changes to Shadow dancers

[renarð]

Some random comments.

Nothing we say is going to be seriously considered until after the mystic fix is implemented and the devs have had time to observe the implications.

I personally think the only problem with SDs is the queue clearing (though I am personally hoping for a 1 round cooldown). As is, the spot/listen versus hide/ms is pretty balanced, and its a whole lot easier to get the 50 cap in spot/listen but still quite doable to get it in ms/hide. Sneaks just don't get any flexibility in a lot of their gear slots (and lose 3-5 ac in the process).

Being an SD does not necessitate the toon being worthless outside of stealth or in the presence of a spotter. D2 has 100ish hide and 70ish ms, epic dodge, and 72 ac, I hips maybe 2-3 times per spawn during a raid, usually to break counterspell mode (though I run and toss bigby's like any good mage). What queue clearing does allow is for 500hp, 55 ac, what's discipine?, crap saves builds (casters, melee, and archers) to be viable when no other build can get away with so many obvious holes and its because of the queue clearing.

[Korr]

one of the big things i see with the qeue clearing problem is that I dont even have to be fighting the SD and it clears it. Like when there is a dead mob on the ground and you hips he turns towards you (yes the corpse). HiPS draws the attention and then you lose the focus. It ridiculous against any dex buils who instantly looses nearly all of their AC because someone nearby hipsed.

Theres something else that does this, but I wont mention what it is because it could easily be exploited

[cRaZy8or5e]

I've had SD's in my own party HiPS and clear my action queue. It sucks all around lol.

[Chernobyl_Glow]

kapwn, actually i re-read my statement and couldn't make sense of it either. lol.

What I was trying to say is that for him to be THAT effective I would have expected him to have a Hide/MS of about 120. Explaining why I can't see him. Again at a distance when he's not trying multiple times I can watch him walk. If I pursue, he recognizes that I've spotted and he trys again.

If Avarice is spotting regularly then clearly his Spot is higher and/or you have Keen Sense. (I'm guessing both) as expected with a Wisdom based character. Some believe, like me, that there is limited success to be expected without Keen Sense.

I guess my point is that with the current engine I'll have to be able to Spot him 100% of the time in order to prevent queue clearing so that I can even attempt an attack or a spell. This requires my Spot to be significantly higher, like 110 compared to his 100. Really the odds stack in his favor with just a couple of points higher than my Spot. Yet I'll have to be a lot higher Spot to see him. The difference being that he just has to succeed ONce. I have to succeed EveRy Time or he'll just keep trying. A high spot character just forces the HIPSer to really work. Check my math...

If his Hide is Higher then he actually has a greater than 50% chance of hiding in all possible rolls (400 possible results). So if random rolls proceed he'll never have to hit Hide more than twice. As the gap widens to 7 bettering his odds, then he'll have an 80% success rate on the first attempt. If his Hide is better by 11 then he'll succeed on the first try over 90% of the time.

The same is true in the other direction. If the skills are even the spotter has a 47.5% chance of success. (Ties go to the Hider I think.) If my spot is 5 higher then I have a 70% chance of spotting him. Or 2 out of 3. Which means he now has to start attempting 3 times to succeed. With a gap of 8 (108 vs 100) I'm 80% successful (4 out of 5) resulting in 5 attempts needed. It really takes a gap of about 11 or 12 to overcome the spamming where they are only going to be successful hiding about 10% of the time resulting in a necessary 10 or more attempts to hide. Table Below assuming 100 Hide and a Spotter WITH keen sense.

Spot - Success - Attempts
100 - 48% - 2
101 - 52% - 2
102 - 57% - 3
103 - 62% - 3
104 - 66% - 3
105 - 70% - 4
106 - 74% - 4
107 - 77% - 5
108 - 80% - 5
109 - 84% - 6
110 - 86% - 8
111 - 89% - 10
112 - 91% - 13
113 - 93% - 18
114 - 95% - 26
115 - 96% - 39
116 - 98% - 66
117 - 99% - 132
118 - 99% - 399
119 - 100% - 400

Not to get into a bunch of mathmatical headaches but the point being that ONLY after the Spotter increases his score over the Hider can some success be expected. Not until a spotter has Keen Sense AND beats a hider's score by at least a few points does he really have a chance since the Hider can simply reattempt on a failure. Again the Hider only needs to succeed once.

This is the way that I understand that it works but will be more than happy to be enlightened.

Best regards,

- Glow -

PS. I'm enjoying this thread as it seems like a levelheaded intelligent conversation. *but I'm sure Tep will chime in. j/k <--- probably getting banned now. DoH!

[Bargeld]

Agreed, this is really good info for both sides... hider and sneaky.

3 notes:

I don't 'spam' hips. It's not that I feel offended by that assumption, but, as stated in previous threads, I find that spamming hips to accomplish what you are describing is a weak tactic that exploits the engine. Not to mention that, with Laufer's speed, it gets really chaotic to manage and know which mode you are in and you start reading the 'run enabled' 'run disabled' messages, rather than looking at the rest of the screen and what is happening. To bring that all together, your assumption about 'recognizing that he has seen me and can re-hips' doesn't happen very often. If you can see Laufer at a distance, then I disappear, I would assume its because you failed a successive roll on your own, not one that was induced by re-hipsing. So it's the engine causing that by continuing to roll your checks. (Unless I am using the technique below, which is very rare, because I only do it when I'm near death or running a relic and having a problem, which again, is rare ). Previously I had questioned if the engine was flawed in its design because it looked like the sneak check was rolled 6x per round, while the spot check was only rolled 4x, meaning that 2 of those sneak checks occur without any chance to spot. Not sure if this it actually how it works, but it made me wonder.

The second thought is what I mentioned before in this thread... If i am around a spotter than can successfully spot me consistantly, while I'm running around sneaking, then the obvious solution is to add another 5 or 10 sneak to your check. This is done by clicking your toon to stop your movement and then quickly hipsing. This will essentially add that non-movement bonus for the instant that you pause. I will then watch and see if it will cause the spotter to break queue and stop following. If it works, I will continue with that tactic, when needed, during the battle. It's not really a hips spam, but just using the engine to my advantage, knowing that I will gain the non-movement bonus for that single sneak check, and hoping it's enough to break the queue and give me an extra few seconds while the spotter re-clicks for their action.

Lastly, keen senses is not neccessary! It's basically the same concept as above, but for the spotter's benefit, rather than the sneaky's. It's just another way to temporarily raise your spot/listen by a few points by using engine mechanics to your benefit. Demon is my spotter, she's a githyanki with no keen senses and I don't have any issues with her spotting with a self buffed 108 spot. If i need that extra 5 or 10 because the numbers aren't consistantly in my corner, then I prefer to run close to them and allow the lesser distance give me that bonus rather than trying to crawl to them to whack em. Run to where you *think* they are at, and if you get close enough, they will appear visible (hopefully).

What ever happened to the 'You have been spotted' message that used to break your hiding? I remember the LA solars and a lot of mobs used to throw me out of sneak all the time. Now that message/functionality seems to have been removed. The best RP description that I had of it was that if you had a spotter in your group that saw you, he would basically yell 'Hey over there!' and you would get unstealthed. It was damn annoying and didn't work very fairly, which is why I assume it was removed.

[--Ashe--]

Ah the days of spotters ripping hiders out of hiding. Mobs used to do that to me all the time, was humorous actually.

[Alkapwn]

Glow- Wow! That is some good research! Yeah Avarice has keen sense and wis based spotter. I'm pretty sure the character sheet lies on what the actual spot is. It definitely shows over the +50 cap.

[Korr]

For bargeld, I want to say (not to start a he said she said) is that I have seen you run around corners to hide (hoping for a cover bonus Im assuming) against someone who has spotted you. I will agree you usually run compared to rehips (to be expected with 30 monk levels).

Youre statements are also slightly contradictory, first paragraph you says spamming hips is an engine exploit. Second paragraph you say that you use the game engine to your advantage, isnt that exploiting the game engine?

Thirdly, there is a HUGE difference between keen senses and non-keened senses. A non-keen gets a d10 (I believe, the post I think is somewhere in this thread) and only (again I think) 1/2 of spot skill unless they are stopped, in which they get to play like they are keen sensed. Rex according to the character sheet hits 116 spot and has problems spotting alot of people without using detect mode, unless his aasimar aura is up and they are in it (then its no contest, but what do you expect from -40 hide). Also as far as it goes once you see a hidden creature he MUST rehips inorder to be hidden again, hence the term "in plain sight" and not "CH = constant hidden".

I remember the days of you have been spotted, that could really blow you up bad as the hipser!!!

[Chernobyl_Glow]

Laufer, Really sorry if I implied that you Spam HiPs. You play fair and have always been fair and respectful to me. Thanks for that.

I was using Laufer as an example because he is so effective. I assume that its easy for you to not abuse the tactic since its pretty rare that you need to. But Really though, if you needed to, why shouldn't you? And who wouldn't in the excitement of a close call? The engine lets you have another shot so why not take it? And again you'll probably only have to do it one extra time. Maybe two extra if you're unlucky.

The thing I find odd about spotting HIPsers at a distance is that it never seems to happen close by (to me at least). Why would it work differently? I guess its because I'm standing still? and you're moving? I don't know. Again, my point of view is from what I guess you'd call a mediocre spotter. 99 Ain't supposed to see everything. But I'd expect to see you close 50% of the time. Which I know I don't. And like I said its never up close.

And again, when I see you at a distance and pursue, you disappear when I get close. Every time. Even with the Aasimar Aura... Is it because I've removed detect mode to catch up to you then we had a reroll? Why doesn't the Aura take effect. I've been really meaning to get with one of our HIPser to test it. Cause I'm really beginning to think that thing is worthless. And yet I tolerate all the blindness for thing?

Again I mean no Ill Respect to both of you. You've always been more than fair. Great opponents.

- Glow -

[Amoenotep]

your all cheaters....i know it, i can see into your dreams to know it.

[Bargeld]

No offense taken... i just wanded to clarify that I don't agree with 'spamming' hips and therefore don't use that tactic. I think that Korr's post shows my concern. In previous thread (and once after) I went into the detail about what exact 'spamming' hips is. Korr states that my claims are contradictory because I use a tactic that requires knowledge of how the game engine works. Korr is a knowledgable player and his misunderstanding of the term 'spamming hips' shows that it's very easy for terms to be thrown around incorrectly... even moreso by less knowledgable folx.

You can call it semanics, but 'Spamming' implies continually mashing your stealth key wihout skill or timing. Spamming hips would be similar to spamming knockdowns, the only difference is that spamming hips doesnt give you icons or a visible queue, whereas you can see the kd's line up in the queue. Running around and then clicking to stop yourself and stealthing one time then running for a round or more until the next shot (arrow, spell, etc.) comes and then repeating is NOT spamming. That is why there is no contradiction. Beside, as stated, spamming hips makes it so you lose track of whether you are in stealth mode or not. I find it annoying and distracting and I feel more effective by focusing on the combat and not the messages above my head.

Lastly, I run around corners to avoid ranged actions. Usually, I'm cornering to avoid the sd/wiz with a bigs or the zen cleric archer who can stand still.

[renarð]

When standing still you get a +5 bonus to hide, when the spotter is standing still it imposes a -5 that cancels out. If both are moving, or both are still is +0 in the stealthers favor.

However, once you spotted him and start moving (5 in his favor) and then he stops (5 more in his favor) you are essentially hosed.

Normally when moving you get half your skill and roll only a d10, thus to be moving and trying to spot/listen/search is a complete waste of time, what sd cant beat a roll of 70? This is why Korr's CoT sees SDs blink in and out sometimes when he's moving around (in addition to buggy blindness with aasamir aura) despite his great spot skill.

Keen senses allows you to keep your full skill and roll a d20 but does not prevent the swing of 5 in the stealthers favor (you are moving).

If you remain still (ie casting or archery or not doing anything at all) you are in {passive} detect mode and will roll full skill + d20 plus you get the swing of 5 in your favor (you are _not_ moving), even without having keen senses.

If you are in active detect mode (that thing you have on the hotbar) and moving (slowly =) you get full ranks + d20 but again the 5 in the stealthers favor if you are moving.


Standing still when you think you have been spotted is not spamming hips or abusing the engine because it is a tactic any stealthed character can use and to me seems very in character from a role playing perspective.

[disastro]

korr, spamming hips many times per round to break queue is considered an abusive game mechanic for reasons stated already. stopping motion to get the "you are not moving" bonus is also a game mechanic but is not considered abusive, as it works the same way for both the spotter and the hider. same for running around a corner.

just because they are both game mechanics does not mean they are both abusive (by that token you could say rolling d20 to hit is abusive, as it is also a game mechanic).

"No fish are dogs, and no dogs can fly, therefore all fish can fly." --syllogism fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmativ ... ve_premise

[Korr]

I took my share of philosophy, and your connection disastro is a bit off the mark.

My point was spamming hips is taking advantage of the game engine according to Bargeld (I agree).
Running and stopping then hitting hips to get +5 stealth, whereas it also stops the chaser but they do not get their +5 as immediately as the hipser would also fall under the category of taking advantage of the game engine.

The difficulty (lack of a better word) you all have with what Im saying is the extensiveness of it. 100 times vs once (spamming vs stop/hide). They are both taking advantage of the game engine, just the degree of spamming hips is WAY over the degree (that which is even possible) that one can stop/hide.


EDIT: That first post wasnt meant to be an attack on you Bargeld, just poor choice in words IMHO.

[Dazrield]

Hi all,

I'm rather new here, and been doing some reading as I enjoy playing SD's because I think they're fun. I have to tell ya, you guys know a heck of alot about getting the max out of things.. i was unaware of 1/2 the mechanics i've read here. My favorite build is Fighter/SD/WM, but that's nerfed here.. never was told it was overpowered on any other server.. just kinda fun.

I do know that Hips has been handy on getting away from lower and higher lvl chars trying to kill me, that alone was why I chose HIPS build. Bein new on the server getting hunted by players that have accesss to limitless equipment from mules and such.. i figured i atleast needed an escape method. Finally made it to lvl 28 and I've still yet to find a decent slashing armor(using the 10% stuff still), you guys give a fully stocked mule to every new player that joins the server.. and then we won't have need to hide.

So.. maybe some older chars are abusing it.. i'm sure they'd abuse something else instead if it were gone. All I know is i'm happy to be hiding from lower and higher lvl'd chars alike so i can save myself the run time as I tend to explore quite a bit on my own. Perhaps you say that 'oh, no xp loss, what's the big deal?'. Well, some of my explorations last a few hours, and I am exploring for no other reason that to see where the path leads. Kinda frustrating when it leads to where you started after 2 hours in and you really want to know where that door goes, but you have no idea how to get back there. And yes, perhaps I should be travelling in a group, but not many of my explorations provide xp, and I've only found 2 people that do enjoy exploring(perhaps everyone else has already seen it all).

-Daz