massive_member

First time post, so be gentle. I have some suggestions here about additional equipment and skills related to escaping after being detected, and some purists may not like them because they aren't stealth-oriented enough. I'm anticipating, perhaps unnecessarily, being taken to task for my suggestions, but they are just suggestions, don't take them too seriously. Infiltration always carries with it an element of risk. No matter how good a thief you are or how well planned a particular job is, there is always a chance you will stumble into a guard or something like that. In response to being detected you have two options, fight or flight. While fighting is an option, flight is the better option as fighting off one guard while three or four more guards come running to join the fray usually spells disaster. The following will help make escape more likely and fun. My suggestion for a piece of equipment for the Dark Mod that has helped thieves escape in our own history are caltrops, little pieces of metal with spikes coming out of them contructed in such a way that when thrown on the ground there is always a spike pointing straight up, waiting for someone to step on it. Make it so that they can be dropped while running, ie. being pursued, and make it area-of-effect that persists for the length of the mission. Caltrops do a small amount of damage and, most importantly, slow movement speed. If you, the thief, double-back for some reason and step on them yourself it has the same effect, light damage and reduced movement speed, health and movement speed can be restored with a health potion. If a heavily damaged guard steps on the caltrops and they do enough damage to kill him,it does not count as a kill by the thief. Next is sprinting, an all out run that requires recuperation time. You can sprint for as long as you like up to a maximum of, say, 5 seconds. Immediately after the sprint your movement speed would be reduced to a walk for the same amount of time the sprint took. So, for example, if you sprinted for 3 seconds your movement speed would be reduced to a walk for three seconds. The sum total of the distance travelled while sprinting and walking would be a little greater than the distance travelled if you were just running for that amount of time, and sprinting would allow you to jump larger gaps than running and jumping. Sprinting would also allow you to vault over objects, basically to jump over or onto objects you would normally have to mantle over or onto. Sprinting doesn't increase maximum jump or mantling height. Sprinting would also allow you to slide under objects you would normally have to crouch under. Some very lightly armored guards might be able to sprint. Finally, another piece of equipment that would be helpful in creating new escape routes would be the tightrope arrow, a carefully and ruggedly constructed (ie. expensive) rope arrow that embeds itself in wood on the far end and that you can either fasten to a pipe or drive into wood on your end, (both of which take some time, so not something you can use with with guards nipping at your heels). You can then cross on the rope. If you start to step off the rope the game lets you know by tilting the game image, letting you know to correct your direction, no correction and you fall off of the rope. This is all easier the slower your moving, so you have a greater chance of success if you're walking instead of running, greater still if you're creeping instead of walking. Paradoxically, if you hit the rope at a full sprint you never fall off, as you traverse the distance of the tightrope before being able to fall off, though there is a small recovery time in which you can't move at all to recuperate from such strenuous activity (careful, some guards carry bows). Although, most guards will not follow you over a tightrope, one or two might, though they are rarely successful in crossing. The tightrope arrow can only be used once and is unrecoverable. There you go, my suggestions for expanding what's possible in the Dark Mod. These suggestions wouldn't necessarily make the game better, just expand what's possible, allowing more varied styles of play, and enabling more creative level design. Caltrops, for me, are a no-brainer, I'm surprised they were not in the original Thief game, and the tightrope arrow is just a logical extension of the rope arrow. Sprinting and all that goes with it seems the most out-of-place. Sprinting is more like a free-running type of skill that doesn't really fit the stealth theme of the game, but if you've already been detected where you shouldn't be then stealth is out the window anyway. It just gives you more options for escape, and can make escapes more exhilirating and fun. For those who feel that such skills have no place in a stealth game, don't use them. If you were really a thief in someone else's home and got caught, are you telling me you wouldn't sprint as fast as possible to escape?