The Core Stealth/alertness Issue

[gell]

There are a lot of stealth issues, and there's a big stealth thread, but there is one factor that isn't often mentioned, but would entirely make the stealth system actually work and make sense: alerted enemies shouldn't always know where you are.

 

In Warframe, you start a mission and all enemies are unalerted. They're unaware of your presence until they see you or an alarm goes off, then they always know where you are, no matter where you go or where you're hiding.

 

I always felt this was true, but didn't realize it until today, when I was running around with Shade with a super low frame and unranked Kogake in a high level mission (yes I like a challenge). Shade's cloaking kept me safe, and here's a quick recap because it leads to why the alertness code needs an overhaul.

 

*** You can skip this next paragraph if you wish. Begin background story ***

Shade keeps the player and itself invisible as long as Shade has a line of sight to an enemy, and the enemy is within range (bugs notwithstanding). This means that as long as you're near an enemy, you can be invisible forever, and so I did that. I started the mission, I found a Grineer not facing me, and I walked up behind him. I stealth killed him, moved onto a few others, and eventually one Grineer saw me from across the map and hit an alarm next to him. The ship was alerted, and Grineer started filing in. I ran toward the group of Grineer, counting on Shade to cloak me, and he did. I often do this, but normally I have my Gram with me to knock everyone down and charge swing to kill everyone. I only had my unranked Kogake in a group of 15 guys, and I didn't want to lose my cloak, so I decided to walk toward the objective marker on the map. I thought it would be tricky to have Grineer in sight at all times, but I noticed that no matter where I went, the Grineer followed me. While invisible. Everywhere I went while cloaked, the alerted Grineer followed me in tow. I threw a shuriken at them sometimes for fun, since they'd get split in half and their buddies didn't bat an eye (sometime during all of this, I tried to use my Kraken to kill guys, but it took too many shots so I stopped bothering). I ran all the way to the artifact, grabbed it, keeping my cloak, and took my giant entourage (of 40+ Grineer) with me to Extraction. I know a few of them got lost along the way, but new ones kept joining my Grineer Katamari.

*** End background story ***

 

 

That outlines the problem with stealth in this game, and just forget about all the little changes people keep suggesting (rewards, more stealthy weapons/abilities/paths, it's all nice, however), because there's a bigger issue, and that issue is how enemy awareness was implemented. "Stealth" isn't even a thing. We talk about stealth like it's something you implement, but it's not. It's a label we give to the result of our actions, just as much as "dying" is a result of losing all your HP, but you aren't designing a game around dying, you're designing a game around killing. So stealth isn't the issue, it's enemy awareness.

 

In WF, when enemies are alert, they always know where you are. Enemies who never saw you will know you're in the 2nd hall, in the 3rd room, behind a box that is obscured by two other boxes. Even if you killed the Grineer who first saw you saw you go in there, ducked behind a closed door, then went down 3 other halls and the Grineer all march in and know where you are. This is the lazy/easy way of making enemies alert. I don't mean to insult the programmer or designer who made this. It's just the simplest way to do it, with low overhead. You basically feed the player's coordinates to the enemy and the enemy can path find his way to those coordinates. No need for network replication, no need for individual "thinking" since everyone has the same exact location to go to; a hive mind of awareness. But good stealth doesn't do this, and I don't believe Grineer, in lore, are all knowing when they are alerted.

 

Other stealth games give enemies individual awareness. Even if an alarm has gone off, and enemies are now looking around more often, they don't ever just follow you around if you're cloaked. The programming here is that they are usually given your last known location, and with various tactics, they might search for you (e.g. Splinter Cell, Hitman). If you're sneaky, you can still attack a guy from behind and take him out quietly, even if he's on full alert. This makes stealth fun, because alert enemies didn't see you. It gives stealthy players the thrill of why they're being stealthy in the first place.

 

So that's it. It's the one big change that needs to happen, regardless of all other suggestions on this forum. I don't mean to make myself sound like Mr. Important; it's just what I've identified as the root of all the problems with what we consider stealth. All other suggestions are band-aids on top of a broken system. And I apologize for making my own thread when there's a big stealth thread, but that thread is so lost in the minute details of stealth rewards, game modes, and stealth attacks that I'm not sure this would have meant anything in there.

 

TL;DR

Enemies must have their own individual awareness based on their own perceptions. I hope this isn't a technical issue DE has been dodging, because it's the only thing that will truly fix what stealth fans have come to know as stealth and why we love it. I'm not trying to speak for everyone, but we use our past favorite games as benchmarks for other games, and it's how stealth has worked as a core in those games. How Warframe differs is in how they treat those enemies, but the core of stealth requires that the enemies don't just know where you are, even while invisible, in a pack of 30 of them. Thanks for reading.

 

Pic for fun right before I grabbed that artifact. Now I wish I had enemy radar on to show all the enemies following from offscreen:

Edited June 29, 2013 by gell

[fishworshipper]

I have to agree with this.

Well written, well thought, well done.

[Ivan_The_Terrible]

Pretty much, this.

[VoidWraith]

There are a lot of stealth issues, and there's a big stealth thread, but there is one factor that isn't often mentioned, but would entirely make the stealth system actually work and make sense: alerted enemies shouldn't always know where you are.

 

In Warframe, you start a mission and all enemies are unalerted. They're unaware of your presence until they see you or an alarm goes off, then they always know where you are, no matter where you go or where you're hiding.

 

I always felt this was true, but didn't realize it until today, when I was running around with Shade with a super low frame and unranked Kogake in a high level mission (yes I like a challenge). Shade's cloaking kept me safe, and here's a quick recap because it leads to why the alertness code needs an overhaul.

 

*** You can skip this next paragraph if you wish. Begin background story ***

Shade keeps the player and itself invisible as long as Shade has a line of sight to an enemy, and the enemy is within range (bugs notwithstanding). This means that as long as you're near an enemy, you can be invisible forever, and so I did that. I started the mission, I found a Grineer not facing me, and I walked up behind him. I stealth killed him, moved onto a few others, and eventually one Grineer saw me from across the map and hit an alarm next to him. The ship was alerted, and Grineer started filing in. I ran toward the group of Grineer, counting on Shade to cloak me, and he did. I often do this, but normally I have my Gram with me to knock everyone down and charge swing to kill everyone. I only had my unranked Kogake in a group of 15 guys, and I didn't want to lose my cloak, so I decided to walk toward the objective marker on the map. I thought it would be tricky to have Grineer in sight at all times, but I noticed that no matter where I went, the Grineer followed me. While invisible. Everywhere I went while cloaked, the alerted Grineer followed me in tow. I threw a shuriken at them sometimes for fun, since they'd get split in half and their buddies didn't bat an eye (sometime during all of this, I tried to use my Kraken to kill guys, but it took too many shots so I stopped bothering). I ran all the way to the artifact, grabbed it, keeping my cloak, and took my giant entourage (of 40+ Grineer) with me to Extraction. I know a few of them got lost along the way, but new ones kept joining my Grineer Katamari.

*** End background story ***

 

 

That outlines the problem with stealth in this game, and just forget about all the little changes people keep suggesting (rewards, more stealthy weapons/abilities/paths, it's all nice, however), because there's a bigger issue, and that issue is how enemy awareness was implemented. "Stealth" isn't even a thing. We talk about stealth like it's something you implement, but it's not. It's a label we give to the result of our actions, just as much as "dying" is a result of losing all your HP, but you aren't designing a game around dying, you're designing a game around killing. So stealth isn't the issue, it's enemy awareness.

 

In WF, when enemies are alert, they always know where you are. Enemies who never saw you will know you're in the 2nd hall, in the 3rd room, behind a box that is obscured by two other boxes. Even if you killed the Grineer who first saw you saw you go in there, ducked behind a closed door, then went down 3 other halls and the Grineer all march in and know where you are. This is the lazy/easy way of making enemies alert. I don't mean to insult the programmer or designer who made this. It's just the simplest way to do it, with low overhead. You basically feed the player's coordinates to the enemy and the enemy can path find his way to those coordinates. No need for network replication, no need for individual "thinking" since everyone has the same exact location to go to; a hive mind of awareness. But good stealth doesn't do this, and I don't believe Grineer, in lore, are all knowing when they are alerted.

 

Other stealth games give enemies individual awareness. Even if an alarm has gone off, and enemies are now looking around more often, they don't ever just follow you around if you're cloaked. The programming here is that they are usually given your last known location, and with various tactics, they might search for you (e.g. Splinter Cell, Hitman). If you're sneaky, you can still attack a guy from behind and take him out quietly, even if he's on full alert. This makes stealth fun, because alert enemies didn't see you. It gives stealthy players the thrill of why they're being stealthy in the first place.

 

So that's it. It's the one big change that needs to happen, regardless of all other suggestions on this forum. I don't mean to make myself sound like Mr. Important; it's just what I've identified as the root of all the problems with what we consider stealth. All other suggestions are band-aids on top of a broken system. And I apologize for making my own thread when there's a big stealth thread, but that thread is so lost in the minute details of stealth rewards, game modes, and stealth attacks that I'm not sure this would have meant anything in there.

 

TL;DR

Enemies must have their own individual awareness based on their own perceptions. I hope this isn't a technical issue DE has been dodging, because it's the only thing that will truly fix what stealth fans have come to know as stealth and why we love it. I'm not trying to speak for everyone, but we use our past favorite games as benchmarks for other games, and it's how stealth has worked as a core in those games. How Warframe differs is in how they treat those enemies, but the core of stealth requires that the enemies don't just know where you are, even while invisible, in a pack of 30 of them. Thanks for reading.

 

Pic for fun right before I grabbed that artifact. Now I wish I had enemy radar on to show all the enemies following from offscreen:

 

 

^

Hahas, wow so true. I think I brought this up on another thread. But yes, enemies seem to always know where you are. Once you are spotted, and entire ship is on alert, its like you suddenly have a GPS, signalling to enemies where you are. Like they always have you on radar. I don't mind, if they want to make missions hard, maybe just add cameras for Grineers too, but at the moment... every enemy has a GPS tracker on you, once they are alerted...even the infested have a GPS tracker on you. It's pretty amazing, and sad how the stealth system is(sarcasm).

 

But I have to agree, they need to do an overhaul on the stealth thing. Right now, you don't stealth kill, but stealth attack. Which is amazing considering some of the melee weapons involve snapping necks/spinal cords, fatal stabbings, neck/throat slitting.... you get the idea. I think Prince of Persia(2 or 3) and Metal Gear Solid, as well as Splinter Cell, has some nicer/better stealth kills.

 

I think DEs don't want stealth kills because it's a 1 hit kill thing, but to do the stealth kill, you have to be tactful and patient... rushers who just run through everything, (maybe because they want to farm or speed through content) wont have to do the stealth, but its nice to have it there.

 

Right now, the stealth is horrible. As you have said, enemies that haven't seen you before get alerted to you. They check like everywhere, almost like they have eyes all over their bodies...you're up in the vents, they know you're there and waiting for you when you pop out of the vents, your team mate goes behind the enemy, no problem they turn around and melee your team mate and then proceed to empty their clips into your teammates... stealth is near-non-existent.....They also seem have had like some sort of aim hack/bot. Their aim is pretty accurate, even for low-mid levels.

Edited June 29, 2013 by VoidWraith

[unmog]

Actually I was making a post that includes this... and well, several other things. Enemies just bee line toward ya all the time even when they shouldnt know where you are. The AI is just lazy like that, reminds me of how zombie ai works.

[Liminal]

Yes. I can't agree harder without popping a vein.

I can live with how things are right now because WF doesn't reward a stealth approach to missions, but having balanced gains for a stealth run would definitely require some sort of intelligent and non-omniscient AI. Hell, that's the reason I stopped playing the extremely poorly designed Alpha Protocol: if the enemies were alarmed they all knew exactly where you were in the map.

 

Oh, and if I need to go through an animation to use some consoles (the artifact/generator ones), so should the enemies. It sucks that just by being next to a console they can activate the alarm at the speed of light.

[http404error]

Eloquently put.

 

 

Oh, and if I need to go through an animation to use some consoles (the artifact/generator ones), so should the enemies. It sucks that just by being next to a console they can activate the alarm at the speed of light.

Supposedly this is supposed to be improved, but I haven't noticed it.

[gell]

...non-omniscient AI. Hell, that's the reason I stopped playing the extremely poorly designed Alpha Protocol: if the enemies were alarmed they all knew exactly where you were in the map.

 

I'll ask one of the AP designers if that's true. I haven't got around to playing it yet.

 

 

Supposedly this is supposed to be improved, but I haven't noticed it.

 

I thought they just had a plan to improve it, but I don't remember the exact wording in the live stream. I don't think they're in yet... I still see them running up to consoles, not moving their arms, and the alarm sounds.

[Lluid]

We all agree that the AI needs more work. It should be more centered on individuals, with :

• Three alertness states in the most simple configuration :
  1) normal patrol / standing
  2) alarm was heard or something strange occurred
  3) Tenno in sight
  In the 2nd case, if they saw a dead corpse they should go to an alert button ; if they heard the alert or heard a noise they should run to cover, in specific (yet variable) places. In all those cases they wouldn't know where you are (but maybe from where you should come if the alert was pressed in another room).

• A "restricted vision" for every enemy . This is already in the game but shouldn't be canceled when they know you're here. They should not be stupid although, and "look everywhere" from their cover until they find you. 

Now, I have several AI problems :

- In corpus missions, shouldn't cameras set the alarm ?

- Also, all corpus (except maybe the crewmen) should instantly communicate your position, they're robots !

- Do infested communicate by sounds ? If so they should never be aware of your presence after you cross an empty room.

 

About the enemies setting the alarm, I don't see a real problem : if you try setting a waypoint (with "g") to a console you'll see there is an "emergency button" on it. Just a button. Of course it would be great to actually see them pushing it, but it shouldn't take more than 1s.

[Sammy001]

+1 essential mate. Everytime I look at all the ideas in the stealth-thread I think the same thing.

 

To be honest, looking at the spawning rate/enemies appearing in clusters, the enemy ai, ... despite the dev apparently saying he likes the idea, I don't see it happen in the near future (or at all). I think most people hope for it because it would be fun and the level-design leans towards that kind of gameplay.

[Asanogawa]

I totally agree, so many people have mentioned rewards, more exp etc etc for stealth gameplay. I don't need any of those things. I don't play stealthy for rewards, I do it because it's fun!!! and it's what I enjoy most. And what you have pointed is the #! problem with trying to go stealth. I'd also like to mention that all enemies shouldn't be alerted if you are spotted but theres no gunfire. If a guy spots me and I kill him before can even say "fk me" nobody else should be alerted. One more thing is that stealth attacks (the special assassination animations) need to do more damage. I can't even kill a 30+ grineer with most weapons when I do an assassination attempt which makes no sense.

 

 

Edit: One more thing, when grineer see a dead body and go into that semi alerted state for a little while you are unable to assassinate them, I don't understand why you shouldn't be able to as long as they don't see you.

Edited June 30, 2013 by Asanogawa