There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth — exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI — make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I don't consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more accessible.

yeah these are decent propositions.

I disagree with point #2. Going into stealth absolutely should lose target lock. That's a good deal of what stealth is all about.

Pop damage floaters, but not condi floaters. I should know if my big af sword hit someone invisible. It met resistance after all.

+1 to the first proposition

-signed as a deadeye main

No to both.

Stealth is not the problem, the burst of damage dealt when leaving or/and from stealth is the problem. It is "ok" to not see the damage you deal to stealthed targets and it is "ok" for stealth to break target. What is "not ok" is to be 100-0 by a foe that you don't see, from skills that have no tells due to stealth.

I actually like everything about these ideas.

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth — exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI — make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I don't consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more accessible.

I think stealth does not need a bat and people understand and learn how to play against something different. However your 2 points have also crossed my mind. I definitely agree with 1 and it just makes sense. However some skills like ranger's longbow 2 for some reason track stealthed players already which is s huge problem.Combining these would make it worse so skill tracking has to stop immediately when the target stealthed for this to work. #2 has come up before too but that one does have problems. Stealth isn't just about disappearing but making the enemy have to figure out where you will go. Doing that takes that part away and make it super mindless to play against. Also it won't work with clones at all.

1 yes if long lasting Skills have to stop tracking once stealth occurs . #2 No... good first thought but once you scratch the surface more its a bad idea.

Granted i think it

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth —

exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI

— make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I

don't

consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more

accessible.

You don't generally know if you hit with the tracking skills though unless you have a visual clue already when you hit like Might Makes Right or Soul Eater. The floaters will work, and it gives you a clue on which area to pressure in order to keep the 100-0 combos from stealth from happening through aggressive gameplay.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth —

exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI

— make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I

don't

consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more

accessible.

You do actually. If you see your character spinning/moving/changing its trajectory on its own, you know you are hitting him even without numbers. Also you are doing massive effing damage because you are essentially shoot through his defenses. It needs to stop tracking upon stealth (doesn't even make sense from a common-sense or lore stand point or from a mechanic standpoint), continue to do damage if it is still aimed at the thief/Mesmer/etc tho, but when you do hit, there should definitely be numbers showing up for it.

you want to fix stealth? without removing it from the game? And no nerfs?

easy

no attacks from stealthno stealthing while in combat

done.

Oh, that would kill stealth?

Then balance it finally:

damage out of stealth? Reduce it by 75-90%.want to retreat in stealth? Good, now you are rooted.

The 'stealth up, attack out of stealth, vanish into stealth, repeat until target is dead' cheese has to die.

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:you want to fix stealth? without removing it from the game? And no nerfs?

easy

no attacks from stealthno stealthing while in combat

done.

Oh, I see you totally know what you're talking about, that's totally "fixing" and not "removing". Oof.What EXACTLY is the purpose of stealth here? What about the stealth attacks that are part of thief kit? Nothing? Nice, really well "done".

Oh, that would kill stealth?

Then balance it finally:

damage out of stealth? Reduce it by 75-90%.want to retreat in stealth? Good, now you are rooted.

:lol:"want to retreat? -ok, now you're rooted."Wait, what? Explain your logic here.

The 'stealth up, attack out of stealth, vanish into stealth, repeat until target is dead' cheese has to die.

And it can be easly done if you understand what the problems are and target specifically those problems instead of comming up with some random nerfs that kill the mechanic while you'll claim you're "fixing" anything here.

"No, we should Smiter's-Boon stealth gameplay because I hate it" is not a useful argument in any thread, but especially this one.

As a big critic of Stealth for many years I quite like these ideas.

Stealth breaking the targetting lock and having to manually re-target afterwards is a pain for me, specially since target nearest enemy sometimes screws up on me and instead of retargeting the thief im fighting It targets a stupid deer or something that's barely in my view range instead >.<Stuff like that can get intensely annoying, specially if the thief is popping in and out of stealth on a regular basis.

At that point i'm not just fighting the thief anymore im also fighting the the targeting system which is getting confused by other players or trash mobs in the area.Being able to re-establish the thief with a simple and easily accessable T press because my target lock remains after stealth would make fighting them far less annoying without any nerfs to the class at all.

Win win for all imo

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth —

exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI

— make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I

don't

consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more

accessible.

I mean that the stealthed person can still dodge, so you don't ever know for certain what happened unless they come out of stealth in down state. I think the tracking thing is more of a fundamental code thing that they can't change without borking up the skills completely.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth —

exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI

— make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I

don't

consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more

accessible.

If they dodge i think the skill stops tracking both functionally and i Think visually too. You are probabily right it's probably a coding thing that may be tough to remove but it's still kind of ridiculous imo.

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth —

exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI

— make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I

don't

consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more

accessible.

No they still track. Things like Bulls Charge or Rush will go to the target if they are activated before stealth, but you have no idea if the hit unless you have an effect that procs on certain conditions, which are not always obvious that are then met or they drop out of stealth in downstate, or the person tells you about it. I had a mesmer send me a whisper in WvW after my rush hit him for 14k (pre patch) in stealth. He wasn't even mad, he was impressed. Not that I knew that I hit him until I saw him on the ground in downstate 2 seconds later.

Things like healing only pop up when you are not on full health, and as I have said previously, you would know if an arrow, bullet, or melee weapon hit something invisible, and where it was (with the exception of arrows, you'd see it floating around). Realistically you'd also see a blood trail, and if they were on fire you'd see that too.

So, I'd say physical damage floaters. Condi floaters would make stealth utterly useless.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth —

exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI

— make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I

don't

consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more

accessible.

I forgot about condi floaters. You are right that would break the mechanic in a bad way.... also that combo so still hits for 12k in full zerker

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth —

exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI

— make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I

don't

consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more

accessible.

Oh I know. This conversation kind of elucidates the ways that stealth is countered in other games though. Generally if you hit them they are either revealed or you at least know the location you hit them.

That or I guess Anet needs to put more reveal on skills across the classes. That way people can't complain since they did not bring the counter.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth —

exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI

— make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I

don't

consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more

accessible.

Oh God more reveal is a bad idea. Remember, stealth is thieves only defense... if that happens thief skills would also have to be unblockable.Both bad ideas imo. What you said is an interesting idea where if you hit a stealthed foe, maybe a marker is highlighted on the ground where you hit it.It would be hard to implement tho and could be negative side effects

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@"ASP.8093" said:There's complaint threads about stealth here every day. I was originally going to post this in one of those threads, but I think it probably stands better on its own.

I'd like to suggest a few UI improvements that could be made that would help the average player have a less frustrating time with stealth, without upsetting the existing "top-end" balance, or making thief, and mesmer, and ranger, and engineer less fun to play.

A major problem in GW2 is a "balance seesaw" phenomenon where classes vacillate between being top-tier garbage and low-tier "cancer" (or both at the same time! uh-oh!) because the same mechanics play very differently against opponents of different skill levels. For both thief and mesmer, a huge part of this problem is that"l2p" and reaction-time issues around enemies popping in and out of stealth —

exacerbated heavily by what I consider to be some pretty bad UI

— make it a vastly stronger defensive and offensive tool in lower-tier play. Reducing that disparity across player experience creates more room for these professions to thrive and work "as designed" instead of randomly getting their legs kicked out from under them.

(For the record, I

don't

consider myself a high-level player. But I find the game more enjoyable when I feel like I've outplayed my opponent, or vice versa, rather than when one of us trips over our keyboard or flails wildly.)

---

1. Damage feedback when hitting stealthed enemies. (NOT location, just that it happened at all.)

Veteran players are already aware of this with their auto chains or by switching the chatbox to "outgoing combat damage," but both of these things are very opaque as far as UI is concerned, and dragging players' eyes all the way to the bottom of their screen actively devalues the cool "tells" designed into skills like Death's Judgement. The game is very consistent about giving you damage floaters in all other circumstances, so taking them away here is confusing and non-intuitive for anyone who's coming into this with fresh eyes.

Try playing a Reaper with that Blood Magic "heal on hit" trait and notice how much easier it is to tell when you strike a stealthed enemy, thanks to the little green healing floaters, compared to having to look at your skill bar to see whether you connect with an attack. I'm suggesting that just doing damage to a stealthed target normally should result in a similar UI experience (white damage floaters appearing next to your character, perhaps shade-shifted a bit greyer so you know they're special). Seems like an easy way to make the game less confusing for a novice/average player without introducing anything that hardcore pvp players weren't already doing for years.

---

2. Called targets stay called when they become visible again.

Tab and click targeting are both clunky. A lot of players, particularly ones with lower APM, rely on called target to work around that. But going into stealth drops called targets. So, why not make it so that the game "remembers" your called target when your opponent pops back out of stealth? Then you can restore focus by just hitting T (or whatever the default key is, i forget) without worrying about accidentally blowing an attack on some wildlife or whatever.

(You don't want to automatically restore your actual target, for the same reason people turn autotargeting off in the first place.)

Path of Fire introduced a separate "drop target" skill mechanic (used by Mirage), so that could be added to a few of the big-effect/big-cooldown stealth skills to make them better for thieves trying to "lower their profile" in a team fight type situation.

---

TLDR: stealth gameplay rocks, targeting UI sucks, let's fix the actual problem and make established correct counter-play more

accessible.

Damage floaters are the simplest thing to do. They pop where you hit.

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:Oh God more reveal is a bad idea. Remember, stealth is thieves only defense... if that happens thief skills would also have to be unblockable.Both bad ideas imo. What you said is an interesting idea where if you hit a stealthed foe, maybe a marker is highlighted on the ground where you hit it.It would be hard to implement tho and could be negative side effects

Stealth isn't thief's only defence, or even a defence full stop; what are you talking about? Since you can take damage while in stealth, it's not an actual defence. The suggestion of markers if cleaving the stealthed object doesn't help classes with short mele weapon range only (i.e. range 130).

I'd be quite happy to see it removed from the game tbh. It's fucking dull.

My solution to this would be to simply add more tools that apply reveal to each elite spec. It seems like roughly 1 elite spec of all 3 professions has a reveal when in truth every elite should have a skill that reveals in some way.

A few examples.Core Necro - Shroud 5 can reveal targets that are close ish if you tag them with the shacklesReaper- lacks a reveal.Scourge- lacks a reveal.

Core Rev- Lacks a revealHerald- Has a very wide range Reveal.Renegade- Lacks a reveal.

Core Ranger- Has sick emDruid - Lacks its own utility revealSoulbeast - Lacks its own utility reveal.

Basically this process repeats over and over and i think the only profession that breaks this is engineer. I know one of the core traits will reveal if they tag a target in stealth and scrapper has its own tool bealt/ utility option for revealing a target.

Ideally Stealth application when used rapidly + being completely invis for some cases 5+ seconds at a time becomes very frustrating to players depending on their elite spec.

In this game if the target is hidden for 80% of the fight you cant fight it without a reveal skill to hard carry you which as ive shown in my example there is not enough general access to in the game. The most fair way would be to just add reveal options to a skills across each elite even if its just a single skill.

Using reaper is an example. The shout "Nothing Can Save You" Should probably be a reveal on hit. As it implies nothing will save you for a few moments it makes attacks unshockable i dont see why it couldn't also be a reveal. Its just an option and it does not mean every reaper will use the skill but it would be nice to have the option there when you feel like you might need it vs having to play core as your only reveal countermeasure.

Forget all these ideas with targets not breaking and floater numbers and just add a few more reveal skills to the game for each elite. Make depending on stealth too much sometimes hard publishable when the player has the right skills and makes the right reads vs just guessing into the abyss and hoping you hit a target thats totally invisible.

@ZDragon.3046 said:[...]

Great idea. Then give each espec a skill (can be even a single one per spec!) that empties necro life force and disables shroud for certain duration. It can be pretty frustrating to face a tanky necro that just refills life force and then uses it as his health, so -following your post- it seems the best answer is to make it possible for other classes to disable that mechanic.Lets do this for other classes as well, I'm sure we can find something annoying for every single one of them, so we should be able to disable their mechanics too.

@Sobx.1758 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:[...]

Warrior CC to axe 5 or similar dps skill has that covered.