Hold Your Breath?

[Domarius]

The major difference being that those actions can put you at a disadvantage if you didn't mean them - both of them cause suck-in animations which you can't control once they initiate, and they may pull you into a light.

 

Whereas there is absolutely no reason not to hold your breath once you enter unbreathable areas.

[Gildoran]

It's something you would never NOT do, unless you were deliberately trying to kill yourself.

 

Wrong. Please see this post.

[ZylonBane]

The proposed mechanism in that post relies on the existence of invisible poisonous gas.

 

In my opinion, having the player capable of being harmed by something they can't even see is Very Bad Game Design.

[Domarius]

Yeah I know that one and mmm... I dunno, I think that's a really map specific scenario - as in it wouldn't be a more generic, multi-purpose gameplay element like sneaking is.

Like the the shop feature.

 

With regular gas, it's just "the gas object", it's got a colour, position, it's a finite entity that the player can identify no matter where it is, like fire, or light & shadow.

 

With the insidious volcanic gas, it's tied to the map context, and needs the mapper to place carcasses that make sense in the map theme, it requires the player to look around and make the conclusion.

 

The main issue I have with that, is in lots of maps, you see dead bodies, and usually it means "there's a monster waiting around here" or "there's a trap right here, be careful".... I guess if you saw lots of dead things and noticed soon after that your life was slowly depleting, then you should make the conclusion, hold your breath, and run away.... I don't know how useful it would be as a game mechanic though - where are the borders of the gas, are you going to have to find them by trial and error? And then is the mapper going to place potions that appear in the contrived "Here' you'll need this up ahead" manner that ZB mentioned?

 

I think it's one of those grey areas that exist in real life but need to be simplified in a game to keep it from being un-fun.

[Gildoran]

ZylonBane: Just like having an unexpected trap that suddenly kills you is Very Bad Game Design? (which is not uncommon in Thief maps) The point is, in both cases the player is expected to carefully study their surroundings (and any readables they happen across) before proceeding, so it's ok to do.

 

@Domarius: I agree that having a breath-holding key is probably a bad idea for a general toolset; I'm just trying to poke holes in the notion that automatically holding your breath is a solution that is the best of all worlds.

[ZylonBane]

ZylonBane: Just like having an unexpected trap that suddenly kills you is Very Bad Game Design?

Yes, those are bad design as well, but invisible gas is worse. At least with traps you can see what killed you-- be it a boulder, arrows, spikes, a crushing wall, or whatever.

 

The thing with surprise deathtraps is that there's no way the toolset can prevent people from creating them. But you're asking for a feature that specifically enables something even more annoying.

[Domarius]

Gildoran is still talking about something that can be avoided if you're looking around carefully. Those traps aren't inherently bad design - they just have a sliding scale of difficulty ranging from blatant, to so obscure it may as well be trial and error. The right balance can only be acheived with playtesting on different members of the target audience.

[SneaksieDave]

Damn, this is still going?

 

If it's another key, then it's left up to the player to realize it and act on it. How would they be notified - with damage? So they must necessarily take damage, then (or cheat by reloading with foreknowledge). And what exactly would they be holding? The gasp of breath they'd take and hold would be full of the gas (as mentioned earlier) - they'd probably not be able to hold it, and it wouldn't do them any good anyway. That lung full of poison would be as healthy as that lung full of water... and that's already handled automatically. Perhaps they'd be notified with a grace period of non-lethal exposure? But erm, how's that any different from a fully automatic timer?

 

This is over-complexity, on the order of left and right footstep buttons.

 

Do we want players to develop the style of pressing the hold breath key upon entering every room, or triggering any trigger? Because that's what will happen.

 

Haha, and now for the ultimate deflater: if you really Must Have It!, make it Optional.

[Gildoran]

How would they be notified - with damage? So they must necessarily take damage, then (or cheat by reloading with foreknowledge).

Again, please read my post - there would need to be a puzzle of sorts that would make it obvious to the player that they need to hold their breath before ever entering the room.

 

And what exactly would they be holding?

The breath of fresh air they took (and held) before they descended into the noxious chamber.

[Macsen]

The gases should not be visible, our thief should just carry a canary around with him.

[SneaksieDave]

Yes, I just think that puts a ton of responsibility on each individual mapper to make good use (such puzzles) of a questionable design. I still think it will lead to breath-key-abuse. It's overly-complex (the 'footstep key' thing), while an automatic timer as with swimming not only has quasi-precedence, but is also simple, gamer friendly, and works.

 

Macsen, do you know how much canaries would cost at load out? And then you need the canary-muting device to keep them quiet. Maybe his sword could glow instead. "Orcs! I mean... gas!"

[demagogue]

Damn, this is still going?

 

Hey, this is the public forum. We work with what we can get... (_");

[SneaksieDave]

Touché.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

People are going to lynch us for making them hold down another (unessecary) key while swimming,

There's only two buttons to hold: W for swim forward and V for hold breath. Wait a minute, it doesn't apply while swimming - gas only.

 

What seperates Thief and it's ilk from other games, in and out of the genre, is it's delibrateness.

You can't get more delibrate than a "hold your breath" key.

Exactly. lucidity and deduction.

 

The proposed mechanism in that post relies on the existence of invisible poisonous gas.

In my opinion, having the player capable of being harmed by something they can't even see is Very Bad Game Design.

Arrows flying into your back you don't see. you only hear them. Are we going to continue to be limited to two senses of sight and ear or are we going to experiment into gameplay with more senses? (like the smellometer)

 

The main issue I have with that, is in lots of maps, you see dead bodies, and usually it means "there's a monster waiting around here" or "there's a trap right here, be careful".... I guess if you saw lots of dead things and noticed soon after that your life was slowly depleting, then you should make the conclusion, hold your breath, and run away....

I think it's one of those grey areas that exist in real life but need to be simplified in a game to keep it from being un-fun.

In half life 2 the hydrogen extracting facility is explosive while the mechanism is lowered but not while raised. I don't know about other FMers but I at least plan to include a lot of urban scenery including factories, chemical plants, forges, refineries, and sewage plants. Lots of gases there. Chemical labs too.

 

The gases should not be visible, our thief should just carry a canary around with him.

Good idea. Previous ideas: rat, rat with camera, cat, noisemaker mouse.

[OrbWeaver]

There are plenty of reasons why a cave might be full of dead bodies - many of the existing missions feature caves with bodies of people who have died of starvation or zombie attack.

 

It is entirely unreasonable to expect a player to deduce that a cave full of bodies indicates invisible poision gas, when in previous experiences he has entered such caves quite happily without suddenly dying for no (apparent) reason some time later.

[Domarius]

Yes, you can have situations where you want to make invisible gas.

 

But is it useful enough that it will be used so often and in such a variety of ways that we should actually give the player a whole new feature?

[Gildoran]

True... but if the player had just read

...and then we happened to great hall with ornate statues. Wilson, excited at having discovered this new room ran down the steps and into it as quickly as he could. But the room must have been cursed, for he took not more than 5 paces before he collapsed, gasping and flailing violently. After seeing that, none of us could muster the courage to venture into the hall and collect his body. Poor Wilson.

-Varnel

and then came upon a large chamber with statues and a single body sprawled across the floor, they would be a little hesitant to descend the stairs into it, would they not? It goes without saying that just placing a few bodies in a room isn't sufficient warning for invisible gas in a game like Thief.

 

I'm not suggesting that invisible gas be common in cave maps. I'm certainly not suggesting that all gas be invisible. I'm not even saying that we need a hold-breath key, or that invis gas should be a part of the standard TDM toolset. I'm just saying that automated breath-holding isn't perfect.

[Hylix Ulyx]

Well put, Gil. Your example is spot on...and is a perfect illustration of what I was driving at.

 

Just as Order put it "lucidy and deduction".

 

Maybe having a "hold-breath" key or invisible gas might be obtuse out of the box, but neither is without merit.

 

Zylon, I see your points across the board, and they're solid, but I disagree that an automated "hold-breath" in proximity to gases and such should be assumed. Even with a timer gauge, like being underwater, there's no real sense of caution, in that I know when I enter a room filled with poison gas, the work is already done for me. There's no real reason for me to be systematic, delibrate, or forward thinking (halmarks of this genre (imho)) because I know the game will think for me.

 

If I'm forced to initiate the action before I enter a room, I'll actually take time to survey my surrounding and "scout the barracks", so to speak.

 

The essence of what made these games great was the methodology behind the gameplay.

 

Again, I'm not saying it should definitely be implemented, but I think having a hold-breath key is preferrable to an automatic system.

 

I love these discussions!!

[Mr Retarded]

Why don't you make the standard gas visible with automatic breath-holding, and if a mapper wants invisible gas, with button pressing, let them code it in. After all, isn't that what TDM is all about? Letting mappers do their own thing?

[Domarius]

@Gildoran - that's why the good ol' T2 method still comes out on top. You know if you go into that room that your health is gonna start depleating. So you go find the switch that "vents the room", which probably involves a lot of running away from boulders, jumping on aligator heads, swinging on vines etc. etc. blah blah blah.

 

So the puzzle is still there, without complicating the game's interface.

[Springheel]

Well put, Gil. Your example is spot on...and is a perfect illustration of what I was driving at.

 

You can come up with a specific situation where ANY feature would be useful. I can come up with scenarios where it would be necessary to kneel, stick one foot way out in front of the other, exhale suddenly, or whistle. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to add new keys so I can do them.

[Ombrenuit]

...or whistle.

 

I hate to say I'm serious, but that would be an interesting destraction technique

 

As for the implementation of new features, I'm a purest in that I feel that these features are too specific to add anything to gameplay as a whole, and not worth the effort. Moreso, most of the suggestions for new features, other then the obvious ones, have been to increase "realism" in the game, which in the end, makes the gameplay difficulty horribly frustrating to the player. In the world of game design, this isn't particularly reasonable nor rational. The "poison room" idea is great...if you wanted to implement it yourself. Honestly, I really hope I never see a "poison gas room" in fan mission after fan mission. It would be a nice surprise the first time, but then it would feel contrived and have the player throw up his/her arms screaming "ANOTHER ONE?" Would it really add all that much to the game?

Edited April 30, 2006 by Ombrenuit

[Gildoran]

I'm not even saying that we need a hold-breath key, or that invis gas should be a part of the standard TDM toolset.

You can come up with a specific situation where ANY feature would be useful. I can come up with scenarios where it would be necessary to kneel, stick one foot way out in front of the other, exhale suddenly, or whistle. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to add new keys so I can do them.

Does else anybody ever get the feeling that nobody reads what they're writing?

[Springheel]

I didn't quote you in my message so I wouldn't interpret it as a direct reply to you in particular.

[Gildoran]

Heh, whoops, my mistake. I had wrongly assumed "You can come up with a specific situation where ANY feature would be useful." was refering to my example.