A Quick Overview On Stealth

[Ruby_Rose_]

With myself recently going back and attempting stealth as a means of efficiently leveling weapons solo, I've come across a few points of interest and annoyances(bugs) that just destroyed the whole stealth feeling both as a frame capable and incapable of invisibility.

 

I'll cover a bit of the experiences and oddities I had, and ways to possibly correct them.

 

Stealth Bonuses

Right now, these currently favor Stealth frames and melee specifically. While the bonuses are nice, they kind of fall flat on their face when it comes to non-melee attacks.

 

The problem here being that most primary and secondary weapons are not innately silent. Where melee always is. This means to properly stealth using a primary, it actually needs to be of high enough level to ONE SHOT an enemy; or else you lose your hard earned Stealth XP bonus multiplier. This also require you to sacrifice damage in favor of slotting in say.. Hush or a similar mod so you remain undetected. Needless to say, it's pretty difficult to reach that point with a lower level weapon to where you have enough damage to kill a reasonable level enemy, while in stealth.

 

That being said, once an enemy is alerted, killing them costs you any multiplier you currently have. If using a silent weapon, they also have the potential of alerting entire rooms almost instantly, should they survive any initial blows..

 

Possible Fixes

Give All weapons some form of damage increase on stealth kills, so mods that help with stealth can be prioritized.

Increase the time window between striking an enemy and them alerting the room. (Except for melee, since melee hits already stagger)

 

 

Stealth Melee

Largely, stealth melee is fine as it is. There is one thing that makes it difficult to make it reliable however. The somewhat recent change to alert enemies on contact. If you're not Loki or Ash, trying to melee stealth is almost impossible because of this.

 

You try to get into stealth attack range for the bonus, next thing you know, they're looking at you. If you're invisible, you lose your ability to stealth attack that target for a really long period. If you're not invisible however, you lose your stealth for that room, as the entire room will be alerted by the enemy, and possible the next rooms over. Even more so if they trigger an alarm.

 

Possible Fixes

Increase the range for triggering a stealth attack with melee.

 

Ramparts

Since these have been added, and even more so since they cannot be destroyed nor punched through from the front. The problem here being, that even with total invisibility OR perfectly stealthing a mission, they will ALWAYS face towards you. They even occasionally shoot when there's no alert and you've been completely detecting you.

 

The problem with these not even being able to be punched through, is that you have to be at a much higher height to get a clean shot when stealthing with a primary or secondary. Melee requires you to have invisibility.

 

These as a whole kind of ruin the fun of stealthing, because any enemies sitting on them is actually sitting on an impenetrable wall.

 

Possible Fixes

Don't allow enemies to even sit at them them unless alarms are active, or they spot you. 

Allow all forms of punch through mods to allow passing through them. (currently none of them do)

 

I would go into depth with the stealth experience more, but I just wanted to call these particular issue out for now. maybe a larger thread for another day, but not right now.

[DSpite]

Reasonable level enemy? In a normal mission? Under stealth Multipliers?

 

I can drop a Level 30 heavy gunner in one swipe with a Glaive, using melee. I can kill a Level 40 in two hits by knocking him down with a slam first, then doing a 10K yellow strike, again, with a melee Glaive. I also summed 20 heavy gunners at Level 50 (2 separate groups of 10) and I took each group out with one explosive thrown Glaive stealth shot.

 

You don't need to one shot everything. I've lost count of how many times I've had to take multiple swings because I brushed up against a unit, and hammered it until he died and no one nearby noticed a thing.

 

I Stealth Kill with a Dread and an Opticor, and I fail to see why it has to be possible to make it "easier" to use ALL weapons. You just use Hush and aim at crit points, and not ALL weapons SHOULD work anyway. I find it ridiculous and funny at the same time that you can stealth kill with a Hushed Penta.

 

If you want to go stealthy in a Frame that lacks ANY abilities to help it do so, like Rhino, that's just extra challenge for you, we should NOT ask to make the game even more trivially easy that what it is already just because people want to sneak around with Rhino.

 

Alarms? You just switch them off and wipe the rooms. What exactly is the problem?

 

I run Spy missions already on a Glaive Excal and a Dread. Unlike a Loki, I just don't run past, but kill of sidestep. It's not bad enough to justify dumbing it down further so that it becomes a paint by the numbers popup book.

Edited November 6, 2015 by DSpite

[Ruby_Rose_]

Reasonable level enemy? In a normal mission? Under stealth Multipliers?

 

You completely missed the point. Try reading the actual post again. The point was to allow you to stealth without needing a maxed out weapon to even make it feasible. Most melee weapon do this with ease, due to the stealth damage bonus, which Primaries and secondaries seem to lack.

[DSpite]

Did I say you need maxed out weapons?

If you are trying to kill level ~30 units, you just need a Rank 30 weapon with a Catalyst. That's it.

Why are you complaining about the "stealth system" and then say you want to be able to shoot things with Primaries and Secondaries? That's not stealth, that's an assassination.

Spy Mission : Neptune, Sao. Corpus Level 28-30

Lato Vandal run only (not a weapon known for it's incredible damage output, and mine has ZERO Forma):

http://warframe-builder.com/Secondary_Weapons/Builder/Lato_vandal/t_30_20000000_193-1-4-204-0-8-205-2-3-206-3-4-212-4-3-219-5-2-328-6-3-356-7-3_204-6-193-10-205-9-206-10-212-7-219-4-328-7-356-7/en/3-0-14/

* Started the mission with 187 spare rounds, left with 60 spare.
* Gun is 60 Mod Points, does 179 Damage when it does not Proc/Crit and 481 Damage when it does both. On paper it's 3612 Burst/2528 Sust.
* Gun has Supress on 2/3 (75%) so it's "Supressed" and NOT Silenced. I Wanted to test ranges.
* Units die to 1-2 headshots unaware at around 20 meters, also, "stealth kill" pops up.
* A Level 29 Shield Osprey died to 2 shots, a Level 28 Sapping Osprey also died to 2 shots.
* Aware human units took about 4-5 bullets (I did try to aim for heads when I could, but robots I have no idea)

I got 2/3 Data Cores and I got out (failed one)

* Shot all Cameras. Killed all units I thought I could not walk around. At 15-20 meters a 2/3 Supress is still Silent, and does not alert units at that range. You can happily kill units not directly looking at each other and no one notices, firing MULTIPLE shots.
* Did I set off a few Alarms? Yes. I did 4-5 (?) resets. One because I missed a jump, came down off a high spot and landed next to a unit. One because I was crouched and pressing jump when crouched - even when standing still - launches you forward.
* I also has TWO Slo Scrambus units show up on the mission.
* The time I failed a data Core, I got spotted NOT by a Corpus human, but by a floating Shield Osprey that spun in my direction.


Conclusions on running a mission like this:

* Units spawns are awful (already knew that). One corridor can fill up with units after being cleared in under a full minute. I was sitting in an air vent after clearing an Alarm, and robots kept appearing in the tunnel and running at me. Killing them did not set off more Alarms, but the AI obviously KNOWS where you are at all times.

* Enemy Sense for me is a minimum, to tell where things are, and STILL, the range is crap, I was up on railings crossing a large area (that's when I fell down) and could not see red dots as I was higher off the ground then 30 meters. Enemy Sense AND Enemy Radar can however get 60 meters.

* Special units can really frak up runs. Don't get me started on having BOTH The Stalker AND a Syndicate Kill Squad appear INSIDE the Data Area (happened once)

* Trying to bypass units without killing them is a mixed bag. We have no real metrics on their line of sight mechanics, especially on units that are robotics. They sometimes don't see you facing you from 15-20 meters away, and at others they appear to see you at weird angles. When in doubt, just kill the units.

---

Pretty sure I just "debunked" your theory of needing "maxed out weapons".

If I wanted to run missions on Ceres/Pluto 33-35 all the time, I could add a couple of Forma, and get something like this

http://warframe-builder.com/Secondary_Weapons/Builder/Lato_vandal/t_30_22020000_193-1-5-195-4-5-196-5-5-197-7-4-204-0-9-206-3-5-219-2-2-356-6-3_204-7-193-6-219-4-206-6-195-11-196-11-356-7-197-8/en/3-0-14/

Which is basically double the damage, and will handle the entire Star Map one-shotting everything in the head.

Edited November 6, 2015 by DSpite

[Ruby_Rose_]

Did I say you need maxed out weapons?

By maxed out I meant level 30 period. as in maxed mod capacity. 

 

As in you need levels to be able to appropriately stealth with any non-melee weapon, which feels very awkward.

[DSpite]

By maxed out I meant level 30 period. as in maxed mod capacity. 

 

As in you need levels to be able to appropriately stealth with any non-melee weapon, which feels very awkward.

 

The gun I used above is Rank 30, and I was taking on Level 30 enemies what's your point?

 

I'm sorry, but you do realize that makes no sense, and I'm surprised no one else had jumped in and pointed this out.

The Star Map has missions with levels. A Rank 1-5 gun can do "stealth" in level 1-5 Missions.

 

Replace 1-5 with X-Y and pick any other mission levels.

 

How many games do you have with "levels" that allow you to take on level 20 enemies with level 5 weapons?

 

A pistol with no mods will one-shot all the enemies on Mercury, but you don't put a silencer on it it will still be noisy. You have many games where guns are silent and usable for stealth without silencers?

 

An MK1-Paris is a bow. It's silent to begin with. It will obliterate Mercury and you can stealth all you like.

Edited November 9, 2015 by [DE]Danielle
Removed antagonizing comment