PC Why are the devs screwing over agi/stealth in their POI design?

[Kalen]

With stealth if the observability indicator doesn't increase but you keep getting attacked what is the reasonable conclusion?

That something other than being observed triggered the zombies.

 

[Kazgrel]

I think the more frustrating part about the scripted aggro is that it occurs in lower tier POIs.  Had this happen to me today with one of the new car lot POIs (forgot which one specifically but it was a T2).  Attempted to sneak into the garage only to have all the zeds stand up and beeline for me.  Not a big deal since I'm armed to the teeth, but the ruckus I stirred up ended up becoming me on the roof of the building sniping 5-6 zombie bears with rockets and enough zeds to have the place qualify as a T5, lol.

Having those sort of scripted encounters in the higher tier POIs makes sense, tho.  This is also my first ago/stealth based playthrough since A17 and I have to say as a combat tree, I don't think I've ever had as much fun...and I'm one of those folks who were like "dibs" when the auto shotgun was introduced.

The early going is rough, especially since primitive bows are terrible and it takes some time to get a pistol, but it turns into one of the most fun ways to play, IMO.

 

[hiemfire]

That something other than being observed triggered the zombies.

Which is interesting since everything that a player does, other than crossing into an auto-aggro volume, eating or drinking, affects the observability meter.

 

[BFT2020]

With shooting, if you keep shooting at the target you will generally still kill it (or in the case of rabbits using a prim bow, you walk away and hope for an upgrade). With stealth if the observability indicator doesn't increase but you keep getting attacked what is the reasonable conclusion?

I’ve killed a lot of rabbits with the primative bow, though the other bows do make it easier.

 

[hiemfire]

I’ve killed a lot of rabbits with the primative bow, though the other bows do make it easier.

I've gotten a few, when they're on a road standing up or somehow completely miss that I'm there and sidle up right next to me while I'm crouched in the brush. Chickens are allot easier to hit.

If hunting rabbits in game you save resources by blitzing them with a blunderbuss. Seriously, 1 to 2 shots per bun bun instead of 4 to 20....

 

[meganoth]

With shooting, if you keep shooting at the target you will generally still kill it (or in the case of rabbits using a prim bow, you walk away and hope for an upgrade). With stealth if the observability indicator doesn't increase but you keep getting attacked what is the reasonable conclusion?

What does still killing it have to do with whether you can make sense of the situation? In both cases there will be people who don't know why this is happening and people getting the right idea.

 

[hiemfire]

What does still killing it have to do with whether you can make sense of the situation? In both cases there will be people who don't know why this is happening and people getting the right idea.

Your example is one that if you keep trying against the same target you'll succeed and you have the opportunity to improve your chances by improving your gear. With auto-aggro volumes no matter how many times you try to stealth through them you fail, and it happens regardless of perk investment or equipment.

Shooting = rng within a confined area (the "circle" as you outlined, though it is off set low and left of what the crosshairs indicate for those curious).

Auto-aggro volumes = "@%$# you, your perk investment doesn't matter." switch with no forewarning (something that I think you keep missing is part of the problem, there is no indication that a volume being entered is an auto-aggro volume).

The closest thing your example could ever achieve to an auto-aggro volume would be if there was a random chance that the player character's gun would blowup on them whenever they pulled the trigger, and even then having a backup weapon of the exact same type and some painkillers would still get around it. Auto-aggro volumes have no stealth based workaround and teach "blind" (as I defined previously) players that stealth cannot be relied on and, coupled with the similar effectiveness of perked vs unperked stealth, any points invested into FTS are wasted.

Players who try and play stealthy are punished for it by auto-aggro volumes. Those who don't depend on stealth very likely don't even notice the difference when an entire volume activates due to it being an auto-aggro volume.

 

[Roland]

hopefully find out if stealth isn't the only part of the game that the game ignores on a whim.

Done. Here ya go:

Nothing in the game is designed on a whim.

The fact that some rooms are immune to stealth tactics may seem whimsical to you but they are intended places for direct confrontation by the level designers who put a lot of thought into what kinds of interactions they wanted to happen during the exploration of those POIs.

Here's another case... I can buy Miner69 to the max and work my butt off to obtain a quality 6 Steel pickaxe fully loaded with mods and despite all those points and work there are some blocks nearby Traders that I am still blocked from being able to break. I can break any other block in the game and most in one or two shots but the ones that are inside the trader protection zone are still impenetrable. Does that invalidate my work and my points? 

Now having said that, I personally hate the trader protection zones. I think they should be done away with and traders should be killable. But TFP disagrees and so there will always be these zones that will always defy any mining perks or skills or book series advantages or mods or tools I might carry. Just like there are some rooms that will always defy stealth.

 

[MetalMartyr]

Is there any other mechanic in the game that gets completely ignored without any indication from the game that it will be ignored?

Not that I know of.

How does a player learn where they messed up when there was nothing they could do to prevent it?

Repetition. When I first hit the T4 school auto-aggro area, I was...miffed. I kept running quests for that school until I came to the realization that the spot all zed attack me was an auto-aggro spot. Nothing I could do would change the reaction, so I changed my response.

How do they know that there was nothing they could do to prevent it?

Best answer I can give is same as above; Repetition.

What does this teach a player about stealth in 7 Days to Die who is going through the game "blind" (one without the metagame information we have) when they continually encounter these volumes and repeatedly experience stealth's forced failure?

This is a good point. At best (imo), it teaches the new player(s) that there are areas which will force confrontation, and that they should have a Plan B ready. At worst, it teaches them that stealth ain't worth it.

Is getting lucky with the fickle rng so that they happen have a tool (guns, explosives, etc.) to bring that helps them through it the best that should be expected? (This is inspired by @MetalMartyr and others who've made comments about preparation and bringing "better" or "different" tools/weapon.)

You don't need great tools/weapons from the get-go, but you do needs tools and weapons.

A stone axe, wood frames, and wood will be enough for early game. Farm/buy better as you go up.

Placed my responses in purple text, sorry if it's hard to read.

If I failed to actually answer any questions, let me know. I do tend to miss points being made, and may ask for more to go off of.

 

[hiemfire]

Done. Here ya go:

Nothing in the game is designed on a whim.

The fact that some rooms are immune to stealth tactics may seem whimsical to you but they are intended places for direct confrontation by the level designers who put a lot of thought into what kinds of interactions they wanted to happen during the exploration of those POIs.

Here's another case... I can buy Miner69 to the max and work my butt off to obtain a quality 6 Steel pickaxe fully loaded with mods and despite all those points and work there are some blocks nearby Traders that I am still blocked from being able to break. I can break any other block in the game and most in one or two shots but the ones that are inside the trader protection zone are still impenetrable. Does that invalidate my work and my points? 

Now having said that, I personally hate the trader protection zones. I think they should be done away with and traders should be killable. But TFP disagrees and so there will always be these zones that will always defy any mining perks or skills or book series advantages or mods or tools I might carry. Just like there are some rooms that will always defy stealth.

Those blocks also don't break regardless of if you try to blow them up, shoot them with a shotgun, etc.. Their effect on all builds and play styles is consistent. Auto-aggro volumes only negate stealth builds. Their effect is not consistent across playstyles and builds. Now if they also shut down Fort's crit resistance and regen, Strength's Stamina buffs and armor bonuses, Perception's ability to hit multiple targets in line and Intellect's turrets then they would be consistent.

My use of the word "whim" may seem to be in error from your side of things, but when there seems to be no rhyme or reason from my end (try to stealth the redone ranger stations some time...) then then the shoe looks to fit so the word gets used.

Investing points into FTS, which should be the lynchpin of stealth builds, is a waste of time (the most valuable resource in 7d2d) since, as you in effect pointed out earlier in this thread, the player gets effectively the same benefit from stealthing without investing points into it. 

Placed my responses in purple text, sorry if it's hard to read.

If I failed to actually answer any questions, let me know. I do tend to miss points being made, and may ask for more to go off of.

Thank you.

 

[Roland]

Those blocks also don't break regardless of if you try to blow them up, shoot them with a shotgun, etc.. Their effect on all builds and play styles is consistent. Auto-aggro volumes only negate stealth builds. Their effect is not consistent across playstyles and builds. Now if they also shut down Fort's crit resistance and regen, Strength's Stamina buffs and armor bonuses, Perception's ability to hit multiple targets in line and Intellect's turrets then they would be consistent.

My use of the word "whim" may seem to be in error from your side of things, but when there seems to be no rhyme or reason from my end (try to stealth the redone ranger stations some time...) then then the shoe looks to fit so the word gets used.

Investing points into FTS, which should be the lynchpin of stealth builds, is a waste of time (the most valuable resource in 7d2d) since, as you in effect pointed out earlier in this thread, the player gets effectively the same benefit from stealthing without investing points into it. 

Good counterpoint on the trader protection. The problem is that even if you can show beyond a shadow of a doubt that stealth is being unfairly targeted by these scripted events-- it doesn't matter. The developers don't see stealth as a major playstyle like you do. They see it as a supportive skill to the Agility attribute which also has other supportive skills and they don't view this game as a Stealth game. They have put enough stealth into the game to satisfy what they want just like they put enough farming and crafting into the game to satisfy what they want. For hardcore stealth game fans, and farming fans, and crafting fans there is not near enough to these features to satisfy. Where the devs do spend their time and energy is in active confrontation against zombies in which players directly kill all the zombies they see and those zombies are aggroed and hunting the player. They view this game as a direct confrontation zombies in your face type of game as the primary gameplay experience. Everything they do seeks to bring the players and the zombies into direct confrontation and they aren't interested in adding ways to avoid those confrontations into the game.

Good luck with your fight. If you do get your point acknowledge by Madmole, I'm already quite certain of what he will say. He will say it isn't a Stealth game. Just like he tells people who want more depth and breadth added to farming that it isn't a farming game and those who want more detail and realism that it isn't a survival simulation.

 

[hiemfire]

Good counterpoint on the trader protection. The problem is that even if you can show beyond a shadow of a doubt that stealth is being unfairly targeted by these scripted events-- it doesn't matter. The developers don't see stealth as a major playstyle like you do. They see it as a supportive skill to the Agility attribute which also has other supportive skills and they don't view this game as a Stealth game. They have put enough stealth into the game to satisfy what they want just like they put enough farming and crafting into the game to satisfy what they want. For hardcore stealth game fans, and farming fans, and crafting fans there is not near enough to these features to satisfy. Where the devs do spend their time and energy is in active confrontation against zombies in which players directly kill all the zombies they see and those zombies are aggroed and hunting the player. They view this game as a direct confrontation zombies in your face type of game as the primary gameplay experience. Everything they do seeks to bring the players and the zombies into direct confrontation and they aren't interested in adding ways to avoid those confrontations into the game.

Good luck with your fight. If you do get your point acknowledge by Madmole, I'm already quite certain of what he will say. He will say it isn't a Stealth game. Just like he tells people who want more depth and breadth added to farming that it isn't a farming game and those who want more detail and realism that it isn't a survival simulation.

The hell? Most of the agility tree is either stealth focused or builds directly on the weapon skill perks, two of which have a large reliance on stealth for what they buff on the weapons. That is before adding the Night Stalker perk book series, which is hard focused on blade and bow stealth play, into the equation. Dervish blades, Pistolero and Lolgolas shoot and dash archery builds barely touch on half of the perks there at best, and they overlap with the stealth focused/boosting perks with what they do use.

What you're basically saying is that they went and designed the bulk of the perks in an entire perk tree around a style of gameplay then decided to go, "Ummm, nah. We don't want people playing the game that way, but we'll leave the perks the way they are so we can have a laugh later.".

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

I don´t have any problem with stealth not working 100% every time. What i do have a problem is that it is for no appearant reason at all. Why do the same zombies that can´t hear you in the hospital, hear you from 30 blocks distance in the RedMesa?

Just arbitrary denying the player his stealth ability is simply bad game design. If you introduce stealth and it´s effects you gotta built in something that makes it not working anymore. Like a siren, a guarding bandit that triggers some sort of alarm that wakes all the zombies up or similiar.

Stealth is trash and not worth pointing any points to achieve.  Only spend points on skills/abilities that are going to help you on horde night.  Spending points in anything else is a waste and is going to hurt you on horde nights.

What? On warrior the first 3 hordenights are jokingly easy because they don´t even last all night. If you use all the pipe bombs from your quest rewards they are over superfast. First 2 are done shortly after midnight. And the setting that defines how many zombies you get doesn´t change that. The number of zombies you get overall stays the same, just the waves are bigger.

If you miss those points in week 4 you do something wrong tbh. Also you save ressources because you need less ammo to kill them. Especially with the bow and it´s sneak damage bonus of x3.5 without putting a point in hidden strike.

 

[Kalen]

The hell? Most of the agility tree is either stealth focused

There are 2 stealth perks out of 9 total.   

 

[Blake_]

I think I heard some developer say that stealth will allow perked players to have a lesser chance to trigger insta aggro POI events.

That is cool. Balance. Legendary stuff could improve the feature further, so I'm not concerned. It's a 90% working feature at the moment, meaning sometimes, in a POI, you will encounter a unavoidable detection problem. When the tweaks come in, a stealth player will be "more resistant" to trigger those aggro areas than a non-stealthy player.

 

[meganoth]

Your example is one that if you keep trying against the same target you'll succeed and you have the opportunity to improve your chances by improving your gear. With auto-aggro volumes no matter how many times you try to stealth through them you fail, and it happens regardless of perk investment or equipment.

Shooting = rng within a confined area (the "circle" as you outlined, though it is off set low and left of what the crosshairs indicate for those curious).

Auto-aggro volumes = "@%$# you, your perk investment doesn't matter." switch with no forewarning (something that I think you keep missing is part of the problem, there is no indication that a volume being entered is an auto-aggro volume).

The closest thing your example could ever achieve to an auto-aggro volume would be if there was a random chance that the player character's gun would blowup on them whenever they pulled the trigger, and even then having a backup weapon of the exact same type and some painkillers would still get around it. Auto-aggro volumes have no stealth based workaround and teach "blind" (as I defined previously) players that stealth cannot be relied on and, coupled with the similar effectiveness of perked vs unperked stealth, any points invested into FTS are wasted.

Players who try and play stealthy are punished for it by auto-aggro volumes. Those who don't depend on stealth very likely don't even notice the difference when an entire volume activates due to it being an auto-aggro volume.

Details. You have an effect and if you notice when and how it happens you can get an idea why. In the case of shooting you might notice that you hit more often with guns with a small circle. Players with RPG experience have an easier time making the connection. In the case of auto-aggro you might notice that it mostly happens in loot rooms, like it is a staged encounter. Players of games with boss encounters and also many RPGs might remember scripted encounters in other games.

I'm not saying this design is fine by the way and I think pApA^LeGBa idea of a siren or alarm lamp going off is an excellent idea. Doesn't even need a to have a lamp or siren visible somewhere, just a siren sound or the room tinted with a blinking red light coming from some opening would be great.

 

[RipClaw]

Doesn't even need a to have a lamp or siren visible somewhere, just a siren sound or the room tinted with a blinking red light coming from some opening would be great.

Since most POIs are residential buildings, an appropriate sound would be a squeaking door or something like that being moved by the wind. Simply an event caused by external circumstances.

 

[Kalen]

Since most POIs are residential buildings, an appropriate sound would be a squeaking door or something like that being moved by the wind. Simply an event caused by external circumstances.

Exactly, don't assume that you're the only thing that might trigger sleepers.

 

[Jenshae]

So, these auto aggro triggers don't make a blind difference to my Endurance friend. They just rush into every room and brawl everything in there.

In that regard, more confrontational players aren't penalised by the mechanic but stealth ones are.

 

[Danidas]

Since they are moving to special infected zombies a better idea might be for a special alarm zombie. Which would be designed to not only look like they would defiantly notice you but would also make a lot a noise even if silently killed. That way players will have a tangible reason for the auto wake/aggro sleeper volumes and something to take their rage out on. As I'm sure everyone here has dismembered a Screamer at some point to vent some anger over the horde she summoned.