First Questions

[Guest john]

Hi

 

I've just started with DarkMod and play the training-mission. I mean, the guards are extremely sensitive. Not comparable to the thief-games. Is there a way to decrease the sensitivity ?

 

As example after i took the moss-arrows from an table and shoot much of them at the floor, i am not able to reach the guard. In Thief1-3 a comparable situation is no problem.

 

 

btw: At the mentioned table with the arrows and the blackjack there lay an metallic rod. I thought, i can use it and took it: Then the game "took over control" and very noisy one item after another were pushed from the table. Is this a form of "strange humor" ;-) ?

I hope, this happens rare. Is there something to know about it ?

Edited March 12, 2012 by john

[STiFU]

You will just have to get used to what you can and can't do in TDM. After some time, you will notice you can do quite a few things without the guards noticing you. But yes, the overall difficulty in TDM is higher compared to Thief. The AI are more intelligent and in a way more sensitive to the players movement. You also may not touch them whereas in thief, you could run into the back of an AI and nothing happened... ^^

 

The same applies to that rod. You will be able to differ junk from loot and usable objects eventually. When you pickup a junk-object you will hold it up and can modify its rotation etc. Picking something about without making a rattle also takes some practice.

[Melan]

Something you may need to watch is that if you are running, the AI will notice you. My solution was to set the game to "always run", then assign a key to hold down while you are sneaking. I can get close to AI pretty reliably now, with a low margin of error on any surface except tile and metal.

 

Object manipulation also needs a bit of effort to master. Experiment with various angles of grabbing an item, learn where they will knock over other objects and where not (the training mission has an entire area dedicated to that), learn to rotate objects and bring them closer to you with the mouse wheel etc.

[SiyahParsomen]

Hi John,

 

You can't decrease sensitivity level of AI.

 

There may be couple of reasons you can't reach to guard.

 

1. Your timing maybe wrong.

 

2. When you alert AI, that may cause to change usual patrol routines.

Edited March 12, 2012 by SiyahParsomen

[jay pettitt]

Hi John

Apparently the next update to TDM is due soon(?) and brings with it some small, but significant changes to AI behaviour and the way that they ratchet up the alert levels - which will help immensely.

 

In the mean time, you just have to learn the ropes and be extra sneaky.

[Springheel]

Apparently the next update to TDM is due soon(?) and brings with it some small, but significant changes to AI behaviour and the way that they ratchet up the alert levels - which will help immensely.

 

That's news to me.

[Sir Taffsalot]

I find the best way to knock out the AI is to observe their patrol route and find somewhere to hide near where they will be passing by and wait for them. This approach requires quite a bit of patience. It is possible to just follow a guard and knock them out. I do this by alternating between sneaking and walking. It does take quite a bit of practice to get this right though.

[nbohr1more]

That's news to me.

 

I believe he's referring to the small response delay "what the?" moment that you've been discussing...

[Springheel]

I highly doubt that will be in the next update.

[Baddcog]

Not that this should be a debate thread, but seems like the guard alert change is a fairly important priority, it's something that will definitely make the mod more player friendly. And seems to be an important tweak. I also thought it was done. Is there a reason why we should hold off on that? We're trying to get as many players interested as possible and this is a major turn-off.

[jaxa]

Play maps on the "easy" difficulty level, should be less sensitive.

[New Horizon]

Given the current fps drop we are trying to solve after merging the D3 source code, perhaps release will be delayed long enough to try and implement this for 1.08. Not a given of course, but the issue with the fps drop has been quite elusive in terms of finding the cause.

[grayman]

Not that this should be a debate thread, but seems like the guard alert change is a fairly important priority, it's something that will definitely make the mod more player friendly. And seems to be an important tweak. I also thought it was done. Is there a reason why we should hold off on that? We're trying to get as many players interested as possible and this is a major turn-off.

 

[Raises head from desk ...]

 

Care to point me at the thread where this was discussed? I seem to have lost track. Sorry. Is it in the bugtracker?

 

[Puts head back on desk ...]

 

[Opens eyes ...]

 

Oh, yeah. Welcome to the mod, John.

 

[Closes eyes ...]

[Baddcog]

I don't know of a specific thread or if it's on the tracker (I've assumed it was), I know it's been being discussed for some time now though.

 

----edit-----

 

Added to bugtracker

[grayman]

Added to bugtracker

 

I see it. Thanks. I'll see what can be done w/o having to add new barks or animations. I don't know if those were mentioned wherever this was discussed.

[New Horizon]

Hey there Grayman. I think there were two issues at play.

 

 

1. A delay or grace period so the AI don't automatically jump to full alert on audio cues.

 

2. Some type of visual distance curve so that the AI doesn't jump to the highest alert from insane distances when the lightgem is fullbright. I'll see if I can find the original thread as it proposed a few approaches. Currently, the player can be so far away that that AI is barely visible, but as soon as the player steps into a bright light...the AI ramps up to full alert and comes charging. lol After a certain distance their reaction should be less severe.

[Bikerdude]

I've just started with DarkMod and play the training-mission. I mean, the guards are extremely sensitive. Not comparable to the thief-games. Is there a way to decrease the sensitivity ?

Only the mapper can do this, which I tend to do in my maps be reducing the visual & audiable sensativity. But look at it this was ghost most maps in T2 was always just to easy, TDM is closer to RL and you can work with it you just gotta learn and get used to how the Ai think in tdm.

[OrbWeaver]

But look at it this was ghost most maps in T2 was always just to easy, TDM is closer to RL

 

Not everyone enjoys ghosting or "ultimate difficulty" challenges though. As a casual (rather than hardcore) Thief player I found the difficulty level in the original games to be spot on: it was easy enough to make progress, but challenging enough to prevent the mission being a simple walk-through.

 

By contrast, the difficulty and AI acuity in TDM is so high that I don't even bother to try and actually play FMs any more, I just walk through them in god/notarget mode to appreciate the artwork and environments without having to spend half an hour and fifteen reloads figuring out how to sneak past each blackjack-immune torch-carrying hawk-eyed ninja death machine of a guard.

[Sir Taffsalot]

The whole "Dark Mod AI is too hard I wish it was like T2 AI" makes no sense to me. Any game you begin with you are rubbish at. You have to practice and get better. TDM is not a T2 clone. It is a completely different game that is inspired by the original Thief games. With practice and patience you'll be fine with the AI. Personally I find sneaking past the harder AI much more rewarding

[Sotha]

By contrast, the difficulty and AI acuity in TDM is so high that I don't even bother to try and actually play FMs any more, I just walk through them in god/notarget mode to appreciate the artwork and environments without having to spend half an hour and fifteen reloads figuring out how to sneak past each blackjack-immune torch-carrying hawk-eyed ninja death machine of a guard.

 

Holy carp!

From a mapper point of view this sentiment is awful. How many people think the same?

 

Game balance should be taken into a debate? AI difficulty slider to the options?

[New Horizon]

I see similar discussions surrounding this issue as we had with black jack difficulty ages ago. "Quit whining. You have to learn how it's different. You must suck at playing it."

Yes, there are differences that need to be learned.like the actual sensitivity levels..but there are also some issues that do need to be addressed. Such was the case with the black jack system, there were two bugs that slipped through that made it a very unreliable system because it was not behaving under the hood, how it visually represented itself.

 

It's not so much that the AI settings are ramped up too high, it's more a matter that we're missing one or two pieces of the puzzle to complete the system.

 

Visually, the AI will react the same to a fully lit lightgem at 60 meters as they do at 1meter. Fully lit and 60 meters away, that's a "CHARRRRRRRRRGE!!!!" Whether or not that AI looks like a splotch in the distance to the player or not, they're going to go to full alert and attack you. Ideally, the distance would be taken into account so that the further away the player is...the less suspicious they are to the AI at long distances...to a point where, at 60 meters...they probably wouldn't even give you a second thought.

 

Audio needs to be a bit more forgiving in terms of a grace period of some sort too....so the AI can hear something, but not have the alerts add up too quickly when they're heard in succession. That would help reward people who are doing their best to actually sneak in for a stealthy blackjack attack.

 

For the most part I think the settings actually pretty good...perhaps a slight tweak lower here and there, but overall quite reasonable. It's those two missing pieces of the puzzle that are causing the most problems.

[SeriousToni]

Don't get hastily because there is one person, who just beginned this game and maybe played for one or two hours and finds it a bit hard

 

As said before a game should be challenging sometimes. And TDM is not that hard that you must learn it for weeks to get rewarded. It's just that you need to be cautious, and that is what a thief needs to be. The times of reloading 15 times are long gone by since the black jack update. This was the only thing that frustrated me in the beginning - but it was a bug, and it's gone.

 

I personally find the old Thief games rather boring now because the AI is so much easier than the AI in TDM. It feels kinda sad because there are many great maps I wanted to play in Thief 2, but in TDM it has just gone better now.

 

I don't find it to hard. In the beginning a game should not be that easy. Maybe a slider that changes the AI awareness procentually in the menu will help the players that want it to make them more easy to slip into the game though.

 

@ New Horizon: The distance calculations plus the thinking pause for listening is a very great idea!

[Guest john]

Hi

 

Thanks for the answers. First: I started DM with the idea, it "have to be comparable" to the Thief-series.

My problem with the guard was: I thought, i had to run. So i run over the Moss-covered floor.

As i walked instead it worked ;-)

 

As i could read in the meantime here, there seems to be a problem with

unrealistic AI-Behaviour. An improvement would be great. Some Missions are

really "crazy". I started one FM (name is not important): Just in the moment it

started Guards attacked me. Reload. fast running into a nearby house. No chance

to flee/fight. The guards seems to use "radar". Then i had the idea, the creator

of the map is kidding me and i left it. ;-)

 

 

 

Nevertheless: DarkMod is great. And i am glad, that i have found it.

 

I started now with DarkRadiant. This Editor is great as the game itself.

In conjunction with DM a very intuitive work is possible.

 

Thanks to the developers ! :-)

[Baddcog]

Not everyone enjoys ghosting or "ultimate difficulty" challenges though. As a casual (rather than hardcore) Thief player I found the difficulty level in the original games to be spot on: it was easy enough to make progress, but challenging enough to prevent the mission being a simple walk-through.

 

By contrast, the difficulty and AI acuity in TDM is so high that I don't even bother to try and actually play FMs any more, I just walk through them in god/notarget mode to appreciate the artwork and environments without having to spend half an hour and fifteen reloads figuring out how to sneak past each blackjack-immune torch-carrying hawk-eyed ninja death machine of a guard.

 

They are tougher, and I'm fine with that. I got to a point where T2 was just a cakewalk. But I don't feel they are impossible and it seems like you do.

 

Springheel did fix the player crouch-run footstep volume, so that won't change how easy the ai are alerted, but it should fix the lack of feedback the player was getting on the noise they create.

 

I also don't feel it should be looked at as 'it's harder - tough it out'. But as stated, the ai are tweaked pretty well, it's just a few bugs left that make them seem too hard. I think with a little more fine tweaking they are going to be really well balanced, even if they are a bit tougher than T2. Key being tougher, not infuriating/impossible.

 

Ai accuity slider isn't that bad of an idea. We have it for lockpicks. I don't feel it needs to be too extreme though, maybe a range of 10% +/- what we have now would be good enough imo.

[Baddcog]

Hi

 

Thanks for the answers. First: I started DM with the idea, it "have to be comparable" to the Thief-series.

My problem with the guard was: I thought, i had to run. So i run over the Moss-covered floor.

As i walked instead it worked ;-)

 

As i could read in the meantime here, there seems to be a problem with

unrealistic AI-Behaviour. An improvement would be great. Some Missions are

really "crazy". I started one FM (name is not important): Just in the moment it

started Guards attacked me. Reload. fast running into a nearby house. No chance

to flee/fight. The guards seems to use "radar". Then i had the idea, the creator

of the map is kidding me and i left it. ;-)

 

 

 

Nevertheless: DarkMod is great. And i am glad, that i have found it.

 

I started now with DarkRadiant. This Editor is great as the game itself.

In conjunction with DM a very intuitive work is possible.

 

Thanks to the developers ! :-)

 

We know which FM you speak of, that is a scripted event. There's vid on u-tube too.

get to the rooftops quickly