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

What you described above - creating better opportunities to take care of them before they take care of you, using the tools the game gives you - is not cheating. It's smart gameplay. Same for fashioning an exit before entering a potentially dangerous area. Same for putting down climb-able escape blocks before any (obviously a trap) 2+ block drops into rooms you can't see. These are S-M-R-T smart tactics.
That is just brute forcing the situation. The devs will probably make invulnerable and slippery blocks to prevent framing around or poking shooting holes in a room.

Being able to disable trip wires, motion sensors and killing alarm zombies would make what they intend into a deeper mechanic, rather than this *magic* single way to play mechanic.

 
The devs will probably make invulnerable and slippery blocks to prevent framing around or poking shooting holes in a room.
Why would you think that?   If anything they've been very supportive of breaking walls or using frames to get around obstacles.... its really many of our fellow players that are against those tactics.

 
I mean if you're trying to prove that there are instances where stealth doesn't work.... mission accomplished.  Though, I don't think anyone doubted that it was true.   The majority of the time stealth is quite effective.   For the cost of 2 perks, that's a pretty good ROI.
I amazed you've forgotten my position on this. Auto-aggro volumes need to either have clear indicators before you enter them, that someone being observant will notice, that they do not follow how the other volumes function or they need to be removed from the game. Effectively having my character slammed into a corner and curb stomped despite having done everything to mitigate my observability is @%$#ing bull@%$#.

 
I amazed you've forgotten my position on this. Auto-aggro volumes need to either have clear indicators before you enter them, that someone being observant will notice, that they do not follow how the other volumes function or they need to be removed from the game. Effectively having my character slammed into a corner and curb stomped despite having done everything to mitigate my observability is @%$#ing bull@%$#.
Oh, it seemed like your position was that stealth should be effective in all areas of every POI.   You kept showing examples where stealth doesn't work in POIs.   Now, as to your current position, I disagree.   I like areas that trigger when you enter them.... adds some excitement, IMO.   In fact, I wish they were more randomly placed since once you know where they are its a lot less exciting.

 
Oh, it seemed like your position was that stealth should be effective in all areas of every POI.   You kept showing examples where stealth doesn't work in POIs.   Now, as to your current position, I disagree.   I like areas that trigger when you enter them.... adds some excitement, IMO.   In fact, I wish they were more randomly placed since once you know where they are its a lot less exciting.
Excitement? Interesting generalization term for this. There are other, more focused, terms that apply to being effectively powerless to prevent being slammed into a corner and beaten w/n an inch of your life...

 
Excitement? Interesting generalization term for this. There are other, more focused, terms that apply to being effectively powerless to prevent being slammed into a corner and beaten w/n an inch of your life...
Yup.... exciting.   I'm glad you find it interesting!

 
Yup.... exciting.   I'm glad you find it interesting!
It is like that one Godzilla film with the babies. They kept rushing out of corners to startle the audience. It got tiresome and I was bored of the film quite quickly.

Sure, make traps but make sure they can also be disarmed. Also, yes, randomising where they are would make it more interesting.

 
In the time it takes to turn to go back to the door, much less uncrouch while doing so, they were already attacking me and blocking the door to the garage thanks to the new break out --> stagger mechanic + going down a slope movement speed increase. 
You are faster than them and just need to lead them away from the door, circle around them and leave. I'm not saying this is trivial but neither a frightfully difficult task.

 
Took screens of the rubble and posted them in the Images thread.

If that option had been there I'd have taken it. You can't walk, run or jump through zombies...
Here is how you can find out which POI you are looking at. Maybe post the name of it so I can see for myself. I visited 4 of the 7 ranger stations in the game and couldn't find anything fitting your description

Which POI am I looking at?

  • Activate dm in console (admin on server or host in SP/P2P game)
  • Hit F3
  • Enter POI bounds
  • “Player” tab 3rd line biome will also show POI name (can ignore .xyz after name)
 
What you described above - creating better opportunities to take care of them before they take care of you, using the tools the game gives you - is not cheating. It's smart gameplay. Same for fashioning an exit before entering a potentially dangerous area. Same for putting down climb-able escape blocks before any (obviously a trap) 2+ block drops into rooms you can't see. These are S-M-R-T smart tactics.

Sleeper volumes are actually volumes, not trigger points (though I suppose it's possible to set up a 1x1x1 volume to act as a trigger). For the loot room at Red Mesa, there is a volume that covers the room itself (but not tall enough to cover the hatch at the top, so you can open the hatch without triggering the volume) as well as the area outside the vault door.

There is another sleeper volume which wraps around behind the loot room. Surpisingly, only the 2nd volume appears to have actual sleepers in it. They both have the same Group ID, though, which I assume means that both volumes apply to the same sleepers.

Only the vault-room volume (the one bordered in green) is set to "Attack" on activation. The other is "Active" which I think activates their hearing, but does not automatically wake them up. So if you somehow entered this area from behind the room (in the blue-bordered volume), you could conceivably stealth-kill the sleepers before you enter the main (green-bordered) vault volume. Of course the One True Path leads you into the vault-room volume which sets all the zombies to attack immediately.

View attachment 15209
Live and learn, thanx. I am definitely now a bit more educated in regards of sleeper volumes and how they operate. Based purely on observations I kind had misunderstood an aspect of them (the assumed existence of individual trigger "points")).

The "opportunities to take care of them" - though. In my mind the player decision to go through a wall instead of an open doorway or any other intended path, without any in game information to justify that decision is cheating/meta-gaming/cheesing/etc. Because you know that this is a sleeper volume. But your character should not know that. There is no indication whatsoever in-game that a given volume is a sleeper volume. 

AND - on top of that - apparently devs have decided that these "other opportunities to take care of them" should not exist and have gone the way of SPAWNING ZOMBIES OUT OF THIN AIR for you as a next level hack against stealth gameplay and/or cheesing the sleepers before triggering them, I suppose. 

 
I posted a bug report about the fire station now. We'll see shortly whether this is considered unbalanced or an intended exceptional case in a sea of stealthable POIs
By the way, my bug report for fire_station_01 landed in "confirmed".  So it seems POIs with all volumes on auto_trigger are not intended. I suppose it is still possible that some developer later looks at the bug and says "No, this is as it should be", but all the signs point strongly to this being an oversight.

 
have gone the way of SPAWNING ZOMBIES OUT OF THIN AIR for you as a next level hack against stealth gameplay and/or cheesing the sleepers before triggering them, I suppose. 
So just to be clear, they have not added in any special "SPAWNING ZOMBIES OUT OF THIN AIR" mechanic or "hack". If you see zombies pop into existence it is because you entered a sleeper volume that was not previously loaded and the direction you entered does not provide cover to hide the spawning. You absolutely are seeing zombies spawn right in front of you, I'm not denying that. But it was not added as a "hack" to counter some player behavior. It is just a weakness in the mechanics of sleeper volumes that, hopefully, they find a way to fix.

The "opportunities to take care of them" - though. In my mind the player decision to go through a wall instead of an open doorway or any other intended path, without any in game information to justify that decision is cheating/meta-gaming/cheesing/etc. Because you know that this is a sleeper volume. But your character should not know that. There is no indication whatsoever in-game that a given volume is a sleeper volume.
That's a fair point, however I think it's also fair to say that a survivor who has encountered several homes and businesses laden with traps and newly un-dead former residents/employees/customers could be expected to punch out a few windows or holes in drywall to scope out the next room before entering it. Obviously the survivors who came before me were very diligent in setting up traps and apparently the zombies are pretty devious as well. The concept of "sleeper volumes" is not required. Of course the auto-aggro rooms don't really bother me that much and I strongly resist the idea of "cheese" in a game where I have tools which can destroy any building I'm in, so I haz a bias for sure.

 
Basically how sleepers work is when the level designers create the POI they place spawn points along the intended path to indicate where they want zombies to spawn in. While placing the spawn points they can specify which zombies can spawn at that point and also always try to placing them out of line of sight of the intended path. Now the spawn points on their own will do nothing so to activate them they draw a 3d cube or rectangle shaped volume around them that includes the spawn points for the encounter and a bit of the path to it. Once they do this they can set the total zombies allowed to get activated to determine how may spawn points will be used and if they will auto wake/attack the player or not.

Now for the POIs the Zombies with in do not exist until the player crosses into a volume which will then trigger the specified zombies to appear. With the main goal of the system to ensure that as few zombies exist in the world as possible to maximize performance and to minimize the impact on the intended game play. Which naturally the second part of that is not really working out very well as this thread attests to.

Edit - The main issues is that the sleeper system when not used right or not working correctly can greatly limit or get in the way of game play. Not only for stealth players but all players as no body wants zombies to magically appear in front them or for areas that appear clear from afar to suddenly be crawling with zombies once you get there.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Here is how you can find out which POI you are looking at. Maybe post the name of it so I can see for myself. I visited 4 of the 7 ranger stations in the game and couldn't find anything fitting your description

Which POI am I looking at?

  • Activate dm in console (admin on server or host in SP/P2P game)
  • Hit F3
  • Enter POI bounds
  • “Player” tab 3rd line biome will also show POI name (can ignore .xyz after name)
Sorry the reply took so long.

Ranger station 06

Got it to load in the prefab editor.

No reference key that I could find for what the different sleeper volume colors are.

Screens are of the location where I got pinned (right of the door, against the corner).

A19.1_2020-09-28_15-52-10.jpgA19.1_2020-09-28_15-53-29.jpg
Entry to the section from garage.

A19.1_2020-09-28_16-14-30.jpg
With Sleeper spawns shown (1st one wide, second focused)

A19.1_2020-09-28_16-13-11.jpgA19.1_2020-09-28_16-13-26.jpg
Odd thing is, that if blue is supposed to be not Auto-Aggro and orange is supposed to be Auto-Aggro, I sniped the vulture that spawned on the main building balcony without it spotting me (got the sneak attack bonus).

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Youtube videos of the explosions and maybe a protest sign are more likely to be shared to a wider audience.
And probably .000000000000001% more effective at getting the change you want out of the developers....but if Covid has provided you with more time then a project like this could be fun to do so go for it.

 
I amazed you've forgotten my position on this. Auto-aggro volumes need to either have clear indicators before you enter them, that someone being observant will notice, that they do not follow how the other volumes function or they need to be removed from the game. Effectively having my character slammed into a corner and curb stomped despite having done everything to mitigate my observability is @%$#ing bull@%$#.
This is definitely the wrong tactic to take. TFP wants there to be occasional areas of direct confrontation. They are happy to have stealth work 90% of the time and fail 10% of the time to mix things up a bit. If you ask them to add visible indicators of the reasons the zombies all wake up in that section they might consider doing it as a visual causality to better communicate to the player why it happened.

HOWEVER

We know you wouldn't be happy with just that. You would then insist that TFP give players the ability to disarm and avoid and cancel out those visual cues because it would be immersion breaking to see a trip wire but have no way to disarm it or to go in through a wall and not activate the trip wire but still they all wake up.  Nope. The devs are not going to go down the rabbit hole of doing all of that I can tell you right now. And if you present it as such I can tell you now that Madmole will just say no to the whole idea and just keep it the way it is. In their minds Stealth is pretty much done and adding an indicator that might lead to weeks or months of deeper development for disarming traps and sirens and lights and tripwires.

As Madmole would put it, "We're not making a stealth simulator. It is a zombie killing game with stealth elements."

 
Back
Top