r/Splintercell • u/Samz707 • 1d ago
Blacklist (2013) Do Shadows even help in Blacklist Realistic?
Enemies can spot Sam outside of the stun gun range even with a good few stealth upgrades.
It really feels like you just play the game as standard line of sight stealth since shadows really, really seem to do barely anything if at all in this game.
I want nerfed Mark and Execute but it genuinely feels like it doesnt matter if I'm in shadows or not when it comes to getting detected as I'm still spotted super fast across most rooms at any distance that isn't the corners of the room.
It doesnt help that (and the game doesnt tell you) that actions like aiming (and seemingly even just moving in general?) spike enemy alertness which quickly results in accidently doing anything that increases it and borderline getting instantly spotted.
It just really feels bad and is the most frustrating of the games for me, I can be in shadows, crouch walking and a guy will walk around a corner, spot me near-instantly with no warning then cause an alert and it doesnt feel like my fault at all.
I've not tried lower difficulties but stealth just feels awful and not well designed here.
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u/Renard_Fou 1d ago
Its a massive downside of them replacing an actual light meter with a binary "bright/dark" option
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u/xObiJuanKenobix 1d ago
Which didn't even matter in this game because when you're in the shadows, you aren't even invisible anymore. Those older days where you'd be a "ghost's shadow" all the way at 0 and dudes would walk by you 1-2 feet away just don't exist in blacklist.
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u/Dry-Proposal-4011 1d ago
Stealth in conviction and blacklist isnt the main focus. It’s not something they worked on very well outside of conviction multiplayer
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u/KingOfGreyfell 1d ago
Stealth in a Splinter Cell game isn't the main focus? Call me crazy, but I think I may have figured out why there hasn't been a new game in 15 years.
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u/Dry-Proposal-4011 1d ago
Yeah not my favorite thing either. I don’t even hate the games but I think they should have had 1 stealth heavy game to break them up a bit.
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u/KingOfGreyfell 1d ago
It's a stealth series. Stealth should have been the only priority.
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u/Dry-Proposal-4011 1d ago
I agree that it should be the main focus but sometimes it’s worth a gamble. Conviction was decent same with blacklist but they shouldn’t have came out back or back
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u/KingOfGreyfell 1d ago
Problem was, the director of the series changed and the new guy was an idiot who just didn't get stealth. As for change, if I don't want to play a stealth game, I'll play a different series than the one built around being stealth. That's like wanting the Sims to be GTA when GTA is already a thing.
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u/Makaveli108 1d ago
yep he kept raging when getting detected in chaos theory. he studied CT for blacklist development and kept giving up. terrible. ubi should have never put him in charge
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u/Dry-Proposal-4011 1d ago
Like I said. It was risky and they wanted to try a new formula. It wasn’t the best but it had a lot of potential and the coop was a blast
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u/KingOfGreyfell 1d ago
Problem is, they didn't want to reverse course after it failed. Probably wanted to keep making money off of Conviction.
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u/KingOfGreyfell 1d ago
Not from what I could tell. Last game I played with worse stealth was the OG MGS
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u/Samz707 1d ago
I've been told enemy vision is apparently *very* effected by difficulty.
So I feel like I'm kinda in a spot of either have OP Mark and Execute and easy combat if I go down or being stuck with clearly not fully finished stealth if I don't.
The binary system *really* sucks here even more than Conviction, I can go through an area that has Sam *slightly* in light and game considers me visible (even if shadows are weaker than previous games) then another will have Sam be *mostly* in light yet hidden, it's extremely inconsistent.
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u/KingOfGreyfell 1d ago
Do you reckon you're having fun?
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u/xObiJuanKenobix 1d ago
You play with those controls and wanna tell me that stealth wasn't a main focus? No way!
Jokes aside, this game was like MGSV where stealth was an afterthought. I've said it before, if your controls in a stealth game can let you comfortably play the game in an action oriented way, you don't have a stealth game. Go back and play older Splinter Cells, older Metal Gears, the Thief games, even older Assassin's Creed games before they added in kill chains. Those controls force you into stealth, compared to having mark and execute, fast movement and climbing, instant takedowns on all sides that can lead to human shields on all sides, quick instant pinpoint aiming, etc.
In MGS2, in order to grab someone as a shield you had to sneak up behind them, unequip all weapons, press the square button and then slowly drag them around with no weapon to aim, plus they would fight to get out and you had to restrain them multiple times. In MGSV, I sprint up behind someone and use reflex mode to get close, instantly press and hold R2, and now I have a human shield, I can also aim my weapon and they'll never fight to get out.
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u/Elegant_Movie1513 1h ago
I felt shadow stealth was more consistent in conviction. in BL, you can be 'hidden' in one spot, but later on another AI guard can see you there.
line of sight stealth is kind of clunky moving around cover, especially rounding out corners at perpendicular 90 degree cover.
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