New Inherent Power: "Be Conspicuous"

[Sunsette]

This would grant a toggle power, zero endurance, that when activated suppresses all effects that grant stealth as well as translucency. Signed, all of my characters with stealth powers in their builds trying to do an escort mish. The translucency killing is just an RP bonus.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Q: Why?

So that escort NPCs can find you when you want to be found.

 

Q: Can't you just turn your stealth power off?

Builds that actually are built for stealth derive several advantages from stealth powers, often defensive bonuses. Turning off the stealth power directly weakens your ability to fight, which isn't great for ambushes -- and several story missions combine escorts with ambushes. Stealth-built characters are not the same as your non-stealth character that grabbed a stealth IO and put it in a sprint or travel power they toggle off.

 

Q: Would this be technically feasible?

It would require a minor rewrite of all stealth powers in the game to allow a conditional. The dev team has previously expressed interest in fixing the mutual exclusivity problem of stealth powers; this would be a comparatively small tweak to add on top of that one.

 

Q: Why not use a Null the Gull setting?

You frequently move between mishes where you want stealth to escort mishes. Returning to Pocket D between mishes just to toggle this isn't fun. Null is hacky and a solution of last resort.

 

Q: Wouldn't it be better to have NPCs with super perception and decent movement speed?

That would be the most natural option in my eyes, but I believe it would require changing every NPC individually, which is a tedious task over the whole game. Possible, but I suspect more trouble than it's worth since it would doubtless encounter edge cases where it breaks things.

 

Frequently This-is-a-Comment-and-not-A-Questions

 

I would prefer to fireman's carry NPCs.

I guess? I don't tend to play physically strong characters so I'm not thrilled about that concept. I also believe it would face far worse technical challenges.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Sunsette

[JayboH]

Doesn't that already exist?  Can't you click the stealth toggle that turns it off?  costs zero endurance too, and kills translucency

[EmperorSteele]

Yeah, if you don't want to be stealthy, just, turn off any stealth granting powers.

 

=/

[Sunsette]

1 hour ago, JayboH said:

Doesn't that already exist?  Can't you click the stealth toggle that turns it off?  costs zero endurance too, and kills translucency

 

For many powersets this also entails giving up other benefits of the powers that may be a very bad idea to remove while facing ambushes, Stealth commonly grants defense.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Sunsette

[Marbing]

22 hours ago, Sunsette said:

 

For many powersets this also entails giving up other benefits of the powers that may be a very bad idea to remove while facing ambushes, Stealth commonly grants defense.

I second this, I play stalker A LOT and this is annoying as hell. Not to mention some people may have more than one stealth power they have to turn off. A button that lets you simply suppress stealth and retain your bonuses would be ideal. I have a devices Blaster that this is also a PAIN on, there goes my sustain!!

 

 

AT VERY LEAST let the escort have crazy high perception.

Edited July 13, 2021 by th0ughtGun

[Sunsette]

Yeah, this came up on my devices blaster while slow walking Dr. Aeon two feet a minute to avoid dying to Rikti ambushes a few missions after having to slow walk Arnold Decker through Arachnos ambushes

don't really want to drop 3% defense and other benefits in that situation!

[Parabola]

It would also get around the problem of other people not turning off stealth auras or casting invisibility on you.

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, th0ughtGun said:

AT VERY LEAST let the escort have crazy high perception.

 

I don't think I'd want some of the escorts - especially the "helpers" - to have high perception. Especially in missions where their death = mission failure.

 

Having some version that locks on to you or a rescuer? That'd be good. (Though given NPC dialog, I know they sometimes start referring to enemy NPCs with "rescue" dialog, too... I could just see this breaking missions.)

 

That said, there are other issues with those NPCs that would also need dealing with - like their speed and their pathing. They make odd decisions. If the engine could handle grappling, I'd be *more* than happy to have a "firemans' carry" or "drag them along!"

[Sunsette]

Hence the proposal to just be able to cancel stealth without losing the other benefits. It seems the most technically feasible, reasonably intuitive gameplay suggestion.

[Marbing]

8 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

I don't think I'd want some of the escorts - especially the "helpers" - to have high perception. Especially in missions where their death = mission failure.

 

Having some version that locks on to you or a rescuer? That'd be good. (Though given NPC dialog, I know they sometimes start referring to enemy NPCs with "rescue" dialog, too... I could just see this breaking missions.)

 

That said, there are other issues with those NPCs that would also need dealing with - like their speed and their pathing. They make odd decisions. If the engine could handle grappling, I'd be *more* than happy to have a "firemans' carry" or "drag them along!"

Yeah not ALL NPC but just those simple rescue missions where they can’t be killed at very least. Or just what the OP said, give us the ability to suppress all stealth without having to detoggle all stealth.

[Ston]

This sounds like it'd be a cool setting available from Null the Gull as well. If we can nullify run speed increases, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to nullify translucency. I would support this just for the sake of being able to see your costume, let alone the defense boosts.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Cirque

[Sunsette]

Null would be a poor solution for this, as this is the sort of thing you'll want one mish but not the next. Killing forced translucency is nice but more of a rider benefit here.

[0th Power]

I would love to be able to increase the opacity on all stealth powers. I worked hard on that costume, dammit!

[biostem]

I prefer my suggestion from another thread;  Allow us to pick up and fireman's carry NPCs to where they need to go...

[Sunsette]

15 minutes ago, biostem said:

I prefer my suggestion from another thread;  Allow us to pick up and fireman's carry NPCs to where they need to go...

 

Aside from the technical issues that would probably encounter (unless they chose to simply have no visual effect, and assuming we sidestep missions where the escort is scripted to do something while being escorted)

 

That doesn't really make sense for most of us who have characters that lack super strength?

Edited July 12, 2021 by Sunsette

[biostem]

12 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

That doesn't really make sense for most of us who have characters that lack super strength?

I agree that it may be difficult from a technical standpoint.  That being said, since our heroes are typically in peak human fitness or better, carrying a person via a fireman's carry is actually not that difficult.

[Sunsette]

I'm thinking of the difficulties in carrying a whole person and also fighting -- unless it would put us in an Only Affecting Self state, which would be even worse for dealing with ambushes (although it'd add a touch of immersion at least).

[Greycat]

20 minutes ago, biostem said:

I agree that it may be difficult from a technical standpoint.  That being said, since our heroes are typically in peak human fitness or better, carrying a person via a fireman's carry is actually not that difficult.

 

Yeah. Unless you're trying to do it to a War Walker or something, it's not unreasonable for one person to carry another that way.  (If you're thinking of something else, Sun, it's basically slinging someone lengthwise over your shoulders - not piggyback where they're hanging on your neck, but arms on one side, legs on another across your back.  Distributes their weight fairly well, assuming they're not injured.)

 

But, yeah. Technical issues prevent that in game.

[GraspingVileTerror]

This is a low-key brilliant solution to quite the irritating mechanical issue, honestly!  Well done, @Sunsette!

Along with the Free P2W Toggles that were added recently, this would be a great option.

 

Hell, all it would have to do is apply an unresistable debuff to the Stealth Range of your character, effectively also incre-  . . . oh . . . increasing your aggro range . . . 

uhoh

Ok.  So, maybe my solution has the potential for griefing.  Problematic, but whatever.  It's workshoppable!

[Sunsette]

5 hours ago, Night said:

What you do is use the pro gamer technique of untoggling your stealth power for 2 minutes while you escort the NPC and it works 100% of the time.

I would recommend you use the pro gamer power of reading the topic next time. 😉

 

@GraspingVileTerror Yeah, however this is coded might take a little bit of work but since there was already discussion of fixing the "most stealth powers don't stack", this could be addressed at the same time with a conditional suppression statement for not a lot of extra work. 

[Razor Cure]

Obviously there are different types of NPCs of escorts. Some are braindead and cant see you 5 ft away, others (Dr Harvan in the Pandoras Box arc) had no trouble following my cloaked and SSing blaster. So clearly the mechanics exist to give a particular NPC some perception (and increased movement speed).

How about just doing that to all NPCs AND having a dialog option with follow/stay prompts?

 

[Marbing]

1 hour ago, Sunsette said:

I would recommend you use the pro gamer power of reading the topic next time.

 

Haha! Got ‘em! 😂

[Sunsette]

30 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Obviously there are different types of NPCs of escorts. Some are braindead and cant see you 5 ft away, others (Dr Harvan in the Pandoras Box arc) had no trouble following my cloaked and SSing blaster. So clearly the mechanics exist to give a particular NPC some perception (and increased movement speed).

How about just doing that to all NPCs AND having a dialog option with follow/stay prompts?

 

 

This would actually be the best option, I think, but I don't know if it's feasible to change that across the whole game. It probably would require manually checking each NPC to be certain they don't break anything since we lack the original tools used to create CoX and are reverse-engineering them off of the code.

[Razor Cure]

3 minutes ago, Night said:

I'd recommend you not editing your tiny topic after you got a pile of valid responses and then acting like some kinda high-horse riding weirdo next time

Damn, get over yourself. Or is it the pro gamer way?

[Sunsette]

19 minutes ago, Night said:

I'd recommend you not editing your tiny topic after you got a pile of valid responses and then acting like some kinda high-horse riding weirdo next time

 

If it was a multi page topic I could understand where you were coming from but you responded with the same thing that the first two people responded with and I answered on post four. You added nothing except being a jerk about it. 

 

If you notice I didn't get snippy with them! Because you're right, my topic WAS small. So small, in fact, that reading the first four posts would still be shorter than reading my first post with the new FAQ system I bet. Their responses were wholly valid.

 

Yours, combined with the hard attitude, was not.

Edited July 14, 2021 by Sunsette