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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Very limited invisability
EMT
Member
Here are my thoughts. A PVP game (or most games for that matter) is a battle of cause and effect. Damage vs. healing vs. tankiness vs. skill in an endless loop. Abilities can aid in this or break it. The more powerful the ability the more on the breaking it causes.
When you have someone that can go invisible for extended amounts of time it cause an arms issue in that one character will always get the first shot. The issue with this is simple: all other classes have to be tweaked to catchup to the initial damage that an invisible charcter does. This leads to some classes being a bit tougher than they should be when balancing the classes, ergo the fighter might need an extra stun or a DPS needs an escape, etc... So any counter to invisibility other classes might have tends to make them more painful to classes who were not the initial problem in the first place. Gear, abilities, etc....will have to be implemented and the Devs will never strike a balance or even come close to it. "here is your stun break ability ....that you will have to use from the very start when running into a class with a stun and invisibility". An opening move is static, it is not dynamic and I would like to see the game be one in which you would have to be fluid in a fight and not rely on having a set of keybinds specifically tailored to counter one specific class and his predictable invisible class opener.
We see this issue with WOW. One of the biggest issues that game has is that invisibility has so skewed the PVP field that there is no coming back. Heck, even the DH was given the ability to see invisible targets just as a counter to the classes that can pop out of veiw and in turn other classes were given the ability and to no avail. No balance achieved and nor will it ever exist in WOW. I am not saying that classes with invisibility are OP but the ability is and that hurts any chance of really having balanced classes because you cannot balance if one or 2 classes has one of the most potent abilities ever put into a game.
I might be late to the game here but thoughts?
When you have someone that can go invisible for extended amounts of time it cause an arms issue in that one character will always get the first shot. The issue with this is simple: all other classes have to be tweaked to catchup to the initial damage that an invisible charcter does. This leads to some classes being a bit tougher than they should be when balancing the classes, ergo the fighter might need an extra stun or a DPS needs an escape, etc... So any counter to invisibility other classes might have tends to make them more painful to classes who were not the initial problem in the first place. Gear, abilities, etc....will have to be implemented and the Devs will never strike a balance or even come close to it. "here is your stun break ability ....that you will have to use from the very start when running into a class with a stun and invisibility". An opening move is static, it is not dynamic and I would like to see the game be one in which you would have to be fluid in a fight and not rely on having a set of keybinds specifically tailored to counter one specific class and his predictable invisible class opener.
We see this issue with WOW. One of the biggest issues that game has is that invisibility has so skewed the PVP field that there is no coming back. Heck, even the DH was given the ability to see invisible targets just as a counter to the classes that can pop out of veiw and in turn other classes were given the ability and to no avail. No balance achieved and nor will it ever exist in WOW. I am not saying that classes with invisibility are OP but the ability is and that hurts any chance of really having balanced classes because you cannot balance if one or 2 classes has one of the most potent abilities ever put into a game.
I might be late to the game here but thoughts?
2
Comments
An invisible character should leave behind footprints, and you should hear their footsteps. This would force the invisible character to put some sort of thought into not getting detected in PVP. Realistically the only characters that should have invisibility outright is casters that spec into it. Invisibility is magic. And should make them fully rendered or maybe slightly noticeable when moving invisible units in star craft.
As for scout classes they should have stealth. With stealth they should not have their footsteps or footprints detectable. They should also not be rendered unless the character is facing them, but fully visible when looked at. This would allow scout classes to actually pay attention to the direction that the target player is facing and try to move in accordingly. You should not be able to hide in plain sight.
Another thing I would like to see more of is like the bushes in league of legends. It is such a obvious game mechanic that I feel like is underused in MMO's. I remember when my friend found a bush in TERA that he could clip into and use it to gank unsuspecting targets. The bush was just big enough to hide the model and the HP bar. A unintentional use of the bushes, but it worked and always made me wonder why more games don't do it.
You do bring up a good point about how sometime when a scout starts combat there feels like there is no coming back from it. I have been on both sides of the play style. It does not feel satisfying for long to just flatten people, but when you do kill a stealth character that thought they were going to one shot you... Well that is divine. I feel like the nerfs I suggested above to invisibility and sneak might help the play style be more focused on risk vs reward. IDK though they are untested ideas. MMOs have been trying to get this right forever.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
My thoughts about invisibility is there should always be a way to detect it depending on the senses of the other players. I believe the dev's stated there will be a way to detect them and they won't be completely stealthed, but I could be misremembering. Anyways my ideas would be something similar to FFXI or to have invisible players be cloaked like @Vhaeyne mentioned. I imagine this similar to Protoss units in StarCraft or the Preditor's cloaking field. They are for all intensive purposes invisible, but its due to a trickery of light and when moving it looks sort of "off".
They never will. It is offensive, defensive, allows the first hit, allows the first stun....there is literally no other ability in any MMo I have played that is so balance destroying as invisibility. All this combined forces the class to be a glass cannon by default and forces other classes to have counter/catchup mechanics, which makes them more deadly to non invisible classes, who will need to be able to catchup/counter in turn. What you get is a crude circle that by default cannot be balanced. My theory is this is why WOW threw their hands up in the air in regards to PVP and quit even trying to balance....it was an impossibility even with todays simulation programs.
I like the foot print idea but that sounds system heavy. But I would take that over pure invisibility any day of the week.
I dont know if we have been playing the same wow, but in the beginning, yes rogues were abit of a pain as there was no immediate counter for say warrior class. However this was later rectified with potions that prevented you from being stun locked etc. Not to mention many of the classes had an AOE ability of some sort that would break rogues stealth and nullify their back stabs etc. I mean heck, the healer priest had an AOE heal that did damage at the same time as heal and could be very potent against rogues. So if we were to to say that there is no balance in regards to rogues stealth would be incorrect but as long as there are craftables or abilities that could potentially help break a rogues stealth would be balanced enough. Imagine a warrior class being tanky, able to dish out huge amounts of burst damage and also having ability to see rogues stealth'ed! Why would you bother playing a rogue if you are far weaker and lose elements of surprise!?!? The only use of the rogue then would be to only find hidden entrances in dungeons and thats it.
This also leads into the questions/concerns I have regarding how subclass augments will really be effective when a pure class spec seems like it will be stronger in their chosen class as opposed to a hybrid.
I like the idea for sound and maybe some sort of signs being available, and have maybe ability's or leveled up effects of the ability or augments to effect the sounds and signs to be none or to close to none, but I wouldn't want the sound and signs to be super telling,
I think the general rule is that players should always keep there guard up, watch out for close players and if they are worried about getting killed, Keep your Buffs active as your going about your day,
If you lower your guard, I would want that to be the time for a rogue to abuse you with there invisibility, its only fair, also If you really are worried about it, don't fight, let the guy/girl gain corruption.
Anyways, we wont know until alpha 1, and any issues with things would likely be settled before launch, most games don't have a corruption system like ashes, so it would be interesting if that would help balance how things are done, as will as the time to kill theory, I believe your argument might not be much of an issue in the end.
Example of the effect from Apocalypse play test:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/images/6/6c/Invisibility.mp4
When we break combat down to the simpliest form my pixels are doing something to your pixels. All range is just that, my pixels hitting your pixels at a distance. Melee is the same but pixels affecting yours but only when you are near. Silence, sleep, stun, etc....are just me making your pixels not do what they should. So far all of the above examples all fall nicely into groups. Same goes with speed, dash, teleport, rush, etc...all fit into a group. Invisibility is my pixels disappearing. What is important to note is that it does not fall under any of the above groups. That is why it is problomatic to balance. Again, invisibility does not make you OP it just makes balance inpossible.
I am glad that Intrepid is going to have some form of detection, I don't mind being hit by a stealthy, but my issue is with balanced classes and dynamic gameplay that involves the least amount of hearing "so what is my opener when I stealth". All classes should have to react differently depending on the class they run into and get away from the classes with stealth that will use the exact same rotation on all the classes they encounter.
Something being hard to balance doesn't mean it should be removed otherwise that would mean that they should scrap 55/64 classes and 2 of the 4 schools of augment.
The inherent advantage of stealth classes is the first shot in 1v1s. This doesn't apply to classes that have stealth detection. They also usually suffer from a bad place in group/raid sized combat.
They don't aim for perfect 1v1 balance, it will be much more rock-paper-scissor type in terms of builds. Stealth classes will have advantages and they will have disadvantages. Just because people associate Stealth type characters with being ganked, doesn't mean its a bad mechanic to have in the game.
This video shows their idea of what they are going for with invisibility .
More of a Predator type feel.