What exactly does that stealth meter tell you?

[Stranded_Napkin]

So I've been liking what I've been seeing with A17. I love the AI most of all. The zombies aren't idiots, though it has sometimes almost gotten to the point where you can't call them zombies as they are smart as hell. Still, it makes gameplay fun. I have found that the stealth meter is useful but it has a couple quirks that confound me.

 

At first I thought that it was a meter to tell you if you had been detected. Seems simple enough. The problem is it jumps to over 70 when you aren't moving or doing anything and you turn on your headlamp...in a mine. If it means that you are detected, then it's broken as zombies can see through terrain. This happens in above ground and below ground enclosed spaces. It just does not seem to be a way of telling if you have actually been detected. Then again, that would explain why every freaking morning there's a zombie that's busted through my walls and is just standing in my base.

 

I totally get that mining makes noise, but simply turning on your headlamp should not alert every zombie in the game that you are there when you are underground. I've had the thought that the meter only shows a probability of detection but that seems far less useful. We know that when we turn on our headlamp and make noise that the probability goes up. The old seen/unseen symbol was far more useful. I can't fathom a reason to even give the probability. It just tells you what you already know.

 

This all just leads me back to my original question. What does the stealth meter even tell us?

[FileMachete]

From dev thread: https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?74084-Developer-Discussions-Alpha-17&p=890408&viewfull=1#post890408

 

The stealth meter tells you the noise and light you are making now, not if someone detected you. If you hear them coming, you want to stealth walk away. Waiting does nothing but get you found, since they are already coming to where they heard you.

[Greslin]

Best I can tell, it seems to be an indicator of how much you are disturbing your local environment: sound, light, movement, etc.

 

The stat goes up when you make noise, move between light and shadow, craft, open containers, etc. If an enemy is close enough to possibly detect you, the stealth stat determines the likelihood that it will happen. They detect the disturbance.

[Xartan]

I'm pretty sure it's not intended to tell you if you've been spotted or not. Yes, the new system is less "useful" in terms of god-like abilities but, imo, it's better not knowing if the zombies actually see you or not. I exploited the old system far too much -- I would often double-tap the crouch just to see if there was something behind me and then carry on what I was doing without even having to look. Now, there's a bigger sense of danger without knowing if you've been detected or not.

 

I think by providing the percentage of visibility (or whatever it represents) it helps you to understand what actions you're doing are making noise/light.

[Stranded_Napkin]

Ok, thanks. I hadn't really worried about it and nobody seemed to know for sure on youtube. A quick search on here wasn't exactly easy to find the info. Maybe that was just me being too impatient. Either way, thanks.

 

I still think I'd rather have the thirst bar on the screen though. As the food is tied to the stamina bar it isn't necessary, but the thirst is too easy to lose track of. The fact that you have to stop your character and go into your inventory to look at that stat is an issue for me. I just don't see the point in the stealth bar. Even when stealthing through a building I don't look at it. I listen and check my corners.

[ricp]

The "detected eye" was useful in A16, but I'll be honest the only thing I use the stealth meter for is to tell if I'm crouched or not. The visual height you drop when crouched is small making it harder (imo) to tell whether you are or not.

 

I think most experienced gamers have an idea of just how close you can get, with or without perks. I would like a little more vocality when you are spotted though. While I quite like having to be alert all the time, those zombies are sneaky wee f**ks and can creep up on you a little too silently.

[LuckyStar]

The "detected eye" was useful in A16, but I'll be honest the only thing I use the stealth meter for is to tell if I'm crouched or not. The visual height you drop when crouched is small making it harder (imo) to tell whether you are or not.

 

I think most experienced gamers have an idea of just how close you can get, with or without perks. I would like a little more vocality when you are spotted though. While I quite like having to be alert all the time, those zombies are sneaky wee f**ks and can creep up on you a little too silently.

 

Agree with everything you said.

[Roland]

The "detected eye" was useful in A16, but I'll be honest the only thing I use the stealth meter for is to tell if I'm crouched or not. The visual height you drop when crouched is small making it harder (imo) to tell whether you are or not.

 

I think most experienced gamers have an idea of just how close you can get, with or without perks. I would like a little more vocality when you are spotted though. While I quite like having to be alert all the time, those zombies are sneaky wee f**ks and can creep up on you a little too silently.

 

I tested the new jog speed and it is fantastic for being able to tell when you are spotted. You hear their footsteps loud and clear and it is scary. Chopping a tree and all of a sudden you hear shuffling jogging steps and you know something close by has spotted you. Visually it is also pleasing to see them increase their speed the moment they spot you.

[jdifran]

I actually like the subjectivity of the stealth meter and have gotten used to "prairie-dogging" while mining boulders or digging up clay soil to make sure I'm not ambushed.

 

What I would really like to know how 7D2D determines that you've been sensed or spotted. How far can zombies hear noise? Does noise have a "volume" that determines how far it can be heard? Iron pickaxe on stone? Shovel in sand?

 

How far can they see? If I'm standing on the top of a ruined building 20 meters up and not in stealth mode when a horde wanders by, do they automatically see me if any of them have line of sight? Do they scan a particular arc horizontally and vertically depending on their facing?

 

I suppose these can be reverse-engineered with some bloody trial and error (or playing around with God mode), but I'd love to get an overview from faatal.

[ricp]

I tested the new jog speed and it is fantastic for being able to tell when you are spotted. You hear their footsteps loud and clear and it is scary. Chopping a tree and all of a sudden you hear shuffling jogging steps and you know something close by has spotted you. Visually it is also pleasing to see them increase their speed the moment they spot you.

 

I didn't realise there was a new jog speed, that might be an interesting addition. I've always felt that the divide between slow shufflers and crazy runners left a bit of a gap.

 

I'd still like to hear a bit more vocality to them though. Doesn't have to be too overt, but some subtle grumblings so you can tell that a zombie outwith your eyeline had aggro'd. If not? C'est la vie! If I just need to keep an eye out all the time, so be it.

[Krougal]

The problem is the sound seems to be very buggy still, as far as if it plays or not.

The other longstanding gripe I have is there is no positional audio in the game.

So while I'm ok in theory with the idea of you not being told with certainty if you are detected or not anymore, I am not really ok with it because of the above.

 

That being said, I think the initial A17 build what OP described was indeed what was happening. More than a few of us were sitting the first night in a corner sucking our thumbs for several hours and zeds showup and start tearing the walls down. Especially if you had thrown that torch on the wall to not be in the dark, so your stealth meter was up a bit even though you weren't moving.

 

And of course, stealth is still a bit busted that you can sneak right next to a sleeper and bash a door down without waking it up most of the time. I am going to miss being able to do that when it's fixed.

[ricp]

If we are talking about visibility is there ever going to be a return for smell? In A15 I quite liked the immediate rush when, early game, you harvest your first meat and suddenly realise it's akin to putting on a dayglo vest and sounded an airhorn. Heh, well maybe not, but you know what I mean!

 

I've seen several mentions, in passing, of it possibly returning for A18 (or possibly even later builds of a stable A17) but not sure if that was definite or just people musing.

[Zourin]

If we are talking about visibility is there ever going to be a return for smell? In A15 I quite liked the immediate rush when, early game, you harvest your first meat and suddenly realise it's akin to putting on a dayglo vest and sounded an airhorn. Heh, well maybe not, but you know what I mean!

 

I've seen several mentions, in passing, of it possibly returning for A18 (or possibly even later builds of a stable A17) but not sure if that was definite or just people musing.

 

It's not a good thing when you open a fridge, loot an apocalypse-old chunk of meat, and IMMEDIATELY ALL ZOMBIES IN THE POI ARE COMING FOR YOU. That's why smell got removed. You could actually cheese the ♥♥♥♥ out of POI's by walking in with stew on your belt to wake the whole building up and bring them outside.

 

Human scent isn't good enough to do that. Zombies probably stink to hell and back and shouldn't be able to smell a damn thing over their own BO.

[Khulkhuum]

The stealth meter (as far as i tested) is a somewhat summary of sight and sound. During day time and sneaking in an open field your stealth won't fall down to a single digit. Still, you're probably not making a lot of noise to gather attention, but you're quite visible.

 

On the other hand, if you're using a nailgun at night or jump on your spot to stomp the ground, you're not visible and making a noise that gathers attention. Here though the zombies will wander/run towards the place the sound originated (just like when you hit them with an arrow), but not the player himself. Sure if you stay in the same spot, the zombie could get close enough to see you, but moving away stealthily (without making more noises) lets you get away.

 

In summary, sight is stronger for zombies in the regard that when they spot you, the only way to lose them is to have enough distance (better to do at night as i'm pretty sure it's limited then). On the other hand sounds gather attention in a similar distance or bigger, but allows you to slip away in the shadows if they start running to where the sound originated from (unless they DO spot you).

[ricp]

It's not a good thing when you open a fridge, loot an apocalypse-old chunk of meat, and IMMEDIATELY ALL ZOMBIES IN THE POI ARE COMING FOR YOU. That's why smell got removed. You could actually cheese the ♥♥♥♥ out of POI's by walking in with stew on your belt to wake the whole building up and bring them outside.

 

Human scent isn't good enough to do that. Zombies probably stink to hell and back and shouldn't be able to smell a damn thing over their own BO.

 

That is a fair reply, I tip my hat to you. Not only have you highlighted a gameplay issue (sudden awakening of spawners) but addressed the lore in regard to whether they would smell it or not.

 

Now, I'll counter, if you don't mind.

 

I'd maybe suggest that in an Indiana Jones-esque way, you open a fridge and see the meat and from that point you have the choice of whether to loot and run (grabbing your dropped hat from under a closing door, of course) while all about you erupts in zombie crazed nonsense, or you play it safe, leave the meat there and don't trigger anyone. You could argue that meat on a person and meat in an open fridge is still meat, so yeah, I don't really have an argument for that!

 

In terms of smell, it's the fact that it's fresh meat. I always assumed that was the case, and as this is lore we can play about with it a little. Of course the flip side would be that should you get cut (and obviously you do bleed but it's a bleedout rather than a wound) then zombies should be attracted to that fresh meat, ie: YOUR fresh meat.

 

 

In summary though, I just quite liked the mechanic, even if it didn't really fit in with the gameplay or the lore.

[Krougal]

That is a fair reply, I tip my hat to you. Not only have you highlighted a gameplay issue (sudden awakening of spawners) but addressed the lore in regard to whether they would smell it or not.

 

Now, I'll counter, if you don't mind.

 

I'd maybe suggest that in an Indiana Jones-esque way, you open a fridge and see the meat and from that point you have the choice of whether to loot and run (grabbing your dropped hat from under a closing door, of course) while all about you erupts in zombie crazed nonsense, or you play it safe, leave the meat there and don't trigger anyone. You could argue that meat on a person and meat in an open fridge is still meat, so yeah, I don't really have an argument for that!

 

In terms of smell, it's the fact that it's fresh meat. I always assumed that was the case, and as this is lore we can play about with it a little. Of course the flip side would be that should you get cut (and obviously you do bleed but it's a bleedout rather than a wound) then zombies should be attracted to that fresh meat, ie: YOUR fresh meat.

 

 

In summary though, I just quite liked the mechanic, even if it didn't really fit in with the gameplay or the lore.

 

It really was a lousy mechanic. If smell were in A17 then I'd be running around all day with the smelliest thing I could find, saves work when you make all the zeds come to you. Going into a POI of course I would throw it in a container outside so I could still stealth through.

[FileMachete]

Likely not high on the list, though I'm hoping it's made the, 'let's discuss' agenda;

 

When you go into stealth mode your hearing acuity (~volume) goes _down_. Meaning when you are being 'quiet' you've also _reduced_ your ability to percieve threats.

 

Which is the reverse of what you'd expect.

 

While I certainly believe that the original intent was to lower the sounds the _player_ makes; difference in volume of your pick mining stone for example. What actually resulted was the volume of everything is lowered, including the zombie sounds.

 

So it's a catch-22; crouch and you become less detectable, but you're also reducing your own ability to detect zombies.

[zod]

I wasn't sure about stealth.

So there I was with shovel in hand crouched in a church graveyard.

Stealth bar all nice and green-100% in fact.

Thought to myself that "I must have cleared the area. Yup. I am green to relieve these poor cadavers of their useless belongings

 

"Chuff, chuff, chuff, chuff" (those are shovel digging sounds for you novices)

 

Then I jump out of my skin when one of those burly food stained wife beater wearing Bubbas starts wailing on me at close range!

Blood splatters, frantic running like chicken with head cut off. Bandaging.

 

When this game is played HC mode. Or no death to Bubbas or wildlife -mode it gets so much more exciting.

 

Totally different mentality than corpse-runs back to backpacks.

So many more "OH FFFFFuuuuuuu" moments

 

(Thanks to dev(s) for making that possible

[SylenThunder]

Digging up those zombies I see...

 

 

Another zombie thread bites the dust.