Unemployed Rogues

[JadeShane]

Wow, imagine having a 4+ lvl Rogue, and you manage to sneak by the encounters, only to find the chest is LOCKED! WELL, good thing I'm a Rogue, wait..... whats this, there is a note on the chest that says "can only open with a key"...hmmmmm, I thought thats what Rogues are supposed to be good at? I mean why sneak around if I can't get into things like I am trained to do? Not only that, how about bashing them? NOPE, you know what, I need armor made out of whatever those chests and doors are made out of and I would be unbashable!
So tell me, whats a rogue supposed to do for a living if he isn't any better at lock picking than any other class. What advantage is there then? Is there some secret I don't know abuot among Rogue's?

oh, does anyone have a Rogue guild btw?

thanks!

~ Darkwater

[Aranticus]

my fighter and my barb screams that they cant bash the chest open.... neither can my wiz knock or incinerate it

[xanvar]

I feel your pain. You can't open doors or flip switches while sneaking. You can't pick certain locks, door or chests without killing something. You can't really do the things that make a rogue fun to play. Run with a party? Sure if your a walking ginsu knife but your not really going to have time to sneak around in the old fashion way. I know they don't want rogues to be the super solo machines that they could be, plus every one knows that the powers that be hate rogues because it takes 13 seconds to find and disable a trap. By that time the party is a mile away after running through the trap I guess we will just have to run behind the barb or fighter and steal all of the kills instead. And I don't know if there is a rogue guild or not but there should be.

[Yuesu]

Wow, imagine having a 4+ lvl Rogue, and you manage to sneak by the encounters, only to find the chest is LOCKED! WELL, good thing I'm a Rogue, wait..... whats this, there is a note on the chest that says "can only open with a key"...hmmmmm, I thought thats what Rogues are supposed to be good at? I mean why sneak around if I can't get into things like I am trained to do? Not only that, how about bashing them? NOPE, you know what, I need armor made out of whatever those chests and doors are made out of and I would be unbashable!
So tell me, whats a rogue supposed to do for a living if he isn't any better at lock picking than any other class. What advantage is there then? Is there some secret I don't know abuot among Rogue's?

oh, does anyone have a Rogue guild btw?

thanks!

~ Darkwater

You have just discribed why after 2+ years, 2 accounts, 16 active toons, and 9 of them capped I will not roll a pure rogue. My idea of a rogue is to be ahead of the group doing my thing before the group even gets there, because if the group needs a rogue for dps then those in the group who have a weapon as an icon will need to reroll. (raids and a handfull of other quest excluded)

"as the theif sneaks into the room full of baddies, silently moving closer to the lever, inching closer, until at last, he can release the lever........rogue stands up and screams "DID YOU JUST SEE WHAT I DID?!?!? I SNUCK IN HERE AND OPENED THIS LEVER AND YOU DIDN"T SEE ME!!!!! I ROCK!!!" combat: you were killed by EVERYTHING in the room! newb!

P.S. By the way if you want anybody to comment on your thread you MUST finish with, "I LOVE GORNN" or "ALL HAIL GORNN" or whatever way you feel like paying omage to the "GREAT AND POWERFUL GORNN"

[Aerendil]

Totally empathize with you.

I'm one of those gamers who's perfectly happy to sit and wait for 15seconds for the Rogue to disable the trap instead of having to drag the over-anxious Barbarian's stone back to the nearest shrine.
But it seems I'm in the vast minority of gamers.

It's also an issue with Rogues because a vast majority of their trap-finding skills can be replicated on a Ranger or even Wizard with a mere 1 or 2 levels of Rogue.
And either of these classes can generally do more dps than a Rogue.

One last issue is that with more and more people splashing Rogue or Monk to receive Evasion, they'd just as soon run through traps as wait for a Rogue to disable them.
Unless you're on Elite difficulty, not a lot of traps will 1-shot you, and people are generally content to spend 150175809175 plat on wands and potions self-healing after they run through than wait for a trap to be disabled (and on Elite, sometimes a Rogue or Rogue-splash *can't* disable the traps anyways).

So.... yeah.
It's a problem with how Rogues are implemented, IMO.

[EKKM]

Agree with alot of what you said. With respect to the unpickable locked chests I have always assumed that meant the item in the chest was really on the person who you have to kill to open the chest. It makes me feel better anyway..

I also refuse to comment on unpickable doors because it messes with my version of DDO reality.

[xanvar]

Agree with alot of what you said. With respect to the unpickable locked chests I have always assumed that meant the item in the chest was really on the person who you have to kill to open the chest. It makes me feel better anyway..

I also refuse to comment on unpickable doors because it messes with my version of DDO reality.

Hmm interesting take on it. I like your version of reality and think I will try it that way.

[Eelpout]

"as the theif sneaks into the room full of baddies, silently moving closer to the lever, inching closer, until at last, he can release the lever........rogue stands up and screams "DID YOU JUST SEE WHAT I DID?!?!? I SNUCK IN HERE AND OPENED THIS LEVER AND YOU DIDN"T SEE ME!!!!! I ROCK!!!" combat: you were killed by EVERYTHING in the room! newb!

Ok, now that is just d@mn funny. Unfortuneatly sad, but very funny.


As a side note, not that you need to be a rogue to do it, but sneaking into the Giant caves and looting their chest untouched still gives me a small amount of joy on my lower level guy.

[Slink]

ROTFLMAO that is too funny

[JadeShane]

LOL, man...OK so I'm not alone in this, this is humbling. Good. I guess the hardest thing to accept is knowing they will never do anything about it. Even if your a paying majority, sad really.
The only thing that works right, is he fact you DO remain hidden when you kill something with sneak attack.

[Rog]

Wow, imagine having a 4+ lvl Rogue, and you manage to sneak by the encounters, only to find the chest is LOCKED! WELL, good thing I'm a Rogue, wait..... whats this, there is a note on the chest that says "can only open with a key"...hmmmmm, I thought thats what Rogues are supposed to be good at? I mean why sneak around if I can't get into things like I am trained to do? Not only that, how about bashing them? NOPE, you know what, I need armor made out of whatever those chests and doors are made out of and I would be unbashable!
So tell me, whats a rogue supposed to do for a living if he isn't any better at lock picking than any other class. What advantage is there then? Is there some secret I don't know abuot among Rogue's?

oh, does anyone have a Rogue guild btw?

thanks!

~ Darkwater

u can sneak up and assinate things if you gimp your rog enough to have a really high int!

[Jadeare]

u can sneak up and assinate things if you gimp your rog enough to have a really high int!

Or you can walk up to them and unleash a barrage of doom and or destruction. Hey lets not classify rogues as gimp. We are uber.

Of course you can sneak up and assassinate stuff, but the thing is you don't need to.

Rogues are DPS in this game.

[Rog]

Or you can walk up to them and unleash a barrage of doom and or destruction. Hey lets not classify rogues as gimp. We are uber.

Of course you can sneak up and assassinate stuff, but the thing is you don't need to.

Rogues are DPS in this game.

true that

[xanvar]

Or you can walk up to them and unleash a barrage of doom and or destruction. Hey lets not classify rogues as gimp. We are uber.

Of course you can sneak up and assassinate stuff, but the thing is you don't need to.

Rogues are DPS in this game.

I agree rogues are DPS right now, but what I would like to see is more options available. In PnP the rogue can be a petty thief to swashbuckler or even a guide and pathfinder much like a ranger is thought of. The truth is I guess that you will never be able to capture everything that a rogue can be in an MMO because the story is so limited.

[Xyfiel]

The devs mentioned a long time ago that chests halfway replaced items being looted from corpses, so the key being on the boss represents this. Essentially it works the same.

[nibel]

Rogues are DPS in this game.

On PnP too. I mean, a halfling rogue with unnarmed strike do 1d3 + 7d6 damage in each attack. Nothing does more damage than that in non-epic.

[HumanJHawkins]

<cut>tell me, whats a rogue supposed to do for a living if he isn't any better at lock picking than any other class. What advantage is there then? Is there some secret I don't know abuot among Rogue's?<cut>

Very sad. Nice thread. Bummer that it's true.

I totally don't get the whole fear of making Rogues effective. It's late and I won't go into it again. But suffice to say, it's a game. All the loot is virtual. It is trivially easy to farm for plat with any high level class and twinking to the hilt is common.

So, can a dev tell me what exactly would be bad or harmful in any way to the game if suddenly a skillfully played rogue could get through quests and earn big rewards without actually killing much (or anything)? I'm not saying it should be easy or likely. But even in the event of getting the balance wrong and making it too easy, how would that be bad?

[Vanda]

First, I have to state that I agree that I would love more stealth oriented questing. I like playing rogues in PnP and like it to some extent here. The biggest help I think would be the ability to use items while stealthed. I really, really don't understand why this is like this. Keep in mind that this would also be of a help to rangers and any other class that can sneak.

As for unpickable chests, I understand the need. Remember, all the loot we pick up is not simply laying around the chest, gaurded for some unknown reason by hordes of mobs. Some of them represent the items the mobs are carrying and using against us. The +4 shocking burst falchion, yeah, I really think a top level orc gaurd may use it to kill intruders. After all, how else can you explain a smiting great sword of ooze bane? Only a brain addled kobold would order such stupid items.

But my point is simple. Don't see the chests as some treasure trove. Think of it instead as the few good items all the mobs you slay are carrying. The reason they are locked is that you can't get what the mobs have until you kill them. After all, they are not going to let you smooth talk it out of them.

[Kintro]

The biggest help I think would be the ability to use items while stealthed. I really, really don't understand why this is like this.

Although I agree it is annoying to unstealth when throwing levers and such I reasoned that if the monsters were looking in the direction of a switch they would see it move, even if they couldn't see the person moving it. The unstealthing is just a cheap way of emulating this.

After all, they are not going to let you smooth talk it out of them.

That's what bards are for!

[Zenako]

As others have mentioned...those chests that are permalocked really just represent the loot that was on the mobs and unlike some games, DDO made it fair to the entire party, not just the click fest fiends, so you get the looot from the fallen enemy in a static chest where everything is preassigned instread of it appearing on the fallen corpse and going to whoever is close enough to click on it first like I have seen in some games.

That being said, any rogue who is out of work just ain't looking for the right kind of work. Just like the Grey Mouser had Fafhred, you too can hook up with a large punching bag to provide suitable distraction for the foolish mobs which will die in rapid fashion between the two of you.

Who else can easily pick up the soul stones under the "nose" of the beholder and retreat with them to safety. Sure lots of things can make you "hide" but there are not a lot of things that make you "move silently" unless you plan for it.

Also with the current implementation of stealth, if you strike from it, and quickly kill the mob, you don't break stealth. Now given the HP of end game mobs, this might be more of a challenge, but I Know it works on mid game (level 8-10 type stuff) since I have been doing that a lot recently.