Enemy vision, hearing and aggression feedback

[BoostBlitzen]

Some of the units in the current update are over aggressive and should be toned down a bit. I have noticed choppers, mechs of all sizes, tanks, and drones are far too sensitive when it comes to spotting and holding aggro on a player once spotted.

One SE match, I was essentially locked down for 20+ minutes in one spot due to two choppers that would not path away long enough for me to run. I didn't even do anything other than run through the map towards extract (corpse run from a previous run where there were 4, yes 4 mechs fighting near extract and somehow they both aggroed me despite getting hit by rat king). I also noticed the dog is too quiet right now for some reason, and can grab you from further away than normal.

Overall - I am having fun with the new update, and am still pretty successful each run, but the aggression of the more dangerous, larger (invincible) enemies needs to be tweaked down about 25% in my opinion. I really like water 3.0 - Great change! The frozen swamp map is a great addition to the game.

Also - Since when was rat king aggressive to friendly scavs?

Anyway - This is all my opinion based on about 30-40 runs so far on various maps. Thanks for the great work on the game, devs!

[The Grin]

Yes...I was hiding for 15 minutes in a bunker to avoid getiing cut in half by Euruskan Helicopter machine guns.
And on top of that, with all the enemies on the battlefield...YOU the poor Scav is the NUMBER ONE TARGET.....

Oh :O the Rat King got hostile ? That is strange since it's an ally, might be a bug.

Post this on Discord. The devs are more active on discord than Steam.

[State Line Crosser]

I've heard rat king can bug and be hostile. If you shoot it the same occurs. Aggro is pretty wild atm. You have to look for ?s when you are visual open at all or else you will aggro all the heavies.

I don't think I'd mind the current aggro code if it was both faster but only active when firing on a factions units. Would make helis a threat only if observed fighting a faction.

[NIL0S]

The helicopter can be pretty relentless as soon as it spots you, and it will spot you as you can hardly hide from it when it's above you. It's usually why I die, it's the absolute bane of Gunhead. I've learned to give it a wide, WIDE berth whenever I hear it spawn in (you will usually hear its rotary cannon explosions peppering the map way before its rotors).

[SpottedHare]

It seems the the "weight class" system only applies to the mobs vs mobs fights. Yes it makes sense if nothing is around that you the only target would be targeted, but 99.9% of the time mobs will just ignore each other or even stop fighting to focus on the player while still getting attacked by other hostiles.

[Voodou]

Remember that your faction rating now matters much more than before the update...and can be tanked more easily. I was a bit surprised after the update about how aggro the choppers and drones were as well as how quickly HKs would enter the field. Worked on improving my faction standing with Eurasia (which was total *#$& at that point as I had been farming cyborgs in scrapyard to level up a weapon) and once it was back up there was much less aggro going on. That said, on any given mission, if you shoot down a couple of Eurasian drones and there's chopper around, it WILL focus you.

Also, it's definitely clear that if your faction standing is down and you get spotted question marks will last longer with some units. And if it escalates to an exclamation point...that seems to persist for the remainder of the mission unless you put good distance between them and you.

I personally really like the changes. Your behavior now has consequences that persist and which really matter. Previously, bad faction rating was a slap on the wrist and really didn't matter. I like the anti-shooter angle of this game, and the recent change upped the ante in that regard and I don't think that's a bad thing.

[State Line Crosser]

Originally posted by Voodou:

Remember that your faction rating now matters much more than before the update

Definitely not. Now that they fixed the rep I'm back to full rep at all times. Every unit aggros just as hard as they always did. Aggro builds as long as you are within visual los of the unit. That's why helis are targetting players now; you are almost always within their los.

[BoostBlitzen]

Originally posted by State Line Crosser:

Originally posted by Voodou:

Remember that your faction rating now matters much more than before the update

Definitely not. Now that they fixed the rep I'm back to full rep at all times. Every unit aggros just as hard as they always did. Aggro builds as long as you are within visual los of the unit. That's why helis are targetting players now; you are almost always within their los.

I agree with this - My rep is usually always maximum with all faction members, and I still get aggroed at what feels like the same rate with all faction enemies. The LoS and audio cones are too big and too sensitive right now, in my opinion.

I also think State Line Crosser's idea is pretty good:

Originally posted by State Line Crosser:

I've heard rat king can bug and be hostile. If you shoot it the same occurs. Aggro is pretty wild atm. You have to look for ?s when you are visual open at all or else you will aggro all the heavies.

I don't think I'd mind the current aggro code if it was both faster but only active when firing on a factions units. Would make helis a threat only if observed fighting a faction.

Have a few different modes for enemy unit vision and audio cones depending on what the player is doing. If you're just ratting, giving enemies a wide berth - The cones are small, and focused on other NPC units engaging with them. If you rat right next to them, their cones get as sensitive as they are now.

I'm sure the devs will fix it, but damn it's really rough right now in some of the runs.

[kome360]

Aggro is far too fierce. We're not supposed to be The Guy, but for the duration of this patch, we are, and it sucks.

[Voodou]

I don't have a problem with the increased aggro or discovery distance. Used to be if you were six meters away you could just stand in the open and not be noticed, which was pretty goofy. What I do have a problem with is the way mechs, choppers, etc. HOLD aggro. Seems like the chopper, once it targets you it won't stop and will literally hunt for you if you traverse the whole map. That seems pretty idiotic to me.

Oddly, I have never had a tank aggro me EVER in this game. Never. I can literally just stroll right by them and be completely ignored...and assumed that was the case for everyone. Only death by tank I've experienced is being run over...mostly because I get too close and they suddenly move.

[State Line Crosser]

Originally posted by Voodou:

Oddly, I have never had a tank aggro me EVER in this game. Never. I can literally just stroll right by them and be completely ignored...

They have the same aggro as everything else now. Used to be that large enemies ignored you unless you were doing naughty things.

The angles that npcs begin spotting you is pretty crazy and reminds me a bit of ready or not's omniscient wall samurais.

[Cqlin]

Played for 14min and stopped because the enemy could see me from a mile away through fog. I shot one android and 20 showed up. I jumped a wall and hid and they ran right to me. How did they know where I went if i was out of site?

[Dundo]

Originally posted by Cqlin:

Played for 14min and stopped because the enemy could see me from a mile away through fog. I shot one android and 20 showed up. I jumped a wall and hid and they ran right to me. How did they know where I went if i was out of site?

You likely met a Hunter Killer. They're units that always know your location after you've done something X times. Kill too much? Hunter killers. Loot too much? Hunter killers.

They're kind of an undercooked police system I guess. Whenever you do something that triggers them you'll see a pop up at the bottom of the screen that says they're after you. Assuming it isn't a special unit they should be somewhat easy to avoid/kill.

[State Line Crosser]

Hunter killers also aggro nearby units when they are after you. But the general vision of regular units is still crazy. They basically shoot lasers out of their head and if you are touching that then the '?' begins.