Potential Stealth/Spy Update?

@gamer-robot2989 The costumes would probably be very similar to tuck outfits, I agree. Having rep and cosmetics associated with stealth gameplay would be cool.

@galactic-geek I'm not a fan of teabagging, but people already do other similar things like dig on dead players with a shovel or bucket them, so that doesn't really feel like a convincing pro or con against crouching. The point of crouching would be mostly to sneak against NPC's. You would move slower when crouched, but you are right that hiding the player name makes it unbalanced against players.

As far as the Spy alliance, it's just a suggestion for now. Then again, gold hoarders voyages are very simple "go dig up a chest" mission, and that's not a lot of content for one alliance. Granted, they do have a very simple mission.

I do like the idea of copying an enemy voyage instead of stealing it, and honestly that makes more sense anyway. A way that stealth killing with a dagger would be viable over blundering is that you reduce the crew size you're fighting to a manageable point where you can either kill any remaining members in combat before they have a chance to communicate, copy a voyage, and then get off their ship before they have a chance to react. I would imagine copying a voyage would take like, 5 seconds to do? There is no real reason it needs to be done while crouching. Why not just use a blunder? You certainly can, it's all up to play style.

As for no patterns in lore, I don't think a spy organization really needs previous lore, as it is in the nature of a spy organization to stay hidden. Who's to say they just haven't revealed themselves? Maybe that isn't compelling enough for some, but I think I'd be satisfied with that.

@prescafatty I really like the foldable mast idea. They kind of have the mechanic in place with being able to break and repair masts.

I also like a camouflage cannon ball or throwable, though I would imagine it shouldn't be able to hold up when you're within 100 meters or something (whatever feels right to the devs).

@d3adst1ck If only the sloop would get a foldable mast, then that's only one other low-poly model that would be added. This may not be how it works, but if there is some boolean value for "mast folded" where if it's set to 0, we get the low poly image of a ship with the mast as we normally see it, and if it's set to 1, we get a low poly image of a ship with the mast down, then it might not be too difficult to implement.

@enf0rcer I'd like the idea of extending the pickpocket mechanic to skeletons to take their bullets or cannons.

I also like the longer animation idea for a stealth kill, I'm sure the devs would be able to find a way to balance it.

The hotkey for a crouch isn't set in stone with L3, I use keyboard mouse, so I don't know what the hotkeys are for controller.

It's kind of hard to find a compelling reason for spy emissaries, since a spy wouldn't want to advertise they are a spy.

I disagree with them being an extension of reapers because being a spy would be more about "gathering intelligence" rather than stealing from other players. The player interaction by copying their voyage still feels like a subterfuge activity instead of waiting for them to get the loot and stealing it from them.

@korpp1s I can see why a dagger would feel redundant. Maybe it can do regular melee swipes but then enable throwing with ADS instead of blocking. In that case, I could see having no ammo with it and you can only get another dagger back by either running over the dagger you through or going to the weapon box/ammo crate.

@galactic-geek said in Potential Stealth/Spy Update?:

I haven't really seen pirates use their shovel or bucket after putting me down, but both make more sense than teabagging - 1 puts you under, and the other is for collecting tears; teabagging though, is just gross because it's putting your ahem in my face...

They're all forms of disrespect. I think if someone is the type of person to tbag, they will find a way to disrespect other players. It happens in voice and text chat all the time. Either way, I still don't see this as a very compelling reason for or against crouching.

NPCs are already pretty clueless as is, and moving slower seems to be the exact opposite of what you should be doing if you don't want to get spotted (especially since noise with footsteps isn't a factor here).

In my experience, it feels like NPC's have some sort of proximity aggro, it doesn't matter if they can see you or not. I can see how adding crouch/stealth would require a large rework of this aggro system, but it could potentially just keep enemies from aggro'ing until they see you. Obviously could use a lot of workshopping to get a system that feels good and works with the current code base.

This is actually a fair point. It'd be nice if there was a limited time event where we would be the ones to bring them into the spotlight. 😁

Yeah, that would be pretty rad. Even a new tall tale could bring you to their HQ.

@enf0rcer

On a controllers defualt settings right, Left dpad and Right thumbstick click are the free inputs that you can easily assign a function but all the keys a remapable the problem is not enough keys for many important gamplay functions.

Ah, cool. I didn't they they allowed you to remap controls on controller.

As for the spy and reapers, i feel as thou they have inherent symbiotic relatioship as info on ships and quest would be invaluable to a reaper job in hunting and stealing. I mean a robber nomally casses the joint b4 he robs the place.

In a PvP sense, Reapers and Spies do have something in common. My initial vision of a spy organization is mostly a PvE faction that tries to intercept movements of skeleton ships and the like. The PvP aspect of copying/stealing voyages from other pirates is more that SoT is a PvP game at heart.

I sure reaper would pay hansomely for intel. This makes sense for reaper quest. Players acting as info brookers also would add a nice and unique social interaction to the game. Maybe even finally give a reason for crews to meet up in a tavern?

I agree that Reapers would be interested in intel. But they're also interested in everything else. I think it's fine to leave Reapers as the "piracy for piracy's sake" alliance where they will accept Spy Intel as loot they buy. But at the same time, their emissary puts you on the map for everyone to see, and that makes no sense for a Spy.