Do Stealth Games NEED a Crouch Button?
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- Опубліковано 20 тра 2024
- Crouch-walking has become synonymous with modern stealth games, despite being relatively impractical in real life. I made this video to discuss why the mechanic is so prominent in the genre and whether or not that is a problem.
00:00 Intro
01:27 Why Do We Crouch?
05:12 Do We NEED a Crouch-Walk?
08:52 The Case for Crouching - Ігри
![It's a Good Game, but a Bad [REDACTED] Game](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pfI4m78JgKc/mqdefault.jpg)
What I love about the way crouch-walking is implemented in the modern Hitman games is that it does a good job decreasing your visibility from guards, but it can work against you because doing it in view of the many passive NPCs is a great way to draw unwanted attention because it's an extremely weird thing to do at a social function.
It's funny to see a realistic depiction of reactions to crouch-walking in public.
Theres a lot of things that need fixing in the section of social behaviour and professionalism. Somebody does not just go into an area where you have dropped a coin, seeing you and still prioritising the coin.
Depends which part of town you are in
@@bloodcorer Too much realism and the game would become extremely difficult and time-consuming and we definitely don't want that.
@@EarthIsFlat456 yes we do
Great video. One thing that you missed touching on is that while crouching as a way to move stealthily is somewhat silly looking and not really necessary for good stealth mechanics, the act of crouching acts as an extremely strong and clear visual indicator as to whether or not your movements will be stealthy. It's really important for a player to be able to have an accurate idea of what their character will do in response to input, and crouching removes a vast degree of ambiguity. There are certainly other ways to achieve this beside crouching (such as using UI indicators like Skyrim's eye when sneaking), and I think it's a good question to ask whether or not a diegetic (but somewhat unrealistic) indicator is better than a non-diegetic one.
Really good point. To back this idea up, I played some Splinter Cell Blacklist recently and it was always impossible to tell whether I was going to slow walk or fast walk after standing still for some time. Since I didn't understand the rules of when it switches by itself or for how long it memorises my decision to change speeds.
But of course crouching is binary, you either are or aren't, that consistency is key and there is a clear visual cue to showcase what state you are in.
That's exactly what i was thinking too. Another great example is the Dishonored franchise, everytime you crouch, the protagonist turns his/her sword upside down very smoothly. If the developers had decided to design the whole game whithout crouching as defalut for stealth, that animation alone would have been enough.
You know your movement will be stealthy because you're playing a stealth game. Why do you need an indication of what game you're playing?
bethesda is definitely the worst offenders, because there is 0 chance of sneaking without crouching, even if the enemy doesnt have direct line of sight
@@icarusgaming6269 Even games focused around stealth usually have some kind of high-profile vs low-profile movement mechanic. Being crouched indicates that you're doing the sneaky low-profile movement, that's quiet but slow. Standing means you're able to move faster, but make more noise.
I always find real life crouch walking really strain your legs and not to mention doesn't really make you silent, instead make you clumsier. I remember in Metal Gear Solid 1 when Master Miller/Liquid Snake giving realistic advice how to be silent, like putting socks on your shoe or walk with your heel first slowly. But Solid Snake say he can't do that, so Miller then tell you to just crawl.
In Call of Cthulhu game when you try to Stealth, you don't really crouch but the camera go slightly foggy white and slight crouch, probably to imply that you are trying to duck a little bit and walk step by step.
Gta 5 has a more realistic sneak mode than crouching but I always thought it felt weirder than crouching and I'd rather just crouch
@@schmecklin377 need to check put GTA5 sneaking. I haven't played GTA5 honestly after GTA4 made me disappointed.
@@hanchiman they are very different games. 5 seems to still hold up to this day.
And then people complain that older mgs games don’t have crouch walking
mgs 3 was great with how sneaking is @@MILDMONSTER1234
A point that should be mentioned (although I think you did so fleetingly) is the reason it's used so often is because of the instant, universal understanding of what 'sneaking' means. Show anyone (from a 5-year old to a 50-year old) a picture of a guy walking and another picture of a guy crouching behind a wall and all will immediately understand that the crouching guy is hiding. I mean, we all played hide-and-seek as kids -- and I guarantee many of us 'got low' as we were hiding. Whether behind a sofa or under a table -- making yourself a smaller target by crouching is an innately understood thing.
Now, crouch-walking is another thing entirely (and quite frankly beyond the scope of what I wanted to write), but I hope my point is clear. Very cool video! :)
But the guy crouching is instantly suspicious.
@@jacobstaten2366 the "sneaking" stealth power fantasy is that your player character isn't seen. Obviously crouching in the middle of a crowd in "social stealth" is nonsensical.
As a child, I would crouch behind my bed before my dad would break into my room and beat me.
@@jacobstaten2366The point of the crouch is that the enemies don't see you looking suspicious isn't a problem if your trying to avoid being seen altogether.
@@jacobstaten2366 Haven't played them in a while, but don't AC games prevent you from blend into crowds if you are crouch walking?
I thought AC1s approach to stealth was so cool when I was a kid. It was so much more believable to me keeping a low profile, blending into crowds, and traversing via rooftops rather than just crouching around everywhere
I also thought it was cool as a kid, but I also remember enemies all alerting to your presence the millisecond you stopped blending with monks, so it wasn't perfect.
Huh, I remember just mindlessly walking up to my target, murdering them in clear view of everyone, then bailing out of the city so I could be kicked into a jarring 'present time' segment that completely broke my interaction with the ancient narrative I actually cared about, then doing it over and over again until the credits rolled.
(Man, AC has _always_ been a steaming pile of crap.)
@@CoralCopperHead Just say you have shit taste and are bad at the game. 🤷♂
wut, in AC1 you just walk up to your target or jump from above. The social stealth aspect in that game was so bare minimum that it was hardly useful to actually pull off assassinations
@@blinkachu5275 nah, you can’t even do air assassinations in the first one
One of the (many) things I really appreciate about Alien: Isolation is that, even though it has the typical crouch-to-sneak mechanic, it's designed in such a way that you're barely ever obligated to use it as anything other than a way to hide behind/under objects. 99% of the time, just walking is quiet enough that it's by far the better option.
It's refreshing to have the mechanic available to you, without you being tethered to it. In other stealth games it often seems the optimal way to play is just to never stand up; at which point why wouldn't the devs just make that the default mode of movement?
Not really,
Like in The Last of Us part 2 yeah in the thick of a combat encounter you’ll be crouch walking a lot but the rest of the game you’d be walking standing straight. Hence why it’s still the default option. Same with MGS V
I've tried getting into Alien Isolation both as a horror game and as a stealth game. Stealth, survival horror and imsims are my favourite genres, so I thought I'd love it but I just can't get into it. It feels like a lot of walking around collecting cards to open doors - does it get any better after the midway point?
@@dunningdunning4711 Depends what you mean by "midway point" since the game is longer than you might expect and it takes its time building tension before really throwing the alien at you. The first trip to Medical is where the game really begins. If you're not enjoying it past that point, it's probably not for you.
I don't think walking standing up is the best option in Alien Isolation, the game is so full of boxes and tables that as soon as you hear the xeno's steps, you can quickly go behind something. If you walk standing, you can pass by a window without noticing and it will see you, if you were crouching by default that wouldn't have been a problem. Making yourself smaller is useful in stealth.
@@cass7448 thanks for the info. I'll give the game another go after completing Prey.
The problem isnt stealth walking itself, its that stealth walking is usually too fast that theres no trade-off at all. You sacrifice nothing to not be stealth walking all the time.
Exactly. Even in nu-Hitman, that was supposed to be a game more about disguising than sneaking, your crouch running is completely silent, barely slower than normal jogging and has no repercussions, except for NPCs sometimes stopping and commenting your behaviour.
@@dani1o25 I can say it is a tad too fast, that's for sure.
But I'll also say that running is damn viable in anything not Master. Eand even then it has quite a few uses.
At the end of the day I'd say the games wouldn't suffer if it was nerfed a tad.
There is 2 types of stealth walking- its either so mindnumbingly slow that you would rather use exploits than an intended mechanic or so fast there is no reason for not crouching all the time.
Dont you usually lose speed?
i think it can depend on the game. like splinter cell blacklist is intentionally fast paced and fluid so it makes sense for sam's movement to be fast paced and fluid.
Dark Messiah has a walk button, and is the best way to stealth quickly and not get heard. And it is such a relief in stealth. You crouch to make yourself more hidden, but walking makes you faster but silent. Its weirdly good.
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002) has a designated sneak button. It slows you down a lot. But there is a glitch where if you tap it really fast, you can move at a running pace while still technically sneaking. Agent 47 starts spazzing out but he zips through the levels as quiet as a ghost. Nobody will hear him coming.
@@Ckoz2829
man that gave me a severe dose of nostalgia.
also, that game was
i remember that game, that game had too much of a good sound designs for a game that is that old it is ridiculous,
all the weapon especially the double barrel, the "Ballers" aka duo silver handg^ns etc sounded so punchy, even the visuals look really good for that time. back then the graphics looked shockingly pretty to me
i remember thay game had a toggleable first person camera, as a kid i remember i went around with the double barrel break-off sh0tg^n in first person mode blasting enemies but toggling to 3rd person to reload cuz the animation looked cooler lmao such fun memories.
fun fact i remember, if you were on fps camera then agent47 was in "high profile" mode with him aiming down the barrel even if you were just slow walking as evident by the model's shadow hence enemies getting hostile really soon, compared to the same movement action in 3rd person mode where enemies were much lenient. fun memories
Dark Messiah is so underrated
It took this approach from Thief - the Dark Messiah developers were heavily inspired by Thief. You can see this influence in all their work; from Arx Fatalis to Dishonored.
@@NicholasBrakespear Okay, you taffer, I'll find you!
The problem I have with crouch-walking in most stealth games is that normal walking is often LOUDER. Why!? 0-o
That is a very good point, but caused by simplification. It's often used as an unspoken rule that normal walking is casual walking, while crouch-walking is implied to be the character controlling every muscle to balance body weight. This is a bit of a simplification that could be used to argue it was fine that older AC games had no crouching, as you can also walk quieter while standing upright than casual walking realistically speaking.
Simple answer: to make things balanced. Walking is faster so it is louder, crouching is slower so it is quieter. Just like how in many game melee is more damage than ranged.
Some stealth games the default base speed is the character doing a light jog (e.i. MGSV, The Last of Us Part 2). So that makes sense to be making some noise
some shoes (like combat boots and dress shoes) make a lot of noise when you walk. in most games the normal walk speed is quite slow so i think it would be more sensible that the character automatically focuses on walking quietly in restricted areas without crouch walking and the crouch would be used to take cover behind obstacles.
Because it was designed to be used alongside granular movement, so when transplanted into a game without that feature it doesn't make any sense. KBM control schemes have always struggled with this problem, but now it's everywhere
I think Assassins creed should've leaned more into social stealth rather then crouch walking , Or take some inspiration from thief and you use shadows to hide urself or making the ground itself a stealth section with what type of ground you're walking on , It would make it much more interesting then just pressing 1 button and now the enemies suddenly need glasses to see you
I think the hitman games took the social stealth idea and ran with it. It’s a very solid system
I really liked that game for that reason , Even tho it does have it but it encourages you to engage with its social stealth and try different routes for the assassination
I do think however Assassins creed is different abit , In that when you do finally kill the target unlike hitman they're supposed to see you and know you did it to fully insert that fear of the brotherhood in them (The actual historical assassins were like this) @@captain_cheezus5186
great idea, but i think different floor sounds wouldnt fit with AC's fast paced stealth. the shadows though, would be very fitting
Leaks are suggesting that hiding in shadows and even turning off light sources to create more shadows will be featured in AC Red.
I still like to crouch.
What is this thief game you're talking about ?
Is it old?
I've done crouch walking in real life in cosplay before. (As Jin Sakai with a metal armor I made) at conventions.
It gets tiring enough after a while but you can sneak up to people if they are focused on something like walking or shopping. I've done this to a couple of people by "Photo assassination". The armor is pretty noisy due to the skirt and metal parts moving around, but if you walk smooth enough it wont make any noise. Sometimes I throw a one of my wind chimes and the first thing they do is stop or jump then go to grab it, or turn around to see who lost it. I usually pretend to be part of a group or just go up to ask for a photo.
Jesus Christ...
I got pics with solid snake, batman, ezio and a couple of others.
That is so goddamn funny. I love when people cosplay at conventions and act like their character.
This man gonna be a secret agent in a couple years
When I was in the military, crouch walking was trained into us as a legitimate form of stealth. But we were also told that it is extremely strenuous and is really only practical if you have almost no gear on otherwise you're just begging to have your knees blown out. Otherwise, going prone and low crawling was more practical, like how Snake does. Since then, it always made sense to me for someone like Snake, Batman, and Sam Fisher to crouch walk since they're either physically augmented or intentionally travel light. But when other games do with where you have shields and swords dangling around, I always try to suspend my disbelief and think this is only a gameplay mechanic and in-universe sense they probably wouldn't do this. Kinda like Kratos struggling to open chests or lift a door in the original GoW games, it's a mechanic and not a lore thing that would happen.
Shield and sword historically doesn't play well into stealth at all. Those carrying a sword were noble, crawling and crouching around is not. Plus - historical armour is NOISY.
@@annasolovyeva1013Historical armor is actually not as noisy as one might think. Sure, if you go for the Victorian stereotype of a dude covered head to toe in fully exposed “shining armor”, then yea, there will be a lot of “clang clang”. But knights in that actual time period, tended to cover their armor in fabrics, which can muffle the sounds reasonably well if you’re slow and careful with your movements.
Furthermore, most of the noise comes from pauldrons and fauld areas, which not everyone wore.
Also, the idea that “noble people don’t sneak around” is really really dumb and not at all reality. The whole concept of a “Black Knight”, came out of the fact that… yes, sometimes knights were indeed sent on covert missions.
@@theguileraven7014 I interacted IRL with dudes in HMB armour, brigantine and cloth and stuff. It's still too much clang.
Stealth actually became a combat mainstream after the introduction of modern gunpowder and rifles, circa 1880. Before that, knights preferred to be brightly visible on the battlefield.
The whole concept of black knight comes from victorian literature - e.g. Ivanhoe where it comes from the practice to stain armour black (so it doesn't rust) and either don't have anything to do with stealth, in Ivanhoe it's Richard the Lionheart incognito, but nothing stealthy
Not military but for years I played paintball and same thing crouch walk/run to move between cover of you just had some wide open area to go across and no protection otherwise crawling is the best option.
It also depends how far you wanna crouch. Full duck walk gets tiring very fast, but you can kind of do this compromise crouch were you bend the knees and waist a bit and it makes you a full foot or so shorter. It seems quite natural as William Fairbairn noticed that his police men naturally did it when going on raids.
One story about this, was they were raiding some criminal hideout in the early morning before dawn and entered through a back alley. They got in without issue and after the raid when they were coming out, they found clotheslines all throughout the alley at just under head level. They asked some people around about them and every said they had been there for a long time. So they came to the conclusion that they all must have been crouching without realizing it when they entered the alley, expecting a gun fight, and that's why they didn't get caught up on the clotheslines.
Metal Gear Solid had one of the best creative solutions for crouch walking and cover with the cardboard box because you could take some cover with you, and its effectiveness was based on your behaviour (staying still, not blocking patrol paths, using the right box at the right time and in the right area, etc). In the first 3 games using the box is a substitute for a crouch walk, and can be used to get past some obstacles faster. MGS4 added the barrel/steel drum which was bullet resistant and could be used to make special attacks.
MGSV took it much further it by giving boxes durability, and letting you do things like fight from the box, stand up straight and run while inside the box, and put posters on it so that enemies might be distracted by different images e.g a bikini pin-up which would cause them to drop their primary weapons due to arousal, or mistakenly salute a poster of an officer, thinking that it was a real person. For balance purposes these would only work if you hadn't been spotted yet, but if you were, the box was still useful as cover and transport to slide down hills faster. Then to top it off, boxes were a key part of the fast travel system in several games. The difference in MGSV was that they were an optional part of your loadout. You never had to take a box with you and could always get more if they were destroyed.
Hitman was another good example of creative stealth because the idea of wearing a disguise was not entirely new, but that series definitely took it to new places by making it a core component of the gameplay; devs made it so that sometimes you might be the most famous person in the room that everyone had heard of, but might never have met. Sometimes you took the place of a famous artist, actor, or model where absolutely everyone was looking in your direction, but were never suspicious of. Concepts like suspicion take stealth a step further, where if they don't suspect you of anything, maybe they think you're just being a bit silly or weird when crouching behind some cover "Did you find something over there? Let me know when you're done looking around..." and they just ignore you. For the sake of gameplay however, it tends to rapidly escalate from zero suspicion to "Oh my god this person wants to murder me" in a couple of seconds otherwise there's no risk.
Every time I play a new action game with stealth elements I'm forced to do the same dance all over again, where I need to determine to which degree line of sight, movement speed, footstep sounds, physics interaction noises (i.e., breaking a vase), floor surface material, attack animations, attack sounds, jumping, cover and crouching all individually affect your detection by enemies. It's never completely clear, and while some games have tutorials for their stealth mechanics, you always need to spend some time experimenting to really get a grip on the rules.
Skill issue
Some things to point out: (1) The original thief games did have separate sneak and crouch mechanics, though since crouching makes you move more slowly which translates to being quieter. (2) There are situations where crouch walking would make since in real life, and it is depicted in movies, though usually for very specific situation (sneaking through bushes, being a prime example); of course, seeing anyone behaving stealthily in plain view (where you would see them) would look silly, as would many ways video game characters move. (3) From an ergonomic perspective, having separate crouch and sneak controls does increase control complexity and increase the chance of mis-keying in play, so often collapsing the two into one makes since from that perspective.
As much flak as Thie4f received I liked the stealth mechanics. You can crouch. But crouch didn't guarantee you were silent. If you crouched on certain stuff such as glass you still made noise unless you slow-walked.
@@noobbotgaming2173 The original Thief already had those mechanics. Thief 4 gets zero credit for doing something in 2014 that Thief did 16 years earlier.
@@NicholasBrakespear Great way to miss my point. Don't change what I said. Thie4f could have been shallow with its stealth. But I applaud the devs for keeping some depth to the stealth.
@@noobbotgaming2173 I didn't miss your point at all. You were defending Thief 4 on the basis that it... uh, kept some battered vestige of the stealth concepts created in the original 16 years earlier, while simultaneously taking a steaming dump all over the plot, the setting, the tone, the broader mechanics, the level design and indeed the general design philosophy.
They get absolutely zero points for not completely dismantling some smaller aspects of the stealth gameplay - especially since the actual overall stealth experience was drastically different, and vastly inferior.
Really, you may as well say "Well at least it has a bow in it, and his name is Garrett."
@@NicholasBrakespear I don't care for your review of Thief 2014. Again you miss the point. Don't put words in my mouth. Where did I defend Thief? I simply said the stealth mechanics were solid. That doesn't make it a good game.
Your review is irrelevant to OP's comment. Touch grass. No one cares about you.
I love crouching and crawling as one of the things one can do to hide from the view of a foe. Ofcourse, it should not be the only thing. I wish more games that feature stealth as a way to achieve goals would allow for disguise, which could simply be picking up the outfit a fallen foe and putting it on from the inventory. Another would be the use of tricks and traps, such as baits to lure a foe away from you or into a snare or a mine or a covered pit. I also wish the darkness and the surroundings and camouflage could be used to hide as well
Mark of the Ninja and the hitman world of assassination is what you're looking for my brother
I've been working on a small indie game where the main mechanics are using disguises to gain access to locations and using dialogue to convince people you belong in an area.
It is focused around being a journalist and collecting information, so no murder.
In one of the prototype levels I am working on, you work your way into fictional Jeff Bezos' home by gaining a disguise as the staff that works for him. Then you get to steal evidence of his illegal dealings and if you so choose, trash his house.
I love the level in Thief where you disguise yourself as a Hammerite to enter their stronghold. Hitman is the best disguise-based stealth game. Assassins Creed always felt like it had good ideas but never implemented them properly.
The early thief games were actually pretty good about using shadows as cover to avoid detection.
Way ahead of thier time.
So most of the features from Hitman, combined with Batman Arkham and Manhunt/Thief.
I think a crouch button is important for freedom of movement in games that feature that, but what I don't find to be a good implementation of crouching is when it becomes an instant stealth mode, usually in games that are not purely stealth based, or have it, but not in a fleshed out manner. For example, it's well enough to crouch to hide under waist-high cover or to hide in tall grass at a distance, like in MGSV (which also has other elements to it, such as staying still while in the direct vision of enemies, or the level of darkness), but it does bother me when you hide in scarce vegetation, or even a not very opaque plot of crops in the later AC games and you become immediately invisible to a guard so long as you don't bump into them, or level 100 sneaking in the Bethesda RPGs.
Also in Bethesda RPGs I do not appreciate the reverse that if you hit an unsuspecting enemy without crouching first it doesn't qualify as a sneak attack.
@@RorikH Sometimes even if you're crouching it doesn't count. Bethesda games.
I'm actually a dev working on a stealth / imsim game for VR right now. It was my graduation capstone game and was very well received so I guess I'm trying to see if I can make it a real thing now. Because of the nature of VR as a medium I've had to think heavily about how crouching works in the moveset of a stealth game.
One of the fun things about VR is that you turn your player's natural range of physical motion into mechanics and have to design your game to work with them. Crouching is a thing that (most) people can do in real life, and when you're seeing people try to sneak around in VR a lot of them will naturally hide behind barriers, which may involve crouching. I presented the prototype of my game at a small local trade show and had a couple dozen people playtest it, and seeing how people try to sneak with their actual bodies was really telling. The thing about crouching in real life is that it's awkward. It's tiring. It's not a very natural way for a person to be, and it's not easy for them to move. But the benefit of a reduced posture is inarguable for hiding behind things and breaking line of sight.
So I started thinking about how crouching SHOULD work as a mechanic. In most modern stealth games, crouch walking is basically a free action with no downsides. You move a teensy bit slower, but you're significantly less visible and make less noise. So why would the player ever not crouch? I think that crouch as a state could exist, but it should be a bit more costly. Either you move so much slower that it's not a viable means of getting around (like the old Hitman games), or you're louder, or it costs stamina similar to sprinting. I think all of these make a lot of sense as drawbacks, since in real life trying to walk while crouching is a clumsier slower affair than it is in video games.
You should never be in a position where one option is always better than the others all the time, because then players will never use anything else. Crouching should be a contextual decision with costs and benefits. Maybe it's useful to hide temporarily behind things but not convenient for getting around. Maybe it costs stamina and if I get caught while using it I'm in a position of disadvantage. Maybe it's noisy, so when I'm sneaking up behind someone to knock them out it makes less sense to crouch due to that, so when approaching someone from behind you have to be more visible to other guards so you won't be heard by your current target. There's a lot of options for how you might do it.
I think movement speed is my favorite restriction, but when Splinter Cell did exactly that, there's a reason most subsequent stealth games misinterpreted the rule as "Crouching makes less noise" rather than what it actually was: "Moving slower makes less noise, and crouching makes you move slower." For one thing we need to rethink how stealth games control on KBM, because only being able to access two or three movement speeds rather than a functionally infinite number only serves to exacerbate the problem. In Tarkov you control your movement speed with the scroll wheel, which is not perfectly granular, but it's as close as you'll ever need it be. For your game I'd encourage you to pay close attention to the granularity of the movement control surface and how people use it. I've found the touchpad VR controllers to be very pleasant for fine movement, but thumbsticks not so much. Accessibility movement options throw a few extra wrenches into speed control
Some other interesting historical restrictions I've seen include tactical stealth games like the Paris Ghost Recon games where your gun is your primary tool, so pieing corners while crouching lowers your eyeline and makes it more difficult to aim for important areas on closer targets like the chest and head. MGS4 has the very silly restriction that too much crouch walking will throw out your back, which feels more like an early satire of how people play stealth games than anything less
@@icarusgaming6269 Splinter Cell got that from Thief. In Thief your speed determines how loud you are, and crouching slows you down. You can hide in shadows w/o crouching in Thief. It got so much right, but few games seem to have learned the correct lessons from it. Splinter Cell and Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow got it, though. I prefer them to MGS on the PS1, as in real life, you wouldn't have the range of sight Snake has from the camera angles.
To me crouching for stealth only makes sense in a context-sensitive manner... that is cover. Crouching when not on cover does nothing and wont promote trying to stealth via that method for extended periods, while when on cover the crouch tells the model to fit the form of the cover - a tree would make the player turn sideways to fit behind it (as crouching behind a tree definitely wont help in a realistic way unless it’s a very short but wide tree, or you wear a camo suit with bushes around), not lower themselves - crates would make them tuck their head down, or position the camera to the side to look around a corner of it safely without dragging the rest of their body into view. Physically crouching doesn’t make sense to me in terms of input as leaning forward and lowering your head is natural when trying to get a bead on something but crouching itself as you pointed out is demanding and most people can do it but badly and eventually people can’t do it, eventually people get old or tired. But leaning forward and ducking a bit could (I don’t know how the VR device registers things, so mostly guessing) work as a state condition to allow the cover mechanic to engage whether someone stands, sits, etc.
Good luck with your work.
I hate crouching and cover shooters in VR, it's really strenuous on your back or knees depending on how you crouch, and it takes all the movement out of VR. When you crouch it's hard to turn around or make another step. So you won't even use the limited walking space you have.
It takes the difficult to get right limited mobility in VR games and turns it into a carnaval shooting gallery which i find really boring.
By any chance are you looking for employees? I really want to get into game dev.
Good video! One thing to add. If you want the character to have a "sneaky mode" and a "fast mode" of movement, you can do it like Metal Gear Solid 3, where you get run, walk, and creep animations based on input as you move. But if you want to enter a "stealth mode", that mode needs to be visible when the player isn't moving. Crouching is great for that because the player can easily read the "mode" by looking at the character's body posture. There may be other options, like turning on a "Predator camo" visual effect, or having the character change their costume in some way (wrap a cape around themselves, activate a camo pattern on their clothes, put up a hood/mask), but just making them crouch is very simple, intuitive, and easy to notice.
Interesting topic.
Like It's kinda the same cases with the whole Do FPSs NEED a Jump/Sprint/ADS mechanics ?
I'd personally say not necessarily but so long as the actual mechanics themselves are done right enough to compensate for a more fun overall experience.
I very much like and appreciate crouch buttons in my stealth games,especially in AC games because i just like the feeling of crouching and taking cover in tight spaces to break line of sight in stealth scenarios, instead of just standing still and you're about to get spotted and you can literally see a box which you can use to take cover but the game doesn't let you because there is no crouch button it does feels tanky
and i do like how in some games,Especially in TPSs that doesn't have a crouch button, They compensate this by letting the player to take cover with an interact/cover button or the character dynamically take cover when you close to a wall and they actually crouches only when necessary be to break line of sight or protect themselves from a gunfire and i feel like it's a better interesting alternative.
Doom: "NO" (not even reload mechanic lol.)
Cover systems are the worst!
@@Go_Coupyou clearly have not played vanquished.
Sliding in modern FPSs is the closest point of comparison because it's frequently used as a concealment for dashing the same way crouching is often used as a concealment for toggling on the stealth mechanics. The way people engage with them disingenuously is identical
@@bcd32dok36 , I’ve never even heard of it. However, if it has a cover system, it is probably terrible. The Gears of War system was the only one I have ever enjoyed, and it was because it was novel.
Crouch walking being modded into MGS3 is cool and I'll definitely use it for repeat runs but the game is balanced without it in mind. I think the dichotomy of stealth in MGS3 is basically choosing between standing movement for speed and crawling movement for safety. Standing movement maximizes risk but rewards efficiency and crawling is the opposite. Crouch walking is a happy medium between both and removes a bit of decision making on the player's part by giving them an option that is pretty much always the best way to get around.
exactly my thoughts. when I played snake eater 3ds, I found that crouch walking just made everything way too easy and I ended up relying on it too much.
The mod now makes sounds when crouch walking at full speed, which should hopefully make it a little less broken
Crawling while hearing that sweet sweet caution mode theme is so fucking cool
similar to war games, crouch walking along a short stone wall makes sense, as is crouch walking/running from cover to cover to try and not get seen or hit, but really only when in cover thats low, or trying to be below where people are usually shooting/seeing for just a moment. This is often seen in documentaries as well, so it was done irl often enough
Crouching does make you a lot stealthier. Having played airsoft in the woods, crouching makes you a lot less likely to get hit. When you stand up you make yourself a huge target and you stick out a lot more.
Yeah, but some games focus on different stealth techniques just like he said in the video and crouching encourages players to not do that.
The video is about crouching and walking... In reality its ridicilously clumsy and strains your legs very fast.
It's more useful to look at Assassin's Creed's stealth system as a triangle with points at the far ends denoting social stealth, tool stealth, and line of sight stealth. Rather than placing them on a line between social and LOS-based, they all fall somewhere into this graph. AC1 is almost all the way towards the social point because there is only one tool and non-social stealth environments exist exclusively on rooftops. What you're underestimating is just how powerful and dynamic the tools are moving into the Ezio trilogy. To be clear, I prefer when level designers have you use them as a confidence boost or manipulation tool when your social options begin to run thin. This is a stealth *action* game after all, and the Assassin power fantasy is core to its design philosophy. But in the low points where you're placed into a room with boxes and pillars and a few patrolling guards, the tools become your *primary* method of approach, the pillars a way to disappear while deliberately pulling SSIs to manipulate guards into position for a tool ambush, and the boxes a way to activate air assassinations to close the distance to stunned guards. This in fact the *only* way to approach these low points dynamically, because while the detection system is functional enough for you to just go where they're not looking, that would be *boring.* Stealth action games thrive when the player pushes the power fantasy to its limit. They're easy on purpose to give you a wide margin of error in case you make a mistake while trying to do something flashy. Later in the series, as tool power increased and detection system functionality deteriorated, this became even more true, coming to a head with Unity, in which even when playing levels designed for social stealth, which were few and far between, judicious use of tools was mandatory to combat the erratic and outright hostile detection system and guard AI. Unity is almost all the way towards the tool side of the triangle, so why was it the first one with a crouch button if LOS stealth was unreliable and useless? It doesn't make any sense. Finally, is clear the RPGCreeds wanted to get away from this with Origins' overhauled guard AI and severely nerfed tools, solidifying it as the closest to the LOS point on our triangle. For once crouch walking here actually makes sense
Here's a section from a WIP article on homogenization of modern stealth mechanics that's also relevant, my little conspiracy theory of how we ended up here based on sound instead: This seems like an odd mechanic to become contentious at first, but the way it's used in modern games goes way beyond its practical propose and turns it into a requirement. Obviously lowering your body to get behind lowered concealment is necessary to use it, assuming it's a common part of the level design. But when you're sneaking around, you crouch 100% of the time. Why do you do that? Early games with noise consequences for movement directly tied how much noise your character makes with how quickly you're moving, often in extremely granular ways. Splinter Cell even had a meter to show how much noise you're making relative to the background noise cover of your surroundings, forcing you to carefully track your effect on the soundscape and not just vice versa. So crouching made you move slower, making it a sort of ghetto solution that fits most soundscapes without having to carefully tilt your stick partway all the time, something keyboard players weren't even capable of. Now there are some modern games with speed-based noise like Ghost of Tsushima, but they're usually binary between walking and running, and walking is a lot trickier than crouch walking. Assassin's Creed 3 introduced stalking zones that automatically put your character in a crouched state and rendered them invisible as long as you remained inside. Every single game that copied this mechanic changed it so you have to be crouched to enter the stalking zone instead of the other way around. Finally there's the nuclear bad design choice many games opt for now that makes crouching mandatory for any kind of stealth play at all: It makes you harder to detect regardless of context. In some cases this can QUADRUPLE the time it takes you for you to get spotted. In some cases it significantly reduces the range at which you become visible. At this point what we're doing is not crouching, it's toggling the stealth mechanics on and off. Stealth is a core aspect of many of these games' designs. So why is it not also a core aspect of their control schemes? I don't have an insightful explanation that takes into account game design history and player psychology for this one. It's just baffling. So instead of modulating your stance and movement speed based on your surroundings and proximity to enemies, you crouch 100% of the time, and who could blame you? The only reason not to is an outdated sense of depth and immersion that these games are no longer compatible with
"So why is it not also a core aspect of their control schemes?" Bigger game markets, more potential buyer, means consoles, means controller, means limited control options. Even on PC, not having overburden controls is a QoL for most games. Stealth Crouch is the solution to this and some other problems, like Intention, Indication, Player interaction. It also makes historical sense, as you pointed out, noise was bound to movement speed.
So crouch stealth, is actually a very good solution for most games with Stealth Elements and with triggering stealth mechanic on/off (hope i understood it right): Kinda all that it is, but there are limits, where suspions believe stops functioning but also games need a certain reliability of the action a player is doing, failing a stealth mission because you rolled a critical failure would be very hard punish (could work for some games, especially with focus on stealth though).
Failure states are actually a bigger Aspect to improve one, when talking about Stealth, to have the right mix of Interaction of the Player, Believibility of the game world, varidness etc.
"Detection Timers" well i try to view them more as an Attention Meter, of all things happening around a theoretical guard/npc, certain action you do shift his attention /focus to you or in your general direction, till it´s in his full view/Focus, identify the threat and acts.
I like that about the Horizon Forbidden West Stealth Mechanic. Making to loud noises or being seen from far away, makes enemy suspicous, and and worse start to investigate the disturbance. If they are close enough to identify you as a threat, they become alerted. And if you make a noise directly behind them, they get suspicous, turn around, you are in alerted range and become alerted.
Yes crouch to move silent exist, but sound is still a little more thought out, due the fact the hearing range of the machines (not that far, around 12m) but sounds itself seem to travel farther, so spear combat up to 40m for example, this gives a varied layer if situations to deal with challenges stealthly, since you can get close, silently, and with some luck, use a Stealth Assassination (SIlent Strike, which is indeed, Silent) but normal combat can be loud, making other enemies suspicous, and investigate, and if you are quick enough, you can dispatch the current enemy and hide agan before those arrive.
@@paristeta5483 Yeah, when me and my friends got to talking about this again one thing I realized is that we need to rethink how stealth games control on KBM to future proof against potential misinterpretation again. In Tarkov you control your movement speed with the scroll wheel, which is not perfectly granular, but it's about as close as you'll ever need it to be
I disagree about indication, though. Your indication that you're moving through a stealth arena is that you're playing a stealth game. You shouldn't need an indication of what game you're playing
Moving at the wrong speed is not a critical failure, though. Because it's entirely under your control, it's your fault if you go too fast and draw someone's attention. Rather than being right on the edge of the sound level you can make at your current distance from the nearest enemy, you want to be a good bit below to play it safe. Random chance would be something more like Odyssey’s inconsistent assassinations which will draw attention if you fail to kill your target in one hit
Failure states are another section in my article. My favorite example of a high-stakes stealth mission is Breakpoint’s hostage rescues from the Resistance DLC. You'll only fail if one of the executioners detects you, so you can defuse combat by killing everyone nearby before the detection can radiate to them. You can also kill them early to reduce risk
Timed detection is another one. While there are usually factors that influence the speed of the timer, awareness is really not how it's usually programmed at all. There are some games that feed a variety of factors into a flat awareness level like The Elder Scrolls, which allows you to get away with things like patiently waiting in a dark corner for a distant guard who can barely see you to move. If it were timed he would eventually spot you. There's nothing inherently wrong with this system, but the fact it's the same in every game is indicative of the homogenization plaguing stealth action games right now. In the future I'd like to see more creative feedback for something like this that doesn't rely solely on HUD. Thief’s light stone is a good start, but it doesn't account for things like distance, movement, or size
Sounds like you've looked into Horizon’s functionality a bit. No doubt my friends would be interested in hearing more about what you've found. Leave me a comment if you want to meet everyone
@@icarusgaming6269 Hooo, using Tarkov as an example of good gameplay, not a great plan.
@@CoralCopperHead Yeah well, just because it does one thing well doesn't mean it has good gameplay overall lol
@@icarusgaming6269OG Splinter Cell has speed control on mouse wheel as well (idk about chaos theory). Also i really do not like crouch in a lot of games because the devs just use it as a stealth button and it causes the game to move at a snails pace (also hi :D)
I feel like this was a really well done analysis on the crouch situation. I remember seeing people say earlier Assassin’s Creed games weren’t proper stealth games solely for the lack of crouch button.
I think the devs at least had some wisdom in that they didn’t make most of the cover points be waist high, but stuff you could stand behind. They probably needed some ranged tools that worked better in those instances (instantly thinking of AC3 with the bow and throwing poison darts or Black Flag with the Blowgun darts, or rope darts in both, whistling to draw an enemy). It could be partly why, even though they didn’t introduce the crouch itself, they introduced the stalking zones in 3, Black Flag, and Rogue, so the player can move around and try to do other stuff?
Really stalking zones are just blend groups with no AI. They're a recontextualization of Ezio-style blending that's still logical in a natural environment. The tools are the more important aspect here, because rather than ducking behind a box when someone starts looking at you, you're meant to shoot him with an arrow
These type of people are too obsessed by categorization. They confuse descriptive categories with prescriptive rules. I pay them no mind.
ac mirage takes a step in the right direction by having most of the main assassinations take place in open public spaces. the issue it has it that most of the targets are hidden behind a to do list and eliminates some of the freedom of expression that most stealth games give you. ac as a whole has never truly been a stealth experience because it never leaned fully on it's social stealth mechanics after the 1st game.
I don't really consider crouch walking itself a negative but rather how reliant on games are for it to completely negate all sound.
Crouch walking? 100% silent, basically a ghost? A simple step when not crouching? The entire country is swarming into your position as we speak.
It's why I love Theif 1/2 Stealth so much, you can walk at normal speed often if the tile you're on doesn't produce loud noise or there's enough distance. Crouch walking on marble still makes a lot of noise, so crouch walking is not a 100% viable option in every context (positioning matters more). But if you're on dirt or wood? You can run or walk with little to zero noise unless ur very close to someone. Add on top the shadow system and you don't 100% crouch everywhere
I hate it when a game makes me 100% crouch everyone to be unseen. In darkness and to make zero sound. It's why Dishonored stealth drives me crazy. Shadows don't make you more hard to see, and you make so much noise on so many surfaces that your only option is to stealth crouch until you buy a boot upgrade later in the game.
It's a byproduct of how little depth sound and shadow systems work in games with stealth mechanics. It's just easier to make it so crouch means 100% silent and nearly invisible at a distance.
Although it is easy to complain about this, and I get why so many games that have stealth mechanics don't have a very in depth light to shadow system, or sound propagation system
Thats often too much work for games that don't 100% focus on stealth, or their gameplay can't 100% support it. But I do wish when games pride themselves on their stealth, I wish it was much more in depth.
It just takes time and money, so again, I see why it isn't a focus. and often, I don't think it should be a focus depending on the game
"But if you're on dirt or wood? You can run or walk"
Wood loudness is equal to concrete. Dirt, grass, carpet, and moss you can jump on within kissing distance and it won't spook anyone.
@@XenoSpyro from my experience theres very little distinction between dirt and stone
You can actually get away running on it throughout a room as long as the doors are closed and no ones in the same room
Where as marble or metal, people can hear those steps outside the room and far away
I've ran around a lot on stone or wood without alerting anyone until I was in their hearing distance, or if I was in the same room. It's honestly so freeing to know you have some leeway on those flooring types but its still noisy enough to where you can't just do it 100% like grass or carpet. it's not 100% silent but you don't alert the whole neighborhood like in some games.
In GTA V the typical crouch button was replaced with a stealth button, which makes the player walk silently but only on standing position. I appreciate the commitment to realism there, but it was annoying not being able to go from cover to cover freely, for stealth or combat purposes, only depending on the cover mechanic. In many shooting scenarios, I was killed because of being to exposed while transitioning from cover to cover, or being a bigger target of what I could have been. My ideal choice would be being able to walk silently AND crouch walk, but louder and slower on stealth mode than the silent walk, keeping it a less convenient and balancing visibility and silence on stealth.
Tenchu had the most realistic crouch walk I've ever seen and it inspired me to practice it irl when I'd play airsoft and stuff, it's super fun and more useful than I thought, but it's extremely exhausting. Crouch walking in games is honestly one of my absolute favorite movement mechanics right next to crawling and rolling from a fall
It's absolutely necessary. There are many times in AC games that you'll go into an area that without a proper disguise you'll alert guards immediately. And without a disguise mechanic outside of specific missions in the older games it was a crapshoot getting through them without killing everyone or using distractions like Revelations had. Crouching helps hide yourself even if it's just ducking behind a box when a guard walks by.
To prove this point in the older Assassins Creed games if you press high profile and jump and hold it Altair/Ezio will crouch to prepare for a jump. I used this dozens of times across the classic games to avoid detection by hiding behind cover or throw guards off by ducking behind a ledge or up on higher platforms when I was being chased. It was extremely useful. When there's no possibility of using social stealth sometimes being able to Splinter Cell your way past guards is handy.
Fair, but you must realize that when players are given options, there’s a chance that one will be overshadowed. In this case, social stealth will be neglected and crouching will be used more since it’s easier to understand. This is why they removed social stealth in origins.
In order for social stealth to be successful and negate the need to use a crouch button, Ubisoft should look for ways to design missions around game mechanics instead of the other way around. And then, Ubisoft should focus on evolving social stealth alongside parkour.
@@yodaddyrc1220 Not if social stealth is made more useful. AC should have incorporated ideas like disguises into general gameplay like HItman. Some of the best missions of early AC games are when you're dressed up and playing a role. Like dressing up as a guard in AC2 and ACB or dressing up as the minstrel in ACR. Social stealth shouldn't just be standing in a crowd it should have been expanded early on to use disguises as a very good choice to sneak into places without having to duck behind boxes. You can play the role of a normal person to sneak up to targets.
Being able to crouch and sneak around should also be there when needed but if you could dress up as a guard and use that to get close to a target then there's no reason to crouch most of the time. The options should be important and sometimes being Sam Fisher would be more useful and sometimes being Agent 47 would be more useful. And if a player wants to play everything one way then that should be the choice open to them even if another way is technically easier.
@@coolman229 The use of different outfits could work for a game like ac. But we need to remember that the og ac game wasn’t trying to exactly replicate hitman, it was more focused on behaving as if u belong rather than dressing to deceive.
However, I do think that using a certain type of clothing in certain situations is an interesting idea. For example, if the player is in a poor district, then they wear poor clothing and the same goes for other districts and situations.
I also get what you’re saying about having the option to crouch when needed. However, a concern I have with that is that players will be more likely to gravitate towards that and not utilize social stealth as much. Even if the level is designed for social stealth, many players will still try to crouch and thus make social stealth less needed. That’s what happened when Unity implemented manual crouching, many players ignored blending and stuck to tradition.
Exactly. AC should've expanded on that mechanic. There's one task in AC Brotherhood where you have to transfer money to the bank guard, but you have to disguise yourself as one of the goons to do so, and as a goon, you can actually walk through the fort, like I hadn't cleared the area yet, so I was like fuvked, but I was astonished, you can travel through the restricted area without being discovered; you can do anything, including stand close to the captain and assassinate him. The feeling you have is quite powerful.
Accidentally found this in my feed - was a great video, very well edited and put together! Interesting take for sure
Would love to see more videos like this along with your regular content
I've always looked at it this way. While I think crouch walking is itself silly. Not being able to crouch is even sillier. The amount of times in earlier AC games I could have remained hiding on a roof by just crouching... ugh it triggers me just thinking about it. Honestly one thing I have taken away from crouch walking is in SPT. A mod for Escape for Tarkov to make it single player. The realism mod you can add to it adds a bunch of stuff but one of them makes it so that crouch walking actually costs you stamina to do. So you just can't do it constantly and you need to break often so you are not out of breath. While I am not saying every stealth game needs a stamina bar, it would be more interesting if you couldn't just crouch walk EVERYWHERE.
A stamina bar for crouch walking? That sounds kinda interesting.
I mean try crouch walking irl it is a lot harder than just walking normally.
You can crouch in old AC games, you just need to hold the buttons for sprinting without moving. It's basically the animation when Ezio prepare to jump and if you let go of the active mode button first, you will not jump.
@@toutlemondesalutwas just about to say this, crouching in the older games works just fine
@@toutlemondesalut Ah, I didn't know that. That still seems like more of a work-a-round then an actual crouch but it is still good to know!
This was one thing I actually liked about Metal Gear Survive, was the stamina loss when crouch-walking made it much less abusable.
Earlier AC games did *kinda* have a crouch walk but it wasn't really supposed to be, if I recall it's when you hold the "run up" button and hold the jump button at the same time, or something along those lines. I remember finding it out by accident and experimented with it.
It was very awkward to use but it did actually allow you to hide behind barrels and crates without being seen, but since it wasn't an actual mechanic it wasn't useful in most situations.
You mean that start up for what’s basically a jump?
I've found it quite useful. Hiding behind short chimneys and balcony walls. There are plenty of things in early ACs that can be used as bootleg mechanics. Experimenting is fun in these games, in my opinion at least.
@@frenchfriedbagel7035
Yeah it was like a charge up for a jump to grab something above you I guess, never actually used it for that though
@@Vaguer_Weevil I think it’s required to get up 1 or 2 towers in one of the games.
@@Vaguer_Weevil It's useful in situations when some surface is too narrow to run up on it without risking to fall to your death. You can just jump up instead and grab whatever is up there.
Incredible video Jay! would love for you too explore more and more with videos like these!
Something to add if I may: as amazing as this video, and the stealth genre is, stealth games are not portrayed realistically. Not that they should be necessarily, but a crouch mechanic doesn't break emersion anymore than some of the other ridiculous stealth mechanics we've seen in games.
If stealth games were realistic, they'd be way too difficult. For example 1. Sentries don't Walk in perfect patterns for you to map out. They either usually hang out in one area, or walk around randomly. 2. Sentry take downs are not an easy thing to accomplish, let alone stealthily. Not to mention if it's a KO take down instead of a kill, humans don't go to sleep for hours for you to move past. If you choke someone out, or hit them hard enough to fall asleep, they wake up as soon as fresh blood can make it to their head. Just watch boxing or MMA and see how fast people wake up after a KO. It's VERY rare that they stay on the mat. I'm digressing.
If you want realistic stealth, you need either a team of guys that are operating and pretty much able to fight every bad guy at once, once discovered, or have a game based around primarily staying distant from the target. Ie, sniping or just watching while hidden from a distance.
Now assassins creed is a bit, flawed In its stealth, and Broadly speaking I'm not a fan of the series. But I still get chills from the opening cutscene from the very first game. That said, since it and hitman are the only games that are truly about hiding in crowds, it's notable for achieving this. Looking like you belong there is about 90% of getting in somewhere. For example If you want to get into the back of a best buy, put on khakis, a blue polo, and look confident. No one will bug you until you start looking lost.
If you want to fix the crouch mechanic, replace it with a stealth button, cause that is essentially what it is. Pushing it when running should cause your character to low sprint. Not stealthy, but more hidden. Pushing it while walking causes you to deer walk. A Slower, near silent way to approach someone. Pushing it while stationary will essentially cause someone to hide. People are surprised how well simply laying down on the ground hides you when it's night, even at close range.
At the end of the day though, stealth games are just complicated puzzle games. If you think about the mechanics of the top down metal gear. It's pretty much the same concept as pacman. They're a fun, smarter alternative to run and guns, but shouldn't be taken as realistic anymore than call of duty.
Appreciate your critical lens to such an ingrained part of stealth videogames. To me crouch walking is one of the verbs that can make interacting with the world and AI much more varied, but it has that inherent silliness and being sometimes too reliable (you are practically invisible in the Dishonored games while on that stance). Still, I wish for games to expand on that and give us more verbs, like prone and manual jump, and that the worlds react to those actions
I really like the stealth button in project zomboid. If you're in the open your character will choose to adopt a quieter slower movement while standing. But if you come close to a wall or crate in this mode the character will adopt a crouch idle stance automatically. I think this is a fantastic middle ground.
Team Fortress 2 is perhaps the best example of stealth without crouch walking. The Spy literally just wears your teammates' face and chills with u until he wants to do something.
Very good video!
I would add 2 things, one is that crounching allows also to use a different set of variables for detection. Which makes it easier for devs to implement certain elements of the AI. The most obvious example for that, I think would be the Far Cry Series, where you have to be permited to play either stealthily or with a more direct approach. So there, the crouch button becomes a: Hey game, engage the stealth portion of the game, please.
Second, it's less the case now, but crouching used to varie the speed at which you moved, so in a stealth game where you have to balance the speed of your movement to avoid line of sight, while still avoiding to go too fast, as to not make too much noise, it is tension enducing to have a player navigate his environement at a fixed, less then as fast as you can/want to be speed, from one point of cover to the over. Which is a core point of the Stealth Genre.
I get that the assasin's hood is too iconic at this point for them to not add it in any shape or form, but in my opinion was always a bit stupid from the start.
In AC1 made sense seeing how the people in that time period used to dress, I always though it could have been better if they made assasins from different places and time periods to have different attires that made sense for social stealth, and grabbing things like the symbol in the belt or the cut finger as identification, you don't see templars wearing a uniform that screams "look guys I'm a templar!" in any of the games, they literally just wear a ring.
i think crouch walking is a weird thing to see in a modern social setting, but it is a very common sight in two areas. first war, modern war especially, staying low makes you a harder target to see and hit. the second would be hunting, to crouch slowly and quietly is one of the most common depictions of a hunter we have. i think this natural instinct to get a low profile well trying to be sneeky, but staying fairly mobile is most likely going to stay in games for a long time
I'd argue that games that have a crouch function need a prone function too with crouching playing the middle-ground between standing and prone. When Battlefield: Bad Company 2 came out without a prone function it became very clear very quickly to me that the level design included geometry where courching is the most optimal path to reduce your vulnerable silhuette, but in doing so spaces were also created where the same logic applies to a more extreme degree without then also providing a tool to adapt, leaving players without cover in a gunfight & during the story mode without cover for stealth on the occasion it was part of the campaign. In a different way this also applies to other games, also ones without guns in them, where there is a similar dissonance between movesets and world design as low bookcases in non-crouch Assassin's Creed.
I think slightly crouching when walking makes sense, since doing so is pretty easy and it makes sense to have some cover. But I do think that a full on like “knees just barely touching the ground” crouch walk is more silly looking. it's one of the main reasons assassin's creed 1 stealth was soo good, since all you had to do was walk up to an un-suspecting enemy and gut then right there and walk/run away. It's the one reason I still have a special place in my stealthy heart for AC1
I haven't played all the AC games but I do like the AC3/4 implementation of crouching, where the player character will automatically crouch to hide in shrubbery but the player doesn't have access to a dedicated crouch button
There were problems with that implementation conflicting with other mechanics. So for example if there was shrubbery & also a corner you could lean against the game (AC3) struggled to figure out what the player wanted to do from the two systems. This can similarly be observed breaking down on the occasion there is a fence & shrubbery together.
I kind of hated it because at that point just gives us a crouch button.
That’s actually an awful example.
There are many moments in that game where I get screwed because I need to hide from enemies but I can’t crouch be there isn’t a bush around me.
It was so much better that Unity actually added a crouch bottom
I think MGS uses it best, a level design and encounters at large utilize all positions to gain advantage, even when you go prone, it allows for more entry points and better way of controlling your aim. I think the issues with crouch is that it is mostly used in stealth only and is the most useful tool for it. Thief in it's design was clever due players need to account for light source and plain geography of where to go, which with most games isn't used much.
yeah, for example in mgsv the dash that becomes the prone stance instead of a roll was new and intresting too , it looks very cool and tactic, kinda hurts my chest every time i see snake doing it tho 🤣
No, it does not need it. Yes, it should have it. No, it should not be quieter than standing and moving at the same speed. Yes, it should have advantages and drawbacks.
I was recently thinking about how stealthy movement is actually best done at a stance closer to standing. I’ve long thought about whether games should have a button for sneaking, either making you move at a static speed that is always the quietest or at a dynamic speed that adjusts to the quietest speed for the surface and ambient noise. Either way, at least for third-person games, they need better animations for sneaking without breaking your back. You should only crouch to visually hide, not aurally. Also, prone movement should be the loudest for the speed.
I've never seen it implemented, but I've always been fond of the idea that crouching makes you harder to see, but sneaking standing makes you harder to hear.
I understand your sentiment but I like the crouch button for stealth because it's a good compromise. It's a good visual indicator. It's applicable to hiding behind cover, personally I dislike locked cover. And if you're being sneaky you're going to walk quietly and in turn walk slower.
i think it would require ubisoft to code incredible enemy ai and they just dont have that ability if I'm basing my assessment on their past releases. its easier for them to just put in a crouch button.
Your video is insightful. Its easy to lose yourself in this current paradigm of games but they could look so different very soon if players get their hands on a different kind of control scheme that makes us all realize just how much we've been missing as soon as we try it out. it may feel weird or sound strange at first to us as well. Sometimes people have to be shown the new, strange form so they can realize themselves that what we've been doing might've been strange. You see it in so many professions and throughout history. Something that is considered essential eventually becomes antiquated.
One example of this that didnt pan out well for most- people is Death Stranding. Making walking itself into a nuanced activity that you could fail at seems kooky or strange to use because we're used to tilting the analog stick to move but one day we may find new ways to map out interactivity with the world through controllers. maybe controllers themselves will one day be expanded upon or left behind entirely. we'll see.
Banjo-Tooie had a mechanic where you would begin to stealth walk when tilting the control stick only slightly. It was only useful for a segment or two, but it was immediately understood by the player as Banjo would tip toe, and would break stealth if moving too fast.
While I do agree that there is no "crouch walk" function in the AC games, I found that as far back as in AC2 if you go behind waist-high objects and hit High Profile and Sprint, but leave the movement stick at zero, you could essentially ready Ezio for a crouching high jump that he would never take: once the enemy sightlines were clear, a simple release of the High Profile button stands the character back up.
I found that little trick indispensable in the Brotherhood game when doing the War Machine chapters.
It was annoying to not have a classic crouch button, but honestly that little exploit saved me a bunch of time trying to find more traditional hiding spots for Ezio.
The case in assassin's creed is that there were so many infiltration missions that didn't allow you to use social stealth, and the game having no crouch button made it way worse than it needed to be.
A thing that is super-unintuitive is how in reality crouch-walking is not only louder (or at least much more difficult to keep you steps' and clothing noises down) but much more tiring than just walking upright
i think everything put together is what makes an optimal stealth game. crouching, prone, cover, disguises, blending, etc. i like when enemies have realistic detection, placement, patrols, and overall behavior, but it can make games too difficult sometimes because of the lack of options we’re given. giving us all the reasonable ones would help counteract that.
Yay, I found another great video game video essay channel! :D
It's not a full stealth game, but BG3 addresses going into crouch mode in a refreshing way. Your character first crouches down and gets on their knees. When they move, they stand up and do a quiet shimmy, then crouch back down.
Well, it's more realistic and good, but at the same time you don't know you are in stealth mode or not if you don't look at their movement carefully
@@violau8550 No, the postures are clear enough that it's pretty noticable imo
@felixhaggblom7562 it's obviously when you STOP, not when moving.
@violau8550 hmm you may be right. I'll reexamine next time I play
@@violau8550 Maybe you should use your brain and think "Was I in stealth when I started moving or not?". I hate how hand-holdy games are.
if you view it just from the realistic standpoint is kinda stupid because crouching makes you even more suspicious and silly, and because its like a constant squat so it kills your legs after 10 seconds or so, videogame protagonists never skip leg day i guess...
Uv never been hunting before
@@covexofficial6879 no, but i guess you still have to rest lot of times by putting your knee down, observing stuff and be still to not be seen by the the preys
@@Spillow-C it can happen but ur usually not stalking an animal over long distances (stalking = crouch walking) u only start to crouch walk once ur within say 200-300 meters of the animal and it's just to get within 100 meters of the animal to take the shot .. most predator animals will stalk there pray once there within close proximity so it's a pretty realistic game mechanic .. lions will literally start to crouch walk once they get close to prey
Cool vid and those are all good points. One oversight is that developers want to provide a play experience that is intuitive not realistic. The less time the player spends trying to understand how to play is more time spent enjoying the game.
This compounds with the fact that the genereal view on crouch walking isn't negative (unless it is implemented badly). Which means people are not looking into changing or removing it (just as seeing your weapon bouncing at the bottom of the screen when walking in FPS games).
Personally, I'd prefer a game allow me to move silently while upright and have a clear indicator when i switch to a running/non-stealthy movement mode. Or depending on the character, the default is silent running (ie. Tenchu).
I enjoyed your deep dive into stealth mechanics, but you mentioned they don’t utilize crouch walking in film/tv media. You’re correct they don’t use crouch “walking”, but almost every action film or war movie has crouched running/jogging in it used to indicate they are flanking or sneaking up on enemies. So it’s not just used as a visual device in vidgy games. Anyway keep up the great work and thanks for the video
Excellent video. I think the problem is that certain things are easier to understand for mainstream gamers compared to other more unique aspects. If AC could’ve just made its unique mechanics more understandable, then it could’ve ended up in a better place than it is now.
Crouching has sense only when you need to hide behind something. Otherwise you can easily miss pedestrians who are walking behind you and are silent (which is even more dangerous if someone decides to mug you).
Also crouching is much more demanding on stamina and you tend to lose balance, make misstep and other unwanted things (and you are much slower).
Let´s say Morrowind and Fargoth sneaking in town in Seyda Neen - you can´t UNSEE him! It´s just funny archaic feature.
This is the way, AC is about hiding in plain sight.
@@boffifis1 Exactly!
In normal games with stealth slow silent step is used to create less noise and crouch is used to use visual cover. When devs want only one button used, they combine the two.
i would wholeheartedly respect a behind-the-back stealth game that uses crawling on all fours instead of stooping despite how ridiculous it may look
Of course stealth needs extended movement system. The ability to prone and climb like MGS5, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Tlou 2 - are a baseline for next gen stealth. That's why even leaked AC red will have prone movement. And quality of animations and locomotion very important for stealth because of slow pace
I'm curious, do you think AC Red will really implement those systems effectively? I do agree that the standard of stealth mechanics should be applied to modern AC games.
Crouching makes you less stealthy, as an NPC said in Fallout 4: "Why are you walking like you are about to take a shit?". If you are in a street at night looking at something nobody will care. But if you are crouched in the dark you won't hide, you will scare everyone. Although we can hide behind objects, it's only possible if a person is far enough away, otherwise, if the object is so small you need to crouch, the person will simply look above it. Also walking while crouching is incredibly tiring, it's a stupid way to move that nobody would do in real life, with the exception of a gun fight.
great video!
I for one really like crouch walking. To me that is the "sneak mode". It reduces the noise and detection from the enemies while it keeps you moving at a decent pace (depending on the game that is). Although, in games like MGS4 or MGS5, most of the time I have found myself prone for majority of the game, then crouch walking and almost never walking normally or standing up.
Just like you discussed it all depends on the level and game design. MGS3 is my favourite game yet it doesn't have crouch walking, but I think it would definitely benefit from that. Where as Sniper Elite games have horrendous crouch walking as you move slower than the enemy but standing up increases the noise.
Great video about something I'd never thought about
Crouching is a disgrace and must be utterly destroyed.
Short answer: Yes
@@TimsVampireSexCultthats the point, some of us don't agree with his opinion
Yes they do, imo, because it serves a practical function much like a run toggle button. (In most cases)
Sprinting and Crouching are great context toggles, they help us communicate to the game what we are trying to do and in turn help it feel natural with how in environment we'd want things.
Crouching serves two major functions, quieter steps and stealth interaction context. Moving slower generally means less noise, while if you approach a waist high ledge it also coveys you want to be in cover and if you climb over to climb quietly. Try moving slowly on Keyboard using just WASD, now try moving slower then walking speed with a Joystick and you stutter step or move from natural stick drift.
Walking (Non-sprint) serves as a hybrid having faster movement but somewhat quiet, you're not trying to remain perfectly hidden rather you're trying to get somewhere safe and quickly. It also won't snap you into cover on that waist high ledge and let you climb it quicker. Typically this is your base speed.
Sprinting serves as you're moving as fast as you can thus stomping and making noise, when you run to this waist high ledge and don't press the crouch button you lead over it because you're trying to run from threats or get over it quickly. Since you're moving so rapidly you catch the attention of people more.
It is a key and core movement option and context button, unless you're 200 meters away with a sniper the crouch button is going to offer freedom and versatility and variety, throw on extra tools and you get Dishonored. You can crouch, run, go above, do whatever. Crouching is much like Sprinting, if done right freedom if done wrong it will destroy the world like how Sprinting led to more often empty open spaces that are just filler.
just discovered your channel bud, nice work! cheers form Brasil
Use the mousewheel to set stuff like walking distance and crouching-level (from slight ducking to outright crawling/going fully prone)
Reg. mouse wheel controls speed (mouse-wheel up to increase speed, and vice versa)
Hold shift and mouse scroll to adjust how low you want to go.
Implement this and you'll have the perfect game.
Great video! I'd love to see one on AC Origins similar to your AC Unity video!
Not to simp, but I think you are my current favourite UA-camr. Your particular style of thoughtful analysis is exactly what I'd like to one day emulate in my own writing.
That means a lot, thank you. I wish you luck in your writing.
Giving a compliment isn't simping... Kinda sad we're at a point on society people feel the need to make excuses to compliment someone...
thinking about it. I have played AC 2 and when you brought up how it didn't have a crouch mechanic I was shocked that I didn't even notice. I have played it countless times from when I was a kid to now and I realized that its still my favorite stealth game even in absence of a few stealth mechanics.
I didn't see anyone mention it, but I think a great non-stealth crouch game was Prototype (depending on your playstyle ofc). Being able to turn into different people to sneak into different areas and sneakily consume other people if you didn't want an all-out fight always seemed so cool and fun.
One reason im fine with crouch walking is that you get to move/reposistion behind waist high type cover without standing up and making yourself be seen, this being useful when say, an enemy is walking towards the side of the counter you are hiding on and you need to move, standing up would reveal yourself and not moving would get you caught
It's worth noting that crouching can convey information to the player that they are in a state that is trading some gameplay benefits for others. Generally you can't perform every action your character can do while standing and sometimes it takes longer to perform some actions or go into a full combat state from a crouch. Crouching is a useful indicator of player readiness and I think is more compelling than requiring small stick movements or a walk button for stealth.
Late to the party but:
I don't think there's many ways you could implement an obvious cue to the player that you are now in sneak mode that don't look silly and unrealistic. Crouch walking is both a known and obvious indicator but also, let's be real, how most people would do it in games given the option since you're already at a height to hide but not be too slow like with being prone.
Realistically Hitman is pretty close to actual sneaking around where it's all about timing and blending in. But the more realistic you make stealth in your game the more it threads the needle of not being fun or requiring you to dedicate the game to it.
If a game could facilitate both sneeki breeki crouch/prone hiding and wear the right stuff and act like I belong stealth, have some be better in situations than others, AND had mechanics for loud "Does it count as stealth of nobody is alive to report me?" then it's going above and beyond lol
I like this channel, it asks the big questions
One creative idea I hope to see touched on a bit more is noise management. The old-fashioned Thief approach to this is simple; "Don't make noise. Walk really really slowly." In Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there was a half-baked idea that advanced this a bit, where there's a system of "ambient noise." If it's raining, monsters are already "hearing" so much that they can't easily pick up Link's footsteps. Sniper Elite also touches on this by letting you fire loud rifles during thunder or artillery fire to let them go undiscovered. Given that the practice of walking really slowly can often make a game boring, while we really enjoy the Batman practice of leaping around to gargoyles, I do think it's worth investing more in having the player find ways of increasing the noise level of an area, such that their options increase. Theoretically, even setting off explosions shouldn't "ruin" a stealthy approach if it hasn't hinted to guards where the player is.
One of my favorite approaches for Suit Only Silent Assassin on Hitman's Bangkok level is to fire two unsilenced shots into the floor from a covert location, and then move while the guards are coming to investigate.
I remember back in 2004 or so when I was playing MGS3, I constantly thought it would've been awesome if there was something like crouch walking, because normal walking revealed myself too much and crawling just took damn forever to get anywhere. Which is why I was so happy when I heard they implimented it in MGS3 Subsistence. That said, I think crouch walking worked perfectly for MGS3, because as I said earlier, it's a great middle ground of mobility and stealthiness, and works perfectly in the MGS system because it (at least at the time) had a camoflauge meter that gave a intuitive idea of how much the player is hidden away. As many others pointed out, crouch walking is often no different from just running around as it's usually as fast but stealthier. MGS's system made more sense with this as it shows that you're clearly having a trade-off by not standing up nor crawling.
The stealth mode in the Crysis games not only made u near invisible but it filtered out alot of environmental noise and amplified the volume and direction of important tactical ones like enemy voices and footsteps, vehicle sounds, alarms and gunfire, and that's only what i remember noticing haha
I think that's a great addition to a stealth mode. Shows not only are you trying to be physically stealthy but more perceptive as well. And i think amplifying sounds is much better and more immersive than just giving xray vision too
Oh also how long you could stay in stealth depended on your suits energy and that depended on how fast you were going. So since you're pretty much invisible crouching isn't much extra use but it is a good way to control how fast you used up your energy.
I mean, if we go back to system shock, I pretty much only used it for the level design bits it was required for. Yes it seems arbitrary, but it made part of the „you in a claustrophobic unfriendly space station simulator“.
In Thief crouching also gave you a boost in less visibility, which results in the guards not even detecting you, when they touch you, if you are in absolute darkness and are crouched (which I personally find too much). It also slows you down again quite a bit, so you can use it for more secure tiptoeing on the very loud floors. But I mainly stayed upright, because I didn‘t always need the boost, because tiptoeing isn‘t always needed, and because one can look around rooms far better in a standing position. It‘s a tradeoff of a sneaking boost vs less clearness of the environment you‘re navigating, and slower pace.
In Splinter Cell, I think they first had the sneaking animation with the philosophy as few(=wide) steps as possible while not looking silly (perhaps they also wanted tiptoeing). Perhaps they wanted the stealth boost Thief offered directly when you stand still. This all sounds great, but this all is just speculation because it isn‘t anywhere in the game.
But yeah: From that to a similar use of cover and crouching to shooting I can see a little. I‘d still wish there‘d be more interesting stuff done with it. Hell! Even Styx, where you already play as a small goblin has crouching as a sneaking animation. I think I miss Thief the most. It with when you could fall silently on surfaces, climbing, etc even if it was more inconsistent felt more body simulating than Splinter Cell (Chaos Theory) with its consistency and animation. I think I found crouching and crawling hight to feel more real in System Shock, which is infamous for wanting to simulate your physical being in that place, but in total I find Thief, and the Dark Mod with its precise Object manipulation to be most achieving of that, when as many objects as possible are interactive.
In reality I find it much easier to move softly (especially in the dark) in a "half-crouch" where I'm more balanced, cautious, attentive and precise in my movement and footsteps.
Standing bolt upright is more inconspicuous in a social setting where people can see you but clumsy in the dark and less coordinated with each step.
Moving around in a full crouch or crawl is the noisiest and most exhausting but have the lowest profiles. Personally I enjoy it in games where you can sprint, move normally and sneak at all three standard heights to adjust to circumstances and the environment as you see fit.
I think for me ive always enjoyed it for its visual indication
If im sneaking up behind someone irl, while my body does condense a little, its more like a little hunch rather than a crouch and I think having a visual indicator to say "you are now moving silently" is the main benefit of crouch buttons in games. Thief did this in the first person, where there was a button for sneaking, and a button for crouching. Crouching was very specifically used to move into tight spaces or hide behind cover where the sneak button was the "stop being loud" button.
If/when I sneak around irl I do slightly hunch over and go lower, but it’s only slight. Helps with weight distribution to minimise noise.
I would love a proper Thief 4 where you still stood almost fully upright when moving in "crouch" away from walls, only moving a bit slower and quieter. Also, near walls you seamlessly move your head out from corners first before the entire body, and moving into the wall slowly pokes your head up gradually, and back down fast when you move back. No need for "lean" buttons then. Mousewheel gradually lowers your stance, but slows you and tires you faster, if that's a thing.
This game was mentioned briefly, but for those who don't know the mechanics in Mark of the Ninja felt really natural: Your normal walk is completely silent, running makes noise, contextual prompts to crouch behind objects or inside closets. Sometimes you need to run in order to quickly avoid sightlines in a guard patrol, but if you are two close the footsteps will give you away.
In some FPS games where RPG elements are incorporated, there are skills that allow the players to move faster when crouching and when aiming down sight.
If those skills can be activated at the same time, the players can end up with a faster speed crouching and aiming down sight than normally running.
really enjoyed! seamless transitioning. I think your sound mixing might be a little quiet on the mic end
Got to say I'm a sucker for a good crouch. Maybe even with a little vignette. Or even an eye icon that closes.
I remember when the first Assassin's Creed previews were coming out and how they talked about all the 'social stealth' mechanics - it sounded so intimidating, but cool! It felt like it was going to be the 'Street Fighter 3 - Parry system' of stealth gaming
I need to actually play that game now
Something about crouch walking that mgsv displayed perfectly is the ability to slowly go prone without having to move your head 3+ feet in the open.
For example, if you are standing tall and a guard looks your way, you have to move your head a lot faster and further to conceal yourself.
Fast movements draw attention, which is why the best predators in nature move slow and low.
If you are mistaken for moving grass or some other enviromental factor, you are less likely to be noticed.
The human eye likes to glance over large swaths of space as quickly as possible.
So one of the most important things in stealth is to get those eyes to look your way and register everything as normal on not just a conscious level, but also subconscious, where the involuntary eye movements are going to lock right on to you.
I've been obsessed with a game called Streets of Rogue as of late. It's an action-roguelite with lots of stealth options that are really enjoyable to see play out.
Great discussion!
regardless of whether its a good mechanic or not, this was a very though provoking video! it’s definitely something we take for granted as the standard without actually questioning why games use it
I think your channel should be called “So Sayeth Jay”.
Gives it a nice from on high feel.
Jay, the first game to impliment the crouch-walk stealth mechanic as it exists now was Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (1998) on the PS1 followed by Syphon Filter (1999).