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Some Feedback and An Attemp on Improving the AI


Fausst

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I thought it was a percentage-based system based on how much light you're in? So you reach a point where you're dark enough that the modifier has no real effect.

It would be nice if it was a percentage based penalty but I can only see the penalty when the gem is not completely dark or when it is just completely dark.

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I can't remember anymore...recall discussing it with greebo ages ago, but I forget the specifics. I remember that it wasn't as harsh as I thought it should be.

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I thought it was a percentage-based system based on how much light you're in? So you reach a point where you're dark enough that the modifier has no real effect.

 

There is a bit of a high end and a low end, but even when you're light gem is as low as level 3 you can still notice the difference. It's only when the gem gets down to say level 1 or 2 in low light that you don't notice the difference, but you pretty much have to be crouched to achieve those levels in most cases.

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So then it's not just an add (.2 * (player velocity)) levels to lightgem. That's what I was getting at before. Equiping a sword adds +3 (or is it 4?) levels to the lightgem regardless of the light level you're in, IIRC. I wish movement worked the same way.

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4- The ai doesn't seem to care about opened doors or movement on doors. You can just play with a door in front of the ai and they won't react to it as I observed. There is some evidence in the code trying to improve on this but I am not sure about the effects. And there isn't any awareness in AI about the door sound. Is there?

 

That's true. AI aren't designed to react to many occurrences that you or I would react to in real life. But I don't think I'd like to see them reacting to opening doors or door-opening sounds they might hear. After all, they are surrounded by patrolling friends that use doors, so doors opening/closing/making noise aren't in and of themselves interesting/alarming events.

 

That's reasonable grayman and I totally agree with your last sentence.

 

But speaking of doors sound: It always feels odd to me that AI do not react to lockpicking sounds. That always bugged me in Thief as well: If the sound of picking a lock isn't an unnatural alarming event for an AI, what else Is?! ,-)

Having an AI reaction to lockpickig sound would be great and add to gameplay in my opinion (if technically possible).

 

I am alone on this?

"To rush is without doubt the most important enemy of joy" ~ Thieves Saying

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But speaking of doors sound: It always feels odd to me that AI do not react to lockpicking sounds. That always bugged me in Thief as well: If the sound of picking a lock isn't an unnatural alarming event for an AI, what else Is?! ,-)

Having an AI reaction to lockpickig sound would be great and add to gameplay in my opinion (if technically possible).

 

I am alone on this?

 

Lockpicking is not a noisy activity. It's more a tactile activity. The guards wouldn't hear it.

 

In the game, the sound is probably there to give the player feedback on how he's doing.

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It would suck to be alerting a guard behind the door you are picking (don't know he's there), or when you are last minute picking a door to slip inside and hide and an approching guard gets suspicious.

 

Falls into the same category as click-clack shoes. No a thief wouldn't wear them, but it's an audio feedback for the player. It's also something to make the game more difficult.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Thank you for the explanation regard the lockpicking sound. Your thoughts do make sense.

 

I do agree if you regard lockpicking (and player feet) sound as pure gameplay and aural help feature. However, the less I have to seperate things I see and listen to in the game into a category "this is the game world" and "those is just for gaming help" the more the game immersion. To me TDM and Thief are that much immersive worlds every sound subconsciously IS part of game world - also player help sounds like lockpicking and player feet. That making it hard for me to break free from immersion and remember "hey nobody but me hear that sounds". Would I like to break free from immersion? No :-) ... and still will try to make no lockpicking sound if some AI's are around while playing a map.

But I do understand now why you did implement lockpicking sounds without AI reacting for reasons you mentioned.

"To rush is without doubt the most important enemy of joy" ~ Thieves Saying

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Well, as far as footsteps. The player basically hears what the guards hear. It's not the player is stomping and the guard can't hear it.

 

Player can't hear own footsteps while sneaking, neither can guards. Player hears own footsteps, you better be careful because guards can too. It's a good gameplay mechanic for feedback. My point was that in real life a cutpurse would wear softer shoes to minimize the noise. That just doesn't translate well into gameplay, the footsteps sounds add challenge, without them you could run around at will, as long as they didn't see you.

While i don't think we need to make everything super realistic difficult, that's one area where it helps to add a challenge without making it impossible.

-----------

 

Lockpicking isn't the same. It would add extra difficulty while you have you back turned, are trying to focus and concentrate on a task. Not like a book, 'cause you can read a book, while in a shadow AND looking over the corner for someone coming. Picking a lock you are looking at the door.

Also, the player can hear the lockpicking because they have their face in the lock. While it might be 'unaturally loud' , augemented for easy of picking (in real life you could feel the pins clicking), it's not immersion breaking imo.

But the player is right up next to the lock, guards are several feet away at least. It would be like hearing a drip of water, up close it might seem quite loud, several feet away it's barely audible.

 

Instead of the lockpick making noise to make it hard authors should make it tense by having patrolling guards and light, forcing the player to be smart and quick about it (hopefully not too quick, sucks to have to try and pick a door ten times because the patrols are too tight)

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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  • 1 month later...

I agree with mostly what you said Baddcog, but some complaints about this may decrease if the lock-picking sound was much quieter

 

For me, if the guards could hear it, I would just pause the picking until they passed.. If I have to stop every now and then to look up and down the hall for any guards coming, that is fine and good.

 

If guards are stationed by the door, then I have to figure another way in, or figure how to move them to a different area ( most likely by a diversion).

 

As you said, locking picking in lighted area... that situation gives a great suspense-tense situation which makes for a good theiveing game. If you can do that - and most can, & sometimes you get caught -( but that is a thief's life) - you can easily manage the lockpicking if the guards can hear the sounds.

 

I really wonder if in the very beginning of the thief games, guards could hear lock-picking sounds would people be complaining about it?

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IIRC the Thief guards did react to lockpicking. They would only mutter something about "what is that noise?", but they wouldn't search or care past that point.

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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If the guard only commented on it (with no raise of their alert level, not even the slightest), then it would make for a bit more excitement for the player, until he finds out (or knows) that this is pure audio, so they would just keep lockpicking because the know the guard can't hear them.

 

If implemented, it would need a very small raise on the alertness, so the player has actually to pause if a guard is near.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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For the record, lockpicking is something I have outlined for the "Security Areas" feature, so in a low-security area you could have a friendly guard AI until he saw you lockpicking, then he'd turn hostile. But it's only for the vis stim (he sees you while you're lockpicking), not the sound alert.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Also, with regard to friendly AI in future missions, I wonder if they will attack the player if he is aggressive? In DXIW, if you threw objects at friendly NPCs, they would just keep saying "stop throwing things at me!" but never do anything.

 

But in TDS if you did it more than twice, they would say "that's it!", pull their sword and come after you. That really put a smile on my face the first time I saw it.

 

I guess with the new "objects can damage NPCs feature" in 1.08, it could be classified as an attack if the player starts throwign bottles at them.

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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