Mutually Exclusive Stealth Powers

[Monos King]

I get Stealth + Invisibility being a no-go. How do we feel about powers like Arctic Gust still not being able to be used with powers like Superior Invisibility? Steamy Mist and Invisibility? I always thought having powers from secondary and primary just outright clash was odd. Is this something that should be reconsidered?

[Dragon Crush]

Haven't tried arctic with superior invisibility, does one prevent the other from being toggled on, or is it just that you only get the stealth values from one (which is how I though the non-stacking worked but never bothered to check)?

 

Looking on mids it seems it is the first, which is disappointing. If it could somehow be changed to only take the highest stealth but let other effects stack that'd be a huge QoL improvement.

[Monos King]

3 minutes ago, Dragon Crush said:

Looking on mids it seems it is the first, which is disappointing. If it could somehow be changed to only take the highest stealth but let other effects stack that'd be a huge QoL improvement.

Yeah it is the first, but what's really puzzling is that stealth stacking couldn't be the reason they are prohibited from stacking because Superior Invisibility is the strongest in the game and automatically puts you at the cap. 

[Dragon Crush]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, had an ill/emp on live and my stealth was much stronger than stalker hide, though stalkers did have higher stealth cap.

[Greycat]

Stalkers can stack, yes. Other than that, no, one will turn off the other. The only thing that won't (since it's not a "power," per se) is having a stealth IO in something plus stealth, and/or a granted invis (like from a SG buff station.)

 

Stalkers have that because - well, AS. For the rest, generally the AI doesn't need much for you to be unnoticed until you're sitting right on them.  I don't think allowing them to stack otherwise is *needed,* but I'm not really against it either. Is there something that's come up that leads to asking about it, or is it more a "huh, that's just weird to me?"

[Monos King]

26 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Is there something that's come up that leads to asking about it, or is it more a "huh, that's just weird to me?"

Pretty much that. It occurred to me that this would occur with superior invisibility and secondary AoE +stealth and went and tested it for myself. It is rather lame that you're forced to pick one or the other for essentially no reason considering what the powers offer and the state of concealment powers and options currently.

[Outrider_01]

Ehh, free pick without dipping into a power pool to slot a lotg recharge.

[Doomguide2005]

Per the Wiki article on Stealth:

 

All stealth powers stack except for toggle powers whose primary purpose is stealth.

 

Of course "primary purpose of stealth" is slightly vague.

 

Edit:  And are we talking about Arctic Air or another power in the OP.  Arctic Air provides no +stealth, only -stealth.

 

Edit2:  memories from Live are a little fuzzy but I'm fairly certain I stacked Steamy Mist, Super Speed, Celerity-Stealth and the empowerment buff Grant Invisibility once as an experiment.  That's 125 foot stealth.  That's enough to walk unseen right up to anything except a sniper or something that ignores stealth.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Doomguide2005
Afterthought

[Monos King]

I will be clear, the potential issue is that the two powers clash and not any measure wanting more stealth. The example of Superior Invisibility and Arctic Gust is the prime one, as the only reasonable cause of them not stacking originally would be to prevent too much stealth, but Superior Invisibility already does that on it's own.

5 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

All stealth powers stack except for toggle powers whose primary purpose is stealth.

This is interesting because right now it it is mostly powers whose primary purpose isn't stealth that are subject to the lack of stack. Such as arctic gust, steamy mist...whereas Hide, a true stealth focused move, does. This is besides the point, though.

 

It seems outdated that stealth moves that are not explicitly the same (Shadow Fall vs Invisibility, Steamy Mist vs Superior Invis) can't be used with each other. Whatever reasons for that don't hold up. There are those that are the same and shouldn't stack (Superior Invis vs Invis, Tactical Operative vs Stealth, idk about VEATS), but the AoE stealth moves might as well.

 

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Edit2:  memories from Live are a little fuzzy but I'm fairly certain I stacked Steamy Mist, Super Speed, Celerity-Stealth and the empowerment buff Grant Invisibility once as an experiment.  That's 125 foot stealth.  That's enough to walk unseen right up to anything except a sniper or something that ignores stealth.

That would work - you only have one "I'm here to provide stealth" power. Steamy mist = stealth power. Super speed, the stealth IO and the empowerment buff are not. Someone else could have dropped Grant Invisibility on you on top of it and it would have taken (since it's not "your" power.)

[Doomguide2005]

Arctic Gust I'm unfamiliar with.  The wiki only lists it as something connected to The Woodsman and appears to be essentially Storm's Gale.

 

That aside yeah I can't particularly, especially in PvE, see any reason to actually detoggle one vs the other.  Allow them to stack worst case means avoiding perception by a Sniper or making it easier to avoid a turret or GM.   After the first couple you're avoiding perception by the vast majority of mobs.

[Greycat]

Add that we don't really have many "degrees" of either stealth or perception. Stealth is already almost "all or nothing" - even without it you can stand there and stare at a mob while getting reasonably close before they react. Add just Stealth and you're on top of them before they react, put in Hide or Superior Invisibility and you *are* standing on them, dancing around and giving them wedgies.

 

The flip side is mobs either have no perception, or a few mobs with Tactics - or things like Rikti drones that ignore stealth completely. Not a lot of shading - and not really a lot of reasons to *worry* about stacking stealth in PVE, for most of the game. (And then there's ambushes, which are either triggered to a spot they were anchored to, triggered to your location at the time of the triggering, or set up to just home in on you regardless.)

 

I don't really know how to make that part of gameplay more interesting or flexible, though. Part of it would be in the AI, I'd think (having runners actually be a risk, alerting the next group - which might do something with perception, for instance.) But I don't envy anyone diving in *there* to address it.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Greycat
changed "we" to "mobs," since "we" sounds like us, not them.

[Doomguide2005]

Totally agree @Greycat. It's one of things I mentioned in the thread about the removing the To Hit clamp.  Any sort of Stealth and often with none you can park yourself and tab through the mobs and decide when, where, how to unleash your alpha strike.  Very few mobs will react, often even the ones that ignore stealth because even if they ignore it you're simply beyond their perception range and they don't react anyway.