Undocumented Stealth and Perception Changes

[Squeak]

I'm going to put this here, since I was told today that this was a bug report that was submitted and was subsequently updated.

Not going to lie, this one confused me for a good little while now and caused me to go into places little Vighon probably should never have gone to in an attempt to train stealth. For those who aren't aware (like me!) the change to stealth is thus: You can no longer stealth past mobs for gains. As the bug wasn't submitted by me (and I had no idea it was a bug to begin with!), I don't know why the change happened or why there was no documentation for it.

As this was one of the few (read: only) skills I've spent a good amount of time training, and have subsequently gotten it pretty high, I'm a bit disappointed in how it works now. I'll face the music and state that how I trained this probably wasn't kosher, but did so as an efficient use of my time. If training stealth in such a manner was, in fact, a bug as it's made out to be, Rias, feel free to take the gains from my skill training for the incidental exploitation.

All that being said, now for a discussion in it. I enjoyed being able to rep stealth gains by moving through areas while exploring - it gave the skill a feeling of organic gains, i.e. I was using the skill in the normal use of my character in lieu of spamming "hide" over and over and over and over again. I'll be the first to admit that a large portion of my stealth was gained from utilizing this stealthy movement against non-hostile mobs, i.e. Rams, bears, bison, scarecrows, etc. So I'll submit that perhaps, if a mob is non-aggro'd, or non-hostile, one shouldn't receive any gains at all, up until the point that mob becomes aggro'd. I'm a firm believer that if there is risk involved, there should be gains. If I'm moving through Ebon's pass, in hiding, and passing things that could rightly murder poor little Vighon with their pinky, I should get those gains. It's ultimately not any different than sitting in the room with them constantly spamming "hide" until spotted and then running like a flaming boulder of doom is rolling right behind. Oh, an additional point to be made, if a mob is in hiding, stealth gains shouldn't be awarded then, either, because if you can't see something, how can you learn to do something better?

Now, the latter point of this point is perception. With these changes of stealth movement no longer giving stealth gains, it would appear that they no longer grant perception gains, either. I.e. if an infested squirrel moves into your room, and you spot it, you don't get the perception gain. Or when you search them out and find them. It does, however, appear that you gain the skill if you spot something as it's jumping out to eat you. All in all, it's made perception - a skill that's evil to train as is - even more difficult to grind. I'm assuming this is an oversight of the previous, which is why it's included here, but correct me if I'm wrong!

Anyhow, keep up the phenomenal work, Rias, and I can't wait to see what pops up next!

(P.S. - I was told that running around in the Salt Flats while hiding was a thing that wasn't meant to be, either, or wasn't in Grandfather Clok (see what I did there?), but you can do it now. I'll bug it IG when I get around to going back down there, but seeing as how Vighon has no reason to go there, it might be awhile.)

[RememberNehima]

I submitted one of the bug reports that got a note back. Mine was about about being able to spam "stalk" on the same target over and over to get stealth gains with little risk. Mobs of the difficulty I was training would only very rarely get suspicious, so I figured it probably wasn't working as intended.

I assume the new system is still being fiddled with. My feedback thus far is that whatever formula is calculating gains could stand to be a little more generous. I'm still noticed fairly quickly by Tarueka laborers when attacking them but get no gains from them, while I can barely sneak into the room with the inner town mobs without being spotted, let alone get a successful attack off.

[Squeak]

I submitted one of the bug reports that got a note back. Mine was about about being able to spam "stalk" on the same target over and over to get stealth gains with little risk. Mobs of the difficulty I was training would only very rarely get suspicious, so I figured it probably wasn't working as intended.

I'm not going to lie. I had never even thought about doing that. Never even crossed my mind that it would work, lol.

[Sneaky]

We had a discussion in VC about possibly still allowing perception stealth gains from sneaking around to be possible, but with diminishing returns. I guess the same thing could be done with perception, at least for the cases where you spot things stalking/moving through the area.

[Southpaw]

I understand why spamming stalk over and over is an issue as well as why one wouldn't get stealth or perception gains if the mobs involved are too low level but the idea of diminishing returns makes me wince,, especially with perception. How would the diminishing returns work? A mob per mob basis like stealing would probably work but making perception harder than it already is will be rough. I know it's easier said than done but if a mob gives weapon gains why not use the same scale for stealth and perception? Assuming the numbers are the same of course.

[Sneaky]

Sorry, I should have explained it more. So the idea is that you would receive gains that diminish over time for activities like sneaking through a room with hostiles. Eventually you will barely get anything and will need to wait a while before you can gain again that way. For perception, it would be the same for when you search out npcs or passively spot them. However, you would still gain stealth and perception normally when actively using them in combat. So a successful ambush would grant stealth skill, and successfully tracing attacks back to enemies would increase perception skill. These would not give diminishing returns other than the normal reduction based on the challenge.
If you ever used the sleight, tumble, or flip commands to practice up artifice or acrobatics on COGG, it would be a similar thing. Maybe a maximum of 2 full points every few hours.

[Rias]

Sorry for the confusion! At this point I'd say the game is still in a stage where a lot going on behind the scenes is going to be undocumented, as it's still undergoing heavy conversions from a merging of varying approaches to game mechanics as well as internal testing. I don't want the changelog to be full of "A is now B." "Actually, B is now C." "After more consideration in the past 24 hours, C is now back to A, with the exception of D, and maybe E and F will be a thing later today."

Development-wise the game is still very much in flux and, to be frank, fairly chaotic on this side of the curtain! There's a lot of jumping around to fix bugs, address broken items or characters, import stuff that still needs importing, restore missing systems, update code, address requests that seem to be held by a significant number of players, do things purely for fun because maintaining morale and motivation are also important parts of the development process, and so on. Many changes are being tested by myself after being implemented before committing to them, others are quick plug-the-hole-in-the-dam updates so unintended things don't go on for too long and end up being mistakenly interpreted as intended because they were around so long. Stealth and Perception are both of these, and will continue to see updates. I will likely go through and lower some skill levels of those particular skills for characters who recently got unintended amounts of significant gains from them. I know it doesn't feel good to have something taken away as a player, but it also doesn't feel good to just not address it and sort of leave this unspoken impression that might encourage some people to generally try and get away with what they can for as long as it lasts with this as precedent to point back to for being able to keep the results of unintended behaviors. This is to say nothing of players that were either unaware of the opportunity and weren't able to benefit from it while it was present, or actively refrained from things they suspected were unintended or too easy, which many players have done in this situation based on the many bug reports sent about it. I appreciate any patience and understanding in this regard!

On that note, I'll take this opportunity to express my thanks for the bug reports people have sent about systems that are suspected to be working in an unintentional manner, including situations that are felt to be probably too easy or "cheap-feeling".

There are some good suggestions about addressing stealth and perception gains here, so continue to discuss and keep them coming! To be perfectly clear: At this time, stealth gains are achieved by making ambushes (attacks from stealth) against mobs that have what is considered a decently challenging amount of perception for that character. If the ambusher is stalking their target at the time, the amount of Stealth skillgain on a successful ambush is increased. This likely won't remain the only way to increase stealth, but as of this posting that's where it's at.

[Rias]

Update: Successfully sneaking into a room with a hostile NPC of sufficient Perception skill to be considered a challenge now grants some Stealth skillgain!

[Adresin]

Okay so, what can we do now to increase perception? That's the one I'm most concerned about, but the only ways I knew to train it at all which took a while as it is, no longer work. That one's a pain and pretty important.

Thanks for the stealth update. I'm less worried about that one on this char, though do want to train it, but this seems like a fair compromise.

I'd be okay with deminishing returns on repeatable ways to train things, as long as training them is still reasonably possible. I'd say for both of these, it probably shouldn't be limited to combat only actions. Noncombatants may want to be able to sneak somewhere for something or notice if soemone is trying to steal from them, after all. :)

[Ninetales16]

Hello,
I, for one, am fine with system changes remaining undocumented as they are rapidly changing or being adjusted. I totally understand why and where that is coming from, and I do think and agree that stealth should be trainable with diminishing returns in both a combat and noncombat related way. I get the idea that some systems are still having unclearn means of getting gains, and I am in approval of what squeak says, if there's risk, there should be a reward, as well, both with perception and stealth. I will patiently wait and see how this further develops, but I am excited for it, nevertheless.
keep up the awesome work!

[Kunren]

Okay so, what can we do now to increase perception? That's the one I'm most concerned about, but the only ways I knew to train it at all which took a while as it is, no longer work. That one's a pain and pretty important.

Thanks for the stealth update. I'm less worried about that one on this char, though do want to train it, but this seems like a fair compromise.

I'd be okay with deminishing returns on repeatable ways to train things, as long as training them is still reasonably possible. I'd say for both of these, it probably shouldn't be limited to combat only actions. Noncombatants may want to be able to sneak somewhere for something or notice if soemone is trying to steal from them, after all. :)

I think we can't say that stealth should be trainable non-combat when stealth is check against for some combat facing abilities (at least, afaik dirty tricks and similar at least partially take into account your stealth skillz). There should always been some amount of threat of bad juju happening for combat facing skills, even if they have non-combat applications IMO

[Lysse]

Okay so, what can we do now to increase perception? That's the one I'm most concerned about, but the only ways I knew to train it at all which took a while as it is, no longer work. That one's a pain and pretty important.

Thanks for the stealth update. I'm less worried about that one on this char, though do want to train it, but this seems like a fair compromise.

I'd be okay with deminishing returns on repeatable ways to train things, as long as training them is still reasonably possible. I'd say for both of these, it probably shouldn't be limited to combat only actions. Noncombatants may want to be able to sneak somewhere for something or notice if soemone is trying to steal from them, after all. :)

I think we can't say that stealth should be trainable non-combat when stealth is check against for some combat facing abilities (at least, afaik dirty tricks and similar at least partially take into account your stealth skillz). There should always been some amount of threat of bad juju happening for combat facing skills, even if they have non-combat applications IMO

On Cogg, I would have argued in favor of letting non-combatant stealthers have a non-combat way of training stealth (and I do actually think giving stealth gains to successful uses of the HUNT command would actually be good, given it requires an ability point investment into tracking), but since there's no skill point limit or cap here, it seems mostly unnecessary. Stealth is a pretty powerful defensive tool when it comes to combat, so I do think it's better that it comes with a combat risk.

[Squeak]

On Cogg, I would have argued in favor of letting non-combatant stealthers have a non-combat way of training stealth (and I do actually think giving stealth gains to successful uses of the HUNT command would actually be good, given it requires an ability point investment into tracking), but since there's no skill point limit or cap here, it seems mostly unnecessary. Stealth is a pretty powerful defensive tool when it comes to combat, so I do think it's better that it comes with a combat risk.

HUNT doesn't require an ability investment at this point in time. Unless that's an unintended bug. It does, well did, offer skill gains in stealth if you stalked the creature and ambushed it, though. SInce the mobs we currently have that are HUNTable, have relatively low skill with few exceptions, you'll quickly get beyond their ability to train you. This is how I started training stealth, incidentally.

[Squeak]

Update: Successfully sneaking into a room with a hostile NPC of sufficient Perception skill to be considered a challenge now grants some Stealth skillgain!

Thank you for this! I understand everything's in a constant state of flux and that you're spearheading all this all by your lonesome, so if my post came across as patronizing or anything else, I do apologize. I know it's got to be hectic for you, and we're all thankful for all the work you put in. It just boggled my mind that I was inexplicably not getting stealth gains on anything, and after talking with multiple other people, we couldn't come up with the reason why.

I've got nothing further to add for stealth training, at the moment, but I'd like to pose a few things for perception gains while we're at it. As far as I know, there's only one 'efficient' way to gain perception (two, if stealth mobs are now giving perception gains again) at the moment, with incidental gains when watching someone steal or palm things. What if we gained perception while HUNTing for diminishing returns. I enjoy the system as it is, but feel it could be added to for more depth. So, for those who aren't familiar with the system, when you HUNT something, eventually you'll see "signs" of an animal in an area. Then you HUNT said animal for a little while before you come across it and get to actually interact with it. This usually means killing it, or if you're like me, just stalking it to see what it does.

Now, since tracking animal prints is a tricky business in the best of conditions, what I propose is this: When starting your hunting, there's a roll to determine which animals you see signs of. When that roll pops up as a success, you'll see something along the lines of "You see signs of a fox in the area". What if determining the animal type itself is a perception roll? You can still hunt it not knowing what it is, but if you pass that original roll, you'll now know what type of animal to expect at the end of the trail.

Once you start hunting a critter, you usually start getting messages determining how far, or how fresh the tracks are. For this, I propose that the further away you are ("You feel you still have a ways to go") will grant the maximum amount of perception for the attempt and as you get closer, the tracks get clearer and easier to follow providing diminishing returns. At any point in the process, if you fail a perception check, you run the risk of getting turned around or even losing the tracks completely. Also, at any point in the process, you have a chance to determine what animal it is your stalking, if you didn't know what it was to begin, with for another perception boost. I feel as if these checks shouldn't be super hard, considering the nature of walking around the wilderness (i.e. the food and energy consumption) but not so easy as to cheese the system for consistent gains.

Something else I considered was having room emotes that give perception checks. For example, in Cogg's Mistral, there would be an occasional emote of two shady fellows passing a package back and forth. It'd be an incidental gain, at best, but it'd give a unique feel to rooms. Places like the market where someone "steals" from one of the market stalls, shady hand-offs in the darker corners of Shadgard, etc.

[Lysse]

On Cogg, I would have argued in favor of letting non-combatant stealthers have a non-combat way of training stealth (and I do actually think giving stealth gains to successful uses of the HUNT command would actually be good, given it requires an ability point investment into tracking), but since there's no skill point limit or cap here, it seems mostly unnecessary. Stealth is a pretty powerful defensive tool when it comes to combat, so I do think it's better that it comes with a combat risk.

HUNT doesn't require an ability investment at this point in time. Unless that's an unintended bug. It does, well did, offer skill gains in stealth if you stalked the creature and ambushed it, though. SInce the mobs we currently have that are HUNTable, have relatively low skill with few exceptions, you'll quickly get beyond their ability to train you. This is how I started training stealth, incidentally.

Oh, in that case I do still think having hunting generate stealth gains is probably fine, as well as small perception games - but if possible, I'd have it be upon the death of the critter one is hunting. That way folks that want to improve those skills that way have to keep moving around.