Focused Feedback: Stealth Toggle Exclusivity Removal

[Astralock]

4 minutes ago, BrandX said:

 

There is no nerf here.

 

Before if you took Stealth and Arctic Fog, when you toggle on one, it would toggle off the other.  If you took Infiltration, you'd toggle off your stealth powers when you wanted to use that travel power.

 

Now, you stay toggled, and just use the best stealth you have.

 

Which ever stealth you do use, it stacks with the Stealth IO!

 

Super Speed + Stealth Power + Stealth IO...I believe always worked together without anything detoggling.  So, not sure about that now in terms of stacking.

 

Yes, Super Speed + Stealth Power + Stealth IO always stacked without any detoggling.  That is not the case in the Page 5 beta.  So yes, there's a nerf.

[Parabola]

8 minutes ago, Booper said:

Correct. Everything you described in your post is working as intended. 

Even the part about having situations where a toggle is draining end but providing no benefit? I kind of assumed that stealth type powers provide a reduced amount of defence while suppressed to avoid that happening? Would it be possible to suppress the end cost if this situation arises?

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, Astralock said:

 

Yes, Super Speed + Stealth Power + Stealth IO always stacked without any detoggling.  That is not the case in the Page 5 beta.  So yes, there's a nerf.

 

You'd still get Super Speed or Stealth Power (which ever is the better stealth) + Stealth IO.  While I'll agree nerf is always suckie, is SS + Stealth IO not enough invis?

[Booper]

1 hour ago, Parabola said:

Even the part about having situations where a toggle is draining end but providing no benefit? I kind of assumed that stealth type powers provide a reduced amount of defence while suppressed to avoid that happening? Would it be possible to suppress the end cost if this situation arises?

No, you can't do that. If you run a toggle and an effect is suppressed, the endurance still drains. If you use super speed and you punch a bad guy and your movement and stealth gets suppressed, it still costs endurance.

[Astralock]

10 minutes ago, BrandX said:

 

You'd still get Super Speed or Stealth Power (which ever is the better stealth) + Stealth IO.  While I'll agree nerf is always suckie, is SS + Stealth IO not enough invis?

Prior to the Page 5 beta, if you had another stealth toggle (Arctic Fog, Shadow Fall, whatever), and Super Speed, you didn’t need a stealth IO.  You could have slotted Super Speed with a speed/endurance reduction enhancement and called it a day.  Now, it’s an endurance tax because you need to either replace that enhancement with a stealth IO, or turn on Sprint and slot that with it.

[Booper]

16 minutes ago, BrandX said:

 

You'd still get Super Speed or Stealth Power (which ever is the better stealth) + Stealth IO.  While I'll agree nerf is always suckie, is SS + Stealth IO not enough invis?

It is. SS is 35, IO is 30, Stealth is 55, while most enemies have a perception of 54' or less. So stealth by itself is enough, or the combination of the IO with basically any stealth power is enough.

 

There are some exceptions where perception reaches 75-100' but that's typically Guards or Turrets. Of course, foes could get perception buffs too.

[BrandX]

29 minutes ago, Astralock said:

Prior to the Page 5 beta, if you had another stealth toggle (Arctic Fog, Shadow Fall, whatever), and Super Speed, you didn’t need a stealth IO.  You could have slotted Super Speed with a speed/endurance reduction enhancement and called it a day.  Now, it’s an endurance tax because you need to either replace that enhancement with a stealth IO, or turn on Sprint and slot that with it.

 

Okay, I see.  Yup, that's how little I used Super Speed and I see what you're saying.  Now Super Speed is considered one of the stealth powers, so it's not combining with the stealth power.  Got it.

[lemming]

As someone who hardly ever takes SS, I'm liking the change.   I don't have the fine control to use SS very well.

 

That said having SS' stealth stack with other stealths doesn't seem to be bad thing to have.  It does break the consistency of the non-stacking to have an exception, but it has the advantage of it not forcing even more respecs.  So unless there's a technical reason, I'd let SS continue to stack with the other stealths.

[kburd825]

56 minutes ago, Booper said:

It is. SS is 35, IO is 30, Stealth is 55, while most enemies have a perception of 54' or less. So stealth by itself is enough, or the combination of the IO with basically any stealth power is enough.

 

There are some exceptions where perception reaches 75-100' but that's typically Guards or Turrets. Of course, foes could get perception buffs too.

This is incorrect if you consider the Relentless Aeon.

All enemies receive the following baseline buffs: +20% Resistance[Lethal/Smashing], +30% Resistance[All but S/L], +30% Defense[All], +40% Damage[All], +30% ToHit, 66ft Perception radius

This must have been deliberately calculated perception to counter anyone who uses Super Speed (or any 35 ft. stealth) + a stealth IO.  Powers that provide stealth from powersets are special, and need to be used responsibly (de-toggling for escort missions).  Let's keep them special by not making this change.

[Booper]

1 hour ago, kburd825 said:

This is incorrect if you consider the Relentless Aeon

 

2 hours ago, Booper said:

Of course, foes could get perception buffs too.

 

[Jitsurei]

A suggestion: make in-set stealth powers at least have the 55 rating that Stealth does.
Why should the pool power be better than a hero’s (or villain’s) primary and secondary abilities? This wouldn’t fix the fact that we can’t get as high of stealth as we already have, but it would at least mitigate the fact that people who already had stealth in their sets now have to take additional steps just to get back what they already had access to.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Jitsurei
Villain inclusivity :P

[BrandX]

5 hours ago, lemming said:

As someone who hardly ever takes SS, I'm liking the change.   I don't have the fine control to use SS very well.

 

That said having SS' stealth stack with other stealths doesn't seem to be bad thing to have.  It does break the consistency of the non-stacking to have an exception, but it has the advantage of it not forcing even more respecs.  So unless there's a technical reason, I'd let SS continue to stack with the other stealths.

 

I was told there was some reason that SS did this before, when I asked about it, because SS didn't detoggle my Ninja Toggle, while Infiltration did.  I just don't recall the reason cited.

[Troo]

Hide still stacks with these, right?

Example: Stalker running Hide and Stealth will still get stacking stealth and stacking defense.

[ForeverLaxx]

7 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

I was told there was some reason that SS did this before, when I asked about it, because SS didn't detoggle my Ninja Toggle, while Infiltration did.  I just don't recall the reason cited.

Because SS wasn't flagged as a Stealth power (it didn't provide what you'd expect from Stealth, that is, translucency and reduced enemy perception). Instead, it provided -Threat Range, which simulated the effects of Stealth without actually being flagged as such. Since it wasn't a true stealth power, the threat range reductions would combine and stack, providing additional "stealth" without having more than a single Stealth power active + SS. I believe the idea, way back in the beforetimes, was that you moved so fast enemies had less chance to notice you, but you weren't weren't technically invisible so they just made it a -threat toggle and called it a day.

 

Now that the HC devs are classifying it as a proper Stealth Toggle, this old stacking function no longer functions and is the cause of player concerns regarding build/slot tax.

 

I'm personally on the fence about it. On one hand, I hardly took SS to begin with and would just use a Stealth IO in Sprint + OG Stealth power to ghost missions. On the other, I can see chronic speedrunners getting annoyed that their usually already tight builds just got tighter in either power choices or available slots. Stealth stacking with SS has been around for so long, it's going to be a hard sell to lose it for some people.

[LQT]

5 hours ago, Troo said:

Hide still stacks with these, right?

Example: Stalker running Hide and Stealth will still get stacking stealth and stacking defense.

Yes, getting 205 ft PvE radius on Brainstorm atm, 150 from Hide, 55 from Stealth.

[SeraphimKensai]

I think the best solution would be to remove superspeed from the list of exclusivity as it has always stacked since the game release back in 2004 with stealth.

 

Otherwise this is a good change as it will help powerset combos like Illusion/DM controllers using superior invis for self benefit and able to run shadow fall to stealth team.

[BrandX]

48 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I think the best solution would be to remove superspeed from the list of exclusivity as it has always stacked since the game release back in 2004 with stealth.

 

Otherwise this is a good change as it will help powerset combos like Illusion/DM controllers using superior invis for self benefit and able to run shadow fall to stealth team.

 

As someone who has like one character with Superspeed and that's purely out of concept and I felt it was needed that much over Ninja Run, I wouldn't see an issue here.

 

At the same time, stealth IO in Sprint or Superspeed, did people go beyond that?

[Dispari]

I do think Super Speed being an exception makes sense, because it always has been. It's always been the only "stealth" power that could be run alongside other stealth powers. Primarily because it's a travel power and the stealth is just a perk.

Though I would also note Infiltration should work the same way, because it does the same thing and serves the same function (a travel power).

Otherwise, stealth stacking is cool, opens up some new build options, and I have no actual complaints.

[SeraphimKensai]

17 minutes ago, BrandX said:

At the same time, stealth IO in Sprint or Superspeed, did people go beyond that?

In PvP we would use say hide, superspeed, and a stealth io for stalkers or stealth, superspeed, and stealth io all for stacking stealth magnitude to reduce the range at which we'd be perceived. This has been the standard ever since the stealth io came out and prior to that everyone would stack superspeed with whatever stealth power that gave them the highest mag for stealth.

 

In PvE it's done that way to help get by some NPCs with increased perception.

 

13 minutes ago, Dispari said:

I do think Super Speed being an exception makes sense, because it always has been. It's always been the only "stealth" power that could be run alongside other stealth powers. Primarily because it's a travel power and the stealth is just a perk.

Though I would also note Infiltration should work the same way, because it does the same thing and serves the same function (a travel power).

As Infiltration is a travel power that has a built in stealth effect I would agree that seems reasonable to pull that power out of the exclusive list as well then. I've never actually tried out infiltration however, so I'll have to give it a whirl.

[psp07]

From my perspective ideally super speed would continue to stack with other stealth powers.

 

I use SS on all of my characters (they feel stuck in the mud without it), and I set up all my characters to have sufficient stealth to be PvE invis for most mobs.  So, SS + Stealth IO, *OR* SS + some other stealth power like Storms steamy mist, or Cold's fog power (arctic fog? I don't remember the name), or dark armor's stealth toggle (cloak of darkness?).

 

With this change I can no longer do the latter.  So I will end up doing a respec and  burning a slot for a stealth IO on my characters with Storm, or Cold or DA.  Not the end of the world, but given this change is supposed to be a QoL change, it is frustrating that super speed is being nerfed in the process.

[LQT]

Guessing this is going through as is since there's been no other posts in a week and the second build changed nothing.

[Astralock]

6 minutes ago, LQT said:

Guessing this is going through as is since there's been no other posts in a week and the second build changed nothing.

 

Looks that way.  I can't say that I understand it.  As far as I can recall, Super Speed has always stacked with other stealth powers.  C'est la vie.

[lemming]

As someone who doesn't use SS, I can can see why the non-stacking for consistancy sake, but for historical I think it would be better to leave it as stacking.   (Unless there's some odd technical reason, which isn't outside possibilities )

[ExeErdna]

The idea is cool so you can have what you like while also being able to help the team like Superior Invis and Shadow Fall/Steaming Mist. Since I normally spec the latter two for res instead of def. So I in theory should get the best of both overall. Also nice for Infiltration and "Stealth" so you can be really mobile and stealthy on pretty much any build. 

[PorkTips]

18 hours ago, ExeErdna said:

The idea is cool so you can have what you like while also being able to help the team like Superior Invis and Shadow Fall/Steaming Mist. Since I normally spec the latter two for res instead of def. So I in theory should get the best of both overall. Also nice for Infiltration and "Stealth" so you can be really mobile and stealthy on pretty much any build. 

 

I dont like this change, specifically for this reason. Just to get the best of both worlds, they are completely gutting everything else.

 

I would have preferred a solution where the change only affected interactions that were normally conflicts. "All conflicting powers can run at the same time but dont stack. All other stealth stacks".