Concealment

[Isgrimnur]

Originally posted by Cosmik


Ok, I've got an answer for you guys now. We're still looking into Concealment, working out what works and what doesn't. It's improtant we come up with a solution which is not a quick fix that inadvertently causes headaches. So, the short answer: we're still looking at it.

However, I'll use this opportunity to ask you guys what you think would be a good fix. How would you like to see Concealment used? Throw in your input, I'd love to hear it. I'll also be passing it onto Gaute personally

I would like to see conceal work like this:

IT is the primary skill an agent has and should be used as pets are used for MPs/Engies/Crats - IT should be a powerful tool that other's envy as only agents can really RAISE their conceal to a very high level.

1) When doing missions, conceal never just "goes off". If you are seen, you should have the chance to run "out of the line of sight" and then conceal again.
2) There should always be perception vs conceal checks, and make the mobs have REALISTIC perception levels. Honestly the only thing that should see a maxed out agent is another agent so a Veteran Clan Spy should have a CHANCE to see you, other classes probably shouldn't.
3) agents are COVERT, why can't we sneak into missions, unlock doors/go through water etc without conceal staying? IMO only combat or a perception vs conceal roll should break my conceal. You say they can hear me, so what if they can't SEE me they can't attack!!!
4) I would like to conceal work in enemy cities against guards. How can agents get intelligence if the guards blast us? Again if we do something to attack that breaks. IE in 2ho if a clan agent is concealed and guards don't attack, as soon as they attack or get attacked, that conceal breaks and the guards can step in.
5) When missions goto stealth setting i want this to have more RP stuf for agents. Make our conceal more about just getting cash from missions, high level agents get/have more cash then we will ever use, we like to sneak to FEEL like we are agents.

Basically make conceal a skill worthy to have, I would like to see shadow bonuses/night bonuses, as well agents should have a special SHADOW CLOAK (maybe other lesser sneaking classes would like this too) I mean you made a 1k token board have +200 conceal, why not a cloak that is rare or you can only get with a certain title. Doctors have omni med suits where you can get +80 to treatment/firstaid by wearing it, how about a cloak that does something similar.

Make conceal more worthy, maybe take the stacking agent/adv buffs out, but make a 1000 conceal worth somethng special.

Lastly FIX cloaking devices, they are broken.

Canidy
LVL 112 Agent

EDIT: Just wanted to add, that putting IPs into nano skills for the RUSE line is useless with conceal being useless, if you didn't notice, they are the opposite skills used for the combat line: Agents basically have a choice: Ruse 3 or Unexpected Attack/Take the Shot. Getting both requires a MUCH higher level as the IP investment is massive. For those agents who invest in the RUSE line to get their Conceal up, that skill should work - basically we are deciding on being SPYS rather than assassins...hope you see my point.

[______________Jaakka]

I basically agree with Canidy, although if concealment would be made that powerful (agents wouldn´t be seen by any yellows except other agent mobs), you would need to balance that by making it impossible to use concealment in an empty room as long as you´re in the line of sight of your enemy. It´s a bit ridiculous to see someone sneak past a mob right in front of their eyes, and they don´t notice.

Now to my primary point here. I think concealment checks should be made in PvP also. It could work something like this: If a character fails his perception vs concealment check while being in each others view distance, auto-targeting should be disabled. This would mean characters with high concealment would be required to be clicked on to be targeted, making sneak attacks and ambushes a reality in the game. If this would be implemented (as if...), aimed shot should only be usable against a player who failed the perception vs concealment roll.

I believe a change like this would be balanced, add a tactical element to PvP, and really make concealment AND perception useful for all professions. What do you think people?

[________________cman]

I think the main problem with conceal in its current state is this: success of sneak is *completely* random...ie. a gray mob has about the same chance of seeing you sneaking as a red mob does, there should be some sort of consistency to it, make it take a lot of skill to sneak past a red, but that same amount of skill should work against gray's and green's *almost* all of the time.

as to making sneak more viable in PvP i think it would be fairly tricky, a lvl 100 agent can get over 1400 in conceal...even a lvl 200 with maxed perception wouldnt have enough skill to see a player half his lvl with this kind of check. It would be nice if the skill was *usefull* in PvP somehow, but if not done carefully it could make agents basically un-targettable in any way, dont know how to do this one easily really.

[___________Misophist]

I posted about this in the agent forum, but I'll repeat it here.

The MA has a fairly green conceal skill. In other words, a MA can raise it easily. With the help of a cloaking device, a bow that doesn't use 10 blue skills and actually has good damage, MAs could be rather sneaky.

Quote from AO Basher regarding bow special attack: "The special attack skill defines how well you attack with special arrows, or with the bow from a hidden position. With extra high skill, this attack can be very deadly and silent."

It seems that the bow, conceal and bow special attack skills are wasted, however, but I think they could be very helpful. Bow special attack and bow are both green for the MA also, yet very few of us use them. Why? Because special attack doesn't work and besides, the bows out there just are't very good. But if this was a viable tactic, we could fulfill the role of the spy-ninja, and I think it'd be a lot of fun -- and nice to have a ranged attack. But first, it'd be absolutely necessary for us to be able to switch back and forth from ranged to melee without trouble.

Adventurers, jacks of all trades, can also sneak. And they have conceal buffs. That's the one thing MAs lack, but the fact is, the option is there for us. If conceal could be worked out, and if bows could be made viable, I think you'd see a lot more MAs taking this route. At least I would, especially at higher levels.

[______________Yazule]

a bow that doesn't use 10 blue skills and actually has good damage, MAs could be rather sneaky.

Could you tell me what bow that is exactly? I play with a 95 MA and we BOTH have looked for good bows.. all of the "good" bows use fling burs FA (all three I might add) which are all dark blue to him. We look due to the highly lame root rules in AO trying to make him viable to pvp.

[___________Toser Ban]

What I like to add to the already good suggestions of Canidy is that the concealment skill should only be taken into account if and only if you are in sneak mode! I don't find it realistic that you can run around like mad and nobody could see you.
And sneak mode shouldn't be disabled on opening chests (unless they explode ) or swimming (I have seen James Bond and other tough guys swimming and breaking things really quietly ).
As long as one is in sneak mode, the suggested rolls against perception of the near-by enemies should determine if the hidden person is detected.

When the sneaking person is detected or starts combat, sneak mode should be left, now allowing everyone in a certain range to spot the player. I think it shouldn't matter whether other enemies are in other rooms, as long as they are in range to notice the player (in case of combat they can hear you, in case of detection the spotting enemy shouts "Intruder!" or something like this... ).

In relation to going back into sneak mode I haven't made up my mind completely.
Certainly it must be possible to re-enter stealth mode and have the concealment skill applied again. For MOBs not knowing that an intruder is near the normal rolls against perception should apply again.
The tricky thing is: what about the enemies who were in range to spot you at the time you started combat or were detected? I don't believe it would be realistic to sneak at them like normal, because they would be aware that something dangerous is around.

I have two possible suggestions for that: either let this "awareness" vanish after some amount of time (not really viable in a mission scenario, unless it's a rather short time), or increase the perception skill of these enemies, e.g. double it (because MOB is paying double attention) ! I personally like the latter one, although their should be a timer after which this temporarily increase falls back to normal (especially when doing outside hunting).

When thinking about awareness of monsters about sneaking players, another issue comes to my mind: how to handle concealment and perception in group play? Should the MOB get increased perception when they spot the soldier I am hunting with? There are yes' and nos to it and I'm not sure how to handle that, but my first thought is to double perception only when a sneaked player is spotted or engaged in combat. On the other hand, if attacked I would certainly pay more attention to the surrounding than before...

I think this could also be viable in PvP with the same rules, but since I haven't PvP'ed yet that's just wild guessing.

Frasbur, lvl. 34 agent on RK-1
Trinar, lvl. 44 'crat on RK-2

[Nikki.]

Either more professions get a chance to viably sneak missions or no one should. Agents have too much crap already just with their ability to change to other professions. Heck its silly having my 87 agent friends sneaking through my level 200 missions without being seen. Weeeee lets just add up all the bonuses possible to an agent for sneak. Self profession buffs, Off professions buffs, Main skill, Implants, 1k board, Cloaks, general buffs and items. This skill is so exploitable when you look at missions that Funcom has to boost the reqs WAYYYYYYYYYYY past what any other profession can really obtain. Heck seagal and zarloc (level 200 agents) could get over 2400 sneak as a level 200 agent. Thats just insane and completely BROKEN! There is no way you can balance that out without making it so a few people can completely ruin an economy by easily sneaking missions quickly and without fear of being noticed.

If you want items fight through the mission or run through it but sneaking is just TOOOOOOO easy. I have to and every other non agent has too. Why should you be given a skill that so easily unbalances everything else. You already have a game breaking ability in your FP lines. If you want to sneak though more professions should get the same chance as agents get. Really how many guards would just stare at a door opening up and watch as someone sneaked through the dorrway. Its silly not realistic and shouldnt be allowed.

Sneak might be more usefull if you could have it so mobs lose you if you enter a new room and go into sneak mode but even that has exploits because of the unnaturally high levels agents can boost their sneak abilities. Running and fighting arent too hard and are very possible for any profession to do. I see no reason to give yet another bonus to a profession when so many have had so much taken away. Anyways anything done with this skill should have every profession in mind rather than JUST one that doesnt need it to be good.

[Paffy]

And yes if you asked Seagal he would tell that of 3 missions he tried to sneak, 2 failed utterly even with 2400 sneak which is already so off the roof that NOTHING should see you with that kind of sneak. NOTHING.

Seagal didnt use sneak almost at all. If you had paid any attention to him you would seen him mostly in two false professions. Fixer and soldier and he kept switching between those two.

He had 1200 run speed with Mk X for 2 minutes of near immortality. With two minutes and 1200 run speed you run almost any mission area through if not in one try, two or three at most.

So how about getting your facts right.

What I want you to tell me now is that why we spend any IP on conceal at all? It is intentionally broken by FC. Actually even AS is so crap that if I were doing new agent I wouldnt take AS at all or conceal... actually I dont think I would DO agent at this point UNLESS you want be l33t buffer (because thats what agents now are.. best buffers in game and nothing more).

I tried to do today 4 missions with my 109 agent (opifex) with maxed conceal and agi/sense.

I also used general agi/sense buffs plus agent special ones. I also had Ruse of Taren Phase 2 and used adventurer false for Leet form and top of that QL 150 cloak device.

After 8 tries I gave up and not all of those missions were even max hard (QL 195 stuff on my lvl so you can forget those lvl 87 doing QL 200 BS). Some were for QL 163 stuff (my max being 195 QL).

What I finally did? I used Soldier form and Mk shield and just ran the fking dungeon through...

THIS is how agents are supposed to be played? Not using any of their abilities but relying 100% of other abilities. Soldier could have done that same mission that I did. My conceal was useless.

Agents are broken. Totally.

Crap...

Zarch and bunch of other chars...

PS. Atleast I still can play with my other chars.

[______________Hodaka]

You asked for input. Here's mine:

(where relevant, this is all based off of sneaking missions at 50% after 13.0)

• Make it work, now I get discovered in the first room with mobs. We were told that sneaking missions for money would be a valid tactic, but it's impossible with the way conceal works at the moment.
• Make it useful in PVP, we should be able to hide if not moving until we make a sniper shot. Even then, only the chance of discovery should go up, not automatic discovery. A good sniper can get several shots off before being found.
• Fix the conceal button, half the time it's red, saying it's active, and it's not really working.
• Give us missions that reward us for being sneaky, not just killing everything.
• Conceal, regardless of a cloaking device, should have a visual representation. Crouching down is not concealed.. (see my reference to PVP)
• Base perception vs conceal rolls against the average of ALL characters, not just agents and adventurers. If the average conceal is 50, and agents and adventurers have an average of 400, then something is wrong if agents and adventurers are discovered as much as your average player. Ridiculously high conceal ratings should mean almost no chance of discovery against mobs with average perceptions..

I'll never be able to compete with a doc with healing buffs or an enforcer or soldier "running" a mission. They should not be able to compete with an agent or adventurer (and others with high conceals) if they try to sneak. That's just common sense..

edit:
Here's a little testing I did:
I've tried to sneak 4 or 5 missions now, all chosen at 50%.. now, that's pretty low pay, and not really worth my time to even sneak, yet I've been unable to sneak any of them. The first room I enter with mobs and I'm seen.. this is with maxed conceal, shadow crown, POG, and a ql66 cloaker at lvl39.
Fully buffed, I've got a conceal of 575 (if i can read that right, green on green is hard to read).

With conceal broken and mission pay now so pathetic (I can't seem to get any decent paying, far away missions) that I've given up even doing them for the moment..

Something is drastically wrong with that picture...

Originally posted by Cosmik


Ok, I've got an answer for you guys now. We're still looking into Concealment, working out what works and what doesn't. It's improtant we come up with a solution which is not a quick fix that inadvertently causes headaches. So, the short answer: we're still looking at it.

However, I'll use this opportunity to ask you guys what you think would be a good fix. How would you like to see Concealment used? Throw in your input, I'd love to hear it. I'll also be passing it onto Gaute personally

[_____________Nakomis]

Nikki, you said other professions should get teh chance to viably sneak missions. They do. ALL professions can viably sneak missions. It's just a matter of how much cash you have to put forward. Anyone can buy and use a cloaking device. Or a Mid. It all depends on whether they really want to or not. Claiming that you, as an NT, should have the same chances of sneaking a mission as an agent at full conceal is absurd. That's like a fixer telling you that his matter creation should be the same as yours because it isn't fair that your skill is green. So yes, you too can sneak missions. Yes, it may be costly IP wise, and cred wise, but that is a choice you make and a price you will pay. But simply sitting here saying "if the agents get a good skill, we should all get it" is not the way to solve things. This isn't a flame, simply an attempt to point out something that most people don't really consider.

Now for my suggestions.

I'd like to see a couple of things done with conceal.
First off, I'd really really like to see a Leet(other) form for adventurers. I know a lot of Adventurers would scream about that being the only polymorph that identifies us, but that doesn't bother me personally.

Second, I'd like to see concealment have an effect on player info. For instance, if I am a high level adventurer in leet form, with maxed concealment, someone who is quite a bit lower than me should not be able to see that I am actually a player. I should show up as a Leet, or Soleet, or something like that. This would make hiding outdoors lots of fun. Also along those lines, maybe get rid of the player info while in animal form and replace it with a POD bar like npc's have.

Third, and this isn't really totally concealment issue, bring back opening of chests while in a fight! To this day it still irks me that I can't loot a chest or two while I'm blitzing a mission. I know, I know, risk vs. reward. But I gotta stop to open them don't I? That gives the MOBs a chance to ownZ0r me doesn't it?

Anyways, those are all I could think of right now.

Catch ya planetside.

[Nikki.]

Zarch
My info is correct. You CANNOT get rings,bracers, and some other items from Pick up or Rewards from missions. He would often sneak the missions mostly for the chest loot.

Sure he may have run them fom time to time that doesnt mean it was his only method. The point is we where talking about sneaking not what is the best way to do it under the currant situations. Agents have access to far to many ways to boost their sneak to balance it in anyway. Not only that they can start using their uber sneaks as low as 112. Heck at 154 they are uber loot sneakers e****ially if they have their 1k board. Right now there is no skill progression from 90ish to 200 on what you can and cannot sneak. That is because all agents have troubles at the same spots no matter their sneak.

Like I said sneaking is wayyyy to unbalanced because of the buffs. It gives agents access to loot far to easily if it orked as I see people wanting it to. Truth is I have to run a mission everytime. An agent can sneak through getting chest loot and what not. If the mission is full of high perception Mobs then he has the option of switching to soldier and running it. No one else has those options presented to them.

Nakomis
If other professions could viably sneak missions then sneak would break because of the power of agents. That was my whole point. Right now we have a whole skill only able to be used by one profession because of the imbalance that profession represents because of all the buffs they have access to.

As to your examples of of fixers compared to myself is really not relevant. Base skills are pretty much irrellevant when it comes to breed and such. By level 150 any breed/profession is pretty much equal in the skills they want to use. A fixer can have as much MC as me if he wanted to a very close degree. Its the buffs that break the conceal of the agent. Their best ruse gives 600 skill to conceal, plus all of the outside buffs such as cloak, Tokan Board, Implants, Other professions, and am I forgetting anything??? No other prefession get to utterly break a skill so much that Funcom has to nerf all other professions from that skill just to balance the one profession from breaking the skill.

Sneaking shouldnt be a guarenteed thing. You have an option of running if there isnt a good set of mobs inside the mission. Its risk versus reward you cant ask for all the rewards with no risks. 1 out of 3 is pretty good odds in my mind because you can still run it if you need that item. Wanting it even more predictable is just silly.

[Paffy]

What part you didnt understand?

I have over 1500 sneak which is worth NOTHING. NO, I cant open a chest in a room with other mob. He will see me. Since the conceal was broken I havent been able to sneak through a mission without being seen at some point. Not single one. Shouldnt I be able with 1500 sneak?

And to add insult to injury. No, these are not even full hard missions.

You say you cant sneak and you always have to run. So? You are not Agent are you? I cant nuke mob either. I have to shoot. See? We are not same... oh wait, we are. ATM I have to run also! How about giving us area nukes too since NT's have it!

Most FUN I've had as agent was the time sneak worked (well if you had it maxed + cloak devices + leet, etc the works) and you could basically sneak entire mission with almost zero risk and the risk came from opening chests and getting spotted, running through mission caves to find a empty room and conceal again. It was fun and sometimes it worked and sometimes not but point is, it was FUN.

I agree that at certain points sneaking has been "too easy" but it never has after FC broke it. What do you think of solution done to NT is done like:

Damn those nanos over MC 800 are better than we though. What can we do.. Umm, lets make it so that every nano over MC 800 has 99% fumble chance until we come up with PROPER solution. Oh and while we think about this solution through 4-5 patches or more, please DO continue to have fun with your skill that dont work anymore. Have a nice day.

Like that?

Zarch and bunch of other chars.

[Nikki.]

Go on ebay and look at seagals account. Look at his skills and then look at the fact he has about 30 levels worth of IP saved. Pretty much every skill is maxed a character could ever want and he can still raise silly ones like dimach to full max.

You see as an agent you ARE like every other profession. And you are pretty much equal to them by level 150-170 which isnt hard to do. Sure it may take 6 months to a year of play but heck you should almost be there since 6months are already gone past.

Look at kicky and Dawnll. They both have like 40 levels worth of IP left. Heck at 150 I have maxed pretty much everything i will ever need as an NT. Its so bad the lack of growth at the upper levels that Dawnll was thinking of adding flashpoint just so she could have the burst, full auto, fling at the beginning of a battle. Thats not even mentioning after those attakcs are used (read as instantly) she goes into full brawl MA whatnot. Heck ill prolly add a gun also. Dont want to but what should I spend the next 45 levels worth of IP on???? O ya Dawnll has also built a 120ish soldier in the time she leveled her MA to 200. So its very easy to level if you put in the time.

So YES you can do AEs and have uber nukes. Agents are too flexible but hey thats their thing. But, I often see agents saying well we are the sneakers, or we are the FP profession, or we are the one shot kill profession, or or or or or or. There are many professions without any defining ability right now. So dont say your profession is broken because of this one area.



Now on to your argument that it should be guarenteed. Nope dont agree you should have risks. The reason you cant sneak a mission with 1500 skill is because the system is so easily exploitable. There should always be a risk especially with red Mobs since they are at the very top of their profession and should be up to gaurding their building. Myabe its a little too hard right now but heck thats more of a problem with all the buffs rather than the anything else. If you are guarenteed an easy mission then that option should be present for all profession if they are willing to put in the IP and what not to get their sneak up. Its as simple as that.

[___________Misophist]

Originally posted by Yazule
Could you tell me what bow that is exactly? I play with a 95 MA and we BOTH have looked for good bows.. all of the "good" bows use fling burs FA (all three I might add) which are all dark blue to him. We look due to the highly lame root rules in AO trying to make him viable to pvp.

I have seen a bow with aimed shot, bow special attack and bow. But I think a lot of my post depended on the word "if". If MAs had viable bows that didn't use 10 blue skills, we might actually use them and raise our conceal so we could play around with bow special attack, IF bow special attack worked.

I also want ranged attack to combat roots in PvP, and was fully planning on using bows, but they're honestly terrible.

[______________Hodaka]

wassamatta nikki? You not like the agent you said you were going to create a while back?

If I'm not mistaken, and from this thread, sneaking is not just viable for agents, although conceal is our green skill. It's also a viable option for MAs and Adventurers. I know many adventurers complained when the first conceal nerfs happened.. conceal and aimedshot make an agent, so we're the most vocal.. and to make matters worse, aimedshot relys on conceal to even operate. I couldn't give a rip about FP except for a few nice buffs.. I'd never rely on FP for anything realtime, like a fight..

Originally posted by NikkiDial
Go on ebay and look at seagals account. Look at his skills and then look at the fact he has about 30 levels worth of IP saved. Pretty much every skill is maxed a character could ever want and he can still raise silly ones like dimach to full max.

You see as an agent you ARE like every other profession. And you are pretty much equal to them by level 150-170 which isnt hard to do. Sure it may take 6 months to a year of play but heck you should almost be there since 6months are already gone past.

Look at kicky and Dawnll. They both have like 40 levels worth of IP left. Heck at 150 I have maxed pretty much everything i will ever need as an NT. Its so bad the lack of growth at the upper levels that Dawnll was thinking of adding flashpoint just so she could have the burst, full auto, fling at the beginning of a battle. Thats not even mentioning after those attakcs are used (read as instantly) she goes into full brawl MA whatnot. Heck ill prolly add a gun also. Dont want to but what should I spend the next 45 levels worth of IP on???? O ya Dawnll has also built a 120ish soldier in the time she leveled her MA to 200. So its very easy to level if you put in the time.

So YES you can do AEs and have uber nukes. Agents are too flexible but hey thats their thing. But, I often see agents saying well we are the sneakers, or we are the FP profession, or we are the one shot kill profession, or or or or or or. There are many professions without any defining ability right now. So dont say your profession is broken because of this one area.



Now on to your argument that it should be guarenteed. Nope dont agree you should have risks. The reason you cant sneak a mission with 1500 skill is because the system is so easily exploitable. There should always be a risk especially with red Mobs since they are at the very top of their profession and should be up to gaurding their building. Myabe its a little too hard right now but heck thats more of a problem with all the buffs rather than the anything else. If you are guarenteed an easy mission then that option should be present for all profession if they are willing to put in the IP and what not to get their sneak up. Its as simple as that.

[Morphex]

Bump

[Paffy]

One MP asked today if someone could do a mission for him for payment. I asked what kind of mission it was and he said its QL 121 mission in DAV and I though that why not...

121 QL mission for my 109 agent with maxed conceal and stuff (1550 conceal) should be walk in the park I thought... WRONG!

First I died to my own mistake (silly me) but then after trying it again and again and again and no go. Those Skilled NPC's who were very light yellow to me just kept seeing me.

After wasting one hour on that I said to that MP that I am sorry but atleast now you know how UBER our conceal is...

The mission was total failure and I remind you. A QL 121 MISSION. Thats like 55% for my 109 Agent and no go. Nada chance.

At the end I ended up running 1/4th of that very big mission area before I died when I got rooted. Since it was so way off (flight time of about 10-15 mins) I didnt have time to put new tries on it so I abandoned it. Abandoned QL 121 mission as 109 agent.. what a humilation. Sheesh.

Zarch and bunch of other chars.

PS. We have been waiting conceal fix now QUITE MANY patches. How about FIXING IT ALREADY FKIT!

[__________Lucid Flow]

Originally posted by Zarch
What part you didnt understand?

I have over 1500 sneak which is worth NOTHING. NO, I cant open a chest in a room with other mob. He will see me. Since the conceal was broken I havent been able to sneak through a mission without being seen at some point. Not single one. Shouldnt I be able with 1500 sneak?

You are over exageration. I know Advents sneaking high level missions on a regular basis and they are nowhere near the conceal an agent could have.

[Paffy]

And I say they are full of ****.

I know my conceal and I know my experiences with it. Do they sneak perhaps max easy missions? Are you sure they are sneaking at all? As I said I can run max hard as soldier...

Zarch and bunch of other chars

PS. FC GM is free to come and see me do my buffs to get 1500+ conceal and get into mission sneak mode on. We can do 10 test runs and we can make deal with 1:10 odds. You give me 1M every time I fail and I give you 10M every successfully sneaked mission (if its over 15 rooms). Hows that?

[Nikki.]

JWS
Actually I had no problem with my agent. I just couldnt stand not playing my NT.