Hiding, Invisibility and Silence - How it works, How to fix

[Farwalker]

After extensive testing, here are some comments on the Hide in Shadows / Invisibility / Move Silently system in the game.

How it works now:

Invisibility

If you are invisible and hit or damage (not sure which) someone with a melee attack, arrow or thrown weapon, they will start tracking you. They will chase after you until they lose track of you, attacking you if they can. What's rather nice is that any buddies they may have nearby will not join in - so you can use invisibility to eliminate a crowd of enemies one by one without being ganged up on, even using melee attacks. They will have a massive -90% penalty to hit you while you are invisible as well.

If you are invisible and damage someone with a magic attack, they will become hostile (if they weren’t) and start wandering around (as opposed to standing still in one place) but they will not start tracking you. In many cases this makes sense, but there are cases where I don’t think it does. For example: 1) Fire dart. You can tell where my invisible archer is from the direction of the arrow that just hit you in the night, but you can’t figure out where that flaming dart just came from? I don’t think so. If you can trace a projectile or similar to the caster it should trigger tracking. 2) In some cases no actual direct damage is done, but hostile/wandering/possibly tracking should be triggered anyway. Sonic blast should trigger all three even if no damage is done and the stun is resisted. (Right now an NPC can actually be stunned, even while the player is obviously visible, and not trigger a consequence.) Toxic element currently triggers hostility, but not wandering or tracking (try it on Lord Brumbleton’s stationary guards and watch them just stand there and slowly lose health). It should trigger all three (tracking because it’s a spray that could be tracked to its source). 3) Turn undead. I didn’t check this one, but casting this on an undead should certainly let them know where you are (else how can they be repulsed away from you)? It should trigger hostile/wandering/tracking (although they may be running away from you rather than chasing after you for a while). It need not have any effect on non-undead, but there’s no reason it couldn’t.

When you become invisible (including a recast/requaff if you already are invisible) any enemies tracking you immediately lose track of you. This is the most powerful benefit of invisibility (so powerful it pretty much destroys the system).

Hide in Shadows

Hide in shadows is rather buggy at the moment, and as such has become rather overpowered. So long as you are hidden in shadows, your enemies cannot attack you. (They might track you and mill around your position though.) That makes good sense. However, it’s not hard to ensure you don’t lose your hidden status - and that's the buggy part.

Spells will not cancel your hidden status as long as they don’t generate light – and that includes spell attacks. You can cast a spell and either wait or move without immediately losing your hidden status.

If you make a ranged or melee attack while hidden, you will not immediately lose your hidden status. However, if you then wait or move you will lose your hidden status. The solution is to keep attacking, or cast some spells, or change your equipment around, until all your enemies are dead. Then if you wait or move you may lose hidden status but it’s likely to come back after just one round.

Similar to the case for invisibility, if you attack with a melee attack, arrow or thrown weapon your enemy will start tracking you. If you damage them with a magic attack (that does not generate light) they will become hostile (if they weren’t) and start wandering around (if they were stationary) but they will not start tracking you.

Combining Invisibility and Hide in Shadows

One of the most cheesy, overpowered things you can do in the game is pump up Hide in Shadows and learn the Invisibility spell (even at just level 1). Use the Hide in Shadows to wipe out your enemies from a safe position, and should they ever start to track you or should you need to regain your hidden status just apply a quick Invisibility.

Hey what about Move Silently?

Move silently currently has no real effect on the game – at least as it’s currently working. There’s one possible exception I can think of – if you’re going for a challenge that requires you not be detected in a criminal act, you might care about move silently. Otherwise, so what if someone “hears a crime being committed”? As long as they don’t see you, it doesn’t seem to matter. (If there are significant cases where it does that I’ve missed, feel free to mention them!)

In principle move silently, and the concept of noise in general, should act as a limiter on the power of Invisibility and Hide in Shadows. Currently however it doesn’t. If you’re invisible, you can be as noisy as you want right next to an enemy (while cutting down his chums for example), if you don’t actually hit them they won’t start tracking/attacking you. Same thing goes for Hiding in Shadows.

Move silently has some additional bugs too. So far you don’t get the Dexterity bonus effect on your skill (which should probably be around +1 per 5 stat points I’d guess). Also, there is an extra round of delay between doing something and it showing up in your silence status, which is a problem (not to mention a bit confusing until you figure out what’s happening).

How to Fix the System

My suggestion is to adjust the system as follows:

First a definition: “Awareness” – a creature/NPC may be aware of your location (at least approximately) or not. An enemy that is tracking you is aware of you, as is an undead that may be repulsed away from you, and an NPC may be aware of you even if they are not tracking/chasing after you. Hopefully this lines up well with how the game engine is already set up…

1) When the player generates light, in the next round
a) Remove any hidden status (this happens now I believe)
b) If the player is invisible, all creatures in line-of-sight (even if they are turned the wrong direction) gain awareness of the player (this is new)

2) When the player generates noise that can be heard by someone, in the next round if any who heard the noise are still alive
a) Remove any silent status
b) Remove any hidden status
c) If the player is invisible, all who heard the noise and now have line-of-sight to the player (even if they are turned the wrong direction) gain awareness of the player

3) When the player is hidden, if any creature that has the player in view (line-of-sight and turned the right direction) notices the player (either they can see hidden, or they manage to spot hidden - there's a mechanism for this in the game already, not sure exactly how it works), then
a) Remove any hidden status

4) In general awareness can be maintained even if line-of-sight is lost (the game does this now when enemies are chasing you). I suggest the following:
a) A player may not gain hidden status if a creature is aware of and is able to see the player (they have line-of-sight and they are turned the right direction). If they turn around you can hide on them. In general hide-in-shadows should be applied immediately if it can be applied. The player may quickly lose that hidden status again via some sort of spot hidden (which I've seen happen from time to time), because of noise, light, and so forth.
b) When a player gains hidden status creatures do not lose their awareness immediately, but could for example continue to search for the player (right around the player!) for a while before finally giving up (losing awareness at that point). Hidden status still means you can't be attacked. So long as the player can stay quiet enough, they might not be found… In a similar way awareness should also be lost if line-of-sight is lost for a long enough period of time.
c) When a creature loses line-of-sight with an invisible player, they immediately lose awareness of the player (unless they can see invisible). Other creatures in the way do not count as losing line-of-sight.
d) When a player becomes invisible creatures who do not have line-of-sight with the player lose awareness of the player (unless they can see invisible). Other creatures in the way do not count as losing line-of-sight.
e) Recasting/requaffing invisibility has no effect other than to reset the invisibility timer. (It does not cause all creatures to lose awareness of the player).

5) When the player hits a creature with a melee attack, ranged attack, or a spell that gives away its source (per comments above) this makes the creature aware of the player. If the attack is point-blank (adjacent), and the creature survives the attack, the player also automatically loses hidden status if they had it. Otherwise they do not automatically lose it. (Of course, if they made noise they might lose it for that reason.) This allows for more interesting sniper strategies…

6) For player benefit it may be very helpful to add an “undetected” (or alternately a “detected”) status indicator to let the player know when someone/something is aware of them or not. Note that I can be silent, hiding in shadows and invisible and still be detected.

Hope that helps!

[Farwalker]

Interested in how Move Silently works?

It's rather well thought out, which is why I'm hoping we'll see some bug fixes and adjustments to make the effects of noise/silence more meaningful in the game.

In general, your ability to move silently depends on your Move Silently skill and what you wear on your feet, legs and torso. Eventually Dexterity may help as well (not implemented as of v1.03, but BW is looking at it). Encumbrance does not currently seem to affect your effective Move Silently skill. (Good for those of you who want to sneak back past the guards weighed down with all your loot!)

Note that picking a lock and throwing a thrown weapon were both found to be completely quiet in all tested cases (skill level 10 and up) - meaning ability to remain silent was the same as for standing still. That's an interesting benefit to thrown weapons - a nice touch, and one that makes sense to me too. Some key points on becoming quiet in other activities are noted below.

Different creatures may have better hearing (I haven't tested this). The data here was all tested on dwarf guards in Durnore as a reference. The format is Skill Level - Distance at which you remain unheard walking (Distance at which you remain unheard standing). Distances are tested in direct, unobstructed, non-diagonal lines. A distance of 1.5 means you are silent at an adjacent diagonal space, but not at an adjacent non-diagonal space (which is closer). I did test everything level 10 and up, but in these charts I'm only noting the skill levels at which something improves to save space.

NO ARMOR (feet/legs/torso, clothing that doesn't say light or heavy armor is fine)
10 - 4(1.5)
12 - 4(1)
13 - 3(1)
17 - 2(1)
19 - 1.5(1)
20 - 1(1) *Bow is silent at range 1 (point-blank)
24 - 1(1) *Spells are silent at range 2
26 - 1(1) *Spells are silent at range 1.5
28 - 1(1) *Spells are silent at range 1
30 - 1(1) *Melee is silent at range 1.5
32 - 1(1) *Melee is silent at range 1

LIGHT ARMOR (feet/legs/torso, use this chart if even one of these is light armor and the rest no armor)
10 - 5(1.5)
13 - 4(1.5)
16 - 4(1)
17 - 3(1)
20 - 2(1)
22 - 1.5(1)
23 - 1(1) *Bow is silent at range 1 (point-blank)
29 - 1(1) *Spells are silent at range 2
31 - 1(1) *Spells are silent at range 1.5
32 - 1(1) *Spells are silent at range 1
35 - 1(1) *Melee is silent at range 1.5
37 - 1(1) *Melee is silent at range 1

HEAVY ARMOR (feet/legs/torso, use this chart if even one of these is heavy armor and the rest light or no armor)
10 - 6(2)
13 - 5(1.5)
16 - 4(1.5)
20 - 3(1)
23 - 2(1)
25 - 1.5(1)
27 - 1(1) *Bow is silent at range 1 (point-blank)
33 - 1(1) *Spells are silent at range 2
35 - 1(1) *Spells are silent at range 1.5
37 - 1(1) *Spells are silent at range 1
40 - 1(1) *Melee is silent at range 1.5
42 - 1(1) *Melee is silent at range 1

There you have it!

(Caveat - no I didn't test every single spell at every single level, but I tested quite a large batch until I realized they were all behaving similarly for noise, and then I just verified with a few each time.)

[Farwalker]

So, what do you do when you start getting hurt and you can't find the culprit?

Well, you wander around aimlessly until the player finishes you off for more experience of course...

The biggest issue is of course magic attacks from a hidden or invisible attacker that can't be tracked to the source. All you sneaky casters out there know exactly what I mean! Perhaps some enemies could be clever enough to deal with this problem. Some things they could do:

1) Do something to detect hidden/invisibility if they can. Perhaps summon some kind of critter that can see hidden and/or invisibility. Rats for see hidden?
2) Increase protection from magic/element/whatever.
3) Heal themselves / each other if they can.
4) Start attacking with wide area spells (supernova... perhaps an NPC version of supernova that only hits the player and not everything else?)

Other ideas?

[Slarty]

Invisibility is a very hard spell to include in a way that is both realistic and balanced. Most games fix this either by omitting Invisibility, or by gimping it somehow -- AD&D has the unsubtle fix where the spell just breaks if you make an attack. A lot of other games turn "Invisibility" into a kind of partial invisibility or blurring effect that just allows you to retreat without provoking an attack of opportunity, or increases your dodging ability slightly. I can only think of one other game that handles it as Eschalon does -- that's Shadowrun, and the spell is similarly grossly overpowered there, too.

[CrazyBernie]

Well if there were more casters, then a "Dispel Magic" would be an option. Certainly enemy support casters should be a consideration for any future games. As a matter of fact.... *goes an makes some notes*

Creatures with a keen sense of smell/hearing (rats, lizards, wolves etc.) should have a chance to swing at a hidden or invisible foe.

An option for enemies to just swing in a random direction? First a random direction is picked, then if it happens to be in the player's "square," the player would have a chance to be it... although it should probably only be about half what the enemy's normal hit chance is.

[Randomizer]

Devilmanders seem to have no trouble getting a few hits in when I was invisible.

[Farwalker]

Devilmanders seem to have no trouble getting a few hits in when I was invisible.

I believe I got hit by a bunch of rats down in the dwarven tunnels even though I was hiding in shadows. I figured perhaps they could see hidden. Can't remember exactly what happened with the hidden status during that encounter while they were attacking me.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

I'm pretty sure the big rats, with those glowing green eyes, have the equivalent of Predator Sight.

[Farwalker]

To twist a favorite quote of one of the regulars here...
Hidden and/or Invisible enemies should be an important part of this complete breakfast!

You head into the sewer system and all of a sudden you see a spinning knife coming your way... but the assassin is hidden! You can't see him on the screen or target him with your bow until you find him, either by following the missiles back to the source, or by other means...

Actually, all the tools for a player to handle these challenges are already in place (although exactly how some of them are applied would need to be figured out):

1) Cartography is the ultimate tactic here - if you are able to see enemies on your map, they cannot be hidden to you and you can see them (translucent) if they are invisible (still -90% to hit them though). Reveal Map becomes a more useful spell all of a sudden for this reason.
2) Spot Hidden (especially when up close)
3) Predator Sight - should immediately reveal hidden creatures except undead, plants or constructs (golems, machines, etc) so long as they are in line-of-sight. I don't think predator sight should work on undead, plants or constructs at all. [I also think the dwarves should have bolt-spitting turret emplacements hidden here and there in addition to traps... ]
4) You can see ranged attacks coming at you on the screen, and can follow them to a hidden or invisible attacker. Either you spot them as you get close or when they attack you at point-blank they become revealed.

You probably need to deal with creatures being hidden / invisible from each other as well though, which might complicate things a bit more, not sure. For example when two groups of enemies fight each other, or you have allies fighting with you, or an NPC defending against the invisible critter you just lured into town.

Still, this would be awesome. What do you think?

[bkrueger]

To twist a favorite quote of one of the regulars here...
Hidden and/or Invisible enemies should be an important part of this complete breakfast!

You head into the sewer system and all of a sudden you see a spinning knife coming your way... but the assassin is hidden! You can't see him on the screen or target him with your bow until you find him, either by following the missiles back to the source, or by other means...

Actually, all the tools for a player to handle these challenges are already in place (although exactly how some of them are applied would need to be figured out):

1) Cartography is the ultimate tactic here - if you are able to see enemies on your map, they cannot be hidden to you and you can see them (translucent) if they are invisible (still -90% to hit them though). Reveal Map becomes a more useful spell all of a sudden for this reason.
2) Spot Hidden (especially when up close)
3) Predator Sight - should immediately reveal hidden creatures except undead, plants or constructs (golems, machines, etc) so long as they are in line-of-sight. I don't think predator sight should work on undead, plants or constructs at all. [I also think the dwarves should have bolt-spitting turret emplacements hidden here and there in addition to traps... ]
4) You can see ranged attacks coming at you on the screen, and can follow them to a hidden or invisible attacker. Either you spot them as you get close or when they attack you at point-blank they become revealed.

You probably need to deal with creatures being hidden / invisible from each other as well though, which might complicate things a bit more, not sure. For example when two groups of enemies fight each other, or you have allies fighting with you, or an NPC defending against the invisible critter you just lured into town.

Still, this would be awesome. What do you think?

Very good ideas. An additional tactic for the player could consist in the use of area of effect weapons, like demon oil. In addition it should be possible to fire spells like fireball to a spot on the ground (currently you need a target IIRC).

With such tactics in place, invisible enemies would be fun.

In the Infinity Engine games you meet invisible enemies from time to time (they are quite rare however).

[CrazyBernie]

It'd all be slick like Rick (whoever Rick is), but I forsee a whole lot of mathematical mayhem on BW's part. ^_^

[KillingMoon]

It'd all be slick like Rick (whoever Rick is)...

You must be talking about Rick Astley!

Thanks for this thread, Farwalker. It looks like a good one. My own experience with this game is not such that I can contribute much to it.

I'm quite apprehensive about invisible creatures, though. The only times I came across them in some game I found them extremely annoying!
Has the game already exhausted all possibilities to give enemies 'Hide in Shadows'? I believe a game like Age of Wonders; Shadow Magic does a good job of hiding certain creatures in forests, but I have forgotten how it exactly worked there. I think you only could spot them when you were very near. In Eschalon you can spot any creature on the map, always. I can understand a wish for more refinement here.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Okay Farwalker, I have finally took the time to thoroughly read through this post and consider each suggestion.

The biggest issue with your suggestions is that the Hide in Shadow / Invisibility system is near capacity right now. What I mean is: there is not a whole lot of room for improvements to the current system...I would need to rewrite large chunks of code to gain some of the improvements you've suggested. I am not opposed to doing so, but it might be a little much for Book II.

The changes I have made for 1.04 are as follows:

1) if you make a sound while Hidden in Shadow, your Hidden status is removed. This change binds the two skills (Move Silent & Hide in Shadows) more closely and ultimately reduces some of Hide in Shadow power.

2) Invisibility has a shorter duration. It's still long enough at level 4-6 to cause some serious damage to your opponents, but the shorter duration does lessen its overall power.

3) Entities can now target you if you are invisible AND producing light (Torch, Gravedigger Flame, or Lantern), They still get a harsh ToHit penalty, but they will know where you are and they will attack.

[faustmn]

For some reason Hide in Shadow doesn't seem to be working for me. I have skill lvl 4 via ring and cloak, and I never get an icon for it--inlcuding when in total darkness in Westwillow. Am I not getting something?

[Kreador Freeaxe]

It helps to be standing next to something.