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

[Roland]

4 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

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. 

Good counterpoint on the trader protection. The problem is that even if you can show beyond a shadow of a doubt that stealth is being unfairly targeted by these scripted events-- it doesn't matter. The developers don't see stealth as a major playstyle like you do. They see it as a supportive skill to the Agility attribute which also has other supportive skills and they don't view this game as a Stealth game. They have put enough stealth into the game to satisfy what they want just like they put enough farming and crafting into the game to satisfy what they want. For hardcore stealth game fans, and farming fans, and crafting fans there is not near enough to these features to satisfy. Where the devs do spend their time and energy is in active confrontation against zombies in which players directly kill all the zombies they see and those zombies are aggroed and hunting the player. They view this game as a direct confrontation zombies in your face type of game as the primary gameplay experience. Everything they do seeks to bring the players and the zombies into direct confrontation and they aren't interested in adding ways to avoid those confrontations into the game.

 

Good luck with your fight. If you do get your point acknowledge by Madmole, I'm already quite certain of what he will say. He will say it isn't a Stealth game. Just like he tells people who want more depth and breadth added to farming that it isn't a farming game and those who want more detail and realism that it isn't a survival simulation.

[hiemfire]

22 minutes ago, Roland said:

Good counterpoint on the trader protection. The problem is that even if you can show beyond a shadow of a doubt that stealth is being unfairly targeted by these scripted events-- it doesn't matter. The developers don't see stealth as a major playstyle like you do. They see it as a supportive skill to the Agility attribute which also has other supportive skills and they don't view this game as a Stealth game. They have put enough stealth into the game to satisfy what they want just like they put enough farming and crafting into the game to satisfy what they want. For hardcore stealth game fans, and farming fans, and crafting fans there is not near enough to these features to satisfy. Where the devs do spend their time and energy is in active confrontation against zombies in which players directly kill all the zombies they see and those zombies are aggroed and hunting the player. They view this game as a direct confrontation zombies in your face type of game as the primary gameplay experience. Everything they do seeks to bring the players and the zombies into direct confrontation and they aren't interested in adding ways to avoid those confrontations into the game.

 

Good luck with your fight. If you do get your point acknowledge by Madmole, I'm already quite certain of what he will say. He will say it isn't a Stealth game. Just like he tells people who want more depth and breadth added to farming that it isn't a farming game and those who want more detail and realism that it isn't a survival simulation.

The hell? Most of the agility tree is either stealth focused or builds directly on the weapon skill perks, two of which have a large reliance on stealth for what they buff on the weapons. That is before adding the Night Stalker perk book series, which is hard focused on blade and bow stealth play, into the equation. Dervish blades, Pistolero and Lolgolas shoot and dash archery builds barely touch on half of the perks there at best, and they overlap with the stealth focused/boosting perks with what they do use.

What you're basically saying is that they went and designed the bulk of the perks in an entire perk tree around a style of gameplay then decided to go, "Ummm, nah. We don't want people playing the game that way, but we'll leave the perks the way they are so we can have a laugh later.".

[pApA^LeGBa]

I don´t have any problem with stealth not working 100% every time. What i do have a problem is that it is for no appearant reason at all. Why do the same zombies that can´t hear you in the hospital, hear you from 30 blocks distance in the RedMesa?

 

Just arbitrary denying the player his stealth ability is simply bad game design. If you introduce stealth and it´s effects you gotta built in something that makes it not working anymore. Like a siren, a guarding bandit that triggers some sort of alarm that wakes all the zombies up or similiar.

 

On 9/23/2020 at 6:09 PM, Perramas said:

Stealth is trash and not worth pointing any points to achieve.  Only spend points on skills/abilities that are going to help you on horde night.  Spending points in anything else is a waste and is going to hurt you on horde nights.

 

What? On warrior the first 3 hordenights are jokingly easy because they don´t even last all night. If you use all the pipe bombs from your quest rewards they are over superfast. First 2 are done shortly after midnight. And the setting that defines how many zombies you get doesn´t change that. The number of zombies you get overall stays the same, just the waves are bigger.

 

If you miss those points in week 4 you do something wrong tbh. Also you save ressources because you need less ammo to kill them. Especially with the bow and it´s sneak damage bonus of x3.5 without putting a point in hidden strike.

[Kalen]

4 hours ago, hiemfire said:

The hell? Most of the agility tree is either stealth focused

There are 2 stealth perks out of 9 total.   

[Blake_]

I think I heard some developer say that stealth will allow perked players to have a lesser chance to trigger insta aggro POI events.

 

That is cool. Balance. Legendary stuff could improve the feature further, so I'm not concerned. It's a 90% working feature at the moment, meaning sometimes, in a POI, you will encounter a unavoidable detection problem. When the tweaks come in, a stealth player will be "more resistant" to trigger those aggro areas than a non-stealthy player.

[meganoth]

7 hours ago, hiemfire said:

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.

Details. You have an effect and if you notice when and how it happens you can get an idea why. In the case of shooting you might notice that you hit more often with guns with a small circle. Players with RPG experience have an easier time making the connection. In the case of auto-aggro you might notice that it mostly happens in loot rooms, like it is a staged encounter. Players of games with boss encounters and also many RPGs might remember scripted encounters in other games.

 

I'm not saying this design is fine by the way and I think pApA^LeGBa idea of a siren or alarm lamp going off is an excellent idea. Doesn't even need a to have a lamp or siren visible somewhere, just a siren sound or the room tinted with a blinking red light coming from some opening would be great.

 

[RipClaw]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

Doesn't even need a to have a lamp or siren visible somewhere, just a siren sound or the room tinted with a blinking red light coming from some opening would be great.

Since most POIs are residential buildings, an appropriate sound would be a squeaking door or something like that being moved by the wind. Simply an event caused by external circumstances.

[Kalen]

24 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Since most POIs are residential buildings, an appropriate sound would be a squeaking door or something like that being moved by the wind. Simply an event caused by external circumstances.

Exactly, don't assume that you're the only thing that might trigger sleepers.

[Jenshae]

So, these auto aggro triggers don't make a blind difference to my Endurance friend. They just rush into every room and brawl everything in there.

In that regard, more confrontational players aren't penalised by the mechanic but stealth ones are.

[Danidas]

Since they are moving to special infected zombies a better idea might be for a special alarm zombie. Which would be designed to not only look like they would defiantly notice you but would also make a lot a noise even if silently killed. That way players will have a tangible reason for the auto wake/aggro sleeper volumes and something to take their rage out on. As I'm sure everyone here has dismembered a Screamer at some point to vent some anger over the horde she summoned.  

[meganoth]

13 minutes ago, Jenshae said:

So, these auto aggro triggers don't make a blind difference to my Endurance friend. They just rush into every room and brawl everything in there.

In that regards, more confrontational players aren't penalised by the mechanic but stealth ones are.

Sure. And digging zombies penalise players who mine or build underground bases. This is not per se a reason to remove that, balance is done for whole attributes, in this case agility, not stealth alone. TFP obviously knows about auto aggro being especially detrimental to stealth players, it was mentioned in the dev dairy multiple times, and they obviously are ok with it for the moment

 

 

 

1 hour ago, RipClaw said:

Since most POIs are residential buildings, an appropriate sound would be a squeaking door or something like that being moved by the wind. Simply an event caused by external circumstances.

But there often are artificial barricades and defenses against zombies even in these buildings, it would be no stretch to assume the defenders added motion detectors with alarms while still alive.

 

[hiemfire]

5 hours ago, Kalen said:

There are 2 stealth perks out of 9 total.   

Fair, I had misremembered the bow and knife perks as adding sneak damage (personally I toss light armor into the stealth perk cluster as well, but that one I willing to concede is more universally applicable than HS and FTS). Though how many perks are there in a tree that directly contribute to a single weapon's use? 2 at most iirc other than in Agility where HS and both of the attack speed increases (ranged weapons and singlehanded weapons) are.

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Sure. And digging zombies penalise players who mine or build underground bases.

Aside from Bloodmoon hordes they really don't if the player keeps their ears open and takes their time (unperked crouch walking works) when moving around, digging or accessing their chests & workstations. Do need to take it down to at least one block below the first layer of stone, 1 layer of stone above the player's head I mean, before branching out though.

[Solomon]

I dont get how it is intented as proper and acceptable gameplay and at the same time its completely ignored by both the horde and these specific POI rooms. Like every perk choice works throught the entire game but Stealth only works in out in the wild along in some parts of a POI and thats it.

[Jenshae]

1 hour ago, Danidas said:

Since they are moving to special infected zombies a better idea might be for a special alarm zombie. Which would be designed to not only look like they would defiantly notice you but would also make a lot a noise even if silently killed. That way players will have a tangible reason for the auto wake/aggro sleeper volumes and something to take their rage out on. As I'm sure everyone here has dismembered a Screamer at some point to vent some anger over the horde she summoned.  

Something like this should go in the original post.

"Don't kill zombie_alarm first and the room wakes up."

[Ramethzer0]

We have cooking, but its not a chef simulator.

We have vehicles that can ram stuff, but its not a demolition derby.

We have archery, rifles, and animals, but its not a hunting sim.

We have food, water, and farming, but its not a starvation sim.

We have looting and shooting, but this isn't HALO.

We have 2 weapon perk lines with every single tree, and 3 if you're in PER.

We have buying, selling, and trading with other players, but its not an economy sim.

7 Days to Die is not Assassins Creed, yall.

 

Call me crazy, but... as a person who plays primarily AGI, and uses stealth a good chunk of the time.. I have zero issues with rooms that agg me.   Because I also have customizable pistols, 2 different kind of magnums, an SMG, and a knife line that also has a very nice chance to decap.   Power attacks to the head are solid against trash zeds.

 

AGI has STRONG versatility.  Ignoring the rest of the entire build to focus upon 1 aspect of it. doesn't seem wise.

I can empathize with folks that want to see if they can 100% stealth kill a Tier 4 Towerblock, but a single minded pursuit of that goal seems to espouse an inflexibility on the part of the player, not the game.

[hiemfire]

Just now, Ramethzer0 said:

We have cooking, but its not a chef simulator.

We have vehicles that can ram stuff, but its not a demolition derby.

We have archery and targets, but its not a hunting sim.

We have food, water, and farming, but its not a starvation sim.

We have looting and shooting, but this isn't HALO.

We have 2 weapon perk lines with every single tree, and 3 if you're in PER.

We have buying, selling, and trading with other players, but its not an economy sim.

7 Days to Die is not Assassins Creed, yall.

 

Call me crazy, but... as a person who plays primarily AGI, and uses stealth a good chunk of the time.. I have zero issues with rooms that agg me.   Because I also have customizable pistols, 2 different kind of magnums, an SMG, and a knife line that also has a very nice chance to decap.   Power attacks to the head are solid against trash zeds.

 

AGI has STRONG versatility.  Ignoring the rest of the entire build to focus upon 1 aspect of it. doesn't seem wise.

I can empathize with folks that want to see if they can 100% stealth kill a Tier 4 Towerblock, but a single minded pursuit of that goal seems to espouse an inflexibility on the part of the player, not the game.

Have to roll lucky to get a pistol or its components currently... If pipe weapons make it into A20 this will likely change then. If not, then pistols are only an option if Fortuna smiles on you.

[Ramethzer0]

1 minute ago, hiemfire said:

Have to roll lucky to get a pistol or its components currently... If pipe weapons make it into A20 this will likely change then. If not, then pistols are only an option if Fortuna smiles on you.

I see a lot of problems arguing that.   First being, that RNGesus devils needs no advocate.  If you're just unlucky, then you're just unlucky.  I wouldn't blame the dev's if you're that unlucky.  Secondly, at a gamestage when pistols are rare, trying to 100% stealth even a small POI seems like a dubious prospect at best.

[Scyris]

On 9/23/2020 at 1:09 PM, Perramas said:

Stealth is trash and not worth pointing any points to achieve.  Only spend points on skills/abilities that are going to help you on horde night.  Spending points in anything else is a waste and is going to hurt you on horde nights.

You act like vanilla horde nights are even a remote challenge. Literal ONLY threat is demolishers, nothing else does enough block damage to destroy anything faster than u could fix it. Hell my first few horde nights in vanilla literally have me standing behind a single upgraded cobblestone block/plate, in a corridor while I melee them to death don't even need traps, but if I set a dart trap up, the dart trap could prob handle a vanilla horde night all on its own till high GS, don't even need a gun till the radiateds come out.

 

Try Darkness Falls mod, horde night runs from 22:00 till 4am, the zombies do not stop coming unless you can kill 24 waves, which is really hard to do. It also has mutant zombies that buff others, as well as various other special zombies, these things can rip thru a concrete base easly if its not designed well, and this is on the 1st horde of the game the 7th day, it just gets more crazy after that. Eventually you have demons, behemoths, and other stuff coming at you. It also has a new tier of titanium stuff which is above steel, including blocks. As well as Coil guns and then Sci-fi weapons like laser rifles etc. It also has learn by doing, done actually properly compared to how TFP did it in a16 (No need to spam craft in it, action skills are mostly for weapon use and mining tools). A recent update to the mod removes the need to smelt stuff in the forge, it just takes it out right out of inventory and makes what you want like a camp fire or workbench. I wish vanilla would get this, saves alot of time. Forge in a15 worked with molds, as the iron smelted down it'd fill the mold and once full it'd create a forged iron. No need to smelt it down first then queue it up, which is essentally the same thing darkness falls does, just removes the smelting entirely.

 

As for the stealth thing, I agree with the OP, the devs seem to do anything they can to screw over stealth builds in the game. I've been saying the same things since a17. You have the garbage in front of every intended path, the alarm rooms (Instant aggro), zombies that can hear you opening a container from 30 blocks outside the poi with maxxed stealth and crouched. Then you have the positioning of the sleepers, which in A19 if you noticed, most sleepers do not have a clear shot, you have to get close, and sometimes remove a block (usually a cobblestone or cement pallet) to get a clear shot. Its deliberate design to screw stealth builds as thats the ONLY build this stuff hurts. Then again TFP loves to take away choice from the player I been noticing, starts with the digging zombies, now we got swimming zombies, vultures with rocket boosters that can annoy you on any vehicle. I'd not mind the digging/swimming zombies so much if the devs would ya know, do what most games do, and have a option when you go to start or load a game to turn that on/off. This way the player still gets to have a choice. Also before you say it, just because the game is modable is not an excuse for the devs to get lazy and not include the option to toggle stuff like that on/off.

 

Then there is the fact stealth is just broken, zombies are far to sensitive to sounds, I can get close and shine a mining light in its face and not wake it up, but if I loot a cabinet a room away the same zombie will wake up somehow. IMO you should be able to get sneak attacks on zombies till they are activly chasing you, which means when they first go to look for where the sound came from, they should still be sneak attackable for the bonus, as they are looking for the source of the noise but have not actually found it yet. Kinda like how fallout 3 and up does it. When in caution which is when enemies are looking for you, you can still get sneak attacks on them until it switches to Danger, which means one has actually spotted you, you then lose the sneak attack bonus damage.

2 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

I see a lot of problems arguing that.   First being, that RNGesus devils needs no advocate.  If you're just unlucky, then you're just unlucky.  I wouldn't blame the dev's if you're that unlucky.  Secondly, at a gamestage when pistols are rare, trying to 100% stealth even a small POI seems like a dubious prospect at best.

Meh they should just go back to a18 loot it was far better and much more fun than this linear garbage they are using now.

[th3s0n1c]

6 hours ago, Danidas said:

special alarm zombie. Which would be designed to not only look like they would defiantly notice you but would also make a lot a noise even if silently killed

didnt the spider zombies used to do that? (send out a dying scream that would wake up the zombies around) and it was removed? Or was I lied to, all those years ago?

[Z-B]

there are a lot of good points raised in this thread like the siren or flashing light as both an indicator that an auto-aggro volume has been activated and justification for it being activated despite the player being stealthed.  I do believe that these auto-aggro volumes have a place in the game, but i also believe that it's true that "stealth builds" don't get the same return on investment as other "combat enhancement" (not stuff like weapon skills, but other perks that iprove performance in combat) abilities like: penetrator, pain tolerance, flurry of blows and run and gun, which are always on when you're in combat.  Hidden strike requires that you be hidden, which (sure you can hide without any skills as many have mentioned) means that getting the maximum benefit from it (not even in every combat like the others, just more often) requires "from the shadows" and even then it's excluded from horde nights (which may only be once a week, but also typically involve more than a day's share of combat) and the auto-aggro volumes.
Maybe combining the two perks into one might be enough to solve the problem.  Also allowing the player (I don't know if this is already in the game or not) to hide from the auto aggro zombies and after the appropriate amount  of time (based on the FTS skill level) have them deaggro and return to some predetermined spot to sleep again.

[Jenshae]

5 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

7 Days to Die is not Assassins Creed, yall.

 

Call me crazy, but... as a person who plays primarily AGI, and uses stealth a good chunk of the time.. I have zero issues with rooms that agg me.   Because I also have customizable pistols, 2 different kind of magnums, an SMG, and a knife line that also has a very nice chance to decap.   Power attacks to the head are solid against trash zeds.

Tier three house, my friend that is pure Agility build was clearing it the first time around and complaining. Shared their quest with me. I tried to sneak it but it had triggers. After the second or third one in almost as many rooms, "F--- this!" I just ran through blasting them away with my auto-shotgun.

Due to these triggers you can't counter, I don't see the point of stealth. I would rather just run through the POI with a shotgun, blasting away, than to constantly be rushed when I am in a crouch and trying to change away from a slow loading crossbow.

Oddly enough, due to these triggers, it is more stealthy to crouch and smash through walls then hit the zeds while they still sleeping. Completely ignore the way the POI is laid out, the experience that it is trying to give you. Far better to just bulldoze through it with a STR / AGI build than a pure AGI one.

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

4 minutes ago, Jenshae said:

Tier three house, my friend that is pure Agility build was clearing it the first time around and complaining. Shared their quest with me. I tried to sneak it but it had triggers. After the second or third one in almost as many rooms, "F--- this!" I just ran through blasting them away with my auto-shotgun.

Due to these triggers you can't counter, I don't see the point of stealth. I would rather just run through the POI with a shotgun, blasting away, than to constantly be rushed when I am in a crouch and trying to change away from a slow loading crossbow.

Oddly enough, due to these triggers, it is more stealthy to crouch and smash through walls then hit the zeds while they still sleeping. Completely ignore the way the POI is laid out, the experience that it is trying to give you. Far better to just bulldoze through it with a STR / AGI build than a pure AGI one.

The only time I typically break the flow of POIs is if I'm beelining to the loot room and don't need to bother with anything in the middle. By and large, I like collecting everything in the middle, as well as the XP from the zombies. When I solo play, I typically do stealth the entire way. Some of the stealth books are game changing in what they give you. 

[Jenshae]

Just now, Lenny Lettuce Lips said:

The only time I typically break the flow of POIs is if I'm beelining to the loot room and don't need to bother with anything in the middle. By and large, I like collecting everything in the middle, as well as the XP from the zombies. When I solo play, I typically do stealth the entire way. Some of the stealth books are game changing in what they give you. 

I don't mean a bee-line. I mean, just knocking out walls 2-3 blocks away, so you enter every room without a chance of hitting a trigger. In a wood or flag stone house this is easy and now that my mining skills are maxed out, I even knock out a block in steel and concrete walls to shoot zombies I hear active on the other side.

[Danidas]

2 hours ago, Z-B said:

Maybe combining the two perks into one might be enough to solve the problem.  Also allowing the player (I don't know if this is already in the game or not) to hide from the auto aggro zombies and after the appropriate amount  of time (based on the FTS skill level) have them deaggro and return to some predetermined spot to sleep again.

 

Its already in the game as the zombies will forget about you if your able to escape and restealth long enough to reset their awareness of you. Which causes them to go back to their spawn point and go back to sleep minus the auto wake. Allowing you to deal with them the same as normal sleepers.

[warmer]

On 9/22/2020 at 11:50 PM, Tehnomaag said:

I mean in particular those auto-agro rooms where everything is waking up and beelining straight to you by a script and not by any action you are doing yourself?

Try harder. I can usually kill the majority of them before the trigger. Take your time and look for them hiding. Also there are obvious hiding spots you can exploit like closets and fabric curtains. Pay attention, go slow, and shot arrows at the breakable closet/cabinet/curtains/doors. Look up in the rafters. The majority of the enemies can usually be taken out before you cross into the event trigger point. Anytime there is a drop to a point of no return, EXPECT an ambush.