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Fan Mission: Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock by Sotha (2015/05/28)


Sotha

U2: Flock rating  

34 members have voted

  1. 1. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun duration. Smooth flow, ect. Versus Bugs. Frustration, Boredom, framelag

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      0
    • Tolerable
      0
    • Good
    • Excellent
    • Near Perfect
  2. 2. Appearance: Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style, deduct bad texturing etc.

  3. 3. Story & Text: Story. Text. Briefing. Graphic storytelling

    • Poor
      0
    • Tolerable
      0
    • Good
    • Excellent
    • Near Perfect


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As stated, the stealth score 0, all loot run of the level has been finished.

Hope it does your level justice, Sotha.

 

It certainly does! Thanks for sharing. You seem to have an impeccable eye for stuff. For example the way you took the loot from the card players. I never thought it might be possible without alerting them.

 

Very nice. Have you ever considered making an own FM? That would certainly be something new, given to your expertise as a player.

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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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It certainly does! Thanks for sharing. You seem to have an impeccable eye for stuff. For example the way you took the loot from the card players. I never thought it might be possible without alerting them.

 

Very nice. Have you ever considered making an own FM? That would certainly be something new, given to your expertise as a player.

I've never been much of an idea man, my specialty has always been fixing, adjusting, critiquing and analyzing what is.

I appreciate the compliment, though, and I'm always happy to give feedback if you need it.

If you have a Steam account or some such to be in contact with me, let me know, I'd be happy to toss anything I have your way, voice acting, level testing or otherwise.

 

Here's my video, and I did find the hidden letter:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge5Z8pKi3qg

Most impressive.

 

 

 

Great playthrough! You really are very good at this game. I've never finished a mission on 0 stealth yet. Nice video style by the way. No talking means the viewer gets to hear what you the player hears -- very important in TDM.

 

I'd not thought of using moss arrows like that, but it seems obvious now I've seen you do it. I've only ever used them to make quick dashes possible.

 

The one tip I can contribute is that you can drop bodies down the drains much more quietly by simply manoeuvring them into the hole instead of shouldering them -- not that you needed to given your good timing!

 

Thanks.

I have to say I wasn't expecting this much recognition. You guys didn't expect anyone to all loot stealth score 0 these missions?

Edited by V-Man339

I like to record difficult stealth games, and right now you wonderful people are the only ones delivering on that front.

Click here for the crappy channel where that happens.

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Thanks for the offer. Calls for betatesters are usually given here on the forums. If you have a knack in voice acting and wish to help, it would be good to maybe post about it in the "I want to help" section with a sample of your voice acting. That way mappers.can check if the available voice actor fits the8r character

 

 

Regarding the stealth score question,

I never design my missions to be ghostable: there is no intentional path of darkness that takes the player safely through the mission. I always try to promote tool use and make circumstances were progress is possible but very risky without tool use, and relatively safe if tool is used.

 

This may be the reason why my missions are often perceived difficult: players are expecting to complete it on the hardest difficulty without KOing any AI and or using tools just they way they did in original thief games. But my expectation, as a mapper, is that they do what they must to complete the mission. It is avoiding actions where risk is high, and it may be completely possible that they must take out a guard, extinguish lights, make distractions, etc to make safe progress.

  • Like 1

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Thanks for the offer. Calls for betatesters are usually given here on the forums. If you have a knack in voice acting and wish to help, it would be good to maybe post about it in the "I want to help" section with a sample of your voice acting. That way mappers.can check if the available voice actor fits the8r character

 

 

Regarding the stealth score question,

I never design my missions to be ghostable: there is no intentional path of darkness that takes the player safely through the mission. I always try to promote tool use and make circumstances were progress is possible but very risky without tool use, and relatively safe if tool is used.

 

This may be the reason why my missions are often perceived difficult: players are expecting to complete it on the hardest difficulty without KOing any AI and or using tools just they way they did in original thief games. But my expectation, as a mapper, is that they do what they must to complete the mission. It is avoiding actions where risk is high, and it may be completely possible that they must take out a guard, extinguish lights, make distractions, etc to make safe progress.

I have to say you budgeted the resources in the map incredibly close to being impossible if this was the case.

2 less water arrows, or 2 less moss and I would have found it exceptionally difficult, with far more backtracking.

Edited by V-Man339

I like to record difficult stealth games, and right now you wonderful people are the only ones delivering on that front.

Click here for the crappy channel where that happens.

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I have to say you budgeted the resources in the map incredibly close to being impossible if this was the case.

2 less water arrows, or 2 less moss and I would have found it exceptionally difficult, with far more backtracking.

 

Do note that difficulty selection affects starting gear, and AI can still be KOd in moderation even in the hardest difficulty, but sure: the hardest difficulty is supposed to be H A R D.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Played it today. Very good mission overall, I liked it!

 

Con: It felt like everything happened a bit too quickly, and the action took place in a rather small area. There was a slight feeling that more could have been added.

 

Pro: The intro video and voice acting added a lot to the mission (wish there was an outro too). I loved the rescue objectives, and it's nice every once in a while to have to assassinate one of the bad guys too. Those beaked masks were also a pretty cool touch... if you're okay with that maybe they could get added to the default asset repository?

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Awesome mission Sotha, you really outdid yourself with this one!! I liked the new story elements you brought in, hoping to see it all tied together in Ulysses 3 ^_^

I had a really fun and challenging play-through, with a few hickups

Saving the lady was hard since I had to douse lights. The masked man would go to relight the oil lamp over the dining table every time I opened the door so it was hard to get a good head shot snipe on him. And similar to the 1st mission those armored guards are quite a pain in the butt to assassinate. Had to gas mine him then bring him down to the bathroom and shoot him with a fire arrow, my sword seemingly did nothing lol. I was hoping that stuffing him down the sewer would kill him, but apparently they don't drown like in Thief? Seems a bit unrealistic, perhaps something to fix for the TDM devs. I suspect the builders are going to have call the plumber, cause I had to stuff the sewer completely full of masked people ^^

 

 

Anyway I loved the different gameplay elements that you have employed in this series of missions, really shows the potential of TDM!

My Fan Missions:

   Series:                                                                           Standalone:

Chronicles of Skulduggery 0: To Catch a Thief                     The Night of Reluctant Benefaction

Chronicles of Skulduggery 1: Pearls and Swine                    Langhorne Lodge

Chronicles of Skulduggery 2: A Precarious Position              

Chronicles of Skulduggery 3: Sacricide

 

 

 

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Glad you liked it!

 

 

 

A single well aimed arrow through the face grill will kill an not-alerted elite guard. Also, if you rendered them unconscious stabbing through the face grill kills them. Slashing and hacking do not work that well, but thrust through the grill does. But true, it is hard to see the grill when the guy has the plague mask on... You could also nibble them to death by hacking them multiple times at unarmored spots.

 

WRT drowning... The AI DID drown at some point, but maybe it has broken somewhere along the way?

 

 

 

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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<spoiler>In my case, I killed the leader by waiting for him to go into the room by the fire then shooting him with a fire arrow. I tried with the sword, but he was too well armored, it would always save him and alert him.</spoiler>

 

Also, one of the funniest parts is how none of the guards react to the player freeing the prisoners, which is obviously due to how hard it would be to code AI support for this. I would typically sneak past a guard enough to get close to the prisoner and untie them; The prisoner would get up and run all over the map, while the player yelled "run like hell father"... the guards do not move a muscle though, even when the escaping prisoner bumps into them. Gave me a good laugh, cuz it was still so illogical to see :laugh:

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Also, one of the funniest parts is how none of the guards react to the player freeing the prisoners, which is obviously due to how hard it would be to code AI support for this. I would typically sneak past a guard enough to get close to the prisoner and untie them; The prisoner would get up and run all over the map, while the player yelled "run like hell father"... the guards do not move a muscle though, even when the escaping prisoner bumps into them. Gave me a good laugh, cuz it was still so illogical to see :laugh:

 

Shouldn't be too difficult. Just put the prisoners on a team that's antagonistic to the guards.

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The current setup was a deliberate choice. It would have increased the mission difficulty drastically if the guards would kill the fleeing prisoners. In effect, the player would have been required to kill/ko everybody, which is boring.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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The current setup was a deliberate choice. It would have increased the mission difficulty drastically if the guards would kill the fleeing prisoners. In effect, the player would have been required to kill/ko everybody, which is boring.

 

Yep... figured that was part of it as well; You could initially have the prisoners and guards on the same team, then change team relations the moment the prisoner is freed... also use an alarm entity to alert everyone, now that I think about it. Indeed however, that would have been nearly impossible without asking the player to kill many guards around the map. So the illogical lack of self awareness guards show is understandable, when you think from the perspective of a mapper and not just of a player :)

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I don't think it is really that illogical.

 

We hear from multiple "villagers" that they are not there to kill the occupants of the monastery, only to get food or to demonstrate against the monks basically, and several of them were upset by how violent the masked men were. I suppose it would make sense if the masked men would kill the escaped prisoners on sight, but certainly not all the guards in the mission.

I have to admit though seeing them run through the halls without people as much as turn their heads towards them did remind me somehow of 007:Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 lol. It's not a bad thing though, that game rocked!

 

 

Oh and thanks for the heads up on how elite guards work Sotha! :)

Edited by Bienie

My Fan Missions:

   Series:                                                                           Standalone:

Chronicles of Skulduggery 0: To Catch a Thief                     The Night of Reluctant Benefaction

Chronicles of Skulduggery 1: Pearls and Swine                    Langhorne Lodge

Chronicles of Skulduggery 2: A Precarious Position              

Chronicles of Skulduggery 3: Sacricide

 

 

 

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Just replayed this on hardest and

also got some drunk peasant to notice the difference of plague mask blood versus that of the hammerites at the body pile in the church (that really looks like an intuitive spot to broadhead villians). But that guy eventually forgot about it after some rather limited searching.

 

Regarding the armored leader: I broadheaded him right through the mask in his face. Broadhead + water arrow seems to be a nice routine when it comes to killing.

 

Also one can silently and safely kill the plague mask visiting the wine barrel in the starting area and just drop it behind the crates. No one else seems to visit that location and the wandering torchlight's illumination does not reach that far.

 

As this time i had to watch my knockout count and felt like visiting an ant hill. All that restless people constantly doing their rounds and getting blisters on their feet. I freed stuck AI by door opening multiple times.

 

Was a bit odd to free hostages without properly clearing the escape routes first too - last time on medium i blackjacked and stashed every wandering person in the area before freeing the first hostage.

 

I also was shocked about the instant failure as i killed that sellsword with the scimitar and golden ear ring (that i just could not manage to seperate from his ear). Surely this guy is not a peasant and should have been fair game.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Another great mission. I loved the architecture. I was hoping to see some more Automata, I thought they were amazing. Would love to see them in more missions. This mission had a part that I really enjoyed. I conked one of them out and the leader of the plague masks saw him even though we were in pitch black, he asked if he was alright, (like they usually do) but this time for the first time that I've seen, he knelt down by the body and touched him. That was cool

fosig_zpshhfnjs18.png

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  • 1 year later...

Played both Ulysses missions last night for the first time. I don't know what took me so long, but both were excellent. I really like this character and how they're different than our typical protagonist, but they still allow us to play in the classic Thief/TDM style. And the dark side of me says, it was actually kind of fun to kill some evil people for a change. Interesting mission layouts too, I really liked the escape scenario in the original, and then the infiltration in the 2nd. Great stuff.

 

So Sotha, will we get any more Ulysses missions? I'd really like to see more done with that character.

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Thanks for playing, I am glad you liked them!

 

U3 is in the works and actually it is pretty long along the path, but I do not have time to work on it due to busy Real Life . Also I'm having a sort of artistic block with it as I feel I'm not bringing forth anything new. It is basically U2 in a new environment, which I suppose would suffice to many, but I really, really, really would like to put something EXTRA in it... but do not have the time.

 

Let's see. Hopefully, at some point, I have time to finalize it. Either quickly completed as-is.. Or with the EXTRA's.

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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@ V-Man339

Tried following your playthrough and just got spotted at the start

What do you have the difficulty level set at - mine is Hardcore/Hardcore

Always hardcore, through and through, with lockpicking being the only thing set to lower.

You can kill the plague master at spawn to make life easier and hide him in the shadows.

I like to record difficult stealth games, and right now you wonderful people are the only ones delivering on that front.

Click here for the crappy channel where that happens.

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  • 2 years later...

I have one last objective in the mission:

Spoiler

Kill 7 members of the masked cult.  

I've found six of them:  One in the locked bedroom, in the bed, three in the chapel (including the Leader), one in the wine storage area, one guarding Lady Mary, and one Guarding the priest.

Where is # 7?

 

Great Mission, by the way.  I decided to try it on the hardest setting, and I love the challenge.  

 

EDIT:  I did a quick second run and this time got everyone.  Not sure what I missed last time, perhaps I knocked out one of the villains and forgot to end his rotten life.  

Edited by Hagatha
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  • 3 years later...

love these kinds of long and variating guard routes. 

Ghosted for like 3 hours and took out 2 targets without any evidence, but at the assassination attempt of 3rd birdman who was guarding the main guy, it went bad. I don't know what I did wrong. Previous 2 both got arrow to the head and died instantly. But this one survived so I had to retreat.

Not building up a powerful enough shot? Not accurate enough, even though hitting the head? Should have aimed directly in the back of head, not side? Combat difficulty is on max, and he was completely unalerted.

Both of your Ulysses missions have excellent stealth atmospheres, besides the optimal way to camp on the carpet on first mission, where it didn't make sense to remain hidden in the middle of so many people moving around you. But other than this, it really lets TDM shine in it's best light imo. The challenge is fantastic, and I was immersed to a ridiculous level throughout the second mission, especially in basement sections of this, and also at the start of Genesis. 

I did notice a minor bug of lantern's light briefly intruding through wall of the small room near start (the one where lockbox was on table).

Edited by Loginnerer
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