Fan Mission: The Elixir by b1k3rdude & Obsttorte (17/02/2018)

[some1stoleit]

The map was a bit small, but well made up for it with the amount of details you put in. I could clearly see the work it took to make the environment that detailed and feel real, especially after using DR myself. I liked the story too in the way it made you feel like a small character in a larger plot, only willing to do the job and get out, not sticking around to get caught up in the mess.

 

I also couldn't complete the mission on Hard (the second diffiulty tier), got the objectives and went to the gate and nothing happened. I noclipped through the gate and the player clearly isn't supposed to go beyond it so the mission should've ended there. Interestingly enough the loot objective says I need 600 gold but I actually got the objective when I got 545 gold, perhaps that may help you debug it. I had some issues with the dumbwaiter too, climbing in it (from the top floor) I was walking on air instead of falling and climbing in from the bottom I got found myself trapped when I jumped. I avoided it after those two occasions

Edited February 20, 2018 by some1stoleit

[Bikerdude]

How important is the intro going to be? Is it worth waiting for that before playing the mission?

If the intro dosent get done, then I will update the mission.

[MVT]

 

Try the following:

• Running tdm_update.exe inside your TDM folder, that will cross reference your TDM directory with what's on the server and should there be any variances it will download the server version
• After that delete the elixir folder in your FM folder and download a fresh copy from the mission downloader
• If that fails, try to download a different mission and see if that works
• If all of that fails try creating a brand new directory and installing a fresh copy of the dark mod

Those are the only steps I can think of to help solve your issue, if you require any further help I would recommend opening a thread in the tech support section and hopefully someone with more technical expertise can help you to diagnose and solve your issue.

 

Good luck!

Thanks - tdm_update.exe did the trick.

[Baal]

This is a beautiful little mission. Short but fun. Well done.

 

I played on the medium difficulty and in addition to the mission not ending, I also could kill a guard (on the streets) without failing the no kill objective. Maybe you are already aware of that, just saying.

[Bikerdude]

This is a beautiful little mission. Short but fun. Well done., I played on the medium difficulty and in addition to the mission not ending, I also could kill a guard (on the streets) without failing the no kill objective. Maybe you are already aware of that, just saying.

Thanks, I wasn't so will fix that in the next version.

[Atomica]

.

Edited August 2, 2018 by Atomica

[Bikerdude]

not only was the ghosting designed well enough that it was doable

I spent time creating lots of little spots for players to hide in, but they are subtle and sometimes a bit tense. And because of the tight spaces I made a lot of sticky-out hard to mantle on furniture non-solid and placed a nodrawsolid brush there instead.

 

Glad you enjoyed it.

 

@All, Goldwell has created a superb intro so I will adding that and fixing the mission bugs on medium in due course.

[NeonsStyle]

Congratulations on completion. Will look forward to getting into it.

[Bikerdude]

I will fixed the bugs on medium and adding a intro vid at the same time, so it might be worth waiting for that version.

[NeonsStyle]

I had an issue with this level. I completed all the objectives, got to the exit and the mission failed to finish. I'd only KO'd one

person, there was no AI blood, just my own lol. However it wouldn't exit. Did I miss something? I had the 600, the painting,

the Elixir and only the nosy maid was KO'd.

[Bikerdude]

the medium objective need fixing, which I will be doing this week.

[chakkman]

I just played this through, nice little mission. I really liked the atmosphere, and the visuals were just great, i think you (Bikerdude) really have a talent for the city/street design in particular. I also liked that the guard patrol routes were more or less linear, which (IMO) simply makes the missions more playable, especially with such tough no kill/no knockout objectives on all difficulties. What i didn't like so much was that there was hardly any room for errors, because the mansion had a very tight architecture, so, it was hard to find hiding spots sometimes. Also, i hard a really hard time finding the

 

 

switch for the hidden room with the elixir sample. Even after reading where it might be in this thread, i had to search to be able to find it. A little hint might have been useful in that case, especially because the key already was hidden.

 

 

All in all, i really enjoyed the mission. It also completed correctly for me (i think i already played the updated version, it said version 1.1 here), and i was able to snatch almost all the loot (i think 6 gold were missing in the end or so). Got a really bad stealth score though, because of the thing i mentioned with the tight architecture.

[cavador_8]

The frame rate drops in this mission into the 30s for me whenever I enter the tavern in the beginning. Must be the lighting? I also hate forced ghosting and that's what this mission does by limiting the knockouts to only two. I'll have to pass on this one.

Edited March 23, 2018 by cavador_8

[Bikerdude]

I also hate forced ghosting and that's what this mission does by limiting the knockouts to only two. I'll have to pass on this one.

This had to be done because its such a small map, have you tried on easy..?

[esme]

There are several little spots you can hide in that really don't look like you should get away with it, but you do

[chakkman]

This had to be done because its such a small map

 

I disagree. No mission should have forced ghost objectives. Still enough places to hide bodies, e.g. in the "barracks" of the mansion. It's alreay bad enough IMO that many missions have no kill + no knockout objectives on the highest difficulty. Major letdown for the people who want to at least get a bit of space to breath by at least knocking out the most annoying guards. I never understood in general why The Dark Mod has to be that difficult, TBH. The knockouts are already much more difficult than in the original Thief's (something i never quite understood either BTW), and no knockout objectives make things even more/much harder. The claustrophobic design of many maps also makes it unnecessarily hard.

 

Anyway, maybe that's a discussion which would rather belong in a dedicated thread, even though the same thing has already been mentioned dozens of times. And, of course it is up to the mission creator whether he wants to add such objectives or not, or, in general, how he wants to design his mission. Just thought i'd mention it anyway, because, i think that some feedback in that regard is also useful.

Edited March 23, 2018 by chakkman

[cavador_8]

Well said chakkman. Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Oktokolo]

I disagree. No mission should have forced ghost objectives.

True. Ghosting / no kill / no knockouts / no tools / no light switching / no tool consumption / no save / stealth score 0... are optional objectives, players can easily add to their gameplay as they see fit. No need to add them to the mission on any difficulty.

 

I never understood in general why The Dark Mod has to be that difficult, TBH. The knockouts are already much more difficult than in the original Thief's (something i never quite understood either BTW), and no knockout objectives make things even more/much harder. The claustrophobic design of many maps also makes it unnecessarily hard.

Wait, what?! Most missions are more on the easy side where you do not have to use any consumables, AI most of the time are easy to predict, easy to knock out and missions in general feature tons of safe body storage spots. Also, most buildings in missions are rather spatious because of AI pathfinding requirements - making avoiding AI easy. Pathfinding needs at least 33 units of space for regular AI (16 to each side and one for the pathfinding node). 33 units feel almost like one meter to me. And that is the minimum for one AI. If you want another AI or the player to be able to pass that AI, you have to double the amount. Mappers often want to decorate their corridors a bit - so we end up with oversized structures in a lot of missions (AAA games do that a lot too by the way).

Even on hardest, most missions of The Darkmod are not hard - if you got some experience. So just play on normal and visit the training mission until you feel that missions get too easy. Then play them on harder and hardest. It's no shame to play on normal. Difficulty might vary a bit between authors and between missions of the same author.

 

[chakkman]

Being a casual TDM player, even after 10 years (?) of playing this mod, i still have issues with blackjacking (yes, even after watching the respective tutorial videos), and avoiding the sometimes unpredictable AI. The main issues are that the guards simply choose paths, which get them near to walls, and they don't walk in the middle of the hallway, and they bump into you. Or mission makers choose to make very narrow hallways, and the lights prevent you from quickly retreating where you came from.

 

Anyway, as i mentioned, that's more of a general discussion about the mod itself, not this mission, so, i'd rather discuss it in a dedicated thread. Let me state one more thing though: If you think that TDM is childs play, play Thief Gold, or Thief 2 again, and notice how ridiculously easy those are in comparison. And those were considered "difficult" games by most of the game press, back in the days. So, ya, i consider TDM pretty hard.

Edited March 24, 2018 by chakkman

[Obsttorte]

 

I disagree. No mission should have forced ghost objectives. Still enough places to hide bodies, e.g. in the "barracks" of the mansion. It's alreay bad enough IMO that many missions have no kill + no knockout objectives on the highest difficulty. Major letdown for the people who want to at least get a bit of space to breath by at least knocking out the most annoying guards. I never understood in general why The Dark Mod has to be that difficult, TBH. The knockouts are already much more difficult than in the original Thief's (something i never quite understood either BTW), and no knockout objectives make things even more/much harder. The claustrophobic design of many maps also makes it unnecessarily hard.

 

Anyway, maybe that's a discussion which would rather belong in a dedicated thread, even though the same thing has already been mentioned dozens of times. And, of course it is up to the mission creator whether he wants to add such objectives or not, or, in general, how he wants to design his mission. Just thought i'd mention it anyway, because, i think that some feedback in that regard is also useful.

 

True. Ghosting / no kill / no knockouts / no tools / no light switching / no tool consumption / no save / stealth score 0... are optional objectives, players can easily add to their gameplay as they see fit. No need to add them to the mission on any difficulty.

 

It depends. If such constraints are only added to increase difficulty than I agree, there are other less annoying (and much more subtle) ways to achieve that. But I wouldn't generalize that.

 

Expecting the player to add such constraints on themselves seems rather odd to me either, though. I know there are folks here doing so, but that is something I don't understand.

 

I think that such constraints can be added if they meet two general criterias (more or less, depending on what constraint we are talking about specifically)

1. It has to somehow fit the scenario of the mission. So it has to make sense.
2. It has to enrich the gameplay and the latter should be adjusted to fit the constraints in return.

I've tried that myself in my mission "The Builder Roads". The player has no tools nor weapons and under the highest settings he isn't allowed to get seen or raise an alert. In return there are only a few guards (four IIRC) and as the player isn't a typical thief and is intented to stay in the area after the job is done I think the ghost constraint makes sense in terms of the scenario. It was more of an experiment, though. I never aimed for an increased difficulty by doing that.

 

Btw: If the constraint only gets added under the highest difficulty and you really can't stand it, I may suggest that you choose a lower difficulty level then

[Oktokolo]

It depends. If such constraints are only added to increase difficulty than I agree, there are other less annoying (and much more subtle) ways to achieve that. But I wouldn't generalize that.

Yes, was a bit too broad here. There are missions where it totally makes sense storywise, to add such constraints. There are some pretty good missions (including "The Builder Roads"), that do not contain some equipment types, let the player start without gear or fail on detection.

For me, none of the missions profited or would have profited from knockout or save restrictions though.

Expecting the player to add such constraints on themselves seems rather odd to me either, though. I know there are folks here doing so, but that is something I don't understand.

The reasoning is, that it is hard for the player to remove such constraints (has to use DR) but easy to add them (except the stealth score one, it is only about not doing or using stuff).

Ideally, the game would give us the option to add a stealth score constraint to any mission in the difficulty selection dialog, so we do not have to wait until the end screen to know whether we got it properly zeroed or not.

Btw: If the constraint only gets added under the highest difficulty and you really can't stand it, I may suggest that you choose a lower difficulty level then

That is what i sometimes do in case of knockout restrictions. TDM missions are a rare resource and i generally like to have some years between playthroughs. So i most of the time just postpone playing, until i am in the mood for some ghosting to get the non-stripped mission with all the guards, lights, patrol routes and side quests on my first playthrough.

[chakkman]

There is actually one situation where i would totally understand a no kill and no knockout constraint, and that's missions where the homeowner isn't supposed to know that anyone was in his home. That doesn't include missions where you steal something (the homeowner will know that someone was there anyway, because his stuff is missing obviously), have to kill, or bust out someone, or most of the other scenarios covered in TDM missions. On the other hand, i can imagine quite a few scenarios where it absolutely would make sense not to kill anyone (murder being the more severe crime, thus attracting more attention by the law, or the client or fence not willing to be linked to murder, or simply because it doesn't make sense to kill the lordship, when you can rob them another time ). Therefor, i think a no kill constraint is much more common, and makes much more sense than a no KO constraint, which really doesn't make sense for 99,9% of TDM missions.

[Bikerdude]

I'm working on the fixing the medium/normal objection and adding the intro and to nip the above topic in the bud I have remove the no knockouts on easy.

[cavador_8]

 

 

to nip the above topic in the bud I have remove the no knockouts on easy.

Yeah! Thanks Bikerdude!

[brethren]

Just played this - really good smaller scale mission. Quite claustrophobic in parts, but even for an occasional KO guy like me, I was able to manage playing on Expert and ghost it. Nicely done, good tension with only a few AI. The

secret door

was a bit hard too find though, a subtle clue would have helped.

 

@Biker - A few things I noticed if you're fine tuning for an update:

 

-Going up the stairs from the kitchen to the first floor, the player is forced to crouch. You can't just walk up the stairs normally. The guard made it by I couldn't.

-If you climb into the dumb waiter space and the waiter is not on your floor, you get stuck and are forced to reload.

-Readable typos - Lady's diary, page 9, "to found" should be "too fond." Cook's diary, page 7, "dry is unmentionables" should be "dry his unmentionables."

 

Thanks again, fun mission.

Edited March 25, 2018 by brethren