mf_hansen wrote:1) Perhaps going into stealth could reduce your SoH skill somewhat, or SoH might temporarily reduce your stealth skills to make it more "realistic", IF such is warranted; stealth in NWN2 has always (afaik) ignored many environmental factors like nearby dynamic shadows, weather or vegetation, so perhaps SoH affecting stealth is not necessary if there are already so many other factors that also do not affect stealth.
the stealth engine does actually take in a lot of environmental input, tile lighting light/dark affect both hiding and spotting - casting the spell light or any items that give off light -will- give the sneak a negative hide bonus mechanically (i got rid of all my light emitting gear when i found that out on my sneaks), terrain surface hard/soft affect move silently, day/night affect hiding and spotting - darkvision and low light vision negate spot penalties in the dark within the range of your vision, weather, maps that rain affect move silently, even the direction your toon is face affects your bonus to listen to a sneak along with simply not moving
if it did not take in account those different things than sneaks would only need 20 higher to not worry, however i say 20-25 usually because the 20 is the d20 roll and the extra 5 is mechanical bonuses, its possible to net a higher bonus than 5 yea but most the time you are gonna have negating bonuses
for example someone sneaking across grass is gonna have a bonus MS, but someone standing still has a bonus listen - both would just cancel each other and you are back to just your skill rolls - add rain and now the sneak has an advantage - add the fact that the sneak is approaching perpendicular from the listener and now the listener has an extra bonus and the advantage
the stealth/detection engine is more involved than most usually think, thats why any suggestions that affect stealth or detection are usually denied or extremely hard pressed to get support - balance there comes from the things that are more easily controlled like gear, but even then it creates issues with some of the possible combos you can do with builds, but some are simply better than others so gear is usually looked at as isolated instances
mf_hansen wrote:2) The main problem like Steve mentioned probably is the possibility of high-level SoH players griefing low-level players that have no chance at all to spot the attempt. Much like a max-level fighter decapitating a min-level newbie character in one PvP attack; another example of a big level spread between players being a hindrance to otherwise interesting and unpredictable PvP roleplaying. But that is a player problem, not a mechanical one.
yea it is, cant balance players tho
if you could steve would have been fixed patches ago!
mf_hansen wrote:3) Automatic hostile toggle of victim/spotters toward thief and thief toward victim/spotters when SoH is detected, as Nihm mentions, is probably a good idea (perhaps until thief leaves the area?). Makes it easier at a glance to react properly as a player when your character or bystanders have spotted the attempt (I wonder how NPC guards react when you attack said thief).
possibly, however yea the NPCs are an issue, they currently will label who starts the fight as the bad guy if i remember right, there was talk about if people could grief that and bait people into pvp near guards and have the guards kill them, so probably not a change you are gonna see right away if at all with how the NPCs respond
stevebarracuda wrote:that a PC can remain in stealth and pick pockets all day long of lowbies, and never have to be out of stealth unless the SoH fails...
thats hardly an issue, a careful and cautious player isnt gonna recklessly get caught, no reason to try to make something harder for everyone because a few people are good at what they do - they scry tool is a bit irrelevant, it can be used or abused is many ways
mrm3ntalist wrote:removed any metagame information - the targets spot roll
that part would actually be bad - there would be no way to test it when it breaks then (or someone claims/thinks it broke), and last time ive seen it break NPCs with no detection at all were catching PP attempts (a while ago - someone was complaining all their attempts were failing and yea everything was) - being able to see their spot doesnt do a whole lot for you anyway, aside from the few times you might actually PP someone with spot and win only by a few points, would let you know they are probably not a safe mark, but one side needs to see all the info and if you are not the one with SoH it does you no good
stevebarracuda wrote:I seriously hope that the DC increases with distance, from the point of SoH, outward in concentric circles. Because, honestly...if the new script allows good spotters to passively observe a SoH action...then that is borderline NPC and/or PC mechanical metagaming! And I call foul!
i kinda doubt the distance part but yea i think the wall thing is a current issue with it
mrm3ntalist wrote:Players complained about ninja looting, and complained a lot. It became a huge issue and that is why it got changed. When is the last time you heard one complain about a PP. I cant think of one, mainly because what it is about (mechanically ) is 30-70 gold for 2hours at a player, that you can get by killing a lizard. The loss a target of PP suffers is minimal. At least not even close to complain about it.
that mostly bc PP complaint have gone straight to the DMs... they do happen tho which is how the scripts were created in the first place
at first it was about losing high value items to thieves - so it was scripted to only take gold
then it was about people stealing right in someones face repeatedly because SoH only has a 30s cooldown - so then it was restricted to only allow you to take from one target once a reset
that script has been around a while and has been reported being or have thought being broke like three times that i know of that i tested it for, and now you have this new one that will need to be ironed out and will have its share of complaints
Nice to see SoH is being worked on instead of going the way of crafting skills (though I'm sure they will be worked on eventually when important enough).
