Developers Corner

What I hate about a lot of stealth in MMORPGs is that they are right behind you in big meadow or field or whatever and wack you over the head.

I would like to see a stealth system that is more like camoflauge, where you can only stealth 100% unseen if you (1) aren't moving and (2) are close to some object like a bush or tree.  This would force more strategy into the game.  If a Mage wants to sit and rest by a tree to try to avoid being seen by PKers then he could be taken out by an unseen stealther.  If he chooses to rest out in the open then he is risking being seen by anyone but he will be able to see someone coming as well.

When a stealther does begin to move, it should be like stealth in Starcraft, where you can see a silhouette of the stealther if you're paying attention.  Once a stealther is too far from the bush/tree then he would return to full visibility.  The stealther would only be targetable if completely visible though, unless revealed through AoE spells.

Killing someone who is near death by popping out of stealth in the middle of a field seems really lame to me.  There should be more strategy to it than simply "wait wait wait wait ok wack him once and restealth".  To compensate for their loss, stealthers need more than just stealth to accomplish their goals.  What, I'm not sure, except that they would be in perma-camoflauge mode if near a tree/bush and not moving (they wouldn't have to hit a button or use stamina to activate it).  So they could run from an enemy towards cover and after a cooldown of a few seconds become stealthed.  AoE or DoT's would be needed to detect them again.

Just my thoughts.  Lemme know what you think.

Ok first off lets just examine the game Thief, I played that game extensively, and you could just outright kill every single thing in the game and totally ignore stealth. The first mission you can just walk in the front gate and slaughter it all. (Arguably doing so can be far more difficult than using stealth). You can also use stealth to get through most sections of the game even on expert while having your weapon out all the time (increase ability to be seen).

The same type of things would occur if you had this full of a stealth system in an rpg. You would have people going through areas just using stealth (wearing soft shoes, dark clothes, having weapons sheathed, movnig slowly from shadow to shadow, and avoiding walking on loud surfaces). You would have others in platemail with a huge claymore slaughtering everything in site. And some would use stealth to get in position and snipe certain enemies, or groups might have a rogue sneaking ahead to tell when to hit people to reduce numbers fought at once. Or remove certain guards that would warn groups ahead. Maybe even sneak ahead and then make their location known and run lots on a wild goose chase while the group moved past them.

Good stealth systems add alot of tactical aspects to gameplay, and can make for more diverse methods of accomplishing goals.

If you put thief style stealth in a crappy fps though it wouldn't make it a good game, same with just dropping it into a rpg. It worked in thief because thief did everything right. If an rpg does everything right it would be awesome too. Stealth is one thing that can be done right, done acceptably, or just ignored. Doing it right is just one more thing that makes a game better than its peers. Just like a better skill system, better combat, or nicer looking graphics.