Stealth Class

Vashramire · October 2020

In open world situations where you are going to justify shadow fields and actual shadows (that would have to be calculated as the sun moves mind you) how would you balance fighting them at night or in the day in a desert or field? At night you are brokenly stealthy and unless your "fields" have a low enough CD people can just walk away from them and you. At that point a gap closer would be more useful especially if the point of all this stealth is for positioning. A gap closer that teleports them behind the character solves that and is easier to balance.

Delofasht · October 2020

Tyrantor wrote: »

You may want to look into the game Arenas will not be the only location for PvP,

Almost everywhere in the game is some kind of structure, large rock formations, trees, or bushes that could all generate a shadow field.

In design, one must always be balancing things, and if there is not a built in limitation to how stealth functions, then the limitation will be upon the players defensive or offensive capabilities, while still likely getting reduced in effectiveness because denying the enemy visual information upon which to act is one of the strongest offensive capabilities available in combat.

I suppose the question is, do we want a game where the stealth class is worthless or not? The proposition I put forward allows such a class to operate without having to apply massive restrictions on their capabilities because there are built in ways to mitigate the stealth class that feel intuitive and engage both players.

Delofasht · October 2020

Vashramire wrote: »

In open world situations where you are going to justify shadow fields and actual shadows (that would have to be calculated as the sun moves mind you) how would you balance fighting them at night or in the day in a desert or field? At night you are brokenly stealthy and unless your "fields" have a low enough CD people can just walk away from them and you. At that point a gap closer would be more useful especially if the point of all this stealth is for positioning. A gap closer that teleports them behind the character solves that and is easier to balance.

The "Shadow fields" proposed would be static, not based on real time shadows or day/night time scenarios. That would complicate everything FAR too much for snappy code response. Stealth should be about creating superior positioning and setting up fights that favor the stealth user or for disengaging. Teleports are not a strong answer to issues of distance, as it opens the door for just more trading of disengages, which then leads to more scripted encounters.

Tyrantor · October 2020

Delofasht wrote: »

Tyrantor wrote: »

You may want to look into the game Arenas will not be the only location for PvP,

Almost everywhere in the game is some kind of structure, large rock formations, trees, or bushes that could all generate a shadow field.

In design, one must always be balancing things, and if there is not a built in limitation to how stealth functions, then the limitation will be upon the players defensive or offensive capabilities, while still likely getting reduced in effectiveness because denying the enemy visual information upon which to act is one of the strongest offensive capabilities available in combat.

I suppose the question is, do we want a game where the stealth class is worthless or not? The proposition I put forward allows such a class to operate without having to apply massive restrictions on their capabilities because there are built in ways to mitigate the stealth class that feel intuitive and engage both players.

Look I can appreciate your interest to give the class "true stealth" which I read as actual invisibility while harnessing the shadows. What I don't like however is that you then force a class to have to process more environmental information than any other class. This in turn becomes work for the players, especially if no other classes have to consider the environment in order to play their class at max efficiency. I could appreciate something like that again on the scale of a single player game or possibly even a MOBA style game where the environment doesn't have day/night cycles.

However in an MMO if you're going to take one class and say, your class is only going to work at peak level in xyz environment while all other classes can play their characters with no concern for shadow fields or other such as rain, snow, grass, sand, water etc etc it's flat out an unfair design forced on a class.

With the concept you have suggested this would in theory mean that rogues would move with full invisibility through all dungeons, under water and in buildings etc no? Also if you're going to make "shadow fields" static how then, are rogues supposed to know where these are at during night time play- would the shadow always be on the west side of objects, does that then mean at certain times of day the rogue actually has to use an area that is clearly not in a shadow? If the concept of your suggestion isn't going to be fluid with the actual environment what is the point?

Atama · October 2020

Technically if a rogue is the only one with stealth, that’s still going to open it up to a lot of people, because people who pick it as a secondary archetype/class may also get stealth abilities.

And do we know that rangers won’t have stealth too?

Sov54 · October 2020

Atama wrote: »

Technically if a rogue is the only one with stealth, that’s still going to open it up to a lot of people, because people who pick it as a secondary archetype/class may also get stealth abilities.

And do we know that rangers won’t have stealth too?

I don't know where I read it, but as far as I know, only main archetype rogues will have proper stealth.

But I assume specific secondary rogues will have very short-duration or nerfed stealth mechanics.

Yuyukoyay · October 2020

As long as they aren't popping in and killing me in half a second and then stealthing away again I don't care how stealth is as long as I can tell in some way they are near.