A few things I'd love fixed and/or implemented

[CheeseshireCat]

Here goes.

 

Even back in Thief, I always wished it had a little more sense in AIs spotting you. Especially by noise. Like. AI sees you from a distance of a few hundred meters, and they always positively id you... Especially, that it was *you*, not some other AI. Yeah... But much more to the point is aural -- there are many missions where you have a room where a few steam engines work, producing such a racket, you'd not really hear a fire arrow explosion. But should you move just a little quicker... "THIEF!!!" Or a ball room with a dozen people. Top-top, BOOM-BOOM, but should *you* make a slightest noise... You know what happens. And again, AIs always, ALWAYS, know when it's *you* noising around.

 

Mantling. It's too "scripted". I had dozens of cases where I was trying to stop, move back, while mantling, but no, until the move is finished (and sometimes, it takes several seconds, or you suddenly realize you don't wanna go there because it's lighted or whatever else), you can't do anything.

 

AIs woken up to alert level 1 don't get back to sleep. You have to get them to alert 2 or more, otherwise they just stand near the bed infinitely.

 

AIs throwing rocks/stuff at you should be somewhat hampered. As is, they have Hell of a range and precision. Damn, even archers do much worse. Not that it matters in a lot of cases, but... Damn, just try throwing something yourself -- either IRL or in TDM and see the difference

[Sotha]

Even back in Thief, I always wished it had a little more sense in AIs spotting you. Especially by noise. Like. AI sees you from a distance of a few hundred meters, and they always positively id you... Especially, that it was *you*, not some other AI. Yeah... But much more to the point is aural -- there are many missions where you have a room where a few steam engines work, producing such a racket, you'd not really hear a fire arrow explosion. But should you move just a little quicker... "THIEF!!!" Or a ball room with a dozen people. Top-top, BOOM-BOOM, but should *you* make a slightest noise... You know what happens. And again, AIs always, ALWAYS, know when it's *you* noising around.

 

TDM 1.08 will include changes that prevent the AI from immediately identify you as a thief from 100m. There will be a range penalty for player detection at high distances.

 

TDM has a location system that might enable special settings in the future. In noisy room an AI could be set to get a audio acuity penalty. IIRC there was discussion about extending the location system to work with AI but I don't know the current status.

 

Mantling. It's too "scripted". I had dozens of cases where I was trying to stop, move back, while mantling, but no, until the move is finished (and sometimes, it takes several seconds, or you suddenly realize you don't wanna go there because it's lighted or whatever else), you can't do anything.

 

Yeah, I'd say it would be fine to have an abort mantling function. Maybe tap space again while mantling to interrupt it?

 

AIs woken up to alert level 1 don't get back to sleep. You have to get them to alert 2 or more, otherwise they just stand near the bed infinitely.

 

This is mapper problem. If the AI is just set to sleep, he will have no patrol nodes to go to when he awakes. If the AI is given a target patrol route, he will start walking it if he is awakened. In my newest map, The Phrase Book, I've used objective system to make sleeping AI more believable. If the sleeping AI is alerted just a tiny bit, he rises from the bed and stares for a while. If no further commotion occurs, he goes back to sleep. If the noise is high enough to make the AI to actively search, he will not go to sleep anymore, but receives a new patrol route target. If the mapper uses RITs, the mapper doesn't even need to make a separate patrol route for the AI, but just give the AI a RIT network target and one more AI gets injected into the patrol network.

 

AIs throwing rocks/stuff at you should be somewhat hampered. As is, they have Hell of a range and precision. Damn, even archers do much worse. Not that it matters in a lot of cases, but... Damn, just try throwing something yourself -- either IRL or in TDM and see the difference

 

It is a gameplay mechanic. The AI cannot follow you everywhere. They cannot make 1m jumps. They cannot climb on the table. They cannot climb ladders. They cannot crawl under tables. They need some kind of method to deal with situations that the player is visible but barely unreachable. Throwing rocks is great. This is a game: Gameplay trumps real life.

[SiyahParsomen]

Your mantling abortion feature appeals to very tiny audience. We have already abortion for bj & sword swing but it's doubtful how many of player uses or remembers that function at that time. And you said yourself mantling happens in seconds. Which means you have less than a second to think and abort mantling. Are you really that pro?

[Baddcog]

I'm with you on the rocks. I always thought it was a little overboard.

 

Sure it's dumb to have an ai stand there yelling. But infinite supply of rocks/bottle and dead aim is kind of dumb too. I think it has been toned down, but not positive.

[Springheel]

Their aim depends on how close they are and how skilled they are. Professional guards are going to hit you most of the time if you're standing up only a few meters away. If you're crouched on the other side of a room, a commoner will miss more often than hit.

[demagogue]

Yeah I've seen guards miss with their throws plenty of times. It's just easy to remember the hits I think.

 

I remember discussion on a 'cancel mantle' feature before. I think it makes sense too, like you start it and suddenly you see a guard coming around the bend and you know you'll be exposed so you want to back out. But as I understand it, I think it's a tricky thing to implement, and it may have bad side effects too.

 

I was working on the AI & locations stuff, but I can't handle it these days with all the other IRL work I have, and AI coding isn't my strong suit as it is.

[Ishtvan]

We've talked about a cancel mantle in the past. For instance, you would hit crouch to let go of a ledge and drop down, like you do to drop off of ropes, ladders and other climbing situations. We even talked about letting you drop down to a hang and then start back up again. All of this ended up being pretty hard to code within the current mantle system, thus it got shelved in favor of higher priority features. Someone could still come help out and implement it; it's all possible to implement, given enough time, even shimmying sideways along ledges, but that would break a lot of maps.

 

We also talked about "noise masking" from loud, expected noises in the room. This feature was planned to be in from the very beginning, and there is some skeleton code for it, but it also fell by the wayside in favor of more important things.