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TDM - Be a Thief **AND** a Monster? Possible to bypass no-kill/no-knockout rules in FMs?


cvlw

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Hello TDM crew.

Some FMs have strict no-ko and/or no-kill rules. Sometimes I don't want to adhere to those rules and think it might be fun to drop all the bodies in the canal or sewer or something.  Might there be a way to bypass those rules?

I have considered making local copies of FMs and modifying in DarkRad, but, if there is a way in-game, I would go for that.  I don't know DarkRad, yet.

Fun is what you make it.  Back on Thief 1, I once spent an inordinate amount of time in Bafford's Manor getting the guards to chase me down to the basement entrance so I could coax them to slip into the water.  In "A New Job" on TDM, I had a grand time knocking everyone out with a box just to prove I could do it. Good times.

Gruesomely yours,

CVLW

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1 hour ago, cvlw said:

Hello TDM crew.

Some FMs have strict no-ko and/or no-kill rules. Sometimes I don't want to adhere to those rules and think it might be fun to drop all the bodies in the canal or sewer or something.  Might there be a way to bypass those rules?

I have considered making local copies of FMs and modifying in DarkRad, but, if there is a way in-game, I would go for that.  I don't know DarkRad, yet.

Fun is what you make it.  Back on Thief 1, I once spent an inordinate amount of time in Bafford's Manor getting the guards to chase me down to the basement entrance so I could coax them to slip into the water.  In "A New Job" on TDM, I had a grand time knocking everyone out with a box just to prove I could do it. Good times.

Gruesomely yours,

CVLW

It should be as simple as unchecking the tickbox "Mandatory" for those objectives in the Objectives Editor. If you really wanted to avoid DR you could even do it by opening the map in a text editor and changing the right lines.

Alternatively it might be possible to make a script addon that automatically detects the map's objectives entity and sets the objectives to non-mandatory. Would have to be careful it doesn't break missions, though, if they combine no-kill requirements and other tasks into the same objectives.

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Yeah editing the ruleset would be your best bet for that scenario I think. However that does really bring up the idea of different outcomes. It's a lot more gameplay to manage but I know you can set conditions in the level that will only activate, depending on the difficulty you chose (as the FM designer). I always wanted to do one with an RPG choice kinda spin. Where depending on the difficulty you chose, whole areas will either be added or removed; creating a much different experience.

Modeler galore & co-authors literally everything

 

 

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Quote

If you really wanted to avoid DR you could even do it by opening the map in a text editor and changing the right lines.

Thanks Dragofer.  I hadn't even considered editing the .map file in the .pk4. I didn't realize it was plain text.  I am running a map right now with the no-ko set to "Mandatory off" rendering the objective optional.  I am still working on learning DR.

I think that addresses my immediate bloodlust and makes it possible to "un-mandatory" objectives on maps I had passed over to avoid the no-ko/no-kill.

Appreciated.

CV

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From my experience, in a lot of missions that employ no-KO and/or no-kill rules, these rules are normally only used on the harder difficulty levels. Then again some missions have complete blanket no-kills regardless of difficulty (to suggest a certain type of character the player thief is I guess), so modifying the map seems to be the case.

I'll admit that when missions have these restrictions, I'll often test them just in case the mapper forgot to mark them as mandatory (have seen it happen at least once). Also I like the idea of some missions that mark them as optional, so you can fail them if you want but still keep going.

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A word of warning, Agent Denton. This was a simulated experience; real LAMs will not be so forgiving.

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I am a good person and in TDM, unlike other FP games, I do not need to kill everything that moves, except zombies ,skeletons and spiders. Okay, I have nothing against knock outs, but it gives me even a bad vibe to steal the coins from a beggar or obviously poor people.

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I have noticed it is usually possible to bend the "no kill" rules by getting the guards to massacre each other.  "Sons of Baltona" for instance has a wonderful arrangement of boxes where you can hide but the guards can still see you and start throwing knives or rocks or whatever it is.  By this means you can get them to denounce each other as thieves and in the end you will be left with one guard and a heap of bodies, all without violating the mission parameters.  In some cases they will accuse the captain/lord/archbishop or other NPC of supreme importance of being a thief and cut them to ribbons as well.

This seems to be the case for most missions with a no-kill rule, though there are one or two where this is so rigidly enforced that infighting is blamed on you as well.  This can be annoying since it may happen by accident and I have to separate the two of them (e.g. with a box or gas-arrow) to prevent their murdering each other and failing the mission.

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I made the no-kill objective in my FM optional on my hard difficulty. There's a bad guy (or two) in it that a lot of people would like to kill if given the chance, so who am I to say no? The whole ethos of the game is player freedom. But I did want to have a way to recognize being a good sneak.

I also change up other people's FMs to my liking, well I wouldn't say all the time, but sometimes. But I've learned not to advertise it because sometimes the author can actually get a little upset for seeing their baby get messed with.* 😁

I personally think it's important to let players do what they want with their local copy. Messing with other people's maps is even one of the best ways to learn good map-making skills. But of course they definitely shouldn't be redistributed, like AH was saying. That part, honoring the author's final word on their own FM going out to the public, is still important too.

------

* Edit: Although the one case it happened most significantly was kind of a special case. Can I remember it? It was the FM Beauty Contest. I know because I submitted an entry; I was also the only person that voted for my entry. XD Anyway, it was the Clocktower by, uh, right ... Ottoj55. He put a portrait of his girlfriend in a key place at the final location, and I thought to replace it with a period appropriate image. XD  And I guess the egregious part was letting other people that wanted to know how to do it how to do it. (I think someone else did that part though IIRC. But I did it independently myself too, and then watched the other person get chewed out for it.)

I mean, it was nothing against her. It was just really anachronistic & jarring in its setting. But he was not happy that people would think to do that haha. I mean he won the contest & I came in dead last with only me voting for me, so he can't complain too much, I figure.

That was like 16 years ago now. I still find it kind of funny. And IIRC it sparked a whole debate about the ethics of messing with FMs. I think it was okay because it was local, and giving instructions would be okay because it's just an extension of that. But I wouldn't dream of thinking it would be okay to distribute.

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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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2 hours ago, datiswous said:

Sometimes I want to fix things in missions that (I think) aren't supported anymore by the owner, then I find it a bit of a shame that the mission can't be fixed with my fix, but respect for the maker's creation is (more) important here.

Many of you probably know that I restored a lot of unfinished content in my VtM Bloodlines patch so I understand this quite well, although I would never be able to do this in TDM. What hurts me the most though are that there are some unfinished missions available in the beta testing board that were abandoned! I would really appreciate if somebody could contact the authors and then finish and release them...

Edited by wesp5
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