Killing in stealth games

Everyone's probably played this but I'd hook up my Xbox in a second if I could find it and play it again today. Also, I'm pretty sure the score was only based on being detected.

This and Shinobido.

Yeah, but even though Dishonored "yells at you" for killing people, the game does not prevent you from slitting throats and dropping bodies, so the point you're using to qualify MGSV can also be used to excuse pretty much any game that allows you to kill people and that punishes you for doing so.

what are you talking about in Wrath of heaven you need X stealth kills per mission to unlock special moves.

That's the point of this thread.

You can still get Grand Master without killing people though.

I thought he meant without using stealth and just wandering around in plain sight murdering people

The Last of Us has all the elements of a stealth game, but it doesn't penalise you for going in guns blazing, it's just significantly harder to do since you can't carry a lot of ammo.

Human Revolution doesn't so much punish you, as much it rewards you less. Going entirely for non-lethal takedowns earns you more EXP, but you'll earn more than enough EXP just clearing areas with the Pistol. The biggest problem is that the lethal takedown is very noisy, and will alert all the guards in an area. I'm fairly sure everything I just said also applies to Mankind Divided. The only thing you'll miss out on, really, is an achievement for beating the game without killing anyone.

Sure, the "best" ratings in the games are the no-kills 100% stealth Silent Assassin ones, but there's a reason the games give you dual pistols: sometimes you want to say fuck the rating and just take out everyone in front of you.

TLoU's stealth is combat stealth, its a cover based shooter first and anything else second.

Is this bait?

play an immersive sim you dummy

Thanks OP. I've not been feeling too great lately but you've cheered me up a little.

Mark of the Ninja

You get points for kills from stealth, hiding the bodies, causing the guards to freak their shit and open fire on one another, killing mobs with spike mines,The only thing that takes points away is when you get discovered.

Oh, and at the end of level tally screen you could get bonus points for going no kill, but you don't lose any points for killing your way through a level.

I think maybe you're issues is with stealth games prioritizing poorly (or at least boringly) implemented 'silent' melee kills, when stealth games, as opposed to movies, should only allow the use of firearms or actual avoidance. The melee actions in these games only ever serve to throw off the interactions of the other existing mechanics in a way that makes the games typically become less rather than more fun

The point is to be stealthy. Get in, do what you came to do, get out, all without being noticed. If you want a game where where you're able to kill everyone without in-game consequence, why the hell are you playing a genre based on not being noticed?

Fuck this and fuck Kojima for giving a higher score for it.

The people in my way know the score, they aren't innocent, and I am the goddamn ultimate soldier. I get all the tools to just massacre every enemy COMBATANT in my path and when I do so, I'm given a lower score.

Pathetic.

I really think he's talking more about how stealth games keep using the gameplay as a vehicle to push pacifism themes. I can sort of understand though, that rather than games about getting in and out without causing a disturbance, some kind of pseudo-stealth ops were you play as a forerunner for a heavily equipped unit in order to deal with some critical element (stealthily) that is stopping them from charging in guns blazing could be fun. This both circumvents the 'ghost' theme prevalent in splinter cell/hitman and the 'muh war is baaaaaad' themes in every preachy game kojima has made.
The issue would be balancing mechanics so that stealth is still the prevalent gameplay in a fun way and not just some bonus TACTICOOL option that is completely superfluous to actually completing the stage.

There is a good way and a bad way of enforcing stealthy gameplay.

The whole "lets punish the player or try to make him feel guilty for actually using the lethal weapons we gave him" approach is shit. Especially when the pacifist route doesn't encourage ghosting and instead just involves using all the non-lethal alternative weapons. Upon which there is no difference between hiding the corpses and hiding the unconscious guards.

Murdering everyone doesn't mean you can't be stealthy about it, hell if stealth games were to eventually grow a pair and not treat the guards like retards we could get games where guards actually notice when their co-workers have gone missing, making it so the player has to tie up any loose ends for every kill they make.

And why are you not allowed to be stealthy while still murdering everybody? I'd like some other reaction/middle ground between the "everything's fine" and "maximum security scatter the everything" modes we usually see in stealth games.
I'm not sure any games are out there about this specifically, but something where you're a skinwalker or other /k/-brand spookster would fit the stealth-murder aspect people seem to want.
They know something is out there, they just don't know who or what.

The point of being stealthy is because if you're not you will get fucking murdered. If you end all life in the universe, no one is going to notice the bodies :^)

I just hope none of these people have ever complained about any reboot ever especially ones like Tomb Raider, etc which altered the type of game it was initially, because they have the same mentality. "What's wrong with the game changing if it means more people will play it? :)"

The Chronicles of Riddick and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (if you build for stealth) off the top of my head. The list would be longer if you allow games that are less pure-stealth or games of a lower overall quality.

Mark of the Ninja handled this shit pretty well really by sectioning off the non-lethal options into a different character instead of watering down both playstyles.

I don't see it mentioned often, so it might be my mistake, but I'm pretty sure going lethal and noisy spawns more enemies down the line. I've done factory zero runs for Missing Link both as NL/Ghost and fully lethal, and lethal becomes bloody impossible fairly fast while NLG is perfectly manageable.
It does, though I can say that a mainly non lethal ghost approach gives what feels like way too much XP.

While the original Deus Ex isn't a stealth game per se, you can play it stealthy with plenty of silent kill weapons and not get penalized for it. Other than Paul being pissy with you and missing one 9mm clip in the early game, after that the game is pretty much unchanged between kill and no-kill.

Generally you want to go Pistols, Low Tech, or both for stealth, but Rifles can be silenced too, if you're willing to go seek out silencer mods. Oh, and take note that the tranq darts are not actually good for stealth outside of very specific situations, since the enemy you hit won't actually pass out for a few seconds. If they don't have alarms around you can tag them and run, then wait for the tranq to take effect. They won't know where you are, just that you're somewhere, so turn a corner and they usually won't find you until it's too late.

Mark of the Ninja has no qualms about letting you murder every merc in the building. Killing gives more immediate points, but you get a big end of level bonus for not taking out anyone.

If the score doesn't mechanically affect your playthrough, you shouldn't give a fuck.
Load up Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and shank everyone you find. You'll get a shit rating, but it doesn't fucking matter, you autist.

Always fun to just blast everything.
2 had that level where you had to kill the guy in a basement server room. The open lobby at the start was great fun, as it just spawned more civillians and guards every now and then, so you got to massacre everything with the dual ballers, which made everything you shoot fly a thousand feet.

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Non-lethal playstyles exist because generally in stealth games it's harder to knock someone out from behind than it is to headshot them from the shadows

For some reason, in Blood Money, I can't get a Silent Assassin rating in the White House mission. I play it fucking perfectly, yet it only gives me Professional. I don't get it.

This is a case where realism could actually help. In reality, constricting a dude's carotid artery until he passes out would put them under for somewhere between 30 and 90 seconds. If stealth games did this, it would actually make things more interesting.
It would make killing the more convenient option, which paradoxically fits in quite well with the pacifism theme that a lot of new stealth games push. Or, hell, you could just give the option to bind and gag the guards you knock unconscious. Then the number of guards you can nonlethally remove is limited by the number of bindings and gags you carry. Now I want to see a game where you play a BDSM-themed stealth fluid druid.
This already happens. Even NuThief did this, actually.

It doesn't.

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You just reminded me of Invisible Inc., a turn-based tactical stealth game from Klei that has weird ways of handling lethal-nonlethal approaches.

Basically every guard has a heart-rate monitor so if you kill them, the level's alert (basically the timer) bumps up immediately, but at least the guard is removed from play. Nonlethal is a lot more common but if a guard wakes up from getting knocked out (which on normal difficulty is about 3 turns), he'll obviously go on alert and run around searching the whole damn level for you. And if an agent gets caught out in the open with no defense by a guard, they will get shot on the spot and go down. Also, lethal weaponry tends to be expensive and you may wish to spend resources on other options.

Fortunately hardly any morality plays into it. It's all about practicality and player preference.

Yes, you're exactly right user. It's dumb and annoying and hypocritical of the game since it allowed me to kill all those enemies in the first place with the weapons it gave me. If the game didn't want me to kill people, it shouldn't give me a gun that kills people.

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I always find it really weird that people are emotionally invested enough in getting a particular kind of pat on the head at the end of the game that they don't just play it how they want to.

Everything is an emotional investment, user. And when a game whines at the player for playing it in a certain fashion, the emotion in question becomes "annoyed."

Except in a lot of cases it doesn't, and people complain anyway. Dishonored is a good example.

Styx Master of Shadows.There are no non-lethal takedowns. You're a monster going against humans, and it's just accepted you have every right to kill. There are optional bonuses if you non take anyone down, but they are just that, optional.
Sequel is right around the corner, too.

Dishonored does it in a stupid puppydog-eyed way where it makes the world look shittier and gives you bad sad ending to make you feel oh so regretful about murdering a bunch of assholes, and getting a happy glad ending involves not killing a lot of people. It's just passive-aggressive about its disapproval of the player having badwrong fun.

Which is better than most, but it's still a stupid waste of time. Why reward the player (if mostly narratively) for not using a majority of the weapons and abilities the devs created? It makes no sense.

Thing is, dishonored doesn't exactly hand out the high chaos route as soon as you use any of the weapons. You can very well play like a proper assassin, mostly evading guards, kill maybe three or four if they're at an annoying place, and murder the target, and still get low chaos. High chaos specifically needs you to murder a majority of existing NPCs.

Terror mechanic is probably the best shit in that game.

Styx is lethal stealth. You can do it nonlethally and there is a reward for that (and a reward for no detection, a reward for speed, and a reward for all coins - you can't do all of these at the same time anyways), but it isn't expected and you're better off killing your enemies and thoroughly exploring the levels.

I heard good things about it, but never picked it up. Styx: Shards of Darkness comes out in 2 weeks. I'll probably get it.

user if you're going to fucking murder everyone you just have to accept that the main antagonist will call you a cold blooded killer.
I watched your face when you did it. It was filled with the joy of battle. You don't have to deny it. We were created to be that way.

it gives you the choice of killing, and then it makes you out to be the bastard you are when you do it. how is that hypocritical?

Because if the game devs think I shouldn't kill people in the game, then they shouldn't give me the ability to do so. They're the ones who made it possible. They're the ones who coded in weapons and the ability for the enemy to die in the first place.

It was at its dumbest when Undertale did it, and it's definitely not much smarter when other games do it.

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This is retarded. Good design is about giving the player multiple ways to do what he wants. The real problem is when developers chastise you for following one path over another. There should be some negative consequences for nonlethal play every once in a while, too.

wew

Its what Holla Forums has being doing since its inception'
Because they know nazis isn't as much of an insult here as irl, They instead say Holla Forums like its the newest alternative
in reality it just shows that they're retarded

Honestly Holla Forums posts speak for themselves, except in the rare cases of when the posts are so obnoxious you wonder if its just Holla Forums pretending to be them

And that's what this thread is about. It is fine if there is differing consequences for differing modes of play, but a video game shouldn't be moralizing at me, that's just bullshit.

See, that's where you're wrong. A story in which you are the villain is not the writer thinking you shouldn't have done that. It's like you said, they have given you the ability to do so, they made murder possible. How much more strongly should they be saying "go ahead, son" ?
The story going south is just the logical conclusion, not a fucking attack on your moral standing. It's escapism.

like light to roaches

Stop sliding, you nigger.

Of course a game about being a villain should be about acting like a villain and the world responding appropriately (though I can't remember the last game that came out where this actually happened). I'm talking about games where you're a good guy, or at least someone sympathetic who is fighting unsympathetic enemies, yet the game seems to take offense when you shoot the unlikable assholes. They could be terrorists, Communists, or just plain ol' "guys trying to kill you" but it's unreasonable if the plot reacts like I'm a terrible monster for not being a kid-glove-wearing flower-child of love and peace and understanding.

I too like to kill everyone sometimes but apart from Tenchu I can't think of a game that doesn't care or rewards you for it.

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you can save her in high chaos though

Isn't it implied that she becomes a tyrant, though?

You're not wrong, but proper stealth games are rare as fuck.

Castle Wolfenstein. Do whatever the fuck you want, just don't die.

This is my go-to game when I want to go around stealth killing people. You REALLY need to learn the mechanics of stealth like foliage doesn't actually conceal you and it's really unforgiving. It's probably why it's the only game I want to stealth kill in. It's so damn brutal that killing in a necessity, not the easy route. Not to mention you can't move bodies so you have to wait out and pick people off as they drift away from the camp or isolate themselves.

ok

By that logic, Skyrim is a stealth game, and Megaman is a shooter.
Stealth games are about stealth. They demand it, because you will be fucking murdered if you try to Rambo your way through. It doesn't rely on the player's autistic desire to be a sneaky fuck.
The easiest way to tell whether a game that supports sneaking is a stealth game or not is this: Observe what happens when you're caught.
In a game like Dishonored, being caught almost always means that you have to engage in combat, which has its own structure of risks and rewards. In stealth games, being caught generally also results in combat, but it's a punishment–just not a game-over punishment. It's a partial failure state, where you're given a brief window of opportunity to defeat a guard or two and/or run the fuck away and hide. (Shitty "stealth" games, and action games with one-off stealth segments, will just insta-fail when you're caught.)
This improvisational, partial-failure, state is the point of stealth games, and their biggest achievement. It's that makes them unique.

You remember like 25% of the missions in Codename 47 worked on the strategy of "kill absolutely everybody on the map", right? A couple of them wouldn't even let you progress if you didn't, and some Silent Assassin missions encouraged lethal play too

Here's a hint. If you can slaughter everyone effortlessly. Chances are you're playing an action game with optional stealth.

Oh, and here are some other shorthand ways that usually signal that the game you're playing isn't a stealth game:
1. Stealth modes: A stealth game won't have a separate "press this to crouch and therefore be sneaky" mode–again, because the game is about being sneaky. Such a mode is therefore redundant to a stealth game.
2. Detection meters: Generally, stealth games don't have detection meters. Partially that's because detection meters are a relatively new and casualized UI invention, but mostly it's because going undetected is an effect of playing a stealth game properly. By contrast, games with detection meters simply abstract detection into a resource that you need to manage, because they're focused on which "mode" you're in: sneak or fight. Stealth games can signal detection, but usually do this through subtle audio cues instead, and only when a threshold has been crossed (i.e., when you've been spotted, when a guard becomes suspicious), rather than showing the bar gradually fill (with the intent of telling the player to make a decision: either to get behind something or to enter combat).

If they wake up when knocked out, what could stop you from gagging them, binding with rope and tossing somewhere out of the way? Besides ramping artificial difficulty up to make the game seem longer.

I think that should be a thing; see my post here
We could have a stealth game starring a qt BDSM ninja. What a time to be alive.

YOU HAVE TO GO BACK

Styx? You get a higher score if you ghost the levels but you don't get punished for killing.

Fuck next time I need to read the thread

I enjoyed stealth aspect in Banner saga 2, turn invisible, fuck shit up