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You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Please Do Not Allow Stealth Mechanics to be Grossly OP.
DaRougaroux
Member
As it stands, there are several MMOs that have designed stealth mechanic based classes to be:
1. Highly Mobile, while also being top tier damage.
2. Able to nearly lock someone down, unable to fight back for nearly all of their health pool.
3. Have the best, most effective CC in game, also on short cooldown.
4. Be practical tanks with skills that allow them to negate and/or completely avoid damage all while continuing damage against you.
5. Able to move as fast as a mounted player, while stealthed!
6. Have almost a guaranteed ability to always get the first hit in any fight.
7. The ability to reset any fight that does not go their way, negating ANY consequence for bad game play or tactical decisions that any other class would suffer for.
8. Self heals onto of all that.
I could say more but those are genuine concerns that plague a lot of MMOs. Please, if you want to make stealth classes top tier dps, then dont let them also have practically no weaknesses and no consequence for bad decisions. They should be highly vulnerable once brought out of stealth, whether by choice or not, and not be able to destroy any and all other classes just by virtue of their class.
Thank you.
1. Highly Mobile, while also being top tier damage.
2. Able to nearly lock someone down, unable to fight back for nearly all of their health pool.
3. Have the best, most effective CC in game, also on short cooldown.
4. Be practical tanks with skills that allow them to negate and/or completely avoid damage all while continuing damage against you.
5. Able to move as fast as a mounted player, while stealthed!
6. Have almost a guaranteed ability to always get the first hit in any fight.
7. The ability to reset any fight that does not go their way, negating ANY consequence for bad game play or tactical decisions that any other class would suffer for.
8. Self heals onto of all that.
I could say more but those are genuine concerns that plague a lot of MMOs. Please, if you want to make stealth classes top tier dps, then dont let them also have practically no weaknesses and no consequence for bad decisions. They should be highly vulnerable once brought out of stealth, whether by choice or not, and not be able to destroy any and all other classes just by virtue of their class.
Thank you.
5
Comments
Yeah if you get asked 'Do you want to attack this target?' and you see no-one there, you know you're being stealth stalked.
I was thinking about casting fire everywhere till they die but that works too
Nagash and his persistent 10 meter bubble of molten plasma.
“Look guys I’m just trying to ensure social distancing.”
if it works it works
The essence of a Rogue is to be able to silently assassinate their target quickly, they are expected to be agile and capable of evasive maneuvers. That being said I agree that they should be in a state of OH crap if they are caught off guard and there should be mechanics in the game for that situation to happen by all classes. On the flip side if they are skilled and successful in stalking their prey they should be able to make quick work of them. As I have heard invisibility is not true invisibility it is stealth meaning easily overlooked but still visible on the screen. So every class should be able to prevent them from getting the jump on you if your paying attention. Making it all that more difficult to successfully stalk their prey making it all the more justified to be able to take you out before you can call for help. FYI I am not a rogue player I am just giving my 2 cents on the matter as I see it.
"Able to move as fast as a mounted player, while stealthed!"
The rest is class design that you personally have issues with, not the singular stealth mechanic.
That along with:
"I could say more but those are genuine concerns that plague a lot of MMOs"
and most of the other stuff you had to say - you're clearly just making a "nerf this i cant deal with it" post on a class in a game that hasn't even released yet....
Why don't you just make another post on WoW forums and be done with it.
I get the feeling you get destroyed by anything with a good player behind it.
Would love to see some gameplay videos of you dominating people on an OP Rogue though.
Nice, you picked ONE issue and made it the basis for your rebutle. Then used platitudes and assumptions to try to prove to yourself you are correct.
Congratulations, you have absolutely no skill at debate.
PS: How long you been playing a Rogue?
I heard a bird ♫
Agreed. Agreed.
But they’re right. Your rant has little to do with stealth.
Stealth doesn’t make you stun people, do top tier damage, self-heal, run as fast as a mount on foot, or become a tank. You really only mention two things...
1) Getting in the first hit.
2) Being able to escape a fight.
I’d say the first thing should be accepted. If someone with stealth can’t attack without detection there isn’t a lot of reason to be in stealth, unless it’s intended to only avoid combat.
The second thing, I agree that if it exists in this game then there should be measures to prevent it from being abused. Maybe it has a long cool down, and/or you suffer some kind of penalty for a while to dissuade you from doing it casually.
All of the other things you mention are totally off-topic and sound like you are bitter about other games that aren’t AoC. That baggage isn’t really helpful.
Assassins should be able to 100-0 a squishy they catch off guard. Their cc should be reliable but on a moderate-long cooldown as to ensure skill is required for successful burst and poor planning is punished. Stealth over true invisibility is a good step to having healthy rogue play patterns
Nothing more annoying that a Rogue trying to kill and when it's about to die goes invisible, then pots, recovers hp and comes back again at it.
You can never finish it off.
Erm, how can you class invisibility as a great defence when you lose it after combat starts? Unless you have a major cd, single time use, combat stealth?
I picked one issue because maybe it was the only issue that actually had anything to do with your entire thread and its title?
Lol.
Well dude, you're a bit ahead in development. Folks are discussing class designs, they could be implemented in a plethora of ways. GW2 thief is OP, FF ninja is underpowered, I guess Intrepid could base themselves off of countless games to avoid this mechanics from being OP while still being fair and fun.
I heard a bird ♫
Exactly.
GW2: Theif was greatly OP.
WoW: Rogues, LoL OP.
Rift: Once again, LoL OP
ESO: Nightblades, OP
I mean can we bring some friggin sanity to stealth classes, that's all I'm saying. Can we end the ridiculous cycle?
A class will be a Hard Counter to Rogues in Ashes. None of those other games have a Hard Counter for Rogues, some do have 'Reveal Hidden Player' mechanics though. I hope Ashes does both Hard Counter and 'Reveal Hidden Enemies'. A Ranger will have a track ability and in Age of Conan, the track ability showed Stealthed Players and Stealth Player locations. Not sure how the Track Ability will work in Ashes though.
Sounds like you just have zero inclination to actually use stealth counters or account for surviving burst.
Like I said just use AOE. you are bound to hit something sooner or later
You don't even need to be in doubt, just do it anyways.
AoE has always been the biggest hard counter. Good luck playing a squishy assassin when the ground is covered in fire, lightning, slow zones, and arrow rain.
How would you build a stealth melee character, so that it feels fulfilling to play, while having exploitable flaws?
I'm gonna give it a go.
What should an Assassin's role in a trinity-based PVP system be?
I see them as back-line infiltrators. They should be able to sneak to the juicy targets(mages/buffers) and ideally take one(or two) out. Then have a fair escape mechanism that makes their exit the hectic part of the engagement. Once out of danger - rinse and repeat.
As direct 1vs1 interactions between players of similar equipment and level go:
An Assassin should not be able to win against Tank & Fighter classes.
Should be able to take care of Mage when the Mage is caught off guard, but escape or die if detected at mid/long range.
Should kill Buffers when they're caught off guard, but be disabled at mid/long range. Essentially failing the attempt and having to back off and reset before trying again.
Archers should destroy it at range... not certain what the proper close range interaction should be, based on armor I guess it should not be able to explode them, so they're not ideal target.
What skills would I put on an Assassin(and on his opposition) to ensure this interaction?
- Counterable infiltration skill - ideally Stealth, as it gives so much to the encounter. And by Stealth I don't mean "increased speed translucency" as both aspects of that are just WRONG on every level. I mean full-on invisibility with a decrease in speed, as the character is putting an effort in not being detected rather than usain-bolting towards the enemy's squishy bits. And I said "counterable" because having "detection" abilities on other classes is essential to the game of hide and seek that I want out of it. I'm thinking a combination of passive short range AOE around tanks + active target AOE on buffers, giving them another thing to do in an engagement. As far as cooldown goes, you can make it 3 seconds for all I care, as long as activation is possible on a meaningful distance away from any enemy.
- Escape mechanism - ideally something along the lines of a displacement/short distance teleportation with automatic deselect for enemy tab skills. After that you just hoof it towards your mates or stealth if you think the enemy won't find you with detection. At that point the name of the game is cat and mouse as the enemy forces decide to chase or regroup... or have to deal with the rest of your guys.
- As far as the attack skills I think you can flavor him however you like - burst dmg, poison, bleed, whatever fits what you're going for. Heck, for the sake of teamplay you might put some Mark-equivalent that grants archers extra range/dmg against target.
And that's it really...
The goal with creating a burst damage character should be to enable that play you'll be telling your friends about for weeks, while not mentioning the 20+ other times where you made an error died or ran away.
I don't know... Does that sound fun.. or fair for that matter? I have this whole idea of how an organized military engagement in a trinity-based system should go and that colors my perspective of it. With lines of tanks and fighters etching towards the line of engagement while bombarded by mages and healed by buffers. Rogues tip-toeing through the chaos to get kills in the backline, while rangers try to flank so that they don't have to shoot through the shield wall.
Anyways, I'd appreciate feedback from the perspective of the roles you play.
And keep in mind, this game will have hard counters, meaning for example that heavy armor wearing classes (like tanks, fighters) would be good counter to light armor classes, where robe armor classes (casters) would be counter to heavy armor classes and then light armor counters robe armor.
So overall, some classes will be very good to kill some other specific classes, but also get killed easily by other type of classes.
And as Steve mentioned, balancing is intended to be done in group play, not in 1v1.
Hmmmm. Your Avatar, check. Your irrational rebutle for defending broken mechanics, check. Yep, Rogue here. Anyone got a flare?
See I get that to a point, you're right, he did say that, BUT, if you make one class able to be the best 1v1 class in the game, it WILL affect grp play, its inevitable. You will have more people playing that one particular class, just to have an edge. That's the flaw behind that kind of a design.
My icon is an alchemist character and I main healers lmao