A question that was asked during the Twitch Stream
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2012-08-01 16:37 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Why not PM Arbiter Hawk and ask him?
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Thank you for the recommendation. I did and he replied that he did not understand the question during the Q&A and will be looking into whether or not the restriction is in place for a reason.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Darkspeed
Why not PM Arbiter Hawk and ask him?
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I don't think it was ever explained when the costume toggles first arrived. I have a sneaking suspicion there is no reason: at least no specific restriction that mandates it. It may have been done that way for certain expediency reasons, but I can think of no practical reason why even then with the tech available at the time they needed to be exclusive of stealth powers.
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Originally Posted by Demon_Shell
Thank you for the recommendation. I did and he replied that he did not understand the question during the Q&A and will be looking into whether or not the restriction is in place for a reason.
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I think that some of the earlier powers like this were used in arcs and DID affect Stealth, so it seemed as if you were costumed as one of them and could pass through their base.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't think it was ever explained when the costume toggles first arrived. I have a sneaking suspicion there is no reason: at least no specific restriction that mandates it. It may have been done that way for certain expediency reasons, but I can think of no practical reason why even then with the tech available at the time they needed to be exclusive of stealth powers.
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If the other costume toggles are based on that, then they may all be considered "Stealth" powers, even though they don't change your Stealth any. If that IS the case, they may be able to make it work more like Granite Form.
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Because they reused the code for the Arachnos Disguise power from Agent G's arc?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't think it was ever explained when the costume toggles first arrived. I have a sneaking suspicion there is no reason: at least no specific restriction that mandates it. It may have been done that way for certain expediency reasons, but I can think of no practical reason why even then with the tech available at the time they needed to be exclusive of stealth powers.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't think it was ever explained when the costume toggles first arrived. I have a sneaking suspicion there is no reason: at least no specific restriction that mandates it. It may have been done that way for certain expediency reasons, but I can think of no practical reason why even then with the tech available at the time they needed to be exclusive of stealth powers.
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Originally Posted by Rabid_M
I think that some of the earlier powers like this were used in arcs and DID affect Stealth, so it seemed as if you were costumed as one of them and could pass through their base.
If the other costume toggles are based on that, then they may all be considered "Stealth" powers, even though they don't change your Stealth any. If that IS the case, they may be able to make it work more like Granite Form. |
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Sometimes those costumes can look weird if you have a semi-translucency effect in place. But it's likely due to the fact (as was mentioned) that many PvE transformation powers apply their own stealth effect (I often use the Midnighter Visage to click glowies with enemies nearby).
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't think it was ever explained when the costume toggles first arrived. I have a sneaking suspicion there is no reason: at least no specific restriction that mandates it. It may have been done that way for certain expediency reasons, but I can think of no practical reason why even then with the tech available at the time they needed to be exclusive of stealth powers.
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
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As I explained, nothing in the game has ever stopped you from attaining that semi-transparent state, even back when they were first introduced before stealth IOs.|
Originally Posted by DarkSideLeague
Sometimes those costumes can look weird if you have a semi-translucency effect in place.
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If it all does tie back to when costume powers were first introduced as means of stealth and it came down to an all or nothing decision (to either make it so stealth is available with all costumes or it isn't), what would using a stealth costume and a stealth toggle together really change? Even if you weren't a Stalker or an Illusion Controller and couldn't completely bypass the issue anyway, you could still always turn on Super Speed and/or a stealth IO (at least now).
The point of those stealth costumes was to make enemies not attack you (in the story arcs). Having a stealth toggle active isn't going to make them not attack you less. And you can have all the stealth you want, but without something like Smoke Grenade enemies with high perception are still going to see through it.
The first time I ran into a stealth costume was on an Illusion Controller who had Group Invisibility. If the theory that's been presented is correct (and it sounds right), even back when it was first instated it still never served a purpose.
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Stealth IOs and Stalkers weren't around when the mechanic was introduced in... i3 or i4. Maybe earlier. Super Speed doesn't actually apply a translucency effect - many players didn't know it granted stealth at all.
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Originally Posted by Demon_Shell
If it all does tie back to when costume powers were first introduced as means of stealth and it came down to an all or nothing decision (to either make it so stealth is available with all costumes or it isn't), what would using a stealth costume and a stealth toggle together really change? Even if you weren't a Stalker or an Illusion Controller and couldn't completely bypass the issue anyway, you could still always turn on Super Speed and/or a stealth IO (at least now).
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.
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Illusion Control - Issue 0 - Group Invisibility.
And, again, group/ally stealth abilities being used by other players. I explained this in my first post.
Edit: What you were quoting was about the mechanical effects of layered stealth.
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The purpose was to prevent stealth radius stacking.
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Originally Posted by Demon_Shell
even back when it was first instated it still never served a purpose.
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I understand the point you're trying to make. I'm not asking for all stealth lockouts to be removed. There is a difference between allowing stealth toggles and stealth costumes together (assuming there is an all or nothing issue to changing costume powers) and allowing all stealth toggles to stack. I'm not asking for that.|
Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
The purpose was to prevent stealth radius stacking.
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But in a situation where you're supposed to be disguised, mechanically undetectable for immersion reasons, what imbalance is created by being more undetectable? You're already not being attacked.
That was the theoretic reason (assuming the previously mentioned theory is true), but it never did anything. It served no purpose.
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PvP. It's why we can't have nice things.
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Originally Posted by Demon_Shell
But in a situation where you're supposed to be disguised, mechanically undetectable for immersion reasons, what imbalance is created by being more undetectable? You're already not being attacked.
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I wasn't aware you could use stealth costume powers in PVP. If you can I could certainly understand why that could be the limiting factor these days, unfortunate though it may be.
In PvE there'd be no point in worrying about someone being more invisible than completely invisible to mobs. It'd have to be PvP if stealth stacking was a concern.
If they want mobs to see you they just make the mobs see through stealth entirely or have the ambush home in on you no matter your level of stealth since stealth is not a placate.
They likely didn't reuse the Arachnos Disguise code. The Arachnos Disguise is a Costume Change coupled with a massive PvE stealth effect. All the costume changes on the Paragon Market have no +stealth, and act like a Kheldian transformation in terms of what you can do.
In any case, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that has had an issue with this. I was the one who asked the question during the Twitch stream, and I was going to PM Arbiter Hawk today to see if something could be done about allowing those Costumes that use the humanoid skeleton (Read: Malta, Knives of Artemis, etc.) could be allowed to use stealth toggles properly as they have the regular skeleton, not one of the odd skeleton types that Hawk said would screw up the effects.
I wanted to make sure I rewatched the video to make sure I understood the response, or rather to confirm that the question didn't seem to be understood.
http://www.twitch.tv/paragonstudios/b/327040233
At around 46:54 a question was addressed regarding costume powers and stealth toggles, but the answer didn't really address the question, as I understand it, properly.
Costume change powers (not emotes, not model shifting like turning into a dog) like Freakshow/Knives of Artemis/Coralax/Malta all deactivate stealth toggle powers when turned on. The question is why this happens when it does nothing to suppress a character altering their transparency, since they can still use Stalker Hide, Group Invisibility, and most notably the stealth IO procs on themselves. All of this to say nothing about being stealthed/made more transparent by any ally stealth powers.
A power costumed character can't use Steamy Mist, but they can be affected by an ally's Steamy Mist/Shadow Fall/Grant Invisibility/etc. Locking out the costumes that you can use in combat (fight back with) against stealth toggles (other than hide) neither stops or even deters characters from gaining the same visual effects. It's always been vary inconsistent (within its own rules) and without purpose to me.
The argument in the video was about visual effects clustering together, but if that's the case, why are no other toggles suppressed? Or anything else at all? Even things like Rock Armor or the new Bio Armor toggles show up and work as you'd expect them.
If the answer is ultimately no, I'm okay with that. I'd like to know why, but I don't need to. What I saw was a misunderstanding directed toward the notion that it was purely a design decision at some point, which doesn't make sense because it doesn't do anything but limit the characters that can use them.
I'll give a personal example.
I have a Coralax character. He has Grant Invisibility and Invisibility (largely for slotting) because I know I can't use Stealth while in combat. When I need to be sneaky, I just turn on Invisibility which detoggles my costume power. It's not a terribly big deal because I don't use Invisibility very often and can't fight with it active anyway. When the fighting starts, I just toggle the costume back on.
I have a Freakshow character. Unfortunately, he's a /Devices Blaster. He can't use Cloaking Device with his costume power. There's no way around it, there's no limited usefulness to it; Devices Blasters use Cloaking Device while in combat. Right now, I could theoretically drop Cloaking Device and grab something like Maneuvers. It would be less defense out of combat and it would cost much more, but it would buff allies as well. It's a relative trade off.
The problem comes from the buff to Cloaking Device in I24. I could theoretically switch one defense buff for another, but I can't switch a defense/regeneration/recovery buff for anything. Once I24 comes out, not taking that ability would make me a weaker character no matter what I do to try replacing it.
If there's a reason for that limitation, which is what I always figured, so be it. There are more important things in the game to worry about. But I heard no indication that that was the issue.
So, if there is no other reason why the the costume change powers (not emotes, not model shifting like turning into a dog) are locked out with non-hide stealth toggles, I'm formally requesting that lockout be removed at some point in the future.