[Nightblade] stealth completely broken

MoMoOG

Obscure wrote: »

@MoMoOG
It's a deficiency in the AI coding. They are actually working on fixing it, and it's primarily noticeable in Cyrodiil with fixed position NPC's that are agroed on a player that is out of range. You can literally stand next to them and not be attacked simply because the AI doesn't reprioritize targets based on availability. It will be fixed in coming updates and finally you'll start agreeing that Invisibility is garbage that was only useful due to exploitation of lazy AI coding.

When you peer into the eyes of the NPC's, you simply cannot fathom the degree of stupid peering back at you.

Link?

Obscure

@MoMoOG
I don't think I can provide a link, and thus probably over stated the certainty it is going to be fixed. Suffice it to say it's a known issue that is not specifically tied to invisibility, but when/if fixed will effect how agro is determined.

fennecbuttrwb17_ESO

I am just going to give up. Let this thread die.

There are too many people who lack the intelligence to understand the point I am making, I am very grateful to the few who do.

It's not like Zenimax-O would address the problem, anyway. Otherwise they would have addressed the myriad of other, more serious problems this game has.

I'll just deal, then when I have hit the end of the game, I'll stop paying and wait for new content. This is an ultimatum.

I can't believe how stupid some of the people are in here. You simply need to calm down a bit, read what I have written, and consider it. But no, you have to totally misconstrue what I have written, totally miss the point I am making and then go off about "something something something PVP something only nightblades can stealth (which is total BS)". Gah.

fennecbuttrwb17_ESO

RangerChad wrote: »

Invisibility is (in theory) the same as 100% Chameleon.

Yep. This is exactly it. And it looks like they just copy and pasted the "hidden" (from crouched) AI as the "invisible" (from skill OR potion (seriously, it's not even unique to us, our crits aren't even unique to us...))

If I try and crouch away from combat, they should see me, because they already know I'm there, have already seen me, and can track the silly Khajiit who is crouching during combat for some reason.

But if I become invisible during combat, I have completely disappeared from the AI stand-point. It should be "He disappeared! I will now search for him to see if I can find him again." instead of "EXTERMINATE....EXTEEEEERMINAAAAATE...I have locked on to the enemy, even though I cannot see him, I follow him. Even though I cannot see him, I know exactly where he is at all times."

Simple stuff. Massive flaw in stealth system. Expecting less and less from ZOS. See post above.

Drathmar

fennecbuttrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Simple stuff. Massive flaw in stealth system. Expecting less and less from ZOS. See post above.

More a massive flaw in your thinking. You are dumb. Enemies don't follow you if you stealth, unless it is broken immediately by DoT on you. They stop until you reappear, and then chase you again, because of mechanics.

Which means obviously your main point is with the name of the skill, or, the definition of invisibility. However here is a definition of invisible: withdrawn from or out of sight; hidden;

Which the way the skill works now is fine, you are hidden from site, it is still easy to pick up location/track you by scent (vampires etc), sound (and lets be honest unless you have 0 heavy armor on you are going to realistically make quite a bit of sound), hell its a world with magic you could be detectable as a life force regardless of invisibility (which doesn't even go against ESO lore).

Kangas

gweatherall_ESO wrote: »

Invisibility should absolutely be a complete aggro wipe. There is nothing game-breaking about being able to shake NPCs. This would not have any negative impact in PvP, and in PvE, it's the only Nightblade tool for escaping from combat.

I bolded the part that I am going to strongly disagree with. Here are 2 games where characters had the ability to shake NPCs:

Lotro had Burglar Hide in Plain Sight, Minstrel feign death
SWToR had Force Cloak

In both you can go back through release notes and see quite a large amount of game breaking issues that were attended to related to these skills.

Scripted mechanics in particular rely on people staying in combat and certain events happening "next" when boss mob A aggros and tries to attack player B who just shook aggro.

Maybe you meant there "shouldn't be anything game-breaking" but the reality is developers have not seemed to been able to accomplish this without bugs. So I'm really not surprised that ZoS made it something temporary and not an aggro breaker.

Obscure

@Kangas
The fatal flaw is once the NB has the agro the AI is so fixated it can be exploited by the NB staying invisible. The rest of the party can just stand in the room and the agro will stay locked on the only thing it can't attack. Once the NB becomes visible then the fight resumes with the NB being the target. This is lazy AI programming, and anything but a good thing. The exact same thing occurs to AI when they pick up agro but are movement disabled (ex: resource camp flag guards and tower mages), and their target moves out of range. Going invisible (and moving out of range) needs to alter threat level so the AI can attack the next priority target, not stand around with its hands in its pockets like the other players in the room are more invisible than the person who actually is invisible.

It's great if you're deliberately exploiting the bad code line, terrible if you're actually trying to disengage which is what the purpose of playing hide and seek is. And don't even bother in PvP, unless your confident you can quickly get out and stay out of 20m detection potions will just make it a waste of magicka...and everyone's time.

Kangas

@Obscure that's interesting.
So it seems there are game breaking aspects for both dropping aggro and not dropping aggro. Lovely position for ZoS to be needing to solve.

xramirez535b14_ESO

Even getting the mobs to "leash" back is wonky, they'll follow you pretty damn far and even then they'll just get ONE hit off on you then forget about you and take the long journey back to their original points. Almost like they're just slapping you on the wrist for attacking them. It's the most amusing aggro system I've ever seen TBH. ^_^

fantom

If vanish dropped aggro is would be broken (overpowered as hell), as well as useless when solo leveling (due to resetting enemies).

Shadowy Disguise is already an amazing ability, buffing it further would be really stupid. Hint: spec into the passives.

Kangas

xramirez535b14_ESO wrote: »

Even getting the mobs to "leash" back is wonky, they'll follow you pretty damn far and even then they'll just get ONE hit off on you then forget about you and take the long journey back to their original points. Almost like they're just slapping you on the wrist for attacking them. It's the most amusing aggro system I've ever seen TBH. ^_^

I can kind of imagine why. Easier to have mob just pursue you until contact and then resolve it upon contact. On first hit it's "oh.. yeah I went too far"

Still it could have been done better.

I think what some games do is rather than reset immediately upon a full aggro drop they hang around for a little bit deciding what to do or start to retreat but reengage combat under certain circumstances. I think there is something in the code that it will stay engaged if you have hit it in the last X seconds. Kiting long distances uses to be possible with that. It's a combination of checks at work to be sure.

gweatherall_ESO

Even EverQuest successfully implemented invisibility and feign death aggro wipes without causing it to break the game. I'm currently VR2 and have done all the dungeons up to that point. As far as I can tell, if Shadow Cloak were actually changed to a 100% aggro wipe, the biggest side effect would be the ability to reset packs of 3 mobs so that you could take them out one at a time, which is really not game-breaking at all, and is exactly how an assassin-type class would handle such a situation in almost any other game.

Being able to break threat instantly in dungeons would allow you to survive if the tank lost threat or you accidentally engaged a pack early - again, not game-breaking. Almost every other MMO I can think of off the top of my head has a way to reduce/remove threat from DPS classes. The cost of Shadow Cloak is still relatively high. I think at most you could string it together 3 or 4 times before being completely out of magicka, and that is assuming you use your magicka for nothing else.

I think the ideal way for it to work would be a mix of current functionality and full aggro wipe. If the cloak expires and you are still within the enemy's line of sight, they resume their attack. If you have left their line of sight or another player has generated threat, they forget about you/start searching for you, but don't know precisely where you are.

GreasedLizard

Ya I can see this abused horribly by a NB Tank with cooldown jewelry and Alchemy passives. Hell you don't even have to be a tank to gib them, just survive for 2-3 seconds out of 15

feniks31_ESO

fennecbuttrwb17_ESO wrote: »

First, if I am "hidden" from crouching, sneak up and then use Shadow Cloak to gain invisibility (redundant, I know), the eye indicator is still closed, but I lose the attack bonus, even though the enemy has not detected me yet.

Becouse you are in invisibility, not in sneak. If I could have stelth attack bonus in cloak I would be able 2 shot most nonranked players and maybe 3-4 shot others. On 3vr I hit from stealth like 2.1k in pve with veiled strike.

PBpsy

gweatherall_ESO wrote: »

Even EverQuest successfully implemented invisibility and feign death aggro wipes without causing it to break the game. I'm currently VR2 and have done all the dungeons up to that point. As far as I can tell, if Shadow Cloak were actually changed to a 100% aggro wipe, the biggest side effect would be the ability to reset packs of 3 mobs so that you could take them out one at a time, which is really not game-breaking at all, and is exactly how an assassin-type class would handle such a situation in almost any other game.

Being able to break threat instantly in dungeons would allow you to survive if the tank lost threat or you accidentally engaged a pack early - again, not game-breaking. Almost every other MMO I can think of off the top of my head has a way to reduce/remove threat from DPS classes. The cost of Shadow Cloak is still relatively high. I think at most you could string it together 3 or 4 times before being completely out of magicka, and that is assuming you use your magicka for nothing else.

I think the ideal way for it to work would be a mix of current functionality and full aggro wipe. If the cloak expires and you are still within the enemy's line of sight, they resume their attack. If you have left their line of sight or another player has generated threat, they forget about you/start searching for you, but don't know precisely where you are.

Although I agree with that the problem is that if that happens to bosses you would make SC completely useless for the duration of the fight.I find it quite useful for repositioning myself, changing targets and stunning,

SC can still be used as a disengage for larger packs of trash mobs. I pick my target SC+SA +whatever finishes the job then SC chain then run until I get out.Works pretty well but i rarely need it for packs of 3 since I can take care of the other two after I finish my initial target.

I agree though the agro is stupid and seems to vary a lot. Some mobs chase me all over the map and don't disengage until I or they hit me others I can't even kite them 20 meters from where they spawn. Agro should disengage once they traveled a distance not when someone manages to attack.

Celless

Just kind of revisiting this since it happened last night.

Used Shadowy Disguise (Invisible) during combat. A bone lord/golem followed me as I ran away and stayed in melee range for the duration of Invisible. It did not attack, but it knew exactly where I was.

Re: The first point, I've been having some success with Hidden, Invisible before the enemy goes "huh" and get the Stealth damage bonus.

Mountain_Dewed

I understand the NPC's being able to see me in Cyrodiil at greater distance than players but in the past week or two my eye has been staying open for a minute(not exaggerating) or so after I kill a player or even retreat from battle and there are no NPC or players around. It even happens when I retreat into our own sealed keeps, so there is something definitely wrong here..

Ruddertail

Celless wrote: »

Just kind of revisiting this since it happened last night.

Used Shadowy Disguise (Invisible) during combat. A bone lord/golem followed me as I ran away and stayed in melee range for the duration of Invisible. It did not attack, but it knew exactly where I was.

Re: The first point, I've been having some success with Hidden, Invisible before the enemy goes "huh" and get the Stealth damage bonus.

Notice that it's "invisible", it isn't "silent". The mobs can quite clearly hear you. :P Now granted, maybe that shouldn't apply if you're standing still... but then they'd still realize you haven't moved.

Sneak on the other hand is specifically unseen+silent = stealth.

vicNBitis

Funny. But, no, there are mobs(harvesters, some atronachs, bone whatevers) which have to be bugged. If they're not bugged and working as intended then, yeah, another thing on the 'Reasons to Unsub" list.

Gilvoth

eso hates nightblade duel wield build and class. im convinced. i dont see how it can be changed if they refuse to change our abilites and make them better. we simply have to eat the poop sandwich and smile

Evergreen

Hlaren_shortsheath wrote: »

eso hates nightblade duel wield build and class. im convinced. i dont see how it can be changed if they refuse to change our abilites and make them better. we simply have to eat the poop sandwich and smile