Stealth Assassinations

[Penumbra]

I really like stealth games. More the original Splinter Cell types, where you are hiding in shadows and have an abstract concept of enemy perceptions.  But the basic Metal Gear kind is great too, where you don't have shadows or lighting, but explicit view cones for your enemies.  Some games have the "higher stealth skill makes you invisible" which isn't much fun.

What I think makes a great stealth game is fair consequences. Being seen should be bad, but not the end of the world. And, mostly mistakes on your part should be what cause you to be seen instead of just bad luck.

Two things here are important. One, the player needs to want to stay hidden and, two, needs to be able to get out of a tight spot. Killing the player instantly when being seen isn't any fun, that's just forcing them to be hidden. But neither is just being able to kill everything making stealth irrelevant, that just makes it slower.

I have done quite a few of the Stealth Assassination missions now, and I have found a few issues with them. I really want these to be my favorite mission type, and I understand stealth is a really difficult thing to simulate in a fun manner. Notice I didn't say "accurate" because actual stealth would be boring.

Some simple* things that I think would help the Stealth Assassination missions are:

• A visible view range on the mini map. 
  • The player needs to see where the enemies are and what constitutes "hidden" in a quick and easy way
• Make enemies that do see the player more aggressive. 
  • At the moment, I think they just start firing, but a lot of them I have found just kind of wander away.
• Aware enemies get 50% damage resistance.
  • I know they already deal extra damage, but just killing them quickly is too easy, and not a real reason to stay in stealth
• A stealth kill mechanic
  • Double damage against unaware targets.
  • Allows the player to pick off annoyingly placed monsters
• Monster alarm and  death scream
  • Prevents the player from just stealth killing everything.
  • This way the player needs to wait and watch how the monsters are moving and pick the right time to act. Also penalizes alerting a large group of monsters

* "simple" means in concept. I fully understand view cones and active updating mini maps etc. are non-trivial to implement. I was going to write this all up as a Mantis issue, and I will once I get a feel on how other people are viewing Stealth Assassination missions.

[x4000]

I think that working on enhancing the stealth aspects of the game sounds great, and it's something I would like to look into after this next week.  I have serious tunnel vision for the next little bit, and possibly that will last even more towards 1.0 (hopefully not), but exploring these sorts of things is of interest is to me as well.

[Terraziel]

Frankly I'd be happy with having a reason not to use an emit light enchant, and I mean normally as well as in missions.

[Oralordos]

I would like a reason to not use an emit light enchant too. I played with a friend the other day and he was using an older monitor so everything was so dark that he couldn't see at all. He was having so much fun either staying near me with my emit light enchant and using the ball light spell when he was a bit away.

I would love to have the darkness of caves be a bit less than it is and to have a true advantage to not using emit light although I think that the advantage to no emit light will be found naturally when more enchants are put in.

[BobTheJanitor]

Some of the non-light-emitting enchants are pretty neat, but with the current design it's kind of impossible to use them in most areas. Except for a few indoor types, ambient light is generally too low to rely on. It's all well and good to have a stealth increasing enchant that doesn't emit light, but it's hard to play when your screen is pitch black.

[zebramatt]

Ball of light is your friend.

[TechSY730]

Caves I can understand having generally poor lighting, just like in real life if you started to go deep underground. However, a slight ambient light increase may be in order, just to reflect that human eyes would adjust to dark conditions, and thus be able to pick out a few details with the tiny amounts of light there is. (From like glowy plants and inexplicably lit torches that seems to like to hang around caves)

However, rooms in buildings that are in good shape should have good lighting. I can forgive rooms that look a bit "battered" or "run down" to have pockets of poor lighting from where their lights broke or fell or something.

[x4000]

Guys: no changes are lighting are coming, just so you know.  Most buildings do have somewhat reasonable lighting, but the world has been shredded apart and reassembled.  Things are not in working order even if some parts don;t look that bad off.

[TechSY730]

Guys: no changes are lighting are coming, just so you know.  Most buildings do have somewhat reasonable lighting, but the world has been shredded apart and reassembled.  Things are not in working order even if some parts don;t look that bad off.

OK, that's fine. I never really had that much of an issue with lighting anyways.

Then some sort of in game brightness adjustment slider? Not everyone has monitors with adjustable brightness (like many laptops don't)
There is no way to insure that what is just barely bright enough to kind of tell you are going on one persons screen will be like that for all screens. For other screens, that level of brightness may be enough to see moderately clearly. On yet others, it would be pitch black.

[x4000]

Being able to barely see where you are is still not useful enough to not get you killed.  If you have a monitor that bright, then great, but in general it's presumed that without some form of light source you can't see anything.  The alternative to light-emitting enchants is ball of light or flash of light, not wandering around in the dark.

[TechSY730]

Being able to barely see where you are is still not useful enough to not get you killed.  If you have a monitor that bright, then great, but in general it's presumed that without some form of light source you can't see anything.  The alternative to light-emitting enchants is ball of light or flash of light, not wandering around in the dark.

Hmm, when put like that, this makes sense.
Sorry to bug you, but no harm asking right?

[x4000]

Not a problem at all, there's no harm in asking.

[Penumbra]

I would say that "Ball of Light" is one of my most used and loved spells. Maybe even more than fireball? Nah... but close!

I just went into a stash room and found some lamps, that are just like my Ball of Light, only worse.

It pains me to say it, but maybe Ball of Light shouldn't just be unlocked from the get go on a new continent? I know I love it tons, but I might just love it more if I had to work for it a little bit.

[x4000]

It pains me to say it, but maybe Ball of Light shouldn't just be unlocked from the get go on a new continent? I know I love it tons, but I might just love it more if I had to work for it a little bit.

If someone who uses ball of light is using different body enchants that don't emit light, then every time they went to a new continent they'd have to shuffle enchants in an un-fun way.  The "ball of light" lifestyle is meant to be an alternative that frees up your enchant slots for something else.  As such, it making it something you don't really have to work for to get seems relevant to me.

[tigersfan]

It pains me to say it, but maybe Ball of Light shouldn't just be unlocked from the get go on a new continent? I know I love it tons, but I might just love it more if I had to work for it a little bit.

If someone who uses ball of light is using different body enchants that don't emit light, then every time they went to a new continent they'd have to shuffle enchants in an un-fun way.  The "ball of light" lifestyle is meant to be an alternative that frees up your enchant slots for something else.  As such, it making it something you don't really have to work for to get seems relevant to me.

Plus, Ball of Light is crucial (IMO) for people just starting out if they don't go through the tutorial. Otherwise, they don't have any way to get through the dark areas.