Rebalancing stealth for PVE

[Zetetic]

Skip to the 'Actual suggestion' part if you don't want to read my reasons.

<Prologue>
I've been thinking recently on how much less useful stealth has become vs monsters (PVE) in the game. Ever since the introduction of the stealth quest and see hidden to balance it out, you are either a god of stealth against anything that does not have see hidden, and useless against anything that does. I perhaps wouldn't have minded so much, but in their infinite wisdom the game creators decided to make a massive amount of the monsters able to see hidden, and then make most monsters follow you near 100%. This means that stealth does not end up helping you for what it was intended for. It still works against players (perhaps even too well, but that is a different thought for another time).

I used to play back when there was no super stealth and no see hidden. If you wanted your gear retrieved, you had your friend who was a stealth based character help you out. I managed to sneak my level 2 ninja all the way to Marcus and back without dying (quest was not level restricted back then, nor was it as lucrative). A friend then beat me with his level 1 thief - damn him. I really feel that part of the fun of those characters has been lost. I would sneak my character around to areas I never should have been in, avoiding combat like the plague and running when it found me. I enjoyed doing that. I had a friend who would sneak his way up to the dragons (most powerful monsters in the game at that point) and scab exp off the top mages script by attacking the monsters in the round before they died to steal half the exp.

<Actual suggestion>
Make it so that you can sneak past see hidden monsters, but only if you have done the super stealth quest. As part of this, make it so that you now have a chance to fail stealth again, like you would before you had super stealth. You would get the old 'You make a sound as you enter the room' message if you had enough perception to notice it or just drop stealth entirely upon entering. Give a penalty to the stealth stat on this test (perhaps -75 or -100, though I don't know the exact calculation for the original) to balance it out against the see hidden monsters. My hope is that this is something that could be implemented without a massive re-coding of the stealth system, and would add something to the game. Yes this would make it possible to stealth past bosses. Is that really a problem? It would mean that backstab is still useful against some bosses.

As a continuation of this idea I imagine that you could have multiple levels of see hidden (see hidden +10 +25 etc) in the same way that we have resistance to spells based on the level, except that here we could implement what the penalty to the stealth stat is. This would not need to be implemented straight away, as it would require someone to edit the stats of all see hidden monsters and bosses. Initially I think that the single penalty for all would be completely workable. It would mean that having a high stealth stat character is worthwhile. Half Ogre ninjas would not be useful as stealthers - but that is part of the tradeoff for health and strength. Suddenly your weak HP characters with high stealth are workable when it comes to retrieving your gear naked.

This does make stealth characters much more powerful in the PVE game - but it does not make them more powerful at combat. It makes them better at avoiding combat, which is what I see stealth to be primarily about.

Thoughts, ideas and criticisms?

[Gnor]

I used to play back when there was no super stealth and no see hidden. If you wanted your gear retrieved, you had your friend who was a stealth based character help you out. I managed to sneak my level 2 ninja all the way to Marcus and back without dying (quest was not level restricted back then, nor was it as lucrative).

There was certainly see hidden if you were running to Markus. Umber hulks have always been see hidden, among other things.

I would sneak my character around to areas I never should have been in, avoiding combat like the plague and running when it found me.

This hasn't changed. In fact, on Greatermud, stealth without SS quest is still far more effective than stealth in MajorMUD. If you compare the same character with the same stats on both games, the Greatermud character will fail sneak much less. The downside is that stealth is not providing any bonus bs min or bs max on Greatermud like it is supposed to. (Yes, stealth does this is MajorMUD)

Make it so that you can sneak past see hidden monsters, but only if you have done the super stealth quest.

You can already do this, and without having to do the SS quest. You can even backstab see hidden monsters.

[Zetetic]

There was certainly see hidden if you were running to Markus. Umber hulks have always been see hidden, among other things.

I'll bow to your knowledge on this one, as I am relying on my (admittedly faulty) memory of what is ancient mud history. I was sure that see hidden was something that wasn't originally in the game and was added at a particular point. Can you confirm or deny that one for me?

This hasn't changed. In fact, on Greatermud, stealth without SS quest is still far more effective than stealth in MajorMUD. If you compare the same character with the same stats on both games, the Greatermud character will fail sneak much less. The downside is that stealth is not providing any bonus bs min or bs max on Greatermud like it is supposed to. (Yes, stealth does this is MajorMUD)

I will agree with that, once again based upon memory only. Though this time my memory is not as bad. Around four years ago Thergin setup an older version of mud from before the q&d system, when dragonfire was still the top spell. Mod4 I think from the top of my head. It was amazing just how brutally hard the game was.

You can already do this, and without having to do the SS quest. You can even backstab see hidden monsters.

Sneaking past hidden monsters is currently (and do correct me if I am wrong) only based on whether you can make it out of a room before a monster does a check of the room to see whats in it. I believe this happens on the spell round equivalent timing? It still doesn't cover what I proposed as an idea. I still believe that making super stealth have the ability to stay stealthy in a room with a monster that has the see hidden ability would be a good one, as long as they do have the ability to fail in that room.

I still feel that stealth is not a useful enough tool for avoiding combat as you progress higher in levels. As a general rule the stealth classes and races are more 'squishy' than their non-stealthy counterparts and this seems like a reasonable equaliser to give them.

[Stalkerr]

See hidden has been an ability since  prior to Version 1.0h - 11/16/94   

[Zetetic]

Thank you Stalkerr. What do you think of the idea, and what problems do you forsee if it were in the game, in terms of balance and game theme?

[Torque]

I was iffy about this Zetetic at first, but I think it'd actually be a good tool. Tanks pretty much win the rock paper scissors that is mud right now, and something like this would even it out a bit. So far I can't think of any reasons this would make stealth overpowered, since a team of rangers ain't gonna tank darken beast.

You can already do this, and without having to do the SS quest. You can even backstab see hidden monsters.

I guess Gnor didn't tidy up his knowledge with the GreaterMUD Almanac. I just had a great thought - Gnor is the guy who goes to an art museum to complain and berate the art on the wall for not being "real" art. Gnor isn't a painter.

[Stalkerr]

Thank you Stalkerr. What do you think of the idea, and what problems do you forsee if it were in the game, in terms of balance and game theme?

Superstealth ruined alot of the difficulty in the game and was viewed as a mistake after being put into the game.  Various tweaks and fixes were tested but ulitimately none were ever put into that game.  I could see allowing certain levels of superstealth to surpass a monsters see-hidden ability, the parameter values for the abilities are currently meaning less..or a monster's see hidden ability could be only effective vs superstealth if the characters level was less than the value of see hidden.  This would take some careful reworking of the see hidden values on monsters, being careful to not allow to much abuse.   

[Zetetic]

Superstealth ruined alot of the difficulty in the game and was viewed as a mistake after being put into the game.  Various tweaks and fixes were tested but ulitimately none were ever put into that game.

From memory it's initial implementation was designed to stop a problem that they had - that their code was unable to introduce truly low failure amounts for characters with high stealth. Even with over 150 stealth you would fail around 5-6%. Greatermud does not have this problem (as Gnor pointed out above). I would actually be willing to forfeit the current super stealth bonus for the one that I described, as normal stealth vs non see hidden enemies is incredibly effective in Greatermud, particularly at the higher levels.