AI Awareness!

[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:

1. With sufficiently high skill, monsters won’t hear you, allowing you to avoid detection completely as you sneak by (go go move silently!)
2. 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 : )
3. 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....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....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.