Sometimes I wish TDM were harder

[Springheel]

Name calling doesn't help anything either.

[161803398874989]

Name calling doesn't help anything either.

I'm pointing out that the tone of the discussion isn't very productive, so we might see some productive discussion rather than whatever this is. Making an effort (however minor) to improve it.

 

I'd say it helps more than saying nothing.

[New Horizon]

Well, his attitude hasn't helped much at all.

[Sotha]

Heh... What surprises me that people still read this stuff, or spend time commenting this.

 

Oops, just did it myself... Dang! :-P

[Springheel]

I'm pointing out that the tone of the discussion isn't very productive, so we might see some productive discussion rather than whatever this is. Making an effort (however minor) to improve it.

 

I'm all for productive discussion. But calling someone "dickweed" while lecturing them on productive discussion scores a bit high on the irony meter, don't you think?

 

The rest of your quote I can agree with.

[Xarg]

Hahaha, nice one. On topic, do we have any AI with shields? Block animations?

[Springheel]

do we have any AI with shields? Block animations?

 

No and no, unfortunately.

 

edit: well, attaching a shield would not be difficult, and you could probably use the "torch" animations and have it look half-decent. But the AI wouldn't use it functionally.

[Sotha]

Yep, a shield would probably be like armor: it nullifies damage for the area it covers.

 

Blocking animations would be easy to do as well, but the AI would need code support for blocking behavior... And in the end, blocking wouldn't be so important for AI in a stealth game. Armor and parrying fills that function already.

[Xarg]

For player vs AI, sure. What if someone wanted to create a mission where you have to assist for/against or work against both sides in a battle or a siege? There's plenty of use for shields and blocking in TDM, if people want to craft the scenes where they're appropriate. For busting into a mansion though, I agree with you that they'd be entirely pointless/overkill/not fitting the theme of the mission.

[Sotha]

Hm.. Well in such a rare case one could make a custom mission-based stuff.

 

We do have the possibility having def_attached objects replacing animations. Thus, when the AI would have a def_attached shield, he would replace all parry anims with a shield block anim.

 

This would not even require any new coding, just an entitydef for a working def_attached shield and the animations, of course.The shield blocl would be simply and aesthetic extension of the parry mechanism, and the shield model of course functions as added armor. It could be done, I think.

[Xarg]

I wonder if there is already an existing suitable animation for another task that could be used in place of the parry animation. That might be something to look into.

[Sotha]

The shield is held in the left hand, so there is no anim to replace it convincingly, that I know for sure.

 

The only way is to make a new anim, which should be doable by anyone with Arcturus' excellent animation rig. All it takes is time and motivation.

[IHaveReturned]

@IHaveReturned : all the time you spend with long winded replies you could've gotten quite a bit of practice getting better with TDM style blackjacking and figure the differences.

I doubt it. They don't take that long.

And doing so would be completely sidestepping the point that I shouldn't have to. I have ragequit one time too many to even want to try anyway. I have enough completely new games requiring completely new skillsets as it is, I don't need another.

 

 

And about TDM and the sequel / clone argument...I will bet that the mechanics to NuThief will require a bit different of blackjack technique. Will we scream that NuThief isn't a true sequel / reboot / etc. even though legally it carries the Thief name? If anyone disagrees, then it's only more fuel that says that it is not a sequel / clone. Man, even TDS had a slightly different blackjacking mechanic then TDP/TMA.

So, in other words, I have left you with the impression that I think what ISA and EM have done are good and respectable things? Cause that is the complete opposite of what I think and have said. I criticize those games even more than I do TDM, but they at least have the advantage that I will be able to play them and and find some enjoyment in that.

 

heheh

Heheheh.

(What are we snidely laughing at' date=' here? Is it that we fail to present any counterargument of substance and have to revert to innuendo and ridicule as a last resort, perhaps? Is that really something to laugh at?)

Hehehehehe.

 

So your definition of "happy to let the issue rest" is to come back three months later and post a wall of text about it?

Since I said, "unless the opposition keeps pretending to not have understood what I am saying" and they did, then yes. I am still waiting for that to happen.

 

And how many reviews have you found that share your concern?

I'll let you know when there are any.

So far the reviews thread is full of nothing but tweets, foreign language stuff, forum posts and one-page first impressions, some of which admit to being in the process of downloading or having barely played for a few hours. Even the best of them are the equivalent of these NuThief previews that have surfaced recently, where people are gushing over features LGS!Thief had 15 years ago as if that was laudable on its own. And that is being generous. Even the Mod of the Year award is useless cause TDM could win that on its technical achievements alone, even if all arrows were replaced with CoD guns.

 

If you think these count as real reviews, why don't you look through them for criticism. I just did to double check and all I could find were complaints of the occasional bug. So if these count as reviews by your logic, then I guess the dev team can pat itself on the back for having made one of the few 10 out of 10, universally praised games ever.

...or you can accept that these are at worst one-paragraph endorsements, at best "Wow! This is fan-made?!" first impressions. Not actual reviews.

 

 

Since both of your questions you already possessed the knowledge to answer, and still you asked, I can only assume you are sore over my comments. Fair enough, but if that causes you to be difficult rather than willing to accept constructive criticism, then that serves only to quell what little hope I still have of this game living up to its potential.

Thank god for NH, the most rational and level-headed Thief fan I know.

 

I don't know what the hell point your trying to make because' date=' quite frankly, you're not being clear.

 

Can you...clearly and succinctly...express the point your trying to make? [/quote']

Sad that my points have gotten lost. Alright, I'll do my best.

 

I have twice now started playing TDM using my Thief skillsets, even on the lowest difficulty and AI settings, and found myself in endless, frustrating quickload loops again and again because the challenge has been ramped up to a frustrating degree, until I ragequit and uninstalled the game. The specific reasons for this:

 

* In illuminated areas, the AI has a seeminly random chance from 50-70 % depending on awareness, of spotting you behind him, even standing still on a carpet, instantly activating a second level alert that turns to a third level charge. In practice, I can't work behind AI unless there is darkness.

 

* Blackjack reach has been reduced to the point where it takes a whole new level of skill to KO guards without touching them, and on top this has to happen in the precise spot where they are not wearing helmets, an occurrence grossly more frequent than in LGS!Thief.

 

These are the major sinners. There are other aspects of the game that are similarly harder than before, but these would have been more acceptable if they didn't compound on the above two:

 

* Flashbombs require great presicion to throw in such a way as to affect guards that they are almost useless. Even when they do work guards seem to be alerted from seeing friends get stunned and become impossible to KO even in flashed state.

 

* Swordfighting is clunky and hard as hell. This coming from someone who is a goddamn master of Mount & Blade and Thief swordfighting. I was willing to try but it felt too unfair, too clunkly to be worth the effort. It felt like something better left to a patch. I see one is on the way for this, so it should come as no surprise.

 

* Guards noticing corpses that should be mostly or completely hidden in shadow.

 

*Lockpicking. Now, it is an improvement in many ways to be sure, but that presumes a vanilla Thief difficulty too. With the above taken into consideration, having to spend extra time and concentration on lockpicking just compounds on the whole problem.

 

Using my Thief skills, I am faced with a hard, hard game. One where I cannot work in illuminated areas, must struggle to KO people, can't rely on tools to "cheat", risk rising alerts when I think I am safe, and have to work harder on lockpicking under these conditions. Not enjoyable challenge hard, frustration hard. I originally signed up here to report these as the bugs I were convinced they were. It seemed obvious to me that a Thief clone made by Thief fans for Thief fans would have gameplay as similar to that of Thief as possible. And a significant overlap of skillset. What I learned, both from the fanboy brigade and the devs themselves, was that these seeming flaws were in fact features! That this Thief clone boasting only differences in lore and trademarks, was in fact supposed to be treated like its own derivative game, with its own new mechanics, ones far harder than the ones I was used to from Thief. A game itself considered hardcore these days.

 

Being sore already due to this community having been screwed over first by ISA and now EM, with TDM hailed as the true successor to LGS legacy, our one last chance at modern LGS!Thief, I got angry and critical. Angry and critical of fan devs, who I was sure were as pissed at AAA publishers and their ways as me, but who still turned around and wasted their chance at showing these two studios and the world how it should be done, and that on some hardcore veteran map pack unsuitable for public or even regular fanbase consumption.

 

I still submit that when you make a project as ambitious and polished as this, and aim it at the Thief fanbase at large, if not the entire stealth gaming community, doing so on the strength of the Thief titles more than independent acclaim, then at the very least it should permit gameplay and challenge close to Thief. Add whatever other options and challenges on top, that is awesome, cause there is clearly a demand. But don't get so hung up in the hardcore community surrounding you that you make hardcore challenge all there is to TDM. Don't squader this one opportunity for greatness by lacking the most obvious, core feature imaginable: Thief-level gameplay.

 

Besides, TDM is now completely open-source, just fork it and fix all the points you do not like.

Maybe I think a little bigger than that and want to share with everyone. In which case I'd still be downvoted by the team, even if I did manage such a monstrous task. I like to think I am contributing how I can. My first post was clearly constructive, and if it isn't anymore, that is because I have been snubbed all the way without hint of reasonable counterarguments, instead treated to the same predictable criticism-intolerant fanboy trolling you'll find in any diehard community. Even by devs!

 

Well, his attitude hasn't helped much at all.

I admit to acting irrational in this particular area. Even though I know way better, I still act as if a good point will be acknowledged no matter how harshly it is presented. I refuse to turn the other cheek when I feel my points can stand on their own merits. Sorry. Simple matter of principle.

Edited January 29, 2014 by IHaveReturned

[Springheel]

In illuminated areas, the AI has a seeminly random chance from 50-70 % depending on awareness, of spotting you behind him,

 

It is impossible for an AI to see you if you are not in his FOV, and his FOV does not extend behind him. If this is indeed happening to you, it is a bug no one else has noticed.

 

Using my Thief skills, I am faced with a hard, hard game. One where I cannot work in illuminated areas, must struggle to KO people, can't rely on tools to "cheat", risk rising alerts when I think I am safe, and have to work harder on lockpicking under these conditions. Not enjoyable challenge hard, frustration hard

 

Right. We get it. You don't like that the game is so hard. You feel cheated and angry, but for some reason compelled to care.

 

There are people who would be willing to help you learn how to be successful, but I don't get the sense that you're interested. You want people to agree with you that the game is too hard, and should be changed. Maybe that's true. How exactly do you think someone could demonstrate that it's true? One or two people showing up and complaining about the difficulty isn't enough, because there are just as many people who think it's too easy. The only way to demonstrate that the game should be made easier is to show us that a large percentage of people find it too hard. But the reviews aren't supporting that, the feedback we've been getting hasn't supported that, and the people here on the forum aren't agreeing with you.

 

If you want to demonstrate that your experience is not an outlying case, then you're going to need to find a significant number of other people complaining about the same thing. You apparently haven't done that.

 

So there are two ways forward here. One is to show how these problems are actually widespread and affecting lots of people. The second is to admit they are not widespread and ask for help with solving your individual issues with the mechanics. Further ranting, personal attacks, or pointless sniping (by anyone) won't be tolerated in this thread any longer.

[Lux]

I admit to acting irrational in this particular area. Even though I know way better, I still act as if a good point will be acknowledged no matter how harshly it is presented. I refuse to turn the other cheek when I feel my points can stand on their own merits. Sorry. Simple matter of principle.

 

Maybe that is the issue then? ----> "if a good point will be acknowledged"

 

I'm not a fanboy of TDM. I do enjoy it and I've played many many other games like all gamers. I'm 42 so I've played many games for many years.

 

I personally don't find any of your points about the game and its mechanics valid aside mAYBe for the "hard to aim flashbombs" comment. That one is easy for me to ignore though because I never use them. Didn't in the original games and don't still. I've never needed to and I hate having them equiped because if I hit the wrong button and drop one and blind myself I'm screwed.

 

So these just aren't very good points and obviously that is just my opinion.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Lux

[IHaveReturned]

@Springheel:

That reply is all I can ask for. If indeed too few have or will suffer my problems, then I don't expect anything to change, and I'll just have to swallow the loss of what could have been. I expect to bring it to dev attention, prime them in case enough feedback like this does crop up, as I have said. I can think of plenty of reasons why this hasn't happened yet, so current precedent doesn't convince me in the slightest, though.

 

There is also a part of me that fully expected other purists to see the value of replicating Thief, even just as an option, regardless of user complaint. That this was somehow essential to a project like this, rather than something patched in only as needed. I must admit to being sorely disappointed by the reality.

Edited January 29, 2014 by IHaveReturned

[Airship Ballet]

As somebody who studied English as a foreign language, I've been taught that efficiency is a hundred times more effective than eloquence, when trying to be taken seriously. Posting carefully crafted walls of unnecessarily florid text will get you nowhere because it just appears pretentious and contrived. In a formal debate, you make your points as simply as you can with evidence and careful attention to avoiding fallacies, and then let somebody else do the same back to you. [moderator edit]

 

At their core, Thief and TDM are very simple games. They let you use their mechanics however you like, but the mechanics themselves are simple. You open doors, you stay in the dark areas of rooms until nobody's looking, then you pinch whatever you want or you blackjack somebody on the back of the head. If there's a metal floor you use a moss arrow, if there's a torch you use a water arrow. You progress through the mission, getting a sense of direction from the architecture and importance of each room based on it, get to the top-ranking rooms, steal the objective loot and then leave. Any other objective is a derivation based on something you'd do in other missions anyway, like assassination or just swapping something shiny for a fake.

 

In Thief, you can club people any which way you like and they'll most likely succumb if you weren't jiving in front of them under a torch to begin with. In TDM, you can't, because people can't to begin with. As a race our senses have developed to a point where we have a sixth sense for people creeping up on us. We feel disturbances in the air and have crazy peripheral vision, although it's so condensed at the far edges that we can't make head or tail of it, only react on an impulse to turn around.

 

Aside from patrol paths with several targets and occasionally swiveling their heads in random directions, there isn't any RNG involved in the guards' vision. If you are in the dark and not touching them, they won't see you. You can get away with a lot of noise without them actually coming to investigate, and can easily avoid any of that noise by just not moving when they're nearby. Between gas and water arrows, there's no reason to not be able to knock out an entire household's staff without raising any alarms at all so long as you're patient. The fact that you're having so much trouble implies that you're not because you're trying to blackjack people in broad daylight rather than following them somewhere quiet and dark.

 

Lockpicking is simple and can be done in no time save a few rare instances such as vault doors, but that's kind of the point in that context. Again, the only thing that would delay it is impatience, clicking and thinking you got it first time rather than waiting to hear the full pattern. I do that myself, but it rarely gets me into trouble anyway.

 

As for swordfighting, it's just a case of holding a button and looking at their sword. That is really not difficult, almost impulsive to begin with I found. It's true that they do a lot of damage and your sword is crappy, but that's kind of the point. You had a dagger in Deadly Shadows and couldn't defend yourself with it anyway. They're armed, armored guards and you're a thief!

 

Superior engine aside, the main aspect of TDM that sets it apart from Thief is its AI. In the latter, AI either stood on the spot and grumbled about hearing things or went about a fixed, predictable path. In TDM, they look around, react to things, divert from their path to close doors, can be set to randomly walk between points of the path and are generally a lot better at guarding places. If you were to go rob somewhere, you'd find the security to be even more alert than the guards in this. When you're put somewhere at night with the sole purpose of being alert and listening for disturbance, you're going to hear a fly land on a window, nevermind a guy in tap-dancing shoes blundering around behind you slamming doors and accidentally knocking over piles of plates in search of shiny ones.

 

The game could definitely be more difficult, but then it would be an irritating slog of Hitman Absolution proportions. It has its bugs inherent in the engine and it has the occasional sadistic mapper who cranks up the difficulty because it seems too easy to them, but overall it is too easy. Once you know a guard's path and have plotted a way through the darkness of an area, you can just sprint along setting off level 1/2 alerts or go slower if you're after a good stealth score. Beyond not touching a guard and not being in 100% light while in line of sight with one, you can do whatever the hell you like. All it takes is patience, observance and occasionally speed. If you're having problems, you need to brush up on something. [moderator edit]

Edited January 29, 2014 by Springheel
No more sniping in this thread.

[Deadlove]

Maybe that is the issue then? ----> "if a good point will be acknowledged"

 

I'm not a fanboy of TDM. I do enjoy it and I've played many many other games like all gamers. I'm 42 so I've played many games for many years.

 

I personally don't find any of your points about the game and its mechanics valid aside mAYBe for the "hard to aim flashbombs" comment. That one is easy for me to ignore though because I never use them. Didn't in the original games and don't still. I've never needed to and I hate having them equiped because if I hit the wrong button and drop one and blind myself I'm screwed.

 

So these just aren't very good points and obviously that is just my opinion.

 

If you get spotted and flash a guard they go into blindness, and in that couple seconds they are susceptible to being blackjacked (as opposed to when they are alert and chasing). Only real use I've had for the flashbomb...oh yeh, you could kill undead with them in TDP.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Deadlove

[Airship Ballet]

No more sniping in this thread.

 

Help, help, I'm being repressed!

[IHaveReturned]

As somebody who studied English as a foreign language, I've been taught that efficiency is a hundred times more effective than eloquence, when trying to be taken seriously. Posting carefully crafted walls of unnecessarily florid text will get you nowhere because it just appears pretentious and contrived. In a formal debate, you make your points as simply as you can with evidence and careful attention to avoiding fallacies, and then let somebody else do the same back to you. [moderator

edit]

I agree, but only to a point. Yes, pointed sound-bytes can be extremely effective, but only when you can count on the audience to get what you are saying. When not, a well-crafted wall of text that actually leads somewhere meaningful is the best thing at your disposal. It just can't be too long or boring. There is also the difference between the person you are discussing with and people on the sideline. People on the sideline are in my experience never invested enough to really read what is being said by either party, though they can often be wowed by sound-bytes. I have given up caring what those people think. When I post, I post to someone specific, cause I can count on them to pay extra attention as they are forced to reply. People on the sidelines are notorious for either bandwagoning or missing the point rather than contribute, at least until you force them to pay attention by engaging them.

 

Your unsubtle attempt at proving your own point kinda fails, though. Unlike me, you made an elaborate wall of text that looked like it would all lead somewhere specific, but then didn't. My walls have been shorter repeats of the same simple point over and over, aimed at people who acted like they didn't get it the first few times. It's not even close to being the same thing.

 

As a race our senses have developed to a point where we have a sixth sense for people creeping up on us. We feel disturbances in the air and have crazy peripheral vision, although it's so condensed at the far edges that we can't make head or tail of it, only react on an impulse to turn around.

 

Aside from patrol paths with several targets and occasionally swiveling their heads in random directions, there isn't any RNG involved in the guards' vision. If you are in the dark and not touching them, they won't see you. You can get away with a lot of noise without them actually coming to investigate, and can easily avoid any of that noise by just not moving when they're nearby. Between gas and water arrows, there's no reason to not be able to knock out an entire household's staff without raising any alarms at all so long as you're patient. The fact that you're having so much trouble implies that you're not because you're trying to blackjack people in broad daylight rather than following them somewhere quiet and dark.

Sure. I thought I had covered this already.

I don't doubt that by the internal rules of TDM, it is a perfectly beatable and masterable game, even on its highest settings. My objections have from the start been about this requiring significantly different skills to do than in Thief. And that as a flexible toolset for former Thief FM makers, that makes no sense.

 

To be even more clear, just because you can work around the symptoms, doesn't mean the cause is any more okay and acceptable. Yours is the logic I have seen fan...s make to justify broken, bugged or imbalanced gameplay: "You can just learn to work around it! Or mod it out yourself! What are you, a noob?!" so it obviously doesn't convince.

 

As for swordfighting, it's just a case of holding a button and looking at their sword. That is really not difficult, almost impulsive to begin with I found. It's true that they do a lot of damage and your sword is crappy, but that's kind of the point. You had a dagger in Deadly Shadows and couldn't defend yourself with it anyway. They're armed, armored guards and you're a thief!

See above. Fine, in a game about sneaking, open fighting should be hard as heck. But when you design a combat system sophisticated enough to enable mastery, you are encouraging usage too. It then looks completely schizophrenic to at the same time leave it wonky while saying "This is how it was intended", rather than "Yeah it sucks, but for obvious reasons it's not a priority".

 

Hell, see what EM has done in this regard. They started out saying NuThief was action-stealth in the beginning, with NuGarrett Focusing down several guards in open combat. Then news surfaced that the combat system was crap, all the while it became clear that EM was running out of time, and suddenly they recanted on the action focus, making the game more stealth-focused again, and touting the poor combat as a feature towards that. It is pretty easy to infer that they ran out of time to make the action game they originally wanted, and instead caved to fan pressures for greater stealth focus as an excuse for not tuning up the combat system better.

I see certain paralells with TDM, though since the new patch came out trying to fix this, Broken Glass obviously don't share EM's weakness. Given that this was indeed considered important enough for the first 2.0 patch, I don't see why you are evening defending the state of the original combat.

 

Superior engine aside, the main aspect of TDM that sets it apart from Thief is its AI. In the latter, AI either stood on the spot and grumbled about hearing things or went about a fixed, predictable path. In TDM, they look around, react to things, divert from their path to close doors, can be set to randomly walk between points of the path and are generally a lot better at guarding places. If you were to go rob somewhere, you'd find the security to be even more alert than the guards in this. When you're put somewhere at night with the sole purpose of being alert and listening for disturbance, you're going to hear a fly land on a window, nevermind a guy in tap-dancing shoes blundering around behind you slamming doors and accidentally knocking over piles of plates in search of shiny ones.

In the world of professional game design, reality has to be tempered with enjoyment for the player. It has to do with sales and corporate garbage like that, but it's still based on a nugget of truth, that any measure of popularity requires the product to be tailored to its audience. As far as I can see, TDM is tailored to people even more hardcore than a Thief Expert Ghoster like myself. It is the typical hardcore argument that more realism = better. I'll refer back to Doug Church in the video I linked before, where he points out that in a game like Thief, the tension between screwed and safe is the best state the game can be in, and every measure to increase amount of gametime spent in that state is a good thing. Increased realism acts counter to this, for in real life, as you say, Thief-style stealth is almost impossible.

Edited January 30, 2014 by IHaveReturned

[Airship Ballet]

pointed sound-bytes can be extremely effective, but only when you can count on the audience to get what you are saying. When not, a well-crafted wall of text that actually leads somewhere meaningful is the best thing at your disposal.

 

Generalisation. You can't know if an audience will get what you are saying. If you assume they don't, you simplify it rather than speaking as floridly as you do. That was my point.

 

People on the sideline are in my experience never invested enough to really read what is being said by either party, though they can often be wowed by sound-bytes. People on the sidelines are notorious for bandwagoning.

 

Generalisation. As a would-be Pscyhology PhD, those on the sidelines are far more receptive to what's being said than those being targeted. The ones expected to respond will be thinking about what they can say to each point and generally focusing on their response. Those listening will hear and process everything a speaker has to say as all they're doing is listening, not pre-meditating a counter-point. People with a stake in it will also do something similar to the speaker in formulating an answer, but to a lesser degree.

 

Your unsubtle attempt at proving your own point kinda fails, though.

 

No need to be snarky. I wasn't trying to be subtle about anything, why do you expect something underhanded?

 

My objections have from the start been about this requiring significantly different skills to do than in Thief.

 

It isn't Thief.

 

"You can just learn to work around it! Or mod it out yourself! What are you, a noob?!" so it obviously doesn't convince.

 

Hyperbole. That's just adapting. If you're trying to brute-force you way through with a single playstyle and the game doesn't accommodate it, you change your playstyle. If that was possible in Thief, that's because of the unified dev team. Several people worked on their own missions but there are several constants in the level design. Fan-missions are made by people of all shapes and sizes, lacking a common mindset and working to their own preferences and playstyles. If they don't match your playstyle, it's because you and the creator aren't kindred spirits.

 

• all the while it became clear that EM was running out of time
  
• pretty easy to infer that they ran out of time to make the action game they originally wanted
  
• caved to fan pressures for greater stealth
  

• This is speculation. The game's had trailers and gameplay demos for years. They were pushing stealth the very first time I saw it years ago, with a focus on very basic freedom to go about it as you like. Besides, this isn't about Thiaf. There are very, very few similarities between it and TDM as far as coverage has shown.
  
• Fallacious, given that you're trying to infer based on speculation.
  
• Because Squenix and Eidos are well-known for interrupting their own work-flow on behalf of forums.
  

I don't see why you are evening defending the state of the original combat.

 

There's nothing to defend; it's simple as anything. Guard winds up to his right, you hold block and look to your left. To put it simply as I did, hold block and look at his sword. As far as I know, your argument here is that it's too difficult and detached from the Thief series? This wasn't in Thief, but it's certainly not difficult.

 

• every measure to increase amount of gametime spent in that state is a good thing.
  
• Increased realism acts counter to this
  

• It is.
  
• That's a very vague thing to say. Realism can be the floor tiles getting shinier if a leaking pipe drips on them, or it can be dying the first time a guard runs you through, rather than the fifth. What I said was that the head swiveling punishes you for being more brazen and impatient. Granted, it makes it more difficult to be brazen, but you're a self-proclaimed "Thief Expert Ghoster" so that's not an issue for you.
  

• I have given up caring what those people think.
  
• Unlike me, you made an elaborate wall of text that looked like it would all lead somewhere specific, but then didn't.
  
• a Thief Expert Ghoster like myself
  

 

It's strange. What you say renders you very compatible with the Dunning-Kruger effect, but your argument is that you're doing poorly in this. The high self-esteem, arrogance and need to outdo others should actually improve your game, but seems to have the opposite effect. You'd be better off accepting your perception of the features for what it is and either adapting to it or leaving it for dead, rather than arguing for your corner of the world. To generalise, this community isn't given to fan-boyism. It's mostly consisted of people old and mature enough to see flaws inherent in the engine and acknowledge them, then work towards working around and eventually fixing them. If all you're going to do is creatively complain it's too difficult for you, that's not going to change, and you're going to be saying the "same simple point over and over" until you give yourself Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

[Deadlove]

Question: Why are we referring to NuThief as Thiaf? Did I miss something?

 

I read on the reliable and trustworthy internet that in Frisian(Old Netherlands/Germany) it means "thief" as well as England's(Old Anglo-Saxon) thief is spelled "thiof". I doubt that's where the connection is though...

[Airship Ballet]

In promotion it's been referred to by the devs as Thi4f. As you know, using sequel numbers in titles is hip to the kids so they did that. The only problem is that 4 is an A, not an E, hence Thiaf.

 

Also I've been referring to 'NuGarrett' as Garratt. Has a ring to it.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Airship Ballet

[Obsttorte]

Oh boys, how I love this senseless discussions. :|

[lost_soul]

What do you guys think of the footsteps on tile? Are they still not loud enough (for the guards to hear)? I was playing Builder's Influence the other day and I felt as though I would get busted, but I didn't. Then again, I was playing on default difficulty level. Discuss.

 

I remember in TDP/TMA, the guards had absolutely godlike hearing when it came to tile (even on normal difficulty).

Edited January 31, 2014 by lost_soul