AI Awareness!

[No_Dice]

Hey everyone! Your friendly neighborhood AI designer here! During the next Lamannia update parts of upcoming stealth system changes will be visible. I’m still getting stealth ready for actual previewing at a later time. However, since parts of it will be showing up on Lamannia prematurely during the Enhancements second look, now is a great time to tell you more about what I’ve been working on. I guess the best place to start is the beginning…

This all started months ago when I started fixing AI bugs and AI-related "lag" (yes I am working on the "lag bug"1 and have been since November… lag of course has multiple sources and symptoms, but this was one possible source.) As I worked, I started implementing triggers for myself to understand what was going on behind the scenes, and eventually implemented my debug cues as player-facing icons we could share with y'all.

We took a good long look at stealth, invisibility, detection, blind attacks, noises, and the visual/audio cues you get from all of these systems. Major work was done to repair long-outstanding inconsistencies, correct bad monster behavior, and rework visual feedback that was misleading on when you were actually being “stealthy” or not.

We also looked into why the “eye level” vs lighting influences wasn’t always matching up with the actual lighting placement/visuals in quests. In the end, I revamped the system in order to achieve some significant performance gains as well as fix many of the (now visible with icon cues) bugs.

So what does that mean specifically? Here are some of our goals:

Most critically, we’ve made some performance improvements that should SIGNIFICANTLY reduce AI-related lag and framerate issues, especially in large group and raid situations.

So when the enhancement preview opens up, you’ll also see that these stealth features are being worked on – some of these are in later stages of development than others:


We want to make red footsteps only appear when a monster actually hears you while you’re sneaking. If you see the red splash, your position has been given away! (It used to play any time you might be heard, but weren’t necessarily actually being heard.)

We also want to make the footsteps show when more monsters hear you, such as by making it darker and redder!
Invisible characters should also display red footsteps to indicate when a monster can hear them as well. This is only a visual change - monsters could always hear you when you were running around invisible... We're just extending the visual feedback to more situations!


White footsteps still indicate that you are sneaking near a monster who might hear you if you get closer, and will still play only if sneaking. That's one of the benefits of trying to be sneaky : )
Monsters should no longer slide around when they are searching for a hidden enemy. Instead, we’re going to be adding a visual cue that doesn’t look like an animation bug.

We’re going to try giving them a “searching” icon to indicate that they haven’t found a target yet.
Similarly, we want to give monsters a “red ear” icon whenever they hear a suspicious noise.


We now have the ability to give your character the awareness to know when you have aggro from something. This will allow us to do things like putting you into combat stance rather than standing around idly until you’re getting punched in the head.


We’re also sending our monsters back to Dungeon Monster 101 class to learn to play by the rules better:


We’ve been looking into the ways that monsters could “improperly” detect you. .. They currently cheat and get their target's location every 6 seconds or less even if the target is hidden or invisible, as well as essentially echo-locating players using the sounds of their own ranged attacks. This also has an unintended side effect of being a performance hog. Bad monsters! We want to replace these with fairer ways for the monsters to find players, as well as bring a big performance improvement.

We’ve improved the search attack algorithms. They’ll expand their search radius when making blind attacks, hate the target less after a few whiffs, and eventually give up after a number of fruitless attacks where they’re unable to hit anything. If they manage to get a relevant clue on their enemy’s whereabouts, then they’ll resume their search.
I’ve begun updating monsters to fire at your most recent known position when they can’t see you, where they used to cheat and fire directly to you when they aren’t supposed to know where you are.


We’ve also improved how monsters handle being blind, bringing it more in line with how they handle invisibility.
With the updated AI awareness, we’d like it to be possible for a sufficiently skilled player to use sneak to lose monsters after they spot you! This is something that was never possible in combat before because monsters had too many ways to “cheat” and see/hear you if you attempted it.
Here are some other “monster vs stealth” behaviors we’re working on:

We don’t want scorpions to burrow directly to you when they aren’t supposed to know where you are.
We don’t want minotaurs to charge directly to you when they aren’t supposed to know where you are.



Generally speaking, these changes should have the effect of:

Making casual use of sneak actually valid, especially combined with other upcoming changes to how sneak works.
Trained use of sneak should be much more effective, and a valid build path/gameplay style that can be enjoyed by many more people.


Obviously people will have questions about how this brave new world of sneakiness will impact invisibility. One of our goals was to add more value to using stealth in combat even if you are running with a party that does not want to wait for you to sneak ahead. We'd like to support a stealth character as a more viable build path, which can do more stuff that any random character who can slurp an invis potion.

Stealth should have the following advantages over mere invisibility:

With sufficiently high skill, monsters won’t hear you, allowing you to avoid detection completely as you sneak by (go go move silently!)
Escaping combat using sneak - this largely hasn’t been possible before, but we’d like skilled players with appropriate skills to be able to escape completely by activating sneak and escaping the area where their opponents last saw them. When monsters search the area they lost you in making blind attacks, they should lose aggro over time and eventually give up if they receive no additional clues to your location. I’ve been spending a lot of time on this, as it was the most requested fix by stealth enthusiasts on the forums, and from my testing I think it'll be quite fun : )
Assassinate! Still finalizing the application here but the goal is making sure our Assassins can … you know… assassinate things!


We’ll go into more detail about the way stealth will work, particularly for you aspiring Shadar-kai Assassins. For now just be aware that there is a LOT going on with the stealth system at the moment, and the version that first appears on Lamannia is not ready for the spotlight yet. Once we’re closer to a playable test of the new stealth features, we will let you know!

[Epitome]

Wow, this is an unexpected but awesome potential change. I never thought that Stealth would get an overhaul in this game.

Thanks for the information/communication.

[Missing_Minds]

Thank you for flattly telling us what you are wanting to do and what we can expect to see. That should help with bug report.

"Monsters should no longer slide around when they are searching for a hidden enemy. Instead, we’re going to be adding a visual cue that doesn’t look like an animation bug.

We’re going to try giving them a “searching” icon to indicate that they haven’t found a target yet.
Similarly, we want to give monsters a “red ear” icon whenever they hear a suspicious noise."

This part makes me a bit sad though. By popping up an icon over their head it, for me, removes some of the immersion of the game where player skill (such as it is) being able to recognize behaviors of the mobs WAS the visible clue. It required the player to put ranks into Knowledge:Mob vs. cheeply using sign boards to indicate actions.

[Teh_Troll]

Sounds great. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

[sebastianosmith]

As I worked, I started implementing triggers for myself to understand what was going on behind the scenes, and eventually implemented my debug cues as player-facing icons we could share with y'all.

Wonderful news!

I would really like to see the wall dedicated to the decision trees you made for this. It must look like a stump full of granddaddy longlegs. ;)

[Varinox]

First up: Thank you for sharing No Dice, I found all of the post very refreshing and interesting, looking forward to seeing how some of these things turn out.

Secondly I have a few questions:
1) Does this mean we will see the potential for 'Hide in Plain Sight' abilities in the future, looking at rogues particularly, so they can hide even when mobs are watching them?

2) How will Sneak interact with Concealment effects, like Cloudkill etc?

3) How will Sneak interact with Blindness?

4) Will we see the option of Deafness?

5) If someone were to train Move Silently, how much of an effect would the Skill have in conjunction with the Invisibility Spell?

6) Is Sneak Attack going to work when flanking mobs, instead of just when the attacker doesn't have aggro?

Thanks in advance for any answers!

[Epitome]

Thank you for flattly telling us what you are wanting to do and what we can expect to see. That should help with bug report.

"Monsters should no longer slide around when they are searching for a hidden enemy. Instead, we’re going to be adding a visual cue that doesn’t look like an animation bug.

We’re going to try giving them a “searching” icon to indicate that they haven’t found a target yet.
Similarly, we want to give monsters a “red ear” icon whenever they hear a suspicious noise."

This part makes me a bit sad though. By popping up an icon over their head it, for me, removes some of the immersion of the game where player skill (such as it is) being able to recognize behaviors of the mobs WAS the visible clue. It required the player to put ranks into Knowledge:Mob vs. cheeply using sign boards to indicate actions.

I guess it would be cool if they programmed it to be capable of "toggling" on an off.

Would also be interesting if more knowledge of the monster, i.e., higher achievements for that monster type in the monster manuals, would have some effect on knowing what they are doing (icons above their head and so forth) and maybe on stealth efficacy against those particular monsters. However people will feel that it would be required and be upset that they are "forced" to purchase monster manuals. Sorry, rambling on about a system that doesn't exist.

[Orratti]

VERY NICE! The stealth mechanics have needed work for years and by now no one thought they would ever be looked over. It's also nice to know you guys are doing things with the AI period.

[Epitome]

I'm curious if any other devs are working on anything else like this or if they are is it too "risky" for them to talk about it early on.

[Orratti]

By popping up an icon over their head it, for me, removes some of the immersion of the game where player skill (such as it is) being able to recognize behaviors of the mobs WAS the visible clue. It required the player to put ranks into Knowledge:Mob vs. cheeply using sign boards to indicate actions.

I agree with this. Try to keep the flash down to a minimum. Having too many flashy aspects in the game is actually detracting. If you're trying to help new player's understand how the game works better you could add more tutorial aspects of the game's mechanics to the introduction quest in Korthos.

[Delacroix21]

I'm shocked and excited all at once! I miss the early days of ddo where sneak was used to bypass fights. Now it seems as if everyone just runs wildly and kills everything in sight.


I have a question though:
Can you increase the incentive to sneak?


Let me explain:
1. Increase dubious cunning bonuses (live is so little bonus considering how much harder it is to sneak than kill)
2. Add more rogue traps and caster "trap" spells
3. Increase damage of traps and trap spells signicantly (fire trap spell should do double damage of delayed blast fireball considering the extra time etc to set up the trap, on live trap spells and rogue traps are considered to weak to use or too low DCs as it is so much easier to just run around and cast a quickened delayed blast fireball)
4. Allow spell wards to effect NPCs as well as players (part of DDOs charm is luring enemies into traps, its a shame these traps are so selective)
5. Allow rogues and artificers to lay spell ward traps!


Keep up the great work!

[UurlockYgmeov]

hate the target less

Love the communication! KEEP IT COMING! Pass memo's around to all Turbine staff - this is what we as a community want and deserve! BRAVISSIMO!

Love the initiative - several bad birds (ok - pigs) with one stone (bird) --- finding root causes to lag issues, cheating / sliding mobs, stealth being well... meh.... and so on.

+1 rep!


We’re going to try giving them a “searching” icon to indicate that they haven’t found a target yet.
Similarly, we want to give monsters a “red ear” icon whenever they hear a suspicious noise."

This part makes me a bit sad though. By popping up an icon over their head it, for me, removes some of the immersion of the game where player skill (such as it is) being able to recognize behaviors of the mobs WAS the visible clue. It required the player to put ranks into Knowledge:Mob vs. cheeply using sign boards to indicate actions.

Maybe ask Turbine to put a 'show mob behavior icons' checkbox in the options panel? might even further help reduce lag.

While Turbine is it - please split the UI Settings in Options into several category tabs - this really is where we get to decide our gameplay experience.


I guess it would be cool if they programmed it to be capable of "toggling" on an off.

Would also be interesting if more knowledge of the monster, i.e., higher achievements for that monster type in the monster manuals, would have some effect on knowing what they are doing (icons above their head and so forth) and maybe on stealth efficacy against those particular monsters. However people will feel that it would be required and be upset that they are "forced" to purchase monster manuals. Sorry, rambling on about a system that doesn't exist.

Agree with both statements.

Again - thank you for the communication No Dice! Please keep it coming!

[rest]

stuff

I'm not really all that excited for YET ANOTHER new system to be introduced to an (obviously) already overburdened game engine. The graveyard wasteland of half-finished abandoned systems (crafting systems in particular) is already to the point of ridiculous. Add in the fact that any time a new system is introduced it break a dozen other things and this is really shaping up to be not a good thing.

Good luck with your new system. I'm glad you're revamping a system that, while not perfect, seems to work adequately. Let's make no mention of the other things that could use attention, even just within the realm of the UI. New shiny stuff is WAY better than fixing or even completing the other stuff. NEW SHINEYS!

I guess the upside is that when this new system crashes and burns, you will release a new creature companion to distract people from how poorly it works. If it's tiny mudmen I won't even be mad!

[maddong]

Is this going to make it too easy to Zerg thru quests? Just run by everything, duck around the corner, slam an invis and go into stealth?

[rest]

I WILL say that this type of developer post is TOTALLY AWESOME and something I wish we could see more of. Laying out what you're doing, and why, is great and gives players a peek into the mindset of the developer. It can help with bug reports and to get more, better actionable feedback (completely opposite of my previous post, but I digress) as well as opening people's eyes to see something from an angle or perspective they may not have considered before.

So thanks for the post. Don't let my cynicism stop you from posting more like it in the future.

[AZgreentea]

As a person who plays a rogue as their main, I am really looking forward to this. I also tend to be sneaky with my other characters. Maybe I can finally make my arcane casters fun for me by adding a little true stealth to them. :D

[AZgreentea]

Is this going to make it too easy to Zerg thru quests? Just run by everything, duck around the corner, slam an invis and go into stealth?

From what I read above, I would think they would follow you around the corner and look for you. Stopping long enough to lose the aggro dosen't feel very "zerg" to me....

[danotmano1998]

Hey everyone! Your friendly neighborhood AI designer here!

+1 For that post. It's awesome to hear not only what is being changed, but the WHY of it.
Seriously. Great stuff, good luck on it and can't wait to see how it all turns out.
It's looking like my idea of finally getting around to making an assassin build would be a lot of fun. Can't wait!

[Kambuk]

Seems like a good time to ask for a new spell and mechanic if your working on stealth AI as it would need an AI overhaul to implement...

From the SRD:
Silence
Illusion (Glamer)
Level: Brd 2, Clr 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area: 20-ft.-radius emanation centered on a creature, object, or point in space
Duration: 1 min./level (D)
Saving Throw: Will negates; see text or none (object)
Spell Resistance: Yes; see text or no (object)

Upon the casting of this spell, complete silence prevails in the affected area. All sound is stopped: Conversation is impossible, spells with verbal components cannot be cast, and no noise whatsoever issues from, enters, or passes through the area. The spell can be cast on a point in space, but the effect is stationary unless cast on a mobile object. The spell can be centered on a creature, and the effect then radiates from the creature and moves as it moves. An unwilling creature can attempt a Will save to negate the spell and can use spell resistance, if any. Items in a creature’s possession or magic items that emit sound receive the benefits of saves and spell resistance, but unattended objects and points in space do not. This spell provides a defense against sonic or language-based attacks.

And or course update existing ones..

Blindness/Deafness
Necromancy
Level: Brd 2, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: One living creature
Duration: Permanent (D)
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You call upon the powers of unlife to render the subject blinded or deafened, as you choose.

[redspecter23]

I really like the potential stated in the OP. It sounds like it could be quite fun. However, I'm not sure if the #1 (at least for me) concern has been addressed. Stealthy players move slower than non stealthy players. In group situations, this means that in order to play stealthy, all players must slow down to the speed of the slowest player, the sneaky one. I find it hard to believe that players will adapt to a new slower system if the "invis and run" technique still works almost as well and allows full speed (+ more as you avoid multiple encounters completely).

I'm not suggesting a nerf to invisibility, but perhaps a buff to sneaky move speed?

[Flavilandile]

Thanks for the information, I have a few comments though :


[...]
We now have the ability to give your character the awareness to know when you have aggro from something. This will allow us to do things like putting you into combat stance rather than standing around idly until you’re getting punched in the head.

Please, please find another way than putting us in combat stance, some mobs have been aggroing from halfway down areas ( Earth Elementals are the obvious culprits, but they are not alone ).
There's visual ways to tell us that we are aggroed by something while we keep doing what we are doing.




With the updated AI awareness, we’d like it to be possible for a sufficiently skilled player to use sneak to lose monsters after they spot you! This is something that was never possible in combat before because monsters had too many ways to “cheat” and see/hear you if you attempted it.


This one would be great, as when a stealthed character pulls a trigger, open a door or do an action the stealth is broken, if there's mob around they all aggro him instantaneously.

On the other hand, there's quests where doors have been added long ago just because you could pike them at the entrance while sending the rogue for a 3 minute stealth fest.




Stealth should have the following advantages over mere invisibility:

With sufficiently high skill, monsters won’t hear you, allowing you to avoid detection completely as you sneak by (go go move silently!)
Escaping combat using sneak - this largely hasn’t been possible before, but we’d like skilled players with appropriate skills to be able to escape completely by activating sneak and escaping the area where their opponents last saw them. When monsters search the area they lost you in making blind attacks, they should lose aggro over time and eventually give up if they receive no additional clues to your location. I’ve been spending a lot of time on this, as it was the most requested fix by stealth enthusiasts on the forums, and from my testing I think it'll be quite fun : )
Assassinate! Still finalizing the application here but the goal is making sure our Assassins can … you know… assassinate things!



1) Right now a rogue or a bard, or anybody that spent sufficiently in sneak can come up to a monster ( almost any monster ) with it unaware... in some case in front of it.
2) That would be great, as right now for an assassin, you use your assassinate as the opening move of a fight, then you are stuck waiting for it to refresh ( if you can ) or you have to fight the normal way.
3) well reduce the cooldown... I you trigger it as the opening move of a fight, usually the fight is finished when you can use it again.
As for assassinating things it works as long as you are behind the monster... if you are flanking it or in front of it it does not work. ( at least that's how it works for my assassin )

[Delacroix21]

Currently trapmaking caps at level 11 traps, it would be super easy to add more recipies scalling to 28.


Also No Dice, can you engage with us a bit more? We all love MajMal because he doesnt just post and then abandon, he hangs around a bit to address some players questions etc. dont be shy buddy!

[Recared]

Fantastic!!!!! Thank you very much for all the extensive and clear feedback!!!!!!

[R1ncewind]

Using a lever or any other object should not interrupt sneak or invisibility, it should warn the monster close to it that something odd is going on but breaking the sneak is terrible to a rogue, if you do this way maybe exploring while in sneak mode would be useful again for example the rogue go first in sneak mode then open a door pass the search check of the mobs then the group move to the door and after they pass the rogue is already closing the door so a fight is avoided, and the rogue praise ;P

[Satyriasys]

Great news but this bit is unnecessary...




Monsters should no longer slide around when they are searching for a hidden enemy. Instead, we’re going to be adding a visual cue that doesn’t look like an animation bug.
[LIST]
We’re going to try giving them a “searching” icon to indicate that they haven’t found a target yet.
Similarly, we want to give monsters a “red ear” icon whenever they hear a suspicious noise.


Just make our footsteps glow and the monster creep towards the sound. No need for silly ear icons.

[maddong]

I would make invis players make sound when they are jumping through the air if they aren't in stealth. Double the stealthy xp bonuses but have any monster that sees you or hears you count as a monster killed. This would prevent people that just run thru the whole quest then lose the aggro at the end from getting ultra fast easy completions with the bonus xp.

[Qhualor]

thanks for the communication. I like everything you said and hope it works out. it would be awesome if all of that could happen.

[Tscheuss]

Big red ears and other icons may be useful while testing and refining your code, but I would hate to see them in live. It is enough that monster behaviour changes. D&D is most fun with a balance of character and player skills. Please don't dumb down the player side of the scale.

[rest]

Big red ears and other icons may be useful while testing and refining your code, but I would hate to see them in live. It is enough that monster behaviour changes. D&D is most fun with a balance of character and player skills. Please don't dumb down the player side of the scale.

I tend to agree with this, but I know when the "sight lines" were added in for finding a trap through search, plenty of people were up in arms about "immersion" and stuff like that. I was a little leary of it first, but it really really really made trapping easier for folks who haven't memorized every box.

[Tscheuss]

Hmm. I don't recall trap boxes looking around when they sensed someone sneaking up on them, but okay. ;)

Then I vote for toggle option.

Or maybe put them in Korthos with all the other cues that are useful the first time, but annoying ever after. lol

[Scraap]

Many moons ago, you could attack while stealthed at half(?) rate until you were discovered. Personally I found that to be an interesting mechanic before the latest set of 'get to cap and farm there only' pushes. Whether there's still bits and pieces of that laying around for use, or whether that'd be deemed OP...

[esheep]

We’ve also improved how monsters handle being blind, bringing it more in line with how they handle invisibility.


Any chance that invis will bring with it a 50% miss chance? It does sound a little OP, but from a practicality viewpoint it has merit.

Also, any chance that with proper skill in move silent a player will be able to perform stealth actions? Like pulling a lever and remaining in sneak mode? or opening a door?

EDIT: nice work so far though!

[Talon_Moonshadow]

This sounds fabulous assuming you can mak eit all work correctly.

One request: Isn't Invisibility suppose to provide a 50% miss chance according to 3.5 D&D rules?
Since Improved Invis is limited in DDO, I really think this should be added. after all, if they cannot see you aren't they essentually blind? don't you essentially have concealment?

and... is there a way to account fo rline of sight, when they look for you? For instance, shouldn't I be able to run around a corner and hide, and have them NOT know where I am? Not sure if this wil be possible with what you have in mind so far....

Thank you in advance for all of your hard work.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Thank you for flattly telling us what you are wanting to do and what we can expect to see. That should help with bug report.

"Monsters should no longer slide around when they are searching for a hidden enemy. Instead, we’re going to be adding a visual cue that doesn’t look like an animation bug.

We’re going to try giving them a “searching” icon to indicate that they haven’t found a target yet.
Similarly, we want to give monsters a “red ear” icon whenever they hear a suspicious noise."

This part makes me a bit sad though. By popping up an icon over their head it, for me, removes some of the immersion of the game where player skill (such as it is) being able to recognize behaviors of the mobs WAS the visible clue. It required the player to put ranks into Knowledge:Mob vs. cheeply using sign boards to indicate actions.

I kinda agre...lol

I "already" know when I agro monsters... :)
They already change their behavior visibily, they also make noise.

Dumb this down and I'm gona loise one of my major advantages as a player....

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I'm shocked and excited all at once! I miss the early days of ddo where sneak was used to bypass fights. Now it seems as if everyone just runs wildly and kills everything in sight.


I have a question though:
Can you increase the incentive to sneak?


Let me explain:
1. Increase dubious cunning bonuses (live is so little bonus considering how much harder it is to sneak than kill)
2. Add more rogue traps and caster "trap" spells
3. Increase damage of traps and trap spells signicantly (fire trap spell should do double damage of delayed blast fireball considering the extra time etc to set up the trap, on live trap spells and rogue traps are considered to weak to use or too low DCs as it is so much easier to just run around and cast a quickened delayed blast fireball)
4. Allow spell wards to effect NPCs as well as players (part of DDOs charm is luring enemies into traps, its a shame these traps are so selective)
5. Allow rogues and artificers to lay spell ward traps!


Keep up the great work!

I think the only way to do this is to make getting agro very painful.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Is this going to make it too easy to Zerg thru quests? Just run by everything, duck around the corner, slam an invis and go into stealth?

Something to think about if people feel that Invis is becominf abused. Currently, Red Dungeon Alert gives ALL monster See Invis ability. This could be expanded to even Green Alert if needed.

Actually sneaking takes time (well.. sorta... 30% striders and Fatser Sneaking IV is pretty fast actually...lol)

Also, I think Move Silently scroe will still play into things.

Might be awhile before players invset in sneak skills and take time to use it.

Invis and run is easy. (and it should be)
IMO, best way to handle abuses of Invis and run is any DA causes See Invis on all mosnsters. real sneakers will not be causing DA. (and can always Hide anyway)

[Talon_Moonshadow]

As a person who plays a rogue as their main, I am really looking forward to this. I also tend to be sneaky with my other characters. Maybe I can finally make my arcane casters fun for me by adding a little true stealth to them. :D

You already can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UqSHCIJ1jo

[Silverleafeon]

Most critically, we’ve made some performance improvements that should SIGNIFICANTLY reduce AI-related lag and framerate issues, especially in large group and raid situations.

:) :) :)

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I really like the potential stated in the OP. It sounds like it could be quite fun. However, I'm not sure if the #1 (at least for me) concern has been addressed. Stealthy players move slower than non stealthy players. In group situations, this means that in order to play stealthy, all players must slow down to the speed of the slowest player, the sneaky one. I find it hard to believe that players will adapt to a new slower system if the "invis and run" technique still works almost as well and allows full speed (+ more as you avoid multiple encounters completely).

I'm not suggesting a nerf to invisibility, but perhaps a buff to sneaky move speed?

I've been zerge stealthing for years now in groups.
Invis helps
Faster sneaking IV helps a lot.

But their are many ways to use it in groups already. and fast ways.

But truthfully the actual stealth skill numbers barely come into play in those situations. my zerge stealth is essentually using sneak mode and other players to avoid agro. mixed with Invis when needed to stand up and run full speed.

I would like to see options for non-rogues to get faster sneaking enhancments though.

[Weyborn]

This part makes me a bit sad though. By popping up an icon over their head it, for me, removes some of the immersion of the game where player skill (such as it is) being able to recognize behaviors of the mobs WAS the visible clue. It required the player to put ranks into Knowledge:Mob vs. cheeply using sign boards to indicate actions.[/QUOTE]


I would agree with this - don't make the graphics too video gamey

[nayozz]

in fallout 1 and 2 you could take silent run feat and just run while being stealthed, that made a very nice gameplay...

my idea could be to make stealth speed almost equal to normal running speed without enhancement buff (striding)
and then stealth training enhancement raising it

here is a simple example:

while stealthed you cannot benefit from striding effect or similar effect to run speed

stealth makes you move at 90% of normal running speed

each tier of stealth training raises your stealth speed:
stealth training 1 makes stealth speed equal to normal running speed
stealth training 2 makes stealth speed equal to normal running speed with 10% striding
stealth training 4 makes stealth speed equal to normal running speed with 30% striding


this would make sneak party friendly, especially pug friendly...

[maddmatt70]

We’ll go into more detail about the way stealth will work, particularly for you aspiring Shadar-kai Assassins. For now just be aware that there is a LOT going on with the stealth system at the moment, and the version that first appears on Lamannia is not ready for the spotlight yet. Once we’re closer to a playable test of the new stealth features, we will let you know!

Several comments. First having a really high move silently and hide skills in game are not rewarded in game correctly. Even with skills scores in 70s I get seen and discovered much too easily. Second, I have noticed that to be a successful sneaker in DDO you have to move really fast which is almost counterintuitive. I was thinking that I had to get faster sneaking 4 and sprint boost 4 for optimum results which in some ways is counterintuitive. Finally, I am very pleased that you are making this effort. Sneaking is a different kind of playstyle which enriches the game giving someone the opportunity to play DDO in different manner then hack and slash or what have you so thank you.

[maddmatt70]

in fallout 1 and 2 you could take silent run feat and just run while being stealthed, that made a very nice gameplay...

my idea could be to make stealth speed almost equal to normal running speed without enhancement buff (striding)
and then stealth training enhancement raising it

here is a simple example:

while stealthed you cannot benefit from striding effect or similar effect to run speed

stealth makes you move at 90% of normal running speed

each tier of stealth training raises your stealth speed:
stealth training 1 makes stealth speed equal to normal running speed
stealth training 2 makes stealth speed equal to normal running speed with 10% striding
stealth training 4 makes stealth speed equal to normal running speed with 30% striding


this would make sneak party friendly, especially pug friendly...

I do not think making sneak party friendly or pug friendly is a realistic goal because it would be either difficult to balance or not conducive to group play. What I would settle for would be making sneak solo friendly because currently it is not solo friendly even. Try soloing with sneak in game with red alert and the various bugs and you will find it is not a realistic endeavor or remotely efficient.

[Telayna]

This part makes me a bit sad though. By popping up an icon over their head it, for me, removes some of the immersion of the game where player skill (such as it is) being able to recognize behaviors of the mobs WAS the visible clue. It required the player to put ranks into Knowledge:Mob vs. cheeply using sign boards to indicate actions.


I would agree with this - don't make the graphics too video gamey[/QUOTE]

Instead of making it a flash, make it a buff/debuff on the NPC in question. This way, a skilled stealther would pick up from visual clues only (the mob starts moving in your direction), but a novice stealther could target the mob to watch for when he may be detected by using (ctrl-z). It allows immersion and training and enhanced bug reporting.

I also think that the NPC should get stacking bonuses for each time he "hears" you. So if he starts to hear you, get out of the way, or get detected.

[Meetch1972]

I really like the potential stated in the OP. It sounds like it could be quite fun. However, I'm not sure if the #1 (at least for me) concern has been addressed. Stealthy players move slower than non stealthy players. In group situations, this means that in order to play stealthy, all players must slow down to the speed of the slowest player, the sneaky one. I find it hard to believe that players will adapt to a new slower system if the "invis and run" technique still works almost as well and allows full speed (+ more as you avoid multiple encounters completely).

I'm not suggesting a nerf to invisibility, but perhaps a buff to sneaky move speed?

This sort of thing occurred to me as I read the OP. The specific case that came to mind was around entering stealth mode and having the invis effect. The net result should mean at the least that the visual aspect of stealth isn't required, but moving silently is, hence you could sneak upright while invisible, hence moving faster. If you really wanted to tie it to Monster AI and the Monster Manual, if the character has enough knowledge to know the mob can't see invis, they automatically sneak "upright", knowing that the mob can't see them.

TL;DR - sneaking while invisible to allow moving faster than sneaking while not invisible faster than not sneaking would be a nice touch. It might force additional stealth modes or adding a metamagic-like effect to stealth mode allowing you to "assume monsters can see invis".

[red_cardinal]

Quite frankly, good show man! I cannot believe that finally somebody actually is taking care of those things.
Seriously, 7 years is way to long, but better late then never. I mean, you guys obviously never played "Stealty reposession" in sneak mode. :P It's actually played with dungeon alert and in zerg mode with sprint boost and haste.

Nobody actually used Sap feat. Shame, really. Now it might be viable.



We’ll go into more detail about the way stealth will work, particularly for you aspiring Shadar-kai Assassins. For now just be aware that there is a LOT going on with the stealth system at the moment, and the version that first appears on Lamannia is not ready for the spotlight yet. Once we’re closer to a playable test of the new stealth features, we will let you know!

If you fix things only when you need to sell a new thing and your superiors figure out that first impression might be borked, that's not a good thing. You still have a pile of bugs and that's the reason game is rated low 6/10 or 7/10, where it should be 9.5/10... But, wait! You have to dedicate manpower for that and time.

[red_cardinal]

I do not think making sneak party friendly or pug friendly is a realistic goal because it would be either difficult to balance or not conducive to group play. What I would settle for would be making sneak solo friendly because currently it is not solo friendly even. Try soloing with sneak in game with red alert and the various bugs and you will find it is not a realistic endeavor or remotely efficient.

This game doesn't have to be realistic. These basic mechanics just have to work correct, nothing else. There shouldn't be a need for "cheating" on AI side or gamer's side.

As for the balance... They break wail to make casters less powerful. This is NOT intended that way, but that's what they do it. They try a new thing, but they don't test it till the end and they push it into release. And the new thing remains just another entry in the pile of bugs.

[BOgre]

Hey everyone! Your friendly neighborhood AI designer here! During the next Lamannia update parts of upcoming stealth system changes will be visible. I’m still getting stealth ready for actual previewing at a later time. However, since parts of it will be showing up on Lamannia prematurely during the Enhancements second look, now is a great time to tell you more about what I’ve been working on.


I'm totally in love with Turbine's new early discussion policy. Thank you very much for braving the cesspool. ;)

I love my 18/1/1 Ranger, so work in the area of Stealth makes me very happy.

I'm also a huge fan of any work you do in regards to AI, so yet again, very very happy.

You've hit my ultimate trifecta: early info, Ranger, and AI. I'm beside myself. :)

[Moltier]

snip

Awesome!
Thanks for sharing what you are working on!
If you can make this work like you described, a lot, i mean a LOT of new and experienced players will enjoy the game more. The lag fix is just a bonus.

So keep up the good work! :)

[SteeleTrueheart]

Thank you.

I don't care about sneaking all that much, the early communication by Turbine is excellent though. Whoever has led this change in the communication policy should get a pat on the back and a raise!

[locus]

Just make our footsteps glow and the monster creep towards the sound. No need for silly ear icons.
I too would MUCH rather have this than any other icons. Glowing footsteps are a pretty cool idea. I'd prefer to stay away this (big icons), and anything approaching an aggro meter indicator (for tanking). The rest sounds pretty cool.... especially the reduction in lag!

[delsoboss]

SIGH ... alright i tried to post a long, quoted post but the forums hate me and do creepy things if i try to post it so, short version:

Great to hear from you guys! Pass the word around the team that we really love this kind of communication and if you keep it up this forum will be all puppies barking rainbows in no time!

Be carefull with too many flashy icons with sneak: they break immersion and dumb down the game (if i fail at sneaking i fail and get mobbed, the lesson i learn is to not fail and avoid my mistakes).

Feel free to implement this new stilish flashy visible icons for spot! Yeah you heard me, spot! Something that would add a nice touch and utility to the game is if when someone in a party spots a trap or a secret door then one of this flashy icons appears on his/her head warning the rest of the party (no more excuses for fail zerglings barbarians that find traps with their face and die).

Be extremely careful with assassinate, if you break it most of this sneak rework will be for naught.

Right now (uhm, haven't tested u18p2) when you assassinate a monster its nearby buddies don't zero on you autodetecting your sorry behind like they used to but instead they investigate their fallen comrade. That's how it should've always been and that's how it should be in the future. So please, for the love of all the soon-to-be-here puppies barking rainbows, don't mess it up!

Take your time, do it right and THANKS!

[Tscheuss]

I'm totally in love with Turbine's new early discussion policy. Thank you very much for braving the cesspool. ;)

I love my 18/1/1 Ranger, so work in the area of Stealth makes me very happy.

I'm also a huge fan of any work you do in regards to AI, so yet again, very very happy.

You've hit my ultimate trifecta: early info, Ranger, and AI. I'm beside myself. :)

Bet you haven't been this happy since you last had a tummy rub. ;)

[Truga]

We’re going to try giving them a “searching” icon to indicate that they haven’t found a target yet.
Similarly, we want to give monsters a “red ear” icon whenever they hear a suspicious noise."

This part makes me a bit sad though. By popping up an icon over their head it, for me, removes some of the immersion of the game where player skill (such as it is) being able to recognize behaviors of the mobs WAS the visible clue. It required the player to put ranks into Knowledge:Mob vs. cheeply using sign boards to indicate actions.

This is my only issue too. Apart from the overhead icons though, the changes look so awesome they're insane!

[Urjak]

<snip>

Stealth should have the following advantages over mere invisibility:

<snip>
Assassinate! Still finalizing the application here but the goal is making sure our Assassins can … you know… assassinate things!


<snip>



First off: Awesome news! :)
But: Please could you expand these awesome new abilities not only to assassins but also deepwood snipers? THANK YOU! :)

[Missing_Minds]

IMO, best way to handle abuses of Invis and run is any DA causes See Invis on all mosnsters. real sneakers will not be causing DA. (and can always Hide anyway)
Well... remember. Invis may give a 50% miss chance due to 3.5 rules, but also

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/spot.htm
"A Spot check result higher than 20 generally lets you become aware of an invisible creature near you, though you can’t actually see it. "

Hiding doesn't grant the 50% miss. So if mobs had high spot checks on occasion, running Invis is not a fool proof method for avoiding DA either.

[BOgre]

First off: Awesome news! :)
But: Please could you expand these awesome new abilities not only to assassins but also deepwood snipers? THANK YOU! :)

Yeah, Please make sure to include any and all classes that have a horse in the race. Rangers' "hide in plain sight" needs to have some sort of attention paid, right? Shadow Dancer needs to have attention paid. Who know WHAT all in the new enhancement system will need attention paid. Let us know what you're planning, k? :)

[TeacherSyn]

Awesome news. My ninjas will approve.

As many have stated earlier, we "get by" right now and become aware of the AI acting up in certain situations that aren't logical. I'm all for these ideas (with the exception of more overhead icons--as others mentioned, just change the glow on the feet).

Being able to return to stealth to escape a crowd would be a godsend for rogueish types. I'm all for the ideas. Thanks very much for letting us know.

[Postumus]

H


We want to make red footsteps only appear when a monster actually hears you while you’re sneaking. If you see the red splash, your position has been given away! (It used to play any time you might be heard, but weren’t necessarily actually being heard.)

We also want to make the footsteps show when more monsters hear you, such as by making it darker and redder!
Invisible characters should also display red footsteps to indicate when a monster can hear them as well. This is only a visual change - monsters could always hear you when you were running around invisible... We're just extending the visual feedback to more situations!


White footsteps still indicate that you are sneaking near a monster who might hear you if you get closer, and will still play only if sneaking. That's one of the benefits of trying to be sneaky : )
Monsters should no longer slide around when they are searching for a hidden enemy. Instead, we’re going to be adding a visual cue that doesn’t look like an animation bug.

We’re going to try giving them a “searching” icon to indicate that they haven’t found a target yet.
Similarly, we want to give monsters a “red ear” icon whenever they hear a suspicious noise.


We now have the ability to give your character the awareness to know when you have aggro from something. This will allow us to do things like putting you into combat stance rather than standing around idly until you’re getting punched in the head.


We’re also sending our monsters back to Dungeon Monster 101 class to learn to play by the rules better:


We’ve been looking into the ways that monsters could “improperly” detect you. .. They currently cheat and get their target's location every 6 seconds or less even if the target is hidden or invisible, as well as essentially echo-locating players using the sounds of their own ranged attacks. This also has an unintended side effect of being a performance hog. Bad monsters! We want to replace these with fairer ways for the monsters to find players, as well as bring a big performance improvement.

We’ve improved the search attack algorithms. They’ll expand their search radius when making blind attacks, hate the target less after a few whiffs, and eventually give up after a number of fruitless attacks where they’re unable to hit anything. If they manage to get a relevant clue on their enemy’s whereabouts, then they’ll resume their search.
I’ve begun updating monsters to fire at your most recent known position when they can’t see you, where they used to cheat and fire directly to you when they aren’t supposed to know where you are.


We’ve also improved how monsters handle being blind, bringing it more in line with how they handle invisibility.
With the updated AI awareness, we’d like it to be possible for a sufficiently skilled player to use sneak to lose monsters after they spot you! This is something that was never possible in combat before because monsters had too many ways to “cheat” and see/hear you if you attempted it.
Here are some other “monster vs stealth” behaviors we’re working on:

We don’t want scorpions to burrow directly to you when they aren’t supposed to know where you are.
We don’t want minotaurs to charge directly to you when they aren’t supposed to know where you are.



Generally speaking, these changes should have the effect of:

Making casual use of sneak actually valid, especially combined with other upcoming changes to how sneak works.
Trained use of sneak should be much more effective, and a valid build path/gameplay style that can be enjoyed by many more people.


Obviously people will have questions about how this brave new world of sneakiness will impact invisibility. One of our goals was to add more value to using stealth in combat even if you are running with a party that does not want to wait for you to sneak ahead. We'd like to support a stealth character as a more viable build path, which can do more stuff that any random character who can slurp an invis potion.

Stealth should have the following advantages over mere invisibility:

With sufficiently high skill, monsters won’t hear you, allowing you to avoid detection completely as you sneak by (go go move silently!)
Escaping combat using sneak - this largely hasn’t been possible before, but we’d like skilled players with appropriate skills to be able to escape completely by activating sneak and escaping the area where their opponents last saw them. When monsters search the area they lost you in making blind attacks, they should lose aggro over time and eventually give up if they receive no additional clues to your location. I’ve been spending a lot of time on this, as it was the most requested fix by stealth enthusiasts on the forums, and from my testing I think it'll be quite fun : )
Assassinate! Still finalizing the application here but the goal is making sure our Assassins can … you know… assassinate things!


We’ll go into more detail about the way stealth will work, particularly for you aspiring Shadar-kai Assassins. For now just be aware that there is a LOT going on with the stealth system at the moment, and the version that first appears on Lamannia is not ready for the spotlight yet. Once we’re closer to a playable test of the new stealth features, we will let you know!

Awesome, awesome news! You will have rolled a big BIG 20 if you can pull this off even close to how it is described.

[Nascoe]

I'm not really all that excited for YET ANOTHER new system to be introduced to an (obviously) already overburdened game engine.
Good luck with your new system. I'm glad you're revamping a system that, while not perfect, seems to work adequately. Let's make no mention of the other things that could use attention, even just within the realm of the UI. New shiny stuff is WAY better than fixing or even completing the other stuff.


You must have missed the part where it started out by finding bugs and causes for lag there. If a new mechanic enables to take away several not completely working ones that CAUSE lag, and replace them with one simpler mechanic developed with all these causes of lag and errors in mind, its exactly what many of us have been asking for!

Tirbaalis

[ForumAccess]

Some interesting stuff here. I am not really sure if it is really going to make Stealth very mainstream, but even if it is just used by PD and 'explorer' type players it still sounds very neat.


I’ve begun updating monsters to fire at your most recent known position when they can’t see you, where they used to cheat and fire directly to you when they aren’t supposed to know where you are.
I would assume that 'fire' includes spells as well? How about spells that can not be 'soft targeted'?

[The_Winged]

White footsteps still indicate that you are sneaking near a monster who might hear you if you get closer, and will still play only if sneaking. That's one of the benefits of trying to be sneaky : )
Monsters should no longer slide around when they are searching for a hidden enemy. Instead, we’re going to be adding a visual cue that doesn’t look like an animation bug.
We’re going to try giving them a “searching” icon to indicate that they haven’t found a target yet.
Similarly, we want to give monsters a “red ear” icon whenever they hear a suspicious noise.
We now have the ability to give your character the awareness to know when you have aggro from something. This will allow us to do things like putting you into combat stance rather than standing around idly until you’re getting punched in the head.


In my opinion this feature should not be automatic or given to everyone but player would have to get a spot/listen higher than monster CR to notice he has been noticed :) this feature is so strong and give such an advantage that player should do something to get it. it will also make tanks get those skills to control the hate on them. also the hate or monster interest drop over time so these icons could be scaled (by size or opacity) with dropping hate or monster interest.



Stealth should have the following advantages over mere invisibility:

With sufficiently high skill, monsters won’t hear you, allowing you to avoid detection completely as you sneak by (go go move silently!)
Escaping combat using sneak - this largely hasn't been possible before, but we’d like skilled players with appropriate skills to be able to escape completely by activating sneak and escaping the area where their opponents last saw them. When monsters search the area they lost you in making blind attacks, they should lose aggro over time and eventually give up if they receive no additional clues to your location. I’ve been spending a lot of time on this, as it was the most requested fix by stealth enthusiasts on the forums, and from my testing I think it'll be quite fun : )
Assassinate! Still finalizing the application here but the goal is making sure our Assassins can … you know… assassinate things!


I think i am not the only one who remembers the time when deepwood snipers sniped shot was supposed not to break stealth and what made him a real usefull sniper. Can we expect that or not?

[Cyr]

I'm not really all that excited for YET ANOTHER new system to be introduced to an (obviously) already overburdened game engine. The graveyard wasteland of half-finished abandoned systems (crafting systems in particular) is already to the point of ridiculous. Add in the fact that any time a new system is introduced it break a dozen other things and this is really shaping up to be not a good thing.

Good luck with your new system. I'm glad you're revamping a system that, while not perfect, seems to work adequately. Let's make no mention of the other things that could use attention, even just within the realm of the UI. New shiny stuff is WAY better than fixing or even completing the other stuff. NEW SHINEYS!

I guess the upside is that when this new system crashes and burns, you will release a new creature companion to distract people from how poorly it works. If it's tiny mudmen I won't even be mad!

Yup this right here. The game needs more content, bug fixes, and systems work to actually be finished and integrated with other systems that came out later. Finish the work you start Turbine, stop littering the game with half baked systems.

[Cyr]

You must have missed the part where it started out by finding bugs and causes for lag there. If a new mechanic enables to take away several not completely working ones that CAUSE lag, and replace them with one simpler mechanic developed with all these causes of lag and errors in mind, its exactly what many of us have been asking for!

Tirbaalis

Uh huh, because the way to fix bugs is to just make new systems. The game should be bug free if that was the case with all the random new systems the devs have thrown in over the past few years.

[Fixil]

Thx for letting us know some of your ideas and the work you are doing, great to hear.
Don't worry about the whiners, we really do like the communications.

[Tscheuss]

Uh huh, because the way to fix bugs is to just make new systems. The game should be bug free if that was the case with all the random new systems the devs have thrown in over the past few years.

Replacing bugged subsystems with a cleanly designed and tested subsystem is an accepted approach to fixing bugs.

[LightBear]

First I would like to say 3 things to No_Dice:
1) Thx;
2) Thx;
3) Thx!

Secondly I have one question:
-) How does float (from the Epic Destiny Tier 6 Shadow dancer Shadow Form and/or Shroud of the Vampire/Wraith/Lich from Pale master) effect the AI for Invisibility and/or move silent?
The hovering above the ground animation gives me the impression that less noise is made when moving around. I can't find any DnD rules on this so far (sorry for bringing that in).

[IRememberWhen]

I am excited to learn of these changes. Excellent comments from other posters.

There are ways to briefly break aggro, like with Bluff--my assassin does this in conjunction with Sap in order to set up multiple assassination attempts if necessary--a quick assassination attempt right after bluff can be done in the brief window available.

In fact, please consider how Sap might be further integrated into the stealth makeover. For example, if a rogue sneaks up and saps a mob, the rogue could avoid aggro (and maybe even avoid alerting the mob altogether). I suppose you could extend this to Stunning Blow and Stunning Fist if the attack is done while hidden. Also, maybe have Sap not break stealth when successful? This would increase interest in the Sap feat. (Please do not nerf it.)

How about what happens when you bluff a mob while hidden and stealthed? Right now, they really freak out and swing around, or shoot randomly. It could be redesigned to temporarily increase your stealth numbers in relation to that one mob.

DDO is fun for me because the stealth mechanics fit my playstyle. The new enhancement lines allowing rangers and rogues to do damage with their Dex on light weapons will really aid in this tactic, since it gives an incentive to focus heavily on stealth's main ability.

[kamimitsu]

First off: THANK YOU!!!!!

I'm an big promoter of the stealth lifestyle (one only has to look at the R.O.G.U.E. Proving Grounds to see that). One of the great things about DDO is that there are so many ways to go about completing a quest. Yet, there are very few quests that can be fully stealthified. FlimsyFirewood has been my hero for some time, given his support of stealth-ready quests. You, No_Dice, are now on my radar!

I don't have to tell you that Monster AI in regards to stealth has been less than consistent, so I'm very excited to hear that is being addressed. One of the saddest moments in my DDO tenure was when Sannyasi (in the Monastery) developed super-acute echolocation.

If I might make a slight suggestion, I highly recommend you look to an older PlayStation series, TENCHU, for inspiration on application of icons. Monsters in that game have 3 modes "patrol", "searching", and "aggroed". To indicate their status, icons appear above their heads briefly when they change status: a yellow question mark for "searching" and a red exclamation for "aggroed". They will also say things like "Where are you!?", "I found you!", or "I guess it was nothing" which the player can hear if close enough. I'm undecided as to whether monster overhead icons are disruptive to the game's immersion. However, one could simply make a small circle in the target reticule with the appropriate mob-state icon (or alternately a toggle to have it overhead vs. in reticule), so that players who have a mob targeted would know its AI status.

I'll reserve comment or judgement until after I see the changes in action, but it pleases me to no end to hear that someone is addressing the AI issues for those with a stealthy preference.

Until then, happy sneaking.

ps. Lest anyone doubt my sneakitude (and because, ironically, I like to show it off) feel free to check out Stealth Midler Farmhouse Epic Elite (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/399275-Epic-Elite-Midler-Farmhouse-%28Impossible-Demands%29-Stealth-w-hireling-2-kills?highlight=), N/H/E Monastery on a level 13 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/193316-Monastery-Solo-N-H-E-Level-13-Rogue-Stealth?highlight=) and Duo Stealth Epic Claw of Vulkoor (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/270507-Thank-you-FlimsyFirewood!?highlight=)

[Qezuzu]

Part of me is glad that stealth is getting some love, but another part of me is worried that it will become too mind-numbingly easy.

http://i.imgur.com/vt7wQm4.jpg

I mean just look at this. This is epic ****ing elite. I know it's Carnival, but eGH is the same thing. This **** should not fly, even with my absurdly high stealth scores.

The only current challenge with stealth right now is dealing with goof ups. Sure, it's not realistic right now for a mob to track you down through an entire quest based on one sighting, but the alternative, being able to shed aggro by popping into stealth, is just too easy. With this change, I'm worried that people will not truly stealth: they'll just zerg in invis, and at an opportune time pop into stealth and scurry away.

Some changes I recommend:

For every mob that sights you, all mobs in the dungeon should be "alarmed" and have bonuses to spot/listen. Every time you get spotted again, the bonus increases, and will keep increasing to the point where your hide skill becomes totally ineffective
More caster mobs should have True Seeing, and, if they suspect an invisible player, will start casting it on themselves and other mobs. They do NOT have to aggro the player to start casting; if they think they hear something, they'll cast TS just to make it a bit harder for the player. TS should also give a bonus to spot.
The auto-detect cone of sight should be extended. That picture up there is just sad. I could probably have gotten closer, too.
With the changes to sneak and mob AI that would allow a player to escape just but going into stealth, I think that the sneak stance should be changed so that it takes some time before you're actually hidden, e.g. I would need to wait five seconds (to "meld into the shadows" or whatever) after going into sneak before I am actually hidden. That way, if you're being chased/shot at by a mob, it would be harder to get away (the timer would reset every time you're kicked out of stealth).
Mobs that have spotted a player, but lost track of them, should start patrolling around.
Some other effects could be introduced that would make stealth more challenging:

Fire arrows: some archers could have flaming arrows that would momentarily ignite a player, giving substantial penalties to hide (and also doing some damage)
Some existing debuffs, like crippling shot, could also incur some penalties to stealth scores
Illuminate: some casters could have a new spell called "Illuminate", which would come in three flavors:

Illuminate Self: a self-buff that causes the caster's body to emit light. If you step into this light, you are almost guaranteed to be seen. Some casters would cast this upon spawning. Will also reveal invisible players.
Symbol of Illumination: Like other symbols, is activated when triggered by a player. Illuminates a single area. If you are caught in an illuminated area, you are almost guaranteed to be seen. Casters would cast this if they hear something, but they don't have to have aggro. Will also reveal invisible players.
Illuminate Enemy: Causes the player's body to emit light. It is almost impossible to stealth while debuffed like this. Short duration (twenty seconds or so), and would only be cast if the caster has aggro on you.




The point is, please don't make stealth easy.

Also, give bonuses for stealthing through a dungeon. Not just for not killing many mobs, but also for not being seen by any mobs (or at least, very few mobs).

[sjt_12]

The yellow eye and the red ear over the monster's head while sneaking is cool!

[Satyriasys]

Drow could cast Faerie Fire on us to keep us from hiding too.

[Hajutze]

Can someone test a sneak build without Hide in plain sight and with it and post the results - how much the feat helps and if it's needed in a sneaky build.

In short is lv17 ranger really needed for such a build.

[ahpook]

First off, Thanks No DIce! My first character back in 2006 was a sneaker and I still play him but his focus on sneak has been sacrificed to DPS over the years so any attention back to sneak is great.


Using a lever or any other object should not interrupt sneak or invisibility, it should warn the monster close to it that something odd is going on but breaking the sneak is terrible to a rogue, if you do this way maybe exploring while in sneak mode would be useful again for example the rogue go first in sneak mode then open a door pass the search check of the mobs then the group move to the door and after they pass the rogue is already closing the door so a fight is avoided, and the rogue praise ;P

I would agree. Instead of breaking stealth, make using a lever, rune, etc give a penalty to hide, move silently, spot, AC (others?) of twice the dungeon level. That should accomplish the same goals as popping the character out of sneak mode.

[floydpepper]

Thanks for the update, No Dice, I'm really looking forward to the changes.

However:


Using a lever or any other object should not interrupt sneak or invisibility, it should warn the monster close to it that something odd is going on but breaking the sneak is terrible to a rogue, if you do this way maybe exploring while in sneak mode would be useful again for example the rogue go first in sneak mode then open a door pass the search check of the mobs then the group move to the door and after they pass the rogue is already closing the door so a fight is avoided, and the rogue praise ;P

I agree with this; using a lever should not automatically break stealth. Maybe nearby mobs should get new spot/listen rolls with a bonus instead (after all they could hear something or see movement from the corner of their eyes). It would be awesome if it were possible to run Stealthy Repossession on a stealthy character...




More caster mobs should have True Seeing, and, if they suspect an invisible player, will start casting it on themselves and other mobs. They do NOT have to aggro the player to start casting; if they think they hear something, they'll cast TS just to make it a bit harder for the player. TS should also give a bonus to spot.


Having enemy casters have cast True Seeing if they suspect hidden or invisible characters is a good idea by itself, but while I know that DDO is not D&D, and the ddowiki spell description of True Seeing doesn't say anything about spot bonuses, the spell description in the 3.5 Player's Handbook EXPLICITLY says: "True Seeing does not help the viewer see through mundane disguises, spot creatures who are simply hiding , or notice secret doors hidden by mundane means." (D&D 3.5 PHB p. 296, emphasis mine) The ability to discover hidden characters should mainly be the strength of mobs with high spot/listen skills, like rogues or rangers, and not of casters with no ranks in spot or listen.

By the way, I totally don't believe that suggesting a spot bonus coming with True Seeing was just a sneaky attempt to give player casters with a rogue splash an easy spot bonus. :D

I do agree that mobs patroling the area where they heard noise for a while would be a nice touch, although they should resume their normal activities after a while - like in the Thief pc game series.

[maitremechant]

.
Here are some other “monster vs stealth” behaviors we’re working on:

We don’t want scorpions to burrow directly to you when they aren’t supposed to know where you are.
We don’t want minotaurs to charge directly to you when they aren’t supposed to know where you are.

[/LIST]

Hey, Nice work... It seems to be a very good start to get the game better! ;)

Also don't forget the insane SPIDER issue with their crazy listen and spot... I run Epic hard quests with 70 hide and move silently and they spot me as much as you would spot a storm giant dancing the french can can !

a bit like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F7B2i02jrM

It definitely gets our attention... :)

Good day!

[Coyopa]

Hey, Nice work... It seems to be a very good start to get the game better! ;)

Also don't forget the insane SPIDER issue with their crazy listen and spot... I run Epic hard quests with 70 hide and move silently and they spot me as much as you would spot a storm giant dancing the french can can !

a bit like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F7B2i02jrM

It definitely gets our attention... :)

Good day!

My 25 rogue (well, currently level 7 with 8 banked on his third life) has a 90 hide and move silently and spiders always "spot" him - regardless of difficulty. If there is a spider around, you can forget stealth. Best you can do is get the spider's attention, lure it to a safe place, and dispatch it. During Imahidden's second life, I snuck around the King's Forest, but I always had to be alert for spiders amongst the drow. If there were any, I got their attention, then snuck behind the nearest tree or over the nearest rise where the drow wouldn't see me while I killed their pets.

[gwonbush]

My 25 rogue (well, currently level 7 with 8 banked on his third life) has a 90 hide and move silently and spiders always "spot" him - regardless of difficulty. If there is a spider around, you can forget stealth. Best you can do is get the spider's attention, lure it to a safe place, and dispatch it. During Imahidden's second life, I snuck around the King's Forest, but I always had to be alert for spiders amongst the drow. If there were any, I got their attention, then snuck behind the nearest tree or over the nearest rise where the drow wouldn't see me while I killed their pets.

According to PnP rules, the spiders are well in their rights to find you. You see, they have an ability called "Tremorsense". This means they know the location of anything moving (this includes taking any action) that is touching the ground within a certain radius of them. I don't know how this ability is implemented in DDO, but them being able to find you no matter your hide/move silently does make sense.

[rest]

This was one of my posts in this thread

I tend to agree with this, but I know when the "sight lines" were added in for finding a trap through search, plenty of people were up in arms about "immersion" and stuff like that. I was a little leary of it first, but it really really really made trapping easier for folks who haven't memorized every box.

Played a bit last night. I was trying to get my favor unlocks to re-unlock so I ran a quick quest: von3 pre-quest on HE. I used invis. I think the gigantic red question marks are rather obtrusive and completely out of line with the rest of the way ddo feels, visually. I'd urge you to rethink the way they look, or just get rid of them completely and try to design some other way to make it known the mobs hear you, but don't know where you area.

Never thought I'd be one of those "it totally breaks immersion" guys but here I am. When the trap sight lines were added, they weren't as jarring as these crazy question marks. It kind of reminds me of the exclamation points in Metal Gear Solid. In a bad way. Unless you add in the sound then maybe it could be almost ok.

[Coyopa]

According to PnP rules, the spiders are well in their rights to find you. You see, they have an ability called "Tremorsense". This means they know the location of anything moving (this includes taking any action) that is touching the ground within a certain radius of them. I don't know how this ability is implemented in DDO, but them being able to find you no matter your hide/move silently does make sense.

I was not complaining about them finding me. I understand they have tremorsense. I was basically just pointing out that it doesn't matter the difficulty or your hide/move silently skills, the spiders will find you.

[bluejadex]

I'm intrigued to see how these play out. I have a low level rogue I've been working and potentially a couple other characters this could affect.

At the very least, fixing the monsters should be a help, but I'm looking forward to the sneak revamps too.

[MangLord]

Stealth should have the following advantages over mere invisibility:

With sufficiently high skill, monsters won’t hear you, allowing you to avoid detection completely as you sneak by (go go move silently!)
Escaping combat using sneak - this largely hasn’t been possible before, but we’d like skilled players with appropriate skills to be able to escape completely by activating sneak and escaping the area where their opponents last saw them. When monsters search the area they lost you in making blind attacks, they should lose aggro over time and eventually give up if they receive no additional clues to your location. I’ve been spending a lot of time on this, as it was the most requested fix by stealth enthusiasts on the forums, and from my testing I think it'll be quite fun : )
Assassinate! Still finalizing the application here but the goal is making sure our Assassins can … you know… assassinate things!


Thank you thank you thank you. I've been waiting for this since i started playing.

Oh, to slit a throat and fade away unnoticed.....it warms my black heart.

[MangLord]

I think i am not the only one who remembers the time when deepwood snipers sniped shot was supposed not to break stealth and what made him a real usefull sniper. Can we expect that or not?

My first TR was a 1rogue/19ranger with deepwood sniper prestige enhancement. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed but not surprised. I finally switched to arcane archer at level 17-18, when people clued me in that it's far better. My first real foray into DDO was a rogue build as I would have made for tabletop. It didn't work out very well with only high dex and int. LOL. After that I've been afraid to play a straight rogue, because I don't know how to play an assassin that can't really hide. Seems basically like a fighter with less HP, AC and access to less weapons. Assuming these new sneak mechanics pan out, it will be a game changer for me.

[Meretrix]

From my limited testing it seems invisibility is working great. The mobs run to the last footstep they hear. Hiding on the other hand doesn't seem to be working very well, they still seem to magically know where you are, even when you should have lost them.

The question mark and ear icons above the mobs head are really unnecessary and dumb.

[Demi_Assassin]

Absolutely loving the stealth changes - built a Shadar-Kai Rogue assassin, been having a lot of fun trying quests stealthily for a change.

The Illumination spells mentioned before would be a lot of fun, and some non-damage dealing traps might be nice - tripwires that sound alarm bells, squeaking floorboards, or even just dangling skulls on ropes, as in Skyrim. I also agree that pulling levers shouldn't break stealth, although it's less of a concern with the 6-second invisibility from Shadar-Kai.

[Tralus]

I will say, I really do enjoy the new AI Awareness. The mobs will walk and search if they hear you, or see you before sneak mode and the shadows, as annoying as they are, it is amazing how after a bit of damage they will run away and attack from another angle or hide in a bigger shadow. Also the archers have become more annoying. I think it's good though. They will continue to run away as you try to attack them, playing more so as if a player would play. The icons displayed while in stealth is very fun and new as well. I have also noticed less lag as it stands while fighting mobs. I really enjoy this new AI. Makes things a little more plausible and fun to play. After further testing I will post up a thread about pros and cons. Thus far, all I am experiencing is the pros.

[Tscheuss]

I am really liking the AI changes, but I would like an option to Disable the icons over the heads of mobs, please.

[~rex_havok]

It great to see AI work done, seems it would be very difficult.
A few thoughts on it more from the players side.
if u are using hirings can u force them into stealth mode or if in sneak they will attempt to stay hidden as well?
This definitely applies to pets, they seem to go out of there way to wake everything up.

lastly if u are working on AI awareness, as a tank I have to force players to dismiss pets, summons and unequip deception items. not sure why but they pull agro when they should not, currently it seems that the dogs, and deception items make the mobs 'get lost' spin around, lose focus on the tank and attack the rogue or dog. (summons often seem to just wander off and walk up stuff, instead on focusing on active targets).

Good luck on this very difficult task, hope it works well. (please fix deception, mobs should not spin away from the tank)

[RayceRoyal]

So glad to hear about the update to stealth. Regardless of zerg capabilities, playing a rogue / assassin properly is not an easy task, but I do relish the class. Keep up the good work, Devs. I love this game :)

[Cleanincubus]

Just tried out sneaking on Lamannia. I have a level 20 Acrobat, with a Hide & Move Silently skill both at 39. I was instantly detected by a level 5 Kobold Warrior in Kobold Assault, by coming within a 2 persons distance from him (as in there was enough room for 2 people to be in between us). Certainly doesn't seem acceptable to me. If I can't sneak that close to a lvl 5 Kobold, then I'd have no chance with a more intelligent creature.

[Hajutze]

I didn't have a lot of problems on a lv18 quest with 58 ..

I imagine having a DEX based pale-master ... wraith/ninja ? would be fun ... You get both invisibility and +20 WS (wraith)

[Tscheuss]

Just tried out sneaking on Lamannia. I have a level 20 Acrobat, with a Hide & Move Silently skill both at 39. I was instantly detected by a level 5 Kobold Warrior in Kobold Assault, by coming within a 2 persons distance from him (as in there was enough room for 2 people to be in between us). Certainly doesn't seem acceptable to me. If I can't sneak that close to a lvl 5 Kobold, then I'd have no chance with a more intelligent creature.

Did you bug report it?

[Satyriasys]

Really loving what I'm seeing so far with stealth AI, but the icon cues are very annoying and unnecessary.

[Tscheuss]

Really loving what I'm seeing so far with stealth AI, but the icon cues are very annoying and unnecessary.

Agreed. Again, can we get an option to disable them? Oh, and to disable the icons over the vendors' heads, too?

[katz]

as the player of several rogues, rogue splits, and otherwise sneaky characters, and the current curator of the R.O.G.U.E. Proving Grounds thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/321686-R-O-G-U-E-Proving-Grounds-part-trois)....i thoroughly and heartily approve of these changes and am excited to see them arrive into the game

[Tscheuss]

as the player of several rogues, rogue splits, and otherwise sneaky characters, and the current curator of the R.O.G.U.E. Proving Grounds thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/321686-R-O-G-U-E-Proving-Grounds-part-trois)....i thoroughly and heartily approve of these changes and am excited to see them arrive into the game

The Katz Seal of Approval is tough to earn. Be proud. :)

[Chaosprism]

I like the idea of spell wards being able to be laid by players, artificers, rogues, mages etc.


How about a metamagic ANYONE can use, you turn it on and the next spell you cast thats location based, becomes instead a spell ward at that location. It costs X more mana like any other metamagic, probably 20 more spell points.

You could turn on "proximity spell metamagic", when you use this metamagic the spell gets cast with no verbal component as well (makes it silent)

cast a flame strike, cast a sleet storm, cast a mass heal etc.. and they'll only go off when an enemy gets close. They probably should have a normal duration before they just fizzle out if no enemy triggers them in time.

There should probably be a limit to how many spell traps you can lay at once per character.

[Scraap]

repost:


Should note the agro-tables are more than a little fubared right now, to the point of
a) watching generic mobs attack soulstones.
b) watching scroll-summoned summons attack pets, hirelings and protection npcs.
c) getting pegged by lolths eye-beams after rezing back at the shrine.
d) the guildies and I are still refining how much threat-gen shoots you over to the point of it apparently wrapping (No really. Some of our tanks have had to take threat amp gear *off* to maintain agro lately...).

All in all, take your time getting one going at present.

Since one of the things mentioned was optimization, might be a threat-table frequency-check issue? /semi-educated posterior extraction (and yes, bug reported)

[GeneralDiomedes]

These changes have made ranging groups of monsters trivial and boring, assuming these changes were responsible.

Now, when you hit one mob in a group of mobs, only that mob aggros. The rest of them stand around and look at the place where the first hit landed. I can't think of any intelligent being which would behave like that when one of their group is being attacked and runs off in another direction.

Overall, I would have to say this change has resulted in a worse game.

[Snarfels]

I tend to agree with this, but I know when the "sight lines" were added in for finding a trap through search, plenty of people were up in arms about "immersion" and stuff like that. I was a little leary of it first, but it really really really made trapping easier for folks who haven't memorized every box.

One thing that really torques my rogue, is 'becoming aware' of trap boxes that are NOT in line of sight (ie: through walls, etc.) this effectively negates trap awareness when you actually approach the trap/box you detected through the walls previously. IMO any non disabled trap should trigger awareness when approached, even if the box is visible from a prior detect. There really isn't much benefit from detecting a trap from three corridors over, and then not being able to search for it when you get closer.