TDS - Not as Scary? - TTLG Forums

Melan on 6/3/2007 at 12:22

For me, Thief 1 worked better than Deadly Shadows did. One factor may be that hammer haunts are frighteningly competent, but I also think the environment plays a strong role. In T1, you are literally forced to go into "Aaah! Get it off me! Get it off me!" situations; in T3, there is a lot more opportunity to simply avoid dangerous opponents.

oozatden on 6/3/2007 at 23:36

The cradle is indeed shit your pants scary the first time you play it but subsequent plays make it much more mundane as you know more or less exactly whats coming while replaying the haunted cathedral still contains some parts which make you jump/curse out loud.

And the "puppets" (wtf!!) are killable on expert level but only by flash bombs (usually 3+) per loony or mines (usually 2+). So the advice is stock up on as many of those as possible.

On comparing the three games its a bit weak that on DS you can kill willy-nilly even on expert level.

Abysmal on 6/3/2007 at 23:55

Do those that protest the combat angle find themselves suddenly unable to refrain from killing, or are they honestly complaining about a gamestyle they don't even adopt? I don't recall myself personally judging a game based on how other people might experience it, because that's just absurd.

imperialreign on 7/3/2007 at 00:04

no, not I anyhow; I went back to the old-school rules and killed nothing in TDS. (shit, I remember the first time I played TDP through on expert, I thought that 'no killing' statement meant everything . . . Burricks, Craymen, Haunts, Zombies . . . man that was rough)

I think, my biggest issue with TDS, was the ability to stockile too much stuff, even by acciddent. You didn't worry about hoarding equipment from one mission to another, because you find stuff on the city streets, and your loot totals from one mission to the next were near double the usual from missions in T1/T2. Half-way through, I stopped grabbing those extra crystals and equipment, though; and the game started to seem a lot harder :thumb:

I was dissapointed, really, with the AI. I was dismayed at how quickly the guards gave up searching for you, and how they weren't as sensitive to noise as they were in the early series. C'mon, you could RUN up behind a guard in TDS, stop, run, stop, run, stop until you were close enough to whack 'em; sometimes they'd stop with the usual "What was that noise?", but by then you were close enough to hit them.

I did like how the AI was 200% more responsive to doused torches, other patrolmen and guards missing from their post, (being shot in the face with a water arrow - it's actually quite commical in TDS), and other 'environmental distrubances' that went unnoticed by the AI in T1/T2.

Cronkhite on 7/3/2007 at 04:05

Quote Posted by Abysmal

Uh, yes, since it goes against the original concept of Thief to make Garrett's physical prowess more intimidating than his thievery. Garrett was never meant to be a walking arsenal of death, before TDS broadened the "playstyle". The fact that TDS not only allows but encourages aggressive and downright hostile strategy by the player due to the immense ease it presents indicates a huge deviation in the Thief series philosophy. And a bad one. I think you make the mistake of believing Thief was originally created as some sort of sandbox game that was designed to allow the player to do with equal ease what he or she viewed as the most fun. Sorry, not true.

Go play one of the 3,000 FPSes out there that allows for assassination and outright face-to-face slaughter of opponents. Thief was supposed to be something different.

Abysmal on 7/3/2007 at 04:55

That's pretty odd, I never once felt encouraged to be aggressive. I do seem to recall feeling that way in numerous T1 monster missions, however...heck, some objectives even forced it

Cronkhite on 7/3/2007 at 07:05

It's a passive encouragement. Would you agree that it's much easier to simply revert to murder in T:DS than to ghost without attacking people? Aren't missions easier to accomplish while approaching them aggressively? I don't think there can be any doubts in this regard, given the plethora of gas bombs, explosion mines, gas arrows, fire arrows, and on and on and on. While I admit a degree of stealth certainly helps, it's only a modicum that is beneficial in unison with aggressive acts. For the most part, stealth actually hinders the player in T:DS past a certain point, which is an absolute joke. Stealth should never have been a punishment in the game, and it is given the ease with which hostile targets can be forcibly eliminated.

I'm not positive about T:DP. I know there were some monster missions that required (?) hostile acts. But from what I've read, the overall difficulty of actually approaching Thief 1 and 2 aggressively was much higher than in T:DS. In my view, Eidos/Ion Storm made hostile actions much easier because that's what the majority of gamers (granted, not necessarily the Thief fanbase) wanted.

Abysmal on 7/3/2007 at 07:42

Y'see, I just have to disagree about the equipment thing people are bringing up here. I don't know what games you all were playing before, but I distinctly remember having a motherload of equipment in T1 and T2 that I hauled around in each mission. We're talking 40+ arrows, 15-20 water arrows, 10+ moss and fire arrows, tons of bomb and mines, etc...it honestly didn't feel much different to me from T3 (which at least had limits, such as a max of 5 mines/gasbombs).

And I think people are mistaking the developer's intention for more forgiving recovery as a shift in focus to combat, which I never got that impression. I agree, however, that it does have the arguably adverse effect of making that approach easier (except the stupid dagger, which is so useless that it serves as a good argument to the contrary). But I have to disagree that it ruins the game since it's entirely avoidable (we could argue the same for 3rd person). Perhaps it's just me but I found ghosting more approachable and forgiving in this game than any other Thief game...plus I always ended up getting killed when I went on joke murder sprees.

I think the problem with Thief 3 is that it's just too easy...combat, ghosting, recovery, the missions, everything.

Cronkhite on 7/3/2007 at 07:52

Well, I'm not well versed in Thief 1 and 2. I only played limited amounts of 1. I do know, though, that T:DS was extremely easy, especially in regards to killing/immobilizing AI.

Gvozdika on 7/3/2007 at 08:51

Those who find T3 too easy (which it obviously is), why dont you use ThiefBot?

My TB settings are:

Visual 3
-> 4 to 5 would be more realistic but I find that scripted events and conversations get easily interrupted then because you have to be close for them being triggered.

Audio 10
-> Fairly realistic I think, you cant run up on guards for a knock-out anymore unless on carpet, you have to wait for them to stand still which can prove very tricky.

Tactile 20
-> No stealth-bumping into guards. None at all!

Hit Points 1,3
-> Same as expert. Just dont kill humans.

Combat Speed 1,2
-> Same as in expert, seems just fine.

Player Damage 3
-> Many foes (especially Gamall) can kill you in a single blow. Better to not provoke them.

Of course now sniping everybody from a distance seems even more desireable. Well then, this seems fine to me with "monsters". Just refrain from killing any humans. Thats it. I also set the difficulty to easy then so there arent that many guards around and I can decide by myself how much loot I want to pick.

Harder difficulty in T1 and T2 is achieved by crowding cramped corridors with insane numbers of stupid nigh blind guards. Which im used to lure out one by one in order to knock them down. Not so much fun. Not quite thief like. Few intelligent guards with reasonable sensorial abilities that can cut you down with a single blow is the way to go. This is what really makes me want to avoid any confrontations.