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

[Danidas]

The main misconception with this is that people do not know that there are three different types of sleeper volumes.

 

1) Asleep sleepers - They are the ones that will not wake up unless damaged or they detect noise over a set threshold. In other words they will ignore that your standing right in front of them until a strong enough noise event goes off with in range of them or they get damaged. They are also the vastly most common sleeper type in all tiers and what most players expect to find.

 

2) Awake sleepers - They are just the same as normal zombies and just as aware but set to not wander from their spawn point. Which allows them to be better able to detect the player as they have both sight and sound to work with. As a result it is a lot harder to stealth around them especially during the day and if one sees you than it is a good chance that his friends will be alerted too. They are also rather rare to run into as they are most often used in choke points or traps and commonly mistaken for the next group of sleepers.

 

3) Auto Aggro Sleeps - Theses will auto lock onto the player upon entering their spawn volume regardless of what the player does. However if the player is able to evade them and escape out of line of slight they can restealth to reset the zombies into plain Awake ones. Now as for how common they are the truth is that they are extremely rare and in almost all cases only exist at or very near to a POIs loot room.

 

The vast majority of times players think that they ran into hopeless to avoid sleepers they are in fact running into the second group. Which are possible to use stealth on but at a much higher difficulty then the first group that tend to lull people into a false sense of security. As for the third group unless your near the end of the poi where the devs want to create a boss fight or ambush your not going to be running into them. Grant it there are a few rare exceptions like the a fore mentioned Firestation that is bugged with all sleeper volumes being auto aggro.

 

[Boidster]

On 10/3/2020 at 10:44 AM, Roland said:

On 10/3/2020 at 4:39 AM, Ezed said:

You can still stealth a fair bit of POI's right? 

 

I would say a significant amount. Boidster posted the volume types for Red Mesa, I believe:

I checked. There are 491 POIs not named "aaa_xxxxxx" (I think those are only for testing).

 

Of those 345 have sleeper volumes. Of those, there are 227 (66%) with no sleeper volumes set to "2" (attack). This includes skyscraper_01, skyscraper_02, skyscraper_03, and skyscraper_04, the very largest POIs in the game.

 

34% of the POIs have at least one volume set to auto-aggro.

[Kalen]

1 minute ago, Boidster said:

I checked. There are 491 POIs not named "aaa_xxxxxx" (I think those are only for testing).

 

Of those 491, there are 227 (46%) with no sleeper volumes set to "2" (attack). This includes skyscraper_01, skyscraper_02, skyscraper_03, and skyscraper_04, the very largest POIs in the game.

Nice data..... now put together a list of all volumes by type, so we can see what percentage are set to 2 

 

[Boidster]

 

Edit to add:

 

345 POIs with sleeper volumes checked.

Total Sleeper Volumes	2261
Passive ("0")	1752 (77.5%)
Active ("1")	36 (1.6%)
Aggressive ("2")	473 (20.9%)

[hiemfire]

1 hour ago, Boidster said:

 

Edit to add:

 

345 POIs with sleeper volumes checked.

Total Sleeper Volumes	2261
Passive ("0")	1752 (77.5%)
Active ("1")	36 (1.6%)
Aggressive ("2")	473 (20.9%)

Kinda blows a hole in the theory that people are mistaking active volumes for auto-aggro (aggressive) volumes. Less than 1/50th of the volumes in those checked are Active volumes (some or all occupants are alert but not triggered to attack by entry into the volume) vs just over 1/5th are Aggressive (targeted aggro upon entry). 1 in 5 volumes, rounded down, shut off the stealth mechanic...

[Lesdeth]

18 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

There are very few rooms that auto-aggro in t4 and t5 POIs.

 

 

That you are very unstealthy in heavy armor is a different matter and surely won't change in the game even if TFP decided that there is some balance problem here. There have to be disadvantages to heavy armor and one is noise. Light armor is in the agility tree for a reason.

 

I don't play on insane, so I don't really know, but have you tried a pistol/desert vulture with silencer (and light armor naturally) ? Maybe not as the opening shot but as finisher?

 

I have gone full stealth set (light armor, not ghille) with silenced pistols, crossbows and regular bows. Shamway and Shotgun are what I run most of the time. In almost every room when you shoot one, they all aggro no matter which weapon you use. The only counter to this is to use heavy armor and run and gun, or block a doorway with cobblestone and chuck grenades. A desert vulture is not even close to enough to deal with any rooms post day 50 in tier 4-5... I know you guys play on scrub settings, but damn...

 

I am talking about the hardest difficult and how unbalanced and useless stealth is. I would love to see you run with only a crossbow and vulture and not cheese the hell out of tier 5 missions. Hell run high school with only stealth and light armor and watch you get ripped apart in 2 seconds, which is tier 4...

 

Yes, I can lower my settings to under my skill level and just use a level 1 club and clear everything. That is completely idiotic. Pretty much the only way stealth can work is with easy mode settings.

[Kalen]

2 hours ago, Boidster said:

 

Edit to add:

 

345 POIs with sleeper volumes checked.

Total Sleeper Volumes	2261
Passive ("0")	1752 (77.5%)
Active ("1")	36 (1.6%)
Aggressive ("2")	473 (20.9%)

So about 80% of all POIs in the game are stealth-able.   Seems about right.

 

And, nice work on the data!

[hiemfire]

1 minute ago, Kalen said:

So about 80% of all POIs in the game are stealth-able.   Seems about right.

 

And, nice work on the data!

That's the percentage of volumes overall across all POIs, not percentage of POIs.

[Kalen]

25 minutes ago, Lesdeth said:

Yes, I can lower my settings to under my skill level and just use a level 1 club and clear everything. That is completely idiotic. Pretty much the only way stealth can work is with easy mode settings.

Wait.... you're saying that in harder difficulty, it's harder to kill mobs without them waking up?   You can't kill them without risk?   It's almost like the harder difficulties intentionally make the game harder!

3 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

That's the percentage of volumes overall across all POIs, not percentage of POIs.

I know.... I just estimated that those numbers are pretty fairly distributed across POIs.  You're right though, they may not be.

 

Also, when I said 80% of POIs, I didn't mean that 80% had no auto agro.  We already know from Boidster's previous data that about 50% don't.  I meant that 80% within the POIs are stealth-able.  Sorry for the lack of clarity.

[Lesdeth]

8 minutes ago, Kalen said:

Wait.... you're saying that in harder difficulty, it's harder to kill mobs without them waking up?   You can't kill them without risk?   It's almost like the harder difficulties intentionally make the game harder!

I know.... I just estimated that those numbers are pretty fairly distributed across POIs.  You're right though, they may not be.

So Stealth should be completely worthless because of higher difficult? What are you smoking dude? It seems you aren't really understanding what you are saying. It pigeonholes you into run and gun, herp derp. Thanks for agreeing with me.

[Kalen]

4 minutes ago, Lesdeth said:

So Stealth should be completely worthless because of higher difficult? What are you smoking dude? It seems you aren't really understanding what you are saying. It pigeonholes you into run and gun, herp derp.

I didn't say stealth should be completely worthless.... you said that.   I implied, that stealth is less effective in higher difficulties.   As it should be, IMO.   

 

TFP have made two things, relevant to this discussion, clear. 

 

1.  It's not a stealth game.... stealth was never meant to be viable in all situations.

2.  The game is currently balanced around the default settings.   So playing on difficult settings and complaining about balance will get you nowhere at this time.

 

 

[Lesdeth]

3 minutes ago, Kalen said:

 

1.  It's not a stealth game.... stealth was never meant to be viable in all situations.

2.  The game is currently balanced around the default settings.   So playing on difficult settings and complaining about balance will get you nowhere at this time.

 

So it is fine that everyone is pigeonholed into run and gun, heavy armor m60 and auto shotgun on insane or cheesing with grenades. Sounds pretty unbalanced and broken to me. Sorry if you are unfamiliar with what unbalanced means.

I know you only play on normal settings because you can't handle insane, so you think stealth is fine because you can do tier 5 naked. If you could handle it, you would have the same opinion as us. Sorry.

[Kalen]

Just now, Lesdeth said:

So it is fine that everyone is pigeonholed into run and gun, heavy armor m60 and auto shotgun on insane or cheesing with grenades. Sounds pretty unbalanced and broken to me. Sorry if you are unfamiliar with what unbalanced means.

No one is pigeonholed into anything.... if thats the only way you are successful thats on you, not the game.

 

[Lesdeth]

Just now, Kalen said:

No one is pigeonholed into anything.... if thats the only way you are successful thats on you, not the game.

 

That is the only way to be successful on insane dude... Maybe you should give it a try. Go do a playthrough of Insane Always Nightmare.

[Kalen]

1 minute ago, Lesdeth said:

That is the only way to be successful on insane dude... Maybe you should give it a try. Go do a playthrough of Insane Always Nightmare.

I doubt I'm skilled enough to play on those setting.... at least not without a lot of frustration.  I play at a difficulty that lets me play the way I want to play.   You should try it, you might enjoy the game more.

[Lesdeth]

Just now, Kalen said:

I doubt I'm skilled enough to play on those setting.... at least not without a lot of frustration.  I play at a difficulty that lets me play the way I want to play.   You should try it, you might enjoy the game more.

I enjoy the game and a challenge. I can naked clear tier 5 on lower settings. Hell, you can do it with a level 1 club and making choke points. I think it is quite funny that you are fine with stealth being completely useless on higher difficulty because you don't play on it.

[Kalen]

Just now, Lesdeth said:

I enjoy the game and a challenge. I can naked clear tier 5 on lower settings. Hell, you can do it with a level 1 club and making choke points. I think it is quite funny that you are fine with stealth being completely useless on higher difficulty because you don't play on it.

I see, because you can't stealth on high difficulty, no one can?   Maybe you're right.... but I'd want to see more than just your anecdotal evidence before I believe it.

[Lesdeth]

2 minutes ago, Kalen said:

I see, because you can't stealth on high difficulty, no one can?   Maybe you're right.... but I'd want to see more than just your anecdotal evidence before I believe it.

Go watch all of the insane nightmare playthroughs on Youtube, or watch a lot of the vods on Twitch and see for yourself my dude.

[hiemfire]

20 minutes ago, Kalen said:

We already know from Boidster's previous data that about 50% don't.

They look to have edited that post since your reply to it due to a typo in the percentage. 66% don't, 33% do. 1/3rd of the POIs are not stealth able. Every time someone who plays "blind" (no meta knowledge) running a stealth build enters into a poi there is a 1 in 3 chance that their build will be thrown back in their face and they'll be playing with the equivalent of 0 perks invested.

[Kalen]

1 minute ago, hiemfire said:

They look to have edited that post since your reply to it due to a typo in the percentage. 66% don't, 33% do. 1/3rd of the POIs are not stealth able. Every time someone who plays "blind" (no meta knowledge) running a stealth build enters into a poi there is a 1 in 3 chance that their build will be thrown back in their face and they'll be playing with the equivalent of 0 perks invested.

You're right... I did miss that edit.  Thanks.

[Boidster]

55 minutes ago, Kalen said:

You're right... I did miss that edit.  Thanks.

Sorry, I edited it right after you posted and forgot to alert you. The first numbers were taking into account all POIs including the remnants and others which have no sleeper volumes. I excluded those to get the correct numbers.

 

57 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Every time someone who plays "blind" (no meta knowledge) running a stealth build enters into a poi there is a 1 in 3 chance that their build will be thrown back in their face and they'll be playing with the equivalent of 0 perks invested.

This is just not true. There might be a single volume in the POI which will auto-aggro, when 75% (as in Red Mesa) or more of the rest of the POI can be cleared without risk or challenge by one-shotting the sleepers.

[hiemfire]

1 hour ago, Boidster said:

This is just not true. There might be a single volume in the POI which will auto-aggro, when 75% (as in Red Mesa) or more of the rest of the POI can be cleared without risk or challenge by one-shotting the sleepers.

Isn't it? Get back to me when your armor/weapon/crit mitigation/block damage boosting perks get shut off for just walking into an unmarked room that only affects them will ya. We'll see how you think then.

 

TFP needs to be fully up front with the players in the game itself that these exist before a player decides to invest points into FTS and HS. If they're not willing to do that then aggressive volumes, to call them how they're categorized by TFP, need to be removed. They are straight out lying to the player by willful omission otherwise.

Other alternatives would be to put in place volumes or aoe effects from zombies that hamstring other play styles to level the field or flat out remove the stealth perks since we're not supposed to rely on the mechanic (unlike every other @%$#ing mechanic and perk set in the game).

[Boidster]

2 hours ago, Boidster said:

There might be a single volume in the POI which will auto-aggro, when 75% (as in Red Mesa) or more of the rest of the POI can be cleared without risk or challenge by one-shotting the sleepers.

More data on this:

 

49 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Isn't it?

No, it's not. You said:

 

3 hours ago, hiemfire said:

Every time someone who plays "blind" (no meta knowledge) running a stealth build enters into a poi there is a 1 in 3 chance that...they'll be playing with the equivalent of 0 perks invested.

As you can see above, there is slightly more than a 1% chance the POI will play "with the equivalent of 0 perks invested". A single volume - or several even - in a POI which also has several - in most cases a majority - of volumes which are perfectly fine running in stealth mode, does not make the POI "the equivalent of [playing with] 0 perks invested". There is no need to exaggerate. You have a valid issue, don't f*** up your argument with hyperbole.

 

49 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Get back to me when your armor/weapon/crit mitigation/block damage boosting perks get shut off for just walking into an unmarked room that only affects them will ya. We'll see how you think then.

Sorry, this challenge doesn't carry any weight with me. I play stealth in every game. I already know how it is treated and what its limitations are. I simply don't see it as being "lied to by willful omission" and the end of the freaking world. It's not a stealth game. Sometimes stealth perks don't help me. <shrug> I still play stealth always, and enjoy the vast majority of one-shot kills and low-stress, low-challenge POI exploration I get. I am not looking for a more carebear experience in this game.

[hiemfire]

3 minutes ago, Boidster said:

More data on this:

 

I'm going to be frank, with how the % axis is set up I cannot tell if the %s are supposed to line up with the hashes or the slots and the inconsistent spread (0%>8%>13%>15%, the heck???) makes it hard to even figure out ballpark what the numbers are supposed to mean when they don't line up. Is 50% supposed to have 8, or is that 8 in a 46%>49% spread?

[SylenThunder]

The real issue is that people assume "Stealth" means "invisible". It doesn't.  It needs to be called "Sneak", and if you can 100% sneak and clear all POI's 100% of the time, then the game developers aren't doing their jobs.

 

I personally play this build type a lot. At a guess, i'm probably 80-90% successful at not having any Z's wake on me. Have even done the cauldron in the Shotgun Messiah factory without waking any of the Z's that spawn inside of it. When they do wake, you deal with it and move on. As you play, you learn the POI's, and you learn the areas where stealth isn't going to work. If you're crafty, you can even eliminate some of those zeds before they wake. (so long as they are spawned into the game)