[Feature Proposal] Frob to Use World Item

[Daft Mugi]

I'll add one thing, which I didn't state earlier because I assumed it was obvious. But I'd like to make it clear.

What is the purpose of dragging a body and body manipulation in this stealth game?

In my opinion, it is a "tool" or "game mechanic" that gives the player the ability to do two things:

1. The last 10%. After shouldering a body and dropping it in a desired location, the player can drag and hide it more precisely in the shadows. Is just a foot or hand sticking out into the light? No problem. Grab and drag it into the shadows. No need to shoulder and drop the entire body again. That's a good thing. Dragging gives fine-tuned control for that scenario.
2. Nearby shadows. After KO-ing a guard near a dark area, the player can quickly drag the guard into the dark area. The distance here would be one or two body lengths away. Given that the distance is short, dragging is quicker than shouldering and dropping. That's a good thing. Dragging gives a quick way to hide a body in that scenario.

In my opinion, the 2.12 controls enhance the experience for those two scenarios, because the controls give a quick way to grab a body, drag it into position, and release it quickly and precisely.

However, most of the time that fine-tuned control is not necessary for this stealth game. Shouldering and dropping a body can work well enough, hence why it became the primary action. That said, being able to precisely drag a body is a great enhancement to just shouldering, and it's something players can learn and appreciate given time.

[wesp5]

11 hours ago, snatcher said:

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

What do you mean by that?

[snatcher]

1 hour ago, wesp5 said:

What do you mean by that?

Nah, forget it. It was a targeted message: somebody takes a position but later reacts to a post that goes in different directions and this is perceived as heresy.

[STiFU]

I think that was directed at me, as I usually argue for the new control scheme (albeit with some modifications). I liked that post because it contained some valid points of criticism:

20 hours ago, snatcher said:

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

Especially the first point frequently happened to me. Yes, the new frob-to-loot feature is there to help, but I still sometimes accidentally shouldered a body.

 

[Taffingtaffer]

Both points were latent Thief problems waiting to raise up, the first being real a pain in the ass. Unless the frob area around NPCs belts can be improved it'll always kind of suck, no matter which is the primary action. Previously, a missed belt frob would grab the torso and lock your frobbing until you released it.
 

[wesp5]

I just played the new beta mission and wondered why I couldn't extinguish moveable lights as I had already forgotten that I need to use hold-frob in 2.12. This is completely counterintuitive to shouldering bodies and there is no global information about this, so please make it so that hold-frobing takes a moveable light and short frobing extinguishes it! This would also be more consistent to the static lights. The same should be done for consumables too: short frob eat, long frob pick up...

Edited January 20 by wesp5

[Wellingtoncrab]

1 hour ago, wesp5 said:

I just played the new beta mission and wondered why I couldn't extinguish moveable lights as I had already forgotten that I need to use hold-frob in 2.12. This is completely counterintuitive to shouldering bodies and there is no global information about this, so please make it so that hold-frobing takes a moveable light and short frobing extinguishes it! This would also be more consistent to the static lights. The same should be done for consumables too: short frob eat, long frob pick up...

You do not "need to use" hold frob to extinguish candles - you can use hold frob but the 2.11 controls also work exactly the same as they used to. Pick up the candle - and "use inv item" to extinguish it. Pick up food and "use inv item" to eat it.

Do you have some other setting or keybinding which is preventing this from working?

Edited January 21 by Wellingtoncrab
typo

[wesp5]

12 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

You do not "need to use" hold frob to extinguish candles - you can use hold frob but the 2.11 controls also work exactly the same as they used to. Pick up the candle - and "use inv item" to extinguish it. Pick up food and "use inv item" to eat it.

I know and this is what I did, but wasn't the whole change about making it more intuitive for beginners? I think after shouldering was made short frob, we should go all the way and make the other special actions short frob too! I think there are only very few situations where you need to carry a light or a consumable around...

[Kopfrkingl]

12 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

You do not "need to use" hold frob to extinguish candles - you can use hold frob but the 2.11 controls also work exactly the same as they used to.

So the old system is still present in 2.12? Then I truly fail to see the issue some others perceive 

48 minutes ago, wesp5 said:

I know and this is what I did, but wasn't the whole change about making it more intuitive for beginners? I think after shouldering was made short frob, we should go all the way and make the other special actions short frob too! I think there are only very few situations where you need to carry a light or a consumable around...

Can't agree with you there. The implementation would be very counter-intuitive as it would clash with picking up swords/crates/etc with a single short click. If short frob becomes the new special action and we assume some new players won't know about long frob, then they also won't know they can move objects around. I can think of several missions where moving crates or magic orbs or lamps is vital to progression. 

Hell, picking up loot is done with short frob while long frob automatically picks up everything without the need to keep clicking. Long frob already is special action, changing it would create an inconsistent mess.

If the argument is that shouldering should be long frob after picking the body with short frob, then perhaps you want to look at shouldering from a new perspective; shouldering is the new default, it is the most common thing a taffer will do with a body, while ragdoll manipulation is the new special action for specific situations.

[snatcher]

1 hour ago, Kopfrkingl said:

So the old system is still present in 2.12? Then I truly fail to see the issue some others perceive 

Let's keep the old system and make the new optional. Everyone happy, including you

[snatcher]

Going from two keystrokes to one keystroke is an exciting journey but, why frobbing bodies at all? I propose for 2.13 "Insta shouldering bodies on KO". And for 2.14 "Auto hides bodies on KO". In the name of players, you know.

[Wellingtoncrab]

2 hours ago, wesp5 said:

I know and this is what I did, but wasn't the whole change about making it more intuitive for beginners?

This is what you said:

15 hours ago, wesp5 said:

I just played the new beta mission and wondered why I couldn't extinguish moveable lights as I had already forgotten that I need to use hold-frob in 2.12.

1) That while playing you found you could not extinguish moveable lights

2) This was because of the need to use the hold frob and did not remember this

I know you wouldn’t make a misleading statement about the implementation of the hold frob mechanic as a pretext to bring up your issues with the consistency with the controls, so I assume you forgot the original controls of the game or your custom keybinding for “use inv item” reset when you updated the game or something.

At this point in the thread I am not going to recommend to you that you use an optional mechanic that you don’t like.

There is a version of the training mission in development which tutorializes the hold frob mechanic - though eventually it would be good to develop a tutorial mission that is less freeeform than the training mission.

[AluminumHaste]

16 hours ago, wesp5 said:

I just played the new beta mission and wondered why I couldn't extinguish moveable lights as I had already forgotten that I need to use hold-frob in 2.12. This is completely counterintuitive to shouldering bodies and there is no global information about this, so please make it so that hold-frobing takes a moveable light and short frobing extinguishes it! This would also be more consistent to the static lights. The same should be done for consumables too: short frob eat, long frob pick up...

 

So you forgot how to use the new system AND forgot how to use the original system? So either you had a stroke or you're arguing in bad faith.

[chakkman]

15 minutes ago, snatcher said:

Going from two keystrokes to one keystroke is an exciting journey but, why frobbing bodies at all? 

It's definitely helpful to sort those limbs out.  

[Baal]

The new system is great and, in my opinion, does not need changing.

But just for the sake of this discussion: what if the default action for bodies (drag or shoulder) could be chosen with an option? A simple checkmark that switches these around (either short frob = drag and long frob = shoulder or the other way around)?

Both variants would be ok with me.

[snatcher]

6 minutes ago, Baal said:

But just for the sake of this discussion: what if the default action for bodies (drag or shoulder) could be chosen with an option? A simple checkmark that switches these around (either short frob = drag and long frob = shoulder or the other way around)?

Both variants would be ok with me.

This above.

It is easy to give but difficult to take away. I suggested @Daft Mugi to initially stick to a single hold-frob value of 0.2ms, 0.5ms... whatever he thinks it's best for the average player. If this value doesn't work, it can be changed in the future. If the new single value does not work either, we then can think of alternatives.

By following this we are left with two options: New frob and old frob, instead of four options, one of which reads alien for new players.

 

The new hold-frob is built on top of everything and it is out of the way. This whole change feels like an improvement and the point of controversy has to do with the default action for bodies. I suggested @Daft Mugi that all changes stay but the setting focuses on bodies only. This way we could have "Frob body action": a) Shoulder b) Grab & Drag.

[STiFU]

18 hours ago, wesp5 said:

so please make it so that hold-frobing takes a moveable light and short frobing extinguishes it! This would also be more consistent to the static lights. The same should be done for consumables too: short frob eat, long frob pick up...

It is already implemented. This is exactly what my extension of the new control scheme does.

tdm_holdfrob_drag_all_entities

Have fun, mate!  

EDIT: Correction: Sorry, I misread your post a little bit. Only for extinguished lights and food remains, the hold-type-grabber is used with my extension. For lit candles and food, short frob is still grabber and long frob is extinguish / eat.

3 hours ago, Kopfrkingl said:

So the old system is still present in 2.12? Then I truly fail to see the issue some others perceive 

The thing is that there are plans to keep only one control scheme on the long run, which I am totally against, 'though, see below.

1 hour ago, Baal said:

But just for the sake of this discussion: what if the default action for bodies (drag or shoulder) could be chosen with an option? A simple checkmark that switches these around (either short frob = drag and long frob = shoulder or the other way around)?

I have already commented/suggested internally that the frob-code needs refactoring anyway, and if we were to do that for 2.13, we might as well introduce a simple switch. Basically, the code would determine if short frob or long frob has been pressed and then decide which action to perform based on the chosen control scheme. 

And for your information, my preferred solution has always been to keep the original controls, but have long-frob as a shortcut for frob + use. This might be an option with the proposed refactor.

1 hour ago, AluminumHaste said:

So you forgot how to use the new system AND forgot how to use the original system? So either you had a stroke or you're arguing in bad faith.

Let's try to keep the discussion constructive, please. There is no need to make it more heated.

[wesp5]

2 hours ago, AluminumHaste said:

So you forgot how to use the new system AND forgot how to use the original system?

No, I remembered the old system, but I also was using my patch so I suspected at first I messed something up before I remembered that the handling of bodies and lights are so counter intuitive right now. I could easily add my own patch solution to make extinguishing lights short frob again, but I would rather see a consistent version of it in the core game!

To provide some background information, I had just finished both the Cyberpunk DLC and The Outer Worlds DLCs, both of which use short-use and long-use systems too so my mindset somehow was expecting something more consistent ;).

Edited January 21 by wesp5

[wesp5]

4 hours ago, Kopfrkingl said:

If the argument is that shouldering should be long frob after picking the body with short frob, then perhaps you want to look at shouldering from a new perspective; shouldering is the new default, it is the most common thing a taffer will do with a body, while ragdoll manipulation is the new special action for specific situations.

Snatcher and myself argued for ages to make shouldering long frob, but as this was completely blocked and the issue for me at least is consistency, I now would like to have the other special actions fit to the shouldering scheme. As you said, from the new perspective of a new default, short frob should extinguish any lights and eat any food.

- Bodies: short > shoulder, long > move

- Lights: short > extinugish, long > move

- Consumables: short > eat, long > move

- Loot and items: short > take, long > multi take (this was always different to the others)

This leaves all other physical items for which short frob means moving, which could also be helpful in the sense that if you short frob something and it is moved, it has no special action.

 

Edited January 21 by wesp5

[ChronA]

54 minutes ago, wesp5 said:

- Bodies: short > shoulder, long > move

- Lights: short > extinugish, long > move

- Consumables: short > eat, long > move

- Loot and items: short > take, long > multi take (this was always different to the others)

This leaves all other physical items for which short frob means moving, which could also be helpful in the sense that if you short frob something and it is moved, it has no special action.

This is the same scheme the most radical voices in this debate have been asking for from the start. (Myself among them.) I thought it was settled that having extinguish on short click created a back-compatibility risk for a small subset of old FMs. I think the concern was putting out candles that are needed as a light source to progress, and then not having flint to relight them.

That's why the current (mechanically and cognitively sub-optimal) compromise was selected. Am I remembering right? If so, let's just all reread the thread history rather than rehash this argument over again.

Edited January 21 by ChronA

[wesp5]

15 hours ago, ChronA said:

I think the concern was putting out candles that are needed as a light source to progress, and then not having flint to relight them.

Yes, there is at least one mission that needs lighted candles to be placed, but a fireplace is nearby and you have a flint too. Are there really any others were this could be critical? Also I only remember one mission where it is necessary to carry an apple to somebody and this was optional. In the case of consumables you won't eat them if you are at full health as well.

Edited January 22 by wesp5

[Fiver]

On 1/21/2024 at 4:51 PM, Baal said:

what if the default action for bodies (drag or shoulder) could be chosen with an option? A simple checkmark that switches these around (either short frob = drag and long frob = shoulder or the other way around)?

I'm thinking along the same lines. For the issue in the bugtracker here the solution is described as:

Quote

 

For bodies:
* Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body.
* Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body.

For candles/lanterns:
* Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop.
* Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns.

For food:
* Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop.
* Hold frob to eat.

 

To me it would make more sense to swap the two triggers for bodies. That way
* "Frob" would mean "grab and hold object in front of you", and "Frob" again would mean "release" consistently for all three objects.
* "Hold frob" would mean "interact" (="shoulder"/"unshoulder", "extinguish", "eat") consistently for all objects.

And if "unshoulder" required "Hold frob" it would reduce the risk of unintentionally un-shouldering bodies when trying to operate doors.

I may be missing something here...

[wesp5]

1 hour ago, Fiver said:

To me it would make more sense to swap the two triggers for bodies. That way
* "Frob" would mean "grab and hold object in front of you", and "Frob" again would mean "release" consistently for all three objects.
* "Hold frob" would mean "interact" (="shoulder"/"unshoulder", "extinguish", "eat") consistently for all objects.

And if "unshoulder" required "Hold frob" it would reduce the risk of unintentionally un-shouldering bodies when trying to operate doors.

Yes, that would be more consistent. Snatcher and myself have been saying this again and again, but the give-me-a-split-second-advantage-when-shouldering-bodies people won out and I doubt they'll listen to yet another one not liking it...

Edited February 10 by wesp5

[STiFU]

1 hour ago, Fiver said:

To me it would make more sense to swap the two triggers for bodies. That way
* "Frob" would mean "grab and hold object in front of you", and "Frob" again would mean "release" consistently for all three objects.
* "Hold frob" would mean "interact" (="shoulder"/"unshoulder", "extinguish", "eat") consistently for all objects.

And if "unshoulder" required "Hold frob" it would reduce the risk of unintentionally un-shouldering bodies when trying to operate doors.

I may be missing something here...

I agree, and you might become happy in 2.13.

On 1/21/2024 at 6:27 PM, STiFU said:

I have already commented/suggested internally that the frob-code needs refactoring anyway, and if we were to do that for 2.13, we might as well introduce a simple switch. Basically, the code would determine if short frob or long frob has been pressed and then decide which action to perform based on the chosen control scheme. 

And for your information, my preferred solution has always been to keep the original controls, but have long-frob as a shortcut for frob + use. This might be an option with the proposed refactor.

My thinking was that you could select "Thief-Style" (new Daft-Mugi control scheme) or "TDM-Style" (old control scheme, but with long-frob shortcut for frob + use). No promises, however. The proposed change has to be accepted by more than one team member after all.

[peter_spy]

IMO it's one of these cases again, where you try to solve asset-level problem by making changes on the engine level. What I'm interested the most though: let's say I have custom candle assets / entities in my WIP that work like in Thief 3 (first frob extinguishes candles, second one picks them up). Will these changes break it?