So most people like FMs that essentially are 3d point and click classic adventures? - by zajazd
Kurhhan on 10/2/2017 at 10:34
I'm bored with the "classic thief gameplay" in mansions or cities. The more creative puzzles, gameplay, the better.
Soul Tear on 10/2/2017 at 13:22
Me too. Except if it is very high quality mission.
A.J on 10/2/2017 at 13:39
I personally prefer FMs with light puzzle 'elements' in them, and more exploration/thieving. I'm really not a big fan of the extremely challenging puzzles that make me have to look up a walkthrough.
Krush on 10/2/2017 at 18:01
The challenge in Thief should not be in hunting for hours to find a tiny switch or key. In Thief the challenge comes from sneaking around the AIs, finding the right shadows and watching the patrols to figure out when you can make it across a hallway without being seen.
Sure, put your tiny switch in there, but don't make it a mandatory objective, just make it an optional secret or a way to get all the loot. That way the average player finishes the mission, but then goes to the forums, sees people talking about the "easter egg in the library," and ends up playing your mission again to find what he missed the first time.
Not to pick on qolelis but I doubt I will ever make it halfway through Heartcliff Islands without checking the forums every half hour - and at that point why bother?
JarlFrank on 10/2/2017 at 19:47
I don't like obscure puzzles, and I absolutely despise the "hunt for a tiny hidden switch with no hints to its location" kind of gameplay some missions have. I don't consider blindly walking around and frobbing the walls challenging, it's just frustrating and you can look up the location in a walkthrough to remove all the "challenge". That said, if the mission is good I will still play it and when I get stuck I'll check a walkthrough.
What I love about Thief is exploration and finding loot in hard-to-reach places that aren't hidden by switches or obscure puzzles, but that you can cearly see and have to navigate to. Skacky's missions are a good example of this, but the fourth mission of the recent Godbreaker and the recently released Behind Closed Doors are also good examples of this. You see a place somewhere high up in the rooftops, and you know there is something inside there, and you have to figure out how to get there! Ideally, there is more than one path to get there.
Thief is all about non-linear exploration. I don't mind puzzles if they're done well, and I don't mind a switch hunt IF the location of the switch is mentioned in a readable (good example: Godbreaker mission 4, a servant mentioning the "special bookcase" of the lord he used to work for, so you know that when you get into that lord's room, you should check the bookshelf for a switch).
A mission that I overall liked for its level design, but which frustrated me so much with hidden switches that I checked a walkthrough, is Forgotten Forest 2. Very well-designed crypt romp, but there are some switches hidden so well it's almost impossible to find them, as there is no hint to their location and they are REQUIRED to progress! I checked the location in a walkthrough and it STILL took me 5 minutes to find one of the switches because it was positioned behind a piece of furniture in a way that made it completely invisible...
Elements like this are ok when they hide secrets. If you require the player to do such an incredibly obscure thing, the player will likely get stuck, and to me that drags down the quality of an otherwise great mission.
ticky on 10/2/2017 at 20:45
For me, the gameplay is good even when it's all about the keyhunt or hard puzzles - as long as I don't have to check the forums every 5 minutes. What is really embarrassing for me is too small sized levels with hard puzzles and levels that have too long readables and not much more to offer on the design/ actual gameplay side.
yxlplig on 10/2/2017 at 23:06
My main issue with the adventure game from hell style of fan missions is that they minimize one of Thief's greatest strengths, its systems based game mechanics.
In real life, if you are breaking into a building you have a near endless number of options for doing that. You can break a window, pry a door open, break in through the sewer, cut a hole in the roof etc. Thief is the only game that comes close to offering that degree of freedom because it has systems for bashing doors, breaking glass, there are unintended alternate paths and so on.
When you design an FM where you have to put a spicy pepper in an apebeast's food so he goes berserk and breaks down a door in a pre-scripted event as the only method of entry, then you take all of that away and in my opinion make a less interesting mission.
Random_Taffer on 10/2/2017 at 23:19
Quote Posted by yxlplig
When you design an FM where you have to put a spicy pepper in an apebeast's food so he goes berserk and breaks down a door in a pre-scripted event
I don't know about anyone else, but that sounds awesome!
Tannar on 11/2/2017 at 02:53
+1
zajazd on 11/2/2017 at 08:19
I made this topic out of frustration because every now and then I get the itch for Thief but usually I end up playing a fan mission that wastes my time. I don't want to be going back and forth many times trying to find some clue or item, I want to sneak around, blackjack guards and find loot all with the authentic dense Thief atmosphere and preferably great level design - that is what Thief was all about originally but somewhere it strayed from that formula and became 'who will make the most annoying mission' contest :nono:
