Global Player Tip System ( split from Frob to Use proposal thread )

[snatcher]

Each tip is displayed only once, normally triggered by player actions. The cycle resets with each new mission.

I want tips to feel dynamic and new tips overwrite old tips, meaning that if you select water arrows and right after you select gas arrows the water arrows tip is gone for good (until the next mission).

[wesp5]

Sounds good, but I guess for us veterans it will become annoying fast to get the tips with each new vision. I recommend to either give the option to turn it off or globally save somewhere that a tip has been shown.

[snatcher]

In general I welcome tips and hints in games, and as long as the info doesn't get in my way I don't normally disable it. To be honest, I am so familiar with the mod at this point that I don't know if this system is helpful or annoying. It's an optional mod anyway: players can try it and keep it or delete it. Creating a dedicated setting is not worth the effort, I think.

I am attaching to this post an initial version. Place the pk4 in the TDM folder to give it a try. First impressions matter: instead of looking for the tips I suggest you pretend to play a mission.

When it comes to feedback I value negative comments way more than praises and likes. Please be open about it, otherwise things never improve / evolve.

EDIT - Please find the current WIP in the opening post.

Edited August 22 by snatcher

[wesp5]

Now I only need a new mission to test this on. Anything in the works?

[snatcher]

I have hijacked the opening post and it now includes the current list of available tips and the prototype, which has been updated to v0.2.

Thanks all for the good feedback so far

[snatcher]

Players normally focus around the center of the screen and this is called "tunnel vision". In order to draw the attention of players tips have a slide effect but in addition to the slide in I also mistakenly added a slide out effect which I now find undesirable and it has been removed in v0.3.

Edited August 23 by snatcher

[MirceaKitsune]

Idea: Maybe add in a FM independent achievement system, similar to Minecraft's as a concept but of course for TDM stuff. So one for your first mantling, for putting out the first torch and candle, knocking out the first AI with the blackjack, knocking them out with a movable, one for killing your first AI with the sword, one with killing them with a broadhead and fire and gas arrow, blinding them with a flash bomb, beating a FM on every difficulty, finding all loot, getting 0 stealth score, etc. The list of all achievements should be visible from the menu, including ones you haven't beaten so you can click on them to see a description of what you're supposed to do. Players who want to know every aspect of TDM would seek to 100% the list and will do everything at least once.

[snatcher]

That's a very good idea MirceaKitsune. I don't know if any or part of it can be achieved with the scripting system alone but it is a very interesting and fun idea nevertheless. We can discuss it further.

Something like this would probably fit well into a "challenges" system of some kind. See, the reason we have 3 "difficulties" for missions is because the original games did it that way. Nobody gave a second thought on whether 1 or 2 or 4 or 5 was the right number for TDM. Most mappers would have be been perfectly happy with no difficulties: "just go and play my awesome map"; but we ended up with "extra loot", "you are not an assassin", etc in most missions as superficial fillers, which I am sure caused trouble to many mappers.

Instead of Missions "can" have difficulties and challenges we ended up with missions "must" have difficulties, which was wrong. Of course mappers can always go the "ALL / THE / SAME" route, which I applaud as an all-encompassing experience for all players.

Edited August 23 by snatcher

[snatcher]

v0.4 is up. I am starting to feel kind of satisfied with the result.

[MirceaKitsune]

I sort of like the builtin difficulty settings... sort of: I agree that their number should be customizable, having to use 3 is a bit limiting. I imagine this could be solved in the future if desired, obviously without breaking old FM's so they're left at the existing Easy / Normal / Hard settings if one doesn't specify otherwise.

I remember seeing FM's use the All / The / Same setting and can't say I approve of that even if I ultimately don't mind: If you have a difficulty setting, make use of it to offer as much variation and choice as possible. You can change some things in the map very slightly, at worst just tweak the count in the loot objective. I even thought of using them for heavier differences in some of my FM ideas, like changing seasons or daytime or the start location and thief character you play based on the difficulty.

[snatcher]

6 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

I remember seeing FM's use the All / The / Same setting and can't say I approve of that even if I ultimately don't mind: If you have a difficulty setting, make use of it to offer as much variation and choice as possible. You can change some things in the map very slightly, at worst just tweak the count in the loot objective.

You described "the problem" very well.

Ok so now I have my map, my story, my loot... but hang on, let's reduce the loot requirement for Easy (so that I can have Normal the way I envisioned it) and let's increase the loot for Hard but let's then also increase the value of some of those goblets because otherwise players might never find all the pesky coins, and now let's review Easy again... and back to Hard of course no KO's, no kills, ghost it, whatever.

If the mapper decides to go for a single difficulty the game should simply organically hide all the difficulties sparing him/her from looking lazy.

Edited August 24 by snatcher

[snatcher]

v0.5 is up.

Tips wait until our protagonist is ready in case of cinematics (ie: No honour among thieves) or custom delayed intros (ie: Seeking Laydy Leicester).