timed knockout period

[Thrashaero]

It would be interesting if the people you knock out wake up after a certain period of time instead of indefinite sleeping no matter how long you run the mission.

[chakkman]

I think that would be a bad idea for gameplay. Knocked out guards would probably alert half of the staff. Apart from that, it would bring too much confusion, and, in my opinion, there's got to be at least a fair amount of predictability.

[New Horizon]

It would be interesting if the people you knock out wake up after a certain period of time instead of indefinite sleeping no matter how long you run the mission.

 

The AI don't wake up after being knocked out, because it would encourage the player to kill rather than knockout. Now, the player can still kill if they so choose but that is then reflected in their stealth score. Knockouts are a non-lethal way to remove an obstacle from the players path. More hardcore players may choose to ghost a mission and never touch a single AI. The game is balanced a certain way for a reason.

[stumpy]

this has been mentioned several times before, technically the knocked out guard is dead, but the game see's it as having been knocked out, but in other terms its a ragdoll, and a dead one, it just says unconcious when moving them, because it was killed via a knockout rather than a stabbing weapon or a fire related weapon like a landmine, to get it to wake up you would have to remove the ragdoll and spawn in a new guard in the place where it was stuffed, and as some places where unconcious guards are stuffed is under furniture, they would wake up then die of asphyxiation due to being crushed by the heavy furniture.

[jaxa]

This idea has been kicked to death (or unconsciousness) for what, 15 years now?

[Petike the Taffer]

Realism can be enriching, but at the same time, realism isn't always fun. We expect sleeping or unconscious people to take a while until they wake up. And, speaking from a strictly real world perspective, such concussions on the head could in reality often lead to outright death. So pondering the realism too deeply is, IMHO, pointless. The premise of stealth in TDM is that the player is able to skulk in the shadows, and while that isn't physically impossible, the ability to hide in the shadows as easily as presented in the game would probably not be as easy in the real world.

[Obsttorte]

 

The AI don't wake up after being knocked out, because it would encourage the player to kill rather than knockout. Now, the player can still kill if they so choose but that is then reflected in their stealth score. Knockouts are a non-lethal way to remove an obstacle from the players path. More hardcore players may choose to ghost a mission and never touch a single AI. The game is balanced a certain way for a reason.

I don't think that this is a sufficient reason. I bet there are many players like me who don't care about their stealth score, similar to how they don't care about steam achievements and the like. Having the ai wake up on its own is definetely pretty pointless for the above mentioned reasons, but allowing other ai to wake up unconscious ones can be an enrichment, as demonstrated in several Splinter Cell titles where this was the case. I always find it funny if it is stated that we don't want to encourage the player to kill the ai, if on the other hand we are handing him broadheads, a shortsword, fire arrows and explosive mines. As stumpy has written the main difference between dead and unconscious ai is how they are labeled.

 

No, the main reason imho is that the implementation would be rather difficult and would consume a lot of resources, as well as the fact that it would affect existing fms and would therefore require a lot of testing to get it to a point where it is working in a satisfactory way, without any guarantee that in the end it would actually enrich the gameplay.

 

But as it has been written this has been discussed pretty often already. So I may ask new forum members to think through the following points when having a "new" idea:

• someone else may had it before, so check the forums on whether this has been discussed already
• consider that there might be a reason why it hasn't been implemented already besides the lack of creativity you may expect among the team
• carefully think through what needs to be done to get "your idea" to work, in this case for example: coding, new animations, new barks, error tweaking, ...
• the chance of something you propose getting added to the mod is proportional to your capabilities of adding it on your own

And btw, there is a "Things that could be improved"-thread for ideas like yours, so there is no need to open up a new thread for every thought of yours (yeah, that is a minor thing, but it really bothers me and I felt it needs to be said, although others may disagree, so don't take this personal)

[OrbWeaver]

But as it has been written this has been discussed pretty often already. So I may ask new forum members to think through the following points when having a "new" idea:

• someone else may had it before, so check the forums on whether this has been discussed already
• consider that there might be a reason why it hasn't been implemented already besides the lack of creativity you may expect among the team
• carefully think through what needs to be done to get "your idea" to work, in this case for example: coding, new animations, new barks, error tweaking, ...
• the chance of something you propose getting added to the mod is proportional to your capabilities of adding it on your own

 

In addition to these very good points, I would add:

• Consider whether your idea actually improves gameplay and makes the player experience more fun, rather than just adding difficulty for the sake of it, or because of "realism". Remember that this is a game, not an attempt at a reality simulator.
• Consider whether implementing the new idea would break existing maps (by making sneaking more difficult, for example), or require players to re-learn how to play the game. Dramatic changes to how the lightgem works, or retrospectively adding completely new challenges into already-released maps, are unlikely to be implemented for this reason.

[kano]

this has been mentioned several times before, technically the knocked out guard is dead, but the game see's it as having been knocked out, but in other terms its a ragdoll, and a dead one, it just says unconcious when moving them, because it was killed via a knockout rather than a stabbing weapon or a fire related weapon like a landmine, to get it to wake up you would have to remove the ragdoll and spawn in a new guard in the place where it was stuffed, and as some places where unconcious guards are stuffed is under furniture, they would wake up then die of asphyxiation due to being crushed by the heavy furniture.

Makes me think of blackjacking sleeping AI's in Thief 1 and 2. They would spring to a standing position and then fall down. ha ha ha The cheapest way to implement this is to only spawn in a new AI if the player knocked out an existing one and the player isn't around to see a new one spawn in. You can just spawn it on the path finding area, so that it doesn't teleport into solid geometry and drop dead immediately. You could probably implement this into your FMs easily enough.

Edited February 7, 2019 by kano

[Springheel]

Like anything else in game design, you have to ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish.

 

If all you want is more AI around to keep the player on his toes, you can easily spawn in new ones at given intervals, or when the player does specific things.

[JackFarmer]

If all you want is more AI around to keep the player on his toes,

 

 

Have you played "Stolen" from 2005?

 

 

The game exactly suffered from this; knocked-out enemies woke up after a short period of time and there was no way to eliminate guards permanently. This kept the players really on their toes...and was most probably the reason that the game did not receive better ratings (although all things considered I personally liked it).

Edited February 7, 2019 by JackFarmer

[peter_spy]

I don't mind AI sleeping indefinitely after being KO'd, it's a part of the design formula. Otherwise you'd have to ghost the whole mission to finish it without any alarms, that feels like punishing the player for using tools you gave him. Not fun at all. But, I liked what Dishonored did with AI having an ability to wake up their unconscious buddies. This way you can use your blackjack, and the game only punishes you for being sloppy and leaving bodies in plain sight. Functionally, it's very similar to AI being alerted by a body, but with a bit more of a penalty. You could do a similar thing with what Spring mentioned: "calling for reinforcements", spawning additional AI when unconscious body is detected.

[wesp5]

But, I liked what Dishonored did with AI having an ability to wake up their unconscious buddies. This way you can use your blackjack, and the game only punishes you for being sloppy and leaving bodies in plain sight.

I agree with that. This would be a cool addition to TDM, but please, make the AI not wake up on their own!

[grayman]

KO'ed AI are different from dead AI: KO'ed AI continue to breathe. From the gameplay perspective, KO'ed or dead means the same thing: the AI has been taken out of the mission.

 

KO'ed AI stuffed under furniture suddenly becoming conscious and suffocating is not possible. If there is no room under furniture for them to breathe, they would suffocate before regaining consciousness.

 

KO'ed AI tossed into water by the player will later die due to suffocation. (The player is blamed.)

 

KO'ed AI tossed from a high enough ledge by the player will die upon impact with the ground below. (The player is blamed.)

 

So it is more than a simple matter of what the shouldering graphic says when you pick them up.

[Bluehawk]

Having guards wake up on a timer or get woken up when discovered by others would give the sword more utility as a stealth tool, if it meant putting a guard down permanently. Then you would have to choose between quiet and bloodless but temporary, or loud, messy (blood pools to clean) but permanent. This would deepen the tactical choices a little, but I don't think Thief fans would appreciate such a radical deviation from one of the core mechanics of the franchise though. I am not for this idea although I've mulled it over in my mind for years.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Bluehawk

[wesp5]

Having guards wake up on a timer or get woken up when discovered by others would give the sword more utility as a stealth tool, if it meant putting a guard down permanently.

But how long would a mission take in the real world? I don't know long people stay unconcious after being blackjacked, but anything over an hour won't matter. Also while we are talking about realism, do guards notice dropped swords or blood pools?

[grayman]

Yes

[OrbWeaver]

But how long would a mission take in the real world? I don't know long people stay unconcious after being blackjacked, but anything over an hour won't matter.

 

In the real world, hitting someone on the head hard enough to knock them out for more than a few seconds would be fatal in a significant number of cases, and lead to permanent brain damage in another significant number. There is no safe way to hit somebody over the head, even with a supposedly soft blackjack. So we are a very long way away from reality already.

[VanishedOne]

Having guards wake up on a timer or get woken up when discovered by others would give the sword more utility as a stealth tool, if it meant putting a guard down permanently. Then you would have to choose between quiet and bloodless but temporary, or loud, messy (blood pools to clean) but permanent. This would deepen the tactical choices a little, but I don't think Thief fans would appreciate such a radical deviation from one of the core mechanics of the franchise though. I am not for this idea although I've mulled it over in my mind for years.

It would be possible to knock them out quietly, move the bodies somewhere hidden, and then kill the AI, so you still wouldn't need to choose between quiet and permanent.

[stumpy]

blood pools can be cleared up with a water arrow.as far as I know, thats if you have any spare, or left.

[Taquito.]

It makes perfect sense the AI to stay knocked out during the whole Mission. Missions are supposed to be completed before dawn in most cases so just a couple of hours. I do like the concept Judith presented from Dishonored. Having AI wake knocked down enemies forces the player to hide the bodies and be more aware of where the AI is going.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Taquito.

[Destined]

Problem is that any such change would have to be made clear to the player if the old system is the standard. Either via a loading screen message or some readable (although I would not know how this would fit). Still, I also like the idea. We would need some kind of "kneel down and shake" animation and a "waking up after being knocked out" animation. Anything else I am missing? Two animations does not seem to extensive...

[Bluehawk]

Possibly two waking up animations, one for when the body is lying on its back and one for on its stomach.

[Diego]

I thought about this for years. What really bothers me is that the difference between killing and knocking out is almost entirely contextual (as in setting and story, everything on top of the abstract game rules), minus some extra scream and blood stain. I mean, there is no difference in terms of practical game effect; Entity goes from active AI to simple movable object. The only thing that makes any difference is context, the whole dress we give the game. It goes to show how important context is to stealth.

 

Anyway, I get really absorbed in the game and in my head killing is always a last resort, meaning purely contextual difference is sufficient to influence my decision making. But it would be nice to have a different effect on a gameplay level too. But simply having them wake up after some time would be a harsh penalty to knocking out and just discourage doing that. To put that in, there would have to be some other effects also in killing as well. Maybe knocking out makes AI wake up confused but not alerted, even if the unconscious body was found by another AI. While finding a dead body would raise the alert level. This would create a game mechanic distinction between the two actions and it would make some sense in the context of the game (it's sufficiently realistic, within the range of our suspension of disbelief).

 

I like how it is though. I'm just throwing my two cents.

[AluminumHaste]

The first Splinter Cell had something like that. If you used a stun dart to knock someone out and another person found them, they could wake them up.

That game had really simple geometry and you couldn't really move bodies like you can in TDM, so it's not equivalent.

I also found it annoying as fuck, why would someone shaking you wake you up if I tasered your face? You're not sleeping, you've been rendered unconscious.