PART 2: Stealth | Hytale Gang Wars

DISCLAIMER: This series is speculative and based on pre-release information, Minecraft, and GTA San Andreas. This is not to be taken seriously; this is just for fun.

Welcome to part 2 of my 6-part Hytale gang wars series, where I explore a non-gang war-related concept from GTA San Andreas and then branch out to other games that I think Hytale can take further inspiration from.

Sometimes, wars are won without the enemy even noticing. That's where stealth comes in. And it just so happened that ThirtyVirus talked about stealth too.

Though gang wars in GTA San Andreas do not involve stealth, there are several stealth missions in the game like "Madd Dogg's Rhymes" where the player raids the mansion of celebrity rapper Madd Dogg to steal his rhyme book and "Black Project" where the player raids a parody of Area 51.

There is also a burglary minigame where the player can break into houses and steal valuables.

What makes Hytale stealth (if it will actually exist) unique is that every NPC has unique customizable AI, so sneaking around one faction's base would be different from another faction's. Back to the Trork and Outlander comparison: Trorks seem fairly easy to raid at first glance, as they sleep during the rain, get distracted by birds, and are attracted to meat, but they compensate for their lack of defense with Hunters and their wolves, which can probably smell the player coming. On the other hand, Outlanders may be much more wary and may take shifts to remain consistent with their survivalist mentality. I imagine Outlanders would also be much more difficult to bait or distract...unless there's a decoy player who can divert enemy attention to one side of the base.

I'm hoping that Hytale has a mechanic that changes how easy or hard stealth is depending on the weather and light levels.

Like in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, rain can be noisy, so it can allow the player to make louder noises without being heard as the rain "covers up" the player's noises.

It's common sense that light makes things easier to see...and the opposite happens with a lack of light. For Hytale, maybe enemies' lines of sight should be shortened in low light levels, except of course for subterranean mobs who can most likely see at any light level. It should also be easier to sneak around at night.

By the way, remember what composer Oscar Garvin said about "Kweebec Village"? "The piece sounds like a small ensemble to create the sense that the Kweebecs themselves might be playing this tune as you walk into the village." Imagine if you could play a faction's favorite genre of music using their favorite instruments to distract them by both luring them away from their patrol posts and generating noise to cover yours up.

(And maybe take a sneaky photo of the enemy faction members dancing, then make a meme out of it? They'd have no idea that their dancing has mysteriously gone viral.)

Anyway, while stealth missions are often performed in video games to gather information, assassinate a target, or steal something valuable, I would personally do stealth missions to weaken a base's defenses to prepare for a larger-scale attack. (Yeah, why did I not think of stealth back in my Hytale play style part 3? YoSquid would be extremely effective for that job because bows are silent killers.)

Side note: I thought of the idea of stealth-killing not affecting reputation, but I realized that this could be exploited by stealth-killing friendly faction members and still remaining friendly to the faction. Don't be a murder hobo.

Of course, there should be factions that cannot be sneak-attacked at all, especially Varyn's faction. I bet those monsters can easily smell human flesh and good morals.

Notes from Ghean: Ghean, being a Dungeons & Dragons player, told me that heavy armor should be noisy "because of clanking metal".
Noxy Tweeted about starting to play D&D, and Oscar Garvin composed a soundtrack for his D&D campaigns with a whopping 32 songs. (I couldn't believe it either, but it's true. The guy's a huge D&D fan.)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has a similar noisy armor mechanic.

Speaking of D&D, the Minor Illusion cantrip can create a sound from a distance, so if there are no note blocks in Hytale, BoltOLightnin might be able to use magic to distract the enemy.

The Enemy Sneaking Around My Territory

Because it's usually players who do the sneaking around. I think Hypixel Studios will break that trend by making enemies stealthily attack player territory.

Unlike NPC AI, real players can be much more wary of their surroundings since they often look around 360 degrees and can have high-quality, noise-reducing headphones that allow them to distinguish even the faintest noises. (This is why I almost always get detected in multiplayer games.) Trained gamers who can see tiny differences in color can even see enemies covering themselves up with camouflage or darkness.

High ground is an obvious way to defend territory from sneak-attackers since they let the player see a much wider area around the base. My Trump wall idea already has that covered pretty easily.

A glass ceiling prevents fliers from sneak-attacking directly from above, forcing them to go through the Trump wall's defenses.

Like my ghost mob post, there should be torches all over the base and even surrounding areas so we can see sneak-attackers before they get close.
Trees and similar potential hiding places should also be removed.

I plan to station a lot of defenders from allied factions, so standard video game stealth won't work. There should also be a lot of paired-up ground-level patrols to ensure that, if one gets killed, the other can alert the entire base easily. (One problem with video game stealth is that some enemies are far from other enemies and away from their lines of sight, making them easy targets.) This also prevents attacks from below.

I've countered many of the traditional stealth tactics with just my structures and army, but these methods of stealth can be trickier and require skill to detect: disguises and invisibility.

Simple disguises that only involve clothes are fairly easy to detect. I can simply socialize with the suspect and look for strange actions that don't align with whatever the suspect is disguising as. For example, it wouldn't make sense that a Kweebec would be attracted to meat, so using meat would reveal the true identity of a Trork. (Just in case there are small Trorks or baby Trorks.)

However, it's the magical or biological disguises (similar to the Prototype series) that are tricky to detect as the disguised suspect may (almost) perfectly copy the DNA and personality of whatever it's disguised as while suppressing its true personality. (Side note: I also have a plan for a more detailed post about Prototype disguises in Hytale.)

I wouldn't dare punch every single Kweebec soldier just to find out who's the fake one or I risk losing friendship with the Kweebecs, unless I'm desperate.

I'm not sure, but could it be possible to magically detect this kind of disguise? Besides, my team has a mage being BoltOLightnin, and there's a spell called Detect Magic in D&D.

But what if the magically disguised enemy uses the same school of magic as the faction member it's disguised as (such as a Trork knowing exactly the same spells as a Feran shaman)?
Good question, you who probably read the D&D Basic Rules or Player's Handbook.
I think it's unlikely that enemies would disguise as a specific faction member to learn their unique memories and abilities--kinda like how two Pikachu of the same level may have different stats and humans have vastly different personality traits from one another.
If the enemy disguises as a generic Kweebec, I can look for inconsistencies such as not being able to share secrets that a friendly Kweebec would otherwise share with close friends.
The tricky part is when it disguises as a friendly Kweebec I know, but I can just solve that by putting the real Kweebec and the fake one to a punching test. I'm willing to sacrifice a little friendship just to reveal a disguise. (But not when it involves punching a lot of Kweebecs--that's too much friendship sacrificed.) Who knows--I may drive the fake one into an unusual rage as it switches into its true Trork personality to defend itself (Disclaimer: we don't know yet if Trorks have a hot temper).
Edit: I wrote this when I was still unfamiliar with the D&D schools of magic. Turns out, Detect Magic can identify a disguised creature by the fact it's using illusion magic.
However, there are ways to protect against divination magic (which Detect Magic is a part of), like the Nondetection spell.

But the Disguise Self spell doesn't change "hitboxes" (i.e. a tall person disguised as a short person can still be touched as if they were a tall person, etc.).
I wanna be ready in case Hytale's magical disguise system is as foolproof as Prototype's disguise system. (Yeah, sounds like my no-damage playthrough rules.)

Similarly, invisibility is also hard to detect if it lasts several minutes similar to Minecraft...especially if it doesn't emit particles.

But this is easier to detect than a disguise since maybe I can use a dog to sniff out unfamiliar smells to indicate the presence of an invisible attacker. After all, the Hytale corgi was shown in a lot of official media including the trailer.

Or we can simply block off the base's entry and exit points using blocks (no pun intended) or by setting them on fire. The areas in front of the walls should also be set on fire to block off invisible mobs that climb like spiders. Too bad it doesn't work on invisible fliers and ghost mobs.

Speaking of blocking off, in addition to doors, can we make huge gates in Hytale that don't need a redstone equivalent to open or close? I suck at redstone.

(In D&D, Detect Magic only works on visible creatures.)

Part 3 will be posted on December 8. I have a different blog post planned on December 1 just to mix things up. lololol