I like the missions like this...

[teh_saccade]

Where I can basically finish it by climbing outside of the level and moving straight to go, collecting 200 dollars and avoiding all the hard work the level designer has put into everything:

 

 

[kingsal]

Ha, awesome. All I can say is that you are a true master thief.

Edited April 21, 2017 by kingsal

[stumpy]

can't do it with my maps, I usually guess someone would do that and texture it.

[kingsal]

Yeah I would have fixed this if I'd caught it before release. At this point it will have to wait until the new version.

[demagogue]

I'd leave something like that only if it were really hard to find and there were a special kind of difficulty to get to it.

[teh_saccade]

I break stuff for a living, 1st and 2nd line, in between the graphics and art stuff - so playing games like this is sometimes more fun than actually playing them, you know...

Give me a rope arrow or moveable furniture (or enough bodies and physics glitches) and often there's found a way to avoid most of the level

Playing the level properly - it is good fun:)
But it's a lot quicker to start near the end and work backwards!

 

gg - sorry to pick on yours, there's plenty of others where stuff like this is possible - it was just the one that I came across first yesterday:~)

Edited April 22, 2017 by teh_saccade

[Cookie]

Nice find!

 

I guess this is the moment where i will give some appreciation for the great skyboxes used in some TDM FMs - whoever made those deserves some praise. People tend to forget how much such "small" things can improve the visuals of a game (the thing i remember the most of COD: MW2 aside the cheaters and the disconnects - the great skybox in the map where you visit Brazil. And TDM is a close second place for me in that aspect).

[teh_saccade]

You can spot the skybox set-up in the video someplace, I think, Cookie. At least some projector.

Edited April 26, 2017 by teh_saccade

[NeonsStyle]

Hahahaha.. C

[teh_saccade]

Here is "The King of Diamonds", by Spooks.

This mission makes great use of space, the changes in ambient lighting/mood/music, the colours and interior decor and the amount of story and event that is packed in make it one that I love to replay.

The level is so good that the video is longer than the time it takes to complete all objectives in the level in uber-speed, super-stealth mode...

Highlights include, breaking the scripts (to avoid the pub massacre being discovered and having to complete optional objectives), getting Patrick to care about the pub massacre and stealing his lute (he's a fraud - the chair is the real musician), a few areas to dump bodies that probably weren't meant to be accessible, some "out of the box" (not useful for progress), magic gates and some conversations that can be broken if you don't follow the story-line exactly - plus a few ways to expedite the mission by doing things backwards to design...

 

King of Chairs video:

 

Such an unfortunate thumbnail, i've hidden it...

As an addendum, after a few replays just now - Other than figuring that you CAN get out of an area in which I thought was inescapable - it's possible to fail if Birdie has stood up and sat back down: blackjacking him causes the chair to kill him as he falls into it.

 

Also - I noted in the video that all keys were required for 100% loot and every possible objective - this isn't true - you don't need Patrick's, the Back or Front door keys.

 

In the end, I turned down awareness a notch when playing without the light-gem, but decided to leave lockpicking as there were no places where it was necessary to be super-fast or difficult to hear.

 

 

 

 

 

The no kill / KO restrictions made it very difficult to keep a low stealth score when going for 100% everything (I figured to lock broach-boy in the safe room, to keep him from making bodies) and had to save due to a jump that can be fatal if missed (here ya go).

 

Locking the landlord in his bedroom and the wandering maid in hers also helped make the main objective area a lot easier to complete quickly.
Ultimately, rather than trying for all the loot - it was quicker to knock a few people out and leave with less than 100% loot, while still satisfying every objective that would appear (inc. the dark magic one that could be borked to save more time, but at the cost of higher stealth score)...

(stickykeys ruined an otherwise clean sheet, while step-creeping... damn pop-up).

So many ways to do things and play with the mission - it's definitely in the "don't ever uninstall" pile for me - one of the best, at any difficulty - only took about 40 replays to get it down

// Strangely, Birdie appears to teleport to the exit area if you knock him out at the start (which was probably the first thing I ever did in that level on first playing it...) and then find the objective to knock him out (which I guess is supposed to be made more difficult due to a guard appearing there, who won't if certain actions are performed...), after hiding his body in the gap between the table and the wall so no-one sees it... no idea why.


See Grayman?! I'm not using comic-sans any more.

[teh_saccade]

Since watching all Springheel's videos on his speed-build of A Matter of Hours, I decided to give it a good play-thru today and figure if I could complete it at highest difficulty.

This is one of the few levels that probably took me longer to complete than it did to make.

If you want to cut to the Expert level run, jump to 10-11 mins (the first half is me murdering everyone, complaining that there's so much to climb upon but I can't climb a damn thing, trying to find a way to block in or aerial takedown the torch guard, watching the guards get stuck in loops and) and towards the end of the run, how noisemakers don't appear to be working the same (or maybe my footsteps over-ride them now), some bodies becoming non-interactable/teleporting (again?) and finding a new TDM glitch whereby I can get the AI fighting and killing each other...

Also a few other tricks I use to trap AI in cushion forts and doorwedges and chokepoints so I don't have to deal with them:

Now, inside the video are a few suggestions and comments regarding speed-mapping.
These include things such as - the first comment regarding, "hey I found a place to hide loot but there's no loot" and about using speed-build as the base-mission to build upon a fuller mission with greater detail and further context - such as including a plant-pot or pot or something for the ever-spitting guard to spit into.

To be able to use the numerous other grates instead of doors...

A small touch that would add character to the space, place and person.

The expert level was extremely difficult - I am going to rip it to pieces to find out how the AI was randomised and player-dependent as it was, as it was probably the best pathing that I have encountered yet in TDM - it was really good, caught me out so many times.

I did not enjoy the extended lurking time to "ghost", nor the lack of escape routes - if I was caught, I'd have to run the whole level in circles (dodging blades and arrows) until I found a place to hide (usually the bed or the starting grate) and then basically go off and make dinner and come back before any AI was close to calming down. That's why I made a save game.

I'm not usually a quick-save/quick-loader, but one section really needed it because I was getting very, very frustrated at not being able to do it.

It was a good lesson in how an author's playstyle might become part of their mission [if hurried] and with scant feedback or external testing - do this, then this, then this, sneak here, wait here for this guy, pick this, etc... and it is one I recognise in my own designs - I make levels in the way I want to play them, but I also try to account for other playstyles and this makes it very difficult to solve all the problems. Can't please everyone... "Three ways to play". but there's more...

This was particularly evident on expert level, which was the most fun - as the objects needed to progress were given up just before they were needed (like crystal ball magic) and I found it absolutely impossible to grab the items under such bright lights without being spotted and killed after many, many tries (so many...), since i could not defend myself and could only KO two people (who perhaps ought to have been an archer and someone else, thinking of it... as an arrow now works better than a noisemaker at drawing attention, and there were two to pickpocket...).

I very much hope that speed-mapping (which, of course, requires hundreds and hundreds of hours of actual mapping to gain such level of understanding and familiarity) does not catch on as a way to quickly release a small, untested level and is used as intended - but remains as a tutorial method by which to improve skills and familiarity with DR and take the plunge to start mapping an FM...

 

before all the scripting and readables and definitions and more complicated stuff comes into play...

I certainly learned a lot from the video series and I learned a lot more by playing it (I'm gonna steal that AI pathing when I rip the pk4 open later).

I'm including it in "i like missions like this" because I did like it (because I'm a masochist) and enjoyed finding the "get the AI to kill each other" moments and "the tango" and a few other things:)

However, I think the 50-odd times I have now played it over the past few hours will mean it will be a lonnnggg time before I decide to give it another whirl

Edited May 6, 2017 by teh_saccade

[NeonsStyle]

I almost had a heart attack from laughing so hard at that humping a ragdoll. lol So funny my chest hurt lol

[teh_saccade]

This next mission is one I have never seen or played before - Full Moon Fever by Spoonman.

Please bear in mind that I'm not trying to show bad things here... my purpose is to highlight some things so that (as mappers) we can learn from each other and the missions we make, in order to better make missions.

I'm not trying to demoralise or show that this was missed or that bit's broken or this part's borked and if I do this and this then this breaks... I'm simply trying to learn by having fun.

Highlights include:

Getting stuck causing a restart in the first 2 minutes of play, some smooth action when "don't panic mode engage" (didn't climb on the stables for a jumping knockout, using the gates, but, had a bunch of arrows on "no kill" objective...), some places to fly silently and faster, using clipping models for grasses, a sneaky way onto the roof of the mansion, another place to get stuck (bad one), why this mission is a good one for the "no kills" objective - since it has so many alternate routes - how to "KO" the "unKO'able", aka the dangers of having more simple, circular patrol routes for key characters and - how to KO everyone in the mansion in the same room in a few minutes (so long as you don't mind a slightly higher stealth score):

 

Still not finished the mission as I'm constantly finding new routes and passageways and secret stuff and loot I missed and I LOVE rope arrows - so I'm taking my time.

I like to rope arrow up high above a light and when the guard comes to look at the rope drop down and conk him on the head.

If the captain (no arrow in face, no KO, difficult sword fight) in this mission had a patrol route similar to the key-holder in Springheel's speed-build mission, that changed depending on where the player was, or had some random things to do so he was unpredictable - I wouldn't be able to trap him in the basement so quickly and easily.

 

Considering he's a "key" character with a key - it's a shame he was so easy to defeat with the props available near his patrol route:

Here's a wiki that is relevant to such an issue (as I use this exploit/block doors often to stop patrols or to ensure I'm undisturbed when searching a room, IF the props are available): http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Path_Nodes#How_to_Make_AI_do_Random_Interesting_Things_.28RIT.29

 

// it's also possible to "retarget" the decision node so that it might be that a character would display highly unpredictable behaviour when entering a room / corridor / part of patrol, etc..., until the "leave room" is targetted and the AI moves on with their patrol or whatever. However, they can get stuck there forever... detailed article here: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=RIT_Networks

Edited May 12, 2017 by teh_saccade

[teh_saccade]

2 mch wurds.

[NeonsStyle]

You should do more like that funny one. That was brilliant.

[peter_spy]

You're an excellent tester, when I'm going to need someone to try and break my mission in every possible way, you'll be my first choice