Npc Armor And Headshots?

[ZylonBane]

On a slight tangent, one of the best ways of discouraging the player form getting into fights encouraging quicksave abuse is to give him/her a limited amount of health, and absolutely no healing potions or health packs

Fixed that for ya.

 

Health potions, when properly used, serve a valuable gameplay function. If the player screws up in a mission and blows so many health points that they may as well start over, the placement of health potions in non-trivial locations gives the player the option of pressing on, at the cost of some risk or sidetracking. It's a perfectly reasonable cost/benefit arrangement.

[New Horizon]

On the issue of carrying bodies up ladders--

 

Why not give the ladders a property that allow FM authors to determine whether it's possible to carry a body up it or not? It should be pretty easy to implement. On the same note, why not enable "body shouldering" to be toggled on or off in the mission editor? Let the mission designers decide how realistic they want it to be.

 

Why make things more complicated than they need to be? Making core actions like 'carrying' a toggleable option is just going to frak with our players minds. Let the player choose which way the want to carry the body, simple as that....but one shouldn't be permitted over the other from mission author to mission author. Pure chaos.

 

Same thing with ladders. It's our responsiblity to give FM author a toolset with a pre-determined set of rules for the game world. The player shouldn't have to guess from one fm to another whether the FM author is going to pull the rug out from underneath him and completely change the gameplay mechanics for the Dark Mod world.

[thestemmer]

Why make things more complicated than they need to be? Making core actions like 'carrying' a toggleable option is just going to frak with our players minds. Let the player choose which way the want to carry the body, simple as that....but one shouldn't be permitted over the other from mission author to mission author. Pure chaos.

 

Same thing with ladders. It's our responsiblity to give FM author a toolset with a pre-determined set of rules for the game world. The player shouldn't have to guess from one fm to another whether the FM author is going to pull the rug out from underneath him and completely change the gameplay mechanics for the Dark Mod world.

 

Aw, come on now. "Pure chaos"? That's an exaggeration and you know it. We aren't talking about "completely changing the game mechanics." We're talking about creating options for mission authors. It's a very easy tweak, shouldn't require anything more than a boolean statement. If you're so worried about players being confused, include a message at the beginning of the mission warning the player that certain features are disabled. Competant FM makers would probably do this anyway, but whatever.

 

Since this is a Thief-based mod, you're dealing with a very picky player base who will appreciate the flexibility you give them. That doesn't mean you have add crazy alternative features all over the place (I'm thinking back to the water arrow vs. foaming chemical arrow discussion), but when it's a matter of adding one or two lines of code, it just seems like a no-brainer to me.

[ZylonBane]

...it just seems like a no-brainer to me.

I agree. It's a no-brainer that this would be a very stupid option to provide. Some things should be flexible. Some things should NOT be flexible. Something like this is core functionalty defining the way the player's avatar can act in the game world. Allowing it to be altered on a per-mission basis would be not only confusing, but illogical.

[OrbWeaver]

It's a very easy tweak, shouldn't require anything more than a boolean statement.

 

Not exactly. Unless the core functionality has been overridden, the "climbable" property is set in the material definition for the texture applied to the ladder object. Enabling this option would require duplicate materials to be created, confusing the author and cluttering the texture selection tools.

[Springheel]

We aren't talking about "completely changing the game mechanics." We're talking about creating options for mission authors

 

You can't provide a consistant game experience and have the rules different every time you play. That would be like creating a RTS but having the unit stats and tech tree different for every mission. Flexible? Yes. Totally destroying any sense of continuity and immersion? Yes.

[thestemmer]

Not exactly. Unless the core functionality has been overridden, the "climbable" property is set in the material definition for the texture applied to the ladder object. Enabling this option would require duplicate materials to be created, confusing the author and cluttering the texture selection tools.

 

I'm sorry, you're right about that, ladders would be harder. I was mostly thinking about the carrying functionality, where you would just have to disable the key for shouldering.

 

You can't provide a consistant game experience and have the rules different every time you play. That would be like creating a RTS but having the unit stats and tech tree different for every mission. Flexible? Yes. Totally destroying any sense of continuity and immersion? Yes.

 

Incidentally, many RTS games do give mission-makers the ability to alter unit stats and tech trees. Do most people do it? No. Do some people? Yes. It's good that it's there just in case people do want to fiddle around with it. I've seen it put to good use many times in fan missions.

 

Of course I agree that a game has to have some kind of overarching structure, and that the rules shouldn't change arbitrarily. If I were making a game with a series of different missions, it wouldn't make sense to have gameplay mechanics that change arbitrarily from mission to mission. But in the case of the Dark Mod, which is first and foremost a toolset, most fan missions are going to be pretty much self-contained. If a FM author wants to switch up the rules for their particular map, I say let them. And let them do it without having to go to the extra work of plumbing through lots of unfamiliar code. But it's not my mod, so if you think continuity is more important, so be it

[Domarius]

But in the case of the Dark Mod, which is first and foremost a toolset, most fan missions are going to be pretty much self-contained. If a FM author wants to switch up the rules for their particular map, I say let them.

That's more a sliding scale than a rule. There are some things authors can easily change, and some they can't. We make the desicions on a case by case basis.

[sparhawk]

Mission authors can do this anyway if they want to. It's not as if TDM is protected so you can't change any aspect that you want.

[Domarius]

But the key word in my post is "easily".

 

To put it another way - there are some things we support, and some things we don't.

[bob_arctor]

I suppose both sounds fine. I was initially worried about dragging and wanted just shouldering, and it wasn't fun to drag people in hitman. Plus Thief seems very intuitive at a game level: you pick up the body, you move slower, you can't attack or anything.

 

But I think being able to drag bodies around to position them would be very good.

 

A combination would do fine.

[obscurus]

We don't want a stamina system. The main argument against it being that having to sit and wait some time for your character to "rest up" before you can pick up a body again, mantle again, climb a rope again, sprint again, etc, is simply not fun. Maybe if we were a true simulator with "time compression," it would be okay to wait for a stamina "recharge," since you could jack up the time compression and wait longer in a shorter realtime amount, at the risk of being caught by AI who would be moving around at a compressed speed, but we're not planning to do that.

 

You only have to sit and wait if you do silly things and run out of stamina - if you manage your continuously recharging stamina properly, you won't need to stop and rest very often, if at all. I am talking a stamina system like in Morrowind here (except without the rest or wait option), where it recharges if you slow to a walk, or drop the body, it won't prevent you from doing anything, just make you act more like a thief and not superman.

 

Anyway, it seems you've made up your mind, so I won't press the issue.

 

I don't think anyone is going to be able to argue us into having a stamina system. We considered it thoroughly, and pretty much heard it all in our internal discussions before deciding against it. At least some people will accept moving slowly instead of stamina.

 

OK. Not my preferred option, but hey, I'm not the one doing all the works so I can't complain too much.

 

It's not so much that the player is too weak to use a sword or hammer, it's that the character doesn't have any training with those weapons. Our character spends their time practicing being a good thief, not practicing longsword parries, warhammer swings and armored combat. If we had infinite time to work on the mod, we would allow picking up longswords and hammers, but model very crappy combat skills when using them. I.e., your parries wouldn't work most of the time, your attacks would be slower, clumsy, and not where you want them to go, and the AI would easily be able to beat the sword aside and hit you, or manuever around your crappy guard. But we don't really have time to animate and code all that, so this is one of the rare cases where the player gets a decision made for them in that they don't try to use the weapon. Maybe a 3rd party can implement all that stuff after we release, or maybe we'll find time to make some sort of generic attack animations that work with a variety of objects, but don't count on it.

 

 

That depends on entirely what combat system you use. I would prefer that there is a melee fighting system similar to the one which was used in Die by the Sword, where success is almost entirely dependent on the player's skill with the mouse, not some kind of computer generated lottery system. There would be no need to model specific "crappy" combat skills for certain weapons, all you need to do is:

 

1) have a combat system where the player's skill with the mouse is what determines how good they are in combat - they must attack and block their opponents blows using their own skill;

 

2) Have the players weapon set up as an IK bone system where there is no need to code specific animations, or very few of them anyway.

 

3) adjust the weight etc of various weapons, and translate this into the speed of attacks etc. Eg, a broadsword swing takes longer than a dagger stab, but causes more damage.

 

In this way a player has a steep learning curve when it comes to using weapons, but they can practise in game if they wish, you don't have to create some kind of fudgy D&D type combat system.

 

You should also note that it takes a lot of training and skill to move unconscious bodies (even if you are quite strong) - just ask any fireman - and I don't see why a thief would realistically be spending time practising this skill. A thief would be practising at evading detection above all else, which means not having to create bodies that need to be picked up and carried.

 

 

(Springheel) Your opinion. However, it's equally ridiculous for a thief to be able to carry 20 pounds of metal loot without making any noise, or to get shot in the back with an arrow and ignore it while continuing to rob the mansion for another few hours, etc, etc. The only way to fix all these 'ridiculous' situations is to create a reality simulator, which wouldn't be 1) feasible, 2) popular, or 3) fun.

 

Of course it is equally ridiculous for the thief to be carrying twenty pounds of metal loot without making any noise, which is why you shouldn't let the player do it. Same goes with arrows in the back - you should give the player a message saying "you have been fatally wounded" (even if that wasn't strictly true) and kill them if you think it would detract from the fun too much if the player slowly bled to death internally.

 

You don't need to create a reality simulator to do this at all. I am not proposing a reality simulator, I am proposing a game with depth, instead of a primitive consolesque characiture (not that I think that is what TDM will be, but you run the risk if you dumb it down too much or make too many concessions to the "we want a Thief clone" crowd).

 

You are jumping to an extreme conclusion there that isn't supported by any conceivable argument.

 

@ ZylonBane - which is why quicksaves should be dispensed with in favour of checkpoints/objective points.

 

 

OK I know I rehashing stuff that has already been discussed. It's just a cold monday morning and I'm cranky.

Edited May 28, 2006 by obscurus

[Gildoran]

@obscurus: I tend to agree with a lot of your points... I'd like to see what would happen if we tried to tune things towards reality, and I'm a proponent of giving mappers the ability to disable quicksaving. However, I figure it'd be easier to just wait for TDM to be finished and create a mod using its code/assets, than to persuade everybody to use less gamey mechanics in the initial release.

[obscurus]

I am of the view that if you base everything as closely as possible on reality (as far as current computers will allow with decent framerates), everything will pretty much fall into place by itself. It will then be up to the FM author to simply create geometry, lighting and AI placements that are navigable by the player. If you want to prove me wrong, make a game according to the above principles and I'll tell you if I enjoy it or not, and if I am the only person who likes it, or evenI turn out not to like it, I'll shut up.

 

People seem to be considering features on their own, and not in context with everything else. If you strive to make everything at least equally plausible, if not quite realistic, you don't need to worry about balance - it will be self balancing.

 

But throw in unrealistic things like the ability to carry unlimited loot without slowing down or making a lot of noise, or carry bodies for an unlimited distance etc, and you quickly wind up with a Pamndora's box of issues to resolve, which simply wouldn't exist if attention was paid to even a moderate level of realism.

 

I guess I get that a lot of people like the idea of playing a superhuman thief with extraordinary abilites and some peculiar weaknesses, but I prefer a bit more depth than the old Thief series provided. Thief is a pretty primitive, basic game that was fun for a while, but you need to do more than just spiff up the graphics to improve on it.

 

 

Here's an idea: instead of giving the player the ability to carry unlimited loot, give the player a strict limit, and then make it a game of finding the most valuable loot the player can carry, instead of the largest quantity loot the player can carry. the player has to decide if they want to take the risk of making lots of noise carrying a sackfull of metal trinkets and draining their stamina, or make off with a single very valuable item, or something in between. It adds a bit more depth to the game than simply running around collecting everything that isn't nailed down, and is much more what real thieves normally do - they go after specific, high value items that can be easily fenced, not everything bar the kitchen sink. A thief normally has an idea what they are looking for when they enter a building, and if they don't find it, they will often leave with nothing.

[ZylonBane]

I am of the view that if you base everything as closely as possible on reality (as far as current computers will allow with decent framerates), everything will pretty much fall into place by itself.

Your view is dead wrong. Professional game designers are pretty much universally of the opinon that realism is only a good thing when it serves (or at best, doesn't hinder) gameplay.

 

Here's an idea: instead of giving the player the ability to carry unlimited loot, give the player a strict limit, and then make it a game of finding the most valuable loot the player can carry, instead of the largest quantity loot the player can carry.

This would suck. Thief is about sneaking, not playing impromptu Antique Road Show.

 

And only control-freak assholes want to disable quicksaving.

Edited May 29, 2006 by ZylonBane

[obscurus]

Your view is dead wrong. Professional game designers are pretty much universally of the opinon that realism is only a good thing when it serves (or at best, doesn't hinder) gameplay.

 

Really? That must be why I find the vast majority of computer games to be unmitigated crap.

 

Professional computer game designers design games primarily for consoles, and even when they don't, they have dragged a lot of the baggage and dogma from these areas over without consciously realising it. Most games are designed to be completed within 10 - 20 hours and have absolutely no replay value so that you immediately go out and buy a new game when you have finished it - it is a purely commercial objective to avoid games with depths and realism, because such games take much longer to play, and have much more replay value.

 

I have very little respect for "professional" game designers given the general poor quality of their work.

 

For me at least, realism IS the gameplay to a large extent, and only serves to enhance it.

 

A realistic limitation on how much loot I can carry (for example) would greatly enhance my enjoyment of the game because it would make me think more strategically about what items I picked up.

 

 

Every game I have played that puts an emphasis on realism has been more fun and enjoyable for me to play, so the argument that realism would detract from the fun of a game is a purely subjective opinion.

 

Some people like simplistic games that don't require complex thought, or don't take months to finish, or lack depth, or rely on cheesy gimmicks or silly plot devices; I am not one of them.

 

I'm sorry, I just don't buy the religious doga that realism is bad for games - unless you can make a highly realistic game for me to play and I then don't enjoy it, I'll take your view as a load of bollocks.

 

 

And only control-freak assholes want to disable quicksaving.

 

Yes, petty name calling constitutes a valid argument.

[Domarius]

success is almost entirely dependent on the player's skill with the mouse, not some kind of computer generated lottery system.

Haha, you see computer RPGs the way I do, cool

 

@obscurus, in general, I agree with pretty much everything you've said, except maybe the extra focus on combat, since it's barely used, it begs the question of who's going to spend time developing such a system that's only really going to be used when you're cornered - a good thief will just run and evade whenever possible, which is 90% of the time.

 

I could even be convinced that some form of stamina would be a good idea. But a lot of the reasons behind our desicions is it's simpler - people will be happy if we get this thing out with sort of Thief 2 features - we're focusing instead more on AI behaviour.

Once it's out, and we've done all the main hard work, the Thief community, with each individual potentially having limitless time to make their dream feature, can add all these extra things.

 

Regarding your "realistic" ideal of video games, it's nice to think that, but I've seen proven again and again, that no matter how realistic you get, even in driving and flight simulators, video games are not reality, so there will always come a point sooner or later where you have to fudge something.

The art of making a good game is deciding where to do that. Go to far, and your game never gets out. Go to soon, and people won't find your game believable.

 

Take physics for example - in the real world, collisions happen over time. There is a period of time, no matter what materials we are talking about, where the force is dispersed throughout the object and the whole object "squashes", and then bounces back.

But not in video games. Video games use a "rigid body" system, where collisions happen instantaniously. Simulating the squashing would be ridiculous in a real time game. You can make so many optimisations for polygon collision if you can guarentee all the verticies of the mesh will always be in the same position relative to each other.

Because ridgid body is not realistic, you can't use realstic math all the way. If the moment of collision is infinently instant, then you get problems with things such as infinite forces. So you have to fake the results.

And this is where you get different phsyics engines better suited to different things. WIth any phyics engine, if you push something too far, it will go weird, (thanks to the non-realistic maths) so you have to work around it, untill you get what you need for your specific game.

[obscurus]

Domarius: regarding combat, I was more trying to make the point that a consistent, interactive game universe is better than one with bizarre limitations in one area and a bizarre lack of limitations in another, especially when they both relate to the same underlying quality. I can understand perfectly (and agree) that TDM will have limited focus on combat, since the focus should be on avoiding it at all costs, but if you are going to have it at all, you might as well do it well.

 

I am quite happy for a game to deviate from realism where it is impractical or impossible to simulate within the limitations of computing power or computer interfaces, and for little fudges to make up for the defecit, but it is quite another thing when people reject it solely on the grounds that it would make the gameplay less "fun", when it is quite easily implemented in game, and there is no argument to suggest it would be less fun other than some reference to some outdated "professional" game design dogma formulated in the 90s for Nintendos.

 

And I am intersested in games that have a consistent level of realism - it doesn't have to be so realistic that you can't tell where the game ends and reality begins, it just has to have consistent rules across the board.

 

It isn't consistent with the idea of a thief to have the training and stupendous strength to move bodies around as though they were Arnold Schwazenegger, and it is too great a deviation from what is reasonable to be worth including in the game IMO. And you can have some fantastic gameplay without it. It is dispensable and makes no sense, so why keep it?

[demagogue]

obscurus, pick up a book and read about mimesis why don't you. It's an ancient debate to what extent cultural artifacts, from art to literature to theatre to cinema, should represent nature faithfully. All the same rules apply to gaming, the main one being: the representation of reality is always at the service of whatever the artifact is trying to do, not the other way around. In literature, it goes under the heading of dramatic license ... tweaking reality to fit it into the confines / purpose of the medium (e.g., events are closer together in time so their point isn't missed to the story, or events exaggerated so their underlying "truth" isn't lost in the details).

Edited May 29, 2006 by demagogue

[Domarius]

@obscurus - you like the save points idea too, cool I'm glad to see there are so many of us. And unlike ZB's idea of it being enforced - it should be a player enabled option. So no one's being a control freak.

 

You would never catch me saying "realism is bad for games", but you would also never catch me saying "realism before gameplay". Gameplay is at the top of the list, and immersion (art, plot, etc), realisim, (physics, behaviour, etc.) all come under that and create the final product - gameplay.

Just wanted to say that.

 

Also, the only reason the guys here say something wouldn't be fun, is just based on their own idea of what would be fun. Trust me, none of them have any background in game development, so they won't be quoting old 90's Nintendo dogma.

 

Also, the point I was trying to make with the technical example, is this also affects what is "fun". Rather than provide controls for exact limb placement and require the player to control Garrett like a mechwarrior, for the most control over how to move quietly, we just make an abstract rule that some floors are louder than others. It's not exactly realistic, but it emulates the difficulty required to be quiet, in a less complex way. And at least its partly realistic, so its not very immersion breaking.

So this is where you try to strike the balance between realism and fun. Basically, striving for realism and expecting the gameplay to fall into place as a result, is a flawed approach. Gameplay is your goal, and realism is just one tool to reach it.

 

Enough theory and philosophy, let's get back to the actual issue.

 

 

I'm two minds about wether or not to remove shouldering. When I think about it, it affects both blackjacking AND killing equally - you're going to be more inclined to avoid confronting the AI altogether if you know you're gonna have to spend time dragging the body to a dark place, especially if there aren't many nearby. Not because of how long it takes, but because of how long you're going to spend out in the open unprotected in the light. That puts the emphasis more on stealth.

[obscurus]

yes, I agree you have to make an abstraction of reality to a lesser or greater degree, but the aim should be to model a consistent game universe that operates under predictable rules (which may or may not be 'realistc' per se), and if the game appears to generally operate under a similar set of rules to reality, then large deviations are going to be immersion breaking. Gameplay will evolve from the rules of the virtual world, if you try to create gameplay first, you are actually putting the cart before the horse.

 

If you have a relatively realistic model of a mediaeval/victorian city, with relatively realistic rules of physics etc, relatively realistic AI, and give the player certain abilities and limitations, and the objective to steal things, gameplay will naturally follow its own path, without the FM author or the developers having to intervene. You first create the model of your virtual world, then you run your simulation, not the other way around, which seems to be how a lot of game devs play it.

[sparhawk]

That's exactly my point also. That's why I always favour more generic solutions instead of finding a special solution for everything. This will enrich the gameplay by allowing things you didn't even think before and in the end makes it worthwhile to replay. While strict games tend to be played once or maybe a few times and then you have seen everything.

[ZylonBane]

Hey Obscurus, here's some realism for ya-- you get hit by a couple arrows, drag yourself into a dark corner, and spend hours bleeding to death. Yay, fun!

 

Holy crap you're clueless. You come across exactly like an ivory-tower dingbat who doesn't actually like gaming, but for some reason spends hours thinking about how games should be made. Like the ancient Greek philosophers who were convinced that you could build up a factual body of knowledge about the universe from pure theory.

 

Well, fire isn't an element, our bodies don't have four humors, and the foundations of a good game must be built on gameplay, not blind application of realism.

[OrbWeaver]

And unlike ZB's idea of it being enforced - it should be a player enabled option.

 

unbind "F5"

[Gildoran]

My opinion on quicksaves has always been to use the mapper's settings by default, but to allow unrestricted quicksaving if cheating is turned on. Much like how you can use noclip to find secrets but it doesn't really mean that you found them on your own, you can turn on a cvar to quicksave anywhere you want, but you know that it means you didn't "really" complete it any more than if you had used godmode.

 

From a technical standpoint, it's pretty much the same as voluntarily abstaining. However, that's missing the point: The sematics are entirely different. The point is that currently "quicksave abuse" is achieved through actions that are in plain sight and not considered cheating. Quicksave abuse should only be acheivable through actions that the player realizes aren't legit. The game shouldn't officially punish for quicksave abuse, but it should be done in such a manner that the player knows they didn't complete things as intended, much like if they had used noclip or godmode.

 

Legalise Note: My oppinions regarding quicksaving do not reflect those of the TDM team as a whole. TDM will probably be released without any restriction on quicksaving.