The Gripes (And Constructive Criticism) of an Old Player

[Shadowcrusnik]

Greetings, as the title may indicate I am an old player. No, I am not some grandma or grandpa, it simply means I started playing a very long time ago.

 

Unfortunately, unlike many here, I did not keep that up for the entire period. In fact, I have been on/off (Mostly off) playing Warframe ever since I first stopped playing not but a year after its initial release. There were many reasons for it, most of which have been solved.

 

Except 3.

Do note this is a criticism of current game mechanics, but ones that I've had gripes with for quite a significant period of time. I will be detailing my reasons for having these gripes, as well as possible solutions. Without further adieu, let us begin. None of this is meant/intended to be insults to the Devs, despite all the reasons I personally have to dislike them, I do believe they have the interests of the players at heart.

Part 1: Stealth

Spoiler

This issue is the first of the 3 mentioned in the introduction. Many of the issues with stealth have been answered, however they were not answered in a manner that benefits stealth or allows the type of stealth gameplay that is often expected from any game that involves such mechanics.

The main issue with stealth, was that is simply was not viable. The amount of additional time it took to stealthily complete a mission (If said mission was even capable of being done stealthily, as wholly half of all current game modes now force alarms) was simply not worth the reward, which at the time was to say nothing. Back then, there was no benefit whatsoever for being stealthy, you received no extra loot, no more credits or affinity, nothing. The amount of credits/affinity/mods you could farm by simply sprinting/coptering or otherwise rapidly moving through a level, slaughtering everything in your way to complete the mission as soon as was feasibly possible was far, far greater than any other method of play (And it seems it remains this way today, though coptering has been replaced by a functionally identical and officially supported mechanic). As such it became the only thing anyone ever did, if you wished to play differently, it was only ever because you simply wanted a more enjoyable and rewarding experience, however you were gimping yourself for doing it, and it was nigh impossible to do in multiplayer because others would simply rush the level and force end it.

The other primary issue with stealth was its immense difficulty, especially in higher levels. The nature of the game AI (One of the other issues I will touch upon), namely that it has the strangest, most unpredictable movement and sight ranges I have ever seen (One unit literally walks past me while I'm in the open while another will see me through a wall, this happens constantly and always ruins attempts at perfect runs). This only gets worse when coupled with a large map design issue which I will discuss later that effectively funnels both players and AI through very small chokepoints that are nigh impossible to get past in the higher level where enemy numbers skyrocket. At this point, the only way to progress is to quickly slaughter every guard in a room before they get the chance to activate any alarms or alert other guards. A task that becomes nigh impossible on certain tilesets (Namely most Grineer maps).

 

Although this can be considered part of "The challenge" of playing stealthily, I find it to be a more unfair system than even Dark Souls. It is game mechanics that were likely not intended to conflict, conflicting in such a way that a player being able to successfully play the game in a certain way (In this instance to play stealthily) becomes random chance. Will there be 4 guards coming through that door? Right as they pass will two other guards looking at each other turn to the door? Some rooms actually become impossible to sneak through, due to the sheer number of guards in said rooms preventing any killing or passing without being spotted and forced to rapidly engage.

 

Thusfar, the only measure taken to improve stealth gameplay (That I have experienced, as "Perfect" runs have been nigh on impossible to do due to aforementioned issues) has been the affinity chain-stealth-kill bonus. Killing a unit while not spotted grants bonus synergy, this bonus stacks up to 10 times so long as each kill is made within 30 seconds of each other. Though this promotes the "rapid elimination" method of stealth play, it also forces players who wish to get something from their stealth game to actually rush through rooms as quick as possible, killing people before they are seen. It actually causes players who wish to take a slow stealth approach, who wish to carefully plan their moves and their attacks (if any), to visually see just how badly they are gimping themselves while in-mission, not just at the end of it. Putting further detriment upon "True" Stealth gameplay.

To further elaborate, if one person killed 10 units within 30 seconds of each other, then continued to do so for a 10 minute mission. (For mathematical ease we will say the players here have been killing from start-to-end and that each unit is worth base 100 affinity and they are so godlike that they did it all without ever being spotted) They will receive between 195500 Affinity, or 19550 Affinity/Minute, and 15500 total affinity, or 1550 Affinity/minute. The higher value being virtually unachievable, and the lower value just being extremely difficult to achieve (as maintaining this "stealth-streak" through an entire mission is damned near impossible). Though if kills are made in shorter bursts, lets say two 5-kill bursts every minute for 10 minutes, then they can get 30000 total Affinity, or 3000 Affinity/Minute. However, even though this is the more common occurrence, consistently getting between 3 and 7 kill bursts within a short period of one another at such timing intervals is still extremely difficult.

Let us consider, then, another scenario. Perhaps the one that best fits most occurrences. On average in stealth missions, I can get around 3 or 4 kills in a short period of time before pausing for 30+ seconds to either proceed to the next room without being spotted, or to hide so that a particularly large or complicated patrol may pass or make itself vulnerable. I can usually get one of these every minute. That's about 1000 Affinity/minute, and is what I believe to be the average for most "true" stealth players, that is to say people who play stealth just to play stealth, and not because they are making a concerted effort to farm, at which point they would just get in a survival mode map solo with their weapon and have at it.

So 1000 Affinity/Minute, doesn't sound bad right?

Let us consider the above mentioned Survival Mode player. In Survival mode there is forced alarms, so no stealth allowed. The mission simply does not allow for that type of play, and it is unbearably common on the star map, often blocking my progress because I simply do not care enough about the mission type to bother playing it just to unlock the next node.

In a survival mode, achieving something like 40 kills a minute is incredibly easy. Assuming, like before, that each kill is worth 100 affinity, this means that the survival mode player can acquire 4000 Affinity/Minute without any thought or effort. Whereas a Stealth Player can only get between 1000 and 3000 Affinity/Minute, and even then only at extreme difficulty.

This concept does not just apply to Survival mode, for example in a normal mode (Lets say Spy, where stealth is expected). A player could easily rush through the levels and quickly sneak through the spy rooms (Which have separate alarms), getting about 25 kills a minute for about 3 minutes of total mass killing time (and 2 minutes of spy rooms). This results in 7500 total Affinity in 5 minutes, or about 2500 Affinity/Minute. They achieve this, again, without putting in any real effort. To mass kill in this game is mindless, and takes little to no thinking whatsoever due to the simplicity of the AI and the binary nature of power levels (Either you are slaughtering or being slaughtered). Whereas to achieve that same number through stealth gameplay takes far more thought and effort, as you have to carefully move and position around often numerous and unpredictable enemy patrols to avoid being seen, hoping you are granted an opening with which to grab a stealth kill or two without being spotted.

So while both a normal player and a stealth player could receive similar affinity/minute, one does so at great ease (and thus far, far more affinity/minute when actual effort is put in) and the other at great difficulty. One player is putting in far more work and effort, and is getting little to no additional reward, and in most cases is actually receiving less.

To Recap, non-stealth gameplay often receive between 2 and 4 times more Affinity for any given amount of time spent than stealth gameplay, despite the fact that stealth gameplay takes considerably more effort than non-stealth gameplay.

And that doesn't even begin to cover the issues with stealth and item drop rates.

These problems make Stealth gameplay a needlessly difficult, and simultaneously non-beneficial method of play. Playing stealthily does nothing for the player, and if anything only makes the already hefty grind-walls involved in getting all the "best" gear (Which due to power creep is essentially required gear to have to be able to play the "end-game" content) even more difficult to overcome. This was one of the primary reasons why I stopped playing the game, it originally advertised itself as "Ninjas in Space". There is absolutely nothing, 100% nothing at all in this game that actually allows us to resemble ninjas. If anything, we resemble Samurai. Ninjas were more often than not peasants or low-class commoners who would sneak around to gather intelligence, sabotage opposing forces, or, very rarely, perform high-class assassinations. While I never wanted the low-class commoner part (So never to be a "true" ninja), stealth is a vital part of being a ninja. Right now, stealth is currently a highly self-detrimental way to play the game.

Part 1 Solution

Spoiler

How would I fix Stealth gameplay? The first thing to do would be to remove the timer on the stealth-kill affinity bonus. Simply make it disappear if you are spotted. There is no reason to force players to rush to get another kill, if they take a super long time to go from kill to kill, they will still be earning less affinity/unit time than someone who rushes stealth kills (Which is actually far more difficult to do without ever being spotted) simply because one will be getting more kills (and thus more affinity) every minute.

To return to affinity calculations, lets say the timer is removed.

One player goes into a survival missions and gets 4000 Synergy a minute without even batting an eye, as before calculated. Now a Stealth player goes into a mission, and spends 15 minutes in-mission, only getting about 60 kills (Utilizing the aformentioned most common stealth occurrence of 3-4 kill bursts every minute). Lets say this player is under the initial conditions and is capable of doing this without ever being spotted (A feat in and of itself of great difficulty). That player would receive 55500 Affinity, or 3700 Affinity/Minute.

In other words, they would still be getting less Affinity than the survival mode player. And that is assuming they even manage to successfully go the entire mission without ever being spotted. However it is at least on the same level as the Survival mission farmer, so at the very least I am not gimping my progress too heavily (Though I would certainly still be receiving far less credits and items than the survival player).

 

The second thing I would do would be to drastically increase the number of "unlocked" crates while in stealth. IE, so long as the alarms have not been set off, every single locker on the map will be unlocked and lootable. Once an alarm goes off, lockers will begin locking one-by-one until a pre-determined number of them have locked, at which point you might as well be running through the mission guns blazing as per usual. This would, naturally, involve discerning (in the code) between lockers that will lock during alarms and those that won't. Thusly, we can then put higher item drop rates and better loot in the lockers that would lock, and even better items in the lockers that lock sooner. So if you go through an entire mission without ever setting off an alarm, you can get some pretty sweet loot (However you still have to spend the time exploring the entire map, and still have to avoid EVER being spotted. Which I will again reiterated is not something easy to do, and is in fact quite difficulty).

 

The third thing I'd do would be to put an overall affinity and credit bonus (perhaps 50%) for completing a mission without ever setting off alarms, and a 100% bonus without ever alerting a guard. This way if a Stealth player puts in the immense amount of extra effort to complete a "perfect" run, they will receive a justifiable reward. If a player wants an easy, reliable reward, they can run non-stealth missions, but if the player wants the absolute most, they have to actually TRY and WORK and CHALLENGE themselves to do so.

The last thing I'd do would be to fix the problems I am going to outline in Parts 2 and 3.

Part 2: Map Design

Spoiler

Map design is a complex, and tricky thing. Especially in a game such as this where the maps are randomly generated from pre-fab tiles. However, despite the ingenuity and the quite honestly amazing work they've done making beautiful, seamless tilesets, there is so much more they can do to improve them, and so many issues caused by their failure to do so.

Most notably is an issue mentioned in Part 1, funneling. While in normal gameplay this has little effect (Though it does certainly affect it, more on this later) the fact that every single tile is self-contained, and only ever connected to other tiles via a SINGLE entrance point per other tile connected (Not once have I seen two separate, unique entrances to and from the same two tiles) makes certain forms of gameplay incredibly difficult (IE Stealth) since the patrols will always be forced to condense in these areas that the player is REQUIRED to pass through. In normal gameplay this has the effect of "railroading" the player to certain points. Each tile is part of a path, a main path that leads directly to the objective, or a branching path that always leads to a deadend but potentially has loot in it (Simply by virtue of containing additional rooms where loot spawns, not because they actually lead anywhere where loot may be found).

A sub-issue of this larger funneling issue is that branching paths never reconnect to the main one. Its understandable, it would be incredibly difficult to get these unique tiles to match up that amazingly well, however I will propose a solution to this in the Part 2 Solution

Before, I may have added the lack of alternate pathways through individual tiles, however most of this has been fixed. There are still a large number of tiles where there is only one really viable path through the room, however most tiles now have at least 2 different ways a player can go to reach the same exit. Good job on that one DE!

The second main issue with map design is secondary objectives. Namely the complete and total lack of them. There is only ever one goal in any given mission, and only ever one way to go about reaching this goal. You go down the aforementioned "main" path (as branching paths never reconnect to the main path at later points as aforementioned) and do the objective, then run away down a second main path to the exit. There is literally nothing else to do other than that. That is, in essence, all there ever is to the game. That IS the game. Everything else is a way to complete that one thing faster. This would be fine if that one thing was interesting to do, but it is not. Spy missions provide some form of interesting play, but ultimately become predictable with experience. Even the immense challenge of Raids (The Golem and Vay Hek) become boring as you and your group of friends continually complete the run, eventually getting it down to a T, though thankfully the process of doing that is often enjoyable. Raids are a great end-game, but the rest of the game is a very boring, unfun way to get to raids.

That is about it for Map design, most of the discussion I have around this particular issue is presented in the solution, as the problem is rather straightforward. I do not actually blame bad decisions on DE's part for this issue, as it stems from the way they made their tileset generator. This fact is taken into account in the solution.

Part 2 Solution

Spoiler

The primary issue with the following solutions is the amount of work that goes into them. Unlike stealth, this can't be fixed by the addition of a few simple variables. It requires a relatively significant amount of both coding and map-design to fix. Lets get to it.

The first solution I will propose is the simpler of the three, secondary objectives. This one is also by far the most flexible. Add variables to every single node, these variables can be randomly generated numbers. These numbers can be used to determine how many, and what kind, of certain specific "tile types" there will be in a given node (In fact, I believe this is how they work right now). Simply alter them, so that certain tiles represent logical parts of a ship, base, bunker, etc. For example, barracks where soldiers can rest or "spawn" (to put it into game terms), engine/generator rooms where the ship/base gets it power, or perhaps surveillance or comms rooms where the ships alarms, patrols, or other security measures are kept track of and/or controlled. Rooms like these could possess certain interactable objects within them, for example a barracks could have a weapons or supply cache that contains sick loot, an engine or generator room possesses a rather vulnerable engine or generator, and a surveillance room could contain delicate hardware. These objects could be "interacted with" (By an axe or gun or by careful hand) to cause certain, potentially map-wide effects such as turning off the lights, disabling or setting off all the alarms, or perhaps simply giving the player nice loot at the risk of a deadly encounter. These secondary objectives need not be completed, and are really there only to give the player a different way to solve the same problem. For example, on an elimination mission you could turn the engines off on a ship and cause it to crash into the surface of a nearby celestial object, now all you have to do is disable the escape pods and then escape yourself. You could actually stealth your way through an elimination mission without killing anyone (Directly, at least). Or in a spy mission, you could cut the power to disable the security and make the trip easier (Not to mention remove risk of destroyed data), but you'd immediately alert the entire ship, and the number of spawned enemies would spike drastically, especially around and within the spy rooms. Or perhaps you could be in a survival mission, and you could find the room where they shut the life support off, you could turn it back on but now be forced to defend a room against even more powerful foes (who would spawn in reaction to this).

Regardless of what specifically is done, secondary objectives could provide players with something other than just the main mission to do, potentially making the main mission easier or offering extra reward, it adds more to do on any given mission and makes them more interesting on a mission-by-mission basis.

 

The other solution is two-fold, and ties into both the funneling and alternate-paths issues.

I imagine it would be difficult, and time consuming to do so, but theoretically generic hallway pieces (Or vents/duct ways, or caveways, etc.) could be made in small enough bits to effectively join any two tiles together, even if they do not match up perfectly. So you could make a given branching path rejoin the main path later via one of these ways, providing a secondary path to the main objective, increasing map complexity but also making things much cooler as they will then feel more like a plausible location, rather than a generic video-game dungeon-esque map. If secondary objectives happen to be along these paths, that would give players reason to use them. "Do I want to complete the main objective faster, or go along this path and complete this other objective that might give me extra stuff or make the main objective easier, then just rejoin the main path later?".

This same method could be used to create alternate paths between two already connected adjacent tiles. So for stealth players you wouldn't always be forced to go through the front door of every room, you could actually sneak around through vents or caves or some such.

Part 3 Enemy AI

Spoiler

Perhaps, no definitively the most difficult to solve problem of all. The AI in this game, quite simply, terrible. Both in normal gameplay and stealth gameplaye (the latter being my preferred method), the AI frequently behaves in rather unintelligent, and often incredibly silly and buggy, ways. Most notably, AI seem to love charging into their deaths. They appear to hold no survival instinct whatsoever, only very rarely taking cover. Even then, however, they usually go to strange locations that do not protect them or kill themselves in the attempt (By "Kill themselves" I mean make themselves incredibly easy for the player to shoot and slaughter). While for the infested this might make sense, for Grineer and Corpus, if they are meant to be such selfish/self-serving races, would at the very least engage in some form of intelligent positioning/cooperation.

In regards to stealth gameplay, this often results in the strangest patrols I have ever seen. Guards walking into objects, their feet gliding across the floor as they slide at an angle. Stopping and turning just to stare into a wall, or spinning around in circles for no apparent reason. Clumping up into tight groups then failing to move past one another, resulting in a flustercuck of enemy units that you actually can't sneak by because they are technically looking in all directions at that moment.

 

I do not personally blame DE for this, the AI has always been silly and buggy as hell (and from my recent experiences this has not changed even in the slightest, its just as freaky as ever). AI is one of the most difficult things to do in videogames, I feel. Maps, codes, most everything is static and need not adapt itself to a situation without input. AI are expected to do just that, to "think" (even if rudimentarily) on their own and to make decisions that a real person might make in that given situation. This is insanely hard to do, and is the only issue to which I do not have a solid solution other than for DE to give it some serious thought and completely re-write the AI's behavior trees from a very low level (Though probably not from scratch). If they aren't using behavior trees that might explain some of the behaviors I've seen, I'd suggest using Behavior trees (Look them up on google if you are interested in learning what those are).

I really do wish I had an answer for this one, I can give ideas as to how I would expect AI to behave, however most of them are rather obvious and straightforward. I do not know how they could actually create an AI capable of such things (Though I do believe it has been done in the past by games like Halo or alien isolation).

 

As with all problems, the first step to solving them is recognizing that there even is a problem. I sincerely hope DE does at least that. For now, that is all, Time to get back to actually playing games.

[Somb3rBivalve]

47 minutes ago, Shadowcrusnik said:

Part 2: Map Design

  Reveal hidden contents

Map design is a complex, and tricky thing. Especially in a game such as this where the maps are randomly generated from pre-fab tiles. However, despite the ingenuity and the quite honestly amazing work they've done making beautiful, seamless tilesets, there is so much more they can do to improve them, and so many issues caused by their failure to do so.

Most notably is an issue mentioned in Part 1, funneling. While in normal gameplay this has little effect (Though it does certainly affect it, more on this later) the fact that every single tile is self-contained, and only ever connected to other tiles via a SINGLE entrance point per other tile connected (Not once have I seen two separate, unique entrances to and from the same two tiles) makes certain forms of gameplay incredibly difficult (IE Stealth) since the patrols will always be forced to condense in these areas that the player is REQUIRED to pass through. In normal gameplay this has the effect of "railroading" the player to certain points. Each tile is part of a path, a main path that leads directly to the objective, or a branching path that always leads to a deadend but potentially has loot in it (Simply by virtue of containing additional rooms where loot spawns, not because they actually lead anywhere where loot may be found).

A sub-issue of this larger funneling issue is that branching paths never reconnect to the main one. Its understandable, it would be incredibly difficult to get these unique tiles to match up that amazingly well, however I will propose a solution to this in the Part 2 Solution

Before, I may have added the lack of alternate pathways through individual tiles, however most of this has been fixed. There are still a large number of tiles where there is only one really viable path through the room, however most tiles now have at least 2 different ways a player can go to reach the same exit. Good job on that one DE!

The second main issue with map design is secondary objectives. Namely the complete and total lack of them. There is only ever one goal in any given mission, and only ever one way to go about reaching this goal. You go down the aforementioned "main" path (as branching paths never reconnect to the main path at later points as aforementioned) and do the objective, then run away down a second main path to the exit. There is literally nothing else to do other than that. That is, in essence, all there ever is to the game. That IS the game. Everything else is a way to complete that one thing faster. This would be fine if that one thing was interesting to do, but it is not. Spy missions provide some form of interesting play, but ultimately become predictable with experience. Even the immense challenge of Raids (The Golem and Vay Hek) become boring as you and your group of friends continually complete the run, eventually getting it down to a T, though thankfully the process of doing that is often enjoyable. Raids are a great end-game, but the rest of the game is a very boring, unfun way to get to raids.

That is about it for Map design, most of the discussion I have around this particular issue is presented in the solution, as the problem is rather straightforward. I do not actually blame bad decisions on DE's part for this issue, as it stems from the way they made their tileset generator. This fact is taken into account in the solution.

 

Here, you mentioned there being no secondary objectives in missions. While I agree that there need to be more of these, it's not true that there aren't any. In sabotage 2.0, there are supply caches scattered around that the player has the option to collect in addition to their normal mission; this is a secondary objective that is, albeit, optional. The inclusion of caches makes sabotage a lot more interesting, and I would like to see this on many other mission types.

Good post though overall.

[Maicael]

Quite the essay there, but I've also been playing for almost 4 years now and agree that those are some things I'd like to see the most.

I like your idea of having all lockers unlocked while undetected for bonus loot. I'd even suggest maybe having slightly more common rare containers in hidden vaults that act like spy vaults and a timer to being locked down after being seen. Just another incentive to go stealth, and players that didn't may regret it if they find a vault that is locked.

The choke-points really do bother me when I want to take it slow and do stealth runs. DE has gotten better about opening up rafters/overhead areas and sometimes even a tunnel or two within a tile, but making it through to the next tile through the one path that happens to have 3 enemies on it is one of the reasons invisibility seems to be the only viable stealth option (could also put them to sleep, but invisibility isn't range-limited). Spy 2.0 vaults are what I really enjoy, and if we get a Spy 3.0 I'd like it to be where the design of the vaults is expanded to be entire tilesets of their own. I guess the Kuva Fortress kind of fulfills that though.

 

[Shadowcrusnik]

7 hours ago, Somb3rBivalve said:

Here, you mentioned there being no secondary objectives in missions. While I agree that there need to be more of these, it's not true that there aren't any. In sabotage 2.0, there are supply caches scattered around that the player has the option to collect in addition to their normal mission; this is a secondary objective that is, albeit, optional. The inclusion of caches makes sabotage a lot more interesting, and I would like to see this on many other mission types.

Good post though overall.

I was actually unaware of this XD. I don't think I've played sabotage 2.0, wasn't it originally removed? I can't remember, I'll have to check it out.

 

7 hours ago, Maicael said:

Quite the essay there, but I've also been playing for almost 4 years now and agree that those are some things I'd like to see the most.

I like your idea of having all lockers unlocked while undetected for bonus loot. I'd even suggest maybe having slightly more common rare containers in hidden vaults that act like spy vaults and a timer to being locked down after being seen. Just another incentive to go stealth, and players that didn't may regret it if they find a vault that is locked.

The choke-points really do bother me when I want to take it slow and do stealth runs. DE has gotten better about opening up rafters/overhead areas and sometimes even a tunnel or two within a tile, but making it through to the next tile through the one path that happens to have 3 enemies on it is one of the reasons invisibility seems to be the only viable stealth option (could also put them to sleep, but invisibility isn't range-limited). Spy 2.0 vaults are what I really enjoy, and if we get a Spy 3.0 I'd like it to be where the design of the vaults is expanded to be entire tilesets of their own. I guess the Kuva Fortress kind of fulfills that though.

 

 

Thats also a good idea, would certainly help.

 

To build upon that, I will talk abit about invisibility and the role it currently plays in stealth vs. the role that is (Probably should) play. Invisibility is currently, as you said, a requirement. Without it progressing through levels is either incredibly slow (even for a normal slow approach) or impossible simply due to the sheer number of guards and the horrific funneling issue as mentioned in the OP. Invisibility, most notably the Shade's stealth ability, gets around this quite easily. This, rather than being an ability a player would consciously decide to take for its uses, is instead essentially required, as without it there is no real way to get around these points.

 

What creating alternate paths would do is change the justifications of invisibility, it would then become a not necessarily required tool (Thus meaning any warframe could plausibly stealth) that speeds up the playthrough. Where a player could spend time skirting around the room, across rafters, in caves, etc., you could also use an invis ability and take a more direct route (Such as with ash or loki's timed invis abilities). At this juncture invisibility becomes a tool for making stealth easier/faster, rather than a requirement for playing stealth in the first place.

 

On a differing, completely unrelated note, I do often use the shade ability to "follow" a patrolling unit (Especially on corpus maps) through an otherwise untraversable zone, as Corpus security tends to be so tight (With flying drones that cannot be easily stealth killed, cameras, and tight spaces where the large unit volumes exasperate the funneling issue). It's quite funny when I go alll the way across the map just by following behind some guy, occasionally swapping to a different patrol.

[RICK_BO]

Lotta good points here; but some things would be harder to change via your suggestions. I really like your idea for the non-time-limited stealth bonus. As is; it forces a mindset of "I have to rush to the next kill" Whereas a mindset of "I really don't want to alert the next guy before I kill him" would be driven by a more momentum based mechanic. Suppose the bonus built up slower, but to a higher degree. I second the notion for unlocked, or even "Unlockable as long as alarm has not been raised" loots. Corpus tilesets have many small dead end rooms, Supply closets and locker rooms that could be made beneficial to loot. If 2-3k credits were available in each such locker room I bet we'd see less "H Akkad credit farm Need [Secura Lecta]" and more people sneaking their way through Corpus fat-cat business crafts. (Corpus pleasure crafts when?)

As a counter-point; however. I don't know if you've met Ivara yet, the queen of stealth. She may not move as fast while prowling about but with an essentially endless invisibility skill (that also creates loot drops by "Pickpocketing" enemy units), a Cloak arrow that allows a period or invisibility while inside that bubble of obfuscation, A Sleep arrow that would put one of your large funneled congregations of Poor AI bound NPCs to sleep to allow you to pick them off one by one, and a 'Zipline' that creates a level of mobility no other frame can create; She can sneak past everything with ease. And while she is by no means easy to obtain; her skills trivialize any stealth requirements. Rewarding challenging stealth gameplay is good and all; but so long as Ivara, or a Naramon focused Loki are around those rewards would be too easy to come by. (Unless those Grineer Witches conjure up some sort of Invisible-frame-hunting ghouls. Terrifying for hidden 'frames; inconsequential to those reflecting  light in a more civilized manner.)

One of the problems I see with the "multiple routes via secondary tiles" solution is the map guidance. New players often get confused by the objective marker on certain tiles, while novice players struggle to find their way around Europas expansive ice caverns, and Vets have many a complaint about the Kuva fortress' massive maze tiles. Running up and down stairs to find the floor with the exit so marked by the objective marker. If the Tile layout system were adjusted to include multiple routes the objective marker system would most definitely need a rework. 

For Secondary objectives. As was mentioned; Reactor Sabotage missions have a few more points to it than just "Blow the thing up", and there are the caches on top of that. Some of the Kuva fortress missions contain caches as well. To take a page from the sabotage meltdown procedure; Blast doors. Raise an alarm high enough and an objective-blocking blast door could be activated requiring re-routing to the blast door controls, or hunting down an individual with the necessary accoutrements to disable or break through such a blockage. Groups spending too long in a single room might find the doors becoming barricaded one by one necessitating their destruction else the room becomes sealed and flooded in a toxic gas bringing death in moments. conversely, Two teamates go find a "welder" to seal a door up on a defence/MD mission. rerouting enemy spawns. A risk to send two away from defending but being able to exert more control over the battlefield if they can pull it off.

As for the AI; there is far too much to discuss in a single post.

TL;DR:

• Momentum based non time limited stealth bonus
• Repurpose hallway dead-ends for pre-alarm loot rooms
• Ivara/Loki/Naramon Too strong for stealth. Invis-hunter enemy?
• Objective markers already somewhat difficult to follow
• Gameplay reliant secondary objectives (blockers) 

Edited February 17, 2017 by RICK_BO

[Shadowcrusnik]

6 hours ago, RICK_BO said:

TL;DR:

• Momentum based non time limited stealth bonus
• Repurpose hallway dead-ends for pre-alarm loot rooms
• Ivara/Loki/Naramon Too strong for stealth. Invis-hunter enemy?
• Objective markers already somewhat difficult to follow
• Gameplay reliant secondary objectives (blockers) 

I believe they could make invis hunting enemies, or simply nerf invisibility across the board to deal with that kind of thing.

 

The minimap is definitely in need of work, I'm not sure if they could make a "3d" map that perhaps is accessible via a map screen (rather than the kind crap thing we have now). But I do agree that needs work.

 

I never actually seen or played one of the "new" sabotage missions (I'm really used to the one where you just walk up to a stupid generator and blow up the things), so I was unaware of these things. Its a step in the right direction, but there is more that needs to be done than what you have described to me.