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Solving a Specific Rogue 'problem' with Smokebombs

AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
I was starting the Rogue Desires Compilation, reading through hundreds of comments, but one thing kept coming out. No full invisibility?

I don't know if this is confirmed, all the wiki implies for sure is that Rank 1 Stealth will have 'tells'.
I hope it's being able to see footsteps, or the Partial Visibility starting at the Rogue's Waist and phasing down so you can only fully see the bottom of their shoes, so they can use some terrain trickery.

Anyway, here's stuff as another optionset.

Rogue throws smokebomb, range is long, visibility is hindered within a radius about 2-3 T-posed Elves in diameter. Action targeted normally, the Rogue doesn't always place this directly on their target or even in a specific orientation to the target. Rogue does not necessarily come through this space, but instead is using this to manipulate the player's attention and then react to what the player does when they see the smoke cloud near them. Misdirection.

e.g. If you think the player is a straightforward thinker, put the smokebomb on the opposite side of your attack vector, make them pay attention to that, and then attack. If you think they're a jittery panicky/suspicious type, put it between you and them, and actually come up on them through it (or just off to the side a bit, so you can still see).

Another use would work with a 'Sliding Strike' ability. let's just call this 'Hamstring' (it may need to bypass the Global Cooldown for various reasons)

Hamstring lets you slide past the enemy as if no collision, to the other side, while dealing damage at the start of the ability, equal to one swing of your weapon(s). Technique is to put down a smokebomb, even right on top of you both, while in melee, instantly use this (or not use it, that's the trick) and then backstab. If your opponent turned because they think you used it, but you didn't, you succeed. If they refused to turn because they didn't think you used it, you succeed. In PvE, just make Hamstring give your opponent a 1-2s effect where they can't change their facing direction.

Finally to remove some of the guesswork in getting the benefits from these, add one close range ability 'Cutthroat', which lets the Rogue automatically get behind anyone who is hit by the ability from their side-cones and, again, prevents the target from being able to change direction for a moment.

These allow Rogues to PvX without having to actually become invisible to set up Backstabs. They just try to outplay you with misdirection until you slip up, and the skill from the Rogue side is in 'recognizing that you've slipped up and using their ability combo'.

The Rogue's other skills involve things like buffs, armor penetration, 'mercy kill' mechanics that combo with other classes' knockdowns, evasion buffs, etc, so when they use them, the other player can react, (assuming Global Cooldown on everything but Hamstring) knowing that they have a moment to reposition without it giving the Rogue any chance at advantage.

Finally, a wilder one, 'Afterimage' which is literally 'a shadow that keeps moving (or not moving) in the direction the Rogue was, at the time of ability use, while the Rogue does become 'invisible' (even with the tell) for maybe 1-1.5s. (in PvE the enemy just attacks the afterimage or 'panics' for that short period). The Rogue can use this to get better positions for the other abilities, but the opponent has a moment to react to the 'shadow disappearing and the Rogue reappearing'. Some will try to get away by dodge rolling, etc, when they see this. For double misdirection, just keep going the same way as the Afterimage so that they are looking around for the 'tell' but there is none. Combine with Smokebomb or terrain to hide the 'tell' itself.

I view this as similar to just 'getting out of a radial AoE telegraph'. You see a sign that Afterimage has happened, you have lost track of the Rogue, you assume Backstab or Cutthroat->Backstab is coming, you get out of range fast so that Afterimage wears off and you don't take that damage.

Let me know what you think. Also, help me out! I can't add this to the Rogue Compilation I may eventually make unless people agree with it mostly or help me refine it (this isn't for me since I don't plan to play Rogue this game, but my group has a rule where we won't skew the feedback by each posting separately, so help our Rogue out by discussing this one, since the other rule - where I can't add things I personally want to compilations - is transitive here...)
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.

Comments

  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    So, I read the post, I can't say I am aware what the problem referenced in the title is.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Invisibility is a weird thing, and any commitment to making it 'not perfect' or 'always have a tell' can drastically decrease a Rogue's effectiveness, because in a first person game, stealth can be about 'being out of line of sight.

    In a third person game, the player can 'see behind them'. This is a reasonable approximation of 'hearing something behind you', but assassins have gear and training to avoid making noise, and while I don't want to bring in 'real life' examples, generally their methods lead to near-instant kills.

    So the 'problem' is 'being limited in your invisibility in a game where the player's close range detection cone is actually 360 degrees', making Rogue playstyles considerably weaker if they rely on positioning.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Azherae wrote: »
    So the 'problem' is 'being limited in your invisibility in a game where the player's close range detection cone is actually 360 degrees', making Rogue playstyles considerably weaker if they rely on positioning.
    So, how effective is stealth when it is at rank 3, and what augments are available for it?

    Also, do you have a first hand statement in regards to the effectiveness of rank 1 stealth? Or just the wiki?
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    No, I don't, hence the quote marks.

    The Wiki seems to draw its information from this old Livestream, which may be out of date.

    While doing the Rogue Compilation, I found a lot of relatively heated discussion over whether or not fully invisible Rogues are a 'good' gameplay design, and therefore expect feedback around this to be contentious either way. My hope is that the above could help solve this even if the implied stance of Intrepid stands, and full invisibility is impossible due to being seen as a poor gameplay/balance decision.

    I would like opinions on the acceptability/balance of this, for non-Rogues who imagine going up against it, as well.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Stealth is not a balance issue. Ranger has track and the tracker could detect stealthed people. We don't know enough yet to determine what is poor gameplay/balance. Track from Ranger saw stealthed people in Age of Conan but the Ranger also had stealth in Age of Conan.
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Azherae wrote: »
    the implied stance of Intrepid
    They don't have an implied stance.

    Something that is very obvious to me is that you have not actually taken the time to listen to what is said in the link you provided.

    You should listen to it, perhaps even attempt to transcribe it, and then try and find out where Intrepids stance on this (implied or not) is.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Sorry, I'll clarify. And no I did not listen in detail to what was in the link, I admit that. I took what was on the wiki, and a bunch of compiled data from posts with posters who either somehow, like me, assumed that there would be a tell, or were adamantly ready to argue against any full invisibility.

    So my 'implied' was not based on that link, but on what information I had available, i.e. lots of strong hearsay and 'whatever prompted that precise wiki data'.

    If Full stealth invisibility is currently 'known' to be not an issue, the people who have 'the issue' are those who are opposed to 'being ganked by invisible Rogues'.

    I don't know who the person who put that on the wiki is, relative to anything, so I don't feel I should update it.

    I've also never seen any indicator that Intrepid is 'okay with full invisibility' and there is no implication of that in any Studio issued statement I can find. I can't even find the source for what is there now. So my apologies for adding to the confusion by implying that Intrepid has a specific stance that covers more than 'Stealth Rank 1', or even that, because, again, I don't know where that data on the wiki comes from, since the LiveStream and Wiki don't actually seem to be related at all?

    I was relying on wiki accuracy, and that may be problematic.

    All that said, you can consider this to be a discussion now targeted toward those who gave this impression, the adamant opposition to full invisibility, and those who are confident that full invisibility is not a balance issue, probably don't need to engage with it. If full invisibility is a thing, there's little concern with any of it.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Because of the corruption system, invisibility will have limitations. You won't see the same level of rogue ganks in Ashes as you would in WoW for example. We don't know how the stealth functions work and the cited reference for the wiki information does not relate to the wiki information - Steven et al state they want Rogues to be masters of stealth with no plans for other classes to be able to stealth.

    The sieges are very chaotic and even the Healer is Damage/Heal so who knows how effective stealth will be in combat. If the Rogue relies on stealth for the best damage rotations, then Rogues could even be gimped in PvP due to the class synergies and the corruption system.
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Can you elaborate on that? I don't know of any connection between corruption and invisibility. (for clarity, I'm thinking in terms of Rogue 'ganking' within PvP instances, or for example, rapidly eliminating guards of a caravan, which is the primary 'interest' here)
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Corruption relates to all open world PvP and open world PvP relates to ganking. Invisibility is often used to gank other players in open world. The point made was to show that not all rogues will be willing to go corrupt. If you are a combatant against a Rogue then invisibility is a tool used to fight. Except, we don't know anything about Rogue Skills or the Stealth Mechanics. I would hope rogue has more damage options than a backstab rotation because backstabs are often big dps and the rest of the rogue kit is minimal in comparison.

    If you don't crit a backstab you are left completely vulnerable in a fight and might need invisibility to survive. It is true stealth can allow you to ambush people but we don't know if passive abilities allow you to detect stealthed players. We do not know enough at all to make decisions about the combat mechanics and stealth. Most of the vocal opinions are people who don't want to see Rogue Gankers like in other games. The fears are valid but we can't ask for any changes when the class hasn't even been previewed yet.
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • maouwmaouw Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I want to chime in that there was talk of:
    stealth with tells + inside a smokebomb = almost perfect stealth
    which I think is a good solution to Neurath's issue of stealth for escape.

    For your current suggestion, that sounds so much harder for a player to turn 180* (or 91*?) while being able to fight back, compared to a rogue having a button to access your rear, though I agree that it's otherwise difficult to get backstabs.
    If other players also had a button to defend their rear, this would make it fair, but such a button sounds clunky (maybe it can replace Q? still don't like the sound of it.)

    An alternative that fits with your other compilation:
    > rogues have your Hamstring ability
    > defenders can "brace" to prevent backstab damage
    > rogues also have a "feint" ability that [bonus damage/stuns/debuffs] a braced enemy when used infront of them

    This way:
    defender braces if he thinks a backstab is coming
    rogues can feint to punish a misjudged brace
    I wish I were deep and tragic
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I'd want Rank 1 Stealth to be 33% Effective, Rank 2 Stealth to be 66% Effective and Rank 3 Stealth 99% effective.
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  • bloodprophetbloodprophet Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    PvP areas such as caravans ans sieges are not bound to corruption rules. They considered sanctioned pvp events. Corruption only applies to open world ganking.

    https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_corruption

    Sieges, caravans and guild wars do not use the flagging system.[46]

    In this video we see an early version of their intent of what stealth will be like. Not full invisibility like WOW but more like The Predator.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehx6mQ-EiW4
    Most people never listen. They are just waiting on you to quit making noise so they can.
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I thought they would use the invisibility functions from Apoc:

    Rank 1
    This spell turns you invisible for the duration, though it will cancel upon attacking, or through the use of any other spells.[2]
    Duration: 20 sec
    Cooldown: 60 sec
    Rank 2
    This spell turns you invisible for the duration, though it will cancel upon attacking, or through the use of any other spells.[3]
    Duration: 25 sec
    Cooldown: 50 sec
    Rank 3
    This spell turns you invisible for the duration, though it will cancel upon attacking, or through the use of any other spells.[4]
    Duration: 30 sec
    Cooldown: 40 sec
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • bloodprophetbloodprophet Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Most people never listen. They are just waiting on you to quit making noise so they can.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    They might end up using APOC Invisibility since that was a couple years after the Predator video.
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