zergrush

Here are the videos showcasing the time cfg changes suggested by Grayman. There seems to be little noticeable different between Challenging and Hardcore, but the differences are pretty clear on Forgiving and Nearly Blind. AI also seems to react in a weird way in the Bakery Job in Forgiving mode. It goes in and out of the building and takes notice of the player halfway in. Last thing to take note: distances don't seem to taking much effect into the equation. If you watch the ending of the Bakery Job video, I load Nearly Blind difficulty and get close to the AI guard. He does not seem to notice me at all in full light standing right in front of him, and there's no time difference between being at a distance and being at close range from the AI. https://youtu.be/oImW0RbbDFc https://youtu.be/7LeSlUBjfOA

Already tested it. Some improvements for sure, but also some funny results. I'll upload some test videos later on. Thank you for this!

@Grayman, once you fix the bug, would it be possible for you to produce some videos showcasing different time settings so we could have an idea? I'm fine with Wesp5's suggested times, but it would it would still be nice to have a look at how it behaves in game.

That sounds like a good idea. Normal for the default setting, and rename the easiest from Nearly Blind to Forgiving.

I support Wesp5's times. I think that if you really want Nearly Blind to last 8 seconds, then another tier should be added in between. "Relaxed" or something like it. Naturally this also open the question on whether the default difficulty should remain Forgiving.

I would suggest: Nearly Blind: 2.5s Forgiving: 2s Challenging: 1.5s Hardcore: 1s One change I would make though, I think the AI should walk towards the player before drawing its respective weapon.

I think it would be nice to see some videos of at least a couple of proposed behavior changes in action before making any final decisions on how to permanently change the AI. Springheel's suggestion seems pretty ok though. Also, perhaps we should construct a small map to test AI in the future? Some kind of map that would spawn a guard at a different distances and with different levels of lighting, perhaps.

The TDM community has been a long running one, boasting an amount of players and content creators that is remarkably exceptional for a game in the Stealth genre, and even more so if one considers it to be a subcommunity arising from TTLG/old Thief community. Yet for all of these years I have a sense there is still potential to build a lot more interest and engagement for such an awesome (and free) game. Recently I've been closely following the amazing community effort being put in place by the OpenRA team to revive classic Command & Conquer. Aside from reconstructing the engine for and optimizing the games for modern online play, OpenRA has been creating seasonal leagues to boast its player base and garner more attention in the media. Similarly, other communities organize charity streams and speedrun events for a similar purpose, while contributing towards a good cause. Given the TDM community has some pretty seasoned taffers going about, some of which that are actually regular youtubers who frequently do LPs of most missions, I feel organizing a charity stream would be an interesting low-investment community project that holds the promise for great returns. Let me know what you guys think.

I absolutely love the electric lamps in this set, and how they fit the verticality of the cathedral environment without looking out of place.

This is very interesting! So there is a bug after all! Does it mean that in 2.0 upon reaching lvl 4 the AI would walk but not charge against you? I'm wondering if the distance compensation is also bugged at this moment, since soldiers seem to be reacting very fast from far away as well. I still think, however, that the reaction times between levels 1-4, i.e. the total time between spotting the player and drawing the weapon, is a bit too fast. I think it would make more sense to increase the interval between levels 3-4 and reduce the interval between levels 4 and 5. This would mean the guard would hesitate longer before drawing his sword but would be more aggressive once it's out. It would make for a more natural reaction and would be better for stealth scores too, I feel.

No problem! Thank you for volunteering for having a look at this issue, and best wishes with pulling WS5 through. Let me know if you need help with beta testing.

That sounds fair enough. I've already submitted the bug report in the meantime. We can wait for the results before retaking this topic then.

https://we.tl/t-XA3hUyOnlB Please find attached a hi-res version of the video. As you can see I enter full light at around 0:17:600, the moment the woman in the street is saying "it feels like this day will never end". The guard starts reaching for his sword exactly at 0:18:533, which is the moment the reaction technically begins, and without any vocal warning. This makes it less than a second reaction time, which is simply superhuman, especially at a distance of about 30 meters. Even if the player has enough time to escape or flee back into shadow before the guard finishes drawing the weapon, this is enough to ruin a stealth score, hence why it is still unfair. Like I said, I'm perfectly fine with reaction time being accounted by the current AI Vision setting instead of having its own dedicated slider. The question now is how to implement this delay without breaking AI. For that I would like to hear your suggestions. The ultimate goal for me would be to keep the current reaction time as part of a higher AI vision difficulty, but making Forgiving and Nearly Blind definitely more lenient.

I am aware, but TDM is both supposed to be an homage and an improvement upon Thief's original gameplay. I'm perfectly fine with this type of reaction on harder difficulties, but I think the player should also be allowed to make things easier for himself to an extent, especially if it results in reducing the time of reloads per mission. This form of artificial difficulty on Thief was both a product of AI limitations and perhaps a somewhat deliberate choice for prolonging the game's length. But we're no longer in the 90s, and TDM is capable of many more things Thief isn't. Moreover, the reason why I think you shouldn't just leave it to mappers, is because older maps would then have to be tweaked retroactively.

On the CuTN video, it's 1 second or less, actually. I enter full around halfway around 0:17. The guard starts reaching for his sword in 0:18. not even having hesitated or tried to get close. On the Bakery Job video it's even worse, since the guard literally reacts BEFORE looking up!

AI seems fairly generous here, but then again, you're not standing in full light. This reaction time (around 2 seconds) would be realistic for full light, and it should be exponentially increased every 10 or so meters. In my opinion, in the first video I posted from CuTN, I shouldn't have even been spotted since humans ignore most far away objects at that distance, but for gameplay's sake, I'd say an initial vocal warning followed by walking to investigate and only then draw the sword, would have been acceptable.

It being a stealth game does not mean the average guard is supposed to have the eyesight of an eagle and the reactions of an automated turret, and much less that players have to constantly keep an eye on the light gem without being given any leeway for a single mistake. As it stands, the game won't even let me lower the difficulty in this regard, which is why I initially proposed a setting for increasing reaction delay.

Well, if it's not a bug it's still mighty unforgiving especially given the distances and the fact the game difficulty is set to forgiving. A less than 1 sec reaction time is not what I would consider fair in any case, hence why I initially suggested this grace period should be controllable and customizable by the player in the options menu, if anything to compensate for the difficulty of some missions. As it stands now It is neither realistic or enjoyable, just plain frustrating.

Created two videos showcasing the problem: https://youtu.be/hdbvKxbNFhk https://youtu.be/t1iHjblJLSc

That's ok, but would it be possible for someone to have a look at the savegames to confirm the issue is there? Otherwise I can slso try to record a video of it.

Would it be possible to move this thread to the bug tech support session then? Will I also need to file a bug on the tracker as well? *EDIT* Filed a bug report. Also replicated the issue again in Cleaning up the Neighborhood, by some1stoleit. Please find the save game in the link below. https://wetransfer.com/downloads/33bec10066e14e6f228a7d41b3f17a2f20190325222824/4fad18

Capped

That's fair enough and it seems like a simpler way of doing things. But how to solve the current AI overreaction issue then?

Well then something is definitely not working fine then. I'm running 2.07 hotfix on GNU/Linux using default difficulty settings ("Forgiving" for AI Vision and "Challenging" for AI hearing). Reaction time from AI is still too fast, as you should be able to see on the save game I uploaded. Whether this is a bug or not, I think making reaction time an adjustable difficulty setting would be a good idea. Shall I file a bug report though?

I've produced a save game for the bakery job showcasing this issue. The guard will be walking through the door downstairs this time, and he will immediately draw his sword as soon as he comes within line of sight of the player. https://www.mediafire.com/file/0s7c7yr36m8vl50/bakery.zip/file