Game Mechanics: Sneak pulling

[paulgiamatti]

From The Safehouse:

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.

This is pretty interesting, and I'm having a hard time believing that this guy would mistakenly describe something so simple with such confidence. If this is true, then that means sneak pulling mechanics on P99, and probably on EQ live as well, are drastically different than they were during this era.

Essentially he's saying that even sneak pulling at close range was normally done with your target looking at you, and it's only the other mobs in proximity that needed to be turned away. And if you get enough distance between you and your target, you can single it out even if both mobs are looking your way. This also suggests that sneaking in general should reduce your aggro radius for mobs that have you in sight - that when you're sneaking, you should be able to get closer to mobs from the front than you normally can.

It's possible that the social assist circles I added to the diagram completely disappear when you have sneak engaged and tag a mob with a projectile, and it switches to only your own aggro radius for the social assist checks. That's really the only way that what this guy is describing could be true.

[Haynar]

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

No need for snark; I'm just curious because I remember reading Torven saying sneak didn't work at all on Live, so I'm wondering what the difference was.

I agree with Torven. Sneak pulling doesnt work on eqlive like is described. I am inclined to think it never did. There is some body pulling that seems to. But I am about to nerf the crap out of sneak pulling until there is some better proof.

[Haynar]

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

Isnt this how it works here? Thats the post on page 1 from 2001 confirming sneak pulling works. Why would it get nerfed?

This part of body pullinzg with sneak still works on eqlive. It will definitely stay. Still working on the rest.

[Ikon]

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

From The Safehouse:



This is pretty interesting, and I'm having a hard time believing that this guy would mistakenly describe something so simple with such confidence. If this is true, then that means sneak pulling mechanics on P99, and probably on EQ live as well, are drastically different than they were during this era.

Essentially he's saying that even sneak pulling at close range was normally done with your target looking at you, and it's only the other mobs in proximity that needed to be turned away. And if you get enough distance between you and your target, you can single it out even if both mobs are looking your way. This also suggests that sneaking in general should reduce your aggro radius for mobs that have you in sight - that when you're sneaking, you should be able to get closer to mobs from the front than you normally can.

It's possible that the social assist circles I added to the diagram completely disappear when you have sneak engaged and tag a mob with a projectile, and it switches to only your own aggro radius for the social assist checks. That's really the only way that what this guy is describing could be true.

Yeah if you click on the library link on that website and go back one page that Zato guy wrote 20 other guides. They''re all well written. I'd say he probably knew what he was talking about but I'll look up so more evidence anyway.

[Raev]

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

I agree with Torven. Sneak pulling doesnt work on eqlive like is described. I am inclined to think it never did. There is some body pulling that seems to. But I am about to nerf the crap out of sneak pulling until there is some better proof.

I think EQ live is probably the best source of information we have on Sneak. It probably never changed and mirroring the behavior of live is going to be much better than going off of 50 conflicting posts in this particular case.

My gut feeling is that Sneak had SOME effect somewhere (maybe the body pulling that you mentioned) or there wouldn't have been a huge discussion about it; everyone would have agreed that it didn't work.

Will be very curious to see if Maurice can show us some stuff.

[Ikon]

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

I think EQ live is probably the best source of information we have on Sneak. It probably never changed and mirroring the behavior of live is going to be much better than going off of 50 conflicting posts in this particular case.

My gut feeling is that Sneak had SOME effect somewhere (maybe the body pulling that you mentioned) or there wouldn't have been a huge discussion about it; everyone would have agreed that it didn't work.

Will be very curious to see if Maurice can show us some stuff.

Its probably safest to go off live in the absence of concrete evidence. This post confused me though its from 2004, still arguing about it then, has a lot of links from early eq arguing about it as well [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Link

[pasi]

I'm off Thursday, hopefully get some EQing in then.

[Jimjam]

Some misconceptions just refuse to go away, like the idea that 2nd hand uses 1st hand delay (use a wurmslayer and a jade mace or weapons of significantly different type/delay and it becomes obvious this is not the case).

So yea, going of what you can learn from live might be a good idea, especially if a lot of elements of the conflicting posts are in alignment with the current live system.

Has a keen proponent of Halflings I will be sad to see yet another nerf to their OP hide/sneak skills, but we halflings have had it too good for a long, long time!

[Malk]

For what it's worth i've checked out my vintage EQ box with physical user manuals and if the EQ/kunark/velious ones don't give details about sneak, the PoP one says (translated from french) :

"To sneak behind or near someone without being heard"

The "or near" part would imply that there was an aggro radius reduction, but it doesn't help for the assist radius reduction thing.

[paulgiamatti]

Frontal aggro range for sneak is definitely something that's testable on live - would be interested to see some results for that, preferably with some fraps so the developers would know to what extent the range is reduced, if that's actually a thing.