanks for taking this up, Raesh.

- Saragos

Thank you for the response and update Raesh, it is very much appreciated.

>>Ashaman1: Putting that thought aside for the moment, DR 3.x has proved to be a VERY hefty step in the right direction for team Paladin. While we have some systems that are.. archic in code and mindset, we DO have a fully FUNCTIONAL guild. I have enjoyed my journey from 1st circle to the 180s, and plan to continue to at least the 200 mark. That, however, is my choice for my investment, and I trust everyone else to do what they think is best.

The general 3.0 changes did leave Paladins a lot better off than they were before. However, Paladins still suffer from the lack of a clear guild identity. (Clerics have gradually chipped away at the traditional Paladin wheelhouse for years.) Their non-magic abilities are also generally too niche and not in high demand.

But yeah, I always recommend that people choose guilds based on what they are now and not what might happen SimuSoon™. Anything else is a recipe for disappointment.

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>> LEAD would be better if I didn't have to hold someone's hand to use it like I'm in 2nd grade getting ready to cross the street with my friends.

You can GROUP people to put them in your group without holding hands with them. The aesthetic of grabbing someone's hand (especially multiple someones) bothers me most of the time too, especially on my extremely not touchy-feely Paladin, so I've re-trained myself to use GROUP instead. (I wish ESCORT was another option, but I digress.)

While I can see why you may want to extend a LEAD bonus to everyone in the area sometimes there are plenty of circumstances you wouldn't want to do that so I'd hate to see it changed to automatically work that way.

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Thayet
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"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

As I implied, the design document isn't finished (let alone approved) and there's a lot in it that I'm not going to get into on the forums (Some of it's NDA, some isn't ready, there's a couple of pages dedicated to lore that would be better introduced in game etc) and I don't want to set expectations incorrectly for a time line. However, I wanted to share with you the design pillars that resulted from a series of discussions with Socharis when I started on this. These are tenants on which the rest of the design rests. While other details of the plan may change, I don't expect these to change barring massive changes to the game that are larger than one guild.

>>Wearing a full heavy plate needs to not be a wrong decision.

Currently it is demonstrably an incorrect decision as a Paladin to not use a mixed armor set. The penalties are very small and the gain (Passive learning of their entire primary armor set and associated TDPs) very high. Ideally it would be equally viable, if not favorable, for a Paladin to wear full heavy plate as a signature of their guild.

Using full suits of other un-mixed armor is something a Paladin should be able to do as well but is less vital to the fantasy of the class.

>>A boost to an armor skill needs to be useful.

Currently all guilds, including Paladins, feel anything that boosts an armor skill is nearly useless. While it would be nice to address this problem game wide it is essential that it is addressed for the Armor primary guild.

>>There must be active methods to train all armor skills.

Passive training for an entire skill set is bad enough, passively training all of them at once as a primary skill set leads to unengaging and unfun gameplay. Passive uses for skills are also hard for the player to appreciate since we hide the numbers from them.

>>The development focus cannot be on increased durability.

We’ve already made players about as durable as they can be when wearing high tier full plate and full buffs. We need to be extremely careful adding any additional damage reduction abilities and it cannot be the core focus of the Paladin guild skill. This (coupled with the prior point) leads to the design mandate that the majority of our development will be offensive, tactical or utilitarian.

>>Reduction of magic focused development.

Paladins are magic terts, and yet the majority of their recent development and signature guild abilities reside within the magic system. This is a flaw shared with other guilds (Rangers in particular) that has arisen since it is relatively easy to develop additional spells and the underlying mechanics for new glyphs etc are not.

Some existing spells should potentially be rolled into the soul system and future expansion should be modular and planned for.

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

>>The second-one, however, is the more problematic in my mind. When I look at the "non-magic" guilds such as thieves and barbs, who can completely buff up for combat in seconds and keep those buffs up for 20+ minutes and then do it again once the buffs drop and compare that to Paladins needing 5-10 minutes to completely buff up for combat, I find it a bit absurd. This isn't meant as a GvG thing.

Speaking candidly, I'd rather spend the time I have to currently to 'spell up' to maintain the diverse wealth of buffs we can utilize compared to Thieves/Barbs.

Samsaren

>Eh. I think this is a bit misleading. You should be just as capable of keeping your buffs up in rotation as a thief. And thieves aren't well balanced, and rely on stats to drive their mana pool rather than skill. It's different, and the envy you feel doesn't really kick in until a thief hits 400+ concentration, which is 80 discipline or more. <

This too is misleading. Yesterday, I was just speaking to a sub-100 thief who was telling me that they can have each of their most useful khris up (was 5 or 6) within seconds, they last 20+ minutes, and then they can just do it right away again once they drop. This series of khri's boosts their stealth, backstab, resistance to debils, improves their defenses, drops their hindrance lower than what Paladins have. Are they instant win, nope. But the amount of time it takes to get to a "viable in combat" mode is incredibly low. However, this was an example of a lack of Paladin development, and not a GvG argument. It's great that they have those abilities.

We have this nifty glyph system tied to our stats/circle/concentration that would allow us some "insta-buff" abilities. Would be great if it were fleshed-out to include combat buffs, as we have always been considered a combat guild (to use the old terminology). As Raesh mentions, Paladins are magic tertiary. To me, this means our abilities should not rely solely on magic, but include both magic and non-magic buffs. Having buffs tied to armor would be nifty and I still love the ideas thrown around (I think by Raesh) a year or so ago about "living armor" that adaptively responds by producing different forms of protections.

Anyhoo, thanks for being candid with us about the state of the guild, Raesh.

--Just a Squire

Riveted to the metal is a small copper plaque depicting a shield crossed with a longsword overlaying a field of thirteen stars. Encircling the design are the words, "Many Faces - One God."

>>To me, this means our abilities should not rely solely on magic, but include both magic and non-magic buffs. Having buffs tied to armor would be nifty and I still love the ideas thrown around (I think by Raesh) a year or so ago about "living armor" that adaptively responds by producing different forms of protections.

DISCLAIMER: I haven't even finished drafting this up to the point I'm happy with it, let alone running it through proposals.

My intention is that Paladin's soul will power a number of supernatural but non-magic abilities (In the general vein of glyphs, smites, etc). I'm not sure if the living armor comment is actually based off something I said or not, but a large part of the design I'm working on is figuring out ways to leverage armor ranks in a way that makes sense. The example I've used since I first started on this idea was "What if your light armor ranks could power a thorns effect?" which isn't to say that's something that may make the final proposal (Though a thorns effect is almost certain to). That's the sort of mechanical connection I'd like to make and a lot of the rest of it is trying to find a way to do that that makes sense in the lore and feels "Paladin-y".

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Lennon,

Thieves like myself and Alonso are an exception not the rule. You don't see results like that through normal game play till well above 100th. He, like me refuses to train thievery to circle. So its a bit of a sandbag. You know this. A bit unfair to try and use that as an example. If you want to fight for instant abilities that's fine but please use correct facts. Also your numbers are a bit off.

Monster Elec

You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde snarling in barbaric disapproval of your deeds.

>The example I've used since I first started on this idea was "What if your light armor ranks could power a thorns effect?"<

This is indeed what I was referring to.

>A bit unfair to try and use that as an example. If you want to fight for instant abilities that's fine but please use correct facts. Also your numbers are a bit off.<

First, what I posted was based on the examples and explanations I have been given, so please don't tell me it's unfair. When I get a well-trained thief telling me how amazing the khris are when you know what to train and the correct order to stack them, I tend go with those data. Further, claims that something I posted is off is not the same as evidence that something I posted is off. Please feel free to PM me your corrected numbers and I'll be happy to compare them to what I've already seen and been told. If your numbers don't match up, then there's a discussion.

Regardless, none of this was even my original point. I could have as easily used any other guild that has abilities beyond "magic" as examples. I chose thieves to illustrate because of what I was told just last night. Non-magical buffs and boosts are out there and they are, in many ways, better than magical buffs and boosts.

>Just want to point out that Thieves can lower their stealth hinderance, not their maneuvering hinderance<

OK, that makes more sense. Thanks for the info.

--Just a Squire

Riveted to the metal is a small copper plaque depicting a shield crossed with a longsword overlaying a field of thirteen stars. Encircling the design are the words, "Many Faces - One God."

>Bonus: a "holy armor" system would give Paladins an incentive to use a single class of armor instead of the much-maligned "clown suits" that are used for TDP farming.

That sounds cool, I'd additionally like more bonuses to wearing singular suites, to me they should be less weight then the equivalent of bunch of pieces, should offer other advantages too. Guess one of them could be that Holy Armor concept.

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"I think anything that forces you to do something no sane adventurer would do just in order to train is ridiculous."
DR-SOCHARIS

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Victory Over Lyras, on the 397th year and 156 days since the Victory of Lanival the Redeemer.

>I'd love holy armor, but I don't think it would solve the issue of people primarily utilizing clown suits unless there were another method of training other armors, like those active abilities that have come up.<

Agreed. Honestly, I just cannot conceptualize a way in which wearing full plate will ever justify the TDP loss of a mixed set of armor (I refuse to call it a clown suit as I don't see an aesthetic problem with wearing plate on the chest, chain on the head, leather gloves, etc.).

--Just a Squire

Riveted to the metal is a small copper plaque depicting a shield crossed with a longsword overlaying a field of thirteen stars. Encircling the design are the words, "Many Faces - One God."

>>Ground up TDP generation change for DR 4.0, womp womp.

That and/or a complete rewrite of the armor skillset (not just Paladin abilities that make active use of the skills) that makes it an entirely active skillset. Not sure what that would even look like, but I think either approach would kill the inane clownsuit. Both approaches would be better for the game.

Are we too far down the rabbit hole to just get rid of the skillset altogether? I mean, just answer this question: if DragonRealms was being launched tomorrow, would this skillset be in the game? I know that would be a /huge/ change, but it seems like that is something that should have happened ages ago. Not a single skill in the armor skillset is actively used. Only 1 guild has it as its primary skillset. 7 have it as tertiary (the next highest is only 5, which is magic). It is just altogether a dumb skillset. It was dumb 20 years ago when I needed to set my defenses to 0 and lie down in order to train, and even though some duct tape has been put over it, it is still dumb today when I need to wear 4 different types of armor in a ridiculous setup just to take what little advantage I can out of being a primary user of the worst skillset in the game. Shield and Defending would have to go somewhere, the other skill scan just be dropped and the game won't miss them. Paladin's are the only guild that would miss the skillset as far as a primary/secondary/tertiary point of view goes, but it isn't exactly doing much for them as is, and they already require a significant change, as per this thread. Losing the skillset would have minimal effect on even the 3 armor secondary guilds. Now every guild has 1 primary, 2 secondary, and 1 tertiary skillset.

I just see that as a lot more plausible than the effort that would be required to make it a worthwhile and actively used skillset. It only has 6 skills (minus guild specific), and the next lowest skillsets have 9. Adding any new skills would require either brand new systems, them to just be more passive skills (which sort of defeats the purpose), or a fundamental rewrite of the combat system to make armor/defensive skills a more active and integral part of the game. Anything less than all that, and you're really doing it only for Paladins, because no one else will even bother with the active components of those skills, and just go about business as if nothing has changed. Which does result in positive Paladin development, but still leaves an entire skillset in the game that is still nearly useless to everyone else.

>>That and/or a complete rewrite of the armor skillset (not just Paladin abilities that make active use of the skills) that makes it an entirely active skillset. Not sure what that would even look like, but I think either approach would kill the inane clownsuit. Both approaches would be better for the game.

Making armor more active won't resolve the primary reason most people who wear multiple armors wear multiple armors: TDPs. There might be people in that group who also wish heavier armors had better value, but that's not going to make people just ditch the TDP gain aspect of multiple armors. It'll just validate wearing heavier stuff for PvE invasions, PvP fights, etc.

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>>Making armor more active won't resolve the primary reason most people who wear multiple armors wear multiple armors: TDPs. There might be people in that group who also wish heavier armors had better value, but that's not going to make people just ditch the TDP gain aspect of multiple armors. It'll just validate wearing heavier stuff for PvE invasions, PvP fights, etc.

Well, it would it armor was /only/ active. I know I didn't get into details, because I don't exactly have a lot of details to give, but presumably you would only be able to actively use one armor at a time. Like weapons do now, sure it is easy to switch between them, but each active action (an attack) only grants exp for that weapon. There would have to be some sort of armor related actions that you could take, and you would only learn the armor skill for the type that has the most coverage on your body, or something. Maybe with a large bonus if you're only wearing a single type?

I don't know, I'm spitballing. Bottom line is my point from my previous post, that the armor skillset is so fundamentally different from every other skillset, that it would actually be simpler to remove it than to try to bring it in line. And going with the later option, it either would have to be a robust fundamental change to combat in DR, such that it affects every guild... Or, it will simply just be the Paladin skillset, and the one everyone else uses for passive TDP gain (which yes, could be addressed by a TDP gain rewrite). I don't think the two (TDP gain/armor rewrite) are mutually exclusive.

>Are we too far down the rabbit hole to just get rid of the skillset altogether?

I think so. Armor has deep roots in combat even if we don't see what it all actually does. Shield and defending are incredibly useful and would have to go somewhere, like you mentioned, but where? The weapon skillset is already too big. Survival? That seems tough to balance since it's already got evasion, and Lore and Magic are a tough sell for mundane shield usage.

What might work is to rename the skill set and eliminate non-shield and non-defending armor skills in favor of "light armor" and "heavy armor" skills. Then, building on top of the new skill set. Endurance, the [former] paladin skill name might work as the new skill set name, and it leaves room for a resistance skill, maybe called something like Hardiness, which would reduce the effect or duration of things like poison or bleeding, etc. Could also have a skill that allows people to use their armor in different ways, like the ability to shield slam in a certain way so it stuns (with cooldown) but causes no damage or attempts to trip an opponent or causes an opponent to lose a prepped spell. You might create some sort of counter skill that, when activated, utilizes worn armor to counter the next attack in a certain way, like a bonused arrow-deflect-weapon-throw or catching a slice and punching someone in the nose or whatever.

>Paladin's are the only guild that would miss the skillset as far as a primary/secondary/tertiary point of view goes...

For me, it depends. If we became a plate-wearing weapon primary guild, then that's not a huge departure from the guild's current, combat orientation. Sounds cool, actually. If we became a plate-wearing lore primary guild, then it would suck. Lore primary, weapons secondary and survival and magic tert... That's a huge departure and probably wouldn't be fun without some extraordinary unique abilities.

>>2dumbarse: I'd love holy armor, but I don't think it would solve the issue of people primarily utilizing clown suits unless there were another method of training other armors, like those active abilities that have come up. Even then, many people might still opt for the clown suits because it's easier. That is, unless there's some bonus to wearing a full suit of one type or something.

That's exactly what I was proposing: a holy armor ability that only works for a full suit of a single type of armor.


>>Ratherdashing: Or some kinda RT to don/remove armor?

This already happens to some degree in battle.


>>Teveshszat: Making armor more active won't resolve the primary reason most people who wear multiple armors wear multiple armors: TDPs. There might be people in that group who also wish heavier armors had better value, but that's not going to make people just ditch the TDP gain aspect of multiple armors. It'll just validate wearing heavier stuff for PvE invasions, PvP fights, etc.

I agree that skill-based TDP generation is the main reason we wear multiple armors and that power-gamers would probably continue to do so regardless of the incentives given to wear a single type of armor. However, at this stage of the game, it doesn't sound like Simu or the GMs have the stomach for the outrage that would come with capping TDPs or restricting the number of skills that grant TDPs.

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