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Jan 3 Update: More Ai Smartness


Fidcal

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Me standing outside that one particular door in Constantine's mansion, for probably 10 minutes, paralyzed and afraid to open it
Had it been me, I would have just quicksaved, then opened the door and possibly reloaded. Not scary at all.

 

I don't know of anyone who saves with every footstep, and in the heat of the moment that doesn't won't work anyway (unless you're willing to risk saving yourself into a corner - I don't ever save until I'm "safe"),
That's what I use regular saves for - when I'm safe. I use quicksaves in the heat of the moment to get from safe spot to safe spot. And if I save myself into a corner, I just reload the regular save, which is at most a minute back.

 

And that doesn't even cover the aspect of, what if I don't want to save at that point? What if I have an AI chasing me as I run across a savepoint? I wouldn't choose to save, because I'm not yet safe. But some mapper can decide for me that it's the right time?
Autosaves usually don't overwrite your other saves but create a new one, so at worst it'll just provide a new, useless save. Often autosaves are useful for saving the player's progress before they walk into a trap, so if they don't notice the trap they aren't set back far back enough to be annoying. You could also do what Hitman 2 does, and make it so that when the player acheives key objectives or gets to key places, they earn a new save that they can use at any time, which negates the problem of involuntarily saving at a bad moment.

 

Maybe I'm lucky. Lack of saves doesn't scare me; it just annoys me. The game experience scares me. I thank my imagination for it - it has endeared Thief (as well as some other games) to me for life.
No matter how scary the game experience is, I find it hard to be afraid when I have the safety-net of quicksaves.
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Had it been me, I would have just quicksaved, then opened the door and possibly reloaded.

Absolutely pathetic. You may as well not bother playing the game at all, if all you're going to do is use easy exploits to get you through. That's no different to using god mode.

By exploiting the save feature like that, what you're doing is turning yourself in to a thief with a time travel machine, and that has no place in the game.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Absolutely pathetic.
No argument here.

 

Though in my (partial) defense, I've greatly enjoyed Hitman and Far Cry, which don't feature quicksaving.

 

That's no different to using god mode.
...which is exactly my point. Unlimited quicksaves are cheating and should require a cheat cvar to be turned on.

 

By exploiting the save feature like that, what you're doing is turning yourself in to a thief with a time travel machine, and that has no place in the game.
Actually, I always pretend I'm a thief who has psychic visions. :D
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Saving is a game mechanic that shouldn't be there, that's what's being argued. Being able to time travel around in order to spot, and then avoid mistakes, makes a mockery of the game, which is supposed to uphold the pretence that you're a character in a real time environment along with the other AI.

In that example you're talking about of opening a door when you dont' know what's behind it - just open it and see, if there are guards then run for it and hide. That's all part of the gameplay, I don't see the purpose in quicksaving it 'in case something goes wrong' Make sure it doesn't go wrong by learning how to play the game skillfully.

And if you do get caught and killed, well hang on, that was your fault wasn't it, not the game, so I dont' know why you expect the game to have all these default failsafes to cover your ass.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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Had it been me, I would have just quicksaved, then opened the door and possibly reloaded. Not scary at all.

AND LO, finally we get to the ugly heart of the matter. You want limited saves because your lame ass lacks the self-control to not abuse them.

 

Well... sucks to be you. Don't try to make your solution our problem.

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If that's what you've been waiting to hear, you could have jumped on what I said a couple of pages earlier...

From the perspective of a player, I want restricted saves because I'm the world's biggest quicksave junkie, and I want scary levels! (...I didn't find the cradle the least bit scary)

Anyway, what it boils down to is that I play under the rules of the vanilla version of a game and currently those rules aren't balanced.

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I don't know of anyone who saves with every footstep, and in the heat of the moment that doesn't won't work anyway (unless you're willing to risk saving yourself into a corner - I don't ever save until I'm "safe"), so when I had to leap out of the rafters, run out the back door of the haunted cathedral, and prop the door up with my body both to prevent a zombie from coming out (oh noes! exploit!) but also to stay back from the light so that the undead I just stumbled in on didn't notice me, all while I held my breath trying to see if I was okay or not, nearly shitting my pants, it had all to do with the design, the AI, the sounds, and nothing to do with my savegame.

 

Exactly what I also said above. :)

Gerhard

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The door example, dealing with consequences, not scouting ahead - I definitely don't argue with any of that. In fact, a friend of mine played Thief up to about mission 7, by saving, then running through the mission till he was killed, to memorize as much as he could, then he played for real. :rolleyes: I chastised him heavily for that, insulted his manhood, etc. So I'm in agreement there. And I like to challenge myself; that's exactly why I froze at that door, and why I was shitting my pants out the cathedral backdoor. However, there are times when I do want or need to save (or reload), and that's not a one-size-fits-all type of thing. So, I self-police. I don't abuse the ability, but make use of it when I see fit. It's the best way, because then the individual can decide how much he's willing to put into (and thus get out of) the experience.

 

Oh, and that friend of mine? He hasn't played again. He clearly ruined the experience for himself, the dumbass.

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Nice straw man you got there. :P

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Then, bearing in mind that the overwhelming majority of players hate this absence of functionality, it should default to OFF, don't you think?

 

 

...and if we read back a few posts;

oDDity probably fires everyone up by saying "you all SHOULD play this way" but the reality is, if there was something like this, it would be optional, and it would be off by default, because most people wouldn't agree with it, and then we'd all have our own way anyway, so there's no point anyone telling anyone which one is better. Obviously enough of us feel strongly about it either way that it should be optional. Game over.

 

Yes I do think it should be off by default, what's your point?

 

No, what it boils down to is that you, as a gamer, are broken. And like the villain in a bad RPG, you want to twist the entire world to conform to you.

 

Spar said "When I play a game the first time I usually play by the rules. After that, if it is worth replaying, I usually start to cheat or otherwise explo(it)re it."

 

And the rules of the game let you save as often as you want.

 

Forcing yourself not to save often is no different than forcing yourself not to nudge guards off ledges in T2.

 

Anyway, the whole concept of hightened "fear" (so to speak) due to savegame availability is absolutely ridiculous to me.

That's fine, I can't change the way you interpret the game. But it works for me.

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Spar said "When I play a game the first time I usually play by the rules. After that, if it is worth replaying, I usually start to cheat or otherwise explo(it)re it."

 

And the rules of the game let you save as often as you want.

 

Saving behaviour is not part of the game, thus it doesn't qualify as a rule. There is no ingame objective telling you to not save or to save a certain amount to complete the missions. The rules of a game, are purely the game mechanics, which means that saving is excluded. As an example. When I learn a spell in Baldurs Gate 2 there is a certain chance, that the scroll is wasted and the character did not copy the spell in his spell book. Playing by the rules means that I accept this and try to find another scroll and try again. Playing not by the rules is to save before you try to learn it, and if it fails reload until the character was successfull. So in your opinion, reloading would be according to the rules, but obviously it isn't because it is exactly what Oddity says: That you use a time machine and reverse any bad affects through reloading.

Gerhard

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If you're not going to implement no saving at all, then I would also be happy with no quicksaves, but make a regular save a real pain in the ass to do, so what happens is that you have to esc out to the save menu, but the save button is greyed out for a full minute before you can hit it.

That way, people will legitimately use it to save when they are quitting, but not abuse it to save before every corner or door.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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Saving behaviour is not part of the game, thus it doesn't qualify as a rule. There is no ingame objective telling you to not save or to save a certain amount to complete the missions. The rules of a game, are purely the game mechanics, which means that saving is excluded.

But it has an effect on how well you play.

 

Here's the way I see it;

 

The two extreme examples are;

If you quick save after every bullet, and quickload after every wasted bullet, there's no way you could tell me you could have played through that perfectly, like Neo, in one sitting.

At the other extreme, you hardly ever save and have so much to re-do you lose the incentative to do it all again.

 

Of course, everyone finds some happy medium in between.

But what you find in save point games is that you surprise yourself. You come to some spot and think "Shit, I wish I could save here." but then you do it and it feels more rewarding. Or you fail and you go through it again, and learn something about playing more skillfully, and then get through based on that learning experience. This wouldn't happen unless the map designer FORCED it on you, and that's what I yearn for.

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But what you find in save point games is that you surprise yourself. You come to some spot and think "Shit, I wish I could save here." but then you do it and it feels more rewarding. Or you fail and you go through it again, and learn something about playing more skillfully, and then get through based on that learning experience. This wouldn't happen unless the map designer FORCED it on you, and that's what I yearn for.

 

What you don't seem to get into your head is this: I don't play a game to learn ANYTHING about the game itself. I play a game because I enjoy the action of the game. If I have to replay the same part again and again it just becomes tiresome. It does not in the least give me any incentive to think along the line of "I should get better" it more drags me along the line of "Where is a cheat to overcome this burden" (in worst case). The same happens if a mapper is lazy and sends me through the same area several times. It doesn't become more interesting just because the story may require me to, it simply becomes a nuisance.

Gerhard

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That's fine, but I don't care why you play games, I only care that some people are trying to tell me the way I play games isn't fun, and insinuate there shouldn't even be an option for it. AN OPTION, disabled by default, come on people.

 

I play games to get more skilled at them, because I get enjoyment out of that. For the same reason I'd play foot ball, or tennis. I don't walk into a tennis court, pick up a racket, take a few swings and go "wow that was fun", no I want to learn more about it, so I can have more fun.

 

As long as people feel that other people are trying to tell them how to enjoy a game, those people will continue to defend their reasons.

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That's fine, but I don't care why you play games, I only care that some people are trying to tell me the way I play games isn't fun, and insinuate there shouldn't even be an option for it. AN OPTION, disabled by default, come on people.

 

I don't think anybody has a problem with an option disabled by default (progammer time and effort permitting), since this is equivalent to imposing a "no-save" rule on yourself with a bit of support from the game. What people have a problem with is the suggestion that it should be discouraged, difficult or even impossible to disable this feature on the basis that it is the "right" way to play the game.

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I'd like it as an option to please everyone, and at least that way people might be more exposed to it and it would catch on a bit more.

 

No argument from me there. In fact, it would be ideal to have a whole series of different "playstyle modes" selectable by the user and enforced by the engine - Ironman, Ghost, "Lytha style" etc, but I doubt there would be anywhere near enough time to implement this.

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