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Decline Superfluous Stealth Sucks

AwesomeButton

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The original splinter cell already did that by auto failing a mission once you got caught 3 times or less, it was worse than chaos theory.
I've played the original and I don't see what was "worse than Chaos Theory" about the 3 alarms rule.
 

Master

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Sneaking is often too easy. It certainly was in the original Thief.
It was easy, but it was fun. And you could always try be very professional about it.

In rpgs i guess i just expect stealth to be commented later on, or to earn you a reputation of a kind. And killing also. The reward should be later, not exactly in the field. This would balance the game as you wouldnt weigh options acorrding to some current optimum.
But actually it would be best if stealth and combat were just good heh. I guess its too much to ask. But then it wouldnt really matter which and why you use.
 

Funposter

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You're not going to get deep and satisfying stealth from games that also seek to have satisfying shooting. It's like an unwritten rule that if you want players to engage in stealth, you have to make direct combat unpleasant.

Deus Ex: HR and Mankind Divided do a pretty decent job of offering both fun gunplay and good stealth mechanics. They just offer ludicrously better rewards for completing sections non-lethally and undetected. A section in HR with say, 15 enemies, would offer a maximum of 300 EXP for killing everyone with a headshot. 450 EXP if you kill everyone with a lethal takedown. A stealth playthrough receives 500 EXP for the 'Ghost' bonus just by getting through and remaining unseen, and can add on an extra 250 EXP for avoiding any alarms in certain sections. On top of that, they have the potential to earn 50 EXP for every non-lethal takedown, resulting in 750 EXP. A stealth playthrough in those games easily nets you three to four times as much EXP as a lethal/combat playthrough, giving access to way more augmentation upgrades etc. which makes the game far easier.
 
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The problem is when you make a sneak-focused character which makes you bad at combat and the game throws you into forced combat situations.
Looking at you, Alpha Protocol.
 

Cross

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Deus Ex: HR and Mankind Divided do a pretty decent job of offering both fun gunplay and good stealth mechanics.
Deus Ex: HR and Mankind Divided have Pacman-tier stealth based on crawling behind cover (which areas are absolutelly littered with), a radar that tells you where enemies are long before you can even see them and takedowns that stop the flow of time and teleport you to your target. Sound design is a joke, you can't even hear the footsteps of enemies that are just a few feet away from you. Their stealth mechanics are worse than those in stealth/RPG hybrids, much less dedicated stealth games.

I don't even remember anything about the gunplay.
 
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Roguey

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The problem is when you make a sneak-focused character which makes you bad at combat and the game throws you into forced combat situations.
Looking at you, Alpha Protocol.

AP lets you respec after you complete Saudi Arabia hub, though the human boss of that level can be taken down instantly with a silent takedown which might fool one into believing that can be done to all bosses.

Right after it, you have to shoot rockets at a tank which should be a sign that no, you won't be able to avoid confrontation entirely.
 

Sigourn

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This is axiomatic to me. Since video games did not invent sneaking, they had to take the concept from somewhere else, which is reality. In realty one sneaks because the consequence of being seen is severe in some way. It's severe because life is Hard mode. But AAA developers don't want to make games challenging, so we have a problem for those players who want stealth to be more than "also an option."

There are instances when people sneak around for fun, and the consequences aren't severe, like kids pretending to be ninjas in some part of a public building they really shouldn't be in (personal experience). But this kind of scenario is not the kind developers choose to make games of.

Exactly. RPGs should draw from real life, because the point of an RPG is to "be" someone and let the player decide what to do. And we draw from real life when making decisions, e.g. "why am I not able to bash down this door?". I've seen Josh Sawyer say things along the lines of

If players were able to bash things open, it would defeat the point of Lockpicking

But that idea is dumb to begin with because, drawing from real life once more, we find that:
  • Lockpicking would still be the stealth approach. You wouldn't want to bash down a door and alert everyone.
  • You could also make it that blowing open a chest would harm the contents. Project Nevada (New Vegas mod) already does this.
  • The idea is to make situations were lockpicking IS useful, as opposed to removing options because, in the situations you have designed, lockpicking proves itself to be not essential at all.
Of course, if your idea of "useful lockpicking" is having random chests in the desert, of course you will see how "bash open" breaks the point of lockpicking... but if you place said chests in carefully guarded facilities where making a noise gets you detected, lockpicking (stealth) becomes essential again. It's a shame Sawyer doesn't post in the Codex because I really appreciate his thoughts.
 

Jacob

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In real life, stealthiness is actually depending a lot on being still. It's very hard to notice static targets in cluttered space and low light.
This is how I 'stealth' in my parents house:

1. Sit on the toilet or in the tub
2. Leave the bathroom lights off
3. Leave the door slightly open
4. Parents will search for me around the house, but will skip the bathroom as if it's impossible for me to be in there.

(I actually discovered this when there was a blackout and I had to take a shit with the lights off.)
 

sullynathan

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But that idea is dumb to begin with because, drawing from real life once more, we find that:
  • Lockpicking would still be the stealth approach. You wouldn't want to bash down a door and alert everyone.
  • You could also make it that blowing open a chest would harm the contents. Project Nevada (New Vegas mod) already does this.
  • The idea is to make situations were lockpicking IS useful, as opposed to removing options because, in the situations you have designed, lockpicking proves itself to be not essential at all.
Of course, if your idea of "useful lockpicking" is having random chests in the desert, of course you will see how "bash open" breaks the point of lockpicking... but if you place said chests in carefully guarded facilities where making a noise gets you detected, lockpicking (stealth) becomes essential again. It's a shame Sawyer doesn't post in the Codex because I really appreciate his thoughts.
Chaos Theory as a stealth game already had lockpicking and hacking that was done well.

If you choose to be as stealthy as possible then lockpicking/hacking has you doing a minigame in real time and guards can catch you while doing it. If you succeed anbd pick a lock, any guard that goes through the door will know that that it was unlocked, check it and then go on a heightened alert state/inform other guards that a door was broken into or a computer/security terminal was hacked. The most stealthy option is usually to find/steal/get a key from a guard anyway.

Bashing a door makes noise and gives your location to nearby enemies but can be used to knockout an enemy right next to a door.

This system is likely less useful in an rpg that doesn't have you spending significant amount of time in one location without the ability to leave, and rpgs that don't have decent AI that notices things with a high chance of player death.
 

Damned Registrations

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I generally find stealth to be unfun because it's so god damned slow. You move slowly (as though you're too retarded to move faster than a crawl without stomping your feet) and usually have to spend half your time waiting for patrols to hit some timing window so you can follow a specific route. I'd be far more interested if stealth required improvisation and something more mechanically demanding than 'Red light, Green light.' It also needs something in between failure and win states, whiere you don't get caught but the enemies know you're around somewhere and have various degrees of information about you, like 'we know someone was here' 'we know someone is here right now' 'we know what his disguise looks like' 'we know exactly who he is but can't find him right now.' Instead most games either give everyone 5 second memories or all stealth is over the second someone hears a noise.
 

Sigourn

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I generally find stealth to be unfun because it's so god damned slow. You move slowly (as though you're too retarded to move faster than a crawl without stomping your feet) and usually have to spend half your time waiting for patrols to hit some timing window so you can follow a specific route. I'd be far more interested if stealth required improvisation and something more mechanically demanding than 'Red light, Green light.' It also needs something in between failure and win states, whiere you don't get caught but the enemies know you're around somewhere and have various degrees of information about you, like 'we know someone was here' 'we know someone is here right now' 'we know what his disguise looks like' 'we know exactly who he is but can't find him right now.' Instead most games either give everyone 5 second memories or all stealth is over the second someone hears a noise.

I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, but in a cRPG you sort of need these "static" routes (programmed routines, patrols, etc.) to let the player come up with a strategy in advance, as opposed to improvisating on the spot. I may be wrong myself.
To be more specific, I feel that having to improvise would lead to stealth sections being easier by virtue of making the consequences less harsh on the player.
 

Cross

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Chaos Theory as a stealth game already had lockpicking and hacking that was done well.

If you choose to be as stealthy as possible then lockpicking/hacking has you doing a minigame in real time and guards can catch you while doing it. If you succeed anbd pick a lock, any guard that goes through the door will know that that it was unlocked, check it and then go on a heightened alert state/inform other guards that a door was broken into or a computer/security terminal was hacked. The most stealthy option is usually to find/steal/get a key from a guard anyway.

Bashing a door makes noise and gives your location to nearby enemies but can be used to knockout an enemy right next to a door.

This system is likely less useful in an rpg that doesn't have you spending significant amount of time in one location without the ability to leave, and rpgs that don't have decent AI that notices things with a high chance of player death.
Enemies in Chaos Theory can't notice if you picked a lock or hacked a computer. And I don't remember the guards carrying any keys.

And what do you mean, "if you succeed and pick a lock"? You can't fail the lockpicking mini-game.
 

sullynathan

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Enemies in Chaos Theory can't notice if you picked a lock or hacked a computer. And I don't remember the guards carrying any keys.

And what do you mean, "if you succeed and pick a lock"? You can't fail the lockpicking mini-game.
They can notice if the door is picked or not, I remember them doing so in the bank mission because there's a locked door there to the security terminal.

If you succeed in a guard not catching you.
 

Cross

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They can notice if the door is picked or not
They can't:

cINNzId.jpg


Why do you think the option to break a lock exists? Because it's a faster (and louder) alternative to lockpicking, at the cost of being detectable by guards.
 

lukaszek

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deterministic system > RNG
 
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orcinator

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If stealth allows one to complete a RPG without killing anyone, it is beneficial to have.

If a nonlethal playthrough is boring and shallow it shouldn't be an option.

If you personally don't like how sneaking works in a game, don't play a sneak character then.

If a dev wastes resources on 2+ boring ways to play instead of one actually fun one I won't play the game. But I would prefer to have a game worth playing instead.
 
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Roguey

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If a dev wastes resources on 2+ boring ways to play instead of one actually fun one I won't play the game. But I would prefer to have a game worth playing instead.

Why bother playing RPGs then because this describes all of them.
 

Damned Registrations

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We've finally got the answer to 'What is an RPG?' A game where there's 2+ boring ways to play instead of one actually fun one.
 
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unfairlight

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- Splinter Cell Double Agent added something very cool but sadly only used in scripted moments - the ability to remotely eavesdrop on people with some kind of laser-powered device.
This was already included in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, your EEV had the laser mic included and it was used in the Displace HQ mission for a secondary objective. In that mission it was done in a non-scripted way as well, as you could simply totally miss that objective. In SC1 and 2 it was included, but scripted and required to progress to my knowledge.

On the topic of Bethesda game stealth, I think it was best done in Oblivion with about 40-60 Sneak. It wasn't flat out broken at that level and you did actually have to move slow to get around. From my experience, staying in the shadows played the most crucial importance in Oblivion as well which was most noticeable in caverns. In Fallout 3, 4 and Skyrim, it barely mattered where you moved around, you just had to have a high enough Sneak skill which determined either if you got detected (<40), got detected if you moved fast (40-70) or if you never got detected at all (70+).
 

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