Why is Stealth kills and the multiplier still wonky?

[JohnMorte]

Killing enemies from stealth, knowing they cannot possibly be alerted, using a weapon that kills anything, don't get stealth multiplier. Even when I'm Invisible or using Banshee's silence and haven't been spotted.

No alarms have been sounded (not even the alarm that some missions just start with and cannot be turned off until level 2 of alert comes and you have to unlock the doors). I know when enemies are alerted by the animations and general movement speed of enemies.

Why?

[Airwolfen]

personally I have no such problems and I run 1-2 stealth exterminates each day. You sure that they have a completely empty arrow on the minimap?

[JohnMorte]

3 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

personally I have no such problems and I run 1-2 stealth exterminates each day. You sure that they have a completely empty arrow on the minimap?

I don't know the significance of an empty arrow on the minimap, but I know 100% I haven't been spotted by the enemy (punch through silent weapons that instakill) and yet im still losing my stealth multipliers for seemingly no reason.

[I_AM_JUGS]

dude.... i put all the enemies i kill during stealth to sleep as ivara and still break the affinity bonus chain somehow.... i gave up on stealth farming focus because instead of balance it DE decided to completely destroy it apparently. if that's true then bad move in my opinion if not then i just suck at stealth. some people can still do it though. no idea how they manage to put up with it.

just like to point out that sometimes enemies who are visually not alerted to me still break the chain from time to time which is so infuriating.

[Mimolette]

Yeah same here as @Airwolfen said. To add to his point:

empty arrow (only a red outline) = unalerted

red fill arrow with an outline = alerted

solid fill red arrow = engaged in combat

You only get the bonus multiplier from killing unalerted enemies so killing one that's alerted = breaking the stealth multiplier

Also, you know that killing an enemy within give or take 1-2 metres from another enemy makes the other one alerted right? The same with killing them in front of another's eyes (hur durr).

You can always exit the room (make sure alarms are off) and give them 1 or so minutes to remove their 'alerted' state.

I'm just quoting myself here, but this may help ya with stealth kill affinity farming:

Here are some tips you might not know or hasn't been covered already.

Try killing weaker enemies (those giving less exp) at the start of the exp multiplier. I sometimes leave out heavy units or bombards and move up ahead, killing the weaker enemies until I get the sweet 500% multiplier. Then I go back and take out the units left behind, getting a whole lot of exp (16k for a heavy, with booster active)

Related to the second point, some weapons (like bows) might not OHK bombards and napalms etc. So aim for the head/use higher damaging weapons. Alternatively, you could use your melee stealth kill but if playing with a sentinel, watch out as they can start shooting the enemy you're stealth killing mid-animation. This alerts nearby enemies.

Punchthrough can help enormously with line of sight problems and all, especially with drahks and the drahk masters.

Edited October 2, 2016 by REKTifier_
Hope this helps for those who don't know about the minimap arrows :P I myself only recently understood them.

[Neah]

Enemies that have just spawned have a 5-second period where they will not grant any stealth affinity multiplier if killed, and will even end your current multiplier. If they are killed within this period. Having a good Enemy Radar range and being aware of the minimap about which enemies are fresh spawns (or just waiting 5 seconds upon spotting them) is a good practice if you want consistency between stealth kills.

If enemies died close to their allies, their allies will be alerted even if you use stealth finishers / melee.
When using silenced rifles as stealth weapons, enemies must not see their allies being killed, or they will be alerted as well (melee weapons doesn't have this restriction), alongside hitting walls, they will notice it even when its silenced. 

Edited October 2, 2016 by Neah

[JohnMorte]

2 minutes ago, REKTifier_ said:

Yeah same here as @Airwolfen said. To add to his point:

empty arrow (only a red outline) = unalerted

red arrow with an outline = alerted

solid fill red arrow = engaged in combat

Also, you know that killing an enemy within give or take 1-2 metres from another enemy makes the other one alerted right? The same with killing them in front of another's eyes (hur durr).

You can always exit the room (make sure alarms are off) and give them 1 or so minutes to remove their 'alerted' state.

I didn't know about the minimap stuff but I do know about the whole thing about not killing someone infront of another.

That said, stuff that instakills the area shouldn't be resetting my multiplier even when fully silent.

[GinKenshin]

killing 1 of 2 enemies standing together will alert the other one, generally don't use an AoE punch through weapon, just settle for a 1-shot single target weapon, since these are really unpredictable

[JohnMorte]

1 minute ago, Neah said:

Enemies that have just spawned have a 5-second period where they will not grant any stealth affinity multiplier if killed, and will even end your current multiplier. If they are killed within this period.

This is garbage. Why is this a thing?

[Airwolfen]

2 minutes ago, 3goats said:

I didn't know about the minimap stuff but I do know about the whole thing about not killing someone infront of another.

That said, stuff that instakills the area shouldn't be resetting my multiplier even when fully silent.

Depends on what you use to instakill.

[Neah]

5 minutes ago, 3goats said:

This is garbage. Why is this a thing?

There was once an exploit where enemies spawned endlessly in the same spot given the right positioning, and doesn't have this timer restriction, so you could keep on killing enemies that spawn in the same spot over and over again, gaining ludicrous amounts of stealth affinity. This has since been patched out, enemies in non-endless missions no longer spawn endlessly in the spot where they were last killed (unless alarms are triggered), so it has become a moot point. However, they might have left the timer in to prevent future exploits. I don't like it any more than you do, but that might be the reasoning for the timer.

An additional UI indicator in the minimap for fresh spawns would be helpful in this scenario, though.

Edited October 2, 2016 by Neah

[JohnMorte]

6 minutes ago, GinKenshin said:

killing 1 of 2 enemies standing together will alert the other one, generally don't use an AoE punch through weapon, just settle for a 1-shot single target weapon, since these are really unpredictable

My AOE punch through weapons instaclear the area, so that isn't the issue.

[Airwolfen]

1 minute ago, Neah said:

There was once an exploit where enemies spawned endlessly, and doesn't have this timer restriction, so you could keep on killing enemies that spawn in the same spot over and over again, gaining ludicrous amounts of stealth affinity. This has since been patched out, enemies in non-endless missions no longer spawn endlessly in the spot where they were last killed (unless alarms are triggered), so it has become a moot point. However, they might have left the timer in just in case of future exploits. I don't like it any more than you do, but that might be the reasoning for the timer.

The only plays where I notice this is the summoning of pets. Usually the spawns in a room spawn ahead of time so this is not an issue. and even then they spawn with an alerted arrow on the minimap so its not like the effect is invisible.

[GinKenshin]

Just now, 3goats said:

My AOE punch through weapons instaclear the area, so that isn't the issue.

even so, some enemies die faster than others, if you have a group lined up from 1-5, and you shoot at no.1 and all of them die, for a split sec, no.5 could've been alerted and then it died...like I said, you can never predicted AoE. also I'm guessing it's the tonkor right? >.> 

you could do a jump and then shoot the clustered group in the center, that might kill everyone in the same sec 

[Neah]

3 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

The only plays where I notice this is the summoning of pets. Usually the spawns in a room spawn ahead of time so this is not an issue. and even then they spawn with an alerted arrow on the minimap so its not like the effect is invisible.

No I'm not referring to the spawning of Drahks / Hyekkas, but regular spawns. Regular enemies do not have the semi-filled arrow like enemy pets. And no, not all spawns spawn in the adjacent room ahead of time, some spawn even when you're in the room, depending on the room size, total enemy currently spawned, & the camera angle you're currently facing.

Edited October 2, 2016 by Neah

[Airwolfen]

1 minute ago, Neah said:

No I'm not referring to the spawning of Drahks / Hyekkas, but regular spawns. This is from the time before, and just after the introduction of the Focus system last year. And no, not all spawns spawn in the adjacent room ahead of time, some spawn even when you're in the room, depending on the room size & camera angle you're currently facing.

Well what I mean with the pet spawns is that the effect is the same. both are affected by that change.

[Neah]

5 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

Well what I mean with the pet spawns is that the effect is the same. both are affected by that change.

Yeah, but regular spawns do not show up as the semi-filled arrows when they do spawn, though. So some work to be done by the UI team I guess.

Side note : pets have a really wide 'cone of awareness' compared to regular grunts, which makes them quite annoying to deal with too. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and makes logical sense that they are more acutely aware of their surroundings, but still annoying nonetheless. 

Edited October 2, 2016 by Neah

[thothsong]

I frequently do stealth kills under Ivara's Prowl, and don't have problems maintaining the stealth multiplier.  I can often get a melee weapon to max rank in a single Adaro exterminate mission using stealth attacks.

[Ghogiel]

It might be because some missions have enemies perma alerted no matter what. Such as capture, after you down the target, you cannot get stealth kills from just being invis and one shotting enemies.

 

[jonnin]

if you shoot an enemy near another enemy, even if it kills both with punch through, there is a nanosecond where the server alerts the second mob because it saw the first one die.   You must kill them such that they can't see each other die, which takes practice.  If we can pretend that a typical grineer is say 6 feet tall, then the radius of alert is about 10-15 feet.   You can convert that to pixels or whatever units you like, its the ratio that matters.   After that radius, they have a visual confirmation of about 60 degrees or so facing forward.  So you shoot them when they are a bit apart from each other and can't "see" each other and it works.  Also you can TELL when one is alerted (it gets its gun out and starts looking and walking around and doing combat things like jumping on a turret gun) and you should not shoot that one (it won't alert any others, but it will remain alerted).   Save him for last or just don't kill  him if its not a mission for kills.   Shoot a line of walking patrollers from back to front and the ones in front won't see and alert.    Punch through is risky.   If you hit one and do not kill it with one hit, it may alert others nearby (seems erratic?  sound radius of a shout?).  Try this approach, its not 100% but its gives solid results.

[thothsong]

6 hours ago, jonnin said:

Also you can TELL when one is alerted (it gets its gun out and starts looking and walking around and doing combat things like jumping on a turret gun)

FWIW, I occasionally find that a nearby enemy doesn't go into alert animation, they remain standing still, but they are alerted and so don't offer the stealth attack prompt.  Wait the usual alert cooldown time, and they go out of alert and can be stealth attacked.

[Inarticulate]

Enemies have two separate alertness states that use the same unfilled arrow indicator on the minimap:

1. Enemies that are completely unalerted.
2. Enemies that are alerted, but have not found a target to aggro.

The second state will break your stealth multiplier and can be initiated in various ways, such as bumping into the enemy (enemies bumping into you don't count), making noise (triggering an Arc Trap also causes this), and killing an enemy in earshot of or line of sight of another enemy.

On top of this, there are a few enemy types that have anomalous behavior when asleep. Grineer Seekers and Commanders, for example, are able to become alerted by the usual means while asleep (killing a Seeker or Commander with a stealth finisher while they are asleep will also sometimes break your stealth finisher for no apparent reason). It's best to use an AoE attack (such as an explosive weapon or a melee weapon with long reach) to kill these enemies and nearby enemies all at the same time to avoid breaking your stealth combo.

And then there is the 5-second period immediately after an enemy is spawned where killing it will break your stealth combo.