Some Theory For Coop Stealth In Warframe

[CubedOobleck]

Because Warframe is a coop game I think the best way to introduce stealth without ruining other game styles is with a 4 state AI: unalerted, suspicious, alerted and engaged.

 

 

Unalerted

The initial state of AI in missions.

AI calmly patrols the area with dull senses .

 

Suspicious

This state is triggered by touching, weak sounds, short visual contact, finding corpses and, at times, by a another suspicious AI.

AI investigates what triggered the suspicion and reverts to unalerted after a somewhat random period of time.

 

Alerted

This state is triggered by taking damage, by strong sounds and alarms.

AI activates the alarm from a console (if it was not already on), becomes aggressive and searches actively. Only reverts to suspicious if the alarm is deactivated.

 

Engaged

This state is triggered by direct visual contact. AI will give priority to the threat with most aggro (closeness, loudness, damage output, ect) if it has visual contact with more than one. if visual contact stops, AI reverts to alerted. If threat is eliminated, AI attempts to revert to unalerted and access a console to turn off the alarm.

 

Visual contact can be stopped by objects in the way (duh), stuns, staggers, knockdowns, powers, ect.

You can perform a stealth takedown on any enemy that isn't engaged with you.

Takedowns are performed with the same key that is used to access panels, open lockers, ect.

The time it takes an AI to revert from suspicious to unalerted increases with every new alarm.

Infested don't access consoles, so they cannot activate alarms, but also can't revert to suspicious once alerted.

Noisy weapons have different loudness (generally: shotguns > snipers > rifles > handguns).

Players can hack control panels to deactivate alarms.

Failed hacks, destroying base cores, stealing artifacts, ect automatically activates an alarm.

The dots in a map (both red and green) have an indentation that indicates which way the player/AI is looking.

 

 

What would all this mean in actual gameplay?

Basically allows both assault and stealth to coexist in the same match (which was my main concern), because even when the ship is alerted a player can lay low and perform stealth takedowns while other players openly attack and draw attention, true stealth runs become more feasible thanks to the ability to deactivate alarms and nothing is taken away from our current gameplay.

 

Wouldn't hacking consoles to deactivate alarms be OP?

I don't think so because you would already be able to perform stealth takedowns on enemies even when the alarms is on, though it is harder if no one is actively distracting them. Also deactivating the alarm during a gunfight will do you no good because the gunfight will keep enemies alerted and one will soon reactivate the alarm.

 

How would powers fit into all this?

Using powers would generally increase your visibility and produce noise, how much dependending on specific powers, for example Sonic Boom would be quite noisy but wouldn't increase your visibility much. Some powers such as Decoy, Molt and Mind Control create a separate threat. Others that affect enemies without hurting them such as Switch Teleport would make the target suspicious.

Edited May 3, 2013 by CubedOobleck