Sometimes I wish TDM were harder

[AluminumHaste]

Just recorded the first few minutes of Lords and Legacy on Expert Difficulty, wanted to share how easy the AI can be with a little practice.

 

Video is still uploading, should be ready in a few hours, but I have to go to 2 Thanksgiving dinners, be back later Taffers.

 

[zenid]

Love how you post this right after a whole discussion about TDM being too difficult But yeah, agree!

A tiny bit off-topic, would there be a way to limit the number of saves you can make in order to make the game harder?

Like some sort of optional objective: "Deal with the consequences! Only 3 saves!" or something along these lines

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

[grayman]

Too hard to the left of us!

 

Too easy to the right of us!

 

We need one big frackin slider on the main menu that has Easy on one end and Hard on the other, and be done with it.

[AluminumHaste]

Lol just wait for the video

[Sotha]

@grayman,

You said it... But if there is the same amount of whining on the both sides, the difficulty is ON THE AVERAGE perfectly spot-on!

 

People aren't nowaday used to games being difficult when they first pick it up, and the veterans have played so much they are sneaking circles around the AI without being winded.

[zergrush]

I don't think TDM should be "harder", but I wish there were more missions with no blackjacks and a "don't kill anyone" goal, on max difficulty.

[grayman]

I remember when my son was playing video games, growing up. He'd get a new game, and after a half hour, he'd come out of his room whining about how hard it was, and that he was never going to beat it and why did we buy him this game (or why did he waste his allowance on it) and we shoulda bought an easier game and can we take it back, blah blah blah.

 

Then he'd calm down, go back and try again, and beat the thing a few days later.

 

Then on to the next game, same pattern of whining, same outcome.

 

My point on the "it's too hard" thread was that if you persevere and put in the time, you'll probably overcome the difficulities. I'm not sure I got the point across, though.

 

I'm not sure what I'm going to say once I see the OP video. But--fair warning--I'm working on two missions atm, and I still have time to make them the hardest bloodiest things you ever saw.

 

Ironically, when my son became a teenager and we worked on a Doom2 mod with a group of people, his mission was BY FAR the most difficult of all of them. I had to go in and cut the difficulty back, and it was still the hardest. I always thought he made it to get back at all the designers who repeatedly messed with his first half hour with new video games.

[SirGen]

Even though the AI may not notice other missing guards, or start searching for an intruder based on how many lights have been put out. I like to imagine that they would become suspicious if too many people turn up missing, or too many lights go out. By sneaking around the AI, instead of knocking them out, and putting out only a few lights here and there in an attempt to simulate how I might go about a heist in real life, the game has become much harder for me. I do realize that guards will mention something about lights going out, but they never seem to do anything about it.

 

In short, I find it much harder to sneak around threats and obstacles than to neutralize them.

Edited October 13, 2013 by SirGen

[AluminumHaste]

Video is up.

AI present very little trouble, all it takes is practice, and to be cognizant of your surroundings.

[HMart]

You guys will never please everyone if you make it much harder new players will just be frustrated fast and leave the game, remember guys this is a game not a simulation, fun above all just my two cents.

[IHaveReturned]

I dunno if you should be using the description "a little practice" in the same post that contains a video of you tackling the AI so fluidly and expertly it looks almost staged. You have clearly played that mission more than once before. If you were trying to make a convincing point in stead of preaching to the choir, I mean.

 

@grayman:

Don't worry. Your point was not so revolutionary that it needed getting across, but still it did. It was, unfortunately, itself off-point towards what it was replying to.

[AluminumHaste]

You are right I've played it before...... Once. That was second time.

[PranQster]

I think greater difficulty is best achieved by placement of AI, their pathfinding, ground texturing, and clever lighting. If you make it hard to get behind them, you've greatly increased the difficulty.

With that in mind, could AI, paths, and lighting all be (easily) made to vary depending upon which difficulty level is set? Could 'diff_0_nospawn' '0' be set on AI, paths, lights etc for easy mode, and set to '1' on the other two modes, etc.?

Potentially you could have a single map with differing light radius on certain lights, different AI, ai spawn points, paths, etc., all based on difficulty chosen.

Then easy mode could be really easy, medium could be what is considered 'normal', and hard could have the maximum lighting, minimum weapons, and the most clever AI pathfinding.

I imagine you'd have to put the varying AI, paths, lights, etc. into their own layers in DR to keep it all straight.

Edited October 13, 2013 by PranQster

[grayman]

Could 'diff_0_nospawn' '0' be set on AI, paths, lights etc for easy mode, and set to '1' on the other two modes, etc.?

 

Yes.

[Diego]

if there is the same amount of whining on the both sides, the difficulty is ON THE AVERAGE perfectly spot-on!

 

Good one

The difficulty settings existent should fulfill this difference though.

[SirGen]

You guys will never please everyone if you make it much harder new players will just be frustrated fast and leave the game, remember guys this is a game not a simulation, fun above all just my two cents.

Good point. That is one reason why I am an advocate of difficulty adjustment. Right now TDM allows for the difficulty adjustment of: AI Vision, Lockpicking, Combat difficulty, Melee:Auto Parry(Enabled or Disabled), Bow: Attached Aimer(enabled or Disabled) and Lightgem(enabled or Disabled). I would like to see the player's health and enemies' health adjusted separately from combat difficulty. Adjusting AI's hearing would be nice too. Edited October 13, 2013 by SirGen

[Serpentine]

Good point. That is one reason why I am an advocate of difficulty adjustment. Right now TDM allows for the difficulty adjustment of: AI Vision, Lockpicking, Combat difficulty, Melee:Auto Parry(Enabled or Disabled), Bow: Attached Aimer(enabled or Disabled) and Lightgem(enabled or Disabled). I would like to see the player's health and enemies' health adjusted separately from combat difficulty. Adjusting AI's hearing would be nice too.

So many variables will/do come back to bite us all in the ass.

AI is way too complex as is - code wise (not badly written, just... wow its pretty insane in there)

[SirGen]

So many variables will/do come back to bite us all in the ass.

AI is way too complex as is - code wise (not badly written, just... wow its pretty insane in there)

I know very little about coding. The adjustments that I mentioned would be nice, but are definitely not necessary. I've suggested quite a few things for TDM, but I am very happy with it the way it is.

[Serpentine]

I know very little about coding. The adjustments that I mentioned would be nice, but are definitely not necessary. I've suggested quite a few things for TDM, but I am very happy with it the way it is.

(This post isn't meant to offend, but is more my take of the balance of options/variables and a 'good solution')

 

It's not even down to the code.

 

These changes are nearly invisible to the player.

• How many HP does the AI have? Who cares - it's not dead yet.
  
• How far can he hear? Why does that guard hear better than that other guard?
  
• Why do the guards on this map see me all the time, but on other maps I was fine?
  
• Why does this specific AI not die, and I've killed plenty in the past with less.
  

This isn't a shooter with simple "I've been seen now I shoot him until he's dead while he runs in a straight line towards me". But we can use it as an example of sorts.

 

In general : The player has certain expectations and changing them constantly, specially when it is invisible (consider people who are challenged to notice different types of helmets!). A lot of what makes a game enjoyable comes from both the challenge, but also understanding what level that challenge was from your previous experience, and then beating that.

 

When in the shooter you manage to kill what you know is a significantly more tricky opponent, at the same time as normal gameplay, it feels way better than just mowing down a horde of the same peons. If the tricky AI was replaced with a normal peon, you lose that. If all of the peons are replaced with the tricky AI, you lose normal players. The balance in this case is explicit due to the visible difference and beating expectations around that.

 

If you think about Painkiller - The fights were well staged, they mixed up the AI types and always gave you lots of weak AI to pad it out and make it hectic, they didn't just give you the tough guys, and if they gave you a bunch of peons only, it was sort of the 'bonus round' or intro to something bigger.

 

It's also why I think the real take-away portion of a book like Donald A. Normal - The Design of Everyday Things is something that crosses a lot of everyday topics, and shows that problems are often designer created. In my view : by trying to appeal to the 'everything is possible', but without balancing it out with what are realistic use-cases (open ended on purpose). Then again ~game devs~ like to pick apart books like that for the tiny semantics.

 

In all : Difficulty changes require visibility to be appreciated. The mapper controls the environment, the most visible of all, use of which is better than twiddling spawn args.

Edited October 14, 2013 by Serpentine

[Springheel]

I do realize that guards will mention something about lights going out, but they never seem to do anything about it.

 

It's up to mappers to indicate whether lights are "suspicious". If AI see enough suspicious lights go out, they will decide there's an intruder.

[SirGen]

It's up to mappers to indicate whether lights are "suspicious". If AI see enough suspicious lights go out, they will decide there's an intruder.

Oh, cool! That's good to know

[AluminumHaste]

I dunno if you should be using the description "a little practice" in the same post that contains a video of you tackling the AI so fluidly and expertly it looks almost staged. You have clearly played that mission more than once before. If you were trying to make a convincing point in stead of preaching to the choir, I mean.

 

@grayman:

Don't worry. Your point was not so revolutionary that it needed getting across, but still it did. It was, unfortunately, itself off-point towards what it was replying to.

 

The point is that you mentioned that you were a skilled ghoster in Thief 1/2. I'm terrible at ghosting, don't have the patience for it, but I recognize the skill and planning it takes to successfully ghost missions. I don't discount the mechanic simply because I can't do it. I especially hate forced Ghost objectives in missions, as I usually have to quicksave/quickload over and over again just to get through it. While someone like you might be able to do it with only one save.

 

I would watch a video of you ghosting and clap enthusiastically at your skill that you took time to learn and master.

 

Blackjacking in TDM is no different. It's hard at first, sometimes seemingly impossible. But after some practice it becomes doable, then after more practice it becomes easy. I've not mastered blackjacking yet, I still screw it up sometimes, but I've put in the time to learn it well, so I'm pretty good at it.

 

Anyways that's my view; wanting to have something changed simply because you can't do it, is not the way to go about it. It's not broken, you just suck at it

[Boxsmith]

I don't think TDM should be "harder", but I wish there were more missions with no blackjacks and a "don't kill anyone" goal, on max difficulty.

 

My beef with the blackjack is that it's something you can use to knock anyone out, at any time, for no resource cost and with little consequence. In a game about non-confrontation that's one hell of a mechanical aberration. There are a ton of other (far more interesting) tools you can use to bypass or eliminate a guard, but they're limited in quantity and many are risky for the user. If you stay away from the blackjack, every time you think about eliminating a guard you have to make a calculated decision. Is it economical? Is it too risky? Do my present surroundings accommodate the item's particular quirks? Would another item work better? That kind of resource management can be really engaging. Otherwise, one quickly tends to forget about anything other than rope arrows and ol' clubby because unlimited free KOs are the path of least resistance. Frankly, it's kind of boring. Meanwhile the mansion gradually gets emptier and bizarrely, no-one seems to notice.

 

There's a lot of stuff you could do to mitigate that on a per-map basis without ditching the blackjack, but unless it's readily, physically observable to the player (I think serpentine made this point earlier), it just results in an inconsistent experience for the player. TDM's missions can be a hell of a hodge-podge, and while that has many virtues, it can also make the whole thing feel rougher around the edges than it ought to be.

 

So uh, yeah. What zergrush said, sorta. My humble request to mappers is more FMs sans blackjack, but more tools. Unless you're playing on easy, in which case you probably need the safety net.

Edited October 14, 2013 by Boxsmith

[SirGen]

My beef with the blackjack is that it's something you can use to knock anyone out, at any time, for no resource cost and with little consequence. In a game about non-confrontation that's one hell of a mechanical aberration. There are a ton of other (far more interesting) tools you can use to bypass or eliminate a guard, but they're limited in quantity and many are risky for the user. If you stay away from the blackjack, every time you think about eliminating a guard you have to make a calculated decision. Is it economical? Is it too risky? Do my present surroundings accommodate the item's particular quirks? Would another item work better? That kind of resource management can be really engaging. Otherwise, one quickly tends to forget about anything other than rope arrows and ol' clubby because unlimited free KOs are the path of least resistance. Frankly, it's kind of boring. Meanwhile the mansion gradually gets emptier and bizarrely, no-one seems to notice.

 

There's a lot of stuff you could do to mitigate that on a per-map basis without ditching the blackjack, but unless it's readily, physically observable to the player (I think serpentine made this point earlier), it just results in an inconsistent experience for the player. TDM's missions can be a hell of a hodge-podge, and while that has many virtues, it can also make the whole thing feel rougher around the edges than it ought to be.

 

So uh, yeah. What zergrush said, sorta. More FMs sans blackjack, but more tools. Unless you're playing on easy, in which case you probably need the safety net.

Having an unlimited resource does not necessarily mean that using it is easy. Simply having the blackjack does not automatically knock out every guard. One must still use their skills to sneak up and swing the thing at the right place on the target. This is where level design comes into play e.g. patrol routes and placement of cover, be it shadows or physical cover.

[Springheel]

Exactly. There are plenty of ways to make the blackjack almost unusable, simply by having AI in pairs, without obvious ways to get behind them. Or use really loud surfaces so that you can't sneak up on them. If you still manage to knock them out, you've earned it.