I've been playing
Mabinogi for a few months now, and this game has some really cool talents. Unfortunately, I just feel like something's missing, something that's been a big part of fantasy RPG's since the days of
Dungeons & Dragons...a proper rogue/thief class. I mean, sure, we have the Ninja talent, and ninjas usually get lumped into the mega-class of rogues (along with classic thieves and assassins), but it's missing the theft and looting-related skills that a more traditional rogue possesses like picking pockets and cracking locks.
So, here are some of my ideas of what a traditional thief/rogue talent could look like in
Mabinogi:
The Stats
The main stats involved in this talent would be Intelligence and Dexterity. The logic behind this is that to be a good thief (as in, the kind who always gets the goods and never gets caught), you need to be smart. As for Dexterity, in most games, Dexterity is one of the key stats for a thief/rogue and you need to be fairly dexterous to handle a lockpick properly.
The Weapon
The thief/rogue talent's main weapon would be the dagger. Dagger Mastery would, of course, become a thing, and new types beside the basic one with better attack stats could be added into the game along with this talent.
Abilities (The Basics)
1.
Lockpick: Have you ever gone into a dungeon and found a bunch of locked chests, but none of the enemies on the floor had the good manners to drop you a key or two? Well, with Lockpick, you can try your hand at breaking the locks to get the goodies inside anyway! Your chances wouldn't be 100% (rank 1 would give you a 95% success chance), and there would be a chance of a normal failure that would allow you to try again after the skill's cooldown finished (4% at rank 1) and a catastrophic failure that could render the chest and its contents totally destroyed (1% at rank 1).
2.
Poison Slash: For this skill, you'll need a dagger equipped. This skill would inflict a relatively small amount of damage to an enemy, but also inflict poison status on them for anywhere between 5 to 30 seconds depending on the skill's rank.
3.
Strategic Strike: This skill would also require a dagger, and would deal a moderate amount of damage to an enemy, as well as inflicting bleed on them for 5 to 30 seconds.
4.
Thousand Papercuts: Another dagger skill, this one would inflict massive damage on a single enemy through a flurry of highspeed slashes.
5.
Mug: As the name suggests, your character would inflict moderate damage on an enemy and have a chance to steal one of any item or amount of gold that enemy drops.
6.
Eye of the Thief: A support move that allows you to temporarily increase enemy drop rates. It would last anywhere from 1 to 2 minutes and have a cooldown time of around 5 minutes, so use it wisely.
Optional Features
1.
Shoplift: This skill would allow you to try your hand at stealing items and/or gold from NPC shops. However, if you fail, you are banned from that shop for the next 24 real-life hours (so be careful about trying to rob shops that do repairs or sell consumables or resources that you need for your adventures), and if you steal from a shop too often, you can end up tanking your relationship rating with the NPC (which is bad for when you need to get access to their secret shop) or cause their prices (for you) to rise dramatically to "cover the costs of the recent thefts." To remedy the price rise, all you have to do is not steal from that particular shop for the next 24-48 real life hours.
2.
Highwayman!--Possible PvP with Commercing Players: If you reach a certain rank with Mug (say, rank 3), you open up the ability to go to a bandit boss NPC at their headquarters to take on special Highwayman missions where you either A) attempt to rob a player doing a commerce run or B ) attempt to rob an NPC caravan.
The NPC caravan would be relatively simple, but the PvP would probably take some doing. My idea is that when targeting a player doing a commerce run, if your character is stronger, your damage output would be temporarily nerfed to match your opponent. You also would not be allowed to summon pets during this kind of mission. If you win, the other player loses a third of their goods to you, which you turn in to the bandit boss for ducats. If you lose, however, the commercing player gets a special bandit badge for beating you that they can turn in for something like 50k-100k ducats at the trading post and you lose a portion of your Bandit Cred. This way, both sides have something to gain and something to lose from this.
And, I know what you're thinking, "Bandit Cred? What's that?" Basically, it's experience that relates to your ranking in the bandit gang. The higher your rank, the bigger and more profitable the jobs you're able to do and the more items are unlocked for you in the Black Market. The Black Market will be a place in the bandit hideout where you can buy special weapons, armor, inventory bags, dungeon passes, and outfits in exchange for ducats. The Black Market's stock will change randomly every day, with some items being rarer than others.
Special Dungeon Type: The Thieves Gauntlet
One of the special dungeon passes available from the Black Market would the the Thieves Gauntlet pass. It would open up a special instance of one of the game's dungeons that's full of environmental puzzles, locked doors with no keys, hidden rooms that don't exist on the floor's map until you stumble upon them, tons of treasure, and a puzzle boss at the end like Math Music has that requires you to use a specific thief/rogue skill to defeat it (say, a magical machine that requires you to use Mug to steal its power gems in order to kill it). There would be four difficulties: Normal, Intermediate, Hard, and Master Thief. Each difficulty would have more number of floors, harder enemies, more hidden secrets, and a tougher boss fight than the last. Basically, this dungeon is for the player who loves to treasure hunt and explore and has an afternoon to kill solving puzzles and gettin' that loot.
Conclusion
That's it for my ideas about a classic thief/rogue talent and some cool things that could go with it. If you have any critiques or additions, feel free to post them. The more ideas that can be added and refined here, the better! Thanks for reading my way-too-long list of ideas, and I look forward to hearing from you! ^_^
Comments
Skills
Obviously, Dagger Mastery would be a must. Unfortunately, that would mean having to convert one weapon type to another, since the dagger and other similar weapons (battle short sword, phoenix feather sword, etc.) are considered swords (this might affect players who currently use daggers as a viable weapon - they are few, yet they do exist). Also, turning swords into daggers might affect dual-wielding abilities. I would suggest creating a new type of weapon, Dual Daggers, that would act in a fashion similar to Dual Guns or Knuckles (counts as a single weapons for dura/damage/upgrades/reforges/enchants and enables the use of Thief skills) and be equippable by ALL RACES. Yes, elves could dual-wield too.
Should Dagger Mastery be a thing, I believe it should be that, as the rank goes up, critical rate with daggers would go up (since thieves in RPGs often deal low damage but many crits), similar to Dual Gun Mastery's effect.
In my opinion, Lockpicking doesn't seem too useful a skill in the context of Mabinogi, since it could only be used in Dungeons and in Solea. Moreover, I don't think the skill would find much use now that: there are unlocked chests in dungeon dead-end; every end chest has a key granted to you upon defeating the boss; and Treasure Chest Rooms are not that common and, especially, not that rewarding. I also don't believe more treasure chests should be added in dungeons, or rewards should be increased for Treasure Chest Rooms, for it would become like the Fate/Servant event, where the chest is more important than victory in the board-like minigame.
Poison Slash and Strategic Strike sound like strong damage-over-time skills, however I have issues with Thousand Papercuts. First, the name doesn't sound threatening, and the skill seems like it would be the Final Hit of the Thief, meaning people would spam that and nothing else.
Here are some skill ideas to strengthen the Thief's roster:
Multistrike: A skill that strikes an enemy often while pinning him in place, much like the Fighter's Pummel, though without the required Chain 1 and 2 skills. A long cooldown and high stamina consumption would be its downside.
Sneak Attack: The player becomes invisible for a few seconds and gains increased movement speed, much like the Ninja's Shadow Cloak. However, instead of using the skill again to launch a tornado, one would click an enemy to perform an attack as strong as Smash, yet with a Piercing effect that gets stronger as the skill rank goes up.
Caltrops: A skill that slows down enemy movement in a short radius around the player, with an increased slow at higher skill ranks(maybe even immobilizing enemies at rank 5).
Dancing Blades: An area-of-effect skill that cuts through enemy lines in a flash. Would act like the Gunslinger's Shooting Rush, yet without the bullets.
Knife Throw: A no-loading, no-casting time mid-range skill that deals minimal damage, yet halts the targeted enemy and cancels his currently-loaded skill. The player throws a knife at the enemy, creating an opening before the opponent strikes. It would prove highly effective against gargoyles and similar enemies. At higher ranks, the skill bypasses an enemy's Level 1 or 2 Heavy Stander (not Level 3, or that would make bosses too easy when multiple Thieves use that skill in succession).
As for Mug, I'm afraid the skill would be spammed by high-level players and useless to low-level ones with no real use beyond collecting rare drops from bosses or those impossible-to-get pages for skill books. Same goes for Eye of the Thief.
Instead, I suggest an alternative loot-oriented skill called Thief's Instincts. The skill, active for 20 seconds and with a 1-minute cooldown, can be used to:
- detect the right orb in a Dungeon Orb Room.
- determine which chest isn't a mimic.
- detect Ice Mines and not trigger them for the duration of the skill (maybe even pick them up at higher levels).
- detect Hidden Stashes and interact with them. Hidden Stashes would be new interactive objects that act like herb patches, though they would drop either Gold, Gems of various sizes (bigger gems in tougher dungeons) and/or other common items (arrows and the like).
Here's also something I'd like to see added to the Thief talent: by having the Thief talent active, one has access to an extra 4x6 inventory slot. Thieves have many pockets, after all.
In regards to Shoplift, I don't think this would be a good idea. Mabinogi is not a crime-oriented game, seeing as the only criminal thing one can do is to trade with Byrun, and with heavy risk and penalties at that. Shoplift seems to have too high rewards for the acual penalty, as well as breaking game balance (imagine people successfully stealing 400,000G pieces of armor and selling them for instant, no-work profit. This would also make it easy for bots to generate money and break the economy even more).
Commerce PvP, despite not fitting with Mabinogi's whole Hero-oriented playstyle, nonetheless sounds like a viable option. Here is my version of it, as I had suggested in Siodhan's Massive Commerce Overhaul suggestion:
Bounty Hunting
I also feel that bounty hunting should get a revamp. First, I believe more outlaws should appear on the board. Also, let the player remain in pursuit if they entered a homestead with no outlaw.
Moreover (and this remains a suggestion), I'd like to see a PvP mode for commerce, where players can raid caravans (commerce parties of 3 or more) as an added danger to huge caravans. As a result, such criminal players would be added to the Wanted board and become new targets for bounty hunters. Of course, I think certain rules should be set, such as not allowing reforged equipment or using certain broken skills, or allowing you to raid the same players only once per set amount of time (say one Erinn day). Also, criminal players could only attack players within their cumulative level range (1-100 // 101-300 // 301-1,000 // 1,001-3,000 // 3,001-6,000 // 6,001 and up).
Finally, maybe criminal players could include those who deal with the smuggler, though the advantages for using the smuggler should increase. However, the whole PvP idea means that bounties should never be exceedingly high, so as not to make bounty hunting far more profitable than commerce, instead just being "quick cash."
As for your dungeon suggestion, that has got to be my favorite part of your post. This game needs more thinking and less clicking, and current dungeons (with the exception of Math Musical Dungeon) are a pain to run. Especially Karu Forest. 5 floors of nothing other than combat in the hopes of getting a few skillbook. Your Thieves' Gauntlet seems to be the one missing element of last year's Dungeon Revamp.
Thanks for the reply and awesome feedback. You've got some really cool ideas here, especially the idea of hidden stashes!
Thousand Papercuts is actually named for the term "Death By a Thousand Papercuts", which refers to taking a foe down with a lot of smaller wounds instead of one big one. I actually imagine it more as a single target move with an animation that shows your character striking the enemy with a flurry of blows, not a clone of Final Hit, and would have a cooldown or Stamina cost that discourages reckless spamming. Your Multistrike skill definitely sounds superior, though. I would love to see that in action, and hitting multiple enemies at once is always a plus.
As for Mug, it wouldn't be a 100% success rate, you'd only be able to do it once per individual enemy (something I forgot to mention in my original post...), and the chance to snag the rare items would still be rather low. I can see how a move like that could be abused if it's not carefully and thoughtfully balanced, though...