Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Some suggestions


Gerberox

Recommended Posts

If you still improving the game, please consider these:

-Turning off music during the menu. There is an option to turn it off but it only works on the main menu. When I press escape, that menu still has music. When I hit escape, I want to do something, an IRL thing for example, and I need to mute the speakers separately. Such a little QoL thing would make the game experience better. The music is loud, thus disturbing. When I just open my browser to see a video of my current campaign I don't hear its sounds. So I need to mute the game, see the video, unmute the game. It's annoying.

-When guards or locals meet spiders and they kill them they start searching me. Maybe it even adds to my stealth score, I don't know. It would be long and boring to test it. So I think even if they are alerted, they should revert to their normal behavior after a while, sheathing their weapons. And this definitely shouldn't raise the stealth score. You might even record separate voice lines regarding to the animal attack.

-Working pistols. 18th or 19th century ones. They would fit many stories better than bows. Maybe only for NPCs, maybe for the player, too.

-The starting page of the site doesn't tell anything what is this game about. The quote from PC Gamer doesn't help new players who never heard about the Thief series.

Thank you for this cool game.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The menu is not as loud as the factory pistons in Thief 1 and 2 but it's not as discreet as Thief 3 neither. I loved how well the quiet ambient in Thief's 3 menu had blended with the overall style of the game. TDM is kind of in the middle here I guess. But I would as well prefer the quieter Thief 3 way of doing it.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Gerberox said:

-Turning off music during the menu. There is an option to turn it off but it only works on the main menu. When I press escape, that menu still has music. When I hit escape, I want to do something, an IRL thing for example, and I need to mute the speakers separately. Such a little QoL thing would make the game experience better. The music is loud, thus disturbing. When I just open my browser to see a video of my current campaign I don't hear its sounds. So I need to mute the game, see the video, unmute the game. It's annoying.

This point has already been brought up, and if I remember correctly, it is currently looked into. It will still take some time to resolve, may be already included in the next update.

1 hour ago, Gerberox said:

-When guards or locals meet spiders and they kill them they start searching me. Maybe it even adds to my stealth score, I don't know. It would be long and boring to test it. So I think even if they are alerted, they should revert to their normal behavior after a while, sheathing their weapons. And this definitely shouldn't raise the stealth score. You might even record separate voice lines regarding to the animal attack.

Not sure about this. That guards continue looking makes sense. If fighting other AI contributes to the stealth score, this would be bad, but I have no idea if this is really tha case. Maybe someone else can confirm already...

2 hours ago, Gerberox said:

-Working pistols. 18th or 19th century ones. They would fit many stories better than bows. Maybe only for NPCs, maybe for the player, too.

This is a question of style and nothing that was intended for the steampunk setting in this mod. This is an issue that mainly depends on map authors. There is always a chance that someone will like the idea and realise it for individual missions. However, it will not happen as a general thing for the mod. Please also keep in mind that this requires a lot of work: creating models for the weapons, create new definitions for these weapons and projectiles, create animations for AI (and/or the player) that use the weapons, and balancing the weapons. All stuff that many would consider not being worth the effort, given that the steampunk setting is what was intended for the mod.

2 hours ago, Gerberox said:

-The starting page of the site doesn't tell anything what is this game about. The quote from PC Gamer doesn't help new players who never heard about the Thief series.

You may be right. However, the Thief series is the major inspiration for this mod and most people find it by looking for something similar to the series. Also, the title of the page reads "The Drak Mod - Stealth Gaming in a Gothic Steampunk World", so I think people will find the page, if they search for something like stealth or steampunk. Even if they have not heard of the Thief series, the trailer on the first page gives further insights on how the games looks like.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Destined said:

Not sure about this. That guards continue looking makes sense. If fighting other AI contributes to the stealth score, this would be bad, but I have no idea if this is really tha case. Maybe someone else can confirm already...

But they killed the spider already. It makes sense if they continue the search for 20-30 sec for more animals but not further.

It's a rare issue, I admit, maybe the level designers can change this anyway. If this option exists it would be possible for designers to use random monsters more easily without changing the difficulty of the level.

 

20 minutes ago, Destined said:

This is a question of style and nothing that was intended for the steampunk setting in this mod. This is an issue that mainly depends on map authors. There is always a chance that someone will like the idea and realise it for individual missions. However, it will not happen as a general thing for the mod. Please also keep in mind that this requires a lot of work: creating models for the weapons, create new definitions for these weapons and projectiles, create animations for AI (and/or the player) that use the weapons, and balancing the weapons. All stuff that many would consider not being worth the effort, given that the steampunk setting is what was intended for the mod.

I especially thought it because of the steampunk setting.

But anyway it's your leisure time and your choice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Gerberox said:

But they killed the spider already. It makes sense if they continue the search for 20-30 sec for more animals but not further.

Speaking of which, it a guard notices the player, but does not find him for several minutes, does he assume he is gone, sheath his sword and goes back to unalerted? I mean he wouldn't walk around the whole night with his sword drawn, right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, wesp5 said:

Speaking of which, it a guard notices the player, but does not find him for several minutes, does he assume he is gone, sheath his sword and goes back to unalerted? I mean he wouldn't walk around the whole night with his sword drawn, right?

It depends how alert he is.  If he has accumulated enough evidence to know there is an intruder, then he will.  If he didn't see the player and hasn't seen other evidence (bodies, missing loot, etc) then he won't.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Gerberox said:

But they killed the spider already. It makes sense if they continue the search for 20-30 sec for more animals but not further.

It's a rare issue, I admit, maybe the level designers can change this anyway. If this option exists it would be possible for designers to use random monsters more easily without changing the difficulty of the level.

This is how alerts are handled in general. There are several alert levels and each has a certain amount of time, in which no further "alert stimulus" may appear, until it is lowered to the next one below. As far as I know it is not possible to distinguish between the source of the alert level. So, even if a guard has fought against a spider, it has to go through all the alert levels to get to the "ground level". If you are interested in the exact numbers: It takes a guard 103 +/- 31.5 s to go from combat alert back to unalert.

7 hours ago, wesp5 said:

Speaking of which, it a guard notices the player, but does not find him for several minutes, does he assume he is gone, sheath his sword and goes back to unalerted? I mean he wouldn't walk around the whole night with his sword drawn, right?

The game distinguishes between idle and alert_idle. The second state is used after a certain alert level is reached (not sure which one; it has been some time that I have looked it up and I could not find it right away, right now). This can be used by map authors for example to introduce other paths that the guards take after they have reached the alert_idle state by using the "alert_idle_only" spawnarg on path_corners. These path_corners will only be valid targets if the guard is in the alert_idle state. I am not sure if this also has other effects, like increased acuity or something similar, but cannot exclude it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites



I'll take a look at the spider problem, they might contribute to stealth score which we can fix. Unfortunately, we don't have custom vocals lines for specific enemies like spiders and other monsters. Guards  will call out the player/ thief, but not monsters. 

TDM has pretty long AI search and alert times compared to Thief. They rack up quickly as destined mentioned and there's a lot of under the hood variables. I've  experimented with reducing alter times in my own missions and some people like that. It's a tricky thing to balance and a fairly complicated system to explain easily. We could try though!

Thanks for the feedback!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, wesp5 said:

Interesting info about the different alert infos! Can this be explained in the loading tips? Because in most other games, enemies rather quickly return to normal.

If you are interested in more details: the spawargs are called alert_time# (with # going from 1 to 4). The lower alert states are reduced a lot quicker than the higher alert times. The times that are defined in the definition "atdm:ai_base" are: alert_time1: 5, alert_time2: 8 s, alert_time3: 25 s, and alert_time3: 65 s. These times are modified by the spawnarg alert_time#_fuzzyness, which can be (if I remember correctly) be added as well as subtracted. For alert_time4 this vlaue is 20 s, which means that the highest alert state has a range between 45 and 85 s. If you want to change these values for all AI, you can modify the aforementioned definition. However, I am sure this was tested a lot in the beginning, until people were satisfied with the times, so personally, I would not change them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, Destined said:

I am sure this was tested a lot in the beginning, until people were satisfied with the times, so personally, I would not change them.

I don't want to change that, but I thought it might be interesting for people coming from other games to read in the loading tips.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I have 3 requests for the post mission statistics:

1. List of objectives. This seems like an obvious recap of what you did and what you missed (optional/bonus objectives).

2. Number of locks picked!

3. Total number of pickpockets available in the mission (ex: 1 out of 3; currently it just says 1).

Edited by Klatremus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pistols are definitely not happening by default, but you might find someone willing to implement that as a mod. Crossbows would be cooler and more fitting :)

I don't see why guards should search for the player after encountering a spider, they're completely different enemies and the encounters are unrelated. Plus the AI already becomes more alert after it first reaches a given alert level IIRC, which includes saying new voice lines but also heightened senses if I'm not mistaken (the AI becomes more attentive to their surroundings).

On the matter of being able to turn off menu music, an idea would be to simply have a different volume sliders for in-game and menu music. This way we could also make it so that pausing the game doesn't necessarily change the ambient song but simply lowers its volume which might feel better. Just a thought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

I don't see why guards should search for the player after encountering a spider

Realistically, they'd be searching for more spiders. But if they happen to find a thief instead then too bad for the thief.

  • Haha 1

My missions:           Stand-alone                                                      Duncan Lynch series                              

                                      Down and Out on Newford Road              the Factory Heist

                                                                                                  A House Call

                                                                                                  The House of deLisle                                                                                                  

                              

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...
On 5/1/2021 at 8:48 PM, Gerberox said:

Working pistols. 18th or 19th century ones. They would fit many stories better than bows. Maybe only for NPCs, maybe for the player, too.

Why would you need a pistol, if skilled FM makers or the dev team could add something like this ?
 

Perfectly realistic from a historical standpoint, fast to reload, but not too powerful or with too great a range. If anything, these would be faster to reload and shoot than an 18th or 19th century pistol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Personally, I hate the menu music in all games and it's the first thing I disable when I load a new game. 

  • Like 1

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually I don't like the standard menu music for tdm (nice at first, but gets old quickly), but often I like the main menu music from seperate missions when they include them. But I often don't hear them because I disabled the music.

I schould also be able to disable all sounds in the main menu (instead of having to manually editting the gui files for this).

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The menu music can be disabled, but a bigger problem is the music in the mission, whose volume cannot be adjusted independently and is sometimes so loud that it is difficult to hear other important sounds, for example in lockpicking or the approach of a guard.

Maybe the menu music can be change with one of this page (royalty free, CC)

https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com/royalty-free-music/celtic-fantasy

 

Edited by Zerg Rush
  • Like 1

Sys Specs Laptop Lenovo V145 15AST, AMD A9- 9425 Radeon R5 - 5 cores 3,1 GHz  RAM 8Gb, GPU 1+2 Gb -Win10 64 v21H2

Favorite online apps you may like too 😉

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

There's nothing wrong with it, just hearing it again and again every time you start TDM gets annoying.

My missions:           Stand-alone                                                      Duncan Lynch series                              

                                      Down and Out on Newford Road              the Factory Heist

                                                                                                  A House Call

                                                                                                  The House of deLisle                                                                                                  

                              

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/4/2022 at 3:04 PM, Petike the Taffer said:

Why would you need a pistol, if skilled FM makers or the dev team could add something like this ?
 

Perfectly realistic from a historical standpoint, fast to reload, but not too powerful or with too great a range. If anything, these would be faster to reload and shoot than an 18th or 19th century pistol.

That's rather a toy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/14/2022 at 3:38 AM, Gerberox said:

That's rather a toy.

A pretty deadly toy if you "catch" one of its bolts in the face or gut. 😛 ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/4/2022 at 3:04 PM, Petike the Taffer said:

Why would you need a pistol, if skilled FM makers or the dev team could add something like this ?
 

Perfectly realistic from a historical standpoint, fast to reload, but not too powerful or with too great a range. If anything, these would be faster to reload and shoot than an 18th or 19th century pistol.

Meanwhile in old China they used this thing

 

Sys Specs Laptop Lenovo V145 15AST, AMD A9- 9425 Radeon R5 - 5 cores 3,1 GHz  RAM 8Gb, GPU 1+2 Gb -Win10 64 v21H2

Favorite online apps you may like too 😉

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/8/2022 at 9:48 PM, Zerg Rush said:

Meanwhile in old China they used this thing

Repeating crossbows where pretty inaccurate and mostly used balistically by non-soldiers to rain clouds of bolts on the battle field.
I doubt, that they would be a good weapon for a guard or the different player characters in TDM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Certainly not as accurate as a common bow, but they were also worth more than just raining down arrows on an enemy.
Accuracy depends on who uses this weapon.
Do you know William Tell, the Swiss revolutionary? Crossbows were a very common weapon in Switzerland at the time-
This invention of the Chinese certainly lacks the necessary precision more than at close range, because due to the system itself it cannot have enough force of the shot, but as in a thread for the inspiration of a video game it can be valid, since in a  game can be given the strength and precision you want, although it does not correspond to reality, nor does a person who has no problem jumping from building to building and climbing with a sack full of ingots and gold objects.

 

Sys Specs Laptop Lenovo V145 15AST, AMD A9- 9425 Radeon R5 - 5 cores 3,1 GHz  RAM 8Gb, GPU 1+2 Gb -Win10 64 v21H2

Favorite online apps you may like too 😉

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recent Status Updates

    • Ansome

      Finally got my PC back from the shop after my SSD got corrupted a week ago and damaged my motherboard. Scary stuff, but thank goodness it happened right after two months of FM development instead of wiping all my work before I could release it. New SSD, repaired Motherboard and BIOS, and we're ready to start working on my second FM with some added version control in the cloud just to be safe!
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer  »  DeTeEff

      I've updated the articles for your FMs and your author category at the wiki. Your newer nickname (DeTeEff) now comes first, and the one in parentheses is your older nickname (Fieldmedic). Just to avoid confusing people who played your FMs years ago and remember your older nickname. I've added a wiki article for your latest FM, Who Watches the Watcher?, as part of my current updating efforts. Unless I overlooked something, you have five different FMs so far.
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
×
×
  • Create New...