A minor stealth overhaul could do wonders for gameplay variety

[AdunSaveMe]

Currently stealth just consists of invisibility skills, or gambling with the AI. It's next to impossible to know when you're visible, enemies go from unalerted to spotting you (and telling everybody in the room where you are) practically instantly with no visual feedback. What we need is an indicator for our own visibility, and an indicator of an enemy's awareness. We should be less visible in high places and dark areas, and enemies should become aware over time, instead of instant alertness.

There's any number of simple stealth systems to take pointers from; even something as basic as Far Cry 3's cues. It doesn't have to be huge and complex. Just being able to know when we're at risk of being seen, reliably, could make stealth a lot more fun, and a viable option beyond using abilities.

[(PSN)OriginalEquinox]

Basically a small marker above enemies heads.

White means unalerted. Yellow means suspicious. Red means they've seen you and are engaging.

[AdunSaveMe]

12 minutes ago, (PS4)Equinox21697 said:

Basically a small marker above enemies heads.

White means unalerted. Yellow means suspicious. Red means they've seen you and are engaging.

It'd need to be a little more than that. That's basically what the minimap already does. There needs to be stages between suspicious and engaging, instead of an instant switch the moment someone catches sight of the tip of your elbow around a corner. Plus an indication of how visible you are, i.e. Skyrim's stealth eye, or AvP's Alien light indicator.

[taiiat]

Enemies already have garbage can vision vertically (and have since that was added along with vision some years ago), and as you mention the map indicators for Enemies does already cover their 3 states (unaware, partial aware / suspicious, Alerted).
i'm not sure how consistently 'darkess' would work out though. and ofcourse Enemies will go from state 2 to state 3 rather quickly at times when you feel like you're fairly far away from, yes.

[AdunSaveMe]

29 minutes ago, taiiat said:

Enemies already have garbage can vision vertically (and have since that was added along with vision some years ago), and as you mention the map indicators for Enemies does already cover their 3 states (unaware, partial aware / suspicious, Alerted).

They already have what I described in a very shallow, unreliable and inconsistent way that does not allow for stealth without feeling buggy and awkward.

I've played a lot of games with various stealth systems and I believe Warframe's can be a lot better.

[Naftal]

4 hours ago, taiiat said:

Enemies already have garbage can vision vertically (and have since that was added along with vision some years ago), and as you mention the map indicators for Enemies does already cover their 3 states (unaware, partial aware / suspicious, Alerted).
i'm not sure how consistently 'darkess' would work out though. and ofcourse Enemies will go from state 2 to state 3 rather quickly at times when you feel like you're fairly far away from, yes.

Darkness is in the game and I can stand 1m in front of enemy in places the game considers "dark" and they won't react to me.

[taiiat]

7 hours ago, Naftal said:

Darkness is in the game and I can stand 1m in front of enemy in places the game considers "dark" and they won't react to me.

i'm not sure i buy that such a thing is already there - and reliability/consistency of that working across the Tiles in the game is exactly what i mentioned as a concern for it - i'm not sure i trust that to work reliably in Warframe *sweat*

[Naftal]

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

i'm not sure i buy that such a thing is already there - and reliability/consistency of that working across the Tiles in the game is exactly what i mentioned as a concern for it - i'm not sure i trust that to work reliably in Warframe *sweat*

Well it is in the game and the consistency is as horrible as you would imagine.

[Ada_Wong_SG]

I suppose I do a lot of ivara stealth exterminate, one thing I notice is the enemy's "stance".

This is the indicator stance, which seems to be quite universal on all humanoid enemies, I am not sure about infested indicator.

Things that known to alert enemy
1) Seeing dead teammate corpses - channeled kill, Ignis, Ferrox which melts the body upon kill can
eliminate the chance of enemies stumble upon a dead body.

Ragdoll and flying corpses from arrow kills will alert all enemies along the path the corpse travel, so 
it is advisable to shoot to the floor or pin enemies to wall away from the crowd.

2) Seeing teammate taking damage - seeing their teammate getting shot or killed 
can alert the enemy, so plan your shots and kill when they are looking away from one another, 
it is also advisable to pick the last enemy to front enemy if they are walking in a single file
even punch through instant kill will ruin the stealth if the front gets seen hit and back one gets killed nearly instantly

3) Arc Trap, door forcefield
be sure to take those out first

4) Breaking crates too near enemies, melee attack too close to enemy proximity

5) seeing a warframe - so taking cover and move from crates to crates, 
while observe enemy movement pattern is essential.

6) Explosive drums, LN2 barrel
making one go off with enemies in proximity will alert all of them, kind of like setting off a fire cracker.

7) Teammate firing weapon, if one spots you, and get to fire their weapon, it alert all enemies in proximity.
 

This stance remain unchanged even after ivara sleep arrow/ equinox sleep ability, 
though enemies will return to "unalerted" after sleeping once.


Gun down, relaxed stance Unalerted

Gun up, searching for enemy Alerted

 

Depending on situation, if you see an enemy alerted and is about to go around alerting everyone (by firing weapon or running to trigger alarm)
it is better to silence the alerted enemy first. If everyone is alerted there goes more stealth affinity boost.

 

This is kind of a very simple tactic that is to shoot the one least seen, and shooting those that are about to alert others first.

 

Edited November 25, 2018 by Ada_Wong_SG

[0_The_F00l]

There is already decent mechanics for visibility / awareness outside of being invisible. 

But this is rarely noticeable outside of solo cause... Having a rampaging roaring pink rhino in the squad will make the blindest of enemies realize something is wrong. 

I started the game a few years back, picked mag, It was suggested to do the first few MR and planets solo. And because I played solo I played it like a ninja stealth game (and it was still fun). 

When playing solo I realized many things. 

1. Crouching makes you less visible. Bullet jumping makes you more noticeable. 

2. Enemies rarely look up so jumping over enemies and wall clinging is a valid stealth option. 

3. Enemies can be drawn into blind spots by hitting walls with melee attacks so they face away from doors. 

4. You have about 1 second to avoid changing enemies alert state if you enter his cone of vision while he is unalerted. Less if he is already suspicious.

5. Dark spaces do reduce your visibility to enemies... But I found it difficult to determine which area is considered dark  and which is light (using mirage will help determine these areas but that's beside the point and I didn't know this then) 

6. I used my starter bow first and then the regular Paris. Projectile impact points make small area of noise and can distract enemies, but will make them suspicious. 

These I applied for the non static non killing missions like capture, sabotage, spy, rescue (limited to venus, Mars, earth) but it served me well even in exterminate though it did take me a lot more effort and I rarely finished it "undetected". 

Then I got Rhino... And I stopped worrying about stealth, I got loki much later when I realized invisibility is a thing I was already getting decent stealth kills and finishing spy missions without being seen. 

So the mechanics are there, but they become moot in most squads. 

 

The awareness of enemies states is kinda on you though, there's already map indicators, you need to keep presence of mind and estimate distance between enemies to make most use of it. 

 

Edited November 28, 2018 by 0_The_F00l