Watchdogs 2 - Trouble With Stealth

[bgray9054]

Hey guys, can anyone offer any tips as far as how you personally go about entering a red zone when trying to hack things or acquire items on missions? I go into the areas and try to use my gadgets as much as possible and not be detected, but it seems like anything you do triggers a full search of the area, even when no enemies see a body. You can use silenced weapons / gadgets and still everyone knows where you are, so just curious if maybe I'm missing something and there are some easier ways to enter areas without being detected?

[Cerebral Daemon]

- To kill someone without being noticed, you need to shoot them in such a way that 1) the victim is killed instantly (headshot, for example), and 2) no one notices the kill. I suspect the second point is where you're having issues. First, when you're killing someone with a silenced weapon or through melee, the detection range, although reduced, is still fairly large. Second, if anyone see you shoot, they instantly fall into combat-mode and, yes, this includes if the victim is the one to see you shoot (even if they're about to die a split-second later); this means, in general, you mustn't kill your target when they're facing you, unless you use a distraction hack.

- Electroshock devices can be considered stealthy (same detection radius as silenced weaponry), the explosive device obviously isn't.

- Any hackable object in the environment, be it a pipe, a power box, anything, will get noticed by everyone if it detonates. Even those that only neutralize without killing, the same way your electroshock devices do, get noticed.

- As soon as a body or a paralyzed target is found, or as soon as they are witness to something happening to someone else, the npcs go into an alert-mode, they're going to search around for you and, depending on the circumstances, they'll generally all move toward what they've seen happen (body or witness of a kill) before searching. So, in other words, if they all flock toward you, it may not be that they're actually coming at you moreso than they're going toward your victim, and you just happened to be in the way.

- Even if a bystander isn't directly an enemy, he may react to your presence if you're moving in stealthily. Sometimes they'll push you around, sometimes they'll try to attract enemies to you. In general, though, if they see you kill someone, they should get the hell outta there.

- Drones can be used stealthily and if they're detected, the npcs go into alert-mode. In general, when this happens, they'll search for you from their actual position, they won't move toward where your drone was destroyed. One exception to this seems to be when the drone is destroyed from a gunshot, the enemies seem to react to that gunshot and move toward it.

- Since you can't move the bodies around in this game, here's my advice on how to approach stealth, the way I did in my own stealth savefile : Focus on knowing where your enemies are (using drones or the cameras, at choice), and give particular attention to whether any of the guard movements overlap one another. If they do, be very careful not to kill one of them in those areas, or if there's absolutely no choice do your best to kill them both one after the other. Also try to perform melee kills as often as you possibly can, since it gives you much more leeway if someone's about to mess up your plans. To reliably succeed at those melee kills, the distraction hack is something I'd consider essential.

[bgray9054]

I really appreciate your detailed response, thanks - one thing I'm getting stuck the most with is the electronic shock devices / hacking panels for shocking enemies - I was expecting those to be effectively silent takedowns but they don't seem to be. I was just doing one of the early main missions at the movie studio and I took out the first half of the warehouse pretty silently, using my quadcopter to scout and then shock devices to put guys to sleep, but then when doing the same strategy on the 2nd half of the building for the 2nd item I had to hack / collect I put one guy to sleep with a shock device and the entire building knew right where I was and came running, calling reinforcements and everything. I ended up pulling out my Goblin and just having an open gunfight to complete the mission, but I like to try to do the missions without guns as I feel like that's how this character would do the mission and it's fun trying to use gadgets and be silent / stealthy like a ghost.

I'll keep working at it.

Thanks again!

[Drowning witch]

you don't even need to enter the restricted areas. use the jumper and drone. or hijack a forklift and break fences right next to the device that needs hacking, then park it so it hides you from view while hacking.

[Cerebral Daemon]

Originally posted by bgray9054:

I really appreciate your detailed response, thanks - one thing I'm getting stuck the most with is the electronic shock devices / hacking panels for shocking enemies - I was expecting those to be effectively silent takedowns but they don't seem to be. I was just doing one of the early main missions at the movie studio and I took out the first half of the warehouse pretty silently, using my quadcopter to scout and then shock devices to put guys to sleep, but then when doing the same strategy on the 2nd half of the building for the 2nd item I had to hack / collect I put one guy to sleep with a shock device and the entire building knew right where I was and came running, calling reinforcements and everything. I ended up pulling out my Goblin and just having an open gunfight to complete the mission, but I like to try to do the missions without guns as I feel like that's how this character would do the mission and it's fun trying to use gadgets and be silent / stealthy like a ghost.

I'll keep working at it.

Thanks again!

Hacked panels aren't stealthy (even if they only stun), but shock devices should be.

One thing that might've happened, though, if you were using shock devices from the very beginning, maybe one of those you had previously stunned woke up? When an enemy is stunned, they can wake up if another enemy gets to them, but they can also wake up by themselves if they remain stunned for long enough (how close they are to waking up is shown by the stun icon, three "zzz" means they were stunned recently, one "z" means they could wake up at anytime (that's generally why I've taken the habit of "executing" the enemies I manage to stun, to avoid these problems) ). If that's what happened and one of them woke up, they instantly alert everyone else, which is why those who rely heavily on the stun gun or other stunning methods need to be quick and efficient or they risk getting caught in-between the entire enemy force. Alternatively, it's possible you simply used a shock device against someone who was too close to someone else, and that person got alerted (sidenote : with shock devices, although the detection radius is the same as silenced weapons, I've noticed that the enemies tend to move toward the one who got stunned much more aggressively, even enemies at the complete other side of the hostile area will move in. I think that's probably because they all move toward the stunned guy to wake him up, unlike a dead body for which there's nothing to do; there's no priority algorithm in their AI, it seems. Just something to keep in mind when using the shock devices).

From what you've described, I don't see anything suspicious, you probably ended up making a mistake somehow and it led to those results. It seems to work the way it's intended to, and given how you've said you've been proceeding in the missions, you're already on the good tracks, it's probably only a matter of practice. Should be fine now.

[bgray9054]

Originally posted by Cerebral Daemon:

Originally posted by bgray9054:

I really appreciate your detailed response, thanks - one thing I'm getting stuck the most with is the electronic shock devices / hacking panels for shocking enemies - I was expecting those to be effectively silent takedowns but they don't seem to be. I was just doing one of the early main missions at the movie studio and I took out the first half of the warehouse pretty silently, using my quadcopter to scout and then shock devices to put guys to sleep, but then when doing the same strategy on the 2nd half of the building for the 2nd item I had to hack / collect I put one guy to sleep with a shock device and the entire building knew right where I was and came running, calling reinforcements and everything. I ended up pulling out my Goblin and just having an open gunfight to complete the mission, but I like to try to do the missions without guns as I feel like that's how this character would do the mission and it's fun trying to use gadgets and be silent / stealthy like a ghost.

I'll keep working at it.

Thanks again!

Hacked panels aren't stealthy (even if they only stun), but shock devices should be.

One thing that might've happened, though, if you were using shock devices from the very beginning, maybe one of those you had previously stunned woke up? When an enemy is stunned, they can wake up if another enemy gets to them, but they can also wake up by themselves if they remain stunned for long enough (how close they are to waking up is shown by the stun icon, three "zzz" means they were stunned recently, one "z" means they could wake up at anytime (that's generally why I've taken the habit of "executing" the enemies I manage to stun, to avoid these problems) ). If that's what happened and one of them woke up, they instantly alert everyone else, which is why those who rely heavily on the stun gun or other stunning methods need to be quick and efficient or they risk getting caught in-between the entire enemy force. Alternatively, it's possible you simply used a shock device against someone who was too close to someone else, and that person got alerted (sidenote : with shock devices, although the detection radius is the same as silenced weapons, I've noticed that the enemies tend to move toward the one who got stunned much more aggressively, even enemies at the complete other side of the hostile area will move in. I think that's probably because they all move toward the stunned guy to wake him up, unlike a dead body for which there's nothing to do; there's no priority algorithm in their AI, it seems. Just something to keep in mind when using the shock devices).

From what you've described, I don't see anything suspicious, you probably ended up making a mistake somehow and it led to those results. It seems to work the way it's intended to, and given how you've said you've been proceeding in the missions, you're already on the good tracks, it's probably only a matter of practice. Should be fine now.

Thanks, hopefully I just need mileage. :)

[Frixion]

I need no long responses

Heres how i do things

One way is let the gangs do the killing for you using the correct hacks

OR

Silenced gun all the way, NOT TAZER, KILL DOGS FIRST, once they bark the entire force will be after you. KILL THEM with headshot. Big guys just knock them out from behind. Outfront and you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥ regardless. Never let them detect you. Once the detection bar is full they will shoot or call and you are dead regardless

OR

Taze your way through the game. Use the RC to taunt and lure them out of restricted area one by one and taze them. Remember that taze is temporary and they will wake up eventually

OR

What most people do on coop, drone with fitted IED, kabooom everyone and done / geranade launcher the whole thing. 2 to 3 shots to take down armoured guys depending on skills

[bgray9054]

Thanks for all the responses fellas!

[CosmicD]

i dronestrikes the ppl who can call reinforcement, Zzz the ones around them, then execute, go in more, bomb the ones inside with explosives so they are cold immediately.

[linas.warrior]

I hate stealth games, so I never bothered to play this game stealth way. And I simply don't have the time to look for ways with drone or quadcopter, so I always do main and side missions the loud way immediately. And the stealth in this game is so bad, one guard sees you and everyone is alerted.

[Not Gaming]

try to get the gang members where you hide and when they come use ther distract hack when they are distracted attack them with your custom melee weapon it will kill them that they won't wake up after some time