Pressing "use" to loot or perhaps some other method.

[Professor Paul1290]

This might sound a bit strange, but I think it could be a potential improvement if loot required you to pick up and use a seperate button, such as the "use key" or some other key, to actually take it in as loot.

 

I could be alone in this, but I always found the way loot behaves in the Thief series as well as TDM to feel somewhat awkward. More specifically, I sort of dislike the idea that loot immediately gets sucked into your inventory as soon as you grab it. I think part of this is that most other gameplay elements in Thief, and by extension TDM, seem so much smoother that this one feature really sticks out at me like a sore thumb.

 

As far as immersion goes, I don't like that it often leads you as a player to pick up loot that you might not have realized was loot to begin with. Personally I find this more immersion breaking than anything regarding unusuable doors not having knobs or usable windows not being very clear.

 

I also don't like this because it's inconsistent with the behavior a lot of non-loot objects that are similar to and can potentially be loot. This inconsistency makes the loot a bit less "flexible", for lack of a better word for it, and it creates more situations where an author might have to work around or fight this behavior.

For example, it doesn't easily allow for situations involving more manipulation of the loot itself would be required, like perhaps it has been booby trapped, has a objects placed on top of it that may potential make noise, or is put inside a cage where you have to manipulate it out somehow (there is at least one of this last example in one of the FMs).

It also creates problems if for some reason the player might not want to pick up all the loot. I recently posted another thread about such an idea and realized that behavior of the loot is somewhat of an obstacle to this.

By making this behavior more versatile and consistent, FM authors and players won't have to work around or fight the existing behavior as much to create unique challenges in FMs.

 

Unfortunately, I know this is a behavior is one that a lot of Thief and TDM players are very accustomed to and it would feel awkward for a while for a lot of people if it were ever changed.

However, I also feel that one of the good things about TDM is that it tries to improve upon Thief's gameplay in some ways rather than copy it directly, though admittedly this might be a potentially risky improvement.

 

What do you think?

Edited May 4, 2011 by Professor Paul1290

[Springheel]

We discussed this early in development, but decided against it (obviously). I forget what the main arguments were now.

 

However, many of the things you mention above could still be done by reducing the frob range/bias of the loot.

[OrbWeaver]

Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me. Forcing every player to hit an extra key every time they pick up a piece of loot just on the off-chance that an occasional map author will want to create a gameplay situation involving manipulatable loot doesn't seem like a net win usability-wise.

[Sotha]

Yeah, it feels that objects are different in the world.

Junk gets picked up in the frobber.

Items and loot insta-disappear into the inventory.

 

The player can never frob and touch and rotate their valuables, they can only marvel junk.

 

But I can't see any alternatives, though. Current system has the best useability. And not all loot is moveable. And often the player needs to grab items quickly when the guards look the other way. Making this harder feels like a bad move.

[Glyph Seeker]

I think TDM is a big improvement on Thief in just how hard you have to work to find nice trinkets like discarded jewels / rings - I found a real bit of pleasure in one FM where I found letters urging someone to hide a paganish ring - I searched his office and just saw it glinting at the bottom of a tall amphora!

 

I know what you mean - but I think it's each according to his desires when building a FM.

 

My suspension of disbelief is stretched in mansion FMs I play where I am lugging round about 20 /solid gold/ statues of lions and rattly plates / cutlery / GIANT TROPHIES without making any noise. =-P The worst bit of loot is without a doubt the vintage wines. I used to walk quite a distance to get my bottles of ale from the supermarket up the hill when I didn't have a car - and lugging multiple glass bottle of fluid about is exhausting and noisy in the best of circumstances - also - when did our psuedo-Garretts get such a good eye for picking out the best vintages? ;-P

 

I take great joy in finding those little rings - necklaces, tiny bags of gems. When I learn DR I hope to leave readable clues and leave smaller stashes in places - with a low loot threshold.

 

Just my personal response. =3

[Professor Paul1290]

We discussed this early in development, but decided against it (obviously). I forget what the main arguments were now.

 

However, many of the things you mention above could still be done by reducing the frob range/bias of the loot.

 

In any case I am very glad that you guys at least considered it at one point.

 

Many game developers and modders seem overlook things like this entirely.

 

 

Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me. Forcing every player to hit an extra key every time they pick up a piece of loot just on the off-chance that an occasional map author will want to create a gameplay situation involving manipulatable loot doesn't seem like a net win usability-wise.

 

It's not just about specific situations, this is also about things we might not be able to plan for or forsee, at least not in the form of specific examples.

 

Part of encouraging emergent gameplay is giving the players a set of actions they can "trust" to a reasonable degree. You usually want systems that behave consistently over a variety of cases rather than one with a lot of exceptions.

For example, part of why the mantling system in TDM works so well is that the player generally knows what they can mantle on without additional cues, and objects that look like they can be mantled but can't are an exception rather than the norm. The player can "trust" this mechanic to work at least to the extent that's reasonable.

 

As an opposite example, something that I think would be nice to improve TDM is the more unusual climbables such as vines and chains. These can work different between maps and as such a lot of players don't consider them options as much because their behavior is not consistent between maps, and whether they are climbable or not feels rather arbitrary. I often don't feel like I can "trust" this mechanic to work.

Whether this can or should be fixed is probably best saved for a different discussion because it has a lot to do with consistency, problems with existing maps, and giving FM authors the freedom to do what they want, but you get what I mean.

 

Back on topic, right now as Sotha also pointed out, loot items are treated as exceptions to the normal rules regarding normal items to an extent that they feel like completely different idea. This rather inhibits the player's ability to "trust" that movable items will behave in a certain way. Given how versatile the physics and ability to manipulate objects in TDM is, this can be rather jarring. Not to mention it causes unpredictable behavior with unusual loot items where non-loot and loot may overlap. We can't exactly predict how the player might use their ability to manipulate certain objects, but we can try to make the behavior more predictable to a reasonable extent to encourage its use.

 

 

On the other hand, you are definitely right that usability is an issue with this sort of thing. There is a balance between having versatility and usability that often comes in to this sort of thing, which is why I suggest this with quite a bit of uncertainty and doubt. Sure adding more systems to a game can give it greater depth and variation, but it can also make the game harder and harder to learn and play. Again, I can definitely see why this would feel very awkward to players used to the existing behavior which is why I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss.

 

 

Yeah, it feels that objects are different in the world.

Junk gets picked up in the frobber.

Items and loot insta-disappear into the inventory.

 

The player can never frob and touch and rotate their valuables, they can only marvel junk.

 

But I can't see any alternatives, though. Current system has the best useability. And not all loot is moveable. And often the player needs to grab items quickly when the guards look the other way. Making this harder feels like a bad move.

 

That is a very good point. The existing maps have been made assuming the current rules would apply, so I'd imagine there may be loot items that would be broken if this was changed and would in essence become exceptions to the new rules.

 

 

Another possible but far more sloppy alternative would be to make a different "pick up and move" action that would work the same for all movable items, like the way Bethesda does it in their later games. This would introduce a consistent behavior that the player can rely on to pick up and move anything movable without interfering with the existing behavior.

Of course, this would be rather messy way of handling it and not something I would want the mod team to waste time on unless there's no reason not to.

 

 

I think TDM is a big improvement on Thief in just how hard you have to work to find nice trinkets like discarded jewels / rings - I found a real bit of pleasure in one FM where I found letters urging someone to hide a paganish ring - I searched his office and just saw it glinting at the bottom of a tall amphora!

 

I that's probably why I wouldn't mind making it a bit more difficult to get loot in TDM. I kind of feel that the loot feels cheapened when you can scoop it up like a vacuum cleaner out of the chest or closet in an instant, especially in FMs where there's often many loot items in one place.

 

Of course, that's very much a matter of personal preference.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Professor Paul1290

[grayman]

It's a great feeling to find a treasure comprising stacks and stacks of coins and other valuables. Hoovering them up is quick and satisfying. Having to hit another key to decide what to do with each item would cause it to become a painfully slow process. Add an approaching guard and you can understand why I'd want to be long gone as quickly as possible.

 

Special loot items that the mapper attaches specific behavior to--like booby traps--could be created with scripting. I believe non-loot counterparts are available for all loot items. A storyline where the thief is warned that a previous thief was blown to bits by the mansion-owner's penchant for boobytrapping fake loot, would cause the thief to be more cautious, and to carefully seek out the "true" treasure and avoid the "false" treasure.

[Springheel]

Back on topic, right now as Sotha also pointed out, loot items are treated as exceptions to the normal rules regarding normal items to an extent that they feel like completely different idea.

 

Loot objects fit perfectly into the current rules. Anything the player is assumed to carry on their person (weapons, inventory objects, loot) goes immediately into inventory when frobbed. Anything else is a "junk" object, and does not go into inventory. Changing loot would actually make the system less intuitive, as you would now have to frob and 'use' every junk object to tell whether it is loot or not.

[Professor Paul1290]

Loot objects fit perfectly into the current rules. Anything the player is assumed to carry on their person (weapons, inventory objects, loot) goes immediately into inventory when frobbed. Anything else is a "junk" object, and does not go into inventory. Changing loot would actually make the system less intuitive, as you would now have to frob and 'use' every junk object to tell whether it is loot or not.

 

Put that way it does make more sense. I guess I'm thinking of this oddly.

 

I'm thinking more along the lines of the loot as a ordinary object or "junk object" that happens to be valuable rather than something you carry that happens to look like "junk". It's probably because I use and move around a lot of physics objects when I play.

[chumbucket91]

This topic actually fits with the topic right below it in the general discussion forum right now (About carrying a maximum amount of loot) (EDIT: That you are also the original poster of, apparently.): It would be an interesting mechanic if the player had a "loot sack" that could carry a maximum weight of items, and in order to put something in the "loot sack" you had to pick up a moveable item, and then use it. A game mechanic could be made out of determining which items in your loot sack were actually valuable enough to be considered loot, and which were junk - if you picked up a junk object you could also put it in the loot sack. The challenge would be to find/guess which movables in the game were junk and which were valuable - since you could only carry so much stuff.

 

The counterpoint, of course, is that this is completely contrary to the way Thief games have worked before, and is a change to a widely accepted convention in a game engine that's already finalized and released... yeeeah.

 

You could probably make this mechanic in an individual FM using the Scripting system in DarkRadiant, with enough work. Give every movable in your map a "weight", a "value", and a frobbable tag that, when "used" while "held" caused the item to disappear into your "loot sack" until "weight" was greater than "loot sack capacity", and at the end of the mission your total "loot" score was the sum of the "value" scores of everything in your sack.

[stumpy]

assigning loot to another key just wouldn't track with the ability to pick up objects and manipulate them with the mouse wheel.

[Maethius]

I think the whole point of the current mechanic is that if it's valuable Garrett pockets it (hence straight into inventory) and he picks it up and deems it not valuable he has to do something else with it.

 

This works, keep it.