Ranger Archive
Thread: Nrass... Why is a stealther far too imbalancing?
Lorell wrote:
That is a good post Dyne, however I am proposing that the opposing person's skill check be based on awareness not on using some item like a packet sniffer. They might have to tweak the code a little, but they are already doing that anyway. It should be a rangers conceal skill versus the targets awareness. So depending on the skills of players involved, it will be different every time.
Ok, what I am attempting to say is that if the devs DID implement conceal as a "concealed person has no dot on radar unless their conceal skill versus the opponent player's awareness skill fails" as you suggest, that the skill would be completely useless.
To see why, here is a scenario: You are concealed and your dot does not show on the radar.Suddenly, you see an opponent player in pvpwalking along. BEFORE the in-game "conceal skill versus awareness skill" check is even performed, and thus regardless of whether the check fails or succeeds, the opponent player would be able to see you on his radar if he is using a hack of SWG and/or a seperate out-of-game "Packet Sniffer" program. There is no way around someone using a cheat like this other than to not send any data about yourself to the opponent's computer. However, doing this results in complete invisibility, since you cannot even send information about how your character looks to his client so it can draw you.
I hope this is clearer and explains why yourproposed implementationof conceal is notpossible.
OldOzymandius wrote:
Regarding packet sniffers and the ranger dot not appearing on the radar...
That sounds like a technological hurdle, butis it really in practical terms? First off, how many people are really going to know to find a packet sniffer, even if someone here does post about it? Sure some would, but the vast majority would not. Also, wouldn't the packet sniffer be influenced by any other "dots" on the radar around it, like creatures or other characters? Wouldnt they serve as distractions we could use to our favor then?
Ok, I don't have any experience with this myself as this is my first MMO, but I have read posts from others (I think NRaas was one of them) who said that when other MMO's implemented a 'conceal' skill in this way, that the packet sniffing did become a significant problem.
As far as how many wouldexploit the packet vulnerability? In my opinion, ifeven one person exploits this succeptibility, then the skill is useless. It is much more preferable to me to design a skill that does not have an exploitable vulnerability from the begining rather than designing a skill with a vulnerability like that and trustingother people (many of whom have demonstrated their willingness tocheat if it gives them an edge) to not exploit it. This is just my opinion however. Make of it what you wish.
This is a dead soldier, let it rest in piece. We will not get taken off the radar for any reason because the radar is what the targeting system uses. That is straight from the Dev's. We are not going to get complete invisibility. That is believed to be straight from the Dev's. We will Know nothing more until NRaas gets his responce from TH.
I do agree, that done right it would not be unbalanced. But it seems the powers that be are totally opposed to this idea. Yes it would be cool. No we are probablynot going to get it. 
On the sidenote about players making assumptions about the game... The idea that camo kits can be used to hide from people is simple common sense. For a skilled hunter to NOT be able to hide from people makes no sense at all. There is no reason for me to think /conceal would not work this way. And in the absense of a useful manual (ctrl-h is full of useless crap for gaming illiterates)... assumptions have to be made.
Anyway...
If we can getcamo kitsto again work againstNPCs, I'll still be happy. Well... I'd live. And if we did somehow get it with PvP as well... all I really want is to disappear off the radar anyway. Thatway a/concealed Ranger would still have to use their terrain to hide fromdirect sight. It makes sense.
As an offset to this "additional" ability I'd live with a speed reduction and/or range limitation for /conceal to work. I mean... why do I get scouting xp when on a speeder? And as someone said... it IS pretty stupid to stand right in front of someone's faceand not be seen.
Iwould love to hear an explanation of WHY the devs won't support a stealther class. Why is it supposedly so unbalanced? Or is this merely a programming issue because it conflicts with the way their combat system works?
The brick wall that most players run into when they play SWG is that they ASSUME things about what the game would be like. When it isn't the way they hoped, all the sudden it is the fault of the developers. That's just not fair.
I didnt assume anything, I read the description of Ranger in the manual and all the sales material, revisit that I think you will agree that it's not thatclose to what a Ranger actually is within the game....
If we can getcamo kitsto again work againstNPCs, I'll still be happy. Well... I'd live. And if we did somehow get it with PvP as well... all I really want is to disappear off the radar anyway. Thatway a/concealed Ranger would still have to use their terrain to hide fromdirect sight. It makes sense.
I am not going to go through months worth of forum posts to find it, but I PROMISE that one of the Dev's said that they would NEVER remove anyone from the radar. The reason being that the radar is somehow tied into the targeting system. Unless they are going to completely overhaul the programming behind the game(which I seriously doubt) this is never going to happen. You want it, I want it, everyone thinks it would be cool but it is just not a possibility. Changing us to a yellow dot maybe, and that is a more worthy goal to shoot for if you want to affect the radar. Yellow dots can be targeted and attacked so the dev'smight bite on this. But not total removal.
One viable solution would be called a GRAPHIC. Right now, we slosh on a camo kit, but we still look the same. If a planet-specific camo kit would change our avatar, it could take care of some of the concerns. I'm talking about a graphic that's similar to how the predator looked in the movies when it employed its camo abilities. You can somewhat make it out while it is moving but it creates a kind of plasma ripple affect. When you stand perfectly still, you blend in with the surroundings. That would somewhat address the PvP aspect. But the targeting system would still mess it up.
And yes, I do like the idea of a negative to-hit modifier against us while using camo. It makes sense andeverylittle bit helps.
Makkaio wrote:
The brick wall that most players run into when they play SWG is that they ASSUME things about what the game would be like. When it isn't the way they hoped, all the sudden it is the fault of the developers. That's just not fair.
Yes, some things in this game are broken and need further development, but this game is this game. It is NOT EQ, UO, DAoC or the hundreds of text-based RPGs out there. I've said this before, as NRass knows, that I applaud SWG for NOT making mask scent and camo a skill of invisibility. It would make no sense and would be a very shoddy system if you hit your maskscent hot key and *poof*, you don't show up on the radar any more and the player you were just fighting wonders if you're logged out.
I do agree that camo should work against NPCs with the regular spot checks. I was disappointed when this was not the case and was "fixed" during the last patch. However, I don't think we should be able to dress up in camos and stand unnoticed in front our enemy. Just doesn't make sense to me.
Bingo. The problem isn't all the people who play the way they like to play. Developers would LOVE to design games for them. The problem is the min-maxers, the griefers and the exploiters. Folks who play the game for the sole purpose of ruining your game play.
Unfortunately, thats where a lot of design has to be focused.
If you could be invisible to players in this particular game environment (which is technologically different from DAoC which does have a similar type of stealth skill), you would be vulnerable to a lot of really mean, jerky stuff. Hypothetically speaking, you might get someone who figures out that if they use some stealth skill and hide over covert detectors, that they could catch people in an unfair trap. Or they might go invis and wait for you to be in a dungeon or something and then train a high level creature on you. There is no way to know what would happen. Im not saying its never going to happen, just that there are more important things to do first.
Off the top of my head, I'd much rather see the work this community has put forth on beefed-up camps in the game before something like that.
THe down side of this thinking is that the game becomes so BORING that no one wants to play and goes on to something else. We can see by some of the comments in the RANGER forum, that happening all ready. Conceal with no teeth, Vehicles -- wayfaring is not needed, and weak traps, by publish & camps won't be needed, The purpose of RANGERS will be gone and scouting skills for the other off shoots will be their only need.
Thunderheart wrote:
Makkaio wrote:
The brick wall that most players run into when they play SWG is that they ASSUME things about what the game would be like. When it isn't the way they hoped, all the sudden it is the fault of the developers. That's just not fair.
Yes, some things in this game are broken and need further development, but this game is this game. It is NOT EQ, UO, DAoC or the hundreds of text-based RPGs out there. I've said this before, as NRass knows, that I applaud SWG for NOT making mask scent and camo a skill of invisibility. It would make no sense and would be a very shoddy system if you hit your maskscent hot key and *poof*, you don't show up on the radar any more and the player you were just fighting wonders if you're logged out.
I do agree that camo should work against NPCs with the regular spot checks. I was disappointed when this was not the case and was "fixed" during the last patch. However, I don't think we should be able to dress up in camos and stand unnoticed in front our enemy. Just doesn't make sense to me.
Bingo. The problem isn't all the people who play the way they like to play. Developers would LOVE to design games for them. The problem is the min-maxers, the griefers and the exploiters. Folks who play the game for the sole purpose of ruining your game play.
Unfortunately, thats where a lot of design has to be focused.
If you could be invisible to players in this particular game environment (which is technologically different from DAoC which does have a similar type of stealth skill), you would be vulnerable to a lot of really mean, jerky stuff. Hypothetically speaking, you might get someone who figures out that if they use some stealth skill and hide over covert detectors, that they could catch people in an unfair trap. Or they might go invis and wait for you to be in a dungeon or something and then train a high level creature on you. There is no way to know what would happen. Im not saying its never going to happen, just that there are more important things to do first.
Off the top of my head, I'd much rather see the work this community has put forth on beefed-up camps in the game before something like that.