Are there any Stealth objectives in PvP?

Avran_Sylt · December 14

This game is supposedly about playing how you want, but when it comes to stealth PvP, it just seems to be about being cancerous to new players, or irrelevant to fully geared players, in IC at least. In Cyrodiil, well, it's all about the ball-mass.

Are there any Stealth based PvEvP objectives I've missed?

StarOfElyon · December 14

I recommend you find a group to play with. Post "LFG" or something. If you're new, others can help you in the game better than we can on this forum.

Avran_Sylt · December 14

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I recommend you find a group to play with. Post "LFG" or something. If you're new, others can help you in the game better than we can on this forum.

Yeah I've done the whole PvDoor thing.

It's kinda booring. Especially as AD where you get halfway and then bombed because no-one (myself included) is geared to 1vX.

I mean more like: Jobs to reduce the health of structures or to suppress the flagged state of keeps. Information suppression. Or perhaps information acquisition: Get intel on where the largest blob of players are, or where an individual player is (randomly).

Taril · December 14

"Play how you want" doesn't necessarily mean "All playstyles are equally supported"

Stealth is a minor part of PvP, with the main use being NB's using their invis to try and escape a fight in BG's. It can also be used to mask your presence while guarding a BG objective.

Otherwise its use is more just about being a jerk - Ganking solo people doing PvE objectives (Such as questing in towns in Cyro or farming NPC's in IC), or doing something silly like sitting in the corner of a keep while it gets retaken so you can try and solo cap it when the defenders move on.

Though to be fair, it's not like stealth is any better in PvE. With it being entirely useless outside of Theives Guild/Dark Brotherhood dailies.

fred4 · December 14

None that ZOS prescribe, but:

Burning camps and burning siege under the enemy's nose and getting away with it. This occasionally turns the tide.
Guarding your own faction's camp, e.g. interrupting enemies wanting to burn it without engaging in a fight.
Bringing Tel Var home after (solo) killing a boss in IC.
Rezzing your faction when you are the only survivor, because you disengaged in time and couldn't be found.
Scouting enemy forces for your group without being seen.
Doing town quests in peace, possibly in a hostile town.
Shedding aggro from NPCs, possibly remaining invisible in a keep until you siege the door from the inside.
Evicting players from your keep via a knockback skill. Do this to a ball group leader or healer, and the whole ball group may well leave. While any player can do this, a cloaking NB probably has the best chance to sneak up and pick the right time and target.

Avran_Sylt · December 14

Taril wrote: »

"Play how you want" doesn't necessarily mean "All playstyles are equally supported"

Stealth is a minor part of PvP, with the main use being NB's using their invis to try and escape a fight in BG's. It can also be used to mask your presence while guarding a BG objective.

Otherwise its use is more just about being a jerk - Ganking solo people doing PvE objectives (Such as questing in towns in Cyro or farming NPC's in IC), or doing something silly like sitting in the corner of a keep while it gets retaken so you can try and solo cap it when the defenders move on.

Though to be fair, it's not like stealth is any better in PvE. With it being entirely useless outside of Theives Guild/Dark Brotherhood dailies.

Ganking solo players isn't exclusive to stealth, just more abrupt. I've played enough Cyrodiil and Imperial City to know that the "Honorable" duelists are just as cruel as the ganker, jumping on anything enemy they see and just going all out. (And I've been a ganker myself, tho typically just on IC district flags). Seldom will you see a player not attack someone they think they'll stomp. It's all cutthroat, unless it's a guild event.

You can be a jerk without stealth readily enough that this argument seems weak. Just trample on any undergeared player and they can't kill you. If you think otherwise (In that all players in PvP are properly geared for it) you're a fool. I've had a laugh just bashing those players I'd expect to delete out of stealth instead of comboing them as it doesn't seem sporting. (And hey, sometimes their invis teammates killed me afterwards, but whatevs, a death's a death).

As to BG NB invis, well, that's kinda a weird thing that needs to be addressed given that NB's are supposed to be, well, the canny dodgy class. At least if my impression is correct.

If "play how you want" becomes "Play this build or you lose", then gameplay stagnates. While "explicit" builds can vary per-player, the PvP design seems to specify a given build: tanky attrition. Then of course there's the inherent group cross-buffing/healing/etc.

But this is generally only learned gearing. By groups, that effectively shove out any newcomers,

PvE advantages of stealth go unquestioned from my part, just hoping that an entire class isn't defined by a single skill. (And hey, scribing invis when?)

Thumbless_Bot · December 14

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

This game is supposedly about playing how you want, but when it comes to stealth PvP, it just seems to be about being cancerous to new players, or irrelevant to fully geared players, in IC at least. In Cyrodiil, well, it's all about the ball-mass.

Are there any Stealth based PvEvP objectives I've missed?

Never been a nb or stealthbchar of any kind, but I think the dark brotherhood questioned is basically designed for stealth. A lot of the thieves guild stuff too.

Avran_Sylt · December 15

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

This game is supposedly about playing how you want, but when it comes to stealth PvP, it just seems to be about being cancerous to new players, or irrelevant to fully geared players, in IC at least. In Cyrodiil, well, it's all about the ball-mass.

Are there any Stealth based PvEvP objectives I've missed?

Never been a nb or stealthbchar of any kind, but I think the dark brotherhood questioned is basically designed for stealth. A lot of the thieves guild stuff too.

Sure, but how could those be included into something like Cyrodiil where this stealth impacts other players and aids in the war?

Maybe you can pickpocket the patrolling guards outside castle grounds to possibly gain a temporary buff that lets you capture a resource node as if you were three people instead of just one, useful for scouting and cutting keeps more quickly but needing investment into legerdemain. (call the buff "Pilfered Orders").

Maybe a rare drop from pickpocketing patrolling guards is a consumable called "Tactician's Orders", that reveals nearby forward camps when used. (Limit 1, cannot be banked, expires after an hour, need a bit of a grind to obtain as to not be quickly available whenever).

Allow Resource Keep NPC's to be killed with the blade of Woe as well, having a chance to provide a similar buff "Bloodied Documents" that can stack with "Pilfered Orders" to let you capture a resource node solo a bit faster. (you might focus on taking out straggler NPC's to try and get the buff with more reliability).

Maybe make searching containers in an enemy controlled resource node possibly give you a temporary disguise/buff that increases your damage done to monsters by 200% for the next minute (in this case the resource keep guards).

You've now got a loop of pickpocketing orders, killing straggler NPC's, to capture a node faster solo before it flags, and help divert attention while using a more stealthy approach to resource nodes, with the possibility of acquiring a short-term consumable that you can use to help more effectively locate and destroy forward camps in a group battle.

Perhaps also give Keep Recall stones a chance to be pickpocketed from guards.

Avran_Sylt · December 15

fred4 wrote: »

None that ZOS prescribe, but:
Burning camps and burning siege under the enemy's nose and getting away with it. This occasionally turns the tide.

Guarding your own faction's camp, e.g. interrupting enemies wanting to burn it without engaging in a fight.

Bringing Tel Var home after (solo) killing a boss in IC.

Rezzing your faction when you are the only survivor, because you disengaged in time and couldn't be found.

Scouting enemy forces for your group without being seen.

Doing town quests in peace, possibly in a hostile town.

Shedding aggro from NPCs, possibly remaining invisible in a keep until you siege the door from the inside.

Evicting players from your keep via a knockback skill. Do this to a ball group leader or healer, and the whole ball group may well leave. While any player can do this, a cloaking NB probably has the best chance to sneak up and pick the right time and target.

Burning, totally. Guarding you probably just want to be more of a brawler than utilize any stealth (except for just sitting in crouch).

Tel Var is more of a PvE thing while trying to avoid PvP.

Scouting is weird given the pop-in distance and comes down to more "right time, right place", and can also be fairly well handled by being on alert for flagged statuses.

Doing Town quests is certainly something, but maybe if they added some siege equipment to the possible rewards? Maybe upon completion of all of the quests in the town for the day you get a unique coffer that provides things like guaranteed keep recall stones, repair kits, possible forward camps, seige weapons. Though that's more questing.

I'm still a bit annoyed about the whole rezzing thing, why can't you prevent a rez/force a dead character to despawn as an opponent? But yes.

PvDoor from the inside just seems like something resulting from dead population if you can get to the point you're able to flag the keep, but I agree.

Yeah I've been meaning at some point to make a disruption build, that would be cool, but more of a utility support kinda deal.

Cool stuff.

MincMincMinc · December 16

Stealth used to be an important part of pvp. In the days of old mounts didnt travel at lightspeed. Ganking was an actual thing that could happen.

As others already pointed out, the entirety of pvp wasnt always log in and LFG into a 40 man zerg or ball group. There were more avenues for solo play and small group play through resource fights, ganking, bridge fights, etc. NB and stealth played a major role in allowing newer players to feel safer being able to try these non-zerg playstyles. As you can imagine these playstyles have a steep learning curve, and being able to stealth gave a safety blanket for newer players to participate.

People often fall into this thought process of Oh, only good players can play solo.......... When in reality it is the fault of the devs that this is becoming more and more true. The game thrives when players of all skill levels participate in all playstyles. There needs to be incentives for players to break away from ball groups and learn on their own.

BXR_Lonestar · December 16

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

This game is supposedly about playing how you want, but when it comes to stealth PvP, it just seems to be about being cancerous to new players, or irrelevant to fully geared players, in IC at least. In Cyrodiil, well, it's all about the ball-mass.

Are there any Stealth based PvEvP objectives I've missed?

The capture the relic objectives match "can" be won through the use of stealth, but it is going to be difficult or impossible if the other group has a couple of smart defenders using stealth detection at the relic point.

Avran_Sylt · December 16

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Stealth used to be an important part of pvp. In the days of old mounts didnt travel at lightspeed. Ganking was an actual thing that could happen.

As others already pointed out, the entirety of pvp wasnt always log in and LFG into a 40 man zerg or ball group. There were more avenues for solo play and small group play through resource fights, ganking, bridge fights, etc. NB and stealth played a major role in allowing newer players to feel safer being able to try these non-zerg playstyles. As you can imagine these playstyles have a steep learning curve, and being able to stealth gave a safety blanket for newer players to participate.

People often fall into this thought process of Oh, only good players can play solo.......... When in reality it is the fault of the devs that this is becoming more and more true. The game thrives when players of all skill levels participate in all playstyles. There needs to be incentives for players to break away from ball groups and learn on their own.

Yeah not going to say I miss those days. Stealth arching used to pop players off of mounts certainly was a thing, and does play into reinforcement disruption, but IMO was kinda BS back then, and more of a reason that everyone is building so tanky nowadays.

Would have rather seen something like the introduction of... a literal beartrap as a "siege weapon" for that kinda thing. Place it down, it's only visible out to 30m to enemy players, if stepped on deals massive damage and an unavoidable stun for 2s.

It can be disarmed by enemy players, the player that set it down, or its health expires, limit 1 placed per player.

Place it in choke-points like on bridge pathways, keep doorways/walls. It cannot be placed near other siege structures. (Or maybe it can, and perhaps an enterprising ganker could set it up directly underneath someone operating siege machinery.)

Players should be on the lookout when navigating these chokepoints, dismount and try to manually jump around/navigate around the traps, get ganked after stepping into them, try to disarm them that could result in getting ganked while performing an action if they don't block-cancel out of it quickly enough, or use detection skills to make it easier to disarm such a trap with more security.

More of a PvEvP kinda stealth play, IMO.

Thumbless_Bot · December 16

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

This game is supposedly about playing how you want, but when it comes to stealth PvP, it just seems to be about being cancerous to new players, or irrelevant to fully geared players, in IC at least. In Cyrodiil, well, it's all about the ball-mass.

Are there any Stealth based PvEvP objectives I've missed?

Never been a nb or stealthbchar of any kind, but I think the dark brotherhood questioned is basically designed for stealth. A lot of the thieves guild stuff too.

Sure, but how could those be included into something like Cyrodiil where this stealth impacts other players and aids in the war?

Maybe you can pickpocket the patrolling guards outside castle grounds to possibly gain a temporary buff that lets you capture a resource node as if you were three people instead of just one, useful for scouting and cutting keeps more quickly but needing investment into legerdemain. (call the buff "Pilfered Orders").

Maybe a rare drop from pickpocketing patrolling guards is a consumable called "Tactician's Orders", that reveals nearby forward camps when used. (Limit 1, cannot be banked, expires after an hour, need a bit of a grind to obtain as to not be quickly available whenever).

Allow Resource Keep NPC's to be killed with the blade of Woe as well, having a chance to provide a similar buff "Bloodied Documents" that can stack with "Pilfered Orders" to let you capture a resource node solo a bit faster. (you might focus on taking out straggler NPC's to try and get the buff with more reliability).

Maybe make searching containers in an enemy controlled resource node possibly give you a temporary disguise/buff that increases your damage done to monsters by 200% for the next minute (in this case the resource keep guards).

You've now got a loop of pickpocketing orders, killing straggler NPC's, to capture a node faster solo before it flags, and help divert attention while using a more stealthy approach to resource nodes, with the possibility of acquiring a short-term consumable that you can use to help more effectively locate and destroy forward camps in a group battle.

Perhaps also give Keep Recall stones a chance to be pickpocketed from guards.

These are all very interesting ideas. My oldest loves to blade of woe and loves going around pick-pocketing. It would be really cool if he could contribute to the campaign by doing these things in cyro.