I understand, it’s not my point here to make the game easier or anything like that, I’m just giving some of my thoughts about some things that IMO could be under the scope for the devs. I also respect the fact that you disagree with me and don’t have any grudge toward you for speaking your mind, it’s not like you insult me in any way. My understanding is that you like the game (mostly combat and stealth mechanic) as is, don’t know why you should be warned or banned for this, I’m glad to exchange comments and thoughts with you. I just want to mention that yes there’s a bit of “off-topic” in your last post (for example I don’t think it’s watering down anything to reduce the Seekers detection duration, or not being hit by a Hunter that do their Jump melee attack when I’m on the second floor of a house or find their way inside a home with all doors closed) and I still think that certain elements of the stealth mechanic could be looking at, but this is the how things are I guess, everybody (or most) have a different point of view and we share them in expectation to give devs. some insight about our own experience with the game.
You seem like know your game (way more than me). I would be glad to play a Co-Op session with you, heck it seem I could learn a thing or two (or three … well much more than that I guess). Sadly, I think we’re playing on different platform (I’m on PS4, which I confess would rather play on a good PC), if I’m wrong, let me know and if you play on console (PS4 or PS5) it would be really nice to step up my gameplay and enjoy some nice team efforts. 
That’s I call “inertial targeting” and thing that makes tank weak against covers and smokes.
Reaper, while having essentially same AI has faster clock/smaller time constant (algorithms executing faster) - that’s the reason why it lose interest in the target and it is easy to break the chase from it. I did tried to engage it near safehouse with ~70 red cans, but hounds made “trapper” approach very bothersome.
BTW, I’d like to do some co-op stealth action guerilla style, but it won’t be anytime soon.
So I take back everything I said, the stealth is pretty good!
I managed to sneak underneath a harvester and wipe out its rocket launchers before it even got to turn around, it was dead before it could look at me.
It’s not that bad!
Okay, but…
Are you saying you can one-hit kill hunters? How?
Makes you wonder what the fuel tank is even for, doesn’t it? The machines seem to be doing fine without them…
Could you please share how? This thread is pretty long… I have a hard time with harvesters, I’ve only killed maybe 10 of them in my 100+ hours of play. Obviously, I’m doing something wrong.
For me the best way is:
- Destroy the rocketlaunchers with exp. Pvg from distance
- Destroy armor-plates at the legs (with exp. Pvg)
- Kill the harvester with the weapon of my choice.
I have more problems with the sniper-hunters spawned by the harvesters than with the harvesters themselves.
I noticed this too. I’m spotted immediately after the first shot and I’m fired upon. The robots should at least get hit, assess what direction they were hit from, attempt to find a target within range, and then fire upon the target. Instead, I get robot gets hit, and then I’m fired upon.
there’s a difference between tactics when you hit a robot, then move, as opposed to going full auto on a robot. between those tactics, you should get spotted easier with a full assault.
I also notice they see me behind trees as well and continue to fire. I would think they would run out of ammunition at some point. I had a bug in a house where I threw a flare and a robot was shooting at it non-stop until I went down there to finish it off. Non-stop, no pause between firing. I waited for a good while to see if it would run out of ammo, but no. I figure these robots are programmed with infinite ammo.
That’s a good theory and understandable. But I didn’t panic. Don’t really care if they kill me because there’s no penalty for dying.
I tested the stealth mechanic yesterday. I used a silenced rifle with an 8x scope. I fired on a dog at long range. Didn’t kill it on one shot, but it immediately fired upon me and it chased me. I fired just over the crest of a hill so I can back up out of its line of sight after the shot. I wouldn’t think it would be able to hit me from such a long range but it did. In a separate scenario, at that same range, I’ve fired my pistol, didn’t hit it, but it never noticed me, but it was loud because it had no silencer so I would think it should at least detect that. But your theory here might be correct:
I hope that is the case. But from playing the game, it doesn’t feel like it’s the case. I fired my silenced rifle from over a hill. I backed up after the shot so it wouldn’t have a line of sight, but the robot still came after me. If the robot would ignore the first hit, that would be fine, then on the second hit, start firing, that would be fine, then the 3rd hit, actually chase in my direction, that would be fine (this is how I would of programmed the AI in this particular case). But it seems to skip all of that.
I understand that being able to pick at enemies from extreme long range would be OP. So developers would have to find ways to counter that, otherwise, every battle is won simply through sniping. I’ve done it with Skyrim (one shot everything with a bow, even dragons). It doesn’t mean that it’s not fun because of that. If the developers want to balance out that strategy, they can award less experience points for that style of combat (less risk, less reward). Or, they can have the robots slowly evolve their combat tactics based on your tactics over time (and maybe send the player a notification that they are evolving so you know the game is not cheating you).
But, I have a problem with the game if I’m sniping from a window at long range with a silencer and I’m spotted immediately, which is what happened later. I was in the next city and went into a house, spotted some flying robot. Hit it with my silenced rifle at long range and not only did it spot me, but a dog did as well. Then they appeared in the room below me, where I closed all the doors. No windows broken, so I have no idea how they got in there.
I like this game, don’t get me wrong. I have it set to Skirmish with autoscaling. But I do have a problem with bugs in games. Not so much aesthetics or graphical bugs, but mechanic bugs. If robots are going to appear in rooms below me as part of a script, they should at least break the windows or the door and give a loud crash, since I’m guessing it’s the developers intent to have them appear in the houses so you don’t feel safe anywhere.
I don’t know how they intend the autoscaling to work, whether its solely on amount of players or making the game more/less difficult based on how many times you die. That would be a separate discussion because I know trying to program autoscaling can be a difficult task. I hope autoscaling doesn’t mean that the AI “cheats” as a way to artificially create difficulty. If autoscaling only increases difficulty based on you not dying, then I may just turn that off. Because I could just be lucky that I’ve lived for so long and not based on skill. I’ve only taken on 3 of the dogs at once at most and nearly died from them.
I’m going to be testing out other stealth scenarios as well today. Maybe it’s meant to play this way until I get my stealth skills up. I don’t know, but I’ll keep playing it for now because it’s interesting. I’m enjoying it.