A different tack: stealth does it NEED dedicated classes?

meddyck

The discussion on stealth has been going on with the assumption that there would be 1 or 2 classes that would be stealthers: archers and assassins. Why not instead make stealth something any class can spec in? Then any class could play the role of scout moving around the frontiers invisibly or semi-invisibly and reporting on enemy movements.

There would of course be tradeoffs. If you specced stealth, you'd have fewer spec points to spec in your other class abilities. Perhaps stealth would only work if you wore leather or cloth too. You could play a stealthing tank but not in chainmail or plate.

Then they could add a 5th class archetype (after healer, tank, caster, singer) that is the rogue. This class would dual wield swords or daggers or equip various types of bows. It might also be able to use poisons.

But neither the rogue or any other class would get high damage openers from stealth with stuns. Instead the higher you specced stealth, the better your stealth would get and the farther away you could detect other stealthers. At certain levels of stealth, you would also gain the ability to climb walls and take less damage jumping from high places.

Kaneth

From what I have read, TESO, will have the option for anyone to stealth (similar to how Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim stealth worked), but it's going to be more worthwhile to use if you are a class who specializes in stealth.

Now, what if anyone could Hide. Basically, stealth as long as they aren't moving, and on a limited duration. Movement would either break the stealth completely, or make you a bit more opaque while moving so you are more easily detectable. Now your traditional stealth classes, like rogue types, or certain archer types, could become even less opaque but still somewhat visible while moving in stealth. You could even put a distance requirement on it for how visible or invisible you are.

morfidon

No No no NO NO no no no no.

Each class must be unique. People must feel who they play otherwise you won't feel your character at all.

meddyck

Originally posted by morfidon

No No no NO NO no no no no.

Each class must be unique. People must feel who they play otherwise you won't feel your character at all.

So only tanks should use a sword because if a number of classes can use a sword then tanks won't feel unique? Stealth is an ability. In some games like DAOC it is confined to archers and assassins, but it doesn't have to be.

The other thing Mark says a lot is CU should be about meaningful choices. Should I use some of my spec points to get enough stealth to hide effectively at the cost of reducing my spell damage on my caster? That's a signficant choice.

I would be fine with archers and assassins being the only stealth classes like in DAOC, but there's clearly a lot of reluctance on Mark's part to have that system in CU. I'm throwing out the idea of giving all classes the option to stealth with the drawback of reducing points available for other abilities and requiring wearing the lowest armor types as a way to get stealth into the game that might meet his concerns.

Niix_Ozek

Originally posted by meddyck

Originally posted by morfidon

No No no NO NO no no no no.

Each class must be unique. People must feel who they play otherwise you won't feel your character at all.

So only tanks should use a sword because if a number of classes can use a sword then tanks won't feel unique? Stealth is an ability. In some games like DAOC it is confined to archers and assassins, but it doesn't have to be.

The other thing Mark says a lot is CU should be about meaningful choices. Should I use some of my spec points to get enough stealth to hide effectively at the cost of reducing my spell damage on my caster? That's a signficant choice.

I would be fine with archers and assassins being the only stealth classes like in DAOC, but there's clearly a lot of reluctance on Mark's part to have that system in CU. I'm throwing out the idea of giving all classes the option to stealth with the drawback of reducing points available for other abilities and requiring wearing the lowest armor types as a way to get stealth into the game that might meet his concerns.

Would be a failure to give everyone stealth, doesn't exactly follow the rock paper scissors philosophy much.

shadevice

if 100% of the world voted for every class having stealth it wouldnt be in the game. 

meddyck

Originally posted by Niix_Ozek

Would be a failure to give everyone stealth, doesn't exactly follow the rock paper scissors philosophy much.

I don't see what it has to do with rock, paper, scissors anymore than allowing casters to wear plate which Mark has suggested will be in the game does.

audizmann

I vote for one or two dedicated stealth classes. I would not like to see stealth healers, stealth buffers, or stealth AoE damage groups.

 

Anti-stealth, on the other hand, I think could be interesting to have open for any class to pursue (at a cost).

Odaman

I'd rather have assassins than archers with stealth. Picked 2 because there was no option for it.

Tumblebutz

Two comments:

1) QUIT STEALING MY IDEAS FOR A THREAD, BISH!

2) This is a really interesting idea.  I thought about something similar a long time ago: allow ALL lines to be available to ALL classes, only at different costs, i.e. Tanks could spec Stealth at twice the cost Archers may have to pay.  Casters could spec Dual Wield at three times the cost Light Tanks had to pay, etc.

 

fanglo

First off I'm getting extremely tired of all the new stealther topics on these forums. People are so into stealth they are pretty much monopolizing this topic on the front page. Things like speed classes, crafting, healers etc... threads are getting buried. IMHO it's fine to have 1 or 2 threads about stealth but when I come here and there are 2-3 new stealther threads per day and people are constantly bumping their own threads to keep them on the front page, it's time for mods to step in and delete these monstrosities.

There is more to CU than this whole debate of stealth and how to implament it. Some awesome suggestions are getting buried and may never be seen because when MJ opens up the forums he see's mostly stealther topics and most likely moves on. 

So, I chose the option in the poll nuke stealthers from orbit, but that was becasue there was no option for Nuke Stealther threads from orbit.

KappenWiz

Stealth Logger! I'm sneekin' up on de trees.

 

EDIT: On the serious side...problem with letting everyone buy certain abilities, but at different costs and benefits, is it's very difficult to make it worthwhile and plays right into min-maxing, which is going to be highly sought out in an RvR game.

Niix_Ozek

Originally posted by meddyck

Originally posted by Niix_Ozek

Would be a failure to give everyone stealth, doesn't exactly follow the rock paper scissors philosophy much.

I don't see what it has to do with rock, paper, scissors anymore than allowing casters to wear plate which Mark has suggested will be in the game does.

Stealth is different than armor. There was always something about seeing an enemy ride in from the distance and confront you one on one, giving everyone stealth will end up ruining that moment as both players will just stealth when they see each other and hope for the opening, unless they make stealth pointless, in which case why not just let assassins and archers have it.

I can say some of the best moments of playing DAOC was the surprise  of being popped by a stealther. I would hate to ruin that by not giving stealth, or make it too flooded by having everyone do it. Really think TESO is making a mistake doing this, but again they are catering to everyone so it will be a washed out WOW style class/system.

I am very curious about his talks about casters wearing plate, every game I have played ends up being min/max'd so after 6 months there are generally only a few ways to template out a character and I don't see why games still try to get away from this, it is inevitable which i'm fine with but others arn't I guess.

I don't know why you need to give players options to play a caster and plate, there will be consequences for it as he's said and the min maxer's will quickly figure out if its worth it ( likely won't be as it could get tiresome to balance ), and after that the only people doing it will be bads.

meddyck

Originally posted by Niix_Ozek

I don't know why you need to give players options to play a caster and plate, there will be consequences for it as he's said and the min maxer's will quickly figure out if its worth it ( likely won't be as it could get tiresome to balance ), and after that the only people doing it will be bads.

I completely agree with you. But that's why I think it could work to give stealth to all classes. It would be a rare caster or tank who would want to spec stealth high enough to matter at the cost of having lower damage. It would be an option for the rare player who really wants to scout around on his caster, but most players would ignore it just like most players will ignore the option to wear plate on their caster if it similarly reduces their spell effectiveness.

As for you other point about people using stealth to gain first strike, that's a fair point. That could be overcome by maybe having the first 10 or 15 levels of stealth spec only grant you increased stealth detection. Then a player that had stealth spec 1 would not be able to actually stealth.

Niix_Ozek

Yea that could work, but I still don't like the idea of any class being able to pop out of the shadows... I don't hate stealth, but some classes could make for OP openings, being able to load up a long nuke in "perfect" position would be so OP as a caster-stealth...

Also ruins the uniqueness of being a scout archer / assassin as everyone could do it.. This game seems to go against the "everyone can do everything" so i'm 99% sure we won't see stealth across other classes so i'm not too worried about being disappointed by it.

I just really hope they have 1 assisin class that can spec melee, archery, stealth, and that class can specialize how they want to play, mix of bow / melee, hard melee

I hope they don't have ridiculous openings, maybe just make whatever attack you do from stealth have increased chance to crit, which would encourage stealthers to want to line up a side/back / front depending on their spec line from stealth.

I guarentee I got ganked a lot less from stealthers because they couldn't gain position for the opening because without it they got crushed. That's why I never minded them even thought they would rape if they got it off

Tumblebutz

Originally posted by fanglo

First off I'm getting extremely tired of all the new stealther topics on these forums. People are so into stealth they are pretty much monopolizing this topic on the front page. Things like speed classes, crafting, healers etc... threads are getting buried. IMHO it's fine to have 1 or 2 threads about stealth but when I come here and there are 2-3 new stealther threads per day and people are constantly bumping their own threads to keep them on the front page, it's time for mods to step in and delete these monstrosities.

There is more to CU than this whole debate of stealth and how to implament it. Some awesome suggestions are getting buried and may never be seen because when MJ opens up the forums he see's mostly stealther topics and most likely moves on. 

So, I chose the option in the poll nuke stealthers from orbit, but that was becasue there was no option for Nuke Stealther threads from orbit.

It's a volatile issue and one very important to many prospective players.  Why would you even consider restricting someone's ability to make their opinion known? 

fanglo

Originally posted by Tumblebutz

Originally posted by fanglo

First off I'm getting extremely tired of all the new stealther topics on these forums. People are so into stealth they are pretty much monopolizing this topic on the front page. Things like speed classes, crafting, healers etc... threads are getting buried. IMHO it's fine to have 1 or 2 threads about stealth but when I come here and there are 2-3 new stealther threads per day and people are constantly bumping their own threads to keep them on the front page, it's time for mods to step in and delete these monstrosities.

There is more to CU than this whole debate of stealth and how to implament it. Some awesome suggestions are getting buried and may never be seen because when MJ opens up the forums he see's mostly stealther topics and most likely moves on. 

So, I chose the option in the poll nuke stealthers from orbit, but that was becasue there was no option for Nuke Stealther threads from orbit.

It's a volatile issue and one very important to many prospective players.  Why would you even consider restricting someone's ability to make their opinion known? 

Exactly, so when the stealther threads make up 1/3 of all topics on the front page it is restricting the opinion of anyone wanting to talk about somethign other than stealth. Does the stealther community really need new thread after new thread on the front page with very little difference from the older threads? I'm not saying don't share your opinion of what stealth should be, but why not share it on one of the other stealther threads already active and seeking input.

The ironic problem is that by stealthers fragmenting their ideas across so many different threads it actually makes it more difficult for those ideas to get to MJ. Realistically speaking MJ might look at a few of these threads but there is no way he is going to look through all of them. If there was just 1-2 threads it would be a lot easier for MJ to read all the ideas people are throwing around. Just my take and now I will stop bumping all these useless stealther threads.

Homitu

Players choose classes and playstyles precisely because of a specific mechanic or a particular image that class carries.  Once you give a class or archetype-defining mechanic to everyone, suddenly no classes truly represents that archetype that rogue/thief/assassin players look for.  

That said, done correctly, you can make every type of skill available to everyone, but they'd have to be all but worthless unless players specialize in those skills.  The Elder Scrolls series is famous for presenting skills in such a manner, as was UO.  You skill up the skills you want to use.  They become more powerful, and eventually define your "class," if you will.  Done in this way, players feel a lot of control over their role.  The players themselves make stealth define their characters and, therefore, preserve a sense of class identity that would otherwise be thrown out the window with an "everybody can do everything" system.  

Vargur

It is important to remmeber that stealthers usually sacrifice either dps, armor, hitpoints, or a combination to gain stealth. I am not opposed to other classes speccing stealth, but then they have to make some heavy sacrifices in other areas.

In a skill based system it could be a path/spec-line/career, but since CU are being designed with classes, it makes more sense to have dedicated stealthy ones.