The Stealth Crisis

[Helvinr]

As most of us know, stealth seems to have a few tweeks. For those that don't, here's how it works.

To train stealth, you  must actively use the skill. Simply hiding will not allow you to walk around town and get gains from that alone. Upon successful use of hiding, you will enter a temporary stealth (if your stealth skill allows it). This is only good for a certain number of steps depending on your skill. After those steps are up, you must re-use hiding, activate stealth, or you will become visible.

This in itself isn't too horrible. Sure, you have to take a little longer to get to where you're going, but it's worth it to sidestep those mean ol' greater dragons and coin monsters and what have you. However, there are some major drawbacks.

For starters, the way it's set right now, anyone with sufficient stealth can automatically hide using the skill, and stealth around. This is regardless of the armor they have on. I don't know about you, but the thought someone walking around unseen and unheard in a full suit of non-mage armor plate seems a bit silly.

Second, it takes away some uses such as the Ninjitsu spell, Backstab. For those that don't know, it's "An attack from stealth that deals extra damage based on the user's Ninjitsu skill and how far they  have tracked their target". Really, the damage increase is utterly negligible because you lack the ability to really track while stealthed. Players can outrun you on foot, because you have to stop every few seconds and wait to be able to use hiding again. Likewise, the damage isn't too great because monsters do not roam very far, meaning that you don't really have a lot of distance to track.

Another such ability is the Shadow Strike ability and the Invisibility spell. Normally, using either of those two would conceal you, and when you took a step it would do the typical stealth roll to see if you enter stealth or come unhidden. Not so. If you move, you become unhidden, forcing you to become stationary. Not so great abilities once you're stuck holding still hoping that you're safe while a red is wither spamming the area or Pyre's AoE is hitting you like a truck.

Yet another issue: It makes it significantly harder to be a thief (Just hear me out for this). We already know thieves have it real bad with insurance. No use in poking the dying horse further. Being able to be outrun by a character that is walking limits us to stationary targets. Miners, hunters, people shopping at houses in the wrong part of town.

I am not the only one who seems to believe that this is a problem. I am constantly asked by newer Pandorian citizens "Why is stealth acting so weird?". Upon explaining, more than one has left our server simply because they dislike how it has been warped. And those that do choose to stay have shared with me their  dislike for stealth and consider it to be "uber nerfed".

So to shorten the length of this post into a quick summery, I give you Pro's and Con's of the current stealth system

Pros:
Harder to be ambushed.
Harder for victims to get away from you in PvP situations

Cons:
Harder to sneak up on someone (For the thieves and PvP'ers out there that enjoy that play style)
Harder to get away from sticky situations such as being chased in fel or by multiple monsters that could grind your bones to dust
Harder to even train stealth to begin with
Spells and abilities becoming obsolete or very close to it (Shadow strike, Invisibility spells and potions, Backstab)
Tedious and time-consuming point-and-click method that includes counting steps if you want to be anywhere near efficient at it. (Razor will only count to 32 or so steps before breaking)

Proposed solution:
Because the cons outweigh the pros, one would assume that the only pros there are are very important. So an outright revert to the normal system might be out of the question.

Instead, we may be able to give players the option to go back to the regular system, but at a very drastic price. I propose we give players the option to go to normal stealth by entering into the thieves guild. The thieves guild has quite a few drawbacks and only two rewards: The  ability to steal from other players and the disguise kit. But at the cost of not being able to give murder counts, not being able to murder, and being able to be freely looted by anyone, regardless of guild, group, faction, alliance, or anything else, anywhere.

Example: I die in Doom. I am unguilded and not in a party. If I am not a member of the thieves guild, then only I have access to my remains. But if I am in the thieves guild, then anyone happening to pass by  can freely access my corpse and plunder everything I have on me. Even in Trammel. Malas. Ter Mur. Anywhere at all, anyone can loot me.

Given all of that knowledge, it seems to be a fair trade off if the ability to stealth normally were added to thieves guild members.

Thoughts, opinions, feedback, death threats, if you have any of it, please leave it here.

[Roedar]

I feel like that would be a good idea, unless they planned on editing where thieves can steal in the future. Al though, if they had it the way you purposed and the old thieving boundaries, I am sure it would bring many anew to the shard as well as balance out some of the economic situations. :>

[Jinxy]

You have stated everything iv bottled up inside and more... thank you for that. something needs to be tweeked with the stealing and stealth systems bad. Bravo

[Gasper Le Marc]

I have been working on a perma invis macro but no success as yet, having to count every time you walk aswell as running whilst stealthed is a pain but getting use to it.

But half the time people are so happy to see me they forget to insure there stuff.

[Belegerandh]

I asked about this many times but I think it was Gizmo who argued to keep it like it is the most.

As the way things stand for rogues I've thought about leaving the Thieves Guild altogether because the risks outweigh the current rewards.

Maybe if the players take the risk of their corpse being opened by everyone then the guild itself should apply other bonuses as well? Bonuses like this sort of stealthing, ability to steal books and other things in towns (currently disabled), etc ...

[Helvinr]

Another notion just popped into my mind. If changing it back to normal is out of the question, maybe a donator's shroud or something could be made to allow normal stealthing. "Shroud of Shadows" suddenly has a more literal meaning.