Darth Hater

Looks like we're smuggling something.  The group! This is quoted from the SWTOR forums, what do guys think?

As a non force user class, the smuggler is definitely a bit of a renegade / rogue - something a lot of players won't try for a while as they explore their Force & Lightsaber wielding Star Wars fantasy.

That said, it's one of the most versatile classes... and that was before we gave the Smuggler the ability to 'Smuggle' (... their entire group behind enemy lines using that pretty rad stealth field generator they pieced together from some parts that fell off the back of some Imperial shuttle).

Ooooooh.  Sexy.  A little worried about what that means for encouraging speedruns to bosses, but, still.

Stealth in TOR isn't absolute like it is in WoW, so it'd probably still mean the group would have to play carefully and steer way clear of any enemies, which BioWare could easily stop by putting enemies in chokepoints(doorways) to stop any attempts at stealthing past them.

Ahhh, okay.  Sounds like something that'd get more use in PvP then, and I like it.

Quote from RogueJedi86
Stealth in TOR isn't absolute like it is in WoW, so it'd probably still mean the group would have to play carefully and steer way clear of any enemies, which BioWare could easily stop by putting enemies in chokepoints(doorways) to stop any attempts at stealthing past them.

It is more like Predator stealth. The enemies will eventually see them.

Group stealth without a timer seems to be a little OP. It would necessitate a Smuggler/Imp. Agent for some content, and diminish the worth of all stealth classes at the same time. I'd imagine this is just a temporary stealth, for skipping one group of mobs, or reaching a particularly well-guarded, but close, objective. 45 seconds maybe?

Given that all the stealths we have seen so far have a timer, I tihnk it is pretty much certain that this one is timed as well. And with a significant cooldown.

...stealth field generator they pieced together from some parts that fell off the back of some Imperial shuttle.

Smugyver.

I wonder if companions are allowed under the cloak. If so, how many?

I would assume so.  It seems to me they'd be more likely to allow companions under cloak and not PC party members, so if they're allowing 'entire groups', companions gotta be included in that.  I'd also assume it's gonna be you-and-three-others, since they're doing stuff in blocks of 4.

Didn't people playing Tatooine at E3 report that companions stealthed when the stealth-capable players did?

Yes, they did.  And we even see it happen in one of the videos.

But I'm wondering about the the companions of other group members.  Can the Smuggler cloak cover party members and their companions?  And, if so, how many?  Smuggler plus three Players plus one companion each is 7 under cloak. 8 if the Smuggler has its own companion out, too.  If a Shadow is in the group, sure, subtract them if Shadow and companion go stealth together.  But that still leaves up to 6 under Smuggler cloak.

It would be pretty worthless otherwise.

What are those three companions doing over there? Ohhhhh, it is that group stealth thing.

Have we seen a group of more than 2 with their companions out? I would not be surprised if group size is limited to 4 (including companions) everywhere. There is open world group content, do we think they are balancing it for 8 when the instances are balanced for 4?

All non-operation grouping is limited to four, regardless of whether it's a flashpoint.  With that in mind, a group of a Shadow, Scoundrel and their two companions shoukd be able to stealth the entire group without using the group cloak.

In any case, I think group cloak is awesome and may make me roll a Scoundrel now instead of a Gunslinger.

Quote from Smuggler

...stealth field generator they pieced together from some parts that fell off the back of some Imperial shuttle.

Smugyver.

Heh.  This gave me a good chuckle.

As far as group buffs go, have we ever seen anything like this 'party stealth' in an mmo before?  I can think of a number of strategic uses...  Very interesting.