Game Mechanics: Sneak pulling revisited

[Pringles]

This is a good primer on pull mechanics from 2003 which matches the tests H ran on live.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...t533.html#p533

Agro at Boarder Proxy Range
Quite often if you are barely in agro range of an NPC, but not others near it, only that one your in range of will agro. When you gain agro in this fashion, the assist agro range will be centered upon the puller. This is not always the case, but often, the agro check for the other NPC is never made. If you cast a spell, or throw a weapon, the assist radius will be centered on the NPC you attacked rather then you.

Proxy Pull
This trick can usually get you a single NPC without the need of FD. The trick is to get to the boarder of the NPCs agro range, but out of the agro range of other NPCs near by. Stand at the boarder range of one NPC and wait till it runs and attacks you. Don’t cast a spell or throw anything cause that will center the assist radius on the NPC you hit rather then you. Provided the NPCs are not very closely bunched, they will split. This pulling trick works extremely well in the planes.

Sneak Pulling
This trick can give you an added faction bonus. If you get some NPCs with their backs facing you, you may be able to pull them with the same chance of chain agro as you would get had you pulled non KoS mobs. Yes, there is a chance others will chain agro, but the odds are lowered, and the conditions for the NPCs to chain will be higher. In places where the chain agro mobs are a lower level then you, this could work well. If one mob is facing you, you can pull off a sneak and proxy pull which could very well lead to an amazing split.

An even older source got it half right so we can assume that the prox aggro mechanic remained unchanged.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...34.html#p17900

LaotzuQigong
Posts 43
Registered Member
7:08 AM - May 18, 2001 #7
Some interesting points...

As to the passing of hate lists, this of course only applies to high greens/blues or mobs that would normally aggro you...

Also, your discussion of "social" mobs goes to another topic entirely. Mobs have two different aggro ranges, one for general aggro (IE, you walk too close for a period of time) and second a combat aggro range (IE, You're in a fight with a mob) that I refer to as a "call for help" radius. For example, Treah in Growth has a zone wide call for help radius with certain mobs (a really annoying feature if I may say).

Also, at the outer ranges of the aggro radius, aggro delay is not a set time, as opposed to a percentage probability over time. So you will find at the furthest reach of an aggro range, mobs will have highly variable aggro times. You can prove this by slowly inching up on a mob, stopping, and waiting for 5 or 10 seconds. If you continue to inch and stop, inch and stop, you will find the maximum range of aggro. So one technique that I use sometimes is to figure out the very maximum aggro range, stop, and wait until the mob aggros.

The non-passing of the hate list would be more akin to an aggro percentage delay on other mobs... IE, they're at the maximum of aggro range, and so there's only a certain percentage probability of the second mob aggroing.

That first part is him not understanding server ticks or maybe they worked differently then. The second on non-passing of hate lists is just a crude understanding of proximity aggro. His variable percentages were your distance to the mobs that weren't being pulled, your level, and their level.


However based on all the evidence I think sneak went through various revisions and was eventually nerfed down to it's current form on live. Most likely due to the potential synergy with latter expansions tool sets.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...30.html#p17881

Mob LoS also seems to have a maximum distance. If I whip a Shuriken of Quellious at a frog, I can usually solo pull it by running backwards as I throw to gain distance on the attack.

[Pringles]

Whoops meant to add this at the bottom
https://thesafehouse.org/forums/foru...ide-to-pulling

.) Pull
Once your group is informed, pull the mobs using one of these methods:
- use a bow, or even throwing weapons
- run past them, thus aggo’ing them
- run up to them, and attack them

Using a ranged attack is preferred, as you have a much greater chance of not pulling unwanted mobs. With one or several mobs aggo’ed on you, you should head back as fast as possible to your group. Feel free to use shortcuts like dropping from bridges, and also jump to get a little more distance between you and the mobs. If you manage/like you can also give your group another warning that mobs are "INC!!!". When pulling multiple mobs, make sure to target the most dangerous mob first, so that those who are /assist-ing will all

[Pringles]

It's almost as if the devs kept throwing projectiles to one rule and archery another. Then flopped them at times. Would explain the heights of rogue success using the technique only to be outclassed later when monks were really given the ratchet up with the patch to not break sneak due to a projectiles impact on another being.

This is never gonna be perfect however I believe there is enough evidence out there and in here to make an emulation to how we understand the mechanic. Evidence was asked for and I hope this part of the whole will suffice.

[Pringles]

bump

[Pringles]

I believe based on all the evidence and reworking the mechanic towards the correct state that throwing a ranged item then immediately hitting sneak is the correct mechanic so long as the mobs are angled right and the sneak does not fail. This changes to being able to sneak then throw in Luclin. Pre luclin this skews it to only reliably working with rogues but any class/race with sneak could throw a hail Mary if they wanted to risk it.

[Pringles]

Came across a thread that documents fairly well the discovery of this mechanic over a couple years including nay sayers. The ending post by the OP sums it up pretty well

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...50.html#p17364

Jun 22, 2002#60
okay ijusth, with sneak + thrown weapon pulling, there is no need to FD, like at all. It's a huge time saver, as you aren't waiting on FD to recycle for the split, basically you reduce the range at which mobs will respond you're attack on the one you're tagging, it does not completely eliminate it, you're level will effect the agro range ( as always ), but it will get reduced by use of sneak.

It used to be that using a thrown weapon broke sneak, and you have to rehit it really fast to get this method to work ( so you needed to be sneaking again by the time the weapon actually connected meaning you needed a weapon with a pretty good range ). With the changes so that throwing doesn't break sneak, that is no longer the case, makes this a LOT eaiser to use, even with reltively short range weaopns like a shattering hammer or normal throwing stars.

ID splitting is a whole other monkey, doesn't involve throwing in any way

Peaces!

Kinda funny as reading through it the OP Autumn thought it was BS for a very long time then actually tested it, lo and behold it worked after trial and error. After that it blew up in monkly business can see a ton more mentions of the technique in threads on that forum. For reasons discussed earlier the safehouse knew about it much earlier and that is even remarked upon in the OP's thread. Good read.

[Pyrocat]

Great find! If you'll allow me to sum up some of the research so far, I feel like we have a very strong case for sneak pulling being classic.

Earliest post on that thread that mentions sneak pulling is Sept 28th, 2000.

Can you sneak pull?

I saw mention on a rogue board that if you attack with
a thrown weapon, and press sneak before it hits, then
you can split a spawn. Supposedly only the mob you
hit goes aggro on you.

Can anyone confirm that this actually works?

So we know it's in-era that throwing a weapon (or shooting a bow) and then hitting sneak before it lands works. It sounds like it changed at some point from throwing weapons breaking sneak -> throwing weapons eventually didn't break sneak, which would be an even bigger boon.

Originally Posted by Monkly Business OP, last edited 6/23/2002

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.

So we know that at least by June 23rd, 2002 throwing weapons didn't break sneak. But that's not in era. However, here's a post quoted earlier from the TTLG forums dated December 11th, 2000:

Originally Posted by TTLG forums, 12/11/2000

Now I've given you all the information necessary for the single pull. Let me describe the rogue implementation of this, the sneak pull.

This works best with a SoW, but I've had it work without. First, sneak up to bow range to the monster. Hide is not necessary. Because sneak reduces aggro range, even from the front, you should still not have aggroed anything. Shoot an arrow at the one you want, and immediately back off. The one you shot will come running, and if you can get far enough away before it comes and hits you and removes sneak, its friends will not. The bow works better than throwing because it lets you stay further back, but I've heard you can get this to work with throwing as well.

I have successfully used the sneak pull in Cazic-Thule at the lower Tae room and at the Burynai Mines in Frontier Mountains. I'm sure it would work in other places as well; I just never had the need.

That seems like solid evidence that sneak would not break from shooting a bow, and likely throwing weapons, in-era. Here's another piece of evidence:

Originally Posted by Safehouse Guide to Sneak Pulling, 6/11/2001 (repost, likely earlier)

Written by Kuurus IceBear

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.

Here's another smaller piece of evidence:

Originally Posted by Safehouse Guide to pulling, 3/22/2000 (repost, likely earlier) edited 5/4/2000

.) Pull
Once your group is informed, pull the mobs using one of these methods:
- use a bow, or even throwing weapons
- run past them, thus aggo’ing them
- run up to them, and attack them

Using a ranged attack is preferred, as you have a much greater chance of not pulling unwanted mobs.

So when exactly did the change occur? We don't know. There is a patch note from May 8th, 2002 that

Sneak only breaks when a character is hit, not when he hits someone.

which would indicate that previous to 5/8/2002 sneak broke when hitting someone... but there might've been an exception for ranged weapons.

Regardless of if ranged-weapons-breaking-sneak is in-era or not, there is plenty of evidence that firing a ranged weapon and then hitting sneak (if sneak was successful) reduced the aggro radius of your tag in classic EQ.

[Keebz]

^ this is all excellent. You may want to add links for each of those quotes.

I'm also curious if anyone asked on thesafehouse forums if there's more proof out there? As a rogue on live in classic, I'm kind of flabbergasted there isn't stronger documentation. I'm pretty sure I learned about this from the forums, and I quit my rogue long before Luclin came out.

[DMN]

Looks like a lot of contemporary testimony contradicts the idea sneak pulling ever being a thing, a least before they made changes to sneak only breaking when you got hit.

There were countless times back in the day where people would say things like:
"Casting a spell will pull less/more adds compared to X"
"aggro pulling will pull less/more adds compared to X"
" throwing/shooting will pull less/more adds compared to X"

Notice the pattern?

(Aggro pulling is just walking into aggro range while visible, sometimes called "face pulling" back then.)


Thing is, I'm pretty sure this all was the result of people not recognizing the level difference of the mobs they had this first "experience" with, yet they would always swear up and down that "that's the way it works". They didn't recognize that just gaining a level or 2 can completely change how man adds you got on a certain pull, or that many mobs have a wide range of levels while conning exactly the same. This lead to a lot of people claiming "myths" as gospel. or sometimes they just repeat the myth they heard someone else say because they wan to seem knowledgeable.

[Keebz]

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

Thing is, I'm pretty sure this all was the result of people not recognizing...

Conjecture, no matter how plausible, isn't useful in this context. Please feel free to provide proof.