Idea For Stealth Class Capabilities

Nathaniel

So I was thinking of ideas for how stealth would work for classes like rogue. I think that World of Warcraft's version of stealth is way too overpowered in the sense that you cannot see the rogue or druid that is using stealth unless they are super close to you or you are using an ability with a long cooldown. So I think doing that would be horrible for this game! Please do something fresh and different. I saw a version of this game's stealth and thought that it was okay, but I want to hear input on something else I thought of. How about instead of just turning invisible, stealth can instead involve shadows and/or camouflage?

Like how about the rogue can mimic the appearance of something in order to blend in, like pretending to be a barrel and then busting out when someone comes nearby to get a surprise attack? Or even mimic one of their allies? I think it would be amazing for stealth classes to be able to do that, adapt to their surroundings in order to blend in. That is true stealth. Imagine a slowly moving box or barrel, it would be realistic and funny for a fantasy game because you would be going around and have no idea what would pop out at you. And on the topic of shadows, I think this is where the rogue should almost be invisible and easily blend in, getting an advantage during the night and utilizing dark areas for their stealth. Adding more thought and imagination into it would make the game more fun rather than having an ability that you press and go "Okay I am invisible now, no one can see me no matter where I am and it lasts until I cancel it or I am damaged." That is boring. I could see powerful invisibility being like that on a long cooldown and set duration through a caster ability, but I still dislike it.

I would love to hear thoughts on this idea.

McShave

I think it would be reasonable for rogues to adopt the colours of the environment, like turning grey in a cavern dungeon, dark at night, green when in a forest. I am not a fan of them just turning into a barrel or a bush or something, that's just over the top comical.

Disabling the Rogue's nameplate would go a long way with this.

I would be ok with the type of invis we have seen before from Intrepid, just polished up a bit. I still want to stealth up behind a bad guy and backstab crit them for over half their health.

Dreoh

What if they turned into an overturned cardboard box

Azherae

My last related idea was that the upper body of the rogue could be invisible, just to represent their ability to camouflage, but have an increasing visibility gradient from the waist down so that you could notice their feet. Or maybe even just when they move.

At least this way a Rogue could literally 'buy shoes that have the right color for blending into an area' to get close to full stealth, while not letting most people just 'randomly spin the camera to look for them'.

Games with that 'distortion effect' don't actually end up being very effective alternatives to full invisibility because either the player figures out a way to remain entirely cloaked, or the tendency of the human eye to detect even tiny blips of movement and distortion, gives the stealth away.

This way you could also make better use of shorter cover, by hiding your feet behind rocks, grass, or whatever, and if you sneak up perfectly behind a player, since your feet will be the last thing to come into view in most camera setups, you could get into range in time to at least heavily limit their reaction options. At least force them to use up their Dodge cooldown, or movement ability.

Dygz

It's not going to be just a barrel or a bush illusion because all players will recognize whatever those options are fairly instantly.
That being said... I like to try to actively hide in bushes even when I don't have Invis.
Seems to me that Rogues should probably have Invisibility while Rangers have Camouflage - if the devs have Camouflage in the design.

Mimicking other player characters seems like it would be a bigger coding nightmare than the devs will want to go.

Dreoh

Dygz wrote: »

Mimicking other player characters seems like it would be a bigger coding nightmare than the devs will want to go.

That depends on how spaghetti code it is, it could be very simple if they've set up their systems well enough

If not, it would be hell to implement lol

Galux

Give them a few different alternatives of stealth instead of just one!

An object such as a barrel, box, chest.. Something that a person might would want to interact with. It would be a comedic stealth approach which would result in many laughs & paranoia towards such objects. Even the devs could have fun placing such objects in obscure places just to mess around

Chameleon stealth mode (toggle on/off) where you take on the color of your nearby surrounding like gaining a shade of dark green while in a bush or shade of gray standing in the shadow. For this to work the nameplate would have to be disabled for everyone while in chameleon mode.

I like the idea of atleast having a chance to notice the Stealth class who wants to ambush me, just a movement in the corner of my eye could give away their location.