Game Mechanics: Sneak pulling

[paulgiamatti]

Hypothesis: Tagging a mob that does not have you in its line of sight, while sneaking, should decrease the aggro radius of that mob. This means that other mobs that are not looking at the mob you tagged can still aggro if they're close enough - just like with Harmony or Lull. It is, for all intents and purposes, a minor Harmony/Lull effect. This also means that other mobs that are looking at the mob you tagged will not aggro if they're outside of the reduced aggro radius of the mob you sneak-tagged.

Evidence:

From Monkly Business, 10/3/2000

Its claimed that sneak can be used as a minor harmony effect on *SOCIAL* mobs to reduce their add radius, but personally I haven't had much success with this at all.

From The Safehouse, 6/11/01

In the end, it's all in the placement of the mobs, use angles and line of sight to minimize aggro with the others you don't want. It's not a simple case of "put sneak on, stand in front of two mobs, hit one and the other shouldn't come". There is no substitute for experience, pathing and aggro is different everywhere. Learn exactly how sneak affects/reduces that aggro in different places and then put it to use.

Yes, aggro radius pulling is useful with sneak too. I use this in Karmors basement where the halls are narrow an there is no room for range weapons.

Line of sight helps a lot in these cases. If you get in a position where one can see you but another can't, while having sneak and hide engaged, then you drop hide - but keep sneak on.

Soon as you see one start to aggro and move, back away quickly. As long as you are out of aggro radius of the other by the time it hits you and sneak drops, you only get the one.

From Monkly Business, 6/25/01:

You don't even have to do the FD pull if you have enough room to maneuver. Just turn on Sneak

and walk up to mobs from the side so that you will become closer to one than the others. As soon

as you come within aggro range of the mob he will come after you and the others will stay.



Walk backwards till you are clear of aggro range of the other mobs then un-sneak and run back to

your beatdown posse.

Evidence to the contrary:

From Monkly Business, 9/25/2000

4) Using Thrown Weapons and Sneak to split.

With the changes to Sneak (no longer dropping when you use a thrown weapon ) another use has come up! In order for this to work, you must be using a ranged weapon with a ranger greater then the static aggro of the mob ( ie method # 3 listed above): engage sneak, throw, insta split. Personally I'm using summoned suriken for this, and I haven't had to use FD on a split since I got back into EQ. This includes splitting spawns where the mobs are literally on top of each other, although some times I have hit the mob i didn't have targeted, I have never aggro'ed the other.

Discuss, and please prove this wrong.

[Ikon]

I believe this is correct. You could also sneak pull by using sit. Sneak reduces your aggro, sit increases it. So outside of range of standing sneak aggro, sit, aggro mob, stand immediately others don't aggro.

[paulgiamatti]

Also, kind of a given but obviously once sneak breaks then the aggro reduction effect stops.

[Brocode]

isnt the game like this atm? I mean i can solo pull an npc on top of each other as long they are not facing me or in range once my sneak break.

[paulgiamatti]

Nope, I don't think you've understood my post. Aggro radius reduction is massively different from the current all-or-nothing LoS check. The contrary evidence suggests that the latter is indeed classic, but it seems like there is more evidence to support my minor Harmony/Lull hypothesis. Hoping others will do some classicquesting to find more evidence on either side.

[Ikon]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nope, I don't think you've understood my post. Aggro radius reduction is massively different from the current all-or-nothing LoS check. The contrary evidence suggests that the latter is indeed classic, but it seems like there is more evidence to support my minor Harmony/Lull hypothesis. Hoping others will do some classicquesting to find more evidence on either side.

Been going through these links - lot of info but not enough time to look it all up. Might find some useful stuff as well here - need to go to the [Site Map] link on the side to get the info, its organized by month through 1999 to 2001 I think

[nilbog]

Bump.

What all is wrong with sneak pulling? Is it too easy to pull npcs? How is it functioning differently than classic?

Be as specific as possible, and it will be looked into.

[pasi]

Going to tackle just the low hanging fruit here.

Counter-point to sneaking behind an NPC being a radius reduction as opposed to an all-or-nothing check: Whistling Fists

[paulgiamatti]

Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Paul asserts that the aggro radius reduction caused by sneak should be less effective.

Small but important correction: the current implementation of sneak pulling is not an aggro radius reduction, it's a line of sight check. Meaning mobs gaining social aggro from a sneak pull is not contingent on their proximity to the mob you tag - it's 100% contingent on its line of sight toward you, and other mobs' line of sight toward you and the tagged mob. I'm suggesting that this is wrong and it should be changed to an aggro radius reduction.

So this is 100% about social aggro mechanics - you should be able to sneak pull a mob away from another mob that's looking directly at it, provided the mob you tag has its back turned to you and the other mob falls outside the reduced sneak-pull aggro range.

Another theory is that it doesn't always work, but that would be much more difficult to prove.

[Ikon]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Small but important correction: the current implementation of sneak pulling is not an aggro radius reduction, it's a line of sight check. Meaning mobs gaining social aggro from a sneak pull is not contingent on their proximity to the mob you tag - it's 100% contingent on its line of sight toward you, and other mobs' line of sight toward the tagged mob. I'm suggesting that this is wrong and it should be changed to an aggro radius reduction.

It was both line of sight and aggro radius - this post might clear up a few things, from 2001 Safehouse:

Basically, Sneak does two things - depending where you are in relation to the mob. One, automatically sets you to indifferent if in the rear arc of the mob - and two, reduces aggro range if in the forward arc of the mob.

If you come up behind two mobs and fire a bow, or throw at one - only the target will come as long as you keep sneak engaged. It negates him from chain aggroing the second mob. As if the first mob normally says "Come on, there's a guy over here" and the second says "I don't see anything", shrugs and stays where he is.

There are some mobs that work on social aggro that don't need to "see" the player to be aggro'd by the other mob, most of the time sneak pulling won't help in these isolated instances. But there are LOTS of mobs people have told me are linked by social aggro and I couldn't sneak pull just one, yet I have *shrug*

Anyways, most mobs in norrath work on chain aggro - one runs by aggro'd, it aggro's another, BUT Sneak negates this in most instances.

Sneak pulling can be done from in front too, but requires greater range. Throwing will not work from in front....you can be in front of the target, but NOT in front of the additional mobs you don't want to come. Throwing requires you to be too close to be out of aggro range when hide drops, even with sneak engaged. A nice bow with good range works well for this. If you are far enough away, with sneak engaged, you can fire at one, and the other won't come, even if facing you.

The important thing is KEEP SNEAK ENGAGED until the mob is past anything else it can aggro on it's way to you. If you get hit so that sneak is off, or just take it off, then all normal chain aggro comes into effect.

By the way, because of this, sneak pulling casters is trickier. If they hit you with a nuke, sneak comes off, re-engage it quickly and you have a chance still to negate any chain aggro.

In the end, it's all in the placement of the mobs, use angles and line of sight to minimize aggro with the others you don't want. It's not a simple case of "put sneak on, stand in front of two mobs, hit one and the other shouldn't come". There is no substitute for experience, pathing and aggro is different everywhere. Learn exactly how sneak affects/reduces that aggro in different places and then put it to use.

Responses to some questions:

Yes, aggro radius pulling is useful with sneak too. I use this in Karmors basement where the halls are narrow an there is no room for range weapons.

Line of sight helps a lot in these cases. If you get in a position where one can see you but another can't, while having sneak and hide engaged, then you drop hide - but keep sneak on.

Soon as you see one start to aggro and move, back away quickly. As long as you are out of aggro radius of the other by the time it hits you and sneak drops, you only get the one.

Using this, I have been able to keep the basement completely cleared, getting nothing but single pulls for 8 hours. It makes having the "necessary" cleric and chanter unecessary in an area that gives great xp - I've done the whole basement with nothing but 2 rogues and a druid.

As for Hide, it doesn't really affect the chain aggro betwen mobs - Sneak takes care of this. The usefullness of Hide only comes into play if you have to pass other mobs on your way back to the group with your pull.

If you are hidden, you can pass other mobs safely without aggroing even though your pull is aggro and following you.

p.s. - Nimm is correct, I was simply referring to the pulling range of *most* weapons as far as pulling safely from the front. Of course there are some exceptions. Edited by: Zato at: 6/11/01 11:53:47 am

http://www.thesafehouse.org/forums/f...-sneak-pulling