Deadfire stealth.

[dukeisaac]

Great news!

[Hertzila]

New stealth info. Npcs will have vision cone, hearing radius and patrol patterns. This will allow more stealthy mission content with more use for stealth. Josh said where npc is looking will be important for detection and also sound.

 

I assume this is from one of the Q&A stream?

 

I'm pleasantly surprised by their decision to go full-on stealth gameplay. Hopefully they take notes from other stealth tactics games like the Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun.

 

I have to wonder how essential stealth is now, though. If I'm going to play stealthily, how screwed is my party if some characters only have a couple of levels of stealth, like a traditional RPG team? Moreover, if another player decides to completely ignore stealth, how much stuff are they going to miss? I assume there are going to be lots of opportunities to also use stealth mechanics, otherwise why make them so in-depth. Do people without stealth miss out on a lot of content or is stealth actually, fully just a choice among the many? Can, for example, a good talker also surreptiosly (reverse-)pickpocket people by distracting or conning them?

Edited March 9, 2017 by Hertzila

[Sedrefilos]

yesteday Q&A live session had some detailed info about stealth. Check it out where you find it!

[draego]

 

New stealth info. Npcs will have vision cone, hearing radius and patrol patterns. This will allow more stealthy mission content with more use for stealth. Josh said where npc is looking will be important for detection and also sound.

 

I assume this is from one of the Q&A stream?

 

I'm pleasantly surprised by their decision to go full-on stealth gameplay. Hopefully they take notes from other stealth tactics games like the Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun.

 

I have to wonder how essential stealth is now, though. If I'm going to play stealthily, how screwed is my party if some characters only have a couple of levels of stealth, like a traditional RPG team? Moreover, if another player decides to completely ignore stealth, how much stuff are they going to miss? I assume there are going to be lots of opportunities to also use stealth mechanics, otherwise why make them so in-depth. Do people without stealth miss out on a lot of content or is stealth actually, fully just a choice among the many? Can, for example, a good talker also surreptiosly (reverse-)pickpocket people by distracting or conning them?

 

 

This is why i hope at least for local rooms you can sneak into them with only your stealthy character. So allow limited party break up.

[Heijoushin]

This is why i hope at least for local rooms you can sneak into them with only your stealthy character. So allow limited party break up.

 

 

PoE1 already has limited party break up, sort of. I mean, you can't leave the area, but you can move a single, stealthy character around independently of the rest of the group. I distinctly remember this being useful in one of the Doemenel quests.

 

I'm very impressed with the new info about the stealth system. Obsidian delivered something I wasn't really expecting. Really looking forward to cloak-and-dagger characters now.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Heijoushin

[Hertzila]

 

This is why i hope at least for local rooms you can sneak into them with only your stealthy character. So allow limited party break up.

 

 

PoE1 already has limited party break up, sort of. I mean, you can't leave the area, but you can move a single, stealthy character around independently of the rest of the group. I distinctly remember this being useful in one of the Doemenel quests.

 

The only thing missing from it now is the ability to actually split the party and travel around in the local area. Eg, in Raedric's keep, it would be great if you could travel around in a smaller party through the entrances and stairs. Leaving the location proper (in other words, accessing the world map or returning to the ship) would require the party to gather, but anything in the location would be accessible by sub-parties.

 

It might be possible, as they have noted that the game now loads all the neighbouring areas as well as the actual area you're in. It might make party-splitting technically feasible. Then it's down to game design and if it fits in.

[draego]

 

This is why i hope at least for local rooms you can sneak into them with only your stealthy character. So allow limited party break up.

 

 

PoE1 already has limited party break up, sort of. I mean, you can't leave the area, but you can move a single, stealthy character around independently of the rest of the group. I distinctly remember this being useful in one of the Doemenel quests.

 

I'm very impressed with the new info about the stealth system. Obsidian delivered something I wasn't really expecting. Really looking forward to cloak-and-dagger characters now.

 

 

Yes stealing the heart of the white march and also a quest in twin elms to break someone out of jail but you couldn't leave any area including a going into a house or any area the required loading. This would add just a little more flexibility for stealthy characters. I'm not saying they should be allowed to go across the maps but house and rooms you should be able to go without your companions.

[molotov.]

New stealth info. Npcs will have vision cone, hearing radius and patrol patterns. This will allow more stealthy mission content with more use for stealth. Josh said where npc is looking will be important for detection and also sound.

Exactly, he also said that it is very similar to the Commandos series. Rogues will finally have a good mechanic to take advantage of.

[desel]

Sawyer just put up some footage of the in progress view cones (or rather fields of view) and the hearing radii(?) in action:

 

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/840606283166175233

Edited March 11, 2017 by desel

[Enoch]

Sawyer just put up some footage of the in progress view cones (or rather fields of view) and the hearing radii(?) in action:

 

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/840606283166175233

I assume that this periscope thing is supposed to be doing something besides eternally telling me that it's loading, but damned if I can figure out what.  Anybody have this in a format more friendly to an actual desktop browser?  (Or, well, a desktop browser with a borderline-paranoid level of defensive add-ons.)

Edited March 12, 2017 by Enoch

[desel]

Better?:

 

http://webm.land/media/Nzbn.webm

[Sedrefilos]

Like Divinity Original Sin plus the listening radius. Neat.

[Phenomenum]

Nice to see new info, which is fairly good. All those things with hearing radius and view cones sound great. Question is - how our gears interface with this?

Will be some penalties from heavy gear or so?

[injurai]

Better?:

 

http://webm.land/media/Nzbn.webm

 

Mmm, is that the new Aloth and Pallegina portraits?

[dukeisaac]

 

Better?:

 

http://webm.land/media/Nzbn.webm

 

Mmm, is that the new Aloth and Pallegina portraits?

 

Seems so... Would like to see a high def image. Actually, I would like to see quite a few things about POE2!

[amazeing4art]

I would like to add my 15 cents here too: I'd love to see stealth be more realistic. Although I know this is a lot of work and complicated to implement.

 

I find it quite silly, and kind of frustrating to immersion into a game world, when your whole party in full plate mail, carrying giant glowing swords, can walk down the middle of an open road in full sunlight right up to a bunch of enemies and surprise them at close range. It just makes the game world seem a little lame and extra-artificial.

 

Stealth should be hard, it should require rogue-like training, get bonuses from light or leather armor, and yes huge penalties for carrying giant 6 foot long glowing broadswords. It should be easier to stealth at night, easier to stealth when near other objects in the game world (trees, bushes, crates, structures, etc). Sight-cones are good too, or hearing and sound checks from enemies. If all this means the rewards for stealthing (better sneak attacks, access to rooms or buildings others can't easily get to, etc.) have to be stronger, because fewer characters can stealth easily, that would be ok with me. 

Edited March 16, 2017 by amazeing4art

[Heijoushin]

Stealth should be hard, it should require rogue-like training, get bonuses from light or leather armor, and yes huge penalties for carrying giant 6 foot long glowing broadswords. It should be easier to stealth at night, easier to stealth when near other objects in the game world (trees, bushes, crates, structures, etc). Sight-cones are good too, or hearing and sound checks from enemies. If all this means the rewards for stealthing (better sneak attacks, access to rooms or buildings others can't easily get to, etc.) have to be stronger, because fewer characters can stealth easily, that would be ok with me. 

 

Not sure if you read the rest of the thread, but most of that stuff (the cones etc.) is in now.

 

I don't know if equipment will influence anything though. I hope it does. At the moment (PoE1) heavy armour vs. light armour is just a question of damage reduction vs speed. Stealth would add another factor to that. 

[Hertzila]

Stealth should be hard, it should require rogue-like training, get bonuses from light or leather armor, and yes huge penalties for carrying giant 6 foot long glowing broadswords. It should be easier to stealth at night, easier to stealth when near other objects in the game world (trees, bushes, crates, structures, etc). Sight-cones are good too, or hearing and sound checks from enemies. If all this means the rewards for stealthing (better sneak attacks, access to rooms or buildings others can't easily get to, etc.) have to be stronger, because fewer characters can stealth easily, that would be ok with me.

 

I'm okay with most of these and it seems the devs have taken most of the book from Commandos / Shadow Tactics, so most of these are also in the game. The only missing feature for me is a full-on party split so the rogue can scout buildings while the rest of the party is waiting outdoors for the rogue to open the door.

 

However. Equipment and weight penalties are too much micromanagement. It can work in solo stealth, where there's just one character to manage, but with a party, constantly messing with inventory to make sure your characters have the proper stuff equipped is too much. This is not a stealth game after all. The occasional "Noisy" is enough for me.

 

 

I don't know if equipment will influence anything though. I hope it does. At the moment (PoE1) heavy armour vs. light armour is just a question of damage reduction vs speed. Stealth would add another factor to that.

 

That would, at most, mean every character packs two suits and switches them around when necessary. I don't think adding stealth as a factor to armour is going to do much for the balance between them.

[Lord_Mord]

 

However. Equipment and weight penalties are too much micromanagement. It can work in solo stealth, where there's just one character to manage, but with a party, constantly messing with inventory to make sure your characters have the proper stuff equipped is too much. This is not a stealth game after all. The occasional "Noisy" is enough for me.

 

I see no problem there. Stealth missions that would require that amount of stealthyness wouldn't be for the whole group. Sneaking pass the guards into a fortress, when your whole group is needed on the inside would be easy enough that it is still possible with some armour.

Sneaking into a building to steal a diamond would just require your rogue, which of course had to wear light armour. Either you build him/her in a way that this is possible or you micromanage that single character, which is no great amount of work.

If you're still not OK with that ... maybe you should play a barbarian group and just smash some heads to get your diamond.

[amazeing4art]

I see no problem there. Stealth missions that would require that amount of stealthyness wouldn't be for the whole group. Sneaking pass the guards into a fortress, when your whole group is needed on the inside would be easy enough that it is still possible with some armour.

Sneaking into a building to steal a diamond would just require your rogue, which of course had to wear light armour. Either you build him/her in a way that this is possible or you micromanage that single character, which is no great amount of work.

If you're still not OK with that ... maybe you should play a barbarian group and just smash some heads to get your diamond.

Like a few others may have posted already, I think it might be quite effective and interesting if armor types had a default bonus or penalty to stealthing. Like shields do with accuracy; equipping a large shield reduces your accuracy by 8 and that is just part of what it does. Every kind of armor, from clothing to leather, chainmail to breastplates and up to plate mail, could have a default standard effect on stealth. If you want your whole party to be stealthy, equipping everyone in plate mail might severely detract from their ability to do that.

 

Optionally weapon types could have this property too -- having a two handed sword in one of your weapon slots (whether selected as the active weapon or not) might just automatically reduce a characters stealth by some amount. This would probably be easy to implement actually; each weapon type would have this as a property; and there are not a lot of weapon types really. In POE 1 some special items already did this by adding to stealth skills.

 

If it worked this way it might be an interesting trade off, a game mechanic like shield size and accuracy that players get to try to optimize, either for their standard armor set or for specific missions.

 

The problem to deal with in implementing either weapon or armor effects on stealth would be how to prevent players from stealthing in leather with daggers, but then pausing the game right before breaking stealth to attack, and instead equipping plate mail and large shields. Solving this problem would require a carefully thought out game mechanic.

Edited March 16, 2017 by amazeing4art