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Congratulations & feedback


ironpants

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Thank you Broken Glass Studios! The Dark Mod keeps the true spirit of Thief alive and is clearly a labor of love. Outstanding work!

 

I love the thoughtful improvements to lock picking, mantling, object handling, et al.

 

Years ago, I posted the suggestion of directional sword blocking. At the time, everyone was still busy working on core mechanics and the response was a reasonable 'we can't commit to anything beyond the Thief method'. Imagine my surprise when I first drew my sword and realized what I could do! I firmly believe that the sword is integral as a self defense tool, allowing players to ironman through mistakes rather than quickload. Directional blocking is way more engaging and difficult than simply holding a block button, bravo.

 

I have noticed that sometimes blows will pass through my block, and I'm curious if there is a small chance for this to happen by design? This got me thinking about how the attack / block timing relationship could be improved in a realistic and challenging way: Blocks initiated late relative to a given attack should be less effective, with a chance to fail. This is because effective blocking needs extension (which takes time) to meet the momentum of an attack which has reached full extension; without enough time spent reaching proper extension, a block risks collapse. Blocks initiated early enough relative to a given attack should be able to enter, meet and cancel the attack once full extension is reached. This gives the defender a subtle chance to affect the rhythm of the fight. In Thief the sword can be moved to meet an incoming attack early which gives it a dynamic feel. TDM currently feels clunky; the rhythm is unnaturally mechanical because we have to wait for each attack to fully complete. I keep wanting to enter with my block as in Thief / real life, to take some defensive initiative.

 

AI behavior also contributes to the stiff feeling by invariantly planting themselves directly within striking range. Distance is just as important as timing, and some variation in footwork would complete the AI illusion. Just the Thief style random footwork would be great to see; but there is plenty of room here to vary the challenges AI present through their footwork behavior. I'd love to see them dodge & try remaining at safe distances as well as enter for attacks and aggressively press advantages, etc.

 

Looking forward to the next release!

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This gives the defender a subtle chance to affect the rhythm of the fight. In Thief the sword can be moved to meet an incoming attack early which gives it a dynamic feel. TDM currently feels clunky; the rhythm is unnaturally mechanical because we have to wait for each attack to fully complete. I keep wanting to enter with my block as in Thief / real life, to take some defensive initiative.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, do you mean you must wait for your attack to complete before you can block? You shouldn't have to wait for anything with regard to the AI, you can block whenever you feel like it.

 

I'm not really in favor of a random chance of having a block collapsing depending on how soon you put it up, but you do still get benefits from blocking earlier on in their attack, because it usually means you're more prepared to make a riposte right away, and can mean that you intercept them while they are still extending, meaning you get more time to riposte while they're still recovering.

 

 

AI behavior also contributes to the stiff feeling by invariantly planting themselves directly within striking range. Distance is just as important as timing, and some variation in footwork would complete the AI illusion. Just the Thief style random footwork would be great to see; but there is plenty of room here to vary the challenges AI present through their footwork behavior. I'd love to see them dodge & try remaining at safe distances as well as enter for attacks and aggressively press advantages, etc.

I agree more advanced AI footwork would be nice, but it requires a lot of work work in both programming (so that the AI know if they have room to jump backwards, for example) and animations. No one has had time to do it, but if you know any programmers willing to work on it, send them our way. :)

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Everything in my post is from the perspective of the defender. Currently if I block the moment an attack begins, does it take less time for the blades to meet than if I successfully block at the latest possible moment? I have the opposite impression, am I wrong?

 

Only very late blocks will collapse, because there isn't enough time to extend far enough before the blades meet.

 

I'm showing TDM to all the programmers I know :)

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Everything in my post is from the perspective of the defender. Currently if I block the moment an attack begins, does it take less time for the blades to meet than if I successfully block at the latest possible moment? I have the opposite impression, am I wrong?

Yes, the block is a physical object being put in their way, and their attacks are coming in at an arc so if you get it up in their way sooner, the blades will meet sooner. You can see the collision objects in red wireframe if you want by using "tdm_melee_debug 1" in the console (the collision objects for parries and AI attacks are significantly bigger than the swords, for gameplay reasons). There is a slight delay in the controls that will be removed in the upcoming release, which might also help with what you're experiencing.

 

However, there is still a certain amount of waiting involved. That's how sabre parries work IRL, you pretty much put up the parry and wait. Thrusting weapons like foil and epee are more like what you described, you can move your weapon forward to meet the opponent's blade, then deflect it as it comes forward based what side of your blade it's on and what the pressure feels like. But sabre attacks are slashes coming in at an arc, so you can't really chase after them trying to meet them earlier on in the arc, or you will end up in a weak, over-extended position, from which you can't riposte very well. You end up reading the attacks by eye, and putting your weapon in a good position where you know it will intercept the arc of the attack and leave you well positioned to riposte.

 

Only very late blocks will collapse, because there isn't enough time to extend far enough before the blades meet.

It's already assumed that your parry will not be valid until it is very close to being in its final position (you can watch when the wire-frame turns on with tdm_melee_debug on). If you are blocking your right side with a sabre parry #3, for example, it only really blocks after it's 95% or more in position, I'd say. Before that, your arm or flank will still get hit. This makes sense when you think about it: You want the final position to be at the minimum displacement needed for it to work, because that lets you recover the fastest.

 

I don't really see a reason to have a randomized failure or success before it gets to the "valid" point. I think it should definitively go from not working to working, so that players can get used to that timing and know how early they need to parry to be in position when the attack comes. Randomized success would just lead to confusion ("You mean I need to parry earier?? But it worked last time!).

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Glad to be wrong! Thanks for the debug commands, very interesting to see the mechanics in action. I see now that the control delay, my inexperience and the oddly static AI behavior contributed to my false impression. Probably should have tried the sword bit in the training mission before posting my thoughts, and stuck to the congratulations. I'm looking forward to the update even more now.

 

I never meant to suggest that very late block failure should be random - it wasn't clear enough but I meant for the following sentences to clarify that the "chance" to fail is dependent on insufficient extension, which you already implemented!

 

Thank you for taking the time to explain how it works Ishtvan, I tremendously appreciate it.

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