PC Stealth, monster closets and clear quests

[Crater Creator]

I was reading a thread on the Steam forum, and it led to a tangent which I'd like to tease out here.

It's clear that the level designers want to create situations in POIs, where sleeper zombies can surprise the player.  They do this by placing zombies such that, if the player is following the intended path at least, then the player won't see the zombie before the zombie can see the player or otherwise activate.  As a shorthand, we can term these setups monster closets.

Separately, players have complained about sleeper volumes that are set to activate the sleepers, 100% guaranteed regardless of how stealthy the player is.  It breaks the rule that zombies are affected by a player's investment in stealth.  And Madmole has acknowledged he doesn't like this and wants to roll a 'skill check' instead of 100% guaranteeing the zombies all wake up in these places.

But this won't address an underlying conflict.  It seems to me that stealth and monster closets are at odds with each other.  A POI with monster closets is designed to surprise you with enemies you don't see coming.  A stealth character build is designed to surprise enemies that don't see you coming.  Typically enemies in a stealth game walk along patrol routes, but we don't have those, at least yet.  We have zombies hiding in closets.

If you don't attack first because you don't see where the zombies are hiding, and the zombies don't attack first because you're too stealthy for them to notice you... nothing happens!  And that might be okay if you're just looting the building and didn't want confrontation.  But there's a third element here, that most POI quests (all of them after Tier 3) require you to clear all the zombies.  It's not fun to go past a bunch of zombie encounters that never triggered, and then have to backtrack, hunting for the ones you missed before you can leave.  Even if there's an advantage to triggering the zombies later on your terms, I think it's unsatisfying to abandon the stealth playstyle you've invested in, and deliberately make a bunch of noise to root out the zombies you still have to kill.

No matter how zombies activate, it's unclear how stealth, monster closets, and clear quests can each fulfill their purpose in the game's design, when they intersect in the way that they do.  A stealth build character goes on a quest to kill all the zombies, but both sides are predicated on not being seen by the other.

 

[Marinxar]

As a agility player, I can definitely say that this is a annoyance .  

Why can't we have a sense system, similar to Animal Tracker, that is enabled on lvl 5 Hidden Strike.  Not something that can be easily abused, since you have to invest heavily in to Agility to get it, but it would solve this problem. 

 

[PoloPoPo]

Let's assume a player is the perfect ninja and makes absolutely zero noise and won't trigger any zombies at all. For a "clear Zs quest" that ninja is able to play hide and seek with the Zs, find and kill them all, no? Why would you not open a closet when you know there might be a Z inside you have to kill in order to accomplish your quest goal? Just because you don't trigger the Z to come at you you are still able to check every closet, ceiling and so on. You don't have to abandon the stealth playstyle, do you?

When accepting a "find supplies quest" you have to search for those supplies and loot more than just the main stash.

When accepting a "clear Zs quest" you have to look for Zs everywhere and take them out, you cannot simply sneak through the POI from bottom to top without a kill.

That's how the quests work. I see no problem there.

 

[Marinxar]

Let's assume a player is the perfect ninja and makes absolutely zero noise and won't trigger any zombies at all. For a "clear Zs quest" that ninja is able to play hide and seek with the Zs, find and kill them all, no? Why would you not open a closet when you know there might be a Z inside you have to kill in order to accomplish your quest goal? Just because you don't trigger the Z to come at you you are still able to check every closet, ceiling and so on. You don't have to abandon the stealth playstyle, do you?

When accepting a "find supplies quest" you have to search for those supplies and loot more than just the main stash.

When accepting a "clear Zs quest" you have to look for Zs everywhere and take them out, you cannot simply sneak through the POI from bottom to top without a kill.

That's how the quests work. I see no problem there.

Might work for T1&2, but you honestly think it is realistic to expect players to search every nook and cranny of t3-5 POIs ? It would take days. 

 

[bloodmoth13]

As a agility player, I can definitely say that this is a annoyance .  

Why can't we have a sense system, similar to Animal Tracker, that is enabled on lvl 5 Hidden Strike.  Not something that can be easily abused, since you have to invest heavily in to Agility to get it, but it would solve this problem. 

That should be a perception perk tbh.

I was reading a thread on the Steam forum, and it led to a tangent which I'd like to tease out here.

It's clear that the level designers want to create situations in POIs, where sleeper zombies can surprise the player.  They do this by placing zombies such that, if the player is following the intended path at least, then the player won't see the zombie before the zombie can see the player or otherwise activate.  As a shorthand, we can term these setups monster closets.

Separately, players have complained about sleeper volumes that are set to activate the sleepers, 100% guaranteed regardless of how stealthy the player is.  It breaks the rule that zombies are affected by a player's investment in stealth.  And Madmole has acknowledged he doesn't like this and wants to roll a 'skill check' instead of 100% guaranteeing the zombies all wake up in these places.

But this won't address an underlying conflict.  It seems to me that stealth and monster closets are at odds with each other.  A POI with monster closets is designed to surprise you with enemies you don't see coming.  A stealth character build is designed to surprise enemies that don't see you coming.  Typically enemies in a stealth game walk along patrol routes, but we don't have those, at least yet.  We have zombies hiding in closets.

If you don't attack first because you don't see where the zombies are hiding, and the zombies don't attack first because you're too stealthy for them to notice you... nothing happens!  And that might be okay if you're just looting the building and didn't want confrontation.  But there's a third element here, that most POI quests (all of them after Tier 3) require you to clear all the zombies.  It's not fun to go past a bunch of zombie encounters that never triggered, and then have to backtrack, hunting for the ones you missed before you can leave.  Even if there's an advantage to triggering the zombies later on your terms, I think it's unsatisfying to abandon the stealth playstyle you've invested in, and deliberately make a bunch of noise to root out the zombies you still have to kill.

No matter how zombies activate, it's unclear how stealth, monster closets, and clear quests can each fulfill their purpose in the game's design, when they intersect in the way that they do.  A stealth build character goes on a quest to kill all the zombies, but both sides are predicated on not being seen by the other.

I think we need patrols, and perhaps have thrown rocks wake zombies up.

 

[Darklegend222]

I'll add that nearly every single POI has this of some kind. If nearly every area or room didn't have sleepers behind walls, curtains, objects, or even ceilings then it wouldn't be too much of a problem. It seems that EVERY POI has this and not just a few.

It's not 1-2 closets or objects they're behind either, every POI has 90% filled with hidden sleepers or auto triggers.

I'd say that if there was only 1-3 missable sleeper volumes by walking past unknowingly as you said, when you get to the end, there will only be yellow dots on 1-3 of the sleeper volumes you missed.

That way every POI isn't littered with missable places, and they don't occur nearly as often so the annoyance gets toned down on a massive scale. It still keeps the hidden sleepers there, and doesn't make every room a smash and kill.

As for the auto-triggers, that's a different beast entirely. Assuming that there are only 1-3 places hidden zombies can be, then that leaves auto-triggers for things like hitting a button to open a garage door triggers a volume on the other side.

Perhaps more areas like the hotel has where you fall down a trap floor and there's 8 zombies that wake up ambushing you. Not every POI though should have the floor though, as that just brings more issues.

 

[hotpoon]

Why can't we have a sense system, similar to Animal Tracker, that is enabled on lvl 5 Hidden Strike.  Not something that can be easily abused, since you have to invest heavily in to Agility to get it, but it would solve this problem. 

I've experienced this problem in a T4 recently (the university, I think it was), where I'd snuck through the whole POI, killed everything and looked in every cupboard (because I'm a hoarder), but the quest indicated that I hadn't cleared everything. So I ended up running through every floor in order to make a noise, and that is when a couple of crawlers eventually fell through the ceiling boards.  I thought that was a bit annoying, and a waste of time.

I've never been a fan of the sleepers at all. I preferred the liveliness of A15.  The hiding zombies make the world seem abandoned.  

So for me the first prize would be to remove all the sleepers and jump scares. Of course, I highly doubt the devs will do that because they have clearly invested a lot of energy into turning every POI into a mini dungeon. So if that is the way it must be, then, I agree with the above quote.

Edit to add:
Another possible solution would be to mark off the last 5 zombies on the compass.

 

[Gazz]

What I had suggested is that instead of "marking" the last 2 or 3 volumes, the game marks one nearest volume if you haven't had contact for x minutes.

That would be more consistent than the current approach since it always works regardless of what the volume count of the POI is.

 

[Marinxar]

What I had suggested is that instead of "marking" the last 2 or 3 volumes, the game marks one nearest volume if you haven't had contact for x minutes.

That would be more consistent than the current approach since it always works regardless of what the volume count of the POI is.

That would make it easier to backtrack and find the ones that was not on the path you chose. It does not, however, make for a smooth clean run where you clear all zombies as you go. it still require you to search for X minutes, then hunt down one zombie, then wait around for x minutes, then hunt down one, etc etc, until you found them all. Which does not sound like a nice flow of gameplay.

 

[Darklegend222]

That would make it easier to backtrack and find the ones that was not on the path you chose. It does not, however, make for a smooth clean run where you clear all zombies as you go. it still require you to search for X minutes, then hunt down one zombie, then wait around for x minutes, then hunt down one, etc etc, until you found them all. Which does not sound like a nice flow of gameplay.

I've attempted to make a mod that changes all the values of each POI to show all sleeper locations once you start a quest. However you can't edit prefab files with mods from my understanding. I did manually configure Dishong Tower to show all the sleeper areas upon startup.. and well, there was about 60 yellow dots in my face, It was hard to tell where to go.

There needs to be some form of limitation so you don't get a screen spam and without the hassle of waiting. I've been thinking more on it, perhaps they should add a trigger to the loot rooms that upon entering, every sleeper volume is displayed for the quest.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Not really sure but i get the feeling that feral sense makes it way harder to stealth trough a POI, seems like sleepers are also effected by it. Wich would be a bit weird tbh.

Only played a few hours without feral sense with a friend, but it seems it was way easier to stealth in POI´s in that game.

 

[theFlu]

A Clear isn't really a stealthy operation by nature; you'll be making your presence known to everything, so, the incompatibility doesn't really bother me. The fact that you actually can 'clear' the kitchen with a shotgun and then step over to the oblivious living room and "sneak" that part is lot weirder.

The closets themselves seem to get worse every iteration; they're annoying enough at the moment that I'd be happier if the game just honestly spawned zeds behind me instead. We've had zeds sitting on roof tiles that can't carry their weight, as evidenced by the moment they activate; they fall. Now we have zeds "wallpapered" in to structurally ridiculous shelves above staircases and "wallpapered" within brick walls. These make the world feel like one massive gimmick-fest.

I'm just waiting 'til the poi designers figure out you can flip a pressure plate mine around, paint it as carpet, and replace a floor block... hey, at least it would be more realistic.

One way to make 'clearing' more compatible would be to handle the POI sections like an actual clear operation would. Make the quest actually have you check all the corners and cupboards and ceilings, leaving no room for missed spawns. I don't like the idea, since it would become a hand-holding icon hunt instead of anything resembling a world, but it would "work" better.

 

[Urban Blackbear]

It's obvious that the higher tier quests you might as well run in guns blazing the way things stand now. I haven't bothered to perk into the stealth skills in A20 yet. Waiting to see how this all shakes out.

 

[hiemfire]

Why would you not open a closet when you know there might be a Z inside you have to kill in order to accomplish your quest goal?

Said "closet" may not look like a closet but instead is a false panel that is painted like the rest of the wall, ceiling or cabinet it is attached to.

 

[Boidster]

you honestly think it is realistic to expect players to search every nook and cranny of t3-5 POIs ? It would take days.

I'm not arguing the balance is correct now, or that there isn't a conflict as OP said, but IMO if I'm choosing to play a go-slow-go-quietly ninja, then I would expect it to take much longer to do a clear quest. In A19 my co-op partner and I tried to do most POIs - including T5s - quietly, with bows mostly. It took forever, but we kinda saw that as the cost for trying to play stealthy.

It wouldn't suck to have a tiny bump to the odds of a bag drop when you kill a zombie before it wakes up, or some other clear benefit to being quiet. We did stealth just because it was kind of fun and suspenseful, but honestly the few times we went guns blazing were also fun and there was zero difference in loot of course.

 

[Crater Creator]

Let's assume a player is the perfect ninja and makes absolutely zero noise and won't trigger any zombies at all. For a "clear Zs quest" that ninja is able to play hide and seek with the Zs, find and kill them all, no? Why would you not open a closet when you know there might be a Z inside you have to kill in order to accomplish your quest goal? Just because you don't trigger the Z to come at you you are still able to check every closet, ceiling and so on. You don't have to abandon the stealth playstyle, do you?

When accepting a "find supplies quest" you have to search for those supplies and loot more than just the main stash.

When accepting a "clear Zs quest" you have to look for Zs everywhere and take them out, you cannot simply sneak through the POI from bottom to top without a kill.

That's how the quests work. I see no problem there.

"Monster closet" is more of a concept.  It doesn't have to be a walled off doorway with a closet door texture.  The zombies can bust out of any wall, drop in from any ceiling, and come from virtually anywhere.  If you're able to spot every ambush spot on a first playthrough, then the monster closets are failing since surprise is part of their design.  But if the zombies detect you and break out of their monster closets to attack you, then you're failing to effectively 'stealth' them.  One side or the other has to fail and be spotted, or you're deadlocked.  That's the incompatibility.

If you could be perfectly stealthy, then you could literally tear the building apart top to bottom to root out every zombie hiding in the walls before it activates.  I was going to say that's not fun, but let me phrase it differently: it doesn't seem like a stealth-based playstyle at that point... more of a strength/block destruction-based playstyle if anything.

 

[Crater Creator]

What I had suggested is that instead of "marking" the last 2 or 3 volumes, the game marks one nearest volume if you haven't had contact for x minutes.

That would be more consistent than the current approach since it always works regardless of what the volume count of the POI is.

Interesting.  That reminds me of match-3 games, of all things.  If you can't see any matches for 10 seconds, the game highlights one for you.  It's maybe not the best move, but it proves there's something you can do to continue.

I guess I wasn't properly accounting for the dots on the compass in the top post.  So long as it's a clear quest, they can do the job of directing you where the next bit of interaction (read: a zombie) is in most cases.  Now, one can argue this leads to your eyes glued to the compass instead of glued to the scene - that's why they got rid of the minimap.  So maybe it'd be better if sleeping zombies made sounds, or gave off a 'stink' visual effect to tip you off... but we have the dots, which can get the job done design-wise even if they're gamey.  I guess the incompatibility is limited to cases where you don't have the dots, which makes the problem more limited than I first suggested.

 

[Crater Creator]

That should be a perception perk tbh.

I think we need patrols, and perhaps have thrown rocks wake zombies up.

I have a tendency to overlook the ability to throw a rock as a distraction in stealth games in general, and that's on me.  I tried it out since you mention it, and it's curious.  If you're loaded up on stealth items so the zombies don't detect you, and you throw a rock, then any already-alert zombies will chase after it.  But you can't wake up a zombie in the first place by throwing rocks.  I tried everything up to and including throwing it right into a sleeper's face, and it stubbornly wouldn't wake up.

Throwing a rock to wake up nearby sleepers, without alerting them to you exactly, does seem to me like a good way to break the deadlock, without betraying your stealth bona fides.  And all the parts are there already, we just need sleepers to hear the rocks.  It's a good idea.

 

[theFlu]

Throwing a rock to wake up nearby sleepers, without alerting them to you exactly, does seem to me like a good way to break the deadlock, without betraying your stealth bona fides.

It sounds interesting, but it suffers from the exact issue stealth does; balancing. If it works "well", it negates all the zombie traps TFP has carefully sprayed all over the POIs. If it works "poorly", it's not worth the stone (nevermind the toolbar slot). If you find a "decent" balance, you'll end up stealthing past your targets in those Clears again.

Would be fun to clear rooms with a stone-wait-mollie, but it would be a little OP..

 

[pahbi]

If you don't attack first because you don't see where the zombies are hiding, and the zombies don't attack first because you're too stealthy for them to notice you... nothing happens!  And that might be okay if you're just looting the building and didn't want confrontation.  But there's a third element here, that most POI quests (all of them after Tier 3) require you to clear all the zombies.  It's not fun to go past a bunch of zombie encounters that never triggered, and then have to backtrack, hunting for the ones you missed before you can leave.  Even if there's an advantage to triggering the zombies later on your terms, I think it's unsatisfying to abandon the stealth playstyle you've invested in, and deliberately make a bunch of noise to root out the zombies you still have to kill.

This ^

T5 skyscrapers can be super frustrating when zombies don't awaken and you have to search them out.

I wish I had something I could craft that was specifically for waking up any sleeping zombies in a T5 clear mission

Or better yet, shouldn't skyscrapers have some kind of fire alarm or other alarm I can trigger to wake everything up?

Stealth pleyers could stealth through the building killing zombies, then trigger the alarm to get any last remaining stragglers.

Even super better yet, the alarm could be set to go off within a certain amount of time unless silenced, to create tension and challenge to quickly get to the alarm.

I also wish there were things that a player could accidently knock over that makes sound and wakes up nearby sleepers.