Stealth Mechanics?

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Crouching should not be the 'default' sneak movement. I would like to see the option to sneak as a passive skill, (slowing the characters movement and reducing noise,) which should be toggleable.
Crouching should just be that, crouching behind cover to avoid being seen/shot. Of you sneak while crouched you should have your speed heavily reduced.
 
Hell, disguises might even be more practical than straight up sneaking.


SOMEone get this man a prize!

Disguises! We loved them in Hitman, until The Sequel We Do Not Speak Of.

They let you "stealth" at leisure, enjoying the depth and subtext of areas you can't see when the balloon goes up.

They can be amusing, or cool. Look like an Arasaka badass wthout actually, you know, working for those douchebags.

Crouch has always been some "stealth mode on" button, but it's really unnecessary if they implement proper awareness checks. A careful-walking mode makes sense, though.

As Chris says, a toggle for sneak mode makes sense - actually giving yourself a serious quads workout is unnecessary.
 
Crouch has always been some "stealth mode on" button, but it's really unnecessary if they implement proper awareness checks. A careful-walking mode makes sense, though.

As Chris says, a toggle for sneak mode makes sense - actually giving yourself a serious quads workout is unnecessary.

I disagree with the toggle in favor of the awareness checks, and if a manual sneak on/off toggle is necessary it should run parallel to being cloaked. Thermoptic camo is not just deus ex's, it's in many games from halo to fallout to crysis. And we want.
 
Halo, Fallout and Crysis are not cyberpunk. The comparison will be immediate and the similarity to a cloaked Adam Jensen and a cloaked Solo will be strong.

Cyberpunk 2020 does not have anything like the efficacy of DX or Halo cloaking. Semi-realistic, remember? They can match your background to the nearby terrain, do some simple light-bending if you don't move too much or too fast, but CP2020 does not have a Stealth Boy invisibility cloak.

What thermoptic camouflage in Cp2020 does is, it makes it harder to spot you for the enemy Awareness/Notice check. It adds to your Stealth skill, in other words, as well as lighting, range to target, movement, etc.

In other words, it's a serious boost to the sneaking around, but it's not a walk-through as you see in the GITS SAC episode where the cloaked operative walks right into the Section 6 facility and they have to use mass sensors in the doors to figure it out.

Which I admit would be damn cool.

Maybe a late-game or NPC cyberware?
 
I disagree with the toggle in favor of the awareness checks, and if a manual sneak on/off toggle is necessary it should run parallel to being cloaked. Thermoptic camo is not just deus ex's, it's in many games from halo to fallout to crysis. And we want.

Where did I say anything about using it in lieu of awareness checks? I am merely suggesting a valid option for turning the 'stealth' skill on and off.

I think that awareness should be a fundamaental part of interaction in 2077, just as it has been in 2020. The stealth skill would just make it harder to spot someone.
 
@Chris: I was quoting Sard, he mentioned the awareness checks. I full agree with you though, awareness/stealth skill needs to be the core stealth mechanic.

@Sard and @Slim: I don't want walk-in-the-park stealth gameplay either, no critical bonus or anything like that, and no quests that require it, but for the people that get a rush from being a ghost in the shadows, stealth needs to be there. Sard you get a lot right I feel, advanced high efficiency cloaking should not be available right off, but a cheap Russian version that only slightly raises the stealth skill could be.

The reason I bring up ditching the sneak button mechanic is because this, as opposed to camo, is what I feel is the thing that greatly draws comparison to other games. It's been implemented to death and to seems video gamey. If I have a 8 sneak skill, why do I have to press a button to engage it? The implants and gear are all there and should be active. Sure your movement might change, but there's not a button that widens your stance for hand to hand combat, or hold your breath underwater. The witcher didn't have a sneak button. To "activate sneak" I want to do what I would do in real life, hide behind a pillar then peek around to see if anyone "passed the awareness check" and is looking at me. Ducking right in front of someone and having them forget I'm there is delta sierra mechanics.
 
Yeah, keep in mind that no matter how you toggle it, "crouch" silliness or skill activation or automatically when not being watched, there is still an on/off state between running madly sideways firing bursts of 10mm at them..and sneaking along the wall while they chat about what they saw on 54 last night.

Once it is in go-mode, Stealth is now checked against A/N.

Hiding behind a pillar is a situational sneak and I like it, but there is walking quietly while making sure your equipment don't jangle, and strolling along with FN-RAL held high.
 
I mean the check should always be going, like a permanently on sneak mode. If you have a high sneak skill you already walk around quite, you keep your shit from jingling, step quite, blend in inconspicuously. In the case of going Neo, it's the guns that reveal yourself not your lack of stealth. Essentially a high sneak character doesn't stop sneaking, he IS sneaky. And a low sneak character does take advantage of the perma on mode cuz he still fails most checks. This would make gaming skill the only thing on your mind as you think about lighting, cover, movement, ect. instead of relying on your toggle being on or not.
 
I agree with that, but there is being a 'sneaky person' and then there is 'actively sneaking'. I can be suprisingly quiet and stealthy when required, but I don't tiptoe around all the time.

I would also, for the record, like to see CDPR introduce a system that makes neutral and friendly NPCs suspicious, (at least,) of characters caught actively sneaking.
 
Correct. There's a difference and I don't deny that. But I question whether an alternative is so incredibly lacking that an entire button needs to be devoted tiptoeing. I'd like to see a different more fluid approach. The "actively sneaking" could be when the gamer chooses to divert from normal walking and takes advantage of the other mechanics that add weight to stealth, low light, avoiding line of sight, ect. instead of letting the sneak button do the sneaking for you. The "sneaky skill" covers the passive things you as a gamer can't directly control like tiptoeing and knowledge of ancient ninja techniques, as well as taking advantage of stealth gear. A person with Whisperfoot implants (don't worry Chris, it will grow on you :)) and silent joints, ect (which would equal to the high sneaky skill) doesn't need to worry about tiptoeing necessarily, which I like because "tiptoe style" sneaking is inherently slow. It makes sense in non-cyborg games, but not in cyberpunk, where gear determines stealth, not movement.

And I agree with npc being suspicious too, that's one of several responses highly lacking in games. I'd love to engage my camo and anyone that saw that get startled and keep a close eye on me. But at the same time I imagine crime would be really common so they might not give a shit. Maybe a random morality stat could be divyed out to npc so every single bridge and tunnel chap doesn't simultaneously creep stare you when you shoplift a BD chip.
 
If you saw a guy sneaking around everywhere he went, (bars, supermarkets, hospitals,) you would think he was nuts or at least up to something. Hence why I would favour both a toggle button 'stealth mode' and adverse reactions from NPCs. I am not saying that this should be the only time stealth applies, it should reduce the average level of sound the character makes in day to day movements, but it should provide a greater benefit when actively trying to be more stealthy.

A toggle button would allow for more tactical flexibility and I wouldn't care if it was on the keyboard, (there are plenty of spares on there after all,) or in the HUD and used during tactical pauses.
 
I -do- like the idea of someone witha high Stealth and/or Ref score that walks quietly habitually. Light on their feet by practice.

say, 1/2 your Stealth total from Stat-Skill-cyber as opposed to the full value being used when you move slowly and place your feet carefully while watching your breathing and being careful not to look at or think about your target.

Passive bonus means you could walk around the corner and up on those boosters chatting away while they make A/N checks, fail or barely make them, pause for a second as they register you are there and then get shot or - sigh- sworded. Sword-dead? Swordied? Whatever you primitives call it.

As opposed to a person with low or no Stealth skill who just tromps around the corner and meets two unsurprised boosters facing him.

Or you might toggle to a full Stealth mode where you sneak up on the corner completely undetected and just listen to the boosters talk, since they utterly fail to notice you.
 
I like "eviscerated". :D

Also... YES! Another big post from me on a forum... how am I not surpriced... because that seems to be my thing... writing way to much where ever I go, where ever I chat, where ever I use text to communicate... not to mention going compleatly off topic almost every time as well with unneccesary bits and pieces of information... that's how I am not surpriced... :rolleyes:


As for stealth, it's extreamly importent to me in games. I use it almost all the time, even with characters where it does not actually fit or is very ineffective (like a full metal plate armored knight or something), or in games where stealth does not exist or does not effect the outcome of an encounter at all. I rather spend 30+ minuts scouting, figuring out where the enemies are, their tendencies, patrol routes, where the best place is to take out each one of them as silently and unseen as possible, and eventually implimenting my "plan"... then rushing in blindly, guns blazing, and be done in 2. I rather go slow and precise... then quick and sloppy.

I don't necessarily have anythings against how the mechanics of sneaking and stealth is done in most games these days (like Skyrim, or Deus Ex HR, etc). I am aware of that they are not necessarily the most realistic way of doing it. So if they impliment something like that in this game, then fine, I won't complain and use it all the time... like I always do anyway.

But if I have a choice... then I would probably want it to work simmilar to pen and paper rpg's. A combination between stats, skills, sight, hearing, etc, and since this is cyberpunk game... gear.

Now... there are probably 2 main ways to go about this.

Either you clump all that together into one single clump of stuff and one single roll of the dice... so the players stat+skill+gear+-current location in comparison to enemy -vs- enemy's stats+skills+gear+etc, which will result in a single roll of the dice to determin if your detected or not. This is usually the DnD way... in other words, the boring way (never really liked DnD, it's to... simple for one).

Or we go the route of each particular aspect is it's own thing. So sneaking is it's own thing and only effects your ability to move around silently and hearing is the importent stat. And being unseen is it's own thing where sight is the more importent aspect. And of course certain gear (like radar etc) will be a 3rd thing. That's how most pnp games I play do it (pretty much all of them are Swedish PnP RPG's as well), where being silent and being unseen are two different skills. This would of course mean that more dice rolls would have to be done, and the player would have to take everything into account when going about their stuff. But it's the more fun way, it's the more detailed and complex way... and it actually tells a better story then what it does in for example DnD (you know why you failed "your sneaking was perfect... but you stood out like a sore thumb against the background"... rather than "you failed your stealth check... why? I don't know... because you... did?"... it's the same with combat, you don't know why you succede or fail in DnD, because it's all jamed together into one single roll. Compared to what I am used to where you know you failed because you managed to hit, but your dmg roll was so low that it was absorbed by the armor, or you got hit and then injured because you failed to block with your shield and the opponent did enough damage to go through your armor).

The look of sneaking should more be based on how fast your character moves, rather than which stance you use. Crouch movement should more be on hands, feet and knees type of thing, where you use your hands to help you to stay very low... rather than the squat walking thing they use these days in games... the tip-toe sneaking is almost as equally rediculous (even though it can be somewhat effective... compared to squat-walking atleast). So if your standing up and sneak, the look of the movement is more that you move slowly and that each step is slow and measured, where you slowly place down the feet in a certain way... I seem to always imagin sort of rolling the feet down, where you place either the toes or the heel first, and then roll the rest of the fot down... if that makes sence. As for sneaking when "crouched", it should be simmilar, where hands, feet and knees are placed carefully or something, but your movement speed being slower since being on your hands and knees are not optimal for speed.

I have no problem with there being a toggle button to start sneaking. Because that's technicly what you do in real life to... you decide to be more stealthy... it does not just happend automaticly because the situation warrants it. Yes, if a person has a life time of practice with being stealthy, they will probably naturally move differently, more silently etc. But not to the level where they automaticly always use the max level of their skill in doing so... that would just look extreamly strange, and it would make it really obvious who the spy is. You decide/toggle on the wish to be more stealthy, and you start doing things a certain way to be more stealthy... just like how most games do it... granted, you don't have to press an actual button to do it in real life... but you still have to somehow engage your brain to it, for it to start happening.

It would be a really strange world if it did not work like that... I mean for one there would be a new illness...
Patient: "Doctor, I have a problem... I suddenly start sneaking for no reason at all... it can happend at any time, in public even, and I seem to be unable to stop for a long time once it starts."
Doctor: "Ah, it sounds like you might have the 'Fortuitae Furtim" illness. Take two of these stealth-blockers each day, for a week, and if that does not help come back to us and we will book you for testing."

Actually... I might sort of suffer from this "illness"... :p I don't know how many times I have walked up to my mom, dad, syblings, friends, or people in general, where they became startled once I said something. Because apperantly I naturally walk very quietly... so if they are not looking in my direction as I walk up to them, they don't always hear my footsteps. Which is a bigger statment then one might thing... especially since during the last 14 years I have been overweight. It still happend these days, and I weigh about 130-135kg (286-297 pounds) at the moment.

That's where I based my "rolling the fot down" from... since I tend to do that naturally. But also, during my military service I would constantly twist and sprain my ankles. It happend the first time about 3-4 weeks in, 10 minuts befor our first big weekend march, out first "soldier test". I got taped up, and sent out to march. My left fot had to compensate for my right fots affliction, which quickly resulted in that during the first night march i heavily twisted my left ankle as well, still had to finish though. And then for the remainding military service (so about 9 months out of 10) my ankles never fully healed due to constantly twisting and/or occationally spraining them, over and over again. This made me start to constantly observe the ground infront of me so I knew what I was stepping on, and at the same time my tendencies to place either the heal or my toes first and then roll down the rest of the foot became even more accentuated then it had been befor. So for a big guy I seem to be unaturally quiet when I walk... not that I can't loudly plod along at times as well. I just tend to try and be careful with where I place my feet. :p
 
*Explode Eyes*

Spotted look of sneak based on character speed...good idea...something about Swedish RPGs, sound cool...amusing new illness....large man, sprained tendencies.

Some good stuff there, Cal. You kinda buried it though.
 
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