Weekly Dev Activities 09/10/07

[Shamguard]

It does. Your ability to make mistakes and linger in the field of view of your opponents is significantly higher than if your skills were lower. But if they run into you, they'll still know there's something there.

Doors:
Stand to the side. Imagine yourself as the kobold on the other side of the door. Make sure the line of sight is blocked by walls, not wood - you don't have to be directly in front of a door to open it. You can open them from beside them and be free to re-stealth.

Switches/Levers:
Wait next to it, ideally hiding behind something, until all of the kobolds walk past and pull it immediately once nobody is watching, then immediately re-stealth. Switches and levers reveal you, but don't make a noise that attracts their attention.

Originally the failure condition for that quest was "be spotted". Hardcore!

Stealty Repo solo on Elite is the measure of a true rogue. If you cannot do this quest without spells or triggering the mobs then you are not a rogue you are just a thug or trapmonkey with tools. Of course if you get the optional witchdoctor by the last switch finishing the quest got alot tougher and you may have to run and grab that piece of glass. Without that witchdoctor or his friend that sometimes is guarding the gem this quest is a walk in the shadows.

Of course my level 14 sorcerer did this with Symbol of Fear and Flesh to Stone, but then he's no rogue.

[Riddikulus]

In the same vein about the spot / listen, etc --

I was always under the impression that if they heard you, they moved toward you, but didn't attack until they spotted you. How is it that, even when invised and stealthed, Kobolds toss those fire pots at me as soon as they "hear" me?

They apparently could tab target us as well.

I wonder if that will be fixed both ways.

[Riddikulus]

It does. Your ability to make mistakes and linger in the field of view of your opponents is significantly higher than if your skills were lower. But if they run into you, they'll still know there's something there.

Doors:
Stand to the side. Imagine yourself as the kobold on the other side of the door. Make sure the line of sight is blocked by walls, not wood - you don't have to be directly in front of a door to open it. You can open them from beside them and be free to re-stealth.

Switches/Levers:
Wait next to it, ideally hiding behind something, until all of the kobolds walk past and pull it immediately once nobody is watching, then immediately re-stealth. Switches and levers reveal you, but don't make a noise that attracts their attention.

Originally the failure condition for that quest was "be spotted". Hardcore!

OK I'll give the hide next to doors trick a try and see if that helps.

I think though that with a hide/move silently of 40+ I should be able to stand right in front a CR4 Kobold indefinitely without being detected (assuming I don't bump into him). Or is there some modifier which puts their spot/listen over 20? (floodlights? hearing aid? smell?)

[Talon_Moonshadow]

It does. Your ability to make mistakes and linger in the field of view of your opponents is significantly higher than if your skills were lower. But if they run into you, they'll still know there's something there.

Doors:
Stand to the side. Imagine yourself as the kobold on the other side of the door. Make sure the line of sight is blocked by walls, not wood - you don't have to be directly in front of a door to open it. You can open them from beside them and be free to re-stealth.

Switches/Levers:
Wait next to it, ideally hiding behind something, until all of the kobolds walk past and pull it immediately once nobody is watching, then immediately re-stealth. Switches and levers reveal you, but don't make a noise that attracts their attention.


Originally the failure condition for that quest was "be spotted". Hardcore!

Well, than why do they wake up when I throw that switch? Without moving?
it seems to me they do make a noise or can see me in their sleep or something.


I applaud the effort in designing this quest and I'd like more quests where you don't have to kill things to succeed......but for most quests, there should be a steathy non-slayer option.

Reading these posts, get me thinking.....can a fighter with 10dex and no pts in Sneak do this quest the way you proposed? It seems like he might be able to......especially if your telling us that the high skills don't realy matter, just where you stand and when you move.

[parvo]

It does. Your ability to make mistakes and linger in the field of view of your opponents is significantly higher than if your skills were lower. But if they run into you, they'll still know there's something there.

Doors:
Stand to the side. Imagine yourself as the kobold on the other side of the door. Make sure the line of sight is blocked by walls, not wood - you don't have to be directly in front of a door to open it. You can open them from beside them and be free to re-stealth.

Switches/Levers:
Wait next to it, ideally hiding behind something, until all of the kobolds walk past and pull it immediately once nobody is watching, then immediately re-stealth. Switches and levers reveal you, but don't make a noise that attracts their attention.

Originally the failure condition for that quest was "be spotted". Hardcore!

One thing that does need to be fixed are the Kobold sentries throughout the harbor. AI tweaks have caused most of them to stop functioning. Especially the gong-ringer in WW part four. That used to be a really cool part of WW.

[parvo]

Well, than why do they wake up when I throw that switch? Without moving?
it seems to me they do make a noise or can see me in their sleep or something.


I applaud the effort in designing this quest and I'd like more quests where you don't have to kill things to succeed......but for most quests, there should be a steathy non-slayer option.

Reading these posts, get me thinking.....can a fighter with 10dex and no pts in Sneak do this quest the way you proposed? It seems like he might be able to......especially if your telling us that the high skills don't realy matter, just where you stand and when you move.

You're moving before you re-stealth or the sentry patroling outside has seen you.

[GoldyGopher]

Okay.

Level 1 halfling rogue, normal difficulty, starting equipment, no detections. 13 Hide, 11 Move Silent. I probably could have done it as anything though. Now I'm gonna do it as a Warforged.

Lots of cramming myself into corners and standing on sacks, waiting for kobolds to walk off. Don't pull levers until after the kobolds turn their backs - it makes you visible, but doesn't actually attract their attention. Then immediately re-stealth. Following kobolds a few steps behind works pretty well too, they're rather oblivious. Open doors by standing to the side of them, all the way up against the wall - that way you can pop it open and re-stealth, but any potential guards on the other side won't see you because the wall's in the way.

My issue with this quest is that while I can complete on Normal or Hard with Rogue of equal or lesser level, on Elite however my rogues have quite a problem with the quest. Trust me I am a patient rogue and more than willing to stand still for a few minutes to let the kobolds pass, however I always seem to be detected by a non-active kobold.


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?

[Dwolf]

LOL. Why invest in a skill that's broken, only to hope that one day that skill will work? That's just a waste of resources. No, the clear logical solution, is to allow a skill respec, since skills change all the time in this game.

I know how Listen is supposed to work. The fact is, for more than one year, Listen didn't work the way it's supposed to. Or rather, there was no need to even have it as a skill. Why should we have expected the change? Why should we have invested in a skill that didn't do anything or was uneeded, for over a year? In PnP, everything works the way it's supposed to based on the rules, or house rules are made. However, players actually know what the house rules are. If, for whatever reason, the house rules change, any responsible DM would allow the players to adjust their characters to the change.

Why should DDO be any different?



I'm not gonna argue the merits of having Listen before this change. That isn't even the issue.

I'm fine with things changing. And changing for the better in this case. We still need ways to adapt to that change without having to reroll. Not having Listen isn't that big a deal, even with this change. But having the option to to adapt to the change is only right and responsible from a DM's perspective.

Okay this is the logic used by powergamers.

"Gee having this skill before didnt' make me uber. Oh poor you, you spent points on a character skill that makes you less uber - you should have consulted with us experts - we would have told you what skills to avoid so you could make a more uber character like ours.

Oh my god, the skill is useful now! Not fair! Respec! Respec!"


I hope they stick to their guns, don't offer a respec, and maybe in future we'll have less of this sort of exploitive mentality.

[Barumar]

I never could do that quest on my cleric at low levels. I dont have nimble fingers while playing. I just had to wait til greater command, then I just soloed it for my favor.

I tanked up with my level 12 Paladin, ran them all around and haste potioned myself back to the switches so I could pull them before they caught up to me, for my Elite favor.

Then once I had completed the quest, I went back through the killed every single one of the little annoying kobolds just because!

Barumar

[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.

[bobbryan2]

I hope they stick to their guns, don't offer a respec, and maybe in future we'll have less of this sort of exploitive mentality.

Except that, for one, the skill respec not being offered has nothing to do with 'sticking to their guns' or any kind of belief on the sacredness of skills. It has to do with game mechanics, pure and simple. A skill respec is a lot harder to do with multiclassing than, say, a feat respec. So, addressing it like it's a moral issue is kinda silly. I have no doubt that if a skill respec was easy, we'd already have it.

Secondly... you're not going to see less of an exploitive (what a label) mentality just because a skill respec isn't offered. In PnP, it's good to have a wide range of skills, because you don't know what the DM is going to throw at you, and you want to at least be passingly good with a wide range of outcomes.

In DDO, however, you know exactly how the skills are going to be used. You also know that the DCs for those skills are going to be much much higher than in PnP. So a good character builder will build a character that can actually beat those DCs.

You simply think that building a character for the current challenges somehow goes against the spirit of PnP. But it's certainly far from exploitive. It's just the nature of MMOs.

And it has nothing to do with power gamers. It merely has to do with good character builders.

[Spookydodger]

I was just telling a friend that I wish there were more ways to accomplish quests.

Like if there was one where a stealthy rogue, sneaking past lots of baddies, could get their way over to a lever to pull it to shortcut a lot of a quest.

To avoid people just running to the lever, make it so that once someone is discovered in that "sneak" area, a force field goes up over the switch, making it impossible to pull. Additionally, if the sneaker is discovered (or anyone else), the quests gets dramatically more difficult (as the guards are being alerted, traps are turned on, and so forth).

I don't mind some quests where it's a puzzle, or it's coordination, or it's raw damage-per-second, but some more speed/stealth quests would be nice and go a long way to making rogues more useful.

More needs to be done to make rogues more useful in general, but it's a start. How about climbing abilities I would love to spider climb up walls with my rogue and drop ropes for people to shimmy up.

Okay.

Level 1 halfling rogue, normal difficulty, starting equipment, no detections. 13 Hide, 11 Move Silent. I probably could have done it as anything though. Now I'm gonna do it as a Warforged.

Lots of cramming myself into corners and standing on sacks, waiting for kobolds to walk off. Don't pull levers until after the kobolds turn their backs - it makes you visible, but doesn't actually attract their attention. Then immediately re-stealth. Following kobolds a few steps behind works pretty well too, they're rather oblivious. Open doors by standing to the side of them, all the way up against the wall - that way you can pop it open and re-stealth, but any potential guards on the other side won't see you because the wall's in the way.

[Riddikulus]

Okay this is the logic used by powergamers.

"Gee having this skill before didnt' make me uber. Oh poor you, you spent points on a character skill that makes you less uber - you should have consulted with us experts - we would have told you what skills to avoid so you could make a more uber character like ours.

Oh my god, the skill is useful now! Not fair! Respec! Respec!"


I hope they stick to their guns, don't offer a respec, and maybe in future we'll have less of this sort of exploitive mentality.

Unfortunately just as we have "this sort of exploitive mentality", the devs have it as well.

To have any chance at many skill based DCs you need to have maxed out skills with maxed out equipment and buffs... not something you can do if you invest a lot of points in Listen or Swim.

[Spookydodger]

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.

[iamsamoth0]

Is this attribute applied to other quest/missions?
What are some of the other ones that we can stealth thru?
And why does it not apply to ones that require no killing? One being the sewer dog quest in Aspirants Corner. It could be one that introduces the bonus to new players. Until I had done Repo, I never knew it existed.

Anyone wanna tackle this for me?

[Talcyndl]

Yes, you are correct.

Cool. Thanks.

[Shade]

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?

You were spoted while moving actually. You can hear the koold wake up - the one in the far hallway as you walked past the switch, the small delay after is just him alerting his buddies then running for you.

Couple tips:
Enter the first room past the switch, but hug the right wall and wait for the patrolling kobold to get pretty far away, then inch slowly to the switch, get in the corner on the closest side, if you pass the switch the kobolds on the far end might spot you cuz there the types with higher spot down there where u dont need to go.

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.

Only problem I see with stealth is you are only given 1 mistake and thats it, every mob in the dungeon knows your there. Even if you run all the way to the start, kill whatever followed and wait a while to restealth, even an hour later.. The kobolds will all be alerted and running around like mad and instantly spot you again no problem.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I'd like to see quests where all of our skills could be used to make things easier......but are not required to complete the quest.

And where there was a differnecr between Diplomacy/Haggle/intimidate/Bluff.

It's ok to give some options like if the player has a high intimidate let him intimidate the guy, or if he has a high bluss let him bluff the guy, but Diplomacy is so underused that I would like to see it required for some things......but not required to complete a quest, just have more options....

A lot more options would be good....not just a rare few. Let me convince that kobold sentry not to sound the alarm, and just let me walk on by sometimes......

And let low levels of skills actually be useful sometimes as well. Most of us will use a few points in smething that we think might be useful someday, but no one is going to max out their Diplomacy in this game as it stands now (nor should they).

[Riddikulus]

Anyone wanna tackle this for me?

You used to be able to get insidious cunning for Cult of the Six Part 2.

It would be nigh impossible to do so now.

[sigtrent]

I've snuck it with level appropriate characters wtihout killing anything or getting attacked. It takes some practice and a little bit of luck. (if the named near the final lever spawns there is no way to avoid getting spotted) Yes, I've snuck into the room with the named shaman where you have to open the door.

I've also zerged the quest with level approprate characters more than once, and its especialy easy with a team of zergers, some distract, others pull levers.

I generaly look at Stealthy Repo as easy XP at low levels. Some characters have a hard time but most can pull it off via stealth, spells or AC.