Sometimes I wish TDM were harder

[chakkman]

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

Also due to Garrett's high heel like shoe sound.

[Springheel]

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

 

That was always a bit silly, IMO. If we could go back and start over, I'd push for a more realistic sound scheme for footsteps, instead of one that works based on how hard the surface is (in real life there's nothing easier to be quiet on than hard tile, unless you're in tap shoes). In TDM tile is still in the "loud" category, but it's not as loud as other things in that category, like metal or gravel.

[Airship Ballet]

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

 

I never actually read back and realised he's just trying to start pissing contests, I was just having a fun debate =P

 

Also due to Garrett's high heel like shoe sound.

 

I've always called them tap-dancing shoes. If somebody can bunny-hop at the speed of sound in high heels, they should get an award of some sort.

 

In TDM tile is still in the "loud" category, but it's not as loud as other things in that category, like metal or gravel.

 

One of my favorite differences between TDM and Thief. Just in terms of map design, it always meant that anywhere posh was going to be next to impossible to get around without stutter-stepping. Now you can have fancy mansions and half the noise.

[GUFF]

The AI hearing on certain surfaces in the Dark engine Thief games is insane. You can be crouched and sneaking and you'd be heard from quite far away so players ended up having to use a well-known bug where you shuffle forward a bit and stop before you make a footstep sound in areas with a lot of the loudest surfaces such as metal, tile, and gravel. In TDM it's much improved since you can crouch-sneak and no one will hear you unless you're right up next to them, but the trade-off is moving very, very slowly--whereas a practiced shuffler in Dark engine could move nearly walk speed.

 

I just started playing TDM less than a week ago to give it a try and for what it is, I think it's alright. There are issues of course and I still think the overall gameplay of the Dark engine Thief games is better and more consistent, but there's still good fun to be had here.

 

My major thing I don't like is combat. Not straight up combat which is just plain bad in both games and really melee combat is hard to implement well in a first person game so it's forgivable, but the "stealth" combat of sneaking up and one-hit killing an unaware enemy. Even when aiming for vitals and sneaking up behind a perfectly unaware target to use your sword, you can't easily kill, say, an undead AI. Backstabbing a haunt or two in Dark engine games to get rid of them was almost like blackjacking annoying guards in central areas that would seriously slow down your progress because avoiding them was too laborious and you had to pass through that area multiple times, but you can't really do it in this game to the undead. The bow is probably the hardest thing to adjust to in how high I have to aim to hit a target from a certain distance but does work as it should for the most part. Straight up combat (I rarely/never engage in it but this was evident in the training mission) is both better and worse at the same time. Better in that multiple enemies can more easily attack you rather than stumbling around each other like they did in Dark engine trying to get at you, but worse in that it's almost impossible to actually fight them unless they bug out and just stand there after swinging at you while only one of them continues the assault, which was the only way to really win the 3-on-1 fight in the training mission in such a small area. They also seem to swing through each other and hit you sometimes which is kind of weird. I haven't really spent a whole lot of time testing this aspect of the game but it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot to it and like in Thief it's not something that's a central part of the game anyway.

 

Minor issues would be...

 

How often I end up getting caught on geometry (usually while I'm checking out or hiding out in some room with unmovable furniture and having to reload my saved game because I cannot get out.

 

The AI as a whole is better at noticing you when you do really dumb things than in the Dark engine games and I don't have a real complaint with that. The only real issue I have there with the AI is with pickpocketing where you need to be almost pressed up against them due to extremely small frob distance, although coming from playing Dark engine FMs on and off for the last 10 years I have noticed that in TDM you can actually almost be pressed up against an AI while in a narrow hallway hiding in the darkness and they still won't see you which would never work in Dark engine since I guess the player took up more space. So the optimal pickpocketing method seems to be hiding in the darkness in their patrol path while waiting for them to go by rather than walking behind them on a relatively silent surface and grabbing as they'll go into either alert level 2 or 3 if you try that on all but the most silent ones in TDM. I like that AIs will relock doors that you leave open but if you close them they won't. Kind of nice touch but also still gamey and works in the context of the game because you'd think realistically they'd still relock them anyway. Just means you have to be thorough in closing locked doors you know AIs will path through. Nice touch. Also nice touch is in some missions where the AI will relight some of the lights if you put them out, but I assume this has to be defined on an individual basis in the map editor.

 

One thing I like about the missions I've played so far is that the authors have made patrol paths that make just avoiding enemies a better option or at least eqvuialent in time usage than KOing and hiding bodies. This was also possible in Dark engine but so many authors as well as the original level designers just made AIs on continuous paths with no stops for any reason which encourage just KOing them.

 

Movement in general doesn't seem as smooth but at least mantling is more forgiving than it was in the Dark engine, although the fan-made NewDark patch had improved mantling vastly if you turn on the option for it in the config. One thing I always thought would be cool but probably really hard to implement is "reverse mantling" off of a ledge where you hang down then drop to make less noise on drop/prevent fall damage.

 

I probably have more thoughts on this but this is just off the top of my head in 5 minutes or so.

Edited January 31, 2014 by GUFF

[Mr M]

Maybe it is time & experience.... My brother and daughter who play this game also are amazed at my jaw -dropping accuracy in putting an arrow in a beam from a great distance. Now only if I could do that in real life.

 

I think pick-pocketing distance is dead on, good challenge.

 

No doubt, the geometry can get ya, but again, it is pretty evident to what to avoid, never found immovable objects to create a maze or anything of the like.

 

I cannot comment on fighting, I don't play that way - maybe in defense sometimes...

 

For me, I would love more random control paths in missions, but believe that can only be done to a certain degree.

 

 

Guess I don't notice the not-so-smooth movement - never have noticed that, maybe because my screen is quite dark when I play..

 

My 2 cents

Edited January 31, 2014 by Mr M

[chakkman]

Guess I don't notice the not-so-smooth movement - never have noticed that, maybe because my screen is quite dark when I play..

That reinds me off an article i read about Thief 1 in a games mag years ago. It said something like "The graphics are not up to par to nowadays standard, but hey, you wouldn't notice it most of the time, as it's so damn dark..."

[Springheel]

My major thing I don't like is combat. Not straight up combat which is just plain bad in both games and really melee combat is hard to implement well in a first person game so it's forgivable, but the "stealth" combat of sneaking up and one-hit killing an unaware enemy. Even when aiming for vitals and sneaking up behind a perfectly unaware target to use your sword, you can't easily kill, say, an undead AI.

 

Yes, that's true, and intentional. Undead are highly resistant to normal weapons, so even with a sneak attack you can't kill them with one shot. They're enemies that encourage you to use other tools, like holy water, fire arrows, and mines.

 

Better in that multiple enemies can more easily attack you rather than stumbling around each other like they did in Dark engine trying to get at you, but worse in that it's almost impossible to actually fight them

 

That's intentional too. You're not really supposed to be able to survive 3 on 1 fights (although as Aluminum Haste is fond of pointing out, it's possible to take on groups of AI and win if you're an expert with lots of room to move around).

 

How often I end up getting caught on geometry (usually while I'm checking out or hiding out in some room with unmovable furniture and having to reload my saved game because I cannot get out.

 

This is annoying, I agree. It doesn't happen to me very often; maybe once every third mission or so, but it is a pain. At least there's an easy "noclip" console command to get out of it.

 

One thing I always thought would be cool but probably really hard to implement is "reverse mantling" off of a ledge where you hang down then drop to make less noise on drop/prevent fall damage.

 

Yeah, the reverse mantling was in our design docs but we never quite got around to it. Might still happen some day.

[lost_soul]

Reverse mantling would be great. What about having loud sounds affect the hearing of the AI though? For example, there's a guy standing in front of a generator or waterfall. I walk up behind him and blackjack him and he hears nothing, because the sound of the generator in front of him is many times louder than I am. I remember that Splinter Cell Chaos Theory had this feature.

[Springheel]

What about having loud sounds affect the hearing of the AI though? For example, there's a guy standing in front of a generator or waterfall.

 

Been on our design docs from the beginning, just no one has ever gotten around to it.

[chakkman]

Would be a nice addition. Of course no idea how easy/hard it would be to implement.

[AluminumHaste]

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.

 

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.

AI have a cone of vision attached to their head. If the head swivels from side to side the cone of vision follows. So no, AI cannot look behind their heads. What they can do is spot you out of the corner of their eye if you are to the left or right, and turn to investigate. Which means they might spot you if you are in a lighted area.

 

* 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.

No it hasn't. Categorically wrong.

You can KO AI on the shoulders, base of the neck, and even lower than that. If they have no helmet and are not alerted, you can KO them anywhere on the head or even on their face as long as they aren't alerted. However blackjacking an AI in the face doesn't always work.

I have video proof of this, as I have KOed an AI across a table, while he's sitting in a chair. There are other videos on youtube of people doing this. I have at least a dozen videos on my youtube channel playing TDM.

We are playing the same game. You, Are, Doing, It, Wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw5EKIR6Paw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwLMwlec0fk

[AluminumHaste]

Here's a video of fenphoenix (youtube LPer) learning how to BJ in a few days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whc_c4NFQX8

 

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.

No they don't, they work just like in real life, you make sure the AI is looking at the flashbomb to make sure it affects them.

Pressing the USE key drops a flashbomb at your feet. So if the AI is looking at you, then the flashbomb will work.

Pressing and holding it will gradually increase the strength of the throw.

You cannot KO alerted guards. This isn't Thief, where you could KO almost any AI at any alert level as long as you were in total darkness.

While under the effects of the flashbomb, AI can sometimes be KOed, but it usually doesn't work. Run, hide, or kill them with sword.

[AluminumHaste]

* 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.

Ummm, not really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gihXtrexQQY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daaZ-bIKMJ0

 

Make sure you have autoparry turned on, and maybe invert the parry to make it easier for you. I can't fight for the life of me with auto-parry turned off.

 

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

That's been fixed already in 2.0 for the most part. It's not as elegant as AI detecting the player with the shades of grey, but it's pretty good now.

 

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.

You keep calling it a clone, it never was intended to be a clone. No dev has ever said that as far as I know, and I've been here a loooooooooong time.

 

some hardcore veteran map pack unsuitable for public or even regular fanbase consumption.

LOL WHAT? The VAST majority of people who have downloaded this project have no problems aside from install issues or graphical bugs.

 

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.

Which it does.

 

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.

Which it has with improvements.

[AluminumHaste]

Okay if you really want to help the devs "fix" things that you perceive to be broken we're gonna need some help.

You have not posted any videos of you having trouble, so let's start with that.

[Airship Ballet]

I'm pretty sure given his history he was just after a pissing contest, best to let this thread get buried =P

[New Horizon]

Why do people keep responding to this thread? lol Let it resssssssssst!

[AluminumHaste]

Yeah I suppose

[Obsttorte]

What about having loud sounds affect the hearing of the AI though? For example, there's a guy standing in front of a generator or waterfall. I walk up behind him and blackjack him and he hears nothing, because the sound of the generator in front of him is many times louder than I am. I remember that Splinter Cell Chaos Theory had this feature.

I've thought about a way to script this behaviour. It is possible, although I never came to the point of testing it.

 

However, hardcoding this would be much more difficult I guess, as the code handling what is heard by the player is a different one then the one used for ai hearing. The first step would be to create a way to convert between both. In addition, all ai had to be aware of all sound emitters in their surrounding, to check which one affect them in which way.

 

Unfortunately we are always lacking programmers. Everybody just wanna learn how to map, but nobody wants to learn C++.

[AluminumHaste]

Yeah there's a reason that only ambient sounds affected the sound meter in splinter cell.