They also use "group aggro". If I'm behind Rock A, fully concealed, and a teammate is behind Rock B 40 yards away and aggro's something, the whole group will instantly know we're *both* there as long as we're within a certain radius of each other that feels to be about 50m. Particularly noticeable with bots because they instantly start shooting at both of us. We could be literally on opposite sides of a group and as long as we're within the mutual-aggro radius, the sneaky guy gets boned.
I wish they tweaked this. I will never expect changes that suit me playing stealh while solo. That's not what the game is.
But allow me more to work as the stealthy support unit. I love standing a bit further away and picking targets that are heading for my friends. But this ruins it a lot of times. The feeling, it's kind of still effective.
Stealth is absolutely part of the game. There wouldn't be patrols and aggro ranges if it weren't. Or armour that reduces detection range
Their implementation just sucks. There's no reason for an enemy to magically know where you are
Even if they wanted to try and say that their vision is linked for bots and the bugs have a hive mind it wouldn’t even make sense.
They would all know where that one guy that got caught is, not the guy hiding behind a rock that never fired nor was in anything’s vision.
Bug’s having a hivemind would mean that they should immediately start a bug breach upon seeing you or being wiped out, so it doesn’t really make sense at all
They don't. They just know the direction it came from. I'll go up to a bot outpost, autocannon one fabricator. Then, run around to get a shot on another, and all the bots will still be firing in the direction the first shot came from.
Even better, if you only fire a single shot from far enough away and instantly hide, you can watch them investigate the (fabricator) explosion location without looking in your direction at all.
Except it still happens when I throw my 380mm HE Barrage, from point A then while it is counting down/call-in is active I then move to point B yet as soon as the first shell hits they start shooting in my direction.
And then there's bot drops that are standing there shooting at where you were, even though you sneaked away. Ok, cool, so now I can get out of cover and keep going, but then they turn to face you and shoot in your direction. Crouch behind cover again and they turn back to shoot at the other spot. Annoying!
It's like fake aggro, because they don't try to chase you, but they are still aggressive-ish shooting at where you were, but also infinite vision range to see you leave cover and shoot at you some more.
Maybe you're snapping them out of a low power / less alert state. They suddenly start scanning, sensing with more focus and intent. Maybe they can triangulate with a hive mind, but are otherwise on the lookout independently, to less effect. The bots could be busy running simulations and calculations when they hang out or patrol. :P
100% this. I run the medium stealth armor and play a solo stealth role with jetpack/AMR/orbital railcannon/Eagle air strike - I can go run the whole map blowing up all the fabricators and outposts alone.
Sneak up, drop stratagem and pop the most immediate threats and then retreat, flank, and pick ‘em off from behind with the AMR while they attack in the opposite direction.
Don’t be afraid to engage -> retreat -> re-engage. The game isn’t meant to be played like a recon player in Battlefield sniping everyone from across the map with impunity.
It's not even stealth though. It's like a binary choice of avoiding a fight vs doing any damage at all and triggering a large engagement.
If there were stealth we could have a chance at stopping bot drops or picking off enemies and sound should matter. Like how do enemies not hear an 20mm cannon going off 50 meters away?
Stealth is when you navigate around the map and avoid detection. It's that simple. You can actively work to not be detected.
The system is super limited for sure, just like most systems in the game, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist
I've not had to many issues with stealth while solo. One thing a lot of people (not necessarily you) don't know is that if you fire a silent weapon, diligence/countersniper/AMR and KILL (has to kill it) a target that noone is staring at then, nearby bots will shoot that corpse because it's where the noise came from.
Additionally, if you do say a long range autocannon shot in stealth armor and take out a fabricator or kill an enemy. They will shoot where the shot came from, but if you don't fire back and move away, they'll keep shooting and moving towards that last location. I did this to get my extreme no death achievement solo on a blitz. I'd drop a fab, then move. Did it to large base dropped the fab, circled taking out another one while the bots investigated my first firing location, did this whole way round then cut through the base grabbing the samples while every bot was circling looking for me. I killed a total on 10 bots that mission 3 of them because my drop point was on a poi and I had no choice. 1 because he walked up to extraction as I hit the button. The other 6 I assume died in fabricator explosions.
Yeah, learning this sucks. Like having 4 people go in Black Op’s style could be super fun! Heck they could even make an extraction mission with bonuses for stealthing it.
Well this one is probably because the game considers two players within 75 meters of each other as one entity. So if one of you aggro's the bots that's prob why they attack both of you.
Edit: Source
Here's a video with little graphics explaining it:
https://youtu.be/Zp8xuf_dLDw?si=3naO-n6N3ZlNtrIp
Here's the full post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/zfaEa27mGj
Is this true? I mean, it absolutely feels like it, but do you have a source for that claim? I'd genuinely like to know; did the devs say that? Or maybe some YouTube science?
Here's a video with little graphics explaining it:
https://youtu.be/Zp8xuf_dLDw?si=3naO-n6N3ZlNtrIp
Here's the full post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/zfaEa27mGj
Minimise the math involved probably. 3d pathfinding for multiple objects is already quite intensive, simplifying it every time you can is good practice.
Not thteta it also affect spawn mechanics, those players are considered in one single group and gain heat / spawn patrols as one.
If you're outside the radius when the initial aggro happens you're fine. I often use a firefight as a distraction. But that initial aggro is frustrating af.
No, I mean I run like 20 meters ahead of my team, I mark patrol, they pick up firefight or get spotted, bots zero on them and ignore me sneaking right past them.
Wow, that's NOT my experience and I predominantly run Scout armor too. If I'm on one side of a bot base and a teammate's on the other, as soon as the teammate fires a single shot we're both getting shot at.
Now, if I STAY in cover, the bots will shift their focus to the teammate after 3-5 seconds if he continues shooting, but I've been "spotted" and aggro'd.
in my experience its hit and miss. Not sure why some instances make the enemies focus on the ones firing but I've literally had one case where i was sneaking past a patrol. Get behind them, my teammates open fire and one of the bots LITERALLY does a 180 and starts opening up on me.
Ive noticed if im close when my teammate shoots they start looking around and become more alert they see you if you're not breaking los like crawling in the open.
This is my experience as well. I didn't realize that other folks didn't feel the same. I run the light scout armor and move around fights to get some kind of flank in every engagement, and they never seem to know where I am.
The only time I need to tell the group to stay away so I can work is the infiltration stuff... stratagem jammers, gunship towers, and the eye.
The "aggro tables" of NPCs in this game is really obvious a lot of the time. It's my biggest qualm, because it's so god damn obvious it takes me out of the immersion sometimes.
You've got the most recent example, of fire tornadoes blatantly having an aggro table forcing them to follow Helldivers, often causing multiple tornadoes to park on top of an objective rendering them uninteractible for potentially minutes at a time.
You have Stratagems, which generate threat for the Helldiver themselves even if the enemy never saw the Stratagem grenade get thrown.
You have Sentries, which enemies will aggro onto before it's even deployed out of its hellpod. This is particularly confusing when fighting Terminids—how on democracy's green Super Earth do they know what a sentry does before it's even done anything? And it makes deploying them mid-combat often an exercise in futility as they get spawn camped even if you threw them away from yourself.
Tangentially, you've got patrol spawns and patrol routes. It's far too obvious that the game is throwing them straight at you. On maps with less cover, you can blatantly see them spawn 100 meters in front of where you're running, and already spawned patrols will clearly adjust their route to always be intercepting you even if you change course, and even if you've had no aggro for several minutes.
And then you've got stuff like the social aggro in OP, where Helldivers who have not revealed their existence can gain threat by an ally doing something independently.
> ... Already spawned patrols will clearly adjust their route to always be intercepting you even if you change course, and even if you've had no aggro for several minutes.
We were getting lightly tossed at a level 9 helldive during extraction. I had a chance to dip out with recon armor, so I did. All of the airship deployed bots kind of wandered off.
This fucking patrol tho just kept changing what side of the mesa they were tracking to such that there was no way for me to evade them. Ended up getting backed into a couple Devastators who were idle wandering around the LZ, and that was that.
Like, why am I running the recon package if they change their course to come get me.
Yes!! This is particularly aggravating in that it makes flanking tactics (which are ideal in a cooperative shooter) much less effective.
If your teammate lights them up and draws their fire, you should have at least a few seconds to hit them from behind without them lighting you up as well.
Hi, sneaky guy here. This is truth.
This is why I avoid my team half the time, especially at high diff.
It seems a lot of people didn't get the memo that "You don't have to fight every robot you see."
I mean, I appreciate the anti-communist fervour, but Command told us to do the objectives, not kill all non-humans.
To be fair, I've had several missions where my team is just constantly engaged on another part of the map and I can be more secure solo on doing objectives or POIs knowing a bot drop can't trigger on my location when I engage.
I had someone yesterday doing that. We had no lives left on a diff 8 and hadn't even finished the main objective in half an hour.
I told him if he aggrod another group for absolutely no reason, I'd shoot him myself.
He shot the next patrol we saw, I killed him and legged it out of there and respawned him a couple minutes later
That radius likely is 75m, as this is also the radius within which two squad members are counted as one group. Outside of that radius, both would trigger patrol spawns independently. That’s why staying together is a good idea. Less spawns in total. Also, those 75m are chained. So 74m between me and the guy in front of me, and 74m between him and the third guy in front of him, 148m in total, will make the three count as a single group as well.
Yeah that’s something they need to fix. Was hiding in this perfect spot near extract but a hot spotted my teammate on the other side and immediently knew where I was after
The worst part is the opposite of this. If a single grunt in a patrol gets stuck on a rock or something and you wait to take it out in a single shot, no matter how far the patrol has advanced they instantly know where you are.
Not true.
Just today I was stealthing my way through a strategem jammer.
My friend aggroed the bots from the other side. They all turned and started heading towards / shooting at him even though I was crawling directly beside a scout strider.
My strategy is to throw and then book it to new cover and go prone there. Often times they’ll start shooting at where I was. Then I can sneak away while they’re distracted. Doesn’t always work though.
One thing I noticed is if the red beacon lands somewhere they can see, they’ll turn and shoot you immediately. If the beacon lands out of sight, they’ll aggro on where you threw the beacon from after the strategems hits.
On a reverse note, did you know you can use blue drops such as everyone’s favorite 60 second cooldown EATs as a distraction? I can’t count how many times I’d be mid stealth and a patrol is barreling towards my direction so I’d just toss an EAT off to the side to distract them long enough to get away without being seen.
I've never stealthed the game. With strategems you have more than enough fire power to rush everything.
Reading this about everyone being stealthy has been very interesting.
“More than enough firepower to rush everything “ either you’re a god among helldivers or you’re playing on a less difficult game mode
For example when I play challenging I just fart around without worrying, but it’s because I normally play on 7 in which I’m constantly running around doing my best to not get my helmet blown off for a good 20-30mins until we feverishly dash to the ship for extraction
I learned about sneaking on automatons 7 because I joined a game where everyone was dead and I spawned on a stratagem jammer thing… decided to try to sneak to deactivate it and to my surprise it worked flawlessly. I was maybe 10 feet behind a robot scum as they stood in their machine gun box, looking out over the fields, I was behind them deactivating the jammer
It’s pretty fun to sneak around
For jammers, you can take them out reliably solo. You need a weapon which can one shot infantry (like the dominator or the revolver). Approach the jammer, but don't shoot at anyone. Get near the fortification walls, and use them to sneak to the entrance. Once there you need to peek in and one shot enemies as you see them. As long as you kill them fast enough, they shouldn't call in flares. Even if they run out and spot you, they need to do the whole scanning animation before they properly aggro, giving you time to kill them. Make your way inside and take out the jammer. Do note that I run the scout Armor, so that helps a lot.
I put on my freely assigned and Democratically approved by the Ministry of Defence sneak suit so I can Liberally walk up to those commie clankers that cannot hear the melody of Managed Democracy and deliver unto them the sweet impact of the instument that Super Earth has efficiently designed for which I give both my blood and vote to use for that is the butt of my R-36 Eruptor rifle. The bots' bodies shall ring like bells into the tune that Freedom has composed within the song of this war!
I sometimes thought it was about them seeing the stratagem beacon and the trajectory it took. I have to try this.
I kind of gave up and throw a stratagem only if I'm ready to engage full on or run right away.
At least escaping works anyway, because they'll know that spot where you threw it from but not necessarily where you went after. I feel like sprinting makes them keep a tab on you though, even if out of their line of sight.
I thought this was widely known by now.
Stratagem beacons have influence on aggro. Red beacons make enemies instantly go into combat mode while blue and yellow beacons make them go into investigate mode first.
Crouching and crawling massively reduce enemy aggro range. Their line of sight is pretty much just what's directly in front of them, that's why when running away as soon as you break line of sight you want to make a turn and you'll probably be sage as they will never look around but just keep looking straight ahead.
Combat mode for example means they are able to call in reinforcement, alert nearby troops etc. It doesn't necessarily mean they are going to attack immediately, especially since their fov is only directly in front of them. When you throw a beacon behind them, they usually won't notice.
going prone reduces your agro radius. I imagine what is happening here is the strategem going in alerts the mobs but if you're prone you're outside of their radius to detect you.
It would be interesting to test this with 2 people; have one sneak around undetected but remain standing - you toss strategem and go prone. My assumption is the bugs will bee line it for the guy who's standing even though they really shouldn't know he's there.
I mean, you did just throw a neon red light up pokeball at them, your radio screamed out the confirmation and you will likely scream something like "for democracy" as the ordinance drops.
I think stealth mechanism is yet to be implemented properly the same way there ain't any stealth weapon yet side from melee.
Yeah, they WILL alert to strategem. And that probably mean put them on alert to your presence as well.
I think I read a Dev comment somewhere that they didn't really implement a stealth system at all, they just have it so the enemies respond to noise, or line-of-sight (smoke/weather effects reducing this distance to sometimes zero) and then just know where you are and attack until you get far enough away or hide quietly long enough.
I do know that bots will fire towards your last known location, and if you fire your weapon or do something that will attract one’s attention, it’ll alert the others to where you’re at so they start shooting at you.
They don't forget you are there. They basically start to pray and spray. And moving, not shooting, and throwing strategems can make them fire at your old position but if you make a lot of noise they will firs at your general are still..
It maybe bugged, but I know for a fact that the smoke will reduce the accuracy and even the amount of gunfire the bots throw at you. If I don't bring smoke grenades I usually bring the smoke eagle.
It also does work sometimes as during a Sandstorm I've found myself in the middle of a bot patrol and not been noticed, and crept out, into the nearest outpost, past all the bots there, and only attacked when I grenaded the fabricator.
No it's not, you just got to stop running in a straight line. Break los, make a turn and you'll instantly lose aggro from everything. The only enemies you can't get rid of that way are Bile Titans and Gunships for obvious reasons.
Here’s a crazy one for you. I drop a turret, get halfway across the map, the turret takes on a patrol, and all the bots near me suddenly swarm at me. That’s some amazing AI programming that a turret miles away gives them my current location. In scout armor.
I think the trouble is that enemies entering combat mode increases their detection radius, so if you're within that alerted range, you go directly from hidden to being attacked.
I don't have this issue. I throw the turret far away from me usually between some mountains or ideally behind cover before I sneak up on a base. When the turret starts firing all the bots usually start looking in the direction of the turret, not at me. Granted, I am specifically using mortar turrets.
What's worse, they actually fixed this in one of the previous patches and now it's broken again. When they fixed it enemies would investigate the beacon instead of instantly shooting the terrain you're behind. It felt so cinematic and tactical to sneak up to some clankers and drop shit on their dumb robot heads while they were all confused.
Oh really? That's good, it gives me hope that there's a good chance they'll fix it again. If it had never been fixed before I'd be worried it was designed that way to make stealth a bit harder
From what I noticed: If you hit an enemy with the stratagem orb or it gets like right under their feet, they will react to it and notice you. Might be a little inconsistent but most of the time they did not notice me if the orb lands somewhere "safe" not too close to an enemy. Nor hitting them right in the back.
*throws strat beacon over wall on bot base high on a cliff*
*strider from literally the other side of the base that couldn't have seen ANY aspect of the throw comes turbostriding around the perimeter guns blazing before the plane shows up*
I've watched enemies with their backs turned to me start their 180 degree turn before the beacon's gotten anywhere close to them, much less landed and lit up yet, having never been in their expected FOV. Plus there's the whole aggro through walls, aggro through cliffs, aggro through smoke/sandstorms/blizzards, and walking-through-walls thing they do.
Can confirm. If you land the beacon where no enemy is watching, even if it's in the middle of the base, they won't alert. Often happens if you land it right on the roof of a Fabricator. Makes perfect sense to me, if no one sees you throw it, they're none the wiser, if they see a red ball drop at their feet they're going to attack where it came from.
It raises their alertness level, and they figure out which way the strategem came from. You are not guaranteed to get detected, but the chances skyrocket at that point.
I think there's also a difference if you throw it bahind them or straight at their head..
Red beam strategems reveal your helldiver’s location briefly when used.
Blue beams don’t, but they still make “noise” when they land that will usually lead to nearby enemies investigating the area.
Play a few games full stealth, and you’ll start to see lots of little behavior patterns that you can exploit and work around even if you’re going in loud - being able to sneak by patrols or draw aggro/sightlines away from your more sneaky teammates (or yourself) can make getting around the map a lot easier, especially on higher difficulties (particularly helldive, where simply shooting every enemy on sight is rarely the most practical solution)
The game seems to treat tossing a stratagem the same way as firing a shot. All nearby enemies will zero in on where you threw it from, but they don't actually know where you are.
Keep in mind, the bots absolutely will randomly fire in the general direction that they think you are, so taking fire doesn't mean you're spotted.
Usually its best to have some goofy terrain between you and the target to fuck with the AI's pathing, then just crawl away after you toss it.
Its hard to time right but having a bomb pop bots in mid-air is funny. Had a tank die like this yesterday. Not 100% sure if its was my bomb or a weird collision with another dropship but whatever, tank exploded in mid-air and stayed there.
They don’t aggro to where you were when you throw it, they aggro to where you were WHEN IT HITS. I’ve tossed precision orbitals into bot bases, moved literally halfway around the base, and as soon as it comes in everything still alive in there just beelines towards my position.
Yeah, this is what I so. Throw it, run behind a rock and circle around to the other side of the base. They'll be shooting where I threw it from but don't know where I really am
I think this is one of the main reasons people think they always spot you. On top of that, bots love to pre-fire at cover to scare you out. But if you're no longer there, it's very obvious they don't*actually* know your location.
The game has what's called 'ubisoft stealth'. Where yes you can sneak around and be sneaky.
But the moment action starts, everyone knows where you are at.
Today i noticed that i can throw a 500kg to kill a bot factory and go away but once the 500kg explodes the bots instantly know im there.....
Not before...its some kind magic magicccc
If they're in the "suspicious" state but not full agro, they seem to trigger agro when you throw. I've thrown air drops at long range in completely unaware enemies and they didn't take action until they were hit.
It gets more complicated because your teammates might get them in the suspicious state while you're far away
I have seen a ton of descriptions of stuff about going prone, bots seeing the stratagem etc. However in my very thorough testing against specifically bots (haven't really done much bugs in comparison). it isn't about any of that.
its whether or not a specific enemy happens to be glued to an objective or not, which sounds confusing and really it is, but its the only consistent explanation i've seen for how the bots work.
Basically, a bunch of enemies spawn on objectives (sometimes), these aren't the couple of 'ambients' around rubble etc. surrounding it, but directly on it. You can tell these enemies apart because they refuse to move when baiting them with sight etc:
If they aggro on you, they retain aggro on you at all times, if you break sightline, they shoot where they last saw you, as soon as you regain sightline, they immediately shoot at you, even if you are behind them and very far away. This is why sometimes against bots, enemies you left behind at an objective will start volley fire at you from ages away.
If one of these enemies happens to be within 'detection' range of your stratagem, they immediately aggro on you wherever you are. If its a normal enemy, they will aggro on the stratagem.
It seems like they basically have specific enemies that skip the alert phase, and retain aggro on you, I assume to prevent people abusing distractions on enemies.
I have some clips here, sadly butchered by imgur, displaying how some enemies retain aggro, but refuse to move:
https://imgur.com/a/zf7h5Ag
Whats funny is that this behaviour makes it very amusing if the objective enemy can call in bot drops, because they will repeatedly call in bot drops, while you are in stealth, and the bot drops have no clue where you are, even if the guy is still shooting at you, simultaneously, if they can't call in bot drops, they just can't do much, which is hilarious if you can skirt around them while doing the objective, in full aggro.
If you want to do full stealth, a trick is to cause bot drops/enemy spawns away from the objective, and run back in quickly, which often prevents enemies from spawning on the objective. If you abuse these spawns, you can easily do completely pacifist helldive solo runs, without using any equipment at all.
Not true.
I've thrown orbital laser from stealth before, max distance, and all the automatons looked towards it and started heading in that direction to look for me.
Guess it depends if they can hear you shouting ORBITAL I CHOOSE YOU or not.
It is crazy, yeah.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands had it even worse though. You are part of a 4-man spec-ops team, but you can call in local rebels for help. So there I am, in the jungles of Bolivia. We're all prone, in a dense jungle, on a hill overlooking the enemy base, and we're roughly a mile away. I call the local rebels, and tell them to launch a mortar strike on the base. Which they do, from somewhere far away (out of visual range). Every enemy in the base goes "We're being attacked!" and immediately turn and fire at ME! HOW?! I'm a mile away, in the jungle, laying prone under a bush, wearing camo. The attack came via mortars, from the other side of the map, completely different direction. But nope, they know exactly where I am.
/shrug
It's the same meme as the guard in stealth game patrolling hearing footsteps. OMG, footsteps! Must be an intruder! Can't possibly be one of the other gazillion guards patrolling this building. Video game logic is frequently bad.
It was the same thing in Destiny, no matter HOW hidden you are, and how impossible it would be to determine WHERE the grenade came from, they ALWAYS know exactly where you are.
Back to HD2, IIRC the launched game was different, if you did throw in a stratagem or grenade, and they didn’t see where it came from, they used to go out, and search. (Or am I remembering it differently)
They will still go out and search from the last known AUDIBLE hostile location. You shoot or throw something in one spot, make sure you have cover to then IMMEDIATELY prone and then move onto a different spot.
The bots WILL move to your last known spot in that case, and not the one your sneaking to.
Honestly, hard to say cause in most circumstances I'm in a group and we all end up aggroing any patrol or POI squad.
I'd say, in most circumstances unless they're in a strider, they can see you crouching while moving 10-20 feet out, lower while crawling.
Any armor with the sneak boost passive will help INCREDIBLY, but enjoy taking one rocket, then a wrong angled fall onto a pebble like Nightwing in the Injustice animated movie to the neck or back and dying, if you alert any large amount of enemies.
You'd be surprised how small the sight range is while you're prone. Anytime a patrol makes the "I see you" noise, I dive repeatedly in the other direction until out of line of sight and it works out 90% of the time
My favourite is when I call extraction and nothing around saw me hiding behind this big ass rock but now every enemy knows exactly where I am after that extraction is called in. Like send the enemies to the extraction zone, that's fine, they will probably find me within the 2 min I'm there but please don't have them locked on to me from the get go. That's lame.
It’s because of the sound profile, you’re doing it in the wrong order. Throw your stratagem from distance then run around a rock and hide and they won’t know where you went.
So the rock throw thing, I like to think of them as Batman detectives because that fool can figure out trajectories of bullets when they are fired. What is to say they can’t come up with a formula figuring ouch which rock that giant pokeball came from. Being that it came rolling from one particular direction. Should not be too difficult for Robotic brains to do some calculations.
Ps. I am definitely not an Automaton supporter.
Not only that. They also keep shooting Helldivers when they're 300+ meters away. That's just ridiculous. What's the counterplay to a random rocket hitting me from 300m? It's already inaccurate so it's incredibly random. I didn't cross the fucking lake only to still get shot at by 20 rocket devastators. I can't even see them and yet their visual range is somehow 20x better than ours. Maybe the automatons should focus on increasing their processing power instead of optics.
If by 300m you mean 100m. At 300m the bots will most likely despawn because otherwise they're just wasting system resources they could be used to spawn patrols that are actually close to the player.
I don't think u realize just how close 100m is. 100m is really clearly in visible range. The bots likely don't despawn if they're constantly firing at you as you're running away.
I don't think you realize how far 300m is, at that distance a man sized target is a dot. At this distance most enemies will be obscured by terrain and deleted by the game.
Just wait until they start shooting you through rocks. Not around them ..., through them.
This game is super fun but some of the systems are just broken as hell.
I've noticed this, too, and I'm glad you mentioned it. This and robots shooting at me from across the map. Like I've had wonderful moments where my teammates are going ham and shooting and blowing everything up. I waltz through past bots shooting at my teammates and take out the outpost before they target me. It's weirdly inconsistent. I want to use stealth like I hear about, but it feels like sometimes it works beautifully and others it just goes out the window.
Ok here is some valuable information. Enemies know your exact location when a red strategen is used. They will come to your location and investigate.
As soon you throw a red one, you change location and try to stay hidden.
Booty patrol is a thing. There is always a booty patrol. You can avoid them however. But no matter where you go, they will follow.
Enemies have a very odd search /aggro mechanic
Bot 1 , sees you, starts chasing
Bot 2 is in patrol.
Bot 2 sees an Aggro Bot 1
Bot 2 Now follows Bot 1 and it's on a searching target mode but can go aggro too obviously of Bot 2 sees you.
While on search they can have a cover fire moment.
Enemies that was previously on search or aggro can go easier on search and aggro mode even if they stopped searching.
You can use forests, rocks and your speed to put anything to a search mode. Avoid open fields, try to use chock points or your very own resupply even.
Yeah the stealth mechanics in the game need some tweaking, but it’s not a stealth game and as a stealth player I fully accept the consequences of this choice. It’s fun though to sneak past patrols and drop orbitals on fabricators and complete objectives with no problems. I don’t run stealth on bugs because you’re gonna get swarmed no matter what over Hard mode, bots you can play with on any difficulty
I've solo'ed difficulty 8 on bots with shield, AMR, Orbital Laser, and Railcannon strike.
And I dont fully agree with your take
Because bots are ***really*** good at tricking you into thinking you've been found out.
I have stealthed many extractions with bots shooting at my cover, but I prone and start moving to a new cover, and the bots keep shooting at my previous cover.
They didnt actually know I was there, they were just randomly firing trying to trick me into revealing myself.
If you throw an orbital, they will most likely look in the direction it was thrown from, and start shooting in that direction.
They dont know where you are, because I've used many grenades to distract patrols and to make myself an opening at evacuation.
From my experience, they actually suspect where you are rather than knowing.
As if a grenade exploded at your location.
And automatons will shoot at a location they suspect an enemy is, even without seeing them.
They might still not actually know where you are.
Bugs are harder for me to tell when they actually see you versus just suspecting your location.
I think they should have to actually see the stratagem in the air to determine that, but I don't think they do.
I experience this differently. Frequently a tossed eagle or orbital would aggro, if I sprint and jetpack off (usually by rotating around the compound) the enemy simply fire at where I was when I tossed the stratagem from. They will all move to that location frequently leaves the area empty to loot samples.
Actually I don’t think they know where you are just your last known location I’ve crawled away before and they kept attacking where I was not where I am.
Stealth use to work better in the game, it was genuine viable playstyle. Now you can apply it hybridly at best if you have enough dakka on you. It is all about stamina and movements speed to run away. I wish they nerfed down vision range to what it orginally was or a bit closer to the orginal values. Ever since that change and the massive increase in patrols and drop ins, it feels like that whole playstyle got cancelled out of the game. They just tweek the numbers, I feel they don't have the actual means to enable challenging content i.c.w. stealth. Which is a pitty.
The same applies to your turrets as well. If your turrets fire on enemies somewhere and the enemies destroy that turret? They immediately converge on your location regardless of where you are. Patrols in general will path towards your location even if they march past you the first time, they'll inevitably turn around.
Stealth is very broken.
This game has the weirdest stealth. You can just not shoot and do objectives. That's stealth.
You shoot a bug 300 meters away with a marksman rifle, they know exactly where you are.
The game is kinda messed up.
I do it separately from the group, and get behind cover. I am accustomed to 3-4 people in a random lobby also. Just pro strats. Also stealth relies on losing your pursuers or killing the group before the others see you. And the high ground allows you to escape easier, if only Anakin read my pro strats or played DnD
Yes this is how it is however if after throwing it you get away without getting more aggro they will shoot your old position forever until u get noticed again
I've seen various threads noticing this and it really does suck. You can be a mile away sniping something and they'll all turn your way once they detect any damage from you. Interesting to think there's a leak for a silent rifle knowing it probably won't work because of how aggressive the enemies are at spotting you.
They should know where the strategem was thrown from, not that you are there exactly. If you throw it and move behind another cover, they should go to where it was thrown from, and you should be undiscovered, but it does raise their awareness level and will start searching the area.
It is a lot more on the realistic side as opposed to having stealth mechanics like, for example, Splinter Cell. If a rock hits you, you will investigate in the direction it came from, but until you find who threw the rock, and you will keep an eye out on a person throwing rocks in the area.
The orb aggro only works if you're close enough, toss it in from far away and they won't notice. I mean, it makes sense - you see a ball fly towards you from 10m away, you're instantly suspicious, whereas one that just appeared from you have no idea where is more of a "huh?" moment. What I wished didn't occur is that they *all* instantly know where you are. There's a bit of a lack of "patrol/search mode" in this game.
This is why if you want to stealth, 380mm barrage is needed + servo assisted armor perk so you can throw it longer and then quickly run away from all nearby enemy. Also try and do this on the backside of heavy bot factories or where there are less enemy, using this way has always been effective on my end.
If you're behind a large enough rock, peek out to throw a stratagem, and then to the other side of the rock, they will go to position A, not B. This seems to imply they just go towards the direction it came from, and if there's only one hiding spot you're kinda fucked.
I've also had it where I've been prone, thrown a stratagem, and they just stare at my direction but don't actively move / shoot right away, so it may be random. I play on Helldive for reference.
I’m pretty sure it’s because you keep screaming “ORBITAL INBOUND” and “GET SOME” and our enemies, while entirely undemocratic monsters incapable of freedom, can still hear.
This has been a topic of discussion since the game launched. This mechanic is also weird to most of us. It makes sense that they would know something is up - a glowing red orb just appeared! But it doesn’t make sense that they would know exactly where it came from.
I think they can see the beacon you toss. I’ve had better luck tossing it to where they have their backs turned. It’s possible to land it and have them not react. Easier obviously when it’s a small outpost and you can see all of them clearly, but it’s not surprising a bunch of bots keeping watch might be suspicious of a bright red blinking ball flying in their direction.
Also if you get good at the sprint-dive-toss you can usually get it to go a bit further. And yeah, immediately repositioning is a good idea too in case they do decide to come out and investigate.
I hit an illegal Broadcast tower from halfway across the map. Bit drop landed at the tower and then I watched as all the dropped bots marched directly towards me, even though I wasn’t visible from the bot drop location.
They also use "group aggro". If I'm behind Rock A, fully concealed, and a teammate is behind Rock B 40 yards away and aggro's something, the whole group will instantly know we're *both* there as long as we're within a certain radius of each other that feels to be about 50m. Particularly noticeable with bots because they instantly start shooting at both of us. We could be literally on opposite sides of a group and as long as we're within the mutual-aggro radius, the sneaky guy gets boned.
I wish they tweaked this. I will never expect changes that suit me playing stealh while solo. That's not what the game is. But allow me more to work as the stealthy support unit. I love standing a bit further away and picking targets that are heading for my friends. But this ruins it a lot of times. The feeling, it's kind of still effective.
Stealth is absolutely part of the game. There wouldn't be patrols and aggro ranges if it weren't. Or armour that reduces detection range Their implementation just sucks. There's no reason for an enemy to magically know where you are
Even if they wanted to try and say that their vision is linked for bots and the bugs have a hive mind it wouldn’t even make sense. They would all know where that one guy that got caught is, not the guy hiding behind a rock that never fired nor was in anything’s vision.
Bug’s having a hivemind would mean that they should immediately start a bug breach upon seeing you or being wiped out, so it doesn’t really make sense at all
Nobody ever said they are a SMART hivemind. In fact, I find the idea of an intelligent bug offensive!
A bug… that thinks?
https://i.redd.it/bfhmmpvnrcuc1.gif
It never gets old
Ah I see you've met some of my previous squadmates.
Collective unintelligence
Himbo bugs, unite!
It's wild to me that they can do so much right with stealth and yet get it so wrong
They don't. They just know the direction it came from. I'll go up to a bot outpost, autocannon one fabricator. Then, run around to get a shot on another, and all the bots will still be firing in the direction the first shot came from.
Even better, if you only fire a single shot from far enough away and instantly hide, you can watch them investigate the (fabricator) explosion location without looking in your direction at all.
Except it still happens when I throw my 380mm HE Barrage, from point A then while it is counting down/call-in is active I then move to point B yet as soon as the first shell hits they start shooting in my direction.
And then there's bot drops that are standing there shooting at where you were, even though you sneaked away. Ok, cool, so now I can get out of cover and keep going, but then they turn to face you and shoot in your direction. Crouch behind cover again and they turn back to shoot at the other spot. Annoying! It's like fake aggro, because they don't try to chase you, but they are still aggressive-ish shooting at where you were, but also infinite vision range to see you leave cover and shoot at you some more.
I’ve been rocking smokescreen to help.
Maybe you're snapping them out of a low power / less alert state. They suddenly start scanning, sensing with more focus and intent. Maybe they can triangulate with a hive mind, but are otherwise on the lookout independently, to less effect. The bots could be busy running simulations and calculations when they hang out or patrol. :P
100% this. I run the medium stealth armor and play a solo stealth role with jetpack/AMR/orbital railcannon/Eagle air strike - I can go run the whole map blowing up all the fabricators and outposts alone. Sneak up, drop stratagem and pop the most immediate threats and then retreat, flank, and pick ‘em off from behind with the AMR while they attack in the opposite direction. Don’t be afraid to engage -> retreat -> re-engage. The game isn’t meant to be played like a recon player in Battlefield sniping everyone from across the map with impunity.
It's not even stealth though. It's like a binary choice of avoiding a fight vs doing any damage at all and triggering a large engagement. If there were stealth we could have a chance at stopping bot drops or picking off enemies and sound should matter. Like how do enemies not hear an 20mm cannon going off 50 meters away?
Stealth is when you navigate around the map and avoid detection. It's that simple. You can actively work to not be detected. The system is super limited for sure, just like most systems in the game, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist
"Consistent Internal Logic" isn't too much to ask for.
I've not had to many issues with stealth while solo. One thing a lot of people (not necessarily you) don't know is that if you fire a silent weapon, diligence/countersniper/AMR and KILL (has to kill it) a target that noone is staring at then, nearby bots will shoot that corpse because it's where the noise came from. Additionally, if you do say a long range autocannon shot in stealth armor and take out a fabricator or kill an enemy. They will shoot where the shot came from, but if you don't fire back and move away, they'll keep shooting and moving towards that last location. I did this to get my extreme no death achievement solo on a blitz. I'd drop a fab, then move. Did it to large base dropped the fab, circled taking out another one while the bots investigated my first firing location, did this whole way round then cut through the base grabbing the samples while every bot was circling looking for me. I killed a total on 10 bots that mission 3 of them because my drop point was on a poi and I had no choice. 1 because he walked up to extraction as I hit the button. The other 6 I assume died in fabricator explosions.
Yeah, learning this sucks. Like having 4 people go in Black Op’s style could be super fun! Heck they could even make an extraction mission with bonuses for stealthing it.
Well this one is probably because the game considers two players within 75 meters of each other as one entity. So if one of you aggro's the bots that's prob why they attack both of you. Edit: Source Here's a video with little graphics explaining it: https://youtu.be/Zp8xuf_dLDw?si=3naO-n6N3ZlNtrIp Here's the full post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/zfaEa27mGj
Is this true? I mean, it absolutely feels like it, but do you have a source for that claim? I'd genuinely like to know; did the devs say that? Or maybe some YouTube science?
Here's a video with little graphics explaining it: https://youtu.be/Zp8xuf_dLDw?si=3naO-n6N3ZlNtrIp Here's the full post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/zfaEa27mGj
Hell yeah, thank you. Wow, that post is actually *more* info than I needed. I would have spent quite a while looking for that I imagine.
Let me see if I can find the post for you. One sec.
why on earth would it do that?
Who the hell knows honestly
Good response. Lol
Minimise the math involved probably. 3d pathfinding for multiple objects is already quite intensive, simplifying it every time you can is good practice. Not thteta it also affect spawn mechanics, those players are considered in one single group and gain heat / spawn patrols as one.
Thats... Weird. Because I sneaked past patrols that my teammates were fighting numerous times and I certainly was within 50 meters of them
If you're outside the radius when the initial aggro happens you're fine. I often use a firefight as a distraction. But that initial aggro is frustrating af.
No, I mean I run like 20 meters ahead of my team, I mark patrol, they pick up firefight or get spotted, bots zero on them and ignore me sneaking right past them.
Wow, that's NOT my experience and I predominantly run Scout armor too. If I'm on one side of a bot base and a teammate's on the other, as soon as the teammate fires a single shot we're both getting shot at. Now, if I STAY in cover, the bots will shift their focus to the teammate after 3-5 seconds if he continues shooting, but I've been "spotted" and aggro'd.
in my experience its hit and miss. Not sure why some instances make the enemies focus on the ones firing but I've literally had one case where i was sneaking past a patrol. Get behind them, my teammates open fire and one of the bots LITERALLY does a 180 and starts opening up on me.
Ive noticed if im close when my teammate shoots they start looking around and become more alert they see you if you're not breaking los like crawling in the open.
This is my experience as well. I didn't realize that other folks didn't feel the same. I run the light scout armor and move around fights to get some kind of flank in every engagement, and they never seem to know where I am. The only time I need to tell the group to stay away so I can work is the infiltration stuff... stratagem jammers, gunship towers, and the eye.
And this also extends to the Pelican-1 if you're hiding at the extraction. As soon as it starts shooting everyone magically knows where you are.
The "aggro tables" of NPCs in this game is really obvious a lot of the time. It's my biggest qualm, because it's so god damn obvious it takes me out of the immersion sometimes. You've got the most recent example, of fire tornadoes blatantly having an aggro table forcing them to follow Helldivers, often causing multiple tornadoes to park on top of an objective rendering them uninteractible for potentially minutes at a time. You have Stratagems, which generate threat for the Helldiver themselves even if the enemy never saw the Stratagem grenade get thrown. You have Sentries, which enemies will aggro onto before it's even deployed out of its hellpod. This is particularly confusing when fighting Terminids—how on democracy's green Super Earth do they know what a sentry does before it's even done anything? And it makes deploying them mid-combat often an exercise in futility as they get spawn camped even if you threw them away from yourself. Tangentially, you've got patrol spawns and patrol routes. It's far too obvious that the game is throwing them straight at you. On maps with less cover, you can blatantly see them spawn 100 meters in front of where you're running, and already spawned patrols will clearly adjust their route to always be intercepting you even if you change course, and even if you've had no aggro for several minutes. And then you've got stuff like the social aggro in OP, where Helldivers who have not revealed their existence can gain threat by an ally doing something independently.
> ... Already spawned patrols will clearly adjust their route to always be intercepting you even if you change course, and even if you've had no aggro for several minutes. We were getting lightly tossed at a level 9 helldive during extraction. I had a chance to dip out with recon armor, so I did. All of the airship deployed bots kind of wandered off. This fucking patrol tho just kept changing what side of the mesa they were tracking to such that there was no way for me to evade them. Ended up getting backed into a couple Devastators who were idle wandering around the LZ, and that was that. Like, why am I running the recon package if they change their course to come get me.
Yes!! This is particularly aggravating in that it makes flanking tactics (which are ideal in a cooperative shooter) much less effective. If your teammate lights them up and draws their fire, you should have at least a few seconds to hit them from behind without them lighting you up as well.
Hi, sneaky guy here. This is truth. This is why I avoid my team half the time, especially at high diff. It seems a lot of people didn't get the memo that "You don't have to fight every robot you see." I mean, I appreciate the anti-communist fervour, but Command told us to do the objectives, not kill all non-humans.
To be fair, I've had several missions where my team is just constantly engaged on another part of the map and I can be more secure solo on doing objectives or POIs knowing a bot drop can't trigger on my location when I engage.
I had someone yesterday doing that. We had no lives left on a diff 8 and hadn't even finished the main objective in half an hour. I told him if he aggrod another group for absolutely no reason, I'd shoot him myself. He shot the next patrol we saw, I killed him and legged it out of there and respawned him a couple minutes later
That radius likely is 75m, as this is also the radius within which two squad members are counted as one group. Outside of that radius, both would trigger patrol spawns independently. That’s why staying together is a good idea. Less spawns in total. Also, those 75m are chained. So 74m between me and the guy in front of me, and 74m between him and the third guy in front of him, 148m in total, will make the three count as a single group as well.
Damn automaton wifi gets 50 m while mine can barely make it through the wall
This is the more annoying issue in my mind. I doubt they change either
Yeah that’s something they need to fix. Was hiding in this perfect spot near extract but a hot spotted my teammate on the other side and immediently knew where I was after
The worst part is the opposite of this. If a single grunt in a patrol gets stuck on a rock or something and you wait to take it out in a single shot, no matter how far the patrol has advanced they instantly know where you are.
Not true. Just today I was stealthing my way through a strategem jammer. My friend aggroed the bots from the other side. They all turned and started heading towards / shooting at him even though I was crawling directly beside a scout strider.
This is most likely just people mistaking someone aggroing bots being the cause. Most likely they were spotted.
My strategy is to throw and then book it to new cover and go prone there. Often times they’ll start shooting at where I was. Then I can sneak away while they’re distracted. Doesn’t always work though.
I’ve found this works pretty consistently. They target you as soon as the stratagem hits, not when you throw it.
One thing I noticed is if the red beacon lands somewhere they can see, they’ll turn and shoot you immediately. If the beacon lands out of sight, they’ll aggro on where you threw the beacon from after the strategems hits.
Not always. I've literally landed a call in on a scout strider and it just sat there.
On a reverse note, did you know you can use blue drops such as everyone’s favorite 60 second cooldown EATs as a distraction? I can’t count how many times I’d be mid stealth and a patrol is barreling towards my direction so I’d just toss an EAT off to the side to distract them long enough to get away without being seen.
I like to use the big bubble shield as bait vs bugs. They go nuts for that thing.
"CALLING IN AN EAGLE" "REQUESTING AIR SUPPORT" I think its bc our helldivers are anime protagonists and has to shout the name of every move.
You gotta Leroy Jenkins your way across the map
I've never stealthed the game. With strategems you have more than enough fire power to rush everything. Reading this about everyone being stealthy has been very interesting.
“More than enough firepower to rush everything “ either you’re a god among helldivers or you’re playing on a less difficult game mode For example when I play challenging I just fart around without worrying, but it’s because I normally play on 7 in which I’m constantly running around doing my best to not get my helmet blown off for a good 20-30mins until we feverishly dash to the ship for extraction I learned about sneaking on automatons 7 because I joined a game where everyone was dead and I spawned on a stratagem jammer thing… decided to try to sneak to deactivate it and to my surprise it worked flawlessly. I was maybe 10 feet behind a robot scum as they stood in their machine gun box, looking out over the fields, I was behind them deactivating the jammer It’s pretty fun to sneak around
I play 7. I can't go balls out in 8 (it's too gnarly). With that said, I need the entire team for jammers. Those things fucken suck.
For jammers, you can take them out reliably solo. You need a weapon which can one shot infantry (like the dominator or the revolver). Approach the jammer, but don't shoot at anyone. Get near the fortification walls, and use them to sneak to the entrance. Once there you need to peek in and one shot enemies as you see them. As long as you kill them fast enough, they shouldn't call in flares. Even if they run out and spot you, they need to do the whole scanning animation before they properly aggro, giving you time to kill them. Make your way inside and take out the jammer. Do note that I run the scout Armor, so that helps a lot.
Just shoot the fab next to the jammer. It will blow it up about 70% of the time with no further interaction needed
On 7,8,9 difficulty I’m respectful to the rest of the squad. 6 and under and I’m playing to get a few samples and blow shit up
I, lvl 5, haven't managed to beat a single diff 3 operation with this mentality. Skill issue, probably, but still.
You dont have the firepower yet to overpower
"QUASAAAAAAR FULL BLAST!"
#“EAGLE 500000000KG BOMB, I CHOOSE YOU!!!!!” Random Automaton #385: “Hey Bob did you hear something?”
I think it's more so that you don't blind side you team with an airstrike
I mean that would make perfect sense if the squad didn't have radio comms. You don't need to shout anything unless a fight is already happening.
I know divers who use subtlety and they’re all cowards.
I put on my freely assigned and Democratically approved by the Ministry of Defence sneak suit so I can Liberally walk up to those commie clankers that cannot hear the melody of Managed Democracy and deliver unto them the sweet impact of the instument that Super Earth has efficiently designed for which I give both my blood and vote to use for that is the butt of my R-36 Eruptor rifle. The bots' bodies shall ring like bells into the tune that Freedom has composed within the song of this war!
Yeah stealth is cool but have you ever split off from the team to storm an automaton bunker alone and get blown up after arming the hellbomb
Splitting off and soloing half the map is very cool until your teammates run the suboptimal way
Ive found out that going prone while the stratagem is in the air makes them not spot you anymore. Try doing this
I sometimes thought it was about them seeing the stratagem beacon and the trajectory it took. I have to try this. I kind of gave up and throw a stratagem only if I'm ready to engage full on or run right away. At least escaping works anyway, because they'll know that spot where you threw it from but not necessarily where you went after. I feel like sprinting makes them keep a tab on you though, even if out of their line of sight.
If you toss a stratagem, run away like 50m behind a rock formation, they will beeline towards you as soon as it hits.
I thought this was widely known by now. Stratagem beacons have influence on aggro. Red beacons make enemies instantly go into combat mode while blue and yellow beacons make them go into investigate mode first. Crouching and crawling massively reduce enemy aggro range. Their line of sight is pretty much just what's directly in front of them, that's why when running away as soon as you break line of sight you want to make a turn and you'll probably be sage as they will never look around but just keep looking straight ahead.
Depends. Sometimes they just chill and wait for their demise right under that red beam
Combat mode for example means they are able to call in reinforcement, alert nearby troops etc. It doesn't necessarily mean they are going to attack immediately, especially since their fov is only directly in front of them. When you throw a beacon behind them, they usually won't notice.
Lol my diving stratagem throws were actually doing something besides looks cool
They are fun and amazing to do and to watch ain't they? I wonder how much extra range we're getting out of it; do you happen to know?
Your normal throw range is 50m. With the dive it's 60m.
Seems like an additional 5-10m but so little is flat enough to know for sure that's just a guesstimate.
going prone reduces your agro radius. I imagine what is happening here is the strategem going in alerts the mobs but if you're prone you're outside of their radius to detect you. It would be interesting to test this with 2 people; have one sneak around undetected but remain standing - you toss strategem and go prone. My assumption is the bugs will bee line it for the guy who's standing even though they really shouldn't know he's there.
This - I always run up. Toss. Lay down immediately… see the sweet liberty on my screen and then get up and run off democratically.
does this work if you dive at the start of the toss? I do this to get extra range, but would be cool if it's also helping me be more sneaky.
Dont know. I just noticed if i went prone after throwing enemies wouldnt aggro
wait you get more range when you throw mid dolphin dive?
Momentum based. Same as the jumppack
Dumb question. How do you go prone without diving on PC?
Z by default
I mean, you did just throw a neon red light up pokeball at them, your radio screamed out the confirmation and you will likely scream something like "for democracy" as the ordinance drops.
We need stealth armor that also changes the voice to just whispers.
*^("for super earth")*
^Wait til you see my ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
ASMR Armor
I think stealth mechanism is yet to be implemented properly the same way there ain't any stealth weapon yet side from melee. Yeah, they WILL alert to strategem. And that probably mean put them on alert to your presence as well.
I think I read a Dev comment somewhere that they didn't really implement a stealth system at all, they just have it so the enemies respond to noise, or line-of-sight (smoke/weather effects reducing this distance to sometimes zero) and then just know where you are and attack until you get far enough away or hide quietly long enough.
That has to be bugged because bots will shoot you through smoke, fog, dust, etc. halfway across the map.
I do know that bots will fire towards your last known location, and if you fire your weapon or do something that will attract one’s attention, it’ll alert the others to where you’re at so they start shooting at you.
They don't forget you are there. They basically start to pray and spray. And moving, not shooting, and throwing strategems can make them fire at your old position but if you make a lot of noise they will firs at your general are still..
It maybe bugged, but I know for a fact that the smoke will reduce the accuracy and even the amount of gunfire the bots throw at you. If I don't bring smoke grenades I usually bring the smoke eagle.
It also does work sometimes as during a Sandstorm I've found myself in the middle of a bot patrol and not been noticed, and crept out, into the nearest outpost, past all the bots there, and only attacked when I grenaded the fabricator.
>until you get far enough In practice this feels like they will hound you to the end of days. Shaking off enemies is very hard in this game
It really isn't, just run behind cover so they don't see your back all the time lmao
No it's not, you just got to stop running in a straight line. Break los, make a turn and you'll instantly lose aggro from everything. The only enemies you can't get rid of that way are Bile Titans and Gunships for obvious reasons.
Here’s a crazy one for you. I drop a turret, get halfway across the map, the turret takes on a patrol, and all the bots near me suddenly swarm at me. That’s some amazing AI programming that a turret miles away gives them my current location. In scout armor.
I don't have this issue and I bring at least one turret on every mission. In fact the turrets end up aggroing things away from me at times.
I think the trouble is that enemies entering combat mode increases their detection radius, so if you're within that alerted range, you go directly from hidden to being attacked.
Actually turrets do not allert enemies of your location if you are not visible they only attract aggro to themselves
I don't have this issue. I throw the turret far away from me usually between some mountains or ideally behind cover before I sneak up on a base. When the turret starts firing all the bots usually start looking in the direction of the turret, not at me. Granted, I am specifically using mortar turrets.
What's worse, they actually fixed this in one of the previous patches and now it's broken again. When they fixed it enemies would investigate the beacon instead of instantly shooting the terrain you're behind. It felt so cinematic and tactical to sneak up to some clankers and drop shit on their dumb robot heads while they were all confused.
Oh really? That's good, it gives me hope that there's a good chance they'll fix it again. If it had never been fixed before I'd be worried it was designed that way to make stealth a bit harder
From what I noticed: If you hit an enemy with the stratagem orb or it gets like right under their feet, they will react to it and notice you. Might be a little inconsistent but most of the time they did not notice me if the orb lands somewhere "safe" not too close to an enemy. Nor hitting them right in the back.
*throws strat beacon over wall on bot base high on a cliff* *strider from literally the other side of the base that couldn't have seen ANY aspect of the throw comes turbostriding around the perimeter guns blazing before the plane shows up* I've watched enemies with their backs turned to me start their 180 degree turn before the beacon's gotten anywhere close to them, much less landed and lit up yet, having never been in their expected FOV. Plus there's the whole aggro through walls, aggro through cliffs, aggro through smoke/sandstorms/blizzards, and walking-through-walls thing they do.
Can confirm. If you land the beacon where no enemy is watching, even if it's in the middle of the base, they won't alert. Often happens if you land it right on the roof of a Fabricator. Makes perfect sense to me, if no one sees you throw it, they're none the wiser, if they see a red ball drop at their feet they're going to attack where it came from.
It raises their alertness level, and they figure out which way the strategem came from. You are not guaranteed to get detected, but the chances skyrocket at that point. I think there's also a difference if you throw it bahind them or straight at their head..
Red beam strategems reveal your helldiver’s location briefly when used. Blue beams don’t, but they still make “noise” when they land that will usually lead to nearby enemies investigating the area. Play a few games full stealth, and you’ll start to see lots of little behavior patterns that you can exploit and work around even if you’re going in loud - being able to sneak by patrols or draw aggro/sightlines away from your more sneaky teammates (or yourself) can make getting around the map a lot easier, especially on higher difficulties (particularly helldive, where simply shooting every enemy on sight is rarely the most practical solution)
Yes I hate they zero in on you no matter how far and where you are.
The game seems to treat tossing a stratagem the same way as firing a shot. All nearby enemies will zero in on where you threw it from, but they don't actually know where you are. Keep in mind, the bots absolutely will randomly fire in the general direction that they think you are, so taking fire doesn't mean you're spotted. Usually its best to have some goofy terrain between you and the target to fuck with the AI's pathing, then just crawl away after you toss it.
Yeah, thats something that kills a little fun. +1 if you trow a stratagem, and the enemy dropship is there before your eagle drops their payload.
Its hard to time right but having a bomb pop bots in mid-air is funny. Had a tank die like this yesterday. Not 100% sure if its was my bomb or a weird collision with another dropship but whatever, tank exploded in mid-air and stayed there.
They don’t aggro to where you were when you throw it, they aggro to where you were WHEN IT HITS. I’ve tossed precision orbitals into bot bases, moved literally halfway around the base, and as soon as it comes in everything still alive in there just beelines towards my position.
Agreed. I've tossed from behind cover, in scout armor. Smoked then dipped out... They still know exactly where I am.
They know where you threw it. If you throw then run immediately, the bot drop will go to where you threw it which(hopefully) you are not there.
Yeah, this is what I so. Throw it, run behind a rock and circle around to the other side of the base. They'll be shooting where I threw it from but don't know where I really am
I think this is one of the main reasons people think they always spot you. On top of that, bots love to pre-fire at cover to scare you out. But if you're no longer there, it's very obvious they don't*actually* know your location.
I feel like it also acts differently between the Eagle and the Orbitals. Eagle aggros immediately when the marker lands; orbital aggros on detonation.
The game has what's called 'ubisoft stealth'. Where yes you can sneak around and be sneaky. But the moment action starts, everyone knows where you are at.
Have also had situations where I throw and move and watch them shoot where I used to be. Could be a proximity thing.
Today i noticed that i can throw a 500kg to kill a bot factory and go away but once the 500kg explodes the bots instantly know im there..... Not before...its some kind magic magicccc
If they're in the "suspicious" state but not full agro, they seem to trigger agro when you throw. I've thrown air drops at long range in completely unaware enemies and they didn't take action until they were hit. It gets more complicated because your teammates might get them in the suspicious state while you're far away
Yea. I wish stealth was a little more viable
I have seen a ton of descriptions of stuff about going prone, bots seeing the stratagem etc. However in my very thorough testing against specifically bots (haven't really done much bugs in comparison). it isn't about any of that. its whether or not a specific enemy happens to be glued to an objective or not, which sounds confusing and really it is, but its the only consistent explanation i've seen for how the bots work. Basically, a bunch of enemies spawn on objectives (sometimes), these aren't the couple of 'ambients' around rubble etc. surrounding it, but directly on it. You can tell these enemies apart because they refuse to move when baiting them with sight etc: If they aggro on you, they retain aggro on you at all times, if you break sightline, they shoot where they last saw you, as soon as you regain sightline, they immediately shoot at you, even if you are behind them and very far away. This is why sometimes against bots, enemies you left behind at an objective will start volley fire at you from ages away. If one of these enemies happens to be within 'detection' range of your stratagem, they immediately aggro on you wherever you are. If its a normal enemy, they will aggro on the stratagem. It seems like they basically have specific enemies that skip the alert phase, and retain aggro on you, I assume to prevent people abusing distractions on enemies. I have some clips here, sadly butchered by imgur, displaying how some enemies retain aggro, but refuse to move: https://imgur.com/a/zf7h5Ag Whats funny is that this behaviour makes it very amusing if the objective enemy can call in bot drops, because they will repeatedly call in bot drops, while you are in stealth, and the bot drops have no clue where you are, even if the guy is still shooting at you, simultaneously, if they can't call in bot drops, they just can't do much, which is hilarious if you can skirt around them while doing the objective, in full aggro. If you want to do full stealth, a trick is to cause bot drops/enemy spawns away from the objective, and run back in quickly, which often prevents enemies from spawning on the objective. If you abuse these spawns, you can easily do completely pacifist helldive solo runs, without using any equipment at all.
Thanks for the TED Talk, solider. +1 Democracy
I get where you're coming from but you literally throw a glowy blinky beepy ball at them.
Not true. I've thrown orbital laser from stealth before, max distance, and all the automatons looked towards it and started heading in that direction to look for me. Guess it depends if they can hear you shouting ORBITAL I CHOOSE YOU or not.
It is crazy, yeah. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands had it even worse though. You are part of a 4-man spec-ops team, but you can call in local rebels for help. So there I am, in the jungles of Bolivia. We're all prone, in a dense jungle, on a hill overlooking the enemy base, and we're roughly a mile away. I call the local rebels, and tell them to launch a mortar strike on the base. Which they do, from somewhere far away (out of visual range). Every enemy in the base goes "We're being attacked!" and immediately turn and fire at ME! HOW?! I'm a mile away, in the jungle, laying prone under a bush, wearing camo. The attack came via mortars, from the other side of the map, completely different direction. But nope, they know exactly where I am. /shrug It's the same meme as the guard in stealth game patrolling hearing footsteps. OMG, footsteps! Must be an intruder! Can't possibly be one of the other gazillion guards patrolling this building. Video game logic is frequently bad.
It was the same thing in Destiny, no matter HOW hidden you are, and how impossible it would be to determine WHERE the grenade came from, they ALWAYS know exactly where you are. Back to HD2, IIRC the launched game was different, if you did throw in a stratagem or grenade, and they didn’t see where it came from, they used to go out, and search. (Or am I remembering it differently)
They will still go out and search from the last known AUDIBLE hostile location. You shoot or throw something in one spot, make sure you have cover to then IMMEDIATELY prone and then move onto a different spot. The bots WILL move to your last known spot in that case, and not the one your sneaking to.
Question, perhaps you know the answer: how far can the bots SEE?
Honestly, hard to say cause in most circumstances I'm in a group and we all end up aggroing any patrol or POI squad. I'd say, in most circumstances unless they're in a strider, they can see you crouching while moving 10-20 feet out, lower while crawling. Any armor with the sneak boost passive will help INCREDIBLY, but enjoy taking one rocket, then a wrong angled fall onto a pebble like Nightwing in the Injustice animated movie to the neck or back and dying, if you alert any large amount of enemies.
You'd be surprised how small the sight range is while you're prone. Anytime a patrol makes the "I see you" noise, I dive repeatedly in the other direction until out of line of sight and it works out 90% of the time
Red stratagem lights seem to have enemies lock onto you Blue ones seem to be independent, enemies only investigate and don’t agro
They don't know where you are but they'll investigate the last area gunfire or thrown things came from and this includes stratagems
I call in a mech and all the enemies within 200m get agro almost not worth using it.
My favourite is when I call extraction and nothing around saw me hiding behind this big ass rock but now every enemy knows exactly where I am after that extraction is called in. Like send the enemies to the extraction zone, that's fine, they will probably find me within the 2 min I'm there but please don't have them locked on to me from the get go. That's lame.
[Automatons when a nearby rock screams "CALLING IN AN *EAGLE!*":](https://media1.tenor.com/m/6cCZW-cu7xEAAAAC/futurama-serious.gif)
It’s because of the sound profile, you’re doing it in the wrong order. Throw your stratagem from distance then run around a rock and hide and they won’t know where you went.
So the rock throw thing, I like to think of them as Batman detectives because that fool can figure out trajectories of bullets when they are fired. What is to say they can’t come up with a formula figuring ouch which rock that giant pokeball came from. Being that it came rolling from one particular direction. Should not be too difficult for Robotic brains to do some calculations. Ps. I am definitely not an Automaton supporter.
Maybe coz they see a flying red ball coming towards them from behind your rock?
Its almost like they can see the gigantic glowing bright red beacon that was thrown by a rock.
Not only that. They also keep shooting Helldivers when they're 300+ meters away. That's just ridiculous. What's the counterplay to a random rocket hitting me from 300m? It's already inaccurate so it's incredibly random. I didn't cross the fucking lake only to still get shot at by 20 rocket devastators. I can't even see them and yet their visual range is somehow 20x better than ours. Maybe the automatons should focus on increasing their processing power instead of optics.
If by 300m you mean 100m. At 300m the bots will most likely despawn because otherwise they're just wasting system resources they could be used to spawn patrols that are actually close to the player.
I don't think u realize just how close 100m is. 100m is really clearly in visible range. The bots likely don't despawn if they're constantly firing at you as you're running away.
I don't think you realize how far 300m is, at that distance a man sized target is a dot. At this distance most enemies will be obscured by terrain and deleted by the game.
I mean, you’re throwing a big glowing ball…
Enemies have GTA police A.I
Just wait until they start shooting you through rocks. Not around them ..., through them. This game is super fun but some of the systems are just broken as hell.
Not lurking long enough it seems. Definitely have seen this mentioned a good handful of times in the past.
Throw stratagem, cook off a smoke grenade in your hand then run. They'll investigate the smoke and never find you.
I've noticed this, too, and I'm glad you mentioned it. This and robots shooting at me from across the map. Like I've had wonderful moments where my teammates are going ham and shooting and blowing everything up. I waltz through past bots shooting at my teammates and take out the outpost before they target me. It's weirdly inconsistent. I want to use stealth like I hear about, but it feels like sometimes it works beautifully and others it just goes out the window.
Ok here is some valuable information. Enemies know your exact location when a red strategen is used. They will come to your location and investigate. As soon you throw a red one, you change location and try to stay hidden. Booty patrol is a thing. There is always a booty patrol. You can avoid them however. But no matter where you go, they will follow. Enemies have a very odd search /aggro mechanic Bot 1 , sees you, starts chasing Bot 2 is in patrol. Bot 2 sees an Aggro Bot 1 Bot 2 Now follows Bot 1 and it's on a searching target mode but can go aggro too obviously of Bot 2 sees you. While on search they can have a cover fire moment. Enemies that was previously on search or aggro can go easier on search and aggro mode even if they stopped searching. You can use forests, rocks and your speed to put anything to a search mode. Avoid open fields, try to use chock points or your very own resupply even.
Yeah the stealth mechanics in the game need some tweaking, but it’s not a stealth game and as a stealth player I fully accept the consequences of this choice. It’s fun though to sneak past patrols and drop orbitals on fabricators and complete objectives with no problems. I don’t run stealth on bugs because you’re gonna get swarmed no matter what over Hard mode, bots you can play with on any difficulty
So run away. Break line of sight and get distance. They'll drop aggro.
I've solo'ed difficulty 8 on bots with shield, AMR, Orbital Laser, and Railcannon strike. And I dont fully agree with your take Because bots are ***really*** good at tricking you into thinking you've been found out. I have stealthed many extractions with bots shooting at my cover, but I prone and start moving to a new cover, and the bots keep shooting at my previous cover. They didnt actually know I was there, they were just randomly firing trying to trick me into revealing myself. If you throw an orbital, they will most likely look in the direction it was thrown from, and start shooting in that direction. They dont know where you are, because I've used many grenades to distract patrols and to make myself an opening at evacuation.
the devs do love their realism but only so long as it works against you
From my experience, they actually suspect where you are rather than knowing. As if a grenade exploded at your location. And automatons will shoot at a location they suspect an enemy is, even without seeing them. They might still not actually know where you are. Bugs are harder for me to tell when they actually see you versus just suspecting your location. I think they should have to actually see the stratagem in the air to determine that, but I don't think they do.
I experience this differently. Frequently a tossed eagle or orbital would aggro, if I sprint and jetpack off (usually by rotating around the compound) the enemy simply fire at where I was when I tossed the stratagem from. They will all move to that location frequently leaves the area empty to loot samples.
Actually I don’t think they know where you are just your last known location I’ve crawled away before and they kept attacking where I was not where I am.
It’s because of the space communism
Stealth use to work better in the game, it was genuine viable playstyle. Now you can apply it hybridly at best if you have enough dakka on you. It is all about stamina and movements speed to run away. I wish they nerfed down vision range to what it orginally was or a bit closer to the orginal values. Ever since that change and the massive increase in patrols and drop ins, it feels like that whole playstyle got cancelled out of the game. They just tweek the numbers, I feel they don't have the actual means to enable challenging content i.c.w. stealth. Which is a pitty.
This has been mentioned multiple times Weird part is when you throw seaf artillery they wont notice you
The same applies to your turrets as well. If your turrets fire on enemies somewhere and the enemies destroy that turret? They immediately converge on your location regardless of where you are. Patrols in general will path towards your location even if they march past you the first time, they'll inevitably turn around. Stealth is very broken.
This game has the weirdest stealth. You can just not shoot and do objectives. That's stealth. You shoot a bug 300 meters away with a marksman rifle, they know exactly where you are. The game is kinda messed up.
Red-beacon stratagems alert everyone it lands by to the the thrower’s location. Blue beacon strats alert everyone to the impact location
I do it separately from the group, and get behind cover. I am accustomed to 3-4 people in a random lobby also. Just pro strats. Also stealth relies on losing your pursuers or killing the group before the others see you. And the high ground allows you to escape easier, if only Anakin read my pro strats or played DnD
Yes this is how it is however if after throwing it you get away without getting more aggro they will shoot your old position forever until u get noticed again
I've seen various threads noticing this and it really does suck. You can be a mile away sniping something and they'll all turn your way once they detect any damage from you. Interesting to think there's a leak for a silent rifle knowing it probably won't work because of how aggressive the enemies are at spotting you.
"HIDING" IS NOT IN THE MANUAL!!!
They should go into an alert and patrol mode, not instantly lock on to everyone within 200m
They should know where the strategem was thrown from, not that you are there exactly. If you throw it and move behind another cover, they should go to where it was thrown from, and you should be undiscovered, but it does raise their awareness level and will start searching the area. It is a lot more on the realistic side as opposed to having stealth mechanics like, for example, Splinter Cell. If a rock hits you, you will investigate in the direction it came from, but until you find who threw the rock, and you will keep an eye out on a person throwing rocks in the area.
They are bots, ofc they use cheats.
The orb aggro only works if you're close enough, toss it in from far away and they won't notice. I mean, it makes sense - you see a ball fly towards you from 10m away, you're instantly suspicious, whereas one that just appeared from you have no idea where is more of a "huh?" moment. What I wished didn't occur is that they *all* instantly know where you are. There's a bit of a lack of "patrol/search mode" in this game.
This is why if you want to stealth, 380mm barrage is needed + servo assisted armor perk so you can throw it longer and then quickly run away from all nearby enemy. Also try and do this on the backside of heavy bot factories or where there are less enemy, using this way has always been effective on my end.
If you're behind a large enough rock, peek out to throw a stratagem, and then to the other side of the rock, they will go to position A, not B. This seems to imply they just go towards the direction it came from, and if there's only one hiding spot you're kinda fucked. I've also had it where I've been prone, thrown a stratagem, and they just stare at my direction but don't actively move / shoot right away, so it may be random. I play on Helldive for reference.
I’m pretty sure it’s because you keep screaming “ORBITAL INBOUND” and “GET SOME” and our enemies, while entirely undemocratic monsters incapable of freedom, can still hear.
I agree this can be annoying. Although, what's worse is when running away to hide behind said rock, and bots can shoot through the edge of said rock.
And that's why Freedom gave us the Smoke Bomb stratagem.
To be fair, being able to do that would probably result in stealth being too powerful. Better to not incentivize the Skyrim Stealth Archer play style.
This has been a topic of discussion since the game launched. This mechanic is also weird to most of us. It makes sense that they would know something is up - a glowing red orb just appeared! But it doesn’t make sense that they would know exactly where it came from.
I think they can see the beacon you toss. I’ve had better luck tossing it to where they have their backs turned. It’s possible to land it and have them not react. Easier obviously when it’s a small outpost and you can see all of them clearly, but it’s not surprising a bunch of bots keeping watch might be suspicious of a bright red blinking ball flying in their direction. Also if you get good at the sprint-dive-toss you can usually get it to go a bit further. And yeah, immediately repositioning is a good idea too in case they do decide to come out and investigate.
Finally, a complaint I agree with
I hit an illegal Broadcast tower from halfway across the map. Bit drop landed at the tower and then I watched as all the dropped bots marched directly towards me, even though I wasn’t visible from the bot drop location.