Sotha

Thanks for compling the list, GW! 15 years of TDM with 189 missions means almost 13 missions per year. Let's think what it means in a rough comparison: Thief 1 had 13 missions. Thief 2 had 15 missions. Therefore, on average, this community has created a new thief game worth of content every year. For fifteen years! Every year! This is definitely something to be proud of, methinks! Congrats everyone! Thank big thanks for your hard work!

Makes perfect sense and mines even more cool! https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Mines

Just to clarify, my motivation is curiosity of how people prefer to play the game. This is interesting information from mapper's point of view, obviously. I just saw someone sharing a youtube video, where the author named that as one popular playstyle (1:30), hence it is on the list. It is a valid playstyle someone might have. So please do not overthink it, but just choose the option that closest matches your preference. You can also refrain if you so choose, nothing wrong it that either.

Thanks! Poll questions clarified a bit.

Hi! There has been a lot of discussion about TDM playstyle recently. I got curious and would like to have a poll to see what kind of playstyles people prefer. Remember, there is no "wrong" way to enjoy a TDM mission.

There is actually even an entity specifically for this kind of stuff: trigger_inactivity. AI walks through a security room with some guards playing cards. The mapper notes that the patrol cycle is so that the AI visits the security room every X seconds. The mapper decides that if the AI is gone for 3*X seconds, the guards note the AIs absence and toss the playing cards aside and start patrolling. And yeah, then the player knocks them out, too.

It makes the mission more difficult as the player cannot just KO everyone. Some players might like the added challenge, but it is unknown how large portion of the player pool.

That is an interesting concept: if enough AI in area one are KO'd or killed, then the second area security gets beefed up. Probably works in smaller missions too. If mansion outside guards get KOd, the fully armored guard get a "bad feeling" and he puts all the lights on and goes stand in front of the display case where the main target of the mission is located. I like it!

Did people play Alien Isolation? In that game, there were terminals which the player activated to get their progress saved. In a triple-A game that was bold move and directly contributed to the sense of dread and terror. Same thing with games like DayZ the feelings the game evokes are stronger because there are no saves and you can die any moment and what matters is your skill and wits. Or luck. Then against, hitman 1 did not have saves and it was brutally difficult. I welcomed the ability to have limited amount of saves in the later hitman games. But I agree with the points that it is no fun to make a little mistake in a huge mission with 1h play time in and you instantly die or get stuck, or the game crashes and one needs to start all over again I would be inclined to the side that TDM needs the save ability, but of course if a polished fully working implementation existed and someone used it in a smart way, I believe it could work also, because Alien Isolation worked really well. The player, who thinks KO limits are pointless, would have the option to play with easier difficulty that does not have KO limits, and the player who wants a challenge can choose to play with the KO limit. I would say that counts as giving options. What the mapper should in fact do is dependent whether the player pool likes this kind of challenge or not. It is clear the community is divided by these matters and the wise mapper caters to both of these pools. At least my target as a mapper would be to create an interesting and nice experience for most of the audience.

But if majority of players play style is so that they reload if AI gets alerted or things go wrong, it is a terrible mistake for the mapper to spend time making content that becomes visible if AI is alerted: only a few people will see this work. This is one of the reasons I was interested in this and challenged to play without saving. There is no point in making alternative alert patrols or other if-AI-is-alerted content. That is a lot of work and nobody will see this work. It is better to spend the effort elsewhere. The mapper could make positive comments for fulfilling no-kill/KO objectives, but that would need debriefing with if/then logic. In TDM debriefing are quite rare and they are more work. Let's talk about difficulty, too. There was only one mission with no-KO objective in all of difficulties in Thief games (IIRC, could be wrong), but most missions had *difficulty* based no-kill objectives. Are you OK with no-KO and no-kill objectives appearing with higher difficulties and the normal difficulty not having those at all? Then players who like the challenge can choose a higher difficulty and those who do not like them, can take the normal one. That is the idea of the difficulty selection: the player who is more confident with their skills can take extra challenge. A side note: fire arrows and explosive mines instakill zombies and revenants in TDM. There are very effective tools against the undead. I agree that holywater is too weak in TDM. Failed no-kill objective = meh: This is true, therefore good alternatives for no-KO and no-KILL objectives are needed. One can make the objective optional, true, but what is the purpose of it then, it is more like a recommendation and failing it has no consequences, other than a red cross on objective list. So until now I don't see options for no-KO and no-kill objectives. Summary: *optional objective is not a difficulty modifying objective. Difficulty objectives should modify mission difficulty. *there is probably no point in making additional content with alterted-AI or violated no-KO or no-kill objectives, because most of the people will never see that content. *Positive feedback for non-violated no-kill/KO objectives would need special debriefing, which are more work for low impact (although I agree they would be a nice finishing touch.)

I played this masterpiece tonight. Amazing quadruple-A quality mission. Perfect balance in gameplay, outstanding visuals, expertly crafted story and pacing, interesting location, excellent opportunities to use tools, tools were given, AI patrolling was interesting and challenging. I completed it with some fall damage and stealth score of around 4. Kept me on my toes from start to finish. Wow, just wow! Hats off! Please keep making more!

Played this tonight. Great mission! It had a lot of Trail of Blood feeling from Thief 2. Relatively easy side, because there was plenty of darkness and plenty of space. Easy, well, if one doesn't take too much jumping risk. I did and of course fell to my death, last save million steps away, serves me right. Next time I was much more cautious and made good progress. As soon as I saw Yet another masterpiece among TDM missions, good work!

The ambiguousness of our abbreviations has always been a source of lot of fun!

Damn! Well, it says on the tin that TDM is *gritty* steampunk universe and if you hit someone in the head with the intention of knocking them out, you could accidentally hit too hard and smash their skull, or they could hit their head when falling. Those no-kill, no-KO objectives I usually do are, I believe, according to the traditional thief standard: IIRC in thief 1 and 2 increasing difficulty increased gold extraction requirement and introduced no-kill and no-KO objectives. It would be cool if we could somehow re-invent those difficulty conventions. Increasing difficulty should increase difficulty and no-kill and no-KO does exactly that. What would be another way to increase difficulty? I am all ears for better suggestions. There could be more guards with higher difficulty, but there is no way to convey that via the objective list, which is the only way player sees the influence of the difficulty on the mission. So difficulty must be in relation to mission objectives and what else could there be other than no-kill, no-KO objectives? Sure, they could be set as optional, but then they would have no real difficulty adjusting effect.

Amazing mission! Truly a masterpiece. 5/5 everything! I got out with the stone and alive with stealth score of 45, KOd two (poor servant lady onto whom I bumped into around a corner and some scribe who was just sitting and writing), I received 120 damage (fell a couple of times and got hit by swordmen while fleeing a couple of times). The insurance company would never insure my thieving exercises... Good thing I had some apples and found a few health potions. I saved twice because there was This mission is TDM at its best! I didn't even visit all the rooms, because I was so interested seeing what's in the tower. I need to play this again and visit all rooms...

This was an interesting mission! It surprised me many times.

Ah, just to clarify: I don't consider ghosting (no AI interaction, no tool use) normal play style in the sense that I would specifically design my missions to be ghostable. I'm more interested in providing a challenge and tool use is expected to overcome those challenges. Ghosting may be possible, but could be extremely difficult. All the ways to enjoy TDM are of course correct, if it brings the player joy. I was curious for people playing without saving, because I've seen many playthrough videos (with no tool use) where the player saves constantly. That could mean that the player probably reloads every time when things do not go as they wanted. Those players can see only the "unalerted AI side" of TDM and are missing out all the gameplay that arises when the AI detects the player somehow.

It was sort of by-accident-by-design.

Thanks for comments!

Hello! To celebrate 15 years of TDM, and because so amazing missions have been made in my absence, I felt compelled to made a small mission for everyone to enjoy: The Last Offering! Mission briefing: Build time: roughly 30 h darkradiant time during october-november 2024. AI has been used for initial mission brainstorming, proofreading and polishing readables. Thanks: *Whole TDM community for everything. *Betatesters: thebigh, datiswous, Shadow Other: I challenge you to play this short mission without saving or loading! The player gets plenty of gold for gear: buy a good thieving kit and enjoy the mission without saving! It is quite possible it is more exciting that way. Let me know what you think replying to this thread: I'd love to hear about your experiences and opinions. Enjoy, and I hope you have as fun playing as I had making this! Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HthqgoeBKf7kgYTRm5ice5t31_90_PRu/view?usp=drive_link

Congrats! I would say everyone's a winner!

I figured it out! In front of the bed, depending on the bed type, one must place step brush of monster_clip. "models/darkmod/furniture/beds/singlebed1.lwo" need monster_clip brush of 5 units high, for example. The AI climbs on the monster_clip brush before going to bed, and that raises the AI up enough so that they do not clip into the bed model if they get KO'd while sleeping The math goes like this: The safe sleeping surface height is 20 units from the floor. That means that the bunk bed prefab, which has the sleeping surface 23 units from the floor needs monster_clip step of 3 units. "models/darkmod/furniture/beds/singlebed1.lwo" need monster_clip brush of 5 units (the beds sleeping surface is 25 units from the floor). Just measure the sleeping surface from the floor and add a step monster_clip brush that raises AI floor to 20 units from the sleeping surface. Remember to make pillows "solid 0" if possible. If there is a solid pillow inside the AI's head they can still get violent spasms.

Hi! Is there a technical solution for the AI sinking inside a bed if they are KOd while sleeping? I have simple bed, AI standing approx 16 units away from the bed. The bed is monsterclipped and the MC brush raises all the way to the ceiling to prevent AAS32 generation on top of the MC brush. The AI has lay_down_slide_dist 32 to make them move to center of bed when going to sleep. The AI is standing on level floor and the bed is also level. If the AI goes to sleep and they get KO'd, then the AI nearly always falls inside the bed. Any ideas to fix this on map level, or is it TDM level bug?