Advanced Stealth ideas

5tephe on 29/6/2009 at 03:46

Can I throw in another suggestion?

Stand, Crouch, & Prone.

I like the idea of being able to leopard-crawl along the ground for ULTIMATE stealth position. (It would also reduce your shadow and silhouette to almost nothing.)

Beleg Cúthalion on 29/6/2009 at 07:40

Just isn't useful inside a building, just like wall-hugging while walking. :erg: It works outside, though, but is very slow paced. Plus, people around here want the sword back. :p

Quote Posted by Chade

Reality is only real in real life. ;)

Hey, no harm in trying. Also, regarding the Randy Smith quote, that's exactly what IMHO is covered by the reality/player introduced to issue. It just depends on the amount of things you can put in before the player feels overstrained and I guess there is still something left, at least for EXPERTs and Thief fans like us.

Springheel on 29/6/2009 at 11:54

The problem with making the stealth in Thief more realistic is that the player is intrinsically handicapped by the fact he's playing a game. In real life, a person can put small amounts of weight on a board to see if it's likely to creak before stepping on it. In real life a person can maintain a pretty good awareness of where his body is in relation to the lights in the area around him (or scan a 300 degree arc in half a second without getting disoriented).

Because the player's interface with the game is extremely limited, the challenges have to be somewhat more limited as well. As that quote from Randy Smith wisely said, you can't have players getting caught without knowing why they're getting caught (because you just walked between a guard and that lit window behind you and down the street).

That certainly doesn't mean you can't make the stealth more challenging in other ways, however, like improving the AI's reactions to things.

Beleg Cúthalion on 29/6/2009 at 13:13

But you can test wooden floors just like testing any surface (or avoiding it in the first place) and the silhouette thing doesn't require a better interface either because it's not much more than looking for shadows and guard sight lines like you already do. :erg: Well, I don't know, it just doesn't seem too me so much more complicated. Ducking between barrels, moving on pieces of carpet etc., yes, that's where you see the limits of body awareness and all that.

I'd be interested in other stealth improvements nonetheless, just in case you already got any...

OldMeat on 6/7/2009 at 20:26

I have not posted for a long while and was a little bit late on getting the news of a 4th game.

I have been playing this game since 1998 and have every version except the the gold releases.

In the TDP and TMA, I noticed bed rolls here and there and wondered what they were in the game for.

I have usually used tossed bowls, knives, or spoons for diversionary noise making if I did not have a noisemaker arrow.

As far as the bedrolls, I may have already mentioned it in a post long ago, but I thought that they might be suited for a purpose of reducing noise on some surfaces much like the moss arrow. It would be nice if they could be rolled out in a darkened area upon a noisy surface and then be used to walk across. Something like this should be noticed if in an area of light.

I have also wondered why sudden moss covered areas are not usually noticed by the other characters (I do not think the pagans would care) in the game, unless fired into their faces, causing a character to choke, as in T3 DS.

Another thing that would be nice is felt or wool shoe sole covers that would allow speedier but quiet pathing from point A to B, but they should wear out after continued use and how much wear & tear would depend on the surface traversed.

I hope the rope arrows will be back.

OldMeat on 6/7/2009 at 20:44

Quote Posted by 5tephe

I think this would be good, but if moving while using 'Prone' it should make a little more noise. So to drastically reduce your visibility it would work best when you have sufficient cover and darkness to do it suddenly. This might not work too well with archer guards posted on high places unless you had good cover like bushes or high grass.

They use the 'Stand, Crouch, & Prone' in many military and hunting games, and usually while moving in 'Prone' with some games it is a little bit more noisey than a 'Crouch' walk, This is because more surface area is in contact with the ground. Of course, the player is a bit higher in visible profile when in a 'Crouch' walk than being in 'Prone'.

Taffer36 on 8/7/2009 at 20:26

Quote Posted by Stath MIA

Players need to know which surfaces are going to be noisy and which aren't.

Now, if you really want to talk honestly about my issues with your floor boards then here are my top 5:
1. It would strongly interfere with gameplay and pretty much force the devs to build the missions around the floors of all things
2. It would annoy the average player to have floor boards in the middle of the rooms creak as it would cause knocking out any guard who's not mysteriously leaning against the wall to be too challenging
3. It's not actually realistic, only the most dilapidated structures would have creaking floors as most floors, even medieval ones, were well supported
4. It makes it so that it is easier to make enough noise to attract a guard than it is to be attract a guard by visibility, which is very unrealistic
5. It really adds nothing to gameplay

I don't think everyone fully understands the concept here, which I actually LIKE quite a bit.

As Valve loves to show us so very often, level design is about TEACHING the player. And you could easily teach the player such a concept.

It adds plenty to the gameplay. It basically teaches you that WALKING NEAR WALLS is always greater than WALKING IN THE CENTER OF A ROOM when dealing with wooden floor materials, which I think adds nicely to the gameplay. Sure, challenges arise from this but isn't that the entire point of gameplay? "Nuh uh, it would make the player have to work around it" isn't an argument because that's the entire point of game mechanics.

Devs would have to build around the floor designs? You're supposed to do that with Thief ANYWAYS, the floor is where all of the gameplay pretty much derives from.

The amount of creaking doesn't need to be monumental, it just needs to be light so that skilled players will learn to creep near walls on wood but so that the creaking doesn't wake everyone in the neighborhood. I think it'd be a cool layer of depth to add.

Quote Posted by OldMeat

As far as the bedrolls, I may have already mentioned it in a post long ago, but I thought that they might be suited for a purpose of reducing noise on some surfaces much like the moss arrow. It would be nice if they could be rolled out in a darkened area upon a noisy surface and then be used to walk across. Something like this should be noticed if in an area of light.

Another thing that would be nice is felt or wool shoe sole covers that would allow speedier but quiet pathing from point A to B, but they should wear out after continued use and how much wear & tear would depend on the surface traversed.

I like the concept of using bedrolls/other materials of that nature to traverse noisy areas, it's quite cool and supports thinking from the player with an ample work/reward system.

I'm not feeling the sole covers, though, because I think that Thief gameplay is much more dependent on audio than most games. Most depend on visual more, but in Thief I'd almost say that audio is 60-80% of the stealth gameplay, and so allowing for something that reduces the more important side of the gameplay wouldn't be a good choice.

Beleg Cúthalion on 9/7/2009 at 07:44

I just wanted to throw in that I never cross a room in the middle since Thief, even in other games or outside the computer world. :p

jtr7 on 9/7/2009 at 07:46

Hahahaha! :thumb:

*Zaccheus* on 9/7/2009 at 11:59

I like the idea of variation across a surface, but it needs to be visually obvious.

As an aside, theBlackman had written a novel ages ago where really loud creaking floorboards were installed as a trap by the home owner. In the novel the thief had a way of identifying these, so it was just a question of being careful.