Release Note discussion!

[wizturbo]

Stealth code shouldn’t work in hallways or apartments.  Make them no hide.  Problems solved.  Can still burglar but you’re taking more risk.

[Armaddict]

I don't know why hiding in apartments would be so hard...

Hallways already have a very very significant penalty to them, though it's likely some were missed/not included.  Again...I think there should be a way to bar the door from inside.  If you don't sleep in your apartment, well...you don't bar the door.  Most of the time, it means you're going to be online when you get burgled.

[Fredd]

I don't know why hiding in apartments would be so hard...

Hallways already have a very very significant penalty to them, though it's likely some were missed/not included.  Again...I think there should be a way to bar the door from inside.  If you don't sleep in your apartment, well...you don't bar the door.  Most of the time, it means you're going to be online when you get burgled.

I do think the hall penalty should be increased a bit. I am 100000000000% in favour of a stealth tye being able t train their abilities enough to do near-supernatural stuff. Some of my favourite book series had assassins and thieves that were like this (Shanara had an amazing assassin that got stronger by looking into people eyes when they die and would do stuff like this.) But it is a little to easy to get to that level of skill IMHO. But then again, i don't know what the DC of therolls are in the first plac,e so I could be wrong. Jus my feeling from playing so any stealthies over the years (as my favourite thing to play, followed by Rukkians)

[th3kaiser]

I don't really have a dog in this fight as I've not seen this be a problem (have avoided Nak for a while) but have we considered if this is such a big deal why not just increase all stealth skill gains to be like weapon skills. That'd do it right there. No more throwaway miscreants you can stealth max in a couple days of play.

[HeeBeeGB]

I think stealth just needs to be less binary. You should be able to break stealth with scan and with listen, maybe even be able to 'watch shadow' which puts you on alert for people sneaking around, at a large penalty to your stun.

Part of the issue is how binary the code is. If I don't have skinning, and I have a pile of bone lengths, I can't for the life of me figure out how to separate them into short and long lengths. Similarly, if someone is sneaking around like a ninja, if my PC does not have scan (but has listen), I will never be able to find that sneaky person. The fact that Invisibility is just as easily seen by someone with (master) scan as someone who is hiding points out something is a bit off to me.

I would say Stealth Code is one of the last bastions of old DIKU code that I would love to see updated to be more realistic for both sides.

For instance, they were working on hiding in barrels/crates/chests for Armageddon Reborn. That would be a nice route to take for hiding in general -- Finding objects to hide in or behind, or having to 'hide crowd' for the city rooms. Adding 'search' to all  characters, and it allows them to search the room for hiding spots. So on a crowded street, you might see a 'pavilion' object, and you can 'hide pavilion' to hide behind it. Or, there might be a half-giant soldier you can attempt to hide behind, which only masters would be able to pull off. There could be modifiers added that make it harder or easier to hide. 'hide in barrel' as opposed to 'hide behind barrel', or 'hide behind pavilion' versus 'hide above pavilion'. Climb and Sneak could come into play as modifiers for perceived success.

On the converse, if someone thinks someone is hiding in a person's chest of drawers in their apartment, they can 'search chest' and see if there is a person in it, or behind it, or above it, or below it. They could search the room for shadows (search room), and depending on their listen/scan/search skill, it will yield something or nothing. Perhaps add a timer to the search skill with a specific object or room, so if someone searched it already, they can't do so again for X amount of time. Allowing both sides to utilize 'search' in this fashion I think is a win for both sides.

[KittenLicks]

I don't think staff will ever implement something requiring that much work (I mean, why would they? Stealth is neat, but it's probably not a big enough problem to warrant a multi-month long project) but that's a really damn cool idea.

Armageddon has a bunch of furniture objects already. Throw a steep penalty on hiding without a crowd, and allow hide <furniture> and search <furniture> to reach that level of "i'm invisible" everyone gets now. Make it a game of soldiers upturning every table in the tavern trying to find an elf, and the elf trying to find the least conspicuous hiding place. Bonus points if the search skill plays into it, so it has an actual use.

Heck, it even encourages hiding people to think about how they're hiding, which the current code actively discourages, since you can't 'change ldesc' while hidden. Forum kudos to you, HeeBeeGB.

[CodeMaster]

Not sure if I still count as discussing the release notes, and I'm not currently very active, but I'll add that stealth has seen power inflation over the years while becoming more featureful.

1. The sleight of hand skill used to not exist, so when you opened a door or drew a weapon such as from a knife belt, everyone would see it happen... and you'd break hide! This made hidden people easier to keep tabs on, and made hidden people who forgot to draw a weapon more vulnerable.  And if you _did_ remember to draw your weapon, you made yourself fair game for the militia.

2. These days new PCs start with higher skills, such as languages (city elves and dwarves could barely speak sirihish!) and contact in particular.  Using the Way while standing used to be extremely risky for non-veteran PCs.  Now it's not, and you can do it while hidden.

3. Subguilds were added, which enabled mixed indoor/outdoor stealth characters.  The new classes were added, which also creates many cool stealth options with fewer sacrifices.  (City stealth used to force you to choose between pickpocket, burglar, and assassin, all of which were specialized and fragile early on.)

4. The biggest one: it used to be that you couldn't move while hidden unless you were shadowing someone.  If you wanted to be undetectable, that meant you had to team up with someone to take point, or shadow one PC to the next in the hopes that they'd bring you where you wanted to be.  It made sneak/hide a little less binary, and rewarded learning people's routines (and these days there are NPCs with routines).

I'd be inclined to revisit 4 as an easy way to nerf stealth a bit -- make it so that moving inside a city breaks hide.

[Armaddict]

4. The biggest one: it used to be that you couldn't move while hidden unless you were shadowing someone.  If you wanted to be undetectable, that meant you had to team up with someone to take point, or shadow one PC to the next in the hopes that they'd bring you where you wanted to be.  It made sneak/hide a little less binary, and rewarded learning people's routines (and these days there are NPCs with routines).

Over time I've suggested a few things for stealth, this is probably the 'easiest' thing.  If nothing else, it made it so that people being watchful could actually spot stealthy people entering the room...it wasn't a -notice- from the game, but when you were paranoid, well...you saw more things.

I played stealthies far more than anything else.  I don't really agree that it's -overpowered- or anything, because of just how dependent you are on it in pretty much every scenario to just avoid death.  But I don't like the way it functions in particular relation to more casual use...being able to just walk around the whole city without ever coming out of hiding is ridiculous.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Would reducing the scan/watch/listen of NPCs be beneficial? One of the main reasons to twink stealth is to get around soldiers if you're wanted. This means the only way to get +jman is to sneak around PCs with high Scan/listen/watch. Meaning there will be far fewer twink stealths. This is a variation of the combat strategy as its now nigh impossible to get advanced weapons skills through normal means from anything in the game naturally. It's reliant more on other players than animals and gith. This would slow down the skill gain and SHOULD add more risk to sneaky petes.