Word has it that the next patch set will include a nerf such that glowies cannot be clicked on while stealthed or phased.
Hrm.
From a gameplay standpoint, that really screws up a lot of strategies (which seems to be the point, of course, making unfair to (everyone say it together) “get XP without risk.” (Never mind the number of higher level villains that see right through stealth.)
From a “reality” standpoint, it makes limited sense. The “I’m going to stand in the middle of all these guys and rifle this file cabinet and they don’t bat an eyelash” sort of scenario never made sense …
Though it also can depend on how one envisions the power sets as working. Is Stealth actually some sort of visual obscuring power (e.g., Steaming Cloud — though why at least the bad guys wouldn’t say, “Hey, what’s that cloud doing in the middle of the hallway?” is beyond me), or is it an abstraction of “I’m really sneaky/ninja-like”? Or, heck, “I’m actually a master of disguise and have made myself up to look like these bad guys so that they don’t notice me unless I get too close”? Something to make up for the fact that there’s no game mechanism to throw a rock over to the other side of the room and get everyone’s attention focused over there.
E.g. Honeygun didn’t really have a stealth cloak. She was just really good at sneaking around, like a trained sniper. Her ability to sneak up should be a bit different and have different parameters than other interpretations of the power.
From a “reality” standpoint, each of those different interpretatoins of Stealth should play differently.
On the other hand, since we can’t actually play those differences, the abstraction seems to work. And, really, the ability to Stealth through a mission only helps so much. It’s often more of a convenience (turning a given TF from 8 hours to 6 hours or something like that) than a must-have.
As for Phasing — well, that makes a measure of sense (though often there’s a sort of “I make my hands solid enough to be able to pick the safe” out in the comics).
I also haven’t heard how this is going to impact Invis. Given that, unlike Stealth, Group Invis is not a toggle, if I’m using GI does that means I have to wait until it wears off to click the glowie?
As with most nerfs, it’s workable around, with a bit of effort and a bit of (yes) extra risk. People get through missions without stealth powers all the time. But it’s another case of fixing a “problem” that I don’t agree exists. Unless the only way one can have a legitimate super-hero adventure is to duke things out all the time, being part of the (e.g.) Legion Espionage Squad should be as good a way to adventure in Paragon as any other. And I say that as someone whose Main uses Group Invis extensively, but who has a whole series of other heroes who wouldn’t dream of it.
For those folks who say that the Devs never pay attention to forum outrage over a proposed feature, quoth Statesman:
We’re going to be taking out this “stealth nerf” or “nerf to stealth” or whatever…
The original intent was to prevent riskless XP gain…but I agree that the implementation caused problems as noted here on the forums.
I REALLY like the Suppression idea brought up, but that’ll take some time to implement. So we’re just going to take it out until we can do it right.
Huzzah!
Patch update
Well, amidst the other brouhaha, a patch got downloaded last night, bringing over stuff that’s been on Test a while. The full notes are here (no, really, though you might need to F5 to dump the cache if you can’t…
Patch update
Well, amidst the other brouhaha, a patch got downloaded last night, bringing over stuff that’s been on Test a while. The full notes are here (no, really, though you might need to F5 to dump the cache if you can’t…