If this game is going to be focused around PvP I'm not sure how it will be useful/effective. Any ideas?

Well, shoot while in sneak gives extra dmg, while sneak you are invisable unless they spot you (it should be dependent on the enemies perception).

Sneak breaks when you shoot, but won't break if you are stealing or healing or anything like that.

You cannot run while in sneakmode.

Guards who see you sneak in towns should get suspicious and try to break it by walking up to you and kick you in the butt or something xD

Errs and lots of other stuff i guess xD Well, if there is a sneakstat then sneak should be affected by that, agility AND the weight in your inventory (maybe boots as well? im thinking oblivion here )

Idk I had invisibility in mind but then I was thinking it could be OP but i guess you could do it like in wow where you slow down a lot and if someone has a high perception or maybe some kind of item that allows you to see sneak people then they will be able to spot you, I also like the idea of the boots/inventory weight affecting your ability to sneak

Well, since all we know about the game so far is that it's going to be in the fallout universe and that children are not target able, that's pretty hard to tell.

I would for once like to see a stealth system that actually works however... still haven't seen that too many times in computer games. But of course, this is not something that's easy to do right.

stealth is one of the fallout universe gameplay mechanics that works well in a single player setting, but may not translate very well to massively multiplayer.

you'll likely see quite a few core gameplay elements or mechanics not represented the same way in pv13 as in the original games -- they just won't translate that well from single player.

VATS for instance, would be very difficult to port over as-is -- even the pause-and-target method used in F3 wouldn't work in a real-time setting like pv13.

SPECIAL & skills & tags should probably work just fine, if SPECIAL ends up being the bones over which many results are calculated... virtual dice rolls are easy enough to do in an MMO.

If they add sneak it will probably be a very complex system.

Becuase it should be based on perception, like alwaus. Anyone who has their back against someone in sneakmode would not be able to see them if they failed a very hard perception test. Sneakers at the sides of the player, you would need a hard perception test. And sneakers in the front of you, you should probably have a normal, or maybe even easy perception roll.

On top of this, the sneakers sneak skill would also effect how easy or hard it is to see you. Not to mention how you should deal with what happends if one person see you. Woudl that mean everybody see you, bringing you out of stealth, or just the person who who saw you see's you.

Sneak is one of those things that is always hard to impliment right in any kind of mmo.

Stealth Boy.

Even if sneak is in the game it may not be (as in other games) makes you invisible. However a Stealth Boy can solve that. ;]

"Z"

I'd like it if the sneak skill would simply be the amount of noise you make that gives away your location, like it does now.

Stealthboys however are a different thing. I think best would be to allow a feint shadow/figure to be spotable if you look closely and which also is even easier to detect when the user moves, making stealthing up to someone challanging, having to stand still if you're in the other player his LoS to (hopefully) avoid detection, and the freedom to move when you're not.

I also think that the sneak skill should be a nessecity for proper use of stealthboys so the sounds won't give you away.

Stealth should definitively in the game, I don't see any other way how Melee's could have the advantage of getting close to their targets without recieving 10 headshots before they reach their target.

On the other hand for any type of ranged having a Melee stand on top of you is insanely dangerous and could result in a swift death. Hence I think stealthboy sneaking should be something that would actually require some player effort instead of just turning the stealthboy on and then walking up to your target. Frank "Not even cockroaches kill their own species Fred".
Fred "Well Frank, Cockroaches can't carry guns, now can they".

If Stealth Boys are to ever be utilize then I'm sure some sort of apparition distortion is slightly visible to other players who pay well attention to provide some balance...

If Stealth Boys are to ever be utilize then I'm sure some sort of apparition distortion is slightly visible to other players who pay well attention to provide some balance...

with other words, those who have high Perception.

I agree on use of the Stealth boy to help the sneak skill in a mulitplayer environment. Sneak would reduce amount of noise made, and how effective your cloaking field is. Maybe suppressor perks for those with high sneak. Assassination/Mr. Sandman like perks would be nice too.

Players with 0-20 sneak my find it only renders them opaque, still visible, but if standing off in the distance, would be enough to go unnoticed.
21-40 may get a more active camouflage from it allowing them to blend in with surroundings easier.
41-60 begin to fade out, but noticeably blurring in and out of sight, especially during heavy movement.
61-80 would be well hidden, with the predator-like wavey aura being their give away.
81-99 being completely hidden, medium to heavy movement being the only disturbance in their cloaking field.
100 - Perfect cloaking, unhindered by pace of movement during sneak mode.

Attacking would remove the cloaking field and disengage sneak. You would need to wait a few seconds while your stealth boy recalibrates and remain unharmed in order to get back into stealth. Any damage done to you will knock your stealth boy offline. Concussive effects from heavy explosions (even if unharmed), EMPs, pulse grenades will remove your cloak as well.

...How does that sound ?

If Stealth Boys are to ever be utilize then I'm sure some sort of apparition distortion is slightly visible to other players who pay well attention to provide some balance...

with other words, those who have high Perception.
Well, yes. ;] Invisible does not mean you are untraceable. Also I picture Stealth Boys looks like the Predator's cloaking. If you see them it looks like a fluid thing is standing there. It is because the device is bending light around the wearer.

Why not allow sneak?

The client would recieve information telling you if you could see them or not.

Some individuals due to skills and Perception stat levels might see an individual sneaking where others in teh same area would not.

Then if an area attack effected the sneaking invdividual, a person that could see the sneaker, and/or the sneaker speaks, then the players that could not see the sneaker would/could possibly now see them.

I don't understand why some individuals think that sneak would not work in a MMO.

Dave Chase

It would actually be pretty awesome if the survivalist skill would be the skill that detects invisibility/sneak. Frank "Not even cockroaches kill their own species Fred".
Fred "Well Frank, Cockroaches can't carry guns, now can they".

I never said I don't think it would work, I just didn't know how it might work so that it wasn't too O.P.

I think if you look at examples of stealth being overpowered in other games, the culprit often isn't stealth itself, but the ability to restealth. Certain iterations of games based on D&D rulesets have been notorious examples of this, with thieves having the ability to stealth, attack, and repeat for massive damage.

Ultimately though, stealth needs to be considered amidst the larger context of combat balance. How will melee work? What's to stop a marksman simply blowing off an enemy's knee-caps and kiting them to death? Will melee weapons do higher damage to compensate for reduced time-on-target? If so, how do you balance that against guaranteed melee attacks via stealth? Combat in FO 1 & 2 was typically a stand and shoot affair, since moving cost AP, but that doesn't work so well in real time unless you give ranged weapons fairly cumbersome aim times.

I think stealth could potentially fill an interesting niche as an escape / survival mechanism. Too often these days, stealth becomes an offensive tool, used to close distance and gain hard-to-balance damage modifiers. In these situations, the unstealthed combatant feels set upon, even scared, as they frantically try to guess from which side the attack will be coming. Their success or failure in the encounter ends up not being based on how well they use their skills, but how well they guess whether their opponent is flanking them from the left or the right.

However if you change stealth to be a means of avoiding combat, rather than an inherent mechanism for certain classes / weapon-users, then stealth ends up becoming much more defensive. You want people to be moving away from their enemies when they stealth, not towards them. In this manner, you balance the risk versus reward -- the stealther has the advantage, but if they win, they survive. The seeker has the disadvantage, but if they win, they get the kill. Compare this to the stealther having the advantage, and then using it to kill the non-stealther. It just makes balance needlessly complex, and turns stealth into something that gets activated for a split second in order to gain an attack or damage bonus, rather than a tactical choice.

I also think that shifting the focus of stealth away from sneaking and towards hiding helps to fit the survival theme of Fallout. Hiding amongst the rubble as a group of super mutants lumber past, for instance, or using it to scout a camp of raiders without being attacked. I think keeping stealth as a non-combat type skill will ultimately help game balance. Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near
Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again
And maybe I'll say "Maybe"

For the close combat focused people, maybe a drug or some kind of mutation that gives you a really fast run speed for a small amount of time in so you can close that ranged distance

i think as in FallenEarth MMO, you will be just transparent + get bonuses to first attack, thief skills

Old topic but I think I may have a solution:

"Solar-powered" stealth boy. It would be more like a "meter" on the side of your screen that would trickle down as you used it (like a battery). It's overall effectiveness would be dependent on stealth skill and rare modifications. It would also take longer to "recharge"

Feel free to replace hyphened words. Well I guess we're just a couple of problem solvers

I think sneaking should be similar to how the rogues in WoW do it. But the higher an enemies perception is the the better chance they have of spotting you.