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Things that could be improved


Berny

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Undead need somewhat different attention than human AI - and I agree that they are a bit off. The revenant has a great model, but its sounds are too "eclectic" without a strong unifying feel; the zombie is good for some undead, but maybe not so much for others. The skeletons work very well. Of course, it is hard to manage without sufficient manpower (or a Brosius), and coming up with models+voicesets is a tremendous undertaking. :wacko: Woo is hard.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Thanks Chiron, will check them out.

 

Here's a zombie from A:TDD. It's a pretty poor example to show the terror they convey but it does show the pace and power they have.

 

 

Not suggesting we mimic that but I feel TDM could use a much darker, more ominous undead 'character'.

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Thanks Chiron, will check them out.

 

Here's a zombie from A:TDD. It's a pretty poor example to show the terror they convey but it does show the pace and power they have.

 

 

Not suggesting we mimic that but I feel TDM could use a much darker, more ominous undead 'character'.

 

This is really good, but what makes this a good zombie? it's definitely not only the model, sound or animation. It's the whole ambient sound, timing scripted by the mapper, sound of breathing and heartbeat.. in our context, if we use this model in a mission patroling around it wouldn't make the slightest difference from the current models.

 

These Amnesia's zombies are indeed the best zombies I've seen in a game! But.. I never really saw them! only shades silhouettes, etc :)

 

My point is: there is nothing wrong with the monsters in TDM, but if you want to make a horror mission on a similar level of what we saw in Amnesia, it's going to take a lot of work from the mapper.

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This is really good, but what makes this a good zombie? it's definitely not only the model, sound or animation.

 

Yeah, same thoughts here. It looked nice, not bad at all. But it was a generic zombie, not much different from the ones we have: it shambles forward, makes zombieish noises and claws the player.

 

But yeah, if someone made better high quality models, animations and voice sets, I wouldn't object at all. More options the mappers have, the better.:laugh:

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Also, let us not forget chunkability. Zombie chunks are a great way to add fun and a playful attitude to computer games. :ph34r:

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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TDM could use a much darker, more ominous undead 'character'.

 

I like the idea semiexpressed here. Enough with the zombies anyway it was as NH said the Haunts that really were what was cool about Thief monsters. I'd like to see those improved here but nothing really will ever stand up to the Join Us Now! So hopefully another completely not overused or entirely original monster will be brought to TDM.

 

And for gods sake I'm not talking Vampires. ;)

 

Somewhere back there there was mention of creatures or humanoids who could see and been seen only in the dark or something.

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Well, vampires can be different from the usual Lugosi-lookalikes. Here are two that are rather scary:

post-2023-129062077732_thumb.gif

post-2023-12906208548_thumb.gif

In the mission they came from, both used a human mesh and human motions, they just had a different skin and sound schema (with custom voice acting IIRC).

 

And here is how a default Thief zombie looked like (granted, stretched on a very low-poly model):

post-2023-129062098836_thumb.gif

 

Alt skins like these would be a cheaper alternative to rigging up complete skeletal structures and creating new motions for them. Still a harder task than in Dromed, of course.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Making new skins is not particularly difficult, it's just time-consuming.

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A couple of things I wrote down while beta-testing for Jesps excellent new FM (Flakebridge Monastery!). These are things that might have been mentioned before and or I may just be doing them wrong.

 

Can you pick up mines you've thrown? I'd like that because while I'm sometimes spectacularly good at placing them I'm just as often throwing them wildly across a room into Never Deadly, Untraversable And Dark Shadows.

 

Would it be possible to use the fresh a nifty new code that was recently used to make mantling more friendly on moving objects to making a running mantle quicker than the beautiful but sort of slow mantling as it is work in a more realistic way?

 

Also towards the point where I was getting my last objective accomplished in Jesps FM (Flakebridge Monastery!) everything but light sources themselves would suddenly as I crossed certain thresholds go all black except for light sources. This would happen consistently in in certain areas and I couldn't see anything but those lights (lit windows, torches, things like that). I could only see again if I turned my direction far enough to somehow affect the situation. then I would have to walk backwards or side ways. I have some saved games that I'm willing to upload if anyone on the team would like them. But again maybe this is a known issue. And we'd need to check with Jesps to get whoever wanted to look into this a copy of the beta I saved under.

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Can you pick up mines you've thrown? I'd like that because while I'm sometimes spectacularly good at placing them I'm just as often throwing them wildly across a room into Never Deadly, Untraversable And Dark Shadows.

Not currently. At one point we wanted to make armed mines be disabled by frobbing them with the lockpicks. I looked into that and it was more work than it seemed, though, due to how lockpicking is internally implemented to require certain classes.

 

Would it be possible to use the fresh a nifty new code that was recently used to make mantling more friendly on moving objects to making a running mantle quicker than the beautiful but sort of slow mantling as it is work in a more realistic way?

Those two things aren't really related. The speed of the mantle is a design decision, not a bug. Why should whether you started out running forward or not have an effect on how quickly you can pull yourself upwards? There is a faster mantle that happens when the thing you mantle starts out around waist height, but otherwise it assumes you start out hanging from your arms, which is slower by design.

 

Also towards the point where I was getting my last objective accomplished in Jesps FM (Flakebridge Monastery!) everything but light sources themselves would suddenly as I crossed certain thresholds go all black except for light sources. This would happen consistently in in certain areas and I couldn't see anything but those lights (lit windows, torches, things like that). I could only see again if I turned my direction far enough to somehow affect the situation. then I would have to walk backwards or side ways. I have some saved games that I'm willing to upload if anyone on the team would like them. But again maybe this is a known issue. And we'd need to check with Jesps to get whoever wanted to look into this a copy of the beta I saved under.

Don't know about that one. Sounds like it could be a visportal problem with the map?

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Why should whether you started out running forward or not have an effect on how quickly you can pull yourself upwards?

 

Well because it does in real life. If you have catburglar skills and momentum you definitely can transfer that momentum into a faster mantle than you would have mantling from a flatfooted approach which is what the mantling seems to be always. At least this is how it seems to me. As if every mantle is from a standing still approach.

 

And while I'm speaking about this I also wanted to ask is there a way to quickly abort a mantle because again it always seems to be a slow flatfooted thing and leaves one at risk of being discovered while the animation goes into its 2-3 second playout. I often feel I could easily be caught out if that door over there starts to open wheras in real life I could quickly drop back down and not be discovered.

 

Anyway I just thought now would be a good time to bring these things up as the mantling was being worked on recently.

 

As for the everything goes black thing it must be my NV8800 drivers because I gave Jesps my saved game and he didn't experience the same glitch. Its the first time anything liek that has happened and it was so close to the end of my gameplay that I'm not too bothered. I thought VPs might be involved too or some limitation reached (while setting up to send the saved game it was hard not to notice that the saves I was getting that late into the FM were ~70MB while for somewhat of a measure the FM itself was only ~15MB)... but having Jesps unable to reproduce it must be my HW/drivers/settings...

 

As for mines I will simply become more skilled because while in Thief I hardly ever used them now I do because they are a lot of fun and effective as hell on the otherwise unfun and uneasy to vaniquish haunts or whatever you call them. I shall become a master... tosser... ;)

 

Edited because my "master... tosser" joke seemed as if I was calling someone a "tosser" when it said "and master... tosser" rather than "a master... tosser".

Edited by Aprilsister
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If you have catburglar skills and momentum you definitely can transfer that momentum into a faster mantle than you would have mantling from a flatfooted approach which is what the mantling seems to be always. At least this is how it seems to me. As if every mantle is from a standing still approach.

 

This is not mirrors edge. Built in acrobatic animations (even if its just an increase in mantling animation speed) are a no no. Mantling animations in TDM are about the closest thing to immersion break as you can get (and it really doesn't break immersion, regardless of what the TTLG kids say). Swords don't do more damage when you take a running swing, do they? Lets not go overboard on the momentum thing. lest we start making mission success rooted upon "skillz". Not that it would in or of itself, but its a step in the wrong direction.

 

 

And while I'm speaking about this I also wanted to ask is there a way to quickly abort a mantle because again it always seems to be a slow flatfooted thing and leaves one at risk of being discovered while the animation goes into its 2-3 second playout.

 

total agreement. I vote that pressing the 'jump' or 'mantle' key during a mantle animation results in the animation being aborted instantly, and gravity takes over. I've definitely run into the 3-guard-alert-upon-successful-mantle problem, and practically shouted at my monitor "STOP MANTLING" a couple times. Frankly I think it should be put on the 'jump' key because TDM is so f'ing smooth with mantling that i never needed to bind the mantle key. I've never failed a mantle I wanted to make unless the ledge was mapper specified as no mantling, and those areas are usually far up on the rooftops.

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My opinions on mantling:

Mantle abort would be nice. I've also been climbing and realising there is a guard in front of me, getting caught because the mantling cannot be aborted.

 

Mantle speed is really good as it is. There is absolutely no need to speed it up. You can think about real life and you can think about GAME BALANCE. Think about it: the player is superior climber when compared to the AI's. The usual way to flee from pursuers is climbing. If climbing was faster the player could escape from the AI's too easily. Now due to the slow climbing, the AI's in pursuit can get roughly one free slash at you with their swords when you climb. I find this the perfect balance to have.

 

I would even like to see the mantling interrupted when you get injured during a mantle. That would be realistic, you lose your grip due to pain and shock when a sword slashes you.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I would even like to see the mantling interrupted when you get injured during a mantle. That would be realistic, you lose your grip due to pain and shock when a sword slashes you.

 

I'll take that one step further. I'd like to see ladder climbing interrupted by, say, being shot by an arrow.

 

edit: thinking on this more, I'd also like to see a ladder-abort as well. Needing to jump to unstick from a ladder (if your not at the top or the bottom) is somewhat annoying, even though the current ladder-jumping is pretty satisfying. I'd like to be able to just let go.

Edited by ungoliant
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Well its funny that you both agree with meddling with mantling on the one hand but not on the other. :laugh:

 

They are both just my way of requesting realism. And I have had a "think about it", and I do think these are both very closely related. :laugh:

 

Swords don't do more damage when you take a running swing, do they?

 

Yes.

 

Yes they do.

 

But, anyway these are only suggestions and explanations not complaints or arguments.

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really? I'm going to have to try a death-from-above takedown from 10m in the air with a sword soon to test this out.

 

edit: oh. actually I think you meant in real life. Yes momentum obviously has a real effect in life regarding the force of a blow. But in TDM i don't think this should really happen. Either its a stealth knockout/kill or it isn't.

Edited by ungoliant
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edit: thinking on this more, I'd also like to see a ladder-abort as well. Needing to jump to unstick from a ladder (if your not at the top or the bottom) is somewhat annoying, even though the current ladder-jumping is pretty satisfying. I'd like to be able to just let go.

This is already enabled. Hold down the crouch key for a second or two and you drop down.
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Having an "abort mantle" option is on our radar (as is a "reverse mantle" to hang off ledges) but it just comes down to time and priorities. :)

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