Chade on 8/9/2009 at 23:07
Well, just because I used strong words doesn't mean you can't argue with them. :p
But it does look that the discussion can't really go any further without actually sitting down and watching one another play and arguing over specific situations, rather then general principles.
SubJeff on 8/9/2009 at 23:54
Only because you're not accepting the fact that the design choices made the gloves dull to use.
Imagine them in TMA. The exprience would have been completely different partly because those decorations, or lack of, wouldn't cause such restrictions. If they had accounted for that the gloves would have been far superior.
Chade on 9/9/2009 at 00:24
Aren't we going in circles here? My reply is lifted straight out of earlier posts. I agree that the gloves are duller then necesary, design issues, decorations, blah blah blah. They could certainly be better, but they are not irredeemably worse then rope arrows.
Actually, lets go into more detail ...
1) Both rope arrows and climbing gloves allow straight up and down movement.
2) Both rope arrows and climbing gloves work on particular surfaces which are repeated regularly throughout the game.
3) Both allow a limited form horizontal movement (jumping / horz climb), and sometimes allow quite powerfull horizontal movement when the architecture is correct (chained jumping / few decorations).
4) Both are used for alternate access to areas, for finding loot in out of the way spaces, and as a way of using 3d movement to stay in shadows while crossing a room.
5) Rope arrows require more preparation then climbing gloves, which could be considered either good or bad, but is not significant in a game where the player is in control of pacing (mainly this is usefull when running away, which is not an issue for advanced players, and can help out beginning players).
On which of these issues are climbing gloves unambiguously worse then rope arrows?
Jarvis on 9/9/2009 at 01:47
Quote Posted by Chade
On which of these issues are climbing gloves unambiguously worse then rope arrows?
This is a revealing statement, I think. It's been well established that no one is trying to deny the nifty use of climbing gloves. All we're trying to say is that there's no reason to not have rope arrows. I'll say it again, having both would be wonderful.
So to answer your question directly, none, really. But what makes climbing gloves unambiguously better? Also none. They are just two different means of exploration.
The issue here isn't Garrett's gear. The issue is the environment created around the gear.
So what is your argument, really? Is it just that climbing gloves are better than rope arrows? I still don't think we're all talking about the same thing here.
Chade on 9/9/2009 at 03:08
I'm not trying to say that climbing gloves are unambiguously better then rope arrows, or that you shouldn't have both (although I'll go into a bit more detail at the end of the post). I'm responding to statements like this:
Quote:
But TDS made sure that climbing gloves were only useful exactly where they specifically designed them to be .. the developers made it plainly obvious that was the "stealthy" way in
Quote:
Only certain walls could be climbed with the gloves and they were in specific places you either were supposed to go or were useless.
I should have more directly addressed level design above, but I thought that saying "particular surfaces which are repeated regularly" would be enough. If you equate "use on regularly repeated texture" with "use where specifically designed", then you could level the exact same charge against rope arrows!
Now, I said earlier that I don't think climbing gloves are better then rope arrows. Getting slightly more on-topic, that's not entirely true once we start talking about T4.
One thing that would define a "spiritual sequel to T3" for me would be to try to make better use of the climbing gloves. The obvious improvement is to put more emphasis on horizontal movement over walls, which is obviously a pretty cool extension to exploration and stealth gameplay in general. On the other hand, if you wanted to focus on rope arrows*, the natural way to do lots of horizontal movement is to have garrett swinging from the rafters, which seems less flexible and more action orientated to me.
For T4, my main criticism of climbing gloves would be that their usage feels "flat" (for lack of a better word) compared to rope arrows. Using a rope arrows involves firing an arrow from the bow, jumping, moving as per a ladder, and jumping again. There's quite a bit of variation there and a number of semi-skilled actions. In addition, because the rope hangs down from the surface, and because you jump off it, the places you can navigate to using a rope arrow are not as readily apparant to the eye. By contrast, the climbing gloves only involve the exact same movement keys that you were using when walking around on the floor, and the places you can get to by climbing a wall are all directly connected to that wall. This should all be changed if they take their inspiration from the climbing gloves.
* For the sake of argument lets say this was a choice between the two.
Jarvis on 9/9/2009 at 03:45
Personally, I thinking climbing should be a bit different than it was in TDS. I'd like to see the concept of "climbing gloves" taken away, and instead just give Garrett the ability to climb.
But then, I don't want to be able to just climb straight up any wall. I'd much rather have to use ledges and those sorts of things. It's like it to be somewhere between assassin's creed where almost every wall was climbable and mirrors edge. That had fewer ledges that were climbable, but it left it up to you to find these ledges and use them strategically.
In other words, I want to see climbing engage me in a thinking process. I'll have to learn how Garrett moves around on walls, and try and make predictions from the ground to figure out if it'll keep me hidden, if it's even possible to begin with.
That might bridge the gap in player skill between rope arrows and climbing gloves.
Chade on 9/9/2009 at 03:58
I can agree with you there!
Although then you start getting into debates about how "agile" Garrett is supposed to be, and so forth ...
Platinumoxicity on 9/9/2009 at 08:47
The climbing gloves were implemented because the devs chose a heavily modded unstable engine that nobody knew nothing about. They were deep into production when came the time to make the rope arrows and they simply didn't work. So... they had to make something else to cover for the rope arrows. I'm sure EM will make sure the rope arrows are possible to make in the new engine, and we won't need the climbing gloves anymore. :)
Also, you don't need gloves for climbing. You need a wall with something to grab on... Like little nooks and holes. The brick walls in TDS couldn't possibly have been scalable. Thief 4 can easily have rope arrows, plus and a default ability to climb things that look like they could be climbed, including metal grates, portculli', rock walls with holes in them, or those wooden thingies that are used for growing vines on.
SubJeff on 9/9/2009 at 09:30
Yeah, a sensible climbing solution doesn't actually need gloves at all.
It'd be like the revelation that mantling was - I still get annoyed in games that don't have it meaning you are blocked by a 2 foot wall/crate.
New Horizon on 9/9/2009 at 15:27
Although not implemented yet, our vine arrows in TDM will grow patches of vines on walls that the player can climb.
Would have made more sense for T3 to have done that, since they already had a working moss arrow, although the moss looked more like vines really. Wouldn't have taken much to make a separate arrow that grew on walls similar to how moss grew.
