Ghost rules discussion

marbleman on 28/7/2021 at 11:20

There have been so many observations regarding TDM since I drafted the addendum that I'm having trouble categorizing these and forming a cohesive ruleset. Might need a bit of help here. ;)

demagogue on 28/7/2021 at 12:32

Quote Posted by klatremus

@demagogue: Yes that trick works in many places in various missions I've played since then. It could be very important in preventing busts in future runs. May I ask what YouTube LP shows it?

Here's the (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1DTc___-84&t=2745s) video timed to where it happened.

Now that I look at it again, I think what happened isn't that trick. I think the player just hugged the wall and it was close to the end of the light radius, so things were dimmer because of that, not any thing inherent to corners or leaning per se.

But actually that makes me suspect this may be behind the phenomenon you saw. It's very common that mappers will drag their light radii (radiuses?) out to the edge of a wall so there'd be a natural fall off there. We get kind of trained to keep the light radii as tight as possible because light radius has probably the biggest impact on performance as anything. I mean having multiple light radii overlap is a big FPS drain, and the easiest way to avoid it is have the radii hug the walls.

Quote Posted by klatremus

In TDM, I've also noticed that enemies occasionally alert to seeing fastened rope arrows, but such alerts also do not count towards the stealth score. Just like reacting to open doors, I likewise think these alerts should bust Supreme, but not regular Ghost. Enemies don't deviate from their path or move if stationary, so they are equal to first alerts. It should be added to the amendment under Supreme rule #4.

FYI -- since I worked on exactly this, I can let you know how the system came to be -- the reason tools, bodies, open doors, etc., don't count towards the stealth score is because of attribution. We didn't want the score counting towards other AI putting the AI on alert, so the system counts alerts when a trigger's attribution arg lists the "player" property. Of course sounds the player makes or being seen is easily attributable to the player, but seeing or hearing tools or doors or bodies will be attributed to the tools or doors or bodies, not to the last person using them; and it actually wouldn't even be easy to have the system know or remember that.

So we had a choice, either have every tool or body count against the player (even if some were clearly caused by other AI or there for plot reasons), or just count alerts carrying attribution to the player. Between those two, having it count some alerts clearly not caused by the player is just unfair on its face, so we decided to just keep it according to attribution, even if it does end up not counting tools, etc., as a rule.

So that's how it ended up that way, and I still think between those two options it's still the better option, as in not allowing clearly unfair hits. IIRC it'd be very technically hard to have tools or bodies carry a new arg like "last owned by / caused by" to wedge the player in that way, and if we can't easily do that, then there's no easy way for the game to know who used to own those tools.

But anyway, having ghosting rules beyond the stealth score, where the player can take account of such details themselves, is perfectly understandable and the way to go.

klatremus on 28/7/2021 at 15:18

Quote Posted by marbleman

There have been so many observations regarding TDM since I drafted the addendum that I'm having trouble categorizing these and forming a cohesive ruleset. Might need a bit of help here. ;)

From what I can see in the discussion, since you suggested the original amendment, the main additions would be:

1. (Strongly) suggesting the use if the stealth statistics tool.

2. Sleeping AIs alert 1s which dont offer audible cues. If we suggest the stealth tool, then this wouldnt be an issue. Just check that tool when done with sleeping enemy's room.

3. Alerts to removed light sources does not bust Ghost.

4. Alerts to ropes or other tools used busts Supreme but not Ghost.

marbleman on 28/7/2021 at 18:21

Thanks, I'll get on it soon. What shall we decide regarding AIs alerting to missing loot, which is 1) always scripted/set up by the mission author, 2) doesn't affect the stealth score, BUT 3) can easily go undetected as it can take several minutes for it to trigger and 4) looks like a 4th-level alert and spreads among AIs, often causing several of them to sweep the area?

klatremus on 28/7/2021 at 19:33

Alerts to missing loot should be allowed for all modes, seeing that it's such an integral part to Thief. As long as no other rules are busted in the process of course, meaning if you're spotted during the searching for example. What can be troublesome by allowing it though is, what if a player uses the enemies alerting to missing loot to their benefit? Like what if during the search guards leave their post, enabling you to get through otherwise impenetrable areas? Or even enabling you to steal more loot you couldn't before.

marbleman on 28/7/2021 at 19:36

I've been thinking about it for a while, and I'm also leaning towards allowing it. Glad you do as well. :D
I think it'd be fine to use this to one's advantage because it takes a certain amount of skill to sneak by fully alert guards, especially in TDM. This should obviously be reported though.

Galaer on 28/7/2021 at 20:14

I'm against allowing missing loot alert simply because it leads to 4th alert. I don't buy excuse that this is integral part of TDM mechanic. Isn't it the same in Undercover (T1)? It's not allowed there, so why would it be allowed here? The only mission I encountered that had this mechanic was Tears of St Lucia and it was only in 3 spots. Avoiding these pieces of loot doesn't make loot objective impossible to complete. So I would say that it's fine to skip this loot. As for detection of alert - most of the time you need to spend couple of minutes waiting in shadow to check if enemy is alerting to missing loot. It's really not that huge hassle. And also it's really not common type of alert.

klatremus on 28/7/2021 at 23:19

But the 4th alert is not from seeing or hearing you, but instead detecting something you stole, which is the whole point of being a thief. Besides, after you finish the mission the next day they would obviously detect everything being gone anyway, so logic says these alerts would occur sooner or later regardless, the difference is only that you are still there to hear them. Objectives and loot have always been at the forefront of the gameplay. Alerting to doors being open or tools left behind is NOT the point of being a thief, on the contrary, a thief is supposed to conceal such things, so those should be busts. Alerts to pickpockets are scripted and always happen, so those are not even true alerts to me. To be honest, I think alerting to loot should be allowed in the original Thief games also. The reason I haven't argued it is because there is only 1 mission ever that does it that I have played, which is Undercover, and there you can just get them after the alarm is sprung so it has no bearing on any kind of ghost mode success or loot count.

I likewise think alerts to objectives missing should also be allowed. Not if they see you or hear you do the deed, like in Tears of St. Lucia, but simply from the item missing. I think the same should apply to Thief, which means Into the Odd would be Supremable.

demagogue on 29/7/2021 at 01:27

As for missing loot alerts (i.e., "absence marker" alerts), it's not a general mechanic, but only for special items specifically added by the mapper for plot or flow reasons. So I think I would use the rule for plot-triggered alerts, i.e., not count them as regular gameplay busts. (But I might still count it towards supreme ghosting.)

But it is still an alert for something the player did too; so I understand the logic if someone wanted to count it. It's just, if taking loot by itself counted as a bust (in some FMs, there's really no way to stop the alert; it's designed to ensure the alert happens, it's just a matter of the delay), then it wouldn't be much of a thief game where you're supposed to be rewarded for taking loot, not punished. =L

Galaer on 29/7/2021 at 06:16

klatremus, you are losing me here. You want to allow missing loot alert even in Thief games? Are you out of your mind? It's clearly a search mode and it's clearly created by player. Are you REALLY sure that it's within spirit of the ghost to allow this kind of alerts. Because I don't think so.

You told me before to not use real life logic too much, so I'm gonna tell you the same, you are using it too much. In Thief games we never cared about what will happen the next day. The most important is night when Garrett is present in the mission. And it was always like that. Nobody cares about consequences happening the next day. Also this kind of alert in Thief games may be rare, but it actually happens in more than one mission. But sure, there are some based on Undercover and they too have this kind of alert. And there are others and you know one of them - Into the Odd. You classified that as a supreme bust and for a good reason, it's a comment to missing loot and it sounds like 1st alert. Making a Profit also use this kind of alert, but to being pickpocketed or to missing body discovered and it ends with heavy search mode too.

As for missing loot alert, I read Chalice of Kings report and I wonder if it's possible to just quickly switch troublesome loot with non valuable item of the same shape to avoid missing loot alert. For example: in Tears of St Lucia - there is golden chalice on altar and there is non valuable chalice in one of storages. You would be forced to move this object to chapel and quickly exchange it. I didn't check this idea yet, but it's worth to try.