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Complaint From Players The player must pick up candles before extinguishing them, and then the player must remember to drop the candle. The player must drag a body before shouldering it (picking it up), and the player must remember to frob again to stop dragging the body. The player finds this annoying or easy to make mistakes. For players who ghost, some of them have the goal of returning objects back to their original positions. With the current "pick up, use item, and drop" system, the item might not return easily or at all to its original position. For example, a candlestick might bounce off its holder. (See player quotes at the bottom.) Bug Tracker https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6316 Problems to Solve How can the "pick up" step be eliminated so that the player can directly use or interact with the item where it is in the game world? How can so much key pressing and mouse clicking be eliminated when the player wants to directly use an item? How can candles be extinguished and lanterns toggled off/on without first picking them up? How can bodies be shouldered without first dragging them? Solution Design Goals Make TDM easier for new players while also improving it for longtime players. Reduce tedious steps for common frob interactions. Make it intuitive so that menu settings are unnecessary. Do not introduce bugs or break the game. Terms frob -- the frob button action happens instantly. hold frob -- the frob button is held for 200ms before the action happens. (This can be changed via cvar: 200ms by default.) Proposed Solution Note: Some issues have been struckthrough to show changes since the patch has been updated. Change how frobbing works for bodies, candles, and lanterns. For bodies: Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body. Second frob to drop shouldered body, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body. Also, a body can be dragged immediately by holding frob and moving the mouse. For candles/lanterns: Frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. Hold frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. For food: Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to eat food. For other items: No change. New cvar "tdm_frobhold_delay", default:"200" The frob hold delay (in ms) before drag or extinguish. Set to 0 for TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Benefits Bodies: New players will have less to learn to get started moving knocked out guards. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players have played several missions before realizing that they could shoulder a body instead of dragging it long distances. Frob to shoulder body matches Thief, so longtime Thief players will find it familiar. Second frob drops a shouldered body. Players still have the ability to both shoulder and drag bodies. Compatible with the new auto-search bodies feature. Dragging feels more natural -- just grab, hold, and drop with a single button press. There is no longer the need to press the button twice. Also, it's no longer possible to walk away from a body while unintentionally dragging it. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Candles: New players will have less to learn to get started extinguishing candles. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players didn't know they could extinguish candles by picking them up and using them. Instead, they resorted to throwing them to extinguish them or hiding them. Hold frob to extinguish a candle feels like "pinching" it out. Once a candle is picked up, players still have the ability to manipulate and use them the same way they are used to in TDM v2.11 and earlier. For players who ghost and have the goal of putting objects back to their original positions, they'll have an easier time and not have to deal with candles popping off their holders when trying to place them back carefully. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Issues Bodies: Frob does not drop a shouldered body, so that might be unexpected for new players. This is also different than Thief where a second frob will drop a body. "Use Inv. Item" or "Drop Inv. Item" drops the body. This is the same as TDM v2.11 and earlier. This is the price to pay for being able to frob (open/close) doors while shouldering a body. Patch was updated to drop body on second frob, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Candles: Picking up a candle or lantern requires a slight delay, because the player must hold the frob button. The player might unintentionally extinguish a candle while moving it if they hold down frob. The player will need to learn that holding frob will extinguish the candle. The player can change the delay period via the "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar. Also, when the cvar is set to a delay of 0, the behavior matches TDM v2.11 and earlier, meaning the player would have to first "Frob/Interact" to pick up the candle and then press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish it. Some players might unintentionally extinguish a candle when they are trying to move it or pick it up. They need to make sure to hold frob to initiate moving the candle. When a candle is unlit, it will highlight but do nothing on frob. That might confuse players. However, the player will likely learn after extinguishing several candles that an unlit candle still highlights. It makes sense that an already-extinguished candle cannot be extinguished on frob. The official "Training Mission" might need to have its instructions updated to correctly guide the player through candle manipulation training. Updating the training mission to include the hold frob to extinguish would probably be helpful. Similar Solutions In Fallout 4, frob uses an item and long-press frob picks it up. Goldwell's mission, "Accountant 2: New In Town", has candles that extinguish on frob without the need of picking them up first. Snatcher's TDM Modpack includes a "Blow / Ignite" item that allows the player to blow out candles Wesp5's Unofficial Patch provides a way to directly extinguish movable candles by frobbing. Demonstration Videos Note: The last two videos don't quite demonstrate the latest patch anymore. But the gist is the same. This feature proposal is best experienced in game, but some demonstration videos are better than nothing. The following videos show either a clear improvement or that the player is not slowed down with the change in controls. For example, "long-press" sounds long, but it really isn't. Video: Body Shouldering and Dragging The purpose of this video is to show that frob to shoulder a body is fast and long-press frob to drag a body is fast enough and accurate. Video: Long-Press Frob to Pick Up Candle The purpose of this video is to show how the long-press frob to pick up a candle isn't really much slower than regular frob. Video: Frob to Extinguish The purpose of this video -- if a bit contrived -- is to show the efficiency and precision of this proposed feature. The task in the video was for the player to as quickly and accurately as possible extinguish candles and put them back in their original positions. On the left, TDM v2.11 is shown. The player has to highlight each candle, press "Frob/Interact" to pick up, press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish, make sure the candle is back in place, and finally press "Frob/Interact" to drop the candle. The result shows mistakes and candles getting misplaced. On the right, the proposed feature is shown. The player frobs to extinguish the candles. The result shows no mistakes and candles are kept in their original positions. Special Thanks @Wellingtoncrab was instrumental in improving this feature during its early stages. We had many discussions covering varying scenarios, pros, and cons, and how it would affect the gameplay and player experience. Originally, I had a completely different solution that added a special "use modifier" keybinding. He suggested the frob to use and long-press frob to pick up mechanics. I coded it up, gave it a try, and found it to be too good. Without his feedback and patience, this feature wouldn't be as good as it is. Thank you, @Wellingtoncrab! And, of note, @Wellingtoncrab hasn't been able to try it in game yet, because I'm using Linux and can't compile a Windows build for him. So, if this feature isn't good, that's my fault. Code Patch I'll post the code patch in another post below this one so that folks who compile TDM themselves can give this proposal a try in game. And, if you do, I look forward to your feedback! Player Complaints TTLG (2023-01-10) Player 1: TDM Forums (2021-03-13) Player 2: Player 3: TDM Forums (2023-06-17) Player 4: TDM Discord (2021-05-18) Player 5: TDM Discord (2023-02-14) Player 6: Player 7: Player 8:

There are two ways to change frob controls proposed for TDM 2.12. Both approaches have test builds, which you can install in tdm_installer. Just set "Get custom version" on the first page, then choose either test-frob-daftmugi2 or test-frob-stgatilov there. The goal of this voting is to quantify current opinion about these ways. ATTENTION: Please vote only if you have installed and tried both test builds! Note also, that only one controls scheme will survive. Even if there is a switch in a test build, it will not be supported and will naturally die out. The approaches are also described and discussed in their threads: daftmugi approach (aka "hold-frob"): stgatilov approach (aka "double-click"):

The concern that newcomers and players that play the game occasionally don't know or cannot figure out some features looks like a recurring topic. Since we cannot rely on the training mission alone I propose a "global tip system". First, we need a setting: In-game tips: Yes/No This setting must be easily accessible and therefore it should be included in the main menu or stand out in the settings screen. Now, when the setting is enabled players will get tips in ANY and ALL missions when triggering a condition for the first time. Examples: Player frobs a (shoulderable) ragdoll for the first time: To shoulder a body frob it and press "Use". Drop the body by pressing "Use" again. Player frobs a moveable extinguishable light for the first time: You can extinguish a candle by pressing "Use" while holding it. Find fire sources to relight candles. Player frobs a moveable switchable lantern for the first time: Press "Use" while holding moveable lights to switch them on and off. Player unlocks a door (or object) with a key for the first time: You can lock it again by selecting the appropriate key and pressing "Use". Player shoots a water arrow for the first time: Did you know water can clear blood stains and make moss grow stronger? Player shoots a rope arrow for the first time: Press "Attack" while hanging on the rope to swing. ...

Here is an alternative way to simplify extinguishing candles and shouldering bodies. Player can double-press / double-click frob button to do a mixed frob + use action. The test build is available in tdm_installer as "test-frob-stgatilov". Attached the source code patch too: FrobUse_By_DoubleClick.patch The original TDM controls are left unchanged. The difference starts only when double-click is registered (which unfortunately can happen accidentally). Also, the double-click action always continues the single-click action. So when you grab a body/candle, the single-click action happens immediately: there is no need to delay it. The maximum time between double-clicks is controlled by cvar in_doubleClickDelay, default is 200 ms. In principle, you can set it to zero to return to the old behavior: then double-clicks won't be registered. Here is how it works internally. There is an utility class which tracks held buttons (which are called "impulses" --- Doom 3 has too few "buttons"). I have extended it to also register double-click. So whenever player clicks frob and this is registered as double-click, then: If there is nothing grabbed, then do ordinary "frob" to grab item (this allows to double-click on already grabbed item). If there is nothing grabbed now, then fall back to normal single-click frob (this happens for ungrabable stuff like doors). If there is something grabbed, then "use" it (that's the main part: it shoulders/extinguished/eats the thing). Unless we have a body shouldered, release currently grabbed item (we want to ungrab extinguished candle). And there is also a special case: If there is something equipped at the moment of double-click, the just "use" it instead of anything else (this allows to unshoulder body by double-click).

Here's an interesting question. If you apply a clip texture, like monsterclip, to a non-brush entity, does it/should it act like a clip in-game? Certainly, DR filtering treats it as just like any other clip object. This arose in the context of thinking about atdm:target_set_frobable, and whether mappers will need to deploy it "defensively" and more widely if the new 2.10-dev frob highlight default is not changed. There is no special texture for a target_set_frobable, and a clip texture is traditionally used. In the wiki "Containers, Chests, etc.", Fidcal said: Giving target_set_frobable a standard clip texture if its not actually performing that clip function (which I don't know) is misleading. Maybe NoDraw would be a better choice? Of maybe it could benefit from its own custom texture, with text, say "Frob Control"?

I think it's time to replace the frob material stages with a shader (probably add a param to the existing ambient shader) There is more than one angle to this issue but I am mainly concerned about too many stages in materials that are somewhat taxing in terms of performance. Imagine rendering of 3K surfaces interacting with 3 lights in average and using materials with 7 stages in average. The renderer loops through every stage for every surface making it ~ 20K checks per loop. It has to happen during the depth stage, then each light and then the ambient pass resulting in 100K checks. It makes sense to try to reduce this load, especially considering that the frob stage is relatively rarely invoked and the checks happen on the backend making it hard to parallelize the computation. I am thinking adding a top-level material keyword that would apply as frob color and get passed to the ambient shader when the surface is a part of a frobable entity. I would like to hear your thoughts from the mapper/designer POV.

I guess it is time to decide: either we can rely on frob outline always enabled, if we should drop the idea and think about refactoring the old material-based system. We need public opinion on this matter. There are three presets right now, and each preset gets a separate vote independently. Comparing presets against each other is not the main goal of this poll, so please do not decrease/increase some votes only because your like another preset more/less. Before voting, please make sure that: You have the latest dev build installed (e.g. previous dev build had a problem with bloom, which is fixed in the latest one). You have played a fair amount of time with each of the outlines enabled. Don't judge by screenshots or after merely enabling it for a minute on a test map. UPDATE: In order enable preset 1, open game console and execute "r_frobOutlinePreset 1". You should see a very thin but very bright outline around frobbed objects then. To enable preset 2, execute "r_frobOutlinePreset 2" (this one should be wider and softer), and the same for preset 3 (which is the widest one).

William Steele 1: In the North, Build 2.10 Can't frob a particular AI's loot, not sure if this is a known issue on map or engine error. Better safe than sorry.

Hi, I finally had some time to get back into TDM, but encountered a bizarre issue in that I'm no longer able to pick up (frob) items. I can still open doors, toggle switches, but the items just never light up for me to pick up Specifically, the first mission I tried was "Shadows of Northdale ACT I", and after entering the shop I couldn't actually pick up anything to buy. Then went back to the home, behind the painting are several item that also cannot be picked up. See the attached screenshot from the save game. It might be a real noob issue, it's been a while since I last tried TDM, but played it a lot some years ago. Maybe it's a FM-specific issue, so I tried also "Dragon's Claw" but not sure if I've encountered any items I should be able to pick up yet. I'm trying to think of an old FM where there's some items at the very start I could test with. I use a custom controller config through XPadder, so my first idea was that it was broken, but the same happens using just RMB for frob. I run Windows 10 at 150% scaling, and some older games have problems with this, so I disabled scaling for the TDM exe, but no help. I also have a triple-monitor setup (TV, two regular screens), but that's never caused an issue in TDM before. I'm running TDM at 1920x1080 on the TV. I run "TheDarkModx64.exe" but I also tried the regular "TheDarkMod.exe". One thing I've not tried is a complete reinstall of TDM, I might try that later as well. Other possibly relevant information: OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (version 20H2) Version 10.0.19042 Build 19042 Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz, 4001 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s) Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16,0 GB Adapter Type GeForce GTX 970, NVIDIA compatible TDM is installed at "f:\Games\Darkmod" Any ideas? I just hope I'm not being a total noob here...

Not so long ago I found what could make a pretty good profile picture and decided to try it out on these new forums. But I couldn't find a button anywhere that would let me change it. I asked on Discord and it seems Spooks also couldn't find anything anywhere. So I logged into an old alternative account and, lo and behold, that account has a button. This is on the first screen I get when I: 1) click on my account name in the top-right of the browser -> 2) click on 'profile'. Compared to my actual account: Are you also missing this button on your account? It'd be very much appreciated if that functionality could be restored to any of the affected accounts.

Hi, I need to know what the code is to use Spoiler Tags. I am using my tablet and I don't have the options to use anything, like spoiler tags, quote tags, text changes etc. Thanks

Lately, I was fiddling with TDM frob shader, because often I find it too subtle for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, it works as intended, but it looks best in complete darkness. In more lit rooms, e.g. while putting out candles, it’s a bit hard to see whether you’re able to interact with an object or not. Modern games use Fresnel-based shader to achieve this, so an object gets a bright outline. This is very in-your-face and something more like the “atomic-blue frob” from Thief Deadly Shadows we all hated back in the day. That said, I think you can achieve some middle ground here. I couldn’t get the proper fresnel program to work, since I’m not that good at shaders, but I don’t think I will need it. Instead, I created a “fake Fresnel” cubemap, which looks like this: You can easily make it in Gimp. It’s a 256 texture with radial gradient from black to white, and offset of 50, so the color transition starts further away from the center. If you just want an outline, use pure black as starting color. I wanted both some highlight and an outline, so I used RGB 32. Now you have to save it 6 times with _back, _down, _forward etc., so it gets recognized as a cubemap. Then you have to go to your material definition and put this instead of standard frob code: // This is the code required for frob highlighting this texture { if ( parm11 > 0 ) maskcolor map makealpha (_white) alpha .2 // modify it as you wish } { if ( parm11 > 0 ) blend gl_dst_alpha, gl_one maskalpha cameraCubeMap cubemap/path/here texgen reflect } Cool thing is, you can tweak the cubemap intensity with alpha parameter, so you’ll get more consistent look when you need different values for e.g. wooden and glass objects (the latter typically require more visible frob). This effect also looks a bit different on .ase models and on brushes / func_statics made in DR, so you can tweak it to look the same across all materials and types of surfaces. Small comparison:

I created an iron grate that will be frobable, and just like Wiki says, the frob box shape is the shape of my model. The problem is that it will be pretty hard for the players to highlight it, because of the distance between the bars. Basically it looks like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/au0k3mcvs03jspf/GrateFrob.mp4 Adjusting frob box size doesn't help much in this case. I've tried other options like frob_peer, which works as intended, but the main problem is that even if I use a brush or model to propagate frob to my grate, it still needs to be solid for the frob raytrace to detect it. Materials like nodraw, clip or playerclip don't work, and that grate looks like it should let players shoot and throw stuff through it. I think I had similar problem while playing Biker's WIP, while with frobing an iron gate, so this is a common problem with more complex interactive models. Am I missing something or it seems like we need some sort of special non-solid material like nodraw that will let everything through but collide with frob detection?

Hi guys, through the "cheats" topic I got the idea, that it would be quite useful, if there were tags for missions (the post was about removing the killing restriction in some missions to suit the prefered play style). I don't know how easy or difficult this is, but with them, it would be quite convenient to pick missions with playstyles, environment, etc one does want to use. This could also be expanded to other mission properties. I remember a discussion about climbable drains, handles on doors, that cannot be picked and other things the map author chooses for himself. That way these things would be clearer and as I said before, it is easier to choose missions with playstyles that suit oneself. What do think?