About Koing

[sparhawk]

THe killing and knocking out are optional parts of the word steath, the only essential and most important part of stealth is that you remain silent and unseen, so that's the part we should emphasis in this game.

 

You seem to confuse something here. In NOW way does stealth imply ANYTHING even remotely related to killing or knocking out. Seems you need to look up a dictionary.

 

Stealth is a method of movement. I can creep around stealthily in my house with no intention of killing or knocking somebody out. In fact I might use a stealthy method of movement, because I don't want to wake up my kids in the night.

 

Killing or knocking somebody out is an act of violence. I can knock somebody out, while I fight with him, and I don't even need to be stealthy about it. I can run around screaming like hell and still knock somebody out. In the context of our game it's stealth PLUS kill|knockout. It's not stealth OR kill OR knockout.

[Macsen]

OT: Am I the only one who thought this thread was about the King Kong movie?

[oDDity]

Well, there will be a gameplay difference--a KO will be relatively quiet, while killing a guard will make a lot of noise and a bloody mess. KOing a guard is less likely to result in an alarm being sounded as well. With a KOed guard, an alarm would be raised only if someone found the body. Killing a guard gives you three times the chance of being discovered: the body, the bloodstains all over the walls, or hearing the initial scream.

 

To a ghoster there is no difference, perhaps, but this isn't a game just for ghosters.

The same was true in THief. All your doing is making knockouts free. You're having to think of ways of encouraging people to KO instead of kill, so you make KOing the easy route.

Rather than rewarding players for knocking out guards, we should be punishing players for killing them.

That's why the best way is to make KOing and killing equally difficult, but punish the killing more harshly.

You seem quite happy to ignore the fact it's possible to quietly kill someone. We're imposing an artificial restriction whereby you can't kill someone without them making a lot of noise.

I say let people make silent kills if they want, but they will be punished for it by having elite gurds roaming the mission and being positioned at crucial map chokepoints.

[oDDity]

You seem to confuse something here. In NOW way does stealth imply ANYTHING even remotely related to killing or knocking out. Seems you need to look up a dictionary.

 

Stealth is a method of movement. I can creep around stealthily in my house with no intention of killing or knocking somebody out. In fact I might use a stealthy method of movement, because I don't want to wake up my kids in the night.

 

Killing or knocking somebody out is an act of violence. I can knock somebody out, while I fight with him, and I don't even need to be stealthy about it. I can run around screaming like hell and still knock somebody out. In the context of our game it's stealth PLUS kill|knockout. It's not stealth OR kill OR knockout.

 

Exactly. Which is why I said that killing OR knocking someone out is the opposite of stealth.

Peiople are talking about it as if knocking people out is stealthy, while killing them is not.

I'm agianst both in the game, and BJing shoul dnot be encouraged as an alternative to killing.

[Springheel]

Rather than rewarding players for knocking out guards, we should be punishing players for killing them.

 

Well, I think we ARE punishing them, by making them more likely to be caught. I suppose it depends what you're using as a benchmark.

 

You seem quite happy to ignore the fact it's possible to quietly kill someone. We're imposing an artificial restriction whereby you can't kill someone without them making a lot of noise.

 

Yes...we impose lots of artificial restrictions for the sake of gameplay, so what's your point? It's artificial that you can't walk quietly on marble floors, or that you never kill anyone with a blackjack hit, etc.

 

Since we're looking for ways to discourage people from just killing the AI (which is your pet cause, is it not?) then allowing players to silently kill AI doesn't make much sense, does it.

[Maximius]

Its hard to imagine a Thief who would not at least occasionally have to KO or even kill a person to get the job done. I feel the same way about both actions as I do the use of magic, they have their place but they should be extremely limited and expensive, either in gold or in terms of risk.

 

When I start to makes FMs, Id like to set the following standards myself:

 

Kill a guard, lots of noise and mess if you have to duke it out, less noise and mess if you sneak up behind and backstab or better neck stab, hit the windpipe from the back and the victim aint saying shit. Must hide body.

 

Ko a guard, some noise, must hide body. For both of these, KOing and killing, a timer begins to tick down somewhere, this simulates a guard being missed by his sergeant or buddy on patrol. Maybe tenminutes, twenty at some country estate with local yokels for guards. In reality, no guard would go missing and unnoticed for longer than a couple of minutes, guards and patrols intentionally overlap for just such reasons.

 

Also, an artificial limitation on the number of KOs/kills. Why? To simulate, in a simple way, the fact that in real life if three guards went missing around the same time there are three times the number of opportunities for an alarm to be raised.

 

These are artificial limitations but there is a narrative explanation to accompany them. As a Thief, you would want interact with the environment as little as possible, doing only what absolutely needs to be done, for safety and efficiency. So you have made your third KO on a map and now you cannot make any more. Invisible wall? Maybe, but with good reason, as a player I think to myself if any more guards go missing someone almost HAS to notice. With one guard KOd, its possible he'll be missed but its not as probable as if three guards are gone.

[obscurus]

Well, I think we ARE punishing them, by making them more likely to be caught. I suppose it depends what you're using as a benchmark.

Yes...we impose lots of artificial restrictions for the sake of gameplay, so what's your point? It's artificial that you can't walk quietly on marble floors, or that you never kill anyone with a blackjack hit, etc.

 

 

As a mapper, my solution to severely hampering the ability of the player to knock out or kill will be to spawn more guards when a body is discovered (in as realistic a way as possible of course). I plan on making it next to impossible for players to clear a map of guards and wander around in an empty map (well, not every map, but in cities or populated areas, one person is unlikely to get away with many murders or KOs before the constabulary apprehends them).

 

 

It is artificial that you can't walk quietly on marble floors, and it is very artificial that you can walk quietly on wooden floors, or even carpeted wooden floors (almost all floorboards start to creak very shortly after being set in place, it is very difficult to walk on most wooden floors without making noise). There is no sense in it at all. It doesn't need to be that way.

 

In the original Thief, you could kill people with the blackjack, you just had to hit them a lot of times with it. I don't see why you would make it impossible to kill people with the blackjack - surely death should be the consequence of improper use of the blackjack, and subsequent constant searching for a murderer.

 

 

And if you murder someone, and the body is found, then the AI should be at the highest stage of alert for the remainder of the mission (and where possible, more guards should spawn). Guards should then go into a pattern of systematicly searching everywhere, getting torches or lanterns to light up dark corners, and generally making it very difficult for the player to get away with murder.

 

KO victims should regain consciousness after a random period of time between say 5 and 40 minutes, and will then blab to the nearest guard that they have been wacked on the head. Guards will then be edgy for quite some time, as they will if they find an unconscious body. AI should be able to revive unconscious AI they come across. Perhaps the player could splash wine over people they KO, so when they wake up and tell the guards, they smell the booze and dismiss it as the tales of a drunk. Could make for some amusing dialogue...

 

And on the system for blackjacking, where if you hold down the button and release for a big whack, how about making it so that there is a gradation defined by how long you hold the button down, so the player has to have good timing to avoid hitting people too hard and killing them? Think of those golfing sims, where if you hold down the key too long, you hit the ball too far.

[_Atti_]

"Perhaps the player could splash wine over people they KO, so when they wake up and tell the guards, they smell the booze and dismiss it as the tales of a drunk"

 

Hehe thats great idea..it would be great to see it in an FM or two...being in the general gameplay would make it boring after a while however

[Springheel]

a timer begins to tick down somewhere, this simulates a guard being missed by his sergeant or buddy on patrol. Maybe tenminutes, twenty at some country estate with local yokels for guards. In reality, no guard would go missing and unnoticed for longer than a couple of minutes,

 

Well, that totally depends on the map. If a guard is missed, it should be because one of his buddies actually does notice him gone, not because some arbitrary timer runs out. Otherwise, you remove all potential for player creativity. If I, as the player, KO guards at random, then sooner or later one should be noticed. However, if I'm careful, scoping out how often guards' patrols overlap, making sure a guard is isolated, or waiting until he leaves his post to go to the bathroom, or whatever, then I shouldn't be magically punished.

 

And if you murder someone, and the body is found, then the AI should be at the highest stage of alert for the remainder of the mission (and where possible, more guards should spawn). Guards should then go into a pattern of systematicly searching everywhere, getting torches or lanterns to light up dark corners, and generally making it very difficult for the player to get away with murder.

 

Yes, we have plans to do most of this. Mapmakers will also be able to set 'alert behaviours' for their AI, so that upon discovering a body they leave their regular routes and take up positions guarding the exits, for example.

 

KO victims should regain consciousness after a random period of time between say 5 and 40 minutes,

 

This issue spawned a large internal debate, but ultimately we decided it was too difficult to implement.

 

And on the system for blackjacking, where if you hold down the button and release for a big whack, how about making it so that there is a gradation defined by how long you hold the button down, so the player has to have good timing to avoid hitting people too hard and killing them? Think of those golfing sims, where if you hold down the key too long, you hit the ball too far.

 

I'm not sure there's much benefit to that...in gameplay terms, there's no difference between KOing someone with the BJ or killing them with the BJ--there still would be no blood or (presumably) screams. The player wouldn't even know that they'd killed them unless there was an arbitrary "No Kill" objective.

[Vadrosaul]

This issue spawned a large internal debate, but ultimately we decided it was too difficult to implement.

 

Can't you at least give us a checkmark option, such as [] AI regains consciousness after blackjack, in which after they regain consciousness they go to a high alert mode?

[Maximius]

Well, that totally depends on the map. If a guard is missed, it should be because one of his buddies actually does notice him gone, not because some arbitrary timer runs out. Otherwise, you remove all potential for player creativity. If I, as the player, KO guards at random, then sooner or later one should be noticed. However, if I'm careful, scoping out how often guards' patrols overlap, making sure a guard is isolated, or waiting until he leaves his post to go to the bathroom, or whatever, then I shouldn't be magically punished.

 

Is this possible to implement? I just remember playing Thief and having KOd every other damn AI on a map watch a lone AI walking about an empty castle as if nothing were out of order. Is there a way to make the AIs check in with one another? As in, an AI walks past another patrolling in the opposite direction. Usually in the games they say stuff like "Hows it going?" At this point, they "check in", meaning the game notes that each AI has seen one another. Another pass, another check in. ANother pass, but one guard is missing, nothing happens. Another pass, guard missing, AI gets suspicious, not even looking around but "realizing" the patrols not being properly conducted. Another pass, another miss, and the alarms are sounded.

[Domarius]

So in order to avoid one artificial thing, we implement another artificial thing.

I knew you'd say that, so here comes what I thought was obvious;

 

Hard artificial objective that fails you instantly when you kill someone.

 

as opposed to

 

Gameplay gets harder the less stealthy you are because the Thief is a stealth expert not a fighter expert. But the option to use violence is there. Like the time when I needed to kill a Thief AI that was killing the townspeople but the game failed me because I "killed somebody".

[Springheel]

Can't you at least give us a checkmark option, such as [] AI regains consciousness after blackjack, in which after they regain consciousness they go to a high alert mode?

 

I meant it's difficult to code, not play. I think the whole team would like to have waking up in the game if we could do it well. But even the basic task of getting an unconscious AI to believably transition from ragdoll to model is quite difficult.

 

Is there a way to make the AIs check in with one another? As in, an AI walks past another patrolling in the opposite direction. Usually in the games they say stuff like "Hows it going?" At this point, they "check in", meaning the game notes that each AI has seen one another. Another pass, another check in. ANother pass, but one guard is missing, nothing happens. Another pass, guard missing, AI gets suspicious, not even looking around but "realizing" the patrols not being properly conducted. Another pass, another miss, and the alarms are sounded.

 

Yes, T3 did something like this, and we think we can do it as well. Of course, our AI will also do things earlier Thief AI did not, like stop to stare out the window, or randomly leave their route to take a piss, so that will need to be factored in somehow.

[Gildoran]

You know, it just occured to me that maybe we could look at what Metal Gear Solid II did... I seem to remember them having ragdolls, and guards being able to wake up their unconscious buddies. Then again, maybe they weren't really ragdolls... if I remember correctly, they either had to be on their stomache or back.

[Dram]

i didnt read this whole thing, but koing is possible through helmets: the way someone is knocked out is through the light concussion of the brain, so sturdy material will not help stop a ko. Of course, the main thing to note here is that the thief uses a blackjack, which transfers less force then if he punched him there. Anyways, the point is that the thief could ko a helmeted guard using his fist and punching very hard (this would make a fuckload of noise obviously, and would probably hurt his fist) but the guard would be knocked out.

 

Why do you think they make modern helmets out of foam and not steel?

[sparhawk]

Can't you at least give us a checkmark option, such as [] AI regains consciousness after blackjack, in which after they regain consciousness they go to a high alert mode?

 

You can do this in your map with scripting, if you want.

[sparhawk]

I meant it's difficult to code, not play. I think the whole team would like to have waking up in the game if we could do it well.

 

I know I wont like it, because I didn't like it in TDS either. I see no point in this feature.

[sparhawk]

Why do you think they make modern helmets out of foam and not steel?

 

It depends on the helmet. Motorbikle helmets are not made of steel. Soldier helmets are, but they don't protect against direct bullet hits anyway.

[Springheel]

I know I wont like it, because I didn't like it in TDS either. I see no point in this feature.

 

Huh? Guards didn't wake up in TDS unless I completely missed something.

[Subjective Effect]

Of course, the main thing to note here is that the thief uses a blackjack, which transfers less force then if he punched him there.

It most certainly doesn't. Blackjacks are like rice flails or nunchucks, they deliver a tremendous amount of energy, and thus force, for their size and weight.

 

In reality a blackjack will cause a massive amount of damage to someone without a helmet. They can kill easily or cause permanent damage and injury. For this reason waking guards is unrealistic (if we are being totally honest) as someone waking from a blackjacking will not be in any state to get up and go back to guard duty. You'd have one hell of a sore head.

 

The transmission of force through a helmet would be much less, and in reality there are many helmet types that would stop you from being KOed, even if you were stunned. But if a helmet doesn't cover the entire base of the skull or the neck striking there will render someone unconcious or cause serious disabling injury - certainly enough for them to be so incapacitated that the thief would have time to land a solid boot to the face/jaw and KO them.

 

Only the Elite model has a helmeted base of skull and if I were going for a blackjack KO that's what I'd aim for, not the top of the helmet. Chainmail wouldn't absorb enough of the blow imho - a KO from a skilled and solid hit would be a certainty.

 

I don't know if you meant to do that oDDity but it has worked out perfectly for gameplay purposes if you want to have Elite guards harder/invulnerable to blackjacking.

[sparhawk]

Huh? Guards didn't wake up in TDS unless I completely missed something.

 

Where exctly is the difference between AI respawning or AI waking up? There is none.

[Vadrosaul]

Where exctly is the difference between AI respawning or AI waking up? There is none.

 

Guards did not respawn either unless I also completely missed something

[sparhawk]

They did on the streets.

[Springheel]

Where exctly is the difference between AI respawning or AI waking up? There is none.

 

Oh come now. There's a huge difference between respawning guards and having them wake up. Respawning already exists in D3 and would require no work--you just have new guards appear on the map. That's not the same as having an existing KOed guard wake up, transition believably from ragdoll to model, and have the AI then behave in a realistic way.

 

I suppose if FM authors wanted a 'wake up' hack, they could just have the ragdoll disappear and spawn a new guard in that spot after a predetermined amount of time. It would be pretty lame if the player was able to watch it happen, and they would have to deal with potential pathfinding problems if the bodies were dumped in unusual spots, (plus the guard wouldn't act like someone who was just KOed by an intruder) but it wouldn't take much work to do.

[Ishtvan]

Hmm I wonder if I can get hold of a typical mediaeval helmet? There are some mediaeval societies floating around. If I can find a helmet, and I get organised enough, I could do some recordings and SPL measurements of various objects striking said helmet.

 

If you want to do SPL or SWL measurements of something, I could use some help coming up with numbers for walking footsteps on every conceivable floor surface: rough stone, tile/marble (polished stone), wood w/o creak, wood w/ creak, carpet, metal, grass covering dirt, dirt, gravel, forest floor, sand, snow, shallow water, deeper water, roof slate, and probably some that I forgot.