how does stealth work or not work for you?

[macsen]

I haven't played many stealth games, but I have played many games that encourage you to stealth, or at least mention in passing that a stealth option is possible. I usually gun my way in (or magic my way in), how else are you going to show off the sweet clothes you spent all your money on?

Do you like stealth? how does stealth for for you if you do like it? or rather, if you aren't inclined to like stealth in games, what would you like for stealth to be in order for you to like it, whether you've yet to encounter such a system in a game yet or not.

This comes from the fact that I'm currently developing a game system where the three school trees are martial arts, stealth, or force (magic). You will have three abilities in each of these three, and when filling the valence shell of two adjacent of these schools, you get a hybrid ability between them. My problem that brings about this topic is finding that many force and martial arts abilities use psychic masking and takedowns respectively, which cover a lot of what stealth is, leading me to doubt its relevancy.

I might share what I have in the way of the "talent tree" I'm building, but for now, I'm putting my finger to the air to see if there is any love for stealth out there at all. :smallsmile:

[Hiro Protagonest]

Extra Credits has already done an episode on stealth games, and how stealth in non-stealth games does not work.

[macsen]

Does not work at all? oh ok.

I was approaching it not as an action taken by characters with other resources available to them, but as one of three pathways to take in which each pathway improves existing core abilities (such as jump or dodge).

something like the current talent system off of wow, for example.

[warty goblin]

Stealth is usually sitting in a hedge, a blocky leaf sprite covering half the screen, and listening to two identikit guards talk, by which I mean deliver painful exposition with all the subtlety and slightly less tact than an ICBM.

'It would sure be horrible if SOMEBODY were to BREAK INTO THE SUPER-SECRET ROOM only accessible through THE DOOR ON THE RIGHT, or by CRAWLING THROUGH THE AIR DUCTS and THWART OUR EVIL PLANS by ACTIVATING THE DOOHICKY. Did I mention that IMPORTANT NPC is SURE EVIL? Just a few minutes ago I saw him questioning SOMEBODY IMPORTANT. Man it would sure suck if THE PRISONER ESCAPED, so it's a good thing I PUT THE KEY ON THE HOOK IN THE THIRD ROOM ON THE LEFT. Well Bob, I need to go stare at a wall for five minutes. If I'm not back ever again, don't worry, there's absolutely no chance somebody has stashed my corpse in a closet."

According to game reviews, this is supposed to give me a sense of a rich world. Usually it just makes me want to play a game where things happen, or else go watch Game of Thrones. At least on that show when the exposition-bombs fall, there's a solid chance of at least one attractive person with a clothing optional policy.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Stealth is usually sitting in a hedge, a blocky leaf sprite covering half the screen, and listening to two identikit guards talk, by which I mean deliver painful exposition with all the subtlety and slightly less tact than an ICBM.

'It would sure be horrible if SOMEBODY were to BREAK INTO THE SUPER-SECRET ROOM only accessible through THE DOOR ON THE RIGHT, or by CRAWLING THROUGH THE AIR DUCTS and THWART OUR EVIL PLANS by ACTIVATING THE DOOHICKY. Did I mention that IMPORTANT NPC is SURE EVIL? Just a few minutes ago I saw him questioning SOMEBODY IMPORTANT. Man it would sure suck if THE PRISONER ESCAPED, so it's a good thing I PUT THE KEY ON THE HOOK IN THE THIRD ROOM ON THE LEFT. Well Bob, I need to go stare at a wall for five minutes. If I'm not back ever again, don't worry, there's absolutely no chance somebody has stashed my corpse in a closet."

According to game reviews, this is supposed to give me a sense of a rich world. Usually it just makes me want to play a game where things happen, or else go watch Game of Thrones. At least on that show when the exposition-bombs fall, there's a solid chance of at least one attractive person with a clothing optional policy.

You've never played Mark of the Ninja then. Or Thief.

That's Dishonored.

[Cerlis]

You've never played Mark of the Ninja then. Or Thief.

That's Dishonored.

The subject matter is more about games in which Stealth isnt the main thing.

And indeed in games where it is an option it usually is horribly lack-luster or is simply on 1 or 2 missions (using existing game mechanics such as "avoid being in line of sight using this giant crate")

Also he said "usually" . Not "always".

------------------------------

And indeed when you play games like Tenchu or Assassin's Creed (stealth games) you are usually SO mortal you HAVE to use all the stealth mechanics to get by. If you are VERY VERY careful in Assassin's creed to can slowly wittle down one guy at a time in between dodging or blocking 20 attacks on you and EVENTUALLY kill all the guards and in Tenchu there is usually a boss at the end and many times you need to redo missions because one or two accidental fights during the mission forced you to use what few health potions or combat modifying items you have, and you need them for the difficult boss.

----------------

I think that stealth moves should be in any game, but i think the problem is that you have to omit some realistic mechanics to make room for it.

For instance in GTA V i think its possible to one shot someone with a stealth move (with merely your fist) But also in this game if you move to quickly and bump into someone you piss them off and they attack you. Thus one needs a mechanic so that if you hit the attack button anywhere near your target you initiate the stealth maneuver. Because if you want to take someone out with a stealth maneuver you simply cant risk getting to close to them (And not getting close to your melee stealth target is not conducive to using Melee to Steath kill your target....)

----------

Also i love being able to do stealth kills but a major problem is the games communicating "the rules" to the players and inconsistency between games.

For instance for each game you have to figure out if sound is effected at all, if there is a 'I heard something" feature. If the enemy only looks in a frontal cone, has peripheral vision, and "looks around". If you have a 'stealth mode" that magically makes it harder for people to see you and muffles your footfalls (and taking out a weapon).

Hell in assassin's creed i would freak out sometimes until i realized that Crusaders are able to see right through your disguise (also they look like simply more ornate versions of the guards so its hard to spot them)

I like in Halo that if you melee someone from behind you could one shot them, and sniping would work. Creatures wouldnt automatically and magically know where you are when they learned there was an enemy nearby and with many missions you can scope out the next area with a sniper rifle and take out prime targets before their defenses are up thus drastically altering the future fight (even if you didnt get all of them).

And the fact that they realistically didnt know where you were unless they saw you allowed you to do stuff like move to the opposite side of a building and sneak up on people who thought you where still hiding behind some cover, and hit them in the back. And if you got there quick enough you could take out one or two guys quickly, but even if you didnt in that game a Melee attack to the face or two would take out most opponents (melee is strong in that game*), but even if they saw you the trick was that despite seeing you, you where already just a few feet from them and thus could charge in and smack them good (or get a well aimed sticky grenade in) and end them all. So your attempt at stealth was still rewarded.

*A favorite tactic of mine was to charge an enemy shooting at them, and Melee them once i got within range.

[Brother Oni]

And indeed when you play games like Tenchu or Assassin's Creed (stealth games) you are usually SO mortal you HAVE to use all the stealth mechanics to get by.

I agree with Tenchu, but only with the first game of the AC series. Ezio (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR089iYnheY) and Connor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw3U_getqDg) are ridiculously good at fighting, so unless stealth is enforced, you can can usually brute force your way through almost anything.

[McDouggal]

When stealth is done well, it's typically a major game element that HAD to be tuned well in order to work. When stealth is done poorly (looking at you elder scrolls and fallout), it's useless early and massively gamebreaking late (seriously, max out stealth and put on Chinese stealth suit in fallout:NV and you can hit stealth in the middle of a flat desert with 100 enemies nearby and vanish without penalty).

When stealth is done well, it is not the only option. It's not even necessarily the easier option. You could brute force your way past that group of enemies, or you could create a distraction and slip in undetected. You could go in like a wrecking ball, or pick the lock and wait for your moment.

What annoys me is games where a stealth mechanic exists, but is pointless (looking at you far cry 2); when you are given the option of creating a stealthy character, but the game is obviously designed around fighting characters, punishing you for creating your character in a non-normal/designed for way; and most importantly, not giving you an option to TRY and fight if you get caught, the game just railroading you into restarting the stealth section.

[Triaxx]

Halo isn't a game well built for stealth. And charge/melee is the best way to deal with Jackals.

Stealth if not in a game designed for it can be pretty frustrating to deal with. Wind Waker had a stealth segement early on and it was incredibly annoying. On the other hand, you have games like Skyrim or the Fallout games where stealth is a valid option, at least until it starts combat. Or you find games like Thief where the idea is to avoid fighting if you can.

Stealth is a wide area. It covers many ideas. What one game considers complete stealth is a complete failure or an unreachable goal for other games.

[tensai_oni]

Extra Credits has already done an episode on stealth games, and how stealth in non-stealth games does not work.

Extra Credits is not an infallible internet authority. In fact I found them to be more wrong than right in recent videos.

But that one was pretty good. OP, I suggest you watch it and draw your own conclusions.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/like-a-ninja

Also I agree that stealth in non-stealth centric games (such as Mark of the Ninja or Thief) is usually implemented poorly and an annoying hindrance as opposed to helping the gameplay.

[macsen]

Extra Credits is not an infallible internet authority. In fact I found them to be more wrong than right in recent videos.

But that one was pretty good. OP, I suggest you watch it and draw your own conclusions.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/like-a-ninja

Also I agree that stealth in non-stealth centric games (such as Mark of the Ninja or Thief) is usually implemented poorly and an annoying hindrance as opposed to helping the gameplay.

So I went and saw the video. I admit I was turned off by the second post due to how dismissive and one-liner it came off, (or perhaps how I chose to read and interpret it), but the video actually gave me a kind of epiphany. Rather than having stealth be one of three "classes" as they amount to, I'll have a cluster of abilities that affect different aspects of play, and stealth-like moves will cover a variety of core abilities by improving them, such as dodge, roll, hide. That way not having such abilities or focusing on another talent tree will not leave a player longing for something missing; they'll have other improved abilities, and won't feel like they are missing out.

Though, when I am done, what this talent tree may end up looking like may not resemble "stealth" per se.

[Iruka]

Also I agree that stealth in non-stealth centric games (such as Mark of the Ninja or Thief) is usually implemented poorly and an annoying hindrance as opposed to helping the gameplay.

Is there a word mssing or are Mark of the Ninja and Thief really non-stealth centric? I was lead to believe the opposite.

[warty goblin]

What annoys me is games where a stealth mechanic exists, but is pointless (looking at you far cry 2); when you are given the option of creating a stealthy character, but the game is obviously designed around fighting characters, punishing you for creating your character in a non-normal/designed for way; and most importantly, not giving you an option to TRY and fight if you get caught, the game just railroading you into restarting the stealth section.

Stealth in Far Cry 2 works I think pretty much exactly as intended; and is quite effective if employed appropriately. It doesn't work by the usual rules of videogame stealth, which is to say a shadow isn't a Magical Cloaking Field, and the AI isn't dumb as a rock and incapable of noticing you blasting away with a machine gun. Which is to say stealth is usually an excellent way to begin a fight, even if it might not end that way.

[Morty]

I think that the best stealth I've seen in a game that is otherwise not stealth-focused might have been Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines. It wasn't perfect, but stealth was an option in many missions, and it was often better than going in with bared fangs and guns blazing.

[tensai_oni]

Is there a word mssing or are Mark of the Ninja and Thief really non-stealth centric? I was lead to believe the opposite.

Oops, poor choice of words. I meant that those are stealth centric, as opposed to other games which are not.

[McDouggal]

Stealth in Far Cry 2 works I think pretty much exactly as intended; and is quite effective if employed appropriately. It doesn't work by the usual rules of videogame stealth, which is to say a shadow isn't a Magical Cloaking Field, and the AI isn't dumb as a rock and incapable of noticing you blasting away with a machine gun. Which is to say stealth is usually an excellent way to begin a fight, even if it might not end that way.

The problem that I have with Far cry 2 stealth is that I can spend 5 minutes slowly sneaking to a flanking position and spend a minute gunfighting, or I can drive the truck to a good position, open off with a salvo that kills half the camp with the truck gun, then exit the truck and use trees for cover and finish the whole fight in 2 minutes. Not to mention the times I've been crouched behind a tree in tall grass not even moving and the guy 10 feet away decides to start shooting at me.

Meh. I'm just disappointed in that game in general; I never even finished the main quest.

[Wardog]

Also I agree that stealth in non-stealth centric games (such as Mark of the Ninja or Thief) is usually implemented poorly and an annoying hindrance as opposed to helping the gameplay.

Ditto for driving in non-driving games.
Or FPS sections in non-FPS games.
Or... you get the picture.

Game designers really need to have it beaten into them that having occasional rare or one-off sections or mini-games, that are necessary to complete to progress but use a completely different control system or gameplay mechanic to the rest of the game, are a bad idea.


(One of the worst examples, IMO, is in the original KOTOR: to escape from the first planet, you have to complete a really bad on-rails shooter section, without any practice before hand, and no second chances if you fail).

[Thiyr]

I think that the best stealth I've seen in a game that is otherwise not stealth-focused might have been Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines. It wasn't perfect, but stealth was an option in many missions, and it was often better than going in with bared fangs and guns blazing.

On the other hand, I found stealth in that game to be very poorly done. Making a character with no dots in...well, anything to do with stealth, and still being able to sneak up on just about anyone and stealth kill them with the freakin' bush hook is kinda nutty. Being able to chain-kill a room of people like that is even worse. In a game where stealth is a stat to be raised, I don't mind being undetectable when I've invested in it (and even to some degree expect it). But that was a bit over the top.

Stealth's biggest issues, as I see them, stem from those cases where the stealth specialist is denied the ability to do their thing (the reverse is also true. Anybody here remember the lab-coat section of the first Red Faction?), or when its the long, boring route that does the same thing as shooting stuff. I like sneaking having benefits other than just "you didn't need to use bullets/HP", in exchange for it typically being more difficult, or at least more roundabout.

[factotum]

It doesn't work by the usual rules of videogame stealth, which is to say a shadow isn't a Magical Cloaking Field, and the AI isn't dumb as a rock and incapable of noticing you blasting away with a machine gun.

Shadows help hide people in real life, so not sure why you find that so unbelievable, and what sort of stealth games have you been playing where you can open up with heavy weaponry and not give away your position?

[warty goblin]

The problem that I have with Far cry 2 stealth is that I can spend 5 minutes slowly sneaking to a flanking position and spend a minute gunfighting, or I can drive the truck to a good position, open off with a salvo that kills half the camp with the truck gun, then exit the truck and use trees for cover and finish the whole fight in 2 minutes. Not to mention the times I've been crouched behind a tree in tall grass not even moving and the guy 10 feet away decides to start shooting at me.

Meh. I'm just disappointed in that game in general; I never even finished the main quest.
Stealth is very handy on higher difficulties, where you can go from full health to near death very fast, and you can't carry nearly as many health thingies. It also works a lot better if you pick up the dedicated stealth weapons - dart rifle, suppressed MP5, etc - and run major ops only at night. It's also a lot more important on the second map, where getting anywhere near a group of enemies in a vehicle is asking to get blown up.

And really, the most important aspect to remaining undetected in FC2 is to keep one's distance.

Shadows help hide people in real life, so not sure why you find that so unbelievable, and what sort of stealth games have you been playing where you can open up with heavy weaponry and not give away your position?

There's a difference between 'help hide' - which they do in FC 2 - and total and complete invisibility, which is what they amount to in most 'stealth' games.

[Morty]

On the other hand, I found stealth in that game to be very poorly done. Making a character with no dots in...well, anything to do with stealth, and still being able to sneak up on just about anyone and stealth kill them with the freakin' bush hook is kinda nutty. Being able to chain-kill a room of people like that is even worse. In a game where stealth is a stat to be raised, I don't mind being undetectable when I've invested in it (and even to some degree expect it). But that was a bit over the top.


True, it is too easy to stealth without investing in the field. Still, I found it better than in most games. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

[Crow]

Stealth is a force multiplier. Used to enhance the other means available to you. Like real life.

It is not a means in and of itself. A good game recognizes this, and develops its use in this vein. Games like that work for me.

[Zevox]

I agree with Tenchu, but only with the first game of the AC series. Ezio (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR089iYnheY) and Connor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw3U_getqDg) are ridiculously good at fighting, so unless stealth is enforced, you can can usually brute force your way through almost anything.
Wait, combat in Assassin's Creed gets easier after the first game? Damn, I was hoping for the opposite. I've only played the first one, but by the second assassination I had already noticed that the guards were basically no threat to me regardless of how many there were. There were actually a couple of fights I wound up running away from not because I was in any danger of losing, but because they had become too time-consuming, with guards still showing up after I'd already killed dozens.

Anyway, on the topic of stealth broadly, I'm generally not a fan of it. Because it's mainly a way of avoiding something, usually a fight, which is one of the parts of games that I tend to find fun to begin with.

About the only games I can think of that use it which I like are the Batman: Arkham titles and the Sly Cooper titles. Which seem very different, but I'd say that what makes them work for me is actually pretty similar: rather than being used to avoid a fight, they're actually just another important tool for fighting successfully. In Batman you use stealth to deal with enemies with guns, who would otherwise take you down in seconds; in Sly (from 2 on anyway) you similarly use it to deal with bigger enemies that it would be very dangerous to try and take head-on (and can use it to deal with smaller ones, but don't have to). I find Sly in particular works well by working it into what is otherwise very platforming-based gameplay - probably because both are heavily about positioning and movement, how you get from point A to point B.

Outside of those though, yeah, not really a fan. I just tend not to use in RPGs or similar games where it's one option of many.

[factotum]

There's a difference between 'help hide' - which they do in FC 2 - and total and complete invisibility, which is what they amount to in most 'stealth' games.

And the other half of my question? I've certainly never played a stealth game where you can stay hidden while using a noisy weapon, I'm interested to know of one that does so I can avoid it.

[macsen]

one interesting thing I find is that the discussion is touching on the philosophical merits of the existence of stealth as a concept, which I love. I started thinking about that stealth is when it does exist as something distinct from other types of gameplay.

I was previously treating it as a class in itself, but a mode of interaction with the world. Zooming out and getting a little gameplay meta, I would imagine it would work as a kind of mission buff, where one has a tiny, but not horribly significant leg-up when approaching a situation. The mention of being able to chain-take-down a room full of people being silly made me think of that; getting into a room via stealth would work well, and once engaged, the jig is up, and on to the standard techniques of combat or diplomacy, in these cases, stealth only awarded an opportunity to enter the situation on one's own terms rather than have to run up to people to engage them in melee and risk hits (assuming we have a world with firearms here). This helps prevent those who don't want to participate feel like they are missing out on something.

One thing I dislike is being told by a game I have the potential to do all of these things and be encouraged to max out all my abilities eventually. If a person observes an ability their character doesn't use in their own gameplay, they can feel safe in assuming it was because they filled their valence shell of abilities with something else just as good.

[warty goblin]

And the other half of my question? I've certainly never played a stealth game where you can stay hidden while using a noisy weapon, I'm interested to know of one that does so I can avoid it.

That was badly said on my part, and clearly incorrect. Mea Culpa.

Stealth games do tend to be extremely generous in the things you can get away with while staying hidden though. And the hostile AI is usually pretty clearly set up to make it possible to do crazy stuff, instead of actually protect their objective. Which is fine, games set up to be more about direct confrontation usually also have AI that isn't nearly as effective as it should be, and give the players all sorts of extra benefits as well.

Which is why I think I generally prefer Far Cry 2's approach to stealth, which is as a tool you can use in some situations, instead of a playstyle under which every problem must have a solution. It removes a lot of the necessity for providing stupid benefits for the player in either stealth or direct combat.

[GolemsVoice]

My favourite tool in FC2 was a truck with a grenade launcher I nicknamed "Doommaster". So much for stealth. But I don't remember the difficulty I played on.


Good stealth needs to be intuitive. I need to be able to guess accurately when I'm hidden and where I'll be hidden, what the guards see and what they don't, and how they react to things. If that isn't clear, it becomes a frustrating guessing-game of reloads.

Stealth in AC might be ridicilous (it is) but at least the rules are consistent and you know what's what.

That being said, stealth in Metro 2033 (especially Last Light) was well made, mostly believable and actually useful, since many enemies aren't exactly evil, and also because bullets are hard to come by and you're pretty vulnerable.

[Guancyto]

Probably the best stealth game I've played recently was Batman: Arkham Whole Friggin' World City. They somehow manage to blend fighty action sequences and dangerous stealth sequences and puzzles all together.

Batman can take on a whole room full of unarmed thugs and not break a sweat. Things like knives and body armor and stun sticks all require specific methods to take out and your gadgets are helpful in combat, but overall it's pretty straightforward. Melee enemies are for action sequences. (Incidentally, probably the best combo finisher move is the one that breaks the enemy's weapon. Because even if you beat up the guys with knives, their buddies will run and pick them up because weapons are really good.)

But when the enemy get their hands on guns, you need to be careful and sneak around, use cover and the environment to set up surprise attacks, because guns are dangerous. I like that eight well-trained guys with rifles are way more trouble than thirty random dudes with fists.

Batman has a ton of gadgets (even if he does wind up hurting for the lack of shark repellant) so you're never lacking for a strategy to try and you have fire extinguishers, high vantage points, vents and a single smoke pellet to lose the enemy if you get spotted.

The better-trained enemies also adapt to you. Have they realized you're hiding on the gargoyes? They'll start destroying them. Is there a body next to a grate? They'll check inside. I don't think it's a huge spoiler to say that some bosses also do this, counteracting tactics you've used to force you to adapt as well.

[MLai]

I've just started playing Batman Arkham Asylum this weekend. I have to say this is the best stealth I've ever experienced (dedicated stealth games played are MGS and AssC).

I don't even like Batman; I actually pretend I'm the Predator when I'm playing. This is after being terribly disappointed with single-player Predator in the game AvP3 (Rebellion). AI enemies see you and start firing the micro-second you drop your Predator cloak, even if you're behind them. :smallannoyed:
If Predator sequences were like in B:AA, with functional stealth and with marines freaking out as they're being skinned alive one by one... I'd never stop playing.

The best thing B:AA has over MGS is doing away with the idiotic alarm timer which penalizes you for being discovered for X amount of time. Batman swoops up into the rafters and the "logic puzzle" is reset, except even with the "fail" you still receive a sense of empowerment as the enemies freak out after losing sight of Batman without (seemingly) scoring any bullets on him.

AssC's "penalty" for being discovered is cool too. Rather than an alarm timer to wait out, you must engage in a cinematic freeform parkour escape along the rooftops. That's a different type of "failed but with empowerment" mechanic than B:AA.

[Winter_Wolf]

Any game or mission that makes getting detected an automatic game over/mission failure just pisses me right off. I don't buy games that revolve around this mechanic, and I do everything in my power to circumvent missions that follow this pattern.

I like stealth when it heightens tension and excitement, and getting caught might result in all hell breaking loose (which could very well cause character death), but there has to be at least a minimal chance of recovering and trying to achieve the objective "the hard way" (or the "guns a-blazin' approach").

[Grif]

There's a game where stealth doesn't work. Or at least very badly implemented. Men of War.

There's a couple of stealth missions sprinkled in between the normal campaign missions and there's a reason why they're universally disliked. The stealth mechanic itself is opaque, and feels out of place in an otherwise realistic real-time tactics war simulator. It's not hard to feel frustrated when there is no feedback on whether or not your stealth is successful, aside from the fact that you're suddenly swarmed with enemies if you're detected. In fact, there's no mechanism to help you at all with the stealth aspect.

That said, one of the game's saving graces is that there is no immediate game-over on being discovered, and you can go out full guns blazing.

[warty goblin]

There's a game where stealth doesn't work. Or at least very badly implemented. Men of War.

There's a couple of stealth missions sprinkled in between the normal campaign missions and there's a reason why they're universally disliked. The stealth mechanic itself is opaque, and feels out of place in an otherwise realistic real-time tactics war simulator. It's not hard to feel frustrated when there is no feedback on whether or not your stealth is successful, aside from the fact that you're suddenly swarmed with enemies if you're detected. In fact, there's no mechanism to help you at all with the stealth aspect.

That said, one of the game's saving graces is that there is no immediate game-over on being discovered, and you can go out full guns blazing.
You can turn on vision cones I believe, so you know where enemy dudes are looking.

[Grif]

You can turn on vision cones I believe, so you know where enemy dudes are looking.

That you can. It gets impractical when you have multiple enemies to account for and some invisible ones as well.

[MLai]

For a cover-based TPS action game, I felt the Uncharted series did stealth reasonably well. There's no way you can pass a block of enemies by stealth-killing them all, but if you're careful you can stealth-kill 3-4 of them to make the subsequent shootout easier.

They have very good vision and there's no alarm timer; once you're discovered it's on to the full-blown shootout. But that's realistic and it's what you were going to do anyways.

[Guancyto]

Any game or mission that makes getting detected an automatic game over/mission failure just pisses me right off. I don't buy games that revolve around this mechanic, and I do everything in my power to circumvent missions that follow this pattern.

I like stealth when it heightens tension and excitement, and getting caught might result in all hell breaking loose (which could very well cause character death), but there has to be at least a minimal chance of recovering and trying to achieve the objective "the hard way" (or the "guns a-blazin' approach").

Honestly, that's more a feature of games with stealth minigames that don't really have mechanics in mind for it. An even-slightly decent game with stealth and infiltration as dedicated mechanics will let you recover from a slip-up because that's one of the questions they have to answer.

"We should put a sneaking segment into our game!"
"Great idea! Hmm, what happens if he gets detected?"
"Huh. We'd probably have to get our programming team to make a set of behaviors for pursuing and searching that may or may not be completely different from the AI in the rest of the game."

Branch A:
"They say that it's going to take them ten metric buttloads of time."
"For a minigame segment? Not even vaguely worth it. Let's just rely on them not getting detected, it fits with the story blah blah blah..."

Branch B:
"It's about time to finish up and they still haven't done it yet."
"****. Well, we can give them a game over for now and patch it later, right?"
"That's not how patching works, sir."

Branch C: "Uh, this is the 90s, we haven't even really figured out basic pathfinding yet."
"Well then, just give them a game over. And stop breaking the fourth wall!"

[Brother Oni]

AssC's "penalty" for being discovered is cool too. Rather than an alarm timer to wait out, you must engage in a cinematic freeform parkour escape along the rooftops. That's a different type of "failed but with empowerment" mechanic than B:AA.

I can't really remember the first one, but from the second game onwards, it effectively is an alarm timer - break LOS then hide for x seconds (or just run far enough away) and the alarm resets.

[MLai]

I can't really remember the first one, but from the second game onwards, it effectively is an alarm timer - break LOS then hide for x seconds (or just run far enough away) and the alarm resets.
That's the same in #1 as well, IIRC. But I felt it was organically done. No countdown timer is shoved into your face, and you're not in an enclosed "logic puzzle" room. There is no enemy vision cones or player radars.
You just run your butt off through the city, fend off any enemies who get too close to you, and then hide in whatever nooks and crannies you come across, until eventually the pursuers can't find you anymore. It felt cinematic and unstructured.