Stealth Game-Play

[(XBOX)Abyssl Arts]

Will there ever be a true stealth game-play for every frame instead of running only frames that can go invisible (i.e if your in the dark and your frame and weapons camouflages with the background enemies will take forever to see you, and if you where spotted an enemy all of the enemies don't all know where you are.)
 

[(PSN)abbacephas]

In all likelihood: no.

[Pendragon1951]

I'm assuming they will make an attempt with this assassination thing they have cooking, but if your not getting a challenge of stealth in the game the answer is simple, don't take a frame that goes invisible.

[(PSN)drpunk-yo]

Ain't nobody got time for that.

CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!!!!!!!!!

[Nazrethim]

Well, they could add a mission type that enforces the stealth aproach.

[NeithanDiniem]

5 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Well, they could add a mission type that enforces the stealth aproach.

They tried that twice now, people don't care and go guns blazing.

[chaotea]

Lets face it, its about as stealthy as a CoD game. I doubt there will be true stealth game mechanics, as you'd have to totally re-write the game to do it. Still, the level of stealth we have does provide worthwhile benefits, but mostly only used during single player.

[Nazrethim]

Just now, NeithanDiniem said:

They tried that twice now, people don't care and go guns blazing.

Well, that's because they didn't try it hard enough. I've even pitched a workable concept for such mission.

Short version:

-Mission fails if you trigger a SINGLE alarm.

-All enemies in the mission are special units equiped to see trough invisibility (one of these units may even be able to dispel it and show up on other high level non-stealth missions to combat invisibility cheese)

-Mission features a "follow without alerting" phase where you follow a special unit without being detected, alerting it will likewise fail the mission.

-Features a new enemy that can No Sell abilities, see trough invisibility, be highly resistant to damage other than Finisher sneak attacks and can down you in a straight fight if you are not careful enough.

The whole mission supposedly is us infiltrating the Grustrag Facility, which explains why the stealth aproach and why it features highly advanced enemies able to put our arses on the floor.

[aligatorno]

4 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Well, that's because they didn't try it hard enough. I've even pitched a workable concept for such mission.

Short version:

-Mission fails if you trigger a SINGLE alarm.

-All enemies in the mission are special units equiped to see trough invisibility (one of these units may even be able to dispel it and show up on other high level non-stealth missions to combat invisibility cheese)

-Mission features a "follow without alerting" phase where you follow a special unit without being detected, alerting it will likewise fail the mission.

-Features a new enemy that can No Sell abilities, see trough invisibility, be highly resistant to damage other than Finisher sneak attacks and can down you in a straight fight if you are not careful enough.

The whole mission supposedly is us infiltrating the Grustrag Facility, which explains why the stealth aproach and why it features highly advanced enemies able to put our arses on the floor.

I stopped at the first line. Any instafail mechanic is awful and cheap design. Tailing and instafailing is probably the worst combination in any type of game, AC series made sure of that. 

Edited May 2, 2017 by aligatorno

[(PSN)drpunk-yo]

2 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Well, that's because they didn't try it hard enough. I've even pitched a workable concept for such mission.

Short version:

-Mission fails if you trigger a SINGLE alarm.

-All enemies in the mission are special units equiped to see trough invisibility (one of these units may even be able to dispel it and show up on other high level non-stealth missions to combat invisibility cheese)

-Mission features a "follow without alerting" phase where you follow a special unit without being detected, alerting it will likewise fail the mission.

-Features a new enemy that can No Sell abilities, see trough invisibility, be highly resistant to damage other than Finisher sneak attacks and can down you in a straight fight if you are not careful enough.

The whole mission supposedly is us infiltrating the Grustrag Facility, which explains why the stealth aproach and why it features highly advanced enemies able to put our arses on the floor.

That's all well and good until you put 4 random people together.

And 4 random people playing together has to be the main consideration for the design of this game, imo. Unless you're talking raids.

[Nazrethim]

Just now, aligatorno said:

I stopped at the first line. Any instafail mechanic is awful and cheap design. 

You aren't supposed to be detected, if you are careful and stealthy you can beat that thing. Would also feature alternate routes tileset to avoid "10 dudes showing up on a bottleneck" obstacle.

[Nazrethim]

Just now, (PS4)drpunk-yo said:

That's all well and good until you put 4 random people together.

And 4 random people playing together has to be the main consideration for the design of this game, imo. Unless you're talking raids.

Well, if you are going to enter a Stealth mission, you better know what you are going against. Key/Nav cord/Beacon/whatever to enter (and thus, enforcing the premade group) could diminish the Random Public problem we already see with Spy.

[KirukaChan]

The main problem with non-invisible stealth gameplay is that the number of enemies that spawn, even when not alerted, can be pretty high. Comes with the whole "horde shooter" thing that Warframe seems to be all about these days.

[AuroraSonicBoom]

Nobody knows, but it's better not to hold your breath. DE doesn't like to talk about stealth very much, and the last thing they officially said was that they won't work on any stealth related mechanics directly, so any improvements to stealth play will come through the changes in other parts of the game.

Yeah, it sucks Ballas, but that's their statement.

[nameomnz]

I think it could work with pre-improve exterminate where there is only limited enemy spawn.

But if you really want a full stealth-gameplay then the stealth system needs to be rework.

Here is what stealth-gameplay used to be back in the day

Takes quite some skill to pull off, But the reward is meh.

[Nazrethim]

31 minutes ago, nameomnz said:

I think it could work with pre-improve exterminate where there is only limited enemy spawn.

But if you really want a full stealth-gameplay then the stealth system needs to be rework.

Here is what stealth-gameplay used to be back in the day

Takes quite some skill to pull off, But the reward is meh.

Back then invisibility was a luxury rather than the de facto tool. Mostly due to lack of focus schools and corrupted mods.

A stealth system could actually be implemented with current mechanics, but since we can spam cloaking the only realistic way it could be implemented is with super hardocre enemies that can No Sell invisibility as well as abilities, and making triggering alarms fail the mission, otherwise players will just powerspam their way to victory not giving a single sh*T about Stealth. Also sneak attacks need to be able to destroy corpses regardless if you are channeling or not.

It's a really nice video. I in fact still play like that, I find it more thrilling than just killing hordes in the open. The problem is that, other than Ivara, there's no way to distract enemies, nor is a way to destroy corpses other than Channel melee. Previously a bow could get rid of a corpse by pinning it to the wall, but enemies now see the flying corpse and get alerted.

Rescue targets and syndicate operatives also got dumber, back when Spy 2.0 was released (U15) DE actually tweaked their AI to crouch if you were doing it and not attack enemies if you started a stealth kill. Then in U17 or U18 they reversed them to stupid leeroy jenkins for no apparent reason.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Nazrethim

[Volinus7]

Stealth game is boring if it's not handcrafted with dedication.

Probably as boring as climbing infinite scaling to lvl9999.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Volinus7

[(PSN)TertulSee]

3 hours ago, (Xbox One)xKILLERGAMER21x said:

Will there ever be a true stealth game-play for every frame instead of running only frames that can go invisible (i.e if your in the dark and your frame and weapons camouflages with the background enemies will take forever to see you, and if you where spotted an enemy all of the enemies don't all know where you are.)
 

I once did a mission without killing anyone, does that count?

[Nazrethim]

46 minutes ago, (PS4)godlysparta said:

I once did a mission without killing anyone, does that count?

If you avoided detection, yes. It's harder to achieve than "sneak kill everything" though.

[SeaUrchins]

I can play stealthy with atlas: if you place a wall in frost of enemies, they neither can see you nor suspect anything until they walk like 5 seconds into it, then they figure out IT'S THE GRINEER TENNO!

Seriously, any mission feels like stealth with brick AI like this, they hardly notice as you run by.

[.-Tenno-.]

2 hours ago, nameomnz said:

I think it could work with pre-improve exterminate where there is only limited enemy spawn.

But if you really want a full stealth-gameplay then the stealth system needs to be rework.

Here is what stealth-gameplay used to be back in the day

Takes quite some skill to pull off, But the reward is meh.

I >wish< warframe implemented some aspect of true stealth gameplay like this video reminds me of.   And I personally don't even think it would be difficult for them to do, nor would it require a full game overhaul.

 

Since its a niche gameplay type, why not make it a special mission type. That way the 'slay them all' types of players aren't FORCED into anything.

Have the mission type disable all powers to keep things like Loki's/Ash's/Octavia's/Banshee's/Naramon users/ ect from running amok.  Possibly stat normalization like the Conclave does or just default all frames to the same shield/health/armor pool. 

Have enemy offensive capability ramped up to give a REASON to WANT to stay undetected.  It doesn't have to be OneShotKillsMe.  But it should be close. The threat of death NEEDS to be there.

As of right now, there IS a stealth kill multiplier for affinity. Its a step in the right direction, but its still lacking.  When an enemy is killed, the body remains CLEARLY visible for some time, and now enemies can become alerted from said body.  We would either need a way to dispose of bodies faster, or some way to hide them entirely.  I would propose that killing an enemy who is unalarmed should disintegrate the body like channeling does (Personally I feel like this should be a feature in the game across the board but that's just me)

As for rewards, Ill leave that to someone else to iron out, but, rewards would have to be something either unique or otherwise hard to obtain >and< valuable to compensate for the extra amount of time you'll be spending on the mission.

Ciphers would have to be disabled for anything that requires hacking. On a side note, the alarm system itself should not be able to be turned off but rather decrease the longer you are hidden.

Enemy detection should take a page from Mirage's book.  Harder to detect in shadows, easier to see in the light. The AI should also >HAVE< to rely on sight and sound to locate the player.  None of that TheyJustKnowWhereYouAreBecauseLightsAreFlashing or TheyHaveTheHiveMind nonsense.

Radar could remain as is, or be slightly tweaked for the mission.  For example instead of being able to detect enemy sight direction either degrade it back to just the small red circle as before, >OR< enhance it to include cones of vision as well.  Either way could work.

Even tho it would be a special type mission, players should still be responsible to choose the right loadout.  Player weapon choice should be unrestricted but, noise level from weapons would have to matter.  If someone thinks they're going to bring an ogris to just annialate one particular room at a time, they need to be punished aware that explosions make a LOT of noise, resulting in enemies in the NEXT rooms being alerted.  Stealth does not mean silent explosions.

These are all things that just come to mind when I picture what stealth COULD be in warframe.

[Kaotyke]

4 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

You aren't supposed to be detected, if you are careful and stealthy you can beat that thing. Would also feature alternate routes tileset to avoid "10 dudes showing up on a bottleneck" obstacle.

But dont currently have anything that makes stealh more approachable:

Enemies have random walk paterns.

There is no cover system

No alternative passages in walls or the roof

No alternative passages from a titleset to another (BIGGEST offender)

Warframes stick out like a sore thumb so you cant "blend in" (this is would be a very minor one if we had the last 2 above)

Edited May 2, 2017 by Kaotyke

[Nazrethim]

Just now, Kaotyke said:

But dont currently have anything that makes stealh more approachable:

Enemies have random walk paterns.

Enemies are AI. If you know about how AI works, you know they move in predictable patterns, that's called "pathing". If you leave an area without pathing, no AI will walk there unless you set a trigger to make it walk into said area. That's basic stuff. To make alternate paths not usable to enemies, DE would just need to leave this areas devoid of AI pathing, therefore AI wouldn't go there. Or set up pathing there but leaving it inactive unless a level alarm is active or make only enemies in "alerted" or "suspicious" status go into such areas. Essentially the game would check if X unit is alerted or not, if alerted=true then that AI would make use of the alternate paths searching for players.

Just now, Kaotyke said:

There is no cover system

Enemies have generally bad eyesight unless alerted, which means our current cover is enough so long as you don't alert them.

Just now, Kaotyke said:

No alternative passages in walls or the roof

Well, if DE takes the time to actually add a mission centered around stealth, it wouldn't be a stretch to set up tilesets to acomodate such gameplay. Kuva Fortress already shows signs of this.

Just now, Kaotyke said:

No alternative passages from a titleset to another

That has a solution, though it would require tweaking how tileset generation works. Which is simple in concept but tricky to properly code in practice.

Basically start the game as randomly generated net of vents and passages, with clear definite entrances and exits, and blocked paths (if you could somehow bypass the covers that block entrances to vents you could technically move trough the whole map without ever setting foot on the regular ship/base tileset) then generate the rest of the tileset to match those vents. The rooms already feature a lot of blocked vents, passages and doors, the game would net would be built around this in design, but actually generated before the tileset. That way you get a workable alternate route generator.

I'm sorry if all this sounds like nonsensical baloney.

 

[DatDarkOne]

33 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Enemies are AI. If you know about how AI works, you know they move in predictable patterns, that's called "pathing". If you leave an area without pathing, no AI will walk there unless you set a trigger to make it walk into said area. That's basic stuff. To make alternate paths not usable to enemies, DE would just need to leave this areas devoid of AI pathing, therefore AI wouldn't go there. Or set up pathing there but leaving it inactive unless a level alarm is active or make only enemies in "alerted" or "suspicious" status go into such areas. Essentially the game would check if X unit is alerted or not, if alerted=true then that AI would make use of the alternate paths searching for players.

Enemies have generally bad eyesight unless alerted, which means our current cover is enough so long as you don't alert them.

Well, if DE takes the time to actually add a mission centered around stealth, it wouldn't be a stretch to set up tilesets to acomodate such gameplay. Kuva Fortress already shows signs of this.

That has a solution, though it would require tweaking how tileset generation works. Which is simple in concept but tricky to properly code in practice.

Basically start the game as randomly generated net of vents and passages, with clear definite entrances and exits, and blocked paths (if you could somehow bypass the covers that block entrances to vents you could technically move trough the whole map without ever setting foot on the regular ship/base tileset) then generate the rest of the tileset to match those vents. The rooms already feature a lot of blocked vents, passages and doors, the game would net would be built around this in design, but actually generated before the tileset. That way you get a workable alternate route generator.

I'm sorry if all this sounds like nonsensical baloney.

 

I agree with you OP.  I've been able to stealth missions using those same tactics as long as I'm solo.  At the moment, there just isn't any incentive to play stealthy for most or in groups.  Which is somewhat sad.  

[Nazrethim]

Personally, I think DE should take a few notes from other sucessful stealth games and adapt what works for Warframe. My go to example is Mark of the Ninja (specially the DLC edition which features comments from the devs themselves about the making of the game). It's a 2D game, but after playing it many many MANY times (cause I love stealth) there are many things that could be adapted to warframe.