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

[stample]

I'll say I play primarily stealth. I used to do Str/Forti, but enjoy the sneakiness of Stealth more (and Parkour).  I don't have much problem with the occasional ambush room that even stealth players get seen.  The new highschool for example, has one near the end where you get rushed.  I'm ok there.  Its a panic moment, but you can recover.

 

What I have a problem with are the new POIs that script attack you in EVERY SINGLE ROOM.  There's a T1 house like that.  I got it randomly as my first quest in A19, and I was sure they'd broken Stealth completely somehow.  Every room I went into, the zombie broke out of a wall, or woke up, or otherwise beelined to you.  Same with the new Fire Station #7 (T2).  Every room is 2-3 zombies, except the end loot-room, which has 5 of them.  Imagine my surprise when I walked in there, knife out (no pistol yet, i'm around lvl 20), and a couple ferals rush me.  Repeat until end. I made so much noise with my blunderbuss that I got another 10+ zombies breaking in the walls (we play with 3x wanderers), forcing me to abandon the loot room and rush outside just to survive.

[Boidster]

1 hour ago, stample said:

forcing me to abandon the loot room and rush outside just to survive.

Annoying, but also some of the best moments in the game.

 

WHERE THE F*** DID THE MOUNTAIN LION COME FROM?!?

I don't know! Get to the roof get to the roof!

THERE ARE ZOMBIES BREAKING OUT OF THE ATTIC ONTO THE ROOF!

Try to distract them while I shoot the f*** mountain lion!!
THREE LUMBERJACKS JUST STARTED CLIMBING THE STAIRS!!!

FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIFE!!!

[Kalen]

20 minutes ago, Boidster said:

Annoying, but also some of the best moments in the game.

 

WHERE THE F*** DID THE MOUNTAIN LION COME FROM?!?

I don't know! Get to the roof get to the roof!

THERE ARE ZOMBIES BREAKING OUT OF THE ATTIC ONTO THE ROOF!

Try to distract them while I shoot the f*** mountain lion!!
THREE LUMBERJACKS JUST STARTED CLIMBING THE STAIRS!!!

FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIFE!!!

Agreed.... I was reading that post and thinking, "That sounds like fun!"

[Tehnomaag]

7 hours ago, Boidster said:

Annoying, but also some of the best moments in the game.

 

WHERE THE F*** DID THE MOUNTAIN LION COME FROM?!?

I don't know! Get to the roof get to the roof!

THERE ARE ZOMBIES BREAKING OUT OF THE ATTIC ONTO THE ROOF!

Try to distract them while I shoot the f*** mountain lion!!
THREE LUMBERJACKS JUST STARTED CLIMBING THE STAIRS!!!

FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIFE!!!

His point was not really that this happened and complaining about that. The point was that few of the new POI's script attack you EVERY SINGLE ROOM IN THEM. That is quite a problem, I'd say. 

 

Sure you can learn these POI's and by the time you go into it 5th time just cheese everything by nerdpoling to the roof and doing them backwards. But to me, this is just a spectacularly bad POI design, if the design specifically neuters an supposedly valid strategy which is intended to specifically clearing POI's and has low usability outside of that scenario. As such a POI' is basically *scripted* to favour heavily a strength build, because from there you will get both miner69 to more easily buypass trigger tiles by going through adjacent wall and is the best equipped to handle the *scripted* zombie rush if you happen to go through the trigger tile. 

Key word is *scripted attack* - that IS a problem. Not the fact that he had to use a blunderbuss and for that reason got extra company. 

[meganoth]

18 hours ago, stample said:

I'll say I play primarily stealth. I used to do Str/Forti, but enjoy the sneakiness of Stealth more (and Parkour).  I don't have much problem with the occasional ambush room that even stealth players get seen.  The new highschool for example, has one near the end where you get rushed.  I'm ok there.  Its a panic moment, but you can recover.

 

What I have a problem with are the new POIs that script attack you in EVERY SINGLE ROOM.  There's a T1 house like that.  I got it randomly as my first quest in A19, and I was sure they'd broken Stealth completely somehow.  Every room I went into, the zombie broke out of a wall, or woke up, or otherwise beelined to you.  Same with the new Fire Station #7 (T2).  Every room is 2-3 zombies, except the end loot-room, which has 5 of them.  Imagine my surprise when I walked in there, knife out (no pistol yet, i'm around lvl 20), and a couple ferals rush me.  Repeat until end. I made so much noise with my blunderbuss that I got another 10+ zombies breaking in the walls (we play with 3x wanderers), forcing me to abandon the loot room and rush outside just to survive.

I assume you mean "Fire_Station_01", there are only two firestations and they are 01 and 02. EDIT: Yes, 01 has a written "City Fire Station 7" on it.

 

02 has no scripted attacks but 01 has it in all rooms (possibly except one room where I didn't find a sleeper in two tries). The interesting question is if this is intended or just a designer not noticing that he is overusing the setting or not knowing that it should be used sparingly.

 

I'll make a bug report. That will show if this is intended or an oversight. 

 

 

[Jenshae]

What is funny, is how incompatible an Endurance build player is with an Agility build player.

I end up just picking locks, gathering resources and doing the looting (perception / strength), while my friend rushes through the POI brawling all the zeds to a quick death.
(It is also a bit annoying how much perception and agility seem to be split over each other.)

Want to be a sneaky hunter? You need perception to find your prey (often bugged, I stick to 1 point even though I have 10 perception now), endurance for more meat and resources and then agility to stealth up to it.
Sneak sniper? Similar cross ability tearing.

[Boidster]

9 hours ago, Tehnomaag said:

Key word is *scripted attack* - that IS a problem.

I understood the point. And we can agree to disagree about the severity of the problem. To me, a mix of fully (or at least highly) stealth-able POIs with OMGWTFBBQ POIs gives some nice variety and surprises. I can absolutely understand how you and other players don't see it that way, and I don't think you or they are wrong. Just different tastes is all.

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Jenshae said:

What is funny, is how incompatible an Endurance build player is with an Agility build player.

I end up just picking locks, gathering resources and doing the looting (perception / strength), while my friend rushes through the POI brawling all the zeds to a quick death.
(It is also a bit annoying how much perception and agility seem to be split over each other.)

Want to be a sneaky hunter? You need perception to find your prey (often bugged, I stick to 1 point even though I have 10 perception now), endurance for more meat and resources and then agility to stealth up to it.
Sneak sniper? Similar cross ability tearing.

Prey almost always is in the open. So you can trade stealth for range, for example with a hunting or sniper rifle in perception.

 

 

------------------------------------

 

I posted a bug report about the fire station now. We'll see shortly whether this is considered unbalanced or an intended exceptional case in a sea of stealthable POIs

 

 

[MetalMartyr]

Stealth is quite alright where it's at. 

Scripted events withstanding (ex: Horde in T4 school PoI), it's all about the player having good preparation and perception.

Honestly, the hardest part of stealth is starting off with it. If you can survive those first fifteen-ish levels, you're golden.

 

 

[hiemfire]

For those saying "It's fine", "Its supposed to be situational", or "It provides a challenge" name another mechanic that takes 18 perk points invested to maximize the player character's capability in (Agility 10 + FTS 5 = 18 points spent) which the game completely ignores with no indication it will (most of the auto-aggro volumes I have encountered have no indication of what they are).

[Boidster]

35 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

For those saying "It's fine", "Its supposed to be situational", or "It provides a challenge" name another mechanic that takes 18 perk points invested to maximize the player character's capability in (Agility 10 + FTS 5 = 18 points spent) which the game completely ignores with no indication it will (most of the auto-aggro volumes I have encountered have no indication of what they are).

Um, okay, I can't. I guess your opinion is the correct opinion?

 

Yes, Hidden Strike and From The Shadows are both bidirectional skills - YOU have to do something and THEY have to do something (i.e. be asleep or unaware). And sometimes THEY aren't going to do that thing. You and others don't like this and I completely understand why you wouldn't like it. It doesn't personally bother me. <shrug> What would finding another mechanic like these matter to this argument? So what?

 

Now if every sleeper volume was an auto-aggro volume, then I'd be more irritated and much less likely to invest in HS or FTS. It's quite useful when just out wandering the biomes, but if it were completely useless in POIs it would make me think twice for sure. Maybe it's just a matter of us having different thresholds.

 

Me and others: some number of auto-aggro POIs is acceptable and even fun

You and others: no number of auto-aggro POIs is acceptable and none of them are fun

 

Seems like a reasonable disagreement and demands to somehow prove the correctness of our opinions seem silly.

[hiemfire]

37 minutes ago, Boidster said:

Um, okay, I can't. I guess your opinion is the correct opinion?

 

Yes, Hidden Strike and From The Shadows are both bidirectional skills - YOU have to do something and THEY have to do something (i.e. be asleep or unaware). And sometimes THEY aren't going to do that thing. You and others don't like this and I completely understand why you wouldn't like it. It doesn't personally bother me. <shrug> What would finding another mechanic like these matter to this argument? So what?

 

Now if every sleeper volume was an auto-aggro volume, then I'd be more irritated and much less likely to invest in HS or FTS. It's quite useful when just out wandering the biomes, but if it were completely useless in POIs it would make me think twice for sure. Maybe it's just a matter of us having different thresholds.

 

Me and others: some number of auto-aggro POIs is acceptable and even fun

You and others: no number of auto-aggro POIs is acceptable and none of them are fun

 

Seems like a reasonable disagreement and demands to somehow prove the correctness of our opinions seem silly.

My opinion is my own. My question was meant to hopefully do 2 things. Get people to understand my, and possibly the OP's, perspective and hopefully find out if stealth isn't the only part of the game that the game ignores on a whim. Remember, auto-aggro volumes ignore up to 14-18 levels worth of perk investment (how many hours of gameplay that is will vary) without warning. We don't have to agree on everything, much less anything (though we both definitely agree that the game itself can be pretty dang fun to play). Please, if you will, answer these from your perspective. Open to anyone really, this is a public forum.  

 

Is there any other mechanic in the game that gets completely ignored without any indication from the game that it will be ignored?

 

How does a player learn where they messed up when there was nothing they could do to prevent it?

 

How do they know that there was nothing they could do to prevent it?

 

What does this teach a player about stealth in 7 Days to Die who is going through the game "blind" (one without the metagame information we have) when they continually encounter these volumes and repeatedly experience stealth's forced failure?

 

Is getting lucky with the fickle rng so that they happen have a tool (guns, explosives, etc.) to bring that helps them through it the best that should be expected? (This is inspired by @MetalMartyr and others who've made comments about preparation and bringing "better" or "different" tools/weapon.)

[meganoth]

5 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

My opinion is my own. My question was meant to hopefully do 2 things. Get people to understand my, and possibly the OP's, perspective and hopefully find out if stealth isn't the only part of the game that the game ignores on a whim. Remember, auto-aggro volumes ignore up to 14-18 levels worth of perk investment (how many hours of gameplay that is will vary) without warning. We don't have to agree on everything, much less anything (though we both definitely agree that the game itself can be pretty dang fun to play). Please, if you will, answer these from your perspective. Open to anyone really, this is a public forum.  

 

Is there any other mechanic in the game that gets completely ignored without any indication from the game that it will be ignored?

 

How does a player learn where they messed up when there was nothing they could do to prevent it?

 

How do they know that there was nothing they could do to prevent it?

 

What does this teach a player about stealth in 7 Days to Die who is going through the game "blind" (one without the metagame information we have) when they continually encounter these volumes and repeatedly experience stealth's forced failure?

 

Is getting lucky with the fickle rng so that they happen have a tool (guns, explosives, etc.) to bring that helps them through it the best that should be expected? (This is inspired by @MetalMartyr and others who've made comments about preparation and bringing "better" or "different" tools/weapon.)

Shooting is similar. You point at something directly, but whether you hit is a random roll determined by the size of the circle around it compared to the size of the target. If you miss, it isn't your fault and if you don't get the meta information that shooting depends on RPG rules and RNG you might be confused.

 

[hiemfire]

27 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Shooting is similar. You point at something directly, but whether you hit is a random roll determined by the size of the circle around it compared to the size of the target. If you miss, it isn't your fault and if you don't get the meta information that shooting depends on RPG rules and RNG you might be confused.

 

With shooting, if you keep shooting at the target you will generally still kill it (or in the case of rabbits using a prim bow, you walk away and hope for an upgrade). With stealth if the observability indicator doesn't increase but you keep getting attacked what is the reasonable conclusion?

[Jenshae]

56 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

With shooting, if you keep shooting at the target you will generally still kill it (or in the case of rabbits using a prim bow, you walk away and hope for an upgrade). With stealth if the observability indicator doesn't increase but you keep getting attacked what is the reasonable conclusion?

"The game is bugged," or, "The game cheats."

[Kalen]

1 hour ago, hiemfire said:

With stealth if the observability indicator doesn't increase but you keep getting attacked what is the reasonable conclusion?

That something other than being observed triggered the zombies.

[Kazgrel]

I think the more frustrating part about the scripted aggro is that it occurs in lower tier POIs.  Had this happen to me today with one of the new car lot POIs (forgot which one specifically but it was a T2).  Attempted to sneak into the garage only to have all the zeds stand up and beeline for me.  Not a big deal since I'm armed to the teeth, but the ruckus I stirred up ended up becoming me on the roof of the building sniping 5-6 zombie bears with rockets and enough zeds to have the place qualify as a T5, lol.

 

Having those sort of scripted encounters in the higher tier POIs makes sense, tho.  This is also my first ago/stealth based playthrough since A17 and I have to say as a combat tree, I don't think I've ever had as much fun...and I'm one of those folks who were like "dibs" when the auto shotgun was introduced.

 

The early going is rough, especially since primitive bows are terrible and it takes some time to get a pistol, but it turns into one of the most fun ways to play, IMO.

[hiemfire]

37 minutes ago, Kalen said:

That something other than being observed triggered the zombies.

Which is interesting since everything that a player does, other than crossing into an auto-aggro volume, eating or drinking, affects the observability meter.

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, hiemfire said:

With shooting, if you keep shooting at the target you will generally still kill it (or in the case of rabbits using a prim bow, you walk away and hope for an upgrade). With stealth if the observability indicator doesn't increase but you keep getting attacked what is the reasonable conclusion?

I’ve killed a lot of rabbits with the primative bow, though the other bows do make it easier.

[hiemfire]

33 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

I’ve killed a lot of rabbits with the primative bow, though the other bows do make it easier.

I've gotten a few, when they're on a road standing up or somehow completely miss that I'm there and sidle up right next to me while I'm crouched in the brush. Chickens are allot easier to hit.

 

If hunting rabbits in game you save resources by blitzing them with a blunderbuss. Seriously, 1 to 2 shots per bun bun instead of 4 to 20....

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, hiemfire said:

With shooting, if you keep shooting at the target you will generally still kill it (or in the case of rabbits using a prim bow, you walk away and hope for an upgrade). With stealth if the observability indicator doesn't increase but you keep getting attacked what is the reasonable conclusion?

What does still killing it have to do with whether you can make sense of the situation? In both cases there will be people who don't know why this is happening and people getting the right idea.

 

[hiemfire]

8 minutes ago, meganoth said:

What does still killing it have to do with whether you can make sense of the situation? In both cases there will be people who don't know why this is happening and people getting the right idea.

 

Your example is one that if you keep trying against the same target you'll succeed and you have the opportunity to improve your chances by improving your gear. With auto-aggro volumes no matter how many times you try to stealth through them you fail, and it happens regardless of perk investment or equipment.

Shooting = rng within a confined area (the "circle" as you outlined, though it is off set low and left of what the crosshairs indicate for those curious).

Auto-aggro volumes = "@%$# you, your perk investment doesn't matter." switch with no forewarning (something that I think you keep missing is part of the problem, there is no indication that a volume being entered is an auto-aggro volume).

The closest thing your example could ever achieve to an auto-aggro volume would be if there was a random chance that the player character's gun would blowup on them whenever they pulled the trigger, and even then having a backup weapon of the exact same type and some painkillers would still get around it. Auto-aggro volumes have no stealth based workaround and teach "blind" (as I defined previously) players that stealth cannot be relied on and, coupled with the similar effectiveness of perked vs unperked stealth, any points invested into FTS are wasted.

Players who try and play stealthy are punished for it by auto-aggro volumes. Those who don't depend on stealth very likely don't even notice the difference when an entire volume activates due to it being an auto-aggro volume.

[Roland]

5 hours ago, hiemfire said:

hopefully find out if stealth isn't the only part of the game that the game ignores on a whim.

Done. Here ya go:

 

Nothing in the game is designed on a whim.

 

The fact that some rooms are immune to stealth tactics may seem whimsical to you but they are intended places for direct confrontation by the level designers who put a lot of thought into what kinds of interactions they wanted to happen during the exploration of those POIs.

 

Here's another case... I can buy Miner69 to the max and work my butt off to obtain a quality 6 Steel pickaxe fully loaded with mods and despite all those points and work there are some blocks nearby Traders that I am still blocked from being able to break. I can break any other block in the game and most in one or two shots but the ones that are inside the trader protection zone are still impenetrable. Does that invalidate my work and my points? 

 

Now having said that, I personally hate the trader protection zones. I think they should be done away with and traders should be killable. But TFP disagrees and so there will always be these zones that will always defy any mining perks or skills or book series advantages or mods or tools I might carry. Just like there are some rooms that will always defy stealth.

[MetalMartyr]

5 hours ago, hiemfire said:

Is there any other mechanic in the game that gets completely ignored without any indication from the game that it will be ignored?

Not that I know of.

How does a player learn where they messed up when there was nothing they could do to prevent it?

Repetition. When I first hit the T4 school auto-aggro area, I was...miffed. I kept running quests for that school until I came to the realization that the spot all zed attack me was an auto-aggro spot. Nothing I could do would change the reaction, so I changed my response.

How do they know that there was nothing they could do to prevent it?

Best answer I can give is same as above; Repetition.

What does this teach a player about stealth in 7 Days to Die who is going through the game "blind" (one without the metagame information we have) when they continually encounter these volumes and repeatedly experience stealth's forced failure?

This is a good point. At best (imo), it teaches the new player(s) that there are areas which will force confrontation, and that they should have a Plan B ready. At worst, it teaches them that stealth ain't worth it.

Is getting lucky with the fickle rng so that they happen have a tool (guns, explosives, etc.) to bring that helps them through it the best that should be expected? (This is inspired by @MetalMartyr and others who've made comments about preparation and bringing "better" or "different" tools/weapon.)

You don't need great tools/weapons from the get-go, but you do needs tools and weapons.

A stone axe, wood frames, and wood will be enough for early game. Farm/buy better as you go up.

Placed my responses in purple text, sorry if it's hard to read.

If I failed to actually answer any questions, let me know. I do tend to miss points being made, and may ask for more to go off of.

[hiemfire]

3 minutes ago, Roland said:

Done. Here ya go:

 

Nothing in the game is designed on a whim.

 

The fact that some rooms are immune to stealth tactics may seem whimsical to you but they are intended places for direct confrontation by the level designers who put a lot of thought into what kinds of interactions they wanted to happen during the exploration of those POIs.

 

Here's another case... I can buy Miner69 to the max and work my butt off to obtain a quality 6 Steel pickaxe fully loaded with mods and despite all those points and work there are some blocks nearby Traders that I am still blocked from being able to break. I can break any other block in the game and most in one or two shots but the ones that are inside the trader protection zone are still impenetrable. Does that invalidate my work and my points? 

 

Now having said that, I personally hate the trader protection zones. I think they should be done away with and traders should be killable. But TFP disagrees and so there will always be these zones that will always defy any mining perks or skills or book series advantages or mods or tools I might carry. Just like there are some rooms that will always defy stealth.

Those blocks also don't break regardless of if you try to blow them up, shoot them with a shotgun, etc.. Their effect on all builds and play styles is consistent. Auto-aggro volumes only negate stealth builds. Their effect is not consistent across playstyles and builds. Now if they also shut down Fort's crit resistance and regen, Strength's Stamina buffs and armor bonuses, Perception's ability to hit multiple targets in line and Intellect's turrets then they would be consistent.

 

My use of the word "whim" may seem to be in error from your side of things, but when there seems to be no rhyme or reason from my end (try to stealth the redone ranger stations some time...) then then the shoe looks to fit so the word gets used.

 

Investing points into FTS, which should be the lynchpin of stealth builds, is a waste of time (the most valuable resource in 7d2d) since, as you in effect pointed out earlier in this thread, the player gets effectively the same benefit from stealthing without investing points into it. 

3 minutes ago, MetalMartyr said:

Placed my responses in purple text, sorry if it's hard to read.

If I failed to actually answer any questions, let me know. I do tend to miss points being made, and may ask for more to go off of.

Thank you.