Problem With Stealth Is Not Stealth

[vitmerc]

After reading through many of the complains about how stealth is not a fluent game mechanic, i have come to realise something:

 

Its not a problem with stealth - its the problem with mission flow.

There is just nothing special going on.

 

Here is one suggestion:

Randomly upon alarm being triggered, activate instant lockdown.

 

While the tenno solve the hacking minigame, the enemies amass on the other side of the lockdown in an arranged ambush; Shield lancers for grineer covering napalms at the back, or Bursas with mine osprey support for the corpus.

 

If the lockdown is not lifted within a period of time, they could force the door open from the other side and sweep the room - allowing the slippery tenno to escape, given a certain deal of skill.

 

I belive events like these would add to the immersion a big time, whether they involve punishing careless/speed playthroughs or rewarding curiosity (i.e. finding a dormant corpus miniboss which could drop valuable loot)

Edited December 7, 2015 by vitmerc

[Trichouette]

Not a problem with the stealth ? It's rather an AI problem.

Some times ago they used to be alerted when they saw someone dying. Now they don't care anymore.

I used to be careful about "who" i kill first in a group of enemies just to not trigger their alerted state, now i can just not give a f*ck.

Your idea is great, but stealth also lack of content.

For example, i don't get why we can't use some kind of finisher move with a primary / secondary weapon.

That would be really useful.

[gvidzix]

You want fun with being stealthy - take banshee. You want easy mode stealth - take invisibility.

You want a challenge take w/e what is not meant for stealth.

 

Spy missions are nice, rescue mission are nice as well.

The thing is if you want to enjoy this content go solo, otherwise we know what happens - rushers and failers is what we get (not that I dislike it, it's just how most people play it, as do I, nothing wrong there, and everyone will fail once or twice as well).

 

And just a random idea I thought up now - new mission type for example Stealth <put whatever here like - exterminate, assassination etc>, this will of course be a lot of work on DE's side. There should be like sections/posts (like spy/rescue vaults/rescue posts already are basically) which has to be cleared out undetected - otherwise mission failed or maybe segment failed - this little change to already implemented mission type would really make it stealth mission.

 

There are other ways as well, I won't try and list them, everyone can come up with their stealth idea.

 

Yes I agree the problem is not stealth, the problem is the way you look at this so called problem - so like I said - you want to enjoy stealth create your own environment for it - example? - get a friend, ask him:"Dude I have this idea, let's like you take excalibur and idk I'll take frost and let's go try to do this <w/e> undetected, if we do get seen you use blind and I'll freeze the enemy/ies and don't let them activate alert".

 

But for strict stealth - I voiced my opinion - detection means failing mission or failing a segment.

 

p.s. grammar nazi please do point out my mistakes, so I learn not to make them.

Edited December 7, 2015 by gvidzix

[Ceryk]

Not a problem with the stealth ? It's rather an AI problem.

Some times ago they used to be alerted when they saw someone dying. Now they don't care anymore.

I used to be careful about "who" i kill first in a group of enemies just to not trigger their alerted state, now i can just not give a f*ck.

Your idea is great, but stealth also lack of content.

For example, i don't get why we can't use some kind of finisher move with a primary / secondary weapon.

That would be really useful.

Yeah. The overall stealth mechanics themselves are just fine. Problems with stealth are more AI and incentive related. A combination of more stealth content and optional incentivization to run normal missions stealthy would go a long way for stealth. For instances, greater rewards for the missions that you can legitimately use stealth in (Extermination, Deception, Star Chart Sabotage, Rescue [up until you free the captive at least]) because that takes more time than plowing your way through like a bull through a Spanish town. Of course, you'd have to come up with a system that makes sure you are legitimately playing it stealthily and not just playing Invis Loki and exploiting the hell out of the system by speeding through for the increased reward in probably less time than it takes to normally complete the mission. An additional stealth mission type or two would be welcome as well.

But then that raises the issue how how people play stealth. You can do stealth gameplay with any frame, but people default to Loki when doing Spy missions. And that negates most of the risk of Stealth gameplay. And the fact that the AI doesn't react to anyone dying while they're 10 feet away and looking directly at them just reinforces that behavior.

I'm all for a lot of the game being fast paced combat. But the more I distance myself from the Metagame side of Warframe, the more I enjoy and appreciate the game. I used to hate Spy Missions. And while I do invis my way through them, doing so with Ivara is a completely different experience than with Loki and I actually find myself enjoying Spy missions with her instead of loathing them. But I'm moving at the speed non-invis frames would rather than the petal to the metal speed Loki does, so some kind of incentive for actually playing methodically and slowly through the entire mission would be nice so players had an official, but optional, reason to do stealth runs.

Edited December 7, 2015 by Ceryk

[Trichouette]

-snip-

Well i don't know for other people, but i would probably play more with stealth if :

- my map showed the enemies without needing me to waste a mod slot for a radar (that's something MANY games have, and that bothers me a lot about warframe. Especially since i look more at the map than at my crosshair.)

- all enemies were able to get stealth killed with melee (mostly talking about drones)

- the enemies didn't have some kind of "hive mind" that makes the wall map aware of your presence if one guy see you

 

The last point is the worst, and explains why people play loki.

Loki > no risk at all, and if you fail, just stay invisible for 1min and all enemies aren't alerted anymore

other non invis frame > one enemy see you, the wall map chases you.

 

also, what an amazing augment loki has on his invisibility.... screw non silent weapon :D

Edited December 7, 2015 by Trichouette

[gvidzix]

Well i don't know for other people, but i would probably play more with stealth if :

- my map showed the enemies without needing me to waste a mod slot for a radar (that's something MANY games have, and that bothers me a lot about warframe. Especially since i look more at the map than at my crosshair.)

- all enemies were able to get stealth killed with melee (mostly talking about drones)

- the enemies didn't have some kind of "hive mind" that makes the wall map aware of your presence if one guy see you

 

The last point is the worst, and explains why people play loki.

Loki > no risk at all, and if you fail, just stay invisible for 1min and all enemies aren't alerted anymore

other non invis frame > one enemy see you, the wall map chases you.

 

also, what an amazing augment loki has on his invisibility.... screw non silent weapon :D

 

hmm Animal Instinct works just fine for me ...

[Trichouette]

hmm Animal Instinct works just fine for me ...

Yeah that's why i do use this mod, but as long as the game offer you a godamn mini-map, the enemies should be on it.

The lotus is monitoring you with some kind of magic and can even tell you when enemies are incoming, but she can't update your mini map to show you the enemies ?

[SethAlvory]

What about this: In missions with different alert levels, you receive "stealth points" for accomplishing one of the following:

@Killing an unalerted enemy
@Crossing a room with enemies in it without alerting any of the enemies(more points the more enemies are in the room and only once per room)

 

You receive less(or maybe even no) stealth points if you are invisible

You lose stealth points if:
@alarms are triggered(enemies automatically becoming alert to your presence due to completing the mission objective doesn't count).

You receive a bonus reward at the end of the mission based on how many stealth points you have, the more points, the better the reward.

Alternative ideas:

@better loot drops from containers and lockers when enemies aren't alerted(the idea being that the enemy might have valuables lying around that they'd be inclined to hide if they know we are there)

@a miniboss has a chance to be summoned to the mission if alarms stay triggered for a prolonged period of time(the enemy decided to call in reinforcements to deal w/ the threat). I suspect this is how manics already function, but it could definitely be expanded upon.

[catastrophy]

WTF? NO! to the bursa. Yes to the other stuff.

[IfritKajiTora]

Its the problem with AI.

The first problem. If you has been detected, enemies know where you are the most of the time, no matter if they losed you from their vision, they just know where you are, ALL of the enemies, no matter if they just came, or will come, they just know where you are.
Second problem, We play with 4 people squad, one player is detected all enemies know exactly where all 3 other players are.
Third problem, if one player is detected all other 3 people from the squad can't make stealth kill on them from behind.
Fourth problem, if someone from the enemies is silently killed, other enemies just ignore it, which is stupid.

-Each enemy should have his own vision rate, if he lose us from the vision, he come to this place and start to search or go turn on the Alarm.
-Enemies should have range of speaking 10 meters, which means that they can trade informations beetwen them, where they saw you last time.
-When one enemy see that one of them are killed and they are not in alert state, they starting to search for us.
-If they see one of the tenno, they know only about that one they see/saw. Other players can still make silent kills, or attacks from suprise.
-Enemies that are searching for tenno still should be abble to be killed by stealth.

[Nagisawa]

The issue with Stealth is not just one, but multiple problems with this game.

 

First: Map Design.  Very often there's only one way in or out, even in some of the Spy missions, in a stealth game there's always multiple ways to enter and exit a map.  Also, most Stealth Game maps are designed to be static, not the random system we have now.

 

Second: AI.  Because of the way AI operates in Warframe, we can't rely on them to have a pattern, unlike most Stealth Action games.  Also, the moment we've been spotted it's over.  The entire map knows.  It doesn't matter if you silence that Moa in less than a second, the Crewman at the far end of the map, nowhere near and literally unable to see you because of terrain KNOWS where you are.

 

Three:  Lack of Options.  This one is a combination of the two above, but it's Player based.  We don't have the terrain to hide, the Parkour system, although better, still gets hung up on various terrain glitches and we have no way to prevent a complete map wide alert.

 

This is why Warframe cannot have Stealth at this time.