Things like this are probably part of the reason so many players think stealth is broken in this game. They think that because... it kinda is. There shouldn't be a fake aggro that lasts longer than a true aggro but only triggers in some scenarios and not others.
Of course, the biggest thing that confuses people is the way zombies will jump out of their ambush spots without knowing where you are. And I don't actually mind it that much now that I know how it works, but it's definitely not an easily understood system. And the fact that almost all zombies in PoIs are 'ambush' zombies doesn't help.
@meganoth Yes, the terminology was getting me confused
@theFlu Got you now. I'm not criticising your use of terms, either. 'Auto-aggro' does make sense to describe the 'looking but not locked on' state we see now, but it used to correctly describe the 'coming for you, personally, no matter how sneaky you were' state of earlier stealth incarnations.
Basically I agree with all three of you!
@ElDudorino You make a good point. If the zombies that burst out of hiding, but don't make the perception check to see you, were just wandering around in the first place, it would be a lot easier to intuitively grasp the modern stealth mechanics. I know 'wandering sleepers' has been a thing that the devs have talked about, but no idea where we are with them. My assumption is that the current 'burst out of hiding angry but without a fixed target' functionality is a compromise to give the performance saving effects of only creating zombies as they're 'needed' while providing a much required middle ground between the 'just stand here and get shot in the head' and 'totally ignore stealth' enemies of earlier iterations.
I think one part of the confusion may be your use of "auto-aggro", which is at minimum loaded with wrong expectations from A18s way of having auto-aggro volumes.
In my eyes, the mechanic is still there, just mildly different. It went from
- When you enter an attack volume every zed in it knows where you are and will come after you relentlessly.
to
- When you enter an attack volume every zed in it knows where you are and will come after you relentlessly, unless you're sneaking really, really well at a specific pixel on your path.
It's still automatic aggro, just with weird conditions. (I added the second g to satisfy the spell checker, see, I can change.. slowly)
An automatic door doesn't stop being an automatic door if you cover yourself in low visibility clothing and wait for a suitable fog.
And, I haven't seen anyone suggest a better name for it.. I can start calling it "A20-auto-aggro" if you deem that necessary, but I'm always talking about the current patch so I don't see a point in that.
Certainly. I don't pretend to know the design goals, I can only speak of what's in the game right now. I can see it just being a difficult thing to fix. But I also wouldn't think that the devs intend you needing to actually run away for straight 20 secs under relentless pursuit. You're out of dishong by that time ...
(Now that's an exaggeration. I don't actually know what exactly the timer change from the perk does, might try to figure that out..)
Things like this are probably part of the reason so many players think stealth is broken in this game. They think that because... it kinda is. There shouldn't be a fake aggro that lasts longer than a true aggro but only triggers in some scenarios and not others.
I do agree it's a bit of a mess. If I could choose, I'd replace the A20-auto-aggro-mechanic with giving the zeds in an attack volume much heightened senses, esp hearing. They're just better at spotting you, nothing special required. Would it be easy to balance.. nope. But the current one isn't just a balance issue, it's hard to imagine making it fluid with the rest of the stealth system.
In my eyes, the mechanic is still there, just mildly different. It went from
- When you enter an attack volume every zed in it knows where you are and will come after you relentlessly.
to
- When you enter an attack volume every zed in it knows where you are and will come after you relentlessly, unless you're sneaking really, really well at a specific pixel on your path.
It's still automatic aggro, just with weird conditions. (I added the second g to satisfy the spell checker, see, I can change.. slowly)
Then a zombie waking up normally when you get too close to him must be called auto-aggro as well, because it happens automatically, right?
Maybe you are right that the trigger is too sensitive and hardly makes a difference in reality. But the principle difference is there:
In A18 "auto" meant that no matter what you do or have perkedall zombies wake up when you cross a specific line. Now you have a situation where neither of the first two conditions are true anymore. Only the "specific line" bit is still true. That should count for a rebrand in my opinion. I don't see anything that would deserve the label automatic.
The event itself could be called "circumference triggering", the zombie state itself I would call "player-fixated" or "player-aggroed" while if a zombie just went for your location it would be "locaton-fixated" or "location-aggroed".
Even if the difference were less, the term auto-aggro is so loaded now. It is as if you wanted to call a new dog race "hot dog" now. No matter what you do everyone will immediately think of a sausage
And, I haven't seen anyone suggest a better name for it.. I can start calling it "A20-auto-aggro" if you deem that necessary, but I'm always talking about the current patch so I don't see a point in that.
Certainly. I don't pretend to know the design goals, I can only speak of what's in the game right now. I can see it just being a difficult thing to fix. But I also wouldn't think that the devs intend you needing to actually run away for straight 20 secs under relentless pursuit. You're out of dishong by that time ...
(Now that's an exaggeration. I don't actually know what exactly the timer change from the perk does, might try to figure that out..)
I do agree it's a bit of a mess. If I could choose, I'd replace the A20-auto-aggro-mechanic with giving the zeds in an attack volume much heightened senses, esp hearing. They're just better at spotting you, nothing special required. Would it be easy to balance.. nope. But the current one isn't just a balance issue, it's hard to imagine making it fluid with the rest of the stealth system.
Hmm; see above, seems we actually disagree, but I'm fine with that
I don't see the sneaky part being a counter-requirement* for either "automatic" or "aggro".
* I may have made that up, but it's clearly a word.
Sorry to the OP for derailing the thread, we seems to have stuck to the "build cost" for exactly zero posts. But at least I'm doing it in good, green company
Anyhoo.. hey; let's consult a dictionary and decide based on that! It's a bit of a derail, so lets just hide it for no-one's convenience:
Aggro is Aggressive behaviour; loud, intimidating behaviour that convincingly threatens violence without necessarily actually becoming violent.
Auto- refers to self. For a simple example, auto-defenestration, while being nearly an equally fun pass time to these silly games, refers to tossing oneself out of a window.
So, auto-aggro would probably be self targeting aggressive behaviour, akin to something some gym rats seem keen on while trying to get their stress hormones up to support a PR attempt at weights or some such.
So, sure, semantically auto-aggro means that a zed will yell loudly at itself.
And that, indeed, doesn't happen in the game. Auto-aggro isn't a thing. OK, sorry about that
Now, using the new terminology the current A20 attack volumes, when triggered, cause a "circumference triggered, player-aggroed" state. This is indeed highly different from the A18 "circumference triggered, player-aggroed" state of days-gone-by. Wait, they sound exactly the same though? Hmm, the new naming just doesn't seem to cover the difference at all.
As the difference is, we can now avoid the circumference-triggering, I guess we'll need to add something .. hmm.. avoidable-when-sufficiently-specced,-lit-and-equipped, circumference triggered, player-aggro? That's getting a little long, but sure, I'll go with that.
Sure, I'll go with that too. So, all forms of aggro are now called auto-aggro, and the attack volume triggerees will be referred to being "avoidable-when-sufficiently-specced,-lit-and-equipped, circumference triggered, player-aggro". Wait, I guess that's "avoidable-when-sufficiently-specced,-lit-and-equipped, circumference triggered, player-auto-aggro" then? player-auto-aggro sounds a little confusing, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.
In A18 "auto" meant that no matter what you do or have perkedall zombies wake up when you cross a specific line. Now you have a situation where neither of the first two conditions are true anymore. Only the "specific line" bit is still true. That should count for a rebrand in my opinion. I don't see anything that would deserve the label automatic.
I understand you want to bury the term, sure it is loaded, but the game is still in dev, the mechanics change and old notions get buried over time. The term will revert to normalcy before long. Or do you still hate "crafting" since it used to be done on the tedious grid?
But automatic does not mean unavoidable. That's what my "stealthing the automatic door" was trying to highlight. The "no matter"-part was merely a feature of the system, the automation is the automatic triggering of everything. Changing the "no matter what" to "avoidable-when-sufficiently-specced,-lit-and-equipped" doesn't change the fact that everything still triggers in those volumes outside their normal detection routines. The "All" part, well, it's been rather rare that I haven't triggered either "All" or "None", so no, that part hasn't really changed in the game.
It's not as punishing to stealth players as it once was, but it still acts exactly the same for everyone not using stealth. It's not even a stealth issue as such - the way it interacts with stealth is its most annoying feature, sure, but I've been giggling at the clown car rooms for a long time just because they look so silly.. a well-coordinated faceplant whenever you walk into a room tends to get amusing... not a good look for your "terrifying" opponents.
And for the Hot Dog comparison... I'm not seeing a new feature to be named; I'm seeing the same feature, slightly modified, still in the game - and I'm not even saying it's impossible to make it into a decent feature. I don't see any reason For a rename of the same thing.
Sorry to the OP for derailing the thread, we seems to have stuck to the "build cost" for exactly zero posts. But at least I'm doing it in good, green company
Anyhoo.. hey; let's consult a dictionary and decide based on that! It's a bit of a derail, so lets just hide it for no-one's convenience:
Aggro is Aggressive behaviour; loud, intimidating behaviour that convincingly threatens violence without necessarily actually becoming violent.
Auto- refers to self. For a simple example, auto-defenestration, while being nearly an equally fun pass time to these silly games, refers to tossing oneself out of a window.
So, auto-aggro would probably be self targeting aggressive behaviour, akin to something some gym rats seem keen on while trying to get their stress hormones up to support a PR attempt at weights or some such.
So, sure, semantically auto-aggro means that a zed will yell loudly at itself.
And that, indeed, doesn't happen in the game. Auto-aggro isn't a thing. OK, sorry about that
Now, using the new terminology the current A20 attack volumes, when triggered, cause a "circumference triggered, player-aggroed" state. This is indeed highly different from the A18 "circumference triggered, player-aggroed" state of days-gone-by. Wait, they sound exactly the same though? Hmm, the new naming just doesn't seem to cover the difference at all.
As the difference is, we can now avoid the circumference-triggering, I guess we'll need to add something .. hmm.. avoidable-when-sufficiently-specced,-lit-and-equipped, circumference triggered, player-aggro? That's getting a little long, but sure, I'll go with that.
Sure, I'll go with that too. So, all forms of aggro are now called auto-aggro, and the attack volume triggerees will be referred to being "avoidable-when-sufficiently-specced,-lit-and-equipped, circumference triggered, player-aggro". Wait, I guess that's "avoidable-when-sufficiently-specced,-lit-and-equipped, circumference triggered, player-auto-aggro" then? player-auto-aggro sounds a little confusing, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.
Anyone still confused? No? Good.
I understand you want to bury the term, sure it is loaded, but the game is still in dev, the mechanics change and old notions get buried over time. The term will revert to normalcy before long. Or do you still hate "crafting" since it used to be done on the tedious grid?
But automatic does not mean unavoidable. That's what my "stealthing the automatic door" was trying to highlight. The "no matter"-part was merely a feature of the system, the automation is the automatic triggering of everything. Changing the "no matter what" to "avoidable-when-sufficiently-specced,-lit-and-equipped" doesn't change the fact that everything still triggers in those volumes outside their normal detection routines. The "All" part, well, it's been rather rare that I haven't triggered either "All" or "None", so no, that part hasn't really changed in the game.
It's not as punishing to stealth players as it once was, but it still acts exactly the same for everyone not using stealth. It's not even a stealth issue as such - the way it interacts with stealth is its most annoying feature, sure, but I've been giggling at the clown car rooms for a long time just because they look so silly.. a well-coordinated faceplant whenever you walk into a room tends to get amusing... not a good look for your "terrifying" opponents.
And for the Hot Dog comparison... I'm not seeing a new feature to be named; I'm seeing the same feature, slightly modified, still in the game - and I'm not even saying it's impossible to make it into a decent feature. I don't see any reason For a rename of the same thing.
Well, for the first silly part, a word has several meanings. And surely "auto"="self" is not the right one for the old "auto-aggro" term. I won't even post a disambiguation page from wikipedia as I assume this was meant as a joke
"circumference triggering" can't differentiate between old and new behaviour, certainly a fault. I didn't think very long to get at it and tit shows. But at least it is not inaccurate (in my view).
My point is that auto-aggro is not helping us in any way because every zombie gets auto-aggroed if we want to roll with your interpretation of automatic. Every room then is an auto-aggro room whether it has such a trigger line you have to cross or not. Every zombie auto-aggros on you even if its your shooting that he senses, because it still is an automatic reaction to some sensory data for the zombie.
Yes, we could still call it auto-aggro because it is a feature that developed out of the old auto-aggro feature and often acts similar, but that makes it very confusing as soon as the differences are important for the discussion.
If you want to keep calling it auto-aggro then sure, go ahead. But I can promise you that in 1,2 or 3 months when the topic comes up again you will again confuse me because we have a different understanding of the terms. And we will again have a discussion about definitions and nomenclature instead of the topic itself.
You would be correct; but it also carried the same implication as your first note: a word has several meanings. Indeed. They're also not that accurate in general.. "airplane" .. not exactly a plane, and while quite low in density, not exactly air either.
Random gaming terms; yeah, horribly inaccurate. I don't want to be making a bug report for the re-naming of the Auto Turrets due to the introduction of The Great Heist 7. You're free to, I'm happy calling them Auto Turrets. Although I tend to abbreviate that to turrets ...
I honestly don't see how you landed on that position from what I've said - but I may well have misspoken and it's rather irrelevant. Just feels off. Feel free to reiterate if you think I'm badly off with something, but for now I'm just leaving it as a misunderstanding.
I'll revert to using the old lingo of mine for this post:
Normal zed (biome spawns) agroes on sight.
A normal sleeper agroes on sight. (both may investigate a sound, but agro is different)
An attack volume sleeper and all his friends in the same volume agro when you trigger the line. Not the sight of the zeds, most of them can't see you due to line of sight issues. Not their hearing. Just the trigger line. Not investigate, agro.
To call it "trap-agro" might be a tad more descriptive, but it got named "auto-agro" before.
All that matches for the old and the new. Including the delta in the name accuracy.
After that, the only thing that has changed is that the chance to avoid the trap has increased slightly. Most builds will never even see the difference.
But as I argued, and you haven't really countered (as far as I understand):
Making an automation avoidable, doesn't stop it from being an automation.
=> If the name was fine before, then it shall remain so.
And I'll try to remember to link here the next time you find me confusing...
I won't try to reiterate on the point of trigger rooms, as it has been mentioned 300 times already, and nobody's gonna rework all those POI - especially not for stealth builds, since ppl don't really play them that much anyway.
But please, as you're currently working on the perk system anyway, consider making changes to the stealth build, so that it is less expensive.
It feels bad having to invest bilion points into AGI attribute, 4 points into "From the shadows", few points into "Hidden strike", a little mandatory "Archery", buying night vision, military stealth boots, equiping noise reduction mod into all your armor, then moving slow as heck, only to have to go for your shotgun in the second room....
Good lord, what's with this incessant whining about stealth game mechanics?
There's always someone @%$#ing about this it seems. Why do people wanna breeze through 7DTD like it's Splinter Cell?? That's not this type of game at all. And there's a couple of misconceptions about your rant, if not completely inaccurate claims and wrong way to play.
I play 95% of the time, in all my playthroughs, using stealth. Big fan, big user. Building up your survivor in that sense isn't "expensive". NV goggles aren't fundamental, nor muffling mods. Wear Padded Armor, it's good enough and produces zero noise. Switch to something more sturdy for Blood Moons. All those cool items are just nice extras to add to an already efficient, basic stealth approach.
You don't need to max out From The Shadows... Already at level 2, you have a nice difference. Hidden Strike isn't an obligation. You have 3x flat damage bonus with arrows and since you already put points in AGI, you have a headshot bonus on top of that PLUS the level 2-3 bow you made. It's plenty enough of damage.
By putting point in From The Shadows will make you move faster while crouching. Do you read the descriptions at all? Of course you'll be slower though: people can't sprint while crouching. And if someone wants to be stealthy, the best thing to do is to... move slowly.
Building up AGI isn't more expensive than any other attribute. It makes sense. You don't become proficient at something easy-peasy. It takes experience, you know.
Good lord, what's with this incessant whining about stealth game mechanics?
There's always someone @%$#ing about this it seems. Why do people wanna breeze through 7DTD like it's Splinter Cell?? That's not this type of game at all. And there's a couple of misconceptions about your rant, if not completely inaccurate claims and wrong way to play.
I play 95% of the time, in all my playthroughs, using stealth. Big fan, big user. Building up your survivor in that sense isn't "expensive". NV goggles aren't fundamental, nor muffling mods. Wear Padded Armor, it's good enough and produces zero noise. Switch to something more sturdy for Blood Moons. All those cool items are just nice extras to add to an already efficient, basic stealth approach.
You don't need to max out From The Shadows... Already at level 2, you have a nice difference. Hidden Strike isn't an obligation. You have 3x flat damage bonus with arrows and since you already put points in AGI, you have a headshot bonus on top of that PLUS the level 2-3 bow you made. It's plenty enough of damage.
By putting point in From The Shadows will make you move faster while crouching. Do you read the descriptions at all? Of course you'll be slower though: people can't sprint while crouching. And if someone wants to be stealthy, the best thing to do is to... move slowly.
Building up AGI isn't more expensive than any other attribute. It makes sense. You don't become proficient at something easy-peasy. It takes experience, you know.
I don't understand what made you so angry about my post, but please, try to keep things civil.
I am relatively new on this forum, but, if people post this suggestion repeatedly, there might be some merit after all, don't you think?
To adress the point you were making, you don't need much in terms of equipment or perks from the start, of course. But, as the gamestage progresses, the game spawns more difficult enemies, you start going for higher tier POI's == you need more then just the basic stuff. But this is true for every build and every attribute, it's just that the stealth doesn't really help you all that much, but it's very expensive to invest into.
You would be correct; but it also carried the same implication as your first note: a word has several meanings. Indeed. They're also not that accurate in general.. "airplane" .. not exactly a plane, and while quite low in density, not exactly air either.
Random gaming terms; yeah, horribly inaccurate. I don't want to be making a bug report for the re-naming of the Auto Turrets due to the introduction of The Great Heist 7. You're free to, I'm happy calling them Auto Turrets. Although I tend to abbreviate that to turrets ...
I honestly don't see how you landed on that position from what I've said - but I may well have misspoken and it's rather irrelevant. Just feels off. Feel free to reiterate if you think I'm badly off with something, but for now I'm just leaving it as a misunderstanding.
I'll revert to using the old lingo of mine for this post:
Normal zed (biome spawns) agroes on sight.
A normal sleeper agroes on sight. (both may investigate a sound, but agro is different)
An attack volume sleeper and all his friends in the same volume agro when you trigger the line. Not the sight of the zeds, most of them can't see you due to line of sight issues. Not their hearing. Just the trigger line. Not investigate, agro.
Huh? "An attack volume sleeper and all his friends in the same volume agro when you trigger the line".
That is factually wrong. I thought we are on the same page that they check a few parameters (stealthiness and distance are definitely among them) and only if your stealthiness is low and distance is low compared to the zombies senses then the zombie is aggroed. Yes, all the zombies make that check, but some will still be sitting motionless in their corner after that check and even if the number of these motionless zombies is too small for your taste you can't deny that those zombies are not in an aggro state. Right?
To call it "trap-agro" might be a tad more descriptive, but it got named "auto-agro" before.
All that matches for the old and the new. Including the delta in the name accuracy.
After that, the only thing that has changed is that the chance to avoid the trap has increased slightly. Most builds will never even see the difference.
But as I argued, and you haven't really countered (as far as I understand):
Making an automation avoidable, doesn't stop it from being an automation.
Because we are disagreeing on what part of the mechanism the "automation" moniker applies to. For me it isn't automatic anymore. What you are critizising about could be simply fixed through balancing, it isn't an inherent fault of the mechanism. Before that the old mechanism was automatic in all its consequences and there was no balancing possible, no knob to turn to make it different.
Yes, you can't really avoid crossing the line so it certainly would deserve the name auto-trigger. But you can avoid aggroing a part of the zombies through perking, armor, not having lights on and the place where you cross the line. And therefore auto-aggro is misleading, as that line is not automatically aggroing all zombies in that room.
The default behaviour; before the "now we've made it avoidable"-part. As in, not including stealth checks. Stealth checks change the behaviour somewhat, but the zeds are usually so close to one another and/or your stealth level is way over or under the "check level" to mostly make it an all or nothing event. There's variation, and we do agree on the mechanics for the most part there.
It just usually feels quite binary in actual game though.
"Lights off, light armor, crouch, spec to stealth" is going to make all the miners happy that the clown-cart rooms stop happening ... that's the automatic part. It's not just about working badly with stealth.
Also, something I haven't pointed to in this round (because it's a whole lot more confusion) .. the aggro state that ignores stealth until the zed sees you, that thing deserves a name as well. It's basically horde-night-like GPS-aggro, granted "automatically" by failing (or not even trying) the checks. It's actually different from normal aggro and annoying in just the same ways that the A18-auto-aggro is. So it doesn't even really refer to a different thing, just a rarer one.
But I can live with "misleading", as long as you don't start calling it misinformation ...
I don't understand what made you so angry about my post, but please, try to keep things civil.
I am relatively new on this forum, but, if people post this suggestion repeatedly, there might be some merit after all, don't you think?
To adress the point you were making, you don't need much in terms of equipment or perks from the start, of course. But, as the gamestage progresses, the game spawns more difficult enemies, you start going for higher tier POI's == you need more then just the basic stuff. But this is true for every build and every attribute, it's just that the stealth doesn't really help you all that much, but it's very expensive to invest into.
It's not because I use curse words that I'm angry. And there's nothing uncivil in what I said, I just tell things without beating around the bush.
Now, about the real issue here. People who claimed there was an issue with stealth in this game, with a panoply of skewed arguments and excuses, have either been explained the real functioning of the feature and/or had their statements debunked. You won't make any difference with your case.
You keep saying that playing stealthy is "expensive" and again, you're wrong. I crossed the 3300 hours mark on this game (and this number isn't even in the highest!) and like I've said, I play stealth on every map I generate. I know what I'm talking about regarding player-side.
I use Padded Armor for all my characters. During a normal progression, as you gain XP and your gamestage gets higher, your lootstage gets also high. Sooner than later, you'll be able to craft lvl 5 armor and find or buy lvl 6 ones, with all the money you made from quests and selling loot. If I ever find Military Armor schematics or find pieces of it, I'll wear them and put muffling mods on. I don't ever wear heavy armor, not even during Blood Moons. Tons of money saved here, very cheap to craft.
Stealth does help a lot, as opposed to what you claim. If there's a Feral Wight who spots you at night, you can run few meters away, crouch and it'll lose track of you withing 2 seconds, and you don't need to have From the Shadows at max level for that. You can't pull this @%$# with heavy armor on. Trust me, you'll be happy to have some points into the skill when wandering in the Wasteland
Doesn't matter the tier of the POI. With stealth, I can clear out the whole Dishong Tower without issues, aside from the auto-trigger areas, but those will happen to anyone, stealth or not.
You see top end items like night-vision goggles and stealth Military Boots like it's mandatory, cuz they give tremendous advantages, but you're mistaken. Of course, I won't spit on them if I found some, but it never was a goal for me to reach and not having them never hindered my progress in frustrating ways. Stealth is good when done intelligently and with care.
My guess is that you're either new to the game, or new to the stealth playstyle, to have such misconceptions about it.
I'm going to throw some more info into this, which may make terminology muddier, or clearer. No telling. But this is what i've determined over years of stealthing and various patch notes and MadMole comments, etc.
There's a distinct difference causing what appears to be instant vs non-instant aggro drop, and that's what the zombie is aggro'd on. It isn't always you, the player.
If a zombie sees you, he's aggro'd on you, the player. He will continually path toward you, until he gets to you or loses sight. Breaking LOS will make him stop searching when he reaches the last place he saw you. If he's reaching that point about the same time you stealthed around the next corner, he'll appear to have dropped aggro instantly or very quickly. But this is more-or-less coincidence based on distances we're moving and he's moving.
However, a zombie that heard a noise is not aggro'd on you. He's aggro'd on the sound, or more specifically, the point where the sound originated from. He has no idea you exist, though he suspects it. If you run and stealth, he doesn't know or care if he doesn't see it happen. He's on his way to the spot where the sound came from, and will continue to it regardless of whether you stealth or not. And if that's a ways off from where he started, he can easily continue pathing to that point well after you re-stealth behind a corner 5m away.
I also play stealth basically every time. Its a great build except on horde nights. My end-game is a machete for the majority of kills. A silenced SMG with reflex sight, and semi-auto trigger in case 1-2 things wake up or don't die in the initial hit. Backup is a desert vulture when I need to go loud and proud, but that's very rare. Compound crossbow with steel bolts for the feral wights, feral cops, glowy bikers, glowy grandmas and glowy tourists. I've played with silencing a vulture for glowy wights, but that didn't seem any more effective than crossbow. Saves a few perk points, but didn't seem worth it cause its still pretty loud and I end up carrying a bow anyway.
A few things are pretty mandatory to make it not feel like playing in molasses, though. You need the magazine to remove stamina drain on crouch running, then you run everywhere. You need the magazine to jump full height while crouching. You want the magazine to reduce noise on landing. SexRex is great addition to help refill stamina from the power attack stealth strikes, so you aren't draining food and water so fast. You really need the magazine to not make noise crouching over trash. Pretty much all other magazines and non-Agi perks aren't needed, though. I start with the muffled connectors but remove them later. I do use the stealth military boots if I find them, but it never felt like it made the difference. Just saves a mod slot for something else until you stop using connectors anyway. I never use the NVG, don't like them. (caveat, i'm playing on an older computer with an old gfx card, so shadows are off. That makes indoors at night quite a bit more visible, so maybe that's why I never use NVGs)
It's a pretty accurate description. For the muddiness, I'm used to agro referring to "attacking / intending to attack". That makes "agroed to a sound" feel rather odd, it's not going to hit the sound once it gets there I'd use interested/distracted/investigating for sounds.
If you're using a shotgun you're not strictly following a stealth build. If I only put points into gunslinger, archery, light armor, hidden strike, and from the shadows, I don't have any trouble. I'm annoyed by all those rooms that you run into that stealth doesn't really do you any good because you trigger the mob but if I can't use my crossbow to kill them, I mow them down with the 9 mm. Later on when I get the SMG and some of the books that back automatic fire up, I generally start a new game because things begin to get boring.
In the game I'm playing now I'm a little behind the stealth curve because I put some points into strength to get MasterChef up to two. I like to cook. I don't really need it. I also like clubbing zombies with a baseball bat. I find it a great stress reliever. So I have maybe 6 points not in the agility tree. Yet I'm doing just fine.
Unless you're skipping some important bits here, the Automatic Weapons -book series does not cover the SMG. That's covered by the Pistol Petes, obviously.
You keep saying that playing stealthy is "expensive" and again, you're wrong. I crossed the 3300 hours mark on this game (and this number isn't even in the highest!) and like I've said, I play stealth on every map I generate. I know what I'm talking about regarding player-side.
Those are some respectable numbers, I myself am little over 2K, tried different builds across a number of maps. I have no problem, with people who say they have played a lot, and say that the stealth is exactly to their liking, and that they don't want any changed. That is cool, valid, personal preference, I'd say exactly the same as me saying 'I've played a lot and there are issues'.
Now, about the real issue here. People who claimed there was an issue with stealth in this game, with a panoply of skewed arguments and excuses, have either been explained the real functioning of the feature and/or had their statements debunked. You won't make any difference with your case.
Now, I don't know who the debunked people are and what they have been debunked with, they don't relate to me, I'm calling this paragraph completely irrelevant.
Well, the auto-trigger areas trigger FOR everyone, but affect almost exclusively stealth build. When you play strengh build, and smash the door in with flaming sledgehammer, every room acts as an auto-trigger room, rendering the triggers themselfs completely irrelevant. Honestly, I think logic is so obvious, I am amazed how people miss this.
This very fact, along with the fact that AGI attribute is the only attribute that doesn't provide any utility in form of building, resource gathering or survival, is making this build fall behind the others. Some quick-and-easy fix, like lowering the attribute requirement to pick up some perks, is something that would not destroy the game, and would help this dope ninja fantasy a ton.
Those are some respectable numbers, I myself am little over 2K, tried different builds across a number of maps. I have no problem, with people who say they have played a lot, and say that the stealth is exactly to their liking, and that they don't want any changed. That is cool, valid, personal preference, I'd say exactly the same as me saying 'I've played a lot and there are issues'.
Now, I don't know who the debunked people are and what they have been debunked with, they don't relate to me, I'm calling this paragraph completely irrelevant.
Well, the auto-trigger areas trigger FOR everyone, but affect almost exclusively stealth build. When you play strengh build, and smash the door in with flaming sledgehammer, every room acts as an auto-trigger room, rendering the triggers themselfs completely irrelevant. Honestly, I think logic is so obvious, I am amazed how people miss this.
Even a strength build will not wake up every zombie in a room when he uses the sledgehammer (I'm almost sure of that). But that is beside the point, I would say that auto-trigger rooms were definitely implemented for stealth players. Exclusively.
Why? To make stealth not auto-sleep walking through pois shooting at sleeping puppets. Not that it didn't keep lots of stealth players amused, but a rule TFP designs with is that no gain should come without effort or danger. And maybe stealth was slow to play but it was almost devoid of risk.
This very fact, along with the fact that AGI attribute is the only attribute that doesn't provide any utility in form of building, resource gathering or survival, is making this build fall behind the others. Some quick-and-easy fix, like lowering the attribute requirement to pick up some perks, is something that would not destroy the game, and would help this dope ninja fantasy a ton.
I would assume that for TFP the "resource" aspect was fullfilled because you save lots of ammo (the equivalent of getting more resources is saving resources).
We could argue that that isn't enough, especially since you definitely don't save anything with building materials and horde night is a sore spot for stealthers already. But then I (if I were a developer) would directly fix that by giving some resource gathering perk or making the savings even better. Making stealth cheaper has (IMHO) unwanted consequences, for example the AGI player will be fully perked faster after which the game looses incentive to continue or at least his further perk points loose in value as he can't boost his strengths any further. And it definitely will help everyone else to get stealth abilities cheaper on the side.
Now if you can convince TFP that AGI still needs a resource gathering perk they maybe would have to move perk points over from say stealth so the attributes have (somewhat or exactly?) the same points. Then you would get your wish through the back door
Incidentally a resource just became scarce and could benefit from a resource gathering perk: water
Heh, I was thinking if I should ask you about that during our exchange. I chose not to, but it seems I should've.
"What is the reason for Attack volumes?". I'd say they're there for jump scares. One might want to say "combat events" due to the ridiculed nature of "jump scare", but that's not nearly as descriptive. They're traps, for Everyone. "Oh @%$#, five zeds coming at me at once!" Usable scripting tool for the POIs.
The way it was an FU to stealthers seems mostly a side effect; the detection routines weren't there and it majorly F'd stealthing for a patch. I highly doubt the Pimps saw it as a functioning mechanic FOR counter-stealth to be pushed in; and not pushing it in would've at worst been a matter of seek-and-replace in the sleeper volume xml:s.
They pushed it in to enable the trap designs they want to test, zeds coming out of ceilings and walls and what have you. Not as a stealth counter.
