Stealth Icon

[Ewe]

Take a step back and look at how this logic flows. If a character has a very high Listen score, they'd detect someone even if that person's behind a building. The idea that it's "fair" they didn't notice because the player OOCly didn't rotate the camera across every angle before typing RP? That's not how in-character perception works. It's a meta-level blind spot, not a failure of the character's senses.

[Razmah]

I just think it's equally as immersion breaking to be standing in an open field with bright sun and having hips people fade in and out around me with zero RP. So it goes both ways, imo. It's a little frustrating to claim that the old way was somehow a bastion of immersion.

Unfortunately, it is metagaming. The game is designed to let Spot/Listen skill detect Hide/Move Silently. The character's IC eyes/ears would know you are there by Spot/Listen skill. Using video game visuals to trick OOC eyes/ears and OOC eyes/ears alone (not the IC eyes/ears) is by definition metagaming.

This feels quite contradictory to me, to be advocating for more RP surrounding hiding first, but then later on claiming Spot/Listen vs Hide/MS is the only truth.

I think the truth, as with many things, is most likely somewhere in the middle. And I understand fully Snarfy's point on not being able to hear someone sitting still behind a tree.
The game engine has it's limits.

[Snarfy]

In the above example, where should the sneak instead be hiding if they want to spy on the spotter? So as not to be a metagamer, that is.
Right in the open beside the spotter? On top of the nearby campfire?

These are rhetorical questions by the way. Any assertion that hiding behind an object for the purposes of... well, HIDING, is metagaming is beyond absurd, and I'm not willing to engage any further on it.

Back on topic... soooo, about that icon.

[Ewe]

It's because you're relying on their OOC eyes to not see you even after you've failed the hide check. It's obvious.

[Quartz]

It's because you're relying on their OOC eyes to not see you even after you've failed the hide check. It's obvious.

A lot of obstacles IG don't count as real obstacles as they should (in the sense that they should 100% protect you from any spot roll and only make you susceptible to listen rolls). To say that it is working as intended is quite strange. If that case, there is no real sense of using obstacles to RP sneaking. I might as well stand right in front of your character in the open field under the bright sun and it still makes total sense that they can't see what is right in front of their eyes because I have higher Hide and Move Silently than their Spot and Listen.

[RoseFrost]

Unfortunately, it is metagaming. The game is designed to let Spot/Listen skill detect Hide/Move Silently. The character's IC eyes/ears would know you are there by Spot/Listen skill.

There is an aspect of metagaming either way. The icon is meta-gaming as well because it confuses the question "do you see this person" with the question "do you know that this person was trying to hide?" DMs frequently use the spot skill to test if characters notice something difficult to see, even if that thing isn't necessarily trying to hide. Spot is used to find the man lying down to sleep in a wheatfield, and it is also used to find the man lying down to hide in a wheatfield. Spot has nothing to do with telling which man is which.



One of these redheads is leaning against a tree to rest. The other one is hiding behind the tree to eavesdrop on the picknickers. They are both hard to notice, and spot is the appropriate skill to determine whether or not you see them. And the default state of NWN2 already implements this with spot vs. hide. You either see the character, or you don't. This is correct.

Which one is which, and how do you know? The difference exists exclusively in the young woman's head. An icon floating over the head is OOC/metagamed knowledge. Spot is totally irrelevant to determining the difference. Sense motive needs to be involved.

[Goat]

I've heard it - we'll look into changing the icon for now. If we can see a better system. Yeah. We can maybe at least make the stealth icon vanish if you're using the feat too. the hotbar might be impossible and will stick to what it is now - that's life of our game right now - we can't fix that because there's no way to hook into it.

To state:
Listen/Spot checks are done, but you have to base it off line of sight too. A DM wouldn't make you LoS Spot check someone if you can't actually see them. Our game might, because our game isn't 100%.

Listen checks would only occur (and do from what I know) while moving, if hes already at the wall when the spotter is there, there aren't any listen checks there, but 'potentially' as hes sneaking the wall - yes there would be - even if he isn't in line of sight. Spot and Listen are different here, and listen would be used if you're moving, even if you were never in LoS to begin with.

However I do consider most obstacles and walls different. Walls I think should be respected - completely, obstacles - it depends. Hiding in LoS but behind a bush for example means a spot check could spot you easily. Same for a tree/etc. (Most trees aren't even big enough to hide you, but if you're revealed behind a tree, I would say maybe you clumsily hid behind the tree, maybe they spotted your fabric blowing in the wind behind the tree, etc) To state, on the other side of things - most hipsers consider hiding a valid tactic when they're two feet behind the person and hipstering. Which is most certainly done by people hiding.


Overall it's just logic and common sense. We try to mix the 'real world' of how you will perceive things and also the game mechanics. It's a game too, and some things will sway, both for pro and con.


We aren't changing the core mechanic of what spot/hide vs listen/ms do - nor adding additional checks. Sense motive and other things, if a DM wants it' they'll request it. Thanks.

[mrm3ntalist]

Okay, I see what's going on. Some players are trying to remove the icon so they can hide from the player's OOC view, bypassing the Spot skill mechanic by clipping into environment objects and similar tricks.

But that's not how hiding is supposed to work in NWN2 or in D&D. The Spot skill determines whether a character is detected, not the OOC eyesight of the player.

Using objects to stay hidden from OOC eyes after a Spot check has already succeeded is metagaming. It ignores the actual mechanics and breaks intended gameplay.

This is correct; although I may not like the icon, it has its benefits. Because, as Dae said, the spot check means you were seen. Just because the player of the character does not, the character does. Using OOC to hide IC is quite wrong.

It’s predictable, but still absurd, to see people trying to label using the environment to stay hidden as a “bad” trick. A character would absolutely use a wall, rock, or tree for cover—no even hips should be needed for this. The real flaw lies in the game engine, which fails to properly support staying hidden behind obstacles but that is a different issue and nothing can be done about it. But calling this tactic wrong or something to be frowned upon isn’t just misguided—it’s twisting basic logic into nonsense. I’ll leave it at that.

I just think it's equally as immersion breaking to be standing in an open field with bright sun and having hips people fade in and out around me with zero RP. So it goes both ways, imo. It's a little frustrating to claim that the old way was somehow a bastion of immersion.

Unfortunately, it is metagaming. The game is designed to let Spot/Listen skill detect Hide/Move Silently. The character's IC eyes/ears would know you are there by Spot/Listen skill. Using video game visuals to trick OOC eyes/ears and OOC eyes/ears alone (not the IC eyes/ears) is by definition metagaming.

This feels quite contradictory to me, to be advocating for more RP surrounding hiding first, but then later on claiming Spot/Listen vs Hide/MS is the only truth.

I think the truth, as with many things, is most likely somewhere in the middle. And I understand fully Snarfy's point on not being able to hear someone sitting still behind a tree.
The game engine has it's limits.

mhm, At this point, they’ve twisted themselves into such knots trying to justify this that they can’t help but contradict themselves at every turn.

The one thing I haven’t realized—but is absolutely true—is that this actually helps the DMs. Any assistance for DMs dealing with such a frustrating and limited client should be a no-brainer. On the other hand, let’s not pretend this is some brand-new problem. For decades now, past and present DMs have been running events with players hiding in them without any issues whatsoever—DMs across countless years, on countless different servers, and they’ve managed just fine.