Pikeman Archive
Thread: Talk with dev gives answer!
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LordSerevok
Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:04 pm
#1
I was at fan fest and I asked the orignal programer and designer "dan" bout what he thought of the main role of pikemen.
dan(game designer):"im not sure anymore but they are supposed to be area control"
me:"If pikemen are area control why is it we have less area attacks then swordsman and weaker attacks?" dev dan " its been a long time since i have dealt with this class so im not sure ask dave (I will not post his last name) (he is one of if not the HEAD guy of the combat balance! I believe keldarin is his sn)"
I asked dev dave a few questions. These answers are not exact quotes but very close.
me: We on the forums have our own idea of what we like to see pikemen as, what do you as a dev(s) see the pikemen class as being for a role.
dev: pikemen are supposed to be the tankers! they are supposed to take huge amounts of damage
me; Why is it though that our defenses are so weak especially compared to other classes?
dev: The numbers and skills got out of wack. The problem with this class is this, if we give more defense to pikemen as they are supposed to have then we would be forced to keep balance and lower tka's defense and others classes defenses.( i guess they dont want to put things more unbalanced and wish to do it all at once thats why the delay in our fixes)
me: ok i have another question. Why is it that our energy lance is on a creature we can not hurt, the creature has 100% resists to all our damages thus making it impossible for a pikemen to get his own EL but have to resort to other classes.
dev: i dont think there is anything wrong with that. NO ONE is supposed to be able to solo her at all! pikemen are a must in a group to killing her because they are the tanks.
me:The problem wth that is our defense or so low we cant tank her at all! It is not worth the time to get a EL that does a litle more damage then our LVA and has a standard dot especially since when she has force powes again she will be posslibly the most powerful creature in the game! It has gotten to the point where it is easier to get a exceptional lance off of a lower ns then it is to get the EL from her.
dev: (no reply but it looked like he gave it some thought)
me: is this combat balance a "fix up" for pikemen or a full revamp of the class?
dev: a full revamp! every combat class is having a full revamp.
These are things he mentioned
dev: Masters willl have their own weapons upon getting the master box
dev: The balance all the classes will have specific roles! Swordsman are damage giving classes, pikemen tankers.
dev: After the combat balance people will be very upset at first but after a week or so they will see that things are much better!
dev: currently there is a person going through each weapon and redoing all the weapons.
If you have questions go ahead and ask there was a lot more material that was gone over.
I would like to thank all of the devs for their hard work and allowing us to go up to you personaly and ask questions and get some very clear answers! 
/formalbow devoleper dave
Gunman21
Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:07 pm
#2
what the hell. pikeman arnt tanks. He's confused us with fencers.
Message Edited by Gunman21 on 06-05-2004 07:07 PM
LordSerevok
Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:08 pm
#3
I wil say i got some very clear answers at all the forums and talks with the devs I was impressed! Keldarin was awesome at fan fest! He answered a lot of questions and all of the devs were preety clear i want to just bout all the talks
LordSerevok
Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:12 pm
#4
bout fencers. They are supposed to be the guys with super speed NOT the tanksthat came up a litle.
He told me that we as tanks are not to avoid damage but are to be able to take huge punishment and great amounts of damage. The hard thing is that tanks like he means we will still have area attacks and that wil lbe our main attacks but we are not supposed to deal tons of damage. So we can not take swordsman job by givng lots of damage. This doesnt mean we will not have tons of area attacks just that we wont be damange dealers
Peudas
Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:21 pm
#5
I could totally live as a tanking class. We as pikeman as supposed to be the first ones into a battle. It only makes sense that we take the brunt of the attack while the fencers, swordsman, and TKA's come in to mop up the mess. I really like the sound of it.
Daros
Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:47 pm
#6
If this IS true...
I guess the devs haven't been reading our forums (big surprise there), and noticing that people want us to go to a CROWD CONTROL direction.
Tanking... I'm not sure if I like the idea. I still think the idea that had been batted around for the last few weeks of crowd control is a much nicer direction, but whatever... they're not listenning, so I may as well say that we should take the Fishing skills out of Scout/Ranger for ourselves..
Gunman21
Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:49 pm
#7
tanks don't fit us. We're currently the least defensive melee profession and they want to turn us into the most defensive? sorry that just doesn't fit.
LordSerevok
Sat Jun 05, 2004 8:28 pm
#8
PIkemen is going to have a revamp with the combat balance. It what we are going to become. We dont fit as damage dealers. Thats swordsmen. We dont fit as fast attackers, thats fencer(devs have said that the speed formula is going to be compeltly redone so it will return fencers role to the universe andnot as a template stacker for its defenses but as very fast attackers that dodge attacks). I dont know what tka is supposed to be but its not as a tanker that much was said when the dev said tka will need to have its defenses lowerd.Each class is to have a role that none others will have, we as pikemen, as tankers will be something that we are not now and that is unique. There is nothing except weapons, loot, and the name that makes this class trulyunique. Our skills are things everyone has(and better at that), our specials are overall nothing really unique in that there are others that can even outdo us in our area attacks(i see carbine being more of area attack class then pikemen becuase no way can they be tanks, wouldnt make sense and what else are they going to be with pistoleer taking one role and riflemen other role and being they shoot like crazy but have lower accurcy and hit everything around them kinda like a submachine gun or something similar). They want to make us the only tanking class of this game giving us a role and purpose to this game!Which is probeblyalso why our elite weapons comes from one of the most powerful creatures in the game beause they want to see us running into the middle and thickof the fight being capable of standing toe to toe with her and taking her hits and standing in her way as our group takes her out! Not swordsmen, not fencer, not tka, or any other class but pikemen.
"He said our numbers(skills) were wacked out"(exact quote) but we will be fixed with this combat rebalance.
Gunman21
Sat Jun 05, 2004 8:50 pm
#9
Yes, we definatly need a role. My job as correspondent is to try and make sure that the role we get is the one the community wants. The closest arguement I've seen by the community to making us a tank is to make sure we have enough defenses to properly carry out crowd control specials. But none of those arguements suggested to me that we be more deffensive over offensive. This profession has been built around having more damage than defenses. If they were to make us tanks, that premise gets thrown out the window and we see pikeman turn into a profession that none of us signed up for when we first started.
Idon't wantus to jump at this role simply because we're starved for one, rather than fight for the role we really want. Now if the community decides that we really want to be the tanks, then that's what i have to roll with. But I'm hoping we stick to the arguement we've always presented...60/40 with crowd control.
Message Edited by Gunman21 on 06-05-2004 08:54 PM
LordSerevok
Sat Jun 05, 2004 9:33 pm
#10
I just want a two main things.
1: to be unque but competitive,
2: to not take away from other classes.
The role for offensive has been taken by swordsmen I think that almost everyone agrees that they are the damage dealers. To make us offensive would mean that we would be taking away from another class unique role. We can be crowd control but that doesnt mean we have to be damage dealers at all! We can still area kd and dizzy and many other things but to be the damage dealers with our attacks would be unfair to other classes.
hoenstly I would like to be aoffensive damage dealing crowd controlwith nice defenses and the ideas you post gunman and theideas that others put up i love and i would like to see happen but i dont want to see the same thing that ishapping to us happen to anyone else. NOONE deserves the frustration and the tears that we have been through. We all deserve to be unique and needed in a group and not beacuse we can do something similar to a combat medic with a looted pike with a DOT or because we can deal awesome damage with asuperlooted pike,becuase a combat medic can do better then us with poisinsand swordsmen if they had equal quilty loot would still do more damage then us. Im sure we all agree that we dont want our class to be compeltly dependent on loot OR even as dependent as we are nowon the skill mods of fencer and swordsmen to be competitive in pvp.
If we want to be the crowd control class(i do) we cant be a class that is a based on offensive damage beuase that would take away from swordsmen. We can not have everything. We want crowd control and we will have it, but if we have crowd controlclass statusu better bet that we wont be able to hide behind other tanks to protect us as we aggro 10 creatures, so we need defenses and if we want to be good we need very good defenses to protect us. And from what i see a crowd control class with good defenses that will allow us to survive as we aggro all these creatures around us to ourselvesmakes us atank which is probebly why we arnt that great right now becuase we have terrible defenses and we are trying to be tanks now. If all of our area attacks work as they are supposed to we will be the most aggrod class there is especially if our range is extended and we will hit more creatures then before(from what i hear they are going to make the weaponsmake a lot more sense so its very possible we wil have a longer range then now)
Just a note. My points are not to be offensive or disrespectful to anyones opinionsand if they are im sorry but this is my opinion and I am a pure blood true pikemen(this is why i got this game)since launchand I know how the rest of you who have been pikemen a long time feel as well. I also think that you gunman have been the best coorespondent we have ever had but I do wish to show you and everyone else where I am coming from and where the devs are coming from the chance i had to be able to ask these questions and hear their answers face to face and hearing from them what some of the plans for the other classes are as well.
OutbackWookiee
Sat Jun 05, 2004 11:29 pm
#11
I'm sorry to anyone who thinks different, but this is exactly what I wanted to hear.
This was my vision of pikeman from the beginning of the game, and is as it should be.
I've always thought first and foremost, we should be the tanks. So it has been throughout history and so it should be in the game.
Emeloy
Sun Jun 06, 2004 6:30 am
#12
I agree with Legwand imo a tank role not only suits at least my view of pikemen in general, but would also be neatly fitting to our crowd control wishes (although I'd still love even more a prof like the crat in AO for pure crowd control) and I think it would be great, if we could concentrate on bringing those both visions into one the devs and the community can accept and have fun with.
DesmondaDrell
Sun Jun 06, 2004 8:24 am
#13
Interesting news. Even with the poor defenses, I've been acting as a tank since the get go. Comes naturally to me I suppose.
If the changes go through as planned, this is good news indeed.
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