Goblin Squad Member
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The problem i have with hardcore penalties on greifers is that there will inevitably be players who find themselves on a slippery slope even if they arent greifing. Example being character A is harassing character B in a non combat, no social way (creep stealing or some other such annoyance) player B retaliates to remove said player from his area by killing him, now he is a criminal. If the cool down on being a criminal is too long that player might find that he has to keep killing lawful players to survive. He wasnt intentionally being a jerk he just lost his temper with an annoying player. now he finds himself unable to go into towns for a month or however long it is, and players keep chasing him down.
Maybe said friend should learn to control his temper? Every action should have a reaction, you can't just kill someone because they annoy you and think you can get away with it.
Back on thread topic;
If your a griefer and multiple players put bounties on your head, let's say 4 bounties, you should then not only have the bounties on you but also you will drop everything you have on you including your equipped armor and weapons.
If I could fully loot a player that has multiple bounties, collect the reward money and there gear I'm all for it!!!
I bet if griefers risked the chance at dropping all there gear you would find that griefing would be far and few between.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I maintain that blue killing penalties should not be too high because of the fact that there will be blue griefers and anti-griefers who kill them almost inevitably.
Just like real life laws are never perfect, in-game laws can never cover every form of harassment without making the game so restricted it is entirely unenjoyable.
Communities need to bear some of the weight of policing themselves as well as the developers. Ultimately unless people take it upon themselves to hunt down clans and players who grief, this game will have a community just as savage and destructive as any other open world MMO. It isn't like newbs can post a bounty high enough to attract many veteran players.
I like the bounty system. I think it is useful. I think it is a good tool and not overly harsh.
But I also think the penalties should not be raised as some are suggesting, and that rather than the community begging developers for anti-griefing options they need to be forming anti-griefer clans, and networking together with like-minded clans to form alliances.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I maintain that blue killing penalties should not be too high because of the fact that there will be blue griefers and anti-griefers who kill them almost inevitably.
Just like real life laws are never perfect, in-game laws can never cover every form of harassment without making the game so restricted it is entirely unenjoyable.
Communities need to bear some of the weight of policing themselves as well as the developers. Ultimately unless people take it upon themselves to hunt down clans and players who grief, this game will have a community just as savage and destructive as any other open world MMO. It isn't like newbs can post a bounty high enough to attract many veteran players.
I like the bounty system. I think it is useful. I think it is a good tool and not overly harsh.
But I also think the penalties should not be raised as some are suggesting, and that rather than the community begging developers for anti-griefing options they need to be forming anti-griefer clans, and networking together with like-minded clans to form alliances.
^^ This...
Let the players handle it!!
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The problem i have with hardcore penalties on greifers is that there will inevitably be players who find themselves on a slippery slope even if they arent greifing. Example being character A is harassing character B in a non combat, no social way (creep stealing or some other such annoyance) player B retaliates to remove said player from his area by killing him, now he is a criminal. If the cool down on being a criminal is too long that player might find that he has to keep killing lawful players to survive. He wasnt intentionally being a jerk he just lost his temper with an annoying player. now he finds himself unable to go into towns for a month or however long it is, and players keep chasing him down.
The case you described is the system working as intended. There will certainly be options other than murder to resolve rude behavior.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I may have said this before, but I think that when a character is killed for a bounty, the bounty hunter should be able to select one bounty for which he is eligible. The target should have to be killed again to collect other bounties. Otherwise, you'll have someone go on a killing spree, potentially killing dozens of other characters, and then get off with a virtual slap on the wrist by dying once.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Example being character A is harassing character B in a non combat, no social way (creep stealing or some other such annoyance)...
I think it's expected that character B should contact a moderator and let Goblinworks deal with it.
I've actually stayed up nights pondering this problem over the years. In my mind, it's a half-orc hanging out on the steps of a temple to Iomedae spouting vile blasphemies, and no way for a good Paladin to shoo them away.
This is the exact scenario that led me to propose a Challenge ability that would put another player on notice to either leave the area or be open to lawful attack. There would obviously need to be some limits on this, to keep it from being used as a griefing mechanic. They should probably be limited in Settlements to only being issued by characters with high faction with the settlement. They should have a fairly long cooldown for a particular target, so that you can't just follow them around Challenging them. And they should probably require the target to leave the hex for at least an hour.
Yeah, nobody's saying bounties will be used to make money, that's been addressed. They're chatting about whether a 'victim' will use the bounty system against somebody tricked into killing them. ^-^
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Goblin Squad Member
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Example being character A is harassing character B in a non combat, no social way (creep stealing or some other such annoyance)...I think it's expected that character B should contact a moderator and let Goblinworks deal with it.
I've actually stayed up nights pondering this problem over the years. In my mind, it's a half-orc hanging out on the steps of a temple to Iomedae spouting vile blasphemies, and no way for a good Paladin to shoo them away.
This is the exact scenario that led me to propose a Challenge ability that would put another player on notice to either leave the area or be open to lawful attack. There would obviously need to be some limits on this, to keep it from being used as a griefing mechanic. They should probably be limited in Settlements to only being issued by characters with high faction with the settlement. They should have a fairly long cooldown for a particular target, so that you can't just follow them around Challenging them. And they should probably require the target to leave the hex for at least an hour.
That is interesting. Can you link your topic where you suggested this?
Another thing along this line we could try is having certain players be given the right to operate with immunity from the law so that they can go and and force other players into line if they are abusing their lawful status.
You might set it up via a voting system where other players can choose to support you as a law-enforcer and once you get enough support you gain the status. And once you have the status people can give you points showing you are doing your job well, or that you are corrupt. Too many corrupt points and you lose the status.
You would need some form of system to make sure that big griefer clans don't run around making their own griefers law enforcers and eliminating all the good ones for "corruption."
You might do this by having moderators keep an eye on what is happening and disabling certain clans/players from voting in the system. Or by just having the moderators being the ones to do the adding and removing of law-enforcers. I would prefer little moderator use though, because then the law-enforcers are less there to enforce strict rules the GM's give, and more to enforce whatever the mandate of the players is. If the players want law-enforcers to apprehend people who spam chat too frequently, then that is what they will do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You would need some form of system to make sure that big griefer clans don't run around making their own griefers law enforcers and eliminating all the good ones for "corruption."You might do this by having moderators keep an eye on what is happening and disabling certain clans/players from...
Honestly when it comes to NPC settlements I don't see any way to make it fair as far as any player law within them. Stealing killing etc... can be made illegal within them, but other than that, it seems futile. There's no fair way to control corruption, tyrany by majority is still tyrany.
Once player settlements become the norm, then the players themselves will be the law, free from all binds of NPC's and handling the law enforcement themselves as they wish.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Can you link your topic where you suggested this?
This looks like the first post.
I wouldn't want the system to be applicable to NPC Settlements. In PC Settlements, I would think the Company in control of the Settlement should be able to explicitly define a Social Organization to function as guardians, who are capable of Challenging in that controlled territory with authority.
I also think the varying factions of each character involved should determine the effects of the Challenge. If neither character is aligned with the Settlement, then the first to make the Challenge should prevail. If either is aligned, though, the one with the greater faction with the Settlement should prevail.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Example being character A is harassing character B in a non combat, no social way (creep stealing or some other such annoyance)...I think it's expected that character B should contact a moderator and let Goblinworks deal with it.
I've actually stayed up nights pondering this problem over the years. In my mind, it's a half-orc hanging out on the steps of a temple to Iomedae spouting vile blasphemies, and no way for a good Paladin to shoo them away.
This is the exact scenario that led me to propose a Challenge ability that would put another player on notice to either leave the area or be open to lawful attack. There would obviously need to be some limits on this, to keep it from being used as a griefing mechanic. They should probably be limited in Settlements to only being issued by characters with high faction with the settlement. They should have a fairly long cooldown for a particular target, so that you can't just follow them around Challenging them. And they should probably require the target to leave the hex for at least an hour.
I'd rather just have the arbitrary ability to declare individuals enemies of the settlement, or simply persona non grata. The challenge/warning can be done using the chat tools, rather than using specialized political tools.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I thought the point of the Nihimon's challenge was that it allowed non-lethal resolution to player-player conflicts (to protect a paladin's alignment in the example).
I like the idea of non-lethal resolutions; players should have more options beside kill and loot; maybe an option to thump a nuisance on the head and dump him into an outbound turnip cart. If a player is defeated, I don't think it matters if he respawns at his last bind point or recovers consciousness a mile outside the settlement where they told him to "go away".
I do agree with settlements being able to identify individual as enemies or disfavored. A paladin guarding a settlement should be able to enforce its rules and attack its enemies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It doesn't have to be non-lethal. If you are in controlled territory, the controllers have the ability to kick you out without affecting their alignment, or breaking any laws they set for their territory.
I think the point of having it non-lethal is less for the need for it to be non-lethal. And more for the roleplay aspect of it. If someone is running through the streets shouting obscenities and hassling regular people as they try to go about their business the police aren't going to just whip out their guns and shoot them.
They might first issue a warning. If the problem persists they may issue a fine. But they aren't just going to be like "CRIMINAL!!! DIE!!!" and blow them away.
Similarly, even though this world probably has a harsher judicial system, a paladin isn't going to just whip out their sword and run someone through for being a nuisance. That isn't very... lawful good.
Some form of a challenge system might allow them to simulate this. It would basically be the paladin coming in and saying "All right, that's enough. Clear out." and if they listen, no more drastic action is taken.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that as a griefing mechanic, inducing someone to kill you (after being warned that doing so will result in their being flagged as a criminal and being subject to bounties) is not going to work very well.
The situation required is so very specific that it can't be used in any kind of general sense. You'll need to be in NPC secure territory. You'll need to induce someone to actually kill you - not just hit you. That person has to proceed through a warning.
I guess if it happens often enough to be meaningful we'll have to come up with a mitigation strategy, but to me it seems like such an unlikely corner case that I'm not going to worry about it until a problem actually develops.
My experience is that griefers actually implement relatively easy, relatively certain methods. They can't be bothered with the effort to do something that requires many steps, and often fails. They're too attention-deficit starved to put up with that kind of nonsense.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan
Any chance we will get a "do not attack unlawfully under any circumstances" toggle option, that is set 'on' by default, and must be found and changed to break laws?
It would pretty much disable the ability to use negative effects against players in 'safe zones' unless they are at war with you or initiated an attack.
@Ryan
Any chance we will get a "do not attack unlawfully under any circumstances" toggle option, that is set 'on' by default, and must be found and changed to break laws?
It would pretty much disable the ability to use negative effects against players in 'safe zones' unless they are at war with you or initiated an attack.
A large limiter on the power of spellcasters in Pathfinder and D&D like systems is that they can't just willy nilly throw around area of affects without inadvertently murdering their entire party and/or themselves. How will this be addressed from the perspective of accidental player kills?
If friendly fire is impossible, in what way will mages be "nerfed" to compensate?
@Ryan
Any chance we will get a "do not attack unlawfully under any circumstances" toggle option, that is set 'on' by default, and must be found and changed to break laws?
It would pretty much disable the ability to use negative effects against players in 'safe zones' unless they are at war with you or initiated an attack.
A large limiter on the power of spellcasters in Pathfinder and D&D like systems is that they can't just willy nilly throw around area of affects without inadvertently murdering their entire party and/or themselves. How will this be addressed from the perspective of accidental player kills?
If friendly fire is impossible, in what way will mages be "nerfed" to compensate?
This was brought up in the friendly fire thread (about spellcaster AoEs). While I personally feel the limited number of AoE spells in the game and the inherent danger of using them will curb their abuse, I believe perspective and control needs to be addressed here.
It is one thing to strategically place a fireball spell in a PnP game where you have the time to note range, detonation radius, and positioning of enemies and allies and a completely different thing to aim an effect in a real time encounter in a computer game. Game designers take into account your control of your character is limited by your ability to perceive your environment as well as the interface you are using. Most games are in a 3rd person POV because it is generally easier to navigate the environment than 1st person POV (since we don't have the benefit of all our senses and the ones we do have are extremely limited in what information they can convey).
If an AoE spell had an area of effect circle that highlighted the area that would be targeted by the spell or effect, I believe that would be a good representation of the characters ability to judge distance, detonation radius, and positioning of the effect to take into account friends and foes in the area.
Deciding not to potentially bring harm to innocent player characters and NPCs should be a conscious decision made by a player character and not something left up to a box that can be checked and forgotten.
@Ryan
Any chance we will get a "do not attack unlawfully under any circumstances" toggle option, that is set 'on' by default, and must be found and changed to break laws?
It would pretty much disable the ability to use negative effects against players in 'safe zones' unless they are at war with you or initiated an attack.
A large limiter on the power of spellcasters in Pathfinder and D&D like systems is that they can't just willy nilly throw around area of affects without inadvertently murdering their entire party and/or themselves. How will this be addressed from the perspective of accidental player kills?
If friendly fire is impossible, in what way will mages be "nerfed" to compensate?
This was brought up in the friendly fire thread (about spellcaster AoEs). While I personally feel the limited number of AoE spells in the game and the inherent danger of using them will curb their abuse, I believe perspective and control needs to be addressed here.
It is one thing to strategically place a fireball spell in a PnP game where you have the time to note range, detonation radius, and positioning of enemies and allies and a completely different thing to aim an effect in a real time encounter in a computer game. Game designers take into account your control of your character is limited by your ability to perceive your environment as well as the interface you are using. Most games are in a 3rd person POV because it is generally easier to navigate the environment than 1st person POV (since we don't have the benefit of all our senses and the ones we do have are extremely limited in what information they can convey).
If an AoE spell had an area of effect circle that highlighted the area that would be targeted by the spell or effect, I believe that would be a good representation of the characters ability to judge distance, detonation radius, and positioning of the effect to take into account friends and foes in the area.
Deciding not to...
There are multiple problems with that. If I wanted to grief someone I would throw my invisible low level character into their aoe's wherein they would die in 1 hit and assign the bounties (multiple) to my high level character.
I've been playing PvP games a long time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are multiple problems with that. If I wanted to grief someone I would throw my invisible low level character into their aoe's wherein they would die in 1 hit and assign the bounties (multiple) to my high level character.
I've been playing PvP games a long time.
There are multiple assumptions being made there.
1. Invisibility/stealth even existing in the game. This has not been confirmed and is very shakey on the possibility of at all.
2. AOEs being strong and lethal enough to one shot anyone. (we have no idea the power of a high level spell, nor the HP difference between a low and high level character).
3. Whether or not there will be warnings or the ability to use aoe's in high security areas. In eve there are aoe abilities, and in general they are used extremely sparingly only in cordinated plans, and virtually NEVER in high sec space.
Considering the dev's plan on making certain it is imposible to kill in a way to be criminal flagged by accident without a pop-up warning you. I would say it is safe to say that they will likely have a pop-up warning you if you try to cast an AoE spell in law enforced territory if it is in any way possible for someone you didn't intend to hit to wander into the blast. Thus limiting the likelyhood of aoes being used in lawful territory to begin with.
If friendly fire is impossible, in what way will mages be "nerfed" to compensate?
Words like nerf and buff, are completely irelevent here... we know for a fact that the game is overall not mechanically matching P&P pathfinder, the rules and mechanics are being written from scratch. It is more or less certain that ballance is more or less being written from the ground up. Nerfing and buffing, both involve starting from a known and raising or lowering, neither term is even remotely applicable until the game has actually been created.
As far as we know at this point, bounties can be used only after an illegal killing, in the zones near neutral NPC towns, right? They aren't for legit killings in the wilds or in wartime, certainly. So the mages probably just need to refrain from fireballs in certain areas.
Indeed. This is one case where the game can mirror its parent--and real life. Don't throw fire in a crowded theater.
Considering the dev's plan on making certain it is imposible to kill in a way to be criminal flagged by accident without a pop-up warning you. I would say it is safe to say that they will likely have a pop-up warning you if you try to cast an AoE spell in law enforced territory if it is in any way possible for someone you didn't intend to hit to wander into the blast. Thus limiting the likelyhood of aoes being used in lawful territory to begin with.
This doesn't sound very technically feasible to me given client/server latency and lag spikes. However, I'll admit the client/server software I write for a living all day isn't game related.
How's it unfeasible? I will never be caught claiming to know much about video games--in fact, I always feel the need to remind people of my lack of any literacy in the subject before making any points related to it--but surely a message popping up when dangerous spells are attempted wouldn't lag things any more than a message appearing when someone tries to swing a sword. :P
How's it unfeasible? I will never be caught claiming to know much about video games--in fact, I always feel the need to remind people of my lack of any literacy in the subject before making any points related to it--but surely a message popping up when dangerous spells are attempted wouldn't lag things any more than a message appearing when someone tries to swing a sword. :P
Because player's aren't really where they appear to be, everything is approximate.
Lets say player 1 has 200ms of latency and ground targets coordinates XYZ with a fireball, player 2 has on average 120MS of latency but is currently experiencing a lag spike of 500MS because his home router is taking a puke. Last the server knew player 2 was in a spot he wouldn't be hit, player 1 hits his ground targetted AOE and since he has to validate there are no warnings before his spell is allowed to cast his spell begins casting 2 seconds after he tells it to. Player 2 unlags and sends new coordinates to the server, he is now in the location the fireball (which has already been green-lighted as no warning) is hitting.
This effect can be caused on purpose as well through window-dragging in some applications, or pausing a process.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Because player's aren't really where they appear to be, everything is approximate.
Lets say player 1 has 200ms of latency and ground targets coordinates XYZ with a fireball, player 2 has on average 120MS of latency but is currently experiencing a lag spike of 500MS because his home router is taking a puke. Last the server knew player 2 was in a spot he wouldn't be hit, player 1 hits his ground targetted AOE and since he has to validate there are no warnings before his spell is allowed to cast his spell begins casting 2 seconds after he tells it to. Player 2 unlags and sends new coordinates to the server, he is now in the location the fireball (which has already been green-lighted as no warning) is hitting.
You seem to have misinterpreted when I said the warning should go up. I didn't say to warn the player if he's casting a fireball that is going to hit person X.
I said the warning should go up if he is going to cast fireball in lawful territory where accidentally killing someone is a big deal.
Bottom line is people shouldn't be using dangerous AoE's unless collateral damage is acceptable. Take your fireballs to the dungeons, the wilderness, the player controlled and uncontrolled areas. If you plan on using dangerous area spells in areas where the penelty for murder is high, then you are making a big mistake.
I assumed the idea was that whenever a hostile spell is attempted, the warning appears. Not 'whenever a guy enters the radius'. That would be plain confusing!
^ Eeeeyup.
I assumed the idea was that whenever a hostile spell is attempted, the warning appears. Not 'whenever a guy enters the radius'. That would be plain confusing!
^ Eeeeyup.
And if you are in a catacomb near an NPC settlement tracking down a Goblin Chieftain who has been causing problems for the locals; this warning pops up every time you cast the spell/hit cleave/etc?
Or, this area is unlawful and I can grief you there? If I accidentally kill you with a cleave due to latency, etc. I'm now a criminal?
I assumed the idea was that whenever a hostile spell is attempted, the warning appears. Not 'whenever a guy enters the radius'. That would be plain confusing!
^ Eeeeyup.And if you are in a catacomb near an NPC settlement tracking down a goblin Chieftain who has been causing problems for the locals; this warning pops up every time you cast the spell/hit cleave/etc?
Or, this area is unlawful and I can grief you there?
We don't know how the game will turn out, but I doubt that's how it would work. Firstly--if an area is unlawful, it's called 'PvP'. Yes, players can use PvP to grief. That's kind of obvious. But that's a 'problem' with all unlawful areas, not just unlawful areas nearby lawful areas.
Second, if you're only tracking down a single Chieftain, fireball is kinda the wrong spell to use. ;P
Third, your point's valid. The alternative is to simply not allow fireball in a PvP capacity at all, which seems a bit harsh to me. I think it's better this way.
I assumed the idea was that whenever a hostile spell is attempted, the warning appears. Not 'whenever a guy enters the radius'. That would be plain confusing!
^ Eeeeyup.And if you are in a catacomb near an NPC settlement tracking down a goblin Chieftain who has been causing problems for the locals; this warning pops up every time you cast the spell/hit cleave/etc?
Or, this area is unlawful and I can grief you there?
We don't know how the game will turn out, but I doubt that's how it would work. Firstly--if an area is unlawful, it's called 'PvP'. Yes, players can use PvP to grief. That's kind of obvious. But that's a 'problem' with all unlawful areas, not just unlawful areas nearby lawful areas.
Second, if you're only tracking down a single Chieftain, fireball is kinda the wrong spell to use. ;P
Third, your point's valid. The alternative is to simply not allow fireball in a PvP capacity at all, which seems a bit harsh to me. I think it's better this way.
Yeah, we don't know. I'm just trying to challenge myself to think of ways to abuse the broad strokes outlined or how things that *seem* like great ideas on a broad level are actually unfeasible or bad gameplay.
At the end of the day a quasi-realtime client/server MMO doesn't have the time to deal with fuzzy logic in combat mechanics. Encompassed scenarios must be black and white. Creating an environment with limited griefing as well as meaningful sandbox PvP is an immense and expensive challenge; which is why most companies just aim for either one or the other.
There are several games that *wanted* to make a big fantasy sandbox in the past that either fell apart or ultimately ended up releasing a game that didn't in any way resemble their original ideas due to these challenges.
It's easy to define something that makes logical sense to players, but when you are dictating to a machine there is no room for subjectivity or judgement calls.
Where is Skynet when you need it?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I assumed the idea was that whenever a hostile spell is attempted, the warning appears. Not 'whenever a guy enters the radius'. That would be plain confusing!
^ Eeeeyup.And if you are in a catacomb near an NPC settlement tracking down a Goblin Chieftain who has been causing problems for the locals; this warning pops up every time you cast the spell/hit cleave/etc?
Or, this area is unlawful and I can grief you there? If I accidentally kill you with a cleave due to latency, etc. I'm now a criminal?
We are also not noting how many spells/attacks hit indiscriminantly, it is fully possible that 90-95% of spells and attacks, only hit what is targetted and 5-10% of spells and attacks have aoe/splash damage.
The wilderness and player controlled areas, griefing is permitted, any enforcement is done by players/chartered companies when they get fed up with people killing their ally's/members, at which point a "griefer" becomes kill on sight in that territory, and accidental vs intentional kills will be handled by what the group thinks happened.
Where is Skynet when you need it?
Yeah, no kidding. I've often wondered how a game would turn out if they had a mathematician on staff that could weigh the available data and attempt to turn some of these fuzzy problems into Boolean equations. I'm sure it wouldn't be perfect, but it'd be more than your average programmer could do.
Sure, programmers tend to be good at math, and some 3D programmers are very good at trigonometry. However, turning abstract social problems into concrete algorithms is a specialized skill probably not many programmers possess.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are multiple problems with that. If I wanted to grief someone I would throw my invisible low level character into their aoe's wherein they would die in 1 hit and assign the bounties (multiple) to my high level character.
I've been playing PvP games a long time.
There are multiple assumptions being made there.
1. Invisibility/stealth even existing in the game. This has not been confirmed and is very shakey on the possibility of at all.
2. AOEs being strong and lethal enough to one shot anyone. (we have no idea the power of a high level spell, nor the HP difference between a low and high level character).
3. Whether or not there will be warnings or the ability to use aoe's in high security areas. In eve there are aoe abilities, and in general they are used extremely sparingly only in cordinated plans, and virtually NEVER in high sec space.
Considering the dev's plan on making certain it is imposible to kill in a way to be criminal flagged by accident without a pop-up warning you. I would say it is safe to say that they will likely have a pop-up warning you if you try to cast an AoE spell in law enforced territory if it is in any way possible for someone you didn't intend to hit to wander into the blast. Thus limiting the likelyhood of aoes being used in lawful territory to begin with.
Words like nerf and buff, are completely irelevent here... we know for a fact that the game is overall not mechanically matching P&P pathfinder, the rules and mechanics are being written from scratch. It is more or less certain that ballance is more or less being written from the ground up. Nerfing and buffing, both involve starting from a known and raising or lowering, neither term is even remotely applicable until the game has actually been created.
If friendly fire is impossible, in what way will mages be "nerfed" to compensate?
I think asuming that there will be stealth mechanics is pretty fair. Since stealth is one of the core archetypes in the rpg world, not alowing stealth would turn off far too many players to the game. Also stealth would be a necessary ability, or at least very helpful, in initiating an ambush. And ambushing traveling players is something that they have said would be possible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think asuming that there will be stealth mechanics is pretty fair. Since stealth is one of the core archetypes in the rpg world, not alowing stealth would turn off far too many players to the game. Also stealth would be a necessary ability, or at least very helpful, in initiating an ambush. And ambushing traveling players is something that they have said would be possible.
Ambushing traveling players has been said to be in the game, and shown in a way that absolutely does not require stealth at all (Hideouts).
Every response from the developers on the topic of stealth has been negative. They haven't stated point blank that no form of stealth will be implimented, but they have made statements that if it is present it will not work like people want. IE it is an all or nothing proposition, if one person can see you, everyone will be able to see you, which is less then ideal to many people.
This is not saying stealth will or won't be in the game in that form or in the game at all, just a general statement that it is not safe to assume it will be, because in general it is not only unconfirmed, but clearly stated that at least Ryan sees the risks and flaws of adding stealth in most forms that people would like to see it in (IE partial stealth, camaflauge, spot/hide checks where some can see you but others can't etc...), causes more problems than benefit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@BLT, one important thing to keep in mind is that Ryan has a lot of experience seeing how players work around problems in the game (such as not being able to see someone who is stealthed). If GW chooses not to implement Stealth, it won't be because they don't see the value in Stealth, it's because they don't want to put honest players at a disadvantage. If the only way to implement Stealth cost-effectively also means that players who were willing to cheat would have an unfair advantage, then that's a very good reason not to implement it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@BLT, one important thing to keep in mind is that Ryan has a lot of experience seeing how players work around problems in the game (such as not being able to see someone who is stealthed). If GW chooses not to implement Stealth, it won't be because they don't see the value in Stealth, it's because they don't want to put honest players at a disadvantage. If the only way to implement Stealth cost-effectively also means that players who were willing to cheat would have an unfair advantage, then that's a very good reason not to implement it.
I guess i can understand that...but im a sucker for rogues and a stealthless rogue, for me, would ruin it for me. I love stealth and even though that is only one aspect of one type of character, it is for me a fairly important ability. Even if it is made more limited i would rather have the option then none at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Stealth based off of Hide and Move Silently, with stealth detection based off of spot, listen, and the activated ability search are the best ways to implement these iconic skills in game.
These skills are VERY important to certain classes. I can't imagine a rouge without even the OPTION to put points into stealth, and this game will certainly be missing something with no option for sneaky rangers.
Practically every major MMO out there has worked out a stealth class. I see no reason why Pathfinder Online couldn't either. The rogue is the only class in the game that even gets major bonus from attacking from stealth. (The main thing most games have a problem balancing.) I don't see how it is going to make all the other classes OP. Especially if it gives a movement speed penalty. The only thing I would change about it is possibly to limit it to classes that have it as a class skill.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius, the problem with implementing stealth is that it becomes impossible to stop players from cheating and using third party tools to see through the stealth. The only way to really stop this is to do all the relevant processing on the server, which will significantly increase the cost to develop the game.
It's not a question of figuring out how the rules should work. It's a question of figuring out how to stop players from cheating and being able to see other characters even when those characters are stealthed.
There's simply no way to secure data on someone else's machine when that someone else is actively trying to break that security.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Stealth based off of Hide and Move Silently, with stealth detection based off of spot, listen, and the activated ability search are the best ways to implement these iconic skills in game.
These skills are VERY important to certain classes. I can't imagine a rouge without even the OPTION to put points into stealth, and this game will certainly be missing something with no option for sneaky rangers.
Practically every major MMO out there has worked out a stealth class. I see no reason why Pathfinder Online couldn't either. The rogue is the only class in the game that even gets major bonus from attacking from stealth. (The main thing most games have a problem balancing.) I don't see how it is going to make all the other classes OP. Especially if it gives a movement speed penalty. The only thing I would change about it is possibly to limit it to classes that have it as a class skill.
Well the classes part is irrelevant, there aren't true classes in PFO, there are archetypes, but aside from not getting the capstone from a dabbled class, there is no reason that anyone will be limited from getting 95% of the relevant abilities on any other class they chose to dabble with. That being said the issues with stealth are all in the technical category, especially when it comes to cheaters. The stealth vs perception side will not really work, as in order to work that way, they absolutely have to make it all or nothing. IE if one person who is not allied with you sees you, all of them immidiately can see you. Otherwise either way people will be doing that anyway. There is absolutely no way to prevent a 3rd party program from instantly revealing someone when one person knows to everyone else on his side running the same 3rd party program.
Also most lighter systems of stealth, do involve the client knowing, and all security practices must automatically assume whatever the client knows, the player knows. Programs like warden etc... are easily bypassed.
The bigger reason why stealth classes tend to work better in other games, is most of those other games 1. Don't have multiclass but more importantly, don't have long term effects from a pvp match. People cheating on a 5 minute match worth 5 battleground points or whatever, is a drastically different thing then someone undetectably cheating to say... take a kingdom and destroy 2 years worth of work for their rival guild.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One thing i hate seeing is a character suddenly dissappear in the middle of a low cut grass field simply because they went into 'stealth'. Stealth should be a factor of what type of cover you have, and how much noise you make when you move. Magical invisibility should be the only way to become invisible.
Problems with stealth:
1. Players cannot be able to 'mouse over' and see a change in cursor
2. Players should not be able to download a mod that removes foliage from the game
3. Players should not be able to download a hack that makes other players glow
4. There can be no 'target lock'
5. You need twitch based action controls to fairly attack people hiding.
6. Players should not be able to crank up their volume to hear people moving.
7. None of the data on players can be sent to the server
In the end, the only way to make a 100% fair stealth system is to have the game run on a developer run server, and players just send commands, and receive the video stream, or you need to sell the game as a dedicated tamper-proof box that you plug a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to.
Bottom line, the user can never have access to any game files.
Once mature, PFO would be a prime suspect for cheating. Open PvP games and F2P games attract some of the most undesirable crowds in MMO gaming, though Open PvP does have a good chunk of desirable gamers. And when you have a game with long-term character development, you don't want to lose something your worked a year to get just because some new player was using a few cheats and saw you stealthily going into your hideout and wen't and got all of their friends that had been playing for a long time to come burn it down while you where offline.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want stealth to be a combination of the both. high stealth abilities wouldn't be a guaranteed save, if someone fires an arrow into the bush you are hiding in you should be hit, and you cant do that with a target based system. Part of stealth should be knowing what to do, not hitting a button and automatically doing everything.
I see no place in a high-risk game for a mechanic that can be exploited by cheaters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want stealth to be a combination of the both. high stealth abilities wouldn't be a guaranteed save, if someone fires an arrow into the bush you are hiding in you should be hit, and you cant do that with a target based system. Part of stealth should be knowing what to do, not hitting a button and automatically doing everything.
I see no place in a high-risk game for a mechanic that can be exploited by cheaters.
I'd like to see a system were u can both target AND attack without targeting. And as for cheating to see stealth I haven't seen many cases where that has happened, at least not to me personally(not that it doesn't happen). But as mentioned an all player based skill stealth would make all classes equally viable at sneak attacks (literal sneak attacks not the rogue mechanic). I think stealth should be verry slightly player based. So no stealth in the open unless your enemy has his back to you, must be behind cover of some type, etc.
As for detection I think having a perception skill that is broken into 2 parts in game but not in character would be best. So you only put points into perception, but when your character actually makes this check the game makes 2 rolls, one for sight, one for sound. If u can hear someone sneaking then maybe an icon with a direction arrow shows up. Upon making a manual perception (search) check you have a higher chance to detect the person. I also think that there should be 2 perception skills. Passive Perception (passive check to detect things), and Active Perception (search). Both would have slightly different modifiers based on conditions like weather you can hear someone, if they are using an invisibility spell(or similar effect), and weather someone in your group can see/hear that person.
Greater invisibility shouldn't be allowed for obvious reasons and regular invisibility should only grant a bonus to your stealth skill.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like to see a system were u can both target AND attack without targeting.
I totally agree. I should definitely be able to swing my sword blindly in front of me.
My dad occasionally has problems getting the right target, especially when he's fighting multiple mobs, some of which are at range. The mob he's killing will die, clearing his target. Then a ranged mob hits him and gets auto-targeted. Then he's trying to use his attacks on the mob standing right in front of him, but since the ranged mob is out of range, the attacks don't work, and he's not sure why.
Clearly, additional player skill would alleviate this, but he was born in 1946 and it's not likely he's going to get much better at MMOs than he already is. He played EverQuest for a couple of years straight, and has been playing LOTRO since it came out.
Perhaps a good solution would be to have an option that would allow melee attack abilities to automatically switch target to the nearest enemy if the current target is out of range or otherwise invalid.