An Additional Detect Hidden Change is Needed to Balance

[kurtis]

Very recently, the following change was made:

• February 23rd, 2015 - Changed Detect Hidden so it reveals the skill user as well.

Okay, I guess I get it. People whined about stealth detectors that troll Destard or whatever (emphasis on the word "whine"). It's really not that big of an issue. But for the sake of argument let's assume it is a server-collapsing issue and the trolls will overtake Sosaria. If this recent change is to be kept, I think the detect hidden skill needs an additional balance change given how the mechanics currently work. Let me explain.

If you have GM Detect, and you're trying to reveal a character that has GM Hiding, you already fail quite a bit. I don't know the exact %, but I use my GM detect all of the time and I feel like it's about 50/50 (for the purpose of this post I'll just say 50% but I'll happily edit it if anyone knows the exact percentage) against someone with GM hiding. This is annoying since the skill has no other functional use. You are devoting 100 points for one purpose and one purpose only - to reveal hidden people. And now to go along with an already brutal fail rate, you reveal yourself too.

So you put 100 points in a skill and you have a 100% chance to reveal yourself and a 50% to reveal someone else with GM hiding? Wtf?? This seems like a back asswards way for a skill like that to work. And then even if they are revealed they can immediately re-hide, assuming the cooldown is up.

I don't understand why there is such a heavy advantage to the other person hidden. Again, we are devoting skill points for something that has no other use than to reveal people. Having a skill like detect instead of something else is a huge sacrifice, especially in PvP templates. It should provide an ultimate advantage against hiders.

So I propose that if this recent change be kept, then GM Detect should have a 100% chance to reveal a hidden character, regardless of their hiding skill.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Promyvia]

I didn't understand this change either and kurtis has brought up points that I didn't even know, I guess I assumed GM Detect meant a 100% success rate. And if someone can immediately just hide again after being detected... I dunno, it feels as if this skill was removed from the game rather than nerfed. It's hard to offer any feedback though since we don't know what the real reasoning was behind it. IMO when you detect someone, even if they aren't hidden, they shouldn't be able to hide or invis for a short time.

 

[wreckognize]

+1 agreed
and bonus points for the long-windedness

 

[Budcookie]

So i wasted 200 points on hiding and stealth and you can shut them both down 50 percent of the time with ONE skill, and you are whining? Emphasis on the whining.

 

[hoodfigure]

This change is interesting. I like it. If you are using detect hidden, and you are hiding yourself then you are a griefer that doesn't want to be seen on screen. Enough said.

 

[kurtis]

So i wasted 200 points on hiding and stealth and you can shut them both down 50 percent of the time with ONE skill, and you are whining? Emphasis on the whining.

Aww, is someone's feewings hurt? *sniff* *sniff*

The thing about hiding and stealth is that it has a range of usefulness in so many different scenarios. It's useful crawling through dungeons, in RDA's, at champs, IDOC's, as a stealth PKer, setting up thefts, escaping thefts, the list goes on.

But the usefulness of detect hidden is just to reveal people. It's a skill that comes into play only rarely. But when it does, it should do it's job and not be less effective than casting the Reveal spell (which reveals with 100% success rate).

By your rationale, I assume you'd want the reveal spell to fail revealing people too? After all, you don't even need GM Magery to cast reveal. You could put 75 points in Magery and counter 200 points in hiding and stealth.

 

[kurtis]

This change is interesting. I like it. If you are using detect hidden, and you are hiding yourself then you are a griefer that doesn't want to be seen on screen. Enough said.

That's not true at all. In fact, it's normally the opposite. it's usually the person with stealth and hiding that's the griefer and the person with detect is trying to safely reveal them. I saw this very instance last night when a stealther was trying to grief the bard table.

 

[King Dingaling]

did this change really happen??

i hope not, it completely nerfed any thief build that tracks people for their targets. and whats the reasoning for it...? so that person can see who revealed them? big fuckin deal... guess i won't be playing my thief anymore...this is bullshit.

any more changes these cry babies need so it furthermore will just erase all thieves as a whole?

 

[God.RG]

yea this is another blow to the thief playstyle too.

 

[SidX]

1. Anyone who agrees with this change does not play a thief and simply thinks thieves are nothing but griefers.. ten for ten.

2. Anyone who disagrees with this change has used Detect Hidden and seen that it is actually a beneficial skill. Well, was* before this.

I have a thread up in the Bug Reports forum about it from before the change was announced but was made active: http://www.uoforum.com/threads/using-detect-while-hidden-reveals-yourself.54324/page-2#post-358213

And no I'm not whining, nor are other thieves.. anyone who say we're whining or crying needs to pull their balls out of their throat and realize that people play the thief class because it's what interests them. We have our template, you have yours. I don't understand 90% of the shit everyone complains about in templates I don't play, so i find it really hard for anyone to justify this change unless you were simply annoyed by thieves and think they are just griefers.

I can agree with part of this change but it should have been more thought out... for example, a GM Detect Hidden should not reveal themselves. It could be skill-based on a 100-scale.. so basically:

If your Detect Hidden is 0.1, you have a 99.9% of revealing yourself if hidden
If your Detect Hidden is 20.0, you have a 80.0% chance of revealing yourself if hidden
If your Detect Hidden is 90.0, you have a 10.0% chance of revealing yourself if hidden
If your Detect Hidden is 100.0, you have a 0.0% chance of revealing yourself if hidden

It makes perfect sense, adds balance, and forces you to get GM Detect if you really want to stay hidden. Having the same chance of revealing myself with 0.1 Detect as I do with 100.0 is stupid.

P.S. Kurtis hit the nail on the head in the OP... why do players with 100.0 Hiding and 100.0 Detect Hidden detect themselves 100% of the time, but not other players? ...just proves the point more that this change was not thought through enough.

 

[Sommerella]

1. Anyone who agrees with this change does not play a thief and simply thinks thieves are nothing but griefers.. ten for ten.

2. Anyone who disagrees with this change has used Detect Hidden and seen that it is actually a beneficial skill. Well, was* before this.

I have a thread up in the Bug Reports forum about it from before the change was announced but was made active: http://www.uoforum.com/threads/using-detect-while-hidden-reveals-yourself.54324/page-2#post-358213

And no I'm not whining, nor are other thieves.. anyone who say we're whining or crying needs to pull their balls out of their throat and realize that people play the thief class because it's what interests them. We have our template, you have yours. I don't understand 90% of the shit everyone complains about in templates I don't play, so i find it really hard for anyone to justify this change unless you were simply annoyed by thieves and think they are just griefers.

I can agree with part of this change but it should have been more thought out... for example, a GM Detect Hidden should not reveal themselves. It could be skill-based on a 100-scale.. so basically:

If your Detect Hidden is 0.1, you have a 99.9% of revealing yourself if hidden
If your Detect Hidden is 20.0, you have a 80.0% chance of revealing yourself if hidden
If your Detect Hidden is 90.0, you have a 10.0% chance of revealing yourself if hidden
If your Detect Hidden is 100.0, you have a 0.0% chance of revealing yourself if hidden

^^^^^^^^^

 

[King Dingaling]

perfect balance sidx...

the real problem people ***** about (which i agree with) is being able to reveal without actually having the skill.

 

[SidX]

perfect balance sidx...

the real problem people ***** about (which i agree with) is being able to reveal without actually having the skill.

This I do agree with. Your chance should be based solely on skill. 0.0 Detect has a 0% chance of revealing. 50.0 Detect has a 50% chance. This is literally the simplest skill I think there is to balance so it's hard to see why it's so difficult to understand.

 

[kurtis]

1. Anyone who agrees with this change does not play a thief and simply thinks thieves are nothing but griefers.. ten for ten.

2. Anyone who disagrees with this change has used Detect Hidden and seen that it is actually a beneficial skill. Well, was* before this.

I have a thread up in the Bug Reports forum about it from before the change was announced but was made active: http://www.uoforum.com/threads/using-detect-while-hidden-reveals-yourself.54324/page-2#post-358213

And no I'm not whining, nor are other thieves.. anyone who say we're whining or crying needs to pull their balls out of their throat and realize that people play the thief class because it's what interests them. We have our template, you have yours. I don't understand 90% of the shit everyone complains about in templates I don't play, so i find it really hard for anyone to justify this change unless you were simply annoyed by thieves and think they are just griefers.

I can agree with part of this change but it should have been more thought out... for example, a GM Detect Hidden should not reveal themselves. It could be skill-based on a 100-scale.. so basically:

If your Detect Hidden is 0.1, you have a 99.9% of revealing yourself if hidden
If your Detect Hidden is 20.0, you have a 80.0% chance of revealing yourself if hidden
If your Detect Hidden is 90.0, you have a 10.0% chance of revealing yourself if hidden
If your Detect Hidden is 100.0, you have a 0.0% chance of revealing yourself if hidden

It makes perfect sense, adds balance, and forces you to get GM Detect if you really want to stay hidden. Having the same chance of revealing myself with 0.1 Detect as I do with 100.0 is stupid.

P.S. Kurtis hit the nail on the head in the OP... why do players with 100.0 Hiding and 100.0 Detect Hidden detect themselves 100% of the time, but not other players? ...just proves the point more that this change was not thought through enough.

Yes. When I proposed my suggestion it was under the assumption that they would not change it back. But I would much rather see something like what you suggested.

 

[Sommerella]

This I do agree with. Your chance should be based solely on skill. 0.0 Detect has a 0% chance of revealing. 50.0 Detect has a 50% chance. This is literally the simplest skill I think there is to balance so it's hard to see why it's so difficult to understand.

You'd think the complaint would be about tracking. With gm tracking you can track clear into other dungeons. And I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that you have a good chance to track with 0.00 and in my opinion being tracked can be the most annoying thing out there. You have to recall out to get someone to lose their quarry. That's not always an option so your left trying to escape their grasp until heat of battle or whatever else is preventing you from leaving.

Don't confuse that paragraph as a complaint. I don't think tracking needs messed with either. But most times in order to even know where to detect hidden you use tracking first.

This all seems very ass backwards.

Now that the rogue type stuff is getting nerfed, there is going to be an uprise of disarm thieves. So now that gen pop is going to be complaining about all the "aggressive" "no risk" "runners" thieving, something in that template will get cracked.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, now that I can't crawl effectively anymore. I'm just going to snag your shit out in the open, right out if your hands more often.

Who still needs some vanqs for their talisman?
I'll be taking orders.

 

[wreckognize]

1. Anyone who agrees with this change does not play a thief and simply thinks thieves are nothing but griefers.. ten for ten.

conjecture.

2. Anyone who disagrees with this change has used Detect Hidden and seen that it is actually a beneficial skill. Well, was* before this.

conjecture.

And no I'm not whining

Arguable..

Detect hidden was OP for a stealther. Now it's fixed and almost completely balanced.

What I think needs to happen is that detect should no longer be targeted, but automatically be targeted on self when the skill is used.

Also, detect should be brought down to 8 tiles range, and the cooldown should match hiding as well, 10 seconds or whatever it actually is.

This balances out hiding and detect, 100 skill points for 100 skill points

and also tracking 100 points meets up with stealth 100 points. I think tracking range (for players) should be brought down to 10 tiles to match with the 10 steps you can walk in that same amount of time.

EDIT* also please reduce the range of the reveal spell

 

[King Dingaling]

well somerella, u have a point about tracking. it tracks too far..and that goes both ways. i hate following that arrow 47 tiles only to find its leading me to another level of a dungeon. they should bring it down to 50 tiles... or at least keep it in the same level of a dungeon.

10 is just way too low. hell, you can see 10 tiles on the screen so why would u use tracking for that?

i just don't see the reasoning to change it to where it reveals you. its clearly pointed directly at thieves...

or how about...if your not 100 in detect hidden, then it unhides you...? or maybe a combination...like 100 detect + 100 hiding = 0 chance of being revealed...?

 

[Sommerella]

well somerella, u have a point about tracking. it tracks too far..and that goes both ways. i hate following that arrow 47 tiles only to find its leading me to another level of a dungeon. they should bring it down to 50 tiles... or at least keep it in the same level of a dungeon.

10 is just way too low. hell, you can see 10 tiles on the screen so why would u use tracking for that?

i just don't see the reasoning to change it to where it reveals you. its clearly pointed directly at thieves...

or how about...if your not 100 in detect hidden, then it unhides you...? or maybe a combination...like 100 detect + 100 hiding = 0 chance of being revealed...?

Well I'd say it's fine the way that it is, BC that's kind of what keeps the balance for everyone.
Example being, Yea sometimes you can track someone straight to the back of the dungeon and successfully steal or pull off whatever it is your trying to pull off.

Other times you choose the wrong person to track all the way (while stealthing, a painstakingly slow walk through all those tiles) to what ends up being the wall where you can then figure "well shit, wrong dungeon".
And in the time your tracking the wrong person, anybody with worth while stuff, has either already left to bank, or left that spot completely.

So I'm absolutely fine with how it is, BC its kind of a gamble when I choose which player to stalk. And I also am OK with letting people slide through and evading me BC I chose wrong. I pvm and farm too, I see both sides of the spectrum. Sometimes someone gets the best of me and vise versa. So in my opinion, tracking is fine.

 

[Budcookie]

Aww, is someone's feewings hurt? *sniff* *sniff*

The thing about hiding and stealth is that it has a range of usefulness in so many different scenarios. It's useful crawling through dungeons, in RDA's, at champs, IDOC's, as a stealth PKer, setting up thefts, escaping thefts, the list goes on.

But the usefulness of detect hidden is just to reveal people. It's a skill that comes into play only rarely. But when it does, it should do it's job and not be less effective than casting the Reveal spell (which reveals with 100% success rate).

By your rationale, I assume you'd want the reveal spell to fail revealing people too? After all, you don't even need GM Magery to cast reveal. You could put 75 points in Magery and counter 200 points in hiding and stealth.

So i guess the reveal spell, as its sole purpose is to reveal, should not reveal you?? If i am stealthing through anywhere, and suddenly i am revealed, i should at least get a glance of who revealed me. How do you get to get to nullify my gm stealthing with no repercussions at all, and god forbid you are tracking me with 0 tracking, so now you shut down two gm skills with one skill, still makes no sense.

 

[wreckognize]

hell, you can see 10 tiles on the screen so why would u use tracking for that?

At first when you use tracking, the person you're trying to track needs to be in 10 tiles. Once you have them on tracking, they can walk like 3 times that far away and still have an arrow on them.

To add to my list of suggested balance fixes, I'd like to add a reduction to the range of reveal spell to coincide with the other suggested fixes.