Rogue stealth/invisibility. How would you design it?

Basically the title. I hear alot of mmo players aren't too fond of true invisibility/stealth. Thoughts?

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Songcaller wrote: »

I'd rather not have full stealth in a risk vs reward system. Partial stealth/camouflage is acceptable but full stealth would allow to much freedom of movement with decreased risk.

It’s not really decreased risk if people can build their Characters to detect Stealth.
Which should be the case in any decent RPG.

Songcaller

Dygz wrote: »

Songcaller wrote: »

I'd rather not have full stealth in a risk vs reward system. Partial stealth/camouflage is acceptable but full stealth would allow to much freedom of movement with decreased risk.

It’s not really decreased risk if people can build their Characters to detect Stealth.
Which should be the case in any decent RPG.

People can build their toons to stack resistance but the risk to the toon remains. Full stealth is a cheese mechanic which I've used to perfection on old ganking toons. Your theory doesn't apply in a few games where your theory could apply either. Namely, you can detect invisible entities but the range is very limited. Thus, Rangers at full range with full stealth is the perfect cheese class in a risk/reward system.

CROW3

Dygz wrote: »

It’s not really decreased risk if people can build their Characters to detect Stealth.
Which should be the case in any decent RPG.

Would you provide this option to all classes (with appropriate tradeoffs) or just some classes?

Songcaller wrote: »

Rangers at full range with full stealth is the perfect cheese class in a risk/reward system.

Why? How would this be different from a non-stealthed ranger at full range? They’ll break stealth as soon as the first attack is made. Especially with a calibrated TTK for 30-60s?

Hinotori

Full stealth when completely still. Distortion when moving, give mages a magic eye ability to unmask rogues within 10 meters of their view range. So mages can uncover them for people to nuke but they have to step into the danger zone.

Songcaller

CROW3 wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

It’s not really decreased risk if people can build their Characters to detect Stealth.
Which should be the case in any decent RPG.

Would you provide this option to all classes (with appropriate tradeoffs) or just some classes?

Songcaller wrote: »

Rangers at full range with full stealth is the perfect cheese class in a risk/reward system.

Why? How would this be different from a non-stealthed ranger at full range? They’ll break stealth as soon as the first attack is made. Especially with a calibrated TTK for 30-60s?

I thought I'd heard the ttk has been reduced to 6 seconds...anyway, you can cheese the tactic at very low level and kill a lot of targets before targets can respond. When there is a pack of rangers with full stealth you can drift in and out of conflict with very high precision and gain very high produce.

CROW3

Songcaller wrote: »

I thought I'd heard the ttk has been reduced to 6 seconds...anyway, you can cheese the tactic at very low level and kill a lot of targets before targets can respond. When there is a pack of rangers with full stealth you can drift in and out of conflict with very high precision and gain very high produce.

6s TTK for avg mobs, not players.

I’m still not following how this is a cheese tactic. You’re in stealth, you attack target 1 in a group of 3, target 1 dead, you’re still totally visible with two targets closing fast. You can’t restealth until out of combat. Where’s the cheese?

Also, when there is a pack of any class, they will coordinate attacks to take down other players, that’s not cheesing gameplay that’s just open world pvp gameplay.

Can you help me understand your concern? 🧐

Izzle123

Otr wrote: »

I would prefer full invisibility during night when moon is covered by clouds, away from light sources, while not moving or moving slowly.
I would prefer also ability to change weather, cast fog, darkness...
And to have illusion spells and clones.

As a lifetime rogue player, I completely agree. I love stealth games and would prefer if stealth was stronger at night and if the environment affected it. Nighttime should feel more dangerous and full stealth in broad daylight feels unintuitive.

Dygz

Songcaller wrote: »

People can build their toons to stack resistance but the risk to the toon remains. Full stealth is a cheese mechanic which I've used to perfection on old ganking toons. Your theory doesn't apply in a few games where your theory could apply either. Namely, you can detect invisible entities but the range is very limited. Thus, Rangers at full range with full stealth is the perfect cheese class in a risk/reward system.

Full stealth is only a cheese mechanic when there is no counter to it.
My theory applies to RPGs.
Your theory applies to PvP games.

Rangers with high Perception and high Tracking should be able to detect even Rangers with high Dex and high Stealth.
They should also be able to Mark those they have detected.
Poorly designed RPGs will not have mechanics for that.

Dygz

CROW3 wrote: »

Would you provide this option to all classes (with appropriate tradeoffs) or just some classes?

Definitely not all Classes because Ashes is Rock/Paper/Scissors.
Also Ashes is supposed to be balanced for an 8-person group with one of each Primary Archetype. If there are 2 Primary Archetypes with Stealth, I would expect there might be two Primary Archetypes that can detect Stealth.

But also, high Wisdom/Perception should be able to counter high Dex/Stealth.
So, stats are also a factor.

And then we’d have to see what Augment Schools might offer. So maybe detect Stealth is also available via Social Orgs/Thieves Guild.

(I think the 6 second TTK is for the average solo mob.)

Diamaht

It comes down to who is responsible. If the rogue is totally invisible it's everyone else's job to manage detection. If it's camo or distortion it's the Rogues job to stay hidden.

So should the Rogue have to build for stealth and account for terrain, or should all other classes have to build and equip for detection?

CROW3

Would you want a single archetype to have both stealth and detect stealth options? Or would you propose those skills only be available to mutually exclusive archetypes?

I can see the argument both ways -
Pro: who understands how to detect stealthies better than stealthies?
Con: Sucks that only stealthies can detect other stealthies leaving the rest of us in the cold.

Edit: thx on the TTK clarity.

Diamaht

CROW3 wrote: »

Would you want a single archetype to have both stealth and detect stealth options? Or would you propose those skills only be available to mutually exclusive archetypes?

I can see the argument both ways -
Pro: who understands how to detect stealthies better than stealthies?
Con: Sucks that only stealthies can detect other stealthies leaving the rest of us in the cold.

Edit: thx on the TTK clarity.

I'd go for mutually exclusive. Rogues having stealth/stalking duals is actually kind of appealing.

I suppose they could have strong "perception" to increase detection chance but I would leave true detection to support classes since it's more of a "power".

unknown

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Myosotys

Settite wrote: »

Basically the title. I hear alot of mmo players aren't too fond of true invisibility/stealth. Thoughts?

Ok for full invisibility is there is a way to detect invisibilty with a skill.

Nerror

I don't want full invis for sure. I am not sure if the planned way in Ashes is the best. I'll have to play with it ingame really. Taking damage should break the invis, so you can't just wade through AOE and attack from stealth.

Azherae wrote: »

Fully invisible down to around mid thighs, fading in to about 50% at feet.

I think this is interesting, if nothing else. I would like to see it in action though.

Settite

Myosotys wrote: »

Settite wrote: »

Basically the title. I hear alot of mmo players aren't too fond of true invisibility/stealth. Thoughts?

Ok for full invisibility is there is a way to detect invisibilty with a skill.

100% it would b too much if there was no way to detect and invis rogue. Something like mage light from eso would be good. And ofcourse something for rangers to find them aswell atleast

Githal

Diamaht wrote: »

It comes down to who is responsible. If the rogue is totally invisible it's everyone else's job to manage detection. If it's camo or distortion it's the Rogues job to stay hidden.

So should the Rogue have to build for stealth and account for terrain, or should all other classes have to build and equip for detection?

I definitely think that the right way is for the rogue to build for stealth and account for terrain.
Because in the other case: if Rogue engaging out of stealth is too OP - then everyone needs to build against stealth which enforces particular builds and reduces the freedom of choosing builds, and in case rogue engaging out of stealth is not that OP - then rogue will feel bland as a class.
And yes i agree that in a group of 8, you may choose 2 to build vs stealth, and you will say that the other 6 will have freedom to build whatever they want, But if this is the way things are designed, you will end up with enforced builds vs other classes/mechanics, and in the end you will get everyone in the group with enforced build, to counter all kind of mechanics. and you may even end up not being invited to groups if you are not with particular build.

Tho i am not against the rock scissor paper design for the classes. So if a mage or any class with mage secondary archetype can detect invis rogues from a far and can keep their whole group safe from the rogue (if he play good, so skill based), then i am not against this. But for this the mage should not be forced to invest in stealth detection and sacrifice other stuff

Githal

Also i have 1 question:
What happens if you are attacking some mobs with AOE spells, and some not pvp flagged rogue with 10 hp enters your aoe spell while invis and dies from the dmg? ( tho same question applies if not invis player enters your aoe spell). Will you be flagged as corrupted?

Nerror

Githal wrote: »

Also i have 1 question:
What happens if you are attacking some mobs with AOE spells, and some not pvp flagged rogue with 10 hp enters your aoe spell while invis and dies from the dmg? ( tho same question applies if not invis player enters your aoe spell). Will you be flagged as corrupted?

First, I think you have to hold down a key while attacking to hit green players. You have to deliberately force it.

There is also going to be a setting you can toggle, where you won't hit, heal or buff other players if they are combatants, to avoid turning yourself into a combatant as well. So a flagged, stealthed rogue can't be sneaky and get you to flag like that.

Azherae

Settite wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Fully invisible down to around mid thighs, fading in to about 50% at feet.

Assuming people don't want full stealth.

In my experience the 'distortion' type stealth doesn't work well enough because of how human vision works, but hiding the upper body changes the shape of the thing the mind is reacting to, which seems to have some effect.

That sounds interesting. Do any games currently implement it in this way? I'd imagine it'd work well in places with more ground clutter but less so in a desert.

It has other specific purposes based on the game's overall design, in most cases it does a good job of allowing players to simulate being prone without the drawbacks of that.

It allows players to hide in groups very slightly more effectively than the motion distortion against most people's eyes, forces players to think about 'cover' (waist height visual obstacles of many kinds, even certain mobs, water, etc) and allows buildings with ramparts to more easily hide players who are moving around on them. Any situation where you're looking up at a ledge or angle and would only be able to see the player's upper body anyway.

It also simulates the idea that our characters would be able to 'hear footsteps' relatively clearly in many situations. I've got no issues with distance based on/off stealth either, but I prefer this way because there are more interesting ways to get quite close to players, with it, and play with terrain features and what they offer you, as the stealthed character, whereas full stealth is more of a binary win button.

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