Trying to stomp around? You'll have to wait awhile for that.


So, uh, Juggernaut ever going to have a use?

-Guild abilities temporarily turned off on 3.0 release.

>>Live in Prime and Plat as of Saturday, January 19, 2013 (4 Dolefaren 407).

Almost 5.5 years ago. So. Uh. 3.0 went live, like.. complete, 5.5 years ago. However, the guild is still lacking some major things and unfinished? Is this any kind of priority in development?

Not even talking about the little proposed extras/new abilities. I'm talking about the tree specialization bonuses that were supposed to make a large mechanical difference and grant benefits based on which way you chose to specialize. The guild abilities that are still turned off. Roar helms, by admission, doing NOTHING right now. War paint virtually the same.

The short answer is nothing on the scale of the khri rewrite is on the docket for Barbarians at the moment.

The longer answer is that major projects like this are being designed and carried out based on triage. Updating khri to follow the same conceptual ground and rules as Magic 3 & Barbarians needed the hours the most at the moment, by our reckoning, so it got the hours. That is not to say that Barbarians don't need work, but with the limited number of guild developers available at the moment there's a visible calculus going on.

It sucks; I don't like to tell you the Barbarians need to wait for a bit and I'm certain at least somebody is going to express exactly how much they don't like hearing it. But that's where we are at the moment, and I don't feel like lying about it.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

>>It sucks

Legit, the best possible answer is the true one. I appreciate wholeheartedly you coming to respond, and being candid in doing so. I think the vast majority of the player base can respect some transparency when talking about these issues, and realize that the limited time available has to be prioritized one way or the other.

Are there any ideas even being tossed around on the back end about how to resolve the condition we've ended up in, or are we just kinda floating, waiting for someone to figure something out?

>>There is not a definitive action plan for Barbarians at the moment, but we have been tossing ideas around regarding MD access, buffs, TM "damage channel" disparity, and wards. Some of these aren't guild-specific, some are.

You probably don't need me to tell you as you can just glance at the data, but there aren't many high level Barbarians who aren't training Arcana simply because there isn't any reason that will ever be worth skipping free TDPs. Which is exactly what Arcana is, along with roughly half of the Magic skill set. Are there even formative plans for Barbarians to get access to those parts of the Magic skill set (with a particular eye towards Sorcery, a low-risk high-reward mastery skill and Attunement, a low-risk high-reward esoteric skill), or is it not being considered at all?

Because if it's not being considered at all it would be nice to know now rather than five years down the road so we can retire our Barbarians.

>>If your concern is TDPs, I'd rather take the time to murder Moby Dick than perpetuate the "must train every skill all the time forever" gameplay paradigm.

Well sure, but it's the system we have. With the current modal expectation that Barbarians are locked out of a significant (and comically easy) vector for TDP gain. I'd like to break the paradigm as well but unless you change the way TDPs are calculated again it's simply never going to happen.

>>If your concern is access to the magic system, then yes, you are likely going to find other guilds more enjoyable.

Ish-ish. Parity is the concern more so than the magic system and access to it; although that is a component issue with regards to parity.

The secondary concern is Thief development delivering a lot of the asks Barbarians have had as well as what appear to be copies of some of our best abilities. You've probably read more than you want to about Weapons skill set being the only one not held sacrosanct so I won't burden this post further on the subject.

Barbarians were told many things about why our abilities were hamstrung as well. Things that are apparently no longer hamstringing...other guilds.

Again, your candor is appreciated.

>>I'd like to set TDPs on fire and roast marshmellows over its flaming carcus. The problem is finding the time (both to implement and the appropriate avenue) to do so.

>>I've never been shy about saying I think TDPs is a broken, runaway system. But it's a deeply entrenched system which makes it irritating -- but not impossible -- to affect meaningful change on.

Well, is it TDPs themselves that are bad or simply the way the system delivers them? From a game design perspective that's a fairly key distinction. Do we want something with the function of TDPs at all, or do we simply want to find another way to deliver attribute points to characters? I'll note that while I generally abhor the idea of "leave it in the ditch" that seems like it would be feasible; if TDPs are generated but cannot be used for anything, does it matter if they're generated?

>>But given the concept that we have more-or-less finally normalized ability costs and difficulty in the Magic skillset, I am willing to give serious thought to demilitarizing the border. What I mean is, since the Magic skillset perks are no longer an intergal part of defining what a wizard is compared to a barbarian, we can talk about normalizing some things that were previously held sacred.

Well, it's never been demilitarized from the other side; virtually everything developed for Barbarians was farmed out to other guilds with the striking and amusing exception of Whirlwind, which is a training tool. Literally the only tool in the game that was useful and intended for nothing but training until FOCUS APPRAISE and RESEARCH came along. With that said, I love Whirlwind, but it's flawed. It actively encourages sandbagging, due to the to-hit penalties imposed, something that staff has complained about in the past. It's a training tool people who don't play Barbarians with weapon skills above 500 ranks can't understand is a training tool. Because they can't wrap their head around the idea of not being able to lock all their weapons easily. Meanwhile the gate is left hanging over for other guilds to pillage anything that's remotely useful to other guilds.

>>Even at best this isn't going to be complete homogenization across the skillset, but sure, I am willing to admit that we've moved into a position where we can and should reassess what's appropriate.

Barbarians had to fight tooth and nail for some of the tools other guilds enjoyed. It still doesn't make any sense to me why Barbarians -- masters of weapons and guerrilla warfare -- can't snipe, but that fight was lost eons ago and isn't worth re-dredging.

I'm going to be very blunt: I don't see any reason to play a Barbarian within the current paradigm. The idea that if we get anything nice it will be farmed out to MU guilds but the opposite is definitely not happening is not worth playing for.

All I want from a guild titled Barbarian is the ability to feel like said Barbarian. For a guild/class type that tends to be like a fury warrior in WoW or Warrior in GS4. We buff up with all these passives and then we are just left with autoattack. Where is the berserk's charge/rush, the multistriking, the massive ground cleaving smash or even a whirlwind that is more useful outside of training? Barbs are an extremely passive guild to me playstyle wise, I really think we should be more like war mages just with weapons. Where each weapon we train/use has some unique/fun gameplay way to murder that thing I am looking at.