Stealth in almost everything, why?

It's always the slow, tedious stealth with brain-dead, forgetful, myopic enemies, magic tall grass and repeated patrol routes. Never mind that crouching doesn't actually make you quiet. If they wanted it to be fun, they'd let you slowly run at or by the unaware enemy, as the old stealth games like MGS and probably Thief used to. After Splinter Cell and a hundred other games standardized crouching like an old man, Hideo Kojima did the same.

I know stealth is usually an option (because no one makes true stealth games anymore), but the games are usually balanced in such a way that it's easier (and more boring) to take the slow approach. You can bet if Resident Evil 1/2 came out for the first time in 2020, you'd spend 50 percent of the combat with your knees bent, moving almost as slowly as the zombies.

I can't even remember the last time stealth excited me in a game.

Splinter Cell was dictated by light and player speed, the speed itself directed via incremental movement of the mouse-wheel in conjunction with environment light, which the player could effectively remove.

In short, you didn't need to crouch, like, at all beyond reducing line of sight.

It's in the later games, namely next-gen Double Agent, this was removed in favor of a simplistic green/yellow/red indicator with the sound indicator all but removed.

But this wasn't really standardizing anything, it was following trends.

Eventually this became simplified even further, to a point where in Conviction Sam Fisher was actively encouraged to sprint around like a mad man.

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In terms of modern stealth, I think it's doing pretty well compared to a few years back. Blacklist moved away from Conviction closer to the original style, Hitman returned arguably better than ever from a gameplay perspective, Desperados 3 is a masterpiece through and through and we have plenty of £10 - £20 stealth games.

And Assassins Creed Dishonored series. etc...

Which I never liked as a mechanic. You'd have to roll the wheel quickly without any haptic feedback, looking at the speedometer when you should have been watching your surroundings. It slowed the stealth down as badly or more badly than the crouch and wasn't quick enough when you wanted your desired speed. What if I wanted the one two dials before the slowest? I'd have to think about how many notches I rolled the wheel down or look at the speedometer. Makes me feel like I'm operating a machine instead of inhabiting a character.

I do.

Forced stealth segments in non stealth game is always bad idea but stealth as whole genre is one of the best if it done right.

Like Early splinter cell, Hitman games, Desperados 3, Riddick, etc

Splinter cell rely on light and sound meter, sneaking around in darkness and using NVG. amazing concept ruined by ubisoft in later games where they become auto aim action games.

Hitman is unique concept of stealth that is social stealth. blend in crown and take a disguise and kill a target.

Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3 have good stealth systems.

I remember Dead Rising 4 having stealth parts. That was pretty out there.

Stealth in a stealth game is great, and we need more of them. Still hoping for a new Thief game, and of course a Splinter Cell game that returns to its roots and isn't a "game as service" like that last two or three games.

Stealth as a feature in a non-dedicated stealth game (i.e. Far Cry, Wolfenstein, The Elder Scrolls, etc can go either way; either a completely unnecessary and tacked on feature, or a really cool option:

• In games like Skyrim, having stealth (albeit implemented in a shallow manner) is a must because it lends itself well to role-playing. If you want to play a stealthy archer, then you need to have a stealth option, even if it is not the focus of the game
• In games like Far Cry, Wolfenstein, etc I think they just threw it on there to give the false appearance of depth, and to add a few options to the similarly tacked-on skill trees. Thematically, it just doesn't make sense for someone like BJ to be a stealth character. Just my $0.02 if you think that hulking awesome half-Jewish Nazi-killing Texan with a twitchy trigger finger is stealthy, well...more power to you.
  • With that said, I always opt for the stealth option because a.) it's a lot of fun, despite being unnecessary and b.) they're generally implemented fairly well.

TL;DR: as long as it is not taking away from other parts of the game, I don't have a problem with stealth being in a game. I am biased, though, as stealth is arguably one of my most favorite gameplay mechanics in games. Deus Ex? Stealth. Skyrim? Stealth. Splinter Cell? WTF is "assault" score, gimme that "ghost" score. Wolfenstein? Stealth....then dual-wielded shotguns. Far Cry? Stealth stab, stab, knife throw.

TBH I am genuinely surprised there are not a lot of zombie stealth games.

I would totally love A Plague Tale-like game that takes place in a post-zombie apocalypse world, like you're this random, normal person and the entire world is zombies so you have no choice but to sneak around because any noise would bring thousands of zombies on you.

yea stealth is trash and always will be until games have advanced ai we has never seen as of yet

Dunno, most games I am playing don't really offer stealth as an option.

But I can see why. Because Stealth has ALWAYS been important in military tactics. If you can launch your attack on enemies that haven't even notched their bows, or pulled out their spears, you can take out a good portion of them before they can even retaliate.

In games like Far Cry, Wolfenstein, etc I think they just threw it on there to give the false appearance of depth, and to add a few options to the similarly tacked-on skill trees. Thematically, it just doesn't make sense for someone like BJ to be a stealth character. Just my $0.02 if you think that hulking awesome half-Jewish Nazi-killing Texan with a twitchy trigger finger is stealthy, well...more power to you.

Isn't B.J a spy, or at least a former spy?

I've watched some Splinter Cell reviews yesterday and it felt like it was one of the prototypes for Last of Us 1/2 stealth except it doesn't have the lights mechanic but in a unique take have low grass, tall grass and is dynamic (you can re-initiate cat and mouse game without restarts). The game is less of sponged up hps for human encounters than other shooters.

It's also an ok zombie game with more a bit dynamic comba (stealth zombies, or fight them, trap em, etc.).

Anyway, I hope next gen will find ways to make stealth a little more convincing but still fun. I know AC, TLoU, GoT stealth is pretty dumb as if npcs are wearing horse blinders, specially with high ground detection, but it might not be so fun if they're discerning as actual people. Maybe Sony can do this with the actual release of Grounded mode for the Last of Us 2 and still keep the customizable difficulty.

I like it because it forces you to slowly down and think about using the game mechanics properly and there's an element of strategy to it. Plenty of games without those elements or that give you the option to run and gun if you like.

I like when stealth is an option and not forced.

I like it when games allow you to go stealth, but then also give you viable other options for when it inevtiably all comes crashing down.

I'm thinking games like Dishonored and The Last of Us.

Liked the stealth in TLOU2, it was actually fun setting up traps and knifing enemies in the throat :P

IKR? It's pretty nifty getting tracked by dogs, too.

The dynamic cover of grass is also pretty good where enemies will notice you from a certain distance where in many games, they can't notice even if you're face to face as long as you're within the grass' cover.

The game just missed out on knocking out enemies (non-kill) and the ability to drag bodies.

Calling out or knocking on corners would've also been realistic but I guess it could mess up the balance of the gameplay (less useful bricks/bottles).

It's in the big AAA checklist.

Stealth, open world, crafting, uneccesary rpg elements, skill tree.

I don't actually mind it except for in the latest Assassin's Creed where you have to be a certain level for the stealth to actually work. F**k those games.

I actually really enjoyed it in Far Cry 3.

It actually has an option to turn it off.

The problem with Assassins Creed is that it takes practically 0 skill to pull of insta-kills and if you do fail at stealth, you can just go into combo where it's basically "press X to win".

At least with Odyssey, although they do it badly, just tanking the shit out of enemies and gimping the player, their is at least a teeny-tiny modicum of challenge.

Having said that the leveling system unlike something like Breath Of The Wild isn't streamlined, it's not meant to it. It's Ubisoft pulling a scam job to get average joe to buy their "time-savers", kind of disgusting.

Even in free2play MMO's shit generally isn't as bad as what's in this.

Because it's much harder to develop/sell a good/perfect mechanic and design a game around it then to simply halfa$$ all common mechanics from AAA checklist. Basically to pad the available options even though in reality none of that matters.

I blame this mission that introduce forced and scripted stealth segments in games. I mean you are not doing anything but following a FREAKING orders..

I think stealth is one of the best genres of games - but I totally agree that it's rarely done even close to well in games that aren't built around stealth in a dedicated way.

a speedometer in splinter cell? don't remember that. i remember mouse wheel being a really good simple but effective means of giving you granular control over movement. there was no setting notches or having to look at meters. your feedback was your movement speed. start moving, need to go faster? mouse wheel up. slow down? mouse wheel down. it was as simple as that and worked a treat. i seem to remember them removing it from conviction. didn't play blacklist on pc so can't say whether it made its way back

I like games that balance it just right. Stealth is more an option to maybe save yourself a headache later, or give yourself an advantage before all hell breaks loose, but still give players the tools they need to break stealth if they need to progress without feeling they have to start over.

Invisible, Inc is another cool recent tactical stealth game.

There's always Thief missions..

https://thiefmissions.com/search.cgi?search=&sort=release#m

Gloomwood looks like a promising thief like....hopefully it turns into something substantial enough.

But yea, I wouldn't count on AAA gaming for any good stealth unless you want crap like infinite see through walls batman vision, awesome action button takedowns and invisibility on demand.

The core problem is this:....your typical designers working for these big companies are thinking in terms of how do I design systems that won't drive away potential sales. So anything that's too challenging, complex, non hand hold-y gets dismissed, and it's just banal shit that any retard can do that you're left with.

Origins pretty much turned me off Ubisoft. Can you elaborate on what you mean "It actually has an option to turn it off."?

you don't play games.

Yeah it's almost always done as an afterthought, as a shallow gimmick that is loosely optional. Stealth fucking sucks.

@rzxv04: We defo should have been able to hide bodies, I wonder why they left that out.

The game looks cool and definitely put AAA mainstream games to shame that involve fake stealth with see through walls.

My freind, Sam Fishy could see through walls.

Yup weird. Maybe they're reserving the mechanic for another first party third person game.

@ghosts4ever: this

The Batman Arkham games are one of the few to do stealth right, where it feels like a strength rather than a liability, and you don't instantly fail a mission if you're spotted.

The Last of Us 2's stealth is some of the best and most enthralling stealth action ever. Absolutely intense and kept my heart racing the entire time. Played on the hardest difficulty, the AI is extremely smart as well (best in gaming history).

As for good stealth, you can't really beat Metal Gear games - Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain still the best stealth gameplay.

For every other game though - Keep stealth away. Spiderman for example had the worst fucking stealth ever with MJ and Miles.

@dzimm: Arkham's stealth was also phenomenal. Loved it

because having stealth is more realistic. take a navy seal just because he or she has Superior weapons over its enemy he still going to use stealth as much as he or she can. it also gives options on how you like to play. if you sneak behind a guy you should have the option to one hit kill him.