Reworking The Alert System

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

So with the up coming stealth frame and sniper re works i've been thinking.  These things are nice and welcome for sure.  But they don't really address the actual problem.  Which is the alert system and enemy AI behavior.  Now I don't expect DE to take my ideas nor do I expect an actual re work anytime soon if at all.  As it's a major overhaul that would take tons of testing.  Plus even in the state that it is right now it's still very playable.  Anyway I just wanted to throw my idea out there.  It's based off of a few different things.  One of those being the changes they made to some abilities where the enemy or you have to be "aware" of eachother.

 

FIRST: we must re work enemy line of sight.  There needs to be some visual indicator that lets the player know they will or will not be seen by an enemy looking their way.

 

SECOND: Re working the sound system.  For example if I fire a penta i'd expect a good chunk of the base to know about me.  But if I fire say Mirages dual secondaries only 2 rooms..maybe 3 should be aware of me. enemy noises need a touch up as well.  If you get close enough to an enemy they can be above or below you and the sound would make them sound as if you're hugging them.

 

THIRD: AI behavior.  If I alert the base to my presence all enemies know exactly where i'm at even enemies just spawning in.  They will charge into the room knowing my exact location and start firing immediately.  First off enemies that spawn in and enemies that are running in from several rooms away should not know my exact location.  So upon entering the room they will be searching and moving quickly.  Unless an enemy near them is already firing at me.  then they can shoot at me.  If I break LOS for a sufficient time it should force the enemies in the room to look for me.  I may have some more ideas for this but these are the basic concepts.

 

LAST:  alert levels.  Depending on the alert for the whole level and individual enemies it will dictate how they behave.  My system has 4 levels.  Counting un alert or 0.  So at alert level 0 enemies slow walk, stand still for longer periods of time you get the picture. Alert level 1 the enemies have seen someone die in front of them or you briefly were in their LOS.  These enemies will start moving about in a search pattern for a brief period of time and then return to their normal patterns if they see nothing.  No other rooms are aware.  and enemies will not activate an alarm.

 

Alert level 2.  Enemies in the room have heard gunshots or seen you for an extended period of time.  They will aggressively move around and fire at you if they see you at all.  Their gunfire can alert the room next to them.  Those enemies will run in and be at alert level 1.  You can end alert level 2 by killing all enemies within the area.  At alert level 2 an AI might try activating an alarm if you take too long killing all of the enemies in the room.  the enemy will prioritize attacking you first but if you've killed nearly all of them and leave him alone for too long he will activate the alarm.

 

Alert level 3.  Base is on full alert.  The only time this should be happening is if you've killed substantial amount of enemies loudly or alerted several enemies by parkouring right by several rooms of enemies as they have seen you.  This will immediately prompt an alarm activation. and if you continue to evade without clearing a room the enemy will make considerable effort to lock down the room you are in.  It's also at this time that enemies can start spawning in from machines.  like moas for example.  Enemies will know your exact position.  Breaking LOS will not be enough.  You could cloak though and deactivate the alarm and quickly kill all enemies inside.  This will drop your alert level.

 

EXTRA:  this section will include extra things that pertain to the whole idea.

~survival and endless missions in general will not feature these things.  or to be more accurate they would be at perma alert anyway so it doesn't matter.

 

~after turning off an alarm no part of the base can ever by back at alert level 0.  Instead all enemies will be at alert level 1.  With the exception that instead of returning to their normal behaviors after a certain time they just continue to search following the rest of my alert 1 description.  Alarms inside data mines will not turn the base into alert level 1.

 

~New feature that allows tenno's to manually lock a room down.  You'd do it the same way you would hack to do anything else.  All you have to do is approach the rooms controls when no alarm is going off.  This allows a Tenno an extra bit of time to try and take care of a room before enemies come check out noises or to respond to an alert.  Not available outside spy missions.  Enemy takes 10-12 seconds to unlock the door.  If all enemies are dead inside when the roamers or alerted enemies get inside and you are out of sight they will sit at the door for a few seconds and then return to their original room.  roamers will casually walk around in alert level 0.  You can only close a room once.

 

~pertaining to enemies seeing dead bodies.  wanted to further  elaborate on that.  If you impale an enemy and said corpse stays inside another enemies LOS long enough that triggers the alert change.  If you happen to make a corpse fly by their LOS they pause for a second or 2 and then move on.

 

~going invisible drops all aggro and forces all enemies firing to stop and enter alert 2.  If they do not find you with in a short period they go back to alert 1 and stay that way until they have been killed.

 

~Enemies that have been CCe'd in some fashion like Excal's radial blind if not killed after the effect goes away will put them to alert level 1 until they have been killed.

 

~most ability casting will be considered quiet and won't be heard.  But say things like atlas's summoning of golems will be loud enough to alert the next room.

 

~if you stealth kill an enemy with a melee they will not make any death noise.  to signify such.  Same applies to things like bows or other silent weapons.  Enemies that make a brief sound as if they saw you right before you killed them can alert enemies.  if they are close enough.  But otherwise it will be as if you muffled their voice.  The enemy would have to finish the entire noise in order to alert people in the room.

 

I think that is it.  I can come up with other things to mention that would have an effect or be effected by these changes.  But the post is already long enough.  If it ever becomes serious or someone asks me a direct question about how something will work i'll say so in a reply.  thanks to anyone who read my ramblings.

 

EDIT: Activating the alarm will put the whole base at level 2 alert.  Aside from the alarms inside the vault spaces as i've already mentioned.  Shutting a room at alert level 0 has an effect if roamers try to leave or enter the locked room.  They will try to open the door and will be at alert 1 when entering.  There will be an audio que to let you know an enemy is trying to enter so you know to hurry up and kill everything or hurry up and get out of sight.

Edited December 3, 2015 by (XB1)Knight Raime

[Phatose]

....alertness system.   We actually have an alert system, and it ain't what you're talking about.

[Genitive]

I see the crusade for the improvement of AI is slowly accelerating.

 

[(XBOX)FISTO ROBOT0]

DE has had their hands full finishing up U18. Bad time for this thread. Give them some time to finish up and catch their breath. They might consider this next year..

[Omega-Shadowblade]

Here I was thinking it was going to be talking about the way alert missions are given out. What you are talking about are changes to the stealth system. Might want to reword title for clarity. As you mentioned yes changes are needed and yes it will take a lot of testing.

[(PSN)IIIDevoidIII]

Moved to General Feedback.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

....alertness system.   We actually have an alert system, and it ain't what you're talking about.

 

I'm aware on how the title can be confusing.  But next time try to be constructive about my information.  rather then simply stating otherwise.

I see the crusade for the improvement of AI is slowly accelerating.

 

 

xD I've been getting into stealth a lot more lately.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

DE has had their hands full finishing up U18. Bad time for this thread. Give them some time to finish up and catch their breath. They might consider this next year..

 

Wasn't really posting so DE can take it and run with it right away.  More like it was the chicken scratches of my idea and i'm wanting feedback.  It sounds like a decent system currently.  But It's probably far from perfect and could use some polishing.  Like I didn't even dictate how all warframe abilities will effect this or be effected by it for starters.  or give detailed parameters about distance or what guns make how loud of a noise just to name a few things.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

Here I was thinking it was going to be talking about the way alert missions are given out. What you are talking about are changes to the stealth system. Might want to reword title for clarity. As you mentioned yes changes are needed and yes it will take a lot of testing.

 

Noted.  But the name wasn't really because I thought that's what alerts were in WF or what the system is called.  It's actually the name of my idea.  But I see how it can be confusing.

[Valar.Morghulis]

Well unless DE does something speculator with U18 the "Year of Quality" is a complete failure