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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.
Stealth in Ashes MegaThread
oophus
Member
MOD NOTE: Hi all. There are lots of Stealth threads around so I'm combining them together. Please continue to use this thread to talk about stealth mechanics rather than making new ones. Thanks.
First take a look at this video here, and see how stealth functions:
https://youtu.be/dJnf4XeAWug?t=39Then let me explain how stealth is implemented in the game.
The shader of the character where you have your texture, normalmaps, bumpmaps, specular maps etc also have a slot to control opacity, or transparency. What they have done here, is to have a "NoiseMap", which basically is a black and white map that is animated to somewhat shift between whiter and blacker parts of the character model. Black is full transparency and White is zero transparency.
In the video we can see that while the character is moving, this "NoiseMap" is animated. What I'd like to know is what happens when the character stand still? Do we have footage of this somewhere? I hope that the map's phaze (animation) is halted, so that nothing moves in the shader while standing still. This means that for Rogues, it would be hard for them to move around, since as you can see, they go in and out somewhat between almost completely transparent, to then sometimes be way more visible. But then easier and easier with more stealth the slower they move. Also don't restrict movements in terms of velocity, keep it the same speed as normal running with the ability to skill it up even more, since its already got its "negatives" in forms of transparency that is easily seen if looked for.
I hope that:
1. The NoiseMap's phaze animation can be linked to velocity of the character, so that if the Rogue runs, then more white elements (less invisibility) is introduced in the NoiseMap, while more and more black elements (more invisibility) is introduced the slower the character moves. This means one level of stealth for running, one for walking, one for crouching, one for crawling, and one for standing completely still, where the NoiseMap is switched out with an almost white map.
2. Adjust and introduce sound as a big element for stealth. This means that for a player with no stats put into stealth detection, the sound for a rogue walking and running is normal. While if he increases the stat, nuanced noises like branches breaking under the feet of the rogue on the move in the forest, or snow cracking in the mountains is increased. This would make sound a bit important again. Something MMO's often neglect I feel.
2
Comments
There is literally almost no consequence for bad decisions, just vanish (in the middle of combat) and heal up and try again.
WoW is riddled with this. And apparently GW2 is having issues too.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/115468/stealth-op/p1
I can personally attest to WoWs issues with it after years of experience.
It began with the introduction of Cloak of Shadows, mockingly called "Cloak of Skill" because it was a one button skill that made the Rogue unhittable and thus allowed them to stealth and escape, and if that didnt work, they could do just hit Vanish, and once again escape or reset the fight.
Hell in WoW, Rogues are moving, while stealthed, almost as fast as a mount! It's so over the top stupid.
Please dont allow stealth or stealstealthier, to be over the top with abilities like this. It's great for the stealth player, but really degrades the game for everyone else.
Haven't you heard that a tank or warrior with the rougue augment can become invisible when charging?
If you ever played classic wow you know that his stealth was more balance, but still op. I think there is need to add a vision component to each humanoid, that will increase the stealth detection in front of it and decrease behind him. Also the stealth will decrease his speed or be less effective if he runs fast. Just wait untill they show up something ... they are pretty closed to share their intentions for the game it seems.
Stealth is generally the rogue classes only advantage in a fight, where most classes get to use their advantage the entire fight. For example like the warrior with max armor resists/health or the Mage with massive spell damage.
Maybe we should make all classes just gimmicky as you call it, so the warrior only gets the HPs and resists until he gets hit and then the Mage can cast one spell and has to watch after that.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Where did you hear that? Would be new to me....
How cool would it be to hit max level with zero kills because you snuck around enemies instead of killing them? Stealth mechanics are hard to nail since its usually just a power to skip past mobs or gank enemy players.
It would be really cool to see them implement something where you need to consciously evade detection and not just go outright invisible. But again, we'll have to wait and see; though I did read on the wiki that players will have the options to track down players using stealth.
I remember in AoC (AgeofConan), where all classes could go in stealth, but just rogue classes were able to move with a decent speed, it was a pleasure to have rangers with you with their tracking skill. That was really cool if you were that player and constantly tracking your area to warn your party or to hunt some outlaws down!
Fear, will keep the classes in line.
edit: *quietly* tread carefully guys, the rogues are listening in right now
Also again, keep in mind that classes can have skills like this.
Essentially rendering rogues useless as their one advantage is sneaking up to get a kill. They're not good at aoe and they don't typically provide much mitigation or defense, just heavy offense with stealth. They're not usually designed to be direct combatants like Fighters that can actually take the first punch and still keep going. I'd be sad if we don't see an interesting stealth mechanic tbh.
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton
On a serious note, The simple way to balance stealth is to have it slow down your movement speed. This solves a ton of problems with them being able to choose when to engage on another player and the ability to skip mobs in various areas. If they are slowed down and you know a rogue is in the area, you can choose to just leave and they wont be able to stop you. This makes it purely for escaping a dangerous situation or for catching someone that is unaware which both sound proper to me.
Also I really dislike that rogues are supposed to be gutted from their only opening advantage especially when people are going to have aoe detection skills that grant them passive detection for a limited time.
Rogues are supposed to be hit and run - open a devastating attack to blow someone up - what made rogues so oppressive in classic wow is the fact to chain CC enemy for a full minute:
that is due
open with cheap shot - 4s stun - build up to kidney shot - 6s stun (doesnt share DR with cheap shot) - blind 8s - restealth - sap 8s - restealth - DR on stuns reset - open with cheap shot - 4s stun - build up to kidney shot - 6s stun - preparation (resets blind cd) - blind 8s - restealth - sap 8s - restealth - stun DR drops - open with cheap shot - 4s stun - build up to kidney shot - 6s stun
that is in total 62 seconds of no counter play unless the victim has an ability to remove CC - also full 30s of this time the victim is playing target dummy for being stunned
unless you go for dagger oneshot combo:
open with cheap shot 4s stun - vanish(skill restealth), cold blood(100% crit chance for next special attack), ambush (300% dagger dmg) - preparation (resets vanish, cold blood) - vanish - ambush (base 60-70% crit chance based on gear - talents OP) - cold blood - eviscerate (hardest hitting finisher)
just some perspective - decent gear can crit ambush for ~3k on ~leather gear and eviscerate for ~2.5k so at minimum you deal 7k dmg inside 4s stun and if you crit the non guarenteed ambush then you deal 8.5k dmg where your average cloth caster has around 4k hp
I am listing this example, because the fear of rogues for many ppl comes from classic wow and many people forget that this gameplay is too fast for Ashes where the fight time is supposed to be significantly longer.
― Plato
For WoW it's Blizzards insane reliance on complete lack of control. There's no real counterplay if you're stunned, pop trinket, and then are stunned again.
Hopefully Intrepid can make some more interesting CC mechanics and possibly give professions a way to deal w/ stealth. Maybe flares or something that increase your awareness.
Is it the specific class that you know absolutely nothing about right now that is going to be really annoying OR the zerg aspect of this sentence? Arguably you could insert which ever class you want there and it would be equally as annoying no?
Since stealth in this game will not be true invisibility (or at least from what we've seen) the rouge should get plenty of CC/DPS to accompany the added difficulty of being seen by anyone with LOS on him. Or at the very least some really good escape abilities to counter all of the AoE damage they will likely encounter due to the blur vision movement.
If rogues were going to have pure invisibility the argument to limit their CC and add classes/abilities that will see invisibility would be justified for balancing. However if classes/abilities/items/potions etc will be detecting this already weak invisibility during mid-late game play it seems like unfortunate balancing for a class that will eventually just get phased out for real GvG play just like it normally does in these type of games which ultimately just results in rogues being outcasts from leveling and pvp groups.
For all the people crying about rogues being gank machines this is why (since they usually have less to do than other people for all aspects of the game) - rogues get over looked in almost every MMO for PvE due to the fact other classes usually offer better DPS/CC/Life sustain and in PvP for group/guild play they are usually relatively weak from a group composition stand point which requires them to run around solo during sieges or wait for really opportune times to engage during which means they're basically useless until specific events occur.
So yes lets gimp them further and ruin them in another game, I mean hey they can detect hidden doors in dungeons so at least they'll get the occasional group invite for PvE during one aspect of the PvE experience in this game.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
No, it's not their only advantage. Those classes typically, in every mmo I've played thus far, also have top tier DPS, top tier CC and top tier Mobility. All of those boons, coupled with stealth, always equals grossly OP mechanics and makes the game unenjoyable for other players.
First what MMOs are you drawing these references from? While I will not argue the class usually comes with "top tier" DPS I think we can all agree they are generally not the top spot on a list i.e. #1. Secondly yes they may have good CC but it's generally only relevant for a single target, which for group play or even multi pulls in PvE would make them far from "top tier". Lastly I don't understand the reference to mobility, most games penalize rogues for using stealth with less mobility.
But let's get back into the main point here - Stealth is absolutely a rogue's only advantage without that they would essentially be out classed in likely every way when compared to every other class in any sort of a toe to toe fight or in terms of PvE viability for a group. They generally have less health, less armor, less resistances, less range and less sustained DPS than other classes. For PvE there will always be a better DPS option, a better melee/tankier option, better AoE CC option, better range option and better survivability option etc.
The stealth very simply makes the rogue class if you strip that away they are relatively useless which was my original point. Of course it's unenjoyable to get attacked by someone you didn't know was there but think about this - if you saw the person and could attack them first what advantage over you does the rogue have? What class are you playing? Is it fair to say that your class would beat the rogue if you could always see them? Is it fair to say your class would lose to most classes? Do you think rogues would be attacking you so frequently if they were more involved in the game as a whole instead of being over looked because there are better group characters? How often do you die from a single rogue while you're in a group? Is it not unenjoyable to die to any class or do you enjoy that simply because they don't have stealth?
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
When you stop looking at the griefing part, then you realise that they are always excluded from regular groups for literally bringing nothing to the group.
The only place they are taken are raids if they bring super strong single target boss damage - because that a lot of times matters the most in top-end pve
dungeons are about zerging with aoe as much thrash as you can, this was always the case everywhere and rogues are extremely weak with aoe (a lot of rogue variations has strong cleave though which helps in pushing content)
― Plato
What games are you pulling this from? WoW Rogues are near mandatory in M+ content b/c of their insane toolset.
Probably because WoW is a PvE game and they designed all of the classes for such. If you look at actual games that make PvP more of a center piece of design rogue's are usually near useless in them for anything PvE related, while it's true they may have some benefit to being in a group it's likely out weighted by plenty of other factors as I mentioned above.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
was literally stating i could see it being annoying, you didn't need to write a goddamn book. Sure a squad of 20 rouges all invisible would be pretty annoying.
You disagree?
You could 100% make a rouge class without stealth if they wanted to.....
Am I saying I want them removed or the ability? No. All I stated was the obvious, they are annoying in PVP.
I think a group of 20 mages would be more annoying - the book wasn't directed at you.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Playing retail wow is for many years so streamlined, because everyone has aoe, everyone has interrupt, everyone has defensive, everyone has builder and spender, everyone has random procs, everyone can use gapclosing ability, everyone can use a burst cooldown.
You know back in tbc days rogues were literally garbage for pve compared to hunters and warlocks (only two worthwhile stackable dps) and all other dps specs had some important buff for the raid - except rogue (expose armor wasnt usable with the compositions that were being run). Well until gear scaling with dualwielding and armor penetration kicked in for the last 2 raids - however funny is that nobody figured out that fury warrior scales better than rogue
― Plato
Why compare AoC, and Rogues in general, to how they were over a decade ago? We already know AoC's rogues will have the ability to find secret areas in dungeons so they'll already be valuable in groups and Intrepid could absolutely build them w/ a strong CC kit so that they're even more desirable.
I'm just saying that even w/o full invisibility stealth rogues can still be very strong, especially when paired up w/ a strong secondary.
Although if someone went Rogue/Rogue just for full invis I don't think I'd mind that.
however single target CC is pretty useless for running dungeons - yes you might love the long duration incapacitate when you have randoms that are barely able to be just as useful as simple bots, but you generally want archetypes that reliably blow things up.
Also giving value to the ability to find secret areas is premature, because we don't know the pro/con ratio of bringing rogues to dungeon groups. It very well may be the best tactic to rush bosses thus completely negating any group benefit that rogue might bring.
Also rogue fantasy for me was always being about elusive glasscannon that can blow someone up very fast, but have no fuel to fight after that (basically sub spec in wow). Not to mention that current iteration of wow rogue has unbelievable various types of scaling (1-haste overdrive, 2-acquiring between 1-3 of 6 possible buffs (can high roll 5) where you can easily rebuff for always the strongest combination of buffs for the current tuning, 3-stacking as many damage cooldowns on top of each other as possible) so in every patch you are statistically almost guarenteed that one type of scaling of wow rogue is literally among the best in any given patch).
Plus don't forget that wow rogues are running faster in stealth than without. Which is making them reap all benefits for no downside, because they can run in stealth so fast that the aoe revealing abilities are easily played around.
So far Ashes is making stealth only useful for breaking tab target in pvp and escaping mobs for free when you f**k up. This iteration of stealth makes no impact on players that don't notice their surroundings (they are literally blind even for fighters that jump on them) and those players that are watching their surroundings will almost all the time be able to open on the rogue faster than the rogue can open on them.
tldr: Ashes already is aiming to have stealth with minimal prefight impact and moving the strengths to breaking casted tab targetted spells/skills
― Plato