Tracking

[Steorn]

I was solo PKing the other day when I realized that no matter how sneaky I was when following someone on a mount that there was no chance of keeping up with them and not being in plain site a good portion of the time.

I could follow by putting trees, large bushes, rocks, etc. between us, but much of the time I had a choice: either lose them in the clipping fog or keep pursuing in plain site.

I would absolutely love to see some kind of tracking skill.

One problem I thought about with this idea is having people running around spamming tracking or some such, finding people that they never actually came across, etc.

Maybe one way to trigger tracking would be to use, and hit with, a long-range, silent ray-like targeting skill so that for a while you can track at least the target that you painted. Meaning, at some point you were actually close enough to them to cast, shoot, etc, unseen with using current mechanics, but instead of doing those things, chose to follow their movements with some effectiveness.

Thoughts?

[Ivanhoe]

Tracking of some kind would be a nice addition to the game.

[Steorn]

Tracking of some kind would be a nice addition to the game.

Totally, as long as its not overdone, but subtle.

[Dunmer]

What I'm thinking of as a tracking system is that you use the skill in an area, and then you have a chance of finding a track. If you do, it glows faintly in some sort of color for a period of time. Once that period is over, the glow stops and you've lost track. Could be quite interesting.

The track should obviously be where the person ran, not to where he currently is. :) No radar-shit.

[Solvito]

radar hax?

[stingerII]

well ... there is that spell that sends a globe of light bobbing over people's heads ... what if there was a similar GM spell only that the globe of light wouldn't bob downwards, and it would just stay at max height ... i.e. the target would not notice he's being tracked, not even if he was in 3rd person, unless he looked straight up

[Steorn]

well ... there is that spell that sends a globe of light bobbing over people's heads ... what if there was a similar GM spell only that the globe of light wouldn't bob downwards, and it would just stay at max height ... i.e. the target would not notice he's being tracked, not even if he was in 3rd person, unless he looked straight up

We'd still have to keep them within the clipping fog while chasing after them the whole time, though.

[Aoranar]

Like the idea. More specifically the casting part. Have it be invisible to everyone but you, both the actual result of the spell and the casting "ray" so they don't know if you have cast it on them, or just make it instant cast with no animation. make it cost a sulfur or ash.

[Steorn]

Like the idea. More specifically the casting part. Have it be invisible to everyone but you, both the actual result of the spell and the casting "ray" so they don't know if you have cast it on them, or just make it instant cast with no animation. make it cost a sulfur or ash.

This.

[MikeJT]

I like the idea but I don't like the idea of making it a spell.

IMO it would be nice if the server tracked the movements of people for say the last 5 minutes and placed 'markers' at regular intervals (say 15 seconds) for each person.

If you had the 'tracking' skill, you would use it and have a chance to see one of those markers - it would highlight a spot on the ground with some sort of marker.

The chance of a marker being found would depend on how high your skill is, how close to the marker you are, and what they were doing when that marker was left - for example someone riding a horse at full gallop would leave a highly obvious marker that's easy to see, followed by a horse walking, then a person sprinting, then a person running, then a person walking (extremely hard to spot).

The higher your tracking skill the more information the marker would give you. If you walked up to the marker and hit f on it, it would give you information. The higher your skill level, the better the information.

For example, at a low skill it would say: "A horse was ridden through here."

At a high level of skill, it would say "A horse was ridden by a heavy rider, heading north-east."

A 'heavy rider', could be a human carrying alot of stuff, or a human in full-plate, or an orc or mahirim. A light rider would probably be an elf or Alfar.

[Pheonix Fury]

Anything that puts radar in the game and out of the hands of cheaters would be a welcome addition to the game. It is not uncommon to find players with "questionable" tracking skill in the game currently.

[Steorn]

I like the idea but I don't like the idea of making it a spell.

IMO it would be nice if the server tracked the movements of people for say the last 5 minutes and placed 'markers' at regular intervals (say 15 seconds) for each person.

If you had the 'tracking' skill, you would use it and have a chance to see one of those markers - it would highlight a spot on the ground with some sort of marker.

The chance of a marker being found would depend on how high your skill is, how close to the marker you are, and what they were doing when that marker was left - for example someone riding a horse at full gallop would leave a highly obvious marker that's easy to see, followed by a horse walking, then a person sprinting, then a person running, then a person walking (extremely hard to spot).

The higher your tracking skill the more information the marker would give you. If you walked up to the marker and hit f on it, it would give you information. The higher your skill level, the better the information.

For example, at a low skill it would say: "A horse was ridden through here."

At a high level of skill, it would say "A horse was ridden by a heavy rider, heading north-east."

A 'heavy rider', could be a human carrying alot of stuff, or a human in full-plate, or an orc or mahirim. A light rider would probably be an elf or Alfar.

Well, I'm not saying a spell, just that it is target-able and ray-like. This way, traveling around doesn't degenerate into a tracking spam fest.

Also, people get caught and tracked by real people doing real scouting, not caught by the server.

[Cunning]

I like the tracking idea. The invisible cast sound ok to me, but I think it should go along with bleeds for sure. If you put a weapon bleed or a spell bleed on someone, you should be able to track them on your map for at least the duration of the bleed (I realize that the bleeds now are not long enough to matter, but it could change if incorporated with bleed). Bow needs some kind of bleed for that to work though. But why give archers weapon powers? Even sithras dont get them!