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Fan Mission: In Plain Sight by Frost_Salamander (2022/08/07)


Frost_Salamander

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10 minutes ago, maxrenn8 said:

I can't find Smythe's apartment. Any hints ?

hint:

Spoiler

It's one of 2 apartments that are located above Troutbeck's shop.  You can get to them by going up the metal staircase through the door off of the passage behind the shop.  You can't get in through his door though, so you'll need to find another way in.

Spoiler:

Spoiler

Smythe's apartment can be reached via the attic in the bedroom in the apartment next door to his.

 

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1 hour ago, grodenglaive said:

I'm stuck at the same place.

  Hide contents

I found a few oil cans around the village, but none of them were frobable.

 

@grodenglaive:

Spoiler

Are you talking about how to open the safe?  If so, see the hints in the post just before yours - if you can get into that apartment you will find something that will help with that.

 

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30 minutes ago, Frost_Salamander said:

@grodenglaive:

  Reveal hidden contents

Are you talking about how to open the safe?  If so, see the hints in the post just before yours - if you can get into that apartment you will find something that will help with that.

 

Thanks! Yes, sorry I thought I had quoted someone else's question about the safe.

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Very nice mission , I enjoyed it very much, although some secrets are VERY hard to find. 😃

Although I read all the readables , I am not able to find 2 hidden switches:

Spoiler

1. The stash behind the toilet in the apartement of the widow Smythe writes about.

2. A stash near the hideout of the thief girl .

Would you please advise how to find them. Maybe you could hint all secrets in spoilers.

I also noticed that soldiers or other AI do not chase you over some boundaries , although there is no physical obstacle between you and them. They just stop and start to throw you with stones which is so ridiculous.

It seems they just respect the end of their places.

Can it be adjusted ?

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HI @huntaffer. Thanks for playing 🙂 .  I will add a hints spoiler to the first post.

Where were you seeing the issues with the AI being blocked?  It's not been mentioned before so some details would be helpful. 

EDIT: secret hints and spoilers added to the first post.

Edited by Frost_Salamander
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1 hour ago, Frost_Salamander said:

HI @huntaffer. Thanks for playing 🙂 .  I will add a hints spoiler to the first post.

Where were you seeing the issues with the AI being blocked?  It's not been mentioned before so some details would be helpful. 

EDIT: secret hints and spoilers added to the first post.

Many thanks for the hints ;))))

Spoiler

The tiny switch in Pembroke's house was really hard to find , but in the end success.

Regarding AI blocked or not, I made some screenshots and sent you in 3 messages.

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I think I know what to do to open the safe that is rusted.

Spoiler

Oil it....but the oil can found in Smythe's Apartment is not frobable. Is there something to trigger that, like an unread note ?

Spoiler

I decided to check my inventory and found something other than oil to do the job

 

Edited by CountMorillonite
Found solution
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4 hours ago, CountMorillonite said:

I can't find the evidence against Mrs Pembroke.

@CountMorillonite

Spoiler

IIRC there is something in the desk in Bancroft's study in his home

 

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Thanks, I found it after

Spoiler

forgetting where Bancroft's house was. I guess I thought it was another "invite", so I left it alone.

Those Secrets were some of the hardest I've had to find. I only legitimately discovered one. The rest required reviewing your initial post.

Thanks for the mission. It was challenging enough not to make it a romp but easy enough not to abandon it incomplete.

One question on the first Secret......

Spoiler

I couldn't jump/climb the steam pipe to access the open window. I had to find and move a chair in order to jump/attach to the pipe. Was this supposed to happen this way, or was there another route. I DID notice awnings close by for leaping purposes, but couldn't locate an access point.

 

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18 minutes ago, CountMorillonite said:

Thanks, I found it after

  Reveal hidden contents

forgetting where Bancroft's house was. I guess I thought it was another "invite", so I left it alone.

Those Secrets were some of the hardest I've had to find. I only legitimately discovered one. The rest required reviewing your initial post.

Thanks for the mission. It was challenging enough not to make it a romp but easy enough not to abandon it incomplete.

One question on the first Secret......

  Hide contents

I couldn't jump/climb the steam pipe to access the open window. I had to find and move a chair in order to jump/attach to the pipe. Was this supposed to happen this way, or was there another route. I DID notice awnings close by for leaping purposes, but couldn't locate an access point.

 

Hey - thanks for playing and the feedback 🙂

Yeah the secrets are difficult.  3 of them have some sort of hint, but yeah they are hard to find - but that's just the nature of secrets.  Funnily enough, as a player I don't have the patience to look for them usually.  Someone gave feedback in beta about providing in-game hints or cues, and in retrospect I think that's a good idea, at least for some of them.

For example, in this FM:

Spoiler

- for the dagger under the fireplace in the watch house, there are 2 readables that mention it (the note from Frost to Barrett and the note on the watch station desk).

- for Eaton's loot room: Mrs Pembroke mentions seeing Cedric's crown on display when she visited Eaton's, and you can see a loot statue through the glass to his conservatory.

- for Mrs Bourchier's loot in the bathroom - Smythe mentions 'finding her stash'.

Regarding your other question:

Spoiler

You need to jump directly on top of the pipe/chimney.  It has an invisible 'platform' on top of it, and also has a ladder texture attached to the upper portion so you can grab it if you miss slightly.

 

Edited by Frost_Salamander
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Having just completed this mission on medium difficulty I found it to be one of the most challenging to be sure.  I was stuck a couple times but after viewing some online videos I was able to complete it.  The only real problem I had was the difficulty in knocking patrolling guards out. Not sure why but I was only able to KO a couple and had to sneak by the others.  Found only 1 secret on my own too! 

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I've just released a new version with a few bug fixes.  It should hopefully show up in the mission database shortly, but the top post has been updated with a direct link.  Change log here: https://github.com/FrostSalamander/tdm-fm-inplainsight/releases/tag/v1.3

EDIT: another quick update to fix a minor issue with the darkmod.txt: https://github.com/FrostSalamander/tdm-fm-inplainsight/releases/tag/v1.4

Edited by Frost_Salamander
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OK I decided to try a no KO run on this, usually I knock everyone out that can be so I can look at the scenery at my leisure

I've got all the loot & completed all the objectives with the exception of

Spoiler

finding evidence against Bancroft

I'm in their house & scoured it but I'm b*ggered if I can find any, nothing highlights

If I'm looking in the wrong place can I please have a hint to the right place 🙏

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1 hour ago, esme said:

OK I decided to try a no KO run on this, usually I knock everyone out that can be so I can look at the scenery at my leisure

I've got all the loot & completed all the objectives with the exception of

  Reveal hidden contents

finding evidence against Bancroft

I'm in their house & scoured it but I'm b*ggered if I can find any, nothing highlights

If I'm looking in the wrong place can I please have a hint to the right place 🙏

Hello 🙂

hint:

Spoiler

it's somewhere in the bank

outright spoiler:

Spoiler

There is a note on the desk in the 'records' office (the one with the big bookshelf against the wall)

How did you find the no-KO run?  Easy? Difficult?

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On 9/9/2022 at 7:25 PM, Frost_Salamander said:

...How did you find the no-KO run?  Easy? Difficult?

I've played through this a few times so I'm familiar with the architecture & I have a good idea where a lot of things are, if I had to hunt & search it'd be a lot harder

Thank you for the tip, I'm looking in the wrong place

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great mission. Excellent use of space - as @gokudo said, compact and dense. I love missions with a tight use of geometry/geography.

Fairly difficult - I had to get a couple of hints from this thread. And I didn't get any secrets (wasn't really looking for them) - I'll try for those later.

Thanks!

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  • 3 weeks later...

this one had some real challenges (well-hidden items, twisty paths, devious secrets); thank you @Frost_Salamanderfor all your hard work, and forum members for helping each other out!

I got a couple secrets on my own, but needed strong hints for the others (and a couple story items, since I tend to drop anything that sin't immediately useful and had to backtrack); I can tell I missed quite a bit by the loot count, might need to dive back in...

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  • 4 weeks later...

A very nice and quality FM. The design is definitely interesting: I like how navigation is based on jumping between buildings and going through spaces connecting different locations, even if some are difficult to find and I needed guidance from here a few times. It's a difficult FM in general as spaces are tight and well lit, it's one of the maps I couldn't imagine going through without reloading nor getting spotted at any time.

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7 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

A very nice and quality FM. The design is definitely interesting: I like how navigation is based on jumping between buildings and going through spaces connecting different locations, even if some are difficult to find and I needed guidance from here a few times. It's a difficult FM in general as spaces are tight and well lit, it's one of the maps I couldn't imagine going through without reloading nor getting spotted at any time.

Sometimes I think I learned some lessons from the feedback I received from this FM, but other times I wonder.  I definitely didn't make it 'difficult' on purpose, but I certainly didn't want it to be easy or not challenging.  It's hard to tell what people find enjoyable.  I guess my assumption has been that players expect stealth gameplay, since, well it's a stealth game.  But it seems if it's too difficult to get a perfect stealth score then that might turn some people off.

The funny thing is, I always write the FM with ghosting in mind (or at least, no blackjacking).  With this one I didn't really test it with going around blackjacking everyone. It wasn't until I watched some playthroughs that I realised how easy that made it 😂

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5 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

Sometimes I think I learned some lessons from the feedback I received from this FM, but other times I wonder.  I definitely didn't make it 'difficult' on purpose, but I certainly didn't want it to be easy or not challenging.  It's hard to tell what people find enjoyable.  I guess my assumption has been that players expect stealth gameplay, since, well it's a stealth game.  But it seems if it's too difficult to get a perfect stealth score then that might turn some people off.

The funny thing is, I always write the FM with ghosting in mind (or at least, no blackjacking).  With this one I didn't really test it with going around blackjacking everyone. It wasn't until I watched some playthroughs that I realised how easy that made it 😂

Oh, that's definitely not a bad aim! If there's any actual critique, I'd say some paths could have been a bit more obvious: You need to guess which windows open and are required to go through, while some important ways or items are pretty hidden and take a bit of looking around to guess. The general idea of making it this way is otherwise a nice one, it made good use of jumping and mantling while having a very cozy feel; I think it could have used more open spaces too for alternation but that's just a personal taste thing.

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26 minutes ago, MirceaKitsune said:

You need to guess which windows open and are required to go through

That was a critique during beta, so I went around and opened most of the openable ones.  Was it really still an issue?

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