Sneaking and its problems (and how to fix it)

[Viktoriusiii]

*PREFIX*
Just to make it clear:
Sneaking still works as great as it ever did outside. I can practicially stand next to a zombie without being noticed. This is only about POI sneaking.


Well now. After the last discussion/poll over here:

I am back with a vengeance.



What is this about?
This is a status report from a player. I do not have footage of pictures, nor have I gone in any xml.
But I will describe everything as best as I can.
Stealth is too weak. Full stop.
I have tried to make it work. I bought every related skill. I had most of the nightstalker books.
I had only light armor with simple mufflers and no military sneaking shoes.
Add to that my experience in this game as well as others including stealthgames and me playing on the hardest difficulties in any game... (not bragging. Just stating the fact that when I can't make it work, the average player can't by a countrymile)
I can still clear it. But that is because I am a good player (on easier difficulties zombies are less dangerous, I am talking about insane), not because stealth is good. I might as well had no perks in sneaking whatsoever.

I was not able to clear it simply by sneaking through.

Report:
It does not work. I can not sneak in a poi without them waking up. Not even at night.
My visibility when standing still (or moving inch by inch) is 0.
When slowly sneaking it is between 12 inside and 30 outside (wtf???)
Every 3rd to 4th room wakes up. (not counting rooms/situations where i was not able to sneak up on them)
Often times before I am even close to them (makes sense since sleeper volumes only check on entry).
Also it seems like doing missions inside of POIs (feral sense off) aggros zombies outside. They seem to swarm the location and do not give up (even though the perk says they should give up after 15 seconds). This means I am in constant combat music. Annoying.


What is going wrong:
SO many things.
-sleeper volumes should check regularly (with a lower probability), instead of only on entry
-even silent weapons make enough noise a lot of the time to wake zombies up around them (why even use a bow/crossbow, if I might as well use a shotgun?)
-every zombie is either behind a corner, inside a cupboard, in a wall, falling from the fake roof or otherwise obstructed.
 this means that even with perfect sneaking, you need to go inside the sleeper volume to kill the Z's.
 The fact that breaking the cupboards or walls makes such a loud noise that other zombies (not only the ones close) wake up is just the cherry on top (only way to avoid this is
 by using a crossbow, but that also wakes up some zombies, depending on how far you can be away)
-I was not able to check a POI multiple times, so I can not say anything about "auto-aggro", but the check to see if they wake up is FAR too high. Since even insane sneaking skills 
 can't get you in the single digits (without either no armor or military sneaking boots and advanced mufflers) as far as I can tell.

-The red dots are only shown when entering the sleeper volume, meaning we can not even prepare for anything that might be coming (even though the Z's are already spawned in)

And these are only the major issues. Smaller ones like random spikes in visibility, nearly no way to "destroy" lightsources without making a sound and so on are not listed here.

Conclusion:
TFPs hate stealth. There is no way around it.
Every update something new is implemented to make it less viable. Then players find a way to combat it, then they implement something else and fix the previous countermeasures... to a point where now every poi is made with anti-stealth in mind and 3-4 features working together to make stealth as unpleasant as possible (trashsound, wall/obstaclesleepers,sleepervolumes, loud 'silent' silent weapons...)

Let us sneak in POIs!!! If we go stealth, our advantage is safe looting and lower usage of ammunition.
On hordenight we are much weaker then say a foritude build with an M60; a strength build with an autoshotgut and intelligence with mass stun-steel defenses and traps.
I am honestly not a bad player. And if I have trouble with this, the average player doesn't even need to try.

 

 

 

 

Solutions:

I will try and rank these solutions based on how easy they are to implement (based on my limited knowledge of the gamecode and just rough estimates) AND how effective it would be to combat the current problems.

Can't delete a table lol.

 

 

Solution:	Difficulty:	Effectiveness:
removing sleeper volumes entirely	3/10	6/10
increasing the value to wake up in a volume:	1/10	4/10
making regular checks inside the volume instead of only at entry	4/10	4/10
redesign sleeper spots to make sense instead of trying to force drama	8/10	10/10
redesigning sleepers so they are automaticially awake (% based) and wandering once they spawn	10/10	6/10
actually making silent weapons silent again	1/10	4/10
developing a love for stealth and acknowledging that they do not need to force players to fight zombies	∞/10	10/10

Edited December 18, 2021 by Viktoriusiii (see edit history)

[JCrook1028]

Thinking you can stealth on the highest difficulty level is your problem. You shouldn't be able to imo. Working As Intended as far as I am concerned.

[Viktoriusiii]

But... difficulty does not increase awareness?
It only increases HP and dmg of the zombies (maybe spawnrate dunno)


also... WTF kinda attitude is that?
"you want it hard? Then you will not be able to use 25% of the game!"
 

Edited December 18, 2021 by Viktoriusiii (see edit history)

[Kosmic Kerman]

Quote

I was not able to clear it simply by sneaking through.

 

Maybe this is the point. Stealth is a tool. It is not the only tool.  I understand that you may want to stealth a POI entirely. But that does not mean the Devs have to design POIs or the stealth system, just so that you can do that. They may intentionally design POIs so either this isn't possible or is very hard to do. If this is TFP's fundamental design philosophy, it is what it is. I can understand both perspectives. TFP wanting it to be possible to stealth a POI and wanting it possible for there to be surprises. Either is legitimate. It doesn't mean that TFP "hates" stealth players.  I remember when stealth was completely broken and it was easy to stealth an entire POI. That is not a healthy system. It's also possible they are looking for the right balance between too easy and too hard (or impossible).

 

[Viktoriusiii]

Look if it is like... once per POI... fine.
But if you only have stealth as your option and you need to fight irradiated zombies, it just doesn'T feel fair to have to fight them every room when I could just walz in there with a machinegun and just mow them down and be done with it in an instant.

I said it a trillion times:
Everything needs a drawback and a benefit (strength/weakness).

The strength of strength is a great choice between sledgehammer and shotty (single target vs multitarget) while being able to farm and cook
Its weakness is the close range, so you are always in danger of being hit. But you do have heavy armor to protect you (but makes you slower and easier to swarm)

Perception has a sniper and a spear to deal with most things in the world and explosives for hordenight.
the weakness is a general mass killer like a shotgun or machinegun.

Fortitude has everything. It is without a doubt the strongest perk by being able to have great single and multitarget damage with automatic weapons as well as pain resistance and healing. But it does lack other utilities.

Intelligence has turrets, which are currently underpowered because the good ones (scrap turrets) don't drop at all and you can only learn them via schematic.
If they fix this, then intelligence is a set-upper.
Set up your turrets and lure the Z's into them and you will probably have no trouble.
But it is reliant upon the turrets and they are not great at dealing with hordes (but that is where traps come in)

Agility has stealth and quickness. Their strength is that they can deal with non-hordes pretty well and efficiently and can run away if overwhelmed.
As well as being excellent POI clearers. But they don't have anything else.
And being overwhelmed in POIs often leads to chaos and if you get stunned once, it is basicially game over.



So either they give Agility a way to clear massive amounts of zombies (against that! it is the only Attribute other than INT that feels different)
OR they try and give us back stealth.
If we chose stealth, we want to be able to DO stealth.
Imagine if in skyrim you could only ever stealthkill one person and had to fight the others. How unsatisfying would that be?



Honestly. I get where you and TFPs are coming from.
But a game that offers a stealthy approach, only to take it away and force you to fight anyways is so... idiotic.
Why would I need the stealthskills if I have to fight anyways? There are so many other, better options.

[Boidster]

Stop spamming the forum with your pet issue. You have a long thread already dedicated to this. Repeating "I hate the stealth mechanic" in multiple new threads isn't going to persuade people, least of all TFP.

 

1 hour ago, Viktoriusiii said:

I said it a trillion times:

 

Yes. Enough. You made your point.

[Viktoriusiii]

That was regarding the atuo wake ups.
True it was also about stealth, but I did nearly a week of testing for this. I tried to make it work. And it doesn't.
Multiple POIs, different approaches, different weapons and so on. Every logical ingame step (so not like having no armor) I took to enhance my sneaking, I took.
That is a seperate issue, even though it is connected. Wake-up rooms need some balancing, but that is not the topic here.

The point of the thread was only amplified by it.
Try it. Play a sneakbuild and tell me how it goes. Outside of POIs it feels great. As soon as you step inside POIs, it is basicially useless!

[meganoth]

19 hours ago, Kosmic Kerman said:

 

Maybe this is the point. Stealth is a tool. It is not the only tool.  I understand that you may want to stealth a POI entirely. But that does not mean the Devs have to design POIs or the stealth system, just so that you can do that. They may intentionally design POIs so either this isn't possible or is very hard to do. If this is TFP's fundamental design philosophy, it is what it is. I can understand both perspectives. TFP wanting it to be possible to stealth a POI and wanting it possible for there to be surprises. Either is legitimate. It doesn't mean that TFP "hates" stealth players.  I remember when stealth was completely broken and it was easy to stealth an entire POI. That is not a healthy system. It's also possible they are looking for the right balance between too easy and too hard (or impossible).

 

 

If his point were that you must be able to go through a POI without a single hitch and stealth killing every single zombie, then yes, you would be correct. But his account talks about a majority of rooms failing and zombies waking even with stealth shots that are supposed to be silent. And that is something I've seen myself though without a throrough test.

 

If stealth allows you to shoot 4 of the 20 zombies in a POI and the rest all have to be killed conventionally in combat, how can you justify spending 15 perk points for stealth and bow perks?

 

I don't understand why VicIII always adds unneccessary drama in his reports accusations, but there seems to be a balance issue here and he is right to call it out.

 

@Viktoriusiii, if they hated stealth they simply would not have added it to the game. You just devalue your own reports and make readers suspect the factual evidence you bring is imagined or grossly exaggerated. Are you surprised nobody is listening to you? I'm not.

 

 

[Valwyn]

20 hours ago, JCrook1028 said:

Thinking you can stealth on the highest difficulty level is your problem. You shouldn't be able to imo. Working As Intended as far as I am concerned.

Soo i had to highly invest in stealth perks and proper clothes/armor and even get books(trash noise). in perks that will be useless on the bloodmoon, to not work later? hows that working as intended?

 

@meganoth Indeed, not only you need to invest alot, keep also in mind the time needed to clean a POI in Stealth Compared to Loud, Time Matters in this game.

 

By the time it takes to clean a POI in stealth compared to loud and the amount of investment needed for a stealth build, it would be fair to be able to Silently go trough a POI. I Consider Stealth to be Too much for too little gain.

 

 

[Viktoriusiii]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

@Viktoriusiii, if they hated stealth they simply would not have added it to the game. You just devalue your own reports and make readers suspect the factual evidence you bring is imagined or grossly exaggerated. Are you surprised nobody is listening to you? I'm not.

1. thank you for staying factural and thank you for explaining my point.

2. I am not hired to report bugs/balance issues. I am a consumer who feels unsatisfied.
I can stay completely factual, but honestly, when I come to the forums, I need to vent my frustrations.
If they want only factual feedback, with rigerous testing, I can certainly do that. But then the game is no longer a hobby for me, but work.
I am not saying it is the most productive, but this way I can vent, I still have explained the problem and they have an account of what it does to their players.

My philosophy was/is always "it isn't HOW you say it, it is WHAT you say that is important".
Because humans can't stay calm and collected at all times about all topics. And 7D2D is a heartproject to me. Has been since very early on.
That is WHY I get so upset when they f*** up so hard.
(if you can believe it, I wasn't always the hater I am nowadays. Pre A16 I still had stuff to critizise, but it was mostly minor stuff. But they lost basicially all my trust with Levelgates in A16 onwards and the absolute disaster that was A17. My breaking point was when madmole said "he will die on that hill". I get what he meant by it, but it is symbolic for what I think of TFPs nowadays. Unbudging towards feedback. They make their game if we like it or not.)

"hate"specific rant:

Do I think they hate stealth? Meh... I think they dislike the concept, because it gives the player the choice to avoid their preciously crafted POIs.
I do not think they hate stealth in concept. Just the thought of being able to skip certain parts of the game.
And history is VERY much on my side here.
TFPs have shown MULTIPLE times that they will try and force a certain playstyle.
I am not talking about exploits like the hordebases/driving away. That is a crucial part of the game that should not be easily skipped (or done so in the options for those that want it).

I am talking about forcing the player to loot. Be it how crafting was more and more reduced (remember gunmolds? those were fun. Unrealistic but fun :D) and items that are not craftable and part of many important recipes.
I am talking about passive defenses. First logspikes, then advanced traps losing durability FAST.

If they do not like a certain playstyle, they will either nerf it or just outright remove it.
YES it is their game. But I still think that my point about them hating "stealth" (or what it does to their pois) is accurate and showing.
I think I even read that somewhere... that they were working on making stealth "riskier". Which is alright in general, but I think they already made it risky enough with all these wallzombies.
MAYBE future updates prove me wrong. Maybe they just overshot their target by a few miles and will adjust it lateron to a level where stealth is actually playable again.
I do not know. But all the evidence in my mind points towards them not liking stealth.

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

1. thank you for staying factural and thank you for explaining my point.

2. I am not hired to report bugs/balance issues. I am a consumer who feels unsatisfied.
I can stay completely factual, but honestly, when I come to the forums, I need to vent my frustrations.
If they want only factual feedback, with rigerous testing, I can certainly do that. But then the game is no longer a hobby for me, but work.

 

I did not say you should bring more facts or invest more time, but without the drama the facts you did provide would probably have more effect, would not be so easily dismissed. Most people ranting seem to be amplifying anything they say, their feedback is often untrustworthy, their arguments immature. If you want to be pigeonholed into belonging to that group, go ahead.

 

3 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

I am not saying it is the most productive, but this way I can vent, I still have explained the problem and they have an account of what it does to their players.

My philosophy was/is always "it isn't HOW you say it, it is WHAT you say that is important".

 

This only works if the listener subscribes to this philosophy as well 😉. The standard philosphy is more like "You reap what you sow" or in German "Wie du in den Wald hineinrufst, so schallt es heraus".

 

I don't think the developers have any desire to act as psychotherapists of their players, venting will likely get your arguments ignored.

 

3 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

Because humans can't stay calm and collected at all times about all topics. And 7D2D is a heartproject to me. Has been since very early on.
That is WHY I get so upset when they f*** up so hard.
(if you can believe it, I wasn't always the hater I am nowadays. Pre A16 I still had stuff to critizise, but it was mostly minor stuff. But they lost basicially all my trust with Levelgates in A16 onwards and the absolute disaster that was A17. My breaking point was when madmole said "he will die on that hill". I get what he meant by it, but it is symbolic for what I think of TFPs nowadays. Unbudging towards feedback. They make their game if we like it or not.)

 

Well, I interpret it as "Unbudging towards feedback once a final decision was made", and that is a sound strategy if you develop any game that is supposed to be eventually released. No approach is ever without up- and downsides , and there are always fans and naysayers about any decision. You can't make it right for everyone and something like the action skills is to a large part a subjective preference.

 

3 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

"hate"specific rant:

  Reveal hidden contents

Do I think they hate stealth? Meh... I think they dislike the concept, because it gives the player the choice to avoid their preciously crafted POIs.
I do not think they hate stealth in concept. Just the thought of being able to skip certain parts of the game.
And history is VERY much on my side here.
TFPs have shown MULTIPLE times that they will try and force a certain playstyle.
I am not talking about exploits like the hordebases/driving away. That is a crucial part of the game that should not be easily skipped (or done so in the options for those that want it).

I am talking about forcing the player to loot. Be it how crafting was more and more reduced (remember gunmolds? those were fun. Unrealistic but fun :D) and items that are not craftable and part of many important recipes.
I am talking about passive defenses. First logspikes, then advanced traps losing durability FAST.

If they do not like a certain playstyle, they will either nerf it or just outright remove it.
YES it is their game. But I still think that my point about them hating "stealth" (or what it does to their pois) is accurate and showing.
I think I even read that somewhere... that they were working on making stealth "riskier". Which is alright in general, but I think they already made it risky enough with all these wallzombies.
MAYBE future updates prove me wrong. Maybe they just overshot their target by a few miles and will adjust it lateron to a level where stealth is actually playable again.
I do not know. But all the evidence in my mind points towards them not liking stealth.

 

 

I don't find it very surprising that a mechanism that got changed needs a few rounds of balancing again. It is only human to subconsciously favor the own playstyle if you design a game, so that is quite possible. It is absolutely against any logic though to suppose that a developer puts hundreds of hours of work into features with the **intention** to make them unplayable or have players not use those features.

A developer wants his game to be played and wants everything used and played. He may try to prevent the player from using a feature in a specific way he sees as bad for the game but he always will want the players use the feature.

 

 

[Ornias]

I have run stealth builds in every alpha since 12. I gave up on it this time around for a fort run and gun build. I can clear twice as fast with less risk. The downside is ammo usage but its not that big a deal. Too many POI's where all the z's are framed into the ceiling and walls. 

[hiemfire]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

I don't find it very surprising that a mechanism that got changed needs a few rounds of balancing again. It is only human to subconsciously favor the own playstyle if you design a game, so that is quite possible. It is absolutely against any logic though to suppose that a developer puts hundreds of hours of work into features with the **intention** to make them unplayable or have players not use those features

 

Ya, from what I've seen in vids and what has been described the POIs being highlighted seem to have been put together with a healthy dose of subjective "Hey, this'll be fun to play through. Lots of jump scares and surprise ambushes." with it possibly, hopefully really, now being followed up with a bit of "Oops, @%$#. That really only works as intended if the player didn't choose to do (x) instead. Might have to adjust a bit." Though they may just leave them as is because the experience is "engaging", especially for twitchy shooters that don't enjoy sneaking around and gauging their success based on not getting @%$#ing hit thanks to patience, paying attention and positioning.

 

That said from what I've seen in recordings some sleeper volumes are a bit too tuned the other direction since even without investment into FTS the sleepers in them don't notice a player 2 blocks away lit by full daylight.

Edited December 19, 2021 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[fragtzack]

The occasional sleeper triggers regardless of steals level is ok, but in the POI's tis every other room. <boo too many a20 POI auto-triggers)

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, hiemfire said:

 

Ya, from what I've seen in vids and what has been described the POIs being highlighted seem to have been put together with a healthy dose of subjective "Hey, this'll be fun to play through. Lots of jump scares and surprise ambushes." with it possibly, hopefully really, now being followed up with a bit of "Oops, @%$#. That really only works as intended if the player didn't choose to do (x) instead. Might have to adjust a bit." Though they may just leave them as is because the experience is "engaging", especially for twitchy shooters that don't enjoy sneaking around and gauging their success based on not getting @%$#ing hit thanks to patience, paying attention and positioning.

 

That said from what I've seen in recordings some sleeper volumes are a bit too tuned the other direction since even without investment into FTS the sleepers in them don't notice a player 2 blocks away lit by full daylight.

 

Let say I can sleep soundly with the knowledge that it will always be possible with minimal developer effort to add some more oomph to the stealth perk so that moving around, shooting at closets and zombies won't wake up further zombies.

So TFP might be just peachy with the current run&gun shooter game park situation, but repairing stealth will always be possible without any side effects on the run&gun. No painting themselves into a corner.

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Darklegend222]

On 12/18/2021 at 11:13 AM, JCrook1028 said:

Thinking you can stealth on the highest difficulty level is your problem. You shouldn't be able to imo. Working As Intended as far as I am concerned.

All the difficulties do is make zombies/animals deal more damage, and take less damage.

[Darklegend222]

On 12/18/2021 at 9:13 AM, Viktoriusiii said:

Conclusion:

 

TFPs hate stealth. There is no way around it.
Every update something new is implemented to make it less viable. Then players find a way to combat it, then they implement something else and fix the previous countermeasures... to a point where now every poi is made with anti-stealth in mind and 3-4 features working together to make stealth as unpleasant as possible (trashsound, wall/obstaclesleepers,sleepervolumes, loud 'silent' silent weapons...)

Let us sneak in POIs!!! If we go stealth, our advantage is safe looting and lower usage of ammunition.
On hordenight we are much weaker then say a foritude build with an M60; a strength build with an autoshotgut and intelligence with mass stun-steel defenses and traps.
I am honestly not a bad player. And if I have trouble with this, the average player doesn't even need to try.

I don't think the developers "hate" stealth, and the way I see it is that the POI designers are doing what they can to get the sleeper volumes to a very finished state before revamping stealth.

 

There is no excuse for it to not get fixed, the game is still in early access and they have time to make it right before the release. I am not in any way, casting down at Madmole when I say this, but I feel like he doesn't give a @%$# about players. He made a comment the other day about a player not being able to be at day 38 when an update dropped (42-48 hours) i believe before that. He also went on and said something along the lines of "I'm not getting that much loot bag drops so whatever you're doing is off". This was in the A20 dev diary comments if I remember correctly.

 

Not realizing it's a random game, and some players have all the time in the world to play. I've had saves in 19.6 where I've gotten 13 treasure maps before day 7, and others where I haven't seen one for 20 days. Same applies to loot bags. (I've had a lot of worlds, more than I can express, none were the same).

 

TFP cannot please every single player, and that's understandable. "They?" Don't want players to be able to just stealth through an entire building with no threat, which I can understand.

 

But then we get the gray area of stealth needing perks and they aren't useful on bloodmoon. If you really want a full stealth build, then the best we can do is disable blood moons entirely and forget about hordes. I feel it can be negated better if blood moons spawn the same amount of zombies around you and have a toggleable option if you want them to lock on or not, that way you can choose your battles for a stealth build or not.

 

Edit: I want to further elaborate on Madmole, he is a person just like the rest of us with a human body and human emotions. He is a game developer and programmer who is apart of a lead team that we all purchased into. He should think about what his players like and dislike about mechanics, and fully understand what the code is capable of before making such statements.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Darklegend222 (see edit history)

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

Hate to be a wet blanket, but if I use a bow or knife/club exclusively I rarely have issues where I disturb more than a nearby zombie. The new sleeper locations make it tougher as they are more wisely placed, but once I changed up how I clear my corners and rooms I was back on track to being a sneaky boi with minimal issue. If I manage to find a suppressor early on, I throw it on a pistol and use that for more "tense" moments and that seems to prevent the whole building waking up, plus alerting anyone outside. 

 

Food for thought: is it possible that your laser focus on this issue coupled with time spent dissecting it has made it so it will be harder for you to note any improvements at all? Granted this is not a stealth game, and I rely on stealth only for doing missions after dark, but that's my application. I think you do a fair job of laying out your objections, but you gotta work with what you've got sometimes. I'll end with this: I haven't felt like stealth is broken, personally, but I can understand why it doesn't work the way I think you're trying. I don't think that is the end goal for how the game has been developing. 

 

You'd love MGSV though, man. Highly recommend it if that's your cup of tea.

[Limdood]

I agree stealth in POIs is frustrating.  Auto wakeups are, frankly dumb, in my opinion.  That being said, as I continue to play, I'm finding that stealth is perfectly viable to clear most POIs....I'm clearing crack a book tower and popnpills factory in stealth with minimal wakeups now that I know the sleeper volume edges.  I don't like it, as its another case of "memorize this layout" instead of "omg a 10% chance to wake them up if I move in...can I risk it?"  

The problem?  I'm stealth clearing these POIs fine...with a Q4 compound crossbow/iron bolts....BUT I'M WEARING FULL STEEL ARMOR with an endurance/strength hybrid build!  NO points in sneaking at all, NO mufflers, and half the time I even forget to turn my damn helmet light off!  What would agility perks get me?  I guess maybe a higher sneak multiplier....but If i can kill medium ferals (up to soldier and biker, but not always tourist) and regular irradiated (like janitor and woman) with a sneak head shot with NO perks at all....why spend 30 levels investing deep into agility, whose skill points are, other than parkour, the only tree that is 100% about combat only?

 

 

2 quick things about the OPs initial posts here:

1) you can absolutely see the red dots on the map without entering the sleeper volume...usually.  If you can draw a bead on any body part of any zombie in the sleeper volume and shoot it, it highlights all the zombies in that volume, no matter where you're standing.

2) Agility does have a multi-target weapon...and a strong one at that.  SMG is definitely an effective answer for hordes/groups...it just kinda runs counter to most of agility's other focuses (which is why its notable as an answer to groups)

[meganoth]

5 hours ago, Limdood said:

I agree stealth in POIs is frustrating.  Auto wakeups are, frankly dumb, in my opinion.  That being said, as I continue to play, I'm finding that stealth is perfectly viable to clear most POIs....I'm clearing crack a book tower and popnpills factory in stealth with minimal wakeups now that I know the sleeper volume edges.  I don't like it, as its another case of "memorize this layout" instead of "omg a 10% chance to wake them up if I move in...can I risk it?"  

The problem?  I'm stealth clearing these POIs fine...with a Q4 compound crossbow/iron bolts....BUT I'M WEARING FULL STEEL ARMOR with an endurance/strength hybrid build!  NO points in sneaking at all, NO mufflers, and half the time I even forget to turn my damn helmet light off!  What would agility perks get me?  I guess maybe a higher sneak multiplier....but If i can kill medium ferals (up to soldier and biker, but not always tourist) and regular irradiated (like janitor and woman) with a sneak head shot with NO perks at all....why spend 30 levels investing deep into agility, whose skill points are, other than parkour, the only tree that is 100% about combat only?

 

 

2 quick things about the OPs initial posts here:

1) you can absolutely see the red dots on the map without entering the sleeper volume...usually.  If you can draw a bead on any body part of any zombie in the sleeper volume and shoot it, it highlights all the zombies in that volume, no matter where you're standing.

2) Agility does have a multi-target weapon...and a strong one at that.  SMG is definitely an effective answer for hordes/groups...it just kinda runs counter to most of agility's other focuses (which is why its notable as an answer to groups)

 

I think the problem you are talking about has partly to do with stealth but mostly to do with the way zombies are activated in POIs.

 

The important question here is: Did you observe this with A20 P231 or the newest patch P233 ? Because in the patch notes of 233 there is an important fix for "Damaging volume enemy from outside a sleeper attack volume did not wake the volume". I don't know if this really fixes YOUR issue but it surely should improve the situation.

 

[Viktoriusiii]

16 hours ago, meganoth said:

"Damaging volume enemy from outside a sleeper attack volume did not wake the volume". 

I am so happy that I am on vacation for the next few weeks. 
That was the ONLY way to make sneaking viable in some situations xD

I know fixing bugs is important. But this time they made another issue even worse
I just hope they take the feedback seriously and will work on it in upcoming patches. I mean even a simple numberchange for the stealthcheck would suffice as a temporary fix.

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

I am so happy that I am on vacation for the next few weeks. 
That was the ONLY way to make sneaking viable in some situations xD

 

I would not call that sneaking though since you could do that with the loudest weapon available without noticing any difference AFAIK.

 

I don't want to "sneak" like that and I will not miss this even in the meantime.

 

3 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

I know fixing bugs is important. But this time they made another issue even worse

 

Just remember that players could and have already said they could sneak and they probably did this at least partly BECAUSE of that bug. Now if TPF doesn't notice they might think that critics who say sneak doesn't work are just people who can't adapt. Because others seem to be playing successfully with sneak.

Just an example of what can happen if you rely on feedback from a bugged version.

 

3 hours ago, Viktoriusiii said:

I just hope they take the feedback seriously and will work on it in upcoming patches. I mean even a simple numberchange for the stealthcheck would suffice as a temporary fix.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Krougal]

Although I enjoyed my agility build in A19, I've just given up on stealth as a primary playstyle. Just not worth the hassle in this game.

I don't think A20 has made it particularly better or worse, and of course I still sneak around when I find it useful but it just isn't the main focus of my build now.

 

One thing that I think would make stealth more competetive to other builds would be if ferals (including horde night) didn't home in 100% on you but just to your general location. So they know whereabouts you are and actively seek you but if you want to sneak around, normal rules apply. These should still be compatible with the Nerf Pimps vision for the game and their hatred for the player base but let stealth builds be 100% useful.

 

[Scyris]

On 12/18/2021 at 12:13 PM, JCrook1028 said:

Thinking you can stealth on the highest difficulty level is your problem. You shouldn't be able to imo. Working As Intended as far as I am concerned.

 

The problem is its the same on any difficulty, Difficulty does not stop auto-aggro volumes from rushing you second you walk in, it doesn't stop zombies from being behind things constantly. Its just getting stupid now. Especially the zombies in closets, hidden walls and even dropping down from the cieling, they make NO SENSE, like what the was a zombie doing in those places anyway? its completly immersion breaking and quite frankly just unfun. Office_04 in A20 exp is a prime example of a unfun poi. literally every single sleeper volume auto-aggros second you walk in, including zombies dropping from, the cieling/walls in almost every room. Whats worse is in the loot room one of the sleepers spawns right beside the place close enough to be hugging them, this sleeper doesn't spawn till you actually walk into the room, so its a 100% cheapshot as its right beside you when it spanws.

 

Like stealthing does save ammo when you can actually get a sneak attack which in A20 is kinda rare due to most sleeper volumes just knowing your there second you walk in and charging you. Stealth clearing is also much slower than just going in guns blazing, your trading speed for saftey. I've pretty much stopped investing in the sneak perks in A20 as they are of very little use anymore.

[Krougal]

1 hour ago, Scyris said:

 

The problem is its the same on any difficulty, Difficulty does not stop auto-aggro volumes from rushing you second you walk in, it doesn't stop zombies from being behind things constantly. Its just getting stupid now. Especially the zombies in closets, hidden walls and even dropping down from the cieling, they make NO SENSE, like what the was a zombie doing in those places anyway? its completly immersion breaking and quite frankly just unfun. Office_04 in A20 exp is a prime example of a unfun poi. literally every single sleeper volume auto-aggros second you walk in, including zombies dropping from, the cieling/walls in almost every room. Whats worse is in the loot room one of the sleepers spawns right beside the place close enough to be hugging them, this sleeper doesn't spawn till you actually walk into the room, so its a 100% cheapshot as its right beside you when it spanws.

 

Like stealthing does save ammo when you can actually get a sneak attack which in A20 is kinda rare due to most sleeper volumes just knowing your there second you walk in and charging you. Stealth clearing is also much slower than just going in guns blazing, your trading speed for saftey. I've pretty much stopped investing in the sneak perks in A20 as they are of very little use anymore.

Well I can see some of the places, I mean someone crawled inside somewhere to hide and died and turned, but yeah...dropped ceiling tiles wouldn't hold anyone's weight.

 

The unfun is 100% it though, which is why I'm no longer specing agility

I mean I used to enjoy the bow, but I feel like it sucks worse every alpha. Still no composite bow either. I enjoyed the cheaper 9mm ammo, but then endgame brass is what's expensive not GP, so the 7.62 is more bang for the buck and really good luck finding an SMG. Right now I sell t6 pipe machine guns all day long, have a few t3 ak & a tar, but not a single SMG.  Really, other than flurry of blows, parkour and blades I feel it's not a worthwhile skill tree right now.