T2FM: Eclipsed Released (10/30/2009)

csamba on 25/11/2009 at 15:12

Thank you very much Hipbreaker and Tanner for the lootlist! Obsessive and perfectionist persons, like me, can really appreciate it:cheeky:

csamba on 25/11/2009 at 23:15

One last question: having finished with full loot and all visible enemies down- including the overweight treebeast near the bar - the final statistic says: "innocents killed: none, and others killed: 67".:weird: It seems a bit overstated, I surely did not kill more than 25-28 altogether and one haunt in Old Town blew itself up on the teddy mines while coming down to see what I was doing in City Electric... .

Melan on 26/11/2009 at 09:21

Finally had the opportunity to play this last evening. All in all, it had a really oppressive feeling that ground you down slowly - the tension in the city segment wasn't so serious, but it all "paid off" when I got to the former Keeper sanctuary and was almost too afraid to move. Brutal. :erm:

Were the opponents meant to be invincible or are they vulnerable to something? I was too afraid to attack them (plus I was trying to ghost the mission, with imperfect results), and at one point, a roof-mounted improvised cannon seemed to have no effect. Something I am also curious about is how the final segment in the power station is supposed to be handled without using up a ton of moss arrows. There is a place with a metal corridor and metal bridge with one shadow patrolling upstairs and two downstairs - this looks ridiculously difficult; even with moss, it took me something like fifteen tries to get it, and I still put a shadow in search mode. Or is there a more sneaky approach?

[edit]There was a place that looked like explorable but I couldn't reach it: right before you enter the city proper, there is a small wooden fort type thing up a hill. Is that accessible? I tried with jumps, crates and everything, but never succeeded.

baeuchlein on 26/11/2009 at 16:05

Quote Posted by csamba

Must be some obscure bug. I have played both versions of "Eclipsed", one on easiest difficulty level and the other on "Hard". In both cases, I killed most of the enemies. Body count was about 27 in the end.

By the way, how did you kill the fat beast patrolling between Quintus' bar and the West gate? I tried it several times, but Fat Man:ebil: always won.

Quote Posted by Melan

Were the opponents meant to be invincible or are they vulnerable to something?

Most of them go down quickly if you sneak up on them from behind, then attack them by swinging the sword over your head (and then down on theirs). Classical surprise attack. It's very difficult with the darker hunchback-type monsters since it's difficult to aim correctly. However, you can as well "dance around them", meaning you circle them by running sideways and always facing them, and then hack them with the sword until they go down. Another standard attack which you can use with almost every enemy in the Thief universe.

AFAIK, the enemies are not sensitive to any kind of special attack (sword, water, fire... whatever). The only thing which is special is that they should be almost invisible if there's no light, but that feature apparently had to be scrapped when the "FPS fix" version was created.

Quote Posted by Melan

a roof-mounted improvised cannon seemed to have no effect.

I did not have much luck with that either, I could not time the cannonball release accurately, so always missed the bad guys.

Quote Posted by Melan

Something I am also curious about is how the final segment in the power station is supposed to be handled without using up a ton of moss arrows. There is a place with a metal corridor and metal bridge with one shadow patrolling upstairs and two downstairs - this looks ridiculously difficult; even with moss, it took me something like fifteen tries to get it, and I still put a shadow in search mode. Or is there a more sneaky approach?

The Power station incident - well, I did it my way.:cheeky:

I think there is a part of the corridors, either the center of the floor or the right and left rim regions, where there's no metal and where you can move without being heard. At the first turn in the corridor, there should be a corner where you can wait in the shadows for any unfortunate shadow coming your way and then whack it on the head with the sword.

After that, there are one or two enemies in the lower room of the facility. I believe it's only one enemy, at least on easy and hard difficulty. The one patrolling down there is the one who can hurl magic attacks at you. I always alarmed him, then ran back to the room with the dead keeper with a key and a note, and waited behind the door for the shadow. Then I hacked him to pieces with the sword. No moss arrows needed in this case.

If you prefer ghosting, well... I don't, so I have not developed a sneakier method to get rid of these enemies.

Quote Posted by Melan

[edit]There was a place that looked like explorable but I couldn't reach it: right before you enter the city proper, there is a small wooden fort type thing up a hill. Is that accessible?

Near the beginning of this thread someone mentioned he tried to get there and partially succeeded, but wanted to know whether there's anything there. Tannar said the fort is difficult to access, and there's nothing in there anyway.

Melan on 26/11/2009 at 16:19

Thank you. On Expert, there is an extra AI in the lower part of the power station, and even with moss arrows, I was always seen by one or the other.

So you can also get up to the wooden fort. I was not sure because a lot of areas that looked climbable in the mission weren't due to invisible walls. I was not happy with that design decision, although I understand the possible rationale (polycount/brush limit).

HipBreaker on 26/11/2009 at 18:53

Trust me, no one is more frustrated with that than myself. The mission would crash without hesitation on most rooftops. That's the price of making wide open spaces. On top of that I had to get creative(so to speak) with blocking the player because I could no longer add terrain due to dromed's limits.

As for the AI in city electric: I have never used moss arrows to run across the bridge. Every time I would wait until the patrolling AI was facing the gears opposite the entrance, and hug the right side of the bridge and run full speed. They did not alert. If I were to run back across right away then they would, but by the time business is taken care of down below you should be able to repeat the same step without being seen.

Melan on 26/11/2009 at 19:06

Thanks, got to try that next time. I can also understand your motives; there was an area in Disorientation (rooftops above the pub) I spent almost two or three weeks total to make playable with all the long views and then fix it after some rendering errors cropped up. Dromed can be a harsh master. :p

Tannar on 26/11/2009 at 19:19

Quote Posted by Melan

...and at one point, a roof-mounted improvised cannon seemed to have no effect.

The cannon can be a bit tricky. You have to get the AI into just the right position which should be a few feet your side of the cart that is sitting there. You can throw something or use a broadhead to get them searching that area and then wait until they are in the right position.

Quote Posted by Melan

Here's how I ghosted that area. The AI won't hear you until you open the door into the first corridor by the small control room. There is a creature that patrols that corridor. He stops for a few moments at each end of his patrol route, once in that control room and once on the metal catwalk. I wait in the open doorway of that corridor until he has gone through the door to the room with the metal catwalk and then crouch/run into the right-hand corner of the first corridor where it is dark. I wait for him to pass by and enter the small control room. Then I sneak to the door to the room with the catwalk, moss the catwalk, wait for the patrolling creature below to be facing away from me and run about 2/3 of the way across the catwalk. There is shadow there. When the coast is clear I continue across the catwalk and through the door at the other end. Then I just repeat the process on the way back. Hope that makes sense.

csamba on 27/11/2009 at 17:10

baeuchlein,

The extra body count (67) appeared on Expert level and was replicable at least twice. Checking back from hard saves it counted 49:confused: enemies killed in the dragon amulet area where I can't remember slicing up more than a dozen transparent warriors and 3 running beasts.

The Fat Monster patrolling around the bar died solemnly when calmed down, made 2 or 3 patrolling rounds and then stepped on one single "cuddly surprise":devil:.

smithpd on 28/11/2009 at 18:26

Thanks HipBreaker, for several evenings of intense and fun game play. The mood, atmosphere, textures, sound, and scenery are all terrific.:) I completed it in Ghost mode in 6:34, perhaps half that time dodging monsters.

The monsters are almost silent, and some are fast as well, so in several places I had to commit to a move and just hope for the best. I had a lot of false starts. I think that if the monsters had made a little more noise they could have been even more frightening, and it would certainly have make ghosting more relaxing.

With that amount of time, I still got only 2341 / 2970 loot. You did a good job of hiding things. Maybe too good. Are there some significant semi-hidden loot stashes? Yes, I know there is a list. Maybe sometime I will kill all the AI and hunt for more. But for now I feel a great sense of accomplishment and relief just to finish it.

As for the metal catwalk, I tried for quite a while running and using moss, and the AI below always saw me and came up the stairs after me. Then I tried running without moss, and that worked fine several times. Go figure. I guess the difference is that without moss you can see the AI below and time it more accurately. They seem to have good vision and bad hearing, so the moss makes no actual difference.

In spite of your best efforts, I got up on the roofs and balconies and went on a grand tour up there, having to keep my view looking down in a few places. I got to the wooden fort and many other forbidden places.

I never did "piece together the information", although I went around the map more than once looking for it and checking every readable I could find, including that in the secret area under the clock keeper's bed.