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Basically the opposite of the moss arrow


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I hope I do not terribly wrong by opening a new thread about this, but I found no recent threads being abouth such a thing.

 

My Idea:

 

The way the game goes, one will sooner or later find oneself checking/looting some room.

Doing this, the thief will probably often be in good light and find himself making noise (jumping for something on top of the shelves or such actions).

In such situations it would be favourable not to be surprised (=found) by an patroling guard opening a door and entering the room.

Yes, I know, a good thief always listens (for a guards foodsteps in this case). But there is no way one can always reliable detect an aproaching guard, because

-it may be barefoot (long story)

-it may tread on carpet and thus is not heard

-it may tread on moss arrow derivative (placed by a soon to be surprised thief to move silent himself)

-the door between thief and guard is shut

 

So, there is constant risk for the thief for being cought by surprise, being fundamentally unable to do anything to prevent such desaster.

 

 

I suggest a new class of tool. First ideas:

1)Some crackling/noise making powder (if stepped on) or arrow/bomb releasing such; basically the opposite of the moss arrow; even nutshells on a carpet could work this way

 

2)tripwires, small motion detectors, glued to the ground screaming if treaden on snails,

(I'm going way off here)

 

 

You get the idea.

And no, I don't intend to ruin gameplay. This new tool should be only to be used on "tough spots" on the map, as the usual moss arrow is already , but just in the opposite way.

 

I have high hopes to hope you guys work that in, I think it would be easy to implement and further gameplay. Unless my idea is nonsense, of course.

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato

"When outmatched... cheat."— Batman

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It's certainly a new idea (to me at least). However, I'm really not sure about implementing it.

 

From a gameplay perspective it doesn't really bring anything new to the table. The ability to detect approaching AI via sound already exists. All this does is augment that, and in a way which is not very convenient for the player to apply; for it to be particularly useful, the player would need to put it everywhere - behind every door, along every hallway. You might as well turn the volume up on your speakers. :) Also, it's arguably the mapper's responsibility to ensure that it's possible to hear approaching AI anyway.

 

In any case, we're pretty much in design-freeze stage now; we're just implementing the remaining planned features and fixing bugs. We're not anticipating that we'll add any major new features (like additional tools) beyond the ones we've already planned.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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I would say that it's a neat idea that might work well if properly implemented. It certainly won't be part of the official mod, but an individual author could make his own custom arrow or tool that did this, just as a few Thief missions have specialized custom arrows and stuff.

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It's a good idea. Not heard of it being suggested in thiefy circles before. We've probably all seen it in movies where the assassin/thief puts down some broken glass or something. Outlooker means not that you spray it everywhere but in special places. You see a room that is well lit across the carpeted corridor. You go in but it needs lengthy investigating. Maybe you have to figure out a combo lock or something. Maybe you have to read something on the wall which in DM does not suspend game play. You know the AI patrol the carpetted corridor and look in this room now and again. They patrol randomly so you can't time them. The corridors are carpeted so hard to hear - maybe there is a motor running in the room anyway. There is a place to hide in the room but you need 3 or 4 seconds warning to reach it in time. This is just a one-off special situation. You put down some crackling material at an appropriate place along the corridor and listen while you work.....

 

However, as DM is working hard to meet next year's deadline even with the current workload it is more likely to be considered as a later addition I would think. Unless the reverse moss arrows thing is a quick fix as you say Vadrosaul. Though it would still need models and other stuff sorting out. Maybe an ice arrow that lays a crunchy carpet that melts in time might be fun. Oh well. Whatever it was you would only have one or a few nor would there be any need to spray it over tiles etc.

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I suggest a new class of tool. First ideas:

1)Some crackling/noise making powder (if stepped on) or arrow/bomb releasing such; basically the opposite of the moss arrow; even nutshells on a carpet could work this way

 

2)tripwires, small motion detectors, glued to the ground screaming if treaden on snails,

(I'm going way off here)

 

 

-You could prevent from being surprised in a room by placing a gas mine in front of the door. If someone comes and disturbs your thieving, the gas knocks out the guard.

 

This idea reminds of a feature in No One Lives Forever shooter game (guess it was in NOLF2) in which you could place a banana wrapping on the floor on which a passing guard would slip and fall.

Very entertaining to watch from a hidden corner, but not very useful. :laugh:

 

Still, always nice to hear new ideas.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Is glass smashable in-game? If so, you could break a vase or something on the floor. This would also have the balancing factor of it making the guards suspicious when they walk on it, and would make it usable in most situations without having to create a new tool.

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The problem I see is once you want to leave the room, now YOU make tons of noise and attract guards. Also, they would become suspicious if they are doing their regular patrol and found a smashed vase, or something loudly starts crackling under theiur feet. Might also attract more guards which is not good.

 

I vote for the banana peel though!!!

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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It is an interesting idea, but it seems to me that in most Thiefy gameplay, you aren't in one brightly-lit place long enough to make much use of it. If something is in a brightly lit area, you wait for a good time in the AI patrols, then go in, get it and go out in a few seconds (unless it is a particularly difficult lock to pick or something). I could see it being used in a sniper/assassin game where you want to pick out a hidey-hole and need to know when the enemy is on to you and coming to get you, but for a stealing game it seems like you're better off just finding a dark place to hide than waiting in a brightly lit space and deploying some early warning system.

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How about being able to rejig mechanist security cameras so that they detect and attack guards? This could be done through some kind of pipe-mania style mini-game...

 

System shock and Deus Ex brought to the thief series: Steampunk hacking. Oh, wow! :wacko:

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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It was connecting bits in SS2 wasn't it?

 

Not literally pipe rotation?

 

In SS1 there was an electronic puzzle in which you had to connect two squares with an electric stream. Clicking on one spot turned X's into +'s. A + would pass a stream and X would not. The trick was that not only one point would change upon clicking, but a bunch of those next to the clicked one. When the hot points were connected with a constant stream, the circuit was complete and something neat happened, say a laser bridge activated.

 

I played SS2, but if I recall correctly, there weren't this type of puzzles, although it had something else..

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I played SS2, but if I recall correctly, there weren't this type of puzzles, although it had something else..

IIRC, in SS2 you had to make a line of nodes light up by clicking on them. Chance of success/failure was random, depending on your stats. Some of the nodes started out in the "failed" state, depending on the difficulty of the hack. You could click on a failed node to try again, but if that failed then you'd be penalised.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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-You could prevent from being surprised in a room by placing a gas mine in front of the door. If someone comes and disturbs your thieving, the gas knocks out the guard.

 

Yes, but this would make ghosting impossible.

And another guard might see/find the guard beeing gassed/laying down and activate alarm.

 

 

I intend to have somehting against those "damn, where came this guard from"-situations which make you reload; which i think is not good for immersion.

I want at least a good chance to prevent being surprised if I'm acting like a careful, responsible thief.

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato

"When outmatched... cheat."— Batman

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