Why Was Stealth BUFFED???

[liveja]

Can anyone explain why the run speed debuff was removed from stealth???

[the flu]

Are you complaining aobut this?:smileyindifferent: The equalization of the run speeds was mostly do to complaints about how the same spell on different characters had different effects, or at least thats my understanding. For example, all other things being equal ifyou had room for one group stealther in your group, whould you choose the swashy with a run speed debuff or a fury or illusionist  without a debuff (or even an inrease, if I remember properly). Single target ones- well, it makes no sense that a grup can move faster stealthed than a solo individual. Other classes had the durations of their stealths increased to 10 minutes from 2 I believe, so that they are aactually useful. The removal of concentration costs I would explain as just taking out something annoying that served no real purpose. Remove bufffs, stealth, travel, rebuff. You stil can't move faster than normal runspeed, and any snares (magic or encomberance) still apply.

[Serindyl]

Wicked!  Thank you, Sony.  :smileyhappy:

[liveja]

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the fluke wrote:
Are you complaining aobut this?:smileyindifferent:

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Well, yea, I was a little bit irritated by it. Now, stealth has no downsides at all, except for the inability to use run buffs while stealthed, which doesn't affect me as much as it might affect higher level characters.

But, since it was a matter of equalizing spell effects -- I didn't know about that -- then forget I asked. Better that we get buffed, than other people get nerfed

[Dark_Sun]

There was too much frustration about invis speed debuff.

Like fury had better invis than rogues, wich caused a lot of flame and whines. (tbh i still dont understand why they have it)

So SOE decided to make all invis equal, this way no invis class will be superior to any other, and there will be no more whining.

 

[BlackBattie]

Wow.  Are people so whine-intensive, that they complain when stuff is made better?  Holy.  Crap.

[DngrMou]

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Dark_Sun wrote:

............. and there will be no more whining.

 

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Lol. 

[DireWolf]

Not that it matters now, but Fury group invis did have a run-speed debuff. The reduction wasn't quite as severe as the Swash version but it was close. As for why Furies get it at all, it's pretty much just another utility like Wardens and Wizards getting evac. Also, I keep hearing that the Fury invis is better than Swash invis but I haven't really seen any difference other than the assassins in the Clefts of Rujark.

 

Demerzel, 46 Swashbuckler

Neaera, 48 Fury

Knights of a Shattered Past

Innothule

[Naggyba]

Personally, I am glad for the change. I like everyone being the same. It kills all the bickering over why is this class better, etc.It's set, you know how long it's going to last for everyone and it's effective for everyone.I'm glad to finally see them do all this.

[rainydayman0]

yea, its nice being able to actually get from point a to point b in a decent amount of time and not needing to worry about being attacked by random animals

[Yak]

Wow.  Are people so whine-intensive, that they complain when stuff is made better? 

 

 

I think people are absolutely correct in complaining when stuff is made better for the wrong reasons. If I wanted to play a game that was easy and not-so challenging, I'd probably still be playing WoW instead of having come back to EQ2.

 

I can only speak for myself, of course, but part of the reason I enjoy games like EQ2 is the sense of progress and accomplishment I get as I work towards my goals.  If I could spend $3 dollars and purchase an in-game item that I could /claim that would make my character 60, I wouldn't do it. What would be the point? I am sure a lot of people salivate at the thought of that, but I think that's akin to eyeing a large chocolate cake and thinking how good it would be to eat the whole thing; it may seem like an excellent idea and even taste awesome at first, but in the end you wind up feeling sick and disgusted, with little desire to eat cake again for a long time.

 

There are certainly degress of challenge. No one wants to play a game that is so challenging that it takes months to see any progress or receive any rewards, and each player's level of tolerance is going to be different. But I think the fundemental belief that making things more powerful is always good is a dangerous one.

 

I'll readily admit that it's great to be able to run around at full speed while stealthed now. Like all things in life, the sooner I can do something the better I feel, whether it's driving to the grocery store, running across Thundering Steppes, or moving to the bottom of a dungeon. So yes, it's inherently pleasing to move faster when stealthed. Now I can enjoy the benefits of stealth without the penalty of moving painfully slow.

 

But I now feel like I've lost something that made my swashbuckler special. I used to have to make a decision when in a dungeon or other dangerous area: Do I feel threatened enough that I am willing to stealth for safety and move very slowly? Sometimes I would, other times I'd think it was a waste of time and wouldn't bother stealthing. And the times that I did, it felt more tense and suspenseful as I slowly tried to make my way past monsters, fearful of coming across one that might see through my stealth. Some of my fondest memories of my young swashbuckler was of sneaking through blackburrow trying to complete quests and occasionally picking off the solo gnoll to kill while timing the patrols.

 

Not anymore. Now I feel like a character who has magical immunity to most monsters in dungeons. I toggle on stealth and just run through where ever I am without issue or concern. There is really no reason to not always be stealthed and that removes a substancial part of the gameplay of being a swashbuckler.

 

In this case it appears as if one bad decision (fury high speed group stealth) is begetting even worse decisions.(all stealth made normal speed) And while it's not the end of the world, it seems to me to be one step closer to a game that is more bland and less challenging, and that makes me a little sad.

 

 

[Mathe]

It is probably the best trade off for the fact a lot more things see through stealth now. Before the update, I really only had to worry about really, really strong, named heroics and just flat out reds with an Adept 1 stealth. Now I occassionally see some blues and even a couple of greens seeing through stealth. Actually does make it a bit harder in some cases in my opinion since you just can't blindly assume that nothing can see you, even in relatively low areas.

[Rooksarii]

This is really a flash in the pan thing for me. A perk, but one that neither harms nor hinders my playstyle. I count it as a benign plus

[tharvey]

One other reason why they might have have removed run speed debuffs from the stealh line: Predators got a full speed stealth as a training choice and were complaining about it being gone. Bards stealth also got faster and faster as you get each new version of stealth, which they lost when they made one stealth auto-scale. I think there's a good argument for rogues being better than at least bards in terms of stealth (and originally they were better than preds, before the training ability was added)... so rather than deal with either 2/3 of the scout archetype mooning over their lost fast stealth, or the other 1/3 complaining they are dramatically worse, they just gave fast stealth to everyone.

 

Also, it was more of an annoyance mechanic than anything else. If they wanted to make stealth interesting or challenging there's a lot of directions they could go besides just annoying players with slow run speed .

[liveja]

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Matheau wrote:

It is probably the best trade off for the fact a lot more things see through stealth now.

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I have not seen that to be the case. It may be true in higher level zones -- I wouldn't know, since the highest level zone I've seen yet is Enchanted Lands -- but the number of mobs that see thru stealth & invis is no higher now, in Antonica, Nektulos Forest, & Thundering Steppes, than it ever was before the patch. & so far, in Enchanted Lands, I've only seen a few mobs that could see thru stealth, & they've been either easy to avoid or, in the case of the "very mischievous maidens", easy for me to kill.

I agree with Yakuz: while it's quite nice to be able to move while stealthed at full speed, I can't help feeling like the game has been made easier for me, somewhat less challenging, & I'm not happy with that -- especially since one of the reasons I quit playing World Of Snorecraft was that it was far too easy.

[Oponn]

Sneaking isn't supposed to be full run speed!  How can you sneak when you are running? Now everyone has the same stealth/invis levels everyone has the same speed, there is no class bonuses for any aspect of it now, and I think it sucks. 

Why would they do this? 

The classes that had improved run speed over other classes as a unique part of their class are now just the same as everyone else. 

This decision has hurt the game.  Of course as a Swashbuckler it has helped out my class alot, but [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn], it screwed up the game, and it took alot of the diversity that makes the game great. 

Some of you should look past what benefits it does to our class and see what it does to the whole game.

Bring back stealth pre combat revamp.

[the flu]

I disagree. Class diversity is a bad thing when it the effects are different but not equivilent, which was the case before this. There was no advantage in using swashy group stealth between lu13 and lu14, and one big disadvantage- it was slow. It had the same recast time and duration of other, faster stealths and it hurt the class. If the stealth was going to be slower, it needed to have some other advantage to it in order to balance it out. By removing the snare componant, they buffed some classes without nerfing (or unreasonably nerfing classes with run speed plus) sneaks, rather than nerfing everyone to a snared invis.I liken group stealth to evac- one evac class should not have an advantage over another evacer when casting it. It's an emergency spell that ports the group to the zone line. It would be incredibly unfair if scout evac took folks to the zone, while warden evac (or is it fury :/) ported you to zone and gave everyone a 15% heal and small HOT. Group stealth is a utility spell that lets you bypass the yard trash, and allowing different folks to do it differnetly makes no sense and can be inballancing.I can see your argument working for individual stealths, however. And I do miss my high level utility sneaks. But I don't think they want the utility they had on the non combat sneaks for ballance reasons (again making things different but equivilent is not easy), and if they have a snare componant folks won't use them except to launch attacks from- why run snared when the group sneak is so much faster?

[Oponn]

The problem of group stealth comparisons should have been solved by making everyones group stealth the same speed as the Swashbuckler, instead of making everyone run around at full speed "stealthed"  Somehow "stealth" doesn't seem the appropriate word anymore.

 

The devs were too chicken to nerf the group stealth to be the same speed as a swashbuckler and totally overcompensated and took away diversification of other classes... like bard, ranger and other classes that had an advantage for individual stealth speed differences.   I sure hope they change it back.  In fact I hope they bring back the old stealth with the adepts and varying levels.  Besides this stealth issue, I totally love playing my swashbuckler and I am very happy with the other changes to the game and my class.

[Timmye]

Well, what irked me was the fact that the con messages didn't change. I grew used to checking the message instead of the outline on their name for the con. Even if they don't see me (no red outline around name) they are still scowling furiously at me.

Also I was taken a bit aback by the fact that the guards in the cities can still see you even though they are not agro outlined. Nothing beats going into Freeport to grab some quests, seeing the guards' names go 'normal' and sliding in, only to hear them yelling at you, chasing you by running back and forth until they finally catch you and toss you out on your ear.

The first part just requires me to adjust my play habits, I can live with that. The second part amkes no sense to me though.

[liveja]

Over this weekend, I stealthed my way all over Zek & Feerott, opened up about 90%+ of both maps.

 

In Zek, I found quite a few mobs that could see through stealth -- mostly, if not wholly, "epic" or named mobs -- but all were easily avoided. In Feerott, I found (I think) 3, in the entire zone.

 

In EL, the Lamia Deathsingers can see through stealth, but they're very easily avoided. I haven't seen other mobs -- maybe the Nightbloods, not sure about them -- aside from "epic" types that could see through me.

 

IMHO, while I do see the point of changing Stealth skills to be more fair to every class, I still think that removing the Snare component was not the way to do it. I'm not sure what would have been better, but I don't think that the risks of stealthing outweigh the benefits of being able to move at full speed -- sans movement enhancements, of course -- while stealthed.

 

But, whatever. It's all good.