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Combat In Tdm


Chi Haotian

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First thing one noticed when playing Thief for the first time is the impracticability of overt attack. Player began to associate this with the stealth genre. After playing for a while, one learned how to exploit imperfections of AI combat skills, and stealth became optional. T3 tried to enforce stealthy gameplay by replacing player's sword with a dagger, and by raising AI combat skills slightly. This was more like a hindrance rather than a raise in difficulty, and it was still possible to learn to kill multiple guards in open melee combat.

 

In TDM, with sword in player's hand again, I think it would be a great idea to increase AI combat skills significantly. If the game is to be true to the stealth genre, player should not consider its opposite as an equal option. (For example, a player may be able to stand against a single guard in combat successfully, but not against two, three or more.) This can be acheived only by raising the guards' martial abilities to a brand new level. Far from making the game impossible, this would resuscitate and amplify that feeling everyone had when they just began playing Thief, the feeling of unyielding demand by the genre.

 

Will the AI combat abilities be increased so?

Edited by Chi Haotian
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Will regular users have the capability to change such things as the AI (without having any particular skills in game-development coding, but willing to learn what is necessary)?

 

What tools will be released, besides the editor? (There will be modifications made to the Doom 3 editor itself, right?) It would be great if some coding tutorials were released along with other tools.

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What tools will be released, besides the editor? (There will be modifications made to the Doom 3 editor itself, right?) It would be great if some coding tutorials were released along with other tools.

 

In addition to the editor, all of our source code will be released with the mod.

 

Users will be able to make certain modifications to the Ai with doom 3 scripting and other elements available within the editor.

 

The doom 3 editor is not capable of being modified, there is no source code available for it. Instead, we are using the open source "GTK Radiant", an alternative editor that is compatible with Doom 3 maps. We have a separate team working hard to produce our own customized version, Dark Radiant. It will be very different from the doom3 editor, having GUI's for stim/ response, objectives...etc.

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Will regular users have the capability to change such things as the AI (without having any particular skills in game-development coding, but willing to learn what is necessary)?

Yes. You can customise things on a few levels:

 

* Using parameters. AIs have a number of settings which you can change to tweak their behaviour. This is pretty easy, and is a simple way to give some variety to individual AI, and AI types. At the moment, all the differences between different AI types (everything from zombies to elite citywatch) are specified using parameters.

 

* Modifying the AI scripts. You need some programming ability for these, but simple changes aren't too difficult, and Doom 3 scripting is very powerful. Most of the core AI behaviour is implemented at script level; the SDK only provides functionality, which the script can use (or not) as it chooses.

 

* Modifying the SDK (and, eventually, the core Doom 3 engine itself, once the full source code for Doom 3 is released under GPL). You can do just about anything at this level, if you're willing to learn and can handle C++.

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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I've tried Doom 3 Demo to see what the engine feels like. Will any of Doom 3 gameplay features be retained for TDM?

 

In particular, when D3 character gets near the end of his hit-points, for a few moments the screen pools blood-red and the surrounding sounds deafen and resound. This could be a great combat effect for Thief. And it would be a good compromise between, as has been suggested elsewhere, significantly crippling player movements when he is nearly dead and leaving him totally unaffected.

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will guard be able to switch from using a bow to using a sword and vice versa?

Milestones approaching:

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First thing one noticed when playing Thief for the first time is the impracticability of overt attack. Player began to associate this with the stealth genre. After playing for a while, one learned how to exploit imperfections of AI combat skills, and stealth became optional.

 

(regarding Thief1&2) I agree with that statement for the lower difficulties, but not on Expert settings. Some missions down-right required that you do not injure a guard or else you fail. This method of difficulty is very reasonable imho

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Will archers use vantage points as they used to in T1? (There were vantage points in T2 also, but bowmen never cared to use them...)

 

Also, remember the archer assassin from the Assassins mission -- the way he used to run off and then shoot from a distance every time, making it bloody hard to fight him? I guess it was due to vantage points used in that level, and also because of some scripting.

 

Will similar behaviour and the use of vantage points be implemented for archers in TDM?

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Will similar behaviour and the use of vantage points be implemented for archers in TDM?

 

Most likely, but it's quite difficult to give any definite answers to these types of questions. AI behavior at the moment is still very much a work in progress. We have a lot to get done within the next year or more.

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Missile combat in particular is still very WIP.

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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Will AIs be able to push the player out of the away? In T1/T2 you could stand in the doorway and prevent a fleeing guard from getting past you. Or, when chased by guards, you could run behind a door, prop it up with your shoulder, and the 5 guards running after you wouldn't be able to force it open. I hope this will be addressed in TDM.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Will AIs be able to push the player out of the away? In T1/T2 you could stand in the doorway and prevent a fleeing guard from getting past you. Or, when chased by guards, you could run behind a door, prop it up with your shoulder, and the 5 guards running after you wouldn't be able to force it open. I hope this will be addressed in TDM.

 

The D3 physics engine isn't that good at dealing with dynamics and force balances, it's more geared towards collisions. So I don't think it's possible to get it to recognize that 5 AI pushing on a door should overpower one player. Also there's the fact that the AI have collision boxes around them so they couldn't even stand close enough to eachother to all push on the door at once. So I don't think it's possible, unless you're volunteering to come in and put in a new physics engine (which is all exposed to the SDK and would be possible if anyone had the time).

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It actually might be in place already. A guard can push open a door you're blocking with your shoulder right now. I don't know for sure about the other case (blocking someone's path), but when in notarget mode, I've had patrolling AI bump into me and move me right out of their way. Whether or not that applies to an active AI barreling through you, I don't know.

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Yeah, doors opening themselves push you out of the way, so when a guard wants to open a door it will push you out of the way. There's no complicated physics though like it takes N guards pushing on a door to overpower you. You can also wedge a door shut with something and if the door mover can't do its scripted movement it can't open, there is no calculation of the forces torquing a door about the hinge trying to open it.

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