Please Do Not Allow Stealth Mechanics to be Grossly OP.

Syltharis

OnibakaEX wrote: »

Flawed original thread post, but if we back off with the personal attacks, there might be an interesting game design exercise here. I'm gonna try and hijack it towards that.

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.

As i will likely play a caster class, i would like to see this type of steath mechanics ingame. As far as counters go, no game has playstyle that doesnt allow rogues/assassins to easily kill squishies(mages,bards,clerics and summoners in the case of AoC), but then the stealth classes lose pretty badly vs other melee classes and rangers/hunters.

Yuyukoyay

Well WoW actually does have counters vs Rogues that can cause them to lose vs classes they should otherwise beat. In WoW though gear is king. You could be a tank or healer and beat the best dps classes in the game if they aren't geared properly.

This game might have a bigger gear disparity than wow does though.