david01228

So the old POIs for the most part are still stealthable for now. They put in a few wake up trigger points in the factories but at least they are points that make 100% sense, and do not spawn in zombies behind you. the NEW tier 5 POIs like the county jail have several points where the zombies are not even existing until you hit the wake up trigger, then they are spawning in behind you as well.

They do have some... at least one in shotgun messiah (not that it did anything OTHER than blow something up, but was still interesting the first time i hit it)

I understand this, and I do not mind having zombies that are nearly impossible to kill from stealth. The Navezgane Hospital is actually a great example of this system working as designed, the zombies spawn in areas where you have to do something that will wake them up before killing them, but having them spawn in only after the trigger point is reached is not a good design. if the hordes spawned in, but were in an area where you could not reach all of them without hitting the trigger point it would still be fine but a stealth player is not going to be carrying large stacks of ammo usually, because it negates the feeling of the stealth to just spray and pray every 10 seconds. Another POI that works well with the "wake up" triggers is shotgun messiah, there are 3-4 points in there where you open a door, which wakes up a horde ahead of you. but no zombies spawned in the cleared area behind you. I get a tier 5 should not be 100% stealthable but the number of ambush points that you have to be fully prepared to sprint backwards to avoid being cornered is out of control. Also, it leads to an increase in bugged spawns where a zombie might reset when you put enough distance and time between you and the zombie, but not respawn in because the trigger needed had already been tripped. Also had this happen in the shotgun messiah factory where a zombie dropped and couldn't find me after my stealth kicked back in, and reset to default position, but I could not respawn it because the flag had been tripped once.

So, if it was a POI from A20, they really didnt add any extra triggers in the normal clears and you will only hit the "insta-wake" triggers when doing infested clears on those ones. but if you go into new T4 and T5 POIS, you will see it

If the zombies spawn in awake and seeking a "target point" then they are not sleepers, and it is not a dice roll anymore. Furthermore if you cannot spawn them in this new awakened state without them INSTANTLY having LOS on you, it still proves my point that stealth is greatly diminished. For the record, at no point in A20 did I have a trigger point where the zombes would awake that I could not in some way kill them PRIOR to crossing that point. If you want to see how the "dice roll" system DID work in A20, go to Dishong Tower, go up to the pool level (6 i think?) and clear it from the elevator shaft to the stairwell like you are supposed to while being stealthed. There are 2 decent dice roll points on that floor, so it is a good show. then go up 1 more floor to see how the trap system made sense before, by having an OBVIOUS trap room that still could kill you by triggering the trap (almost impossible to actually kill all the zombies without triggering some of them awake because of the noise made by breaking floors, but in theory still possible because the zombies are in the world asleep).

This was how it was in A20. in 21, as my video shows, there is no dice roll. I have hit those 2 spawn points 10 times now, trying different ways to get them to not wake up, and they are always spawned in awake and seeking, no dice roll involved.

It is not an issue in the lower end POI's but the bigger ones (for sure ALL the new tier 5's and probably 4's) they are adding in extra spawn points that zombies do not even spawn until the player crosses a threshold, and when they do spawn they are awake and seeking NOT spawning as sleepers as they used to.

I made a video to explain what is happening. This is not the zombies making a stealth check, but the zombies being awake. Here is the YT link for the video so you can see.

So, I on lower tier POI's, yes the stealth system works as designed. I am also not talking about zombies not spawning because they are to far away, I understand this. I am talking about hordes spawning in only after you cross a threshold point, already awake, and NOT being on the map at all until you do. Go to the Navezgane county jail, and you will see what I mean by this. it is about every 3rd room it feels like you cannot enter without triggering one of these spawn points. put on the debug mode, press numpad 0 to get the zombie stats displayed, then just walk in the front door. when you get to the end of the lobby, you will see what I mean about it spawning in a horde, and this is super fast to do. This mechanic is why stealth is dead.

I never had an issue with the bears in the bear den, just went to the balcony on the second floor and broke in. I never once in A18-20 had an issue with zombies not having spawned in if I was close enough to their sleep position (I didn't really focus that much on it in 17 and of course 16 and earlier was a different game entirely). Now though, as another person has said, you can clear a room completely, be walking out the door and suddenly 5 zombies that were not there before just spawn in and start beating on you. it makes 0 sense from any perspective except the fun pimps want to stop people from "cheesing" certain mob rooms, but it means that stealth is largely pointless as you get 1-2 zombies with it sure, but the rest aren't spawning as sleepers but actively seeking you. it makes t5 poi's a lot less fun IMO because now I can't play stealth assassin when every other room has one of these trap spawns in it.

So I have been playing in A21, and have made it to the Tier 5 quests, and I can confirm, stealth is worthless to complete ANY tier 4 or 5 POI. The problem with what the Fun Pimps have done is they have taken the mechanic that did exist in A20, where there were "trap points" that would wake up the sleepers no matter what when you hit a threshold, and made it even worse in that the zombies DO NOT SPAWN IN until you hit that specific trigger point. If you want proof of this, go to the Drive in tier 4 POI, clear out all the zombies, put on debug mode so you can verify that all zombies are dead. then jump through the roof into the loot room and watch as a new horde randomly spawns in awake and seeking, as part of the POI. Stealth was already only useful for raiding POI's, and now it is not even that as you cannot work around to kill them while still sleeping in higher tiers as they do not even spawn in. Fun Pimps needs to correct this I feel, as the stealth mechanics were fun puzzles to solve around.