Dear SSG, what is your position on stealth play?

[redoubt]

Do you like where the stealth game is today?

Thanks.

[slarden]

Doesn't the fact that they killed it without mercy give you the answer?

[krimsonrane]

Do you like where the stealth game is today?

Thanks.

Among other lesser reasons, that is why I let my decade-long subscription go without renewal.
After all these years of playing rogues and excelling in stealth style, I just could not take the complete indifference toward rogues by devs anymore.
Once I read this years producers letter and saw the same thing happening again I was done.
Maybe I'll come back another time after a few updates. Fo now, I'll play what I want and if DDO can't provide it then I'll go elsewhere with my time and money.

I've seen them screw over, step over and overlook this basic class too many times.

[janave]

Among other lesser reasons, that is why I let my decade-long subscription go without renewal.
After all these years of playing rogues and excelling in stealth style, I just could not take the complete indifference toward rogues by devs anymore.
Once I read this years producers letter and saw the same thing happening again I was done.
Maybe I'll come back another time after a few updates. Fo now, I'll play what I want and if DDO can't provide it then I'll go elsewhere with my time and money.

I've seen them screw over, step over and overlook this basic class too many times.

This is not a single class issue, while I agree Rogues need this to function most,
my Ranger, Monk, and even to lesser extend Wizard builds use stealth..., with multi classing stealth could be added to dozens of fun character builds.

[Shadow_Jumper]

Among other lesser reasons, that is why I let my decade-long subscription go without renewal.
After all these years of playing rogues and excelling in stealth style, I just could not take the complete indifference toward rogues by devs anymore.
Once I read this years producers letter and saw the same thing happening again I was done.
Maybe I'll come back another time after a few updates. Fo now, I'll play what I want and if DDO can't provide it then I'll go elsewhere with my time and money.

I've seen them screw over, step over and overlook this basic class too many times.

+1

While I still enjoy playing rogue (been doing so since 2009, and will continue to do so) this is an issue that needs addressing. The fact that this has not been addressed by the devs shows a complete and utter lack of consideration for player skill and is embarrassing.

[blerkington]

I'm not sure it's accurate to describe their attitude as one of indifference. We've had a developer tells us about the great power of stealth and following on from that there's a laundry list of recent anti-stealth changes and neglected issues for the stealth game:

1. Making bluff more difficult to use and consequences of failing a check worse.
2. Adding a class of monster to reaper with abilities deliberately designed to frustrate use of stealth.
3. Adding the alert mechanism, which includes cascading aggro and monsters constantly re-alerting each other making it much more difficult to shed aggro/reduce DA if detected.
4. Adding telepathic detection of a PC's location when monsters are alerted but outside of LoS and hearing range. Leave stealth and watch them come running!
5. Changing Assassin's Trick so it functions as a failed bluff, causing passive monsters (including inanimate objects) to aggro and alert nearby allies.
7. Failing to adjust tremorsense; its larger detection radius finds stealthed players at a larger distance than those not in stealth.
8. Failing to fix bug with third tier of Stealth in the Assassin tree so it actually gives 75% movement speed as described.
9. Making pretty much every quest object like keys etc in Ravenloft remove PC from stealth when collected, unlike in most quests in older content.

I'm sure there are more, but those are just the ones I could remember right now.

After repeatedly raising these issues on the forums, the initial responses from SSG staff included an intern telling us there's no problem with it and the Community Manager saying it's a low priority niche interest. Showing the usual lack of interest and understanding of the topic that characterises engagement with the community on these forums.

Finally we had an actual developer tell us about the great power of stealth and how it had to be carefully balanced. As if stealth completions of most quests in DDO weren't already more difficult and much slower than just running and blasting our way through them, and conveniently ignoring the fact that most quests end with fighting a boss and often some additional monsters, never mind additional arbitrary obstacles like that old favourite of having to kill groups of monsters to get a key/open a door/lower a barrier. As if stealth gives players quick, free and easy completions not available to other playstyles.

So no, I wouldn't say the developers are indifferent to stealth play. I'd say they are absurdly scared of it as a game balance issue, have made some very destructive changes, seem to be somewhat aware that it caused some problems and player dissatisfaction, but seem in no hurry at all to address it. And as usual, our attempts to discuss it have been met with a complete lack of interest.

Thanks.

[Hilltrot]

I think it is more difficult than most people make it. The idea was to help prevent very quick solo completions of adventures through invisizerging.

However, by doing this, they eliminated regular stealth completions.

Unfortunately, before the nerfs, invisibility was a 2nd level spell which acted like a 25th level spell and it still is overly powerful. Like the fly spell, invisibility should have been deleted and I would still be for that even though I use it quite liberally as a Warlock, especially in older content. Or should we get the fly spell back?

If the invisibility spell were deleted, then stealth could be balanced more easiliy.

[Valerianus]

I'm not sure it's accurate to describe their attitude as one of indifference. We've had a developer tells us about the great power of stealth and following on from that there's a laundry list of recent anti-stealth changes and neglected issues for the stealth game:

1. Making bluff more difficult to use and consequences of failing a check worse.
2. Adding a class of monster to reaper with abilities deliberately designed to frustrate use of stealth.
3. Adding the alert mechanism, which includes cascading aggro and monsters constantly re-alerting each other making it much more difficult to shed aggro/reduce DA if detected.
4. Adding telepathic detection of a PC's location when monsters are alerted but outside of LoS and hearing range. Leave stealth and watch them come running!
5. Changing Assassin's Trick so it functions as a failed bluff, causing passive monsters (including inanimate objects) to aggro and alert nearby allies.
7. Failing to adjust tremorsense; its larger detection radius finds stealthed players at a larger distance than those not in stealth.
8. Failing to fix bug with third tier of Stealth in the Assassin tree so it actually gives 75% movement speed as described.
9. Making pretty much every quest object like keys etc in Ravenloft remove PC from stealth when collected, unlike in most quests in older content.

I'm sure there are more, but those are just the ones I could remember right now.

After repeatedly raising these issues on the forums, the initial responses from SSG staff included an intern telling us there's no problem with it and the Community Manager saying it's a low priority niche interest. Showing the usual lack of interest and understanding of the topic that characterises engagement with the community on these forums.

Finally we had an actual developer tell us about the great power of stealth and how it had to be carefully balanced. As if stealth completions of most quests in DDO weren't already more difficult and much slower than just running and blasting our way through them, and conveniently ignoring the fact that most quests end with fighting a boss and often some additional monsters, never mind additional arbitrary obstacles like that old favourite of having to kill groups of monsters to get a key/open a door/lower a barrier. As if stealth gives players quick, free and easy completions not available to other playstyles.

So no, I wouldn't say the developers are indifferent to stealth play. I'd say they are absurdly scared of it as a game balance issue, have made some very destructive changes, seem to be somewhat aware that it caused some problems and player dissatisfaction, but seem in no hurry at all to address it. And as usual, our attempts to discuss it have been met with a complete lack of interest.

Thanks.

+ 10000000000000000000000000

[Jasparion]

I'm not sure it's accurate to describe their attitude as one of indifference. We've had a developer tells us about the great power of stealth and following on from that there's a laundry list of recent anti-stealth changes and neglected issues for the stealth game:

1. Making bluff more difficult to use and consequences of failing a check worse.
2. Adding a class of monster to reaper with abilities deliberately designed to frustrate use of stealth.
3. Adding the alert mechanism, which includes cascading aggro and monsters constantly re-alerting each other making it much more difficult to shed aggro/reduce DA if detected.
4. Adding telepathic detection of a PC's location when monsters are alerted but outside of LoS and hearing range. Leave stealth and watch them come running!
5. Changing Assassin's Trick so it functions as a failed bluff, causing passive monsters (including inanimate objects) to aggro and alert nearby allies.
7. Failing to adjust tremorsense; its larger detection radius finds stealthed players at a larger distance than those not in stealth.
8. Failing to fix bug with third tier of Stealth in the Assassin tree so it actually gives 75% movement speed as described.
9. Making pretty much every quest object like keys etc in Ravenloft remove PC from stealth when collected, unlike in most quests in older content.

I'm sure there are more, but those are just the ones I could remember right now.

After repeatedly raising these issues on the forums, the initial responses from SSG staff included an intern telling us there's no problem with it and the Community Manager saying it's a low priority niche interest. Showing the usual lack of interest and understanding of the topic that characterises engagement with the community on these forums.

Finally we had an actual developer tell us about the great power of stealth and how it had to be carefully balanced. As if stealth completions of most quests in DDO weren't already more difficult and much slower than just running and blasting our way through them, and conveniently ignoring the fact that most quests end with fighting a boss and often some additional monsters, never mind additional arbitrary obstacles like that old favourite of having to kill groups of monsters to get a key/open a door/lower a barrier. As if stealth gives players quick, free and easy completions not available to other playstyles.

So no, I wouldn't say the developers are indifferent to stealth play. I'd say they are absurdly scared of it as a game balance issue, have made some very destructive changes, seem to be somewhat aware that it caused some problems and player dissatisfaction, but seem in no hurry at all to address it. And as usual, our attempts to discuss it have been met with a complete lack of interest.

Thanks.

This is the long of it.

Doesn't the fact that they killed it without mercy give you the answer?

This is the short of it.

Stealth was intentionally killed because working hard at avoiding battle is not meant to happen in DDO. So mobs can now always find you, and you have to always kill them all before moving on to the next room.

You should probably play a Warlock. They can be bought in the Store.

[blerkington]

I think it is more difficult than most people make it. The idea was to help prevent very quick solo completions of adventures through invisizerging.

However, by doing this, they eliminated regular stealth completions.

Unfortunately, before the nerfs, invisibility was a 2nd level spell which acted like a 25th level spell and it still is overly powerful. Like the fly spell, invisibility should have been deleted and I would still be for that even though I use it quite liberally as a Warlock, especially in older content. Or should we get the fly spell back?

If the invisibility spell were deleted, then stealth could be balanced more easiliy.

A lot of champions have true seeing which makes invis running harder content very difficult now.

I'm fine with that, but those other changes didn't have to be made to combat people running quests invisible. The addition of the alert mechanism made sense, but it wasn't done well and caused other problems.

I'm quite happy for stealth play to remain comparatively slow and difficult compared to fighting through quests. I don't want it to become the new easy button or meta for the game, where we're all stealth soloing instead of grouping.

But I think stealth was hamstrung needlessly and that is really reducing the appeal of the game for me.

Thanks.

[Dalris_Thane]

A newcomer's view of stealth in DDO:

Main character, first life, I'm a L15 Rogue now. VIP so access to most quests. I'm trying them all. I only play on Casual.

I regret putting anything in stealth. I maxed the skill points. I picked hide and silent upgrades for any item rewards. When I bought an expansion that gave me two +3 skill books, I picked hide and silent.

At L1-6, ish, I could stealth through normal mobs fine, but there were so many auto-detect mobs (bats, oozes, spiders) that it basically wasn't worth it.

At L7-12, ish, most of the auto-detect mobs were gone, but there were tons of auto-aggro incoming mobs, or doors slam shut got to kill them all to open the door mobs.

At L13-15 (current), my skill is too low to slide past a mob to the side of a wide corridor. Let alone the odd weird combo (bunch of humans and an apparently "tamed ooze" there, just properly trained to not attack them yet bloodhound me.)

Now, I know I'm at the bottom of the player skill totem, but, assuming casual is intro for new players... not worth it for people like me. I can't even imagine how stealth play is for Normal, let alone Hard, Elite, or Reaper 1-10...

Compare and contrast to EverQuest where a low level spell was improved invisibility (10 minutes of non-random duration, 100% guaranteed invisibility)... game changing and appreciated for a 1999 game.

Compare and contrast to City of Heroes where I had toggles of Stealth AND Invisibility AND Intangibility (stealth component) AND Purple augment that gave stealth with any toggle. (I was invisible to everything except ultra high levels of Knives of Artemis. Anything else couldn't see me.) Not bad for a 2004 game.

But, apparently, by 2006, non-detection for players has become forbidden. I did plenty of quests, bypassing mobs, clicking the final objective with 0 mobs fought in those other 2 games... I guess that time is gone.

Weirdly, it's not like DDO doesn't believe in immunity. I have as a L15... boots of underwater action. Immunity to drowning. Totally removes an entire dangerous mechanic. I have a deathblock item. Immunity to insta-death spells. Another mechanic ignored. I might be wrong, but I hear there are immunity items to disease, maybe poison, etc...

Anyhow, it's their game. So, I have to go by what they say. Weird that I can be immune to drowning, passive, 1 item, I can forever ignore every flooded area... in the game... forever... But stealth play is scary to devs.

Oh well, such is life in DDO. I'll adapt... by ditching stealth... as a rogue (!)... during my first TR (assuming I stay with DDO past L30)... and not look back....

[PermaBanned]

invisizerging.

player skill

On the forums, we've essentially fallen into two camps that I've noticed:

1) Stealth includes invisizerging.
2) Stealth is only Character skills + Player Skills

Since we tend to be divided on the matter, I suspect the Devs are too. Perhaps that's the crux of resolving the Stealth issue right there? Deciding what to support /nerf & how?

[janave]

..FACTS..

One of the highest stealth skill factor is also unrewarded in many reaper instances, the forced 10 minimum kills locks us out of rxp.
The bonuses from reaper trees don’t come with any stealth benefits. (unless you count DEX. points).

[fmalfeas]

I think this is part of why TA and Mech are favored rogue setups. Look at all the stuff in Assassin that is about striking from stealth. And assassin is woefully lacking in AoE. Ideally, they'd be able to stealth and break off from the fight to recover, come back and eliminate another target, rinse, repeat, to slowly eliminate mandatory mobswarms. Not fast, not easy, not cheap. But the way stealth works now, fat chance. And in a group, because of reduced movement speed while stealthed, it's not even very good for getting into position to strike after someone else takes aggro.

Part of the design of rogue is about /not fighting when you don't have to/. That's part of why they're on d6 hit points, and light armor.

[krimsonrane]

This is not a single class issue, while I agree Rogues need this to function most,
my Ranger, Monk, and even to lesser extend Wizard builds use stealth..., with multi classing stealth could be added to dozens of fun character builds.

I'm very aware of that. For the last 2 years my only rogue has been a ranger.

[Shadow_Jumper]

On the forums, we've essentially fallen into two camps that I've noticed:

1) Stealth includes invisizerging.
2) Stealth is only Character skills + Player Skills

Since we tend to be divided on the matter, I suspect the Devs are too. Perhaps that's the crux of resolving the Stealth issue right there? Deciding what to support /nerf & how?

The invisierging could honestly probably be solved with a change to MS. Say, if you critical fail a MS check, the mob spots you. Instead of just sort of meandering towards you and not seeing you unless they are right in front of you.

[caberonia]

They are behind stealth play 100%, just forgot the lube....


Seriously though.. this question is answered pretty well by how they have destroyed it over the last year or so.

[Avocado]

I'm not sure it's accurate to describe their attitude as one of indifference. We've had a developer tells us about the great power of stealth and following on from that there's a laundry list of recent anti-stealth changes and neglected issues for the stealth game:

1. Making bluff more difficult to use and consequences of failing a check worse.
2. Adding a class of monster to reaper with abilities deliberately designed to frustrate use of stealth.
3. Adding the alert mechanism, which includes cascading aggro and monsters constantly re-alerting each other making it much more difficult to shed aggro/reduce DA if detected.
4. Adding telepathic detection of a PC's location when monsters are alerted but outside of LoS and hearing range. Leave stealth and watch them come running!
5. Changing Assassin's Trick so it functions as a failed bluff, causing passive monsters (including inanimate objects) to aggro and alert nearby allies.
7. Failing to adjust tremorsense; its larger detection radius finds stealthed players at a larger distance than those not in stealth.
8. Failing to fix bug with third tier of Stealth in the Assassin tree so it actually gives 75% movement speed as described.
9. Making pretty much every quest object like keys etc in Ravenloft remove PC from stealth when collected, unlike in most quests in older content.

I'm sure there are more, but those are just the ones I could remember right now.

After repeatedly raising these issues on the forums, the initial responses from SSG staff included an intern telling us there's no problem with it and the Community Manager saying it's a low priority niche interest. Showing the usual lack of interest and understanding of the topic that characterises engagement with the community on these forums.

Finally we had an actual developer tell us about the great power of stealth and how it had to be carefully balanced. As if stealth completions of most quests in DDO weren't already more difficult and much slower than just running and blasting our way through them, and conveniently ignoring the fact that most quests end with fighting a boss and often some additional monsters, never mind additional arbitrary obstacles like that old favourite of having to kill groups of monsters to get a key/open a door/lower a barrier. As if stealth gives players quick, free and easy completions not available to other playstyles.

So no, I wouldn't say the developers are indifferent to stealth play. I'd say they are absurdly scared of it as a game balance issue, have made some very destructive changes, seem to be somewhat aware that it caused some problems and player dissatisfaction, but seem in no hurry at all to address it. And as usual, our attempts to discuss it have been met with a complete lack of interest.

Thanks.

Well said! I didn't even know about most of these considering my 6 months I spent playing a rogue. My biggest gripes are termorsense from 100 feet away and aggros every mob to you if you happen to be in front of the group stealthing and mobs who see you while in stealth will continue to re agro on your position even if they have lost sight of you. I wish I had a video of it. Essentially go into stealth, get seen, run away invis and stealth and the mobs will attack your last position. Then move away bit in stealth and then move will aggro on that next position even if you are stealthed.

[Saekee]

snip

awesome list blerk! add:

One of the highest stealth skill factor is also unrewarded in many reaper instances, the forced 10 minimum kills locks us out of rxp.
The bonuses from reaper trees don’t come with any stealth benefits. (unless you count DEX. points).

10) reapers auto-detect stealth and reaper xp bonus requires 10 kills. You can still get regular xp on a reaper setting, though (edit: blerk says this in his #2 in the list, I see)
11) the huge numbers of champs with true sight. This does not autodetect stealth but cuts into the bag of tricks like hitting improved invisi to open a lever in full view.
12) champs in higher difficulties have a lot of deathblock. This is not directly related to stealth but frustrates assassins, a subset prestige of steathplay

snip

Thx for this analysis. Good to hear from new players! Check out our ROGUE Part IV challenge in my sig or at bottom of this post!

I agree that there needs to be some improvements. Let me celebrate some positive additions:

1. sneak speeds stack, so you can get some really fast stealth builds so long as they are not carrying ranged weapons
2. the vistani tree has made it easier to multiclass faster sneaking builds with centered daggers
3. Some new quests are actually very good with stealth builds, such as Strike Back, Records of the Past, even Good Intentions allow for fast stealth completions save for the inevitable red named beatdown. Looking further back, Palace of Stone (mostly), ToEE (not elite settings--too congested), and 3BC epic are good stealth quests/packs. The Haunted Halls is one of the best quests in the game and has all the right mechanics for stealth vs bruntsmash.
4. A rather nice cloak that drops in Ravenloft
5. sentient weapons especially helping assassins, although assassins are just one of many stealth toons

In general, though, SSG could start by recognizing that making a stealthy toon is costly for the toon's overall power:

1. You must spend 2 skill points per level just in HS/MS, 'dump' skills for most players until Scion of Ethereal appeared.
2. You waste AP to get faster sneaking, possibly costing a toon some boost that is more powerful .
3. You have other clickies to boost your sneak skills and stuff like noisemakers and flaming spheres which take up precious backpack space.
4. Stealth builds are not often raid-ideal either...So it really is a narrow choice that excludes a lot of quests and endgame.

Suggestions:

1. fix the whole detection/DA thing with stealthed toons
2. design quests for stealth completion, adding subtle options for bypassing mobs instead of killing them
3. make the cutthroat smallblade also as a dagger
4. have your designers study Haunted Halls--how it gives the options to stealth vs bruntsmash, and incorporate this into your quests. You tried this in the Archon trial, sort of...

will add others; RL calling

Meanwhile, stealth does not work against tremor sense enemies, even when you are gliding over the ground in shadow form (in epics).

I am still playing stealth builds and the stealth playstyle simply because I find the biff, bash bosh approach to playing too much like Thomas and Trains.



ROGUE part IV is up and running. The challenges are fun to do. Consider trying them.

[Memnir]

I keep wanting to make a great Stealth character... but I just can't bring myself to do it when it feels like the majority of the game is so geared against it.

I'd love for that to change, and I fully support the suggestions made in this thread. We have such build-diversity in this game. It's a crime that one entire branch of that diversity feels sidelined, marginalized, and maligned against.