Stealth and action in first person games

[Blastfrog]

I kinda wonder what the best method for designing levels is for a hybrid of action and stealth.

I don't know what the stealth is like in the new Wolf game (haven't played it yet, won't until it goes on sale), but in concept it sounds fitting. The original Escape From Castle Wolfenstein was very stealth-focused, and early protos of Wolfenstein 3D had stealth mechanics before they chose to refocus the game on action. As long as it meshes well with the action design, I say go for it.

Thief: The Dark Project started life as an action title where Garret ran like the wind and slaughtered everyone in his path, clearly not how the final game ended up. The switch to stealth was rather last minute, when most of the level design had already been completed. People often point to Thief 2 as having better level design, having been designed for stealth and gameplay (story written afterwards) from the beginning, as opposed to the first game's level design for action gameplay and subservient to a pre-existing story.

In contrast, Deus Ex was designed to give players more options for both. You could play it as an action game, but it was somewhat clunky and you had to be very cautious until your character was sufficiently upgraded in combat stats. You could also play it as a stealth game, but the stealth mechanics were rather rudimentary compared to the Looking Glass Thief games. AI was certainly stupider.

To unlock a hidden menu in the Steam version of Postal 2, I beat the game on Postal difficulty. Interestingly enough, it became much more of a stealth game during Monday-Friday, though it was hard as hell given how easily you could be spotted.

Stealth level design often focuses on shadow and light placement, line-of-sight blocks and vulnerabilities, risky enemy patrols with opportunities to exploit, and clear divisions between areas (you're generally safe in another room as long as the door to another room is closed, etc.). Action design is more about fun obstacle course mobility, enemy placement that can be exploited for creative elimination (i.e. lined up for railgun fire, in a close cluster for rockets).

Is it possible to create level design that works well with both Quake-like mobility and action with stealth as good and complex as Thief 1/2? Or will it always result in compromises leading to both sets of mechanics being unsatisfying to some extent?

[geo]

The best way? Design levels with walk arounds. TF2 levels are a great design template. There are usually 3 ways major paths. That way you can always get around heavily entrenched enemies. TF2 has a wide variety of combat styles and they accommodate for all of them.

After playing Arkham City / Assylum, the majority of their stealth segments are either hand fed to you where there's a guy with his back turned, or a blunt vent to go around to get behind. There are also 'predator' style rooms that just let you stealth around, because the room has multiple paths. Either the gargoyle path to swing around, the foot path, a lower foot path and a tunnel path. Paths, so you can get around and do whatever.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution paths seemed very limited. Maybe they'd have an upper and a lower path (sometimes without upper paths) with vent paths OR tunnel paths. It felt very limited by comparison to Arkham and TF2. Not as many paths, so in that game I'd much rather just shoot the enemies than stealth around them. Stealth just took so much time, when there was no threat taking them out head on. A lot of times the enemies stupidly come running on the same path for my bullets.

[negke]

I guess In the Shadows is a considerably good example for design that supports both stealth and action gameplay.

Dishonored allows for both types of gameplay, too.

But likely there are always compromises to be made. In order for both types of approach to work at the same time, each one has to be dumbed down to a certain degree.

[Jodwin]

Designing levels for both stealth and action approaches is tricky, because they are most likely going to be very imbalanced one way or an other. For example in the new Wolfenstein going for stealth makes the game easier since killing commanders stealthily clear alarms which, in turn, means there will be less enemy spawns. Meanwhile, since you're sneaking, you're going to be using less health, armor and ammo so that once you eventually are forced into a fight you have more resources to use.

Far Cry 3 has a similar dilemma: Using stealth to disable alarms when clearing out outposts is always the better option. The only way to somehow fix this is by removing specific alarm generators so that either all or no enemies can trigger alarms, and by making sneaking use resources equally as much as action approaches do.

[Mr. T]

Sodaholic said:

I kinda wonder what the best method for designing levels is for a hybrid of action and stealth.

I don't know what the stealth is like in the new Wolf game (haven't played it yet, won't until it goes on sale), but in concept it sounds fitting. The original Escape From Castle Wolfenstein was very stealth-focused, and early protos of Wolfenstein 3D had stealth mechanics before they chose to refocus the game on action. As long as it meshes well with the action design, I say go for it.

Thief: The Dark Project started life as an action title where Garret ran like the wind and slaughtered everyone in his path, clearly not how the final game ended up. The switch to stealth was rather last minute, when most of the level design had already been completed. People often point to Thief 2 as having better level design, having been designed for stealth and gameplay (story written afterwards) from the beginning, as opposed to the first game's level design for action gameplay and subservient to a pre-existing story.

In contrast, Deus Ex was designed to give players more options for both. You could play it as an action game, but it was somewhat clunky and you had to be very cautious until your character was sufficiently upgraded in combat stats. You could also play it as a stealth game, but the stealth mechanics were rather rudimentary compared to the Looking Glass Thief games. AI was certainly stupider.

To unlock a hidden menu in the Steam version of Postal 2, I beat the game on Postal difficulty. Interestingly enough, it became much more of a stealth game during Monday-Friday, though it was hard as hell given how easily you could be spotted.

Stealth level design often focuses on shadow and light placement, line-of-sight blocks and vulnerabilities, risky enemy patrols with opportunities to exploit, and clear divisions between areas (you're generally safe in another room as long as the door to another room is closed, etc.). Action design is more about fun obstacle course mobility, enemy placement that can be exploited for creative elimination (i.e. lined up for railgun fire, in a close cluster for rockets).

Is it possible to create level design that works well with both Quake-like mobility and action with stealth as good and complex as Thief 1/2? Or will it always result in compromises leading to both sets of mechanics being unsatisfying to some extent?

Just play any MGS game. Stealth Espionage Action.

[scifista42]

I don't have much actual experience with stealth games, so don't take my opinion as seriously as other posters's (and sorry if my post is useless). I've mostly just seen video footages, once I tried Arkham Assylum and stopped soon. Still, what I think is:

-Stealth is better suited to Third Person (Shooter) Games, not FPS. For a non-annoying game, a wider view is important (including seeing a bit of your own back).
-"Informational" features, such as an enemy radar or enhanced vision, might come in handy too. They should be present.
-Regarding design, I think it doesn't matter all that much. Without a concern, the levels can look and be structured like normal Doom maps. There should just be a lot of obstacles to hide behind, or other hideouts. At the same time, these obstacles shouldn't spoil player's movement or navigation if he decides to just move by them, without attention. Something like crates or thin supportive pillars by the walls, which don't get in the way at all if you walk through middle of the corridor.

[Clonehunter]

Goldeneye 2010 generally gave you one path, but the stealth sections were wholly optional. Granted, enemies were generally facing away from you, and it usually took some effort or a dumb move on the player's part to get noticed (Such as opening fire on a group of guys as opposed to waiting for them to disperse and picking them off with melee).