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

[Danidas]

I haven't seen any indication that Solomon thinks the game is harder because of auto-aggro rooms, and I certainly don't. They're just nonsensical, and most likely a product of developer oversight in the first place. 

The existence of AP ammo is not an apt comparison to having your stats disabled, by the way. 

You do realize that they specifically coded the spawn flags for the spawn volume system and intentionally included the auto aggro flag by design. Which they didn't use at first when it was added until if I'm not mistaken A19 when the POI designers started using it in new POIs as well as flipping it on for a few older POIs. Note that auto aggro is a flag that the designers have to intentionally enable for the specific spawn volume or otherwise have on. So no developer oversight is possible beyond the rare chance that they forgot it was on while making a POI and in those cases every spawn volume will be auto aggro as it is for one of the fire stations and a few others.

 

[Kalen]

They're just nonsensical, and most likely a product of developer oversight in the first place. 

It's a game, not a real-life simulator.   It's more nonsensical that you can carry 46.8 (made up number) tons of concrete.  I can see why people feel the way they do if they look at auto-agro rooms only in terms of their mechanics.   Personally, I look at auto-agro rooms as an abstraction for "something" outside of my control waking up a bunch of zombies.... see earlier in this thread for plenty of examples of what that "something" might have been.

And since you called me disingenuous earlier.... I'll return the favor.... you can't possibly believe that auto-agro rooms are a developer oversight.   Yup, they some how accidentally created a system whereby certain areas of POIs, in a trap-like manner, spring a bunch of alert zombies on you.

The existence of AP ammo is not an apt comparison to having your stats disabled, by the way. 

I think you're misunderstanding.... I brought up AP ammo as an in-game explanation for why someone's armor might no longer work in a certain room.   Just like earlier, someone mentioned a stack of books falling over as an in-game explanation for why a bunch of zombies just woke up and attacked you.

 

[Yark]

It's a game, not a real-life simulator.   It's more nonsensical that you can carry 46.8 (made up number) tons of concrete.  I can see why people feel the way they do if they look at auto-agro rooms only in terms of their mechanics.   Personally, I look at auto-agro rooms as an abstraction for "something" outside of my control waking up a bunch of zombies.... see earlier in this thread for plenty of examples of what that "something" might have been.

And since you called me disingenuous earlier.... I'll return the favor.... you can't possibly believe that auto-agro rooms are a developer oversight.   Yup, they some how accidentally created a system whereby certain areas of POIs, in a trap-like manner, spring a bunch of alert zombies on you.

I think you're misunderstanding.... I brought up AP ammo as an in-game explanation for why someone's armor might no longer work in a certain room.   Just like earlier, someone mentioned a stack of books falling over as an in-game explanation for why a bunch of zombies just woke up and attacked you.

If I meant to say unrealistic, then I would have said unrealistic. The word I used was nonsensical, meaning it doesn't make sense within the established game mechanics. 

If you want to talk about AP ammo, then a valid comparison might be hyper-sensitive zombies which will almost certainly detect you regardless of your build. In the same way that AP ammo negates armor, so too would a sensitive breed of zombie negate your stealth. This would be fine with me, as it would make sense. Instead we have normal zombies in some rooms that are alerted when you cross a boundary, regardless of your stealth.

The underground room which I'm sure everyone is familiar with, is an obvious trap room and I can see that it was designed as such. I actually don't have as much of a problem with this room as, say the entry room for the orange mansion POI. That first room has only two zombies, and for some reason is the only auto-aggro room in the entire POI.

Why? Beats me. 

 

[Kalen]

If I meant to say unrealistic, then I would have said unrealistic. The word I used was nonsensical, meaning it doesn't make sense within the established game mechanics. 

I didn't say unrealistic either.... I also said nonsensical.  It's nonsensical that I can carry tons of concrete, but if I fill all my inventory slots with 1 plant fiber I'm encumbered... but again, sometimes gameplay trumps what might make sense.

hyper-sensitive zombies which will almost certainly detect you regardless of your build. In the same way that AP ammo negates armor, so too would a sensitive breed of zombie negate your stealth. This would be fine with me, as it would make sense. Instead we have normal zombies in some rooms that are alerted when you cross a boundary, regardless of your stealth.

Well there you go.... when you encounter an auto-agro room.... assume that its filled with hyper sensitive zombies and it no longer is nonsensical to you.    Maybe thats what they're intended to be.... or maybe it's intended to simulate something else happening that alerts the zombies.   

 

[meganoth]

I haven't seen any indication that Solomon thinks the game is harder because of auto-aggro rooms, and I certainly don't.

...

After rereading older posts by Solomon I would agree. Most likely just sloppy language, which I'm guilty of sometimes too.

If I meant to say unrealistic, then I would have said unrealistic. The word I used was nonsensical, meaning it doesn't make sense within the established game mechanics. 

If you want to talk about AP ammo, then a valid comparison might be hyper-sensitive zombies which will almost certainly detect you regardless of your build. In the same way that AP ammo negates armor, so too would a sensitive breed of zombie negate your stealth. This would be fine with me, as it would make sense. Instead we have normal zombies in some rooms that are alerted when you cross a boundary, regardless of your stealth.

The underground room which I'm sure everyone is familiar with, is an obvious trap room and I can see that it was designed as such. I actually don't have as much of a problem with this room as, say the entry room for the orange mansion POI. That first room has only two zombies, and for some reason is the only auto-aggro room in the entire POI.

Why? Beats me. 

Designers make mistakes like everyone else. Finding a specific room that doesn't make sense as an auto-aggro room won't exactly shock me.

I assume you made sure it really is auto-aggro? It seems many cases are now attributed to auto-aggro even if it is just a random stealth check not succeeding. Also number of zombies in a room is random, did you go into the editor and count spawn locations?

 

[Yark]

I didn't say unrealistic either.... I also said nonsensical.  It's nonsensical that I can carry tons of concrete, but if I fill all my inventory slots with 1 plant fiber I'm encumbered... but again, sometimes gameplay trumps what might make sense.

Well there you go.... when you encounter an auto-agro room.... assume that its filled with hyper sensitive zombies and it no longer is nonsensical to you.    Maybe thats what they're intended to be.... or maybe it's intended to simulate something else happening that alerts the zombies.   

It's not nonsensical that you can carry tons of concrete, because it makes sense within the design of the game. Having your stats nullified in some rooms, for no real reason, does not.

I'm not going to pretend that a special type of zombie exists, and you're missing my point entirely. If you want to bring ammo TYPE into the discussion, then it would make sense to compare that to zombie TYPE.

If you take your time and read slowly, you will understand. 

Designers make mistakes like everyone else. Finding a specific room that doesn't make sense as an auto-aggro room won't exactly shock me.

I assume you made sure it really is auto-aggro? It seems many cases are now attributed to auto-aggro even if it is just a random stealth check not succeeding. Also number of zombies in a room is random, did you go into the editor and count spawn locations?

Yes. The orange mansion POI has a cracked and open wall at one corner where you are meant to enter. There are two zombies in that room which will auto-aggro, but the rest of the POI can be done in stealth. 

 

[Kalen]

I'm not going to pretend that a special type of zombie exists, and you're missing my point entirely. If you want to bring ammo TYPE into the discussion, then it would make sense to compare that to zombie TYPE.

If you take your time and read slowly, you will understand. 

LOL, no need to get personal, dude.... just having a discussion here.

Who said you should pretend?   How do you know that they're not super sensitive.... evidence would conclude that they are.   (again using an in-game explanation.... clearly in the xml the zombies are the same as all the rest.... however, since they're placed in a way that causes them to behave differently, one could conclude that they're meant to be different).   

Once again, in a hypothetical room where armor doesnt work.... a possible, in-game, explanation is that whatever is in that room (in my example bandits) were using something to bypass armor (in my example AP rounds).   That doesn't mean that hypothetical adversary is coded to use AP rounds.... it just means that there is an in-game explanation for what is happening.

Again, these things are abstractions

 

[meganoth]

It's not nonsensical that you can carry tons of concrete, because it makes sense within the design of the game. Having your stats nullified in some rooms, for no real reason, does not.

Lets name a few reasons then (I don't have any idea what the devs have as a reason, these are just things I would find on the positive side of such a feature):

1) Helps in creating boss rooms where you don't want the "boss" to suffer a first headshot with 300% or more damage increase

2) Mixes up zombie behaviour as those zombies will not slowly wake up but have a running start (small difficulty increase nr. 1)

3) Could enhance huge rooms if you tag a smaller volume as auto-aggro so some of the zombies are awake immediately, but others still sleeping.

4) Actually generates a guaranteed situation where a zombie pack attacks you INSIDE a POI (difficulty increase nr. 2, variation increase)

5) Special challenge for stealth players. I'm not sure if TFP thought about this when adding the feature, but since there are ways for stealth players to handle it they likely count this as a plus even though it isn't balanced across attributes.

Don't get me wrong, those are not BIG SHINY reasons, but on the other hand the implementation likely was done in a few trivial lines of code. Minor feature for cheap.

 

[Roland]

I suspect what happened with some of the rooms is that it was just a developer mistake later justified by, "Enjoy the challenge."

Nope. Intended.

I agree with Meganoth's suspicion, however, that there may have been some volumes either mistakenly tagged as auto-aggro or poorly chosen to be such. However, the philosophy of having occasional rooms that require players to utilize some quick thinking reactions and skills is by design and the flags that cause those volumes to behave as they are were intentionally applied and are functioning properly.

When this issue first came up in the dev diary and then subsequently was discussed in this thread the assumption was that the player was being forced to switch from stealth gameplay to full guns blazing attack mode and that a player kitted out for stealth would be at a distinct disadvantage with the weapon and armor they were wearing for stealth and suddenly having to switch tactics to one that was more aligned with a strength or fortitude build. It was also assumed that stealth was completely broken and invalidated for those rooms.

The facts that emerged from this thread are that the player is NOT forced to abandon stealth. The zombies aggro but do NOT gps to the player like horde night zombies do. The player is, in fact, able to retreat, hide, and regain all stealth bonuses vs these awake enemies and can still finish the POI with 100% stealth kills.

True, you can't finish a POI with these volumes with 100% sleeping enemies. But, can we agree that the level of consciousness of your enemies has nothing to do with whether you can successfully stealth kill?

 

[Aldranon]

Admittedly, an auto-agro room (regardless of player noise level) feels artificial and perhaps never allowing the player to achieve 100% stealth would make more sense, as I believe is the case for armor although its currently too high when maxed IMO.

Of course realism in a game should be treated as salt to a meal (not too much).  If you want realism get a job and live life. You might be the 100% perfect worker, but that doesn't guarantee anything in real life ether.

So with those two thoughts: getting detected with 100% stealth... IS REALISM! 

 

[Solomon]

How does having a room where stealth doesn't work without a little effort promote diversity?   Um, by making it so that stealth doesn't work without a little effort in some places.  Without auto agro rooms you could pretty much creep your way through every POI dropping zombies with headshots and little to no risk to yourself.

Having rooms where a straight up fight is less effective than stealth (like the mentioned 0 armor scenario) would be another way to do it.   

Because removing variables decreases variables. Just as i pointed out in my example by making zombies what heal from fire doesnt offer you more diverse strategies but actually decreases them.

Diversity is when you have a great number of dealing with an obstacle, like for example in this game if you find a hole filled with undead you can build over it, move over it with the edges normally, stealth throught the edges or slaughter the undead. If you take one action out or make another mandatory you just decreased the diversity on how to get over the obstacle.

I'm in favor of almost anything that promotes a player using different strategies to clear a POI.

Then you should have said that because that is NOT diversity of player choice but rules of a dungeon. Its a restriction made specifically for that area, its still not good game design but when the whole place is no stealth it makes sense because the building is alerted but in our case it makes no sense because its just the room auto-failing you.

 

[Solomon]

As a life long hunter, I stalk my prey, but their senses are very keen.  Even moving upwind on quiet ground and masking scent I am never 100% successful, and not even close.  Investing in stealth would give you an advantage on unwary prey, but it sounds like some folks here are looking for certainty.  An alerted adversary is impossible to surprise.

Game theory in a complex multiplayer game involves scenarios that require skill diversity.  In the "simplicated" metaphor, there are multiple ways to clear a room.  Good POI design would bring all the play styles some love, but not in every room.  If I'm a H2H strength build, I will occasionally face feral irradiated tough opponent.  I don't get the x9 times damage bonus verses bikers perk.  Maybe the smart move is to let the stealthy player take out the biker.  But, in the next room they are alerted, so the intellect build with turrets or tank with a club gets the love while the stealth player participates.

Balancing PVE and PVP in a game like this is tough.   You don't want to over or under advantage one play style or everyone chooses the exact same build.

That was my point, failing randomly because they have a hidden awaressness cone you are unaware of is okay. Getting them alerted 100% no matter what and how you do it is not.

Stealth builds are already disadvantegous on the horde night, there it becomes a perk of wasted resources with everything you made with it. The auto aggro rooms further decrease the value of anything stealth based and actively promote less gameplay diversity.

The ideal gameplay setup as you said doesnt favor one kind of combat only but also the ideal gameplay setup lets all kind of combats play equally. As the game currently stands theres little reason to not go for a Strenght build with a club, theres just soo many useful things in that perk tree the players are hamfisted into it.

Meanwhile the other styles of combat either dont work well enough because you are playing in close combat (sniping in this game), droprates dont support them for a long time (stunbaton and other intelligence strategies) or have scripted "NOPE" areas all over the game (stealth).

Tell that to Solomon who seems to think it is an auto-die situation

Dont twist my words please, just where did you ever see me telling that you just die there. I said its an auto-failure point, even my original page 21 comment doesnt say anything about dying.

How about you go back and read it again? Automatic-failure doesnt mean instant defeat in all and every cases, it could be a switch increasing difficulty, adding in more enemies, making platforms moving faster, etc....

 

[Solomon]

1) Helps in creating boss rooms where you don't want the "boss" to suffer a first headshot with 300% or more damage increase

2) Mixes up zombie behaviour as those zombies will not slowly wake up but have a running start (small difficulty increase nr. 1)

3) Could enhance huge rooms if you tag a smaller volume as auto-aggro so some of the zombies are awake immediately, but others still sleeping.

4) Actually generates a guaranteed situation where a zombie pack attacks you INSIDE a POI (difficulty increase nr. 2, variation increase)

5) Special challenge for stealth players. I'm not sure if TFP thought about this when adding the feature, but since there are ways for stealth players to handle it they likely count this as a plus even though it isn't balanced across attributes.

1) Give him a helmet and some flimsy body armor what takes the whole bonus damage of your shot and flies off the boss after it awoken?

2) If they are already awake and twitching violently their head and body around the room it would make more sense as you would attribute it to a zombie type and not to a boundary check

3) See upper zombie type

4) Again see upper zombie type, infact you could make a heavy sleeper type of zombie what awakes if a player tries to stealth attack a twitcher so the strategy would be to lure out the twitcher ferals and then stealth remove the sleepers.

5) See upper, things like this are only challange if you can either circumvent it throught skill or can react to the situation from game memory. The current situation is neither.

 

[Kalen]

Then you should have said that because that is NOT diversity of player choice

I never said it increased the diversity of player choice.   I apologize for not being clear, but I thought it was obvious that I meant that it increased the diversity of the challenges a player faces.    Not sure how you feel this somehow restricts you.... as it has been mentioned and proven multiple times in this thread.... you can still stealth the entire POI, it just takes a little more effort and may not always be the optimal choice.

 

[Yark]

Lets name a few reasons then (I don't have any idea what the devs have as a reason, these are just things I would find on the positive side of such a feature):

1) Helps in creating boss rooms where you don't want the "boss" to suffer a first headshot with 300% or more damage increase

2) Mixes up zombie behaviour as those zombies will not slowly wake up but have a running start (small difficulty increase nr. 1)

3) Could enhance huge rooms if you tag a smaller volume as auto-aggro so some of the zombies are awake immediately, but others still sleeping.

4) Actually generates a guaranteed situation where a zombie pack attacks you INSIDE a POI (difficulty increase nr. 2, variation increase)

5) Special challenge for stealth players. I'm not sure if TFP thought about this when adding the feature, but since there are ways for stealth players to handle it they likely count this as a plus even though it isn't balanced across attributes.

Don't get me wrong, those are not BIG SHINY reasons, but on the other hand the implementation likely was done in a few trivial lines of code. Minor feature for cheap.

Your example listed as #1 can be debunked pretty easily. You're familiar with Grace I assume, and with the zombie bear living beneath the construction site POI? Both of these boss mobs can be assassinated from stealth. 

I'm fine with trap rooms where the floor falls out, and even with that underground room where you're jumped as soon as you walk into it. But what makes no sense is the type of aforementioned mansion room, where stealth is just randomly disabled and there are two normal zombies. I would hope this is a developer oversight. 

LOL, no need to get personal, dude.... just having a discussion here.

Who said you should pretend?   How do you know that they're not super sensitive.... evidence would conclude that they are. 

Oh, so you're trolling. I won't be responding to any of your posts going forward. 

 

[Kalen]

Oh, so you're trolling. I won't be responding to any of your posts going forward. 

I see, you don't want to discuss you'd rather just complain.   Gotcha

 

[alanea]

How does having a room where stealth doesn't work without a little effort promote diversity?   Um, by making it so that stealth doesn't work without a little effort in some places.  Without auto agro rooms you could pretty much creep your way through every POI dropping zombies with headshots and little to no risk to yourself.

stealth is safer option even now ... with massive drawback at clear speed even fully stealth perked (so weaker for blood moons)

you take  2-3x  more time to clear poi than someone with AK  ..stealth isnt inferior just too slow to be worth it

SciFi explanation: The bandits found a machine from a secret military lab that produces supersonic sound at just the right frequency to make the AP rounds of the bandits vibrate in flight and that makes them pass through armor like it was butter.

AP ammo makes your armor auto-fail (in this game only to a percentage and only if and once bandits with AP-ammo are in). I have played games where AP-ammo ignores 100% ammo. Is that not auto-fail as well by your definiton ?

guys  ...  maybe you should  check ap ammo and realize it doesnt work at all (same as penetrator) A19 broken all armor reducing effects and who knows if and when it gets fixed ( who dont believe take  utility worker/demo/soldier and shot it with normal and ap bullet  ..it doesnt matter ... as well as damage difference between 0 and fully perked penetrator is  0 damage

maybe  you could keep talk about AP ammo for version where it exist

1) Give him a helmet and some flimsy body armor what takes the whole bonus damage of your shot and flies off the boss after it awoken?

considering we already have zombies that  reduce/ignore head shot bonuses .... its not as  big issue as some may think

 <passive_effect name="DamageModifier" operation="perc_set" value="1" tags="head"/>

 

[meganoth]

Because removing variables decreases variables. Just as i pointed out in my example by making zombies what heal from fire doesnt offer you more diverse strategies but actually decreases them.

Removing variables for the whole game decreases variables. Removing variables for specific rooms increases variables. Its as simply as that.

 

[meganoth]

1) Give him a helmet and some flimsy body armor what takes the whole bonus damage of your shot and flies off the boss after it awoken?

2) If they are already awake and twitching violently their head and body around the room it would make more sense as you would attribute it to a zombie type and not to a boundary check

3) See upper zombie type

4) Again see upper zombie type, infact you could make a heavy sleeper type of zombie what awakes if a player tries to stealth attack a twitcher so the strategy would be to lure out the twitcher ferals and then stealth remove the sleepers.

5) See upper, things like this are only challange if you can either circumvent it throught skill or can react to the situation from game memory. The current situation is neither.

I gave those reasons because Yark said the feature is senseless because there are no real reasons to have this feature. I listed reasons which proves him wrong on that account. That the same effects can be done with other measures (often with more implementation effort) does not change that in the least, it is simply irrelevant.

Only your point 5 is relevant as you try to show that the auto-aggro does not achieve a challenge. But you can circumvent it through skill, if you see zombies running at you, run away, restealth and throw stones to kill them. No need to know beforehand what happens. I did try this strategy at insane difficulty and it worked.

Your example listed as #1 can be debunked pretty easily. You're familiar with Grace I assume, and with the zombie bear living beneath the construction site POI? Both of these boss mobs can be assassinated from stealth. 

...

The devs at TFP created that feature so that POI designers could use it when they think a room should be that way. The designers are surely free to add that flag to a room or not. If a designer thinks some boss zombie should have such a protection he can turn it on, otherwise he won't.

The designer of Grace's "room" did not want to give Grace that protection it seems. Example #1 is still a valid reason why such a feature is implemented and might be used by a designer if he so chooses. Hence the feature is not senseless. That is all I wanted to show by listing those 5 examples.

 

[Kandrathe]

That was my point, failing randomly because they have a hidden awaressness cone you are unaware of is okay. Getting them alerted 100% no matter what and how you do it is not.

Why would you fail?  Maybe because being in frail cloth armor and relying on 100% stealth as your only tool is a losing strategy in SP.   In the rock-paper-scissors of game theory, you need to be able to deal with more than rocks.  Or, be prepared to fail 2/3rds of the time.