Or does the stealth in this game just genuinely fail sometimes? There has been multiple times where I was sitting still behind some cover and a enemy (both infected and non-infected) have just started rushing at me randomly. Also, is anybody else having massive framerate problems when there's a lot of enemies on screen?

Oh and sometimes I'll grab an infected while trying to stealth and Joel with curb stomp it instead of choking it out. They seem to be on the same button but what triggers doing one over the other?

@gottem_guiz123: All you, I'm playing on hard and having no problem stealthing through places while also scouring everywhere for stuff. There are moments in the game where sneaking isn't an option, but those should be obvious. Also, when sneaking near clickers, you actually have to lightly press the analog stick to move slowly, not push up on it all the way. They'll hear you if you do the latter.

It's not the clickers that are the problem they're easy to get by. It's the regular infected/ non-infected seeing me through walls. Keep in mind it's only happened 4 times in around 6-7 hours of gameplay but it shouldn't happen at all imo. I got through just about every part of Metro: LL without getting detected, albeit the AI acted a little too blind for their own good at times but this is just dumb. And I can confirm that the places that this happened to me were not at the scripted moments where they see you no matter what (for example a specific area next to a school bus if you remember what I'm talking about.)

Sometimes Joel knee's a dude in the face instead of choking them out which is way faster but i don't know what triggers it, game runs at an ugly 25-28 frames per second, half a second input lag just like Uncharted makes the game feel out of control, sometimes i get spotted through walls, sometimes i get away with standing 1ft in front of a runner, several hours in i still don't know how clickers work, when they click you stop moving? or take cover behind something? because they kinda mildly click 100% of the time and i haven't heard any distinctive clicking to let me know they are 'active', crafting shivs constantly is a ton of fun.

I'm still going to keep playing it though because it's supposed to be great at some point.

Not sure about you being detected but for Joel doing the stomps and stuff it's done when you are visible by another enemy at the time because it's the takedown you do if you grab a guy in combat and being seen transfer from stealth to combat in the way the AI reacts. I've also found Joel often does the takedown when it is the last enemy in an area.

For you being detected it could be that you are not being quiet enough, humans and runners can't hear you at all if crouching however in certain areas there is broken glass and whatnot that will alert enemies if you step on it. It could also be your flashlight, runners shouldn't react to it I think but Humans should. I played through it on Hard and was always detected by my own screw up.

@cikame: Clickers see through ecolocation, they should almost always be clicking cause that's how they see. To avoid/sneak up on them you have to push lightly on the left stick and creep along slowly, pushing to far will cause Joel too move to fast and thus step too loudly and alert the clicker.

Oh I forgot to mention that my problem with him curb stomping them or whatever is because I'm trying to play stealth so when he does that it alerts the enemies to my position. Kind of seems weird that they would be on the same button and switch up randomly.

I've had similar experiences. The stealth in this game is simply not refined enough to warrant the amount of stealth gameplay present.

When I was talking to someone today I described the game to them as Uncharted except it's all stealth segments and thats not too far off.

It sounds like it's possibly a glitch. How long are you waiting after pressing triangle before trying to strangle them? I did notice that it could be that pressing square right after pressing triangle could cause it, maybe try waiting until he has fully grabbed the enemy and the prompt comes up.

I've playing with a decent headset so I should hear every sound made but maybe the sound of me stepping on glass or something just bugged out a few times. But I'm quite confident that i've been seen while sitting completely still behind cover. Let's be real here, the stealth definitely works better in this game than in Uncharted. So at least Naughty Dog is learning.

Throughout my playthrough, I did come across one area where it appeared that no matter where I hid, runners would still be able to see me. I'm 99% sure there wasn't any broken glass or anything on the ground either. I guess it's just a bug/issues with the a.i. Or maybe the game was trying to force me into a loud combat scenario. Whatever. As I said it only happened to me once so no biggie. As for the frame-rate issues, I never encountered any.

In regards to Joel's curb stomp, that should only occur if Joel is in high profile (been spotted). Again this might just be a hiccup with the stealth and/or a.i systems.

I curb stop enemies sometimes if I hit the square button early or several times. Not sure if that is what triggers it or not. Also, if your every careful, the stealth parts should go by fine, the infected dudes generally have an easy time of spotting you and that's when I say fuck it and start shooting everything.

It's not that i can't deal with the clickers, stealthing around them works just fine, the game just implies you're supposed to avoid them when they're clicking and that doesn't seem to be the case.

I feel like i've yet to get to the part of the game where all of this comes together in some way, i won't rate it poorly before i'm done with it but it might be an ugly ride.

Joel curb-stomps when he knows he's been spotted.

I'm usually hitting the square button the second I grab them and I sometimes mash it just to make sure i get through it as quick as possible. Maybe that's my problem.

I had one encounter where i was hidding behind a box waiting for a guard to walk by and sometimes he noticed me as he came around the corner and sometimes he didn't. I'm not sure if i was just too close to the edge or it was a glitch.

@gottem_guiz123: I think the infected are supposed to be intentionally stupid/unpredictable, but seeing you through walls seems weird. Maybe you stepped on something that makes noise (a bottle, etc) that made them react-- there are "sound traps" set up in the environment to compromise your position? Or maybe they saw an ai companion (contradictory to what patrick said, ai can get noticed, though it does take a lot for that to happen).

Or maybe it's just an imperfection in the game. Keep in mind, games aren't perfect; especially when it comes to AI. I wouldn't worry about it, as the pros of this game far outway any con

@gottem_guiz123: Meleeing an enemy as opposed to choking/shiving will almost always get you caught (unless you're farther away from other enemies). There's your issue. I just tested this on an area with runners/ clickers, and it agros them everytime. If you have no shivs to take out clickers, just sneak past them. Choking a runner near a clicker can also agro it, as it makes more noise than shiving (the game explains all this, though you have to go into the menu/press start when it comes up on the screen to see them)

Haven't had any problems with it on hard. Keep in mind there are sometimes objects in the environment that when brushed against will fall over, and attract enemies.

It genuinely fails at times. I've found the only time I've succeeded at stealth in this game are the parts where its full of clickers and no other types of enemies. For some reason the Runners and Gunners have the fuckin eyes of a hawke and can detect me if I'm 15 feet away and in their line of sight. Overall though the combat when they do detect me has been a thrill, I've been enjoying this game immensely.

There are flaws with the AI though I don't really mind since the combat is so fun.

The AI is terrible. Both the enemy AI and the companion AI. I basically make one attempt at doing a stealth run, and when that fails (almost always on the final enemy), i just run through blasting everyone in the face.

So no, i don't think you're doing anything wrong. The game is insanely glitchy and really encourages run-and-gun playstyle (which i feel runs completely counter to the game setup).

This game seems like another case of, "Amazing stuff, bound in terrible gameplay". I really like the look of the game, the feel of the characters and the atmosphere of the world. But it seems legitimately unfun to play. :/

Its sort of feeling that way. When you're 10 minutes into creeping your way through a bunch of enemies and your companion yells out "HEY, THE EXIT!!!" like 5 feet away from 2 people with guns and they ignore it... it sort of undercuts everything you just did.

I'm about 5-6 hours into the game and i'm not sure if i could say i'm even enjoying it.

@gottem_guiz123: The "stomp" or whatever the alternate is is triggered by either you popping out of stealth due to someone else seeing you or if you jam on the triangle button instead of waiting for the prompt to appear; frequently the best decision is to begin the chokehold, drag the opponent for a second or two to make sure they're out of LoS; then execute the strangle.

Nope. Actually it feels easier to maintain stealth in this game than most.

I'm really torn on this game because of its tedious stealth gameplay, its detracting me from actually enjoying what is clearly a polished and unique experience.

It may be because of the way I play stealth games or how unforgiving this game is, but there are also some key moments where despite the focus on stealth and avoiding battles, it forces them upon you in a very poorly scripted way. I have come across 2 key moments in the past 2 hours of gameplay that showcase this, possibly minor spoilers:

- Ellie learning to use the rifle - if you stealth kill every single enemy to 'clear a path' for her, the game will keep spawning infinite enemies until you get bored, run out of ammo, or get spotted so she can let off at least one token pot shot to use the rifle for the next cutscene

- You come across the Humvee and a number of guards, you can easily sneak round the whole thing, including the humvee. As soon as you enter the next building, guards will spawn, all enemies will be alerted including the humvee and all will rush your position just so you can start the 'running away' scene from the humvee..

This kind of forced gameplay, especially where it becomes so obvious to someone who enjoys good stealth, is very jarring and I'm either going to have to change how I play the game (which I shouldn't have to do if it were better designed) or lower the difficulty to a point where it doesnt matter. Uncharted had awful stealth and similar issues, but given the difficulty of this game and the stealthy focus it shows up more here.

This part was so annoying!

I only had one occurrence of me being behind cover and an enemy spotting me when they shouldn't have.

This really stumped me at the time. I had slipped up and made a standoff against most of the enemies in this section and eventually took them all out. I then found myself running through the entire arena trying to figure out what to do next. At some point I fired off a round in frustration and an enemy randomly spawned behind me and Ellie took him out. I spent spent the better part of ten minutes running around aimless and confused.

A few more hours in, i've given up with stealth, i may be low on ammo but my patience is better spent clearing areas of supplies than trying to get the stealth to function.

Finished the game and all I can say is that I rarely had any fun, maybe its the games tone or some poor gameplay decisions. I think when it comes to harrowing story lines, to enjoy and appreciate them you don't want the game to be beating you into the ground over and over with suffocatingly difficult fights at the same time. If I were to review everything but the gameplay I would agree with its consensus scoring, but otherwise I'm just glad I don't have to play it anymore. So disappointing.

I know this isn't exactly on-topic but man, it's been a while since I have played Uncharted 2 but didn't that game look better than this? This game honestly at times looks like absolute shit to me. Which makes it even harder to understand why the framerate drops to like 20 fps as often as it does.

Haven't had any of those problems. I will say if he does the stomping on the head animation it's usually because there aren't any enemies that are in range to hear it. He's done it to zombies sometimes when it would seem like others would obviously be able to hear the head smashing but they don't.

That's really odd because I found the execution on making enemies dangerous was extremely effective, yet the game wasn't all that hard. If you tried to play it like any other third person shooter I can see how you would find it difficult, but it's more of a stealth game than just a shooter. Sneak when you can, and then shoot people when you can or bash them with your fists. Melee is actually extremely effective in this game.

If you take time to plan your moves through the environment and make sure to be careful you can usually whittle down enemy numbers until you can either engage and shotgun them to death or bash there heads in with your fists or weapons.

I must be playing a superior version of the game then, because the stealth mechanics of the game and gameplay were a joy to play. I got a feeling most players complaining played on normal and failed to learn how to effectively stealth play through the game since the risk of breaking stealth in this game on normal is fairly insignificant. I played on hard, and after an hour of so I gained a great appreciation for the stealth mechanics. It is fast, responsive, and it makes sense. It can be buggy in some instances (I hate how friendly AI's action can break the immersion of the gameplay by clipping through you or doing something that should break stealth and don't), however it isn't game breaking. Overall I am loving this game.