Rant about the Changes to Stealth

[p3z1]

1. Affinity gains were nerfed. Sure they were broken before, but at least up the counter. Currently, it stays at 500%, and it doesn't give that much. I've played a Saturn exterminate (Telesto) stealthily, burned 5 minutes, and only gained 2 weapon levels (11 -> 13). If I took the same amount of time in Berehynia, I'd probably have hit 30.

2. Enemies detecting bodies. Screw realism if stealth isn't rewarding enough. If the game wants realism, add fall damage for "thin" frames like loki and mag.

3. Delayed spawn mechanics + counter breaking. Enemies that have freshly spawned kill the counter, unless you perform a finisher at them. This wouldn't be a problem with Loki/Ivara/Ash, but other frames will have a bad time, coupled with the fact that enemies now detect bodies? Freshly spawned enemies shouldn't break the counter. Tested with full enemy radar mod loadout.

4. AI is broken sometimes. You'd see enemies running mindlessly, thinking that they'd be alerted. Check the map, and they aren't really alerted (hollow arrow).

5. Clumping enemies. Stealth is already a mess, then you guys put this in. Good luck stealthing with low-reach melee, non-explosive weapons, or not Ivara/Loki/Ash.

6. All of these factors tied in with a 30-second timer? A timer is fine, but with these mechanics, I think they need to buff the timer.

7. Oh yeah, other players don't benefit from stealth multipliers. Not really a problem for pubs/pugs, but for pre-mades this is a solid nerf.

I suggest the ff. be done:

- Enemies are pre-placed once the mission loads. This prevents "spawn farming." Maybe 1/3 of the current exterminate counter. Enemy counts revert to normal once alerted, and ddo not revert.

- Less enemies, removes the need for clumping. Maybe place units in LoS of each other.

- Buff affinity for stealth kills (+250% per counter, doubled for stealth finishers, up to 10x). Counter returns to current iteration if an alert is "shut down."

- Buff timer to maybe 45 seconds. This gives players time to pick another target.

- Revert the changes done against other players benefiting from stealth multipliers. If that sounds too broken, maybe half the affinity gain.

All of these because I don't want to nerf the "hotspots," rather I want other play styles to be able to compete. And DE seems to hate stealth in general, turning this game into more of a "blow up everything in front of you."

[Praxxor]

Let's nerf the most unrewarding playstyle in the game, such a good idea right? RIGHT?

[Marine027]

I am disapointed in this as well, before it i was able to lvl a melee weapon in like 2-3 lvl 25-30 spy missions with stealth kills maxing it, now i am force to agian go into borign endless missions feelign less ninja like and more like a goddamn one man army, as much people like that, btu stealth in my eyes fits the game more instead of blind destruciton. That is why i started the game 3-4 years ago, the steatlh aspect, you had to stay careful and now it is just about "who kills the most".

[VisionAndVoice]

Now you get a taste of what an actual stealth is like.

I approve of this change.

[AEP8FlyBoy]

Tbh, it was coming. We all knew it.

Goodbye Solo Stealth Exterminate missions for Focus Farming... I'm gonna miss you. 

Actually it isn't completely dead, it just takes longer. And you can't just leave bodies sitting around anymore, so Channel Killing is a must.

Edited November 14, 2016 by AEP8FlyBoy

[Clem2-TheClemening]

Shouldn't channeling disintegrate the bodies, thus leaving no body to be found?

[BaIthazar]

2 minutes ago, Clem2-TheClemening said:

Shouldn't channeling disintegrate the bodies, thus leaving no body to be found?

the problem with that is that the bodies are detectable longer than visible.
A body that has disintegrated can still alert enemies for a solid 3 seconds or so.

same with how Nekros can desecrate bodies that have already "dissapeared"

Edited November 14, 2016 by BaIthazar

[Flirk2]

Try MR9 test with the new stealth AI.

No powers, melee-only. If you fail once, newly spawned enemies see the bodies of the previous batch and go into alert state instantly (fail even before you have a chance to move...).

On the other hand, bullet jumping past an enemy that didn't go into an alert state still works. Hard landing right behind them? Not a problem. If they are alert? they seem to see your through walls now, and have a third eye on the back of their heads.

I thought it was impossible. Third part at least. Had to practice a lot to find the one sequence of enemies and the right tempo to the kills so no enemy saw the bodies.

''Every time there is a major change we try it out with a new account'' they said. Why do I not believe it?

And, with all that... What exactly do you get from stealth that you can't get going all guns blazing? Nothing.

[(PSN)shadowraith_666]

since we don't have TWW update yet are they able to differentiate between an NPC killed by a player and an NPC killed by an enemy of another faction? i.e fissures/crossfire or wildlife or even killed by mind controlled or rad proc'd enemies since this was a problem before the TWW update.

[Flirk2]

1 hour ago, (PS4)shadowwraith_666 said:

since we don't have TWW update yet are they able to differentiate between an NPC killed by a player and an NPC killed by an enemy of another faction? i.e fissures/crossfire or wildlife or even killed by mind controlled or rad proc'd enemies since this was a problem before the TWW update.

They were alerted by all those things before. Have you ever tried stealth extermination on Earth? Feral kubrows were always alerting grineer there.

It's quite obvious since the enemy radar started to show enemy alert states.

In fissure missions stealth was never an option. To not get the data destruction or captive execution timer started you needed to kill everything in the data vault or in prison block before they have a chance to use the console.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Flirk2

[MobyTheDuck]

My only problem with these changes is that enemies can detect bodies through walls and doors, and sometimes can detect their own corpses.

Sometimes I would kill a lone, unalerted Lancer with a single blow and I would lose the stealth multiplier because he actually detected himself being killed. Some other times I would kill one lone lancer, and the entire next room was alerted, even if there was a wall AND a door between us.

And we all know these chances werent made to 'make the game more realistic', but just to cripple affinity/focus farm. Well, I guess its back to Akkad/Bere, at least until they kill these nodes too.

[Mr.Lube]

1 hour ago, VisionAndVoice said:

Now you get a taste of what an actual stealth is like.

I approve of this change.

Quit being so naive. Warframe's stealth mechanics were nowhere near being finished or even remotely fun/fair, and then they go and decide to make it nigh impossible with the new "enemies detect dead bodies". This detection feature should be removed until they implement some proper stealth mechanics.

[Xekrin]

The biggest problem I have with stealth is they know where you are after you fire a weapon, A SILENCED WEAPON, regardless of weapon type or where you shoot from.  Then they follow you around while remaining inivisible every time you fire.  Grineer must have an amazing sense of smell and we really need an oil change because we must smell awful.

Perhaps we need a mod to mask our scent as well.

[woah_dude]

pretty sure currently stealth multiplier does not work at all (as in bugged, since removal of stealth for allies removed it altogether). 

[Bipp]

25 minutes ago, Xekrin said:

The biggest problem I have with stealth is they know where you are after you fire a weapon, A SILENCED WEAPON, regardless of weapon type or where you shoot from.  Then they follow you around while remaining inivisible every time you fire.  Grineer must have an amazing sense of smell and we really need an oil change because we must smell awful.

Perhaps we need a mod to mask our scent as well.

#spacemagic

[Sikelh]

Enemies noticing bodies is no good till we can carry em and throw em off a cliff or something. you can't half do adding new stealth mechanics like this without adding ways to deal with it.

[Liminal]

4 hours ago, VisionAndVoice said:

Now you get a taste of what an actual stealth is like.

I approve of this change.

"Actual stealth" would let us hide in the shadows, drag bodies away and distract enemies. So no, it's not actual stealth.

[Jeoxz]

4 hours ago, AEP8FlyBoy said:

Tbh, it was coming. We all knew it.

Goodbye Solo Stealth Exterminate missions for Focus Farming... I'm gonna miss you. 

Actually it isn't completely dead, it just takes longer. And you can't just leave bodies sitting around anymore, so Channel Killing is a must.

Now this is smart thinking

[(PSN)MonkeysUnkle1]

Suddenly, I'm looking forward to TWW a lot less.

[DatDarkOne]

In a lot of ways I'm of the same mind as this.

6 hours ago, VisionAndVoice said:

Now you get a taste of what an actual stealth is like.

I approve of this change.

But, others have brought up valid points such as...

5 hours ago, Mr.Lube said:

Quit being so naive. Warframe's stealth mechanics were nowhere near being finished or even remotely fun/fair, and then they go and decide to make it nigh impossible with the new "enemies detect dead bodies". This detection feature should be removed until they implement some proper stealth mechanics.

That said, I will admit the current changes do heavily favor Ivara. Use of Noise Arrow and Sleep Arrow especially. Whether this is fair or not I can't honestly say objectively because I main Ivara.

What I can say is that there isn't any real reward for going through the effort of having a completely stealthy run. Which has been the case for a long time now even before the changes. Not even a stat for stealth kills that I'm aware of.

[(XBOX)GryffsDeadCorps]

So what exactly do DE have against us levelling up anything in this game? They nerfed, then killed Draco and for what benefit? I don't understand their thinking at all. We have to level weapons and warframes and then Forma them 3 - 6 times because they are, while not totally useless, they are not fun to play with until we have. So why do they hate us having any method of making this quicker? We don't have the war within update for consoles yet, but if they've also now killed stealth missions for levelling up weapons faster, then it just forces everyone back to doing freaking Aakad! So that will be next no doubt and we will be left with a mindless, endless grind to level anything! 

All I want is to make my frames and weapons useable and to then go play with them. Forcing an extended grind to level any weapon or frame up isn't going to encourage me to play more, it's going to drive me away from playing. 

The same is true with the screwing with the in game economy. Since whatever update it was that halved credits and nerfed the drops for Endo,  I have watched my credits drop steadily from 16 million to 9 million and I can't make any progress towards actually getting back to where I was. At best I can hold steady assuming I don't buy a lot of items from the void trader or have any mods that I still need to lvl up. I wouldn't want to be a new player in this game now for anything!

Why does the void trader charge credits for items when he already has his own unique currency that I have to farm for? Why do DE continue to screw with in game economy and levelling things when it's their design that forces us to do this again and again to make things finally fun to play with? If the desire is to have us spend more time playing, then darn it, do something to make playing more fun and grinding to level anything is NOT FUN! 

[cx-dave]

Result of all this? They pushed many higher ranked players into gaining Focus by mass killing. Now, on Akkad for instance, we basically ruin the game play for the lowers ranks by wiping out everything for our own Focus gain. No one was bothered by stealth...except someone at DE apparently.

[Nazrethim]

7 hours ago, Sikelh said:

Enemies noticing bodies is no good till we can carry em and throw em off a cliff or something. you can't half do adding new stealth mechanics like this without adding ways to deal with it.

Or make specific damage types like Corrosive, Fire, and Blast dissolve/burn/destroy the bodies instantly on death.

[OvisCaedo]

5 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

That said, I will admit the current changes do heavily favor Ivara. Use of Noise Arrow and Sleep Arrow especially. Whether this is fair or not I can't honestly say objectively because I main Ivara.

Hang on, are you saying that comboing those two arrows works for you? Because whenever I use noise arrow into sleep arrow, all of the sleeping enemies become alerted in their sleep by the first enemy killed. Which, notably, doesn't happen to enemies naturally grouped up and put to sleep. If noise arrow alerted enemies to begin with it'd make sense to me, but... they don't, because the first in a group still gets the bonus. Or all of them, if you kill the entire group at once with an explosive.

kinda wish explosions weren't one of the best stealth options

Edited November 15, 2016 by OvisCaedo

[chuckdm]

22 minutes ago, OvisCaedo said:

kinda wish explosions weren't one of the best stealth options

This.  I love Borderlands but whoever at DE decided to put Mr. Torgue in charge of stealth mechanics needs to reconsider their management skills.