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Things that could be improved


Berny

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  • 1 month later...

I just took a look at some pictures from PranQsters new map and realized (again) that TDMs smoke/mist doesn't look particularly good (as you can clearly see where it intersects with the ground, as in most games) and immediately thought about this old post from wolfire. They are using the depth buffer (which I think is the same as depth map) so if this will get implemented it will probably have to wait till D3 goes open-source, I just wanted to share it anyway.

pranqmap1_06.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

There was no auto loot bodies for Thief 1 or 2, was this maybe in TDS? One problem with adding this to the Dark Mod is that it's possible to have multiple items on a guards belt, so if both were automatically looted you wouldn't know what you'd picked up.

 

I'm fine with having to pick up individual items off a belt (although sometimes it's hard to highlight the item and not the entire body). Did you know that if you pick up the body (by right clicking and then pressing the 'use' button to shoulder the body), it will be turned around when you drop the body again? You can keep doing this to turn the body over and have better access to whatever items the body is carrying.

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"There was no auto loot bodies for Thief 1 or 2"

 

No,there IS auto loot bodies in T1 and T2.I am sure.

 

"One problem with adding this to the Dark Mod is that it's possible to have multiple items on a guards belt, so if both were automatically looted you wouldn't know what you'd picked up."

 

Make auto loot 1 item picked per click and show picked item in the inventory in bottom right corner.If picked item is weapon arrows let your character equip it.

 

"I'm fine with having to pick up individual items off a belt"

 

Ofc some people dont like auto loot and i perfectly understand this,make it optional.

 

"Did you know that if you pick up the body (by right clicking and then pressing the 'use' button to shoulder the body), it will be turned around when you drop the body again?"

 

Yes,i know that,thx but i prefer auto loot option. :P

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Make auto loot 1 item picked per click and show picked item in the inventory in bottom right corner.If picked item is weapon arrows let your character equip it.

Personally, I'd chalk it up to laziness.

 

Suppose there's an AI with 1 health potion, 2 keys, 1 readable scroll, and 1 coin purse all def_attached to his person somehow. You would have to mash your frob key five times to loot everything.

 

Gameplay excuse: Suppose you blackjacked this guy in a brightly-lit hallway and ONOEZ THERE'S A GUARD COMING! Quickly mash frob six times, find the "use" key to shoulder him, and now try to find a quick getaway. OR insta-pick up all 5 items, panic to find a getaway, and get confused over what the heck you just picked up off his belt. Neither one sounds particularly convenient as opposed to spending five seconds to search him yourself.

 

Lame "realism" excuse: You just blackjacked a big burly guard. Of course it'll be cumbersome patting down every pocket of a big 200 lb. man.

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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I'm not absolutely certain but I believe auto came in with T2 and was not in T1. Both T2 (and possibly T1) and Dark Mod permit the use of multiple items on any place on the body: belt, hand, ankle, whatever.

 

I used auto in T2 but in thief body manipulation was limited to picking up and dropping; there was no dragging or auto turn over as in Dark Mod. Sometimes you had to drop a body on a fence or ledge so you could crouch underneath to see if there was anything on the belt. I remember some crazy manipulations with dead bodies and that was probably T1 as I'm sure I used auto throughout T2.

 

One of the problems with auto as MD mentioned is you can get items you don't even know you have. This was also true of the virtual containers in Thief. One frob and you see you got some loot. What you don't realize is you also got a key and a rope arrow first. You realize it later after searching for an hour that you already got them. (actually I can't recall if ammo showed with the bow coming up automatically but definitely inventory stuff got hidden.)

 

It's easy to turn a body in TDM and now keys and purses are brighter there should be no problem.

 

However, I generally support options so I wouldn't oppose an auto option.

 

However2: It is very unlikely to happen.

 

However3: A mapper might be able to simulate it.

 

However4: But that would be inconsistent.

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  • 1 year later...

I'd like to ask some questions:

- I recently used a gasarrrow on 3 guards, standing in a circle of 2 m. Only one of them was attracted and fell asleep. The other guards didn't do anything. Is this an issue with the map or a AI bug or a design decision?

- I always have got the feeling that the collisionsmodell of the protagonist is a little bit off while backjacking or climbing a ladder.

- It would be nice to put the "interact" and "use inventory item" key on the same key.

- Is there any way of loading a map when finished another one? - Something like a hublevel with aaall the fanmissions selectable at diferent places would be interessting in my opinion. (Just a crazy idea, which is way to large in execution.)

Edited by Radiant
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1- Sounds like bad luck, the gas arrow is pretty powerful and should KO everyone instantly. Another thing that happens is that a KOed guard will attract attention of others who will aproach to check on him, and will also get KOed.

 

2- If you mean the distance from which the player touches/clips on the world, I would say it is quite reasonable, regarding the blackjack in particular, its good to know there's the risk you'll bump into the guard if you are not careful and hit him from a certain distance (makes it exciting when he is moving).

 

3- Wouldnt that make you use stuff by accident if you try to open a door but you are too far away and "miss"?

 

4- I think it is implemented, but hasnt been used yet. There are several "campaign" maps around, No Honor Among Thieves or Sotha's map series, for example, but you still have to load them one by one.

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About No 3: Well, Thief 2 is using the same key for both. Sure, you are right, this could end in an unplanned interaction but it would be one key less to use and assign.

 

We specifically made it a separate key to avoid the, "tried to frob door but drank a potion instead" frustration.

  • Like 1
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Would it be possible for a guard with attached items to increase the frob distance/frob highlight distance upon ko/death? Could see use in missions played on easy difficulty. Or alternatively, decrease the frob and highlight distance on the body of the ko'ed/dead ai to avoid being able to loot their belt while standing, if it was an issue.

Edited by Xarg

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  • 1 month later...

1. Leaning - If you lean left\right, then try to lean the other direction immediately, it doesn't. (Bug? Intentional?)

 

2. Lantern\SpyGlass - Holding the activation key toggles them on\off repeatedly, this is easily fixed.

 

3. SpyGlass should start zoomed out, not in. (It's less jarring that way.)

 

Basically, what TDS used would be fantastic, slight night vision, start the zoom at the players FOV, allow them to control any additional zoom, etc,.

 

4. Physics - It's quite easy to get 'stuck' on stuff, this is a bit harder to fix, physics aren't my strong suit either. (Read: You're on your own here...)

 

5. Performance Issues - My computer isn't top of the line, however, it should be more than adequate for Doom3, but, this engine has never been the best performer.

 

I have a quad core CPU 3.5ghz, 4gb DDR3 ram, and a HD4250(weakest link) onboard GPU.

 

It's definitely GPU limited, because my old PC had single core CPU 2.7ghz, 2gb DDR2 ram, and a HD4850 and ate Doom3 alive.

 

Too bad my 4850 died, I'm still looking for a nice replacement..

 

Regardless, my system should play this game much better than it does, despite the onboard GPU, it runs many games quite well, don't understimate the 4250.

 

6. Climbing can be a bit wonky at times, the FM "Business As Usual" has a basement right where you start, this demonstrates the issue nicely.

 

7. Guard archers are quicker on the draw than the player. (I started to draw an arrow, he started after me, and had shot me before I came close to getting my shot off.)

 

---

 

Anyways, I can take a look at the first two issues, I just need to find where these things are controlled in the source. (I have a thread over in the help wanted section where I'm posting code updates already, if I create a fix, I'll post it there.)

Edited by CodeMonkey
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That's a mapping issue(which is my fault as a mapper), rather than a problem with TDM.

 

No no no! Mantling IS wonky and needs some brave soul to fix it. Just look at the sky when you mantle. Sometimes the sky disappears when the player pushes himself up. Very unnerving is that, at least for me.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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5. Performance Issues - My computer isn't top of the line, however, it should be more than adequate for Doom3, but, this engine has never been the best performer.

 

The big improvements on the GPU front will be:

 

1) Normal Map compression (AFAIK this has been postponed till 1.09) this will likely be the biggest boost on the GPU side.

2) Improving Shadow fillrate behavior (a reasonable boost will be in 1.08) this has the most opportunity for future improvement

with more GPU friendly methods or hybrid solutions (LOD with low resolution shadow maps in the distance etc)

3) Shader decoupling (Rebb already broke the Ambient shader into it's own unit for 1.08) making new shader interaction behaviors that do not affect ALL lit surfaces and therefore consume lots of GPU resources.

 

That said, there are many things about Doom 3's culling\visibility system and Shadow calculation methods that are very CPU

dependent. Doom 3 vanilla has much lower polycount than TDM and as you scale-up the polygons (particularly shadowed

polygons) the stress on the CPU side goes up dramatically. I am eager to test out Mh's VBO fix as that is one area that can help

this situation without doing a drastic overhaul. (See tracker 3234 ).

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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7. Guard archers are quicker on the draw than the player.

 

doesn't this make sense, as they are trained guards and you are "only" a thief ;)

 

btw: is it intentionally that you are able to retrieve the last arrow used to shot a person from its body

 

what may be a good improvement would be, if it were not possible to kill a guard with one shot to the head if he is already searching for you / alarmed, because this in addition to the arrow retrievement thing makes it quite easy to clean a whole map with just one broadhead arrow

 

i mean this enforces the mapper to set a "don't kill anyone" goal, if he want to make the highest difficulty level at least a bit difficult (i mean for experienced players) what frustrates other players as they may don't like this kind of goal (i read this in some forum posts)

Edited by Obsttorte

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doesn't this make sense, as they are trained guards and you are "only" a thief ;)

 

+1. One of the main ideas in stealth gaming, I think, is that the opposition is superior in combat. Thus the risk in open confrontation is too high and the player is supposed to avoid or outsmart the enemies, rather than taking on them head on.

 

Same thing in melee: the guards have a longsword, the player only a short one.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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+1. One of the main ideas in stealth gaming, I think, is that the opposition is superior in combat. Thus the risk in open confrontation is too high and the player is supposed to avoid or outsmart the enemies, rather than taking on them head on.

 

Same thing in melee: the guards have a longsword, the player only a short one.

 

I disagree, being a thief is obviously dangerous work, and if you're going to carry something around, you should be capable of wielding it, not only that, but, the thief should be faster, they are almost always portrayed as being faster than combat specialist, regardless of source material.

 

That trained archer was also wearing armor, which should further account for his not being faster than me.

 

Now, the thief should be weaker in all cases, taking less hits, doing less damage, but, speed is one thing they should have on their side.

 

IMO. :D

Edited by CodeMonkey
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they are almost always portrayed as being faster than combat specialist, regardless of source material.

 

In fantasy genres, thieves are generally skilled at hiding, sneak attacks, and technical finesse (lockpicking/disarming traps). A thief who was more skilled with weapons than trained warriors would be unusual.

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In fantasy genres, thieves are generally skilled at hiding, sneak attacks, and technical finesse (lockpicking/disarming traps). A thief who was more skilled with weapons than trained warriors would be unusual.

 

Exactly. The only way a thief should have advantage in combat situation is the element of surprise. That's what makes stealth games interesting. Stealth games need to have a mechanic to make the player think twice before attacking anyone directly.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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In fantasy genres, thieves are generally skilled at hiding, sneak attacks, and technical finesse (lockpicking/disarming traps). A thief who was more skilled with weapons than trained warriors would be unusual.

 

When did I say more skilled?

 

Skill and speed are two very different things.

 

Exactly. The only way a thief should have advantage in combat situation is the element of surprise. That's what makes stealth games interesting. Stealth games need to have a mechanic to make the player think twice before attacking anyone directly.

 

Again, not listening to me.

 

I said faster, but, less powerful, and weaker.

 

How is that having an advantage? You can act quicker, but, only to make up for your lack of toughness, you can get in more hits, but only to make up for you lack of power, you're still technically outmatched, you're just not a complete turd in battle.

Edited by CodeMonkey
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