What Happened to Stealth?

[Mr Bean]

Thief 2 had glimmers of a great stealth game in that depending on your enemies reacted much differently depending on stimulus and area. I remember one of the first levels, one of the large outdoor areas there was a set of warehouse guards inside and night watchmen prowling around on the streets outside. Take out the warehouse guards quickly and no one would be the wiser. Start picking them off one by one and leave the last two for too long and they would notice there buddies were gone and they'd run for the doors calling for the watch balancing the fact they were payed to guard this warehouse full of goods with the fact that there six man guard patrol was down to two and they had no idea where people were.

This was programed into them in just this one area because I never saw this behavior elsewhere in the game including one situation where there is a church full of the bad guys and I noticed a patrol of two guys went through the kitchens every few minutes plus a room full of people eating in the dinning room. So using the ever exploit happy gas arrow I speed clubbed one of the guys at the end of the table then quick switched and shot the gas arrow into the face of the other four who took a second to stand up and bunched up because of it. I then dragged the bodies into the food storage and waited for the patrol to wander by thinking they would split up when they found the dining room was now empty.

No such like they just strolled by the quiet a grave dining area that had been full not three minutes before and kept on their way.
Which is a shame because it not that hard to program location based responses into games nowdays.

For example if Corridor guard sees limp body mid hallway he starts shouting for help and arms himself while standing by the body. Maybe you program some of the guards movie smart so they go over to the body and poke it with a stick before calling for help. But if they look in a room and the guard in the barracks is now limp on top of a bed they think nothing of it. After all sleeping person on bed=makes sense, hallway naps less so... Yes programing in that npc by npc reaction can get annoying but if you split the guards into three or four groups then randomise what AI they get (IE one group of AI's will fall for obvious traps while another one is incredibly cautious, the third is all around good and the fourth is your comedy option who thinks hallway naps are normal)

Then start building your objects and tag them with properties like "Door if open and unlocked 3/4 guards will raise alarm 1 will go to a high alert status and one will simply close it" If Door closed but unlocked 1/4 will raise an alarm the rest simply lock it and maybe another will leave his rounds to go start asking in the common room who left the door unlocked"
But all of this is not the kind of shit you throw in your mandatory stealth or die section.

[PeZook]

Modern games often do ridiculously complex setpiece scripts anyway, I don't see why programming each of the dozen or so guards with location-based responses would be all that time consuming.

Though Chaos Theory did a bit of the general guard response. Patrolling guys would notice their patrol buddies disappearing (though not, say, a receptionist going *poof*), they'd become suspicious if doors that were supposed to be locked are now open, or if lights are off when they were supposed to be on etc.

It was pretty cool and added to immersion a bit. Usually stealth games are about learning the "game behavior" of people, since they sucks at modelling reactions properly.

For example, in the same game, you can grab a guy (which makes a noticeable rustling sound) and his buddy right next to him won't even turn his head to see what it was about.

[weemadando]

The Sting is a heist game with pretty cool take on stealth mechanics. You get a practice / dry run attempt to get the plan timing down etc and then you try to do it for real based on that. The rehearsal stage lets you try and plan for guard routes etc but they don't react the same way in the rehearsal if at all.

[Sarevok]

The Sting is a heist game with pretty cool take on stealth mechanics. You get a practice / dry run attempt to get the plan timing down etc and then you try to do it for real based on that. The rehearsal stage lets you try and plan for guard routes etc but they don't react the same way in the rehearsal if at all.

Wow. The rehearsal idea sounds amazing. More games, especially "tacticool shooters" should incorporate that. I mean don't real world counter terrorist/special forces rehearse extensively before a raid ?

[PeZook]

Wow. The rehearsal idea sounds amazing. More games, especially "tacticool shooters" should incorporate that. I mean don't real world counter terrorist/special forces rehearse extensively before a raid ?

Yes, and it takes months.

Modern Warfare had a nice touch, where the usual "training level" was a mockup of part of the next mission you were told to run through. It was pretty great