Goblin Squad Member
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After having spent nearly the entirety of my first Alpha Weekend tinkering with a Rogue, I came away from my experience with a few takes on the the above mentioned mechanics.
Stealth: After having found that I couldn't get in melee while coming from behind a mob, I was a bit frustrated. After Mr. Dancey reiterated the GW design philosopy:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: In d20 -> Pathfinder, there is no backstabbing.
Rogues get their Sneak Attack bonuses by attacking targets that are vulnerable. The primary method of making them vulnerable is to flank them, or to inflict a condition on them that makes them vulnerable.
We are staying true to this game mechanic. The objective of a Rogue is not to approach psuedo-invisibly and deliver a crippling alpha strike against an unaware opponent. The typical objective of a Rogue is to engage with a partner, get the target flanked, and make a series of attacks with Sneak Attack damage. The partner's objective is to keep the target in a condition where the Rogue's Sneak Attack will be applied.
I understood what they were going for and why I couldn't just cruise up behind Monsieur Ogre and drive a pointy bit of steel through his back.
That being said, with the current formulae being used for stealth:
((Perception - Stealth + 300) x 0.15% + 10% ) x normal viewing distance
you're likely to never get closer than about range 15-20. I think this is great as a median coverage, but could perhaps be modified to allow for ambient lighting, terrain, weather, or if the mob is being approached from the front or rear arc as a bonus or penalty to the +10% in the formulae, while preventing anyone from ever getting within melee range. I'm fine with not being able to backstab, but I'd certainly love to be able to squeeze through a tight spot of mobs at a choke point, or slip by guards in/into a town, if the conditions were right for me to do so. On the flip side, I shouldn't be able to get close enough to chuck a spear in open terrain without being spotted at least @ 50-75% view range if all I've got to hide behind is a nice spot of low grass and some very small rocks UNLESS the viewer is a/ blind, b/ deep into a cask of Warstein Ale*, or c/currently distracted by some partially momentous event OR I've got a/ magical advantage, b/greatly exceptional skill and equipment and a VERY, VERY great amount of time to close the distance at somewhere between a snail's and sloth's pace, or c/ a distraction affecting my target. There also needs to be a definitive set of actions that instantly breaks stealth, such as combat or gathering(I'm sorry but a pick clanging on stone or pitching over a rusty shield to gander what's underneath isn't exactly stealthy) and in my Alpha experience to date, gathering doesn't break stealth, and it should.
Take all of that together, add in perception & the mini-map, and we should have a mini-map that doesn't display stealthed characters until their stealth breaks, an opportunity to add perception boosting feats(i.e. Sixth Sense, Eagle Eye) and perhaps some situational modifiers that might help a sneak-thief steal into an enemy town and do a wee bit of mischief after the trebuchets start raining stones on the luckless populace. At least, I hope that is where PfO will take us.
*All Rights Reserved. A Product of the Warstein Brewing Company, Callambea, Golarion. Please drink like a dwarf.
Great suggestions! I like the cover aspect. It bugs me that characters can stealth through an open field! The use of cover between the stealth character and the player should be used in the perception check. I'd rather that stealth made you not-tab selectable and a "shadowy" figure instead of making you invisible, which only an invisibility spell should do. IMHO, stealth should make you harder to see, not invisible. Perception could be used to determine how shadowy, and at what distance.
Also, can we please not have enemies show up on the mini-map until you actually have line-of-sight to them (even if they aren't hidden)? It a lot less fun to go out exploring if you see all enemies and exactly what type they are on the mini-map before you're ever in range. Furthermore, this is going to be disastrous in PvP as hiding and ambushing will be removed entirely and all terrain will be strategically like an open field as far as combat knowledge goes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It a lot less fun to go out exploring if you see all enemies and exactly what type they are on the mini-map before you're ever in range. Furthermore, this is going to be disastrous in PvP as hiding and ambushing will be removed entirely and all terrain will be strategically like an open field as far as combat knowledge goes.
Even having them invisible at long range, show at a reasonable distance but no info or numbers until you are closer. "Run up to next goblin scout camp ... whoops its actually 20 Risen"
All mitigated by good perception of course.
That would also work. Seeing an enemy camp from a distance, but not knowing what it is would be interesting. I just don't want to be able to run down a road and know where every enemy camp is on each side without having to ever leave the road to investigate.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My only concern with stealth is that it only takes the character off the minimap and does not remove them from view based on what I've heard so far.
The reason this concerns me is that's abusable. I've seen in other games such a Darkfall where people develop undetectable client side mods that make opposing players show up as neon pink.
I would prefer that if a player is not within your perception range the game send your client NO data on that player. Including the location of their avatar.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That would also work. Seeing an enemy camp from a distance, but not knowing what it is would be interesting. I just don't want to be able to run down a road and know where every enemy camp is on each side without having to ever leave the road to investigate.
I agree. If scouting is going to be meaningful, having a constant stream of info just handed to you nearly negates the need for stealth and perception skills. If I'm in a valley, and all the local mobs are above me, out of LoS or hidden due to my low perception, my mini-map should indicate I'm all alone.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Andius brought up an important point: The game should go ahead and show you any information that it's sending to your client. If it doesn't, then cheaters who peek into the server-client stream will have an advantage over honest players who don't. I think that is the biggest reason why stealthed characters don't disappear, and night isn't really very dark.
Unless GW can find a really unusual way to pull it off, that same principle may lead to an Invisibility to NPCs spell with no corresponding Invisibility to PCs version.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan has actually said a couple of times that they do not want to hide anything that your computer has access to, to prevent the more "gifted" players from having info that everyone else doesn't. If your computer knows there is a monster there, you should know.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For reference, here are some of Ryan's thoughts on client security:
Never, ever trust the client. It is in the hands of the enemy.
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If your client knows where my character is, even if your client is told not to show you, enough people will cheat that being hidden is meaningless - and in fact the non-cheaters then play at a significant disadvantage.
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In general, being "hidden" is an all-or-nothing proposition, where the server does not communicate any information about my position to your client, period. And when my "hidden" state ends, every client can access that information. Thus, as a game mechanic, its less than ideal and doesn't work the way people wish it would.
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In general, being "hidden" is an all-or-nothing proposition, where the server does not communicate any information about my position to your client, period. And when my "hidden" state ends, every client can access that information.But why should it be this way? The server already filters the information it gives to individual clients based on the distance. Why can't it use one more filter based on stealth values and perception checks?Because you're running a program that intercepts the packets sent between the client & the server and decrypts them. It then maps the location of all objects in the game space to a 3D visualization that is displayed on your 2nd monitor, giving you a "god's eye" view of the whole area. That same tool also transmits this information to everyone in your guild, updating their maps in real-time, so that they see everything you see, and vice versa. Anything known to any one of your team is therefore known by every member of your team.
Like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShowEQ
Oh - you're not using these tools? That sucks, because the people you're playing against are and that gives them an advantage you don't have.
RyanD
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I'm pretty sure we can be diligent at keeping our encryption techniques strong - that's mostly a matter of gatekeeping certain functions in code and doing routine, random samples of the databases to look for mistakes.
But something like the example from the link of analyzing all the tiny changes in the cost of various resources and then using that to map out the actions being taken by other players is exactly the kind of thing that worries me. It's so hard to imagine all the potential compromises and what could be done with them - the classic failure is to assume that such information is either too hard to get or too esoteric to be meaningful.
Inevitably we will have those kinds of compromises and all we can do is try to find them quickly and patch them quickly. We will have to rely on a lot of eyes on the game to report stuff that appears to be cheating but we'll always know that the best cheats don't get caught - they take a tiny fraction of an edge that's almost undetectable and leverage it into a significant advantage.
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The case I was asked about was someone writing a script that could allow many players' characters to be controlled by a central director. My answer makes that very, very hard, thus removing most of the temptation to attempt to do it.
There will always be a few people with the time and ability to completely compromise the client. The solution to that is watching for behavior patterns that indicate such hacking has been done and taking action against those accounts. The only viable technical solution is something like WoW's Warden which is a bit beyond the scope of what we're planning on doing for a long while, if ever.