Why are the devs screwing over agi/stealth in their POI design?

[Kalen]

17 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

So long story short, the question of the topic had a hidden agenda.

Hah, no doubt.... (made up number incoming) 75% of posts here have a hidden agenda

[AtomicUs5000]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

I'm not sure line of sight is calculated. I seem to remember a statement by Fataal that it costs too many CPU cycles. ??

 

I recall him stating this as well... not too long ago.

[hiemfire]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

Your analogy of getting face punched would be spot on as long as you acknowledge that the target can feint, dodge, and counter. The game gives us those equivalents so...

You can’t stop the punch from happening but you can react in a fun and rewarding manner. 

For your counter to apply it would require that we can see what the volume we're going into is before we go in (can't avoid or counter what you can't perceive). As is that first punch is a freebee because we're bound, hands behind our back, by forced ignorance of what the volume we're about to enter is.

 

2 hours ago, Roland said:

1) Guns Blazing and kill them all (non-stealthy)

2) Break a hole in ceiling or wall and kill them (stealthy)

3) Retreat/ Hide/ Re-emerge/ Stealth Kill (stealthy)

4) Parkour to high safe spot and pick them off (agility)

5) Set traps and barriers to delay them and hurt them while you actively kill them (non-stealthy)

1. Default and hardline favored playstyle by the devs.

2. Requires previous experience with that exact location unless that is how you handle every room in the game. (Yes, I caught that you pointed it out. Requiring previous experience with the exact same place while completely excluding said location from being understood by observation the first time a player is about to enter one is bull@%$#.)

3. Freebee punch with our hands held behind our backs is already thrown and has connected. Completely moot to my point.

4. 😆🤣🤣 If only parkour didn't get you killed by bouncing you off the ceiling or ridge just above the exit... Can't not jump the full height, get @%$#ed if you only want to hop out a window. Still moot to my point since the freebee punch has already connected.

5. See 2 or 3 depending on when you think we should be doing that.

2 hours ago, Roland said:

The only thing you cannot do is shoot them in the head as sleeping, immobile, heaps simply by walking in the room. But since you can do that gameplay for 90% of the rest of the time what's the loss? Where is the screw over? 

Ain't even close to 90% unless you are actively avoiding quests and avoiding looting POIs in general. 

 

2 hours ago, Roland said:

Opinion is liking or disliking it but-- proven incontrovertible fact is that all the player's stealth perks are preserved to be used in reaction to any POI event and hence there is no screw over.

Screw over = Entire room moves to attack the moment the volume is entered regardless of what the player did. I guess you're of the opinion that if a thug slams you against the wall demanding money, you weren't being mugged if you kicked them in the crotch after they slammed you into wall...

[AtomicUs5000]

5 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Ain't even close to 90% unless you are actively avoiding quests and avoiding looting POIs in general. 

So, long story short, Roland is skewing the numbers to discredit the hidden agenda?

[Roland]

 

6 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

So, long story short, Roland is skewing the numbers to discredit the hidden agenda?

Nope...I'm just using the material I was given. Figured I'd work within the paramaters Hiemy, himself, set.

 

4 hours ago, hiemfire said:

Way to completely dismiss 90% of stealth play. 

 

[AtomicUs5000]

  

On 10/8/2020 at 5:36 PM, AtomicUs5000 said:

Why don't they just make it so that the noises of zombies can wake up other zombies, if they want to keep things spicy?
(not to be confused with a screamer that actually spawns in additional zombies).
When a zombie sees you, perhaps a 50% chance it will yell out, drawing in close by zombies, waking sleeping zombies.
Make it so that when you stealth kill a zombie, it has something like 25% chance to groan loudly as it dies.
As you level up in stealth, this percentage goes down... but cap it so that there is always at least a 5% chance.
 
To resolve blood moon, extend Stealth into Stealth and Evasion, which can be a big help during BM.
- chance to dodge melee attacks.
- significantly reduces the player being targeted by cops.
- significantly reduces the player being targeted by vultures.
- significantly reduces the number of vultures chasing you down while driving.

Previously I posted that in this topic.
Here's another idea, adding onto that, instead of this auto aggro thing that has people all worked up for 18 pages and counting...
Why don't they make POIs with screamers, and the screamers can wake up the sleeping zombies? All while ensuring that screamers can be stealth-killed, but very difficult to do so?
 
Whether or not the devs are truly trying to screw over agi/stealth in their POI design, my thoughts still stand that it's fine to have something to counter each build, provided that it's balanced for all builds. It makes for good gameplay and it's something that countless of games do. Anti-electric/turret-avoiding zombies to give Int a hard time. Very aware zombies (perhaps screamers) to give stealth a hard time. A zombie that jump a little higher, run a little faster, with AI that can flank to counter Agility. Strength has enough countering it already, at least right now since radiated is just about absorbing a ton of damage. 

Likewise, you could set things up so that some zombies are especially weak against a particular build.
 
Make POIs that focus on these concepts. Electric company -> electricity immune zombies. Int will have a hard time. Make the POI with the screamers instead of auto-aggro. Having a stealth on the team will have a better role in clearing that POI, or at least a better chance of clearing it easier. Gymnasium, mainly the agile zombies... best to have an Agility member on the team for that one. So many opportunities and it's not that hard to deliver using what already exists.

[Roland]

16 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

For your counter to apply it would require that we can see what the volume we're going into is before we go in (can't avoid or counter what you can't perceive). As is that first punch is a freebee because we're bound, hands behind our back, by forced ignorance of what the volume we're about to enter is.

The first punch is not a freebee because it never connects. You walk in the room and the trigger happens and....by golly, you still have stealth at your disposal to avoid the punch. We're still going with the analogy that the punch represents the complete invalidation of stealth forcing the player to handle the zombies in an unstealthy manner...correct? So the punch is thrown and you retreat, hide, re-emerge and kill all the zombies with all your stealth enhanced multipliers. The trigger is just an event-- an event that does not remove your ability to stealth. So it isn't a freebee sucker punch. It never connected.

 

22 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

1. Default and hardline favored playstyle by the devs.

2. Requires previous experience with that exact location unless that is how you handle every room in the game. (Yes, I caught that you pointed it out. Requiring previous experience with the exact same place while completely excluding said location from being understood by observation the first time a player is about to enter one is bull@%$#.)

3. Freebee punch with our hands held behind our backs is already thrown and has connected. Completely moot to my point.

4. 😆🤣🤣 If only parkour didn't get you killed by bouncing you off the ceiling or ridge just above the exit... Can't not jump the full height, get @%$#ed if you only want to hop out a window. Still moot to my point since the freebee punch has already connected.

5. See 2 or 3 depending on when you think we should be doing that.

1. It's just one option, man. What the devs do or do not favor has no bearing on what you choose to do. If you didn't frequent these forums you'd never know what the devs favor or have any kind of paranoia about what you think they want you to do...

2. Some people do this regardless of the room. Its a choice among 4 others. You don't have to have prior knowledge of any room to have five options for how to handle the next room. Prior knowledge would certainly increase the priority you might give this option but I've elevated myself into the rafters of a room and made a hole into the next room before not knowing whether it was an auto aggro room. I just did it because I saw rafters and I thought it would be fun.

3) No and it is completely relevent to your point and you have continued to ignore its implications for a dozen pages because it entirely destroys your argument about stealth being invalidated. You have championed your side from the position that you love stealth and yet you ignore an entirely new stealth tactic that emerged from this discussion all because it is detrimental to your argument. I wake up sleepers now on purpose at times and run and hide and then kill them from the shadows simply because it is more fun than what you want 100% of the game to be.

4) Parkour might not be appropriate at all times but the tactic is there for use when it can be used. Maybe we need a new thread about how the sloped roof designs of POIs have totally screwed over Parkour players...

5) I know people who always carry spikes and barbed wire when exploring pois and have them ready to plant in a doorway or across a hall as needed. You don't need prior knowledge of a particular POI. You treat all rooms as though they could wake up so you are ready to react with a number of tactics at your disposal.

36 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Ain't even close to 90% unless you are actively avoiding quests and avoiding looting POIs in general.

So when I said that shooting sleeping corpses would be boring if that is all there was without any triggers YOU said I invalidated 90% of stealth gameplay. I'm just going by your own hip shot on the numbers. I'm fine with calling it 80% or 70%. <shrug> Of course that means I only invalidated 80% or 70% of stealth by my earlier comments. Are you prepared to be okay with that because 90% sounds more dramatic.

38 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Screw over = Entire room moves to attack the moment the volume is entered regardless of what the player did. I guess you're of the opinion that if a thug slams you against the wall demanding money, you weren't being mugged if you kicked them in the crotch after they slammed you into wall...

If a mugger slammed me into a wall and demanded money and I escaped by kicking him in the crotch I would not call that a mugging. I'd call that a damn fine story I would be telling at every party for the next year. BTW, your little scenario actually does happen. People DO get surprised by an event they could not have avoided and when they somehow avoid and escape that event it makes for a great adventure. These events in the game that can't be avoided create situations for great stories and great adventures depending on how the player reacts and there are many ways to react-- stealth among them.

[hiemfire]

15 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

Nope...I'm just using the material I was given. Figured I'd work within the paramaters Hiemy, himself, set.

 

 

In which case then, it @%$#s over 100% of stealth play, because regardless of what you do they move to attack the moment you enter. No amount of in game observation of what can be seen (observe>assess>plan, then act), meticulous control of noise generation (the third step observability "spike" is annoying but can be worked around if cautious), avoidance of illumination (night time is a stealther's fickle mistress, even at low level/GS, so messing up has allot nastier and more immediate repercussions. Nvgs are are blessing.), careful positioning (not always possible with where the zombie's spawn so likely the single most likely failure point outside of moving into an attack volume. Not a complaint about that, even though the hit boxes on some of the blocks suck.), and making sure to move as slowly as possible (this can be a @%$# at higher ranks of FTS since it messes with how far you move and can't be turned off without ditching the perks) allows the player to avoid the activation of an attack volume. Those combined are the "90% of stealth play" I was referring to, silent head shot kills is the reward for pulling it off since they're impossible without being successful in those aspects.

[Roland]

 

5 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

In which case then, it @%$#s over 100% of stealth play, because regardless of what you do they move to attack the moment you enter. No amount of in game observation of what can be seen (observe>assess>plan, then act), meticulous control of noise generation (the third step observability "spike" is annoying but can be worked around if cautious), avoidance of illumination (night time is a stealther's fickle mistress, even at low level/GS, so messing up has allot nastier and more immediate repercussions. Nvgs are are blessing.), careful positioning (not always possible with where the zombie's spawn so likely the single most likely failure point outside of moving into an attack volume. Not a complaint about that, even though the hit boxes on some of the blocks suck.), and making sure to move as slowly as possible (this can be a @%$# at higher ranks of FTS since it messes with how far you move and can't be turned off without ditching the perks) allows the player to avoid the activation of an attack volume. Those combined are the "90% of stealth play" I was referring to, silent head shot kills is the reward for pulling it off since they're impossible without being successful in those aspects.

Oh man...you love killing unconscious enemies. What are you going to do when bandits are added and they aren't sleeper bandits but awake and alert bandits?

[hiemfire]

24 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

Why don't they make POIs with screamers, and the screamers can wake up the sleeping zombies? All while ensuring that screamers can be stealth-killed, but very difficult to do so?

I like this. Even if they end up in some out of immediate los (from the player) spot in the volume with their sound and light sensitivity higher than other zombies, this is allot more preferable to what exists currently.

 

30 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

Whether or not the devs are truly trying to screw over agi/stealth in their POI design, my thoughts still stand that it's fine to have something to counter each build, provided that it's balanced for all builds. It makes for good gameplay and it's something that countless of games do. Anti-electric/turret-avoiding zombies to give Int a hard time. Very aware zombies (perhaps screamers) to give stealth a hard time. A zombie that jump a little higher, run a little faster, with AI that can flank to counter Agility. Strength has enough countering it already, at least right now since radiated is just about absorbing a ton of damage.

I actually agree with this, the problem is that currently it isn't balanced for all builds. There is no equivalent to attack volumes for any other perk spec. If TFP keeps attack volumes in, they most likely will, they need to spread the "love" a bit more and put hard counters for the other mechanics in that completely blind side the player with no warning.

10 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

Oh man...you love killing unconscious enemies. What are you going to do when bandits are added and they aren't sleeper bandits but 3.(1. awake and 2. alert) bandits?

1. What I do with wandering zombies, night or day. Take advantage of range, concealment and positioning to whittle them down while they try and find me.

2. Iirc that would mean they already know roughly where you are and are hunting you. No different than a tough or armored I tapped with a bolt or arrow, though if there isn't a time out for that state there might be an issue for all builds.

3. Did you mean an amalgam of being awake and alert as in casual conversation? If so see 1.

[Kalen]

44 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

because regardless of what you do they move to attack the moment you enter.

Ok, I think I get your problem.   You don't like that some places your stealth gets broken.  Its completely irrelevant to you wants happens immediately before or after... the fact that in that instant your stealth is broken is the entirety of your argument?   If so, then yeah..... you win.  That happens.   It happens by design, and probably will never change.

 

 

[hiemfire]

14 minutes ago, Kalen said:

Ok, I think I get your problem.   You don't like that some places your stealth gets broken.  Its completely irrelevant to you wants happens immediately before or after... the fact that in that instant your stealth is broken is the entirety of your argument?   If so, then yeah..... you win.  That happens.   It happens by design, and probably will never change.

 

 

With a slight addendum: If it breaks because I made a mistake then I'll grump at myself for messing up.

 

If it breaks because the game's devs say it will without an indication that this will be the case then it is bull @%$#. If there is an indication (doesn't have to be obvious, just noticeable if you're paying attention) then I can adjust what I have set up to use in my "hands" and face it accordingly, if slightly grumpily (Yes, if it hasn't been obvious, I'm a bit of a grumpy @%$# at times).

[Kalen]

2 hours ago, hiemfire said:

If it breaks because I made a mistake then I'll grump at myself for messing up.

So you can't imagine any scenario in which you make no mistakes but still fail?

[Solomon]

3 hours ago, Kalen said:

So you can't imagine any scenario in which you make no mistakes but still fail?

Hes kind of right that its a terrible game design.

 

You do not fail because you were moving too fast, were careless or simply didnt have high enough stealth. You fail because the situation is scripted for your failure.

Its the same deal while several people hate ambush cutscenes in video games because it clashes with what was achieved.

 

Like imagine that during a mission in Splinter Cell you reached 100% stealth, no one ever seen you, no one got killed or stunned, not a single soul knows you are there because you are moving in the absolute darkness in ventillation shafts soo silently you can hear the guards breathing around and then suddenly cutscene "You kick out the cover of the ventillation shaft directly into a some glass wall and the noise causes the nearby guard to sound the alarm.".

 

Like in the ugly picture i posted here, it makes sense for you to trigger an alarm because you stepped into the line of sight of awaken zeds (green) from the door but if you enter from the top parts where there is no vision theres really no reason for them to get alerted.

 

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

21 hours ago, Kalen said:

it only seems magical because you know about sleeper volumes.   If you did not have that info, you would probably assume that you just weren't sneaky enough.  

Nope, the Red Mesa makes it clear that this is not just a failed stealth roll. If you enter the intended way, they come from all across the POI. Also you can´t fail stealth, there is no skill checks in this game. Has absolutly nothing to do with sleeper volumes that this feels just utterly wrong.

[meganoth]

I would call it sloppy design. But look at what else is cutting corners in this game because a small dev team is making a huge game on insufficient hardware (at least for the level of optimization they can afford). Too few zombies, no detection of inside/outside or walls between sounds, all to save CPU cycles or development time. The game has compromises everywhere. With a team 5 times as much as TFP has you could implement atomicUS5000 suggestions and it would be a full stealth game inside the game and still get all the other features they want in the game. Or not, Bethesda had developers galore and still their offerings had lots of holes to critizise.

 

It may be a cop-out to point to other sloppy stuff, but IMHO this small auto-aggro feature exists exactly because it allows the POI designers variation at the cost of very few lines of code.

 

 

[hiemfire]

9 hours ago, Kalen said:

So you can't imagine any scenario in which you make no mistakes but still fail?

Outside of basing decisions on false information? No. Even then the possibilities are the person(s) that gave you the information made a mistake in their assessment, the person(s) that gave you the information are relaying it from someone else who either made a mistake in their assessment or are lying, the equipment used to gather the information is faulty or miscalibrated, or you were directly lied to. That is assuming you made sure to confirm the accuracy of the information your basing your decision on, since not doing so is a mistake.

In every other case if you fail at something you made a mistake that lead to that failure.

[Kalen]

1 hour ago, hiemfire said:

In every other case if you fail at something you made a mistake that lead to that failure.

Fair enough, I guess we've just had different experiences in life.

 

[th3s0n1c]

17 hours ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

Why don't they make POIs with screamers, and the screamers can wake up the sleeping zombies? All while ensuring that screamers can be stealth-killed, but very difficult to do so?

You mean the suggestion I'd given on page 15? Yeah, people either completely ignored it or got worked up about that too lol

 

10 hours ago, Solomon said:

You do not fail because you were moving too fast, were careless or simply didnt have high enough stealth. You fail because the situation is scripted for your failure.

Its the same deal while several people hate ambush cutscenes in video games because it clashes with what was achieved.

Yeah, I had thought about that.. taking from games like Metal Gear, Dishonored, Batman Arkham series.. you can go about being out in the open and taking enemies down.. or you can go completely stealth without ever being noticed by  them. Those cut scenes are mostly intended for storyline plots or for boss fights, which makes sense for the game. But when it comes to 7DtD, that doesnt apply - unless auto aggro rooms were designed to be the "boss fight" of the POI (and it doesnt seem like it was).

 

@Roland you asked "People really want only that over and over again in every POI for 100’s and 1000’s of hours of gameplay?!" and the thing is: yes, some people do. The 1 shot kill is a reward for the perk in itself. But being able to clear an entire POI without once breaking stealth is a psychological reward for stealth players. And I understand that the game is not supposed to be a stealthy one - the stealth is just one option. But going back to that statement, isnt every other build just like that as well? "People going over and over again" walking into rooms and beating zombies to a second death with a club, sledgehammer, etc? Going over again and again into rooms killing zombies by shooting them with their weapons?

The only difference is: stealth thrives on avoiding direct confrontations and what consequences it may bring. I understand both sides: @hiemfire's and TFP's desire for forcing confrontation. But unlike those situations that I stated from the games above, in 7DtDT these confrontations feel very counter-intuitive. Having an event force confrontations because the Devs want it to happen, is ok.. but they seem kinda unearned as they stand.

[AtomicUs5000]

1 hour ago, th3s0n1c said:

You mean the suggestion I'd given on page 15? Yeah, people either completely ignored it or got worked up about that too lol

Yes, like that one. I think maybe you got a little carried away with the details which may be why it was disliked and/or ignored. You also bunched it in with other ideas that others may have not likely (at least fully).

I like all the ideas in your post with the exception of some details on a couple of them. For instance, the warning sign. It would be a cool decal for the world, but I don't think it solves the problem and takes away from the surprise, which is what I am assuming the devs are trying to accomplish in the first place.
 
In general, many ideas can be simplified to a basic concept that the game lacks and I'm pretty sure most players would be in agreement with. Enemies are only aware of the player. The extent of their awareness of the world is strictly for pathing reasons. If an enemy does not have a target, it should be responsive to any sound, wake up if it needs to, and move to investigate. We see this a little with the rock throwing, but I'm going to guess that the zombie response is coded to respond to exactly that - a rock thrown by a player, and not the sound that the player thrown rock makes when it hits the ground. Even if it was coded for the sound of a rock hitting the ground, that might even be too specific. It should not matter what caused the sound or what was responsible for it. 

 

[Roland]

4 hours ago, th3s0n1c said:

 

@Roland you asked "People really want only that over and over again in every POI for 100’s and 1000’s of hours of gameplay?!" and the thing is: yes, some people do. The 1 shot kill is a reward for the perk in itself. But being able to clear an entire POI without once breaking stealth is a psychological reward for stealth players. And I understand that the game is not supposed to be a stealthy one - the stealth is just one option. But going back to that statement, isnt every other build just like that as well? "People going over and over again" walking into rooms and beating zombies to a second death with a club, sledgehammer, etc? Going over again and again into rooms killing zombies by shooting them with their weapons?

The only difference is: stealth thrives on avoiding direct confrontations and what consequences it may bring. I understand both sides: @hiemfire's and TFP's desire for forcing confrontation. But unlike those situations that I stated from the games above, in 7DtDT these confrontations feel very counter-intuitive. Having an event force confrontations because the Devs want it to happen, is ok.. but they seem kinda unearned as they stand.

I do understand that there will always be people who want anything. The thing is that the auto aggro rooms are not YOU waking up the zombies. It is the situation you are confronted by. You didn't fail stealth and you can still claim 100% stealth kills for the entire POI even with auto aggro rooms. Again, I understand some people will not enjoy shooting mobile targets from stealth when they are so enammored with shooting stationary targets. so no design will please everyone. However, the auto aggro rooms don't force confrontation. They force a quick-thinking reaction if you wish to remain in a stealthy mode of clearing. At the beginning of this thread the assumption was that the only way to resolve the room was via guns blazing but that assumption proved false. So this idea that the devs want to limit us to one type of interaction with zombies makes for a dynamic sounding claim but it is just strawman that carries no weight in light of what has been discovered since the beginning of the thread.

[hiemfire]

@Roland The strawman is the assumption that we're complaining about not being able to 100% stealth clear a POI and you set that strawman out there for yourself to tilt at. The problem is that stealth is failing, if an entire @%$#ing group of enemies moves to attack you stealth has completely failed, not because of any mistake the player has made (other than possibly even bothering to try and make use of those perks and expect them to @%$#ing work as described in the game) but because of a Deus Ex Machina/ Skeweton King/ half assed "@%$# you" toggle that the devs are not up front about in game. The stealth system, perks and the descriptions of both in game are currently an out and out, bold faced @%$#ing lie from TFP to the player base and you're @%$#ing running purely dismissive spin and smoke for them. Nothing else a player can do in game has such a complete and utter "Nah, not happening here" counter mechanic directed squarely at it so exclusively. Maybe if roughly a third of ores were incased in bedrock, a crit effect existed that inverted the effect of Sex Rex and Cardio, and 1 out of 3 vehicles that someone tries to wrench blew up in their face the first time they even touched it, as equitable examples, Attack volumes would be "balanced and fair" compared to what the game does to other play styles. They currently aren't.

[Kalen]

1 hour ago, hiemfire said:

@Roland The strawman is the assumption that we're complaining about not being able to 100% stealth clear a POI and you set that strawman out there for yourself to tilt at. The problem is that stealth is failing, if an entire @%$#ing group of enemies moves to attack you stealth has completely failed, not because of any mistake the player has made (other than possibly even bothering to try and make use of those perks and expect them to @%$#ing work as described in the game) but because of a Deus Ex Machina/ Skeweton King/ half assed "@%$# you" toggle that the devs are not up front about in game. The stealth system, perks and the descriptions of both in game are currently an out and out, bold faced @%$#ing lie from TFP to the player base and you're @%$#ing running purely dismissive spin and smoke for them. Nothing else a player can do in game has such a complete and utter "Nah, not happening here" counter mechanic directed squarely at it so exclusively. Maybe if roughly a third of ores were incased in bedrock, a crit effect existed that inverted the effect of Sex Rex and Cardio, and 1 out of 3 vehicles that someone tries to wrench blew up in their face the first time they even touched it, as equitable examples, Attack volumes would be "balanced and fair" compared to what the game does to other play styles. They currently aren't.

Dude, this a bit of an overreaction....

 

FIrst of all, your first mistake is thinking that there is such a thing as a stealth build.  There is not.   The agility build happens to have some stealth perks (2) but those compliment the build, not define it.

 

Secondly, you keep going on about stealth failing through no fault of your own.   You're right.... @Roland even addressed that in the post you responded to:

5 hours ago, Roland said:

The thing is that the auto aggro rooms are not YOU waking up the zombies. It is the situation you are confronted by. You didn't fail stealth

There are any number of theoretical reasons stealth might fail without you making any mistakes... earlier @Roland mentioned those too.

 

Quote

A siren, a stack of boxes falling, a slamming door deeper within out of sight, a chicken running through, —some “bad luck” event that occurs beyond the player’s control but provides an understandable reason why they woke up. 

It would be nice if some of these bad luck events manifested in some way.... but unfortunately they don't.   The point is there are perfectly valid reasons why a bunch of zombies wake that have nothing to do with anything you did.   There are lots of things in the game that are abstractions, I guess we can consider auto aggro volumes one of those.

[Solomon]

2 hours ago, Kalen said:

FIrst of all, your first mistake is thinking that there is such a thing as a stealth build.  There is not.   The agility build happens to have some stealth perks (2) but those compliment the build, not define it.

There are multiple items encouraging a stealth build. Books, perks, armor, there is a steath build presented in the game complimented with everything needed for one.

[Kalen]

1 hour ago, Solomon said:

There are multiple items encouraging a stealth build. Books, perks, armor, there is a steath build presented in the game complimented with everything needed for one.

2 perks don't make a build.   Agility is the build.... stealth compliments it.

 

Stealth may in fact be over powered.   At the cost of 2 non combat perks you trivialize a large portion of sleepers.   Name 2 other non combat perks that do that.

 

Edit:

 

I just dug up some quotes from Joel to emphasize my point

 

Quote

Well it is truly an agility build, which encompasses more than just stealth

Quote

Stealth build is also agility build, meaning he does maximum damage with cheap 9mm ammo, nearly free bow ammo, and has the most powerful handgun in the world that will blow a man's head clean off, the 44 magnum. He slices and dices.

Quote

Being the best at stealth has its drawbacks, its not intended to be played as a pure build.