Mr Lemony Fresh

See how you're relying on an AI deficiency to beat it? How am i meant to know (in game without having to resort to a forum) that, at some split second during his animation, i can just manage to run back. And what good is running back be when there's supposed to be a perfectly good block? Well that's a fast passed fps, not a stealthy fps, and i'm supposed to be able to stand in front of the enemy and hit him, rather than run around him, which is tricky in it'self in this particular game. Alright, does that mean you'll be working on the issue where a degree of luck is required instead of pure skill? If You can't manage to make a combat system that is sturdy, why go all out with it, adding all these strange rules. I don't see why i can't just point at his head and hit him, like i would in other games. Why such a desperate attempt to be different when you've cloned a good game to start with? Is that why the members of the forum seem to believe that there's something insufficient with my judgement and not the mod? and that the combat is just fine if i "train" myself? I'm aware that this is a beta release, that's why i'm trying to stress the improvements I'd like to see in the future. I'm just perplexed that my reasonable arguments seem to do nothing. If i could step back quickly enough, it is something i should be able to do initially, and not after I have had much experience. This is a game, (or mod to be specific) and should not require actual training if you are an average gamer. what a question. Of course. It tests you're ability to fight with a sword from a fight with a rather unprotected simpleton all the way to a simpleton, and guard, and a hammer all at the same time. Yes this is my attempt to learn face to face combat. The level said "training mission" so i'm pretty sure it should be able to train me. And yes a couple of times, how many successfully pulled off games do you know that have a training mission you have to attempt more than once? well, i have the block button on the default mouse 3 since my hand is aready in the vacinity, so i doubt I'd run into that problem much. No, easy is not what i want, normal is, because i am of average skill. I'm coming from the principle that a video game should be intuitive to play after the first 10-15 minutes on a normal difficult, and by intuitive, i also mean, that real world rules, and experience of past games have applied so that getting used to changes aren't such a challenge. Most games I've played are games where I've picked normal or a little above normal and I've played through until the end with perhaps a few times when I've had some substantial difficulty. I've played dues ex, which as you know is quite different in it's stealth mechanic to thief, and made the adjustment pretty well. However, i'm under the opinion that this method of combat has taken a rather big leap in the opposite direction of conventional gaming. I mean, you said that the player would need not resort to fighting an enemy close up if they try and stick to the whole theif way of doing it, but then, why create this unworldly combat system system that has obviously taken quite a bit of hard work to get where it has if you are mean't to avoid it. good point, I'd have never thought there'd be people such as yourself around, you saved me a lot of work. Right again, wouldn't want to waste my time... Am i to understand that you've just made a bold assumption that I am not capable of making a mod? what is this assumption based on? Is this supposed to hurt my feelings, and make me lash out at you so you can bait me, sit back and admire the handy work? think again. I won't lash out at you, and better yet, i won't insult you, because that would distract me from the reason i came here. I don't want to have to prove my integrity as a gifted individual, so i don't want to feel pressured into providing evidence, like a token of assurance that I'm an intelligent human being. If after I've said my peace, and members have refused to take into consideration what i have to say, and they still don't consider the things i have to say, i will drop it and leave it. I'm trying to spawn a discussion of improvement, motivation and ideas, i consider this mostly to be a debate, not a heated dispute. I really like you're mod and i want to eventually come to a peaceful resolve to the discussion. This is my way of helping while my hands are full.

Everything you said but the following sounded perfectly reasonable to me. Tapping a button then coming back to your movement controls is hardly awkward, now moving the view while hitting? that's awkward, you have to train yourself to make a very subtle but apparent movement with the mouse while clicking the attack button and landing it in the right place, all while making sure that you don't suddenly get stabbed because the enemy doesn't flinch (enough), and seems to bounce back pretty quickly at times. Sorry, but if someone stabbed even the strongest of men in the stomach, let alone the head, they'd flinch. Are you joking? you can't step back fast enough, they come running with like 2 millimeters distance and hit you because you can't outrun them unless you find shadows, or a very conga-luted exit, And you can't strafe around them either, because they are constantly perfectly facing you in battle. once i get used to it? I consider myself to be an above average gamer in terms of experience. During the training mission, i got so frustrated that i actually resorted to shooting the bastard in the head with an arrow. I managed to use the proper techniques to finally kill the normal guy, then the guard, but the hammer threw me. It takes way too long to get used to fighting someone with a sword, so who wouldn't want to just shoot them in the head with an arrow to avoid it? but then, what's the point of having a sword if it's so bad? I can understand if the guard is stronger than me, and makes me stumble back a step if he strikes me, but why make the controls so difficult to use? And what's wrong with my idea? hell, i know little about programming, and i'm tempted to try just to get it in there to prove that it would be better. I mean in real life, if you were fighting someone, you wouldn't take you're eyes of them, you could barely avoid a blow while hitting them, you're arms would have to be longer... so why the problem with taking a quarter to half a second to tap a button then blocking the next hit? Then it's easier to switch between hitting and block, because as soon as you try to hit, the damned guard takes a swing at you. and you don't know until you've already taken a swing and lost you're health. and because they are stronger than you, you simply lose unless you do it practically perfectly. And what's more, the'll randomly try and run into you sometimes and screw up you're perception of where to hold your block. I played the training mission just now, and beat the hammer after 3 goes. I should have beat him on the first because of how careful i was and how much I've played the mod. You need to know that you haven't made the right choice in this unless a challenge takes skill and not luck, because those random doubly timed slashes are no good. If you want to fix this and keep you're controls i strongly suggest the following: -Either take away the the random doubly timed counter attacks -+ That and or stop the blasted enemy from running into you -or use my controls This seem pretty reasonable to me, but i reckon i could just rebind it myself, share it with everyone and see what everyone thinks when they've actually tried it. I'm not trying to flame the mod or anything, far from it, it's the best mod I've ever played, but that's just it, i think it could be much better, and i just wanted to try and share that with everyone rather than keeping it to myself when i make a mod (permission permits, i can use the mod for my own right?). And what of the reach suggestion, are you with me? plus check my original, post as i will be adding something.

This is my list of all the changes I think the dark mod could benefit greatly from. -being able to climb left and right when grabbing onto ledges, just before getting up. I believe this would added another dimension to exploration and make for some interesting secrete areas. This could be achieved so: A subtle visual indicator and a light noise could tell the player that they are climbing an object. They can either move left or right along the ledge with the strafe buttons, or press crouch to fall or c to climb higher onto the top of the ledge. the player’s bounding box should thin. -A hook/ trinket at the end of the rope arrow. (Perhaps an alternate fire option) This could make exploration with rope arrows more interesting, and force the player to think carefully. This could be achieved so: There are 2 phases to the weapon, just like there are 2 phases to a detonator. First the player attaches the trinket end of the rope arrow to a piece of wood, and then fires the actual arrow across a way and onto another plank. The rope will automatically adjust the length. The player can then walk or climb (depending on whether any of the following are accepted) along the rope, which I will explain in the next 2 proposition. -Thin platform balance. This is another way of adding dimension to gameplay, as well as strengthening the last suggestion. This could be achieved so: Anyone ever played mirror’s edge? Like mirrors edge, it could be done in the dark mod similarly. The player can move onto a thin platform eg, rope, wire, pole, pipe etc, and use the strafe keys to keep balance. -Climbing along thin platforms This one is much better than the previous, but I just want to get all my ideas out there. I believe that this will again add dimension. This could be achieved so: like the edge strafe above, this could allow the player to strafe along a thin object. To do this, the player walks onto the rope, and as he falls, the c button allows the player to grab hold of the rope. Or the player just stands below and jumps up to it or presses c. When on the rope, the player can use the mouse to turn to either face the rope, the side of the rope, or the other side, allowing the player to see what’s going on, on each side. Moving forward would make the player move faster, because he can’t see to the left and right, and he can do a fluid hand by hand movement. Strafing along the rope is slowing for obvious reasons, but not only does it allow the player to see what’s going on, but it also allows them to swing, as they’d do on a rope, except much more stable. The player can lift himself for a limited amount of time (the longer he holds it the better), then when a guard walks by, he can swing down on the guard below, knocking him out. -Neck snapping This will give the player an extra choice of morality and a little flexibility if he doesn’t have his black jack, or if he just needs to kill someone nice and quietly. If the player doesn’t have the black jack, this is a fairly drastic way to take someone out, especially if the player is awarded for less killing, more knocking out. This could be achieved so: The player would have to move a little closer than he would if he wanted to nail them with a black jack, so it would be very hard to do if the enemy is walking. Then, the player can use the manipulate button ( ) to kill him, but the enemy must be unaware of you’re presence, or it will not even do any damage. -More thief-like awareness I liked thief because taking people out was easy and often very satisfying, because you felt powerful. It’s really annoying when you sneak up and hit someone only to find out that they were just aware of you enough for you’re crack to the noggin to be more like a gentle nudge, which is obscene. This needs improvement. This could be achieved so: The guard should not notice you for at least 5 seconds after he grows suspicious of you unless you are directly in his cone of site, by which time you will have to clobber him with no more than 2 blows. This is time he will not have to tense up, he will be confused and un aware of you’re form and figure, so he will not expect to be knocked out so quickly, after 2 seconds of suspicion, you should be able to knock him out with one blow. In general, try reducing the overall hearing of enemies to about 80-90 percent of the original value. -Better combat I don’t (and I know that many other people don’t,) like having to fight people in this mod, but it’s good to have the flexibility if you run out of options. There are a few things that bug me about combat. One, the enemies take a real beating, but you only take 3 hits, lame. Two, when you try and step back, enemies will run very close into you creating a feeling of claustrophobia. It makes it hard to know what he’ll do next. It’s also very unlikely that someone would do such a thing. Three, you should not have to move the mouse to hit in different directions; this makes it very hard to keep an eye on the enemies next move, and can be confusing to perform. If you were fighting someone with a sword, would you like to have to move you’re head radically in the opposite direction to you’re enemy while trying to hit him? No you wouldn’t, you’d want to watch where his extremely sharp blade was. Four, even when you get good at combat, it still kicks you in the balls every so often, in which I mean, the enemy will suddenly break the relatively intuitive pattern and stab you, and you won’t see it coming before it’s too late. This is -badly designed and needs improvement. This could be achieved so #1: When swinging a weapon in a certain direction, you must press and hold attack button, which holds the camera in place, then move the mouse to swing. This will allow you to keep the camera on you’re enemy. This could be achieved so #2: When swinging a weapon in a certain direction, you must press and hold the ‘H’ (or what ever is closest to the move w, a, s, d keys and available) button, which temporarily switches the use of the mouse from view mode to weapon direction mode, in which you get a little curser that you move around you’ve view which moves with you’re sword and let’s you know where you’re sword will hit. When ready to hit, you just press and hold the mouse and move it in a certain direction. You can also block a certain spot. Perhaps it would even be necessary to visually indicate where the enemy will thrust his weapon and where you can block it, in case he changes the Pattern and you need to think fast. This could be achieved so #3: Hold the attack button to raise your sword, press and hold either the ‘q’, ‘e’, ‘r’ or ‘f’ button while letting go to change direction. Letting go with ‘q’ will allow a left blow, letting go with ‘e’ will allow a right blow, letting go with ‘r’ will allow an overhead slash and letting go with ‘f’ will allow a stab. This is intuitive, because it compliments the rest of the game’s controls. This could be achieved so #4: Hold the attack button to raise your sword, press either the ‘q’, ‘e’, ‘r’ or ‘f’ buttons to attack in a different direction. Pressing ‘q’ will allow a left blow, pressing ‘e’ will allow a right blow, pressing ‘r’ will allow an overhead slash and pressing ‘f’ will allow a stab. This is intuitive, because it compliments the rest of the game’s controls. (the following good, but not vital) The same for blocking, except with the manipulate (middle mouse button) instead. (I strongly suggest this one, as it’s the easiest to pull off, and also easier to perform in game.) THERE now there’s no excuse why combat can’t be improved. -Better doors well, this is something I’m sure you’ve already considered, but just in case… The doors are pretty annoying, they automatically swing towards and then away from the door frame each time you interact with them, EG #1-iteract=swing left, #2-interact=swing right, #3-interact=swing left etc, etc… and because you often run into them, you need to press them twice again to get through, after taking a step back. This is not a major problem, but I think this should be put on the to do list, as a minor problem. I just think, that this is a great mod, and little things like that seem to shine through the cracks of otherwise fun game-play. why not make doors affected by physics, they can pivot on the location of the hinges and when closed, be labeled as static. You can either push them by walking into them, or interact with them to make them swing round as far as they’ll go with a fair amount of force. -slightly longer arm reach This effects both general item manipulation and combat. Like when you need to crawl onto a table to retrieve an item that you should be able to reach, or crawl on top of a chest to get what’s inside, this is a shame. When you hit people in this mod I think just a little more reach would allow for a smoother experience. -sharper object selection Basically just, you can interact with exactly what you're point at, regardless of what's next to it. I mean, how many times have you picked up an object only to pick up something next to it which made noise and attracted enemies? (check further below technical explanation for further exploration of the idea*) This could be achieved so: by taking the piece of code that determines that you've shot someone (like the doom 3 pistol) and using it to detect an object that you're looking at, when ever you press the interact key. -* Item's (bottles, candles) don't make noise (or much, or to an enemy) unless you throw or drop them after picking them up. There's no point in an item making noise if it was completely accidental, especially if you pick up the wrong item by mistake or when you point to low and pick it up, it scrapes on the surface and attracts attention. (perhaps a code that lifts it above the surface when you pick it up) Honestly, i wouldn't know how to describe this any further than it has been. Members, read this and tell me what you think by copying the title of each idea, then underneath saying Yes, no or maybe and if you like, what you think. EG: -eating dirt... No because dirt tastes bad. If your feeling particularly lazy or tired, just tell me what you think. It's just so that any team members who run into this get a good idea of what people generally consider lacking about the already almost perfect mod.