The new classes and subguild, ext-subguild interactions

Dwarves got karma locked? That's surprising.
I guess they were very strong considering their main weakness relied on the player gimping their char somewhat on an honour system.

Will have a read into Apocalypse though, thanks for the idea

City elves got karma locked as well? ouch..

Ha, yeah saw the mage changes. Pretty intense shift.

What would you say is the best way to play a ranger-type these days?

tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=-&subguild=-

The class / sub tool, which has some rather nice options and I find, quite useful. Its updated as needed as well, and I've not yet found any inaccuracies.

Will second the "ruk empowerment" being the karma poor mans power option, for easy grief and general "kill for thrill" play. I don't even think I've seen a raider, in forever, who wasn't "raider/ruk enhancement" and more or less a walking, talking, min-max code gimmicky shithead, or one of said ruks groupies. Likewise, basically almost everyone in an urban role, is going to be a miscreant, though their combat power is VASTLY overstated by the majority. Its fine for mid-range pve, but imo, the combat skills are best used defensively, as its down to a lot of luck and the element of surprise in pvp. If you play a miscreant, play it for the intrigue potential, not because you think those "advanced skills" will get you anywhere, because they're the lowest of advanced IF you can even get there, which is doubtful, because their combat learning rate is just horrid.


If you want to go STEALTH, go miscreant or stalker. Infiltrator is surprisingly competent at combat, and as an off-beat gimmick it was a lot of fun, but strictly inferior to miscreant or stalker, due to master stealth and master scan now being basically requisite if you want to ever be competitive, since 'right to combat' and 'only attack vastly newer pcs' are the current rules of engagement, especially in the stealth sphere. You need to absolutely be able to depend on stealth now, more than ever before, if thats the angle you want to run with.

No experience with scout, but master range skills just aren't really that great anymore, or worth the trade for master stealth/scan. I mean, archery is still good, and dangerous, but it has super deflated pve value (its irritating as af now, imo) and the new fighter/enforcer/raider, at least SEEM, to be MUCH better at blocking/parrying range attacks, and stealthies you won't ever see if they're any good, so... its just not that amazing. Go RAIDER if you want master archery w/ some stealth.

If you want to be fighty, raider is great when combined with a stealth sub, because raider/enforcer stealth is SHIT, but enhanced sub stealth is completely serviceable. Both raider and enforcer come a capacity for CLIMB, which imo, is a skill EVERY character must have, unless a whiran. How can anyone play without climb, I can't even...

It's also, as mentioned, pretty much the go to for anyone who wants to play a desert antag, because raider gives you really, really solid combat skills, core desert skills (d.sense, climb), plus limited stealth skills and scan (so you can go train on spiders/kryl, and stealth up on high dodge npcs, etcs, for rapid skill ups), and combined with magick subs (esp. ruk enhancement for forever ai stats w/high wisdom if you spec right) are really, completely ridiculous.

I'm of the opinion that, there needs to be limitations on what classes can be combo'd with magick, because, I mean... stalker/whira is almost comical, and raider/ruk is probably the easiest road to power, especially if you go dwarf.

Enforcer doesnt, imo, lend itself to the fighter/mage EZ gank combo, because the only places where stock enforcer skills are relevant, have things that make using magick there a Bad Idea, even if you take account the limited defenses available, and cities, generally, are where the worst of the ooc info spreaders play, so as soon as anyone see's you 'gick, everyone on discord will know within a day or two, and they'll FIND a way to let their pcs know it ICly.

I don't like merchant core concepts, but they're all pretty balanced and you can combo them with certain subs (swordsman, for example), so that you won't be completely defenseless. I've seen a couple who were actually decently capable, and since staff gave them custom craft ability back, you can actually use those cool subs whilst still filling out your main purpose, that is making slightly different varieties of black leather armor or hilariously ostentatious swords, than the eight thousand or so, that already exist.

Overall, despite the belly ache of many, I like the new class options much more than the old ones. It's now much harder to guild sniff, there are many very cool combos that usually get overlooked, and with ext. subs being made "available forever" to anyone with 1 current karma, you can pretty much use them all the time, if you've played for at least six months, without being a total douche nozzle, or whatever.

The coded state of the game is actually quite good, imo, but it's... very dull ICly, unless you're in with the meta crowd, or luck out and end up in a clan with leads who aren't knee deep it meta game bullshit themselves. There isn't much variety, and everything lately, has felt very same-same. The docs aren't really enforced like they should be, so people just bang breeds and hang out with magickers for AI stat buffs and shit, and its not good.

Gets harder and harder, with each character, to even really commit to playing, or taking a risk on teaming up with other pcs, because the fuckery and ooc meddling, only seems to be on the rise.

STR is the king stat of the game, and if at ANY point, you feel your pcs answer to a problem is "smash it with a rock", STR is your priority stat. The exception, imo, is if you're a non-combat magicker, or a ruk enhancement, since ruk enhancements can get excellent+ WIS and maintain AI combat stats, no problem.

The game is very much what YOU make of it, at this point. I do not give singular fucks about what anyone else, staff or player, thinks/wants, and I play my character as is appropriate to concept, stick to the docs as best anyone can in the state of things, and I have very few problems, karmas, and enjoy the time I spend playing my characters.

Really, though. REALLY, really. Don't go in, expecting meta plot or cool world plot dynamics, or lasting political intrigue, because there are none. At all. I feel SO fucking bad for nobles, and merchants, because they have NOTHING to even try for... it's like this empty, fucking void, where they have to color inside the role lines, whilst entertaining themselves and others. The last clan I was in was great because of good leaders and some actually dynamic characters, but I felt super bad, about bothering the leaders for stuff to do, because I could see them struggling to even entertain themselves, nevermind come up with non-busywork for everyone else. We had a pretty great clan staff, who was active, but not intrusive, at least to rank and file pcs, which was nice.

Its a lot of slice of life stuff now, lots of romance (99% mudsex focused, sadly) and related dramas, criminals who still think GoT or anime, is a good model to base their character on, and really bored sponsor roles who DESPERATELY need competent, non-shitshute support pcs (if thats your bag).

The real winning ticket, though, is being indie, atm, because there are almost always groups of disillusioned players, trying to get crews up and running, and usually, they're pretty fun to hang around, if almost always focused around being friends with magickers, for sweet buffs and artifact swords and things.

You can be a lone ranger, out in the wilds and never really go into town except to shop or log out, and still have a good time. Lots of very chill, very talented players, who just want to do their text skyrim w/ a list full of maxed skills, and have some fun rps along the way. Thats kind of the winning niche in arm, and its been working for me, so who knows, maybe it can work for you, too.

Wow! Nice one, this is completely the type of info I was looking for
And thanks for the link to the Class calculator, that is a MASSIVE help. Wish we'd had this back when!

I'm hoping to do much what you do by the sounds of it. I don't have the play time to become very useful in a clan or to a sponsored role, though would enjoy that if I had the time honestly. 
Its kind of a shame that raider gets so few of the fluff wild skills. I've always enjoyed playing a ranger-crafter type to keep variety. In order to do that now though puts raider off the table.
The lack of skinning seems to be the killer. 

I used to run ranger weaponcrafter all the time and mostly indie or occasionally join up a GMH as a hunter if I was looking for more structure to my rp. 

How much of a combat sacrifice are you making to take scout or stalker?
How would you describe the meta or current state of the indie, team-up and have fun folks. 
More Raiders or Stalkers? Any skills/roles in demand?

I really like your post though, btw. Very informative and a seriously good window into the current state of the game.

I did a lot of testing at one point to figure out the skill caps of the new classes, coupled with some discussions with Nergal who was part of the early design. Here are my findings:

Skill caps are completely homogenous across classes of the same "tier" (e.g. heavy combat). Typically a skill caps either at 60, 75 or 90, or an equivalent spread for skills that don't follow the 1-90 scale (e.g. parry). I didn't care to test any of the classes that have journeyman caps, but I'm guessing those probably cap at 45 since that fits the pattern of 15 point gaps.

If your class masters a skill, it's 90, assuming it's a skill that can go that high. There may be niche exceptions--I think there's a chance that enforcers only get 80 in sap and backstab, but I'm not sure. Same could be true for raiders with archery. The reason I suspect this is that if that's not the case, literally the only reason to play infiltrator and scout would be to get 15 more points in the rogue skills. Also, noone got sap higher than 80 with the old guilds, and having played a maxed out enforcer, I didn't feel like the cap was 90.

If your class caps a skill at advanced, it's 75 if your class is better at it than another class that also gets advanced. For instance, infiltrator stealth is 75 while enforcer is 60. The closer your class is to the "best class for that skill," the higher it is--miscreant/stalker are the best at stealth, so light combat is closer than heavy combat. The heavies are the best at combat, so light combat classes are better than the mixed classes. Parry is 45/55/65 instead of 60/75/90. I believe weapon skill caps were upped from 70 to 80 for the heavies compared to the old guilds, so I'm assuming they now go 60/70/80 for mixed/light/heavy.

Some caps can be tested. Skills still branch 10 points from their cap, with an exception for weapon skills which were apparently adjusted to branch a little sooner. When a skill caps at 90, it hits master/advanced/jman/apprentice at 80/60/40/20. These levels are based on the highest that any class gets the skill, not individually by class, so if any class gets a skill to 90, it's M80/A60/J40 for everyone. If that skill branches into something, note what level that skill is at when the branch happens. If you branched exactly when you hit master (80), that means the skill caps at 90. If you branch at mid-journeyman (~50), the cap is 60. If you didn't branch upon hitting advanced but branch not long after that, the skill caps at 75 and you branched at 65. I never found a 1-90 skill that didn't follow this 60/75/90 pattern. Unlike the old guilds, the new ones are very formulaic.

As such, the only classes that get no-fail hide without stealth equipment are miscreant and stalker. Infiltrator and scout, with their 75 in hide, need stealth equipment or crowd/foliage to hit 100%. You get +15 to hide from having sneak toggled on, so that means an infiltrator gets a 90% chance to succesfully hide in the 'rinth or any other room without crowd code. Agility does not affect chance to hide, only your resistance to scan. Agility does affect sneak chance, so sneak is a lot easier to get to 100% (except there's always a 1/500 chance to fail sneak). An enforcer or raider with 60 in hide will, with sneak toggled on, have only a 75% chance to succesfully hide. The crowd bonus is +25, though, so they reach 100% in those rooms.

The classes that are worth playing, in my opinion, are:
Miscreant
Enforcer
Raider
Stalker

That's it. Those are the only classes that are legitimately good. Scout and infiltrator are okay but don't get enough master skills. The fact that you need to wear a full suit of camo gear in order to depend on hide makes it a hard sell. If you play something like a 'rinth infiltrator, you can't just waltz around in a full set of Kuraci camo gear, and the inky black leather set does not provide +10 hide so you won't reach 100% in that. This means that an infiltrator probably won't ever have 100% outside of crowd rooms, where an enforcer also gets 100%, so the only thing infiltrator has over enforcer is 15 points of scan resistance and some largely useless utility skills like advanced scan and poisoning. Scouts are better able to wear a full camo suit, but without backstab, having mid-advanced combat skills is a massive tradeoff compared to raiders. If you want to go wilderness stealth, just make a stalker gick.

Enforcer is a powerhouse. Sap is so insanely strong with high strength and a two-handed maul. You don't even really need to use your stealth skills, but the fact that you get them just high enough to reach 100% in streets and taverns is an added bonus, even though miscreants will easily spot you with scan. I wouldn't bother going the backstab route with an enforcer since bludgeoning weapons are so overpowered that you might as well go sap. Stabbing weapons are trash in ordinary combat whereas high human strength and a two-handed maul will see you landing headshots for 100 stun damage.

Raider is a little worse than enforcer just because archery isn't nearly as powerful as sap, but they do get the full wilderness kit for free without needing to spend a subclass on it, freeing you up for a magick sub. That's how I would choose to play a raider. If you're mundane, you might as well just go enforcer and take bounty hunter for advanced ride and direction sense. Wilderness stealth is mostly an elf thing anyway since humans can't really travel on foot.

Miscreant speaks for itself. Ridiculously overpowered non-combat class that even has some PvP potential with poisons. I don't know what drugs Brokkr was on when he decided to let one class master literally every non-combat, non-crafting skill in the game. If you're playing non-com, there is no reason to play anything other than miscreant. It's just so bizarrely good that it renders half the classes obsolete.

Stalker is mostly for d-elf magickers. 90 stealth and scan is really nice, so it's a good class when you don't depend on a mount and can't take a sub that gives your miscreant wilderness stealth. I'm not in love with human stalkers for that reason. Riding is kind of incompatible with stealth. Advanced archery isn't particularly great, but it's good enough for poison use since it doesn't really matter how much damage you do, and advanced archery with high agility is pretty decent for just landing shots when hitting the leg or body is good enough.