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Dont get me wrong, I think actually over hauling the entire system would be more trouble than its worth when there are other things in game I would like to see fixed much more. That said, there is obviously a fine balance with it. I think that making it about 50% as visible as you are to your team mates might be just about right, but it would obviously require testing.
I think if I had to pick a stealth nerf I’d probably go with nullifying speed buffs if anything. Stealth and high mobility seem suited to being separate options – though from what I recall it might require a few other alterations in order to replace redundant things (whatever the in-stealth movement trait is called, I forget now).
Making them visible but very slightly seems almost pre-destined to favour certain settings, and also environments (which isn’t a good thing if they weren’t placed that way with that in mind). Also, since to allow targeting the thief would effectively break stealth altogether (tab tab tab… oh hey, a thief), the current counters like AoE and cleave would receive a boost disproportionate to things that require a targeted enemy. That is to say, the latter wouldn’t receive a boost at all. For whatever that’s worth…
Also, I’d completely forgotten that video. It seems so old now.
Yeah, I am not so sure I would actually change their ability to do this. Just that it is one of the things that makes it less enjoyable for me, personally, to fight against. The overall theme of the class supports this type of play, so I dont think I would even support a move to change anything about it. I simply dont enjoy “winning” in this fashion though. I like a good ol fight to the death, so that is what I actively seek out.
Oh I do intend to make them all fights to the death… the ones that aren’t merely represent a successful but incomplete test phase.
Just as a friendly little jab (seriously, I am enjoying this discourse!), you sound imminently anti-conformist. Which, in its way, just has you conforming all the same, except inversely.
:D
I wouldn’t really say it’s nonconformist, the effect is a bit like… the longer it’s built up as though nothing could touch it, the funnier it is to trounce one. And in the times they do win, they don’t even get to brag about it, which only makes it more amusing because it’s so cruel.
omg char limit…
Thats like asking someone why their favorite color is their favorite color. Its subjective.
I’d say it’s more like asking why you like a thing which chances to be that colour, prior to finding out you like the colour.
First, I dislike the implementation of the stealth mechanic as a whole. This applies to both playing AS a thief, as well as fighting against them. I much prefer systems that require skill to become invisible…
I don’t necessarily disagree with this actually. Keeping in stealth by doing things like ‘stab a rabbit’ or ‘fire a pistol and leap back and forth’ are quite amusing to me, but don’t really seem logical or fitting as ways to sneak. I’m willing to overlook it under the circumstances though because I think it would be very hard to implement that way in a game like GW2. For what it is, I think they’ve made it quite nice graphically in a lot of ways, but it’s still an MMO and takes the approach of ‘build with old things so people with oversized calculators can scrape by (until their CPUs melt)’.
It’s an issue that also pops up on Planetside2, which appears to have a similar approach (I feel like in five years we’ll finally be using DX11 in MMO’s) right down to the CPU thing. They have issues though with finding a happy medium between ‘totally invisible’ and ‘translucent grey blob you can see anywhere’ when it comes to lowered graphical settings a lot of players use. Also one faction, typically in dark purple and black colours by default, is known for being much harder to see in the darker areas – infiltrator or not – while when they’ve gone with brighter colours and shiny effects, some have difficulty hiding at all. It’d be annoying for whole new reasons if, with an environment conductive to actual sneaking, we begin to find people with a certain faction colour, armour skin, etc. etc. have an advantage when it comes to hiding. Sort of like the whole ‘be an asura so nobody knows what in the nine hells you’re doing’ thing, or ‘fall off the jumping puzzle because your charr obscures the tiny area of you which you can actually use to land with, and your view is trying to become one with the wall’.
…It turns into a fight of attrition where skill, mistakes, and quick decision making start to become much less relevant (though they obviously still apply).
I disagree with this bit though. A particular mistake may be less relevant, as in general any one move is less relevant, but a longer fight also means a longer time you both need to focus, and plenty of time to make more mistakes or errors of judgement that still put you at a disadvantage compared to your previous situation: it still matters because whoever makes the more frequent or fatal mistakes is worse off relative to the one who doesn’t, even if that ends up being a very very close call (which can make it quite interesting IMO). Ironically I more often hear the reverse of this argument: that when TTK is lower, sheer chance (including outside factors like lag, especially in games which put all their servers in Frankfurt and Dallas) can make a huge difference, and so skill plays less of a role. Not that I think either preference is invalid, but I do take issue with the idea that one is necessarily easier or harder (once you get past the learning stages anyway; I can see how it’s easier to learn when TTK is high because even if you fail miserably you’ve more time to take in how you failed, instead of bam, dead).
A “win” against a competent thief will involve them running away…
I find this a bit questionable as well, really. Sure, they’re an evasive class and they do stand a good chance of escaping if they’re a decent player. I actually quite like the stage when I’m getting people to run off, and I know that I’ve done this much right, leaving just a few more tweaks to my build/approach and then I can work on finishing them off as well. This won’t be for everyone, which is fine, but I think to present it as the best outcome really does nobody any favours.
Essentially you’ve reduced any thief who fails to escape to less than ‘competent’, and by extension nobody can ever learn to catch and kill a competent thief, because if you could it wouldn’t have been one. It’s like a Catch-22, only all the more absurd because it’s self-applied.
Why do you enjoy fighting thieves so much? :P
Honestly, besides the reasons I put up-post, I think one significant thing is because so many other people don’t. The harder they fall, and all that…
