[Feature Proposal] Frob to Use World Item

[snatcher]

12 minutes ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

You are correct in that is a partially unfair example in that dishonored 1/2 use a lot of “modern” gui conventions like text elements, progress bars, etc for a lot of it’s interactions and telegraphs pretty clearly to the player what context sensitive action will result on frob. There is a delay on some interactions, including picking up bodies, but this is to prevent unintended inputs, not to enable something like multiple control layers. The primary function of using frob on the body is to “pick it up” ie shoulder it.

Fair enough, Welli.

From what I have seen in videos the primary frob in Dishonored is to acquire items bodies may have and the hold frob is reserved to shouldering. Thing is developers apparently kept the hold frob to shoulder bodies even when the body has nothing of value. Consistency, I think, and to prevent unintended actions perhaps? Anyway, they prioritized one action over the other, and each action remained in its own place.

15 minutes ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

No idea why this is material to an an argument that this should be the result of frobbing a body? No one is even suggesting removing this kind of manipulation from the game.

The material is, what would have done the devs of these games you mention if manipulating body limbs was a key mechanic along with shouldering?

37 minutes ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

The examples I can think of this kind of drag mechanic: the modern deus ex and hitman games, both of which are interactions exclusive to bodies and don’t feature shouldering as a mechanics at all, [...]

Right:

 

37 minutes ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

[..] and the fine grain physics manipulation modes you see in Bethesda games starting with Oblivion, which requires long pressing the interact key on a physics object to allow you to move it around.

Absolutely terrible, imho. No fun to be found there. I learned not to bother pretty quickly.

[Amadeus]

2 hours ago, AluminumHaste said:

Yeah, respect the 17 people who actually care about this topic, and ignore the 10s or thousands of other people who simply don't care!

Why have a poll at all if you want to include the non-voting population? I dont get what you're trying to say here

[Wellingtoncrab]

12 minutes ago, wesp5 said:

I just played a bit of Cyberpunk 2077 and there too, to shoulder a body you need to long-press a button. Because it takes time. Primary function for bodies there is looting, isn't this planned for TDM as well?

If TDM were an RPG with an inventory system like CP2077 or a bethesda game yeah I imagine the primary function of interacting with a body might be related to inventory management.

Again the developers of that game had a context sensitive input, they prioritized what it should do based off of their game and what the player is mostly likely to need. This is not making a stronger case we should not do the same thing for our game.

You have never bothered to explain why in this game a player would need to prioritize dragging and manipulating a body over shouldering it beyond it being being “inconsistent”.

[snatcher]

17 minutes ago, Amadeus said:

Why have a poll at all if you want to include the non-voting population? I dont get what you're trying to say here

Serious question, how many people you think play TDM?

[Amadeus]

40 minutes ago, snatcher said:

Serious question, how many people you think play TDM?

"Not enough" would be my serious answer

[AluminumHaste]

3 hours ago, Amadeus said:

Why have a poll at all if you want to include the non-voting population? I dont get what you're trying to say here

A poll with such a small number of respondents would always be considered not representative, so using it as a barometer for change is usually not a good idea. That's all

 

[Amadeus]

How many respondents were you guys expecting? Given the amount of active users here I thought 17 was pretty impressive. And again, why even bother having a poll if you just want to ignore the results?

Edited November 24, 2023 by Amadeus

[wesp5]

11 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

You have never bothered to explain why in this game a player would need to prioritize dragging and manipulating a body over shouldering it beyond it being being “inconsistent”.

I believe Snatcher already did this in detail. To me it really is about consistency. As far as I remember we wanted to include the long-frob for new players who don't know about shouldering/eating/whatever. For me it never was about the second I gain while shouldering because I actually don't shoulder that much. I knock out everybody so I rarely need to move bodies around. I shoulder most often to see if a body has a key and to get it when it is dropped on the other side, so short-frob to loot would be more important to me than quicker shouldering! So IMHO TDM should be consistent in itself to make new players learn the actions easier. Comparisons to other games don't help as new and old games use different methods.

Edited November 24, 2023 by wesp5

[ChronA]

4 hours ago, wesp5 said:

I knock out everybody so I rarely need to move bodies around.

This is a serious question and not me trying to be snarky: if knocking everyone out and leaving them roughly where they fall is you preferred play style, then why is being able to manipulate limbs so important to you?

It sounds like you are not too worried about the corpses you leave being found, and by your own testimony shouldering is more useful than fine manipulation for getting at loot. So why are you apparently routinely moving bodies short distances using limb frobbing? This does not compute for me.

[wesp5]

14 minutes ago, ChronA said:

This is a serious question and not me trying to be snarky: if knocking everyone out and leaving them roughly where they fall is you preferred play style, then why is being able to manipulate limbs so important to you?

It isn't. That is Snatchers angle, who likes to hide bodies under benches and similar. My point of view is only that the behaviour should be consistent, which it currently isn't. I said that over and over in this thread :)!

[STiFU]

Kinda feels like I threw a live grenade into a dung pit by necroing this thread.

Anyway, it seems like there is some agreement with my current work on both sides of the pit, as it will make the control scheme a bit more consistent, while leaving the general new control scheme intact. I have a working prototype that implements the following table. Contrary to the previous table, hold-type-grabber for loot and tools is not possible, as the long-press frob is already tied to multiloot (pickup multiple items successively without releasing the frob button). This extension is enabled via cvar, i.e., completely optional.

19 hours ago, STiFU said:

Entity type	Short Press	Long Press
Junk	Toggle-Grabber	Hold-Grabber
Food	Toggle-Grabber	Eat
Food remains	Toggle-Grabber	Hold-Grabber
Loot	Pick-up	Hold-GrabberMultiloot
Bodies	Shoulder	Hold-Grabber
Lanterns	Toggle-Grabber	Extinguish / Light
Lit Candles	Toggle-Grabber	Extinguish
Unlit Candles	Toggle-Grabber	Hold-Grabber
Tools	Inventory	Hold-GrabberMultiloot

 

[snatcher]

1 hour ago, STiFU said:

This extension is enabled via cvar, i.e., completely optional.

Thanks.

Can you prototype an extension of your extension (option 2) with the following change?

EDIT - I think I mean Toggle-Grabber (current TDM behaviour)

Entity type	Short Press	Long Press
Bodies	Toggle-Grabber	Shoulder/Unshoulder

Edited November 24, 2023 by snatcher

[STiFU]

2 minutes ago, snatcher said:

Thanks.

Can you prototype an extension of your extension (option 2) with the following change?

Entity type	Short Press	Long Press
Bodies	Hold-Grabber	Shoulder/Unshoulder

Sorry, but that is mechanically impossible. ^^ 

I am going to assume that you didn't mean the Hold-Grabber, but the Toggle-Grabber on Short Press. To that, I would like to raise two comments:

1. There has already been a huge discussion about this topic that I didn't partake in. I only see the result of this discussion, which is the current implementation, and I wouldn't feel comfortable to just ignore this and do something else.
2. What you are asking for is not a simple extension, but a different code-path, which makes things messy, and the frob-code is already quite messy as it is.

I understand where you are coming from, but please understand that I don't feel comfortable to go through with it. Also, our lead dev also has a say in this and I doubt he will be happy to open up more code-paths.

You still have the original control scheme to fall back on, if it is so important to you to have the Toggle-Grabber on short press.

[snatcher]

Impossible and uncomfortable.

10 minutes ago, STiFU said:

You still have the original control scheme to fall back on, if it is so important to you to have the Toggle-Grabber on short press.

You got this wrong.

1. It isn't about me, I am set. Consider my comments a voice.
2. 90% of the changes in this initiative are great additions. Players switching lose everything.

[wesp5]

1 hour ago, STiFU said:

Sorry, but that is mechanically impossible. ^^ .

That has been said before but I don't understand it. Isn't this a simple "if short-frob then do x elif long-frob do y" situation?

Edited November 24, 2023 by wesp5

[STiFU]

1 minute ago, wesp5 said:

That has been said before but I don't understand it. Isn't this a simple "if short-frob then do x elif long-frob do y" situation?

The hold-type-grabber means that you hold the mouse button to drag an entity and when you release, you drop the entity. That of course doesn't work on a short-press frob, as pressing shortly is the opposity of holding down the frob button for as long as you wish to drag an entity, i.e., it is mechanically impossible. 

That's why I said that @snatcherprobably rather meant the toggle-type-grabber on short-press, i.e., press frob once to grab an entity, press frob again to release the entity (traditional TDM style). And this I'd feel uncomfortable to go through with as explained in my previous two comments.

[snatcher]

25 minutes ago, STiFU said:

That's why I said that @snatcherprobably rather meant the toggle-type-grabber on short-press, i.e., press frob once to grab an entity, press frob again to release the entity (traditional TDM style).

Yes, toggle-grabber is what I meant because hold-grabber doesn't feel good if you have to press movement keys (or the mouse, depending on controls) at the same time.

Edited November 24, 2023 by snatcher

[TheUnbeholden]

On 9/14/2023 at 9:50 AM, AluminumHaste said:

Sorry I'm still confused as to why players are having such a hard time pressing two buttons in rapid succession for shouldering a KO'ed guard.

Right click to Frob the body, and Mouse5 for shouldering. I'm like, old now, and I can still do it almost instantly.

 

 

Because you learned to adapt to the nuisance. It doesnt make it less of a hindrance to new players. An argument from experience to correct a issue, New players getting frustrated and not knowing useful mechanics is kinda the point of the change. While at the same time keeping minimal hud. 

[TheUnbeholden]

On 10/19/2023 at 2:58 AM, snatcher said:

Shouldering bodies on frob is a legit proposal worth discussing.

I won't however take as a valid argument that "players" are dismissing TDM because "you cannot shoulder bodies in TDM" or "shouldering bodies in TDM requires two clicks". We know what kind of players we are talking about and these players won't embrace TDM for what it is for as long as they have a place in their current universe.

It is my impression that all this started on the wrong foot with a single goal in mind. No second thought or regard for anything else.

Its not that people are dismissing the game because of lack of shouldering, but rather a combination of things. That would be a real argument that the following occurs;

1. People don't know how to keep from making noise when moving stuff around (holding creep).

2. People don't know when black jacking works and when it doesn't (general options menu toggle). 

3. Blackjack hits overhead stone overhead archway or wooden foundation (was fixed).

4. Picking up a blackjacked guard should be easy and players should know how to do it right away (new).

5. Not know how to extinguish candles and lanterns (easier and new).

6. Not knowing about general gameplay tips specific to missions (new).

7. Not being able to use favorite addons together (new).

8. Being able to know how much loot is left in a mission and mission stats like stealth score mid mission to properly ghost w/o too much spent on replaying parts of a mission (pending and in a addon).

9. Guards either searching for the noise disturbance for too long, or giving up too quickly and thus making some small missions either really tough for small mistakes or far too easy to get through (difficulty changes proposed by some).

Many of these are not fixable without a global tip system for first time players, a expanded tutorial mission, and quality of life changes (a general gameplay change is not always about accessibility, options and cvars exist for that reason, but sometimes its about making it so that a button press should do what most players intentions aim to do, 95% of the time.

Edited November 28, 2023 by TheUnbeholden
Grammar

[snatcher]

Good post, @TheUnbeholden. Here is more food for thought.

When I started playing TDM I wished there were more mods. I came here and knocked on a door or two.

TDM is a sandbox for Mappers. Should TDM, perhaps, be a sandbox for Modders as well? Mods can fill gaps, propel gameplay in new directions, spoil customers with different options, fulfill audiences with different expectations... and last but not least, release the Developers from specific player demands, needs or preferences.

Mappers and Modders can do a lot today and that is because, by necessity or plain good judgement, somebody at some point unlocked a door somewhere.

[STiFU]

 

On 11/23/2023 at 10:54 PM, STiFU said:

Entity type	Short Press	Long Press
Junk	Toggle-Grabber	Hold-Grabber
Food	Toggle-Grabber	Eat
Food remains	Toggle-Grabber	Hold-Grabber
Loot	Pick-up	Multiloot
Bodies	Shoulder	Hold-Grabber
Lanterns	Toggle-Grabber	Extinguish / Light
Lit Candles	Toggle-Grabber	Extinguish
Unlit Candles	Toggle-Grabber	Hold-Grabber
Tools	Inventory	Multiloot

This extension of the new control scheme is included in 2.12 beta. If you want to try it, you can enable it through the cvar tdm_holdfrob_drag_all_entities.

[snatcher]

The below video illustrates some of the points I tried to make earlier.

This new (or returning) player is experiencing TDM for a first time and I would say his mood and style perfectly fit the primary target audience of TDM. The player is unaware that shouldering bodies is a thing. See how it plays out.

1st situation - From 00:00 until 03:30
2nd situation - From 27:30 until whenever you want

The player quickly figured out how to drag and manipulate (turn around) bodies and I detect no sign of frustration. The circumstances even lead to a couple of comical moments. Sooner or later this player will get to know about shouldering bodies and he will, as it couldn't be otherwise, prioritize shouldering. It all has been learned organically and the player can now switch tactics if desired.

Now consider this same player was playing 2.12. I don't see any reason for this or any other player to ever getting to learn or appreciate body manipulation. 2.12 teaches players to move grain sacks out of the way, devoiding any sign of "humanity" from ragdolls.

@stgatilov commented ragdoll manipulation is something like an engine show-off. Considering the amount of work that went into the feature I tend to believe the mechanic was seen as an opportunity and built as such. Let's for a moment travel to a parallel universe and pretend the developers decided shouldering bodies alone was the way to go, just like in Thief. How long would have gone by until someone wondered: wouldn't dragging bodies be cool and more realistic?

I agree that shouldering bodies could be done with one (long or short) click. The problem I have with the final implementation is that the case was presented one-sided and there was no retrospective or interest in alternatives. We took a shortcut and as a result we missed half of what the journey offered. We didn't think big.

Besides that above, players are now exposed to:

• Unintentionally shouldering bodies while trying to retrieve items from bodies
• Unintentionally un-shouldering bodies when trying to operate doors

@Daft Mugi & friends set out to do this change and I have no problem with that, but I feel this whole topic is unbalanced. Some points have been hardly considered or discussed so excuse that I insist. If anything, this topic will make it for a good read for those coming next in a few years time

Edited January 18 by snatcher

[Daft Mugi]

After having trouble dragging the body where he wanted, the player said, "No. Noooo." (29:09)

 

Player said, "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to look up there. It's just very awkward to drag bodies." (30:08)

 

What I see is a player having trouble being stealthy while playing a stealth game, so this video just adds evidence in support of making shouldering the primary action over dragging. I never saw that he figured out how to shoulder a body.

4 hours ago, snatcher said:

The player quickly figured out how to drag and manipulate (turn around) bodies and I detect no sign of frustration. The circumstances even lead to a couple of comical moments.

I think we are wanting to optimize for two different scenarios: One is to optimize for a stealth experience, and the other is to optimize for a "comical" experience. If I'm understanding you correctly, you have a strong fascination with body manipulation. Earlier in this thread, you stated:

On 9/26/2023 at 2:27 PM, snatcher said:

I don't like the fact that the toying with bodies or body limbs mechanic has been rendered unusable. People that don't use this mechanic to its full extent won't understand the reasons: take a limb and painfully carry the body to another room, hide a body carefully in the most peculiar place and position, recreate a crime or comic scene... Only TDM provides this fun, for those seeking it. The potential of the mechanic is gone for both existing and new players: too much long frob / key press to bother. Don't try to convince me of the opposite.

What you find as "comical", I see as the player suffering with the gameplay and struggling with the controls. Players have written their frustration with the pre-2.12 controls and stopped playing TDM all together. I've already seen players write about their interest in trying 2.12 based on the recent changes, which is huge. They're willing to give it another go, and that's great for our community. I am interested in watching playthrough videos and reading player experiences with the 2.12 version once released. Then, we'll be able to get more feedback about the 2.12 controls.

Body manipulation is still available, and I find that it's even easier to do with the 2.12 controls. @STiFU commented something similar:

On 11/21/2023 at 5:24 PM, STiFU said:

I have been doing some playtesting of this feature and I am honestly loving the way bodies are handled now: hold mouse to move it around, release mouse to drop it again (hold-type-grabber). It just feels very natural and somewhat authentic this way. I love it so much [...]

@snatcher, given that body manipulation is so important to you, then I suggest creating a group and creating content about body manipulation. This could be similar to the groups that ghost or ironman the game. For example, Rule #1: Bodies must be dragged. Shouldering bodies is not allowed.

[snatcher]

Relevant people please stop reacting to my posts. It is causing you trouble recently.

[Kopfrkingl]

As someone who has been playing TDM since it went standalone all those years ago, I was skeptical about the new frob until I gave it a try to see how it's handled in 2.12. It's really intuitive. Yeah, old time players are used to the old frob + use mechanic, and there was nothing wrong or confusing about it IMO, but the new frob is so easy to get into there should be no problem for old-timers. So, from my perspective, it's a good change. It takes away nothing from the players and gives them an easy-to-get-into mechanic that is simple to use. If such a small, simple change brings in more players, even better.