Will stealth finally be worth it in A21? Also all the anti-immersion/Skill system.

[Darthjake]

On 10/10/2022 at 6:13 PM, Roland said:

 

 

 

Claim #18: You can craft various distractors and attractors to mess with the zombies

 

This claim is 0% fulfilled. Not certain if this has been abandoned or just an oversight.

 

 

No fear of that...lol. The video is the best proof that the devs have been working hard and been delivering on promises. They will deliver on all their promises at some point although maybe not in exactly the way you expect them to or even the way they expected to back in 2013. In most cases, they have exceeded what they promised and even delivered more than they promised with features that are in the game not even announced in that video. Thanks so much for sharing that video again. I haven't seen it in awhile and it is great seeing how well this game has come together and how so much of what they originally planned is now in the game with the last bits coming soon.

 

Actually Roland, I craft campfires and fill them with wood to attract the Z's to climb a concrete tower covered with Iron Spike Traps.  And I usually build it directly over my forge/concrete/gunpowder production that is underground.

[Riamus]

48 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

Interesting. You probably get stealth kills on zombies that are targeting other players rather than you. If true that could add some strategy to horde night for those with high stealth kill numbers. Pick targets that seem to be focused on other player. I wonder if it works on zombie that drop into destruction mode and have stopped specifically targeting any player....

 

This could demolish the one final objection to stealth: "It is useless during horde night"

I'll often crouch during horde night just to get the occasional stealth bonus damage.  It doesn't happen every time, but it does happen. And I don't spec into stealth at all.

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Riamus said:

I'll often crouch during horde night just to get the occasional stealth bonus damage.  It doesn't happen every time, but it does happen. And I don't spec into stealth at all.

 

Everyone gets the stealth bonus damage regardless of whether they perk into stealth. If you are crouched and the zombie isn't aware of you then you get the bonus. On horde night, the zombies historically have always been aware of the player and their attention never wavered. Recently, though, faatal added in the destruction mode that zombies can fall into which means they obviously are unaware of you. Also it may be that if they are targeting a different player then the stealth bonus might apply. If you do perk into stealth that bonus can become crazy powerful so perhaps there is use for a stealth player in the group to crouch and pick targets that are in destruction mode or focused on other players rather than shooting those directly coming for them. In single player it would only be useful for those in destruction mode.

 

If it is all true of course and not just some random glitch that sometimes works but other times doesnt....

 

1 hour ago, Darthjake said:

 

Actually Roland, I craft campfires and fill them with wood to attract the Z's to climb a concrete tower covered with Iron Spike Traps.  And I usually build it directly over my forge/concrete/gunpowder production that is underground.

 

That might count as a honeypot type of attractor although I don't know how intentionally conceived that configuration might be by the developers...haha. But I'm thinking what they originally meant in the video was something that could be crafted and thrown like a rock but perhaps with more powerful results or easily placed and left and it would work which you can't do with rocks. Something a bit more mobile that might be useful while exploring more than your very stationary and permanent installation...

 

But that's cool for sure!

[Deadfordays]

4 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Interesting. You probably get stealth kills on zombies that are targeting other players rather than you. If true that could add some strategy to horde night for those with high stealth kill numbers. Pick targets that seem to be focused on other player. I wonder if it works on zombie that drop into destruction mode and have stopped specifically targeting any player....

 

This could demolish the one final objection to stealth: "It is useless during horde night"

I was guessing that was probably the case since the rest of us were standing up. The way we have the base set up, a couple of us crouch and a couple more stand behind to shoot over the top of us. I will definitely have to test it out more and experiment with it the next time we play... As far as destruction mode goes, we are usually all up shooting down to keep the "destructo" mobs off the supports, so crouching is secondary at that point! (Might have to crouch and make note, for science...)

[warmer]

8 hours ago, Deadfordays said:

It's interesting you mention this... There are times in co-op play where I am crouched in a small group of five of us (Elevated drop horde base) while using a silenced weapon during H/N and will get sneak kills. Always thought it was interesting and funny, but glad I was seeing it happen! This is without specking heavily into sneak skill. 

Must be due to you being one of many possible targets. I usually play solo, so stealth on horde night become irrelevant. I imagine they lock on to the first possible target and go from there. I do remember how easy it used to be to hide underground before they made the zeds player seeking on horde night.

[zztong]

13 hours ago, Roland said:

This could demolish the one final objection to stealth: "It is useless during horde night"

 

I've not felt that objection was very strong. I've got many perks that are "useless during horde night." I mean, I won't be harvesting crops, bartering with traders, or salvaging cars either. Stealth's value would increase with the addition of some horde night function, but stealth isn't worthless.

[meganoth]

14 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Interesting. You probably get stealth kills on zombies that are targeting other players rather than you. If true that could add some strategy to horde night for those with high stealth kill numbers. Pick targets that seem to be focused on other player. I wonder if it works on zombie that drop into destruction mode and have stopped specifically targeting any player....

 

Both doesn't sound right.

 

I'm playing with 3 others and I am usually crouched. Our bases for the first bloodmoons are almost always roofs with no access for zombies. All zombies banging on walls should therefore be in destruction mode (100% chance), all zombies running up should be targeting one of us randomly (supposedly still giving me a 3/4th chance). Later horde bases often have access ways so I should get 3/4th chance again). But I'm observing only occaisonally a stealth hit. Though I'm a horrible observer, especially with some text that is shown for a short time outside my center vision.

 

A possible explanation that fits the observations: Maybe zombies can "see" multiple persons at the same time and their sensing for persons who are not their direct target is not unlimited but some finite but very high value similar to feral sense. 

 

[Roland]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

 

I've not felt that objection was very strong. I've got many perks that are "useless during horde night." I mean, I won't be harvesting crops, bartering with traders, or salvaging cars either. Stealth's value would increase with the addition of some horde night function, but stealth isn't worthless.

Perhaps you have not had the pleasure of discussing stealth with anyone of the “if it doesn’t work 100% of the time then it’s completely worthless” mindset…

[Scyris]

7 hours ago, Roland said:

Perhaps you have not had the pleasure of discussing stealth with anyone of the “if it doesn’t work 100% of the time then it’s completely worthless” mindset…

 

I'm not saying it doesn't work, the problem is that most sleeper volumes are ambushes in t3+ pois, and most of the time the zombies are always hidden behind blocks so your not able to use your stealth to snipe from the doorway like you should be able to. Like if I could open the door and snipe them i'd not complain. But the fact they are almost always hidden behind a block kinda well.. blocks that, thats not even saying if just opening the door doesn't trigger the entire pack of zombies in that room as it often tends to do, no matter how high your stealth perks are. Some ambushes are expected like loot room ones, I got no problem with those as they make sense, but every other random room in some random house being a ambush? no just no. Stealth does work somewhat, but the devs seem to activly try to do as much as they can to ruin it for stealth build players. The fact almost every sleeper in a poi is hidden behind a block is pretty big proof of this, as is most sleeper volumes in t3+ (sometimes even t2), immedatly knowing where you are and waking up second the door opens or you walk 1 step into the room. I'd be ok with it if they would "wake up" but then go into wander mode, as in they don't KNOW your there yet, they just wandering around like a outdoor zombie that hasn't noticed you yet, still can get sneak attack bonuses on them as long as they don't see/hear you.

 

TFP has been steadily taking away choice from the player, and stealth playstyles is the most recent victim of this. Last big victim was underground bases basically not being a thing anymore since zombies can magically dig now. Things where the devs have activly done stuff to try to curb certain playstyles. Like I said with sleepers behind blocks always, and such.

 

I mean, stealth playstyle is already pretty slow in terms of clear speed, as crouching all the time slows everything down. You could go in guns blazing or whacking with a club and get it done faster than doing it with stealth. So I never seen the need for the extra BS to prevent the playstyles.

 

Also for the A16 "issue" ask pretty much anyone who played it, they will say the skill system is far better than what we have now pretty much. As it has much less gating than the curret stat system does. It did need some tweaks though, like craft quality swapped from the action skill, to the related perk, Like miner 69'er for tools. That was literally ALL that needed to be done to fix the a16 skill system, and instead they redid the entire system and made it far worse than it was. Thankfully there are mods, most of the good mods pretty much always have some sort of action skill system as its what the players want. Why won't tfp give us what we want? No one wanted this stat locked system we have now, at least not in the current form it is. If it was done differently it'd prob be ok, Maybe 3 Categories, one for combat, 1 for defense, and 1 for crafting. The fact that each weap type set is under a diff stat personally annoys the hell out of me and many others. Maybe make a attribute point system? where instead of using perk points you get a new point on level up that is only for attributes along with the usual perk point you'd get? This would kinda fix the issue somewhat as well, and shouldn't be hard to implement either.

 

Many players are fine with a17-20 because they never played a16.4, so they don't know what they are missing skill system wise. They see what we have now and assume thats how it always was, as most games in Early access don't redo the entire skill system every new version or 2 like 7dtd has been doing for a long time. I started in A9/10 or when it was released on steam. Pretty sure was a9-10 ish.

 

I am just glad mods are a thing, as they bring back the games glory days, I find vanilla horribly boring and barely play it other than a game or 2 per alpha to mess with the newest stuff and then wonder how the mods I play are going to put this in, or if they don't just trash the whole system (Most mods throw the whole vanilla stat system in the trash can and do their own far better thing), before I just play something else and wait for the mods I play to be updated for the new alpha which is where I then spend most of my time. Vanilla honestly needs a tier above steel for materials (Tungsten? maybe Titanium?), and some zombies above radiated as i've said before, like even if its a "after game goes gold" thing would be fine for now. So at least we KNOW it's coming.

 

I wonder though, do the devs ever play some of the bigger mods like Undead Legacy, Darkness Falls, and Apocalypse Now? Some of the ideas and stuff they put in is amazing and would be great for vanilla. Highly suggest they play some of them to get some idea's, as they desperately seem to need some to get the game out of the stagnating rut its been in for years.

 

This is just my opinion as a player who's been around for a very long time.

[8_Hussars]

6 hours ago, Roland said:

Perhaps you have not had the pleasure of discussing stealth with anyone of the “if it doesn’t work 100% of the time then it’s completely worthless” mindset…

To be fair part of the issue for some players is the RNG factor (stealth rolls).  I can appreciate how that may bother some players.  A deterministic outcome is preferred by some.  If a player "always does this" then "that" should be the result.  If a player "always does this" and then gets a variety of results (due to stealth rolls) they consider the system broken. 

I find the basic stealth/sneak in vanilla way too good with zero points invested anyway.

[Scyris]

As for stealth not working on blood moons, I've never had a problem with this myself, its basically a special event thats is at default once per week in game. With any event you kinda expect special rules, and the blood moon rule is the zombies always know where you are. I've personally never had a problem with that. I don't even remember the last time i've died on a blood moon its been thousands of hours. I usually fight them even if on the ground. When I do die its either in a poi, or in my mine when a wandering horde just drops in on top of me when the mine is fresh and I don't have a backup way out setup yet. I generally play permadeath, as without that the difficulty settings basically mean jack when you can just respawn over and over.

[Uncle Al]

23 minutes ago, Scyris said:

 

I'd be ok with it if they would "wake up" but then go into wander mode, as in they don't KNOW your there yet, they just wandering around like a outdoor zombie that hasn't noticed you yet, still can get sneak attack bonuses on them as long as they don't see/hear you.

 

That's exactly how stealth works now, for all spawns. The 'they know where you are and are actively targetting YOU' spawns (I believe they are termed attack volumes) have been removed. So long as you pass your stealth check, alert spawns are just moving to your location at the time they spawned, not actually targetting you, the player. Note that the stealth check generates a distance value dependent on your stealth skills and light, so a zombie or two close to you might 'pass' and be coming for you but the majority probably aren't.

 

The key thing is you have to react when a spawn happens. If you just sit still and try and snipe, even if you passed the stealth check on all the spawned zombies, eventually one will walk close enough to actually see you and start hitting you.  If you move stealthily as soon as a spawn happens, you can usually happily knock all of them off from hiding without ever actually being under threat.

 

Even if you fail the initial stealth check for some or all of your targets, repositioning allows you an opportunity to restealth so long as you're not under direct observation from the zombies. I only really find this useful once you hit level 5 skill, as I'm not patient enough to wait on a restealth timer longer than 10 seconds, but it does work.

[Roland]

6 minutes ago, Scyris said:

I'm not saying it doesn't work, the problem is that most sleeper volumes are ambushes in t3+ pois, and most of the time the zombies are always hidden behind blocks so your not able to use your stealth to snipe from the doorway like you should be able to.

 

Could you give me an example of a particular POI/Quest where you know for a fact this is happening? I would love to play through one that you are absolutely certain is full of "ambush volumes" and test some of the stealth tactics that have been discussed over and over and over in these forums. If I get the same result as you and witness that stealth is useless in that POI then I will personally lay out the issues to the level design team and ask why they are making stealth impossible.

 

9 minutes ago, Scyris said:

TFP has been steadily taking away choice from the player

 

You mean like how they haven't fulfilled half of their promises in that video in which almost all promises save a few are fully fulfilled....? It's a load of hooey. I still play nomad and I still build underground and I still use stealth. It's tougher and there are more risks and failure is a possibility to which you must react and come back from but I see no restriction of freedom. I just don't see this. I play the game largely like I always have since Alpha 5 when the game was introduced. Some people even ignore traders and are STILL able to play for that classic back in the day feel before we had traders. Its just plain silly to say that freedom and choice is being taken away.

 

I will say that if all you care about is the most efficient speediest path to progress then, yes, you are limited to the only one best way to play to maximize your xp gains but that limiting factor has always been present for those who only care about getting to the end of the game as quickly as they can. That is their choice to ignore all other ways of playing.

 

16 minutes ago, Scyris said:

I mean, stealth playstyle is already pretty slow in terms of clear speed, as crouching all the time slows everything down.

 

Yeah, so what? IF you enjoy stealth gameplay then play stealth and slow down and take your time and have fun with it

. Who cares if it means you will max out all your skills and get to top level a couple of weeks or months later than someone else who uses a machine gun all the time? If efficiency is your goal then just let stealth go. Its not your thing.

 

19 minutes ago, Scyris said:

I am just glad mods are a thing

 

Me too. Thank you TFP.

 

21 minutes ago, Scyris said:

I just play something else and wait for the mods

 

Cool. Good strategy. Don't be so mad about it. If you love mods then play mods and be happy. The existence of mods is all part of the plan. You're doing it right by moving on from vanilla and playing mods. We don't see it as a betrayal of vanilla.

 

22 minutes ago, Scyris said:

Vanilla honestly needs...

 

22 minutes ago, Scyris said:

....would be great for vanilla

 

Why do you care? You don't play vanilla. If the stuff you like exists in mods then play mods. It truly is okay.

[Ramethzer0]

On 10/12/2022 at 7:06 PM, Riamus said:

I'll often crouch during horde night just to get the occasional stealth bonus damage.  It doesn't happen every time, but it does happen. And I don't spec into stealth at all.

Same.  You just gotta be a certain distance.

[theFlu]

9 hours ago, Uncle Al said:

So long as you pass your stealth check, alert spawns are just moving to your location at the time they spawned, not actually targetting you, the player.

Last I checked, sometime during early A20, this was not the case; the zeds that get up as you trigger an attack volume, would keep running to the player, even if the player moved. Until the player was properly seen by the zed, "re-stealthing" was impossible.

 

A dev mentioned planning a change to have that "chase time" be shortened, but I haven't followed up to check if something was changed. It sounded like only the timing was going to change, such that the zeds would still run to the player for the timer duration at least.

 

If you're saying it has changed since then, then how does it work now? The zeds just sprint to the trigger location? Which patch have you tested this on so I can check?

[Uncle Al]

10 minutes ago, theFlu said:

Last I checked, sometime during early A20, this was not the case; the zeds that get up as you trigger an attack volume, would keep running to the player, even if the player moved. Until the player was properly seen by the zed, "re-stealthing" was impossible.

 

A dev mentioned planning a change to have that "chase time" be shortened, but I haven't followed up to check if something was changed. It sounded like only the timing was going to change, such that the zeds would still run to the player for the timer duration at least.

 

If you're saying it has changed since then, then how does it work now? The zeds just sprint to the trigger location? Which patch have you tested this on so I can check?

Think the change was around January of this year.

 

There's a long discussion thread, including @Boidster 's extensive testing, which I've linked to below. The change to volumes happens during the course of the thread.

 

 

[theFlu]

16 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

There's a long discussion thread, including @Boidster 's extensive testing, which I've linked to below.

Yeh, that's what I was referring to as my last proper testing period. Faatal there comments about reducing the auto-agro timer down to 20 secs, I'm testing in A20.6 b9 right now and can't decide if it's 15s or 20.. but for those 15 or 20, you're the target without reprieve. That's enough for a runner to reach you; it's short enough that it doesn't bother me as a mechanic, but: the unavoidable agro it still there for attack volumes.

[Uncle Al]

1 minute ago, theFlu said:

Yeh, that's what I was referring to as my last proper testing period. Faatal there comments about reducing the auto-agro timer down to 20 secs, I'm testing in A20.6 b9 right now and can't decide if it's 15s or 20.. but for those 15 or 20, you're the target without reprieve. That's enough for a runner to reach you; it's short enough that it doesn't bother me as a mechanic, but: the unavoidable agro it still there for attack volumes.

Are you sure that's 'auto' aggro? I'm pretty certain that only applies if you failed the stealth check for that particular zombie.

 

There was a definite statement that the true attack volumes, like the ones in the really wonky fire station where the designer had made every single encounter an auto aggro, were totally removed. Part of the trade off for the changes to stealth.

[theFlu]

5 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

Are you sure that's 'auto' aggro? I'm pretty certain that only applies if you failed the stealth check for that particular zombie.

If you fail a stealth check (or didn't even stealth) against an attack volume zed, the zed will follow you for 15/20 seconds. Not the spot you triggered it at, not just a general wander around, it will follow you wherever you go. Regardless of it's normal stealth detection abilities, for those 15 secs it hunts you.

 

I don't care what you call it, but it's a separate type of agro granted by a separate type of check, in a specific volume type, ignoring normal stealth rules. A difference discoverable in normal game play. Saying "auto-agro doesn't exist" while this new flaro-agro is practically the same thing (for the annoying parts of auto-agro) is just going to cause confusion.

[Uncle Al]

39 minutes ago, theFlu said:

If you fail a stealth check (or didn't even stealth) against an attack volume zed, the zed will follow you for 15/20 seconds. Not the spot you triggered it at, not just a general wander around, it will follow you wherever you go. Regardless of it's normal stealth detection abilities, for those 15 secs it hunts you.

 

I don't care what you call it, but it's a separate type of agro granted by a separate type of check, in a specific volume type, ignoring normal stealth rules. A difference discoverable in normal game play. Saying "auto-agro doesn't exist" while this new flaro-agro is practically the same thing (for the annoying parts of auto-agro) is just going to cause confusion.

I'd say it's totally different.  The old auto aggro totally ignored stealth, no matter your skills or approach. The new version always gives you the chance to avoid the aggro if you can successfully remain hidden - the zeds will target your position not you.

 

 

[theFlu]

16 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

I'd say it's totally different.  The old auto aggro totally ignored stealth, no matter your skills or approach.

It has changed, for sure, by how much; I can't describe the original properly, as I did no proper testing on it, so I can't really say.

 

But for me, the mechanic deserves the name "auto-agro" even before a player has found the stealth button. When you walk into a normal volume, sleepers will keep sleeping. When you walk into an attack volume, all the sleepers will automatically attack you. Once you've done a couple repeats of suitable POIs, you've figured you there's a difference; the difference being, some volumes attack automatically, some don't.

 

20 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

the zeds will target your position not you.

And for this, this is wrong. The auto-agro zeds will chase a player with the AI showing the player's name as a target for an ApproachAndAttack task. They'll follow the player for the 20 secs (seems to be 20). They'll even hit you "blindly" even if they can't see you before they're in melee range - as in from a range where they're Not able to detect me via normal stealth mechanics.

[zztong]

16 hours ago, Scyris said:

I'm not saying it doesn't work, the problem is that most sleeper volumes are ambushes in t3+ pois ...

 

This is an overstatement. A low percentage are attack volumes. I've been tempted to write a script to be able to give an accurate percentage since the volume type in the XML files should tell us that. (We are talking vanilla POIs, right?)

 

16 hours ago, Scyris said:

... most of the time the zombies are always hidden behind blocks so your not able to use your stealth to snipe from the doorway like you should be able to. Like if I could open the door and snipe them i'd not complain. But the fact they are almost always hidden behind a block kinda well.. blocks that...

 

To me, this reads as an unreasonable expectation. A POI with all of a room's zombies visible from the doorway is a gift; free experience for very little work. By making you move, you're forced to pick a path and get closer. The path might tempt you across a noise-maker, or into light, or to a proximity that is close to a zombie. All of those work in the zombie's favor. The counter is to practice good stealth techniques and work to avoid those issues. That's playing the game. That's a good thing.

 

I suggest you try to stealth the A20 version of the Crack-A-Book POI, AKA skyscraper_02. This POI is 100% stealthable. I do it all the time. You might wake up a zombie or two, but that's different than waking up an entire room or floor. You need to be rigged for stealth, so light armor, lights out, able to keep your stealth number very low when needed. You'll be crouched the entire time (no running) and no normal movement. Don't step on trash. Destroy if it is in your way. Stay out of the light. Use a wrench and dismantle illuminated lights if you're going to walk past one. Abandon the "suckers path" when it makes no sense. (Climbing and jumping to start? Nope.) Night time does the best because there's no sunlight. Finally, use a bow or silent weapon to keep your distance when possible. Work to get those shots. Destroy furniture or whatever to give you the angle. Figure out how far your reach is with those tools. You can take stuff apart from a decent distance.

 

Attack volumes are special. Once you enter the attack volume it will trigger the ambush. If you don't enter the volume, it won't trigger. The idea is to get to the same height as the zombies to get them to spawn in and then quietly kill them with a bow from outside the attack volume. You won't know where the attack volume starts and stops, but there's little reason for the attack volume to include blocks in a neighboring room. Poke holes in the wall, or roof, to get a good shot.

[hiemfire]

11 hours ago, theFlu said:

That's enough for a runner to reach you;

With default settings every zombie is a runner at night, which is when stealth is at it's strongest. Night = not having to be as concerned about being near windows that are lighting up the blocks around them, despite the game's player vision mechanic making sitting in lit areas a necessity so you can actually @%$#ing see unlike when standing on a "dark" spot (completely and painfully different from reality where looking towards or away from the direction of a source of illumination dictates one's ability to see in or into dark areas). The magazines that boost night damage and xp gain, iirc they exist in vanilla though it has been awhile since I played, also nudges a stealth player to do their work during the game's night.

 

[Jinx_DG]

On 10/13/2022 at 4:03 PM, Scyris said:

hidden behind blocks so your not able to use your stealth to snipe from the doorway like you should be able to. Like if I could open the door and snipe them i'd not complain.

It is possible to actually sneak into the room, sneak move around the room to better postion oneself for a sneak shot. I do this all the time. This is made even easier if you are doing a clear quest as the little red dots give away the zeds postioning. Granted if not for a quest then clearing a poi in sneak is challenging and sometimes the zeds will get the jump on you (as they should), at least until one is familiar enough with the poi and possible zed placement. What should not, nor ever happen is for a player to be able to kill Every Single Zed from an open doorway in sneak. That's..... just lame and defeats the purpose of choosing a sneak style of play. Having that happen for one or two, here or there I can see, but never all zeds. 

[Ramethzer0]

16 hours ago, Jinx_DG said:

It is possible to actually sneak into the room, sneak move around the room to better postion oneself for a sneak shot. I do this all the time. This is made even easier if you are doing a clear quest as the little red dots give away the zeds postioning. Granted if not for a quest then clearing a poi in sneak is challenging and sometimes the zeds will get the jump on you (as they should), at least until one is familiar enough with the poi and possible zed placement. What should not, nor ever happen is for a player to be able to kill Every Single Zed from an open doorway in sneak. That's..... just lame and defeats the purpose of choosing a sneak style of play. Having that happen for one or two, here or there I can see, but never all zeds. 

 

But but but that means Scyris has to take responsibility for their own playstyle failings!    It's so much more fashionable to rage against Devs and call them out!