Galaer on 1/7/2021 at 16:31
Quote Posted by klatremus
3. Neutral guards. In some missions, these also give settling remarks even though they're not supposed to.
Heh, whenever I was supreme ghosted missions, I always was avoiding 1st alerts from neutral guards and counted them as a bust.
Quote Posted by Cigam
Responding to an earlier point, I thought T3 ghosters did not count AI reactions to missing loot? The whole game would be unghostable if you did? Or was that just Travis Whitsitt?
From what I remember missing loot alert in T3 is just unique 1st alert (kinda like pickpocketing alert in TDM) and it's way more frequent. In TDM it is unique alert, which ends as a search mode (4th alert). Plus is more frequent - in Tears of St Lucia I encountered only 3 places where this alert can occur and still you can complete loot objective by avoiding this problematic loot. So it's completely different scope of the problem.
Cigam on 1/7/2021 at 17:34
In T3 they will also go into a brief search mode phase if they notice missing loot. Travis, at least, did not count this as long as they were reacting purely to the loot, and not any sounds he had made etc.
You could perhaps argue for skipping "unnecessary" loot that would trigger such responses, but that gets complicated as it might require advance fore-knowledge of the mission. And I am a believer that people ought to be able to just play and make decisions in real-time, without needing to do mission-research first.
Galaer on 1/7/2021 at 18:08
I really don't remember about T3. I played it so long time ago, I also watched Travis's videos, but again it was many years ago. I only remember that he managed to supreme ghost the whole game.
As for 2nd part, different games have different mechanics, so research is absolutely necessary. I'm sure that even Travis made research before he supreme ghosted T3.
Cigam on 1/7/2021 at 18:30
I thought there was something in the rules about not taking the final stats as the be all and end all?
I am sure there are plenty of claimed ghost successes that were actually busts, but the player genuinely did not hear a very faint and far off "hmm?".
I guess what I am trying to say is this. Rather than getting hung up on what some final stats screen might say, if you see or hear no objective evidence that a sleeping AI or a far off guard was disrupted by you, then it is all good. Just as it would be in the original games?
Anyway, who is to say that there wasn't a bug and something that should have been counted in the stats wasn't, and vice versa? I mean, the stats in the original games were known to bug out sometimes.
So in a nutshell, FWIW I would disagree with making the results stated on a final stats screen, with prescribed target values, as a differentiator between success and failure. What actually happens, and what there is in-game evidence of, is what people should draw conclusions on?
marbleman on 1/7/2021 at 18:42
There issue is two-fold:
1) TDM does have all your alerts summed up on a stat screen.
2) Alerts in TDM are much harder to detect.
In Thief, when you haven't heard anything, it usually means there were no alerts because they are so easy to detect. This is not a case in TDM. I don't agree that you can ghost a mission, get a few alerts on the stat screen and go "Well I didn't hear anything so I'm good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
Thief 3 is its own game with its own mechanics. I wouldn't use it to justify anything in TDM, or Thief for that matter. If a Thief 3 ever gets its ghosting community, they might add clarifications allowing these kinds of alerts even though they might not allowed in TDM (it's still to be decided).
klatremus on 1/7/2021 at 18:59
I would not use T3 as a reference for anything pertaining to Thief1-2 or TDM. I agree with you marbleman that the stealth tool should be referenced and encouraged (even strongly so) in the rules. The main reason being alerts are so difficult to detect that you dont want to get caught without knowing it. Thief is different because alerts are easier and you get no alert round up in stats. Since you are forced to see it in TDM, this tool makes it so there are no surprise busts at the end. I also agree that although the stats screen shouldn't be deciding matters, the player shouldn't use that as a reason to excuse busts. That's why the stealth tool is good, because it forces the player to double check and track his progress during gameplay, making him more aware of his surroundings, which a ghost should be.
Questions: Can you not eavesdrop on doors in TDM? And is there no way to see the max pickpocket count in the stats? Is there no secret count?
marbleman on 1/7/2021 at 19:06
Eavesdropping works. I did that earlier today in fact. You can't hear everything as clearly as in Thief, but leaning into doors helps quite a bit.
By default, there's no max pickpocket count. There is also no lockpick and secret count at all. Maybe it's something an author can add, but I'm not sure.
Cigam on 1/7/2021 at 20:03
Quote Posted by marbleman
In Thief, when you haven't heard anything, it usually means there were no alerts because they are so easy to detect. This is not a case in TDM. I don't agree that you can ghost a mission, get a few alerts on the stat screen and go "Well I didn't hear anything so I'm good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
Whether it is easier to miss alerts in one game over another, It can still happen in both. You can't really legislate for it?
And unless if the stealth report gives specific details of the alert, it cannot be used as proof either way. It could have been scripted, a response to another AI, or something else excused (such as if people agree with discounting loot-alerts). Or just a plain old bug.
I mean, if you allow alerts from sleeping enemies as has been suggested, you may assume that this is what caused the cited alert, but for all you know, you might have missed a distant guard and that was the cause? Or a bug, again.
I appreciate the preference for a "clean" stats screen, but they aren't absolute proof.
Quote:
Thief 3 is its own game with its own mechanics. I wouldn't use it to justify anything in TDM, or Thief for that matter. If a Thief 3 ever gets its ghosting community, they might add clarifications allowing these kinds of alerts even though they might not allowed in TDM (it's still to be decided).
Fair enough. But let's just say that the reasoning I have heard makes sense to me. The spirit of the rules are not about preventing the taking of loot per se, and they do mention that the ghost can provide evidence of their exploits via the loot they have taken.
marbleman on 1/7/2021 at 20:28
No, TDM only counts alerts caused by the player. Scripted sequences do not count for anything.
Cigam on 1/7/2021 at 20:38
Quote Posted by klatremus
Thief is different because alerts are easier and you get no alert round up in stats. Since you are forced to see it in TDM, this tool makes it so there are no surprise busts at the end. I also agree that although the stats screen shouldn't be deciding matters, the player shouldn't use that as a reason to excuse busts.
I think the OMs did have a stat for number of enemies alerted?
I don't think we are talking about excusing busts. We are talking about the situation where you ghosted a mission (in as far as you can detect according to what happened in game, and what there was evidence of), but then the final stats screen says that there was an alert.
All I am saying is, is that given the potential for bugs, or alerts that would have been allowed, why enforce people to become enslaved to this.
The rules re the OMs make no requirement for specified stat values? They even mention that these shouldn't be taken as proof of anything. I mean if they do say you lost health or an AI was alerted, and you cannot remember either happenning, then you might redo the mission just in case it wasn't a bug or a far off Fire Elemental spotting a Burrick, but that is up to you. The rules themselves don't insist on stat-adherence/monitoring.
