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Stealth and stealth alternatives
CluckingChicken
Member Posts: 54
In an effort to get a clean discussion going, I would like to create another discussion on the matter, as the other thread has gotten quite out of hand. The point of the thread is simple:
Those who want stealth to be in the game, state how you would like it implemented, and why.
Those who do NOT want stealth to be in the game, state your reasons why, and if there are any compromises or alternatives you would prefer.
Please keep the discussion civil and easy for others to read.
My opinion is that there should be stealth mechanics. Thieves/assassins/scouts/hunters/etc, have been a core and intigral part of many MMOs, FPSs, RPGs, as well as MOBAs and RTSs, so I see no real reason to exclude them from this game. It seems like many people against stealth are those who are worried about getting killed unexpectedly. This has been the primary use of stealth classes for most games, and it is balanced by the fact that they would most likely lose in an all-out fight or against opponents who are aware of their presence. I agree how this could cause frustration with users, and believe an alternative could be found. The first of which was posted in the other thread:
1. They could be primarily used as scouts to keep an eye on the enemy and look for potential threats and weaknesses. Using this alternative, they perhaps could be visible from a fair distance. They would not be designed as an ambush class, but merely as someone who can take a peek over that hill at the enemy fort, but getting too close would result in their detection. Outside of this, the class would operate like any other ranger or small weapons melee fighter.
2. Remove the large burst damage commonly found in most "rogue" classes. Use stealth as more of a means to pick and get into a target's melee range. Being careful during solo play would keep them from getting an advantage over you, putting you on equal footing once combat has been initiated.
3. Give the class a passive ability to stealth only when hiding in bushes, trees, and other forms of cover when out of combat. Simply hide their name and make them blend in with their surroundings, not making them completely invisible. For this alternative to work, bushes and trees would need to fairly common in the battlefield, otherwise people would simply avoid them completely. Make players think about the terrain they're in. "Okay, should we take the shortcut through the forest, risking a gank, or should we go around and hope we reach our keep in time before the enemy breaches the walls?" This alone adds more strategy to the terrain and could lead to many interesting encounters.
Post your thoughts and opinions below, but again, please keep it civil. Tearing at eachothers throats just makes things unnecessarily messy and complicated for Mark to read. Also, please refrain from posting "I want/don't want stealth" if you don't have a reason to share with us.
Comments
Stealthers in my experiences do a great job with slowing down reinforcements and giving intel when enemy groups are running into a zone or to a keep etc. As well as causing distractions. As for being a strong supporter of the old school style DAoC stealth game, I would like to see an archer, assassin, and Minstrel support return :-) I think it would be great if the only way to get information as to where the enemies are would be from Guard spam or, Stealther Intel (this could be from any class but stealth would be the obvious choice). So, no flames or cross swords on a mini-map.
Burst for assassins is not bad as long as they have leather and or less HP to balance it. I think Ra's like Vanish and Mastery of Stealth would need to require you to go deep into a stealth line to acquire. This would then give less opportunity to spec for l33t dps. So, if you had an RA that gave you + to crit etc. you would be easier to detect when approaching or if someone was in your area because you don't have the points to bump stealth.
There are many ways to make a stealth class both balanced and relevant without changing the classes as we have known them IMHO.
Stealthers are going to hate me saying this. But if I'm playing a melee dps type class, assuming equal gear if I catch a stealther out of stealth I should win 100% of the time. If the same stealther jumps me from stealth, it should be a 50/50 chance, and end up being a good fight.
Like I said, stealthers will hate me for saying this, but it's just my opinion.
Persinally I would like to see the following: -
1) A sniper class that can sit over a dungeon and headshot enenmies as the group progresses. I am not sure how it would work in practice but would love to see this.
2) Stealth that doesn't rely on the 'magic can make anything happen no matter how intensely stupid' fantasy idiom. You actually have to keep to shadows and get a real bonus for flanking. This crits are hard to acheive, but when you do you get really good damage. The hiding in plain sight thing is just non-sensical.
I figure that the only way that kind of stealth could work is if the stealth class was able to move more swiftly than the other classes automatically, and player wasn't allowed to zoom the camera beyond a certain point (ie not so far that you can practically see in a 360 degree circle around you).
As said well in the other thread, stealth must not be the only way to run solo.
If you have perma-stealth that gives complete invisibility, stealth will become the only way to run solo and that takes away player choice.
I think something along the lines of "predator" style stealth would work well.
Not invisible just transparent. Moving makes you easier to spot, but staying still makes you near invisible. Those with a keen eye will still be able to spot you due to refracted light.
Man, you gotta quit making these blanket statements that are clearly wrong. When did stealth in Daoc make it impossible to solo? There are tons of soloer's who are nonstealthers.
Tons of classes solo'd in daoc effectively. Friars, Heretics, Bards, Reavers etc
I think there should be some kind of stealth in the game, but it's not a deal breaker to me (even though I am a soloer). I guess my opinion is that....
A) If you have stealth (as in invisibility) you should also have anti-stealth in some form (the ability for non-stealthers to specialize in hunting down stealthers).
I think my favorite was the infiltrator in Planetside 1 (very different from planetside 2). They have permanent stealth, even whie shooting, but become semi-transparent when moving or shooting and they are very easy to kill. But they are not glass cannon's. The only kind of guns they could use were pistols which hit for much less than the other classes that wore armor, and they could carry a very limited supply of grenades. So if you are any other class and you see them before they see you, you will usually win the fight if it's head on. But infiltrators can sneak up behind someone and kill them with the pistol or a knife... though not always. They could also lay mines (with engineering skill) and use detonatable explosives.
It took a lot of patience though, if you wanted to get into the enemies base and it was full you had to move in increments (stop and wait for the enemy to run by hoping they don't bump into you or use an implant that allows them to see invis for a short period of time). Any movement would make you somewhat visible. There was collision between players, so if you are standing somewhere completely hidden and someone runs in your path they bump into you and know you are there.
Because of the carrying capacity, you are very limited in what you can do in a fight head on, but with the right tools and abilites, you could really stir up the hornet's nest. I would like stealthers to be more like "infiltrators" than the typical rogue. They shouldn't just be an invisible thug, but should be more like spies (getting behind enemy lines) that can be deadly when sneaky but not so much when caught off guard. And they should of course be armed with lots of "toys".
It's kind of hard to compare planetside 1 classes to any other game that actually has classes, because they weren't really classes in planetside. Anyone could "spec" for different abilities if you had the points to spend, but you were limited by your armor, which defined the size of gun you could use and the amount of other gadgets and ammo you could carry. It was the infiltrator suit that made you an infiltrator, but you could change that out at an equipment terminal.
i think stealth characters should only get there name removed from above there head and not actualy be invisible
then if a player is in a a area in which they could hide it would work
i remember when i was playing wow and following a thief through a wood thinking how amazing it would be if certain characters didnt have there name above there head if they didnt want it
plus it makes stealth more relistic ive always thought it was crazy that somone your fighting just disappears infront of you
and stealth working in open areas
another options of stealth would be for a ranger who losess his name after remaining still for 10 secs but as soon as they shoot there name appears the same could happen for the thief when they attack maybe on a cooldown of 5-10 secs
the characters can still be seen they are not invisible but with no name above there head
it would be like real hunting for the ranger and real stealth for the thief
plus in big battles because the thiefs name isnt show they could be missed in the crowd making them little assasins runing through the groups
Add a once-an-hour ability that could turn the tide in favor of the stealther (or a thirty-minute one that will let him get away), and I'll agree with you. For a stealther, knowing once he's caught out of stealth he might as well /sit and wait until he's zero HP is just boring, especially considering how easy it is in most games to break stealth. There should be some way out available, however rare it is.
Anyway, I don't think there needs to be an alternative to perma stealth. I've played both stealthers and non-stealthers in most games and honestly, they're usually not too hard to deal with, though they can be effective in specific jobs and do have their place.
There was, it was called Vanish.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
I wouldnt mind this for all classes. I like how Darkfall did this, you have to hover over the player to see the name.
There should never be a 100% chance that you're getting facemelted because one of your main abilities is off. If that happened, then the tradeoff would be insane stealther damage that nobody would like.
Allow players to choose which kind of stealth they want, permanent, or temporary, but they have to sacrifice something, I'll give a few examples of what I mean and you should get the idea.
1) Permanent stealth rogue (lets call him assassin) that does massive damage assassination routine. Wears basically no armor at all, instead, his equipment is designed to minimize noise. He would excel at ambushing stragglers, and would not be able to hold his own very well in a melee brawl, unless he got the jump on his victim and pulled off his crippling assassination routine.
Excellent at infiltrating behind enemy lines and gathering valuable information and sabotage.
Permanent stealth decreases normal movement speed by X%.
When a permanently stealthed rogue is standing still they are nearly impossible to detect.
2) Permanent stealth rogue (lets call him shadowblade) that doesn't wear armor, but doesn't need to pull off his assassination routine in order to deal dps effectively, and thus his assassination routine would not be as powerful. This rogue would be capable on a melee assist train, and proficient at hunting the previously mentioned "assassin", but would still suffer in a melee brawl with a more heavily armored opponent due to wearing little to no armor.
Excellent at infiltrating behind enemy lines and gathering valuable information and sabotage.
Permanent stealth decreases normal movement speed by X%.
When a permanently stealthed rogue is standing still they are nearly impossible to detect.
3) Temporary stealth rogue (lets call him Culexus Assassin) that wears light armor (lets say studded grade) that does a massive assassination routine, but like the classic assassin, does not perform well on an assist train or in a melee brawl, but due to heavier armor, is not as squishy. This assassin might specialize in running with his group and then stealthing up when the enemy is engaged so that he can go perform an assassination attempt on an enemy VIP.
Not so great at infiltration due to temporary stealth.
Temporary stealth does not decrease movement speed OR possibly even encrease it by X%.
This rogue might get an in-combat vanish ability on a long cooldown.
4) Temporary stealth rogue (lets call him voidwalker) that wears light armor (studded grade) that doesn't need to pull off his assassination routine in order to deal effective dps, and thus like the shadowblade has a less powerful assassination routine. This rogue would be perfectly capable of joining an assist train and hold his own in a melee brawl.
Not so great at infiltration due to temporary stealth.
Temporary stealth does not decrease movement speed OR possibly even encrease it by X%.
This rogue might get an in-combat vanish ability on a long cooldown.
I never played a stealther in daoc but I'd be pretty disappointed if they were pre-nerfed or axed entirely due to biased opinions on what is fair. Yes they frustrated me too, but I won't join this mob of stealther hate and pre-nerfing.
Stealth similar or exactly like it was in DAoC was fine; and this coming from a non-stealther
The key is to ensure there are classes that can counter stealth and be stealth hunters. In DAoC Valkyrie's were excellent stealth detectors with thier pulse. And I also agree with anohter poster, if you give steal a big burst damage you need to reduce their defenses whether that is reduced HPs or worse evade/parry. It's all about balance.
Just wanted to say I find what Hokibukisa posted above to be very interesting. I think CSE should definitely include stealthers in the game and ensure there are tradeoffs; not exactly like the post above but something along these lines.