PC Trigger Rooms in POIs make sneaking an awful choice.

I feel like there's been a lot of focus on minutia, and very little focus on the overarching point I'm trying to make. We've talked about both early and late game because both have examples of the impact of triggered events on stealth. All of the arguments I've seen are along the lines of how you can use -insert non-stealth mechanic/playstyle here- to work around a problem with the stealth playstyle in its current form. The main point I'm attempting to make is that when a player is presented with a playstyle as an option, they should be able to approach the game that way without being punished for it. Obviously they should still be challenged, and I've dropped many different ideas on how to do that fairly, and I'm sure there are many, many more! If I stealth into a room in a new POI with all the stealth boxes checked (no light, crouching, proper gear, skill investment according to level, clearing noise traps, testing for loose/breakable floors, etc.) and 15 zombies are magically aware of my presence and raining from the ceiling, even though I did nothing different than the last 25 rooms I've entered, that is a bad gameplay experience. It's like saying that heavily armored builds with 5/5 Pain Tolerance and 5/5 Heavy Armor are too hard to challenge with normal radiated zombies, so magically one room removes your armor or random zombies have 100% armor penetration.

If, as a POI developer, your only way to change up the experience for stealth players is to negate their entire point investment, gear investment, and playstyle through a trigger, I would contend that you're limiting your own creativity. There's obviously no limit or minimum to triggers to use in a POI that is fun for all playstyles. The real limit is creativity, and the game engine itself.

 
Many Alphas ago, there was a mechanic put in, which I assume still works, where zombies have a random detection threshold that the player cannot know.  If your stealth is above that threshold, and you get close, they detect you.  A lot of this info is still in Stealth.txt, but I don't see the exact values anymore.

The problem we have with stealth now is that stealth, maxed out, gets SO GOOD, that I think you can always below that threshold.  And the response was to add triggered events where they know where you are.

Why not reduce the max possible stealth to more like 4 instead of 1-2, and have that threshold be capable of being as low as 1 or 2? (I don't remember the possible values, this was years ago but it was a good range).

My point being, instead of overusing a mechanic that completely negates stealth, why can't we have exceptionally alert zombies that will may wake up if you get too close, no matter how stealthy you think you are?    Maybe this represents an unlucky combination of a creaky floorboard, or you farted at a bad time, or maybe a bird outside ran into a window and it wasn't even you that woke the zed up, he just saw you when he did.  Rather than the entire room aggroing, sometimes one will wake up that you need to deal with quickly and quietly so as to avoid waking up the rest.  And it won't always be in the same room or the same zombie.  Good players will handle it, unlucky ones or inexperienced players may aggro a room and get killed and learn how to handle it in the future.

This would give us a much more random "uh oh" moment, be far less frequent (given the right values being set), and give a responsive, skilled player the ability to avoid the more drastic consequences of fighting an entire room unexpectedly.

Not saying remove triggers entirely, but use them way less and rely on detection mechanic to bring some random encounters in.

 
DJDaedrik said:
I feel like there's been a lot of focus on minutia, and very little focus on the overarching point I'm trying to make. We've talked about both early and late game because both have examples of the impact of triggered events on stealth. All of the arguments I've seen are along the lines of how you can use -insert non-stealth mechanic/playstyle here- to work around a problem with the stealth playstyle in its current form. The main point I'm attempting to make is that when a player is presented with a playstyle as an option, they should be able to approach the game that way without being punished for it. Obviously they should still be challenged, and I've dropped many different ideas on how to do that fairly, and I'm sure there are many, many more! If I stealth into a room in a new POI with all the stealth boxes checked (no light, crouching, proper gear, skill investment according to level, clearing noise traps, testing for loose/breakable floors, etc.) and 15 zombies are magically aware of my presence and raining from the ceiling, even though I did nothing different than the last 25 rooms I've entered, that is a bad gameplay experience. It's like saying that heavily armored builds with 5/5 Pain Tolerance and 5/5 Heavy Armor are too hard to challenge with normal radiated zombies, so magically one room removes your armor or random zombies have 100% armor penetration.

If, as a POI developer, your only way to change up the experience for stealth players is to negate their entire point investment, gear investment, and playstyle through a trigger, I would contend that you're limiting your own creativity. There's obviously no limit or minimum to triggers to use in a POI that is fun for all playstyles. The real limit is creativity, and the game engine itself.
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You are making the way more complicated then it needs to be. You want to be able to complete an entire POI without being detected. The Devs don't share your desire and the devs don't think that is a "bad gameplay experience."  Part of the experience they want to create is zombies dropping on you from above, you dropping through a trap floor into a room full of zombies, and loot rooms with massive amounts of zombies that can't be picked off from outside of the room. They want oh sh#% moments. That doesn't happen if you can crouch and kill everything with an arrow from 20 meters away. That's the beginning and end of the argument.

 
Some infestation quests rooms have a multiple spawn waves which complicates stealthing, but it's still doable, here's the guide how to deal with them:



 
Gonna fix that title: Trigger rooms are an awful game design choice for this game. And that is true for any playstyle. No matter if you are stealthy or not.

It´s such an immersion killer. There was this one house where they would patiently wait until you passed them far enough to not be able to make it back to the stairs once they drop down. That´s simply BS. Intelligent stealth zombies. The whole sleeper mechanic needs to go.

What did happen to the plans for wandering sleepers?

Sadly that´s one thing either no one is interested in modding or that is not possible to mod.

 
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There might well be a better answer than trigger points, but up until this update I've been consistently making it through entire POIs without triggering a single zombie - picking them off before I ever activate them. I can even clear the "boss rooms" before going into it. As much as I am accustomed to having this advantage, this is not what I'd expect of the zombie apocalypse. Moments where zombies suddenly activate unexpectedly in a building adds some excitement.

I mean, the fact the zombies are sleeping in every corner is because they're supposed to jump out at you and have a spirited attempt at munching on your intestines. I doubt the devs thought that gamers would memorise or recognise every zombie spawn point in so many POIs before the zombies ever got a chance. As I said at the start, I think there's a better answer, but trigger points may be what we have for the moment.

pApA^LeGBa said:
What did happen to the plans for wandering sleepers?
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I have encountered some wandering zombies inside POIs when I'm on a quest - this is after I've started the quest and the building has been entirely reset. But I have also encountered a growing number of zombies which spawn dead. I'm creeping round a place, I enter a new area, I hear the sleeper spawn -- and then there's a sound of something dropping to the floor. Right around the next corner there's a zombie on the ground in rag doll which then despawns. Maybe you've noticed something similar?

 
GNS Vanguard series has been showing off how OP sneaking can get in the later stage of the game.  Toss on the right outfit and as long as you can get out of site from the triggered zombies they forget about you instantly.  Then just go around 1 shotting all of the unaware zombies.

But yes i get why people are triggered over the zombie jump scares.  I just think of it as, "there is always that moment in a horror movie where all hell breaks loose."

 
I don't mind most of the triggered events at this point, unless, yeah, they're in a "floor falls out under you and puts you in a pit with nowhere to go" type.  Annoying, but only gets me the first time.

I really dislike 2 things now.  Overuse of the trigger, which makes stealthing way too tedious (or rather, the way to get past the trigger with stealth), and when zeds just don't drop aggro like they should.

For point one, Navezgane Correctional Facility.  Props to whoever designed it, because it feels like a prison riot the entire time.  Every. Corner. I. Turned. Flood of bodies rushing me, breaking everything in the room, just going nuts, and always knew exactly where I was.  It would be a blast as a Heavy armor mobile weapon platform.  But with a fully-perked Agi build, wearing Q6 Assassin set, it was just obnoxious.  Half the POI is outside with only fences, which don't break LOS.  Most of the day is "daytime" so just crouching 10m away doesn't hide you.  I was constantly running around the outside, hiding behind the guard towers or vehicles to try to break LOS with 20 glowies chasing me.  Even trying to clear the giant rooms inside, immediately after the outside portion, I found myself having to run right back outside again.  It took forever, and in the end, I failed the quest because some volume somewhere... idk.  Missed  a zed who wandered off and despawned?  I followed the path the whole time, but missed something and never even got to Yellow Marker point.  Fortunately, since quest rewards suck so bad, I took my massive pile of loot and called it good enough.  There's no reason 50% of the volumes in a T5 should be triggered like that.

Point two.  Sometimes stealth just does not work on certain zombies.  Typically on a triggered volume, you run around a corner, crouch and you're good.  Except that one zombie who keeps coming.  He's not going to where he last saw/heard you.  He's still coming at you.  Run behind more corners, crouch, stand, crouch, stand, crouchstandcrouchstand.  Still coming.  Will not drop aggro.

I've noticed that it feels like there's a timer on triggered zeds and certain ones will still be able to feral sense you for a few seconds after its triggered.  Usually re-crouching a 2nd time after 2-3 seconds will drop those, too.  But every once in a while, there's that zombie that never drops aggro at all, no matter how many corners you break LOS with.  It really seems like they just get feral sense.

OTOH, I've started carrying an auto-shotty for those guys.  Insta-aggro-drop 99% of the time means I can sneak through a room with a shotgun, picking off zombies one at a time, and they still can't find me as long as I space my shots and don't get too close.  It's stupid and hilarious and way more broken than sneak-sledges ever were.

 
Triggered rooms can be held with the proper tactics.

I am in tier 4 assassins armor with four points in from the shadows. Three in crossbow and three in handguns.

 I triggered a room this morning holding three ferals and one blob monster where you can't tell where the head is. I got the hell out of the room and waited for them to come out the door where I can pick them off one at a time. They didn't come out. Perhaps it was because the room was full of racks that confused them and I was in stealth when it happened.

Went back in 16 seconds later and picked them all off one by one with the stealth bonus. I used an exploding crossbow bolt on the blob monster. Got the stealth bonus for it.

When ever you go into a new room, go into it very slow and know how you're going to get the hell out. Sometimes I have to drop into a room and don't have a way out. I carry two 9mm for that.

 
triggers are a absolute failure in this game... just had a level6 infested fail because a cop spewed and destroyed the switch that triggers zombies to fall from roof...you can raid all the loot from the high school and there are no zombies at all... another failed trigger....the list goes on and on.... the 7D2D sanbox it dead and now a controlled linear boring game like ubisofts lame offers

 
onovbuton said:
triggers are a absolute failure in this game... just had a level6 infested fail because a cop spewed and destroyed the switch that triggers zombies to fall from roof...you can raid all the loot from the high school and there are no zombies at all... another failed trigger....the list goes on and on.... the 7D2D sanbox it dead and now a controlled linear boring game like ubisofts lame offers
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Just to note, it sounds like they are changing the chests to not take explosion damage to help protect from that.  They could do the same for buttons and keys.  Of course, I don't know how that works for trying to break into a chest instead of lockpicking it.  Either way, they know there is an issue and seem willing to find a fix for it.

stample said:
There's no reason 50% of the volumes in a T5 should be triggered like that.
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Although I'm not a stealth player and so my opinion isn't worth much here, I think there should be certain POI that simply are not going to work well for stealth.  The prison is one of those.  Not that you can't do it in stealth as I've heard people say they have done in that one, but it won't be easy and will take a lot more time and effort.  As a stealth player, you can then choose to either do that POI, knowing it will be difficult to stealth, or you ignore it.  It might hurt stealth players to have a POI that uses triggers a lot, but other builds can find those to be more enjoyable than knowing that you walk into any room in the game, turn to the right or left, kill the zombie standing there, find a closet, kill the zombie, find a stack of boxes, kill the zombie behind it.  Having something that changes things up can be fun for many players.  I don't think it is bad for some POI to not be easy for certain builds.  If we start seeing some POI that are extra hard for any melee build or for gun builds or something, that would also help to change things up.

 
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Riamus said:
Just to note, it sounds like they are changing the chests to not take explosion damage to help protect from that.  They could do the same for buttons and keys.  Of course, I don't know how that works for trying to break into a chest instead of lockpicking it.  Either way, they know there is an issue and seem willing to find a fix for it.

Although I'm not a stealth player and so my opinion isn't worth much here, I think there should be certain POI that simply are not going to work well for stealth.  The prison is one of those.  Not that you can't do it in stealth as I've heard people say they have done in that one, but it won't be easy and will take a lot more time and effort.  As a stealth player, you can then choose to either do that POI, knowing it will be difficult to stealth, or you ignore it.  It might hurt stealth players to have a POI that uses triggers a lot, but other builds can find those to be more enjoyable than knowing that you walk into any room in the game, turn to the right or left, kill the zombie standing there, find a closet, kill the zombie, find a stack of boxes, kill the zombie behind it.  Having something that changes things up can be fun for many players.  I don't think it is bad for some POI to not be easy for certain builds.  If we start seeing some POI that are extra hard for any melee build or for gun builds or something, that would also help to change things up.
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That's a really good point.  And it's working. I definitely won't ever do that POI in a stealth build ever again.  Back to Dishong and Crackabook HQ I guess.

 
Assassin armor makes stealth in POIs now OP.  Trigger zombies, back off, break line of sight, and they will quickly forget about you.  Then you can just sneak back up to them and take them out with a hidden strike.  TBH, I find the assassin armor a bit too OP once you get up to Q5 or higher.

 
BFT2020 said:
Assassin armor makes stealth in POIs now OP.  Trigger zombies, back off, break line of sight, and they will quickly forget about you.  Then you can just sneak back up to them and take them out with a hidden strike.  TBH, I find the assassin armor a bit too OP once you get up to Q5 or higher.
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That's what I was kind of expecting, though I haven't gotten to that point yet. I need to play more.

 
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