Tracking Changes?

[Maximus Neximus]

Whenever I get someone on tracking (using JOAT) I can track them even if they run 5 screens away, possibly more. Is this intended? Also, say someone has you on tracking, how do you lose them? Just hop a serverline?

I seem to remember losing someone off tracking once they got a screen or so ahead of you, now there seems to be no distance too far...

 

[Maximus Neximus]

Figured it out... You get someone on tracking and you have them tracked for two minutes, no matter how far they travel *unless they cross a server line*

What really disturbs me is that my tests were with a friend using JOAT and me with near GM hide and GM stealth. We then switch roles, me with JOAT and him with zero hide/stealth. Same results, two minute timer.

 

[ZippyTwitch]

I think it's stupid that someone with zero skill in tracking and being human gets that what 20 skill in all skills? and can track a gm hider.

 

[Poo]

or is it stupid that a person can run in wolf form and you cant see him.... in a open field.

try this.
go outside, have someone put on a dog costume and have them run accross an open field.

let me know if you can see them.

ive never fully understood the stealth function in game.
youd think it would be a little more..... stealthy?

like youd have to stick to shadows and such.

i personally think that if you a) pop a smoke bomb b) change animal form c) rehide D) shadowjump you should be able to loose someone who is tracking you.

does seem a little out of line when someone with no skill can track someone with 220 real points invested.
340 of you add ninja.

 

[Dunarrack]

OK my skills are 120 ninja 100 hiding and 100 stealth given I am not at 120 at stealth I had a guildie helped me to test something out.

Elf passive detect is more effective than Id think. He has 35dex/45stam and 0 tracking and 0 detect hidden he never tracked me successfully but there's about 30% chance everytime I get closer to him (or he runs past me within several tiles)

Well its just strange.

 

[Harlequin]

Actually, I like it as it is.

The OP only mentioned those times that he successfully fired off tracking and found his friend.

To provide a better picture, at lower skill levels, most of the times you will fail to find anyone, regardless of how high or low their quarry's hiding skill is. In fact, you can be standing right next to an unhidden bull and tracking will tell you it can't find it, duh.

But, you can keep using tracking until it finds the bull. Same thing if you want to find hidden players, except that unless you know for sure someone is hiding in the vincinity, you won't bother to keep using tracking.

Also, it doesn't show you all the eligible quarrys. There may be 10 people around, but your 20 tracking only reveals only 1 or 2 of them, if at all.

The higher your tracking is, the more reliable tracking becomes.

After you succeed witht he skill check, it shows you a list of quarrys that you track. Once you select one, there'll be an arrow pointing towards the direction or your selected quarry. This arrow updates if your quarry changes position and lasts around 2 mins as the OP has tested.

To break it, cross a server line or recall or gate out and come back. You can also hide/invis (or re-hide/re-invis if already hidden).

It works just like most skills, spirit speak/alchemy/hiding, there's a skill check to determine if you succeed. At lower skills, you fail alot. But once you succeed, it works with full benefits. You don't get half a potion if you succeed at alchemy at only 50 skills points. Nor do you hide only 1 of your arms if you succeed in hiding at 20 skills points.

 

[Traveller]

So much misinformation in this thread...

 

[Demonous]

the dumbest thing is when a stealther stealths next to someone and gets revealed simply by walking next to them... years ago i was able to stealth into champ spawns, watch people kill the champ and be hidden with their backpacks open and steal a scroll of my choosing before they knew what hit them... these were the good old days where almost no one had detect hidden/tracking characters, now theres some guy on my shard thats a tamer/archer with gm tracking/detect so i get revealed, dismounted out of animal form and a greater dragon goes on me... its extremely lame, even when hes chasing me on foot and im stealthing away in animal form about 8 steps ahead of him i get revealed while we're both moving somehow, they gotta make it harder to track people with gm hiding/120 stealth even if the person is gm tracking

 

[Ru TnT]

To break it, cross a server line or recall or gate out and come back. You can also hide/invis (or re-hide/re-invis if already hidden).

logging out in a place you instalog(friended house/tavern/inn) breaks it, ant holes, heartwood entrance, and dungeon entrances also work. rehiding/invising does not break a track. also i think it last longer than 2 mins, i have to test that.

 

[ZippyTwitch]

Lets just make powerscrolls randomely pop into the pack of anyone in the immediate area of the champ when he dies. That way we stealthers can just sit there hidden and get scrolls.

 

[Harlequin]

So much misinformation in this thread...

logging out in a place you instalog(friended house/tavern/inn) breaks it, ant holes, heartwood entrance, and dungeon entrances also work. rehiding/invising does not break a track. also i think it last longer than 2 mins, i have to test that.

Ahh, Traveller and Ru Tnt are correct, my apologies as I have contributed in no small part with regards to the misinformation.

Just tested with JOAT, rehiding and invis does not break the tracking.
And hiding does factor into whether you can track someone. I was able to track someone with 0 hiding 10 times out of 10 times.

The pointer doesn't only point the to the direction, it points at the spot where the quarry is. It does last apprx 2 mins though, heh.

Serves me right for being a know it all, my bad...

 

[drinkbeerallday]

So much misinformation in this thread...

thanks for contributing and helping to clear things up...

tracking someone with 120 stealth and 100 hiding is difficult. i have a char with 100 tracking and 100 detect and even then i can only track some of the time. (not sure of the percentage)

also if someone is in animal form, their name does not show up on the tracking menu, it just shows up at "a wolf" or whatever.

tracking needs some major changes. it's not effective enough at high levels of detect/tracking and apparently it is too effective at 20 detect/20 track against 100 hide/80-120 stealth. the passive detect from JOAT makes sense. when you walk up to a large group of people there should be risk. also the menu sucks, there should be a way to set a default person to track (meaning if you successfully track someone, then you should be able to do it again without picking from the menu) and i should be able to see everyone's name.

 

[Harlequin]

thanks for contributing and helping to clear things up...

Ah, but I have been given an opportunity to correct and redeem myself. Of that, i am grateful

 

[drinkbeerallday]

To break it, cross a server line or recall or gate out and come back.

you would probably have to recall/gate off of the subserver.

It works just like most skills, spirit speak/alchemy/hiding, there's a skill check to determine if you succeed. At lower skills, you fail alot. But once you succeed, it works with full benefits. You don't get half a potion if you succeed at alchemy at only 50 skills points. Nor do you hide only 1 of your arms if you succeed in hiding at 20 skills points.

this is somewhat misleading, it does a check on your detect/tracking and the quarry's hiding/stealth. of course, that doesn't mean there are no bugs.

 

[drinkbeerallday]

Ah, but I have been given an opportunity to correct and redeem myself. Of that, i am grateful

obviously, that was directed at Traveller, the person i quoted. not you.

he made a comment that the thread was "wrong" then did nothing to fix it.

 

[Kage]

or is it stupid that a person can run in wolf form and you cant see him.... in a open field.

try this.
go outside, have someone put on a dog costume and have them run accross an open field.

let me know if you can see them.

ive never fully understood the stealth function in game.
youd think it would be a little more..... stealthy?

like youd have to stick to shadows and such.

i personally think that if you a) pop a smoke bomb b) change animal form c) rehide D) shadowjump you should be able to loose someone who is tracking you.

does seem a little out of line when someone with no skill can track someone with 220 real points invested.
340 of you add ninja.

If you dislike it on the shard you play I would never come to siege there is no passive detect there... and over 80% of the pvpers run hide and stealth

Stealth is way over powered on Siege... and detect skill at 100 is worthless vs. 100 hide & 120 stealth..

 

[Harlequin]

obviously, that was directed at Traveller, the person i quoted. not you.

he made a comment that the thread was "wrong" then did nothing to fix it.

Yes, I understand what you meant was not directed at me. What I meant to say was that him raising the point about misinformation but not specifying exactly what has given me a chance to correct my mistakes.

 

[Traveller]

obviously, that was directed at Traveller, the person i quoted. not you.
he made a comment that the thread was "wrong" then did nothing to fix it.

*groan*...

Maybe I assumed that people posting on stratics would have made their homeworks. Kinda like, I don't know, check on stratics?

Example: http://uo.stratics.com/content/skills/tracking.php

There are lots of info on stratics about tracking/stealth/detect. It's just people are too lazy to check them.

 

[Traveller]

If you dislike it on the shard you play I would never come to siege there is no passive detect there... and over 80% of the pvpers run hide and stealth

Stealth is way over powered on Siege... and detect skill at 100 is worthless vs. 100 hide & 120 stealth..

Yep. I am a thief, and I think that the nerf to active detect was one of the stupidest things to do of the mess up with stealth. While they should have nerfed passive detect on prodo, which would have not affected siege, they proceeded to heavily nerf the active use of the only skill that was supposed to counteract hide/stealth by design, and was almost perfectly balanced. Now, against stealthers, magery is much more effective than detect. Kinda of crazy, if you ask me.

 

[Ru TnT]

Stealth is way over powered on Siege... and detect skill at 100 is worthless vs. 100 hide & 120 stealth..

that's not true, i have no problem detecting them. tracking them is another story, maybe one in three(if lucky) i'll get a 120 stealther. thats about 30 seconds of track attempts for some people... =\

 

[dukarlo]

Yep. I am a thief, and I think that the nerf to active detect was one of the stupidest things to do of the mess up with stealth. While they should have nerfed passive detect on prodo, which would have not affected siege, they proceeded to heavily nerf the active use of the only skill that was supposed to counteract hide/stealth by design, and was almost perfectly balanced. Now, against stealthers, magery is much more effective than detect. Kinda of crazy, if you ask me.

I would argue that 0 skill elf passive detect is possibly as effective as gm skill passive detect. With zero tracking and being human one has a reasonable but not too reasonable chance of tracking a hider/stealther in human form. Zero skill tracking has almost no chance if any of tracking a gm hider in animal form. My findings are not fact but just observasions from my character that has gm detect gm hiding and 120 stealth and 95 ninja 120 steal and is human.

 

[Traveller]

I would argue that 0 skill elf passive detect

Technically that is not correct. Elf receive as racial bonus 40 points to detect, similar to the JoAT of humans. Still, I understand your point, you mean "elf who dedicated 0 skill points".

 

[Clog|Mordain]

Doesnt tracking work on how many tiles u can look around at.. for instance JOAT tracking gives u approx 1 or 2 tiles does it not?

 

[5% Luck]

thanks for contributing and helping to clear things up...

tracking someone with 120 stealth and 100 hiding is difficult. i have a char with 100 tracking and 100 detect and even then i can only track some of the time. (not sure of the percentage)

also if someone is in animal form, their name does not show up on the tracking menu, it just shows up at "a wolf" or whatever.

tracking needs some major changes. it's not effective enough at high levels of detect/tracking and apparently it is too effective at 20 detect/20 track against 100 hide/80-120 stealth. the passive detect from JOAT makes sense. when you walk up to a large group of people there should be risk. also the menu sucks, there should be a way to set a default person to track (meaning if you successfully track someone, then you should be able to do it again without picking from the menu) and i should be able to see everyone's name.

Yea the menu shocked me into a pre aos alchemy flashback!

 

[sapphirediablo11]

i am only posting here because a recent run in with a few people... there was a boshy tamer fencer... and they tracked me first time perfectly, i don't see how they would get the points for that but they did, it seems, and i have 120/100 because my job is to prevent rezing during the battle, but they were able to follow me every step i took and though an NRG feild X on me :| this is wrong and needs to eb fixxed... yes i was in stealth at the time.

 

[Kiminality]

There could have been a tracker in stealth, who called a location to them.
Or, they got lucky/you got unlucky.

 

[sapphirediablo11]

i don't think so, they were a group of three, that is for sure... but no stealthers i know, because the person kept say you dead you dead now!!! and followed me steop for step without one mistake :\ or even a side step being wrong...

 

[Ru TnT]

i am only posting here because a recent run in with a few people... there was a boshy tamer fencer... and they tracked me first time perfectly, i don't see how they would get the points for that but they did, it seems, and i have 120/100 because my job is to prevent rezing during the battle, but they were able to follow me every step i took and though an NRG feild X on me :| this is wrong and needs to eb fixxed... yes i was in stealth at the time.

i'm paranoid, when i'm on my tracker, i'm constantly tracking.

 

[Maximus Neximus]

*groan*...

Maybe I assumed that people posting on stratics would have made their homeworks. Kinda like, I don't know, check on stratics?

Example: http://uo.stratics.com/content/skills/tracking.php

There are lots of info on stratics about tracking/stealth/detect. It's just people are too lazy to check them.

From the page...

If your target for some reason dissapears, be it becasue it recalled away or got too far ahead of you, the arrow will dissapear as well and you will get a message that you lost your target.


Apparently running from approx Yew Gate to Chaos Shrine isn't "too far ahead" for someone to lose track of you. That's the distance that was tested by me. It ended up being a time limit rather than a distance, when tested while standing next to each other vs running away while tracker stays still.

 

[Traveller]

Apparently running from approx Yew Gate to Chaos Shrine isn't "too far ahead" for someone to lose track of you. That's the distance that was tested by me. It ended up being a time limit rather than a distance, when tested while standing next to each other vs running away while tracker stays still.

Yep, the bit about distance is probably very old or incorrect. In my experience (post-aos), once acquired tracking is lost only when the player leaves the subserver or the 2 min timeout elapses.

There is an exception. You open the tracking menu, you see a name, you try to select him and you get a message "the target is too far". That happened to me on stationary targets, so it's not a case of the target being in range when used tracking and being out of it when selected. That range is probably where the GM tracking skill come into play.

 

[Ru TnT]

i have gm track and still get people on the track menu that are outta range when i try tracking them, even though neither of us have moved. it's still nice for a heads up.


i also tested the timer, it seems to be 2 mins and 30 secs. dunno if skill matters for this, but i'm gm.

 

[Traveller]

also if someone is in animal form, their name does not show up on the tracking menu, it just shows up at "a wolf" or whatever.

tracking needs some major changes. it's not effective enough at high levels of detect/tracking and apparently it is too effective at 20 detect/20 track against 100 hide/80-120 stealth. the passive detect from JOAT makes sense. when you walk up to a large group of people there should be risk. also the menu sucks, there should be a way to set a default person to track (meaning if you successfully track someone, then you should be able to do it again without picking from the menu) and i should be able to see everyone's name.

God forbid that the player has to do some THINKING on his own...

The arguments you present sound one-sided. For instance, while it make sense that if I approach a group of people there should be risk, it also make sense that I should be able to catch that person defenseless when he/she let his guard down, for instance when he/she is alone in his house. With private houses and the ability to leave felucca at will this is not the case, so your one-sided "make sense" introduces huge imbalances.

Furtherly, while it makes sense that a GM tracker should be able to maintain tracking indefinitely, it also makes sense that names should NEVER be shown on the tracking menu. I am TRACKING for god's sake, not using clairvoyance. I should be able to distinguish some of the equipment worn by the guys I am tracking, or the form they are in, or the names only of the VISIBLE ones, that's about all. Another example of one-sided argument.

Personally I think that current variability in tracking behavior is an excellent feature. It actually requires the player who tracks to anticipate the adversary moves and to be well versed in the stealth, tracking and detect game mechanics. In a word it requires the player to THINK, an ability that has become so rare in this "gimme gimme gimme" game. Moreover, the fact that a GM/120 stealther can still be tracked by a JoAT forces him to take countermeasures against tracking, in terms of additional skills, keeping its distance, and/or strategic placement to quickly break track lock. So even the good stealther has to think.

And yes, I play both a GM tracker/detect and another char with only 120 track+detect and have no problem making lots of trouble for enemy stealthers. Tracking is fine, take a look at detect, both passive and active. Free passive detect was introduced to take care of stealth archers, instead it killed every stealth template except stealth archers... Conversely a GM _active_ detect is almost a waste of skill points. 80 magery points are much more effective.

 

[Traveller]

i have gm track and still get people on the track menu that are outta range when i try tracking them, even though neither of us have moved. it's still nice for a heads up.

Then I suppose that's some kind of bug. Either that or they are not static, so they might have moved out of range in the interval between when you see their names and the moment you select them.

i also tested the timer, it seems to be 2 mins and 30 secs. dunno if skill matters for this, but i'm gm.

Possible. I know from experience it is on the order 2 mins, but never took exact measures. I try to renew it as much as possible, just to stay on the safe side. Now that you mention it, I think to have read somewhere that it used to be 2 mins and 40 secs.