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UNSOLVED Why Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Stealth feels bad - UBISOFT PLEASE FIX
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I think I figured out a major reason why Valhalla's stealth feels so bad. While playing through the new mastery challenges, there's a challenge to not be detected and not kill anyone. I noticed while hiding in bushes that the enemy's head was often fixed on my location.
Check out this video '>.
As you can see in the first clip, we have a two-fold issue for stealth. The first is that while I was legitimately seen by the enemy, he instantly detected me. There was no option to return to stealth, I either had to kill him or go into combat. Issue number 2 is that the enemy knew where I was. As soon as he pauses at his post he stares right through the wall to my location. As he keeps walking, his head stays turned in my direction. His cone of vision appears to be directly tied to the way his head is turned, and he keeps his focus on me through a wall.
As a player, I expect that guards will be looking forward, or make more exaggerated movements to inform me that they are looking around if we can't see that vision cone. Instead, they know my location and almost wait for me to step into the cone for me to aggro them.
We can see this in the second clip as well where I'm in a bush and the guard at about 20 feet away just immediately begins to stare in my direction until he gets over 20 feet away again at which point he snaps forward. I've been able to consistently reproduce this behavior about 80% of the time, which adds to the inconsistency of stealth.
I, as a player, expect to be able to pass by a guard safely if they've already walked past me if I know their path will keep them walking. I cannot plan or reasonably act on a fail state occurring 50% of the time due to the AI actively watching my position despite them having shown no other signs of being aware of me.
The complexity of Valhalla's stealth using light, physical line of sight, social awareness, and sound is nothing to scoff at. The added complexity of having moving vision cones and other features that have been built up over time is, to an extent, commendable. However, at this time there is too much information, too many variables, and not enough information given to the player as a way to track this. If the design goal of the current AI iteration was to make a more realistic feeling of stealth, while potentially successful, it's come at the cost of a feeling of consistency, which is key for a stealth game. Stealth is just a form of a puzzle to solve and right now it feels like the correct pathway to solve that puzzle needs multiple attempts because the puzzle's mechanics feel inconsistent. Ubisoft, for Rift, please fix this. If that means toning down the complexity and "realism" for a better feeling stealth experience, I'd ask that you make that decision. -
It looks like the link got messed up and trying to edit the post gave me a warning that I'm spamming, so here's a youtube link to the video I mentioned.
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I think this is just one of the many issues with the stealth in Valhalla.
I'm assuming the first enemy wasn't already suspicious/aggro'd when he walked in your direction?
Stealth in games is really hard to do because you have to make the a.i. smart so that it doesn't feel too easy but not smart to the point of not actually being viable. The Splinter Cell and MGS get it right where so many other games get it wrong in this regard.
However, the enemy staring at the wall or bush where the player is for no good reason other than the fact that its coding knows you're there, and not even thinking to turn their heads as they walk away is ridiculous. It's baffling because the previous games do not have this problem so I don't understand what went wrong.
btw you mentioned that you can't go back into stealth without either killing or entering combat (smoke bombs from the old games would solve this) but even if you return to stealth you would still be detected, thus breaking the 'no detection' run? Or do you mean there's one challenge to not be detected and another challenge to not kill anyone? -
Hello @sigma1313 and welcome to Discussions.
Thank you for your input in improving the game and recording the video. Would be really useful if you could also answer the questions asked by @AnimusLover .
I appreciate it took a plenty of time to write such an informative feedback and would be happy to pass it on to the development team if you make sure that your latest saves are uploaded to the cloud.
Please let me know if I can help you with anything else.Official Response
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Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..", comes from a line in section 1.10.32.
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