Stealth Got Stealth Nerfed

[PurpleBomber]

Ironic, no?

 

Enemies now become alerted when they see an ally die (which is honestly a bit janky as sometimes they "see" things they really shouldn't be able to), which resets your stealth exp multiplier when you kill that alerted enemy. Additionally, enemies in Exterminate missions no longer despawn when you leave them a couple of rooms behind. This prevents the requisite number of enemies bunching up in the last few rooms to make you able to complete the mission.

 

In a vacuum this could, and quite possibly should be argued these are good changes, as they are respectively an AI improvement (if not in need of a bit more polish) and shutting down an exploitation in spawn mechanics. That said, it's very obvious that this was a head-on nerf to stealth focus farming. Maintaining the 500% stealth exp multiplier throughout a mission could generate tens of thousands of focus affinity per mission, and in a matter of minutes at that when you only had to practically rush to the end of the Exterminate mission and clear out 2 or so rooms. I could do all my focus farming for a day in half an hour on Ludi, Ceres, and without a booster at that.

 

So frankly it was OP, but I shudder at where this leaves the state of focus farming as a whole. With the pending change of allowing shared affinity to count for focus, the mass-killing missions *coughDracocough* are only going to get more efficient. If stealth farming isn't going to be able to keep up, that's really going to be the only option for players wanting to knock out their focus cap for the day.

 

Do I want the stealth nerf reverted? Not really... Just please, give us some practical way to earn focus that doesn't involve getting shoehorned into Draco. D:

[Keltik0ne]

Get thyself to Draco unbeliever !

 

And take thy Damage Spam frame with you or nothing shalt thou gain !

[Yazeth]

Yeah, I definitely noticed it too. It definitely is nice that DE fixed up Stealth, but there really should be a way to earn Focus better.

[Shafilp]

They said gonna fix focus in next year annnnnnd they nerf it before the fix... great job DE.

[arKRazor]

This maintains the long tradition of impairing normal play in an attempt to prevent exploitative/speedy progression.

This maintains the long tradition of gimping alternatives to Draco despite their espoused belief that Draco is detrimental to game play.

Yes, it is a change that makes sense. Enemies being chill with being showered in the gore of their ally has always struck me as odd. It just makes things awkward.

Edited December 17, 2015 by arKRazor

[Stratego89]

If this is true all I'm going to say is.

 

"Oh... this finally happened huh. I guess this means DE is actually reworking ai for proper stealth now, right.... RIGHT??"

[Inarticulate]

Ironic, no?

 

Enemies now become alerted when they see an ally die (which is honestly a bit janky as sometimes they "see" things they really shouldn't be able to), which resets your stealth exp multiplier when you kill that alerted enemy. Additionally, enemies in Exterminate missions no longer despawn when you leave them a couple of rooms behind. This prevents the requisite number of enemies bunching up in the last few rooms to make you able to complete the mission.

 

In a vacuum this could, and quite possibly should be argued these are good changes, as they are respectively an AI improvement (if not in need of a bit more polish) and shutting down an exploitation in spawn mechanics. That said, it's very obvious that this was a head-on nerf to stealth focus farming. Maintaining the 500% stealth exp multiplier throughout a mission could generate tens of thousands of focus affinity per mission, and in a matter of minutes at that when you only had to practically rush to the end of the Exterminate mission and clear out 2 or so rooms. I could do all my focus farming for a day in half an hour on Ludi, Ceres, and without a booster at that.

 

So frankly it was OP, but I shudder at where this leaves the state of focus farming as a whole. With the pending change of allowing shared affinity to count for focus, the mass-killing missions *coughDracocough* are only going to get more efficient. If stealth farming isn't going to be able to keep up, that's really going to be the only option for players wanting to knock out their focus cap for the day.

 

Do I want the stealth nerf reverted? Not really... Just please, give us some practical way to earn focus that doesn't involve getting shoehorned into Draco. D:

 

This is a stealth fix, not a stealth nerf. This was how things were a handful of updates ago.

[xethier]

I noticed this as well, and I agree with the OP's sentiments.

 

However, there are still mobs that are considered "alerted" when they have absolutely no reason to be.

 

The eximus / heavy mobs in spy mission control centers are a prime example.

 

If the new paradigm is to nerf the crap out of the stealth xp bonus, then maybe the bugs should be fixed in addition to adding in new mechanics?

 

Wait, sorry, this is warframe, what was I thinking... nothing to see here, move along please.

[Nighttide77]

I always wondered why enemies wouldn't be alerted when their friend suddenly turned into a pile of mush, even if it was from an invisible melee kill.

[Khranitel]

Yup, they become alerted even if you kill somebody 2 meters behind their back with stealth finisher.

@(*()$ great, DE, tyvm. You really overdone yourself with this update.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Khranitel

[unknow99]

As a Stealth player, his is good. :)

 

That'll teach people to actually analyze the situation & only take care of the isolated targets 'cause let's face it, Karl would feel a little suspicious if he just saw his pal Kent with an arrow going through his head.

Yup, they become alerted even if you kill somebody 2 meters behind their back with stealth finisher.

@(*()$ great, DE, tyvm. You really overdone yourself with this update.

Wut? Behind their back, really?!!!!

 

Hmmm... that's not so good then...

 

Question to all of you : do you mean they become alerted or semi-alerted? The difference is important.

[Khranitel]

Question to all of you : do you mean they become alerted or semi-alerted? The difference is important.

Semi. Enough to screw your stealth multiplier tho.

[Harbin]

As a Stealth player, his is good. :)

 

That'll teach people to actually analyze the situation & only take care of the isolated targets 'cause let's face it, Karl would feel a little suspicious if he just saw his pal Kent with an arrow going through his head.

Wut? Behind their back, really?!!!!

 

Hmmm... that's not so good then...

 

Question to all of you : do you mean they become alerted or semi-alerted? The difference is important.

Kent also just appeared on top of me, out of thin air. It's not a precise science, here. There aren't nice rules along these lines like Splinter Cell or other stealth games, where you can pull pull people into a dark corner and/or bodybag them after you're through. The maps are not designed-encounters of 1-3 or groups of people that you have to circumvent/run past. You have to kill them all, and creating artificial difficulty for stealth farming is a bad way of shoehorning people into doing more draco.

[Genitive]

If this is true all I'm going to say is.

 

"Oh... this finally happened huh. I guess this means DE is actually reworking ai for proper stealth now, right.... RIGHT??"

 

I hope so.

[unknow99]

Semi. Enough to screw your stealth multiplier tho.

Oookay, that's not as bad as I thought : you just need to make sure your target isn't too close to someone else (or the others don't look in that direction)

 

 

Kent also just appeared on top of me, out of thin air. It's not a precise science, here. There aren't nice rules along these lines like Splinter Cell or other stealth games, where you can pull pull people into a dark corner and/or bodybag them after you're through. The maps are not designed-encounters of 1-3 or groups of people that you have to circumvent/run past. You have to kill them all, and creating artificial difficulty for stealth farming is a bad way of shoehorning people into doing more draco.

Hey I'm aware of that man, why do you think that 50% of my comments in this forum is "GIVE US STEALTH 2.0!! :(" ?

 

That still needs work! And as you said it, the way people spawn has been a kind of dark magic for three years now... It needs tweaks!

 

Example : you enter a spy rom, do your thing like a ninja, but as soon as you open the door, a Limbo trick happens and an enemy appear right in front of you because the game stops the spawning in the spy room. It's here since Spy 2.0's introduction... :/

 

And there's also that century-old bug when they all get clustered into big groups or turn around... I find these particularly infuriating. >:/

Edited December 17, 2015 by unknow99

[Girochi]

They're already forcing us to play solo for more efficient focus farming and not many people like it.

Now they even nerf it so that players have to grind even longer!  Makes perfect sense huh.

[Nazrethim]

I just hope they will remove the stelath kill buff timer if I have to wait an eternity for a random grunt to turn around.

[DoctorVox]

"We hate Draco," they say, as they continue to push people to Draco by "fixing" stuff that's a) not Draco, and b) actually fun.

[blasron]

so now the only good way to gain focus is ... Draco... wow the dev screw us one more time yay

[Girochi]

Frustrations that current focus system creates will almost certainly go away by just enabling focus gains from ally kills.

Seems like DE's "ASAP" wasn't what we thought it was :'(

Edited December 17, 2015 by Girochi

[7Lions]

who knows mite be unintentional since it wasnt mentioned in the patch notes

[Nise127]

I Agree with this update AI wise, making the AI smarter, its still a little broken, but thats normal for warframe, it will be fixed over time, the thing that i cant stand about this update though is they can be alert, but show no signs of being alerted! this can be, the enemy standing still, or the enemy stuck behind cover.

 

IF DE is going to stay with this nerf/AI buff i think we need a !!!stealth indicator!!!  at least. it could be as easy as putting a ! next to their health bar, or a symbol, or anything. maybe they could even make it so, enemy's that are Not alert have the same interaction flash as Containers, 

 

In terms of being alerted, i think we need 3 levels of awareness,

Phase 1: Un-alerted Un-alerted enemy units can me stealth killed and gain the respective bonus affinity buff for each kill,

Phase 2: Aware: Enemy units can still be stealth killed by Silent weapons, unchanging the Affinity bonus, BUT if stealth killed by a meele weapon, the buff is increased as though stealth killed in phase 1

Phase 3: Alert: Enemy units are aware of Tenno Presence and stealth kills are not obtainable until Tenno has been unseen for a brief moment (to keep the mission going) attempting to kill Alert enemy's will cause your Affinity bonus to instantly expire. This type of alert excludes being on the enemy radar/alarm (kind of the phase where if an enemy sees you they run for the alarm)

 

My thoughts on the new spawn in exterminate... kill it, kill it with fire... if you hang out in a room too long, (trying to be stealthy) enemy units spawn in rooms behind you having to go back to kill enemies sucks

 

 

 

As a Founder of Draco (Literally) , PLEASE don't make us grind endless missions again we have been running that mission for months now, its getting old. 

Edited December 17, 2015 by Nise127

[Telogor]

My main problem with the change is that you can't even legitimately maintain a stealth multiplier anymore.  It takes way too long for enemies to split up onto their individual patrol routes.  Stealth XP/Focus gain is now completely broken, which is just going to push more and more people to Draco.

[Nise127]

This is a stealth fix, not a stealth nerf. This was how things were a handful of updates ago.

people are considering it a nerf simply because of when it was fixed so really, its a fix and a nerf, nerf  to focus farming, fix to stealth :) 

Edited December 17, 2015 by Nise127

[Shockwave-]

THis stealth nerf is completely unreaslistic.

 

2 guys in a room, Tenno drops down between them

 

stabs 1, turns around, stabs the other before he can raise the alarm.

 

That is STEALTHY by any real defintion of the word.

 

Not anymore.... DE doesn't think that's stealty because the other guy was "altered" for a fraction of a second.