Melee Weapons Choice In Loadout?

[The Bozz]

Hey there. Been following this project for a while, and I must say I wait eagerly to see it complete. Although I have browsed thru older topics and even read some of 'em, I couldn't find one where this theme had been fully discussed. If there is, I may have missed it . Well, here I go anyway (sorry for the long post):

 

I think that there should be more than one choice for a damaging melee weapon (aprat from the blackjack, which MUST be permanent, if not this wouldn't be Thief related anymore!) that the player can choose to buy or just pick from the start depending of the mission and the objectives you have. It would help a lot to mission balance.

 

I've already got some ideas and the different scenarios to make an example:

 

1.- Dagger (don't flame me for this one!!!): let's say you have a mission where you need to sneak inside of a very fortified zone, like your typical Thief mission.

 

A dagger is easyr to carry and is capable of killing foes cleanly and quickly. But it's pretty useless against armored foes. It would be useful only in places where you expect less or weaker resistance, or if one of your main goals is to stealthily get rid of some character that's inside the complex for some specific reason. For that last one, a sword would be less-than-ideal.

 

2.- Sword: but then there's a mission where you somewhere you know there'll be heavier resistance, call it armored guards, better trained swordsmen... or maybe you go into a pagan forest or a cave inhabited by dangerous animal species. A dagger wouldn't cut it, but a sword would be much more effective, because of its longer range of attack and superior damage dealing.

 

Let's not even talk about blackjack here! I found pretty stupid the fact that you could just go and blackjack a giant two-legged, gas-belching lizard with an enormous and thick cranium.

 

3.- Small mace: then come the zombies... they feel no pain, they won't die from bleeding wounds, won't stay put for long after they fall down. That makes the dagger a no-goer, and makes the sword much less useful. You should have some means to deal with the undead face-to-face. To crush their rotten bones and rend them harmless. Can you spell "mace"?

 

But a mace is a mace, it's heavy and slow. Zombies are slow too, so no big deal. But most guards and pretty much all of the critters aren't that slow, or aren't slow at all. So a mace could be evaded easily and lose a lot of potencial.

 

Of course that Thief has always been about stealth and stuff. But shit happens. You do run out of fire arrows to blow up incoming zombies. You can accidentally trigger a trap that sets off an alarm and sends five or six guards after you. You can accidentaly wake up a whole nest o' burricks. You can't always rely on stealth to survive.

 

I believe most thieves don't have a magic "Quickload button" to resort to in this cases (well, we have one... but that's no excuse! ). And a master thief always plans ahead for a mission (even if you can't always predict what you'll find). So I believe it makes sense from a realistic point of view...

 

Apart from this: will we be able to see our body? I really liked that about TDS. I think that it's pretty dull when in a game you look down and you don't see yourself. It's like "Yay! Looka t me! I'm a floating hand holding a sword!". At this point of gaming history, it's something so basic I wished that more game devs had thought of.

 

If you made it down to here, thanks for reading!

Edited October 9, 2005 by The Bozz

[heXen]

I like your idea of different weapons, but I don't think 3D-person view fits Thief. It's cheating.

[Domarius]

I like your attitude "if you fuck up, you deal with it" - just like in real life, no handy quick load That's the way I like to play.

 

I like your idea for a mace - a dagger shouldn't kill a zombie, if we go off all the lore created in D&D and movies and all that, and yes a mace would be more appropriate. Would make choosing weapons for a mission more interesting.

 

The dagger vs black jack is a delicate issue. They do the same thing in T3 except the outcome is the character dies or does not die. And the only rammification for that, is the noise, the blood, and any "no kill" objectives that might be active. I still prefer the blackjack. But it simply should not work on some enemies, particularly non-human ones. In which case a dagger probably wouldn't do much either.

[oDDity]

*yawn* here we go again. You're playing a thief, not a murderer, and what's more, you're playing a thief who is so expert and arrogant that he doesn't even consider for a second that he would make a mistake and have to kill someone. That's why he would carry no weapons at all, because carrying weapons is admiting that he might make a mistake and have to use them. It would be totally embarrassing to any member of the thieves guild to be seen by a collegue carrying a weapon of any sort. He'd never live it down, he'd be mocked endlessly.

And if he did kill someone on a job, he's be kicked out of the thieves guild and handed over to the city watch for hanging, because the thieves guild have a financial 'understanding' with the sherriff which does not stretch to murder.

[New Horizon]

1.- Dagger (don't flame me for this one!!!): let's say you have a mission where you need to sneak inside of a very fortified zone, like your typical Thief mission.

 

2.- Sword: but then there's a mission where you somewhere you know there'll be heavier resistance, call it armored guards, better trained swordsmen... or maybe you go into a pagan forest or a cave inhabited by dangerous animal species. A dagger wouldn't cut it, but a sword would be much more effective, because of its longer range of attack and superior damage dealing.

 

We set down many moons ago that there will be no dagger. It's just not what we want to portray with the toolset/ campaign. The sword we are providing is a short sword, something slightly more managable.

 

3.- Small mace: then come the zombies... they feel no pain, they won't die from bleeding wounds, won't stay put for long after they fall down. That makes the dagger a no-goer, and makes the sword much less useful. You should have some means to deal with the undead face-to-face. To crush their rotten bones and rend them harmless. Can you spell "mace"?

 

But a mace is a mace, it's heavy and slow. Zombies are slow too, so no big deal. But most guards and pretty much all of the critters aren't that slow, or aren't slow at all. So a mace could be evaded easily and lose a lot of potencial.

 

Hmmm, a mace is getting into different territory...we're trying to stick to the basic tools here. As far as dealing with Zombies, we have some plans for them. The player can still 'bless' his water arrows to dispense with zombies of course...or avoid them altogether.

 

 

Apart from this: will we be able to see our body? I really liked that about TDS. I think that it's pretty dull when in a game you look down and you don't see yourself. It's like "Yay! Looka t me! I'm a floating hand holding a sword!". At this point of gaming history, it's something so basic I wished that more game devs had thought of.

 

As it currently stands, we're not supporting body awareness. It introduces a lot of issues with control and we don't immediately want to spend our time working on perfecting a system that isn't as flexible as the standard first person system. The trade off for the little extra eye candy that it provides isn't really worth the loss it introduces to the controls. For me personally, when the game has done its job and pulled me into the game world, I don't notice that there aren't any feet there....my mind accepts or paints in certain details. Hopefully FM authors will be able to create worlds with our toolset that will do exactly that.

 

If you made it down to here, thanks for reading!

 

Thanks for posting.

[Domarius]

Body awareness introduces a LOT of development time and really complicates things. It's not a matter of "thinking of it", its actually implementing it that shits all over your project.

 

For example, rather than having the player simply stick to the ladder, you now have to worry about forcing them into exactly the right position smoothly so that the hands will catch on the rungs. And some things won't look right unles you make new animations for them, like swimming. It's a lot of work, and we decided its not worth it for what you get from it.

[Springheel]

I don't think I've ever seen any thief in any fantasy setting carrying a mace. Nor do I see how a bludgeoning weapon would be useful against zombies.

 

With the various arrows available, the blackjack and sword are more than enough to take out the opponents you may have to fight. Of course, you will be able to equip weapons that you find in a level if you really want to, though you aren't trained to use them.

[sparhawk]

The usual way to kill Zombies, is to chop of their head, right? So a mace makes sense. Just smash their neck until the head falls off. Pretty simple.

[The Bozz]

Body awareness introduces a LOT of development time and really complicates things. It's not a matter of "thinking of it", its actually implementing it that shits all over your project.

 

For example, rather than having the player simply stick to the ladder, you now have to worry about forcing them into exactly the right position smoothly so that the hands will catch on the rungs. And some things won't look right unles you make new animations for them, like swimming. It's a lot of work, and we decided its not worth it for what you get from it.

 

Hmmm... hadn't thought about programming/animation issues... well, it's better having a floating hand with a sword than having nothing. You guys do what's best for the project.

 

I don't think I've ever seen any thief in any fantasy setting carrying a mace. Nor do I see how a bludgeoning weapon would be useful against zombies.

 

With the various arrows available, the blackjack and sword are more than enough to take out the opponents you may have to fight. Of course, you will be able to equip weapons that you find in a level if you really want to, though you aren't trained to use them.

 

Mind you of the 3rd mission in Thief, "The Horn of Quintus", where there were zombies all around, and to accomplish an objective of finding a special item you needed a certain quantity of fire arrows. That, combined with a zombie horde, makes any alternative way of dealing with zombies a welcome one.

 

But still, using these melee weapons shouldn't be encouraged. They should be used only for emergencies or very specific reasons, and only if the players thinks it's necessary for him. That's why the weapons should be tweaked to bes useful in few situations.

 

About the dagger, sorry if I touched a better-be-forgotten theme. I thought that if I gave an example of when it could be useful it would be better accepted. For me, variety of choices and strategies is a must in any game. That's what I love of Thief so much, it's very open to new strategies. Opening the game a little bit more wouldn't hurt it if it's done in a balanced way, right?

 

Anyway, thanks for the quick replies!

 

P.D.: I just thought, how are you gonna manage savegames? I believe that saving too much should be discouraged or restricted (think AvP-type saving...), it's too easy that way.

[Springheel]

P.D.: I just thought, how are you gonna manage savegames? I believe that saving too much should be discouraged or restricted (think AvP-type saving...), it's too easy that way.

 

There's already been a ridiculously long thread about that. Do a search for 'limited saves'.

[sparhawk]

Saving has already been discussed?

[Springheel]

In the last 11 pages of this thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...l=limited+saves

 

Though I think it spilled over into other threads as well.

[oDDity]

..and on TTLG.

The upshot was that virtually everyone, being the twats that they are, want unlimtied saves, because it's 'convenient' for them.

A few of us tried to point out that games aren't supposed to be convenient, but they wern't having any of it.

It's just another sad example of the short attention span and fast living of modern society.

[bob_arctor]

Please no more on saves or ghosting or not having any weapons at all!

 

I like the mace idea. I know some may think it is a silly for a Thief, but what was TG/TDP about? It had loads of zombies in! From level 2! However a mace in a mansion should either be disallowed or have some rubbishness associated with it (clanks into things so is loud? Heavy so loud steps? Dunno) so you don't go round a mansion with a giant mace unless you feel like being stupid.

 

I can imagine very easily fighting zombies with a mace, would be fun with Tclassic style mechanics! Chopping doesn't make sense unless you hack off a limb or through a bone but crushing does, as you can imagine the zombie couldn't move a smashed in arm, no bone or muscle support etc.

 

I am pleased that a short sword has been chosen. I prefer that to a dagger, and it allows hitting things, so if you are sick of a key hunt bash down the door and go toe to toe with the guard inside!

[Springheel]

Nobody is going to be bashing down a door with a short sword.

[The Bozz]

Please no more on saves or ghosting or not having any weapons at all!

 

I like the mace idea. I know some may think it is a silly for a Thief, but what was TG/TDP about? It had loads of zombies in! From level 2! However a mace in a mansion should either be disallowed or have some rubbishness associated with it (clanks into things so is loud? Heavy so loud steps? Dunno) so you don't go round a mansion with a giant mace unless you feel like being stupid.

 

I can imagine very easily fighting zombies with a mace, would be fun with Tclassic style mechanics! Chopping doesn't make sense unless you hack off a limb or through a bone but crushing does, as you can imagine the zombie couldn't move a smashed in arm, no bone or muscle support etc.

 

I am pleased that a short sword has been chosen. I prefer that to a dagger, and it allows hitting things, so if you are sick of a key hunt bash down the door and go toe to toe with the guard inside!

 

A short sword's allright for me too. It's small enough to not get in the way and it's good as an all-around weapon. Sort of a compromise between the dagger and a normal sword. But if you can only choose between two melee weapons, you should make them well balanced:

 

Sword: quick and easy to use, but not too powerful.

Mace: capable of crushing things, quite powerful, but slows you down a lot.

 

Other weapon issue: are you gonna add some magical quest weapons? Like Constantine's Sword in TG/TDP. Having some would give more objective flexibility to the mappers and could even help to a story-driven campaign. I know that many people out there don't even wanna hear about magic in this mod, but Thief World has a lot of magic, and if you leave it out it wouldn't be the same.

[sparhawk]

I really think saving requires a little more discussion.

[The Bozz]

I really think saving requires a little discussion.

Yep, but not here. We're talking 'bout weapons, and we should stay on-topic.

[sparhawk]

*HEHE*

[oDDity]

We're not going to have the thief running around wioth a fucking mace, and that's the end of it.

You are, of course, free to model, animate and code one in yourself when the game is released.

[Dram]

lol, as always, oDDity is so kind in his words

 

But yeah about a few things:

 

*3rd person: though it's not *supported*, doom 3 has it in there by default, and unless spar or ish or whoever remove it from the code, it will be there (and im sure spar and ish wont). So if you reaaaaaally want 3rd person, you just go into the console and type pm_thirdperson 1. Though as far as i know the anims won't be full good etc. Oh and btw, you can see your shadow from inside view, so that should hopefully be enough. I've tried it and it's just as good as body awareness

 

*Mace: While i personally would never use it, there are times when i do load up thievery and start fighting with the guards using a mace. Of course i remove their crossbows first. But afaik, we won't be making the model or code, but you can always add it in yourself, and trust me its easy. I just added a machinegun into Darkmod which shoots rapid fire arrows (my install mind, not on cvs spar or whoever lol) and it was quite fun for about 5 minutes, then i removed it. But yeah, its easy to add weapons. Plus if you really want, you could always just use the blackjack model (but retextured) for the mace. Simple

 

Oh and don't take oDDity's words too personally, he's a sour skittle even inside the team occassionally

[The Bozz]

lol, as always, oDDity is so kind in his words

 

But yeah about a few things:

 

*3rd person: though it's not *supported*, doom 3 has it in there by default, and unless spar or ish or whoever remove it from the code, it will be there (and im sure spar and ish wont). So if you reaaaaaally want 3rd person, you just go into the console and type pm_thirdperson 1. Though as far as i know the anims won't be full good etc. Oh and btw, you can see your shadow from inside view, so that should hopefully be enough. I've tried it and it's just as good as body awareness

 

*Mace: While i personally would never use it, there are times when i do load up thievery and start fighting with the guards using a mace. Of course i remove their crossbows first. But afaik, we won't be making the model or code, but you can always add it in yourself, and trust me its easy. I just added a machinegun into Darkmod which shoots rapid fire arrows (my install mind, not on cvs spar or whoever lol) and it was quite fun for about 5 minutes, then i removed it. But yeah, its easy to add weapons. Plus if you really want, you could always just use the blackjack model (but retextured) for the mace. Simple

 

Oh and don't take oDDity's words too personally, he's a sour skittle even inside the team occassionally

 

You got me wrong: it's not 3rd person view what I asked, it's to see the rest of your body in first person. Like when you look down and you see your chest and your feet. I've always thought that it should be implemented in more games. I was already told that it is a pain in the butt to animate, code and make it all work fine and smooth, so I understand it.

 

I insist that I've always thought that the sword (or dagger, in TDS) must be used only as a last resort. I also don't like just going and killing all that's in sight. It's not "thiefy" at all. But smashing a zombie or two with a mace would be quite satisfactory, wouldn't it?

 

Anyway, if you guys don't wanna, I'll go and learn how to model and do it myself after your TC is released. I should be able to use the blackjack animations without trouble (if you don't mind me to do so), so it saves me some work.

[obscurus]

Will the player cast a shadow onto objects? While body awareness is nice, having the player cast a shadow over objects adds far more to immersion, though if you aren't doing animations for the thief player 3rd person model, I guess it would not be worth much. What about seeing your reflection in mirrors? IMO it would be well worth doing the animations and coding for the 3rd person player model, not so players can use it to cheat, but so you can implement player reflections and shadowing, and if you have gone that far, you might as well go the extra mile and implement some degree of body awareness. Sure it is a pain in the arse to code and animate, but I disagree that it doesn't add enough to make the effort worthwhile. Maybe in TDM v.3.0?

 

As for weapons, I see no reason why a nimble thief would carry around a clunking great mace (or a sword for that matter). A dagger yes, because it doubles as a useful tool for prying open locked chests, or cutting ropes, or cutting paintings out of their frames, so in my opinion, the only weapon a thief should carry is a small dagger or knife, and they wouldn't very often use it as a weapon, but as a tool except in dire emergencies (but I think I've made my opinions on what sort of kit a thief should carry pretty clear by now ).

 

A thief would be more inclined to use his/her environment by picking up sticks, rocks etc, creating diversions, using stealth even ....

[sparhawk]

Will the player cast a shadow onto objects? While body awareness is nice, having the player cast a shadow over objects adds far more to immersion, though if you aren't doing animations for the thief player 3rd person model, I guess it would not be worth much. What about seeing your reflection in mirrors?

 

That will be supportred, but it has nothing to do with 3rd person view. Doom 3 doesn't need a 3rd person view to show your model in a mirror or cast the shadow. The model must be provided and animated of course in order to get a proper shadow, but this is a different thing.

 

 

IMO it would be well worth doing the animations and coding for the 3rd person player model, not so players can use it to cheat, but so you can implement player reflections and shadowing, and if you have gone that far, you might as well go the extra mile and implement some degree of body awareness.

 

Nobody on the team is really interested in this, so apparently it's not well worth doing for us. You are free to "go that extra mile" though if you consider it such an important feature. It's not as if we will stop anybody from implementing this useless feature.

 

Sure it is a pain in the arse to code and animate, but I disagree that it doesn't add enough to make the effort worthwhile. Maybe in TDM v.3.0?

 

I know for sure that I certainly wont code it because I don't like it. And it adds exactly ZERO of gameplay value.

 

As for weapons, I see no reason why a nimble thief would carry around a clunking great mace (or a sword for that matter). A dagger yes, because it doubles as a useful tool for prying open locked chests, or cutting ropes, or cutting paintings out of their frames, so in my opinion, the only weapon a thief should carry is a small dagger or knife, and they wouldn't very often use it as a weapon, but as a tool except in dire emergencies (but I think I've made my opinions on what sort of kit a thief should carry pretty clear by now ).

 

If a Thief would have to use it in emergency cases, then he would have to carry it around all the time, because he can't know when an emergency arises beforehand. If he knows that, though, then it it wouldn't be an emergency anymore, because an emergency is a surprising event by nature. If you can plan for it, it can't be an emergency anymore.

[obscurus]

That will be supportred, but it has nothing to do with 3rd person view. Doom 3 doesn't need a 3rd person view to show your model in a mirror or cast the shadow. The model must be provided and animated of course in order to get a proper shadow, but this is a different thing.

 

Cool

 

Nobody on the team is really interested in this, so apparently it's not well worth doing for us. You are free to "go that extra mile" though if you consider it such an important feature. It's not as if we will stop anybody from implementing this useless feature.

I know for sure that I certainly wont code it because I don't like it. And it adds exactly ZERO of gameplay value.

 

Fair enough, though It would add a bit more than zero gameplay for me (not enough to whinge about though). I like the TDS implementation mostly...

 

If a Thief would have to use it in emergency cases, then he would have to carry it around all the time, because he can't know when an emergency arises beforehand. If he knows that, though, then it it wouldn't be an emergency anymore, because an emergency is a surprising event by nature. If you can plan for it, it can't be an emergency anymore.

 

 

And your point exactly is what? Of course the thief would carry it around, it is primarily a tool that could also be used as a weapon if a situation that requried some violence arose.