[Things that could be improved]

Giving the AI variable behavior and expecting the player to take that into account is good, but there are still intuitive assumptions the game should strive to never violate. I think that for nearly every stealth game out there, the player should be able to believe that they're safe from visual detection so long as they're standing (or crouching) directly behind the observer and can maintain that relative position, just as Thief players expect to be virtually invisible while in a "perfect shadow".

[Things that could be improved]

Implementing a constant "blindness cone" extending from their backs does sound to me like the safest way to ensure that "never visible" space from your illustration, I'd be all for that.

[Things that could be improved]

On 9/1/2022 at 4:01 PM, Springheel said:

The turning in those videos is not caused by random head-turning...those are idle animations, which is a slightly different issue. 

One possible approach is to see if AI vision can be affected by frame commands in animations.

 

For what it's worth, in my testing actual head turns did occasionally get me seen where I'm standing in the videos as well, though they rarely seem to cause anything but low-level alert comments at that distance and light level.

[Things that could be improved]

6 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

Regarding rng: If the player is aware of the head turning, then all it does is to increase the ai's fov, with the difference that there is an area in front of the ai where you are always visible and the area to the sides where you are only occasionally visible. And as the ai doesn't tend to turn their head like a lighthouse tower there should be an area in their back where you cannot be seen.

That was my original assumption and I was satisfied with that, but turns out there is quite a range of head movements that can result in the player getting spotted even if they're standing directly behind the AI.
 

 

[Things that could be improved]

1 hour ago, snatcher said:

I personally find random head turns (and everything that comes with it) very well executed and extremely satisfying.

That's fair, they're additions that have evidently added to a fair number of players' experience and that's certainly a good thing. My only personal gripe is the RNG-based risk factor it brings to the game compared to Thief and other games it's inspired. I actively avoid save scumming so I don't like dealing with risk I cannot mitigate through skill, even if it's an objectively low chance that a lantern-carrying guard will randomly look down and catch me crouching right behind him for a second trying to nab his key for a door I can't pick the lock on.

I'll keep trying to fiddle with variables to the best of my ability and see if I can find a solution that suits me. I've tried accessing the documentation linked on the wiki (http://bloodgate.com/mirrors/tdm/pub/doc/index.html) but the link seems to be broken.

[Things that could be improved]

1 hour ago, wesp5 said:

I think an easy solution would be to mention the random head turning in the training mission. After all this is where you are supposed to learn the differences to other games...

Yes, I'd make sure to emphasize both the head turning and the more realistic peripheral vision on NPCs (and would support the latter being made toggable), both are significant departures from other stealth-based games I've played. I still object to that being a factor in that particular room since its defined purpose is not even related to detection by sight, that hurts the modular structure of the tutorial and just confuses things for the people it's designed to help.

[Things that could be improved]

4 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

I rarely have any issues with the head turning. Surely it can happen that you get spotted, but shouldn't approaching a heavy armed guy be somewhat risky!? If you encounter this to be troublesome for you, why don't you try another approach first. You have the means to take out the guard in most missions and you are with some exceptions not forced to pickpocket every ai in a mission.

The argument with the training mission is valid, though, and that section probably needs rethinking. On the other hand it already informs new players that they may get spotted by ai even if the consider to be in a relatively save spot. So maybe it isn't such an issue after all.

I don't think there should be any random risk of failure in a tutorial environment, that's where you really want the player to associate failing with making avoidable mistakes. If you as a new player were as unlucky as I was going through that room, you'd assume you'd failed the given task somehow, which is obviously not the intended takeaway if you actually didn't.

 

More broadly, if that added randomized risk is in fact a deliberate deviation from the Thief formula, then that's fair enough. I'm still interested in learning whether it would be possible to change those AI FoV cone dimensions by messing around with variables, and would appreciate help there.

[Things that could be improved]

I like randomness to an extent, accounting for NPCs' spontaneous decisions is a welcome part of the challenge for me, so long as there's enough of a window of predictability for the player to work with without having to rely on favorable RNG. NPCs in Dishonored for example often don't have fixed patrol paths, but you can generally expect them to reach a logical point in their walk before deciding what to do next, if they take out a cigarette, you can expect them to just stand there facing their current direction for a while, etc.

With the head turning here, though, often there's little a player who's aware of that behavior can do if being in complete darkness is not an option, as in the training room I mentioned above.

[Things that could be improved]

48 minutes ago, AluminumHaste said:

Turn some Ai visual acuity into you are used to it.

Is that something I can do as a player? The AI Vision setting from the difficulty menu doesn't seem to affect the dimensions of the cone based on my testing and the "showfov" command.

[Things that could be improved]

I see the case for realism, but the existing combination of random head turns and guards' peripheral vision makes it so that the player's success in some cases is dependent on a real element of luck alongside skill, which I think detracts from the experience and can cause confusion regarding what, if anything, the player did wrong. I first noticed this issue in the official training mission, in the room that has you creeping on top of a metal grate. If you're not lucky approaching the door to the next room the guard can turn his head far enough to the left as part of his idle behavior that he'll be able to see you no matter what, causing detection in a room where you're clearly intended to succeed so long as you're being quiet and careful.

Personally I'd be in favor of changing AIs' vision cones to be much narrower whenever they're facing any direction other than straight ahead. That'd solve the problem while preserving the wealth of animations and realistic movement.

[Things that could be improved]

Is there a way to optionally disable AIs' head turning animations? In the Thief games you could rely on AIs never spotting you right behind them since they always looked straight ahead, but in TDM it's quite possible for them to catch sight of you because they decided to turn to face the floor and caught you in their vision cones. Makes the process of pickpocketing or blackjacking more luck-based than I feel it should be.