Is it possible to remove the stealth/costume power lockout?
By
Blackleviathan,
Posted on: 2012-07-13 08:45 in Suggestions and Ideas
Don't see it happening but Good luck with this tho.
Quote:
How easy? Pure simplicity. They're mutually exclusive because they both belong to the same group (Stealth, in this case). You can only ever have one power active of any given group (Combat Jumping, Super Jump, Ninja Run, Rooted and Granite are all in the Jump group. Turning any of them on shuts off any of the others you have active. Hover and Fly are in the Flight group, and are mutually exclusive, and so on). To make it so that you can use both at the same time, all they'd have to do is remove the Stealth flag from the costume powers.|
Originally Posted by Demon_Shell
Pretty simple request. The option to use abilities like Stealth or Cloaking Device with costume powers like the Freakshow Tank or Gunslinger.
How easy that would be to do? I have no idea. It would make them more attractive options on the market, though (Whenever they come back again, that is). |
The costumes HAVE to have a group. Otherwise, you could activate them all at the same time. Who knows what result that might have. I suspect that they are in the Stealth group simply because the first enemy transform power (the Arachnos disguise from the Faultline arcs) actually was a Stealth power, and the new ones were kept in that group for consistency. There may be other reasons, I don't know.
Regardless of the reason why, the costume codes aren't exclusive with stealth because of a software limitation; it's a design choice. So as Forbin says, it's not that likely to change.
@Roderick
I understand the limitations in place presently. The reason I bring it up is because it's not an "as designed" limitation to purposely stop you from gaining stealth parameters while using costumes, because you still can. You've always been able to. Stealth IOs, anyone around you with an group stealth power, costume clad Illusionists can even cast Group Invisibility to stealth themselves.
The limitation in place currently is purely mechanical, imposed when the costumes weren't really a big enough deal to spend the extra time on. As something that can be purchased now, does this now make it worth investing whatever period of time it would take to resolve this issue? More specifically, what would that period of time be, and how many more costumes will be purchasable in the future to be affected by this?
Quote:
Yes, you can get extra stealth from outside sources and Stealth IOs, or even from Hide. It IS by design, because they devs set it to be exclusive with Stealth toggles - this isn't something that could just happen "by accident". The period of time to change it would be however long it takes to load each power, change a single flag, and save the power - likely a matter of minutes. They've removed other powers from groups before, and they could do it again. As I said above, it hasn't been changed because the devs don't want to, not because there's some "issue" to overcome.
|
Originally Posted by Demon_Shell
I understand the limitations in place presently. The reason I bring it up is because it's not an "as designed" limitation to purposely stop you from gaining stealth parameters while using costumes, because you still can. You've always been able to. Stealth IOs, anyone around you with an group stealth power, costume clad Illusionists can even cast Group Invisibility to stealth themselves.
The limitation in place currently is purely mechanical, imposed when the costumes weren't really a big enough deal to spend the extra time on. As something that can be purchased now, does this now make it worth investing whatever period of time it would take to resolve this issue? More specifically, what would that period of time be, and how many more costumes will be purchasable in the future to be affected by this? |
@Roderick
Quote:
It's been quite a while since I've run the mission that gives the Freakshow Disguise in the Chameleon Suit, but I know it was in the game before the Arachnos disguise. That one also disables Stealth related powers.|
Originally Posted by Roderick
I suspect that they are in the Stealth group simply because the first enemy transform power (the Arachnos disguise from the Faultline arcs) actually was a Stealth power, and the new ones were kept in that group for consistency. There may be other reasons, I don't know. Regardless of the reason why, the costume codes aren't exclusive with stealth because of a software limitation; it's a design choice. So as Forbin says, it's not that likely to change. |
I'm thinking it was there at launch or shortly after launch, which was well before the Faultline revamp.
I keep thinking there was another one as well but can't seem to find it on ParagonWiki.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
i believe the costume powers that were released for sale on the paragon market during the independence day sale are not mutually exclusive with stealth powers
but those were the only ones i believe that are not mutually exclusive with stealths
edit: i forgot the "not" in the last sentence 
Huh?
Those two lines seem to contradict each other.
Or maybe I'm not reading something right.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
Quote:
you were right, missed a crucial word in the post, but fixed now lol
|
Originally Posted by Texas Justice
Huh?
Those two lines seem to contradict each other. Or maybe I'm not reading something right. |
Quote:
Already tested; they are mutually exclusive. It's why I had the mind to bring it up (tested with Cloaking Device and Steamy Mist).|
Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
i believe the costume powers that were released for sale on the paragon market during the independence day sale are not mutually exclusive with stealth powers
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Roderick
As I said above, it hasn't been changed because the devs don't want to, not because there's some "issue" to overcome.
|
It appears to me to be nothing more than a means to save time with something that wasn't originally intended to be used very often. The design team used to cut corners all the time. But this old tech is used much more often now and eliminating that limitation would open up its use to a wider audience.
But supposing it wasn't done to save time. Supposing it was intentional to specifically lockout toggle stealth powers other than Hide, which is still useable. And supposing it is as easy to fix as you claim it to be, which I'd be delighted to find true but highly doubt-
Why?
Why would such an arbitrary limitation be enforced intentionally? A limitation that doesn't stop stealth at all, just disables the use of very specific toggles. As you are evidently against what you believe to be a simple fix being modified, what purpose does it serve?
Or if you believe they should but they won't, why not? Do they have nothing to gain?
Quote:
The Freak costume wasn't a Transform power. It was a Freak Tank chest piece that got overlaid on you character.|
Originally Posted by Texas Justice
It's been quite a while since I've run the mission that gives the Freakshow Disguise in the Chameleon Suit, but I know it was in the game before the Arachnos disguise. That one also disables Stealth related powers.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Demon_Shell
And I'm obviously contesting that claim as I don't believe it to be so. I've been shown no evidence that the devs didn't use stealth as a lockout system to stop people from stacking costumes because they couldn't use the system shared with granite, being that it suppresses travel powers.
|
Even if that weren't the case, it's not terribly difficult to define a new variable and add new exclusivity code to a group of powers; they've done it before.
Quote:
| But supposing it wasn't done to save time. Supposing it was intentional to specifically lockout toggle stealth powers other than Hide, which is still useable. And supposing it is as easy to fix as you claim it to be, which I'd be delighted to find true but highly doubt- |
Quote:
| Why? |
Quote:
|
As you are evidently against what you believe to be a simple fix being modified, what purpose does it serve? Or if you believe they should but they won't, why not? Do they have nothing to gain? |
My statement isn't that it should or shouldn't be done, but that thhe devs have already decided that it shouldn't. I have no idea why. And you're right: Sometimes the devs do reverse their decisions, and change things that they have previously said "This is working the way we want it to."
On the other hand, if I am wrong, and there actually is some technical limitation to splitting the costumes into a different group, then I am against this change. The return would be fairly minimal, and if it's going to take a significant amount of time and resources that would have to be redirected from other projects, then I would rather those resources stayed with their original projects, than to make a change that an insignificant* portion of the playerbase would even notice.
*That's mathematically insignificant, not a rating of the worth of that segment of the playerbase.
@Roderick
Well the info in the game on the NPC costume powers says it can't be use with "most" stealth powers. Try a stalker using hide. It does in fact work, so the mechanic is already there. I have a stalker and had bought all of the new NPC costume powers and each one can be used on my stalker with Hide. Other characters with powers such as Shadow Fall and Superior Invisibility turn off the costume power and vice versa.
Evidence:
I'm still not seeing that as irrefutable evidence that a global transformation group exists, because each transformation type locks out something different. Granite locks out movement buffs, costumes lockout specific stealth toggles, Nova/Dwarf locks out almost everything. All they have to do after that is lockout one another. But the stealth that cause the lockout are all mutually exclusive with one another. You can't use Stealth and Shadow Fall. You can't use Invisibility and Steamy Mist. If the system is limited in such a way, it would be the perfect workaround to only allow one costume to be used at once; by tying it to a system where only one of a certain type is usable at once.
But I don't presume to know how it works. I'm just offering a possible counter to your idea, however flawed it may be. To my knowledge, no one that's ever worked behind the scenes has ever spoken on this particular subject. Which is why I started this conversation, to hopefully get that acknowledgement from someone with the means to change it. No inconvenience is ever terribly large, until money is involved.
And if it requires a large amount of development time, I'm right there with you. There will doubtlessly be more important things in the future then a lockout which can only ever affect (considering pool popularity and availability) somewhere around 2-4% of all player characters (if they all had the costumes/participated in the Halloween Event). If that's the case, so be it. But I won't be satisfied until I hear it said from someone with the means to set the change in motion that "it's not worth the development time" or "this is the reason why not."
Surrender to development time spent in other avenues, be they minor or greater. But never be satisfied with no answer as an answer.
Quote:
Hide and also if you have a sleath Proc in like spring (unbounded leap or Celiry w/e the name is IO) you should be able to have some stealth |
Originally Posted by monkeyslap
Well the info in the game on the NPC costume powers says it can't be use with "most" stealth powers. Try a stalker using hide. It does in fact work, so the mechanic is already there. I have a stalker and had bought all of the new NPC costume powers and each one can be used on my stalker with Hide. Other characters with powers such as Shadow Fall and Superior Invisibility turn off the costume power and vice versa.
Evidence: |
Stalkers = ftw
VIG0S: 1356 badges in counting
Something for ppl to use
Quote:
That's the most unfortunate part about this. It's not even about the stealth themselves. It's about the survivability buffs those stealths provide. Steamy Mist, Shadow Fall, and Arctic Fog all provide group and self Defense, select Damage Resistance, and limited mez/debuff resist. Come I24, Cloaking Device will provide both a Regeneration and a Recovery buff, in addition to its Defense buff. While the Defense buff found in Stealth is smaller than the one found in Maneuvers, it's cheaper to maintain and it activates faster. It (and/or Invisibility) is also one of the only ways to get a Phase Shift power.|
Originally Posted by Blackleviathan
Hide and also if you have a sleath Proc in like spring (unbounded leap or Celiry w/e the name is IO) you should be able to have some stealth
Stalkers = ftw |
If you're in a situation where you want to use the costumes, the lockout from the Concealment pool abilities isn't major, but not using the non-Hide stealth toggles found in the Primary/Secondary pools isn't an option. At least while remaining effective.
Pretty simple request. The option to use abilities like Stealth or Cloaking Device with costume powers like the Freakshow Tank or Gunslinger.
How easy that would be to do? I have no idea. It would make them more attractive options on the market, though (Whenever they come back again, that is).