AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

As the title says- sneaks are very difficult to level. Hiding pretty much never works against higher-level monsters (and 0 bosses), and you can never solo anything. I know soloing is considered 'bad' in most cases, but with the low population on Amia now, I think it should be an okay thing to be able to do when you can't find a party.

A solution could be to lower the Spot/Listen of higher level monsters. Maybe also make one epic boss have very low Spot/Listen so sneaks could take it down (one without crit immunity). This change would balance things a bit more.

Murex wrote:

As the title says- sneaks are very difficult to level. Hiding pretty much never works against higher-level monsters (and 0 bosses), and you can never solo anything. I know soloing is considered 'bad' in most cases, but with the low population on Amia now, I think it should be an okay thing to be able to do when you can't find a party.

A solution could be to lower the Spot/Listen of higher level monsters. Maybe also make one epic boss have very low Spot/Listen so sneaks could take it down (one without crit immunity). This change would balance things a bit more.

I've had a few problems with certain monsters but as my levels have climbed my characters ability to go unseen is pretty good. Even managed to stand in the middle of a group of trolls for god knows how long. I think it depends on the monster.

Like all else, it's about the investment you make. I can Stealth walk Abyss with my main and only get caught by the one set of creatures with TS.... the cursed bioware TS at that.

The devs swear up and down that the Hags don't have TS.

NinjaClarinet wrote:

The devs swear up and down that the Hags don't have TS.

They don't.

Of course they do. They see through everything and blast you with Searing Light.

They do have Bio TS. Or some strange TS mutation, because they see through sneak / magic / anything any other TS creature do.

Guardian wrote:

Of course they do. They see through everything and blast you with Searing Light.

They do have Bio TS. Or some strange TS mutation, because they see through sneak / magic / anything any other TS creature do.

I can attest to this.

Hags in the Abyss /do/ have TS. I was leveling there from 25-30, and just recently finished. They easily spotted me and blasted me with their Searing Light.

Part of being a sneak is the excitement of getting caught. You can sneak in a place but you're not supposed to be able to take down a boss all by yourself. I was NEVER under the impression that sneaks can solo like a fighter or wizard can. Dungeons are mostly designed for parties, people working together. If you spend all your money on supplies and traps and time, and use a strategy, then I guess you can solo... $$$$

That being said it's quite hard to be a sneak in a party because nobody wants to wait for you laying traps, scouting, walking around... everyone's charging

I love my sneak and will gladly sneak around with you

Guardian wrote:

Of course they do. They see through everything and blast you with Searing Light.

They do have Bio TS. Or some strange TS mutation, because they see through sneak / magic / anything any other TS creature do.

Quote:

I can attest to this.

Quote:

Hags in the Abyss /do/ have TS.

They absolutely do not. do you think I'm lying to you? what do I gain by lying about if a creature has Bioware True Sight? Are you serious right now? Do you think I made that statement without first physically logging into the game, going to the Abyss as a DM, and triggering spawns until Hags showed up, examining them, checking their hides, and looking at their character sheets?

Because that's what I did.

Don't call me a liar.

Thanks.

They don't have Bio True Sight.

Is their listen/spot godly or does the area have any negative penalties to Sneaks on it? Or are we not allowed to know these things

Not allowed~

But they absolutely do not have Bioware TS. I've checked several times myself as well. Even if their behavior doesn't make sense. Can't really say more, sorry!

Anyways, I just thought it would be cool if an epic L30 sneak could have a boss to play with. The Fire Giant King seems the most plausible, but I don't think any sneak can sneak around any of the bosses because of the high Spot/Listen.

Just to complicate matters, I made the Hags and definitely gave them real Bioware TS, specifically to make it a pain in the arse to invis/GS rush or stealth past the mobs until Windy or the shop.

Either they've been tweaked or Tormak missed something when examining them. They certainly behave like they've still got it - as far as I know, you can't get See Invisibility as a hide/item property and you can't get it temporarily without the floaty eyes VFX, which they Hags don't have.

This really is not a wind-up, Tormak, you know we love you. It's just a bit confusing because Hags would be the only creature on server WITHOUT TS that can actually spot my sneak who has Hide/MS +/- 100. Nowhere else he's spotted as easily.

Don't take it as we've said you are lying.

Very agreed with the above experiences, but I don't think it's a matter of the hags actually having either Bioware TS or a super crazy Spot/Listen score, but rather a glitch in their AI. My experience is that whenever my sneak runs the Abyss (with Hide of +118 and MS over +100), the hags often spot her when she initially spawns them, but when she drops from stealth and then re-stealths via HiPS, they never spot her again. It's something goofy in their programmed initial behavior, I think, not their detection capabilities.

I have a theory on this I wanna bounce off the Dev folks.. just a thought

We aren't calling you a liar Tormak we love you
If it isn't ts then it isnt. I don't know a alternative way of how Hags see a Improved Invisible man 30 feet away from the fight and target him

I just checked myself, and they don't have TS (Bioware or otherwise) But what they do have does make them pretty good at catching anyone/anything.

Uberuce wrote:

Just to complicate matters, I made the Hags and definitely gave them real Bioware TS, specifically to make it a pain in the arse to invis/GS rush or stealth past the mobs until Windy or the shop.

Either they've been tweaked or Tormak missed something when examining them. They certainly behave like they've still got it - as far as I know, you can't get See Invisibility as a hide/item property and you can't get it temporarily without the floaty eyes VFX, which they Hags don't have.

They were changed,yeah.

Sorry Tormak. <3 I've no idea how they see me in Imp Invis then.

Well I think a long epic battle with an epic boss would be really fun for a sneak. Devs should think about terrain more and have barriers for sneaks to hide behind in boss areas instead of a big open space or a thin cramped space (and some up and down areas that benefit archers). I think sneaks should have just as much power to take down bosses and solo as any other type of character.

Also, I know Glim was going to improve the Shadowdancer class beyond level 6 to help balance it so people wouldn't just get HiPS and stop there. Is there any plans to enact that change?

It doesn't really matter if hags have Bioware TS or not if they effectively behave as if they do. I used to play a sneak with as much hide/MS as I could think up and either their listen/spot is geeked beyond ridiculous to the point it might as well be Bioware TS or the Abyss is impossible to stealth in (or both). I don't really see much design purpose in either really. If a character sacrifices playability choices for things like epic skill focus hide/MS, Stealthy, etc I'm of the opinion they should be able to go wherever they want (and they should gain some XP for successfully sneaking past spawns, as well as every roguish skill, not just disarming traps). I'd love to see the server emulate old school solo rogue adventures and reward characters who use their wits to handle challenges instead of brawn. (No burglar in their right mind takes any risk they can safely bypass skillfully.) Remember, characters are supposed to get XP by triumphing over encounters, which doesn't just mean beating mobile loot-containers into bloodied non-mobile loot containers.

One thing that would help on the endgame would be removing immunity to KD (the sneak's best friend) from bosses which have no believable reason to have it. One of my favorite quips I like to chuckle about as I run around is "Amia: where you can't knockdown a midget vampire or fire giant royalty, but can an underwater fishman and ghosts!"

One of my favorite characters is a recreation of my favorite pen and paper character, a gentleman thief, classy catburglar, consummate professional thief and utter coward who doesn't even carry a weapon (thief-code of the professional is that if you've ever need of a weapon, you're a failure as a professional thief). That guy is a sneaky mouse and charismatic con-man full of mechanically useless social skills who would progress in pen and paper by sneaking, filching, telling bluffs or any number of skillful, non-combatative, finesse methods. However, I was dismayed that the only way to reasonably level it was the job system (which I love, make no mistake). Sitting around mindlessly clicking isn't derring do, risky or exciting, yet trying to take that non-combatative character out rooting through an actual dangerous dungeon and pilfering it by his wits would actually net him less in progression and wealth than setting up a button-clicking macro and web-browsing.

Quote:

If a character sacrifices playability choices for things like epic skill focus hide/MS, Stealthy, etc I'm of the opinion they should be able to go wherever they want (and they should gain some XP for successfully sneaking past spawns, as well as every roguish skill, not just disarming traps). I'd love to see the server emulate old school solo rogue adventures and reward characters who use their wits to handle challenges instead of brawn. (No burglar in their right mind takes any risk they can safely bypass skillfully.) Remember, characters are supposed to get XP by triumphing over encounters, which doesn't just mean beating mobile loot-containers into bloodied non-mobile loot containers.

Oh yes this. So much this please.

As for odd invis or stealth interactions, the lizardmen from the green tribe tend to... follow you... even without sight.

AI bugs are more likely than anything, fighting them - escaping with invis - then stealth with some obscene hide/ms, those lizardmen can chase you down until they bump into you ineffectually.

Bio Truesight or not, AI trumps expected outcomes.

Also, when you disarm trap, it gives you xp, but when you recover trap (which should be harder to do), it gives you nothing. Maybe sneaks should also get few more xp from recovering traps.

Bertnard wrote:

Also, when you disarm trap, it gives you xp, but when you recover trap (which should be harder to do), it gives you nothing. Maybe sneaks should also get few more xp from recovering traps.

The reward for recovering a trap is you get to keep the trap. And then use it to kill other stuff, for which you get an XP reward.

Liz wrote:

Bertnard wrote:

Also, when you disarm trap, it gives you xp, but when you recover trap (which should be harder to do), it gives you nothing. Maybe sneaks should also get few more xp from recovering traps.

The reward for recovering a trap is you get to keep the trap. And then use it to kill other stuff, for which you get an XP reward.

Oh, c'mon. For recovering trap you also need better skills, which means higher skill point investment.

No, really, you should receive reward for both disarming and recovering traps.

Guardian wrote:

Liz wrote:

Bertnard wrote:

Also, when you disarm trap, it gives you xp, but when you recover trap (which should be harder to do), it gives you nothing. Maybe sneaks should also get few more xp from recovering traps.

The reward for recovering a trap is you get to keep the trap. And then use it to kill other stuff, for which you get an XP reward.

Oh, c'mon. For recovering trap you also need better skills, which means higher skill point investment.

No, really, you should receive reward for both disarming and recovering traps.

And also figure out how to not let two people set/disarm/retrieve traps to level off.

If there is any XP gain for recovering a trap it should be minimal. Like, 5 or 10 XP. The benefit is that you keep the trap.

And the easy way to do that is to make it so PC set traps don't give XP.

Naivatkal wrote:

And the easy way to do that is to make it so PC set traps don't give XP.

^ Yup

It was just an idea, because I was very surprised that recovering gave no xp to character, even though it is harder task to do, which should give more xp to character, but yeah, traps can be used to killing>gaining xp so... I guess.

But saying "Gaining the trap is the reward itself" is like saying "Clear passage is the reward from disarming the trap".

I do get your point, though. :mrgreen:

I'm actually more disappointed that there's only certain areas with traps that give XP. All Dev-placed traps should give XP for disarming. Same with locks. It's silly that only a handful of all the locks and traps that can be dealt with give any XP.

This topic quickly derailed and sidetracked, but the title got me interested, cuz I have a Rogue build all planned out, but it makes me pause before committing to it. Very little info came out so far on difficulty of leveling a sneak. Any other opinions?

I'm guess Rogue-sneak builds require a party to level? That'd make it more difficult to level, simply finding a party. Is a Rogue-sneak able to solo many areas?

Eh... kind of? My recollections of leveling my rogue are that once her AC was high enough that she wasn't getting hit faster than she could both cure-potion herself and keep stabbing things, she did okay, just... very, very slowly. My rogue did not build STR, so the large majority of her damage was sneak attacking things, HiPSing, sneak attacking again, rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. It's slow and boring, but possible, unless you're silly enough to go leveling in areas where everything's crit-immune.

That's what I figured, survivable but tedious.
I have more rogue questions but I'll post them in the fishing thread as this isn't the place for them.

Arguing that the reward is keeping the trap, then ignoring the point that traps can't be sold and using a trap takes a long time to set then lure...

I'll spend my time running over the trap to reach the next mob group, thank you.

DukeDublin wrote:

Arguing that the reward is keeping the trap, then ignoring the point that traps can't be sold and using a trap takes a long time to set then lure...

I'll spend my time running over the trap to reach the next mob group, thank you.

^
Thumbs up (I'd send a gif, but they told me not to

)

I'd suggest adding more locked doors and traps to all dungeons, so it would be needed to either bring a rogue or learn all those abilities, although it can be easy to take one point and craft gear + drink rogue's cunning (but I don't want to go off topic with mythal crafting system).

Sneaks are very difficult to level

Who is online