To fix stealth... nerf stealth?

[theFlu]

(This might fit under the Sleeper mechanics thread, but not quite IMO. Feel free to merge if you wish.)

I was playing my third start of A21, a full on STR/Sledgehammer/Shotgun build .. 9/10, 4/5, 4/5, couple points in Miner, nothing else. Warrior difficulty. Week 2, tier three quests going (a little sightseeing and such, but mostly leisurely questing).

I run up to the next quest marker with my slightly sweaty bulging (9/10) muscles glistening in the afternoon sun. I touch up my sledge with one the thousand pebbles I carry just for the task and slap the exclamation point. Here we go!

 

I waddle to the front door, "Unlocked" as expected. I ready my weighted, mighty stone tied to the end of a really ergonomic stick.

By tucking it nicely under my, ahem .. skirt.

 

Then I pull out my trusty Wooden Bow (q2) with its lovingly hand-forged Iron Arrows, and crouch my 9/10 hulking mass down to remain quiet. My knees hurt after leg day, but I don't want the zeds to spot me. It is what it is.

 

I sneak in; obvious zombie closet across the room.. take the shot, oh hey - it's Occupied! And still sleeping. One quick shot later it'll never wake up.

Move on thru the house, couple easy picks with the bow, I do manage wake someone up occasionally, but nothing major, nothing the now-slightly-moist Sledgy can't easily splatter across the floor.

 

Standing at the loot room, looking back after the carnage, I realize, I cleared the joint mostly with my .. completely unskilled stealth and completely unskilled bow. While at 9/10 STR pretending to be using sledges.

 

That feels off. Like, majorly off. The bow is de facto the tool of death for me.

I do like it, but I have to honestly consider it's just way too powerful in my untrained hands.

 

What to do?
What would make me both Not hate stealth and Not rely on the unspecced weapon?
And NOT just absolutely neuter honest stealth specs?

 

The best I've come up with this far would be to move the stealth damage multiplier from the bow to the stealth skill(s). It's a whoppin 3.5x without skills, oneshotting most things on head shots.

 

I wouldn't weaken the hiding aspect of stealth, so you could still escape and hide with it. Just not slaughter everything without the point investment. Yeah, enter rads, even ferals and it already loses its edge while unskilled; but I don't think the lower tier stuff actually benefits from the oneshots either.

 

Take the massive damage multiplier away, and I still might invite things to the reach of my sledge with arrows. The stealth spec players would get good experience from "just" waking things up without the skill points, and then the satisfaction of starting to one-shot Some things after couple spent points. The early stealth "failing" and needing to maneuver a bit more even on single "easy kill" zeds might also prep players for the inevitable stealth-negating pulls in the later game. As it seems we're absolutely Not getting away from those...

 

It sounds like a stealth play I might enjoy, both as a stealther and Not.

 

Feel free to yell at me, but.. I'm thinking it might be worth a try?

Thoughts, anyone?

[Vaeliorin]

Sleepers waking up seems to be pretty wonky.  I just finished a Tier 6 quest (Higashi Tower, which I did because I thought I'd never done it.  Turns out I have, just the roof was the only part I remembered.  Anyway, do not recommend, it's a complete waste of time) and at one point my q5 steel armor wearing self walked up to a cop who didn't wake up, so I crouched, and punched him in the head for 1.5X damage.  I literally almost stepped on him, in the same room, wearing steel armor with a couple of muffled connectors (and maybe one advanced?  I haven't really paid attention, just stuck whatever I had in the armor).

 

Honestly, I'm not sure how I'd feel about your suggestion.  I almost never play agility (not a fan of the bone or hunting knife) yet I usually do a lot of stealth.  I liked that I didn't have to spec into agility straight away to make stealth useful.  Granted, A21 seems to be such that you have to spec into anything to make it useful (yes, I'm bitter about having to spec into salvage operations to be able to dismantle a car without being winded), so I guess it would be in line with the current game.

[Jugginator]

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

I run up to the next quest marker with my slightly sweaty bulging (9/10) muscles glistening in the afternoon sun

🤣 think @SnowDog1942would enjoy this writing. 10/10.

 

Interesting thoughts, jokes aside. In a lot of areas, stealth is really overpowered but in others, it's a little confusing. Certainly something to consider polishing up with other systems before gold.

[fragtzack]

2 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:

Sleepers waking up seems to be pretty wonky.  I just finished a Tier 6 quest (Higashi Tower, which I did because I thought I'd never done it.  Turns out I have, just the roof was the only part I remembered.  Anyway, do not recommend, it's a complete waste of time) and at one point my q5 steel armor wearing self walked up to a cop who didn't wake up, so I crouched, and punched him in the head for 1.5X damage.  I literally almost stepped on him, in the same room, wearing steel armor with a couple of muffled connectors (and maybe one advanced?  I haven't really paid attention, just stuck whatever I had in the armor).

 

Honestly, I'm not sure how I'd feel about your suggestion.  I almost never play agility (not a fan of the bone or hunting knife) yet I usually do a lot of stealth.  I liked that I didn't have to spec into agility straight away to make stealth useful.  Granted, A21 seems to be such that you have to spec into anything to make it useful (yes, I'm bitter about having to spec into salvage operations to be able to dismantle a car without being winded), so I guess it would be in line with the current game.

Full AGI build is OP in a21.  x8 stealth damage at night means 1 shot silenced even the meanest greens. When I did Navezgane Hospital yesterday, I cleared the roof top including the landing pad end fight without any agro.   Weapons were blue machete and blue compound bow. Made sure to do the roof top ending at night for extra bonuses.

 

[Survior]

stealth works until you depend on it working than it doesn't work

 

I can be wearing padded armor crouched and using a bow and wake up a whole house sometimes stealthing.

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by Survior (see edit history)

[hotpoon]

It’s not that stealth is OP. It’s that sleepers make the game easy.

I don’t spec into stealth at all but I can clear a poi with one shots from a distance while crouching because all the zombies are sleeping. If they were walking around, you’d have to watch your back and front constantly, even if you’re crouching, That’s how it was in A15. It was quite scary and thrilling. 

 

The only thing that makes a POI a challenge now days is the occasional auto triggering wake up event, but those negate stealth altogether so are unfair on those who spec into it.

[theFlu]

9 hours ago, Jugginator said:

stealth is really overpowered but in others, it's a little confusing.

 

6 hours ago, Survior said:

stealth works until you depend on it working than it doesn't work

 

Yeh, it's all over the place. When it works, it's OP enough to be completely boring and when it runs into issues.. weell, it ain't boring anymore, but we're quitting

 

4 hours ago, hotpoon said:

It’s not that stealth is OP. It’s that sleepers make the game easy.

True, at least partially. They do make for the easiest of targets. But assuming only that the current volume-spawned zeds would get up and start wandering upon being loaded in.. none of the current jump scares could be designed, and you could still clear a room just by adding a couple extra pebbles on your toolbar. Lure them into a corner and start throwing bolts. Or pineapples at that point. Heck, I've started to use pipe bombs for stealth in A21 vanilla. Can't quite the headshot behind the kitchen counter? The arc above is usually free... sneaky AF

 

It would be more entertaining, but not really any more challenging for a competent player. But it's sort of in the same veins as reducing the bow damage.. they wouldn't get up and get lured, but they'd react to their first wound at least. Maybe you'll miss your follow-up and make enough noise to wake others. Maybe even the zed waking up could actually wake some others... could possibly make it a lot less binary.

[ElCabong]

Stealth is nerfed in quite a few places because you trip an invisible trigger and the whole room wakes up. 

 

It does you no good on hord night

 

It's a pain in the rear when you have sleepers in the ceiling that don't spawn when you walk underneath them so you have to get out of stealth and spawn them.

 

I think the efforts to nerf stealth is part of the bug in these missions where the z doesn't spawn unless you trigger something.

 

Instead of using your bow, walk up and club them over the head. That is a lot of fun. 

Edited June 25, 2023 by ElCabong (see edit history)

[mprojekt]

A thing about stealth that has always frustrated me is how sleeping or passive zeds will not alert on me as I move, well, stealthily (unless they are set to wake as soon as the player physically enters the volume) but while I am crouched and moving slowly, exterior wanderers sense me through 4 concrete walls and start beating their way in. This has happened even though I was playing a stealth build with a wooden bow and a hunting knife, wearing cloth armor.

[pApA^LeGBa]

Wait until higher tier POI´s and sleepers in the weirdest place only falling down/coming out once you are past them and you have them in your back (cheap af mechanic tbh). Stealth is useless then. Like absolutly useless. Those hidden zombies can only be activated by crossing their sleeper volume/timer or however it works now, unless you know all their positions in all POI´s and break open the wall/ceiling they are behind. You can´t touch them with a bow/xbow and hidden strike otherwise.

 

This basically happens in all T4/T5 POI´s and a lot in T3 also.

 

Oh and they sometimes even open doors now. Or you do by passing an invisible line...

Edited June 25, 2023 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[theFlu]

8 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

Stealth is useless then. Like absolutly useless.

I know, I'd even go further than useless, it is actively counterproductive. Whenever you fail to trigger a trap, your clear mission and/or your sanity is compromised.

 

10 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

Oh and they sometimes even open doors now. Or you do by passing an invisible line

It's "you" .. and automagical triggers, basically just stepping on the right block. Plenty of bloody annoying features.

 

But in this thread I'm trying to make it .. more consistent. So you'd always have a decent chance of failing one way or another. Early game (unskilled) from too low damage, mid game from ferals being tough enough not to one-shot again, later game, some of the trap mechanics (hopefully somehow improved from the current iteration; I doubt it, but I can't change that..).

 

1 hour ago, ElCabong said:

Instead of using your bow, walk up and club them over the head. That is a lot of fun. 

I do, it's fun. I'd like the game to make me whacking them with my 4/5 sledge more enticing than with my 0/5 bow, though.

 

39 minutes ago, mprojekt said:

exterior wanderers sense me through 4 concrete walls and start beating their way in.

Yeh.. sleepers not waking up to dynamite is .. "a tad silly". I get the 'why', but it feels awful. Outdoors wanderers do need to hear you to become interested, so if you have a tail from far away you aren't always all that quiet. The discrepancy is real thou ..

[mprojekt]

13 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

Wait until higher tier POI´s and sleepers in the weirdest place only falling down/coming out once you are past them and you have them in your back (cheap af mechanic tbh). Stealth is useless then. Like absolutly useless. Those hidden zombies can only be activated by crossing their sleeper volume/timer or however it works now, unless you know all their positions in all POI´s and break open the wall/ceiling they are behind. You can´t touch them with a bow/xbow and hidden strike otherwise.

 

This basically happens in all T4/T5 POI´s and a lot in T3 also.

 

Oh and they sometimes even open doors now. Or you do by passing an invisible line...

 

As I understand it, "It's your birthday! Surprise!" zombies, late-to-the-party weird uncles, and the Superman-Ears exterior zeds have been a problem for a looong time. I've only been playing since A14, so I can't really comment on how far back this goes.

 

The most recent occurrence of weirdness I ran into was in Pergola Apartments (T4) and I've had it happen to me numerous times in the courthouse, other apartment complexes, all the factories. Dishong, Higashi (and on and on).

[pApA^LeGBa]

@mprojekt Well the late to the party kind of ambush is new to me tbh, they always did jump on top of you since sleepers are a thing, but that late that your are actually past them is new to A21. The super ears from outside should be fixed according to the patch notes, but that doesn´t seem to work very well. Guess we need to do a bug report.

[mprojekt]

5 minutes ago, theFlu said:

Yeh.. sleepers not waking up to dynamite is .. "a tad silly". I get the 'why', but it feels awful. Outdoors wanderers do need to hear you to become interested, so if you have a tail from far away you aren't always all that quiet. The discrepancy is real thou ..

 

A tail, especially if I've left the "breadcrumb trail" and have not done my rendition of Solid Snake In A Cardboard Box and hid in a dark corner for a few minutes, that I understand. When I am mucking about with the console and have entity status info visible, it's very clear when I am getting stalked by Captain Slow.

 

A wanderer spawning outside and hearing a player with Agility 10, From the Shadows 5, with the usual mix of sneaky gear and books, who is also moving as slow as possible in order to not get his or her face pushed in by a feral glowing cop? That is when I sigh, chug my coffee, and get ready to fight until I am an Undead Scoobie Snack.

16 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

@mprojekt Well the late to the party kind of ambush is new to me tbh, they always did jump on top of you since sleepers are a thing, but that late that your are actually past them is new to A21. The super ears from outside should be fixed according to the patch notes, but that doesn´t seem to work very well. Guess we need to do a bug report.

 

Sounds like it. I will see if I can forcibly replicate the issue and grab a clip to attach to an A21 bug report.

[theFlu]

14 minutes ago, mprojekt said:

especially if I've left the "breadcrumb trail" and have not done my rendition of

I saw Jugg mention the breadcrumb trails in the other thread.. I haven't done any testing in A21, but for A20 it wasn't so much a trail as it was "the last spot you made a sound at". They're not going 'point to point', following your tracks, taking the long route thru the front door - they're coming right next to you and/or to the last spot they heard you at; thru whatever glass pane looks the weakest. They're coming for sure, but calling it breadcrumbs sounds misleading ..

[Viktoriusiii]

It is a kind of simple fix... but it would require the removal of some so called "fixes" they implemented to "fix" stealth.
The first fix was great. Trash all around makes it harder to stealth.
The second was positioning. Positioning zombies so that you can not snipe them, because they area lways around corners... already a really stupid fix.
The third fix was traps into killboxes... not great, but oh well.
Fourth was sleeper volumes with automatic wakeup
Fifth one was trigger based zombies. Where they stay inside walls until you reached a certain block.

And in A21 they actually made it so that trapblocks can not be destroyed with bows anymore. So you HAVE to trigger them... which is just the biggest middle finger "oh you found a way to circumvent our GENIUS plan for how the game has to be played? Well here we fixed it mothertrucker!!


Solution:
Nerf the damage, get rid of basicially every other change.
If the player finds creative solutions, don't cross them out and say "MY WAY ONLY!" you aren't our 3rd grade mathsteacher!
 

[theFlu]

12 minutes ago, Viktoriusiii said:

Nerf the damage, get rid of basicially every other change.

From stealth perspective, I don't really disagree at all. Some well-hidden zeds would be absolutely fine, as long as at least an equal amount is in reasonably zombie-like states randomly in the POI, not just every single one lying in a perfect ambush position.

 

In A20 it didn't feel like it was "me against a zombie apocalypse", I was playing tag against the Level Designer. In A21, the Level Designer seems to have gone full GOD MODE and it's pretty much killing the fun. It's not a world anymore, it's an arcade. Doom is a fine game, though, but I didn't want this one to be Doom.

 

I do get the trap system from the non-stealther perspective, they aren't that horrible if you don't mind tanking @%$# with your face. WTB a pocket healer then, though.. walk-over health drops or something..

[Viktoriusiii]

Okay... so some traps I get... if you rush in head first, there should be some zombies to cut you off... thats fine.

But you know why I know they didn't do it to make melee more enjoyable and purely to spite stealthers (and yes maybe their intentional reason wasn't spite, but their subcontious hates it 100%)?

Making trap walls more than 1 HP and destroying it by trigger.
That is SO MUCH CODING WORK and the ONLY effect it has is that bows/crossbows can no longer destroy them to get a better shot.
A21 has a lot of things that corrected mistakes of A21...
but my main points: progression and stealth are as bad as always... or worse...! and it saddens me...

[theFlu]

7 minutes ago, Viktoriusiii said:

Making trap walls more than 1 HP and destroying it by trigger.

Yeh, like the end of a hybrid energy -station at tier 2-3. Couple pairs of 3k+ HP iron doors that open only once you step in the middle of them, automatically ... while also spawning in a blockade behind you. I thought the blockade was spawned into a off-the-path spot where I didn't check, but having checked how the prison works.. all bets are off, likely just outside the door.. no more clearing areas for safety

 

But why are we doing Clear Area -quests then..?

[hiemfire]

At this point, with how many pois are in game and how long it'd take to fix and triple check that they wouldn't @%$# over any single perk line, it'd probably be better if TFP just went "Hell with it." and yoinked the sneaking dependent perks, including the bonuses bows and knives get from sneaking (though they might as well just set the prime bow to gray quality like nailgun with the damage being the same as the tier 2, strip out the other bows/crossbows and the arrows and bolts that aren't stone arrows specifically), leaving baseline sneaking for hiding at night and the base 2x damage bonus only for the occasional "Yay!" moments. TFP doesn't design, and honestly really never has in the alphas I've played so far, with stealth in mind at all and is about as flexible as a 100 year old oak trunk when it comes to us pointing out what their desire for an exactingly tailored experience in each and every poi is doing to stealth.

Edited June 25, 2023 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[Viktoriusiii]

1 minute ago, hiemfire said:

TFP doesn't design

correct.

[theFlu]

5 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

TFP doesn't design, and honestly really never has in the alphas I've played so far, with stealth in mind at all

Yeh, it's always felt a bit of an afterthought at best, but they Have dragged it along for now. With this New Design (tm), it's going to take something like the introduction of Flashbangs (blind and deafen, effectively freeze in place all zeds in LoS Or Range). Which could become interesting, but I really doubt they'll go that far for stealth.

[hiemfire]

7 minutes ago, theFlu said:

Yeh, it's always felt a bit of an afterthought at best, but they Have dragged it along for now. With this New Design (tm), it's going to take something like the introduction of Flashbangs (blind and deafen, effectively freeze in place all zeds in LoS Or Range). Which could become interesting, but I really doubt they'll go that far for stealth.

If they did it would spike the heat map by 50-60 points per use and guarantee a scout spawn when it causes the heat map to break 100. 

They'd also be steel tier and cost more than a frag rocket each to prevent screamer horde farming.

Edited June 25, 2023 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[zztong]

I've had a few weekends to play A21 and a number of the new POIs through Tier 4. I had a pretty good time in the OPS Distribution Center. (I think that's the name.) Before that was a "Hogzilla" POI. I've been "double dipping" them so the first time I was more likely to fall for tricks and the second time I was somewhat informed, though sleepers don't always spawn in the same locations, so it can be still a bit of a mystery.

 

In A20 I'd say 80% of the zombie volumes could be handled via stealth and of those that couldn't, the encounter was usually mild enough that switching from bow to club was more than enough to cope. The revised Crack-A-Book (Tier 5) could be cleared 100% with stealth.

 

My second pass through OPS Dist Center (Tier 4) today was pretty satisfying with stealth, but the first pass had some surprise moments. I can see why folks aren't happy. Again, most of the surprise activations weren't a major complication, but the final encounter got me into a running gun battle and a significant injury. I can get too confident and that can set me up. It did in this case. You can't always just "crouch and go." Sometimes you have to control your movements to keep the stealth meter low. In the second pass through I cleared the final encounter entirely with stealth and without destroying part (walls) of the environment to give me shots. This was AGL 5, and 3 Perks towards sneaking and stealth damage, all cloth armor, primitive bow 6 with 4 mods. I even took a screenshot while standing amongst the final loot with bow aimed toward the last zombie. I was super cautious in that approach, using single steps to keep the stealth meter around 1, rather than an extended "crouch and go" stealth walk with a stealth meter around 8. I kept my distance, clearing out boxes to give me good angles to shoot.

 

Hogzilla has a couple of spots I don't know if I can stealth. There's a pair of zombies that have a "rear slope" position up in the ceiling and they activate when you enter the room. I think there's 1-2 more Zeds in that room that activate. Here I feel a little cheated, but it isn't a huge deal as I have a way to withdraw and trade space for damage.

 

I've heard other POI designers talk about the clever things they can do with new volume options. I've had my concerns that making zombies appear behind people in areas previously cleared are likely to be unpopular. In some cases, designers are trying to suggest zombies wandered in behind the player. I see some merit in that. The thing is players aren't going to get a chance to see the designer placed the zombies by the doors, by the air vents, or wherever they were supposed to come from. Players are just going to know there's a big ruckus behind them. Plus, players are used to zombies stumbling around outside the POI. We can hear them. They're kind of fun when they detect you and "add" themselves to the situation because they'll do neat things like tear a hole in wall for you. I mean, I like exits from buildings and I'm happy to loot and look around why a zombie makes one.

 

I guess I'm rambling here. The ideal stealth experience is a matter of individual taste. Designers have some new tools. I think with details and feedback, a happy medium is possible, but I think A21's new tools can be taken too far. I don't think a POI has to be 100% doable with stealth. I do appreciate the POIs that make me think and take my time, presenting a stealth puzzle. It isn't the most efficient way to level, but I find it fun.

Edited June 25, 2023 by zztong (see edit history)

[Uncle Al]

10 hours ago, theFlu said:

 

True, at least partially. They do make for the easiest of targets. But assuming only that the current volume-spawned zeds would get up and start wandering upon being loaded in.. none of the current jump scares could be designed, and you could still clear a room just by adding a couple extra pebbles on your toolbar. Lure them into a corner and start throwing bolts. Or pineapples at that point. Heck, I've started to use pipe bombs for stealth in A21 vanilla. Can't quite the headshot behind the kitchen counter? The arc above is usually free... sneaky AF

It definitely feels cheesy, but rather than pipe bombs, might I suggest using explosive arrows/bolts. Somewhat surprisingly, they get the full (3.5x + 0.5 per hidden strike rank) modifier to sneak damage which makes an explosive arrow out of stealth the most devastating alpha strike in the game.