I'd like to start by saying that I'm highly against the idea of a MMO Elder scrolls... I think it would have suited better for small group/co-op play if anything.

That being said, I'm still willing to give it a try. No judgement is fair with out at least trying it first... However, a make or break element for me will be Stealth...

SO!

Do we have any word on what stealth gameplay will be like?


What i mean by that is, yes i read it will be in, but do we know what shape it'll take? Stealth, in an MMO (which is why i'm against MMO TES to begin with) is excruciatingly difficult to balance... The reason being that nobody like to just get popped out of nowhere. Problems that arrive are damage issues (where the stealthy just isnt a threat), exceedingly poor integration (see Planetside 2 infiltrators), Poor utility/application or, in the event of none of the above are usually issues, it being over powered...

Now lets discuss this... (skip if wana TL:DR)

One issue is how it will be conducted. As i said, no one likes getting blown away out of nowhere. Well, thats exactly what stealthies try to do to you. Frequently, the counter balance has been level of player skill required, and is usually ended up as seen being over powered because of the people who dedicate to this gameplay and master it, even when its a small % thats causing the grief. Games like rift put too much weight on the "element of surprise" in which case the classes could never deal the damage they needed to to be a lethal threat in PVP, and subsequently crippling their PVE abilities while at the same time. Other games barely over shoot their lethality and end up making them over powered, ontop of the advantage of stealth.

The OTHER issue is how it will be presented. The elder scrolls a game that owes better than the super artificial idea of just "vanish into nowhere" style that most MMO's will play. However, that said, theres the issue that is also unfortunatly the most effective way to do it. Other concepts are that such as Crysis, Battlefield 2142 or Planetside style cloaking, where it turns you into a semi-transparent ghost thing. Well, more like a walking glass man in the case of PS2, which is the main issue. Its just ineffective, nor does it fit within the scheme of TES to just have every one turn glassy while stealthed, as chameleon is an existing spell/ability reserved for magic users and speaks nothing for the actual stealth skill. This is not to mention that this chameleon effect is not only in most cases INeffective, but is sometimes worse (again, reference planetside 2 for effect. The cloak used a shader that would create moving distortions of what was behind the character, actually making them more visible in some cases...)

The last method of stealth is just to hide in dark corners, on roofs, and under cover with no additional effect what so ever. This has been the traditional method of the more recent TES games, and is the most fitting for the TES environment... This works fantastic in games such as Theif and Dishonored, where the "detection" value can be pseudo realistically calculated. Unfortunately, this is almost completely null and void in a multiplayer environment... People have a very acute ability to see and detect things that are still plainly visible and have no peripheral vision. Not only that, but games create unnatural habits and scanning techniques that dont mesh will with "in the shadows" style stealth, such as the fact that a player is always alert, and are constantly aware that they are in a hostile environment. The few instances this WOULD work, are those where foliage creates enough of a blind to truly hide ones character, but what to do when theres nothing to hide behind? Such as a cave, where you have rocks and shadows that could normally hide you in most games, but no outline obscuring cover. On top of the fact that players, again, will unrealistically start stabbing at every known spot where hiding can occur in these instances, or turn up contrast/gamma to counter dark environments.

Players also have no "peripheral" where detection of details is limited. Our PoV in games is 100% clear, no matter where your looking at. So again, the concept of hiding in shadows isnt a working technique because we can notice everything on our screen at once, making the only way to do a stealth approach is from 100% outside the field of view, of which players can (again unnaturally) constantly scan around with high clarity and little-no re focus time to their eyes. This is again all easily simulated and made fun in a single player aspect, but not so when you involve intelligent players... Its worth repeating that this is again due to the heightened state of alert that gamers will always have. In real life, we relax our senses and our level of alert drops, making it easy to slip by un noticed in many predictable situations... In video games, were always alert, scanning, processing everything thats going on. There realistically isnt a drop or lull in this state that would be great enough that people would consistently pass over a hidden threat. In short, were here for the action, and were looking for it.



In closing, the big problem with balancing stealth, is that stealth is inherently UNbalanced... Stealth its self lends virtually nothing to the actual impact of combat online while involving actual players beyond the initial opening with the element of surprise, which is rarely more than a second or two. That being said you STILL have the ability to appear out of nowhere. So when a stealth character is effective enough to be able to actually fight and win reliably, then the inherent ability to appear out of nowhere makes them seem over powered since they can both choose their fights, AND still win most encoutners. However, if the stealth character is unable to successfully fight and win in combat, then the stealth/element of surprise was useless to begin with since the end result is still failure. These traits result in a very black and white scenario, with an extremely thin grey line that is virtually impossible to maintain. How do you make stealth effective, with out crippling the users ability in combat, while all at the same time, making them not seem/feel over powered?

Stealth in terms of combat is always about gaining the opening strike, after that you are more or less a melee (or ranged if thats your thing) class like any other. I see the game balance being all around 'that' opening strike and making sure once the thief (lets call them that) is out of stealth they aren't completely useless.

I know that every class in ESO will have a stealth ability, I would imagine the thief type will obviously have better usage - longer stealth periods, can move around freely, less detection from a certain range etc. other tricks up there sleeve, vanish, etc. Not unlike a Rogue in WoW. I also believe the stealth character will become transparent for the user and the party but completely invisible to an enemy. Still, anything here is just a guess as we simply don't know many details as yet.

I think this is a great topic however, I can't remember hearing or reading anything about stealth except that every player will be able to use it potentially.

Also, as far as surprise attacks go, stealth in my experience playing online games is synonymous with ganking. Specifically players who are doing mundane tasks and not on high alert. Being that other Alliance's zones are inaccessible to enemy players -- I don't see a great deal of very effective stealth being used heavily and consistently outside of PvE.

But, I could be totally wrong. We just have to wait and see.

I assume it'll be more a long the lines of the Hide-in-plain-sight deal that we see in a lot of MMO's. At least for a duration to get that opening strike.