How will stealth be handled?

Where there be a stealth mechanic in the game and how will it be handled? Looking at skyrim, the stealth gets too easy, and especially with bows, they aren’t silent in real life despite many games thinking so, i think stealth could be a massive part of the game, less armour=more stealthy, less full on combat orientated character, plate/chainmail=noisy running and slashing character.
Thoughts?

Also sorry if this has been posted before

As far as I know, we have no real information on this part of the game yet. It’s probably in the works.

Actually the devs mentioned that on Kickstarter.
"Your clothes and their state affect your
charisma and reputation, which, in turn, influence
NPC reactions toward you. They also affect your visibility and the noise
you produce,
which affect your stealth skills."
Also I heard that there will be no stealth mode you can enter. Stealth depends on the armor/clothing you wear.
Dan vavra said that in the live stream video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84AiE46erkk&list=UUIqUdfkbYmCGM-YRmk28zCg

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Ah, cool. Definitely forgot about that.

thanks for the info dude :slight_smile:

You’re welcome man :slight_smile:

I hope we will be able to sneak and kill someone silently maybe even drag the corpse to a place where no one can see it.
There should be something that shows you if you’re being seen or not.

I think we’ll know if we’re being seen if someone shouts, “HEY YOU!” or starts to attack.

In other words, for immersion to work when it comes to stealth, I’m suggesting no radar or other sort of tipoff.

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[quote=“Flashfire, post:8, topic:18689”]
if someone shouts, “HEY YOU!” or starts to attack.
[/quote] some may stay silent and still see us and tell it to the guards or something
but I kinda agree, I just thought of Skyrim for example where you have this symbol that shows if you’re seen or not.
But now that you’re saying it, I think it would be cool if we have no help and have to look around ourselves to make sure no one is looking towards us.

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That’s exactly what I’m hoping for - a need to scout the area first and ensure you have a way in without being seen, or you may have to clear the area around you of guards or whatever before going further.

Or, depending on the setup, maybe it would even be possible to bribe someone to look the other way for something once in a while.

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why not just sneak past? thief didn’t have radar either

thief’s a good example of how no radar makes you stress the hell out while you’re breaking into something. especially if you haven’t cleared the enemies out or don’t know their attack patterns. i think like many of us on this thread we want sound and sight to be the big defining factors for stealth. i’m also liking @Flashfire’s idea and was thinking that not only bribing someone, but also being able to have a lookout, like an apprentice or a random kid you’ve paid to watch your back. bribing someone to “forget” what they saw would also be cool, and goes along with the ability to have a deep speech craft and npc system. like you bribe a guy, and you can see him noticeably trying to keep his distance from you after that point.

and i can’t remember if the dog companion is still going to be in (i feel like last i checked it was but please correct me if i’m wrong) but if it is in training it so the dog can be a small lookout creature. he starts barking and you know you need to get out asap or hide quickly since someone is coming. or the dog could create distractions for you to make your getaway once you’ve completed your heist. either way in all this, YOU need to determine your current stealth level, not the game per se. you can hear yourself, you can judge relative distance on could an npc hear you, you know where the shadows are, etc. unlike thief though where “i’m in shadows, no one can see me” i’d really like to see variety to the shadows and better/worse sight to the npc’s. a guard on duty will have better night vision than the drunk guy who just stumbled out of the brightly lit pub and now his eyes are adjusting. some of this is not likely to go in the game but would be great if the devs could reach that level of immersion with the stealth.

If someone is carrying a torch, isn’t his distance sight also diminished thanks to the brightness relative to the surrounding darkness? That may be something that can be used to your advantage if you’re trying to sneak around at night.

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yes, exactly. i was thinking of a guard on a tower, with no torch or light, while you were to be “sneaking” up the wall. he’d see you instantly. a guard patrolling with a torch would be easier to sneak past, but also his torch would be dynamically changing where the shadowed areas are, also to be used to your advantage. all stealth is to me is “am i silent? can i be seen?” if you can say yes to those two items, i’m confident i won’t be caught. there is a third question that’s more related to after the fact which is “did i leave a trace or evidence of my presence?” if i can say no to that, then i highly doubt i’ll be caught and/or accused later of the crime.

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“ami silent” - yes
"can i be seen" - no

screwed up my previous post, this is what i meant.

The one thing I’ve noticed about “sneak past the guards” scenarios is they always follow specific patterns, which is why it’s not difficult at all to time the stealth right. If the AI in this game can mix that up so there’s no real chance to just wait 30 seconds because you know at that moment the walking-around guard is going to do a specific thing, it’d make that kind of stealth much more interesting.

Maybe he waits five seconds at one spot, then turns to go off to the right, then stops and comes back toward where he’d been, then moves off in another direction, then returns to the original spot, waits ten seconds this time, starts to the left instead of the right…and so on. It’d add much more of an unpredictable nature to sneaking around instead of the whole thing just feeling like a 100% pre-programmed timing exercise.

Of course, noise-related distractions are always possible.

most suggestions here are special cases of perception based stealth system and not just a skill controlled one.
The rest is a matter of how much detail (aka work) you want to put into it.
Many games use a very simplified system, which usually leads to ridiculous perception ranges and a combined sense range.
If KCD uses at least distinct senses, e.g. seeing and hearing, with different factors - viewing arc, hearing different range than seeing (in the field of view), visibility/audibility of your gear, that would be a nice start.
Of course, if you want to put extra points into it, also add modifying factors on the viewer side (alertness (can be a combined variable for many things), environmental factors (ambient noise, light conditions, crowded vs. you are the only thing that moves ) )
And if you have still time, add a sense of smell and then try hiding if you haven’t washed in weeks - also nice for social occasions. :wink: (works also in the other directions, hiding in a dung pile might work if no one is willing to look there)

The advantage of separate senses is, you could add them incrementally if you don’t decide on a combined model in advance.

True, but only if you hold the torch / lamp in front of you and therefore glare yoursefl. (I am not sure if glare is the right word here, hopefully you understand what I mean.) If the source of the light is outside of your peripheral vision you can see actually very well but the light falloff is of course huge.

Interesting discussion. I would love to see your concepts implemented in the game but fear the stealth could be really difficult eventually. It probably should be difficult but on the other hand the game must maintain a level of accessibility by different players of different skills and experience. Then again your ideas, especially the non-repetitive pattern of guard movement and huge role of guard’s level of alertness, are surely worth of praise. (Quality of stealth system and options and even the difficulty is largely a matter of level design of course.) In case I will have to find a solution of infiltrating conundrum based on scouting and strategy of approach (for example choosing the right time of the day / night - e.g. changing of the guard, guards waking each other up - based on my intuition rather then on gossip of a NPC with useful information standing next to the bridge in front of the Ugly Foe’s castle) and perhaps even luck I will be deeply immersed in the game and at the same time feel great satisfaction of fulfilling my quest objective / stealing fifteen copper pieces from the sleeping bartender.

not necessarily. those who are not adept at stealth can choose different methods or avoid stealth altogether. simplifying stealth mechanics to cater to people who would otherwise not choose the stealth option is self defeating

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In case there won’t be any moment the steath approach will be inevitable for completing the game. When Mafia was released I played racing games a lot. I found the racing part of the game really great but my friends were generally frustrated and unable to complete the quest. I was even forced to play the racing part of the game for them. :smiley:

In the end they learned how to beat the race (and Illusion Softworks even updated the game and reduced the difficulty of the race). But I am afraid many players don’t boast such patience nowadays and the difficulty of the game could lead to frustration for them.