How The Respawning Guard Really Works...

[Gcarrara]

Hi guys,
I decided to do some testing about the new respawning guard feature. In particular i've analyzed how it works, so you can really predict when it will come.
As you may know it comes after you kill some guards... But how many?
Someone says 3, others says 2... There are rumours about even just 1.
And you know what? They are ALL right.

(Now i'm not going to discuss about how much sense it does, i'm just stating how this mechanic actually works)

Let's start by "dispelling the myths":
- Killing and Dominating are equal on the rules that spawn the guard. It doesn't matter if you dominate or kill a guard, the results are the same.
- It doesn't matter which guard you kill, it can be both a stationary guard or a patrolling guard, they all are considered the same. Except for the security room guard!
- Difficulties doesn't matter. If you play on Normal or Death Wish, the rules are the same.

So now that we have those myths/legends out of our mind let's go on.

Why for some people "that" guard spawn after different amount of kills/domination?
It's because there is an hidden meter that once filled spawn the guard. And to fill it up there have to be some incidents. So what constitute an incident? Well, obviously killing or dominating a guard. But there are other incidents that were hidden and so confused people on finding a general rule. One of those is destroying a camera. Yep, destroying a camera fills up this meter*. Another incident is any report from an alerted guard.** This means that even under an ECM Jammer, when a guard report something suspicious, it instantly fill up the meter.
On this note, it's important to say that once a guard started reporting in, the meter fills up instantly, and killing him does NOT increase the meter again. So killing a guard that already reported in, increase the meter the same as killing a guard who didn't report in. So there is no reason not to kill a guard who is reporting in something... The meter already filled up and won't fill up again if you kill that guard.

*Cameras destroyed after the security room guard is dispatched DO NOT count as incidents. So on Framing Frame Day 1 if you kill/dominate the security room guard, you can destroy all other cameras without it counting as multiple incidents. (Now, why would you do that anyway? I don't know, but i did in my tests. lol)

**Always on Framing Frame Day 1, guards that hear the hand dryer and change their path to go inside the bathroom count as guard who report in something suspicious.

So to summarize it:
The "Spawn Guard Meter" fills up with these following incidents:
- Killing or Dominating a guard.
- Destroying a Security Camera.
- A guard report in for any reason, or is lured by something (hand dryer)

Now, this meter totally fills up with 4 "incidents", and there is no way to reduce its "fill up amount".

As you may know there are 3 maps that had this feature implemented:
Framing Frame Day 1, Framing Frame Day 3, Big Oil Day 2.

I highly suspect that there is a fourth map, Firestarter Day 2, since it has a guard spawning on the street (added to the classic elevator spawns) if you fill up this meter, but i'm not sure if it had it even before Update 24. (I never had any reason to kill or destroy cameras on that day.)

So let's focus on these 3 maps.

Framing Frame Day 1:
Respawning Guard Meter Full at a value of 4.
- Destroying a Camera = Fill up the meter by 1.
- Killing/Dominating the Security Room Guard = DOES NOT fill up the meter.
- Killing/Dominating the Extra Guard who opens the door of the bathroom (Rare Event) =
DOES NOT fill up the meter.
- Killing/Dominating a Guard = Fill up the meter by 1.
- Guard Reporting anything = Fill up the meter by 1.
- Guard Lured by the Hand Dryer = Fill up the meter by 1
(A single guard won't in any way fill up the meter by more than 1. So let's say if a guard get lured in the bathroom, see a dead body and report in, and then is killed by you, it would still count as the meter filled up by 1, not 3... I know it's an exagerated example, but i think it will make things clearer)
Also, on this map there is a Security Room Guard. Killing/Dominating him DOES NOT count as an incident, and it doesn't fill up the meter. So you can actually take out 4 guards, if one of these guards is the Security Room guy. It also disables all the cameras, so you don't have to deal with them anymore.
If you get the random event where there is an Extra Guard in the bathroom that open the door, you can dispatch him too without filling the meter, so in that particular case you can have UP to 5 guards dispatched without the infamous guard spawning:
The Extra Guard in the bathroom, the Security Room Guard, and 3 other Guards as normal.

Framing Frame Day 3:
Respawning Guard Meter Full at a value of 4.
- Destroying a Camera = Fill up the meter by 1.
- Killing/Dominating a Guard = Fill up the meter by 1.
- Guard Reporting anything = Fill up the meter by 1.

So to speak you can avoid the spawn of a guard having a combinations of:
- 3 Cameras destroyed.
- 2 Cameras destroyed, 1 Guard taken out.
- 1 Camera destroyed, 2 Guards taken out.
- 3 Guards taken out.

Big Oil Day 2 has some differences... It was a pain in the beginning to understand how this map worked (with the correct engine), and it was AGAIN a pain to understand how it works with this new mechanic. What a coincidence eh?
Respawning Guard Meter Full at a value of 4.
- Destroying the 1st Camera = Fill up the meter by 1.
- Destroying the 2nd Camera = Fill up the meter by 3.
- Killing/Dominating a Guard = Fill up the meter by 1.
- Guard Reporting anything = Fill up the meter by 1.

So to speak you can avoid the spawn of a guard having a combinations of:
- 1 Camera.
- 1 Camera, 2 Guards taken out.
- 3 Guards taken out.

When the meter is filled, the guard spawn near instantly... Within 5 seconds for sure, but he takes his time from his spawn point to reach the area where the actual stealth is going on. (Except for Framing Frame Day 3).

The spawned guard will respawn everytime he will be killed. but it WON'T respawn if you dominate him.

So there it is... As a general rule, if you don't touch Security Cameras (and you can't anyway on Death Wish), you can take out 3 guards safely.

I hope this guide clarified how the new system works, so players can now 100% predict when a guard will spawn, so they can more efficiently handle this new stealth system, without having the burden of "not knowing" when the new guard will come.

It is now actually possible to go dominating the spawned guard safely before it enters the stealthing area. Just keep in mind how filled up this "hidden meter" is and when you counted your last infraction that triggers the guard you can go to dispatch him safely.

As a last note, i'm sure most of you now know the spawn points of the guards, but for those who don't:

Framing Frame Day 1:
From both the ends of the street in front of the gallery.

Framing Frame Day 3:
From the bottom of the stairs.

-Big Oil Day 2:
From the far ends of the path that leads to the house. (That path that goes down from the front gate)

Forgive me for my not perfect English and if you don't understand something, tell me and i'll try to edit this guide to better explain it! ;)

Gcarrara

EDITS:
- Forgot about the Hand Dryer on Framing Frame Day 1. Thanks to Seven who reminded me!
- Forgot about Disabled Security Cameras (Security Room Guard dispatched) NOT filling up the meter.
- Fixed an error about the Security Room Guard filling up the meter if killed. It actually DOES NOT. I don't know how i didn't notice it before. Also included an event where there might be an extra guard in the bathroom that opens the door that is usually pick-locked. Killing/Dominating that Guard DOES NOT fill up the meter. For some reason during my 30 tests on this map it never spawned, so i totally forgot to test how it would change when he spawn.



TO DO TESTS:
See if guards lured by drills count towards filling up the meter like the Hand Dryer does.
(Pretty difficult and time consuming, it might take some time, since by the time the guard spawned and started walking in a visible area, the lured guards might already have seen the drill, and not counting it anymore as a "luring" but as a "saw something suspicious and reporting in". Also doubtfully doable alone. Probably 2 players minimum needed.

[Aqua]

Originally posted by TGMgcarrara:

The spawned guard will respawn everytime he will be killed. but it WON'T respawn if you dominate him.

This!
Dominating the 5th guard and the respawned guard at the same time works well on FF Overkill.
But does it work on Big Oil too? I haven't tried yet.

[Gcarrara]

Yes, it works. :)

[Seven]

I have already tried this a bit, I have posts with more or less information about it scattered around the forum. Mostly it matches what you've found yourself. I've seen guards spawned after the 1st disable, after the 3rd, and most commonly, after the 4th. Respawns can be triggered by several things, ranging from the dryer being activated in the bathroom FF day 1 or a guard being alerted. I haven't tried destroying cameras though, and guards never had a chance to report in anything. Your spawn meter theory is either incomplete or incorrect based on what I've seen.

The idea that alerted guards increase the chances of a spawn is interesting though. May have to take a look at that. At this point though, I think I'd rather just look it up in the code when I have the time and when the new patch is decompiled.

[Ph|Apple Norris]

Probably same on Nightclub, if I recall correctly there is a spawning guard. He spawns at 4 points on the map (each of them are corners).
FF day 1 probably spawns too, but I am not sure.
Not sure about BO day 1 either.

[Labcat]

Originally posted by Derevo:

Probably same on Nightclub, if I recall correctly there is a spawning guard. He spawns at 4 points on the map (each of them are corners).
FF day 1 probably spawns too, but I am not sure.
Not sure about BO day 1 either.

Isn't that guard a random spawn, like the civilians?

[Ph|Apple Norris]

Originally posted by Cash.net Labcat:

Isn't that guard a random spawn, like the civilians?

No, he isn't. We stealthed one time (without killing) and didn't see any additional guard walking around.

[Gcarrara]

Originally posted by Seven:

I have already tried this a bit, I have posts with more or less information about it scattered around the forum. Mostly it matches what you've found yourself. I've seen guards spawned after the 1st disable, after the 3rd, and most commonly, after the 4th. Respawns can be triggered by several things, ranging from the dryer being activated in the bathroom FF day 1 or a guard being alerted. I haven't tried destroying cameras though, and guards never had a chance to report in anything. Your spawn meter theory is either incomplete or incorrect based on what I've seen.

The idea that alerted guards increase the chances of a spawn is interesting though. May have to take a look at that. At this point though, I think I'd rather just look it up in the code when I have the time and when the new patch is decompiled.

*uck me... Forgot about the hand dryer! But it should be the only thing that i forgot... It's a peculiar thing only present in Framing Frame Day 1.
Basically any guard who hear the hand dryer and change his path to go inside the bathroom counts as a reporting on their pager. Thanks for reminding me!
Anyway now it should be all complete! :)

[Seven]

It still wouldn't be consistent. I did quite a few tests on FF day 1, each time luring 4-5 guards into the bathroom with the dryer and dominatig and/or killing them, and it still gave me spawns only after 4 disables 7 times out of 9 (the other 2 times being after 1st and after 3rd). If it was 4 incidents and they all counted towards it, I should've been able to use the dryer at most 2 times + 2 kills before a spawn, but that was not the case. Nor did a spawn always happen directly after the 4th disable. Most of these tests I waited about 5 min between disables (30 seconds when you run at 10x speed...), and still, instant spawn the second I was detected when I went to dominate a guard or when I activated the dryer with a guard nearby. So again, from what I've seen, you may be on the right track, but it's not as simple as you have concluded.

[Gcarrara]

Originally posted by Seven:

It still wouldn't be consistent. I did quite a few tests on FF day 1, each time luring 4-5 guards into the bathroom with the dryer and dominatig and/or killing them, and it still gave me spawns only after 4 disables 7 times out of 9 (the other 2 times being after 1st and after 3rd). If it was 4 incidents and they all counted towards it, I should've been able to use the dryer at most 2 times + 2 kills before a spawn, but that was not the case. Nor did a spawn always happen directly after the 4th disable. Most of these tests I waited about 5 min between disables (30 seconds when you run at 10x speed...), and still, instant spawn the second I was detected when I went to dominate a guard or when I activated the dryer with a guard nearby. So again, from what I've seen, you may be on the right track, but it's not as simple as you have concluded.

Watchout tho', maybe you misunderstood. As i said before, guards lured from the hand dryer (or reporting in) counts towards the meter incidents, but if you kill them later, it doesn't count as a new incident. If you want to join me on some private tests so we can talk with infos under hand it would be awesome. (So we can even predict how it works, and see if it happens).

Chance are you somehow misunderstood, or i explained bad some points. Because for 3 days me and (7 other friends) haven't been surprised anymore from the spawning guards. :)

If you wish to know more, or even disproof me while we're together ingame (so you can show me what you mean) it would make it a lot more easier.

Originally posted by Derevo:

Probably same on Nightclub, if I recall correctly there is a spawning guard. He spawns at 4 points on the map (each of them are corners).
FF day 1 probably spawns too, but I am not sure.
Not sure about BO day 1 either.

I'm not sure, but on Nightclub you mean one gang member who comes externally? If that's what you mean i think it is a random chance of spawning since some updates ago, but it shouldn't have been changed with Update 24.

[Seven]

Originally posted by TGMgcarrara:

Watchout tho', maybe you misunderstood. As i said before, guards lured from the hand dryer (or reporting in) counts towards the meter incidents, but if you kill them later, it doesn't count as a new incident. If you want to join me on some private tests so we can talk with infos under hand it would be awesome. (So we can even predict how it works, and see if it happens).

Chance are you somehow misunderstood, or i explained bad some points. Because for 3 days me and (7 other friends) haven't been surprised anymore from the spawning guards. :)

If you wish to know more, or even disproof me while we're together ingame (so you can show me what you mean) it would make it a lot more easier.

Ah, yeah. I did some testing and wrote this post, then refreshed to find yours and well...

-

Hm, I actually tried using the dryer only, and after 4-5 guards had heard it, it actually did trigger a spawn 2 separate attempts at FF day 1 in a row. Luring 2 + killing 2 did nothing though. I'm not sure if the 4 guards I lured in were unique or not though. If so, and if I were to speculate wildly, it could possibly be explained by each guard having a separate trigger-spawn-flag. Disturb them in any way (dying is disturbing, I'd say) and the flag for that guard is changed. Enough flags raised, guard spawns, but you can lure/dominate/kill the same guard as much as you want and it won't change anything. I actually did this mostly; lure them in, dominate them, then use silenced shotgun to throw the corpse into the booth.

-

So seems pretty consistent then. But yeah, this is just guesswork at this point. I'll just check the code at some later point and confirm it for myself.

[NAWSH]

Awesome, thanks for all your effort!

[Seven]

One thing left though, I've "disturbed" 4 guards in a row through luring/dominating/killing, and it did not trigger an instant spawn. Only when a 5th was either alerted to me (domination attempt, but prior to the initial shout) or to the dryer did a guard spawn. So from what I can tell, it's not an instant spawn the second you get 4 incidents. I'm at a loss on how to explain how I could get a spawn on the first kill as well, although possibly several guards heard the dryer but was busy patroling and then forgot to go check it. They seem to go check only if they are at certain points in their route.

[JB Payaso]

Interesting...

[Gcarrara]

Originally posted by Seven:

Originally posted by TGMgcarrara:

Watchout tho', maybe you misunderstood. As i said before, guards lured from the hand dryer (or reporting in) counts towards the meter incidents, but if you kill them later, it doesn't count as a new incident. If you want to join me on some private tests so we can talk with infos under hand it would be awesome. (So we can even predict how it works, and see if it happens).

Chance are you somehow misunderstood, or i explained bad some points. Because for 3 days me and (7 other friends) haven't been surprised anymore from the spawning guards. :)

If you wish to know more, or even disproof me while we're together ingame (so you can show me what you mean) it would make it a lot more easier.

Ah, yeah. I did some testing and wrote this post, then refreshed to find yours and well...

-

Hm, I actually tried using the dryer only, and after 4-5 guards had heard it, it actually did trigger a spawn 2 separate attempts at FF day 1 in a row. Luring 2 + killing 2 did nothing though. I'm not sure if the 4 guards I lured in were unique or not though. If so, and if I were to speculate wildly, it could possibly be explained by each guard having a separate trigger-spawn-flag. Disturb them in any way (dying is disturbing, I'd say) and the flag for that guard is changed. Enough flags raised, guard spawns, but you can lure/dominate/kill the same guard as much as you want and it won't change anything. I actually did this mostly; lure them in, dominate them, then use silenced shotgun to throw the corpse into the booth.

-

So seems pretty consistent then. But yeah, this is just guesswork at this point. I'll just check the code at some later point and confirm it for myself.

Yes. Talking more from a technical point of view, a single guard won't increase the meter twice. So when a guard change his "normal" behaviour, either by hand dryer, or reporting in, or getting killed/dominated, they can only increase the meter once.

Damn, i understand it might be confusing without using technical and proper English terms... Considering every guard has a "Everything normal/Everything not normal" flag might be easier to understand. :)

Originally posted by Seven:

One thing left though, I've "disturbed" 4 guards in a row through luring/dominating/killing, and it did not trigger an instant spawn. Only when a 5th was either alerted to me (domination attempt, but prior to the initial shout) or to the dryer did a guard spawn. So from what I can tell, it's not an instant spawn the second you get 4 incidents. I'm at a loss on how to explain how I could get a spawn on the first kill as well, although possibly several guards heard the dryer but was busy patroling and then forgot to go check it. They seem to go check only if they are at certain points in their route.

The mainly problem (if you're talking about Framing Frame Day 1) is that guards can spawn from 2 points. And one place is pretty hidden, and will take up to 10 seconds until you can really see it. This was a major pain on Big Oil Day 2, where guards take literally 30-45 seconds to reach the gate of the house. So a lot of confusion comes because of the out of maps spawning. To test my theory, i had to increase the meter only once every 30 seconds.
I think in that case the guard spawned in the far spawn point, and from the time it was actually within view, you already distrubed the 5th guard, and so tought that it was the 5 guard that spawned him. I'm 99% sure that's what happened. I'd say try to do some more tests now, and see if it happens again. Just wait up to 60 seconds after you filled up the meter (by killing/luring guards, or destroying cameras.), And watchout that everytime you see an exclamation mark "!" coming from a guard who saw "something", you need to unvalidate that test. (Oh you can't even imagine the tests i lost because of this...)

The right way to do this imho, is to swipe your previous experience you had with your tests, because they might be obfuscated by things you didn't considered before. (like alerted guards, destroyed cameras). I had to do it, because a lot of things didn't make sense from my previous tests that didn't consider cameras and other stuff. Now that you have a clear view on these "flagged" guards and this meter, try to see if it happens again.

Just remember to wait up to 30 seconds on Framing Frame to see if the spawned guard actually comes.

It would be ok for me to show you (you meaning not personally you, but whoever want to test it) ingame how it actually works, so there won't be any mistaken tests that migh wrongly disproof what i found.

Anyway i'm not a guy who want to protect his theories even when he's wrong. If for any reason i get some unexpected spawned guard you'll be the first to know, and i'll dismantle this thread immediately. ; )

[Arctic.Lemon]

Thanks for this, helps out a lot in planning some stealth runs now,

My only problem is if I kill 3 gaurds and a camera and dominate the spawn, What happens to the camera, Arn't gaurds called to investigate it or what if they spot it. I will have no options left to dispose of the gaurd using 4 pagers and 4 body bags as a duo team.

Does that mean I have to include the camera guard in the 3 to avoid the call to investigate.

Hard when mulitple guards patrol the same spot. should be fun to figure out though. im dreading FF day 3 though with the safe, they always seem to be hovering right at the stairs or be behind that window.