Stealth Feedback & Suggestions Thread

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

I can only hope this happens with an overhaul of the stealth mechanics in general... No offense to you cowboys out there, but when I play as a cybernetically-enhanced space ninja, I kind of want to sneak around a on occasion.

[unknow99]

I can only hope this happens with an overhaul of the stealth mechanics in general... No offense to you cowboys out there, but when I play as a cybernetically-enhanced space ninja, I kind of want to sneak around a on occasion.

We are ninja/kunoichi so it really is a viable gameplay. I don't understand the people who think it's weird to solo stealth a mission : "Stealth?lol it's useless,run 'n' gun is the best & funniest way"...

It's optional, it adds a lot more depth into the game,low pc players can play it as they please because it won't lag much...What else? :)

Edited April 6, 2014 by unknow99

[Zepheros]

hmm... well then he should do an animation that he is looking back...

 

Off-topic, did you play PSO on the Gamecube by any chance?

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

We are ninja/kunoichi so it really is a viable gameplay. I don't understand the people who think it's weird to solo stealth a mission : "Stealth?lol it's useless,run 'n' gun is the best & funniest way"...

It's optional, it adds a lot more depth into the game,low pc players can play it as they please because it won't lag much...What else? :)

 

Personally, I think there should be an occasionally mandatory stealth mission or two, *IF* they would actually get to writing a cohesive game story/plot (where the stealth fit into the story).

Sadly, DE seems more content adding more features/items so we have to farm continually, get fed up with farming, then give up and spend platinum, so I don't see an actual good game story coming any time soon. (Note: I do *not* mean disjointed lore and little event missions like the current Vey Hek bit... that is NOT a story)

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

Bump

[(PSN)CrazyDeadPerson]

Personally, I think there should be an occasionally mandatory stealth mission or two, *IF* they would actually get to writing a cohesive game story/plot (where the stealth fit into the story).

Sadly, DE seems more content adding more features/items so we have to farm continually, get fed up with farming, then give up and spend platinum, so I don't see an actual good game story coming any time soon. (Note: I do *not* mean disjointed lore and little event missions like the current Vey Hek bit... that is NOT a story)

isnt vors prize supposed to be the beggining of a mass influx of lore

[OssomSagax]

How about daggers, kunai, Dispair and other small weapons, if aimed and used whilst wall-running, will cause you to stab them into the wall and hang there until your stanima runs out?

Should add a impact increase & peirce/slash decrease effect on throwables for one/two throws, to add the idea you blunted them by using them to hang from the wall.

 

No ceiling hang unless you are using hand melee weapons, this is following the idea of traditional Ninja using hand-spikes to climb and attack.

[SFkenny]

They're space melee weapons. They shouldn't get debuffs from using them that way.

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

isnt vors prize supposed to be the beggining of a mass influx of lore

 

Lore =/= Story.

Lore is background tidbits that fill in holes of a story to make a world more believable. Lore should not be implemented without a good narrative (story) first, as you may find the lore might end up contradicting your story.

[gell]

I don't have a direct issue with Ghost. I've stealthed through entire missions with Shade, only attacking with WF abilities.

 

And in times where the enemy sees me, I just give it a second and I'm stealthed again.

 

If you want full combat while invisible, try Loki or Ash.

 

The only problem with Ghost is inherent to the enemy AI, actually. They know where you are, even though they are told they can't see you. What happens is that they will actually follow you around while you're invisible because they feel you near and their programming tells them to go toward you. Not everyone will follow you, but that's just randomized behaviors.

 

Shade is my favorite sentinel. He can save your life on any level difficulty, he allows you to stealth in spite of DE's weak stealth mechanics without using Ash/Loki, and Ghost is reliable (I've never seen it turn off due to bugginess).

 

If DE improves Ghost though, I would suggest putting a 1 second buffer in him turning off Ghost. Sometimes a tiny object passes by Shade's face and he loses line of sight. Because he trails a bit behind your own movement (as all sentinels do), he can often break line of sight if you aren't keeping ahead of the trailing effect. So I say, as long as Shade saw an enemy within the last second (adjustable via testing ofc), he should keep Ghosting you. It would be a small, but very useful change, yet still not any more OP.

[Recel]

I actually would love if we could control the sentines abilities just like ours, instead of letting a problematic AI use them.

 

Ghost is great. It saves your life. Up untill it decides "Nope, not gona cloack now, Ima shoot that grineer a mile away instead!", which is annoying, especially while you try to revive a teammate. With Ember that can be a death sentance.

Or when the cloack randomly breaks even tho you're standng right besides an enemy.

With Nyx, it's really anoying when you use absorb and it decides to play "pick-a-boo" with the grinner. Randomly cloacking and decloacking you.

 

Altho the mobs following you "bug" is really fun with it's long duration. Many times I was "escorted" to the extraction point by an army of grinner/corpus. It's really fun.

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

I don't have a direct issue with Ghost. I've stealthed through entire missions with Shade, only attacking with WF abilities.

 

And in times where the enemy sees me, I just give it a second and I'm stealthed again.

 

If you want full combat while invisible, try Loki or Ash.

 

The only problem with Ghost is inherent to the enemy AI, actually. They know where you are, even though they are told they can't see you. What happens is that they will actually follow you around while you're invisible because they feel you near and their programming tells them to go toward you. Not everyone will follow you, but that's just randomized behaviors.

 

Shade is my favorite sentinel. He can save your life on any level difficulty, he allows you to stealth in spite of DE's weak stealth mechanics without using Ash/Loki, and Ghost is reliable (I've never seen it turn off due to bugginess).

 

If DE improves Ghost though, I would suggest putting a 1 second buffer in him turning off Ghost. Sometimes a tiny object passes by Shade's face and he loses line of sight. Because he trails a bit behind your own movement (as all sentinels do), he can often break line of sight if you aren't keeping ahead of the trailing effect. So I say, as long as Shade saw an enemy within the last second (adjustable via testing ofc), he should keep Ghosting you. It would be a small, but very useful change, yet still not any more OP.

 

Ghost is the definition of buggy. I have been extensively torture testing Ghost over the couple of weeks leading up to me creating this topic. I have had Shade with only the Ghost precept equipped fail to engage when an enemy is a metre in front of me and Shade is facing the enemy. I stood there for 30 seconds with a Lancer shooting me up and Shade laughing at me. Different occasions, Ghost will engage, and I will walk into a group of enemies in an open area (no obstructions), and Ghost will disengage only about 10 seconds after it engaged. It doesn't engage when it should, it disengages when it should not, and the concept was poorly designed from it's inception. Just because you are skilled enough where either you do not notice Ghost's shortcomings, or you have adapted to those flaws is not the point. I am looking at not just my own play. I am looking at "John Doe-Warframe Player" and how they would use Shade. That was the point here.

The entire point is that people might want stealth combat WITHOUT Ash/Loki. Currently, Shade is about useless other than having his stealth as more of a temporary invulnerability when you are getting shot to death. That is not really useful for stealth play.

 

I have literally gone through an entire mission only using abilities in order to keep stealth up, but it is not really useful unless you can handle getting shot up a few times before Shade decides to come back from his lunch break and Ghost you.

I want to be able to run a mission without enemies every leaving their "casual" stance. Can you do that with, say, Nyx using only a non-thrown melee weapon and Shade on Pluto? I doubt its truly possible since most enemies detect you long before Shade decides to get his lazy arse out of bed.

However, you do make a valid point in that a certain portion of that issue is with enemy AI... once they are alerted to you, they literally keep running back to where you are even though they cannot target you. I believe it is because their programming in regards to Ghost is that it does not make you "invisible", but rather "untargetable". Meaning the enemies can see you just fine, they are just compelled to not shoot at you. 

 

The disengage of Ghost is definitely the worst part... Nothing like being surrounded by level 30 bombards/napalms/heavy gunners and have Shade clock out for lunch (again). That's why I said a 3 second "powering down" period, though like you say, the actual duration of which would need some testing to make sure it's usable but not too long.

 

I actually would love if we could control the sentines abilities just like ours, instead of letting a problematic AI use them.

 

Ghost is great. It saves your life. Up untill it decides "Nope, not gona cloack now, Ima shoot that grineer a mile away instead!", which is annoying, especially while you try to revive a teammate. With Ember that can be a death sentance.

Or when the cloack randomly breaks even tho you're standng right besides an enemy.

With Nyx, it's really anoying when you use absorb and it decides to play "pick-a-boo" with the grinner. Randomly cloacking and decloacking you.

 

Altho the mobs following you "bug" is really fun with it's long duration. Many times I was "escorted" to the extraction point by an army of grinner/corpus. It's really fun.

 

It is a good laugh, but definitely illustrates the failure of stealth in the AI programming. That, however, is a much bigger job than what I am suggesting. DE has stated that there will be no single big overhaul to stealth gameplay, but rather dozens of little overhauls. Hence, I am suggesting one as a start.

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

Bump

[Blatantfool]

 I've merged the thread 'Ghost Ability Rework' with this one, as the two topics are more or less hand in hand.

 

 

Bump

 

 Please do not empty bump threads. Keeping the conversation rolling is one thing, but empty posts is pretty much just spam.

[Evariskitsune]

Overwhelmingly stealth in this game is something of heavy concern which needs to be addressed.  I have linked this thread in mine and I cover a couple of more points which I feel need to be addressed, but overall I highly agree with what is suggested here.  

 

My thread for reference in the fan concepts section; https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/219238-fan-unified-stealth-ai-overhaul-ideas-thread/

[SFkenny]

Melee 2.0 has made strides in making stealth play easier by buffing melee, to their credit.

[Recel]

DE needs to think a lot when they try to implement stealh into the game. And while I'm sure a lot of the following things they are aware of, there might be some things they didn't think about.

 

So let's start with the current problems:

 

 

 

Level design:

 

Currently Warframes levels are not suited for steathy gameplay. There are many tiles that lack any way to pass them without mas murder or being detected right off the bat.

 

-Elevators

The bane of stealth righ now. There's nowhere to hide, and usually as soon as the door opens after you went up/down there are enemies right in front of you. It all depends on where the enemie spawn.

 

-Stairs

All the stairs in the game are designed in a way that if you stand on them, anything a level below you can easily see you, while the way your camera works makes it really hard to see under/behind them, again leading to being easily detected.

 

-Lack of alternate routes

To make things even more difficult, most of the time when you find a large number of enemies in a hallway/room, there's absolutely no way to get past them, unless you silently pick them off one by one.

 

-Doors

Yes, doors. They are very wide, and even if you crouch near the frame at either side, usually (also depending on the layout of the next room) there is still a big aeria you are plain visable from. And without alternate ways you have to go through them.

 

-Railings

They are everywhere, yet the ones that seem to have metal platings on them, hiding you, somewhy do a bad job at it, even without a sentinel to give you away.

 

 

 

Enemies and AI:

 

Enemies have no movement patterns, and it's hard to tell when you are properly hidden or not.

 

-Random mob movement

Currently every mob walks around like they are looking for their contact lenses. No paterns, no real destination. It makes it extreamly hard to move from one hiding spot to the next when they can turn around after taking two steps.

 

-Unknown detection method

While you can read up on how it should work in theory, in the game it's really hard to tell if someone will see you or not where ever you stand/crouch. Enemies see up and down very well without looking up or down. They also don't need to see the entier form, just a part. And due to the offset of the camera it's hard to tell which part of your frame sticks out too much.

 

-Random spawning

Random spawning can also cause a big headache, as mobs spawn in places they "shouldn't be", or crowd a bottleneck. One of the biggest ones is those big ventillation shafts on Corpus tile sets, mobs spawn in there, and they are hard to avoid or dispatch silently due to the tight space.

 

-Instant detection

Coupled with how you don't know when you're visable or not, this makes things even harder. You thought you're safe and suddenly one guy spots you,and ofcourse everything close by will also instantly know you're there.

 

-Sensitive allerted state

When allerted, enemies can easily spot you from wierd angles, and in wierd places. It's one thing to be on guard, and it's another to spot a Tennos feet from one hundred meters, behind a railing.

 

 

 

Tools:

 

Or better yet, the lack of them.

 

-Distraction

Currently, there is no way to distract an enemy, to lead them another way, or to make them turn around.

 

-Takedowns

Sometimes you just have to remove a guy from his place to progress. Without a bow, and even with Melee 2.0 this is still really risky in higher levels and can easily set your foes on allert.

 

 

 

Other:

 

For miscalious things that make stealth hard.

 

-Right hand rule

While you can shift the camera with H to the other side, you can't do this with a weapon. This means you can only shoot properly from the right side of your cover. Anything on your left is hard to take down without exposeing yourself too much.

 

-Parkour

Any "advanced " movement you make most of the time makes you stand up at the end. Climbing a box, jumping and so on, making you more exposed for a second, and because of the instant detection, this can allert enemies.

 

-Sentinels

Since they always levitate above you, and have no stealh state, they can be easily spoted most of the time. And they are usually too usefull to just leave behind.

 

 

 

Now on to suggestions.

(I will make them a bit vague, as numbers/looks don't mater as much as them being placed into the game in some fashion.)

 

 

 

Rafters, pipes, ventilation shafts

 

While technically we already have these, their placement is more important, that their existence. A drain in the midle of a wide open room won't help anyone.

 

They need to connect rooms, and they need to be fairly frequent, but they shouldn't go for long distances. They need to be able to be entered and exited fast, and they also need to hide the player exceptionally well. Elevators need them as an alternate rout, to not be spoted as soon as the door opens. Big open rooms need them to pass undetected. Long hallways really need them to pass undetected.

They can have multiple exits, to give players better freedom of where they want to exit, in case they want to take down someone from behind, or reach a certain item/go a different rout.

 

 

 

Patrol paths/"inteligent spawning"

 

Mobs shouldn't just wonder around. They either should patrol a rout, or stand still, facing a set direction. Or ofcourse the combination of the two.

They also shouldn't spawn in places they logically wouldn't go. They also shouldn't go to places they logically wouldn't go.

 

Patrol routs should have a single mob spawn to them, or a "squad" that moves together. They also need to have a maximum amout of enemies to spawn on them. There shouldn't be twenty guys walking up and down at the same time on a single stair.

Spawning needs to be spread around a room, on pre-set "idle" or "patrol" nodes, untill the map doesn't go on alert. After an alert has been reset, mobs should pick and chose, and fill up these nodes, returning things to normal.

 

 

 

Distraction tool/Silent takedowns

 

Let it be a rock, a grenade or a special arrow, we need a way to make mobs turn a different way, and to go investigate something that is away from where we are hiding. A tool that doesn't sets the enemies who hears/sees it on alert, but still forces them to go and check on it.

 

We also need a way to dispose of an enemy in our way. I know DE said they don't want instant kill stealth attacks, but they kind of miss the point here. While sneaking around, a stealth attacks main porpuse isn't to get a cheap kill, but to remove a troublesome enemy from the players way. It doesn't has to be deadly, technically it doesn't even need to do damage, as long as the target is unable to alert others in any way. For instance, if it would ragdoll/lay down the target on the ground for the rest of the mission, or untill further damaged or a power used on him, it would be perfect for stealth gameplay.

 

 

 

Detection

 

Players need a way to know they aren't well hidden before a mob is allerted. Mobs shouldn't instantly recognise what they see, and should give visual/audio que for the player to know they are exposed a bit too much. Enemies need a short time period when they "see" the player, but are not alerted, and ofcourse move in to investigate, unless the player is really close, inwich case they need a short "shock" time. A small window for the player to recognise being detected, but still have enough time to dispatch the enemy.

 

 

 

Other

 

The H key should swich not only the camera, but the hand in wich the weapon is being held, allowing to finally shoot properly from the left side. This would come handy not only in stealth.

 

Moving around while crouched should keep you crouched at the end of an animation.

 

 

 

Rewards

 

Finally, what everyone waited for!

 

It's hard to make stealth viable if killing everything is more beneficial. So at the end of the mission, players should get a bonus if no mobs were allerted, an additional big bonus if no map wide allerts were set off, and a bit smaller one if it was set off one or two times.

The bonus should not be only XP/credit, but some additional rewards, like mods. Maybe have items only obtanable with stealth that in return also compliment stealth gameplay. It should also scale with the level of the map.

 

Anyone who played this game for even a short while knows that your avarage mission gives roughly how much credit/XP on which level. The bonus should be much bigger than that, as stealth takes time. Multiple normal runs in the same timeframe should give less or equal amount of credit/XP, maybe even loot.

 

 

 

 

Depending on if we go the "brute force" way, where dispatching foes is necesary, or the way of avoiding blodshead, some of these things can be ignored, or made more unforgiving. But I feel, these are the basic things we would need for a stealth system.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Recel

[motorfirebox]

I think stealth attacks being instant kills is probably too powerful. A good player would be able to stealth through a mission on an unranked frame with an unranked skana.

 

Instead, allow players to chain stealth attacks on tough enemies. The basic concept I have in mind is a QTE—you start the stealth attack, and if the first attack isn't enough to kill the enemy, you get the opportunity to make another attack by hitting a specified button within a short timeframe. If you succeed, you perform another stealth attack; if you fail, the attack misses and the chain ends. The enemy is paralyzed for the duration of the stealth attack chain, and the chain lasts until you either do enough damage to kill the enemy or you miss an attack and break the chain. I expect the QTE button presses will get harder as you chain more attacks, possibly ameliorated by the level of your frame and/or certain mods.

 

For even more fun, if you kill an enemy with a stealth attack, you should be allowed to leap to another enemy (if one is within a yard or two) and continue your chain.

 

Now, I proposed this as a QTE interaction, but I know everyone (including myself) hates "press X to not die" type things. So consider the QTE aspect a stand-in until a better mechanic is proposed.

 

 

 

 

I've heard that DE is tossing around the idea of universal powers, that can be equipped on any frame. Here are four ideas for powers that would help make stealth more viable.

 

1. Distract: Silently fire a small device, which arcs like a kunai, that sticks to the first surface it hits and creates a sound, once. All enemies in range (increased by mod rank)  will turn to look in the direction of the device.

 

2. Attract: Similar to Distract, but continues making noise. Enemies will carefully move to investigate the device.

 

3. Predict: When used on an unalerted enemy, creates a light trail that shows the enemy's movement path for the next eight seconds (increased by mod rank).

 

4. Bait: A single-target Attract. Use the power on an enemy, then silently fire a device as per Attract. Only the targeted enemy will hear and investigate the device, and his path to the device will be lit up as if Predicted.

[Coffee009]

This game REALLY needs enemy reactions upon spotting you. I would love to have the enemy atleast raise his weapon and search the last spot he saw me before he looks at me and instant alarm. Every stealth game has a mechanic of the enemy responding based on player actions, this game lacks that. 

[XRAY0128]

Yup. One enemy spots you, and everyone knows you are there. Like five of them run for alarms, include enemies not even in the room, so even if you respond to kill the enemies that saw you fast enough, or the ones on the alarm, it will still probably go off. 

 

Sentinels hover above you and get spotted easily when hiding.

 

Enemies random movements and patrol patterns, combined with their apparently random ability to spot you. Sometimes an enemy will walk straight towards me and not notice, or I could kill an enemy right infront of his friend, and he wouldn't notice. Other times, I'm across the map in a vent, and get spotted instantly.

 

Security cameras and arc traps are also an issue. In some tiles, security cameras FACE the door ways, so the instantly you open them, the defenses come up, and you can do absolutely nothing about it. 

 

Arc traps zap you whether there is an alert state or not, creating an impressive light show and either forcing you to move out of the way, or shoot it. Which will either lead to you alerting enemies through noise, or just moving into a position where they can spot you easily. 

 

Stealth is effectively completely random.

 

Also the way alarms work could probably be better. Currently, and alarm goes off, and everyone in every room knows where you are at all times.

 

I'd suggest instead alarms be on a per room basis. Activating one will probably put all enemies on the map on alert, but only the enemies in the room, and adjoining rooms will move in. Further more, they shouldnt automatically know your location, and the player should have the chance to sneak out.

 

This could be strategically used to lure patrols out of certain rooms temporarily.

Edited May 2, 2014 by XRAY0128

[Coffee009]

Yeah, and once they make stealth tolerable, I would love if I could fail (execution timer) the mission before I save the hostage, add extra weight to the stealthing and rescue. of course not after i save him, but before it would seem more realistic.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Coffee009

[unknow99]

DE needs to think a lot when they try to implement stealh into the game. And while I'm sure a lot of the following things they are aware of, there might be some things they didn't think about.

 

So let's start with the current problems:

 

 

 

Level design:

 

Currently Warframes levels are not suited for steathy gameplay. There are many tiles that lack any way to pass them without mas murder or being detected right off the bat.

 

-Elevators

The bane of stealth righ now. There's nowhere to hide, and usually as soon as the door opens after you went up/down there are enemies right in front of you. It all depends on where the enemie spawn.

 

-Stairs

All the stairs in the game are designed in a way that if you stand on them, anything a level below you can easily see you, while the way your camera works makes it really hard to see under/behind them, again leading to being easily detected.

 

-Lack of alternate routes

To make things even more difficult, most of the time when you find a large number of enemies in a hallway/room, there's absolutely no way to get past them, unless you silently pick them off one by one.

 

-Doors

Yes, doors. They are very wide, and even if you crouch near the frame at either side, usually (also depending on the layout of the next room) there is still a big aeria you are plain visable from. And without alternate ways you have to go through them.

 

-Railings

They are everywhere, yet the ones that seem to have metal platings on them, hiding you, somewhy do a bad job at it, even without a sentinel to give you away.

 

 

 

Enemies and AI:

 

Enemies have no movement patterns, and it's hard to tell when you are properly hidden or not.

 

-Random mob movement

Currently every mob walks around like they are looking for their contact lenses. No paterns, no real destination. It makes it extreamly hard to move from one hiding spot to the next when they can turn around after taking two steps.

 

-Unknown detection method

While you can read up on how it should work in theory, in the game it's really hard to tell if someone will see you or not where ever you stand/crouch. Enemies see up and down very well without looking up or down. They also don't need to see the entier form, just a part. And due to the offset of the camera it's hard to tell which part of your frame sticks out too much.

 

-Random spawning

Random spawning can also cause a big headache, as mobs spawn in places they "shouldn't be", or crowd a bottleneck. One of the biggest ones is those big ventillation shafts on Corpus tile sets, mobs spawn in there, and they are hard to avoid or dispatch silently due to the tight space.

 

-Instant detection

Coupled with how you don't know when you're visable or not, this makes things even harder. You thought you're safe and suddenly one guy spots you,and ofcourse everything close by will also instantly know you're there.

 

-Sensitive allerted state

When allerted, enemies can easily spot you from wierd angles, and in wierd places. It's one thing to be on guard, and it's another to spot a Tennos feet from one hundred meters, behind a railing.

 

 

 

Tools:

 

Or better yet, the lack of them.

 

-Distraction

Currently, there is no way to distract an enemy, to lead them another way, or to make them turn around.

 

-Takedowns

Sometimes you just have to remove a guy from his place to progress. Without a bow, and even with Melee 2.0 this is still really risky in higher levels and can easily set your foes on allert.

 

 

 

Other:

 

For miscalious things that make stealth hard.

 

-Right hand rule

While you can shift the camera with H to the other side, you can't do this with a weapon. This means you can only shoot properly from the right side of your cover. Anything on your left is hard to take down without exposeing yourself too much.

 

-Parkour

Any "advanced " movement you make most of the time makes you stand up at the end. Climbing a box, jumping and so on, making you more exposed for a second, and because of the instant detection, this can allert enemies.

 

-Sentinels

Since they always levitate above you, and have no stealh state, they can be easily spoted most of the time. And they are usually too usefull to just leave behind.

 

 

 

Now on to suggestions.

(I will make them a bit vague, as numbers/looks don't mater as much as them being placed into the game in some fashion.)

 

 

 

Rafters, pipes, ventilation shafts

 

While technically we already have these, their placement is more important, that their existence. A drain in the midle of a wide open room won't help anyone.

 

They need to connect rooms, and they need to be fairly frequent, but they shouldn't go for long distances. They need to be able to be entered and exited fast, and they also need to hide the player exceptionally well. Elevators need them as an alternate rout, to not be spoted as soon as the door opens. Big open rooms need them to pass undetected. Long hallways really need them to pass undetected.

They can have multiple exits, to give players better freedom of where they want to exit, in case they want to take down someone from behind, or reach a certain item/go a different rout.

 

 

 

Patrol paths/"inteligent spawning"

 

Mobs shouldn't just wonder around. They either should patrol a rout, or stand still, facing a set direction. Or ofcourse the combination of the two.

They also shouldn't spawn in places they logically wouldn't go. They also shouldn't go to places they logically wouldn't go.

 

Patrol routs should have a single mob spawn to them, or a "squad" that moves together. They also need to have a maximum amout of enemies to spawn on them. There shouldn't be twenty guys walking up and down at the same time on a single stair.

Spawning needs to be spread around a room, on pre-set "idle" or "patrol" nodes, untill the map doesn't go on alert. After an alert has been reset, mobs should pick and chose, and fill up these nodes, returning things to normal.

 

 

 

Distraction tool/Silent takedowns

 

Let it be a rock, a grenade or a special arrow, we need a way to make mobs turn a different way, and to go investigate something that is away from where we are hiding. A tool that doesn't sets the enemies who hears/sees it on alert, but still forces them to go and check on it.

 

We also need a way to dispose of an enemy in our way. I know DE said they don't want instant kill stealth attacks, but they kind of miss the point here. While sneaking around, a stealth attacks main porpuse isn't to get a cheap kill, but to remove a troublesome enemy from the players way. It doesn't has to be deadly, technically it doesn't even need to do damage, as long as the target is unable to alert others in any way. For instance, if it would ragdoll/lay down the target on the ground for the rest of the mission, or untill further damaged or a power used on him, it would be perfect for stealth gameplay.

 

 

 

Detection

 

Players need a way to know they aren't well hidden before a mob is allerted. Mobs shouldn't instantly recognise what they see, and should give visual/audio que for the player to know they are exposed a bit too much. Enemies need a short time period when they "see" the player, but are not alerted, and ofcourse move in to investigate, unless the player is really close, inwich case they need a short "shock" time. A small window for the player to recognise being detected, but still have enough time to dispatch the enemy.

 

 

 

Other

 

The H key should swich not only the camera, but the hand in wich the weapon is being held, allowing to finally shoot properly from the left side. This would come handy not only in stealth.

 

Moving around while crouched should keep you crouched at the end of an animation.

 

 

 

Rewards

 

Finally, what everyone waited for!

 

It's hard to make stealth viable if killing everything is more beneficial. So at the end of the mission, players should get a bonus if no mobs were allerted, an additional big bonus if no map wide allerts were set off, and a bit smaller one if it was set off one or two times.

The bonus should not be only XP/credit, but some additional rewards, like mods. Maybe have items only obtanable with stealth that in return also compliment stealth gameplay. It should also scale with the level of the map.

 

Anyone who played this game for even a short while knows that your avarage mission gives roughly how much credit/XP on which level. The bonus should be much bigger than that, as stealth takes time. Multiple normal runs in the same timeframe should give less or equal amount of credit/XP, maybe even loot.

 

 

 

 

Depending on if we go the "brute force" way, where dispatching foes is necesary, or the way of avoiding blodshead, some of these things can be ignored, or made more unforgiving. But I feel, these are the basic things we would need for a stealth system.

Aside from 2 or 3 points, you pretty much nailed it man,good job. :)

 

This rescue event is a step in the right direction D.E. , even if stealth still needs improvements like the majority of those mentioned above.

The second random group I went on (yeah, the previous was a group of sad Rambo-rushers) understood that it required a smarter playstyle to get 9 points, so I stayed with them, and after 12 runs we all got our syandana and got 3 new friends. The delight of writing our tactic before entering the mission, anticipate things and act like a team  was soooo rewarding! I didn't enjoy an event like this in 1 year. :D

[_Chaser]

anyway, bested rescue 2.0 even as it is.

 

will be really great if stealth missions will encourage stealth playstyle during whole mission, as demonstrated in video below.

 

http://youtu.be/-f01XqEYQ_c

Edited May 2, 2014 by n7snk

[Recel]

Aside from 2 or 3 points, you pretty much nailed it man,good job. :)

 

This rescue event is a step in the right direction D.E. , even if stealth still needs improvements like the majority of those mentioned above.

The second random group I went on (yeah, the previous was a group of sad Rambo-rushers) understood that it required a smarter playstyle to get 9 points, so I stayed with them, and after 12 runs we all got our syandana and got 3 new friends. The delight of writing our tactic before entering the mission, anticipate things and act like a team  was soooo rewarding! I didn't enjoy an event like this in 1 year. :D

 

I wonder, which two or three points you disagree with?

 

I wrote it up mostly in a non-lethal stealth gamaplays point of view, where dispatching opponents isn't really needed/disencouraged, like in the first two parts of the Thief series. But ofcourse, that's just one of the possible ways to make a viable stealth game.

The mechanics can vary from non lethal, to optionally lethal (where dispatching all opposition isn't easy while remaining hidden, but is still a viable posibility), to lethal stealth (where you need to dispatch foes silently in order to progress).

Edited May 2, 2014 by Recel

[AuroraSonicBoom]

it required a smarter playstyle to get 9 points

 

Not true, which is why you are seeing everybody just speccing for AoE CC and rush like nobody elses business. A large radius M-Prime or Stomp immobilizes the whole tile for long enough so players can just walk up to the enemy and kill them like any other. You'd gimp yourself if trying to truly stealth the mission. What this event did for the majority of the player base was reinforce the belief that rushing and spamming AoE is the most effective way to complete content.

 

Unfortunately, they can't really make the mission more difficult without some serious changes to enemy AI and the tools this game provides us with to be stealthy. Even if enemies would allow for challenging stealth at this point, everyone would just go and negate that by going Loki or Ash, whose abilities need to be nerfed or made less effective compared to other frames' stealth capabilities by giving enemies the abilitiy to detect stealthed players.

 

There's a laundry list with issues that make stealth play less rewarding than rush&spam, like the fundamental issue with the fact that more kills always equals more loot. And if this event has pointed out one thing to me, it's that the lack of a cover&peek mechanic is largely respronsible for how clunky and frustrating sneaking around feels. I get that the dev doesn't want the game turning into a cover shooter, but that doesn't mean it can't benefit from a 'pressing-against-wall-to-minimize-visibility'-mechanic that only works as long as the map isn't alerted.