The weird implementation of stealth and its counter measures.

[Boidster]

Just now, Roland said:

 

@faatal seemed to be saying that if you have light shining on you at all it is an auto fail for your stealth check. It would be interesting to test some of those attack volumes at night provided there are no interior lights on and see if it makes a difference. If you can get your stealth level down to a 2 or 3 and move across that line and they wake up and come straight at you and kill you then that might be sus.

 

Okay I'll give it a try. I just did another test on store_book_02's rooftop "Attack" volume, with max stealth perks + military stealth boots and the zombie woke up as soon as I crossed the line. But it was daylight. I'll go mess with sidereal motion and try again.

[Boidster]

13 minutes ago, Boidster said:

 

Okay I'll give it a try.

 

Aaand done. Roland is right, as USUAL. 

 

Here's the rooftop "Attack" volume at night. My sneak value is 1. Kinda dark so I helpfully indicated the sleeping zombie.

 

And here I am right up in his grill, about to give him a taste of the Dev Auto-kill Gun:

(Prior to this, in the day time even with max stealth, He'd wake up as soon as I dropped off the ledge onto the roof.)

 

The supply plane helpfully dropped a crate...onto my nearly empty void...

 

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Boidster (see edit history)

[Roland]

Well....faatal is right as usual. I just enjoyed splash damage correctness.

[AtomicUs5000]

Stealth in general hasn't been that great ever since A17 when this perk system came out and show3ed its face.

 

Instead of having something that wakes up all zombies no matter what, they could still amp up the pressure by having it where a zombie can wake up other zombies. This way you feel this absolute need to take one out quietly before it makes enough noise to wake up others. This is what I feel the core of stealth should be all about in this game.
 
Maybe the restore power quests will lead into more stealth mechanics. It would be nice if I could perk into stealth to shut off lights at electrical boxes for POIs. Higher perk allows dismantling cars without car alarms going off (should be a thing), even higher perk level allows disabling POI alarm systems at higher tier POIs (should also be a thing). Perhaps higher tier POIs are zoned and require shutting things off at multiple locations within the POI. Perhaps even more perks to be able to locate said boxes.

 

There are things they could do to make stealth an enjoyable and reasonable build.

[Roland]

7 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

Instead of having something that wakes up all zombies no matter what, they could still amp up the pressure by having it where a zombie can wake up other zombies. This way you feel this absolute need to take one out quietly before it makes enough noise to wake up others. This is what I feel the core of stealth should be all about in this game.

 

You haven't caught up in the thread yet but that is exactly the change in A20. If you hit one zombie there is a chance for others in the volume to wake up. Also the game runs a stealth check when you cross into a volume against each individual zombie to see if they wake. The difference seems to be that in A20 light matters a lot more than it did previously. 

 

I do like your ideas about being able to cut power to a POI and make it dark to enhance the stealth perks.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Roland (see edit history)

[AtomicUs5000]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

 

You haven't caught up in the thread yet but that is a change in A20. If you hit one zombie there is a chance for others in the volume to wake up. Also the game runs a stealth check when you cross into a volume against each individual zombie to see if they wake. The difference seems to be that in A20 light matters a lot more than it did previously. 

 

I do like your ideas about being able to cut power to a POI and make it dark to enhance the stealth perks.

What I mean is more like a screamer mechanic, where they yell out alerting others... not so much a random chance trigger from hitting them. It would just be more natural and what you might expect to happen in a real-world scenario if this fantasy were to happen in the real world. But yeah, if you can somehow disable those lights with stealth perks in some way, it would make it better. I was watching a stream today where someone was trying to stealth and there was a torch on the wall. I was thinking that it would be pretty cool to be able to shoot that right off the wall with an arrow to put it out so he could then sneak by easier... which then led to thoughts about power boxes.

Edited December 15, 2021 by AtomicUs5000 (see edit history)

[Boidster]

2 hours ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

What I mean is more like a screamer mechanic

 

What if some of the sleepers were, in fact, Screamers? Better scan the room and kill that one first, or she's going to invite extra guests to the party.

[hiemfire]

Edit: Looks like it may have been answered. Really wanting my power supply to show up already and stable to drop. This has been at the top of my list to test out for awhile. Not surprised that the changes to the lighting mentioned in the update notes had an effect, fingers crossed the new clothing system that is/was planned for A21 doesn't flat out kill sneaking around.

Edited December 15, 2021 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[AtomicUs5000]

35 minutes ago, Boidster said:

 

What if some of the sleepers were, in fact, Screamers? Better scan the room and kill that one first, or she's going to invite extra guests to the party.

I wouldn't mind that.... sounds pretty cool. If they were seen in a couple of special POIs it could add something to their story. I don't know what those POIs would be though.

Edited December 15, 2021 by AtomicUs5000 (see edit history)

[meganoth]

Mmh, stealth only working in total darkness in aggressive rooms? That sounds much less dynamic and useful than I thought.

 

I would understand that light makes the check more difficult, but an automatic fail that makes agressive rooms in almost all situations, and especially before having night vision goggles, practically identical to A19 auto aggro rooms. And for that mechanic aggressive rooms seem too common to me now.

 

Still needs confirmation (as I understand it Roland isn't 100% sure about his interpretation of Fataals words) and I still haven't time to play-test it.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Roland]

Well Boidster was maxed in perks so his stealth score was a 1 which is the lowest possible. We need to see at what threshold the attack volume triggers. If it’s 2 then it is pretty much as you say— basically guaranteed. But if 6 or 8 then at least for indoor areas, covering windows and breaking lights might be enough.  Sneaking onto a roof top with no cover in broad daylight probably should be pretty automatic. 

[Viktoriusiii]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

Well Boidster was maxed in perks so his stealth score was a 1 which is the lowest possible. We need to see at what threshold the attack volume triggers. If it’s 2 then it is pretty much as you say— basically guaranteed. But if 6 or 8 then at least for indoor areas, covering windows and breaking lights might be enough.  Sneaking onto a roof top with no cover in broad daylight probably should be pretty automatic. 

I like the general idea of light affecting it.
The problem is the counterplay.
Since basicially every lightsource has >50hp we can't simply shoot them out (without waking the Z's).
If lightsources had two states (a functioning one with 1hp and a destroyed one with the normal HP) that would help A LOT and would actually make stealth a lot more challenging.

Covering the windows is a neat idea, but basicially impossible, since light levels are given out so easily.

W=window |xx| = block lightlevel

W ||14|| ||13|| ||12|| ||11|| ||10|| ....

We could never reach those windows. So that would need to be changed somehow. Either by making the block-light requirement like... 13 so you only need to cover adjacent windows/holes, or... in some other way.

Granted I'm no expert in lightlevels. So this I leave up to the experts.


But in general I like the general idea of the implementation, even if the current one is completely unenjoyable.

 

 

 

 

  

8 hours ago, Boidster said:

Categorically untrue. I even provided concrete numbers and POI examples. Hyperbole only undercuts your argument.

 

I mean it was a hyperbole... but actually based on what you said, I was actually right... or did I misinterpret something?

 

On 12/13/2021 at 11:45 PM, Boidster said:

Examination of 479 POIs with Sleeper Volumes

POIs with All Volumes Active (flag="0")	157 (32.8%)
POIs with All Volumes Passive (flag="1")	0
POIs with All Volumes Aggressive (flag="2")	75 (15.7%)
POIs with Mix of Active & Aggressive	247 (51.6%)

 

There are 0 "passive" pois... so every POI has this mechanic now... right? Even if they don't always aggro.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Viktoriusiii (see edit history)

[HungryZombie]

If stealth is based on light levels then they really need to plan the POI's better so you have some logical path around it or else add something like a Stealth Boy from Fallout into the game. Maybe crafted at max perk level or something.

[Boidster]

11 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

There are 0 "passive" pois... so every POI has this mechanic now... right? Even if they don't always aggro.

 

There are no POIs where all sleeper volumes are Passive. There are 157 (32.8%) of POIs where ALL volumes are "Active", i.e. NONE are "Attack". I thought your original complaint was about un-stealthable auto-attack sleepers. Note that based on my playtest of the Army camp described above, even zombies in "passive" volumes will wake up if you make noise. I don't think passive means what I used to think it means. That is, it doesn't mean "zombies in this volume won't wake up or pay any attention to you regardless of what you do."

 

And in any case, we now know that even "attack" volumes can be stealthed. As Roland said, it would be good to know the threshold. I'll look into it if I get a moment.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Boidster (see edit history)

[hiemfire]

11 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

There are 0 "passive" pois... so every POI has this mechanic now... right? Even if they don't always aggro.

322 out of the 479 poi's with sleepers have attack volumes. Just a smidge over 2/3rds (67.2%)

 

4 hours ago, HungryZombie said:

If stealth is based on light levels then they really need to plan the POI's better so you have some logical path around it or else add something like a Stealth Boy from Fallout into the game. Maybe crafted at max perk level or something.

Or let us turn off/destroy the lights. Sneakers will still have to clear POIs at night and hope for a cloudy sky even then since they also tweaked the night time ambient lighting and "covering windows" ain't happening in any volume in 7D2D without waking up the occupants. 

 

It looks like, with default settings on including Horde night, a Sneak player that is leaning into getting the most out of their perks is limited to clearing 6 tier 1/2s , or 2 tier 3/4s or 1 tier 5 quest POI a week since they have at best, default setting on, 15 minutes real time of darkness to work with per game night and can't turn in quests in the middle of the game night.

 

Edit: Just remembered that the factories and hospital share tier 5 with the skyscrapers. I don't see a Sneak player clearing any of the skyscrapers before Horde Night hits if the player is hard leaning into their perks.

Edited December 15, 2021 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[JCrook1028]

On 12/14/2021 at 12:56 PM, Viktoriusiii said:

but can therefor clear pois much more effectively.

Why would you ever think stealth clearing a POI is more effective? Hint - it's not, never has been and never will be. The most effective way is charging in guns blazing. I say this as a player that rarely uses guns and I still know it's true. How do you not?

[Boidster]

  

13 hours ago, Roland said:

Well Boidster was maxed in perks so his stealth score was a 1 which is the lowest possible. We need to see at what threshold the attack volume triggers. If it’s 2 then it is pretty much as you say— basically guaranteed.

 

I was able to sneak up to that same rooftop zombie with 3 levels in From The Shadows. Sneak level standing still was 4 (naked), when moving it would go as high as 12. Interestingly - and sure to create a lively discussion - after I was successfully in the volume I was able to hold and place torches without waking him up. My stealth value went up to 20 while moving in this situation.

 

[Viktoriusiii]

17 minutes ago, Boidster said:

There are no POIs where all sleeper volumes are Passive. There are 157 (32.8%) of POIs where ALL volumes are "Active", i.e. NONE are "Attack". I thought your original complaint was about un-stealthable auto-attack sleepers.

Yeah but even "active" volumes wake up by the same principle (so they wake up when oyu enter that room). They just don't auto-aggro on you.
Which often times means the same seing as the layout of basicially every poi is zombies behind walls.
So if you can see them wake up, they already have aggro on you.


Again I generally think the idea is... okay. I don't hate it per se.

Just the current implementation.

I play on insane. And I have ZERO reason to try and sneak a poi.
Going in guns blazing is FAR faster, way safer and way more fun.



I am going to describe my experience with T4 POI hotel with 2 points in sneaking:
*sneak*
-zombies wake up, fight them
*sneak*
*get a nice headshot with a silent crossbow*
-every other zombie in the chunk wakes up, fight them
*repeat a few times*


In that whole T4 poi I only had ONE room (funny enough the loot room) where I was able to sleathkill most Z's.
Why am I even trying to use sleathy weapons? Why not simply use a sniper? Faster rate of fire, stronger and more accurate.
Since Z's mostly wake up anyways after one shot, I might as well.



My point/recap:

Most POIs (2/3rds which in politics is a large majority) have auto aggro rooms which auto wakeup after an rng roll (that is modified by stealthperks yay)
Stealth has become harder with more stuff on the floor
Light can now cause them to see you instantly
silent weapons have a chance (and not a low one, based on my experience) of alerting every zombie in the room, meaning the entire point of silent weapons (less damage but stealthy) is mute.

Stealth right now is a joke. A bad gimmick that came about because TFPs want players to fight the zombies.
Generally a good thought but they, as so often, did it by punishing the player instead of rewarding them.
Even if all these probabilities are lowered by like 80-90% it is still not a good system, but at least then stealth can finally be enjoyed again.

Until then, my stealthbuild will no longer be played, because there is not a single reason for it.

3 minutes ago, JCrook1028 said:

Why would you ever think stealth clearing a POI is more effective? Hint - it's not, never has been and never will be. The most effective way is charging in guns blazing. I say this as a player that rarely uses guns and I still know it's true. How do you not?

no that is the fastest, not necessarily the most efficient.

Efficiency has more values than time:

Time, ressources (like ammo or bandages) and risk are the three values that I think are playing a part in efficiency.
If you were sneaking before this auto-wakeup, you could have no costs (iron arrows or even kniving is basicially 0 cost) and since Z's would basicially never wake up, the risk was very low as well. Also you would notice traps better because oyu are slower.


But yes if it was purely about time, then going in guns blazing was always more efficient.

5 minutes ago, Boidster said:

My stealth value went up to 20 while moving in this situation.

so... they behaved just like every other zombie that is not in a poi? (basicially blind if the value is below 25)?
Yeah... shocker ^^ (but thx for confirming)


this is what I mean. The world sets certain rules. Like Z's being super blind. And these auto-triggers break that rule because even with a sneak rating of <10 they still often hear you. And there is no (in game)explanation for it.
That would be like shooting a penalty and 9/10 times you need to fill the meter 50%, but 1/10 times (which you never know which one) filling it up 50% causes the ball to go flying out of the stadium. WHY? "Because we don't want you to be a perfect penalty taker!"

[JCrook1028]

8 minutes ago, Viktoriusiii said:

no that is the fastest, not necessarily the most efficient.

Read what you wrote and what I responded to.

 

On 12/14/2021 at 12:56 PM, Viktoriusiii said:

but can therefor clear pois much more effectively.

 

 

You did NOT say efficient, you said Effective. For God's sake if you can't even understand what you yourself wrote then there's no reason to even bother speaking to you.

[Viktoriusiii]

efficient and effective are both subjective terms.
It could be more effective to save the bullets for hordenight, or to clear the poi quicker to gain money to buy more bullets.
I am not quite sure why you are making this big of a fuss about effective/efficient.
If you die because you had to fight zombies because you went in guns blazing and made a mistake, it is less effective at clearing pois than a stealthmode (if it still worked like it used to)

But honestly, this is splitting hairs. IF by chance I have learned the wrong definitions or misinterpreted, feel free to correct me in a non judgmental way.
While I do consider my english to be very much sufficient, it is still not my mothertongue, so there can still be thing I don't know.
(for example I just recently learned that cannot is a word and is actually used far more often than can not)

[Roland]

54 minutes ago, Boidster said:

  

 

I was able to sneak up to that same rooftop zombie with 3 levels in From The Shadows. Sneak level standing still was 4 (naked), when moving it would go as high as 12. Interestingly - and sure to create a lively discussion - after I was successfully in the volume I was able to hold and place torches without waking him up. My stealth value went up to 20 while moving in this situation.

 

 

Interesting. So much of stealth appears to be simply about crossing borders.

[Boidster]

2 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

auto wakeup after an rng roll (that is modified by stealthperks yay)

 

Setting aside the inherent contradiction between "auto wakeup" and "after an RNG roll"...yes and? Isn't this how every game since ever has handled this mechanic? "Roll your sneak skill" says the DM. The enemy has a chance to detect you. Your stealth (or lack) affects how likely that chance is to succeed. You can make a valid argument that the current balance regarding the chance to detect you leans too strongly in the zombies' favor. And that argument might not require 40 lines of text.

 

2 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

Yeah but even "active" volumes wake up by the same principle (so they wake up when oyu enter that room).

 

This is not true. I playtested the Cafe area of the bookstore POI - which is an "active" area - and naked, level 1 me was able to sneak right up to sleeping zombies. In daytime.

 

You seem to have taken a position that is unassailable by evidence.

2 hours ago, Roland said:

Interesting. So much of stealth appears to be simply about crossing borders.

 

Well in the POI editor the setting is called "Sleeper Volume Trigger", so it sort of implies that the behavior - passive, active, attack - is determined at trigger time i.e. when you first cross into the volume* but I guess not while you're sneaking around.

 

*Another test I need to do - place the torches, exit the volume, then re-enter. BRB

[Roland]

15 minutes ago, Boidster said:

This is not true. I playtested the Cafe area of the bookstore POI - which is an "active" area - and naked, level 1 me was able to sneak right up to sleeping zombies. In daytime.

 

You seem to have taken a position that is unassailable by evidence.

 

I think the main problem is that we don't have definitions for passive, active, and aggressive in the context of these volumes. People are making assumptions about what they might mean and those assumptions seem to be coming from the  "Worst Case Scenarios" part of their brains.

 

I think it would take @faatal to tell us what a passive, active, or aggressive volume expressly is in terms of zombie AI.

 

2 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

for example I just recently learned that cannot is a word and is actually used far more often than can not

 

Can not is how we ferret out non-native ESL speakers. Your discovery is going to put you under the radar for sure!

 

However, much like LOTL 2, using "cannot" is just a stepping stone to using "can't". I suggest skipping "cannot" altogether.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Roland (see edit history)

[Boidster]

23 minutes ago, Boidster said:

Another test I need to do - place the torches, exit the volume, then re-enter. BRB

 

And I'm back. I did two tests. In both cases, I had 3 levels in From the Shadows, but I wuz naked.

 

1. Place torches in the volume before entering, then enter the volume. Result: wakey wakey!

 

2. Enter volume, place torch, exit volume, re-enter volume. Result: be vewwy vewwy qwiet...I'm hunting zowmbies.

(I took this screenshot while I was walking, so the stealth value is 14)

 

 

 

23 minutes ago, Boidster said:

This is not true. I playtested the Cafe area of the bookstore POI - which is an "active" area - and naked, level 1 me was able to sneak right up to sleeping zombies. In daytime.

 

"Pics or it didn't happen"

(This is behind the counter; I have snuck in through the Cafe door, destroying one trash pile right where I'm standing. Level 1, 0XP, no perks, naked.)

 

13 minutes ago, Roland said:

I think it would take @faatal to tell us what a passive, active, or aggressive volume expressly is in terms of zombie AI.

 

Yarp, and not just for this discussion. Super useful for POI designers. (I fully expect it to be in the XML comments, and we will get RTFM! in response. Well deserved.)

 

Especially passive vs active - I can't see a real difference yet, except for use in e.g. that Army camp, where there was one big container "active" volume, with little "passive" volumes inside it. Maybe it prevents all of the interior volumes from waking up at the same time.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Boidster (see edit history)

[Roland]

So I wonder if you could place frame blocks past a doorway that marked the edge of a volume to create a completely dark small space and then move across the trigger point in darkness and pass the skill check and then remove the frame blocks... lol

 

Would that be like Solid Snake and his cardboard box....?