The Steath Mechanic
My friends have heard me rant about features that I've read about for Age of Conan. Sometimes it leads to conjecture, because in various interviews and forum postings it's hard to know what's just an "idea" in the minds of developers and what's an actual "design plan".
Stealth in Age of Conan has been described much like a passive ability, that it wouldn't be an ability to press to vanish and become invisible. Comparisons have been made directly to stealth in WoW, where it is like a magical invsibility power.
Recently though, this video clip from AoC @ Leipzig appears to show a stealth ability very similar to WoW's, with the Assassin disappearing at will. So what gives?
Funcom developer Jayde has replied within a forum posting:
- "
Just because one is attempting to stealth doesn't mean it's actually useful. Stealth doesn't work the same as WoW, and that's actually the "problem" here--as people are leaping to the conclusion that it does, and basing it off that perspective.
It's quite possible that in most cases, if someone was stealthing in the open areas of the playfield there, other people would still see them. Just because you are in stealth mode doesn't make you automatically a ninja--there are a lot of detection rolls going on in regard to the "light" level of where you are standing, your hiding skills, and the perception skills of the people around you.
You won't get "out of stealth" because people see you, but you do have an indicator (not sure if it was present in the demo version, though) as to if people can see you."
Okay, he's convinced me that it works differently than WoW, but it has lost some of the coolness factor for me.
I was under the impression that stealth would be a passive ability triggered by appropriate locations (IE: stepping into shadows or at least not in the open) and perhaps augmented by complimentary gear and related abilities. Instead, what is described is an ability that is actively clicked on and you MAY or may not *poof* disappear to others, although you'll appear stealthed to yourself regardless and must judge via an indicator how much you're seen.
Addtionally, Athelan chimed in with this:
- "
Everyone has access to stealth, in addition everyone has access to perception, this has always been this way, this means shockingly enough anyone can detect stealth players if they train the skill, the fact that the classes setup for Leipzig didnt have this does not mean this went away."What Jayde and Athelan describe sounds like something between WoW's stealth and the stealthing systems of Thief, Hitman and other FPS games.
Aug 29, 2007 12:38pm
This is my first look at real combat. It reminds me a lot of the duels outside of IF. A lot of circle-strafing and running around. One thing I like about the combat of WoW is that uncoordinated people like myself (meaning I can't run and fight at the same time very well) can still be productive and destructive enough to hold our own. I don't know if I can handle the intensity or complexity of the AoC combat system given what I've learned about how each swing of your sword is controlled by the user.
Aug 29, 2007 3:39pm
This is why they are redoing the combat system, during the beta so far people have complained that with controlling every swing it is too complex to make the combos. From what I've read, it seems they are basically macro'ing the combos into actions that can be clicked on.
One thing Sakkara and I have noticed from these videos is that there's a lot more targetting going on than we've previously seen. I'm not sure if that's part of the changes or these are just players that are targetting from habit of other games. PvP combat is also very different from PvE.
The demos at Leipzig are just two weeks into the redesign of the combat system, so a lot remains to be seen.
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