Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Fan Mission: The Transaction by Sotha (2011/03/04)


Sotha

  

76 members have voted

  1. 1. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun duration. Smooth flow, ect. Versus Bugs. Frustration, Boredom, framelag

    • Poor
      2
    • Tolerable
      2
    • Good
      16
    • Excellent
      39
    • Near Perfect
      17
  2. 2. Appearance: Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style, deduct bad texturing etc.

    • Poor
      0
    • Tolerable
      1
    • Good
      14
    • Excellent
      45
    • Near Perfect
      16
  3. 3. Story & Text: Story. Text. Briefing. Graphic storytelling

    • Poor
      0
    • Tolerable
      1
    • Good
      10
    • Excellent
      35
    • Near Perfect
      30


Recommended Posts

Another great mission! This one upped the storytelling drama quite a bit, and was probably the mission's biggest strength.

 

 

Weather, excellent. Revenant cutscene, excellent. Numerous twists, fun and unexpected. And I was genuinely afraid that the revenant was going to pop up in the abandoned basement. I explored the whole thing with my holy water and water arrows at the ready.

 

 

You also continue to love guards with torches, helmets, and interlocking paths. Collectively, these are among the most challenging missions I've played. No complaints, just an observation.

 

Knowing that the Lich Queen's Demise is generally loved, and the next mission is a thieves highway (usually a favorite of mine), I have to say that this is all shaping up into quite an awesome series of missions. You vary the mission style, objectives, and settings well, and with limited exceptions, everything has been building off of the previous missions to heighten the tension.

Edited by Digi

"Fancy burricks are afraid of dogs, if they encounter each other the dog barks and the burricks poop." - Thief: Deadly Shadows Game Designer

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

I loved all the Potter Missions before, but this one is quite annoying.

 

 

I'm not used to fight, I never played doom or something like that, and i have no chance against the lich queeen. I tried it no for at least one hour, only the fight, then reloading, fight, reloading in an endless sequence, and no succsess. I have altered the settings to "auto - parade" but when the lich queen hits me with the sword, there is no reaction from my sword, no parade at all. And I never hit the lich queen. She always get her sword between me and herself.

Well I know I'm a poor fighter, because I never fight, I have no idea how to make diffrent moves with the sword, I don't know how to parade, and therefore I loose all the time. That is very annoying.

 

So I have the chance to leave the mission, or to cheat.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

maybe try the tutorial mission and read the book in the mission on sword fighting and practice some in the tutorial mission.

 

 

I believe you only have to swing once to hit the ghost.

 

 

 

Well every sequence is the same: F9 - some A to go to the left, hoping I can better swing,- left mouse button, no hit - the lich attacks and hits, no auto parade - left mouse button, no hit - the lich attacks and hits, no auto parade - left mouse button, no hit - the lich attacks and hits. I'm dead. So I press F9 to start again. Some A to go .........

And so on, and so on.

 

 

Really bad game play. So I vote and leave that mission alone.

Hopefully I will not have to fight in the following Potter missions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Too bad. It isn't very difficult. Just stand still and when the opponent raises their weapon to attack, immediately do a quick attack (preferrably a thrust as it seems to be more accurate attack). The opponent is attacking and cannot defend themselves. You need to only land a single blow and the opppnent needs several. Even if you trade hits, you will win. :D

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Auto-parry doesn't mean you automatically parry without doing anything. It just means the computer automatically picks the correct direction for you. You still have to hold the parry button after the opponent begins their swing to be successful.

 

Isn't there a fire arrow available in that map? You could always try that. Or find the holy water first.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Too bad. It isn't very difficult. Just stand still and when the opponent raises their weapon to attack, immediately do a quick attack (preferrably a thrust as it seems to be more accurate attack).

Well that is what I tried all the time. But I don't know how to make a thrust, I don't know how to make a quick attack. Is it different then to attack with the left mouse button?

I press the left mouse button, and when the opponent arrives and swings the weapon, I release the mouse button. But I will not hit. After that the opponent waits for my blow, parry my blow and hits again. Once he stand still in parry mode and waits, and do nothing for a minute. Nothing happens. Then I blow, the opponent parry the blow attacks me and hits.

 

Even if you trade hits, you will win. :D

That is exactly what i try. I got hitten, but can't launch a hit by myself. Bad exchange! :smile::blush::wacko:

 

maybe try the tutorial mission and read the book in the mission on sword fighting and practice some in the tutorial mission.

I think you are right. But I dislike that very much. Maybe I'm blocked in a psychological way, but to do 2 hours of training mission, to be able to go on with this mission is not very attractive for me.

 

Auto-parry doesn't mean you automatically parry without doing anything. It just means the computer automatically picks the correct direction for you. You still have to hold the parry button after the opponent begins their swing to be successful.

Good to know.

 

Isn't there a fire arrow available in that map? You could always try that. Or find the holy water first.

Well I play on the most easiest difficulty level, and I have fire arrows with me. I tired it two times, but before I could shoot, I was hitten by my opponent, and the shooting was interrupted. Well I should after that and hit him. He was dead, but because I stand so close to him, and was hitten before, I also died.

After that I stopped shooting.

 

But yeah, thats is an opportunity to go on. I will load a previous save, and start with the bow in the hand. Maybe I can be faster with the shooting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

to do 2 hours of training mission, to be able to go on with this mission is not very attractive for me

It's about 30-45 minutes and serves to demonstrate how to play the game beyond pressing WASD and clicking your mouse buttons. By all means skip the tutorial but expect to come up against trouble later on. I prefer to do it that way around: I usually skip the tutorials in mechanically traditional games myself, but to then complain in a particular mission's thread that you don't understand game-wide mechanics isn't particularly fair.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

But yeah, thats is an opportunity to go on. I will load a previous save, and start with the bow in the hand. Maybe I can be faster with the shooting.

 

 

I've seen people run around the desk so they have time to get a shot off before the queen can get close enough. One hit will do it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I've seen people run around the desk so they have time to get a shot off before the queen can get close enough. One hit will do it.

 

Yes, and finally it works. I was able to shoot at him, and with about 1/3 of my hit points, I survived.

Thanks to all of you, trying to lead me in a good direction.

 

 

It's about 30-45 minutes and serves to demonstrate how to play the game beyond pressing WASD and clicking your mouse buttons. By all means skip the tutorial but expect to come up against trouble later on. I prefer to do it that way around: I usually skip the tutorials in mechanically traditional games myself, but to then complain in a particular mission's thread that you don't understand game-wide mechanics isn't particularly fair.

 

I have made the tutorial. Every single room, except the Melee part. I never made a Melee fight in the original Thief games. If a guard finds me, I try to run, or I hit the reload button.

For me this game is a game of stealth, not of steel. I like it to sit in a nook watching the guards for minutes to find out how they walk, were they paused, if i can ambush them or sneak around them. But I never thought of fighting.

 

I didn't want to blame sotha for that. I really know that my poor fighting skills are the real cause for my difficulties, but I don't want to learn something, which does not support my playing style, and isn't fun to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, at least I managed to complete the mission. With the exception of my "big problem", it was again a great experience!

 

Some remarks from my side:

 

 

 

I like your method to envolve the story. Sotha, you are a great story teller. All your missons so fare are well connected, and your handling of mission goals is also well done.

 

I'm a bit ambivalent with your cutszenes. You can use them for pushing the story forward, but on the other side it is a bit railroading.

I like missions best, which gives me a lot of freedom what to do. But in this mission, there are only three open houses. That three are needed for the mission goals. There are no opportunitites to sneak left or right, or I have overseen them.

 

And also in these three locations, there is a relative clear path what you have to do.

Compared with the manor house or even the Glenham Tower, I got more the feeling to be in a tunnel and have to follow this one road.

 

The customer in the bookstore, the tortured girl, which flew after I told her, that she can go, being chased by the city watch, that were all good ideas.

It is seldom, that you can really interact with other persons in a thief mission, and to talk with them gives the world a more living touch.

 

I feel a little bit like Mr. White in Breaking Bad. I'm good in my work, but every efford I make turns into something bad. Even if I think I do something legal, i get a lich queen at my arse, and now the city watch blames me to be the murderer of my own customer.

So I succeed in what I have to do, only to see, that things are going worse.

 

I like that very much.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...

Well, I was playing the TP series, since it's the only "long campaign" that seems to exist for TDM, but this mission has pretty much killed off any will I had to continue.

 

What the heck do you expect anyone to do with that start?!?!?!

 

There's a million guards with torches, and I can't even hear them because of that damn thunderstorm, and I can't even hear my own footsteps to know how much noise I'm making, but the guards are able to hear me just fine as though the storm wasn't there. In short, the entire concept of environmental awareness through sound that made the Thief games work is completely thrown out the window, and the result is a 100% unplayable mess.

Edited by Cynical
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think someone had made a playthrough video on youtube. It is easy to sneak around if you just sneak around. Don't run or jump. Just keep moving silently at all times. Kill or KO the guards if there are too many for you.

 

Keep on trying, there are other, even more ultra-frustrating turn of events that are thrown at you, too. If you come out victorious, you're a badass. ;D

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, you convinced me to go back and finish it.

 

(The rest of this will be in spoiler tags, so sorry about the poor readability)

 

 

I maintain that it's pretty much a disaster as far as playability. I've already covered why sneaking in the streets here isn't fun (literally the first two commands the Thief 1 tutorial gives you are "stick to the shadows" and "listen to your footsteps", and you've taken away my ability to do both of those things with torch guards and the thunderstorm sounds), and I eventually just said "screw it" and shot them all in the face once I realized this mission didn't have a "don't kill anyone" objective (somewhat inexpicably, given that the storyline specifically mentions "maybe I should avoid fights, so the guards don't hate me here as well"). The brute-force switch "puzzle" (using the term puzzle very loosely) was nothing but busywork. The forced melee is every bit as awful as "forced melee with an armored opponent" sounds. But the single worst part?

 

Finding the damn firewood.

 

Seriously, there's absolutely no clue where it is, much less that it's in your safehouse. I literally wandered the streets for over an hour before finding it and realizing it had to be in the abandoned house, and it still took another 20 minutes of searching there before I found it, tucked away in a corner somewhere. I mean, the most logical things to do are either "go back to the bookstore, where I've already seen fires burning, and grab the logs out of one of those fireplaces" (which doesn't work, since you can't interact with the logs in those fireplaces), or "go check the carts, since the prison-break mission has already established that firewood in this world is carried on carts".

 

I've also got some major misgivings about the story-telling here. First off, the little torture side-story is truly pointless, and has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot of the mission best as I can tell. The constant cutscenes give the mission a really bad flavor, although it's tough to describe exactly why; the best I can do is say that it feels like I'm playing a railroaded "A then B then C" kind of game than a more "classic" kind of game (despite the lack of direction when it comes to finding firewood). The lack of a "no-killing" objective in a mission where, story wise, you're supposed to be avoiding pissing off the guards is a major "WTF". But, finally, the big one is that the guards are hostile in the first place. Why? You've done nothing illegal. Sure, your story has the "I'm armed and it's night" handwave... so why doesn't Thomas just wait a few hours until it's day time and just stroll on in? The whole concept of the mission makes no sense at all.

 

I will say that the secret that hid the portal was cool. The lone brightspot in the mission, IMO.

 

Edited by Cynical
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I never did finish this one.When the lich showed up and I died, I gave up. I'm a coward what can I say. No boogeymen for me thanks very much.

I did, however, absolutely love the storm and the puddles. The sound of the rain falling on different surfaces was amazing. Why can we not see more of this weather on other fms?

I just walked around for quite a few minutes absolutely loving the storm. Jumping the puddles was great!. Lol Beautiful! Thanks so much for showing me another facet of weather in Dark Mod

fosig_zpshhfnjs18.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Missions like this make me think we should have some sort of setting to specify npc's for whom mission statistics in some regard should or should not count.

While I love the concept, I don't feel the mission statistics should be immediately booted up to 11 for me over a single required encounter.

This is after extensive testing, mind, using the console. I don't hate the mission, nor do I hate what you did, I just dislike that the system isn't built for this kind of concept.

 

Aside from that I think my only issue is that the guard's hearing isn't adjusted around the thunderstorm that deafens you.

By all accounts I feel like anyone in a thunderstorm or a room with loud machinery should be less sensitive to noise.

Edited by V-Man339
  • Like 1

I like to record difficult stealth games, and right now you wonderful people are the only ones delivering on that front.

Click here for the crappy channel where that happens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I don't know anything about modding in this particular engine, but I've done work with other limiting engines and I know how much of a pain it can be to jury-rig a solution.

 

 

If there's not a setting built in that lets you make a mob immune to raising your stealth score, it really should be implemented.

In the meantime, since we KNOW that the Queen is going to cause a sighting, is it possible to manually remove 1 sighting from the score at the end of combat?

 

Also, on the same vein, regarding the stealth score issues at the end of Glenham Tower... V-man theorizes that the loss of stealth score is caused by the enemies watching each other die. In the future, this could be prevented by blinding every enemy just before killing them, or alternately by teleporting them into their own dummy rooms to kill them there, and then teleporting their corpses back after they're all dead.

 

I hereby grant you, Twitch, the Glenham Tower Climbing Award!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me this is a non-issue. I would never bother making mission design decisions or changes because of the stealth score.

 

The stealth score is just a stealth score and there is no reason to expect the mappers design their mission so that it is possible to complete it with zero score.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't really see anyone ever doing well on this map while iron Thiefing it, to say the very least.

I think in particular that piece of loot on the woman visiting is especially cheap. Unless somebody finds a way to pick pocket that walking guard outside, or saves him for later, they still will only have 1 water arrow margin for error until they make it downstairs on the highest difficulty. This means that to maintain all loot, 0 KO, perfect stealth a player needs to be effectively have precognition or insanely high degrees of luck.

The water arrow margin here is insanely tight considering what is expected.

 

Definitely one of the hardest maps I've ever done, and not just because of a logistics puzzle.

Tight fit after tight fit, with the only solid waiting periods being the church where I'm pretty sure Sotha expected people to just knock everybody out.

Edited by V-Man339

I like to record difficult stealth games, and right now you wonderful people are the only ones delivering on that front.

Click here for the crappy channel where that happens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This means that to maintain all loot, 0 KO, perfect stealth a player needs to be effectively have precognition or insanely high degrees of luck.

 

 

Should there be an expectation that you should be able to do the mission to 100% perfection without insanely high degrees of luck? The mission doesn't require you to get all the loot--if a player chooses to do that, they're setting a specific goal for their own entertainment, like "find a place in the map where you can see the outside of the skybox" or "KO every guard and dump them into the same hole".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Should there be an expectation that you should be able to do the mission to 100% perfection without insanely high degrees of luck? The mission doesn't require you to get all the loot--if a player chooses to do that, they're setting a specific goal for their own entertainment, like "find a place in the map where you can see the outside of the skybox" or "KO every guard and dump them into the same hole".

I feel like expecting players to get all loot is fairly inevitable, but expecting them to do so through necessarily psychic means is a bit much.

This is one of those subjects where I feel every mapper needs to decide on their own, and I don't think my philosophy is going to match up with Sotha's in the least.

 

I think it should be theoretically possible to get every piece of loot without knocking people out or being psychic, but this is very easily something that many mappers won't agree with in the least. If I made a level I would make it barely possible to do so, but it would still be within the realm of feasibility.

I believe Sotha attracts me to his maps since by the simple virtue of making a coherent world first and foremost the onus is on me to find out how to translate that within my own insanely strict parameters.

 

This is something people will enjoy the Dark Mod for, as it isn't something they'll get from mainstream or even niche indie games.

I like to record difficult stealth games, and right now you wonderful people are the only ones delivering on that front.

Click here for the crappy channel where that happens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Recent Status Updates

    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 1 reply
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      Please vote in the 15th Anniversary Contest Theme Poll
       
      · 0 replies
×
×
  • Create New...