WAR - another newsletter - more RvR, less sport PvP

[eldaec]

Stealth ranged class for the Alliance (er, Order)?  Brilliant.  Ask blizzard how well invisiblepyroblast mages worked in beta. 

They are both melee classes. And archers were never really a problem in daoc, at least not after critshot got toned down.

[Nebu]

They are both melee classes. And archers were never really a problem in daoc, at least not after critshot got toned down.

Solo archers, yes.  They still blow in groups.  Of course it was way worse when they changed archery and 6 archers would simultaneously crit shot a single target. 

I'd still love to see stealth removed from any game.  It's not fun for anyone but the person with stealth.  Getting attacked by a stealther (especially something with stuns) is decidedly unfun. 

[Hellinar]

I just don't want to see stealth in MMO games until they implement a Thief-like sub-game (where the Theif is weak, but stealthy, and they make their living/progression based upon how good they are at being stealthy, rather then how well they choose victims to gank.

 Now thats a stealth class I would like to play. It still wouldn't work though unless you soft cap the max experience/loot acquisition rate of the thief. Tuning the game to what the very best player can do with 100 hours a week available is what makes all the potentially interesting classes dull.

[Hoax]

Stealth ranged class for the Alliance (er, Order)?  Brilliant.  Ask blizzard how well invisiblepyroblast mages worked in beta. 

/thirded

Shadowbane stealth sort of worked, but its really not worth the effort and balance headaches.  This is incredibly true when you are just ignoring the lore to jam stealth in.  Nothing about Witch Hunters (WHO USE GUNS!112ONEWTFUX!!) or Witch Elves has anything to do with stealth in WH lore that I'm aware of.

As I said recently in this thread, nothing I hear about this game is making me respect Mythic's direction.  It all reeks of ea-style "for teh monies" timid game design.  They haven't made a single choice that shows some type of creative courage, instead they seem content to try to create a Frankenstein's monster of "successful features" which is a recipe for fail.

[Ratman_tf]

I'd still love to see stealth removed from any game.  It's not fun for anyone but the person with stealth.  Getting attacked by a stealther (especially something with stuns) is decidedly unfun. 

I dunno. If there are tools for detecting and beating stealth, then it can be fun to ferret out the sneakers before they get their crits in.

Stealth doesn't bother me so much. Stunlock from WoW Roges pisses me off something fierce.

[Megrim]

I still don't get why game designers insist on giving the stealthers crits and stuns. The ability to be invisible, go so someplace unseen is a huge advantage in and of itself, especially in a pvp+ game. Save the stuns and things for the frontline melee classes (it makes more sense in my mind that a guy in plate-and-mail weilding a large hammer would stun someone upon hitting, more then anything else), and leave stealth for intelligence/intelligent work.

[Fordel]

Every MMO I've played, Stealth has been simultaneously overpowered and underpowered at the same time.


If the Stealther can use stealth to his advantage, then the person on the receiving end is fucked and pissed off.
If the Stealther can not use stealth to his advantage due to early detection or 'weak' stealth, then the stealther is fucked and pissed off.


At best, everyone is pissed off half the time.

[Calantus]

Do I win?

Everybody steals from D&D so it doesn't count. It's like stealing from Tolkien.

[Typhon]

[...]
At best, everyone is pissed off half the time.

Well said, and I think this is what most of the stealth-nay-sayers are getting at - we're just tired of the noise and think that their are too many other game features that provide quite a bit more value then "everyone is pissed off half the time" that could use more lovin... if they need something to spend more time on, get the collision detection rock-solid, so that formations, flanking and battlefield maneuvering actually mean something in combat.

Yeah, that's what I want, make combat FUN, before even thinking adding intelligence/counterintelligence classes (in DAOC, the stealthers were frequently sent away from the group to try to locate the enemy, leaving them less of an opportunity to get RPs via the normal path).

[tmp]

I still don't get why game designers insist on giving the stealthers crits and stuns. The ability to be invisible, go so someplace unseen is a huge advantage in and of itself, especially in a pvp+ game. Save the stuns and things for the frontline melee classes (..)

Well that's the thing, these stealthers usually *are* melee but minus heavy damage mitigation. So the idea is generally to give them stuns etc to let them deal enough damage in the beginning so they have somewhat equal odds vs heavy armoured "normal" melee in damage done/damage taken race. It has side-effect though on the long range classes that rely on range as their way to do the same (get enough damage in to stand the chance once that melee gets close) ... since in that sort of fight you have the melee class able to drop enough damage at start of fight to make it one-sided. Guess it could be countered by giving the casters higher ability to detect stealth, then it's gamble of either getting in range and killing caster fast, or getting spotted and having one's ass fried equally fast.

[Hellinar]

Guess it could be countered by giving the casters higher ability to detect stealth, then it's gamble of either getting in range and killing caster fast, or getting spotted and having one's ass fried equally fast.

Trouble is, with current technology, it comes down to your RNG vs my RNG, and whoever gets the good dice wins. What's needed to make stealth work is for position to really mean something. The caster out in the open has a really low chance of getting stealthed on, but he is vulnerable to being picked off by an archer. Pull back into the shadows, and he is going to be hard to hit at range, but easy to jump. Making that work well likely requires more server power than the current MMOG could handle though.

[Venkman]

What's needed for stealth to work is for stealth to be based purely on landscape altogether. I shouldn't be able to go invisible in broad daylight. I need shadows, trees, other cover.

You don't actually need to implement abilities nor RNGs nor even skills for that. You just need to turn off the overhead name plates, allow people to take various positions (crouch, lie down, etc), remove auto-targeting key spamming (requiring mouseclick), and enforce line of sight as well as directional actions. None of that is new tech. You coulda pulled it off in UO.

That basically simultaneously gives everyone the ability to both stealth and detect, and makes stealth a player skill rather than a dice roll. You just avoid or look closely in the shadows/heavy-cover areas. Maybe (like, if you absolutely gotta), add an initiative factor to people jumping outta shadows.

The idea that stealth needs to be a skill like Fireblast or swinging a sword has always felt foreign to me outside of the context of D&D.

[Aez]

What they really need to do is to remove the "oh so annoying" balance philosophy of "Rock, paper and scissor".  I still have nightmare from DAOC and I know most PvP mmorpg use it.  It's stupid.  How is it fun to have 95% chance of loosing to a Rogue if you are a mage?  It's even worse with stealth and speed buff since those with these abilities can evade every loss situations while those with out them are simply screwed.

MMORPG should follow Sirlin Yomi Layer design philosophy (http://www.sirlin.net/archive/yomi-layer-3-knowing-mind-of-the-opponent/).  The actual philosophy is probably not credited to him but it's where I first learned about it.

[tmp]

Trouble is, with current technology, it comes down to your RNG vs my RNG, and whoever gets the good dice wins. What's needed to make stealth work is for position to really mean something.

They seem to get little better at it, including both range and position in the equation... e.g. mobs (and also players) in LotRO have reduced stealth detection if the enemy isn't in their cone of vision, and apparently also take into account if the stealthed entity is moving.

What's needed for stealth to work is for stealth to be based purely on landscape altogether. I shouldn't be able to go invisible in broad daylight. I need shadows, trees, other cover.

Problem with that, shadows trees and other junk is usually optional in the graphics settings. Even if it wasn't, there's always some asshat to develop 3rd party packet sniffer that sits next to game client and reports where all these stealthed people really are... to fight that the awareness of trees, shadows and other cover bits would need to be on server side and it's then up to server to just transmit "now you see ninja here oh wait now you see nothing" stuff. Something that AoC is about to implement, if i read it right?

[sidereal]

(ideas)
That basically simultaneously gives everyone the ability to both stealth and detect, and makes stealth a player skill rather than a dice roll. You just avoid or look closely in the shadows/heavy-cover areas. Maybe (like, if you absolutely gotta), add an initiative factor to people jumping outta shadows.

The idea that stealth needs to be a skill like Fireblast or swinging a sword has always felt foreign to me outside of the context of D&D.

No worky.  Clientside hacks require that you filter out stealthers at the server side, not the client side.  Otherwise there'll be a hack available 48 hours after launch that makes everyone in shadows glow bright magenta.  Server-side filtering requires basing the result on information available on the server, which traditionally has been character skill rather than player skill.  There could be an improvement by taking into account the lighting and terrain, but that's been too expensive up to now to make it worthwhile.  If I was writing an MMO (and WHY AREN'T I?!) I'd do an expensive precalculation of stealthability based on shadows from static lighting and maybe 6-8 sun positions, then bake that information into the map files.  So you can quickly look up how dark an area is on the server.

Also, insert massive player-ability versus character-ability flamewar here.  One could argue that a 60th level ranger should be able to see sneaky players fairly readily, even if the player is blind as a bat.

[tmp]

What they really need to do is to remove the "oh so annoying" balance philosophy of "Rock, paper and scissor".  I still have nightmare from DAOC and I know most PvP mmorpg use it.  (..)

MMORPG should follow Sirlin Yomi Layer design philosophy (http://www.sirlin.net/archive/yomi-layer-3-knowing-mind-of-the-opponent/).  The actual philosophy is probably not credited to him but it's where I first learned about it.

If you write down the example provided in that article, it gets interesting:

* throw counter beats throw
* slow move beats throw counter
* block beats slow move
* throw beats block

... sounds familiar? Basically RPS fits very much the "yomi layers" design, it just has limited number of elements to utilize but even with these few options you can second-guess your opponent to your heart's content with it.

edit: for that matter the author adresses it here: http://www.sirlin.net/archive/rock-paper-scissors/

[Merusk]

Yeah, RPS works just fine.. so long as it's not class-based.  Make it ability based and spread those abilities out so each class has a few then it works good.. say "class x always beats class y" and it becomes ass pretty damn quick.

[Venkman]

Problem with that, shadows trees and other junk is usually optional in the graphics settings.

This sorta addresses both you and sidereal:

I'm not talking about stealth as a calculated skill that makes a player's avatar go invisible for some X duration in Y setting. I'm talking about just using the environment to one's advantage.

This would require that certain current settings aren't controlled by the player. Right now shadows are merely treated as a graphical accoutrement, something for higher end computers only. But occlusion itself can be purely based on world design (queue UO again where players could "hide" in trees and behind houses). And current computers can handle some amount of cast shadows depending on how the world itself is designed (I feel it's currently wrongly treated as an all or nothing thing for the most part).

My baseline here is COD4 (Crysis ideally, but we're aways away from that), environments in which players can (and do) use environment to their advantage. Smallish map FPS games with post-AoC graphics sure, but to be able to hide in grass doesn't require uber machines, and you can do it even with toned-down graphics settings. It just requires some of the stuff I talked about (no name plates, no spamming keys for auto-targeting) as well as the maps being designed for it. Doesn't take DX10 to let players crouch behind a rock. You'd also want a bit tighter control on camera manipulation (no Godeye AC2-like pull-out-to-cosmos), like maybe just an over the shoulder view that can be zoomed a bit but not insanely so (or you make that an achievable skill, like a general's scope or somesuch).

There's a lot more that'd need to be done of course. And it does invite some new types of hacks. But driving towards a different solution is still probably better than the rps paper tiger of chasing "balance" on 10 year old ideas.

[Megrim]

I still don't get why game designers insist on giving the stealthers crits and stuns. The ability to be invisible, go so someplace unseen is a huge advantage in and of itself, especially in a pvp+ game. Save the stuns and things for the frontline melee classes (..)

Well that's the thing, these stealthers usually *are* melee but minus heavy damage mitigation. So the idea is generally to give them stuns etc to let them deal enough damage in the beginning so they have somewhat equal odds vs heavy armoured "normal" melee in damage done/damage taken race. It has side-effect though on the long range classes that rely on range as their way to do the same (get enough damage in to stand the chance once that melee gets close) ... since in that sort of fight you have the melee class able to drop enough damage at start of fight to make it one-sided. Guess it could be countered by giving the casters higher ability to detect stealth, then it's gamble of either getting in range and killing caster fast, or getting spotted and having one's ass fried equally fast.

But that's the thing. In my mind (at least) this kind of linear balancing is entirely wrong. The sly stealthy class isn't supposed the be able to stand up to the heavy melee in any way shape or form. It's why it is the stealthy class and not the heavy melee class, in the first place.

[tmp]

I'm not talking about stealth as a calculated skill that makes a player's avatar go invisible for some X duration in Y setting. I'm talking about just using the environment to one's advantage.

Hmm well i've included the server-controlled invisibility in that system because anything else just begs to get hacked and as such would get hacked. And that's really all that i can say in response, that it begs to be hacked like the FPS monkeys been doing since well, long time.

(personally i do like the idea, it just feels infeasible with the human douchebag factor added. Like say, the communism. Not that i like that one as i like this stealth concept)

[tmp]

But that's the thing. In my mind (at least) this kind of linear balancing is entirely wrong. The sly stealthy class isn't supposed the be able to stand up to the heavy melee in any way shape or form. It's why it is the stealthy class and not the heavy melee class, in the first place.

I guess it could work in game where stealth-based characters develop through entirely different route that requires them to avoid encounters with foozles and rewards for it accordingly. Otherwise the sly stealthy class gets screwed three ways to sunday because the mobs to grind on in any basic quest are balanced towards the average power level of the heavy melee etc and thus leave the stealth character with no way to beat them. And consequently less XP, less loot, less money in the generic DIKU environment.

And i suspect it's much easier to give stealth class the stun/crit chain than it is to build complete alternative advancement path... hence we get to see the former rather than the latter.

[Venkman]

(personally i do like the idea, it just feels infeasible with the human douchebag factor added. Like say, the communism. Not that i like that one as i like this stealth concept)

Yea, that'd happen no doubt. Client program power and all that. And even without the hacks, I still wonder if it'd solve the fundamental issue.

We just need someone with time, money, and a publisher, to take the chance

[amiable]

I thought this was a funny take on stealth balance (at least in WoW), I think it is a bit old.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJWeWMKfa3g

[Phred]

Was a charge ability like in WoW too difficult to program? 

You mean the charge ability WoW stole from DAoC?

You mean the charge ability Blizzard's Diablo 2 had even before then?

You mean the charge ability that's bugged every second patch?

[HaemishM]

My baseline here is COD4 (Crysis ideally, but we're aways away from that), environments in which players can (and do) use environment to their advantage. Smallish map FPS games with post-AoC graphics sure, but to be able to hide in grass doesn't require uber machines, and you can do it even with toned-down graphics settings. It just requires some of the stuff I talked about (no name plates, no spamming keys for auto-targeting) as well as the maps being designed for it. Doesn't take DX10 to let players crouch behind a rock. You'd also want a bit tighter control on camera manipulation (no Godeye AC2-like pull-out-to-cosmos), like maybe just an over the shoulder view that can be zoomed a bit but not insanely so (or you make that an achievable skill, like a general's scope or somesuch).

Hell, for that matter, Battlefield 2 does it quite well. You just have to have enough stuff to hide in or behind to make stealthing worthwhile, and if you stick your head out at the wrong time, BLAMMO! You don't really even have to add Crysis level graphics to do it well, in fact, if you drop the graphics requirements to say BF2 levels, it can still be done attractively.

Making stealth a no-skill dice roll thing in a PVP game is only fun for the people who can use stealth. IMO, it's really not worth adding, especially in the Warhammer universe that doesn't really have a corresponding stealth class in lore anyway.

[Johny Cee]

Just from my DAoC experience, I've pretty much completely discounted environment based stealth.  Radar use (3rd party program that detects all visible characters) was pretty endemic,  immensely difficult to stop, and completely invalidates non-server stealth. 

Environment based stealth can be completely hosed by playing around with your graphics settings or your monitor brightness as well.

I wouldn't mind a "invisible" style stealther in War if they divorced the invisibility ability from the high alpha strike/high damage rogue archetype.  Make it a scouting character/gameplay,  where you achieve by reporting enemy units and movements.  The TF2 Spy style of stealth/infiltration would be interesting as well, though you got me how you'd implement it.

[HaemishM]

I wouldn't mind a "invisible" style stealther in War if they divorced the invisibility ability from the high alpha strike/high damage rogue archetype.  Make it a scouting character/gameplay,  where you achieve by reporting enemy units and movements.  The TF2 Spy style of stealth/infiltration would be interesting as well, though you got me how you'd implement it.

Hell, you could have certain points that have to be clicked on by a character with the "Scouting" ability. Clicking on the point (only clickable by scouts of course) would give exp/rp's/whatever unit of advancement measure. If you really wanted to make it challenging, make it so the point couldn't be tabbed onto, and that you had to be within a certain distance to be able to click on it, or even click on it and have a progress bar before you get the scouting exp.

That kind of gameplay is possible, it just requires thinking "outside the box."

As for 3rd party programs killing environment-based stealth, BF2 HAS radar built-in, and it doesn't really invalidate the use of stealth.

[tmp]

As for 3rd party programs killing environment-based stealth, BF2 HAS radar built-in, and it doesn't really invalidate the use of stealth.

BF2 also allows you to shoot the brains of the other guy without having to get within melee range.

[WayAbvPar]

You say that like it is a bad thing.

[tazelbain]

That kind of gameplay is possible, it just requires thinking "outside the box."

The early designs for WAR seems outside, but the latest addition it's clear that they are retreating to the box.  It's very disappointing.  My guess is there are "research" costs associated with uncoventinal ideas.  As their deadline gets more tight, they are going back to already proven ideas to save on time.

[Nebu]

As their deadline gets more tight, they are going back to already proven ideas to save on time.

This will be their downfall.  If it's "Like WoW only different" then people will just keep playing WoW. 

The more I read, the more I'm hoping for DAoC v 1.1 (I wouldn't dare hope for v 2).

[amiable]

Am I the only person who kind of liked the gameplay aspect WoW?  To be honest if they developed a game that was as polished as WoW, a bit better balanced, and focused on PvP instead of grindy-ass PvE, I would be happy for a long, long time.

[Nebu]

Am I the only person who kind of liked the gameplay aspect WoW?  To be honest if they developed a game that was as polished as WoW, a bit better balanced, and focused on PvP instead of grindy-ass PvE, I would be happy for a long, long time.

I'd be happy with that too, but let's be serious.  If Blizzard can't manage it with all of their resources and experience, then who can?

[HaemishM]

As for 3rd party programs killing environment-based stealth, BF2 HAS radar built-in, and it doesn't really invalidate the use of stealth.

BF2 also allows you to shoot the brains of the other guy without having to get within melee range.

So would archery. Or "LIGHTNINGBOLT!LIGHTNINGBOLT!"

[tmp]

So would archery. Or "LIGHTNINGBOLT!LIGHTNINGBOLT!"

Yeah i meant that as in, the radar and such pretty much blows the stealth for anyone who can't shoot from that bush 50m away. So that it didn't mess up things in BF2 in that regard doesn't show it would be of no consequence in game where people stab one another with pointy sticks.