Ranger Archive
Thread: The Conceal Question...
Well... The modular camp proposal has taken on a life of its own apparently.
Quite exciting how word gets around, isn't it? 
Anywho...
Those of you who may remember, the reason I wrote up the Outdoorsman proposal is in an attempt to sway the developers from their creature-centric path to something more amiable to the community.
The only big issue that remains is what to do with /conceal.
I proposed a complete revision in the A New Conceal? thread. There has been a lot of controversy over that proposal, mostly regarding the dismissal of invisibility against humanoids and in PvP.
My intent was to provide a single method that would encompass all forms of opponents, without having to resort to a hybrid system (creatures and humanoids see us "this" way... but in PvP we are seen "that" way).
Now we have Thunderheart's post in one of the other threads... Not the response I was looking for, mind you, but these developers never seem to want to give a definitive stance on anything (though I don't blame them for that, I wouldn't want to either). 
I'm stilling hoping that Thunderheart will find the answers for the specific questions I answered, but I want to ensure the proposal is prepared if he does not answer in a timely manner.
So...
What do we do with the Conceal? I can add a caveat to the top of the section stating that:
"If invisibility towards humanoid NPCs is still a remote possibility, then the following proposal should be considered a possible solution to the PvP aspect of /conceal"
How does that sound? Different wording? Different approach all together?
Speak and be heard.
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[Edit: Added relevant threads to bottom of post.]
Message Edited by NRaas on 01-16-2004 05:09 PM
I don't think I understand. How can invisibility to npc's be a solution to PvP? I'm all for invis against whatever we can get in addition to the proposed sneak attacks. N'Raas did we get a consensus from the conceal 2.0 thread?
Ok I think we are having a problem with context...
Let's try it this wat instead:
<start of document>
Conceal
"The hunter stopped... A fleeting shadow within the trees across the clearing had grabbed his attention. He drifted back into the bush, his presense masked from whatever lurked in the darkness. Was it his prey, or another ambitious hunter attempting to claim the prize for himself? A quick glimpse down reassured him that he was wearing his trusty ghillie suit. It was old and in constant need of repair, but it had proved its worth in those crucial first seconds of many a past conflict. If any other hunter was interested in making trouble for this ranger, he would be prepared for them."
Disclaimer: If invisibility towards humanoid NPCs is still a remote possibility, then the following proposal should be considered a possible solution to the PvP aspect of /conceal
In the vein of the wilderness-centric focus of the Outdoorsman, concealment should work on forms of opponents while in a wilderness environment: creatures, humanoids, pets, and players.
In order to allow a consistent system across all forms of combat, rather than concealment completely hiding a player from view, which would be far too imbalancing, /conceal should work as a buff, decreasing an opponent's chance-to-hit the concealed player.
<rest of document continues>
Well, I can truly say TH has his head firmly embedded in his fourth point of contact. Punish the masses for the sins of the few.
First off - Conceal is still working against lower end NPCs. I tested my theory again tonite, and camo'd and stood still in the middle of an NPC spawn area. No aggro. Move slow, no aggro. Move fast, one aggro'd. Shot, they aggro'd. They died. This was against very very low end, Meatlumps. I imagine it works the same for all the low end slugs. I will test more later.
As to the griefers and all the others - does the reporting system not work? Tell me it ain't so. You mean the bimbo with the 200m one shot multi-sliced DBs at 100m rifle will not get slapped on the wrist? Well darn. I won't dispute there are those who sole intent is to mess with people. Nor will I dispute that there are people out there who play soley to exploit what and where they can. It has to happen.
However, 90% of the people don't, won't, and will report these clowns. Get a decent system in place. Have one CSR per server to investigate any complaints, and start banning (or worse, take XP away from) these stooges. For that matter, give some gamer/volunteers the ability to check stuff out, and give them some minor powers to grant "time outs" and stuff like that. Their reports go to a CSR, who can make a final determination. Get slammed twice, say bye to that toon.
Anyhow, /conceal should work against NPCs and in some instances, PCs. We have discussed it at length, I am not riding that horse again. Probably the best ideaswere the ghillie suit and the hunting blind.
JB
I think we need to keep the "END GAME" in mind.
What will we rangers be doing in a year, in two years? Will we still be sitting on our bum in camps watching others pass us by? Will we have our heads down in the sand collecting hide and bone while the Galactic Civil War continues around us? Hmm....
Yes, possibly we will, as those things are integral to our ability to explore and earn a living. But there has to be more. Rangers need some ability to participate in the GCW, and *conceal* is the best opportunity we have to bring something cool, something different which others classes do not have to that game.
How cool would it be to be able to actually hide in the grass so that a faction enemy player could not see you. How cool would it be to be able to use terrain to our advantage, moving up a gully hidden from view so we could surprise someone. This is what *conceal* means to me.
Conceal does not simply mean /maskscent against NPCs. How dull!!!
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The dot on the radar has got to go. There is no hope for a meaningful PVP form of conceal (and therefore no meaningful version of conceal period for many of us) if the opponent in PVP can see our dot on the radar. Radar (while it makes sense technologically) is a terrible terrible terrible terrible feature in a game designed for PVP.
Now there have been a lot naysayers about this. Its too hard to include in the current combat system. Or even if they did do it, packet sniffers will be used. Well, get this. The devs have posted in an 'in development' thread that the combat system is obsolete and will be totally redone. What better time to ask for the ranger dot to be invisible to faction enemies than right now while they are planning that redesign! As far as packet sniffers go, I doubt most casual players would even consider using that, and I have some doubts it would work well where there are creatures near (whom we could also use as cover!)
But if we accept for a moment that there is some problem erasing dots, what about a FOG OF WAR feature? At least on battle fields? Games have had fog of war features for a decade now - this is just brain storming, but perhaps the feature would be that when a ranger is near a faction enemy he creates a fog of war outside of a 64m area for example, reducing the vision of faction enemies.
Or perhaps a ranger gets a TRAP that actually could be used very long distance that would create this fog of war, instead of making us invisible, effectively and meaningfully BLINDING our target (blinding seems like a joke now).
Conceal is the one hope of making the ranger tree truly different than the scouting tree, making ranger something people want to play, and making the class viable for long term (a year from now) PVP. Something big needs to be done with it to achieve that. Just making /conceal work against NPCs is ho hum.
"Well, I can truly say TH has his head firmly embedded in his fourth point of contact. Punish the masses for the sins of the few."
Lets remember here that Thunderheart is simply the spokesman for the developers, and does not make the policy himself. He is indeed the meatlump that takes the punishment however, as he is the public face that we see.
I suspect I would have received the same non-commital double talk if he had answeredthe questions I had sent as well (there is still hope that he will answer them, but I'm not turning blue over it).
"The devs have posted in an 'in development' thread that the combat system is obsolete and will be totally redone."
I get the impressionit's more of a overhaul of the current system than a complete replacement.
"Well, I can truly say TH has his head firmly embedded in his fourth point of contact. Punish the masses for the sins of the few."
You dont like, I dont like it, developers dont like it, but the fact is if we dont develop that way then the few ruin the game for the many and then there is no game.
Thats why we have been working to ban many many exploiters. Not the shmoes who are duking it out in PvP and stretching the holes in the rules, but the guys who are making game breaking things happen that are causing pain for everyone.
I do disagree that that its a punishment. I think thats a limited view of the situation and an easy catch phrase to label a very complicated situation.
Instead, its more like those design contests you see on TLC or Discovery. Engineers are given a set of design criteria that they have to design against. There are limitation but with good design, some limitations can be advantages. In the end, we make the best game we can at any given time and if we need to fix something, we can. The beauty of online games is that they are always changing and evolving...
Making /conceal a "buff" that reduces the chance of an enemy hitting me is like saying that my armor is being improved or something. While that is interesting, giving the ranger a defensive buff, that is not what /conceal means to me. It seems like a terrible waste of what could otherwise be a fantastic skill. Once we go down that road, there will be no hope of ever getting anything better for /conceal.
I don't know why folks think making a ranger hard to see (no dot, grayed out, or whatever) is overpowering. Sure it could be, but it would require balancing. Scouts in DAOC get to conceal their presense, and it is not terribly overpowering for that class. Why would it be here?
There has got to be better ways to implement conceal than making it a simple "to hit" buff.
I offered some ideas above. Here is another: Maybe rangers could be given some sort of CLOAKING DEVICE that they could craft, that somehow makes them partially transparent (not entirely) and warps the colors from the surrounding area around them (think Predator). This would help with conceal and also give rangers something very verycool to craft. Like a personal shield, but a concealing one.
"Scouts in DAOC get to conceal their presense, and it is not terribly overpowering for that class. Why would it be here?"
Because DAOC is a class system, while SWG is not.
Under a class system, the developers have the freedom to make a class underpowered in other areas (such as combat, or what not) to compensate for the more powerful skills (such as invisibility).
Under the Profession system, any number of choices could be made by the player in regards to the remaining skill points available. Ensuring that all the options are balancing against invisibility would probably mean restricting invisibility as I did with /hide (and even then Thunderheart pointed out potential issues).
Nraas, why quibble whether its a major overhaul or replacement, its still the right opportunity to try to implement certain types of /conceal changes while they are at it. Nothingpersonal, I'm just concerned that the same zeal that you brought to the modular camping proposal is not reflected in the "buff" idea presented for /conceal.Conceal is much more important to rangers for the end gamein the long haul (a year from now) than camping, and I'd like to see as much of the same out of the box thinking presented for camps also presented and considered for conceal fairly here.