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Why don't the unconscious ever regain consciousness again?


ocapacha

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Hi,

 

Someone in this forum wrote that the Dark Mod is probably the best thing that ever happened to the DOOM 3 engine and I have to agree. What I've seen (and played) so far was really outstanding. Even if there ever was an official Thief 4 - I doubt if it would be as good as this even in its unfinished state.

 

There's just one thing I'd like to suggest which I always found stupid about all Thief games: The only real difference between killing enemies and blackjacking them is the noise and blood or the lack thereof.

 

Why don't the unconscious enemies ever regain consciousness again?

 

I think it would only be logical that after - say 30 minutes - everybody who was hit over the head will wake up again and alarm his buddies.

 

Thus the Thief will have to make a decision between noisily killing someone or avoiding that noise at the risk of that someone waking up again and alarming more guards.

 

Please think about it, it would definitely make sense and add even more suspense to the game ...

 

Other than that: Keep up the great work !!! icon6.gif

 

Stefan

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Thanks for the support ocapacha,

 

I've often wondered about that too. Metal Gear Solid has the knockout stars or the Z's that spin around the guards' heads to let you know when they'll get up. I think the Thief games have them stay down forever because its a slower paced game.

 

I don't know how long a person would remain unconscious for if they took a blow to the back of the head.

 

Also, some people/things can't be knocked out. Some guards have special helmets, so you'll be forced to kill them, or use a knockout gas arrow.

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Why don't the unconscious enemies ever regain consciousness again?

 

Gameplay.

 

I think it would only be logical that after - say 30 minutes - everybody who was hit over the head will wake up again and alarm his buddies.

 

The game is about rewarding the player for using stealth and for 'not' killing. There are just sometimes when simulating life defeats the purpose of 'the gaming' aspect of...a game. Like it or not, it's a game, and sometimes you have to follow certain conventions in order to make it playable.

 

If you have guards waking up during a mission, they're going to run off an alert all the other guards. What good is that to a player who has taken so much care to be stealthy? It's of no good to them.

 

Thus the Thief will have to make a decision between noisily killing someone or avoiding that noise at the risk of that someone waking up again and alarming more guards.

 

In the end, this is simply going to encourage more killing, more confrontation, and a much messier...noisier game. The tension of this type of game is 'how' you get through the mission without getting caught, not whether that guard you quietly took down is going to wake up before you finish your mission. Thief was not the type of game you rushed through, it's a slow paced game of patience and observation....so is TDM.

 

In addition to that, there are all kinds of technical issues that would need to be solved.

 

Please think about it, it would definitely make sense and add even more suspense to the game ...

 

It only makes sense in 'the real world, but not for 'the game world'. We've truly gotten to a point where game studios have been making games that mimic life so well, that we've forgotten that they're supposed to be games...and that they don't have to follow the rules of reality to a 'T'.

 

We're over four years into development. :) We thought about this and many other things during year 1, and quickly realized that it was the wrong path for this type of game.

 

Thanks for the positive feedback.

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I think it would be difficult to have them wake-up for the player. If you have a fixed amount of time, say 30 minutes, then:

 

* the player does not have an in-game clock, so he doesn't know when the 30 minutes will be actually up (30 minutes in game are different from 30 minutes in real time due to saving, reloading)

* when the limit approaches, the player would need to A: find and re-blackjack the enemies to avoid the alarm, B: find some way to make them not alarming anyone (locking them into a room, or blackjack anyone else, too) or C: finish the mission in that time, essentially imposing upon himself a time-limit of 30min from the first blackjack. However, when you blackjack someone, you don't know how long the rest of the mission will take.

 

That will make for a rushed game-play, and the constant worry that someone is going to wake up and cause an alarm. Which seems to go against the original spirit of the game, namely that you take your time and carefully solve the objectives in due time.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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However, when you blackjack someone, you don't know how long the rest of the mission will take.

 

Exactly. The player could never know how long someone was knocked out because it would be silly to have some kind of counter....especially when you consider you would need a counter for 'every' AI knocked out. How would the game handle that, some kind of popup menu with the unconscious AI counting down to consciousness again? lol No way.

 

Anyway, as I covered in my first post. Not going to happen.

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Please think about it, it would definitely make sense and add even more suspense to the game ...

 

Don't worry, we discussed it internally quite thoroughly before deciding it would be a bad idea (and it's also not very realistic, either). Many of the reasons are mentioned above, but there are also technical reasons--say a guard wakes up after 30 minutes...what does he do? The Thief is long gone, so searching doesn't make sense. If the guard starts shouting and raising a ruckus, that just draws guards to his location--somewhere the player has already left. Since the player can carry bodies, it also raises lots of problems that are difficult to code for. What if the guard wakes up in a well or a locked room? What if he doesn't have a weapon anymore? What if he is stuck under a table? What if he is nowhere near his original patrol path?

 

Lots of special cases + bad for gameplay + not terribly realistic = not going to happen. :)

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I was also a big proponent of this, I brought this up quite a while ago in the ttlg forums.

 

There they said it was not tech possible.

 

If the blackjack is thought to kill them, then yes the diff is how quiet or noisy the death is ( arrow vs black jack)

 

Unless it is not a life killing blow, people do wake up from being hit on the head. It is realistic. prob happens every day.

 

As to the game not supposed to be realistic, well, .........why improve the game at all.........

 

Instead of the waking guard calling other guards to his area, I thought it would be better if he yells about what happen to him, and all hearers in that location would come to be at a higher level of searching, instead of them just lollygagging. ( love that word)

 

Sure the place will simmer down if they cant find you within a given time, (cause your not there or whatever) but if you stumble back into a room or area where you clubbed a few people earlier, you run the risk of coming into a group of guards that are in hi alert, running around.......looking in every nook and cranny - that would raise your apprehension up a notch or 2 - or 3.

 

Ok, if it is not feasable with this engine, that is fine, but as for realism, and hieightened gameplay, it would be great.

 

Thanks! and keep up all the great work! Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Don't worry, we discussed it internally quite thoroughly before deciding it would be a bad idea (and it's also not very realistic, either). Many of the reasons are mentioned above, but there are also technical reasons--say a guard wakes up after 30 minutes...what does he do? The Thief is long gone, so searching doesn't make sense. If the guard starts shouting and raising a ruckus, that just draws guards to his location--somewhere the player has already left. Since the player can carry bodies, it also raises lots of problems that are difficult to code for. What if the guard wakes up in a well or a locked room? What if he doesn't have a weapon anymore? What if he is stuck under a table? What if he is nowhere near his original patrol path?

 

Lots of special cases + bad for gameplay + not terribly realistic = not going to happen. :)

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Ok, if it is not feasable with this engine, that is fine, but as for realism, and hieightened gameplay, it would be great.

 

It could be done with the engine...with a lot of extra work, but as I and others have said...the 'idea' behind Thief and by extension TDM, is to 'reward' stealth. If you knock out an opponent, they STAY DOWN...not because of realism but because it's a game, and part of the game is to knock out guards quietly and be rewarded for that. If the player chooses to kill, then they are penalized by a noisy death and run a higher risk of failing the mission. Having the guards wake up after being knocked out penalizes the player for being stealthy, and totally spits in their face for the extra effort they made to 'not' kill the AI.

 

Instead of the waking guard calling other guards to his area, I thought it would be better if he yells about what happen to him, and all hearers in that location would come to be at a higher level of searching, instead of them just lollygagging. ( love that word)

 

What is the difference? If he yells, who else is going to come to the area but 'other guards'? That's kind of the point. If guards within earshot heard him yelling, they would come to him.

 

This type of things would be good for a game based on 'combat', but this is not that type of game. This type of game discourages combat.

 

As to the game not supposed to be realistic, well, .........why improve the game at all.........

 

That's an over simplification. It comes down to two things...improvement vs. addition. They are not the same thing at all. For example, we've put countless hours into 'improving' the core systems that made Thief work so well, we have also expanding existing systems where it didn't have negative effects on the existing balance of gameplay. The AI are then more challenging. 'Waking up', is a completely new stage, not simply an improvement. AI are either Active...or Inactive. To return them to activity after being removed, drastically changes the methods and rewards behind the gameplay.

 

Sorry, but it's not a logical addition to this type of gameplay.

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Instead of the waking guard calling other guards to his area, I thought it would be better if he yells about what happen to him, and all hearers in that location would come to be at a higher level of searching, instead of them just lollygagging. ( love that word)

 

Hmmm...

 

So a guard wakes up, rubs his head, and shouts "Everyone, I was knocked out, Please be on the alert, we have a thief in here" and than continues his duties?

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Sure the place will simmer down if they cant find you within a given time, (cause your not there or whatever) but if you stumble back into a room or area where you clubbed a few people earlier, you run the risk of coming into a group of guards that are in hi alert, running around

 

Basically, you're punishing the player for not killing the guard. As NH has said, adding that feature would just cause players to kill unconscious AI to ensure that they stay down (with no extra noise as they are already knocked out), which is not what we want to encourage.

 

We have features to deal with the issue of raising a player's apprehension level, though. Guards remember things that they've seen and heard, and once they know there is an intruder they are much more observant. So if you make mistakes (leave blood or a body around, or get spotted), AI get sharper and your job actually gets harder. There are also far more random factors than the previous games, like guards looking around randomly, or stopping along their route to look at something, which can increase the tension of trying to get around them.

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To play devil's advocate:

 

I've always thought it would be cool to have guards wake back up after a spell.

This is why I usually try to NOT blackjack them. Much more challenging if they are still awake.

 

As far as reality goes. I've seen people get concusions and most likely that's what blackjacking would do to you. A friend of mine clocked his head on ice while snowboarding. It only took a few minutes to wake up, he got out of our car at our house and 'started walking home'. Of course we were gonna give him a ride but he still started walking - the wrong direction :)

He didn't know he hit his head.

 

He was completely out of it for hours.

 

So if the guards DID wake up during game it's not likely they'd know WHY they were out. Nor is it likely they start alerting other guards. They might not even act normal or go back on patrol right away. More likely they'd become a weird acting civilian.

----------

 

Anyway, as stated that was a decision made long before I came along and I'm alright with it. If you want the added difficulty just try not to KO any of them.

 

Difficulties I can see if it was implemented.

1st-getting everyone to agree what the correct responses apon waking would be. No matter what someone (team member, author or player) would think it was wrong.

 

2nd-The KO'd AI turns into a ragdoll. Making that ragdoll turn back into an AI and pick themselves up with an animation that matches their bodies position could be VERY tough. Either tons of anims needed, deffinately some new code...

Alot easier to make a body turn to ragdoll and fall naturally then the opposite.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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I think we had the general realism topic around here once already and I guess the point was that realism in games is only good as long as it serves the gameplay and the immersion. Knowing that a guard will eventually wake up doesn't create very much immersion in my oppinion... ;) And like the others said before, it destroys an essential part of this gametype.

 

Like in Oblivion, it was kinda nice that the people were actually living a real life in the city, going to the pubs, "wizarding their dogs asleep" and all that, but in the end you just wind up searching for quest-persons or traders, while you could be long gone on a dangerous adventure instead... :) (Of course there is always the option to use the wait-function, but that is just uncool)

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When TDM releases, maybe some people will come along and make a "guards get up" expansion.

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When I first played the original Thief, my first play through of the game I killed all the guards, because I thought they would get back up if they were simply left unconscious. Only after finding out online that they remain unconscious forever did I start using the blackjack in Thief games.

 

Even so, I still find myself feeling uncomfortable leaving an army of unconscious bodies around when I'm supposed to be playing a Thief who is trying to secure his location to make some money (or achieve some other goal). I remember in Thief 2, when not playing on expert, feeling much better throwing the unconscious bodies into water, so that way once they drowned, I knew they were never getting back up. :D

 

Obviously it would be a major pain to implement and is something you guys have decided against, and that's completely find, but I always felt all of these guards just staying unconscious forever cheapened the game, and made the blackjack overpowered frankly. I mean, what is the point of even having a sword if it makes noise and blood and the end result is no better than if you just took a little care and used your blackjack instead? The sword has essentially no plus to using it, and is not even a neutral weapon, the game severely penalizes the play for using it by both noise and blood. The blackjack on the other hand is just a short little black stick, with 100% positive results for using it and no negatives.

 

To address a few of the other points that have been made, I think it wouldn't be too big of an issue as to what the guards actually do upon waking up. It would make sense that they would call other guards to them, and then they would all go back on patrol at a much heightened alert stage. For the player, the way to prevent that would be to actually put the body movement system into real use over more than just a short distance.

 

I mean honestly, how often are bodies really going to get discovered from their initial fall location if you don't move them? And even if you do move them, it usually entails just a short distance away to the nearest shadow. If the player were forced to consider instead, "Well I got the silent knockout because of the blackjack but now I need to find an isolated spot the guard cannot get out of for when he wakes up."

 

And as for some system of countdown timers alerting the player to when the guards will wake up, that is just very silly, and I don't think anyone would seriously consider that. There are many, many games where enemies can either wake-up or re-spawn and it is based on a period of in-game time unknown to the player that obviously wouldn't take saves and reloads into account.

 

This is just my opinion, and I understand you're not going to do it, but I think many of you have written off the idea of guards waking up as silly when I think it really would add real value to the game.

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Devil's advocate's assistant chipping in here: It would be interesting to make a Thief variant which rewarded ghosting (or if not ghosting, then at least good running-away skills) by making it impossible to keep an enemy down permanently.

 

That means that either: Killing is impossible and everyone just gets knocked out instead of killed (guess you'd have to remove swords, fire arrows, etc. otherwise this would seem silly). Or, everyone comes back as a zombie some time after being killed. :P Or, they get magically revived after a certain period of time.

 

In this variant, all forms of enemy disablement would be heavily penalised. It would be safer to leave enemies untouched and just stay out of sight rather than risk your enemies waking up and coming back at you.

 

As mentioned, doing this only to KOing and leaving killing as a permanent method of disablement is counter to the idea of penalising the things we don't want players to do, though; so that's not a good way to go. And we won't do it since it's really not something that's in the scope of this mod.

 

Also, there's an easier way to encourage ghosting: Use enemies which are immune to blackjacking! Or heck, make them invincible...

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Thanks, Dr. Spock,

 

I couldn't have said it better myself rolleyes.gif

 

Cheers,

Stefan

 

When I first played the original Thief, my first play through of the game I killed all the guards, because I thought they would get back up if they were simply left unconscious. Only after finding out online that they remain unconscious forever did I start using the blackjack in Thief games.

 

Even so, I still find myself feeling uncomfortable leaving an army of unconscious bodies around when I'm supposed to be playing a Thief who is trying to secure his location to make some money (or achieve some other goal). I remember in Thief 2, when not playing on expert, feeling much better throwing the unconscious bodies into water, so that way once they drowned, I knew they were never getting back up. :D

 

Obviously it would be a major pain to implement and is something you guys have decided against, and that's completely find, but I always felt all of these guards just staying unconscious forever cheapened the game, and made the blackjack overpowered frankly. I mean, what is the point of even having a sword if it makes noise and blood and the end result is no better than if you just took a little care and used your blackjack instead? The sword has essentially no plus to using it, and is not even a neutral weapon, the game severely penalizes the play for using it by both noise and blood. The blackjack on the other hand is just a short little black stick, with 100% positive results for using it and no negatives.

 

To address a few of the other points that have been made, I think it wouldn't be too big of an issue as to what the guards actually do upon waking up. It would make sense that they would call other guards to them, and then they would all go back on patrol at a much heightened alert stage. For the player, the way to prevent that would be to actually put the body movement system into real use over more than just a short distance.

 

I mean honestly, how often are bodies really going to get discovered from their initial fall location if you don't move them? And even if you do move them, it usually entails just a short distance away to the nearest shadow. If the player were forced to consider instead, "Well I got the silent knockout because of the blackjack but now I need to find an isolated spot the guard cannot get out of for when he wakes up."

 

And as for some system of countdown timers alerting the player to when the guards will wake up, that is just very silly, and I don't think anyone would seriously consider that. There are many, many games where enemies can either wake-up or re-spawn and it is based on a period of in-game time unknown to the player that obviously wouldn't take saves and reloads into account.

 

This is just my opinion, and I understand you're not going to do it, but I think many of you have written off the idea of guards waking up as silly when I think it really would add real value to the game.

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The sword has essentially no plus to using it, and is not even a neutral weapon, the game severely penalizes the play for using it by both noise and blood. The blackjack on the other hand is just a short little black stick, with 100% positive results for using it and no negatives.

 

 

The sword and blackjack are both finely balanced. The sword is easier to use (you don't have to hit an AI's head), and it can be used defensively (to parry). On the other hand, killing with the sword is loud and messy, and having it out makes you slightly easier to see.

 

The blackjack is stealthy (doesn't affect the lightgem) and will take AI down quietly. On the other hand, you have to hit the AI in a specific place to be successful (the head or the back of the head, depending on how alert the AI is), and it is essentially useless in a fight (it cannot parry or do any significant damage). Not to mention that AI wearing bulky helmets are immune to the blackjack completely.

 

 

 

(btw ocapacha, quoting seven paragraphs of text and adding just nine words of your own is not exactly good forum etiquette.)

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Doesn't matter how many times we explain it Spring, we're still going to be 'wrong', despite the fact that we've put years of study, development, and testing into the gameplay. lol

 

Guys. We get it, you like 'the idea' of guards waking up....but....it defeats the purpose, the idea, the methodology of the gameplay. It's the way it is for a reason, At the very core of thief style gameplay is a set of rewards and penalizations. Our intention is to follow that tradition. Players are rewarded for 'not' killing. We've already taken steps to require more skill to knock out AI.

 

In any case, if it didn't make the feature list 4 years ago, it's certainly not going to make the list now. Save your key strokes. ;) We're locked down. That's it and that's all. :)

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More wasted keystrokes ;)

 

Dr. Spock, apart from the reasons Spring gave for the BJ and sword being different there are other things to consider.

 

1-finding a 'secure place' to put a waking guard would mean 2 things. 1, a guard would know for sure something was wrong and he would start yelling to atract attention, therefore negating stowing him away. It would be more likely that he wouldn't know what happened, just that his memory is foggy and his head hurts if he woke up if you just drag him to shadow. 2, this would require all authors to build secure locations which could start to get weird.

 

2-Most missions have ghosting, no KO and/or no Kill objectives built in. So that also adds to the importance/difference between Blackjacking, killing and ghosting depending on difficulty levels. If you wanna play expert you can't use your sword...

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Can spawn points for guards be placed in maps if the mapper so chooses, so that a new guard would appear on the map (out of sight of the player) after x amount of time of the mission starting, where x is either variable or fixed? It could be justified with guards starting new shifts and stuff throughout the night and the number of spawns from a certain point could be controlled as well, so that only 1 guard will spawn during the mission play through.

 

I think that could be interesting on some maps, and it always felt a little odd that one could blackjack all the NPCs in a level and run around without worry to find all the loot or do the objectives. It would of course be up to mappers to insert the spawn points and stuff, and blackjacking would still be a smarter choice than flat out killing someone. After all, who isn't careful about where they hide unconscious or dead bodies?

 

I'm sure you've already discussed this to great length and I wouldn't be bothered if it wasn't in the release, but is it something a mapper could do if they were so inclined?

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Can spawn points for guards be placed in maps if the mapper so chooses, so that a new guard would appear on the map (out of sight of the player) after x amount of time of the mission starting, where x is either variable or fixed?

 

If you recall D3 gameplay, it was the king of spawning in new monsters. I know it's possible to spawn AI with all kinds of triggers--I can't say for certain about using a set timer (though I'd be quite surprised if it wasn't possible).

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If you recall D3 gameplay, it was the king of spawning in new monsters. I know it's possible to spawn AI with all kinds of triggers--I can't say for certain about using a set timer (though I'd be quite surprised if it wasn't possible).

 

It is easy to make either a trigger_wait entity, that waits a set (or random?) time, or you could use a script. Anything in Doom3 can be dynamic, except the worldspawn level geometry. :)

 

Technically, you could build an empty cube and then spawn everything into the map at runtime. (We do for instance spawn attached candles and candle flames) :)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Hmmm,

 

It would be interesting to have a map where a random guard(s) will spawn and patrol abit for an extra hand, kind of like in Metal Gear Solid, how when you alerted the guards, extras would come, and when its in alert mode, those remain.

 

Maybe there would be a locked gate, that only AI can use, and for some reason, extra guards come through it time to time.

 

OR

Maybe some guard just made his rounds around the city, and he's going to switch with another guard, so while he is making his way over to the bunkhouse, the player has to avoid another guard coming in. And when the guard hits the bed, another guard will go to relieve him of his post and patrol the streets.

 

Something to spice it up from time to time, if the mapper so desires.

 

I'll have to experiment with that.

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