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

[Kalen]

So Stealth should be completely worthless because of higher difficult? What are you smoking dude? It seems you aren't really understanding what you are saying. It pigeonholes you into run and gun, herp derp.

I didn't say stealth should be completely worthless.... you said that.   I implied, that stealth is less effective in higher difficulties.   As it should be, IMO.   

TFP have made two things, relevant to this discussion, clear. 

1.  It's not a stealth game.... stealth was never meant to be viable in all situations.

2.  The game is currently balanced around the default settings.   So playing on difficult settings and complaining about balance will get you nowhere at this time.

 

[Lesdeth]

1.  It's not a stealth game.... stealth was never meant to be viable in all situations.

2.  The game is currently balanced around the default settings.   So playing on difficult settings and complaining about balance will get you nowhere at this time.

So it is fine that everyone is pigeonholed into run and gun, heavy armor m60 and auto shotgun on insane or cheesing with grenades. Sounds pretty unbalanced and broken to me. Sorry if you are unfamiliar with what unbalanced means.

I know you only play on normal settings because you can't handle insane, so you think stealth is fine because you can do tier 5 naked. If you could handle it, you would have the same opinion as us. Sorry.

 

[Kalen]

So it is fine that everyone is pigeonholed into run and gun, heavy armor m60 and auto shotgun on insane or cheesing with grenades. Sounds pretty unbalanced and broken to me. Sorry if you are unfamiliar with what unbalanced means.

No one is pigeonholed into anything.... if thats the only way you are successful thats on you, not the game.

 

[Lesdeth]

No one is pigeonholed into anything.... if thats the only way you are successful thats on you, not the game.

That is the only way to be successful on insane dude... Maybe you should give it a try. Go do a playthrough of Insane Always Nightmare.

 

[Kalen]

That is the only way to be successful on insane dude... Maybe you should give it a try. Go do a playthrough of Insane Always Nightmare.

I doubt I'm skilled enough to play on those setting.... at least not without a lot of frustration.  I play at a difficulty that lets me play the way I want to play.   You should try it, you might enjoy the game more.

 

[Lesdeth]

I doubt I'm skilled enough to play on those setting.... at least not without a lot of frustration.  I play at a difficulty that lets me play the way I want to play.   You should try it, you might enjoy the game more.

I enjoy the game and a challenge. I can naked clear tier 5 on lower settings. Hell, you can do it with a level 1 club and making choke points. I think it is quite funny that you are fine with stealth being completely useless on higher difficulty because you don't play on it.

 

[Kalen]

I enjoy the game and a challenge. I can naked clear tier 5 on lower settings. Hell, you can do it with a level 1 club and making choke points. I think it is quite funny that you are fine with stealth being completely useless on higher difficulty because you don't play on it.

I see, because you can't stealth on high difficulty, no one can?   Maybe you're right.... but I'd want to see more than just your anecdotal evidence before I believe it.

 

[Lesdeth]

I see, because you can't stealth on high difficulty, no one can?   Maybe you're right.... but I'd want to see more than just your anecdotal evidence before I believe it.

Go watch all of the insane nightmare playthroughs on Youtube, or watch a lot of the vods on Twitch and see for yourself my dude.

 

[hiemfire]

We already know from Boidster's previous data that about 50% don't.

They look to have edited that post since your reply to it due to a typo in the percentage. 66% don't, 33% do. 1/3rd of the POIs are not stealth able. Every time someone who plays "blind" (no meta knowledge) running a stealth build enters into a poi there is a 1 in 3 chance that their build will be thrown back in their face and they'll be playing with the equivalent of 0 perks invested.

 

[Kalen]

They look to have edited that post since your reply to it due to a typo in the percentage. 66% don't, 33% do. 1/3rd of the POIs are not stealth able. Every time someone who plays "blind" (no meta knowledge) running a stealth build enters into a poi there is a 1 in 3 chance that their build will be thrown back in their face and they'll be playing with the equivalent of 0 perks invested.

You're right... I did miss that edit.  Thanks.

 

[Boidster]

You're right... I did miss that edit.  Thanks.

Sorry, I edited it right after you posted and forgot to alert you. The first numbers were taking into account all POIs including the remnants and others which have no sleeper volumes. I excluded those to get the correct numbers.

Every time someone who plays "blind" (no meta knowledge) running a stealth build enters into a poi there is a 1 in 3 chance that their build will be thrown back in their face and they'll be playing with the equivalent of 0 perks invested.

This is just not true. There might be a single volume in the POI which will auto-aggro, when 75% (as in Red Mesa) or more of the rest of the POI can be cleared without risk or challenge by one-shotting the sleepers.

 

[hiemfire]

This is just not true. There might be a single volume in the POI which will auto-aggro, when 75% (as in Red Mesa) or more of the rest of the POI can be cleared without risk or challenge by one-shotting the sleepers.

Isn't it? Get back to me when your armor/weapon/crit mitigation/block damage boosting perks get shut off for just walking into an unmarked room that only affects them will ya. We'll see how you think then.

TFP needs to be fully up front with the players in the game itself that these exist before a player decides to invest points into FTS and HS. If they're not willing to do that then aggressive volumes, to call them how they're categorized by TFP, need to be removed. They are straight out lying to the player by willful omission otherwise.

Other alternatives would be to put in place volumes or aoe effects from zombies that hamstring other play styles to level the field or flat out remove the stealth perks since we're not supposed to rely on the mechanic (unlike every other @%$#ing mechanic and perk set in the game).

 

[Boidster]

There might be a single volume in the POI which will auto-aggro, when 75% (as in Red Mesa) or more of the rest of the POI can be cleared without risk or challenge by one-shotting the sleepers.

More data on this:

Isn't it?

No, it's not. You said:

Every time someone who plays "blind" (no meta knowledge) running a stealth build enters into a poi there is a 1 in 3 chance that...they'll be playing with the equivalent of 0 perks invested.

As you can see above, there is slightly more than a 1% chance the POI will play "with the equivalent of 0 perks invested". A single volume - or several even - in a POI which also has several - in most cases a majority - of volumes which are perfectly fine running in stealth mode, does not make the POI "the equivalent of [playing with] 0 perks invested". There is no need to exaggerate. You have a valid issue, don't f*** up your argument with hyperbole.

Get back to me when your armor/weapon/crit mitigation/block damage boosting perks get shut off for just walking into an unmarked room that only affects them will ya. We'll see how you think then.

Sorry, this challenge doesn't carry any weight with me. I play stealth in every game. I already know how it is treated and what its limitations are. I simply don't see it as being "lied to by willful omission" and the end of the freaking world. It's not a stealth game. Sometimes stealth perks don't help me. <shrug> I still play stealth always, and enjoy the vast majority of one-shot kills and low-stress, low-challenge POI exploration I get. I am not looking for a more carebear experience in this game.

 

[hiemfire]

More data on this:

View attachment 15431

I'm going to be frank, with how the % axis is set up I cannot tell if the %s are supposed to line up with the hashes or the slots and the inconsistent spread (0%>8%>13%>15%, the heck???) makes it hard to even figure out ballpark what the numbers are supposed to mean when they don't line up. Is 50% supposed to have 8, or is that 8 in a 46%>49% spread?

 

[SylenThunder]

The real issue is that people assume "Stealth" means "invisible". It doesn't.  It needs to be called "Sneak", and if you can 100% sneak and clear all POI's 100% of the time, then the game developers aren't doing their jobs.

I personally play this build type a lot. At a guess, i'm probably 80-90% successful at not having any Z's wake on me. Have even done the cauldron in the Shotgun Messiah factory without waking any of the Z's that spawn inside of it. When they do wake, you deal with it and move on. As you play, you learn the POI's, and you learn the areas where stealth isn't going to work. If you're crafty, you can even eliminate some of those zeds before they wake. (so long as they are spawned into the game)

 

[hiemfire]

Sorry, this challenge doesn't carry any weight with me. I play stealth in every game. I already know how it is treated and what its limitations are. I simply don't see it as being "lied to by willful omission" and the end of the freaking world. It's not a stealth game. Sometimes stealth perks don't help me. <shrug> I still play stealth always, and enjoy the vast majority of one-shot kills and low-stress, low-challenge POI exploration I get. I am not looking for a more carebear experience in this game.

They set up a mechanic, add in perks that boost the effectiveness of said mechanic which require hours of time and resources to acquire, then add in places that outright ignore said mechanic with no indication and do not mention their existence in game while making sure to mention, heck out and out sell to the player, in both the journal entry for said mechanic and the loading screen tip for From The Shadows & Hidden Strike how great the mechanic is. It is a lie of omission because everything in game that a player can directly reference says that stealth is reliable, especially if you take the time and resources to invest into it. Aggressive volumes turn around and slap the player saying "Nope!!" as they do so. And without something the player can see in game to understand what happened, all they have to go on is that the mechanic keeps failing. If a mechanic keeps failing then it isn't reliable. If it isn't reliable then it isn't going to be used.

It'll get even worse when those that have experienced Aggressive Volumes repeatedly come here thinking the game is bugged and find out that these exist and it isn't a bug. Now imagine how they will perceive TFP. How will they perceive any further title TFP releases...

 

[Boidster]

I'm going to be frank, with how the % axis is set up I cannot tell if the %s are supposed to line up with the hashes or the slots and the inconsistent spread (0%>8%>13%>15%, the heck???) makes it hard to even figure out ballpark what the numbers are supposed to mean when they don't line up. Is 50% supposed to have 8, or is that 8 in a 46%>49% spread?

Apologies. Excel can do weird things when you compress charts and I'm not getting paid for this.



I replaced the chart with a better one. Each bar represents the count of POIs which have the shown % of auto-aggro volumes in them. The X axis is not contiguous because not every % from 0-100 is represented in the data. For example there are no POIs with 97%, 98%, or 99% auto-aggro volumes. I hope that clears it up.

 

[hiemfire]

Excel can do weird things when you compress charts and I'm not getting paid for this.

Understandable. Your heart is in this just as much as mine though.  

View attachment 15432

That is so much easier to read now. TY!!!

Edit: 34 POIs, just under 1/10th of the total POIs in game, have half or more of the volumes in the poi set to aggressive, a bit over 1/3rd of the POIs that have the volumes. I'm curious if @meganoth's bug report on one of the POIs that are set up as 100% aggressive has had an answer as to it being intended or not. I'm also curious if @Roland's statement on the aggressive volumes being intended to only be a small proportion (I forget if he even defined what was meant by what I'm remembering as "small proportion") of the total of volumes in a POI was per a dev (honestly I've forgotten which he prefaced the mention as being, from the devs or personal supposition, and he's really good about covering that base). If it was from a dev then this chart and a list of the POIs at each % could be useful to them since, with how spread out the development & implementation of the POIs has been time wise, they may not have a complete master list of which POIs have how many of each volume type (things get lost, files get corrupted, it's part of life).

They still might as well remove the perks if they aren't willing to mention in game the existence of aggressive volumes to the player, much less remove them. Something being guaranteed to fail in 1/3rd of the POIs the player enters regardless of perk investment paired with that these places even exist being kept from the player in game is really @%$#ed up. Removing the perks changes stealth, sneaking as @SylenThunder prefers to call it, into a situational mechanic instead of one that people invest resources into improving and then trust to work, only for it to not.

 

[Lesdeth]

The real issue is that people assume "Stealth" means "invisible". It doesn't.  It needs to be called "Sneak", and if you can 100% sneak and clear all POI's 100% of the time, then the game developers aren't doing their jobs.

I personally play this build type a lot. At a guess, i'm probably 80-90% successful at not having any Z's wake on me. Have even done the cauldron in the Shotgun Messiah factory without waking any of the Z's that spawn inside of it. When they do wake, you deal with it and move on. As you play, you learn the POI's, and you learn the areas where stealth isn't going to work. If you're crafty, you can even eliminate some of those zeds before they wake. (so long as they are spawned into the game)

You can play on the hardest settings as I do, run and gun in heavy with auto shotgun, m60, and grenades, and have 0 chance of dying to anything. You can clear every building and be beat on repeatedly taking like 10 damage per hit. As long as you pop a first aid kit, you wont die. So I should play an immortal build, that runs through Tier 5 missions, while the stealth player is hamstringed by time invested? You can literally spend 20 minutes with two rock busters and an auger and make like 30,000 gunpowder for ammo and grenades... I could probably do 5 missions to one of a stealth player, if stealth was even viable...

You sir are completely wrong.

 

[meganoth]

The bug report is still in section "confirmed", with 809 others.