Comments on: The eternal dance of stealther vs archer

By: depizan

depizan — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 02:15:14 +0000

MMOs do seem a bit confused or undecided about stealth. I had a blast in City of Heroes playing an illusion controller, but I leveled very slowly because my fun also did me out of a lot of xp. The game rather expected that you'd ~~slaughter~~ defeat your way through missions, despite having a powerset that allowed one to bypass fighting (and a less powerful stealth skill anyone could take, if I remember right). It left me with a lasting thought that there really need to be multiple ways to complete missions and don't penalize people for not taking the frontal assault path all the time.

By: Stubborn

Stubborn — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:15:26 +0000

I had the most fun of all the toons I’ve leveled with my rogue for the precise reasons you mention. However, when playing with others, I experienced the same problems, too. I would like in WoW for there to be an ability that works like Distract, but instead is targeted and causes the mob to move to investigate, something like “Lure.” That would work both for moving mobs to you (and away from ranged) as well as allow more subtle approaches to groups.

Why doesn’t stealth have a solid ranged opener? Snipers are essentially stealth ranged attackers. I think that should be a viable option, too.

Great post!

By: Ceera

Ceera — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:56:31 +0000

The last paragraph reminds me of what I loved as a Feral Druid in WoW. Frequently, you were asked to eliminate the boss who was hidden at the back of the compound behind loads of trash goons.

The ability to stealth through it all to get behind the boss, stun the boss from kitty and then turn into a raging bear to take him down was like “Oh hai! SURPRISE!”

After a bit of licking care to smooth the fur it was back to stealth to return to the quest giver.

Endless fun!

By: motstandet

motstandet — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:47:08 +0000

FFXI had a spell Invisible, ninjitsu Tonko, and an item Prism Powder all of which turned the player invisible. Also had spell Sneak and an item Silent Oil which prevented players from being noisy.

Mobs could aggro on sight, sound, or both, and these effects allowed players to stealth around.

By: motstandet

motstandet — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:36:55 +0000

http://aoc.wikia.com/wiki/Hide

By: motstandet

motstandet — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:34:48 +0000

Everyone in Age of Conan can stealth.

By: darkeye

darkeye — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:36:40 +0000

That’s one of the reasons I chose burglar and usual go for stealthers in other MMOs, just so I can skip most mobs but it can feel a little lazy sometimes. What really makes stealth more fun is ‘shadowsteps’, including being able to blink behind a mob right in position for that backstab, a combo of riftstalker and either assasin or nightblade in Rift is a lot of fun, you end up with 3 or 4 ways to close the distance, and get a +15% crit bonus every time you blink. I think Rift does stealth well, I like the tension of having a 30 sec duration for stealth unless invested heavily in the assassin soul, even 15 sec would be plenty most times, as long as it’s balanced by having plenty of movement abilities. The thief in GW2 seems to be following a similar tack to RIft, the longest stealth seems to be 30 sec, there is other ways to gain stealth but they are short lasting or end if the player moves, the ‘big’ change besides.including plenty of movement abilities is that stealth can be used in combat even if it only lasts a few seconds that should be plenty to sneak around an opponent.