Difficulty setting for AI Persistence

[MirceaKitsune]

Yes, another feature suggestion... please don't kill me This is something very simple and minor, which should only involve adding a setting and a new menu entry if accepted. Hopefully it's not a pointless thing that no one else wants, but here it goes:

 

The Settings -> Gameplay -> Difficulty menu lets you tweak the difficulty of the AI. Currently this only includes AI Vision and AI Hearing, which determine how quickly characters see or hear you. I was however thinking that a third setting might be worth adding: AI Persistence. It would allow people to tweak how long it takes for an AI to lose their alert level, and ultimately for how long they will search the area. This could be useful because different players might want to wait different amounts of time for guards to calm down, based on how long they're willing to wait to complete the level.

 

A good minimum value would perhaps be one minute. So if a guard is attacking then you disappear from its field of vision, it would take about a minute until the guard looses all interest and resumes to patrolling. This would be useful for players who don't like waiting in a hiding spot for too long, similar to "nearly blind / deaf".

 

A good maximum value might be something over 30 minutes. If a guard attacks you then loses sight of you, it would take them past half an hour to fully calm down and stop searching. This would be a realistic setting and suited for patient players or those good at sneaking quickly, similar to "hardcore".

[Obsttorte]

 

This is something very simple and minor

This is a formulation you should not use

 

Opinions vary on this matter. I belong to the faction that thinks player should not be able to tweak every aspect of a game, and I was against the hearing and visual sliders. Others think it's good, and those seem to form the majority, so there may be support for this idea.

 

However, it is not a minor change

 

!!!

The calm down times are defined as spawnargs. I don't know if they are only read on spawn or continuosly, although I would bet for the first. A multiplicator may work (similar as with the other sliders), but first of all one had to look at the code to find the place(s) where the calm down process is handled. So, if you volunteer...

[VanishedOne]

The boringness of a search isn't really constant, I find. It gets dull and reload-worthy if I can tell I'm safe from being discovered, but can't escape and complete my objectives elsewhere in the map.

[MirceaKitsune]

I am suggesting this feature because the AI Vision and AI Hearing settings already exist, and I think this would complete the set. In my opinion they are useful options... after all the purpose is to enjoy playing each mission, and for some people this means a weak AI whereas for others it means a stronger AI. You can already customize the strength of hearing and seeing, the difficulty of the combat system, the difficulty of lock picking... so I think it would make sense to have the duration of AI searches there too.

[demagogue]

If it's a spawnarg setting, then a really persistent fan could tweak that spawnarg and get the change. That's my answer for a lot of things. Maybe because I do customize internal things. (I mean I play my own personal local build of TDM.)