Sleepers even worse now.

[pApA^LeGBa]

Shady Swines POI. Up the ladder, along the roof as intended. Then enter trough the broken wall. Stand in front of a cupboard, try to open it. It´s locked and it makes ofc noise when i try that. Nothing happens. I sneak past it with a point in stealth and padded armor only and a zombie breaks out of it as soon as i am like 2 steps away from the cupboard.

 

Cheapest way to create danger for a player i have ever seen. Sucks bigtime.

 

We can remove hidden strike now. There is like 5% of the POI´s zombies where it would still be usefull. And let´s remove stealth while we are at it because it´s all about crossing the magic invisible wall of the sleeper volume no matter what.

 

And i don´t complain because that makes it too hard or because i got hit, or died. I could kill that zombie easily. It´s simply a really badly made mechanic that feels artifical.

 

I know why this mechanic was implemented. I don´t need it explained. I understand the problem. But that solution sucks.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[Riamus]

Considering I never stealth but have been doing so in A21 to some extent and it works fine for me, I'm not sure why you're having this experience.  I've only stopped stealthing lately because I upgraded to heavy armor and it is just very hard to stealth effectively in that.  But with light armor, it wasn't difficult... once I remembered to turn off my light.  There seems to be some bugs and maybe that is one where it isn't working properly for you.

[theFlu]

13 minutes ago, Riamus said:

There seems to be some bugs and maybe that is one where it isn't working properly for you.

It's working, some spots are just designed to be .. jump scares even at the cost of stealther sanity.

[Vaeliorin]

Honestly, the biggest thing that's bugged me about this so far is locked doors that magically unlock and open when you cross an invisible line.  Honestly, much as I hate it, zombies smashing through a wall made much more sense than magically unlocking doors.

[david01228]

So I have been playing in A21, and have made it to the Tier 5 quests, and I can confirm, stealth is worthless to complete ANY tier 4 or 5 POI. The problem with what the Fun Pimps have done is they have taken the mechanic that did exist in A20, where there were "trap points" that would wake up the sleepers no matter what when you hit a threshold, and made it even worse in that the zombies DO NOT SPAWN IN until you hit that specific trigger point. If you want proof of this, go to the Drive in tier 4 POI, clear out all the zombies, put on debug mode so you can verify that all zombies are dead. then jump through the roof into the loot room and watch as a new horde randomly spawns in awake and seeking, as part of the POI. Stealth was already only useful for raiding POI's, and now it is not even that as you cannot work around to kill them while still sleeping in higher tiers as they do not even spawn in. Fun Pimps needs to correct this I feel, as the stealth mechanics were fun puzzles to solve around.

[meganoth]

26 minutes ago, david01228 said:

So I have been playing in A21, and have made it to the Tier 5 quests, and I can confirm, stealth is worthless to complete ANY tier 4 or 5 POI. The problem with what the Fun Pimps have done is they have taken the mechanic that did exist in A20, where there were "trap points" that would wake up the sleepers no matter what when you hit a threshold, and made it even worse in that the zombies DO NOT SPAWN IN until you hit that specific trigger point. If you want proof of this, go to the Drive in tier 4 POI, clear out all the zombies, put on debug mode so you can verify that all zombies are dead. then jump through the roof into the loot room and watch as a new horde randomly spawns in awake and seeking, as part of the POI. Stealth was already only useful for raiding POI's, and now it is not even that as you cannot work around to kill them while still sleeping in higher tiers as they do not even spawn in. Fun Pimps needs to correct this I feel, as the stealth mechanics were fun puzzles to solve around.

 

Wasn't that always the case? I remember that I had to do tricks in the bear den for years to get the bears to spawn. The mechanism works well when the threshold is horizontal, but when you have to drop down it always was a problem triggering it without losing stealth.

 

Just for completeness sake, what I did was put a ladder so I could go down slowly and even when I fall off could exit again. I did do this on all occasion when I had to drop down somewhere, not only in the bear den

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[boban]

1 hour ago, david01228 said:

made it even worse in that the zombies DO NOT SPAWN IN until you hit that specific trigger point

 

This. It's really annoying now. And it's also in some T2 and T3 POIs where zombies spawn/drop out of roof, but 100% behind your back, where none where there before. As meganoth said it was an issue for quite a long time, but I feel that this is even worse in current iteration. Though in my latest game I went all in into brawling, as fighting zombies head on seem to be current intended play style.

[david01228]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

Wasn't that always the case? I remember that I had to do tricks in the bear den for years to get the bears to spawn. The mechanism works well when the threshold is horizontal, but when you have to drop down it always was a problem triggering it without losing stealth.

 

Just for completeness sake, what I did was put a ladder so I could go down slowly and even when I fall off could exit again. I did do this on all occasion when I had to drop down somewhere, not only in the bear den

 

I never had an issue with the bears in the bear den, just went to the balcony on the second floor and broke in. I never once in A18-20 had an issue with zombies not having spawned in if I was close enough to their sleep position (I didn't really focus that much on it in 17 and of course 16 and earlier was a different game entirely). Now though, as another person has said, you can clear a room completely, be walking out the door and suddenly 5 zombies that were not there before just spawn in and start beating on you. it makes 0 sense from any perspective except the fun pimps want to stop people from "cheesing" certain mob rooms, but it means that stealth is largely pointless as you get 1-2 zombies with it sure, but the rest aren't spawning as sleepers but actively seeking you. it makes t5 poi's a lot less fun IMO because now I can't play stealth assassin when every other room has one of these trap spawns in it.

[meganoth]

Possibly. I have experienced such a situation once or twice in my SP agility game as well where zombies seemed to come from nowhere. If it is an exception it is ok. But if POI designers have switched to making all new POIs full with such surprises then this might eventually make stealth unplayable or at least undesireable.

 

On the other hand: I had a fight in a warehouse that was difficult but perfectly stealthable. A zombie did drop on my head, but I had heard him before so he had obviously spawned. I just couldn't locate him because I couldn't see over a balcony. And then I got careless while trying to climb the balcony. I survived, narrowly.

 

8 minutes ago, david01228 said:

I never had an issue with the bears in the bear den, just went to the balcony on the second floor and broke in. I never once in A18-20 had an issue with zombies not having spawned in if I was close enough to their sleep position (I didn't really focus that much on it in 17 and of course 16 and earlier was a different game entirely). Now though, as another person has said, you can clear a room completely, be walking out the door and suddenly 5 zombies that were not there before just spawn in and start beating on you. it makes 0 sense from any perspective except the fun pimps want to stop people from "cheesing" certain mob rooms, but it means that stealth is largely pointless as you get 1-2 zombies with it sure, but the rest aren't spawning as sleepers but actively seeking you. it makes t5 poi's a lot less fun IMO because now I can't play stealth assassin when every other room has one of these trap spawns in it.

 

Please remember that the zombie spawning is done this way because of performance. It is not what anyone wants, least of all TFP themselves, but they need to keep FPS up and there is no easy solution. Many many compromises in the game are only there for performance reasons. A voxel game with a fully destructible world can not use many of the tricks used by games with a static world. 

 

[david01228]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

Possibly. I have experienced such a situation once or twice in my SP agility game as well where zombies seemed to come from nowhere. If it is an exception it is ok. But if POI designers have switched to making all new POIs full with such surprises then this might eventually make stealth unplayable or at least undesireable.

 

On the other hand: I had a fight in a warehouse that was difficult but perfectly stealthable. A zombie did drop on my head, but I had heard him before so he had obviously spawned. I just couldn't locate him because I couldn't see over a balcony. And then I got careless while trying to climb the balcony. I survived, narrowly.

 

 

Please remember that the zombie spawning is done this way because of performance. It is not what anyone wants, least of all TFP themselves, but they need to keep FPS up and there is no easy solution. Many many compromises in the game are only there for performance reasons. A voxel game with a fully destructible world can not use many of the tricks used by games with a static world. 

 

So, I on lower tier POI's, yes the stealth system works as designed. I am also not talking about zombies not spawning because they are to far away, I understand this. I am talking about hordes spawning in only after you cross a threshold point, already awake, and NOT being on the map at all until you do. Go to the Navezgane county jail, and you will see what I mean by this. it is about every 3rd room it feels like you cannot enter without triggering one of these spawn points. put on the debug mode, press numpad 0 to get the zombie stats displayed, then just walk in the front door. when you get to the end of the lobby, you will see what I mean about it spawning in a horde, and this is super fast to do. This mechanic is why stealth is dead.

[meganoth]

19 hours ago, david01228 said:

So, I on lower tier POI's, yes the stealth system works as designed. I am also not talking about zombies not spawning because they are to far away, I understand this. I am talking about hordes spawning in only after you cross a threshold point, already awake, and NOT being on the map at all until you do. Go to the Navezgane county jail, and you will see what I mean by this. it is about every 3rd room it feels like you cannot enter without triggering one of these spawn points. put on the debug mode, press numpad 0 to get the zombie stats displayed, then just walk in the front door. when you get to the end of the lobby, you will see what I mean about it spawning in a horde, and this is super fast to do. This mechanic is why stealth is dead.

 

All zombies in POIs spawn in only after you cross a threshold line. If it is done correctly you will just not see it happen because you have no view into the room at the moment.

 

But I know what you are talking about, the "trigger rooms". In theory every zombie makes a stealth skill check the moment you cross the line and if distance and stealth is high enough the zombie will spawn but not detect you.

 

Also in theory any such situation can be "stealthed" even if you are detected by some zombies. Just run back a distance, hide behind a corner and wait for the zombies losing your scent (which happens faster with higher stealth). That you can't go undetected as a stealther all the time is AFAIK intended. But it is surely possible that the POI designers are overusing the trigger effect.

 

 

 

[boban]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

But I know what you are talking about, the "trigger rooms". In theory every zombie makes a stealth skill check the moment you cross the line and if distance and stealth is high enough the zombie will spawn but not detect you.

 

Hard to tell without debug access of what calculations were happening behind the scenes, but it happened to me too frequently, even without armor and with points put in stealth.

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Also in theory any such situation can be "stealthed" even if you are detected by some zombies.

 

I wouldn't mind that in some cases. The problem is that in some situations zombie spawn both in front and in back of you in narrow corridors, so there is no way to run - you have to fight in those cases.

[david01228]

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

All zombies in POIs spawn in only after you cross a threshold line. If it is done correctly you will just not see it happen because you have no view into the room at the moment.

 

But I know what you are talking about, the "trigger rooms". In theory every zombie makes a stealth skill check the moment you cross the line and if distance and stealth is high enough the zombie will spawn but not detect you.

 

Also in theory any such situation can be "stealthed" even if you are detected by some zombies. Just run back a distance, hide behind a corner and wait for the zombies losing your scent (which happens faster with higher stealth). That you can't go undetected as a stealther all the time is AFAIK intended. But it is surely possible that the POI designers are overusing the trigger effect.

 

 

 

I made a video to explain what is happening. This is not the zombies making a stealth check, but the zombies being awake. Here is the YT link for the video so you can see.

 

 

[hiemfire]

1 hour ago, david01228 said:

I made a video to explain what is happening. This is not the zombies making a stealth check, but the zombies being awake. Here is the YT link for the video so you can see.

Minor correction, the mechanic isn't new. It is a slightly tweaked form of the pre-A20 attack volumes that the POI creators are making use of. (Edit: Looks like you'd mentioned this in your posts earlier, I was correcting what you said in the recording when I typed that.) In my opinion they're abusing it and doing so in a way that completely neuters the change made to zombies set to attack.

 

@faatal What the hell was the point of changing from autotargeting attack spawns to FTS referencing alert spawns if the the POI designers just do this instead?

 

@pApA^LeGBa is right, and I did say this before when it was "just" attack volumes being an issue, if this is how TFP wants the POIs to function then we're better off with the "stealth" perks not even being in the game and instead replaced with something more flavored towards the Run & Gun style their POI designers are focused on. As it stands now From the Shadows and Hidden Strike are player corpse run traps that both waste perk points and do not fit where TFP is taking the game.

Edited June 18, 2023 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[Javabean867]

So weird, so far 0 points in stealth, and padded armor, and I stealth kill nearly every zambee I come across.  Why are people having issues?

[david01228]

23 minutes ago, Javabean867 said:

So weird, so far 0 points in stealth, and padded armor, and I stealth kill nearly every zambee I come across.  Why are people having issues?

It is not an issue in the lower end POI's but the bigger ones (for sure ALL the new tier 5's and probably 4's) they are adding in extra spawn points that zombies do not even spawn until the player crosses a threshold, and when they do spawn they are awake and seeking NOT spawning as sleepers as they used to.

[Javabean867]

2 minutes ago, david01228 said:

It is not an issue in the lower end POI's but the bigger ones (for sure ALL the new tier 5's and probably 4's) they are adding in extra spawn points that zombies do not even spawn until the player crosses a threshold, and when they do spawn they are awake and seeking NOT spawning as sleepers as they used to.

I'll have to get up to that point in my build.  But is this much different than a20?  I never had an issue in that either.

 

The zombie spawns after I entered the threshold.  I stepped back out of the room and the zambees forgot about me. 

[hiemfire]

4 minutes ago, Javabean867 said:

I'll have to get up to that point in my build.  But is this much different than a20?  I never had an issue in that either.

 

The zombie spawns after I entered the threshold.  I stepped back out of the room and the zambees forgot about me. 

Watch the vid they've linked.

Edited June 18, 2023 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[Riamus]

I think the problem is that there are relatively few TFP POI designers and they probably discuss how they are doing things in their designs and, for consistency or because they like the idea, they are all using the same types of setups.  It wouldn't be as big of a problem if there were only some POI designed this way but when most are, it certainly becomes frustrating for stealth players.

[hiemfire]

30 minutes ago, Riamus said:

I think the problem is that there are relatively few TFP POI designers and they probably discuss how they are doing things in their designs and, for consistency or because they like the idea, they are all using the same types of setups.  It wouldn't be as big of a problem if there were only some POI designed this way but when most are, it certainly becomes frustrating for stealth players.

 

Some? When any are designed in this manner it is "frustrating", to put it mildly. Setups like this are effectively a dev side toggle to disable perks they feel interfere with the experience they want the player to have.

[theFlu]

2 hours ago, david01228 said:

I made a video to explain what is happening.

Thanks for the heads-up. I've seen a couple annoyingly built places myself and on the tubes.. but if I had run into THAT hot mess blindly, I'd have left the game for the night, possibly for the year... mildly put

[Mister Forgash]

I don't care for stealth builds in any game, It's not my jam. .. One of the dudes on my 3 person team enjoys stealth. I don't think that it's so much a problem that this kind of mechanic[highlighted in the video above] exists, but: that you can count on it with certainty. If the behavior where they spawn in moving on the player was governed by dice roll against the player's stealth, I think that would be more engaging.

All this said -though I can't attest to it first-hand because I don't play stealth- My friend says, and I've seen other forum posters say, and Meganoth might agree in theory, [Though this may not apply in nightmare speed] A very fast retreat, sneaky[lucky?] retreat allows you to lose them and go back to attacking from stealth.

[boban]

Just now, Mister Forgash said:

A very fast retreat, sneaky[lucky?] retreat allows you to lose them and go back to attacking from stealth.

 

Not always possible, some POI are designed in a way that you have to fight after trigger (zombie spawns 3 blocks in front and back of you in narrow corridor, alert and going after you).

[hiemfire]

11 minutes ago, Mister Forgash said:

If the behavior where they spawn in moving on the player was governed by dice roll against the player's stealth, I think that would be more engaging.

 

It is governed by "dice roll" against the players stealth with the spawned in sleepers moving towards the point where the player tripped the trigger. The trigger + spawn points are being set up by the poi designers to bypass the "dice roll" by having the zombies spawn in to both block/intercept evasion routes and give the zombies clear and direct line of sight to the player. That many zombies spawning also has a fairly good chance of triggering a lag spike which will interfere with the player being able to evade. (Why in the heck are the new and redone POIs screaming "Compo Pack Dev!" at me??)

Edited June 18, 2023 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[david01228]

1 hour ago, hiemfire said:

 

It is governed by "dice roll" against the players stealth with the spawned in sleepers moving towards the point where the player tripped the trigger. 

This was how it was in A20. in 21, as my video shows, there is no dice roll. I have hit those 2 spawn points 10 times now, trying different ways to get them to not wake up, and they are always spawned in awake and seeking, no dice roll involved.