Weekly Dev Activities 09/10/07

[dragnmoon]

When this game first came up they did some changes to Sneak... I seem to remember that they made a Spot check of 20 an auto success... Is this still true?... If so... I am still upset about that since there are no auto success on Skills. If you do it to one skill you need to do it for all.

By the way... This is a Very old post from developers...

[Meriadeuc]

Anyone wanna tackle this for me?

Yes, you can get a "non-agression" bonus of some sort on every quest. Of course, there are very few quests that you can complete without killing anything, so you rarely get the full 10% bonus. However, there are several quests where you can use stealth on large portions and still get some sort of a bonus, usually 7% or 5%. When I do Tomb Of The Wizard King solo with my ranger, I can get the 7% bonus if the King is in the first chamber I try and the 5% bonus if he is in the second.

[Hafeal]

It takes practice for someone with hide/move silently of 11/13. My question is doesn't a hide/move silently of 40+ give you a lot of buffer to make mistakes? It really doesn't appear to do so to me.
My level 14 rogue may have a dexterity of 32... but *I* do not.

Amen.

I wonder if "insidious cunning" has less to do with no monsters being killed, and more to do with being aggroed by monsters. "insidious cunning" would seem to imply that one would need to be sneaky as opposed to humane.

Good point. I believe you have a couple of kills without losing the bonus but I am no expert on getting the bonus.

I also wish the game had more "reasonable" ways to complete quests than hack & slash every living thing you come across.

By the way... This is a Very old post from developers...

The opening post is from earlier today ...

[Meriadeuc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u30TA3giZYg

You'll notice that the first kobold is stopped at the north end of the hall, the second kobold at has passed and is going south when a third kobold attacks. So how does a non-active kobold detect me when all I am doing is standing by the switch?

In addition to the excellent tips that Shade and Eldarin have offered, you should be sneaking up to the first door rather than running up and then going into stealth mode. The prophet can hear you moving through the door if he is close enough and you aren't moving silently.

[VonBek]

Okay.

I was a bit farther along when I took the screenshot.

Once on normal, then once on hard. Next I leveled and ran it elite. Also ran Low Road and Steal the Healing Elixir to get the XP. Dex was 18, feat was Stealthy, Enhancements were for Hide & Move Silent.

She hit level three running those three quests to repetition cap. It was a fun stunt.

It was still a fun stunt, again...

[Meriadeuc]

Done this on elite on my lvl3 rogue a couple times. Took a few tries to figure out the safest path, but once you get it down its pretty straightforward.

This has been my experience as well. I soloed this quest 7 or 8 times on elite for fast experience back when my halfling ranger was level 1 (this was before the enhancement changes and it was possible for a level 1 halfling ranger/rogue to get over 20 in hide and move silently with some basic gear). The only problem I ever had on elite (hard and normal were no problem) was when certain of the witch doctors were there, since they have a comparatively high listen skill.

Of course, that was almost a year ago and stealth may have changed since then, so I just tried it again on elite with my ranger (now at level 14). My hide and move silently are now both in the 40s and as a result it was a lot easier (I didn't have any problem with the witch doctors, for example), so skill levels do make a difference. But I did still need to use proper sneaking techniques. It doesn't matter how high your hide skill is and how low the monster's spot: If you stand right in front of something for any length of time, it's going to see you.

Sneaking does work, if you know how to do it properly. A quest like Stealthy Reposession is a great opportunity for a young rogue or ranger to learn the ropes. Once you've done that you'll find it possible to use stealth effectively in several quests and loot runs as you move up through the levels (usually when going solo, but ocasionally you can find a party that has enough imagination to let you have a go at it).

[Riggs]

Actually, it works great. One of my favorite quests, actually.

If you sneak around and make sure you keep objects between yourself and the monsters, stay out of their frontal viewing arc, and make sure you don't physically bump into them, it's an awesome quest. All the invisibility and hiding skill in the world won't help you if a kobold steps on you though.

The hide skill will let you walk right past a kobold without it immediately noticing you, but if you linger for a long period of time sitting four feet in front of it, yeah, eventually it will notice you.

Go from hiding spot to hiding spot - terrain actually blocks line of sight in DDO. Act like a thief, don't stand in the middle of the room and wonder why something saw you.

Somewhere in the SRD there is a quote that stealth skills over 20 becomes a supernatural ability.

i.e. a character with a 40 stealth can essentially 'hide in plain sight' because it is no longer a matter of 'can the monster draw a line of sight to me and be facing me', but more along the lines of high level stealth being much like being magically invisible - you can stand in front of a someone in braod daylight and not be seen unless it rolls really high.

My ranger with a roughly 45 skill in Hide and 40 Move Silent can sneak around a lot of stuff, but also has had a lot of things immediately attack when I go in front of them a little too close. Not touching them mind you, but being within 10-15 feet close.

Now if something has a scent ability thats one thing. But it seems a lot of monsters get extra senses, including humanoids. It seems odd that a Troll that lives eating whatever carrion or live things it can kill, and by most accounts is a smelly creature, can track by scent as good as a bloodhound say.

I dont see a problem with many monsters having bonuses to spot based on stronger senses, but going back to the supernatural ability part - it really should be a bonus, and not automatic.

A level 20 rogue maxed out for stealth really should be able to waltz past a pack of bloodhounds, a spiders lair, and any sharp eyed guards with fair ease. Line of sight and how much light is around can affect it, but we are essentually talking about on of the prime ablilities of a character class in a magical world where skills because superhuman after a point. Like monks being able to fall any distance, wizards being able to cast spells just with words and wiggling their fingers, monsters being able to use special at will abilities just because of their nature - high level skills also become near magical in nature.

It seems in most cases stealth works fine in DDO, but in some cases it almost doesnt matter what your skill is, your going to fail - and often when you are most relying on the skill.

[Riggs]

Necro xp being rebalanced - yay.

[Snike]

Necro xp being rebalanced - yay.

i.e. Nerfed.

[moorewr]

i.e. Nerfed.

It could hardly go any lower. Ergo, it is going up.

[Luthen]

All well and good. How about a date for release please. Assuming you give us the standard 1 week notice in the WDA we're currently looking at a release on the week of the 23rd or getting pushed back to October. Unless of course you want to spring it on us.

Is this not a valid question? Is it unworthy of a reply? Do none of my peers care for this answer?

[Snike]

None of your peers know.

[Yvonne_Blacksword]

mmmmm....i smell photo shop...

total xp=quest xp...
what...they didnt give you any xp for the starter quest?
so you skipped them but you still get the xp for them...

or do DEV's gain the innate ability to teleport directly to Stealthy Repo upon character creation completion...?


E?

[GoldyGopher]

In addition to the excellent tips that Shade and Eldarin have offered, you should be sneaking up to the first door rather than running up and then going into stealth mode. The prophet can hear you moving through the door if he is close enough and you aren't moving silently.

First, my running to the door was to save time on the quest for the recording. The vid gets to big and people whine about editing. Normally I sneak and move a little more quietly from beginning to end.
The problem that I am trying to illustrate is the fact that I am discovered by a "NON ACTIVE" kobold. The active kobolds ignore me almost completely. If it doesn't happen in the second lever, than it as I move from the third to the bridge. It is also never when I am doing anything more than what I did in the video. And this only occurs on elite regardless of the level of the rogue.

I have watched the Vids of people beating the quest and I wonder how many takes it took, or if they have done that one quest so often they know exactly where to stand (i.e. safe spots). The moment you deviate even slightly from the vids on what you do you are discovered.

Edit: I should point out I don't mind a difficult quest (except Rest for the Restless, I hate that one) and I like the concept and wish they had more difficult solo stealthy style quests but as a PNP guy (mostly v3 and older) I know that the what the DC check for the Kobolds is supposed to be, so if I was discovered once out of two attempts on elite it wouldn't bother me, but 14 out of 15 times it gets a little old.

[Spookydodger]

Love the latest set of updates, especially on monster improvements.

I love adding value to spot skills, more love to that skill helping rogues, rangers and those who up this skill to "scout" more and flush out the hidden creatures.

Love, I feel, is entirely too strong of a word.

Pejorative language will complicate matters, mark my words.

[Spookydodger]

Also since Listen was previously useless, will we get a skill respec, seeing that Listen is now a good skill to have?

I've found that building my characters like they were generally going to be useful for a broad world has helped more in this regard.

Far more legitimate reasons have cropped up that have seen no skill respecs, so I would imagine this wouldn't garner one unless strategies have changed dramatically on the other side of the dev/player divide.

[Ghoste]

Love the latest set of updates, especially on monster improvements.

I love adding value to spot skills, more love to that skill helping rogues, rangers and those who up this skill to "scout" more and flush out the hidden creatures.

With a spot item, my pure wiz is able to spot every creature in the game. This is going to make putting a point or two more into intelligence seem like a good idea when people are making their builds.

[Claver]

Can someone who is active on Risia report back on how much they've changed?

Danke Schoen.

I only checked one adventure - Tomb of the Crimson Heart (5th level) now has a base xp of 1553 on Risa instead of 1220 on the regular servers.

Not much of an improvement - a mere 300 xp.

I was hoping the quest xp would be doubled or at least changed from a 5th level adventure to a 6th or even 7th level adventure.

I'm a little disappointed.

[Spookydodger]

Is this not a valid question? Is it unworthy of a reply? Do none of my peers care for this answer?

Developers are leary of giving hard dates. The bureaucracy food chain (I'm really happy I spelled bureaucracy right the first time, by the way!) dictates that even most of the developers don't know much more than a day or two ahead, and then it needs to filter down to the forum monkeys to tell us.

So, yeah, you're not likely to get an answer on this.

I am vaguely concerned that this sort of stuff doesn't make it onto Risia too much before. I can only hope that QA and Mournlands are doing their job a bit better now adays. I'm still stinging over "Undying Call" not working AT ALL on Paladins at release. Pretty easy to test "click button- nothing happens", one would think.

[ebt-dnd]

With all this talk about spot/listen checks, I must break out the Order of the Stick linkage.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0003.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0090.html