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IHaveReturned

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  1. I agree, but only to a point. Yes, pointed sound-bytes can be extremely effective, but only when you can count on the audience to get what you are saying. When not, a well-crafted wall of text that actually leads somewhere meaningful is the best thing at your disposal. It just can't be too long or boring. There is also the difference between the person you are discussing with and people on the sideline. People on the sideline are in my experience never invested enough to really read what is being said by either party, though they can often be wowed by sound-bytes. I have given up caring what those people think. When I post, I post to someone specific, cause I can count on them to pay extra attention as they are forced to reply. People on the sidelines are notorious for either bandwagoning or missing the point rather than contribute, at least until you force them to pay attention by engaging them. Your unsubtle attempt at proving your own point kinda fails, though. Unlike me, you made an elaborate wall of text that looked like it would all lead somewhere specific, but then didn't. My walls have been shorter repeats of the same simple point over and over, aimed at people who acted like they didn't get it the first few times. It's not even close to being the same thing. Sure. I thought I had covered this already. I don't doubt that by the internal rules of TDM, it is a perfectly beatable and masterable game, even on its highest settings. My objections have from the start been about this requiring significantly different skills to do than in Thief. And that as a flexible toolset for former Thief FM makers, that makes no sense. To be even more clear, just because you can work around the symptoms, doesn't mean the cause is any more okay and acceptable. Yours is the logic I have seen fan...s make to justify broken, bugged or imbalanced gameplay: "You can just learn to work around it! Or mod it out yourself! What are you, a noob?!" so it obviously doesn't convince. See above. Fine, in a game about sneaking, open fighting should be hard as heck. But when you design a combat system sophisticated enough to enable mastery, you are encouraging usage too. It then looks completely schizophrenic to at the same time leave it wonky while saying "This is how it was intended", rather than "Yeah it sucks, but for obvious reasons it's not a priority". Hell, see what EM has done in this regard. They started out saying NuThief was action-stealth in the beginning, with NuGarrett Focusing down several guards in open combat. Then news surfaced that the combat system was crap, all the while it became clear that EM was running out of time, and suddenly they recanted on the action focus, making the game more stealth-focused again, and touting the poor combat as a feature towards that. It is pretty easy to infer that they ran out of time to make the action game they originally wanted, and instead caved to fan pressures for greater stealth focus as an excuse for not tuning up the combat system better. I see certain paralells with TDM, though since the new patch came out trying to fix this, Broken Glass obviously don't share EM's weakness. Given that this was indeed considered important enough for the first 2.0 patch, I don't see why you are evening defending the state of the original combat. In the world of professional game design, reality has to be tempered with enjoyment for the player. It has to do with sales and corporate garbage like that, but it's still based on a nugget of truth, that any measure of popularity requires the product to be tailored to its audience. As far as I can see, TDM is tailored to people even more hardcore than a Thief Expert Ghoster like myself. It is the typical hardcore argument that more realism = better. I'll refer back to Doug Church in the video I linked before, where he points out that in a game like Thief, the tension between screwed and safe is the best state the game can be in, and every measure to increase amount of gametime spent in that state is a good thing. Increased realism acts counter to this, for in real life, as you say, Thief-style stealth is almost impossible.
  2. @Springheel: That reply is all I can ask for. If indeed too few have or will suffer my problems, then I don't expect anything to change, and I'll just have to swallow the loss of what could have been. I expect to bring it to dev attention, prime them in case enough feedback like this does crop up, as I have said. I can think of plenty of reasons why this hasn't happened yet, so current precedent doesn't convince me in the slightest, though. There is also a part of me that fully expected other purists to see the value of replicating Thief, even just as an option, regardless of user complaint. That this was somehow essential to a project like this, rather than something patched in only as needed. I must admit to being sorely disappointed by the reality.
  3. I doubt it. They don't take that long. And doing so would be completely sidestepping the point that I shouldn't have to. I have ragequit one time too many to even want to try anyway. I have enough completely new games requiring completely new skillsets as it is, I don't need another. So, in other words, I have left you with the impression that I think what ISA and EM have done are good and respectable things? Cause that is the complete opposite of what I think and have said. I criticize those games even more than I do TDM, but they at least have the advantage that I will be able to play them and and find some enjoyment in that. Heheheh. (What are we snidely laughing at' date=' here? Is it that we fail to present any counterargument of substance and have to revert to innuendo and ridicule as a last resort, perhaps? Is that really something to laugh at?) Hehehehehe. Since I said, "unless the opposition keeps pretending to not have understood what I am saying" and they did, then yes. I am still waiting for that to happen. I'll let you know when there are any. So far the reviews thread is full of nothing but tweets, foreign language stuff, forum posts and one-page first impressions, some of which admit to being in the process of downloading or having barely played for a few hours. Even the best of them are the equivalent of these NuThief previews that have surfaced recently, where people are gushing over features LGS!Thief had 15 years ago as if that was laudable on its own. And that is being generous. Even the Mod of the Year award is useless cause TDM could win that on its technical achievements alone, even if all arrows were replaced with CoD guns. If you think these count as real reviews, why don't you look through them for criticism. I just did to double check and all I could find were complaints of the occasional bug. So if these count as reviews by your logic, then I guess the dev team can pat itself on the back for having made one of the few 10 out of 10, universally praised games ever. ...or you can accept that these are at worst one-paragraph endorsements, at best "Wow! This is fan-made?!" first impressions. Not actual reviews. Since both of your questions you already possessed the knowledge to answer, and still you asked, I can only assume you are sore over my comments. Fair enough, but if that causes you to be difficult rather than willing to accept constructive criticism, then that serves only to quell what little hope I still have of this game living up to its potential. Thank god for NH, the most rational and level-headed Thief fan I know. Maybe I think a little bigger than that and want to share with everyone. In which case I'd still be downvoted by the team, even if I did manage such a monstrous task. I like to think I am contributing how I can. My first post was clearly constructive, and if it isn't anymore, that is because I have been snubbed all the way without hint of reasonable counterarguments, instead treated to the same predictable criticism-intolerant fanboy trolling you'll find in any diehard community. Even by devs! I admit to acting irrational in this particular area. Even though I know way better, I still act as if a good point will be acknowledged no matter how harshly it is presented. I refuse to turn the other cheek when I feel my points can stand on their own merits. Sorry. Simple matter of principle.
  4. @AluminumHaste: "Okay give it up, it's NOT a clone of Thief and never has been. It was always inspired by the original Thief games. To clone something is to make an identical copy of, which anyone can see, is not the case with TDM. Your argument is spurious". You trying to tell me you've never heard of a "clone" of a famous game or series? A CoD-clone. An Assassin's Creed clone. A GTA clone. Please. These have never once referred to a game that was an identical copy of the template game. You should give up yourself, for your persistence in trying to eel your way out of a reasonable inference through the use of technicalities and semantic loopholes, while pretending haughtily that I must be crazy for having made such, is getting old. You are being contrarian instead of acknowledging my point. You are free to disagree with it, subjective at its core as it is, but not even acknowleding how easy it is to arrive at my interpretation of the facts robs you of all credibility. You are trying to tell me an entire dev team spent years on this project, and never once did it occur to anyone that the playerbase might be coming into this expecting a Thief-clone, just because it says "inspired by" on the tin? Something explained by its lack of lore alone, BTW, without anyone having reason to think the mechanics would be different to such a degree as well. Hell, I'm hard pressed to imagine the team not actively counting on the inference I've been making, let alone never even considering it. Talk about spurious arguments. @161803398874989: "Think of TDM as a sequel (of sorts) rather than a clone. It has all the properties of a sequel: new engine, new dev team, slightly changed mechanics, but core ideas remain the same. The dev team wanted to provide a more realistic stealth experience in the spirit of the Thief games. From the moment I heard about TDM, this was absolutely clear to me, and it's part of the reason why I got here, precisely because of it's promised realism". This is the best counter I've heard so far. It still has a couple of problems, though. 1) Since TDM is fanwork rather than official, its ability to use the sequel excuse is questionable at best. By its nature, the canon-fanon divide is always more lenient on the canon side of things. TDM is in practice being used as the unofficial Thief 4 in all forums I read, and for good reason, but that title comes with expectations, not just advantages, no matter how many vague semantic disclaimers are included. Relying on the power of a brand commits regardless of supposed intent, as EM can well attest by now. 2) More importantly, though, this isn't a sequel, or even strictly a clone. Don't get me wrong, it could be a clone, but that is out of Broken Glass' hands. They have cloned the mechanics only. Made a toolset. A toolset. Something users are supposed to make their own stuff from, in a clear continuation of Thief DromEd. A toolset needs flexibility, and can be evaluated on whether it has that. It needs to accomodate users so that they can create missions for other users to play. TDM cannot be a sequel to a prequel that never existed. It is a sequel only to Thief, and the modding efforts spawned by those games. So there really is no excuse for gameplay and mechanics found in those games or its FM's not to be at least possible in this new, refined toolset. Added difficulty options and greater realism are clearly stuff that fans want, so of course accomodations for such are acceptable. But for a toolset used by Thief fans not to permit Thief gameplay is completely off-keel in the first place. It makes no sense, except as a product made exclusively for a hardcore crowd for whom Thief gameplay is long obsolete. Namedropping and aping Thief to "sell" such a product is always going to be questionable, no matter the excuses and fine print being thrown around. Using the label as a springboard commits, and there is no avoiding that. "Anyhow, I still think this discussion is indicative of a problem, namely that IHR got something different from the description than what was intended. Rather than thinking IHR is just stupid for reading it like that, we could think about ways to fix the miscommunication from our end, in order to prevent this from happening again. You're going to attract a lot of Thief fans, so it'd be a good idea to give them an idea of the differences between TDM and Thief (which are numerous) before they dive in. Managing expectations is pretty important in ensuring the success for the mod because you don't want people to be disappointed". Well, I certainly support this, considering what I now know. But it feels like nothing more than a band-aid. An excuse to save what must have started as a hardcore project but grew so big its creators grew ambitious, and wanted to appeal to the entire Thief audience, forgetting the foundation, unspoken or not, they had started from. I still hope against hope that once more people from the outside start noticing the glaring changes in difficulty and raise their voices, the veil will fall from Broken Glass' eyes, and they will see that a project like this ought to have Thief compatibility as an effing core feature, not to mention have it at all. And since the FAQ still says this... "Q: Is this the same thing as Thief? A: The gameplay is very similar, yes. However, The Dark Mod takes place in a different setting. We make no references to any Thief trademarks or Eidos’ intellectual property–there is no Garrett, no Keepers, no Mechanists, etc. However, since both Thief and The Dark Mod are based on a steampunk version of our own history, there are plenty of similarities". ...in spite of several devs reading this thread, I can only suspect that the thought of openly admitting "we have changed gameplay to be more hardcore and realistic than Thief" is something they fear. And rightly so, for it smacks of "fanpack for veterans" rather than an accessible game. Better to deny, deny, deny. @Xarg: Alright, since you seem to at least be trying to counter my points, I guess I won't ignore you after all. ""You're on an island" is a quote from a certain developer who shall remain unnamed (who is not from this team or anything connected to this game, Lowenz would probably get it), that basically implies you are alone in holding your opinion. It's kind of like "you and what army?". Now, maybe you aren't alone, but then there's the whole "silent majority" thing which also hasn't been working in that developer's favour". Ah. Good thing I don't believe in ad populum, then. Especially not on the home turf of the people I am being critical of, seeing as in all likelihood, the mentality of this turf is what permitted a toolset like this to exist without even the possibility of Thief-level difficulty in the first place. Also, you sound like you are critical of the dev in question, yet here you are, using his argument against me. "No, that's not correct at all. You clearly do not know what that is. You are making a series of correct deductions and assumptions based on an incorrect starting point. Kind of like when that multinational team was working on that space probe, and half the team were using metric, the other imperial. One side mistook the other side's numbers as being the other measurement set, and the probe was lost. Correct deduction from incorrect start point. You ARE committing that fallacy." Dude, you really shouldn't go out on a limb that rickety. First off, a "formal fallacy" is the same damn thing as a logical fallacy. If you are using it to refer to some sub-type thereof, you need to explain it too. And since you admit my logic is reasonable, which is the exact opposite of a logical fallacy, you really are just blowing smoke here. The only way I can be wrong here, is if I had said "TDM literally promises to identically clone Thief mechanics" when that isn't what it promises and not what I have claimed. THEN you could attack my reasoning, because I'd be basing myself on factual events that never happened. One last time: I am criticizing an implication not delivered upon, and the creative intent that managed to produce a product like this without it containing one of the most obvious core pillars such a product can have!!! This is an emotional response to a subjective interpretation of the facts, not a flawed line of reasoning. Except humans aren't so different that it is an unreasonable interpretation unique to me. And the fact that no disclaimer or clarification has come forth in the months since, further suggests the devs are painfully aware of this interpretation, know they benefit from it, and dread letting that benefit go. Instead of y'know, earning it by letting TDM players play something as radical as Thief with it. "Telling you that you aren't going to change your skillset because you think the things affected by said skillset are going to change, as if you represented some critical mass of opinion, based on stuff that YOU said, as if that wasn't somehow massively egotistical, if not verging on just plain going too far, is a personal attack now?" Ego and hubris are personal attacks. You know how else I know I'm right? Because instead of telling me why I'm wrong to expect TDM to permit Thief gameplay, why that is somehow not the first thing a toolset like this should provide its users, you are instead focusing all your efforts on excuses for why it isn't there. Leaning again and again on the literal wording of what I quoted above, pretending the most obvious thing about TDM isn't actually the case because it doesn't explicitly say so anywhere. It's pure contrarianism, and unless you have something better to add in your reply, I'll just have to assume I was right about you the first time. "You cannot accept the possibility that you may not be correct. It is NOT a Thief-clone. You have been told this multiple times, and still persist in this delusion". No, you are the one that is incorrect. It isn't a Thief-clone. It markets itself as such. It looks like it is. it is treated as such. It pretends to be, for all practical intents and purposes. It lacks only specific words to that effect. But you are right, it very much isn't. Only that technicality doesn't matter when it carries all the benefits of being one in the eyes of users. THAT is the point. THAT is why it is worthy of criticism. And no amount of throwing disingenious fine print at me is going to change that. Coming into this, I thought that was simply a mistake, a beta bug to be squashed. But now that I have learned the truth, I am instead criticizing it. But instead of accepting that criticism or trying to counter it on its own merits, the fanboy crowd have gathered to do what defines them, namely rely on semantics and diversions, tryiing in vain to tear down the fundamental point by burying it in garbage, because that is really all they can do. "What does this have to do with anything?" Well, if I have to spell it out to you, the EM comments are a not-so-subtle accusation of hypocrisy, since I am pretty sure Broken Glass are as critical of EM using the Thief brand to sell an inferior knock-off as the rest of us. All the while neglecting the fact that they have deviated quite substantially themselves, without having the excuse of some money-grubbing publisher breathing down their necks. Fanworks are supposed to be fuelled on purism for the source material that greedy suits can't appreciate. For all my appreciation of TDM, I feel Broken Glass falls far from this ideal. Hell, I can just imagine Stephane Roy giving an interview justifying NuThief lack of difficulty or accomodation of aggressive playstyles: "Have you seen what the fans want? Have you tried The Dark Mod? That thing is so hard it makes even the original Thief games seem easy by comparison. Does anyone expect us to make money catering to that crowd?". The worst part being, I am dead sure Thief fans don't generally yearn for TDM level difficulty. Only the hardcore crowd that made it does. "TDM is only claiming to be inspired by Thief 1 and 2. Just more proof (as if we needed any) that you really don't get it, fundamentally do not understand the difference between "clone of" and "inspired by" You mean proof that you don't understand the difference. "Inspired by" and "clone of" are degrees on a communicative line, one denoting extreme similarity, the other only perihperal similarity. Dishonored is inspired by Thief. Stealth in Dark Messiah is inspired by Thief. TDM is a clone of Thief in all the places it can be, namely the mechanics and general setting. Since there is no iron-clad definition to rely on for this difference, I am as powerless as you to claim factual correctness. But I can submit with some certanity that the degree to which TDM is similar to Thief, is far closer to "clone of" than "inspired by". TDM is closer than even NuThief -the reboot-, as far as mechanics go, and still you try to pretend that "no no, its just inspired by Thief, definitely not a clone, that would be ridicilous". "We wouldn't be in disagreement if you didn't persist in this falsehood. Nobody is being mobbed by fanboys, and isn't that a personal attack? Sure is getting hypocritical in here". A falsehood requires a factual right or wrong, and those don't apply to interpretations. Especially not reasonable ones. You would be wise to not try to dispute that so hard, since yours is the most far-feched one by a longshot. You act like a fanboy, yes. In my experience they are defined by trying to tear down legitimate criticism not by countering the idea being presented, but by using every sophistic debate trick in the book to bury the complaint in misdirection and semantics, all the while making an example out of the complainer, insuring others will think twice before doing the same. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if that sort of social mechanic has contributed to the fact that this obvious problem hasn't been adressed yet even after all these years. I can't have been the first person to come up with the radical idea that a Thief clone toolset made by Thief FM makers, for Thief FM makers, should actually replicate Thief gameplay. I know I can eat fanboys like you for breakfast if I can just be bothered to waste my time, but most can't, so they'll stay silent out of fear. Extremely common in any fandom I'm familiar with. Yeah it kinda is. I have my own standard there, where I won't sling legitimate abuse, but I will follow your logic, a critical comment regarding the opposition, if they qualify factually for it. Since it is your logic, maybe you shouldn't accuse me of hypocrisy for using it myself. It might look hypocritical. I figured, since people have been slinging all sorts of personal attacks at me in this thread, it was fair game for me too. "Whether or not he admitted to trolling you, doesn't suddenly make him a developer. Is everyone who "trolls" you a developer?" Nice piece of fanboy misdirection. This has nothing to do with Aluminum being a Contributor. It has to do with you defending him as a legitimate replier to my criticism after he admitted to trolling me. ^^Watch and learn how fanboyism is practiced, people! At all costs, try to deflect attention away from the core criticism being made against your object of fandom, even if it means deliberate misrepresentation. The more off-point nonsense you can pile on the discussion, the less clear and transparent it becomes for readers. The less likely it is that more people become aware of and start to independently consider the flaws of the object. You should hold a course, Xarg. EDIT: Oh, and one more thing. I found this video of Warren Spector and Doug Church on TTLG a while back, and beyond being an interesting watch for any Thief fan, it has an early segment where Doug elaborates at length about how Thief AI and level design were all about stretching out player tension, because being completely safe and hidden or assaulted by guards to the point of failure were both not very interesting game states. So they did everything to stretch that middle ground between "not safe but not screwed either" to encompass as much of gameplay as possible. He even says at one point they could have made the AI harder, but chose not to because an AI that gives you a chance to screw up without immediately coming to cut you up is more interesting than one that does. Broken Glass has failed in that regard with TDM's much harder and more realistic AI. Realism and challenge have trumped enjoyment, which is a typical hardcore veteran mentality to have. So yeah, I'm pretty pleased to have the authority of Doug Church backing my stance on this. Doesn't get much better than that.
  5. I don't get it. That would only be the case if I was pretending to have found some sort of factual error. All I have done is criticize an implication, which in all likelihood impacted on a whole lot of peoples' reason for trying TDM in the first place. And lack of fidelity to the source material, at a time when the target audience is at its most sore towards that sort of thing. These are affective concepts, not factual ones. Naturally, I thought that was obvious by now, but I guess you just gotta reach for what you can. Personal attacks (that will be reported) aside, am I not allowed to feel that a Thief clone not permitting Thief gameplay, and involving an unprecedented luck component, is wrong? That represents hubris on...my part, does it? I bet EM agrees, though. The thing about presentation and perception and expectation, is that they are inherently subjective. So trying to claim factual authority over them is about the least convincing thing you can do. I, at least, am content to see if enough people feel like I do, before expecting anything to change. And if you are as tolerant as you paint yourself, maybe you could get off my back for doing that, so those people can speak up without fear of getting mobbed by fanboys. Cause it isn't like he admitted to trolling me right after I accused him of starting this thread with me in mind or anything. Stop embarrassing yourself. In other words, you still think this has to do with helmets. Clearly you haven't read a word I have written since. You just disqualified yourself from being listened to any further. Good day.
  6. I noticed this too, in Knighton Manor. And the body was hidden in a location where my character himself did not provoke any level of alert. The lightgem was 100% dark when I crouched in that location. Having the body detection be binary seems well and good, but can't a higher treshold be implemented to compensate?
  7. Wow, that was ten times nicer than I had expected. Do not confuse experience with intelligence. I am just an Internet war veteran.
  8. Seems reasonable enough. I heard someone say there was still a bit of work to be done, so having to worry about extranous Steam BS on top seems unwise at this point. As for the Xonotic thing, it sounded like the biggest problem with Steamworks was integration of their exisiting scoreboard tracker. I didn't know TDM had such a thing.
  9. Thank you, thank you. I now stand ready to rate your explanation of where I have misrepresented anyone. Seems only fair. Really. Considering the pride I put in avoiding logical fallacies, I damn well need to know if I have comitted one without noticing. Give it some time to let the glitz and glamour wear off. I remember at least a few of those articles admitting that the author was still in the process of downloading or barely done with the training mission. If few or none of the reviews mention anything, I'll start considering that the problem is with me. Not holding my breath.
  10. At the moment? The fact that it is a rather big percentage of blind luck determining my ability to get close enough to try in illuminated areas, no matter what Perception difficulty I am playing on. In general, getting humbled at something I expected to be good at, getting frustrated with several reloads on the same damn guard, and ragequitting. Feeling like the mechanic needs tweaking anyway, so learning to compensate is a waste of time. That sort of thing. Your continued harping on this besides-the-point issue does not inspire me to keep discussing this with you. Because I desperately want to like this game. Because I want it to succeed with as many people as possible. And because I feel that at the very least permitting Thief-level gameplay is a no-brainer for a mod like this, and will greatly aid the first two reasons. It's a highly versatile and flexible toolset for people who are using it because they have played Thief. Why does that not include Thief-level gameplay as one of its possible features?! It boggles the mind. Considering how hard you, a dev...I mean, Contrbutor is working to tear me down for it, I wouldn't be so sure I am the only one. Just the only one with the nuts to admit it. I mean, I have no doubt levels are beatable, even on Hardcore, if one abuses various gadgets and shadow stealth while ignoring illuminated blackjack takedowns. I'm not saying missions cannot be beaten under this new paradigm. But I guess that among those few with the nuts to admit incompetence at BJing, even fewer are also purist enough to see a problem with old strategies having become impossible, being content to adapt to new ones instead. That leaves few complainers. But for this to be a genuine Thief experience, illuminated takedowns without relying on luck and save-scumming is a requirement. If this isn't meant to be a genuine Thief experience, I think most of those 20.000 people would be taken somewhat aback. I'm sure most of them didn't go into this expecting Deux Ex or Thievery. They expected a Thief-clone. I don't even see why you are trying to deny that. It smacks of unreasonable contrarianism. In other words, more compensation for what shouldn't have been an issue in the first place. *sigh* Last I heard, we were unable to create computers capable of replicating human speech, precisely because it is so heavily reliant of context and slang, whereas the computer needs the isolated words and sentences to provide all necessary information. It is the same reason you'd often be totally clueless coming into a long discussion and being exposed to a single sentence and its reply. Because the information provided by those alone are not nearly enough to grasp what is going on. The implication, however, that is informed by the complete picture. In this case known Thief modders being involved in a project promising to be inspired by Thief, with the only deviation mentioned anywhere being that it is in a new engine, and that copyrighted stuff would be changed, with pictures of ninjas with blackjacks and bows taking on pseudo-Hammerites and guards in a medieval setting. It is implied, without hint of implication to the contrary. That is it's main selling point. I'll say as I did to Aluminum, trying to pretend otherwise just smacks of contrarianism. Aww, so you do understand the difference. And well enough to apply it in practice for an ad hominem attack. Well, then you really don't need look up anything on Wikipedia, your intuitive grasp of the concept should steer you straight right away. My, and here I thought the definition of a troll was someone completely unreasonable who was just trying to get a rise out of people. Any other local lingo I should know about? Of course, it's not like I haven't seen peoples argumentative repertoire being reduced to personal attacks once they have run out of counterarguments a million times before. (Hint for Xarg and Aluminum: The above^ was an example of implication. It hasn't actually happened a million times before, but is a way to communicate that it has happened so many times that I have lost count). Never in a million years would I have thought that in the same thread as Broken Glass members, I would be the bigger purist. I mean, you are after all giving me the choice between cheatcodes or hardcore, when all I want is LGS!Thief. I thought Thief was a niche game. Was it really necessary to make TDM even more so by design? Hell, in that case you guys might as well close the Greenlight thread right now, for that is the gateway to mainstream, if there ever was one. Also, by this logic, would EM have been totally in the clear if only their twisted end result was more difficult than LGS!Thief? Seems to me deviation is deviation, Broken Glass has just deviated far less than EM has. Dude, I was more than ready to let the issue rest until Aluminum started this obvious counterthread. Everything else has been attempts to clarify my position against endless misunderstandings and misrepresentations, some probably deliberate. I am more than happy to let the issue rest unless the opposition keeps pretending not to understand what I have been saying.
  11. There are, and too many would be a problem I agree. But the lowest AI perception level at least ought to be similar to Thief in what is, as was rightly said, a toolset to accomodate mappers inspired by that very game. That is a matter of idealism (and in my case enjoyment) considering the reason we are all here in the first place, not a matter of anybody's ability to learn new strategies. This guy has a point, actually. If TDM was all about replicating the Thief experience, his request would be unreasonable on its face, because BJing is integral to that experience. But seeing as dev intent is more to make the most realistic and pure stealth experience they could, merely inspired by Thief, removing the blackjack can be seen as a reasonable extension of that. I don't like it, but I don't like the new AI with eyes in the back of its head either.
  12. The point of communication is not what is explicitly said, that is called technicalities or pedantry. The point of communication is what is implied. And this text implies to the user that TDM is meant to be the Thief they knew, in an updated engine. Or at least the devs' best effort towards that. But as I have learned over the past few days, that isn't actually the case. It is meant to be a hardcore version thereof, even on its easiest difficulty setting. One it doesn't even default to, as it turns out. However, since I didn't pay for nothing, and this isn't official canon, I can't very well complain about the craftsmanship. That seems spot on for what it is, actually. I can, however, express my disappointment and incredulousness towards fans who no doubt have partaken in bashing ISA and EM for years, turn around and deviate from the beloved formula themselves, even in areas completely under their control such as gameplay. I always hear it said, "At least we have TDM" whenever EM gives us the finger. But I don't feel like I do. I don't care. BJ range has been reduced, and combined with everything else, it is robbing me of enjoyment when I have the misfortune of meeting one of the more alert or helmeted guards. Don't fix what ain't broke, is what we have been saying to EM. But we were no better ourselves. And before anyone tries it, I am not talking about KOing the legs. Then I don't know what to tell you. I have had to crouch and frontlean, after having carfully positioned myself at their heads first, in order to have even a prayer of reaching the head of a sleeping AI in a bed. Then I am not getting the game experience it was implied I would. Which I expected from fans who, unlike ISA and EM, weren't hellbent on changing the formula around. Or at least, that is what I thought. I doubt I was alone. As for LGS!Thief BJ difficulty: Yes, you are right, they were. And still these games are considered somewhat hardcore. And still I have seen Let's Players struggle tensely with them. Personally I am good enough that I can appreciate removal of its more ridicilous features, such as KOing legs and never being detected while directly behind them, but that isn't even close to being the extent to which things have changed. The difficulty has not changed a little, it is playing in a different league altogehter. Also, you might as well give up trying to defeat my Thief purism by appealing to my pride as a gamer. No wonder no one complains about this, if you get ridiculed for not being good enough. That sounds reasonable for the less alert guards on Nearly Blind difficulty. And I am pleased as a puppy with those. Some guards, though, can hear me walk on wood or see me when I am behind them even on that difficulty. If I up it to "Forgiving" these same guards will hear me take one step on wood before going into 2nd alert, and will see me from behind walking on a carpet in 50% of cases. I dare not even contemplate Hardcore difficulty!
  13. Wait, wait, wait. Am I reading this right? The individual mapper has enormous freedom in what capabilities they give each AI? How is that not an enormous problem? Skill is all about the world being predictable, about feats being repeatable. If the same guard model has vastly different abilities from mission to mission, yet looks and acts the same, how does one evolve skill at defeating him? Hell, how can one face him fairly for the first time at all? This sounds like a feature that basically requires abuse of the save-function to overcome pure chance, rather than use of skill.
  14. Since it seems you still don't get it, I ought to be crystal clear: Maybe if I put the time in I could get good at it, same as any other game. Fair and square. But when I play a game that professes to be Thief and markets itself as such, I also expect it to overlap sufficiently with my old skillset that I don't feel like I'm trying a brand new IP. But the rules have been rewritten so extensively in TDM that such is how it feels. As a veteran rather than a noob, that just turns me off, becuase each fail is an inexplicable blow to my pride. It isn't about my ability to overcome. It is about that need existing in the first place. I say "maybe" because I just played to confirm my memories, and the TDM AI capabilities are even more ridicilous than I remembered. I'm being 2nd alerted from walking on wood on Easy, and being seen from directly behind walking on carpet. The blackjack also has reach so pathetic my biggest problem isn't helmets, but hitting the head without touching the AI. It seems the only thing working as it should is shadow stealth. The rules have been rewritten, and the result is a game I'm not sure I can be bothered mastering.
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