Edit History

5 hours ago, Old Crow said:

Is it a bad nerf though? Serious question, as my group and I haven't gotten to max level armor yet, and don't know how good the rank 6 Assassin armor is yet.

I need to play it more, but my early impression was stealth is still viable, sometimes inconveniently so. Maybe a touch too much, maybe a touch too little, so maybe just right? Among the encounters with a large number of high level zombies I could still ditch a triggered/attack volume mass but a few zombies might stay tracking. Once you attack from stealth, you're likely to need to wait a while to follow up for another stealth attack. You may find some zombies lose track of you but remain aware enough to your presence to deny you a stealth bonus against them. Overall, nerf or not, they got closer to some balance. Perfect? I'm not ready to say.

29 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Correct, here is a post from Faatal clarifying the stealth changes.

It is informative, though I've not looked to see if any of the changes can be quantified. When y'all talk of detection ranges, I wonder if obstacles and barriers have any effect. I wonder if player actions might be perhaps more of an influence, such as interactions with objects, destruction of objects, or even stepping on trash.

One last note, @stallionsden had me play through one of his extreme challenge POIs and I switched to stealth play (V1.1) after it became clear what I was up against. I know he had minscripts involved and he wasn't entirely sure how that was going to affect completing a quest when I'd trigger one of those scripts and then fled and re-engaged stealth to work on the stragglers. Some Zs reset and he wasn't sure the minscript would ever trigger again.

Personally, I don't typically undertake a quest of a high level POI because I don't like being restricted to the POI's footprint. I want to be able to take stuff back to base, flee to adjoining properties, deal with wandering hordes ... or even just quit playing and come back later. Those larger POIs come with a significant time investment when I want to solo-stealth them well.

5 hours ago, Old Crow said:

Is it a bad nerf though? Serious question, as my group and I haven't gotten to max level armor yet, and don't know how good the rank 6 Assassin armor is yet.

I need to play it more, but my early impression was stealth is still viable, sometimes inconveniently so. Maybe a touch too much, maybe a touch too little, so maybe just right? Among the encounters with a large number of high level zombies I could still ditch a triggered/attack volume mass but a few zombies might stay tracking. Once you attack from stealth, you're likely to need to wait a while to follow up for another stealth attack. You may find some zombies lose track of you but remain aware enough to your presence to deny you a stealth bonus against them. Overall, nerf or not, they got closer to some balance. Perfect? I'm not ready to say.

28 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Correct, here is a post from Faatal clarifying the stealth changes.

It is informative, though I've not looked to see if any of the changes can be quantified. When y'all talk of detection ranges, I wonder if obstacles and barriers have any effect. I wonder if player actions might be perhaps more of an influence, such as interactions with objects, destruction of objects, or even stepping on trash.

One last note, @stallionsden had me play through one of his extreme challenge POIs and I switched to stealth play (V1.1) after it became clear what I was up against. I know he had minscripts involved and he wasn't entirely sure how that was going to affect completing a quest when I'd trigger one of those scripts and then fled and re-engaged stealth to work on the stragglers. Some Zs reset and he wasn't sure the minscript would ever trigger again.

5 hours ago, Old Crow said:

Is it a bad nerf though? Serious question, as my group and I haven't gotten to max level armor yet, and don't know how good the rank 6 Assassin armor is yet.

I need to play it more, but my early impression was stealth is still viable, sometimes inconveniently so. Maybe a touch too much, maybe a touch too little, so maybe just right? Among the encounters with a large number of high level zombies I could still ditch a triggered/attack volume mass but a few zombies might stay tracking. Once you attack from stealth, you're likely to need to wait a while to follow up for another stealth attack. You may find some zombies lose track of you but remain aware enough to your presence to deny you a stealth bonus against them. Overall, nerf or not, they got closer to some balance. Perfect? I'm not ready to say.

24 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Correct, here is a post from Faatal clarifying the stealth changes.

It is informative, though I've not looked to see if any of the changes can be quantified. When y'all talk of detection ranges, I wonder if obstacles and barriers have any effect. I wonder if player actions might be perhaps more of an influence, such as interactions with objects, destruction of objects, or even stepping on trash.

One last note, @stallionsden had me play through one of his extreme challenge POIs and I switched to stealth play (V1.1) after it became clear what I was up against. I know he had minscripts involved and he wasn't entirely sure how that was going to affect completing a quest when I'd trigger one of those scripts and then flee and re-engage stealth to work on the stragglers. Some Zs reset and he wasn't sure the minscript would ever trigger again.