Inconspicuous Made Me Go Crazy

[@Vallinen92]

Kinda disheartening that the game that tells you that stealth is important, pretty much doesn't allow stealth. Zombies are supposed to be dumb and nonattentive. These seem more like slow homing missiles.

[@IronBoy-hf2lp]

I think..... *audial* stealth is important, is what they mean. Which means "don't make unnecessary noise unless you know for a fact you can handle the ocnsequences" Visual stealth, clearly, is not very easy to obtain.

[@MrTigracho]

@@IronBoy-hf2lp Can confirm. The zombies can see you from beyond what your character can see without breaking Stealth mode if they are facing the right direction. if you wanna be visual stealthy, be always behind a fence. Which is not saying much

[@UnnecessarilyLongUsername]

Change their sight to poor in the difficulty settings

[@averagechadlegionary5824]

Stealth is OP if you know how to exploit the zombies AI

[@emanuellopez8578]

@@UnnecessarilyLongUsername In my experience changing sight to poor is a good thing but sneaking only works when I’m close to a wall or a fence, if I’m in a open space it could be night or foggy they always spot me, even when crouched

[@vytarrus]

I've read the java code a long time ago, and I'm pretty sure it also had view angle factored in. Like, if a zombie stares directly at you, it'll spot you faster than if you are at 9 or 3 o'clock. And I've reached the conclusion that there's too much sh*t in the calculations for incospicious *0.5 to matter that much, and since then conspicious was my "free points" perk.

[@Retanaru]

Yeah it's a "you get 1 free tile before you are spotted" unless you stack crazy sneak with it.

[@AlexVicarregui]

me too, conspicuous adds so little negative effects that is not noticeable. almost all perks need a lot of reworking.

[@AndroidFerret]

Wait the whole game I written in JAVA ?

[@vytarrus]

@@AndroidFerret Not whole, but mostly yeah. Like lua for scripting.

[@fairnut6418]

Same, I’d rather be certain that I will be spotted at THAT range rather than gambling some bullshit. Consistent perks forever.

[@ToLazy4Name]

deciphering this game's spaghetti code is gonna drive you nuts lmao

[@Retanaru]

I've got the worst hobby...

[@jamesbogart3334]

@@Retanaru I'd imagine it's on SS13 levels of spaghetti code. Amateur dev teams first game, 10 years of development and in Java..... YIKES

[@keaujibaha2594]

And has more love and care put Into it than most triple a games with millions of dollars in resources “gta trilogy” yikesssss

[@TheDiner50]

It sure is less spaghetti then Minecraft. And that is counting Minecraft for Windows. You know.. The AAA Windows version made to replace Java. PZ is one of the first greenlight Steam games. And still being worked on. Still works better then TF2 or any AAA game that comes to mind really.

[@sorcererCermet]

@@jamesbogart3334 *cough* old school runescape. though mod ash is unspaghettifying it day by day

[@Gamesaucer]

If you're looking through a small gap from really close by, the gap appears larger in your field of view. If you're trying to look through the same gap from far away, the gap appears tiny in your field of view. So it's actually _much_ harder to look through something like a lattice or blinds if you're not standing right next to them. A zombie spotting you through a fence that's almost solid except for some small slits is not very realistic, unless the zombie happens to be directly on the other side of the fence also studying the gaps in it. Of course in the game it generally won't feel that bad because you'll think the zombie heard you, or perhaps spotted you earlier, or was just heading your way randomly for a bit. So it's not a huge deal. But still something I'd prefer to be different to line up better with both intuition and reality.

[@glassramen]

Yeah that's exactly why my immediate reaction to the zombie spotting him through that fence was "how?" It'd be very difficult for a normal person to notice that if they aren't paying attention to it, let alone a decaying zombie. I think it'd be better if they were only able to spot you in that situation if they were close to the fence, like maybe within 6 or so tiles. That way there'd be a reason why they could see you, like they're staring off into space directly at the fence and your silhouette was just enough for them to take notice.

[@otter4370]

My guess is that the developers just gave that type of fence the same properties as the more open white picket fences you find at farms. The only difference in the game is the textures.

[@Gamesaucer]

@Pud Pete Sure, but the point is that you can't usually tell how a zombie found you in normal gameplay if they sneak up on you. It _might_ have been fair for all you know, and zombies going after you isn't so rare that it makes much of a difference. And if you _can_ tell, you're also not exactly going to immediately lose a character because some zombie spotted you from far away. Death is always going to be a combination of many factors, and the game has enough RNG in how zombies behave in general that it doesn't really set you back any more than a bit of bad luck would have. Of course that doesn't mean there is no effect; this "feature" definitely makes the game harder. But so long as the outcome is the same vs "fair" difficulty (which it almost always will be), the only thing that can really suffer is immersion. Of course the exception is if your playstyle really heavily depends specifically on zombies not spotting you through fences, but people generally don't play like that. And fences mess with pathfinding in a way that still offers you some protection by making it easier to get away from a zombie that does see you, so there's still a tangible benefit to sneaking close to fences.

[@victorhugo-wo2ci]

I'd say the problem would probably be coding it in the game, i agree you should be able to sneak behind a fence if the zombie physically cannot see you but that'd be a compromise on overral game performance i think

[@worldhello1234]

You can always make the it is a game excuse but if you strive for realism it has priority over difficulty for the sake of difficulty.

[@TheRustedShackleford]

I wish they would fix the zombie vision. No fun if they can see you "sneaking" behind a tall fence.

[@jakeboooi2113]

Fun fact: Zombies can hear your footsteps too if your light footed and sneaking is levelled too low

[@MrJohnthegamerHD]

I always take Inconspicuous. A chance to not be detected at a certain range as opposed to a 100% chance to be spotted at that range in the early game has saved me needing to restart many a time.

[@MsHojat]

Realize that it's per tick though, so if you're in range for 5 ticks it's like 80% 5 times vs 40% 5 times, which works out to 100.0% vs 92.2%. So in that situation, and most situations, you're really only gaining a very small chance of not being seen, something like 4-12%, not 50%. The fact that it gives _A_ chance to not be detected does not make it worth it. For instance if it cost 20 points it would not be worth a 5% chance of not getting spotted, right? so it matters the _specific_ chance of not being detected for it to be worth it.

[@Buorgenhaeren]

Just kill all zeds that spot you lmao

[@DatSimple]

@@Buorgenhaeren based 💪💪

[@EpicAMV911]

Did this demonstration not teach you how garbage the trait is?

[@MrJohnthegamerHD]

@@EpicAMV911 I don't really care about playing the game optimally. The demonstration simply explained to me in-depth how the trait works.

[@ShadowOverflow]

I used to run inconspicuous, although ever since I saw the stream I’ve considered conspicuous free points. The stream was an interesting decent into madness.

[@Brent22]

i wouldnt take either tbh. just leave that in the middle. Conspicuous makes ur whole sneaking stat worthless and if u play on any pop higher than normal u will hate how many zombies u attract. Clumsy is free points. I wouldnt say conspicuous tho, pretty big risk u take if u pick that trait imo.

[@paxton_wulgus]

@@Brent22 You can still sneak with conspicuous, you just do it more with maximum view distance / line of sight / cone of vision work. The main difference I observe running with conspicuous is that zombies will see you through windows when you're indoors much more often. A pretty marginal difference

[@bruceluiz]

One thing that grinds my gears in this game is the ingame zoom. When zombies have a 20 tile viewing distance, any less zoom than that is basically screwing the player. As beautiful as the ingame render is, its also quite awkward to be indoors wholw zoomed out too... Ya have to choose ya poison, i guess.

[@Retanaru]

You just gotta constantly scroll wheel in and out. There's also a setting for auto-zoom (but I hate it).

[@quinnlee-miller9792]

@@Retanaru There’s an auto zoom? That sounds pretty cool, what’s wrong with it? Is it really jarring when you have to keep going back in and out, bc perhaps a hot key could help with that when base sortign

[@theminerboy5694]

Don't forget lag.

[@perteks7639]

It was fun watching those 3 hours of spiraling into madness

[@Ravathiel]

I feel like I only "noticed" these traits when I have spinters with max sight/smell/hearing. move 10ft and you'd get the whole town after you

[@CanadianWolverine]

In my own use of Inconspicuous + Outdoorsman + Park Ranger (my personal favourite build) throughout the builds, that despite the description, I found it helped the most when I was behind aka out of the sight cone of the zombies. It made it WAY more likely that if a zombie spotted my character, I could re-hide significantly faster, allowing for some really funny scenes for myself where I would get spotted on purpose, duck behind a line of sight break, circle back and follow the zombies as they searched for me.

[@WangertheDanger]

This reenforces my belief that the zombies have superhuman sight and awareness cause they see me way more than I see them.

[@MNewton]

I feel like they need to change the description of Apocalypse difficulty away from "combat best avoided" as it gives the impression that stealth play will be at all possible in the beginning of the game. They are definitely going to see you and you are going to have to fight them.

[@MNewton]

@Grhifen sure but you're still going to have to fight them lol

[@UnknownSquid]

Agreed. It was quite a shock for me coming back to the game after years away, and experiencing how alert the zombies are these days. I read that exact line about stealth being important, thought it sounded fun, 100% maxed my character out for stealth, and was then severely confused as to why it was near impossible to play that way. It's not that maxing for stealth doesn't do anything, but that overall the gameplay loop doesn't make it a realistic option even when you try to focus it. The most practical form of "stealth" in the game is to deliberately get spotted a few at a time, and whittle the zombie numbers down. Once an area is lower population and stealth is now practical, you still shouldn't be sneaking, you should be deliberately culling them whilst manageable to prevent re-population. Every zombie you leave alive, is another roaming liability that will only spot you later, so it's safer to be a hunter on your own terms, than hunter on their terms. Since I still wanted to try a proper stealth focused playthrough, I setup a custom game for myself. I reduced the zombie population to 40% of it's normal, eventually ramping up to 100% (so like on day 1 of default settings). I reduced zombie eyesight to poor, with normal hearing still. This made genuine consistent stealth play possible, but to bring the threat back up a bit I made Zombie speed random. The presence of unidentified sprinters (and not being a combat focused build), made the usual tactic of deliberately baiting and losing a horde a total non-option. A five second sprint down the road was basically a death sentence, and things could get hairy really fast if you slipped up and started letting more than a handful see you. Overall I think my custom game mode design worked pretty well.

[@shooper3472]

Whats the point if theyre just gonna spawn back. Zombie spawning in this game feels too op. Without spawning, theres already tons of zombies you will realistically never get close to killing all of them. Just feels pointless spending so much time wiping out a horde just for one to spawn out of thin air in a couple weeks. The games Zombie migration is made so there is an even spread of zombies througout the map and will fill in areas with low zombies.

[@aidanwarren4980]

@@shooper3472Just turn off spawning in the custom sandbox settings. That’s what I’ve always done. Most people seem to think the game gets too easy when you can create safe areas, but I never get much past the first week so… personally for late game I’d like to see less zombie-diffusion and more zombie-concentration. The max group size should slowly increase until encountering lone zombies is uncommon, and instead you’re facing down migrating hordes. That would create a real endgame challenge for base defense.

[@kinkajuu1]

id say its a strong trait when applied statistically speaking. max light foot sneak and inconspicuous (and graceful i guess), will have rng in your favor of not being detected per zombie. all it takes is one zombie to notice you to be a problem. however, one zombie is easy to deal with. but the rate of zombies noticing you is the problem. if a horde of zombies notice you at a rate of 1 zombie per 2 seconds whilst fighting 1 zombie, then you have about 10 seconds to kill one and run away. if maxing stealth reduces said rate down to 1 zombie per 10 seconds, then you could kill them all one by one.

[@cryovictum]

I am glad you confirmed my sneaking suspicions. To stealth anywhere is way more based around line of sight and noise generation than anything from what I can tell.

[@HomeAloneGaming1]

not for me...i have hundreds of hours in the game have you tested for hundreds of hours too?

[@cryovictum]

@@HomeAloneGaming1 I have. Why? Wanna measure e-penises? Cause you are coming off that way.

[@denizs.9619]

You are doing god's work my man

[@FuzzySidewalk]

Great video, thanks for taking the time to do these sorts of experiments. Despite the issues you pointed out with inconspicuous, I think it's still useful for the sole reason that you're often not walking around areas with the goal of avoiding a couple spots of *single* zeds. Once you start to think about the percentage chance (per tick) to avoid being seen as a sort of expected value problem with larger groups, I think the perk becomes more obvious valuable. Without taking sound into account -- a perk that reduces the average number of zombies in a horde that notice me per tick? That sounds pretty nice to me!

[@theminerboy5694]

This is honestly a super big brain comment.

[@PanSatyros2]

These fences look like they are just level 2. I think they work like wall levels where if you build them

[@_skud]

Stealth is most effective when you are not in their sightlines. There's not much a person can do to avoid being seen if they are in field of view. Contrast is a dead give away and you're the only thing moving. Zombie's weakness isn't their perception, especially at the beginning of the apocalypse when they are freshly turned. It is their mindless tunnel vision. If stealth were just a way to avoid interaction with zombies, it would be an awful mechanic. The best moments of this game are when you are interacting with zombies. I prefer the more tactical implementation of it currently. What would make it better is more varied distractions. You have a whisper that is only a couple tiles, a yell that is like half a block, and guns/cars which are the whole neighborhood.

[@andfriends11]

I took conspicuous and that made it impossible for me to play that character. I got noticed by every zombie in the damn game and had no time to stop moving.

[@stromlolz]

Ahh, so this is why my sneak characters in build 41 felt like it was a tossup to get spotted! Well, what about lightfooted? I've been wanted to use short blades as of late, but it seems I'm heard more often than not, even while approaching from behind and with high lightfooted. Does Graceful make a difference? And to salt the wound, how do front-facing jaw-stabs work? Is that simply a chance too?

[@MsHojat]

Front-facing jaw stabs is entirely based on two things: Crit chance (dependent on the weapon, and which also increases with weapon skill level), and whether there are any _other_ zombies nearby that can see you. For whatever reason the distance that zombies can be to disable the jaw stab is quite long, like maybe 12-15 squares or something ridiculous like that. They added it as a safety measure a while ago so that you don't get attacked while performing the animation, but it really ruins knives since it means you can rarely ever sneak attack unless it's the only zombie. They should have made it only like 2-3 squares away. Aside from the cleaver and hand scythe, short blades have a chance to instant-kill animation, and only when no other zombies see you, not really a crit chance. In other words any normal looking attack will never get a damage multiplier. This is an extra kick in the nuts to short blades since they already deal the worst damage of all weapon types and also have the worst range, and don't attack any faster.

[@wowser4life]

@@SkeleTonHammer oh no it was silly broken, as soon as you get the timing down you could literally kill infinite amounts of zombies no matter what the toughness levels was. just have 3 knifes and some duct tape and you'd be fine. 3 knives weighed less than a baseball bat anyway

[@joesomebody3365]

Good information, and well presented. Thanks for putting this together.

[@friendofp.24]

Conspicuous feels like free points now. The only time it would impact you heavily, or even at all, is in the very beginning of the game when you're trying to take refuge in your spawn house. If you take Conspicuous, you just gotta be prepared to face a ton of zombies right after you spawn in.

[@BorzoiSpotProductions]

I'd imagine a lot of the positive anecdotes are confirmation bias. If you're taking this skill you're going to be playing stealthily, most likely. So obviously it feels like you're getting something out of it because you're being stealthy, as opposed to when you're playing normally.

[@woollygoat8921]

At this point, I picture Retanaru in a dark room with a wall covered in pages of printed code files, pins and string connecting them all in his search to decipher the ultimate mystery.

[@fhqwhgadsGT]

That was a good stream. I didn't catch the last hour or so though, so I feel I might've missed the final descent into madness. The extents you go to figure out how this game works are something to behold. Also, the names resetting to random happens to me all the time, it's pretty annoying. It seems that saving the character as a preset sometimes prevents it from happening, at least from my experience.

[@DashLashBoy]

I’ve found being conspicuous but adding brute works nicely.

[@vincecatubuan7689]

Conclusion: Conspicuous is free trait points

[@sethlogue6170]

I run inconspicuous in the new multi-player. Seems that zombies ignore me when me and my friends are spotted And fighting.

[@fakskis]

Honestly I like that stealth isn't easy, and that you'll get spotted/heard most of the time in the beginning with a low level character, it makes sense that someone without training/proper skill will make mistakes, like poking their head out from behind cover and/or bumping into things, or stepping on a branch etc. (I know that doesn't ACTUALLY happen lol), it adds to the realism if you think of it that way, and it'll be way more satisfying if you train your character to sneak and survive long enough that you CAN use stealth proficiently! Also use the 'Under Cover Of Darkness' mod, it makes it easier to sneak around and not be seen when it's dark (I THINK it only works during the night, but it MIGHT also work if you're inside with the lights off in the dark, check the mod description to be sure)

[@Rivers256]

Thanks for that information. :) Today I took conspicuous. I did a lot of running from building to building, trying to find a safe place. If you like a nomadic short lived character, try it!

[@TheBarbariangamers]

Me watching and pausing when i found the exact point he lost his mind

[@edensgate3770]

the seeing through windows and fences could be updated with the combat update when it comes out in like a year or two

[@Ives1776]

Where did they say they were updating the combat?

[@edensgate3770]

@@Ives1776 it was on a version roadmap somewhere there was the update with wildlife (thats suppost to be next) then combat with covering and overhaul of fire and then first part of npcs of course it will probably change it was just plans

[@spiritretro3571]

so realistically what does this actually mean for stealth play? is it even worth bothering to try? if i need max stealth to make it work even remotely than its worthless. i was wondering why inconspicuous felt like it wasn't doing anything and this video has answered why, thank you!.

[@Retanaru]

You pretty much cannot stealth in the open, and it takes very high stealth skill to even have a chance at sneaking a small gap and that's against a single zombie. On the other hand stealth play via staying quiet and out of sight is much much easier.

[@EricLS]

My latest build I took conspicuous finally. I will say it seems to me that I get spotted way further away, but honestly it makes things more straightforward. It’s way easier to clear an area because they *all* come shambling. That + Stout and Fit with Underweight (Fit and underweight cancel each other out point wise, but you still gain +1 fitness. So after a few days of ice cream it was literally just a free fitness point.) and being a lumberjack with Lucky, I am basically slaying hordes by day 2. Sneaking around can be helpful, but knowing I’ve pulled practically every Z within a huge radius is almost better.

[@PvtSchlock]

Badass breakdown broham!!

[@user-nj5cl6xs4n]

Its so stupid that you can see through the gaps of a fence, even from a distance, but you cant see past/through the branches/around the trunk of a single scrawny baby tree that probably has 4 zombies behind it.

[@MickeyYeahbaby]

i fucking hate trees in this game. This is why deforestation exists in my town.

[@celexample]

What blows my mind is that there even are traits like this. It makes me think clothing plays a factor. The colour of them especially. There are games like MGS: Snake Eater where depending on what camo you have you blend in more and it's fairly straight forward how it works. In Zomboid, it's like this huge guessing game. It's fun though since things are such a mystery. If they weren't then no videos or discussions, but what always bothers me is when people find out the traits do nothing or almost nothing at all or it's still unclear in the end. Traits like this need a system like in Snake Eater. You couple it with stealthy clothing and stealth skill to become nearly impossible to be spotted by vision alone. Shoes and lightfooted deal with the sound side of things.

[@Duhya]

@Shy Cracker I feel like getting into this kinda nitty gritty min-max behind the scenes code stuff before you even play a game is a good way to never enjoy a game. Ive been enjoying the game after getting back into to it for like the 5th time in at least as many years, and even I don't really want to minmax. I'd rather just install mods to change things to my liking, and roleplay a little, and enjoy.

[@h3rpad3rpacifilis]

The only reason I'm here as a new player is because me and my friends are finding it really annoying to really figure out how stealth works. No matter what build we tried, it all ends up with luring zombies behind a tall fence. We don't wanna min max, but the game is really really annoying at presenting solutions, and its very disheartening to find out that the reason why it was frustrating to begin with is because the game AI cheats. I mean, realistically speaking, if a zombie follows you into a house and you're in another room/floor sneaking, it should start to wander because it has no idea where you are (and zombies typically have reduced brain power). But in this game, it just pinpoints your location like an FPS vac hacker.

[@josephzs1208]

As someone who plays with either conspicuous or inconspicuous, the most common scenario where inconspicuous saves you and conspicuous screws you over is indoors with windows. I tested with inconspicuous dancing behind the windows staring at zombies in range and they almost never are able to spot the player. Not so much with conspicuous. They have a very easy time spotting the player. I pretty much run the sprinter game with inconspicuous on all the time now. You always want to know where the sprinters are so you can formulate a plan, but you never want them to spot you indoors.

[@nomesobrenome9027]

Very informative. Thanks

[@KawaiiSoulB42]

It a sound spot not being seen spotting. I had some walk by me with inconspicuous if the sound spot never triggers. The sight check will never trigger thus they walk by you. legit.

[@Yurie13]

how about inconspicuous + graceful combi? maybe this traits works well if paired with right traits i use inconspicuous + graceful and it's fun not to be spotted every god damn time.. lmao

[@NotThatOneGuy]

tested this and watched some videos; it looks like they work on different principles. graceful just reduces the circle of "noise" that you make, as does wearing no shoes. inconspicuous is just a flat reduction to the spot check that zombies make when they are looking at you. pure chance. combined, they have no effect on eachother, but in tandem it makes you very capable at stealth even with no ranks.

[@Mekose]

@@NotThatOneGuy One thing to note is that the Sneak and Lightfooted skills only gain experience when you're not currently detected by zombies. Having Inconspicuous + Graceful will help you level these skills faster early on (do they give an exp boost as well?) which will compound their effectiveness. It seems the meat of those traits really comes from having high sneak/lightfooted skill points anyway. You could always find a way onto a roof and sneak around to power level these skills if there's a large horde underneath you. It seems you gain more experience the more zombies are around, provided none of those zombies have you detected. It's also a way to check if and how many zombies are around you that you can't see by hovering over your sneak skill and seeing if you're getting experience and how much.

[@ArcaneAnouki]

Did you conduct any tests on whether being bloody or sweaty affects your detection rate?

[@TheVoltDenatsu]

to me it seems that if you are within a zombie's frontal view, the stealth does basically work in this game. but if you are facing a zombie looking in your direction theres a check each time its facing you on "true/false" and its very heads or tails. Ive definitely noticed sneaking when zombies arent looking at you can literally make you impossible to detect until youre close with higher sneaking (5+)

[@johnsmif]

So graceful lowers your spotting distance and inconspicuous gives you more room to be spotted. The perfect sneak build.

[@Saskidan]

Graceful is for sound

[@Saskidan]

Great info once again. I'll be avoiding this trait and grabbing graceful next time.

[@voodooozo3755]

Be me, first time playing zomboid: *picks burglar with inconspicious* *The shit doesnt work at all, gets spotted easly spotted by zombies even when not standing directly in front of them.* *proceeds to die a lot, fucks this and picks Forest ranger*

[@theguy9208]

the biggest fuck this profession is veteran. no panic, not ever. unless you get infected or have agoraphobia/claustrophobia. you can really train your combat skills when you dont lose all your stats to panic even in the face of hundreds of zombies surrounding you.

[@galloviking4766]

I consider Conspicuous to be free points. If a zombie has a 99% chance to see me, might as well make it 100% and get a free perk.

[@NeosDany]

All in all, worth the 4 points. And thanks for all the testing.

[@nldyz545]

Ty for the hard work :)

[@foxtrotnine2504]

This seems to only raise more questions than answered

[@crazylasagna3576]

After playing with Conspicuous for awhile, I tried Inconspicuous to see if it made a difference. While it wasn't huge, it was noticeable. With Conspicuous, you tend to aggro all zombies within sight immediately, whereas with Conspicuous you'll pull them slower and in fewer numbers. Now, is it worth it? Idk, but I like it.

[@dazeen9591]

I always take conspicuous for free points. I don't care if zombies see me. I will also often take clumsy since I don't care if they hear me either.

[@JellyJman]

Okay so it’s seems to be decent but not OP, maybe it should just be 2 points, the new build will change trait balance and maybe inconspicuous will be one

[@robhoyland1536]

I'd be curious to see if you could set something up that tested how zombie LOS actually works, and if sneak/inconspicuous and even zombie degeneration had an effect on chance to be detected if zombies had various "hot zones" simulating how directly within the LOS you were within the zombie vision range for calculation per tick or if zombies have actual vision cones like the player and sneak/inconspicuous/degeneration impact that and visibility fade like short sighted. It's possible there could be greater impacts noticed if the zombie isn't looking you dead on and you are on their periphery.

[@indaryus8778]

I hope they rework or atleast remove the rng part from sneaking

[@abucket14]

This is the first video I've seen of yours, have you done a test for how Graceful works? I'm interested in the mechanics of it since sound is by nature a more fleeting and controllable way to get caught

[@UristMcFarmer]

Ive not played any recent builds, but i don't like inconspicuous because it made it harder to pull one or two zombies from ststionary hordes.

[@Retanaru]

You can just stand up to do that. No need to sneak 24/7. Mind I've been taking conspicuous and doing exactly that with the pulling.

[@barryosullivan6225]

But what if sound is a big factor to sneaking? Like people who walk around with lead feet... Not very sneaky... So when zombie are facing the other direction.. DOes inconspicous mean you move quiter and will be noticed less frequenctly when the zombies are nt facing your direction?

[@robikenobi5728]

i still didnt get it, so inconspicuous sucks or nah?

[@pyroparagon8945]

It works.

[@quangdangduy2671]

If i understand correctly, inconspicuous add a percentage to the roll check when the zomebie spot you, and the check happen everytime you or the zombie move while in zombie spotting range. The more zombies present, more check you have to succeed in order to not being spotted. Obviously, the trait works, but nobody know for sure what’s all the factors in the zombie spotted roll check that the game calculated in the background, so it’s hard to say how much this trait really “worth”. If you can spare the points, then it’s ok to take it bc low chance is still better than very low chance imo.

[@aidanatkinson7717]

For the most part yeah, it seems to only be useful when crossing lines of sight and wanting to remain un seen. Like if you were in a house sneaking around and a window was open. With the inconspicuous trait it’s less likely the zombie will see you through the window when you cross into its line of sight. This might be useful early game when trying to close all the curtains of late game when exploring unknown locations. But all and all it appears to not have as big an impact as you’d think. Better to just amass zombies and level up sneak and nimble while hiding.

[@MsHojat]

It's hard to say due to it depending on the circumstances. For instance if you normally have a 70% chance to be spotted and have inconspicuous so that it's 35%, you would still need to factor in the number of ticks that they can see you for. For instance for 4 ticks it would be a 99% chance of getting spotted vs 82%. So it's probably quite a weak trait, but it's not useless.

[@alexitrinune]

Being tracked by zombies are one thing, but in the large RNG of things stealth is optional.

[@tabunga4669]

someone mentioned angle view. qith little to no sneak I've been able to sneak up to a zombie from the side until I stood up. same from behind

[@blackvo1d]

Does the zeds' sense of smell factor into detection at all?

[@Retanaru]

As far as I know smell doesn't work in the beta build.

[@trindalas]

I like being the sneaky sort. Quite handy. I am kind of curious if your clothes make any difference outside of noise though.

[@eduardoledesma5568]

How does one turn on pathfinding renderer? I can't find the setting, I'm trying to learn more about movement and how to effectively lose zombies.

[@Retanaru]

Launch the game in debug mode. To do that right click the game in your steam library and click properties. Then type " -debug " in the launch options. Load in and press f11. click options>pathfind and then checkmark "pathfind.render.path" . Press f11 to leave the menu. PS. pressing N puts you in godmode.

[@pandintea]

what i learned from not playing the game and just getting your videos recommended to me that alot of perks don't make a big difference lol

[@breni1518]

Finally. I now know what in the hell it does.

[@LoganNS]

Do you happen to know if other chance based traits like lucky and unlucky or thick skinned and thin skinned are also broken or do not work as advertised ? from my expirience they don't do anything or almost nothing, I.E. free points.

[@Retanaru]

I'll test them out in the future.

[@timothy842]

Great work, u ear my like

[@dietdoritos2290]

I feel like they could do something to fix sneaking by adding positive modifiers to the ticks for being behind walls and whatnot, as well as making inconspicuous a worthwhile trait to spend points on by giving those modifiers permanent bonuses.

[@1337foxs]

What i got from this is sneaking is near worthless

[@Saskidan]

Without graceful

[@youngblood5434]

thank you random guy on PZ discord that told me that this trait is fricking useless and instead use gracefull

[@MizzurWalrus]

My characters always seem to end up with adrenaline junkey and cowardly if I’m not focused on slaying zeds

[@norXmal]

Does it matter if it is night or day?

[@bertomsons]

tl;dr: always take conspicuous' free points

[@1chaplain]

In the end it doesn't matter, each zombie gets a shotgun shell in the head anyway

[@Comrade_Blanc]

Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats and rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once....

[@OldTrench]

Rats, we're rats, we're the rats, we prey at night we stalk at night, we're the rats!

[@toledo6036]

graceful made me go crazy when?

[@lechking941]

so i can add consiquause or how ever its typed into my free points traits group, as i never make it past early game :P smokes never done me wrong

[@thelemonofgaming6303]

Conspicuous*

[@dizzthenibbler4070]

I always thought sneaking only effected sound distance.

[@TheGlenn8]

So basically inconspicuous is great if you want to maximize sneaking as it significantly improves your odds of not being spotted. The problem is that stealth in general is garbage compared to just killing zombies and the points you spend on making you stealthier are much better spent on traits that will help you actually kill zomboids. This is why conspicuous is a free pick in basically all builds that don't consider sneaking where as inconspicuous is only really worth it if you're going to maximize sneaking.

[@Winasaurus]

It significantly improves the odds only in the specific case of moving high cover to high cover with only a few tiles between them. Which is staggeringly rare except for window peeking. But if you're window peeking, you can just let them see you and stomp their heads as they climb through, soooo

[@lordmanmanmanmanman3982]

4:24 voice crack

[@ihateyankees3655]

Inconspicuous doesn't seem to do much, but taking conspicuous definitely seems to draw bigger hoards for me. I try to avoid taking it when I can.

[@TrifectaMonkey]

Does lucky affect the RNG?

[@noodlepotreal]

Lucky is for loot and "good" meta events, ie: survivor house with loot, survivor car at 90%+, etc

[@realghoststories1210]

So in short sneaking doesn't help any thing in the game

[@IShallCallHimTaders]

Think of sneaking kind of like Toxic waste from DOOM & DOOM 2. Every second the game does a check, it is a single true or false check that doesn't take up more than a few kb of memory. If the value equals True, that means doomguy was in the toxic waste tile when the check went through, making him take damage. This is why you can watch doom vids of people running into toxic waste and him ignoring damage cause he got out of it fast enough before the tick. Now apply this to sight based on line of sight. Every second the game runs a check based on sight, if False, then it checks sound, if also false, it checks movement, If once again false, you are not detected.

[@domagojgalekovic8507]

Bungie level code right there.

[@ClareAmel]

i recently got into this game and i'm running a burglar that has inconspicuous and graceful (among other things of course). it's such an amazing QoL. it made securing the gated community in rosewood a breeze. definitely my crutch

[@user-dp9rb9ll3s]

Completely anecdotal

[@ClareAmel]

@@user-dp9rb9ll3s My bad for saying "this positive trait helped me" I guess?

[@user-dp9rb9ll3s]

@@ClareAmel yes

[@saskilla1945]

I take conspicuous and obese like a Chad

[@slyguythreeonetwonine3172]

I noticed the very second I got into the game with the new animations that they were all fluff and no substance.

[@rationaldemon195]

have you tried using barefoot or socks and different types of footware too se how much it varies

[@murph3292]

conspicuous is free points :P

[@Jaime_Protein_Cannister]

Lol waste of points , I can take something that helps with combat and mow down zombies and clear out the area, sneaking is not viable in this game or at least is such a pain and requires so many attribute points for a "chance" that zombie won't have eyes at the back of the head. other than that wtf is with the player tracking after spotting behind a wall , zombie knows where you are even if they don't actively see you , why isn't it moving to the last KNOWN location. LOL? I am NEVER worried about getting spotted inside a house, i close the curtains if there are any , what I need sneak to help me with is not getting spotted in the OPEN as I waste 3 HOURS to find a good angle TO enter a house.

[@ARush-px6ld]

What is this game called?

[@Retanaru]

Project Zomboid

[@armjustarm]

2 words Free Points

[@pcgomesp]

is this still true in 41.78?

[@Retanaru]

The outcome that stealth barely matters when zombies are looking at you? Yes. The tickrate is just so high that even a 1% chance to be spotted evens out to maybe 2 seconds of stealth on average.

[@Jakkaribik1]

So you Increase the Chance but never the END Result if you get Seen well best to have it then haha

[@nighthaste9763]

I choose conspicuous because top hat

[@theonefreeman3375]

albjects

[@31337z3r0]

albjectively a perfect comment

[@AndriyMisuyrak]

It is a good thing that it is a gamble instead of hardcoded min dist or nothing, it gives the game more unpredictability and replayability