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STiFU

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  2. TDM Beta Release schedule confusion and frustrations

    in The Dark Mod

    Posted

    @datiswous, @Daft Mugi, @wesp5, there are some valid points and questions raised in this thread, which I am happy to address in a lengthy post soon, but at the moment, I am really sick with a nasty cold, so I feel I can't do them justice. Maybe another team member will answer them in my stead, otherwise, you will just have to wait until I feel better.

    In any case, @Mods, could you please move this discussion to a separate thread like "About our release and decision making processes"? This has nothing to do with beta anymore.

    FYI: To check which team members are still active, you can just visit their profile and check their "last visited" timestamp.

    Edit: I now saw that @Dragoferalready gave a good answer to most questions, thanks.

    • Like 1

  3. [Resolved] Allow mantling while carrying a body

    in The Dark Mod

    Posted

    13 hours ago, Daft Mugi said:

    I'm an outside developer who saw this bug tracker and submitted a patch. I was given consent to submit more patches.

    I'm collecting more information, so I can better understand the problem I'm solving.

    What's "aggressive" about that?

    Of course, all your contributions are welcome. The thing about this specific feature you are implementing is that there was no universal agreement about it within the team to begin with. Just because something is listed on the bugtracker, doesn't mean it is an accepted featurerequest. Anyone can write anything to the backtracker. Furthermore, your patch changes core mechanics in a significant way that have to be thorougly tested not only for 12 hours by you, but by a whole testing community for a week at least, and @JackFarmer already described two maps that would soft-break by this feature. Lastly, you want it to be included now, i.e., at the end of beta phase. Our current beta build is a release candidate, which means that, if no further issues are found, it will be released as is. I am afraid, it is simply too late. You can of course just offer a modded 2.11 with your change included.

    • Like 2

  4. [Resolved] Allow mantling while carrying a body

    in The Dark Mod

    Posted

    12 minutes ago, peter_spy said:

    If I may, I don't like the somewhat aggressive way of pushing for changes, especially in core mechanics, which seems to come from just one person's idiosyncrasies. And it's not the first topic I see like that in the last few days.

    Well, I wouldn't put it that harshly, but changing core-mechanics is definitely not for the beta-phase.

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    [Resolved] Allow mantling while carrying a body

    in The Dark Mod

    Posted

    Ok, let me start by saying that TDM was never supposed to be a simple copy Thief 1/2 mechanics in a newer engine. It was always catered towards the more hardcore players, seeking a challenge.

     

    Do we really need to restrict mantling while shouldering at all?

    > Yes, because all the 100+ existing FMs were designed with the current ruleset. Changing the ruleset afterwards could alter or even break the vision an FM author had for their mission and that is something we explicitly want to protect because these authors sometimes put years of work into their missions.

    If we restrict the player while shouldering, what should the rules be?

    > It was argued that lifting a body over small ledges is already possible, by dropping the body and moving it around without shouldering. This is very cumbersome, however, so being able to mantle small ledges while shouldering would be a nice quality of life improvement.

    While shouldering, what's the tallest object that can be mantled?

    > Waist high. Height could be controlled by a cheat-cvar.

    While shouldering, should there be different object height requirements between crouched and standing?

    > Yes, crouched should be lower. It would create some additional tension to have to stand up to perform the mantling.

    While shouldering, can the player mantle during a fall or jump across to another ledge?

    > Player cannot jump while shouldering. Conversely, he should not be able to mantle while shouldering and falling.

    While shouldering, what mantle types are allowed out of: push, pushNonCrouch, pull, pullFast, hang?

    > Definitely not hang and anything pull. That is only triggered for big heights. While shouldering, it should probably play the usual viewport animation, but a bit slower.

    • Like 4
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  6. TDM Beta Release schedule confusion and frustrations

    in The Dark Mod

    Posted

    28 minutes ago, datiswous said:

    I actually for quite some time have been wondering what the internal forum is for.. I get a feeling that the normal forum discussions aren't really decision making, this is just giving opinions, until hopefully a dev has the same opinion and then it might get discussed properly. It's almost like it's useless to come up with an idea for something because the internal forum is for the decision making and nobody knows what's being discussed there.

    I mean, yes, obviously there is an internal forum where decisions are made regarding how to move forward with the game. That's how things work. And not just in our team, everywhere. Or do you see Apple discuss their business plans and new "innovations" in public? That being said, the team values all well though out ideas, feedback and suggestions, but even if everyone agrees that a certain feature would be nice to have, it doesn't automatically mean that it's going to happen, because there has to be a dev willing to do the work. You have to remember that we are all doing this for free on our free time. Every dev picks the task they are interested in the most. And that's precisely the reason why these excruciatingly long beta phases are so annoying: they prevent you from doing the stuff you really want to do.

    TDM is open-source and you can do with it whatever you like, but for something to be integrated officially into the game, the team has to agree on that. If you want to see a feature happen, implement it yourself and send in the patch, like Daft Mugi does. But be warned: Not everything listed in the bug tracker is a feature that has been fully agreed upon. It is always a safe bet to ask first, before doing the work. If you patch is not integrated into the core mod, you are of course free to offer it as a mod for TDM.

    Regarding the internal decision making process. It is rarely about personal preference, but more about:

    1. Is it in line with the existing vision / look & feel of TDM?
    2. Could it break anything?

    Number 2 especially applies to breaking FMs, which is a no-go because of the enormeous work mappers have put into their FMs. 

    • Like 4

  7. TDM Beta Release schedule confusion and frustrations

    in The Dark Mod

    Posted

    Yes, sorry about that. We could be clearer with our communication in this regard. However, please understand, that it is really not that common for external contributors to be working so much on bug fixes and new features, so this is kind of new to us as well.  And of course the team has to agree upon all contributions, regardless of external or internal origin.

    The beta was announced Dec, 2nd, and that was also the moment for 2.11 feature-freeze.

    • Like 2

  8. TDM Beta Release schedule confusion and frustrations

    in The Dark Mod

    Posted

    Just saw the discussion on the bug tracker. Please don't feel discouraged, @Daft Mugi. A lot of your stuff has already been integrated during beta phase, which we usually never do, so that's actually something you can be proud of. Once we start beta, we have a feature block even for long standing devs. Only bugfixes go into trunk at that point. New features are only commited to feature branches and will be integrated in the next version. But I get it. I've been in your shoes a few times myself.

    • Like 1

  9. TDM Beta Release schedule confusion and frustrations

    in The Dark Mod

    Posted

    33 minutes ago, Daft Mugi said:

    I've spent a lot of time recently submitting patches to fix some bugs and working on a few things that I think would really improve the feel of TDM for 2.11. They are very small changes, and they are meant to polish what's already there without changing or breaking anything for anyone.

    1. (Available 2.11 beta 7)
      1. Added player "tdm_toggle_sheathe" cvar and "Toggle Sheathe" setting (6232) (thread).
      2. Renamed "New Missions" to "Missions List" in main menu (6230). @nbohr1more cleaned up my original patch. Originally, proposed by @snatcher (post).
      3. Fixed initial difficulty highlight on Objectives screen (6229). @stgatilov cleaned up my original patch.
      4. Fixed Objectives title slightly cut off on low text scale (6234). @stgatilov cleaned up my original patch.
      5. Made it possible for the player to change "pm_noclipspeed", so noclip speed can be set (6237).
    2. (Available in next beta)
      1. Make "tdm_toggle_creep" work like other toggle cvars, and add "Toggle Creep" to the settings menu (6242) (thread).
    3. (Not available)
      1. Make the inventory parchment background (dds file) separate from the "Missions List" parchment background (dds file). Without the patch, if you change the inventory background, it will also change the main menu. Patch submitted (6241) to decouple the inventory background from the main menu. This is meant for players who want to edit the inventory background (dds file) themselves (e.g. reduce its brightness without affecting the main menu).
      2. When you drop a long distance and land in a mantle, damage is shown after the mantle animation is complete. Partial fix submitted (6231). I think I'll need @stgatilov's help on this one. Bikerdude was very kind and provided a test map for this, which helped to expose an issue with my original patch.
    4. ("pm_mantle_while_shouldering" cvar available in 2.11 beta 7) It was requested by Bikerdude one year ago to allow mantling while carrying a body. Due to feedback, I've submitted three patches each with a different behavior, starting in August 2022 (5892) :
      1. (Patch v1) Always enable mantling while carrying a body.
      2. (Patch v2) Only enable mantling while carrying a body if "pm_mantle_while_shouldering" cvar is set. This is already available in 2.11 beta 7.
      3. (Patch v3) Restrict mantling at the waist. There is no agreement about how this should work yet.
      • I've spent over 12 hours of work and testing on (v3) so far, so it would be incredibly discouraging if a final decision is not made between versions (v1), (v2), or (v3) for 2.11. Personally, I think patch (v1) always enable mantling while carry a body is best. This matches Thief 1 & 2 and does not require a cvar. If (v3) is chosen, the rules need to be decided.

    These are the final issues / bug trackers I have for 2.11. I hope they can make it into the final release of 2.11, because I think it would make TDM feel more polished and give a better first impression for newcomers. And, Thief players would have a better first time.

    There has been a long internal discussion about mantlling while shouldering, and it has been pretty much inversally agreed upon that v1 and v2 are a no-go. v3 was the best compromise we came up with: A nice quality of live improvement while staying true to the original gameplay rules that mappers have designed there missions around. However, not everyone was 100% onboard. If you have an implementation for v3 already, that's cool. Are there any open questions about this or why are you saying that there was no agreement about how this should work? 

    Generally speaking, 'though, I am very surprised @stgatilov is letting bigger changes like this in so late in this beta phase. We are usually very restrictive about new features as soon as beta starts because it usually just prolongs the beta phase.

    • Like 1

  11. Free games

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    Mortal Shell is free on epic right now. I rated this game 7/10. Here is my review:

    Quote

    Although this Soulslike does not have deep RPG-mechanics, I found it surprisingly hard to get into at first. That is due to three things: 1) The "Rogue-like"-DLC is confusingly integrated into the main game via an NPC; 2) Because of that NPC, I did furthermore not understand the bonfire-mechanic in this game; 3) Many of the control schemes are not properly explained (but there is an ingame manual you can refer to). Fighting is quite tough at first, especially because healing is VERY limited. You can heal yourself using one of your Magical abilities, but those can only be performed after a successful parry. I was really excited that this is supposed to be a parry-based game (much like Sekiro), but I soon found out that the timing of the parry is not reliable at all (more like Dark Souls, bummer!). This is because you have to time two processes simultaneously: the incoming attack and the extremely slow “shield-raising-animation”. The game would’ve been a lot better if the parry was instant! That being said, fighting is still quite fun! The strongest aspects of the game are the mind-boggingly beautiful graphics and sound effects, ‘though. Story is almost non-existent. 7/10

     

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  17. Free games

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    2 hours ago, chakkman said:

    For my freebie of the day: Portal with RTX was released today. I can only recommend to download it if you have a beast of a high end PC though. Even in Full HD with reduced settings, it runs like crap here... Well, apart from some more graphics eye candy, it's the same game as the normal Portal anyway. ;)

    On my 3060 Ti at 1440p, I had to switch to DLSS performance mode and reduce the light bounces a little, to make it half acceptable. Control and Cyberpunk had a lot better raytracing performance.

  19. The Game Awards 2022

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    I haven't played God of War and A Plague's Tale. It's just a gut feeling on my part.

    That being said, I wouldn't mind the rankings at all. You can be sure that all nominees are of pretty high quality, so no way to go wrong with any of them.

  20. The Game Awards 2022

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    Nominations are in... What are your predictions?
    https://thegameawards.com/nominees

    I bet God of War is going to homerun this thing. Elden Ring is just too long ago and now God of War is all the hype. Best RPG for sure goes to Elden Ring, and maybe best art direction to A Plage Tale, but the remainder, it has to be God of War. 

    Hopefully my Indie-Favorite SIFU wins one or two awards, too. Neon White also deserves a win in my book. 🙂

    Best adaption has to go to either Arcane or Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Edgerunners is not as good I think, but same as with Elden Ring, the hype around Arcane already dried out, whereas everyone is still kind of talking about Edgerunners.

  21. [Feature discussion] Depth of Field effect

    in The Dark Mod

    Posted

    23 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

    I don't see how DoF can possibly work in a game which isn't tracking your eyes. How does the game know what you are looking at? Your eyes could be focussed anywhere on screen, which might show objects at a variety of distances. If the depth is taken from the central aim point, that means that instead of just moving your eyes to look at something on screen, you'd also need to move the mouse to remove the artificial blur.

    DoF looks nice in photos, and as stgatilov says it might work in a VR simulation with eye tracking, but for a 2D image on a standard screen I can't see it adding any value.

    Most modern games only use it in cutscene-like scenes, where the players eye is clearly guided towards relevant image content. Doom Eternal uses a very shallow DOF when the Doom Slayer picks up a new weapon and shows it off a little or when performing a glory kill. Elder Scrolls Online uses DOF when talking to NPCs. While the DOF-implementation of ESO is not the best, both examples work really well.

    In TDM, there are not really many suitable situations where this rendering technique could be deployed, so I don't think it'd be worth the effort.

  23. Free games

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    17 hours ago, SeriousToni said:

    That's how you add new items to your pile of shame actually :] I've got the problem that I've not played about 90% of my games. And when I find time to play I wanna make sure that's worth it in the future.

    Not complaining about your post of letting us know of the free game though. I was just curios if you would've recommended it.

    Sometimes, you don't want to do the research right away though whether the game is any good or not, so I just get the game and check it out later.

    I recommend using GOG Galaxy, as you can integrate pretty much all launchers there and see all your games. You can tag your games and create gamelists this way. So, these unchecked free games go into my "check reviews"-list. If the game is any good, it goes into my "Playlist"-list. Really nice games I plan to play in the very near future go into my "Priority Playlist"-list.

    So, to me, owning a game does not necessarily mean it enters my backlog. 🙂

    • Like 3

  25. An updated list of the best TDM fan missions?

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    I have been an advocate for mission ratings a long time. I understand both sides of the coin of course, but the casual player likely prefers to just pick one of the best rated missions and start playing instead of reading through all the mission descriptions, potentially digging through forum entries to find a suitable mission. Things like average playtime, general mission type and player rating would be really helpful here. Or maybe instead of rating, something neutral like "number of times played / downloaded".

     

    6 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

    ...then there are people who play the first five minutes of a mission, then quit and give a lousy rating. I could well imagine that the inhibition threshold is much lower here because the missions are free.

    Maybe a rating system for missions would be ok if two requirements are considered:

    1. The reviewer in question provides a video link of his playthrough and
    2. Mission authors and other players can rate the reviewer's playthrough. 

    This of course means that anyone rating a reviewer has to verifiably view the full playthrough of that video.

    I think that would be way too elaborate. How about rating on the mission finished screen?

    • Like 4
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