Quests - Stealth options?

Discussion in 'Modding and Scripting Support' started by The Pigeon, Nov 16, 2014.

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  1. The Pigeon

    The Pigeon Member

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    I've never played a stealth character either in Arcanum or in a fan module so I'm not sure what variety of puzzles one would expect to face or should face and at what level. Admittedly all the situation I've seen appear to allow only combat, so maybe I'm just not in the right mindset or something similar.

    To those who have, what have you seen, what was fun and what levels of skill did you need?
     
  2. Ruda

    Ruda Active Member

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    Stealth in Arcanum have, in my experience, never been useful by itself. The player is better off treating it as a boost to their combat abilities (backstab damage +100 if hidden, or something similar) since combat is easier and more rewarding (in terms of efficiency and xp) than stealth. Which of course isn't a very good use of a possibly exciting skill.

    Take the Kree quest. A melee/dodge character with decent strength will have an easier time stealing the statue than a thief. The warrior will just wade through the barbarian hordes while the thief has to prowl, wait for the right moment to advance and occasionally reload due to being spotted. I'm not saying that sneaking is any less fun, it's actually more fun with dull combat being the alternative, but it's just not worthwhile. Especially considering that, with all said and done, the warrior will end up with more XP than the thief even after a (what is supposed to be) straight up stealth quest since the bloodthirsty bastard will massacre the barbarians.

    With this said, I'd still argue that prowling is pretty decently designed and the progression feels natural. With no skill points, prowling is almost useless (much like every other skill) but with a few points invested (and a little training) you're suddenly a lot more effective.

    What I'm trying to get at is that the prowling skill is as useful for sneaking as the melee skill is for fighting.
    The problem is that sneaking isn't anywhere near as useful as fighting.
    Which, of course, isn't news to anyone here...

    Rectifying the problem should be fairly straightforward

    • Decrease the utility of combat
    • Increase the utility of stealth

    There are, I'm sure, many ways to accomplish these goals. The one that immediately springs to mind is to simply prohibit the combat route. The assassination of August Farad would have been fairly interesting if no guards were allowed to be killed, with the whole wanted assassin reputation being a penalty upon discovery, making you a marked man in both Caladon and Tarant. I realize that the devs attempted to encourage stealth by placing a large number of high level melee/dodge guards in both quests. However, rather than encourage a prowling approach they serve as the first challenge a melee/dodge (not to mention harm spammer) might come across since they reached expert level (or 50ish magickal aptitude and decent fatigue in the mage's case).
     
  3. Nataku

    Nataku Member

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    I agree that prowling seems not really interesting. Not enough quests where it seems compulsory or, at least, necessary.
    However, stealing is really fun. I really enjoyed playing a thief in Arcanum, I just were disappointed that put a object in a NPC inventory is really not exploited.
    I also regret that some options were bad done for stealers : if you steal the code of the bank's safe, that guy will alert Doc Robert even if you didn't talk to him. Stealing the Magnus' book will do the same effect as taking normally from his inventory, ...

    But as I said it, I really enjoyed gained items without killing anyone, give something to someone then steal it after, ...
    Unfortunately, as NPC are invulnerable in Crossroad, I should mark then "no pickpocket". So the ability will not be used in the module...

    I hope that is the answer to your question
     
  4. The Pigeon

    The Pigeon Member

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    Thanks for both your comments. So some things I should include are:

    1) Enemies dangerous enough you want to sneak past
    2) Stealing/planting quest items
    3) Reputation / Being discovered fails some quests
    4) Enemies positioned so that you can sneak in and back stab them
    5) Patrolling guards/creatures

    I've also considered:
    6) Dangerous traps > requires Spot / Disarming of traps

    Does that sound good?
     
  5. Nataku

    Nataku Member

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    The matter is that the PC will not gain XP by sneaking. Shouldn't you make Tile Scripts that give XP if you pass without fighting foes. Or maybe more XP at the end of the quest ?
     
  6. Ruda

    Ruda Active Member

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    Unless you're talking about 20 lvl 50 melee/dodge ogres, the player will likely be able (and inclined to) fight his/her way through them. It's better to add penalties for killed guards instead,

    Quest where you are to plant items seems like a great idea; I don't think there were any of those in Arcanum. Reputations and failure upon discovery is, as has been stated, a good detergent to combat.

    I'm not saying that killing during stealth quests is necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps it's possible to allow the killings of 1-2 guards (for the purposes of acquiring a disguise or key) if the corpse is hidden. Maybe a good hiding place could be rooms not on the guards' patrol route? Are there scripts that can check for the location of a corpse that you can use for quest completion? (i.e. "Good you pulled it off nicely, no one heard or saw a thing" or "I've heard that a dead guard was found; you ain't getting paid, that's for sure").

    Yes, I'd say it does. More useful skills can hardly be a bad thing. Just make sure that you don't use any traps that damage equipment (or the blasted 'disarm' trap) as that'll likely generate more annoyance than anything else.

    Is it possible to turn a trap into a alarm of some sort? A script that makes guards charge into the room, or fail the quest etc? That would be a great use of traps if you ask me.

    The bonus XP for getting past without fighting should be awarded at "points-of-no-return". Otherwise the player can just backtrack and kill the guards anyway.
     
  7. Nataku

    Nataku Member

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    I guess it is possible, by checking if player takes dammages on a specifical tile... If there is no possible combats around, then it's a way to check that the player triggered the trap.
    Maybe else by modifying the USE script of the traps (but can it be ?) or call the normal script after another USE's one ?
     
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