Questions About Blackjacking And Movement

[oDDity]

ROFL, you don't want to worry anout constantly running into guards and having to sneak past them??

This is not the game for you, my friend. No, you want an adventure game called Treasure Hunt.

[Domarius]

Hehe.

 

Imposing self-dicipline to NOT kick every guards ass in the entire level, is hardly a challenging experience, is it? I never buy that answer, Sparhawk.

 

Hopefully, with our improved guard abilities, we won't have to...

[Ishtvan]

Imposing self discipline to ghost seemed to work great for a lot of people in T1-T3

[oDDity]

Yes, and living in their own shit and eating raw meat seemed to work for a lot of cavemen, but we've moved on since then.

[Renzatic]

Yeah, and cavemen were considerably happier than we are now. All they had to do was spend 15 hours a week scavenging for food, then they spent the rest of the week giggling and fucking.

[TazmanianDevil]

ROFL, you don't want to worry anout constantly running into guards and having to sneak past them??

  This is not the game for you, my friend. No, you want an adventure game called Treasure Hunt.

I want to run into guards and have to sneak around and do the normal thief things. Having a game that's nothing but a loot hunt would be boring, but I don't want to have to do the same thing a dozen times because I can't find that last piece of loot. I totally love the thief games and I played all of them on the highest difficulty setting (which is why it takes so long to find enough loot) which definitely means that you have to be sneaky so you can get up behind the guards to wack 'em.

 

I remember it took me 2 hours on one of the TDP missions after I'd knocked out all of the guards to find the last special item I had to find. It would have taken a lot longer if I had to constantly avoid the guards and that would get old after a while.

 

I however, am not a big fan of ghosting. I don't mind having one or two levels where it's a requirement, but I personally wouldn't want to play the whole game that way.

[Domarius]

Imposing self discipline to ghost seemed to work great for a lot of people in T1-T3

That doesn't work for me either because I'm not a purist ghoster. I only "ghost" when it's the best option.

[oDDity]

I want to run into guards and have to sneak around and do the normal thief things. Having a game that's nothing but a loot hunt would be boring, but I don't want to have to do the same thing a dozen times because I can't find that last piece of loot. I totally love the thief games and I played all of them on the highest difficulty setting (which is why it takes so long to find enough loot) which definitely means that you have to be sneaky so you can get up behind the guards to wack 'em.

 

I remember it took me 2 hours on one of the TDP missions after I'd knocked out all of the guards to find the last special item I had to find. It would have taken a lot longer if I had to constantly avoid the guards and that would get old after a while.

 

I however, am not a big fan of ghosting. I don't mind having one or two levels where it's a requirement, but I personally wouldn't want to play the whole game that way.

This whole nonsense about 'finding the last piece of loot' is gone anyway.

How would a thief know how much loot is in a building? WHat kind of thief would say to himeself 'I must get exactly 1000 loot from here or I'm not leaving even if it takes me all night and increases by chances of getting caught. Nope, even if I have 995 loot, I'm going to hang aound for the next few hours looking for another 5 gold coins.

The loot objectives are the lowest priority in the thief games. There is almost always something more important to be doing on a level, the loot objectives are just tacked on at the end as filler gameplay (I'm not talking about special loot items here which you know are there and are valuble)

We'll be imposing time limits for missions (on hardest anyway -if it was up to be it would be all difficulties) - that adds genuine difficulty, you no longer have thinking time, you have to act on instinct, which will really sort the thieves out from the boys. Like a real thief, you'll want to get in and out of the building as quickly as possible, not loiter around all night. Every extra second you stay increases your chances of being caught.

The master taffer not only ghosts, but achives his objectives as quickly as possible.

You steal what you see on your way, what you know for a fact is there, and you search the usual places people tend to keep loot, you do not systematically search every single square inch of the map incase you missed one copper penny.

[sparhawk]

You shouldn't tell such nonsense. We DON'T impose a time limit on any setting, because we already discussed that and time limits only make sense in the context of an FM and not as general rule.

[oDDity]

Of course they make sense as a general rule on hardest - they give the game the ultimate difficulty. What's the point having a hardset setting which isn't the hardest because you're free to take as long as you want to complete the mission?

[sparhawk]

Read the discussion.

[oDDity]

It doesn't matter what it says in the discussion. This particular idea wasn't mentioned.

I'm saying that we need a hardest difficulty right at the top which forces players to ghost unfer a strict time limit. No one has to play it if they don't want to, but only players who do sucessfully do it will get any respect, or be regarded as good players.

[Ishtvan]

This is starting to sound like a broken record... settings on top of the standard AI difficulty, combat difficulty and extra objectives should be optional. Some people like a time limit, some don't, so make it optional. Problem solved, no need for pages and pages of argument for and against.

[sparhawk]

A timelimit makes only sense in the context of a particular FM, therefore it is the decision of the FM designer and is not implemented as a default. For a list of features read the milestone document. For a reasoning read the discussion.

[TazmanianDevil]

Aaaa, this thread is on fire, put it out, put it out!

 

This whole nonsense about 'finding the last piece of loot' is gone anyway.  How would a thief know how much loot is in a building?

 

You're right, but we're playing a game, not real life. You are entitled to your opinion, but my preference would be to have specific loot goals that are a function of the total loot in the game.

 

The loot objectives are the lowest priority in the thief games. There is almost always something more important to be doing on a level, the loot objectives are just tacked on at the end as filler gameplay (I'm not talking about special loot items here which you know are there and are valuble)

 

I completely disagree. I think finding loot is a critical element of the game. If you took out the loot, then you've taken away most of the purpose of the game. There are missions where your goals are to just pick up some amount of loot and you aren't necessarily there for anything specific. If you took all the loot away, you'd just be wandering around in the shadows for no good reason.

 

I'm saying that we need a hardest difficulty right at the top which forces players to ghost unfer a strict time limit.

 

I have no complaint about the game having lots of difficulty settings and for people to be able to do what they want. I think IS wanted to do that in TDS, but didn't get around to it. I for one, do not like ghosting or time limits in anything more than a level or two.

[sparhawk]

Don't worry. Oddity is just voicing his opinion, which not neccessarily reflect the mod development as a whole.

[encomium]

I don't suppose my opinion means too much considering I haven't had the privilage of reading through your production discussions, etc... but because of that I am forced to reluctantly take to the gamers perspective on this subject.

 

A few simple "gamer's" opinions which support what everyone is saying:

 

a) When playing any game which falls into the same category as Theif does, I will never, ever cease to be entralled by, and overjoyed with the realness that developers can integrate into their game. The closer to real life the game is, the more the player can relate to it, thus the better the game becomes.

 

Obviously, during production these factors will always exist: Time, Budget (?), Technical Ability, & Necessity. Apparently those have been discussed amognst you, and documented accordingly. This shows professionalism. There's really no way you can argue with what has been determined to be the optimal way to integrate certain elements of the game once they have been measured up against the above factors. Which i think might be the reason for the frusteration of your team members, oDDity.

 

c) Lastly, my opinion of this specific element of gameplay (being the black-jackery of unsuspecting, 'technically advanced medival folk') is that the more real you can make it. the better. I would hardly call this an arcade game. The object of each level, should never be to steal a certain amount of money, cuz that's just ridiculous. A thief is unscroupulous to say the least. He's not some good hearted guy, with tons of self motivation. There is no such thing as ALLADIN. What ODDity mentioned about risk factors and such are very very smart ideas. In a case when stealing is the character's occupation, he should not be limited to this environment to steal from -- in reality he could attain gold (if he REALLY needed it badly) from any other person, household, or safehouse in the village (with the exception of special artifacts, which was mentioned above).

 

I feel that if there is any reason why the guards shouldn't wake up, wake each other up, or brew up a massive search of the entire buildling, it should be because of a restriction on Time, Budget, or Technical Inability. I fully feel that there is a 'Necessity' to make this style of game as real as possible, and the whole risk factor of guards that can randomly wake up and potential alert other guards after being brain beaten makes a WHOLE LOT OF SENSE.

 

'Nuff said.

 

oh 1 more thing -- i totally second the notion of using techniques to permenatly incapacitate K.O.'d people by binding them up with rope, shackles, or locking them into rooms (with the option of passing guards within the sound radius to hear their pleas to open the door). Again, it's more work -- but it adds sooo much more realism, fun, and strategy to the game. If you don't want to turn your gamers into a group of knife weilding rambos, then you must provide them with other alternatives. Never-waking K.O.'s is just a cop-out in my opinion.

[Springheel]

it should be because of a restriction on Time, Budget, or Technical Inability.

 

You forgot gameplay, which is more important than any of the other reasons. Making things realistic does not necessarily translate into good gameply. Although we had thought about adding a 'bladder' meter, forcing our thief to stop and take a piss during the mission, especially if he's drunk a lot of healing potions....

[Dram]

You forgot gameplay, which is more important than any of the other reasons. Making things realistic does not necessarily translate into good gameply. Although we had thought about adding a 'bladder' meter, forcing our thief to stop and take a piss during the mission, especially if he's drunk a lot of healing potions....

LOL

[encomium]

HaHAhAHAHhA.

 

Yes, to be more specific, i should of mentioned gameplay. Given the style of game THeif is, and the assumption you want to make the best game possible, I classify gameplay under necessity. It's the addition of pre-determined "Necessities" that result in great gameplay.

 

:lol:

 

Although I feel that pissing and other similar activities should be left up to Larry Laffer, it 'would in fact' add more realism to the game. Definitely not a Necessity though in my opinion. I'd like to see waking guards before i see our character's cock n balls.

[oDDity]

The AI in Gothic did randomly go for a piss against a wall, and every little detail like that does help to build a more realistic immmersive (with 3 m's) world. Scoff ye not.

[Springheel]

Hey, I added taking a piss to our colour gestures, so I'm all for it for AI. Just not for the player.

[loudogskank]

Imagine garrett whipping out his dong and dousing a stone staircase... the next unsuspecting guard to stroll by slips and breaks his neck.... it all looks like an accident...

[Domarius]

Imagine that. No more need for water arrows.

[oDDity]

He's need a hard on before he pissed if he wanted to reach that high with it.