Wellingtoncrab

Actually it’d be great for you to clarify “what kind of players” you are talking about so dismissively?

What and incredibly rude and unhelpful response to an attempt to make sure you and other players have some access to tuning this feature directly from the main menu to accommodate their needs. Not a few pages back in this thread: The fact that these types of comments which do nothing but promote stagnation and inaccessibility to the game get liked by arguably the lead developer of this game is disappointing to me.

The issue with the bounds of visportals "glowing" has been quite apparent in my WIP: If it is helpful in resolving the issue they are only visible when soft shadows are enabled. Using the "Maps" lighting mode also seems to reduce how visible they are. The performance improvements are quite significant so it would obviously be good to keep as many of the optimizations as possible.

It does not - the single click action is performed on key release. If key release occurs before the delay time is over it is instantly performed. There is no perceivable delay when doing a normal frob action, though I guess this would be slightly “slower” than doing it on key down. You can set the frob delay variable to 5000ms and still get an immediate feeling response when just “clicking” the mouse button. I assume this is how long press also works with the darkmod controller config, as there is much a longer delay there to perform an long press action and there is no perceivable delay when simply pressing a button. Just like click to drop body, door switch handling, and other things you have brought up this is just not a description of how that patch works. Not sure if something went haywire with applying the patch?

Unfortunately in playing an actual mission I find I like this even less. Just replayed a bridge too far and the double click to drop a body was quite troublesome. Maybe it’s a “me” problem but when multiple inputs are a required and I am in any kind of hurry or under pressure (like I need to drop a body because a guard is coming) I have a tendency to over input. The result is I drop the the body and immediately grab it again. This just did not feel very responsive to me in the points of the game where it was needed. I mean this now works fine in the other patch. Some of the most popular content creators for the games are ghosters and their tdm videos can get thousands of views. I went from having no ghost testers in the release version of Iris - to some being integral in subsequent patches - to in SLL quite a few testers using this play style. I don’t get it but there is certainly no denying it. They appreciate details like this.

Played through the training mission with it, it is ok, not great. Does nothing as far as making the controls more intuitive - things like requiring a double click to drop a body doesn’t make much sense to me at all. “Consistent” does not mean it feels intuitive or natural. It really does not feel that natural imo to be double clicking the right mouse button in general - can’t think of many examples of this. Maybe I need to work on my core middle finger strength as it actually felt a bit fatigued putting this through the paces (probably not representative of typical use in game). Registration seemed mostly good - sometimes I would double click to drop a body or extinguish a candle but still be holding it - I am guessing that is the result of just accidentally registering a third input. Since candles are still picked up on double click, this is maybe a little better but not ideal solution for ghosters who don’t like to pick up or move objects at all - doesn’t describe me but I know from the missions I have worked on there are at lots players who have adopted this play style. All in all “long press” clicked (get it) for me personally as far as how it feels to use. I guess in the end they both are ways to make certain clunky and unintuitive actions in the game faster for existing players.

Checked this out - good chance to replay the mission which I hadn't in some time (good one!). There is an optional objective involving moving a body (the optional aspect might be difficulty related?). The body has the shoulderable spawnarg set to 0 because yes while the area is large enough to still shoulder body - it's small enough if it were shoulderable it can softlock you because there is not room to drop the body. Dragging the body with the patched version seemed totally doable, but yeah in the patched version players would not be able to complete this optional objective unless the have learned to drag the body. This is definitely a nice addition! If the simplified interactions don't make it to core my only suggestion would be to make the gui text a little more specific to press "Use Inv Item" instead of just "Use" to shoulder the body.

That honestly sounds a description of the current patch to me - you never responded to my question as to why you view it as “radical”, why you feel like there is justification for you to redefine the scope of the patch at this point to not address the concerns of these players, and way there is cause to not consider expanding the test base by including the patch in an actual dev build? You mention the code has been this way for a long time - it takes a very shallow glance to see how long players have also been posting on this forum asking how to shoulder a body and getting some frigid responses about reading the wiki or playing the training mission. It has been consistent since at least 2009. The idea that a game that is still in active development can’t strive to improve these things just does not resonate with me at all.

I was typing on my phone earlier so didn’t say everything I wanted - just want to add it’s really appreciated that you took some time to look at this and are offering something that helps new players.

Weird how you never commented on how there are several missions which require you to shoulder a body? Maybe because it wasn’t a pretext for you to bring this up again? I imagine it definitely would have. I will give it a look when I get a chance! The drag body function still exists - you are right to point out a mission requires it but saying it is ruined is a bit strong imo, though I don’t recall the specific example in this case. It fair to say it would be in the place PD3, Volta 2 and TPW are today.

This just isn’t a true description of the scope as lined out in the original post. Why is it that you feel there is reason enough that you get to decide to just change this? Why is a change which is completely backwards compatible with the existing control scheme “radical”? It is clear in this thread there are players that want this, and anyone who doesn’t doesn’t have to use it. Why at a minimum can’t it go out for testing with more players in a proper dev build like the frob highlight did?

This is another point which been gone over again and again in the thread and doesn’t need more elaboration. Two additional users just pointed out that frobbing is a context sensitive action that is already not “consistent”. There are lots of moveable objects for example that already don’t work like you are describing. Inventory items like keys are also moveables. The primary action is to acquire them. If you wish to interact with them as you would another moveable you must drop them first at which point they appear in front of the player as other physics objects do. No one complains about this not being consistent, as it would be tedious and potentially confusing to need two key presses to acquire most moveable inventory items, many of which are required to progress in the game, just like it is tedious and potentially confusing to do this with bodies. It is TDM which is not consistent with games like Thief TDP/2/3, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Dishonored, etc. Maybe this is in part why it is confusing, as there is a good chance people coming to TDM will have some familiarity with those games. Thanks for your understanding.

Impossible to miss. Read their feedback. Anyone playing the game knows to interact with things that are highlighted and that the primary way to interact with things is to frob them. What they don't know is there is an entirely different control layer in the game which provides different interactions: "use item to shoulder" being the example we are discussing. Long press is still a complex input in this regard and it is not the proposed solution to the added complexity in the game, it is a proposed way to manage that complexity from a single input. It is the tying of the familiar input (frobbing) to the familiar result (interacting with a body to shoulder it), and then tying the unfamiliar "new" input (long frob/double click/use item/etc) to the unfamiliar "new" result (using a interaction modifier to do fine grain manipulation of the body) that is a potential solution to this. That is not to claim it is perfect. Shouldering/dropping bodies is an essential player action. There are missions, such as volta 2, where shouldering a body is essential to complete the mission. There is no example I am aware of where fine manipulation of a body is ever essential - it is a nice additional layer of control. So why is fine control of bodies the first thing many players will learn? Maybe because the mod launched without shouldering or something? (I played it when it came out and am not sure if this was the case or like these new players I just didn't know it was possible, but I used to just drag bodies everywhere) Maybe it was to show off some of the physics interactions that were new to the mod vs thief? I am not sure. I am sure it is not working for some players. It did not work for me. When I came back to try the mod in 2019 it took many missions for me to stumble upon this input combination (I remember it quite clearly - it happened on accident while I was playing my now favorite mission “Perilous Refuge”). And yes I had played the training mission - multiple times.

I think daft said he would consider a variable to try and cover you. It'd be nice to see you acknowledge that you understand while this is your preference it nullifies one of the primary goals of the patch which is to address specific feedback we see from new players who are giving up on playing the game. That is because what seems consistent to you is actually inconsistent with any other game like this they have played. Apologies, it is quit tiresome to emphasize this aspect of the patch over and over again. Everyone respects your preference and understands your feedback, to the point that full backwards compatibility with the original controls has been in the patch since the very beginning and as mentioned daft already said he would consider an option for you. It's just very hard to tell if you do not care about solving this particular problem (which is fine), or you just don't understand at all what the patch is attempting to achieve (also fine). Either way you are asking over and over again to undo this aspect of the patch and never providing an alternative that addresses the same problem. Agreed - my experience is that it feels completely natural to me. Frob being a contextual action - if an object is highlighted in your view you interact with it, if there isn’t one you drop the body. i haven’t run into issues with not being able to interact with doors or even very small buttons like snatcher was describing. Since all the original inputs also still work you actually have multiple options for dropping or snuffing candles you are holding.

This, just like click again to drop a body, is already included in the patch. If a switch, button or door are highlighted you will interact with them without dropping the body. There are probably more objects this would need to cover which will come up with more testing (readables maybe?) Seems like elements of the patched executable aren’t working with your install for some reason?

Again anyone who has ever used a controller is used to holding buttons to get different input and it is already supported by the TDM controller config. So I guess I am just used to doing this already from playing the game from time to time on a steam deck. If indicating the state change to players is an issue then maybe the existing frob helper could be change size/shape/color or something when a “long press” is achieved. That way players who do need the indicator can turn it off via the existing frob helper settings.

You have made this clear. You do not need to say it over and over again. It may be “consistent” in some way but it is not the solution these other immersive sims came up with and it is confusing and frustrating to some players. Do you have an issue with players having an option to play this way? Even the patched version in its current state already includes an option to keep the original behavior for players like you. In the current patch food handling is not changed. The idea that a certain thing is “forced” by the frob action again is the complete opposite of the point that it is a context sensitive control. It should do what makes sense in the context of the game. Food can be eaten but it’s also a physics object - so I don’t see it as inconsistent that the primary is pick it up on frob and consume it in place with long press/double click whatever. I can see the other side to. It’s a good question.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context-sensitive_user_interface “At the simplest level each possible action is reduced to a single most likely action” The entire concept of frobbing is already about context, not about consistency across all interactions. It is probably one of the very first examples of a complex context sensitive input in a first person game - something which is ubiquitous now. Again thief, deus ex, dishonored all all have a single frob input, manage to use this inconsistently to both pick up physics objects AND shoulder bodies with this one input, and this confuses no one. (dishonored does have text cues) Further this thread was about features specifically designed to help struggling new players. I see the same feedback over and over again, but so far only one person has mentioned any alternatives which could help them.

You keep misrepresenting my stance - I don't think the changes should be made so it the same as thief and I don't think the games should be the same in all regards. I kept asking why is it that thief has more context sensitive frobbing interactions, such as with bodies, but they are not considered inconsistent by players. It is obviously the template for the game after all. No one answered this and you seemingly dismissed it as a "lame excuse".

These frustrations are real and they are actively preventing people from playing the game. There are plenty more examples in the first post. The idea that TDM is "alive" but nothing can or should be done to help these players into the game doesn't make much sense to me. If I experience 0% of the frustrations described above and actively enjoy playing the game more will something be included as a option for me and these players? I think of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided which has a heavily revised control scheme to allow for more complex interactions, but allows you to select the Human Revolution controls if you prefer those. Nothing as far as two entirely separate control layers. But were there is an object interaction mode where you can pick between "TDM" which is how it is today and an "Classic" mode where these interactions are more intuitive for these players. Then at least they would have some hope of finding an answer in the options menu for them.

I don’t understand your point at all. In thief if a book is stationary frobbing it will read it. If it’s a inventory item you will pick it up and then you need to use it to read it. It is the exact same in TDM - is this too inconsistent? Why didn’t we change it? In thief bodies are primitive physics objects just like crates. Why did they not worry about whether this was inconsistent that the body didn’t first hover in front of the player instead of just shouldering it? Who knows - we weren’t in the room but as far as I can tell this has never confused anyone - where as it’s relatively easy to find examples of how tdms solutions are confusing and feel unnatural to players. TDM was created in response to negative feedback from the thief community about TDS. While I like the game TDS has notoriously bad game feel and it is disappointing to see people who love the games dismiss TDM using the same language and they never make it far enough with the game to see everything it has to offer. We have a lot offer. That is why it’s important to me as a player first and person who makes content for the game second.

@wesp5at this point you can disagree with it - but are you really missing why there is an attempt to make the body shouldered with one click? Read the first post but readdressed a few times at this point

This is exactly the dynamic of interacting with objects vs bodies in the game Thief and it does not confuse players. It is consistent in that frobbing an object does the primary interaction with said object: If it’s a crate pick it up If it’s a readable read it If it’s a switch flip it If it’s a door open it If it’s a body shoulder it I have never heard anyone describe this as inconsistent. This is false - clicking again unshoulders a body, just like it does in thief. This I would say there is some agreement - it would have been nice for the primary interaction with lit candles to be to snuff them out, but since unlit candles and candle holders are also physics objects that cannot be toggle lit, this is quite confusing when going to interact with unlit candles such as this array in the training mission As stated it is arguable the primary interactions of physics objects is to pick them up.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but this seems to have been the position on other accessibility features not needing to be forward for existing players in places like the main menu as long as they are addressable by cvar? But they will at a minimum be able to move a body right away without sinking hours into the game thinking they can only drag them around. As far as the merits of double click vs long press it sounds like it is worth testing, but can’t say without feeling it out. Long press has been working fine on my end.

It’s incredibly common in controller mapping - to the point even the game’s current controller implementation supports it. Not sure if switching this to a double click is additive or subtractive. What is getting lost is the primary interaction with a body imo is actually to shoulder it - not drag it. Obfuscating this behind a second input is clunky and confusing to new players. What is “intuitive” is a matter of perspective, but the current patched method of the initial click shouldering a body makes a lot more sense to me and actually addresses some of the complaints from new players as laid out in the initial post. There is a method via the delay cvar for experienced players who prefer the old system to restore it, so I am uncertain what the down side is really?