Stealth in Action

The following video shows a first pass at stealth in R15. There are a lot of problems shown in this video, I list the ones I have with the current implementation of stealth, below.

I have also created a Stealth Redesign Proposal which can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OriTF0k-ox--_L4blwe4WDjwP1MNCv9Qqdiz0ffhTF0/edit



Problems:
1. If someone is stealthed, you should not be able to target them with alt-tab. If you do target them manually, they should not light up like a Christmas tree (you should just get to attack them and any damage they take would destealth them). But if you don't attack them and they move, you should not get a free tracking device (i.e. a blue highlight around their body).
2. Players need a way to dispel magic. For example, LIGHT. OMG if someone casts light on me one more time while I'm stealthed I'll lose it. There's no counter to this currently. It's really annoying to have light cast on you for 3 minutes while you're trying to hide. Awesome griefer move.
3. Health and focus regen currently show up on stealthed players. So too does fire damage, and I'll assume poison damage when we get that added. This defeats the purpose of steatlh and should be fixed.
4. The logs show when someone stealthed is near by - proving messages like "player X takes 5 points of fire damage". This should be fixed to not show up for players that are stealthed.
5. Night Step currently removes stealth when used. It should not. Kinda makes it hard to take advantage of that backstab.
6. Casting magic while stealthed SHOULD remove stealth. However, stealth spells should not have this effect, imo. In the video there's a point around the 3:00 mark where someone to my left casts Vanish on themselves and then casts another spell on themselves from the Moon Magic school (probably Night Vision) and they destealth!
7. Sneak Attack should be more effective with daggers and short swords. Give them a purpose please. I'm level 34 (I think) in the video, and I have a 30 stength, using a 5 stack of Double Slash I did about 20 points of damage using a short sword. Horrible.
8. Sneak Attack requires you to be stealthed to work, so it should be a lot more effective than it currently is. As you can see in the video I used a 5 Stack Sneak Attack TWICE and didn't even come close to killing this other player.
9. At the 5:00 mark you can see that I'm VERY CLOSE to the other player, but I still can't hit them because I'm "not in range". What really annoys me about this is how much range something like a polearm gets. I can be half-way across the map and still get hit with a polearm. But if I'm using a short sword I have to on top of the person to use any skills. If you watch my log, see how many times you can count that I'm "out of range" even though the client tells me I'm in range. I've fought pvp matches where the whole time I've thought I was hitting the person I wasn't, and the log said I was out of range the entire time.
10. Auto-Attack ruins stealth. If I do get close enough to someone, I risk having auto-attack de-stealth me. Which means I can't use sneak attack, and oh yeah all the points I spent on stealth related stuff are now pointless, thanks auto-attack! My recommendation would be to disable auto-attack if you're stealthed. At the 5:20 mark in the video, you can see me actually attempt to cast Vanish so I can use sneak attack again, but auto-attack immediately takes me out of stealth making it pointless.
11. The day/night cycle is out of balance (or at least it would seem that way). If I had to guess, I would say that day lasts about 45 minutes of every hour and night lasts about 15 minutes of every hour. This is important because the stealth skills last longer and work better during the night.
12. Sneak Attack should not work when you're not stealthed, it currently does work, just for less damage.
13. Bug: Sometimes weapons do not stealth properly. I have seen it happen to other people attempting to Vanish and use Shadowform. I have seen it on my character trying to stealth too.
14. Bug: Sometimes when I'm in combat mode and I attempt to use Shadow Form or Vanish, I will NOT stealth. I have to get out of combat mode, then re-enter combat mode and then I can stealth. You can see this happen at about the 3:50 mark in the video.
15. Stealth timers are too short. To do anything really "stealthy" you probably need a minimum of 2 minutes for one casting - even in sunlight. Remember the strength of the visual effect is less in sunlight, so we're really just talking about having "time" to actually do something. Having only 1 minute is really pushing it past being challenging and into more of it being annoying.
16. Being behind someone doesn't appear to do extra damage as it should. I don't know if this hasn't been added yet, or if the video is faking us out and my opponent is actually facing me the whole time. But I should be doing monstrous damage to this AFK standing with their back to me person - and I'm not. I'm doing 1 point of damage in some cases.
17. Lastly, and this is non-stealth related, the hovering icons on the combat tool bar are very helpful and nice, but they LAG during pvp. I'd like an option to have them removed if you have another player targeted. I find that when they're on they contribute to lag while trying to stack skills and spells.


As you can see from the video, being stealthy is a lot of work. This video was originally over 26 minutes and I chopped it down to capture the non-waiting around most important parts. The extra 20 minutes was really just a lot of stacking and trying to get into position while not attracting attention from other open-pvp players that would enjoy stomping me into the ground because I'm not using a "best build" and I'm not level 70 or above.

All in all, stealth was pretty frustrating for R15. I hope in the future we can make it far less so.

 

1. So long as the character hasn't detected the stealthed character. (Which should be possible at some point).
2. There is a spell planned to dispel Vanish / Shadow Form. Not implemented yet?
6: Just a note.. 2 reasons for this.. 1: if magic causes a visual effect it's light setting off fireworks saying "hello I'm here" 2: magic has a verbal component (or should, it always has in Richard's games and he's talked about using words of power before).
7. Disagree but we've had the sneak attack discussion before. However, I think daggers and short swords should be more effective overall anyway.
8. Point of difference. Stealth shouldn't be required to sneak attack. Only that you aren't detected. Possibly a difference in definition of 'stealth'.
10. Perhaps any opening attack from stealth should be considered a sneak attack? Otherwise agreed, you need to be able to control when auto attack kicks in.
12. So long as the character doesn't know you're there, there's no reason for it not to work.

 

number 17 theres an option at end of game options to turn off tooptips in hotbar

 

That's good to know. I actually really like them, especially when testing (we have a lot of changes). But it's hard to have them on during PVP combat where speed and timing is important. I think there needs to be a way to have them automatically turn off when you're in combat with another player. Like you get targeted by another player and poof they're gone, I want that option.

 

Numbers 11 is by design.

=(

People complained about the game being too dark. So a couple of releases they changed the cycle and said so in the instructions. *sigh*
They kept the day length and made dusk and dawn longer at he cost of night. Effectively nerfing moon magic vs sun magic , even before it was implemented... I remember since I got a wee bit upset at the time.

 

Right, that's exactly what I assumed too. That people cried about it being too dark and so now we have spotlights in our basements and midnight lasts for 30 seconds. It's going to be real fun trying to find reagents in moonlight.

I think they'll change this closer to release, but I wanted to capture the impact it's having right now.

 

Well it'd better change I think.. once the lighting is better balanced as we have more options for light sources. Though I personally wouldn't mind a hat of night vision. Probably have to stick to potions though.

 

As I watch the video in the OP again, I can't help but think that part of the problem is all these innate defenses. Here's a person that is AFK and their basic build is so stuffed with HP and innate defenses that I can't even do half damage to them before they come back from the bathroom or goto the door and pay for pizza (or whatever they were doing).

I think sneak attack should ignore armor and innate buffs. Want to defend yourself? Don't get sneak attacked.

 

If you want to ignore armor you almost need a separate skill for that. I mean if you think about it, you have to strike where the armor isn't. Your weapon can't just pretend that armor isn't there.. unless it isn't there. So we're talking targeted attacks at specific locations.

On the other hand.. if it's a sneak attack one might argue that you have that extra moment to place an attack at one of those places.

Thought: Perhaps instead of extra immediate damage, sneak attacks cause a bleeding effect? Considering for a moment the places you'd strike to avoid armor would normally cause someone to bleed out. I find I have to ask a question though as to how a magical attack would gain a sneak bonus? Hmmm

 

I think sneak attacks should do massive damage.

They're already designed to be (rightfully) very restrictive. You have to be stealthed, you have to hit someone in the back, you have to use sneak attack. That's a ton of skill points, timing, and luck involved in coordinating all of that. I have no problem with a 5 stack sneak attack one shot killing someone.

My character is only level 34-36 (I can't remember exactly where he's at) and as you can see if he doesn't do 75% damage on his sneak attack, he's not going to win any fights against anyone. I realize that players at level 70 or higher may not have this problem because they have all the innate defenses and extra strength and intelligence. But that's really a balance issue outside the scope of stealth. (I don't like that and I think it's a poor way to design combat for the long term when everyone becomes level 100 and something)

The reason I think sneak attack should be so powerful is that it's high risk. You're really out there on an island saying "I'm going to kill this person in 1 or 2 hits" and if that doesn't work I'm going to run. So ideally you'd have poison blades that would help finish off your opponent after the initial strike. You'd then fade off into the night before anyone could challenge you to a "fair fight". Which you'd probably lose because you're only designed for one thing, quick powerful attacks that leave you opponent no room to counter you.

 

As I've said in other topics I think the issue with innates are that there are two types. One which is used to enhance glyph use and one which is always 'on' (in some cases depending on equip).

The unbalance / OP comes from those who are always 'on'.

My personal opinion is that all should require glyph use. Even if some have a long buff timer.

That way if someone has an active glyph I can see that visually and adjust my actions accordingly.

My pet peeve is the innates that affect base stats and deflection/avoid damage without a glyph buff.
If the earth armor would come from a 5min buff spell that was visible they wouldn't be so hated.

 

Oh not saying it should be weak.. but was if it was massive bleeding? I mean it should be something everyone would have to take seriously.

Realistically speaking, killing someone with one or two attacks doesn't bother me. My concern with that though would be how well it could be balanced. There are a lot of factors here.

If it's one thing I absolutely hate.. that really gets under my skin.. and it doesn't matter if it's PvP or PvE.. is that one super ability you can't really do anything about. Getting killed and left with the feeling that I couldn't do a damn thing about it... is by my definition.. NOT FUN. (if only I could make that flash annoying colors as well).

If sneak attacks are powerful enough to kill in just one or two strikes.. I better bloody well be able to do something about getting sneaked up on. An equal investment in skill should give me decent detection odds in the very least.

 

Oh also wanted to comment I don't want to see stealth as the ultimate PvP build.. which could easily happen if not properly designed or implemented.

 

I totally agree with you. See my design doc in the OP for some examples of what might be done.

But remember we already have skills and spells that can one shot kill you. Themo Lock has done what, 240 to 300 points of damage in one shot? I know I've been killed MANY times in PVP in two hits, and that's just open field battling.

So I agree with you we need counters and ways to block everything. I'd just like to see more dynamic risk vs. reward options. I think sneak attack with all its restrictions is a good way to accomplish that.

 

I would hope the current situation is be balanced later. I can't imagine constant 1-2 hit kills. There's good reason why combat in most games take more effort for anything that isn't just there as kill fodder. Boss fights for example.. as well as in other media be it movies, tv, stage.. it needs to entertain.. and 1 shot kills after awhile are not that entertaining.

 

Thank you for that information, i have been struggling with the Tool tips since march 2014.

 

I brought it up after r13 and they fixed it for r14 So the struggle was real before that but remember to check the game options sometimes they add things with each release

 

there is a Show hidden spell which will show anyone in Stealth.

 

Stealth looks cool in this first pass, in this video. I have yet to try it myself. Although I'm curious to see the difference between magical stealth and the human truly skilled in stealth.

Personally I like how the stealth seems to work with magic though. It should be quite good, whereas I imagine the natural stealth skill being a bit more tactical (like finding cover and using our own judgment to find ways to be kept from being discovered). Either way thanks for the video. I'll try it next.


Also I would just like to say I cannot finish watching this video because the moments of stopping to stack the glyphs drives me nuts. If anything it exposes the need for an auto stack this video does. There is way too much micromanaging of the skills going on.

 

Good feedback on the stacking. I agree, it's annoying and cumbersome. But it's important to remember that it's currently working as a balancing mechanic too. So if we refine that process and make it easy, we run the serious risk of making stealth too powerful, and if we nerf it, then it becomes less meaningful. Balance is key here.

From the first developer design documents, the devs showed that Combat Tree stealth will be innate. So Camouflage and Move Silently will compliment the magical stealth while at the same time not requiring more glyphs to stack (but using up more skill points in the process).