The Adventures of Thomas: Lucy's Quest

[snatcher]

@computertech82

If you manage to beat this mission on your own you can consider yourself a veteran TDM player, regardless of the time invested or methods used. Don't despair, this mission is the ultimate test.

[geegee]

@snatcher

did you play the FM?

@computertech82

Your review is almost identical to that of the other review bomber, neonstyle, who didn't play the FM for even 5 seconds but who noclipped to an area where he airdropped before the same door which confounds you.  How did you get to that door if you didn't use a rope arrow in the vents?  If you were a bit observant and were actually trying to play the FM you might've noticed that the building with that confounding door has two floors, the second of which is ringed by a wooden balustrade where a well placed rope arrow (!!) allows the nimble or even not so very nimble player an entrance to a hall where there's a shooting gallery of open windows to use the water arrows (the player should have 20 or more of them by now) to extinguish the confounding torches.  There's also a keyed (!!! how awful !!!) door up there where the thoughtful player might expect a key might be snagged from off the ass of one of the guards sitting up ahead playing poker.  That allows the easiest entrance.  

But oh what the hell.  Once targeted by bombers ever targeted and there's nothing to do about it.  

In a post above I appended an edit to a response to vozka that, since it was an edit, probably went unnoticed so I'll repeat it here since it's really my last word for the time being, given my circumstances of having to learn how to edit all over again (yes, I found myself in a situation where I lost the ability to do even basics like change the ambient light setting! and a lot of the necessary fixes are difficult).

@vozka
I can now give a more coherent reply and I'm recovering nicely. 

I agree with every point of the critique and I'm in a quandary about how I should go about applying fixes.  I think your preamble to the actual critique shows an exact understanding of what I was attempting to do in the FM.  You understand that it is story driven.  You understood the main elements of the story, that basically a farm boy of pagan background entrusts himself with a mission.  His village needs help. Because he's earned a certain bad reputation and fits the bills requirement for having daring and a certain amount of cunning, so the mission is a natural fit; also amongst other things he wants to earn himself a good name.  He has friends to help him along the way, and makes friends of friends along the road of the pagans.  The FM uses devices to distinguish the pagans from the enemy they face and divides the space into distinct enemy and pagan areas, and areas in between.  The pagans are opposed by corrupt nobles and their army of fundamentalist Builders, as corrupt as the nobles they serve.  It's very black and white.  Then there's the city guard who, being ousted from real power by the Builders are resentful and won't help the Builders and will ignore the player unless attacked or the player is caught trespassing in their inner court.  That's about it.

The critique mentions some gameplay elements that detract from the story and I agree about those.

It also mentions gameworld failings that interfere with enjoyment, with gameflow and immersion. 

It seems to me that to fix these flaws will require a total rewrite of the FM, rebuilding the entire thing.  For example, I understand the problems mentioned w.r.t. the lighting and know how to fix them, or at least bandage them over so technically there's no apparent problem.  But I have a notion that the not so apparent problem here is in what's being lit.  That there should be a rearrangement of things so light can be more focused and contrasted with the dark.  I'm only starting to think through ways that I might do this. 

Needless to say anything like this would take time, probably a year, and I'm not sure whether I'm up to it.  I've been playing a new mission by Kingsal and know I haven't anything near that level of skill.  

IMO the FM is unplayable right now.  Actually I had asked that it be removed from the TDM database. I don't like the idea of leaving a blot.  

Thank you again.

[thebigh]

When I first tried to play this mission I got frustrated and gave up on it because it is very computationally demanding and my computer was a potato- the mission became a slide show. Now I have a better gaming machine and when I can set aside a few uninterrupted hours to give it a proper playthrough I'm sure I'll have a much better time.

[datiswous]

11 hours ago, geegee said:

IMO the FM is unplayable right now.  Actually I had asked that it be removed from the TDM database. I don't like the idea of leaving a blot.

Well it's not that bad is it? I thought multiple people have finished playing it already. No reason to remove a mission that has some issues, but can still be played and finished. You can put a warning in your mission description, but let players decide if it's worth it or not. I think removal is not something anyone will be happy with.

I think it would be better if you start on a new mission and with the (hopefully positive) experience that you gained, you can fix things in this mission later.

Edited June 21 by datiswous

[vozka]

Yeah, I don't think it needs to be removed.

[irisx]

I have played through this mission twice now, and despite the few frustrating spots noted by others, I found it enjoyable with many interesting ideas, visuals and gameplay mechanics. I can understand why some unconventional elements like the guard change, some unpickable locks/doors or seemingly impossible-to-ghost areas can break specific kinds of play style. In my opinion however the philosophy of TDM leaves a lot of room for missions to vary and even deviate from the "canon" so not to let us get bored   I also think it lies on the mission author, how much of such information they put in the mission description as a warning, e.g. geegee already has included warnings about heavy GPU demands and hints at some nonlinear aspects of gameplay.

All in all an enjoyable *and* challenging mission for me.

I have also experienced framerate drops in some areas, even with my new RTX 3060 with maxed-out settings. Strangely, this also happens in areas with "smoke" effects, e.g.

Spoiler

the campfire next to Aeden's hut or the fire pit in the dungeons

It also appears to get worse when the lantern is on, so maybe it is an interaction of light sources with volumetric stuff or shadow maps?

I encountered a few other bugs here and there, like items frobbable from inside closed drawers/containers and the stuck dungeons door, and I also managed to break the game once by

Spoiler

jumping over Helot's portocullis

The lighting could also use some tuning in a few areas.

One thing I was not able to figure out is,

Spoiler

how to access the Accounts area in Scarletbotham's mansion, which I suspect is needed to complete the Hoppie evidence objective. There is a locked grate in one of the vents where I can glimpse to an inaccessible room, but I cannot pick or force it open nor can I find another entry to this area.

Will certainly play v2, whenever @geegee decides to make it!

Edited August 12 by irisx
typo