Release 15 Instructions

Maybe there could be a line of sight. If you enter the line of sight of another player, an NPC or a monster you automatically become visible - except if you are behind cover of course. But standing right in front of someone should definitely make you visible.

 

That seems like a reasonable feature to add to the cover system to me. Although, I can see players spinning around as they run to reduce risk of being snuck up on. Complicated indeed.

 

hmmm no love for the archer yet, tried one today, won't be playing one till they fix the weight of the arrows and introduce quivers to carry them, couldn't keep up with it, ran out of arrows too fast, and because of the diff arrows i had to carry, wasn't able to loot cause arrows added too much weight, so hard to make money. oh welll will have to stick with tank for now.... and when do we get to make more than 1 char? Would be nice if i can use my second char slot for now. Other then that, Great JOB.

 

I hope we can find a way to avoid the Hunt for Red October "Crazy Ivan" defense.

 

Stealth in every game i have played fully stealthed you and all that you wore.... and only way someone could see you if you specked right in stealth, is if they had a detect spell.... or they were a few lvls above you... and even then they had to be very close to you to see you.... I hate the line of sight .... makes it impossible to sneak up on a mob to surprise it.. (But standing right in front of someone should definitely make you visible.[/quote]) No it shouldn't if you are same lvl or less, that's why you need the reveal hidden spell, that's what it is for. I plan on investing in that one..... lol

 

I think a good way to compromise might be to have stealth work less effectively and eventually force a destealth the closer you are to someone, period. Since we don't know which way a person is turning or not due to latency. Those really good at stealth would get more time, but nothing lasts forever.

 

) No it shouldn't if you are same lvl or less, that's why you need the reveal hidden spell, that's what it is for. I plan on investing in that one..... lol[/quote]

If stealth would be a magic spell I would agree. But basically stealth is a person just sneaking around. Why should he/she get invisible by sneaking? No master thief could sneak in the brightest day on open field right in front of someone. At least not without magic.

 

The problem with having stealth mechanics too realistic in a game with abilities and skills that, ultimately, emulate reality instead of simulate it is that stealth becomes exceptionally difficult to use. This would be fine if I could lunge out of a haystack a la Assassin's Creed and straight up deal 9,999 damage and insta-kill someone; that would make the reward for being a hardcore ninja worth it.

But to go through all those hoops of fire for someone to glance my direction and AllNames pops a big fat name/guild combo over my head is a bit too much, not to mention all the effort put into sneaking up to the guy and I still have to Yu-Gi-Oh him to death in combat after the fact. Realistic stealth but not realistic combat or any other feature doesn't mesh well.

 

Stealth is both a magic spell and a skill in SOTA....

Under the combat tree, and Light Armor, there are two skills (Camouflage and Move Silently) that let you INNATELY stealth yourself basically all the time...but not as well as the spell versions.

Under the magic tree, Moon Magic, there are two skills (Vanish and Shadow Form) that let you cast spells for limited stealth. These work better than the Light Armor innate versions.

There's currently only one way to unstealth someone, you have to use the Reveal Spell under Sun Magic.

 

One thing I hope they take into account is light. When I used to play D&D, we have a human Magic user who cast invisible on self, and then pick up his coin with continual light so he can see. He wanted to sneak past some bugbear but had to also see where the pit traps where. He got so mad when 10 spear came flying towards him, aimed at the light. If you are in the dark and trying not to be seen, how is moving light source supposed to be explained.

I may be shooting myself in the foot since there is a lot of gear that has a light source attached, but I hope wearing and/or carrying light sources do help in spoiling stealth.

 

so when can we get 2 character slots? I would like to see the new character creation stuff. without deleting my main one... perty please

 

Stupid question. Is this just on the QA server?

Don't see anything about new combo's? But I did read through real fast.

 

And this is why we also should have the ability to cancel skills (extinguish your light spell early for example).

 

I'm sure if you click on them and engage them in some way (per Chris's comments) it'll reveal them, too. Like that old bug on UO with auto-attack and hiding that would auto-swing your character out of Hiding/Invisibility if the mob or player was still adjacent or passed by you. So many fail moments...

 

And an healthy and well-thought debate it must be.

This is one of those features that can make or break a game.

Seriously, I love the stealthy, light armored, dexterity driven classes. I try to play it in every game that has that class/spec/skill branch. Always did, always will.

But design-wise and security-wise they're nothing short of your worst nightmare ever.

For instance: do you plan to send the coords of the stealthed character from server to client, trusting that the client won't show the hidden enemy to the player?

Well, you definitely should not. It's hideously easy to inject code in the graphic card driver and reveal the mesh in the viewport. Once the client knows about an entity, as game designers you must assume that the player knows too. Mark my words: the wasp nest must either left alone, or kicked from inside a tank.

I wish you the best of luck, and the highest blessing of Mother Wisdom. You need plenty of both.

(And thank you for the wonderful update! I'm counting the hours till the release!)

 

I totally agree. I hope the tab targeting only works if you look for your opponent and see them. Otherwise somebody can just tab tab tab all the time in a PvP zone because they know other people are there. Especially if there was a person who was hidden before.

That sort of takes the fun out of hiding. Although I don't want everybody to take up the hiding skill either. If there is a way to make hiding a more difficult skill to acquire forcing those to be more specialized, or by making hiding more synergistic with certain skills than with others. Maybe firemagic, sunmagic, earthmagic etc.. don't work well together with stealth and people with those skill sets find it more difficult to hide even if they have the hiding skill.

Same could be true with weapon skills. If a player is wielding blugeons, staves, Long bows, and polarms they shouldn't be able to move silently very nimbly. Maybe even swords it would be better if the longer sword and the twohanded swords should cause some minus to hiding as well.

Therefore the only people that don't get a negative modifier to stealth could be those with short bows, lunar magic, short swords/daggers, death and life magic... something like that to make stealth a complimentary skill to other skills that make sense to use stealth. An archmage that has sun magic and fire magic and can cast earthquake might not be the type of person that meshes well with stealth, and therefore have an innate negative modifier for choosing skills that are in opposition to something like stealth.

 

Another way to unstealth somebody is to look closely at your surroundings. If stealth isn't perfect then looking closely should be the most realistic approach to unstealthing unless you have a sun mage with you.

I'm concerned about the tab thing because it is easy to click tab with your pinky as you're walking around through a zone. This is something a person walking alone in a shardfall especially might do. It wouldn't be fair for the stealth person to be caught by somebody tabbing when they are coming from behind.

Maybe let the tab thing only work with close stealth people like Chris said, but only if the stealthed person is in front of the character (within a reasonable field of view of the character). Even then I hope there is some kind of % chance of being discovered. Although the thought of everybody being a stealther is horrifying. Maybe limiting the encumbrance of a stealther would be a good addition too, so stealth just doesn't work for you if you carry too much stuff.

 

When putting those sorts of arbitrary limitations in an open skill game, you're effectively creating classes.

As I mentioned above, I've played stealthers for over a decade in all games I can, but when stealth is simply not fun to play or offer significant advantages, I forego it. The last freeshard I played I didn't run stealth because that's 170-ish points that only benefited archer dump groups, thieves and the random lone PKer. It didn't offer me the advantages stealth did on production UO; there were far better options. Once I engage, hiding/stealth aren't useful anymore, at least not in taking my opponent down. It can give me an advantage at first, sure, and definitely some strategic options, but I still gotta' drop the guy now that I'm unstealthed. Making it harder to stealth with anything more than kitchen knives just means I'll put those points to something else, as I'm sure many, many others would do, too.

Stealth should be balanced on its own merits first. If it's too powerful, find out why; them carrying a warhammer or shooting fire magic versus dual-wielding short swords and using death magic is likely not the reason why.