is Hiding useless here?

[Commodore Axavious]

Here's the deal:

Back on OSI, in my memory, I was one of the few Dexers around with Hiding. I was a regular axe-man:

swords
tactics
anatomy
healing
magic resist
Hiding

And in my three or four years playing the game, I never saw fit to GM a 7th skill, until Lumberjacking started to effect axe damage just before I quit... actually, I never even GMed hiding, since at like 94.6 or something it was foolproof. (the character I'm describing is my main - my first character in fact - who was sort of my persona, you know the deal).

Now, hiding was a blast. Somehow, nobody ever saw it coming... I used to run away in combat, hide, pop out again... things that seem absolutely simple but they somehow freaked people out back in 98. It was always at my fingertips - a way to slide out from under PKs, or to comfortably rest AFK...

Anyway here's my question: is Hiding useless here? I've heard about people multi-clienting and kiting a ghost along with them, to see hiding characters I imagine. Is everyone doing that?

Second question: How does anyone NOT have hiding? I can't even imagine it. What if you're in a dungeon and you want to go grab a drink in the fridge? You Recall out every time? I know mages can hide with Invisibility, but, Dexers, let me know.

[Karik Verlee]

No.... for a dexxer I think hiding is one of the most important skills. Simply to hide for protection, to hide to get away, to hide to ambush people. Its needed!

[Hicha]

There are quite a few dexxers who use hiding here; some include the town thieves. Hiding is great for a variety of things, from bards to t-hunters to even fishing, mining and lumberjacking.

[uofuntime]

Hiding is not useless here. In fact, it's quite useful.

Why? This is T2A Felucca only, thieves everywhere, griefers, pks, etc. I can imagine on OSI/Trammel, hiding would be pretty useless because no one can perform negative acts on you.

GM Hiding is the second most common skill here for people's templates, and for good reason.

http://my.uosecondage.com/Status/Skills

It's a very important skill for those who step out of guard zone, especially if you don't have magery or invis jewelry.

[Sandro]

also: ghosts cannot see hidden players

[MatronDeWinter]

I'm sort of on the other side of the fence with this one. Hiding is pretty good if you like to go afk, and for avoiding town thieves I guess, but it's a very bad idea to go AFK in a non-safe place because any decent PK will have tracking, you know, to maximize killing time.

That being said, 90% of my characters have GM hiding, but they also have stealth. If you hide from a pk here, you are only buying them time to cast EQ or purple potion your butt.

If escaping from combat is your main reason for the skill, then you should know that you have a 50% chance of hiding right next to any player-home with 0 skill. There is no shortage of player homes here (though they are empty).

I tend to feel that magery and wrestle would save you in more situations than hiding would. Recall+Wrestle is the super-combo of pk-escape.

I dont care for hiding without it's sister skill, stealth. One invis item charge, and 10 steps will let you escape from almost anything. But what good is foot-travel on a dexer I suppose?

There are just far better things to waste skill points on. The only really worthwhile use for hiding that I can think of, is to camp somewhere. Hiding out at an IDOC, waiting for someone to PK, surviving the GM-ran events until its safe to come out and loot the big-monster..

[Commodore Axavious]

Thanks for the input everyone.

If Ghosts can't see hidden people, then what is the point of having a ghost follow you, and how does that "remove all risk" as some people seem to claim on these forums?

Also... how long does Invis last anyway?

[Mikel123]

If escaping from combat is your main reason for the skill, then you should know that you have a 50% chance of hiding right next to any player-home with 0 skill. There is no shortage of player homes here (though they are empty).

Maybe I'm thinking UOR, but I thought this was 90% or 100% back in the day, wasn't it?

And yes, hiding next to homes, around corners, is awesome. There are some noob dex PKs that can luck into getting you down to 30 or 40 HPs and put you on the run... but they're unable to Reveal and don't pack purple potions to flush you out of hiding. So hiding = you win (i.e. don't die). Even if they can reveal, with armor on and 25 int dropping down to 5 the first time they cast it, you've got plenty of time to re-hide and you'll regen a bunch of HPs while they wait to regain mana to cast again.

I'd actually say, most PKs don't have Tracking, since most of them are vanilla tank mages. The few times I've seen a tracking PK, it was a group of dexers (3 or more) and just one of them had it.

[Downs]

invis jewelry is also an option.

[MatronDeWinter]

Invis lasts 2 minutes at gm magery I believe. I think it's the same for invis jewelry, though when you unhide it will immediately re-hide you using another charge usually.

If it is a house you own, co-own, or are friended to, you have a 100% chance of hiding (as long as no combatant is in your LOS). I'm pretty sure the chance to hide in a random house is (has always been) 50% @ 0 skill. Obviously this number increases when you have more hiding skill, so it may be a bit higher if you have some "shown" hiding skill.