I finally did a full stealth run and I gotta say...I think they're right

[Jost Amman]

Stealth gameplay expectations were ruined by the TES series.

This is how it works in TES basically:

Spoiler

 

[Blue mame]

So what do you imagine stealth to look like? You have fully experienced the entire project, and you should have many insights that you are not satisfied with

Post automatically merged: Apr 18, 2026

the whole concept of stealth is a broken idea when we have smell now. Zombies would smell you much sooner than hear or see you when hiding. I think a better idea would be something like lysol we spray on yourself that removes body odor for 10min or something similar.

Just remove the odor from your body before exploring, it's just a small issue, it's just a new gameplay

 

[Blue mame]

I think there is some room to improve stealth without making it as broken as it was in 1.0. I would even be fine with changing the full set bonus for the assassin armor depending on if something else were to change with stealth as it seems a little strange that just breaking line of sight would make zombies lose interest.

After my recent post about stealth and learning more about triggers from another post I had a similar idea about changing how triggers work based off of stealth.
I would go as far as having a negative effect for being too loud where zombies are more alert or more spawn, and opposite for stealth.

If you are stealthy, Zombies should be less alert. I don't see why they wouldn't stay sleeping. When stealthy I don't think that waking up a full room of 10+ zombies and have them instantly sprint to your position just seems stupid to me. I do understand game balance and things of that nature but I do like things that make more sense to me.



This is how I play as well. I try to stealth as much as possible but always have a backup plan for my weapons but also how to get out of a bad situation.

I also agree with the Blood moon thing.
introducing a back shot / flank mechanic is an interesting idea and would def change how I build 7N base.
Number of crouch shots leading to sneak attacks is also a good idea.
Maybe do something with distance from the player. Crouch shots from x distance away nets you sneak damage.
They could add this as a default bonus for the from the shadows perk. They could also lower the sneak damage multiplier for something like this to keep it from being overpowered.

The bonus for stealth damage is too terrifying. If players are allowed to fully dive, they may be able to fully explore the ruins at around level 35. Overall, stealth is not so unbearable, but it is not as outstanding. This is true.

 

[Stallionsden]

And when I say "they're" I mean those that say "stealth sucks".

I maxed out all the necessary perks and had all the necessary legendary armor, had all the necessary weapons with all the necessary attachments and it wasn't a good overall experience.

As it has been said many times, the trigger spawns in POIs completely kills it. Sure I can trigger them and then back off, crouch and wait for them to lose me, but that doesn't always work because smarter zombies (Utility Worker) and higher tier zombies (radiated+) can still detect you from greater distances even if the detection meter shows green and single digit numbers.

Now, I've always used some stealthiness even when playing normal and that is good, but when going out of my way to spec fully into stealth, it becomes a waste and ultimately disappointing.

I don't mind trigger spawns, but if I'm fully spec'd and kitted into stealth I shouldn't be instantly detected once they spawn. There has to be legit viability to being fully stealth'd out, otherwise there's no point in having a stealth class.

I know assassin armor was too OP in 1.0, but there has to be some middle ground. There has to be substantial viability to running a stealth class.

every class should have a counter.. otherwise it be a very boring game.

Stealth is great and the only class myself plays.. To have a counter is also good to have otherwise you may as well turn zs off or play in god mode.
I have many times backed away after triggering zs in a poi as well and a feral can come very close to me and not see me, dogs also walk past me.

 

[Callum123456789]

And when I say "they're" I mean those that say "stealth sucks".

I maxed out all the necessary perks and had all the necessary legendary armor, had all the necessary weapons with all the necessary attachments and it wasn't a good overall experience.

As it has been said many times, the trigger spawns in POIs completely kills it. Sure I can trigger them and then back off, crouch and wait for them to lose me, but that doesn't always work because smarter zombies (Utility Worker) and higher tier zombies (radiated+) can still detect you from greater distances even if the detection meter shows green and single digit numbers.

Now, I've always used some stealthiness even when playing normal and that is good, but when going out of my way to spec fully into stealth, it becomes a waste and ultimately disappointing.

I don't mind trigger spawns, but if I'm fully spec'd and kitted into stealth I shouldn't be instantly detected once they spawn. There has to be legit viability to being fully stealth'd out, otherwise there's no point in having a stealth class.

I know assassin armor was too OP in 1.0, but there has to be some middle ground. There has to be substantial viability to running a stealth class.

I used to enjoy stealth pre alpha 18 pretty much but ever since and exceptions for that brief period of time with 1.0s stealth armour since then stealth has costed way too much investment and time versus any other play style if you ask me.

Without some major overhauls and benefitting factors towards the overall system I don't see any reason why I'd want to go back to it honestly.

 

[Gamida]

every class should have a counter.. otherwise it be a very boring game.

Stealth is great and the only class myself plays.. To have a counter is also good to have otherwise you may as well turn zs off or play in god mode.
I have many times backed away after triggering zs in a poi as well and a feral can come very close to me and not see me, dogs also walk past me.

I recall that happening to me.
I would be out and about, just in the middle of nowhere.
Just in my peripheral vision I would notice something and when I looked it would be a pack of dogs just running by.
My heart would actually race. I would crouch and hope they didn't see me.
Pretty much all of the time, unless I was directly in their path, they would whiz by.
Sometime going out of sight, sometimes just far enough away that some of them would leave my vision but the other would just mill about.
I would then try to sneak off in the opposite direction and run back to base to see if I had any other pants in my inventory.
It was always a thrilling event.

 

[spud42]

Played my solo game just yesterday night with an agility build and one thing I noticed was that at full stealth perk the time for zombies to lose your scent is "up to" 20 seconds. Now that means you have to run far away so they are out of sight AND then have enough lead so they are not coming round the corner in those "up to" 20 seconds (probably less the lower a zombie is). 20 seconds is a looong time for such a scenario

Now in actual game play I could loose many zombies that way in a POI, but almost always had a few that didn't. That seemed to work, as I could dispense the few that didn't quite well. But yesterday I was in a military camp with lots of open space and not that many corners and I noticed that a lot more zombies were still following me. I still survived but felt much less "stealthy".

Which brings me to suggest decreasing that value for higher perk levels. It could help with stealth balance with really low effort on part of the developers.

why would you expect stealth to work in an open area? hide in shadows and less noise. not hide in the open and no noise at all....

 

[Stallionsden]

I recall that happening to me.
I would be out and about, just in the middle of nowhere.
Just in my peripheral vision I would notice something and when I looked it would be a pack of dogs just running by.
My heart would actually race. I would crouch and hope they didn't see me.
Pretty much all of the time, unless I was directly in their path, they would whiz by.
Sometime going out of sight, sometimes just far enough away that some of them would leave my vision but the other would just mill about.
I would then try to sneak off in the opposite direction and run back to base to see if I had any other pants in my inventory.
It was always a thrilling event.

yep works the same in a poi to move away from where you agrroed them and make sure you are not making noise and get into dark areas as best you can.

I literally had a feral hawaiin guy 2 steps from me couldnt find me lol

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Most of the modding I do for myself is more experiments to see what ifs
and try to emu physics without adding a lot of convolution, using existing
props and params, in an unlike environment.

One that I use to do but have not had to do it recently, is for my outside
stealth helper.

Added light reduction to the trees, the logic being tree leaves
provide shade, wider diameter leaves provide more shade.

So I had applied in a reverse hierarchy, of light smaller tree =
more passive light to larger tree less passive light. Just reusing
the principle applied to the different glassblocks.

Small bushes had a small reduction that only mattered when squattiing.
The smallest applied to the grass, to add to the illusion I scaled the
grass a bit taller, so ducking down made me feel like I was hiding.

As an addition as I saw less and less entities, i set different accelerated
heatmaps, to different terrain blocks, Forest, trail, city streets, as the
main variables.

 

[zztong]

why would you expect stealth to work in an open area? hide in shadows and less noise. not hide in the open and no noise at all....

Perhaps I'm not reading this question as you intended, but: Night time, Fog, Zombie facing the other way, Distance, Camouflage, Concealment. Of course moving in the open is what tends to get noticed by predators with front-facing eyes, so stealth while moving in the open in full daylight should be pretty hard.

 

[meganoth]

why would you expect stealth to work in an open area? hide in shadows and less noise. not hide in the open and no noise at all....

It was more open space as the typical POI but I still had lots of buildings and walls to hide behind. Just a wild guess, maybe all the straight paths instead of lots of doors and corners made more zombies keep on trail. I think at least once it was dark and hiding still was much less effective than I was used to

 

[spud42]

thats what rocks are for... send the zombies chasing noise!

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

For me the problem isn´t that you can´t do 100% stealth. It´s the fact that other playstyles don´t get nearly as much disadvantages as stealth does. The sledge for example. Yeah sure stamina is a thing early on, but that isn´t an issue for very long as the game throws the sledge saga at you left, right and center. And mining skills are still in strength so you can go full into strength without the drawback of having to put too many points into another attribute.

 

[Jost Amman]

For me the problem isn´t that you can´t do 100% stealth. It´s the fact that other playstyles don´t get nearly as much disadvantages as stealth does. The sledge for example. Yeah sure stamina is a thing early on, but that isn´t an issue for very long as the game throws the sledge saga at you left, right and center. And mining skills are still in strength so you can go full into strength without the drawback of having to put too many points into another attribute.

In my opinion the only real "disadvantage" for stealth are the trigger zones in POIs.

The rest allows you to become completely OP by using the assassin armor along with many mods that nullify noise and stamina usage, PLUS the "Night Stalker" series. On top of that, once you acquire a silencer, you can go around at night without a worry in the world.

So, I don't see that much of a gap vs. the sledge honestly.

 

[Vaeliorin]

In my opinion the only real "disadvantage" for stealth are the trigger zones in POIs.

The rest allows you to become completely OP by using the assassin armor along with many mods that nullify noise and stamina usage, PLUS the "Night Stalker" series. On top of that, once you acquire a silencer, you can go around at night without a worry in the world.

So, I don't see that much of a gap vs. the sledge honestly.

You can do basically all of that (and I do) without investing a single point in stealth, though. Get to T5 POIs and stealth is hell (particularly in loot rooms.) It's also not useful on horde night. So sinking your points into it for a minimal return in order to have a slow playstyle that's useless for the biggest event of the week is not great, imo.

It also pushes you towards knives, which I personally hate. The lack of knockdown on them makes them the absolute worst weapon to be using if you get cornered.

 

[zztong]

Because of this discussion, I've been recording myself playing stealth missions, the most recent ones being T5 POIs. I've put them up on YouTube for access. I'm not looking to be a YouTube personality, but I have found that vocalizing what I'm thinking while playing is kind of fun and since I'm playing stealth maybe the videos are of some use to somebody.

Bruce Tong

This isn't so much a channel as a motley collection of videos that I felt like making whenever I made them. I'm not committed enough to promise regular content. I'm not ambitious enough to invest in post-production time.

www.youtube.com

Note, they can get long. My Stealth play isn't fast.

Get to T5 POIs and stealth is hell (particularly in loot rooms.)

This can be true, but I don't think it is universally true. It depends on the POI. Grover High School is a recent example. It had been something you could do with 100% stealth, but this time I didn't find that to be the case.

In my opinion the only real "disadvantage" for stealth are the trigger zones in POIs.

Yes, well it isn't that I can't prepare for them when it is something like a loot room. It is that a series of triggers (zones or otherwise) can kind of wear you down as a player. Withdrawing from a fight to reestablish stealth can feel clever a few times, but a constant dose of that through a POI will make you question your techniques even though you're not doing anything wrong.

Then, add in the "minscript" waves, and you get extra frustration. It feels like when a minscript places another wave of zombies they seem to know where you are. (I need more data.)

Or, if you've reestablished stealth on a zombie that is part of some minscript's counter, then it will just wander pretty much anywhere, so if it jumped off a building then it is now 8 stories below wandering the streets and it's "red dot" is gone from your UI. Any yellow "hint" marker is useless because it will lead you back to the volume from which the zombie came, but that zombie is not anywhere near the hint anymore.

So sinking your points into it for a minimal return in order to have a slow playstyle that's useless for the biggest event of the week is not great, imo.

I do find it to be a slow play style, which I kind of enjoy. That it doesn't help on Horde Night is a drawback, but then investments in Stealth don't come at the exclusion of investments in other things.

It also pushes you towards knives, which I personally hate.

I don't feel that push. Knives are the last weapon investment I'll make. I carry one as a tool for harvesting.

I'm probably weird, but I'm Bow-Club-Machine Gun.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

In my opinion the only real "disadvantage" for stealth are the trigger zones in POIs.

The rest allows you to become completely OP by using the assassin armor along with many mods that nullify noise and stamina usage, PLUS the "Night Stalker" series. On top of that, once you acquire a silencer, you can go around at night without a worry in the world.

So, I don't see that much of a gap vs. the sledge honestly.

Being in POI´s is half the game or even more for many people. Especially in MP Coop there is often a dedicated looter that does nearly nothing else than being in POIs.

 

[The_Great_Sephiroth]

I'll play devil's advocate here. I remember a time when I could literally stealth to the square next to a zed and stab him without ever being detected. Granted, it was FUN for a while, but then it got boring. We need some detection or we'll be bored stealthing around one-shotting everything. I do agree that the triggered encounters kind of suck when playing stealth. You get to the end and suddenly the last group knows you're there for some magical reason. All good though.

 

[Kyoji]

In my opinion the only real "disadvantage" for stealth are the trigger zones in POIs.

The rest allows you to become completely OP by using the assassin armor along with many mods that nullify noise and stamina usage, PLUS the "Night Stalker" series. On top of that, once you acquire a silencer, you can go around at night without a worry in the world.

So, I don't see that much of a gap vs. the sledge honestly.

Speed is the largest disadvantage. In a game revolving around every 7 days a horde will happen time is a resource. If you are going slower to clear POIs and loot then it's a disadvantage and IMO the largest one though I readily admit trigger zones is a strong contender for the top spot, though I will also agree that the armor increased it's viability I also must say I strongly disagree with the way armor was done in the game.

I'll play devil's advocate here. I remember a time when I could literally stealth to the square next to a zed and stab him without ever being detected. Granted, it was FUN for a while, but then it got boring. We need some detection or we'll be bored stealthing around one-shotting everything. I do agree that the triggered encounters kind of suck when playing stealth. You get to the end and suddenly the last group knows you're there for some magical reason. All good though.

You are suggesting a stealth system on one far end of the spectrum and ignoring the fact that you can have a proper stealth system and not rely on invisible triggers to negate it without it being OP and "boring".

 

[The_Great_Sephiroth]

Re-read my post. I was not suggesting anything. I was literally saying that the triggers make them seem magical, but it doesn't bother me that much. I was mentioning the original release of stealth, not suggesting it.