Have fighting attract monster attention more easily

I'm not sure if this counts as a bug or a suggestion, but it currently seems like it's quite common for a monster to be looking the other way while a fight occurs, and completely ignore you until you walk up and stab them in the back.

This seems to be occuring for me even in not particularly stealthy builds.

I could be misinterpreting things, but it seems like monsters ignoring fights happening right behind there backs isn't really a feature. (This seems especially noticeably in monster zoos)

 

I second this motion, and move to include breaking of objects as a "monster alerter". As is, I can walk into a room and break open everything without a monster seeing me. Surely the adventurer isn't that adept at breaking things silently.

 

Flavour-wise, what about other senses monsters may be equipped with, such as hearing and smelling, barometics, psionics or hive mind?

Other video games often employ a so-called "aggro pull" that alerts critters to the player's activity in proximity. The Last Remnant for example offers the player a manual aggro pull button to give him or her the ability to lure enemies and attack them all at once, which for some reason results in better ability boosts and item drops after the battle.

 

I was gonna post the following in this thread : http://community.gaslampgames.com/t...most-passive-makes-game-lame.4163/#post-49415 but it seems better to post here.

- being on the immediate left or right tile next to a monster should make it detect you unless you have tremendous sneakiness with a few exception
- attacking a monster that hasn't detected you from behind shouldn't allow him to dodge (I'm not 100% positive about that but I think it happened to me)
- sneakiness should take sound (and like others said, other kind of "senses") into account, I mean, when you're behind a monster beating his friend to a pulp (literally in some cases) he should react, sometimes I WANT him to react but no, it's like he chooses to look away
- likewise, some monsters should have an alert skill kind of thing when attacked, making it alert nearby monsters even if those didn't hear/see you
- add a few monsters with sight circles, squares, [insert polygon], etc. There's nothing like spotting something and shouting F**K ! Like opening a door on a Zoo, some monsters should make stealth characters crap their pants a lil'.

I was fighting a Zoo earlier, and had to go fetch the monsters attention (annoying when you have a nice bottleneck and demonology circle thing + traps well placed). And it was after I dumped a bolt of mass destruction, a bolt of squid, several holy grenades and killed half of the Zoo. I even had several Stone Guardians forget about me right after I crossbowed them.

 

I agree with nearly everything you said, but wanted to add something to your first point in the quote:

- If you sneak attack and kill a monster, it shouldn't alert nearby monsters, or the alert chance should be based on your sneakiness. The more sneaky you are, the less likely an "assassination" would alert nearby monsters.

And for the second point, I absolutely agree that it would be cool to have some anti-rogue monsters now, "hunters" if you will, that once they spot you it is very difficult to get away and make them lose "aggro".

 

Monsters dodging (and countering) attacks they aren't aware of, or while sleeping or paralyzed, is nothing new. It's a problem with how attacks are rolled (ie, all combat stats rolled all the time), not the stealth system.

 

WRT to wanting monsters to react, I've often had problems with that when I'm NOT playing a particularly stealthy build. If you add a more detailed noise system, it might also be worthwhile to tag some weapons and skills as either louder or more silent, and then give some monsters and alert call that attracts the attention of everyone nearby if you attack them? So then shooting someone with a crossbow from across the room and killing them instantly is stealthy; throwing a grenade is less so? That's probably a bit more complex to implement though idk; there might be simpler solutions to this

And yeah I've had the problem with zoos be the most noticeable. After you clear out the initial wave there's a LOT more monsters straggling in the back. And with the zoos whole "you can see the whole zoo room regardless of your sight radius" that makes sniping them pretty easy. (Do monsters benefit from that? Because that might be something to add if they don't.) Stealthily dealing with a monster zoo should probably be more complex then standing in the doorway and sniping people. (IE more like, pull small groups away from the main mob and deal with them in a more appropriate bottleneck area.)

 

That's why I said alert skill, it should be something some monster could use after they are attacked. If you can kill them in one sneaky attack then it wouldn't trigger. And even if you don't kill them, it wouldn't trigger all the time.

Great idea, that would be awesome if it could be implemented. I can imagine the Monofiliment sword to be rather silent, while the Bolt Eruptor less so (A LOT less so).

 

I don't see the need for sight cones at all. I think DoD should strive to be enjoyable and challenging over 'realistic' every single time. If stealth were active rather than passive then perhaps you could create some sort of stealthy play style. Personally I like every monster that I can see to be able to see me.

 

I've said it elsewhere, but I also think it'd add something to the game if using the pocket dimension was impossible to use if a monster sees you, thus offering more incentive to be stealthy.