Shadow so stronk

[Vox]

Have talked about shadow as one of the main problems with stealth for a long time.

I think 'shadow' should keep you a certain number of rooms behind, set by the shadower.  I like the 'shadow/watch' forced combination in tandem with this.

i.e. Shadow 3, you are staying 3 rooms behind, you have them watched.  You're unlikely to glean so much information from them at this distance, but you also suffer no penalties to your stealth.  This is extremely low risk, casual shadowing (there is casual shadowing in the game for serious information-gathering stealthies).
    Shadow 2, you are closer.  You have them watched.  You're still not likely to glean much information, but you're closer and able to react to their behavior more readily.  Penalties are not large at this distance, at all.
    Shadow 1, you are one room away.  You have then watched.  You're in listen range for conversation.  You're able to move up and advance on them quickly, but if they go through a door you'll be left outside.  Penalties are not drastic here, but someone with max scan vs your max-hide would likely be able to spot you.
    Shadow, you are keeping tight on their position.  Close enough that you can overhear whispers.  Close enough that if they duck into a doorway, you're planning on going in with them.  It's important for you to keep close, and thus, you suffer penalties to sneak and hide.

With a set up like this, not much changes aside from that it becomes very risky to just sit there and follow people around.  At some point, if you're careless, you will get discovered, and so falling back and moving in as pertinent to what you need is more important than just typing in a single command.

While I wouldn't need the above exactly, what I am looking for is for stealth to remain powerful for those who depend on it.  The dependence on stealth is just so high, for certain classes doing certain roles, particularly with the playerbase being so averse to the stealthy classes; people do everything they can to foil a stealthy, due to how stealth works.  At the same time, I want it to be a dynamic, interactive relationship between stealthy and non-stealthy.  The stealth game should not be one command and you're good to go.  Make it so that a shadow target going around a corner requires you to move up to that corner manually before the shadow starts again.  Make it active cat and mouse and predator and prey and predator-becomes-prey situations.

All in all, I think stealth as a whole needs some revamps, but not nerfs.  Just things that make it far more interesting to use.  Shadow is the best place to start with it, if we're willing to get creative and start building up a more elaborate system.

This is brilliant and well-stated. I love all of this.
Armaddict is my new spirit animal.

[Riev]

I like the idea in theory, in practice there's a lot more to a successful disguise than a patch or a pair of armbands, and it would cause those single items to become unreasonably powerful.

True, but irrelevant, I can go get clanned Salarr today and walk into all the gates wearing nothing. It's a purely ooc concept of magickal clan involvement that works those gates.  It would make more sense to have a password then it would for someone to clan me and instantly every stronghold in the known of that clan knows I'm cool.

To get clanned you have to actually interact with members of said clan. In the "magic patch" scenario all you have to do is find a dead body.

So? It would make people in clans actually interact with each other more.

Hey who is that guy? I've seen him a few times but I never heard about a new hire...

Lock the door, draw weapon, who are you and who hired you... Fun ensues.

The idea of clan gear is an interesting one, but what happens when you link it to just a Byn aba you found? No patch, no sleeves, just some guy.

I'm all for the gate guards not knowing everybody, because sneaking into a compound should be RELATIVELY as simple as attaining the LOOK of one of their people, nodding to the guard and walking in like no problem. The only reason you'd REALLY be found out, is if you're out of routine/schedule or caught doing something stupid. Because if a PC says "Hey I havn't seen you around before", there are HUNDREDS of virtual hunters you probably havn't seen before.

That said, I don't know HOW that could be balanced out so that people aren't just ultra-hiding into compounds and noble mansions. Maybe make it based on clothing, and a legitimate "disguise" skill like people are always asking for? If you pass your disguise check, you're seen as that clan temporarily? Or, even better, if you found a Militia dustcloak, you're seen as "the something something tressed soldier" for <x> minutes?

[Vwest]

I've never had a lot of success getting 'shadow' to work properly.

So, I always 'shadow' people by manually following them in stealth and in the case of people with longer strides, it usually means a parkour through an alley, across or a roof or breaking into a run to down a different street to get in front of them, so I can resume keeping pace.

I've had a pile of people do the 'shadow into apartment' routine and honestly, there should be some kind of room-to-room watch check to spot someone shadowing you. There should be a major check when attempting to pass through a door behind someone, too. You would have to do some meandering, wide swung turns for someone to duck into a door behind you without your noticing.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

I started a different thread for the clan gate idea because I think the Shadow discussion has been very good, and don't want to see the mods lock it for a few off-topic comments. :/

Anyways, I'm not really for that whole shadow 1 - 3 thing. It comes down to how you define a room. In a crowded bazaar or barroom, I should not suffer a penalty for being relatively close to my target. The place is packed to the gills. Even on a busy city street, I should be able to stick to my pray at a distance of 50-100 feet with out much of a problem. In a hallway or cramped alley or whatever, it makes less sense that I would be able to stick so close, but even then I feel like the implication is that I'm hanging out near the alley entrance waiting for them to go further down and round a corner. Or I'm slinking from garbage heap to garbage heap to stay concealed.  Being in a room with a person doesn't necessarily mean you're near them at all.

[Vox]

Being in a room with a person doesn't necessarily mean you're near them at all.

This is an excellent point.

Again I think this may just be a matter of using imagination and clever hemotes to tell the full story rather than relying on even more robust code.

[Armaddict]

Oh, like I said, it doesn't need to be that kind of exact thing.  More just an example of how stealth could be modified to make it more of a decision making process and risk-weighted endeavor.  It would make it still reliable and useful for the stealthy, but not so fail-safe that you don't have to be on your toes and paying attention.  Right now, the only downside is really if you're shadowing someone and get distracted, ending up following into a no-hide room or penalized-hide room without being told, or even worse, suffering movement lag behind a slightly faster-paced individual and getting caught in environs that are no longer stealthable for you.