Am I missing something with Stealth gameplay?

[irishoats]

Hello, sorry if this is something oft repeated. I'm just curious if I need to be doing something differently.

 

So I have a lvl 7 Rogue whose skill level in stealth is at 9. Which seems like it should be adequately high enough to be able to sneak up and backstab enemies. I haven't been able to figure out why I can sometimes sneak up on enemies and sometimes I can't.

 

Are some area's beyond my level or is everything scaled? Enemies have a perception skill and some enemies are just unsneak-up-behindable? My stealth level isn't that great?

 

I am currently in an area where I haven't been able to sneak up on any enemies. I've killed 20 or so enemies and they haven't been to difficult to defeat but it is disappointing as a rogue to not be able to sneak up on enemies.

 

I feel like a unicorn without a horn...so I suppose I feel like a horse, born to unicorn parents.

 

I am perfectly willing to concede that I don't know how to play this game.

 

However, I am still having plenty of fun.

[Tigranes]

Stealth skill controls how close you can get to enemies and their line of sight. You can tell if you are going to be detected, because a yellow eye starts filling up underneath the character, then the red. Yellow is 'dangeorus but not yet seen'; red is 'they will now walk towards you and you are going to be revealed very very soon'. I don't know if the skill ever lets you literally just walk 2 feet in front of the enemy and plant a dagger in their face, though. 

 

Unsure if enemies have different capacity to detect sneaking. 

 

Nothing is scaled. 

[khermann]

Stealth skill controls how close you can get to enemies and their line of sight. You can tell if you are going to be detected, because a yellow eye starts filling up underneath the character, then the red. Yellow is 'dangeorus but not yet seen'; red is 'they will now walk towards you and you are going to be revealed very very soon'. I don't know if the skill ever lets you literally just walk 2 feet in front of the enemy and plant a dagger in their face, though. 

 

Unsure if enemies have different capacity to detect sneaking. 

 

Nothing is scaled. 

 

Sigh. That wasn't his question. He wasn't asking "How do i know that I'm being detected?" ... i mean, that's incredibly obvious when playing, he's not retarded.

 

what he's asking is "Why am I being detected?" , there really nothing in the game that informs what causes detection and what aids it. No indication of how "covered" you are, it's just this somewhat arbitrary slider of "being detected" and "detected!"

 

I've snuck up behind people in fields in the middle of the day and had better sneak success than in a dark dungeon, both against humans, both from behind. I will support his point that there is really very little in the environment that you can count on to help or hinder your detection ability other than whether or not someone is facing in your direction , which isn't much.

[RedNoak]

as far as i know u cant "sneak up" on an enemy. 'cause there is no backstab, only a sneak attack. which despite its name doesnt have alot to do with stealth

 

with high stealth u will still be detected at the same distance as with low stealth. but the circle fills a lot slower, ie, giving u more time to sneak back or past the enemy

Edited April 8, 2015 by RedNoak

[irishoats]

I have been able to successfully sneak up on enemies and melee them, comfortably before being detected, and there is a "backstab" skill(or talent) that gives you x2 damage when attacking from stealth or invisibility.

[DIIscIIple]

I've definitely noticed large differences between the distance when similar-level enemies notice your stealthed dudes.  It's like I could get right next to wolves before they'd notice but oh no, not beetles, they'd spot me 20 feet away.  I did not think of an explanation but I did not look hard into the problem.

[scrotiemcb]

@RedNoak: Sneak Attack and Backstab both exist but are different things. Sneak Attack is a class ability. Backstab is a class-specific talent.

[durbal]

My biggest problem with Backstab is that it sometimes just doesn't work (I think it's because you initiate the attack an inch outside of melee range).

[Spam101]

There really needs to be some consistent pattern on what you can and can't backstab.. and generally, more enemies on the whole need to be stabable.

 

tougher enemies being harder to backstab could make sense, 

 

 

I think environmental factors effecting stealth would be a sick idea.

 

hardcore roleplayers would go nuts for that.

 

Keeping backstabbing as impossible as it currently is during the day but viable at night or in dark dungeons, would really serve to make the game interesting and encourage you to switch up your tactics.

[Gairnulf]

@OP,

 

I guess you're using "Sneak attack" and "Backstab" interchangeably. Just as scrotiemcb says, Backstab is a class talent for the Rogue which increases damage done from invisibility from 1.5 times normal damage to 2 times normal damage.

 

There is another Rogue-specific talent called "Shadowing beyond", which turns you invisible, so these two talents are a good combination. I'm not aware of any other way to become invisible really. I wonder if doing damage to an opponent that's blinded or asleep counts as done from invisibility? I guess we need a developer to explain that, or experiment ingame.

 

Anyway, damage done from invisibility isn't the same as damage from Sneak Attacks. As a Rogue, you can cause Sneak Attack damage even after you've been spotted by enemies, in the first 2 seconds of combat.

 

You don't need to be undiscovered to score Sneak Attack though. For a Rogue, any attack done on an enemy which is under one or more of these conditions: Blinded, Flanked, Hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned or Weakened, or in the first 2s of combat, counts as a Sneak Attack, meaning it gets +50% base damage. What's the difference between 1.5 times base damage and +50% base damage? None (someone correct me if I'm wrong), but the talent/spell descriptions are written inconsistently and sometimes confusingly.

 

Hope that helps.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Gairnulf