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

[Kalen]

Being able to run and re-sneak in those places that it is possible does not change that stealth failed due to a Deus Ex Machina middle finger decision to set that volume as aggressive by the POI dev.

Dude... its not about "screwing over stealth", you seriously can't believe that's the reason volume triggers exist?  It's about the level designers wanting you to confront zombies at certain points in a POI.   Luckily, as has been pointed out, you don't have to.... you can run away, re-stealth and come back.   

At a minimum they need to disclose in the game itself that this is in place.

No they don't.... people figure it out through trial and error.   I noticed what was happening after only a few POIs.... I'm sure you did to.  Not everything has to be spelled out.   Letting players learn how the game works on their own is a good thing, IMO.   

 

[Roland]

At a minimum they need to disclose in the game itself that this is in place. I don't mean say where the volumes are, just that there are places where stealth will always fail. Iirc, the boss fight from Thief that you referenced was after a cut scene...

How shall this be disclosed? Would a cut scene right when the auto aggro volume is triggered be sufficient?  That wouldn’t stop buyer’s remorse from someone with your sensitivity because by then the stealth points were already spent. Should one of the load screen Tips mention that sometimes in the game the zombies will wake up despite your best efforts? Is that enough or should they work it into the Early Access disclaimer on the Steam store page?

Plus, there’s the problem with stating “Stealth will fail” because as the game stands right now and as I already explained to you, it doesn’t fail. It is preserved. You just have to choose to use it when the zombies wake up. 
 

I’ve said my piece on this now and really have no more to say without just repeating already posted arguments. We just aren’t going to see eye to eye on this issue. Not now that I’m certain auto aggroed zombies can be ditched and then re-engaged with all stealth perks preserved. 

 

[Tehnomaag]

An updated journal entry for stealth should do the trick and would be probably the right place to disclose the existence of auto-agro volumes. 

Ideally there would be an option, during the game setup to choose to override the sleeper volume behavior. Say,

• default (sleeper volumes behave as set by the POI designers)
  
• all auto-agro (all volumes rush you upon entry)
  
• all awake (the most underused flag, zombies are fully awake and with all senses on, but to no rush you outright before detecting you)
  
• all asleep (the "normal" sleepers upon whom you can practically step before they take note of you)
  
• all auto-agro volumes are instead turned into "awake" volumes
  

would be ideal. That way all the people who are happy as clams with the things as they currently hare can just not change that option, while all the people who do have some kind of problem with things as they are have an option to choose something that fits them better. 

I personally would love to try a play where all sleepers are awake. So if you step into its line of sight, tough luck. Being stealthy would actually matter as you could bring the whole house down your way if you get too noisy. But there is an *option* to get through the POI without zombies attacking you. 

 

[hiemfire]

How shall this be disclosed?

This way:

An updated journal entry for stealth should do the trick and would be probably the right place to disclose the existence of auto-agro volumes.

More specifically: "In some locations enemies will be alerted to your presence and move to attack regardless of what the observability gauge shows. Remain aware and have a back up plan at all times."

people figure it out through trial and error.

Learn by dying... How retro...

 

[meganoth]

This way:

More specifically: "In some locations enemies will be alerted to your presence and move to attack regardless of what the observability gauge shows. Remain aware and have a back up plan at all times."

Learn by dying... How retro...

Learn by dying in this game is used with

* landmines

* spike traps (seeing zombies walk into traps and be killed after 10 seconds wallowing in it will not prepare you for the 1.5 second death when you accidentally step into one).

* all manner of POI traps, like floor traps. And yes, the shamway factory boss room is especially unfair and got me killed the first time (I don't know what I was speccing, but I got killed and since I was panicked and made the wrong decisions I would have died with any specc). I don't think the designer of that boss room wasted any thought on whether this room is fair at all. It is made to kill most players when they think they have seen everything.

* collapsing mines (the ones where you dig your own grave )

* horde night. No matter of journal entry can prepare you for the dozens of ways zombies can breach your defenses and for a typical beginner this is a death sentence. There is no journal entry that explains zombie AI, their capabilities and limits. There is no journal entry warning you that some zombies can jump 5 blocks high

* vehicles on horde night

* underground bases on horde night

* the demo. The first time a player will encounter a demo he will not know about that 5! block explosion radius. It is pure chance whether he will survive that first encounter.

Sure, some of them are evident in principle. Zombies are dangerous, everyone knows that. A mine could be spotted if not hidden by grass or debris. It is found around military camps or in the wasteland, both visible to be dangerous. So what, does a POI not signal danger in general as well?

I didn't check if some of those dangers are mentioned in the journal. I'm sure a lot of them are not. In general a game designer does not want to explain meta-knowledge in-game. Just like the tricks how sleepers are spawned or how wandering hordes are faked is not journal-material.

 

[Kalen]

And yes, the shamway factory boss room is especially unfair and got me killed the first time

You can actually trigger the room from underneath it.... which makes it much easier to get away and restealth.   Then you can pick them off a lot more easily.

 

[hiemfire]

You can actually trigger the room from underneath it.... which makes it much easier to get away and restealth.   Then you can pick them off a lot more easily.

First time through/initial clear after a reset or after the 3 day respawn timer with no reset?

 

[Boidster]

How shall this be disclosed?

This way:

An updated journal entry for stealth should do the trick and would be probably the right place to disclose the existence of auto-agro volumes.

More specifically: "In some locations enemies will be alerted to your presence and move to attack regardless of what the observability gauge shows. Remain aware and have a back up plan at all times."

Wait wait wait...

All this wailing and gnashing of teeth, and you'd be satisfied with just a journal entry? THREAD CLOSED. I think everybody would agree that a journal entry edit is perfectly reasonable, with all else remaining as-is. Good job everyone coming up with a reasonable solution!

Edit to add: okay, here's the description of the max rank for From The Shadows:

Hide in the shadows 65% more effectively, noises from actions are muffled 50% and sneak movement is 50% faster.

So it already says you are only 65% more effective in hiding (not 100% hidden) and noises are only muffled 50% (not 100%). How should this description read, in your opinion? I'll make a modlet for you to fix it.

 

[hiemfire]

All this wailing and gnashing of teeth, and you'd be satisfied with just a journal entry?

At a "@%$# it, fine. That covers it." level because they'd no longer be hiding the existence of aggressive volumes from players who have no meta knowledge of the game, yes. Preference is still the removal of the volumes or the removal of the perks.

So it already says you are only 65% more effective in hiding (not 100% hidden) and noises are only muffled 50% (not 100%). How should this description read, in your opinion? I'll make a modlet for you to fix it.

A modlet does nothing for new players, nice of you to suggest it though, and FTS's description doesn't apply to aggressive volumes (a 65% boost of 0 is still 0). At least with a journal entry they have an opportunity within the game itself to be made aware that this will happen before they get their character's faces bashed in by them. 

 

[Boidster]

And actually throw in a few Aggressive volumes to test the deaggro portion of the mechanic this time. The upper rooms of the Ranger Station 6 and Ranger Station 7 main towers or the Hospital cafeteria (?) would work for that.

So I tried Ranger Station 06. Cleaned out lower floors, then went to top floor, two zombies drop from ceiling, I run downstairs and hide behind the yellow pallet. Zombies come down stairs and then just meander about.



This was with only 3 ranks in FTS.

 

[Roland]

Remain aware and have a back up plan at all times.

Can we just include this for every journal entry on every subject along with a repeating sound loop of "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out" for the gamers that must need these sorts of directions....?

Look, I am all for journal entries that give tips but as @meganoth stated they should not include any under-the-hood information. I would not state that there are locations that will automatically ambush the player. Instead, journal tips should focus on what the player can do. So something like:

"If you are detected by enemies while attempting stealth you can run away and crouch hidden out of sight until you are once again undetected. After a short time the enemies will forget your presence and you can return and attempt to engage them again using stealth."

This journal tip gives the player advice on what they can do whenever they are detected whether it is by an auto-aggro volume or they accidentally made noise or stepped into a lighted space and were seen. It tells them that enemies have a short memory and can be hidden from which, if a player didn't realize, they might think that once detected they MUST switch to guns blazing. The player doesn't really need to know about auto-aggro volumes-- they just need to know how they can respond effectively whenever they are detected for any reason.

 

[Boidster]

A modlet does nothing for new players, nice of you to suggest it though, and FTS's description doesn't apply to aggressive volumes (a 65% boost of 0 is still 0).

You have it backwards, in my opinion. The description specifically informs you that you will not be 100% hidden while sneaking. It's not "65% of 0", it's "65% was not good enough here."

 

[Kalen]

First time through/initial clear after a reset or after the 3 day respawn timer with no reset?

First time through.... did it by accident once and intentionally once.  

 

[Roland]

Ideally there would be an option, during the game setup to choose to override the sleeper volume behavior. Say,

• default (sleeper volumes behave as set by the POI designers)
  
• all auto-agro (all volumes rush you upon entry)
  
• all awake (the most underused flag, zombies are fully awake and with all senses on, but to no rush you outright before detecting you)
  
• all asleep (the "normal" sleepers upon whom you can practically step before they take note of you)
  
• all auto-agro volumes are instead turned into "awake" volumes
  

would be ideal. That way all the people who are happy as clams with the things as they currently hare can just not change that option, while all the people who do have some kind of problem with things as they are have an option to choose something that fits them better. 

Personally, I would not be opposed to options like this. But that is probably because I did not design a single POI. Including this in the game would be a tough sell for TFP because they have handcrafted the POI's and designed them with intent. Honestly, I'm just glad they still allow us to choose our own way and don't force us down the suggested pathway through the gauntlet...

The volumes are chosen purposefully to create specific gameplay experiences and risk of death to be sure but more importantly hopes of narrow escapes that result in players relating their gripping stories of survival to their friends. It is why they have resisted just creating procedurally generated rooms and interiors that would randomize the insides of POI's so they would be different every time you went in. The dungeon POI's are designed to play out in the way the designer wants it to be done and TFP want for every single POI in the game to be a hand-crafted design.

I really doubt they will just option out their work. It would be like a DM spending all week planning out an adventure for his group and coming up with all sorts of contingency plans that will challenge them depending on the choices he anticipates that they might make and then when Friday night comes around and they sit down to the table one of the players asks if they can implement an optional rule that would negate what the DM had planned. That option might result in a fun time for the players and maybe that DM would allow it during a future session but most likely he would say "No way and by the way, you've contracted a temporary facial skin rash that lowers your Charisma to 2 for the next 2 weeks of game time...."

Now, with any offering there will be those who disagree with the design and think it is lousy and unfair and bad. That is to be expected. But, I agree with you that your listed options would be fun to play around with. The POI's aren't MY babies.

 

[Krougal]

Now I'll have to admit I didn't know about the auto-aggro volumes before this discussion.

I always just assumed I screw up from time to time, which of course I see now is ludicrous!

While I don't like heavy-handed scripted events in general, I can't complain that they are over-used or overly punishing. If this were a game like Thief or Styx where getting spotted and/or having to kill means failure (in expert) then I too would be pissed, but it isn't. Kill the zeds and move on. People complaining that it wasn't disclosed to them that stealth might not be 100% effective in all circumstances really makes me SMH. I feel like some of you are just trolling at this point. This has turned into a tempest in a teapot. Maybe TFP should add: "Warning, you may be killed by zeds" to every description and every journal entry to prevent any future incidents like this.

Honestly stealth is broken all around. I use the silencer more for effect than because it seems necessary, unlike other zombie games noise doesn't do much and seems to follow very strange rules. If sneaking the arrow in the head won't wake up the zed next to it, if not sneaking it will. That makes sense right?

I haven't delved into POI creation but from this discussion and my own observations, I'm guessing it all has to do with the way the rooms are designed. Sometimes I can run past a building and everything in it aggros. Other times I can tear half the building down before a zed notices.

I seem to remember back before the days of POIs it being more like State of Decay where shooting unsupressed guns brings every zed in the area, and so it was an option of last resort. 

 

[meganoth]

Now I'll have to admit I didn't know about the auto-aggro volumes before this discussion.

I always just assumed I screw up from time to time, which of course I see now is ludicrous!

While I don't like heavy-handed scripted events in general, I can't complain that they are over-used or overly punishing. If this were a game like Thief or Styx where getting spotted and/or having to kill means failure (in expert) then I too would be pissed, but it isn't. Kill the zeds and move on. People complaining that it wasn't disclosed to them that stealth might not be 100% effective in all circumstances really makes me SMH. I feel like some of you are just trolling at this point. This has turned into a tempest in a teapot. Maybe TFP should add: "Warning, you may be killed by zeds" to every description and every journal entry to prevent any future incidents like this.

Honestly stealth is broken all around. I use the silencer more for effect than because it seems necessary, unlike other zombie games noise doesn't do much and seems to follow very strange rules. If sneaking the arrow in the head won't wake up the zed next to it, if not sneaking it will. That makes sense right?

I haven't delved into POI creation but from this discussion and my own observations, I'm guessing it all has to do with the way the rooms are designed. Sometimes I can run past a building and everything in it aggros. Other times I can tear half the building down before a zed notices.

I seem to remember back before the days of POIs it being more like State of Decay where shooting unsupressed guns brings every zed in the area, and so it was an option of last resort. 

Stealth isn't broken, it may be unintuitive. You are the center of noise, even if the loudest sound is the panel breaking from an arrow you shot. There is also a random modifier involved (I suspect) so shooting a weapon 5 meters away from a zombie will not wake it in every case or let it sleep in every case.

This may make it difficult to notice the effect of a silencer. But seriously: Try to stealth your way through a poi once with and once without a silencer. You will notice a difference.

It is rather obvious that distance has a much larger effect on sound in the game than in reality. In reality you shoot a magnun and not only the full room, but every house in the neighborhood is on full alert. You shoot a magnum in the game and the chance that a zombie 12 meters away is woken is (at a guess) already less than 50%.

 

[Krougal]

Stealth isn't broken, it may be unintuitive. You are the center of noise, even if the loudest sound is the panel breaking from an arrow you shot. There is also a random modifier involved (I suspect) so shooting a weapon 5 meters away from a zombie will not wake it in every case or let it sleep in every case.

This may make it difficult to notice the effect of a silencer. But seriously: Try to stealth your way through a poi once with and once without a silencer. You will notice a difference.

It is rather obvious that distance has a much larger effect on sound in the game than in reality. In reality you shoot a magnun and not only the full room, but every house in the neighborhood is on full alert. You shoot a magnum in the game and the chance that a zombie 12 meters away is woken is (at a guess) already less than 50%.

There is still sneaking or not sneaking. If I shoot a zed in the head with a silenced pistol it is still going to wake every zed in the room if I am not crouched.

Another example is when things go south with this strategy, I resort to the Dirty Harry special which yes, all the zeds in the room were already alerted so it's moot, but it doesn't seem to draw zeds from the rest of the house.

The way noise works is a lot of what I consider broken (possibly even the cause of all of it). 

It works well enough for game purposes once you get used to it, but it's still a @%$#ty system.

 

[Boidster]

The volumes are chosen purposefully to create specific gameplay experiences and risk of death to be sure but more importantly quickly dashed hopes of narrow escapes that result in players relating their gripping stories of survival grisly death to their friends.

Fixt for my lived reality.

 

[Danidas]

I think the way the game works is all noise is emitted from the player no matter where logic would otherwise dictate it's source to be. As for said noise it diminishes for each block it has to travel by a certain amount or percent and zombies are only looking for sound events over a certain threshold. When you sneak it muffles all of your sound based on your sneak modifier that takes light levels and possible other items into account. Naturally with the effect of reducing your sound to hopefully be lower then the zombies threshold to wake. Also different actions produce different amounts of noise and only the actions the devs set to produce noise will do so.

As for zombies the game uses rather aggressive limits on zombies in the world. For example none of the zombies in a POI exist until you cross into one of the cube shaped sleeper volumes the level designer setup that activates the spawn points with in it. Which said sleeper volumes are always draw around different rooms or parts of the POI to setup specific encounters based on the whims of the designer. 

 

[hiemfire]

First time through.... did it by accident once and intentionally once.  

I have an image in my head of your first time triggering it that way being from getting launched upwards by one of the diabolical diagonal catwalks right under the room.

You are the center of noise, even if the loudest sound is the panel breaking from an arrow you shot.

Something I hope they adjust sometime, even if it makes stealth harder.

So I tried Ranger Station 06. Cleaned out lower floors, then went to top floor, two zombies drop from ceiling, I run downstairs and hide behind the yellow pallet. Zombies come down stairs and then just meander about.

View attachment 15540

Still after the point of failure.

Day time (just curious on this part)?

Also, run passed the threat to get away from the threat is really counterintuitive, though it might be possible there via backing out the window and dropping down a floor. Thank you for testing that one (honestly this is the only Aggressive Volume that has been specifically confirmed to me). My grumping aside you at least demonstrated they don't have the Blood Moon auto track when their volume is triggered. 

This was with only 3 ranks in FTS.

View attachment 15541

Interesting mod.