Mythruna
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Author Topic: Let's talk stealth.  (Read 5582 times)
Rayblon
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« on: May 01, 2016, 10:32:05 PM »

I was turned on to discussing stealth because I've been playing a game that relies pretty heavily on stealth if you want to progress quickly. The stealth is actually pretty freaking fun, but at the same time was pretty laughable. Before we talk about that, let's actually talk about the bottom of the stealth barrel.

Minecraft. It's not explicitly designed with stealth in mind, but bear with me. Stealth in Minecraft has two basic elements.
- A field of detection that grows in size with more armor, and decreases in size for specific mobs if the player wears a specific mob head.
- A radial line-of-sight system. Mobs can't see through opaque blocks, but they can see through the back of their heads.

Outside of creating closed spaces, stealth is virtually impossible in Minecraft. From afar, however, stealth is virtually guaranteed. Pelting a mob with arrows will elicit no response granted you're far enough away.

The system in the game I was playing had a much more defined system, of course.:
- Gradual aggroing; mobs had a value that would increase when they maintained a line of sight with someone and decreased when they couldn't see the player anymore.
- A "detection" value for items like armor and weapons. A high detection value made mobs notice you faster.
- Weapon sounds; firing a gun without a silencer would alert everyone nearby, for instance.
- Alarms; One aggroed mob would alert all nearby mobs after some time.
- A wedge line-of-sight system. Mobs could see up to skyscraper roofs even if their heads were looking at the floor, so long as they were facing it.

That seems like the workings of a pretty solid stealth system, right? Well, it wasn't. If you get the right equipment on, you can run laps around guards and they would still take a full five seconds seconds to aggro on you. You could literally aim a gun at their face, point blank, and they would still have the same aggro rate. You could run by huge crowds an indefinite number of times, and they would never so much as get suspicious. Get on heavy armor and sit in a corner, though? You'll get seen instantly. So the stealth had the potential to be either unfair or laughable depending on your gear.


Mythruna isn't all about stealth, of course, and an advanced stealth system is probably pretty expensive to process... but I feel this worth asking. How do you plan to implement stealth? Will there be a group dynamic, for instance?(I.E. multiple people that see you at once would get aggroed faster than one person seeing it) How would equipment stealthiness be handled? As an example, would armor painted with a green substance be harder to see on grass than red armor, and would plate armor always be more detectable or only when you're moving? Additionally, would someone be able to, say, kill a guard of faction X and use that to hide in plain sight in their encampments?
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pspeed
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« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2016, 10:54:38 PM »

I don't really know what I'll be able to do when I get to that point.  I like stealth games a lot (Played the heck out of a game called Styx last year... recommended if you like stealth games.)  So I will be influenced by that for sure.

I've thought a lot about how sound and smells will propagate and so there will be something to that.  I'd like players to be able to wear 'costumes' but I don't know if the NPCs will be smart enough for that to matter.

In general, for the size populations we are talking about it's probably unreasonable to expect to walk into a camp dressed as one of them... with a small enough population they probably already know each other by site pretty well.  But who knows?

Also, given that there are specific hunter races, both with different leanings on stealth abilities, it would be really nice if I can get to that stuff.

(Styx was pretty nice with respect to aggro but suffered like most games ultimately do to be 'a game' in that if you hid long enough the guards would unrealistically forget about you.  Though one thing was that once you alerted one guard then everyone would be a little more jumpy than before... every little noise would get investigated with swords drawn.  I don't know that I ever waited long enough to see if they fully stood back down and put their swords away in that mode.  I got the game for free as one of the free games of the month on PS4... but knowing what I know, I'd have paid for it.)
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Rayblon
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« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2016, 12:15:04 AM »

In general, for the size populations we are talking about it's probably unreasonable to expect to walk into a camp dressed as one of them... with a small enough population they probably already know each other by site pretty well. But who knows?

I guess it depends on the uniform. If that uniform constitutes a full suit of armor and a helmet, it's pretty hard to see through that kind of disguise save for the player looting gear that doesn't fit them right. Otherwise, I'd say that a disguise would work reasonably well at night. If you're infiltrating a clan or something that uses a distinct emblem in the uniform during the night, I'd say it's pretty unlikely that they'd be able to get a good enough look at your face to care, and I doubt they'd go out of their way to try and make out your face in the darkness of night after seeing their emblem on your uniform. During the day, though, sure, they might get a little suspicious... or they might second guess themselves. If they're anything like me, then they're face blind and are just proud of the fact that they can tell someone's face apart from a loaf of bread. :p

Anywho, as long as stealth is actually realistic unlike the handicapped or punishing stealth that most games are graced with, I'm happy. There's nothing less immersive than NPCs with the memory of a goldfish.
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Rayblon
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« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2016, 08:31:36 AM »

Would the NPCs be able to tell when you have an MGS situation and you're moving around under a box? That seems like it would be exploitable. Additionally, would NPCs be able to tell when their own blueprints have been moved or removed(like a tent or crate)? It's so funny when you loot a place clean in a stealth game and they don't notice crates that literally have their lids torn off and are emptied.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2016, 06:47:51 PM by Rayblon » Logged

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« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2016, 12:26:28 AM »

Having NPCs remember where everything is and notice when it changes is king of a big data problem.  I don't know if I will have any solutions for that.
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Rayblon
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« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2016, 09:41:43 AM »

Having NPCs remember where everything is and notice when it changes is king of a big data problem.  I don't know if I will have any solutions for that.

Ah. Do you mind if I try my hand at a solution? Of course, I'm only good at concept building and can't really verify how difficult certain implementations would be, but I have some ideas.

I assume that (actively) moving blueprints wouldn't give you cover though, at least? Being able to slide around inside a barrel through dungeons seems heavily exploitable.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2016, 02:04:18 AM by Rayblon » Logged

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