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Idea: Using the oxygen bar for sprinting


MirceaKitsune

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I know this is a pretty insignificant suggestion that might not make much sense, but it felt rather obvious and I had to ask it: Could it be a good idea if we drained the player's oxygen bar when he is sprinting, and require this bar to be full enough so he can sprint again (eg: >= 10%)?

 

The reason I thought about this is a combination of two factors; One is that the oxygen bar is barely ever used... I mean if you don't go underwater it virtually has no purpose. The second and most important however, is that it makes perfect sense and would be more realistic: Running fast causes your body to require more oxygen, exactly as holding your breath (going underwater) does... and once you get too tired you need to take a break for this reason. An additional third motive would be the gameplay: Having infinite sprinting is nice... but making it finite (requiring a pause) can be more challenging in a way that shouldn't get annoying, so for instance you can't outrun a guard chasing you forever. So yeah... just my two cents on this possibly useful (or just as possibly horrible) idea.

Edited by MirceaKitsune
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As I said when someone on Things That Could Be Improved suggested a limited sprint mechanic, if running away when caught were harder, standing and fighting would be relatively more attractive, which is an odd design choice for a stealth game. There's also the usual objection (if you search around you can find it being made in 2007) that simply getting from A to B would become frustrating in larger maps: you've ransacked the place, knocked out everyone, and now you have to do half the return journey at walking pace...

As for using the oxygen bar: if you fall into water after sprinting, do you then drown? Having a UI component used for one thing isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Edited by VanishedOne

Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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I would much prefer a cold meter. I've gotta tinker with it some more but I think Business as Usual would go to legendary status if you had

to warm-up periodically to avoid hypothermia \ frostbite \ etc. The mission just screams for that mechanic.

 

Hmm...

 

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No. It does not make any sense for genre.

 

It does not give anything, but would be an annoyance.

 

I tend to disagree. It would add some resource that is limited (like oxygen under water) and needs proper resource planning by the thief. Some people would enjoy that feature :)

 

Maybe if it can be optional. It's like "always run" in shooters. At first you only occasionally did run, nowadays everyone is sprinting at superfast speed through everything. IMHO the stealth genre is exactly the place where we'd want to dial that back and take the speed out of it once more and make players plan ahead.

 

So the meter shouldn't be that sensitive that you can't cross the street without getting out of breath (you are a thief, after all), but it shouldn't be possible to bunnyhop for 10 minutes and then still jump and mantle up a wall like you just started the day.

 

Edit: As for swimming: running etc would only ever take away 80% of the bar, and then you just slow down a bit. So you still have something left for swimming, but it's you fault (or desperation) if you spring 100m and then jump into the canal to swim to your freedom :)

Edited by Tels

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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I definitely agree with Tels. A out-of-breath mechanic would force you to get more creative with your escapes. You can counteract the tendency to want to fight by implementing the exact same system but for swordfighting. That way it becomes a choice, and if you make the choice you'd better execute it well because your resources are limited. I think it could be very interesting, and it'd add a dimension to speedrunning missions as well.

In the interest of backwards compatibility it should probably be something you can opt out of though.

You can call me Phi, Numbers, Digits, Ratio, 16, 1618, or whatever really, as long as it's not Phil.

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I like the idea, but only if it is optional. It would make the game much, much harder for people who already struggle with the difficulty. But it could make it more spicy for the veterans who want a new challenge. :)

 

Have you already thought about solving this via sounds only, instead of using a GUI bar? I find this more appealing since bars and statistics on my screen tend to give me the feeling of a modern ego shooter where I am the Terminator with all kinds of informations on my eyes :D

"Einen giftigen Trank aus Kräutern und Wurzeln für die närrischen Städter wollen wir brauen." - Text aus einem verlassenen Heidenlager

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Termintator-Thief: "I need your clothes, your boots and your horse."

Pipe-smoking Rider: "You forgot to say please..."

 

:D

 

I guess wether the feature is shown in GUI, or with sound would be something that could be optional, either. Although a thief that catches his breath... might be funny if guards would hear it and comment on it. Guard Albert: "Huh, what was that?" Guard Betram: "What?" Alfred: "Did you hear that rasping sound?" Betram: "Must be the wind..." :D

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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Obviously I'm not thinking of the bar running out annoyingly fast, since I know there are large maps where you need to sprint often. The difficulty needs to be decided carefully... so that you don't run out of oxygen all the time and make the player say "come on man not again", but also not slow enough to make draining the bar useless because it never reaches the bottom. My estimation is that starting with a full bar, you should be able to continuously sprint somewhere between 5 or 15 seconds, depending on which suits most (large) maps.

 

Also my point isn't to make it harder to hide, which I know is an important point in TDM! If anything it's to make it harder to escape too fast in long chases... and by harder I simply mean having to take breaks in the process. For instance: Instead of sprinting to a distant area quickly and getting away easily, the player will have to sprint to smaller dark spots along the way and wait for a bit in each. This doesn't take focus away from the stealth element but contrarily empathises it, as it adds more strategy and requires the player to think their actions better!

 

Missions being able to customize how fast the bar drains sounds good. Making this depend on difficulty would be even better! Then again, we might want a damage multiplier setting as well then.

 

Lastly, the reason I'm thinking of using the oxygen bar and not another bar: This is the most realistic and biologically correct approach, while also easiest since this bar and its HUD are already implemented. If you were underwater and held your breath for several seconds, you have less oxygen to sprint. Oppositely, if you jump into water after having sprinted, you have less oxygen to stay submerged.

Edited by MirceaKitsune
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I could see this making sense in a game where the objective was to encourage engaging the enemy, because that would be the meat of that type of gameplay, but that's not the primary objective in Thief / TDM. In Thief and TDM, the objective is to encourage the player to avoid battle with the AI. It's a nice idea, but I don't think it would be appropriate for TDM, at least not as a default. Provided optionally in the menu, or even as a community mod it would be fine.

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I definitely agree with Tels. A out-of-breath mechanic would force you to get more creative with your escapes.

 

 

I believe I was the one who originally pushed for a stamina mechanic in the early design days of TDM, but I was outvoted, and I'm glad I was.

 

The game already rewards short bursts of "run-then-hide", rather than marathon runs. If you keep running, you keep making noise the AI can track, and you risk running into and alerting other guards. It's more difficult to get away that way than a quick dash around a corner and into a shadow.

 

Further, if the bar drains to zero in less than 20 or 30 seconds, then it's going to be frustrating and unrealistic. If it lasts longer than that, then it's not going to have much impact on escapes (how often do you get chased for more than 30 seconds and still successfully get away?)

 

The only times players generally run for longer than 30 seconds at a time is when they're backtracking or covering lots of territory that they know is empty. It's in these cases that you definitely do NOT want to force the player to stop running, since it would be frustrating and boring, without adding any benefits to gameplay.

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I'm fine with it not being there.

I could see it there & it might be interesting in some situations.

 

My instinct is to see it as a branch mod. The main reason for that is I'd also like to see a full on parkour mod, with Mirror's Edge moves, and this might fit naturally with that (edit. On reflection, actually it wouldn't I think). But of course that's wildly inappropriate for the trunk game, hence a branch mod. I think unlike some other branch ideas, this one wouldn't even take too much work, since it's all just movement related.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I believe I was the one who originally pushed for a stamina mechanic in the early design days of TDM, but I was outvoted, and I'm glad I was.

 

The game already rewards short bursts of "run-then-hide", rather than marathon runs. If you keep running, you keep making noise the AI can track, and you risk running into and alerting other guards. It's more difficult to get away that way than a quick dash around a corner and into a shadow.

 

Further, if the bar drains to zero in less than 20 or 30 seconds, then it's going to be frustrating and unrealistic. If it lasts longer than that, then it's not going to have much impact on escapes (how often do you get chased for more than 30 seconds and still successfully get away?)

 

The only times players generally run for longer than 30 seconds at a time is when they're backtracking or covering lots of territory that they know is empty. It's in these cases that you definitely do NOT want to force the player to stop running, since it would be frustrating and boring, without adding any benefits to gameplay.

 

I agree here. It would not matter in many cases, if you use this idea for sprinting. But I think, stamina in fighting would make the fights more challenging (I am thinking of Dark Souls, where this is a core feature) and thus make fighting even less attractive. On the other hand: Do you need to make it less attractive? I find fighting hard enough as it is...

If you want to use it for both fighting and running, there is another problem, that you should consider: you might start a fight, realise, you cannot win and want to run, but have no stamina left, which would mean death in this situation.

 

A branch would definitely the most elegant solution. But as always there is the problem of: Who will do it?

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Another solution in between a mod and default could be: Add the feature in the code, but disable it by default, and make it controlled by hidden cvars. Individual missions can simply set the variable for how much sprinting should consume oxygen, which actually makes better sense! Creating and distributing a mod just for this might be silly... it's something simple that would probably take just 3 lines of scripting somewhere.

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Individual missions can simply set the variable for how much sprinting should consume oxygen, which actually makes better sense!

No I'm sorry it doesn't make sense at all (to me)! Just imagine yourself playing a night of TDM where each mission sets up its own value of sprinting pace. In one mission you can run through half of the whole map without breathing and in the next mission you can barely reach the next room...!!! :rolleyes:

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"Einen giftigen Trank aus Kräutern und Wurzeln für die närrischen Städter wollen wir brauen." - Text aus einem verlassenen Heidenlager

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No I'm sorry it doesn't make sense at all (to me)! Just imagine yourself playing a night of TDM where each mission sets up its own value of sprinting pace. In one mission you can run through half of the whole map without breathing and in the next mission you can barely reach the next room...!!! :rolleyes:

 

You do play a supposedly different character in each one however, with a different physiology. Maybe the thief in one mission went to the medieval equivalent of McDonalds more often :)

 

It is however true that if we have too many mechanics turned on or off by specific missions, the player will get confused about the rules in each one, and we wouldn't want that. Then again, same thing if this was done as a mod instead.

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As for using the oxygen bar: if you fall into water after sprinting, do you then drown? Having a UI component used for one thing isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Actually yes. You are out of breath and than you want to dive in that state... Fast drowning is what it happens.

That would be interesting mechanics for some game - not for TDM ;)

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Actually yes. You are out of breath and than you want to dive in that state... Fast drowning is what it happens.

That would be interesting mechanics for some game - not for TDM ;)

Going from a state of breathing quickly and heavily to suddenly holding breath can certainly cause problems, but not due to simple oxygen depletion (though it will accelerate that depletion); after all, since you were breathing fast and deeply you certainly got the chance to inhale before entering water.

Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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If anything, deep breathing while sprinting should raise it above its usual maximum; but it should deplete faster, and there should be a CO2 bar that rises to maximum and then damages you. A properly realistic approach would also model anaerobic respiration and eventually simulate lactic acidosis.

 

But this is purely theoretical debate and not how TDM should work ;) .

Amen to that.

Edited by VanishedOne

Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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Out of breath sound effect would be more suitable as sound element in TDM, also with movement sound effects when moving and turning side to side similar to Alien Isolation or Amnesia, which uses a sound effect of two fabrics rubbing each other combined with a sort of bag with coins sound whenever the Player moves or turns around. This adds a lot of immersion. In TDM could work well just as sound effect, making the character feel more human. As a gameplay effect would work if turning abruptly without walking could make a sound and alarm a guard very close by. It could make the game much more difficult tho.

Edited by Taquito
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I really like the idea and of course I'm not a least bit surprised the veterans here don't like it because it does not belong in TDM! So I will continue sprinting like hell with sword and blackjack and bow and dozends of arrows and tons of loot until I find a high place to mantle over where the guards can't follow ;)...

Edited by wesp5
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If the usual levels in TDM would be larger, it might be interesting. The way it is, a reasonably trained thief should be able to sprint through most levels without much problems.

If it was used though, the guards, at least those in heavy uniforms, would have to be affected by it as well, and more than the player (since the thief usually doesn't wear chain or plate).

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